A full session of Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) decided by a 9-2 vote on Aug. 10 that same-sex marriages performed in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) are valid in all the country's states, although each state remains free to regulate marriages performed in its own territory. The court had ruled on Aug. 5 that the DF's law allowing same-sex marriage was constitutional, denying a challenge from federal attorney general Arturo Chávez Chávez.

Hundreds marched in Changuinola, the capital of the northwestern Panamanian province of Bocas del Toro, on Aug. 8 in memory of two workers who were killed a month earlier while protesting legislation opposed by unionists and environmental activists. Erasmo Cerrud, a local leader in the country's largest union, the Only Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), charged that there had been no progress in the investigations into the deaths of the two workers, Antonio Smith and Virgilio Castillo, in confrontations with anti-riot police. "The dead and the wounded won't be forgotten, and the struggle will continue," Feliciana Jaén, a leader of indigenous women, told the marchers.

In what were surely welcome words in Rabat, the top police official of the rebel Polisario Front broached the possibility of autonomy rather than independence for Morocco-occupied Western Sahara last week. Speaking at a press conference in the occupied territory's town of Smara, Polisario Police Inspector-General Mustapha Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud said the proposed autonomy initiative is the best possible solution to the Western Sahara conflict: "In the past, we had two conflicting options: either to integrate into Morocco or become independent. Today we have a third option that helps us achieve our main objective, which is the Sahrawi distinction." Today, the Polisario Front only has power in Tindouf, a desert town and refugee camp under their control across the Algerian border. (Magharebia, Aug. 11)

A man and a woman who allegedly had an adulterous affair were stoned to death in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz Aug. 15, according to the local governor, Mohammad Omar. The stoning was carried out in a crowded bazaar in the Taliban-controlled village of Mullah Quli, Tal Dasht-e Archi district. The Taliban have not commented on the incident. The punishment was reportedly carried out by hundreds of the victims' neighbors and even their family members.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Aug. 9 approved a bus advertisement protesting the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" (which, as we have pointed out, is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque). AP writes that the ads depict "a plane flying toward the World Trade Center's towers as they burn along with a rendering of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero." But we question whether the ad's depiction of the "proposed mosque" (sic) is accurate. An image of the ad at MSNBC shows a tall building inlaid with a giant star-and-crescent, whereas a rendering of the proposed Cordoba House (actually an ecumenical community center, now dubbed Park51 for its address on Park Place) on the progressive Jewish website Tikkun Olam shows it without the star and crescent. Poking around on the site of the Cordoba Initiative, the group behind the project, we were unable to find a depiction. The ad's caption reads "WTC Mega Mosque—Why There?" The ad was produced by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, whose website banner (in vivid contrast to pacifistic imagery at the Cordoba Initiative site) features an image of a charging soldier with an assault rifle below an American flag.

Moroccan protesters blockaded the border with the Spanish enclave of Melilla Aug. 13, effectively shutting it down. Since mid-July, Morocco's government has issued five statements accusing Spanish police of abusing Moroccans in the enclave, as well as charging that a Spanish civil guard sea patrol abandoned a boat filled with eight ill African migrants in the Mediterranean after intercepting them trying to enter Spain. "The Kingdom of Morocco is astonished that no official answer was offered by Spanish authorities until now over the cases of racist drift by the Spanish police," said the Foreign Ministry in a statement. The two countries' kings spoke by telephone this week to try to ease tensions. (AP, Aug. 13; Reuters, Expatica, Aug. 11)

Indonesian authorities on Aug. 11 charged well-known radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir with aiding an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist cell. Bashir, who was arrested Aug. 9 is accused of operating a terrorist training camp in the mountains of the northwestern province of Aceh to prepare Islamic radicals to carry out attacks in the capital of Jakarta.

Russell Defreitas and Abdul Kadir, two men charged with plotting to blow up targets at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, were found guilty of conspiracy charges Aug. 3 by a federal jury in Brooklyn. Defreitas, 67, a naturalized US citizen and former cargo handler at the airport, was found guilty of all six charges against him. Kadir, 58, a citizen of Guyana who once served as a parliament member there, was found guilty on five of the six charges, acquitted of surveillance of a mass-transportation facility. The men could face life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for December. Prosecutors said the men sought aid from al-Qaeda operative Adnan Shukrijumah, recently indicted in federal court in a supposed plot to launch suicide attacks on the New York City subway system. (WSJ, Aug. 3)