A series of explosions in three towns in the Georgian separatist region of Abkhazia—Gagra, Sukhumi, and Gali—and a skirmish between Georgian and separatist forces in the Georgian-controlled Upper Kodori Gorge topped the agenda as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice July 9-10. The Abkhaz separatist government in Sukhumi blames Tbilisi for the violence; Tbilisi, of course, blames Moscow. Sukhumi alleges the attacks are aimed at scaring Russians away from Abkhazia's Black Sea resorts, just as the summer tourist season gets under way.

"Venezuela and Colombia today open a new epoch in our relations," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told reporters after a meeting with his Colombian counterpart Álvaro Uribe in Caracas July 11. "I want to make clear that the intention exists to relaunch and fortify relations between Venezuela and Colombia, because these brother nations are destined to be united." (ABN, Venezuela, July 11) Construction of a rail link through Colombia giving Venezuela access to the Pacific is said to have been discussed in the meeting. Uribe told a recent Colombian cabinet meeting, "President Chávez has offered to make this railway. We are ready to do it." (El Tiempo, Bogotá, July 12)

Claude-Marie Vadrot, writing for his blog on the French online journal Mediapart July 4, asserts that FARC hostage Ingrid Betancourt—freed in a Colombian military operation July 2—was actually supposed to be liberated on March 8, in a French deal that had been brokered by President Rafael Correa of Ecuador. FARC commander Raul Reyes had set up camp in Ecuador for this purpose, Vadrot says. He also claims the air raid on the camp that scuttled the deal was actually carried out by US aircraft—zeroing in on the location via Reyes' cell phone. "Having succeeded in obtaining the telephone number a few days earlier, the American officials agreed with the Colombian government that it was necessary to put an end to the negotiation that was on the verge of being completed."

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.