On July 10—one day before the 13th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre—a Dutch court ruled it has no jurisdiction in a civil suit against the United Nations by genocide survivors from the eastern Bosnian town. Survivors' association Mothers of Srebrenica is seeking compensation for the failure of Dutch UN troops to prevent the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 civilians in the so-called "safe area." The Hague District Court found the UN's "absolute immunity" means it cannot be held liable in any country's national court.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) told the Biloxi Sun Herald July 2 he witnessed a confrontation between John McCain and a Nicaraguan Sandinista leader—a lieutenant of President Daniel Ortega—during a 1987 diplomatic mission in which the Arizona senator "got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him." In a tense atmosphere, as the US was pressing Nicaragua "pretty hard," Cochran noticed a disturbance at the meeting table in a room lined with armed personnel:

The New York Times July 3 alluded to an Israeli role in the dramatic rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages in Colombia: "On Colombian television, Ms. Betancourt wept and smiled as she recounted a chain of events that seemed scripted for film, complete with Colombian agents infiltrating guerrilla camps and borrowing Israeli tracking technology to zero in on their target." But a July 4 report from Israels' YNet indicates the Israeli role in the operation may have been far greater:

Amid generally ebullient news coverage, reports are starting to emerge that the "impeccable" hostage-rescue mission in Colombia was actually a sham to disguise the payment of a ransom. Swiss public radio cited an unidentified source "close to the events, reliable and tested many times in recent years" as saying the operation had in fact been staged to cover up the a $20 million payment by the US and Colombian governments. The hostages "were in reality ransomed for a high price, and the whole operation afterwards was a set-up," the public broadcaster said.

Pascual Serrano, writing for the pan-Latin American radical left online journal Rebelión, raises the possibility that the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC-held hostages was not the clear-cut tactical victory portrayed by Betancourt and Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe—but a cynical play to exploit quiet European negotiations that were already underway to win their release, while beating the Europeans to the punch for a propaganda coup.

Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe, surrounded by Ingrid Betancourt, members of the military and 11 other rescued Colombian hostages, called upon the FARC to make "peace" in a massive press conference July 2 in Bogotá. Boasting that not a single shot was fired in the rescue operation, Uribe said: "This is an invitation to the FARC to make peace, to start releasing the hostages they still hold captive."

Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba was held by US immigration authorities at New York's JFK airport June 27, to be interrogated about her alleged ties to the FARC—despite her diplomatic visa. "When I left customs, I was retained for two and a half hours," she told Colombia's Caracol Radio. "I think they wanted to send me back to Colombia. All my papers were photocopied. I had brought denunciations to deliver to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. They photocopied everything, my phones and personal belongings too."

Serbs in Kosova inaugurated their own assembly June 28 at the divided city of Mitrovica—in defiance of the Albanian-led government and the UN. Forty-five members were elected in May during Serbia's general and municipal elections. The ballot was declared illegal by the UN and Kosova's official government, which has been recognized by 43 states. People from across Serbia gathered in Mitrovica to show support for the new assembly. Kosova's President Fatmir Sejdiu called it "an attempt to destabilize Kosova." An unnamed UN spokesman quoted by the BBC called the assembly a "virtual reality."