The July 22 Global Day of Action Against Open-Pit Mining, most widely observed in the Andean nations, also saw coordinated actions in NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada. In the Oaxaca village of Santa María Zacatepec, a national gathering was held, bringing together some 100 indigenous and popular organizations, who pledged a campaign of protests against mining projects and "structural reforms" announced by the Enrique Peña Nieto government. The Declaration of Santa María Zacatepec said that "it is time to pass from resistance to the offensive," and for "respecting all forms of struggle." Participating organizations included the Mexican Alliance for the Self-Determination of the People (AMAP); the Indigenous Agrarian Zapatista Movement (MAIZ); the Peoples' Front in Defense of Land and Water of Puebla, Tlaxcala and Morelos; the National Civil Resistance Network; the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to La Parota Dam; the Peoples' Land Defense Front of Atenco; and the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME).

July 22 was declared a Global Day of Action Against Mega-Mining, with protests held throughout the Andean nations under the banner "No to mining, yes to life." Among the most significant actions was a mobilization by local campesinos on the site of the Conga gold mining project in Peru's Cajamarca region, which was occupied by protesters carrying their giant green-woven Mother Earth flag. In Argentina, protests were reported from the mining-impacted regions of Chubut, Catamarca and Mendoza, with a solidarity march in Buenos Aires. (La Republica, Lima, Terra, Argentina, July 22) In the far south of Chile, the local Austral Defense Front marched in Punta Arenas to protest open-pit coal mining on nearby Riesco Island. (Radio Popular, Punta Arenas, July 22) In Maipú, on the outskirts of Santiago, residents marched to demand closure of the open-pit mine at Quebrada de la Plata they say is contaminating local drinking water. (Diario UChile, July 24)

An appeals court in Kuwait on July 22 overturned the criminal convictions of three former members of parliament for criticizing the Emir, the nation's leader. The Kuwait Society for Human Rights helped break the story internationally via Twitter, when its director posted a short statement regarding the acquittal. The three men were convicted in February of insulting Emir Shaikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah at a protest in October. As members of parliament, they initially spoke out against new election laws and several other issues dealing with flawed civil procedure. The same flaws they addressed later led to the dissolution of the parliament. The Kuwait government has not yet indicated if it will choose to appeal this decision to the supreme court.

After being detained for a day or two by Panamanian authorities on a request from Interpol, retired US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief Robert Seldon Lady was released on July 19 and placed on a plane bound for the US. In 2009 an Italian court sentenced Lady in absentia to nine years in prison for the Feb. 17, 2003 kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian-born Muslim cleric and suspected terrorist also known as Abu Omar, on a street in Milan. Although 22 other US citizens were convicted in the kidnapping case, Italy has only been seeking Lady, who headed the CIA's Milan station; the others received lighter sentences that don't warrant extradition requests under Italian law.

Indigenous Mapuche occupied four oil wells in the Vaca Muerta region in the southwestern Argentine province of Neuquén on July 16 to protest a $1 billion agreement between the state-controlled Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF) oil company and the California-based Chevron Corporation to drill for oil in the area's shale deposits. (In an earlier item we wrote erroneously that the drilling was for natural gas.) The Mapuche say that the drilling, which uses the controversial method known as hydrofracking, will damage the local environment, and that the agreement was made without the required prior consultation with the indigenous communities. The protesters were also expressing solidarity with indigenous Ecuadorians who won a $19 billion judgment in 2011 against Chevron for environmental damage. The company refuses to pay.

On July 14 the three-member Appeals Court of Copiapó province in Chile's northern Atacama region unanimously upheld its April 10 order suspending work at Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation's Pascua Lama mine until the company has adopted measures to repair current damage to the environment and to prevent further damage in the future. The court found that in its responses to the previous order the company "repeatedly" displayed "an obstinate attitude" and that it "doesn't provide information on time and in proper form." Pascua Lama is an open-pit gold, silver and copper mine under construction in the Andes on both sides of the border between Argentina and Chile. Five indigenous Diaguita communities had filed a complaint against the mine, charging that the construction had damaged glaciers near the site that provide water for area residents. The mine is also subject to a May 24 suspension ordered by Chile's environmental regulator, Juan Carlos Monckeberg. (Associated Press, July 15, via Terra, Peru)

Tomás García Domínguez, an indigenous leader, was shot dead on July 15 in Intibucá department in western Honduras during a demonstration at the headquarters for the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. Four other protesters were wounded, including García's son, 17-year-old Allan García Domínguez, who was hospitalized in serious condition with a bullet in his lung. According to Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) leader Berta Cáceres, the demonstration was peaceful, but "without saying one word the army opened fire against our companions, sending bullets into the bodies of Tomás García and his son, in the presence of police that remained paralyzed and did nothing to prevent it." A press release from the two companies constructing the dam—the Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA) and the Chinese state enterprise SINOHYDRO—blamed the protesters and claimed the demonstration "included the destruction of installations, vehicles and personal property and direct aggression against the physical integrity of personnel."

More than 1,000 Haitian religious people, ranging from Protestants to Muslims, marched in Port-au-Prince on July 19 to oppose homosexuality and any law that might be proposed in Parliament to allow same-sex marriage. The marchers chanted slogans calling for the "survival" of the traditional family; one slogan threatened that "Parliament will burn if this bill is passed." At the site of the National Palace they paused to warn President Michel Martelly not to support homosexuality; when he was the popular singer "Sweet Micky," the president sometimes cross-dressed to play a female character he called "Ti Simone." The protesters also harassed Amélie Baron, the correspondent for the French network Radio France Internationale (RFI), apparently because France recently passed a law allowing same-sex marriage. Baron said she received an "anthology of insults": "You're sick, an abomination, the devil come here to corrupt Haiti." (AlterPresse, Haiti, July 19, July 19; Miami Herald, July 19, from AP)