Oklahoma's constitutional amendment that bars the state's judges form considering sharia law is heading to the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, after Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange ruled it unconstitutional, saying "the will of the ‘majority’ has on occasion conflicted with the constitutional rights of individuals." Oklahomans voted up the amendment last year by 70%, but Muneer Awad from the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a suit to keep it from going into effect. The district court found that the amendment amounted to an official disapproval of Islam by the state of Oklahoma, curtailing Muslims' political rights and violating the First Amendment. Oklahoma's Attorney General has appealed the decision. (KFOR, Oklahoma City, Sept. 9; WP, Sept. 8)

Egyptian authorities declared a state of emergency early Sept. 10 after a group of some 30 protesters broke into the Israeli embassy in Cairo overnight and dumped hundreds of documents out of the windows. The storming of the embassy came after a day of demonstrations outside, where crowds swinging sledgehammers and using their bare hands tore down the building's security wall. For hours, security forces made no attempt to intervene. The embassy's Israeli flag was torn down, and Tweeters on the scene indicate that a giant Palestinian flag was draped from the building's upper stories. The Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Yitzhak Levanon, together with his family and other embassy staff, have reportedly left Egypt. The protest began after a Friday rally at Tahrir Square, which brought out thousands for what was billed as a "Correcting the Path" demonstration (an apparent reference to recent usurpation of the Egyptian movement by Islamists). (The Guardian, RT, Sept. 10; JP, Inagist, Sept. 9)

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Sept. 6 affirmed the 2010 denial of petition for a writ of habeas corpus for Guantánamo Bay detainee Shawali Khan. Khan is an Afghan citizen who, at the time of his capture in mid-November 2002, lived in Kandahar, and is accused of belonging to Hezb-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), an active Afghan insurgency group with ties to the Taliban. On appeal, Khan contended there is insufficient reliable evidence in the form of government-offered intelligence reports to establish that he was part of HIG at the time of his capture. The court explained its standard of review in evaluating Khan's appeal:

Thousands of teachers and students took to the streets of several of Colombia's major cities Sept. 7 "in defense of public education." The demonstrations aimed to reject a proposal by the government of President Juan Manuel Santos to reform higher education. In the capital Bogotá, some 7,000 protesters took to the streets, while in Medellín some 1,000 teachers and students were protesting. The government of President Santos proposed reforms to Law 30, stating that the reforms will increase financial resources for universities to open spaces for additional students, improve the salaries of professors, and be more competitive in research.

The Peruvian NGO Cusichaca Andina recently won a grant from the World Bank to promote the revival of ancient Andean crops, including quinoa, amaranth, and indigenous varieties of potatoes and squashes. The indigenous crops, in danger of disappearing due to the increasing dominance of corporate hybrids, are thought to be more resilient and better adapted to the harsh local environment—making them potentially strategic in adapting to the challenges of global climate change. Public Radio International's The World reported Sept. 7: "[C]limate change is hitting the high Andes hard. Temperature and precipitation swings are becoming more extreme, the glaciers are shrinking fast, and a tough place to farm is becoming even tougher. So to help them deal with an uncertain future, residents are looking back in time—to before the arrival of Europeans."

Some 1,200 workers at the Cerro Verde copper mine in Peru's southern Arequipa region began a 48-hour strike on Sept. 7, demanding higher pay and threatening to launch an indefinite strike in one week if an agreement isn't reached with the company, owned by the multinational Freeport-McMoRan. While Cerro Verde insisted that production would not be affected, global copper prices rose on the news—although some analysts cited other factors, such as growing Chinese demand. (Dow Jones, Sept. 8; Dow Jones, El Comercio, Reuters, Sept. 7)

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services raised its outlook on Bolivia last month, citing new investments in the country's mining and gas sectors. S&P still rates Bolivia's long-term credit at B+, four steps below investment-grade status, but the positive outlook raises the prospect of a higher rating in the near future. The agency especially cited progress in long-stalled talks between the Bolivian government and Jindal Steel & Power over the $2.1 billion iron ore project at El Mutún (Santa Cruz department), and recent agreements to exploit lithium (in Potosí). (Dow Jones, Aug. 22)

At least 11 were killed and 91 injured in a bomb blast outside the Delhi High Court on the morning of Sept. 7. The militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) reportedly claimed responsibility in an e-mail. HUJI leader Ilyas Kashmiri, apparently based in Pakistan's tribal areas where he also headed al-Qaeda's "313 Brigade," repeatedly issued terror threats against India over the past year—but was reported killed in a drone strike in June. US citizen David Headley, who pleaded guilty in a Chicago federal court last year to involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, is reported to have told the FBI that Kashmiri introduced him to top contacts in the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service. (IBN, Sept. 8; Times of India, Sept. 7)