Pakistan is nearing completion of a previously unknown plutonium-producing reactor at Khushab, approximately 109 miles south of Islamabad, the third such facility at the complex, a new satellite photo reveals. David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), along with DigitalGlobe, provided the satellite image to ABC News. Pakistan's government did not comment on the revelation.

At least eight people, including three children, died in Mogadishu in clashes between insurgents and Somalian interim government and Ethiopian occupation forces June 20. One of the dead was a Somalian police officer killed in an attack on a military camp. Hours earlier, seven were killed when Ethiopian soldiers opened fire after a roadside bomb exploded near one of their two passing trucks, residents said. Resident Adan Hussein told Reuters: "Ethiopian troops riding from the other truck started firing indiscriminately, killing three children. The children were in a house made of iron sheets." (Reuters, June 20)

Israeli police detained an Orthodox Jewish man carrying a small homemade bomb in Jerusalem June 21, as thousands marched in support of gay rights in defiance of religious protesters. Some 2,000 Israeli gays marched in the event by police estimates, while behind police barriers Orthodox protesters in traditional black and white garb intoned prayers against the march. One man approached the marchers yelling: "Filth! Get out of Jerusalem!" In 2005, an Orthodox Jew stabbed and wounded three marchers and fears of violence caused a march to be cancelled last year. (Reuters, June 21)

The World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) has condemned the incommunicado detention and apparent "disappearance" in Mexico's conflicted Oaxaca state of Raymundo Rivera Bravo, 55, and Edmundo Reyes Amaya, 50, two militants of the Popular Democratic Revolutionary Party (PDPR). According to the OMCT, the two men were arrested in Oaxaca City by the state police May 25. The organization said in a statement it has been unable to determine the whereabouts of the detained men, and and is demanding guarantees for their "personal integrity," expressing concern over the risk of torture. (La Jornada, June 17)

Leaders of the Section 50 health workers union in Mexico's conflicted and impoverished southern state of Chiapas issued an urgent call to state and federal authorities to establish dialogue with the Zapatista Nation Liberation Army's regional authorities at the highland village of Oventic to exchange information about an outbreak of whooping cough. However, state authorities denied claims of 11 deaths from whooping cough in the Highland region. (Cuarto Poder, June 17)

A suicide bomber in a truck filled with cooking gas and explosives detonated his payload in Baghdad's Khalani Square June 19 just as worshippers were finishing midday prayers at the square's large Shi'ite mosque, killing 87, injuring more than 200 and partially destroying the mosque. That night, three Sunni mosques were attacked in Babil province—the Osama bin Zaid and Abdulla al-Jabouri mosques in Iskandariya, and the Asfouk Mosque at Ajbala outside Mahawil, near the so-called "Triangle of Death." Gunmen stormed the mosques, then set off bombs. No casualties were reported, but the mosques were all damaged. (NYT, CNN, June 20)

Via PRWeb, the Press Release Newswire, June 15:

Noam Chomsky Voices Support for the "Responsibility to Iraqi Refugees Act of 2007"
House Resolution 2265 would allow more Iraqis into the United States, including religious minorities suffering from persecution.
Mandaean Crisis International, an organization dedicated to ending persecution of the Mandaean community, today announced that Professor Noam Chomsky has publicly lent his support to the passage of House Resolution 2265. Called the Responsibility to Iraqi Refugees Act of 2007, the bill would confer immigration status to the U.S. for many religious minorities, including the Mandaean community in Iraq. The Mandaeans, also known as Sabian Mandaeans, are an ethnic and religious group of great but uncertain antiquity who revere John the Baptist as their last great teacher, but are not Christian.

At least 22 people were killed and 10 wounded when a missile hit a cluster of compounds in Datakhel district of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region, locals said. Taliban leaders said the death toll was as high as 32. Reports were sketchy about the cause of the explosion but local people insisted that missiles had hit a madrassa, killing several people and wounding scores of others. Maj-Gen Arshad Waheed of Pakistan's military denied reports that national army or coalition forces had carried out the attack, calling it an "accidental blast."