The Transportation and Communications Commission of Peru's Congress on June 7 approved Law 1035-2011, introduced by the fujimorista bloc, that would declare the "public necessity and national interest" of a new highway between Puerto Esperanza, Purús province, Ucayali department, and Iñapari, Tahuamanu province, Madre de Dios department—cutting through Alto Purús National Park, and territory believed to shelter isolated or "uncontacted" indigenous bands. Peru's Amazonian indigenous alliance AIDESEP and its Madre de Dios regional affiliate FENAMAD protested that the region's native inhabitants had not been consulted on the measure, and charged that the road would impact the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve for isolated peoples. The law now goes to the full Congress for debate. But Verónika Mendoza, leader of the Commission on Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, insisted that her commission should have to sign off on the bill before it goes to the floor as well. (InfoRegión, June 11; La Republica, June 10; AIDESEP, June 7)

The 42nd General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), held June 3-5 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was dominated by calls from leftist South American leaders for restructuring the group and ending domination by the US. Bolivian president Evo Morales, the host of the meeting, set the tone by declaring that "for the OAS there are two roads: either it dies in the service of imperialism, or it is reborn to serve the peoples of America." Headquartered in Washington, DC, the OAS includes every country in the hemisphere except Cuba, which was denied representation in 1962 under pressure from the US.

In an article dated June 7, the British daily The Guardian said it had received documents apparently showing that Mexico's largest television network, Televisa, was paid in 2005 to have its news and entertainment programs influence voters' perceptions of various politicians. The documents are in the form of computer files given the paper by someone who formerly worked with Televisa.

After a 30-year struggle, on June 4 two indigenous Wounaan collectives in the eastern Panamanian province of Darién received titles from the government to their traditional lands. Puerto Lara and Caña Blanca were the first communities to benefit from Law 72, which was passed in 2008 to recognize indigenous communities that were left out of the process in which Panama created five comarcas, large, semi-autonomous regions for many of the country's indigenous peoples. Thousands of Wounaan and Emberá are awaiting titles in another 39 communities. Indigenous people in these communities say the lack of titles has left their territories open to invasions by ranchers and loggers. (Rainforest Foundation, June 1; RF, June 5)

The government of Honduran president Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa signed an agreement on June 5 under which some 4,000 hectares of farmland in the north of the country will be granted to members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), a large campesino collective that has been staging land occupations in the area since December 2009. The government is to buy the land from cooking-oil magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum for some $20 million and resell it to MUCA members, who are to pay the government back with a loan from the private Banco Hondureño de Producción y Vivienda (Banhprovi). They will need to repay the loan in 15 years with a 6% annual interest rate after a three-year grace period.

Responding to outcry over civilian casualties, the Pentagon is preparing to deploy a new generation of drones the size of model planes, with miniscule warheads that can allegedly be delivered with pinpoint accuracy. The Predator and Reaper drones now in use typically carry 100-pound laser-guided Hellfire missiles or 500-pound GPS-guided "smart bombs" that can reduce buildings to smoldering rubble. The new Switchblade drone weighs less than six pounds and are supposedly designed to kill a sniper on a rooftop without destroying the building. (LAT, June 11) The announcement comes days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on a visit to Pakistan said: "Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law. The principle of distinction and proportionality and ensuring accountability for any failure to comply with international law is also difficult when drone attacks are conducted outside the military chain of command and beyond effective and transparent mechanisms of civilian or military control... I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations." (AFP, June 7)

From the Village Voice, June 11:

NYPD Slammed With Lawsuit Over Handling of Pedestrian and Cyclist Deaths
On July 10, 2011, Clara Heyworth was walking to meet her husband when she was fatally struck by motorist Anthony Webb, who was driving with a learner's permit, not a license. He also might have been drunk and speeding at the time of the incident. Webb was arrested at that time.

Burma's President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in western Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state June 10 following an uprising by the Muslim Rohingya people, in which hundreds of homes of Buddhist villagers were put to the torch. At least seven have been killed since the incident that sparked the violence. The rape and murder of a Buddhist woman was blamed on Rohingyas; a bus full of Muslim pilgrims was then waylaid by a mob, who beat 10 of the passengers to death. The pilgrims, who were returning to Rangoon from Thetsa Masjid in the Rakhine town of Thandwe, appear not to have even been Rohingyas. The Rohingyas are a stateless people; the Burmese government maintains they are "illegal" immigrants from Bangladesh, and periodically rounds them up by the hundreds to deport them across the border—where, far from being welcomed, they languish in refugee camps. (See map.) In Burma, they face harsh restrictions on their movements, and are denied the right to have more than two children per family by law. "The government needs to recognize...that its discriminatory policies against the Rohingyas that [have] denied them citizenship and subjected them to such restrictions need to be lifted," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. "They need to be treated as people of Burma and recognized as such." (Radio Australia, The Telegraph, June 11; AFP, June 9; The Voice of Rohingya, June 4)