Mexico says it has arrested 12 people on terrorism charges in the years since 9-11—but an official said none were linked to Islamist groups like al-Qaeda or were planning to strike in the US. Mexico's Federal Institute of Information Access revealed the 12 arrests to the Associated Press in response to a request made in February seeking details of any terrorism arrests in the last seven years.

The Department of Homeland Security said at Congressional hearings Sept. 10 that cost overruns, legal obstacles and other problems imperil its goal of completing the 670 miles of fencing and technological improvements on the Southwest border. Rising construction costs and delays in acquiring land from owners could thwart efforts to build the fence by the end of the year, said officials, who are seeking more money for the project.

At least 25 civilians were killed and 50 injured in an armed attack on a Sunni mosque Sept. 10 in the Maskanai area of lower Dir (NWFP), Pakistan. Unidentified militants threw grenades in the mosque in Banai village, less than three kilometers from the Afghan border during Taravih (Ramadan night prayers) and fired at the worshipers. No group has claimed responsibility, even as security forces cordoned off the area and beefed up security after the attack.

From B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Sept. 10:

Access Denied: Israeli measures to deny Palestinians access to land around settlements
For years, Israeli authorities have both barred Palestinian access to rings of land surrounding settlements, and have not acted to eliminate settlers' piratical closing of lands adjacent to settlements and blocking of Palestinian access to them. Blocking access is one of the many ways used to expand settlements. In recent years, Israel has institutionalized the closing of such lands in an attempt to retroactively sanction the unauthorized placement of barriers far from the houses at the edge of the settlements.

Two Russian Tu-16 bombers landed in Venezuela Sept. 10 as part of military maneuvers. President Hugo Chávez said he hopes to "fly one of those things" himself. The maneuvers mark the first time Russian strategic bombers have landed in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War. Chávez called the deployment part of a move toward a "pluri-polar world." "The Yankee hegemony is finished," he said in a televised speech. Although the bombers were not armed, Chávez warned that their arrival puts the US "on notice." NATO fighters escorted the two bombers on their 13-hour trip to Venezuela over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Russian Defense Ministry said. (WP, Sept. 12; AP, Sept. 10)

On Aug. 29 Guatemalan interior minister Francisco Jimenez announced the capture of former legislative deputy Manuel Castillo at a luxurious residence he owned near the border with El Salvador. Castillo is accused of masterminding the murder of three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and their driver on Feb. 19, 2007. (Siglo Veintiuno, Guatemala, Aug. 29 from EFE)

As of Sept. 6 more than 500 people had reportedly died in Gonaives, Haiti's third largest city, following the passage of tropical storm Hanna; deforestation has left the Gonaives area vulnerable to flooding, and as many as 3,000 people died there in 2004 as a result of tropical storm Jeanne. Hanna came less than a week after hurricane Gustav hit the country and caused some 77 deaths; flooding from tropical storm Kay left about 40 people dead earlier in August. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs, Sept. 5, 6 from AFP)

Tens of thousands of Mexican workers, tradespeople, doctors and nurses, oil workers, telephone workers, miners, teachers, parents, students and campesinos demonstrated on Sept. 1 to protest the economic policies of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa as he presented Congress with the annual state of the union report. Until two years ago, the president read the report to the two houses of Congress in an elaborate televised ceremony; the tradition ended in 2006 when opposition legislators kept then-president Vicente Fox Quesada from giving his last report. This year Governance Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino Terrazo simply handed a copy of the report to congressional leaders; the event took eight minutes.