Colombia's president-elect Juan Manuel Santos announced after his victory in the second-round vote June 20 that outgoing President Alvaro Uribe is to thank for his victory, and pledged to hit the FARC guerillas even harder than his predecessor. "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants," Santos said, quoting Isaac Newton while addressing thousands of supporters who gathered in Bogotá to celebrate his victory. "While [the FARC] insist on terrorist methods, while they insist on attacking the people there will be no dialogue, and we will continue to confront them with total toughness, with total firmness," Santos said.

Gunmen shot and killed Jesús Manuel Lara Rodríguez, mayor of the Mexican border town of Guadalupe as his wife and child watched on June 19. Lara Rodríguez was hit by 10 bullets from an assault rifle as he walked from his car outside his second home in Ciudad Juárez. An outspoken opponent of the drug cartels' reign of terror in the region, Lara had received numerous death threats. He had recently purchased the home in Juárez, the closest city to Guadalupe, believing his family would be safer there. (CNN, El Dairio, Juárez, June 20)

Turkey's once-close relations with Israel are in jeopardy following the deadly Israeli naval attack on a Turkish-organized "Free Gaza" aid flotilla, with Ankara reportedly instating on a freeze on deals with Israeli defense contractors. But this has not kept the Turkish military from using Israeli-supplied drones against the Kurdish PKK rebels—inside Iraq. According to Turkish sources, the army has been using Israeli-made drones to locate PKK positions, both in eastern Turkey and northern Iraq. After delays of more than two years, a partnership of Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israeli defense firm Elbit delivered six Heron drones to the Turkish military in April. Four more are expected later this month. (Ha'aretz, Hurriyet Daily News, June 20)

Three journalists were among eight injured on June 20 in the West Bank town of Beit Jala as locals and internationals gathered to protest the continued construction of Israel's separation wall. Border guards at the site, near the 18th century Cremisan winery and monastery, beat protesters with batons, and fired sound bombs, tear-gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets, witnesses said. (Ma'an News Agency, June 21)

Israeli authorities will allow limited deliveries of aid, commercial merchandise and fuel into the besieged Gaza Strip through Kerem Shalom crossing, the besieged Palestinian enclave's border officials were told June 20. Gaza officials were told to expect between 81 to 91 truckloads of humanitarian aid and commercial goods via the southern terminal. Limited quantities of industrial diesel and domestic-use gas will be pumped through the same terminal, officials said. However, Gaza's sole bulk goods crossing, the northern Karni terminal, will remain closed. The numbers remain the same as previous weeks, despite an Israeli government decision announced June 17 for a "liberalization" of the siege, increasing the number and variety of goods they would permit into the Strip. (Ma'an News Agency, June 19)

A missile from a presumed US drone killed 13 people and wounded seven others when it struck a house in Haider Khel village in the Mir Ali area of Pakistan's North Waziristan. (AlJazeera, June 19) Meanwhile in Afghanistan's Herat province, a NATO drone crashed, with Taliban militants claiming to have shot it down in an Internet statement. NATO authorities deny it was shot down. The US-led forces appear to have increased drone operations in the region, and the US alone is said to have over 6,000 drones in Afghanistan. (Press TV, June 19)

Indian troops on June 21 fired on hundreds of protesters who threw rocks at security forces, surrounded an armored vehicle and tried to torch a paramilitary bunker in Srinagar, Kashmir. One protester was killed and at least five wounded. The incident began with a demonstration over the death of a 25-year-old man who succumbed to injuries a day earlier after being beaten by soldiers in a street protest the previous week. The demonstration swelled after the shots were fired, when hundreds more people poured into the streets, chanting, "We want freedom" and "Indian forces leave Kashmir." (Daily Times, Pakistan, June 21)

Yemeni authorities captured the mastermind of a suspected al-Qaeda attack on the intelligence headquarters in the southern city of Aden that killed 11 people, the Defense Ministry said June 19 on its 26sep.net website. The captured man was identified as Goudol Mohammed Ali Naji. The deadly attack, which took place earlier that day, was apparently intended to free prisoners, but authorities and witnesses are at odds on whether any were actually freed. Authorities said there were no prisoners in the building at the time; witnesses said the assailants were seen leaving the building in a bus, taking freed detainees with them. Last week, the Yemen-based "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" urged the country's eastern tribes to rise up against the government and threatened retaliation for alleged air strikes in the area, the US monitoring group SITE said. (AFP, June 20)