The latest round of unofficial UN-brokered Western Sahara negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario Front ended without agreement last week, US Africa Command's Magharebia news site reports July 25. The eighth round of informal talks wrapped up July 21 in Manhasset, Long Island. "By the end of the meeting, each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as the sole basis for future negotiations, while reiterating their willingness to work together to reach a political solution in conformity with the pertinent resolutions of the United Nations Security Council," said UN Western Sahara envoy Christopher Ross. The UN News Centre on July 22 took a more optimistic spin, emphasizing plans to resume the dialogue after the autumn session of the UN General Assembly. “In order to find a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara […] the parties continued to deepen their discussions on the two proposals, including the issue of the electoral corps, mechanisms for self-determination, and the forms of guarantees,” said a statement issued by the office of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross.

Jim Lobe on InterPress Service informs us that Israeli pundit Caroline Glick was among those cited in the manifesto of accused Oslo bomber Anders Behring Breivik. Now Glick has a screed in the Jerusalem Post of July 28 with the oxymoronic title "Breivik and totalitarian democrats." In it, she acknowledges that she was cited by Breivik, and frets that this demonstrated commonality of ideas is being used to discredit opponents of multiculturalism:

Forebodings are in the air about tomorrow's Friday demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square following two violent clashes between protesters and regime elements in Egypt over the past days. On June 23, knife-wielding thugs—apparently supporters of the ruling military council—set on thousands of activists determined to march on the defense ministry. A day before the march, the military accused the April 6 Movement, one of the youth groups that launched the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, of seeking to turn people against the army. In verbiage redolent of the Mubarak regime, a senior army general was quoted as saying the group had received training abroad to destabilize the state. (Financial Times, July 24) Then, on July 26, clashes broke out between police and workers at an industrial free trade zone in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, injuring at least 38 people. It was the second day of a strike by the workers, who are demanding a raise in the minimum wage. Suez Canal zone workers have been staging a series of protests and labor actions since the beginning of June. (The National, UAE, July 28)

Twice as many US citizens as previously reported by law enforcement have traveled overseas to join Somalia's supposedly al-Qaeda-linked Shabab insurgents, an investigation by Republican staff on the House Homeland Security Committee determined this week, asserting that more than 40 Americans have traveled to Horn of Africa country to join the rebel group (which is on the State Department list of "Foreign Terrorist Organizations." Publicly, authorities have reported at least 21 men left the Minneapolis area for Somalia since late 2007 and are believed to have joined the Shabab.

Campesino communities affected by mining in Peru's Andean departments of Junín and Huancavelica, meeting July 23 in Junín's capital, issued a "Declaration of Huancayo," demanding a new constitution guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the country's indigenous peoples and establishing the "agricultural character of our country, and not the mineral." The meeting, formally the "Bioregional Forum on Mining, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Health and Prior Consultation," was convened by the National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI). It additionally demanded the government declare fragile ecosystems such as river headwaters and glaciers off-limits to mining.

Speaking before a conference of campesina women in Cochabamba July 25, Bolivia's President Evo Morales said he fears a US plot to frame him for drug offense: "Do you know what? I think they have to be preparing something. So much that I'm afraid to go with our airplane to the United States. Surely when we arrive, they can plant something and detain the presidential plane." Morales reiterated these fears to CNN en Español the following day: "The United States, as a global power, has all the experience of creating setups... They are preparing something to discredit us with drug trafficking." He said agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration had pursued him when he was a union leader, and that US authorities still seek to link him with drug trafficking. "When presidents do not submit to the United States government, to its policies, there are coups," he said.

Four former Guatemalan soldiers pleaded not guilty July 26 as the first war crimes trial over the 1982 Dos Erres massacre opened in the Central American nation's capital. Carlos Antonio Carias, Manuel Pop, Reyes Collin and Daniel Martínez are accused of being members of a military force that allegedly killed more than 250 people in the village of Dos Erres in 1982 during the country's 36-year civil war. Three of the men were members of a special forces unit known as the Kaibiles, at least part of which is alleged to have played a role in the massacre. The military force was attempting to rout out insurgents during Guatemala's military rule under Gen. Efrain Rios Montt. The four men pleaded not guilty arguing that they were not stationed with the group that carried out the atrocities at Dos Erres. They are accused of killing 201 farmers. There are also allegations that many women and girls in Dos Erres were raped and killed during the massacre. The Guatemalan civil war resulted in more than 200,000 deaths, mostly among Guatemala's large indigenous Mayan population. According to a UN report released in 1999, the military was responsible for 95 percent of those deaths.

This seems utterly Orwellian, and has received frustratingly little media attention. In recent days, several seemingly less-than-reliable sites have headlined the story in lurid terms (Alexander Higgins Blog, Above Top Secret, Rumor Mill News, Examiner.com). They are mostly quoting each other and contradicting themselves, saying that Japan has "passed a law" (implying a vote of the Diet) or that the Japanese government has "issued an order" (implying mere bureaucratic promulgation) mandating "censorship" of "negative stories" about the Fukushima disaster. It all seems to go back to two short paragraphs toward the end of a May 16 story on the (reliable) website Japan Focus, which cites and links to a page (in Japanese) of Tokyo's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: