I decided to start a new type of post on a Peace of Conflict reviewing conflict situations in the world on a somewhat weekly basis. I figured, I read this stuff every week anyway-- I might as well share it with readers in condensed form.

Here's some of what's happening in the world of conflict this week:

World

• The UN General Assembly voted to recognize the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation in a landmark victory with 122 "for", 0 "against", and 41 countries abstaining from the vote. How they will work to guarantee this right is yet to be seen.
• The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which completely prohibits the use, production and trade of cluster munitions, is to become binding in international law as of August 1, 2010. So far 107 governments have signed the convention, with only 37 ratifying. The law calls for all cluster munitions to be cleared
  within ten years, all stockpiles to be destroyed within eight years and assistance and compensation given to those affected. Brazil, China,India, Israel, Pakistan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States have yet to adopt the convention.

Asia

• The first conviction against one of the lead perpetrators of mass murder under the Khmer Rouge saw 'Comrade Duch' sentenced to 35 years in prison. It is said that Duch will file an appeal on the ruling.
• The notorious website Wikileaks posted 92,000 classified US military reports regarding the Afghan war. News that the Taliban has been using portable heat-seeking missiles against the US and NATO aircraft (previously undisclosed), and of tax dollars funding the bribery of protection rackets in the narcotics-trafficking industry were mostly underplayed by main-stream media who touted it as suspected "old news". The US has vowed to track down the person responsible for the leak with full f... as confidence in the war wanes across the US, the EU and other allied countries. The killing of at least another 45 innocent civilians in a rocket attack led by the NATO forces this week only serves to worsen
  the mission's already poor image.
• Five men were shot and killed in a series of insurgency attacks with government security forces in southern Thailand on Wednesday. The violence is said to often target Buddhists and Muslims
  associated with the Thai state.
• The Philippines are set to receive $18.4 million worth of precision-guided missiles this year from the US in their fight against Islamist militants in the south. The Philippines has received more than $73 million under the US National Defense Authorization Act to help boost counter-terrorism around the world and $500 million in military and development aid. This after the main rebel group said on Tuesday that they were willing to resume peace talks.
• Four Turkish police officers were killed on Monday after gunmen opened fire on their police station. It is suspected that the gunmen were rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The following day, clashes between Turkish and Kurdish protesters surrounding the incident were barraged with tear gas by police.

Europe

• A bomb explosion in a Ukrainian church killed one person and injured 8 others. Officials are so far keeping quiet on suspected responsibility for the bomb as they investigate.
• Germany has charged a suspected former Nazi guard with helping to murder 430,000 Jews at a death camp in Poland during WWII. The 90 year old will also testify against suspected Nazi death camp
  guard John Demjanjuk. Samuel Kunz denies all charges and of ever working as a prison guard for the Nazis.
• A Russian police officer, tired of the constant corruption within the policing system, appealed to Putin for action via YouTube only to be immediately fired, arrested and charged last November. He recently gave
  the New York Times a tour of some luxury homes of top ranking police officers as he now regularly speaks out about the corruption within the force.
• Shootouts in Russia's Dagestan resulted in the death of at least five people, including a village head and a policeman.
• Serbia asked the UN on Wednesday to review the independence of Kosovo, following last week's World Court ruling that the 2008 secession from Serbia did not violate international law. A Serbian ex-policeman was indicted for crimes against civilians, including children, committed in Sarajevo during the 1992-5 war.

Middle East

• The US Defense Department has apparently no trace of what happened to $8.7 billion in Iraqi oil money out of $9.1 billion (96%) that was to be used for rebuilding in the country according to a recent audit.
• Israel has demolished the homes of 300 Bedouins in the southern Negev desert claiming them as illegally built. Many more are expected to be demolished in the near future. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees suggest that Bedouins are facing tremendous suffering in the region and found that in Bedouin communities the rates of stunting are more than double those in Gaza.
• Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinians, injuring 6 people in stone-throwing and fistfights. Other violence in the region saw a rocket fired from Palestinian militants into Ashkelon on Friday. There were no reported injuries from the blast.
• The UN rights forum named a team of international experts on Friday to probe the flotilla fiasco and called for cooperation from all parties. They also told Israel it must lift its military blockade of the Gaza Strip in a
  non-binding recommendation.
• Four soldiers were killed in an ambush in south Yemen and Shi'ite rebels captured a north Yemen base on Monday, killing at le.... Violence has increased in recent months in the country with separatists in the south, a fragile ceasefire with Shi'ite rebels in the north and a campaign against al Qaeda militants.

Africa

• 20,000 grenades were destroyed in Burundi by the Mines Advisory Group in an effort to reduce armed violence. Grenades are a popular choice for violence in the country involving nearly 22% of all armed violence registered in the country in 2008.
• Fighting continued in Somalia with reports of at least 17 civilians being killed in fighting between the Somali government and al-Shabab fighters in Mogadishu, 13 militia killed in clashes in Puntland and thousands displaced. The UN welcomed the African Union's decision to send 2,000 more peacekeeping troops into the country.
• Former Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga, the first person to be tried by the International Criminal Court will remain in jail after proceedings were suspended on July 15th. Lubanga is accused of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 to his Union of Congolese Patriots. Calls for his release, after the prosecutor failed to comply with an order to turn over information to the defense were denied.
• Mali is up in arms about the recent French-backed Mauritanian raid of an al-Qaeda base within their country, calling it an "unannounced declaration of war".
• Sudan's army was accused of killing at least two civilians during a raid on a refugee camp on Wednesday and burning some of the camps full of internally displaced persons.

North America

• Discussion around the recently passed Conflict Minerals legislation in the US has avid Congo bloggers a buzz. The Enough Project and Jason Stearns take a more positive approach with Laura at Texas in Africa (see her Mineral Week posts starting July 26, 2010 for full details), Dan Fahey and Resource
  Consulting Services seriously critiquing the legislation. Wronging rights did a great overview of the new legislation here.
• The US House of Representatives agreed to provide $37 billion to continue financing America's two wars by a vote of 308-114.
• A ruptured underground oil pipe in Michigan leaked more than 800,000 gallons of oil into the Tallmadge Creek and Kalamazoo River, along with another spill in the Gulf a Mexico off the coast of Louisiana after a barge slammed into an abandoned oil well.
• Senator John Kerry put the New Start arms control treaty with Russia, which would prohibit the US and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers each, on his panel's schedule for next week.

Central and South America

• Paraguayan police killed the leader of an armed leftist group in a shootout on Wednesday after facing pressure to track down key figures in the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP), a small armed group
  active in the northern regions.
• Mexican police found at least 51 bodies in a mass grave outside of Monterrey, suspected killed in escalating drug violence, along with the kidnapping of four Mexican journalists reporting on organized crime in northern Mexico. At least 26,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico in the past 4 years, at least 30 of them journalists.
• Native Brazilians took 100 workers at a hydroelectric plant in the southern Amazon region ..., after occupying the plant they say was built on an ancient burial site.
• A US federal court has paved the way for Guatemalan women to claim asylum status as a "social group" on the grounds that being a women there is sufficient reason to fear for your life.