Egypt's Coptic Christian minority is to launch its own satellite television this month. After deadly riots in Alexandria Oct. 21, many Copts see the creation of the channel as an essential tool to assert their long-repressed identity. But some fear the church's patronage of the channel could fan sectarian strife. Aghapy TV—from the Coptic word for "love"—is due to start broadcasting Nov. 14 on Telestar 12, a US-operated satellite network which spans Egypt and several African countries.

Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, facing over 20 criminal charges in Peru, was arrested Nov. 7 by Chilean police following his surprise arrival in Santiago from Japan the previous day. The former leader said he was on the way to launch a campaign for the Peruvian presidential election next April. The arrest was ordered by Chilean Supreme Court Justice Orlando Alvarez upon the request of the Peruvian government. The two countries have not reached agreement on Fujimoli's fate. Peru is pressing for extradition, while Chile's government says its supreme court will have to rule in the matter. Fujimoli, born in Peru to Japanese immigrants and was president from 1990 to 2000, fled Peru in November 2000 after a corruption scandal toppled his government.

Earl Krugel, a Jewish Defense League militant convicted of plotting to bomb a Los Angeles mosque and the office of a local politician, was murdered just three days after being transferred to a new prison. The former dental assistant, who received the maximum 20-year sentence by a Los Angeles court in September, was killed by a fellow inmate while exercising at a medium-security prison in Arizona. The FBI has opened an investigation into the killing, but would not comment further. It is believed Krugel had received threats in the past from both white supremacist and Islamist militants.

A woman poet well-known in literary circles in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat has died after being severely beaten by her husband, authorites report. Nadia Anjuman, 25, died late on Nov. 1, said provincial police chief Nisar Ahmad Paikar. “We have arrested her husband, accused of killing her," Paikar told AFP. The couple had a six-month-old daughter. Anjuman, a student at Herat university, had a first book of poetry printed this year. She was popular in Afghanistan and neighboring Iran.

Australian authorities say they foiled a large-scale terrorist attack, arresting 15 people in raids in Sydney and Melbourne Nov. 7. Among the arrrested is Muslim cleric Abu Bakr, who had earlier this year stated his support for Osama bin Laden. One suspect who had been under surveillance was shot and wounded after he had allegedly fired at officers near Sydney's Green Valley Mosque. "I am satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack, or the launch of a large-scale terrorist attack here in Australia," New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said. Australia's parliament rushed through amendments to anti-terror laws Nov. 3 to allow police to charge people suspected in the early stages of planning an attack. (Stuff.co, NZ, Nov. 7)

Some 30,000-40,000 people marched through a heavy rain on Nov. 4 in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata, in Buenos Aires province, to protest the presence of US president George W. Bush among the 32 heads of state in the city to attend the Nov. 4-5 Fourth Summit of the Americas. The march was led by Argentine Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Bolivian leftist presidential candidate and coca growers leader Evo Morales, and Hebe de Bonafini of the human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

A Kurdish PKK prisoner died on Nov. 1 after what Turkish prison officials claimed was a suicide. Prison officials claimed that the prisoner, Serdar Ari, captured had Antalya in 1998, had set himself on fire. But a delegation of observers from the Turkish independent Human Rights Association (IHD) who traveled to the Kiriklar F-Type Isolation Prison in Izmir and demanded to witness the autopsy were turned down by the authorities. The preliminary autopsy report shows that Ari had smoke and soot in his lungs, but made no reference to burn injuries. (DozaMe.org, Oct. 26 via Kurdish Info)

Colombian guerrillas and paramilitary fighters engaged in a bloody gun battle over control of the cocaine trade in western Chocó department, leaving at least 75 fighters dead, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported. Victor Mosquera, a regional human rights observer, said corpses littered the site of the fighting and that many people were missing. Government troops have been rushed to Chocó.