Fox News warns in a June 16 headline, "Bolivia Becoming a Hotbed of Islamic Extremism, Report Concludes"—citing the findings of a recent study by the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "There's a theory that they may believe—Latin America, particularly with its Leftist leanings in recent years, may be more receptive to the anti-American-type rhetoric that we've been accustomed to hearing from Iran," an anonymous "US intelligence official" told Fox.

Peru recalled its ambassador to June 16 after President Evo Morales described the recent killings of indigenous protesters in the Peruvian Amazon as "genocide." Ambassador Fernando Rojas said Morales' comments were a "totally false assessment." Peruvian Foreign Minister José García Belaunde said the measure was "a redress manifestation for the continued intromissions of the Bolivian government on internal issues of the country." He added that he considered Morales an "enemy of Peru."

Senior figures in Peru are threatening a clamp-down on both Peruvian and foreign NGOs in the wake of the violent protests which have erupted in the country's Amazon region. The Congressional Foreign Relations Committee is examining a proposal to restrict the funding of Peruvian NGOs by outside agencies. Many indigenous organizations have for decades received financial support from Western funding agencies.

Malian security forces clashed with a group of suspected al-Qaeda militants June 17 in the northern Tessalit region, killing several people, a senior military source told Reuters. The armed forces sent out patrols to try to track down the suspected militants around Mali's northern border region with Algeria after the assassination this month of the security chief of the Timbuktu region.

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran June 16 in rival demonstrations over the country's disputed presidential election, pushing the crisis into its fourth day despite a government offer to recount a limited number of ballots. With a harsh media crackdown in place, word has been slow to get out of protests outside Tehran—but at least two are reported dead in Tabriz, capital of Azerbaijan province.

Bowing to pressure from President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a major speech June 14 that he'd accept a Palestinian state—as long as it was demilitarized and recognized Israel as a Jewish state. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is now on a 10-day tour to gauge the international reaction. (Newsweek, June 16) While Netanyahu's speech has won global headlines as an historic first for the hardline prime minister, we will now see if a reciprocal move by a senior Hamas leader will receive similar media treatment...

Peru's Prime Minister Yehude Simon said June 16 he plans to resign in the coming weeks, as President Alan García's government faces harsh criticism over its handling of protests by indigenous groups in the Amazon region. Simon, a former left-wing activist, joined the cabinet last October in an effort by García to improve relations with Peru's poor. A day earlier, Simon announced that he had reached a deal with the protesters in which he would ask Congress to repeal the controversial decrees that would speed development in the Amazon. (NYT, June 16)

A legal challenge in the US Supreme Court to the construction of the US-Mexico border wall was declared dead June 16. The justices declined to hear an appeal by the County of El Paso, Texas, to an earlier decision by a US federal court judge that allowed the Bush administration to proceed with construction of the controversial wall.