Authorities on Aug. 10 imposed restrictions on the water supply to seven municipalities in northwest Mexico's Sonora state, after 40,000 cubic meters (10 million gallons) of toxic leached copper from the Buenavista del Cobre mine turned the Río Bacanuchi orange, killing fish and livestock. Among the towns cut off by order of the National Water Commission (Conagua) is the state capital, Hermosillo, home to nearly 800,000 people. The Bacanuchi is a tributary of the Río Sonora, the state's principal river. Sonora state civil defense director Carlos Arias accused mine owner Grupo México of not reporting the spill in a timely manner.

Leaked e-mails between the leaders of Peru's Energy & Mines Ministry (MEM) and Environment Ministry (MINAM) reveal that Australia's Karoon Energy International provided "technical support" in the proposed reform of the Hydrocarbon Regulation that would eliminate requirement for an environmental impact study before oil exploration. In one e-mail. MEM chief Eleodoro Mayorga was directly reproached by MINAM head Manuel Pulgar Vidal for bringing Karoon into the process. This was among some 3,500 messages hacked by Anonymous Perú from the account of ex-prime minister René Cornejo, dubbed by the press "Cornejoleaks." Karoon has operations at Bloc 238 in the northern coastal department of Tumbes. (La Republica, Panorama via Celendin Libre, Aug. 12; Peru21, Aug. 11)

The Penal Court of Celendín, in Peru's Cajamarca region, sentenced three members of the Chaupe family—Jaime Chaupe, Máxima Acuña, Elías Chávez and Isidora Chaupe—to two years and eight months in prison for the crime of land usurpation against the Yanacocha mineral company. The contested land, in Sorochuco district, Celendín province, is located in the influence zone of the contested Conga mega-mine project. The sentence may be suspended, but the defendants were also fined 5,000 soles, approximately $2,000. Yanacocha's lawyers argued that the presence of a company road through the disputed 30-hectare plot indicated the company's prior ownership of it. Mirtha Vásquez, counsel for the Chaupe family, countered that the company had never legally registered its ownership of the plot since purportedly purchasing it in 1996.

At a July 25 meeting in Port-au-Prince, some 28 Haitian organizations expressed their interest in joining a movement to oppose plans under way for open-pit mining in the north of the country, with a focus on gold mining operations by the Vancouver-based Eurasian Minerals company. The meeting was organized by the Collective Against Mining, which was formed a year ago by Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen ("Small Haitian Peasants Unity"), the Defenders of the Oppressed (DOP), the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), the Haitian Platform of Human Rights Organizations (POHDH), the Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA) and Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle").

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague said on Aug. 7 that Argentina had asked it to take action against the US for what the South American country called "violations of Argentine sovereignty and immunities and other related violations as a result of judicial decisions adopted by US tribunals" that interfered with the payment of its debts. Financial services agencies declared Argentina in default on July 30 when it failed to arrive at a settlement with a small group of investors led by US hedge funds NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management. A federal judge in New York, Thomas Griesa, had ruled that unless it had an arrangement with the hedge funds, Argentina couldn't make payments to the majority of its creditors, who had agreed to accept discounted exchange bonds.

From October 2009 to some time in 2011 the US Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored a program that paid almost a dozen youths from Costa Rica, Peru and Venezuela to travel to Cuba in order to obtain intelligence information and identify potential government opponents among students and other youths, according to an investigation that the Associated Press (AP) wire service published on Aug. 4. The revelation comes four months after AP reported on the agency's ZunZuneo "Cuban Twitter" program. Like ZunZuneo, the program employed the Washington, DC-based private contractor Creative Associates International for operations. Analysts said these revelations indicate that the US is losing interest in the older generation of Cuban dissidents and is trying to develop opposition among younger Cubans.

Some 20,000 Yazidis have managed to flee Mount Sinjar after Peshmerga forces opened a corridor for them into Syrian territory, and some have since crossed back into Kurdish-controlled Iraq. Many are making their way to the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where the 1.5 million population has grown by around 185,000 since the fall of Mosul to ISIS. Peshmerga leaders are said to be meeting with US and British special forces to try to devise an escape route for up to 150,000 who have been displaced from the Sinjar area, in Nineveh governorate. A British C130 cargo plane had to abort an aid drop on Mount Sinjar because desperate Yazidis crowded under the aicraft, making it impossible to parachute bundles down without risking injury to those below. (NY Daily News, LAT, Daily Mail) Witnesses told the independent Kurdish news agency Rudaw that more than 500 Yazidi girls and women were abducted by ISIS militants after the seizure of Sinjar town. One displaced Yazidi said he had seen two ISIS vehicles "full of women." He told Rudaw: "There were seven women in the back of the truck—five younger women and two who appeared to be above 50. They killed the two older women on the spot in the street and took with them the other women." (Rudaw)

Kurdish Peshmerga forces claimed Aug. 10 to have liberated the towns of Makhmur and Gwer, some 80 kilometers south of Erbil, and surrounding areas that had been occupied by ISIS. (BasNews) ISIS militants have blown up the bridge on the Khazir River between Erbil and Mosul to slow Peshmerga progress. (BasNews) US air-strikes destroyed several ISIS armed vehicles outside Erbil, while Halgord Hikmat of the Kurdistan Region's Peshmerga Ministry said: "The US airstrikes against IS positions are done with the coordination of Peshmerga forces." He added that there are a number of US military advisers working with Peshmerga forces on the ground. (AP, BasNews) Iraqi parliamentarians from Mosul held a press conference in Baghdad to praise the Peshmerga offensive, while berating the central government for its failure to respond to the crisis. "The Iraqi government has been silent since the first day regarding the situation in Mosul and only watches the developments," said the angry MPs. (BasNews)