Cambodia informed the UN Security Council July 20 that Thai forces have violated its territory near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, with hundreds of troops facing off across the border. While Cambodia is not yet calling for UN intervention, some 300 were Thai troops equipped with grenade and rocket launchers were sent to the Phra Viharn national park July 19, with another 2,400 soldiers in Kantharalak district of Thailand's Si Sa Ket province. Some 2,000 Cambodian soldiers have been mobilized to the Cambodian side.

At least 10 were killed in a battle between two rival groups in the Mohmand district of Pakistan's Mohmand Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) July 19. Hundreds of supporters of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban—popularly known as the Pakistani Taliban—fought members of a breakaway faction of the group, local authorities said. A spokesman for Mehsud's group claimed his fighters had killed 15 members of the rival group and captured 120 others, including Shah Khalid, their senior commander.

The New York Times' City Room blog reports a strange spectacle from 6th Ave. July 17:

As thousands of people, mostly of Tibetan and Nepalese ancestry, streamed out of Radio City Music Hall on Thursday afternoon, where they had gone to hear the Dalai Lama give a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, they found themselves in a chaotic scene on the Avenue of the Americas.

In the most significant sign of de-escalation we've yet seen, Iranian diplomats are to meet in Geneva this weekend to discuss the Islamic Republic's nuclear program with representatives of six world powers—including US Undersecretary of State William Burns. The establishment of a US diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time since 1980 has even been broached. (AFP, July 18) Wasting no time, the once-admirable Benny Morris places an op-ed in the New York Times July 18, with the cheerfully Orwellian title "Using Bombs to Stave Off War," making the case for Israeli air-strikes—and even nuclear strikes—against Iran.

The US military and NATO force in Afghanistan (ISAF) say the July 17 raid against "high-priority Taliban targets" in Herat province led to the deaths of two key insurgent tribal leaders—identified as Haji Nazrullah Khan and Haji Dawlat Khan—and a significant number of their followers. The US/ISAF statements denied claims of local tribal elders that dozens of civilians were killed in the air-strike in the Zirko valley of Shindan district.

Police officials in Mexico say drug traffickers have built makeshift car bombs to attack police officers, troops and rivals. Soldiers found two car bombs in a safe house in Culiacán, Sinaloa, July 14. One vehicle was packed with cans of gasoline and another stuffed with gas canisters, and both wired to be detonated by cellphones. (Reuters, July 17) On July 17, Mexican naval troops seized a makeshift 33-foot submarine 125 miles off Oaxaca that turned out to be carrying tons of cocaine. The crew had left the Colombian port of Buenaventura seven days earlier. (LAT, July 18)

Michael I. Niman, writing for ArtVoice of Buffalo, NY, July 16, reports on repression by federal law enforcement at this year's Rainbow Gathering in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest. The annual back-to-nature gathering—held in a different state each year, with a July 4 silent peace meditation in place of fireworks—has been in a long-running struggle with the Forest Service over access to the public lands. This year the feds took off the gloves—and the media played the "blame the victims" game:

The US Interior Department July 16 opened 2.6 million acres of potentially oil-rich territory in northern Alaska to exploration, but deferred for ten years a decision on opening 600,000 acres north of Teshekpuk Lake that is the summer home of thousands of migrating caribou and millions of waterfowl. Drilling leases will be sold later this year for much of the northeast section of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), holding an estimated 3.7 billion barrels of oil, according to Tom Lonnie, Alaska state director for the Bureau of Land Management, in a conference call with reporters.