According to two members of the US Congress, Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), there is evidence that the US-based retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., didn't take legally required steps to prevent money laundering and tax evasion through its Mexican subsidiary, Wal-Mart de México. The allegation appears in an Aug. 14 letter the lawmakers wrote to Wal-Mart Stores CEO Michael Duke complaining that the company has failed to cooperate with their investigation of a $24 million bribery scandal that emerged in April.

Ecuador's granting of asylum to WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange "should be an opportunity to start at home," said Gerardo Jumí Tapias, leader of the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations  (CAOI). "Democracy should begin at home and cannot be reduced to a discourse for the juncture," he said, adding that protection of human rights and free expression is laudable but should apply to all citizens, not just a high-profile foreigner. "This is an opportunity for us to review throughout the continent, where many governments present themselves before the world as protectors of human rights, but violate the human rights of indigenous peoples in their own countries."

Even as a measure of stability at last comes to Mogadishu, a push by UN-backed African Union troops on the last bastion of Somalia's al-Shabab insurgency has already added to the country's civilian casualties, and there are fears that more may lie ahead as air, ground and naval operations in the strategic city escalate. The latest, and most senior, person to raise the alarm over the actions of the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), which officially operate under the banner of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), was UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Mark Bowden. "I am deeply concerned by recent reports of civilian casualties in Kismayo caused by naval gunfire and airstrikes," Bowden said in a statement issued on Aug. 14. "As fighting for control of the town appears imminent, I reiterate my call for all parties to the conflict to make every effort to minimize the impact of conflict on civilians and to allow full humanitarian access to all people in need," he said.

At least two were killed when three car bombs exploded near interior ministry and security buildings in the Libya's capital Tripoli on Aug. 19—the first lethal attack of its kind since Moammar Qaddafi's fall last year. The first bomb blew up near the interior ministry's administrative offices in Tripoli but caused no casualties.

At least seven police officers were killed Aug. 19 in a suicide bomb blast in the Russian Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. The blast occurred in Sagopshi village of Malgobek district in northwest Ingushetia, at the funeral of a police officer who was killed in a shootout with militants the day before. According to Ingush Security Council, all the dead except the bomber were police officers. The attack came hours after gunmen in Dagestan, another Russian republic of the North Caucasus, opened fire in a mosque, injuring several people who had gathered to celebrate Eid, the holy day marking the end of Ramadan. A bomb discovered at the site was deactivated. (Voice of Russia, RIA-Novosti, BBC News, Aug. 19) (See map.)

The campesino communities of Ayavaca and Huancabamba in Peru's northern Piura region held assemblies Aug. 16 and issued a statement pledging to resist recently announced plans by Chinese mining company Zijin to move ahead with the long-contested Río Blanco copper project. The communities cited the need to protect threatened watersheds, wetlands and cloud forests in the high Andean region, noting that they have been officially listed as "fragile ecosystems" under Peruvian law. The local jalca ecosystem, which exists only in Peru's northern Andean regions near the border with Ecuador, is richer in water than the more arid high plains known as punas elsewhere in the country. Read the statement: "Ayavaca and Huancabamba are today more alert than ever and ready to commit our lives for the defense of water for future generations." (Megaproyectos, Aug. 16; CONDESAN)

Five soldiers were killed in an attack by presumed Shining Path guerrillas Aug. 15 on a military base in Mazangaro, Junin region, in Peru's Apurimac-Ene River Valley (VRAE). According to La Republica, the attack could be in response to the army's seizure three days prior to the assault of 800 kilos of precursor chemicals used in the production of cocaine. (InSight Crime, Aug. 16) Two days after the attack, Peru's special anti-terrorism prosecutor, Julio Galindo, asserted that the Shining Path column in the coca-growing region was financed not only by the narco traffic, but by illegal gold-mining and logging. He said the state is attempting to crack down on the guerilla column's money laundering networks, which he characterized as "very technical." He also referred to the area of guerilla operations as the VRAEM—including the Mantaro River in the acronym, a western tributary of the Apurimac-Ene, in an implicit acknowledgement that the insurgency is spreading. (Perú21, Aug. 18; El Comercio, Aug. 17)

The International Criminal Court on Aug. 17 received requests to investigate Rwandan President Paul Kagame for backing armed rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Rwandan and Congolese advocacy groups opposed to Kagame's rule have alleged that the Rwandan leader is guilty of war crimes for helping to create and arm rebel groups in eastern DRC including M23, which has been conducting a mutiny in North Kivu province under the leadership of a particularly notorious group of human rights violators. The calls for an ICC investigation follow the release of a UN report last month detailing investigations since late 2011 that revealed substantial evidence that the Rwandan government helped create the rebel groups and supplied them with weapons, armor and recruits, including children. In June UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay estimated that the armed conflict between the DRC government and the M23 movement has displaced around 218,000 people from their homes since April, specifically mentioning five M23 leaders and describing them as the "worst perpetrators of human rights violations in the DRC, or in the world for that matter."