From the NY Daily News, June 17:

91-year-old Brooklyn man Milton Levine killed in hit-and-run
A callous driver struck a 91-year-old man on a Brooklyn street Thursday - and sped away after he saw the victim hit the ground, sources said.

The governments of Mexico and several other countries, along with the Anti-Defamation League filed amicus briefs on June 16 in support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) class action lawsuit against Georgia's new immigration law. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru all filed briefs in support of the ACLU. In its brief, Mexico said the law will irreparably harm diplomatic interests between the US and Mexico. The suit is scheduled for its first hearing next week, where Judge Thomas Thrash is expected to rule on the ACLU's request for an injunction and Georgia's motion for dismissal.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco on June 17 announced changes to the constitution which would transfer some of the political power held by the king to elected officials. The proposed changes would instill more authority in the country's prime minister, who would be given the power to appoint government officials as the "president of the government." The reforms would also ensure that the prime minister is the leader of the largest party in parliament, as opposed to being selected by the king. Mohammed said that if these reforms were approved, it would represent a transition to democratic institutions for Morocco. Mohammed would still retain certain important powers as chair of the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Security Council, leaving him control over the country's security, military and religious institutions.

Walter Aduviri, leader of the Aymara protest movement in Peru's conflicted Puno region, on the morning of June 17 left the installations of Lima's Panamericana TV, where he had spent the last 24 hours holed up under threat of arrest, after authorities agreed not to carry out the warrant against him pending a review. Upon leaving the building, he was met with a tumultuous crowd of his Puneño supporters and the media. After telling reporters that the warrant against him "doesn't have legal or technical substance, nothing," he led the crowd to the Congress building, where a protest vigil is currently underway. Aduviri pledged to remain at chambers until he is granted the right to address the Congress over his demands that controversial mining leases in the Puno region be overturned. (La Republica, Lima, June 17)

Quechua indigenous leaders in on the Peruvian side of the Pastaza river basin, which is divided between Peru and Ecuador, reached an accord with the government last week for a survey to be conducted of health and environmental impacts of oil development in the area, where indigenous peoples have been opposing leases by the Argentine company PlusPetrol. Aurelio Chino Dahua, president of the Quechua Indigenous Federation of Pastaza (FEDIQUEP), said the organizaiton would meet again on July 12 to work out details with the regional government of Loreto. (TruthOut, June 9; Erbol, June 1) Just days earlier, however, Ramiro Cazar, Ecuador's sub-secretary of Hydrocarbons (a division of the Natural Resources Ministry), announced that Quito and Lima are studying a joint project to export oil from the Ecuadoran side of the basin to the Pacific through Peru's pipeline from the northern Amazon over the Andes. Cazar said a "commission to evaluate the project" had been formed. (AP, May 24)

Rolando Páucar, president of the Lima-based Institute for the Investigation of Energy and Development (IEDES), hailed the Peruvian government's official cancellation of the Inambari hydro-electric complex, saying that while he is not opposed to hydro-power in general, projects that would flood vast expanses of land must be rethought. "the Inambari project alone would inundate 47,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest," he said. But he proposed nuclear energy as an alternative to the project, calling upon president-elect Ollanta Humala to pursue development of a nuclear plant in Peru, as pledged in his official Plan of Government. The platform pledges that within his first 100 days in power, Humala will approve an expansion of uranium mining in Peru, as a first step towards a nuclear development plan. Páucar also proposed that Peru and Brazil jointly build a "binational" nuclear plant as a substitute for the 1,200-megawatt Inambari project, which would have exported electricity to Brazil. (La Republica, June 13)

Residents in potentially impacted areas of Puno and Madre de Dios regions of the Peruvian Amazon agreed to call off their protest roadblocks when the government announced cancellation of the Inambari hydro-electric dam this week. But Puno congressman Yonhy Lescano charged that the announcement was a "trick" by the government to defuse the protest movement and buy time to move ahead with the project definitively. "There hasn't been any solution to this issue, the concession has not been cancelled; they have only put an end to the temporary concession that the company had, but the process will continue," he said. "Already they are preparing the definitive concession, although the people of Puno are against it, and are demanding its cancellation."

Security forces shot dead at least 16 protesters at Friday demonstrations at several points across Syria on June 17, activists told wire services by telephone. The deaths included the first protester to be killed in Syria's second city, the commercial hub of Aleppo, the Local Coordination Committees said in a statement. Four people were killed in the northern flashpoint city of Homs, at least one in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, two in Dael in the southern province of Daraa, and one in the Damascus suburb of Douma, the activists said. (Reuters, AFP, June 17)