After 40 years of conflicts, protests and negotiations, the government of Honduras on Sept. 12 formally granted title to 654,496 hectares (about 1.6 million acres) to 128 indigenous communities on the remote Miskito Coast. With this move, the total land titled to Miskito indigenous communities in Honduras comes to nearly 970,000 hectares, more than 7% of the national territory, with a population of some 100,000. "With the recognition of the rights of the Miksito people to the lands of our ancestors, Honduras has taken an historic step that benefits all the world's indigenous peoples," said Norvin Goff, president of Moskitia Asla Takanka (MASTA), the organization that represented the communities in the talks.

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled (PDF) Sept. 13 that the US government does not have to release photographs and videotapes taken during the investigation of Mohammed al-Qahtani's connection to the September 11 attacks. Al-Qahtani was held in Guantánamo Bay until his charges were eventually dropped. The videotapes depict al-Qahtani's interrogations, something the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) claims should be public record. However, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald stated:

From Gothamist, Sept. 13:

No Charges For Running Over Schoolkids On Queens Sidewalk
The SUV driver who plowed into five teenagers on a Queens sidewalk yesterday morning has not been charged with any crime nor issued any summonses. This stands in stark contrast to another sidewalk collision yesterday: between a cyclist and Nicole Kidman in Manhattan. The crash in Queens resulted in very serious injuries; in Manhattan, Kidman was knocked down but unscathed. But in Kidman's case the cyclist was swiftly issued three summonses.

Human Rights Watch on Sept. 10 released a report, "Attacks on Ghouta: Analysis of Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria," examining what are said to actually be two suspected chemical attacks on the "opposition-controlled suburbs of Eastern and Western Ghouta, located 16 kilometers apart, in the early hours of August 21." The report relies on witness accounts of the rocket attacks, physical remnants of the rockets, and symptoms exhibited by the victims as documented by medical staff. "Rocket debris and symptoms of the victims from the August 21 attacks on Ghouta provide telltale evidence about the weapon systems used," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at HRW and author of the report. "This evidence strongly suggests that Syrian government troops launched rockets carrying chemical warheads into the Damascus suburbs that terrible morning."

The ancient Syrian Christian village of Maaloula has changed hands at least three times in the past week of fighting between government forces and al-Qaeda franchise Nusra Front—and Syria's Christians are becoming propaganda fodder in an international war of perceptions. Nusra Front issued a video clip showing a commander urging his men not to harm Maaloula's historic churches and monasteries. The Assad regime countered with images of the rebels shooting in the air and at buildings in in the village, and of a church damaged by mortar fire, Haaretz reports. The village has already suffered civilian casualties from the fighting, and local youth have organized a self-defense militia. AFP, citing local residents, reports that rebels forced at least one person to convert to Islam at gunpoint and executed another when they held the village Sept. 10. "They arrived in our town at dawn...and shouted 'We are from the al-Nusra Front and have come to make lives miserable for the Crusaders," AFP quoted a resident who identified herself only as Marie.

Thousands of displaced persons who have taken refuge in Somalia's capital Mogadishu are being forcibly evicted from makeshift camps as the government presses ahead with plans to clean up the city, Amnesty said in a briefing released Sept. 13. "It is completely unacceptable for people who have fled to the capital for protection to be forcibly evicted. It has resulted in large scale human rights abuses," said Gemma Davies, Amnesty's Somalia researcher. "The government has a responsibility to protect this vulnerable sector of society and ensure their security." More than 300,000 live in settlements in Mogadishu, where they are sheltering from cyclical drought, famine and the two-decades-long armed conflict.

Some 160 Somali religious scholars came together in Mogadishu on Set. 11 to issue a fatwa denouncing al-Shabab, saying the rebel group has no place in Islam. The Fatwa calls al-Shabab a "strayed group," and called upon members to repent from its "criminal acts." It asserted that Somalia's interim government is a Muslim government and it is illegal to call it "apostate" or to wield arms against it. It forbids Muslims from joining or providing support to al-Shabab, and mandates support for the government's fight against the rebels.

By now we've all seen the ugly meme, at least if you've got a Facebook account. A uniformed serviceman holds a hand-written sign over his face reading "I didn't join the army to fight for al-Qaeda in Syria."  (In case you've missed it, it is of course flaunted by the right-wing xenophobes at InfoWars.) Hopefully, we don't have to explain how this is a shameful betrayal of the secular civil resistance in Syria—it simply denies their existence, painting the entire opposition as al-Qaeda. And you certainly don't have to be pro-intervention to recognize this. A related ugly meme shows a face-palming Obama with the caption: "That awkward moment when you realize the only allies the US can muster for a Syria attack... are the terrorists who flew planes into your buildings twelve years ago."