A soldier with the US Army was sentenced on Sept. 23 for his role in murdering an unarmed teenage Afghan civilian. Pvt. Andrew Holmes was sentenced to seven years in prison as part of a plea deal that he agreed to the day before. Holmes pleaded guilty to shooting the civilian, but pleaded not guilty to previous charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Holmes also pleaded guilty to one count each of possessing a finger bone of the victim and using marijuana. As part of the deal, Holmes will receive 499 days of time served and will be dishonorably discharged from the Army. Holmes is the third soldier to strike a plea deal of the five charged with murder as part of a plot contrived with fellow soldiers to kill Afghan civilians, which took place between January and May of last year in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Holmes has alleged that his co-defendant, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, ordered soldiers to fire at villagers. Morlock pleaded guilty n March to three counts of murder, as well as one count each of assault, conspiracy, obstructing justice and illegal drug use in exchange for a maximum sentence of 24 years in prison.

At least 25 were injured on Sept. 25 as National Police fired shotguns and tear-gas bombs on protesters blocking access to the Toquepala copper mine in Peru's southern region of Tacna. Some 100 were also detained. Campesinos from the nearby villages of Huaytire, Camilaca and Cairani gathered at the mine site following public hearings for an environmental impact statement on plans to expand operations at the mine. In a paro, or civic strike, called to protest the expansion plans, schools and public transportation in the city of Tacna were also shut down for 48 hours. The mine is owned by Southern Peru Copper Corporation, a holding of the giant Grupo Mexico, and hopes to expand operations in order to begin exports to China. (RPP, Sept. 22; Mariátegui blog, Lima, Sept. 21; Reuters, Sept. 14)

A federal judge in Miami on Sept. 23 sentenced Bolivia's former top anti-drug official, Gen. Rene Sanabria, to 14 years in prison for cocaine trafficking—although the "Colombian drug lords" he thought he was dealing with were really undercover DEA agents, and the "conspiracy" to smuggle 300 pounds of coke via truck to Chile for export to the US was controlled by the DEA from start to finish. Sanabria's role in the pseudo-conspiracy was to assure that the shipment would be unmolested. Sanabria was President Evo Morales' chosen director of the Bolivian Center of Anti-Drug Information since 2009, and before that served as leader of the Special Force for Struggle Against Narco-trafficking (FELCN), an elite unit of the National Police. He was arrested in August 2010 in Panama and extradited to the US.

In recent weeks, indigenous representatives from 90 organizations from across the Amazon Basin unanimously approved a new action plan that calls for a pan-Amazonian "consolidation" for the survival of ancestral knowledge and the protection of forests, water, biodiversity and the climate. The action plan, titled, "The Manaus Mandate: Indigenous Action for Life" is the end result of the First Regional Amazonian Summit, which took place in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, from August 15-18. The four-day summit, organized by the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations in the Amazon Basin (COICA), brought together representatives of indigenous peoples from all nine Amazonian countries, as well as government representatives, international organizations and members of civil society from across the Amazon Basin.

Italy announced Sept. 22 that it will transfer and repatriate all migrants off the island of Lampedusa within 48 hours, following clashes with police and residents. Some 26,000 Tunisians and 28,000 people of other nationalities from Libya have arrived in Lampedusa this year since the beginning of the Arab revolutions. Italy has been sending the bulk of the Tunisians home if they don't qualify for political asylum, but residents on the island protest that they have been overwhelmed. Clashes broke out as residents hurled stones at migrants who were threatening to blow up gas canisters at a petrol station by the port, resulting in what the Italian news agency AGI called "an episode of urban guerrilla." Residents also assaulted TV crews and other journalists covering the clashes, which left several people injured. Lampedusa mayor Bernardino De Rubeis denounced the government for abandoning the island to cope with the chaos alone, calling the migrants "delinquents" and insisting the island will not accept one more. Those arrested in the clashes have been transferred to a jail in Sicily. (The Independent, Sept. 23; The Telegraph, AGI, AGI, Sept. 22)

A court in Bilbao, Spain, issued a ruling Sept. 23 allowing demolish the building which until now has housed the Kukutza Gaztetxe squatter community center in the city's Rekalde district. Eviction of the property began on two days earlier. The decision after the Basque Country's Superior Court of Justice rejected a petition by the Errekaldeberriz residents association to halt the planned demolition and maintain the building as a youth center. (EITB, Sept. 23)

Thousands of villagers attacked government buildings in the southern Chinese city of Lufeng, Guangdong province, in a protest over land sales Sept. 22. The protests, in which around a dozen were hurt, were triggered by the seizure of several hectares of land and their sale to property developer Country Garden for 1 billion yuan ($156.6 million) at the village of Wukan. Witnesses said villagers were beaten after they surrounded a police station, armed with sticks and bricks. The government of Shanwei prefecture accused villagers of having "ulterior motives" and of "inciting" other villagers to charge into the police station by spreading rumors about police officers beating a child to death. At least four villagers have been detained.

Taking a tip from the "indignados" who occupied downtown Madrid for several weeks over the summer, hundreds of protesters on Sept. 17 established an encampment in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park—now renamed "Liberty Square"—just three blocks north of Wall Street, where they have remained since, despite rain and an intimidating round-the clock police presence. Wall Street itself, of course, is inaccessible behind police barricades. When protesters marched down to Wall on the morning of Monday the 19th to greet the arriving traders and office workers, police quickly moved in, arresting six and dispersing the rest. (NYT, Sept. 19)