Violence

Protests by indigenous communities over oil drilling and mining in the Peruvian Amazon region turned violent Friday, leaving at least 13 people dead in clashes with police and subsequent rioting. According to local officials, nine police officers and four Indians were killed in an early morning confrontation on a road between Jaen and Bagua in northern Peru and in the protests that followed. The Bagua public defender's office said 45 people were injured.

Smarting from disturbances caused by rowdy bar patrons, a fashionable enclave in eastern Long Beach has become engulfed in a squabble between homeowners and business leaders over how to control the summer onslaught of customers who represent an economic benefit to the community and the city. The Belmont Shore Residents Assn.

The United States lacks a coordinated strategy to stem the flow of weapons smuggled across its southern border, a failure that has fueled the rise of powerful criminal cartels and violence in Mexico, a government watchdog agency report has found. The report by the congressional Government Accountability Office, the first federal assessment of the issue, offered blistering conclusions that will probably influence the debate over the role of U.S.

Under pressure to speak out more forcefully, President Obama on Tuesday condemned the Iranian government's violent suppression of dissent and declared the world "appalled and outraged" by its crackdown on protesters.

Thundersticks and Rally Monkeys have brought playfulness to Angel Stadium in recent years, but two violent incidents at the ballpark in the still-young season have raised the question of whether the traditionally fan-friendly atmosphere at the stadium has eroded.

Wearing a dirty striped T-shirt, scuffed loafers and dusty cargo pants, Liu Xiuyi arrived in Urumqi last week after a 56-hour train ride that took him from the east coast to the farthest reaches of China's northwest. Like the young Americans who in the 19th century followed Horace Greeley's imperative to "Go west, young man," the 26-year-old Liu left home in search of a job, space and opportunity.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on all countries Thursday to provide urgent military support to Somalia's beleaguered transitional government, warning that its survival is at stake. Two allied Islamist insurgent groups -- Shabab and the Islamic Party -- launched an offensive after the return of an exiled insurgent leader in April that has killed hundreds of Somalis and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests attacked a provincial capital Saturday, triggering gun battles that killed seven militants. The assault in Khowst began when at least six Taliban fighters carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the area around the main police station and a nearby government-run bank. All were shot and killed before they could detonate their suicide vests, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Islamist militants seeking to impose a Taliban-style regime in northern Nigeria launched attacks Monday on police in three towns, expanding a two-day campaign that has left at least 55 people dead, police and witnesses said. The violence began Sunday when militants attacked a police station in the northern city of Bauchi, leaving dozens dead in gun battles.

A Nigerian military official said Saturday that about 700 people were killed in the northern city of Maiduguri during recent fighting between police and a radical Islamist sect. The toll was previously thought to be around 300. Col. Ben Ahanotu said mass burials had begun because bodies were decomposing in the heat. The Islamist compound destroyed last week by government troops is one of the burial sites, he said.