The camp of tents and makeshift homes had been set up on council-owned land in Saint-Etienne and had been occupied since May. Police sealed off the area at dawn and spent the morning moving the people out. A Romanian police officer was present, a sign that these members of the Roma community were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe. The government of President Sarkozy has recently struck a hard line towards what he defined as "certain elements" in the Roma and traveller communities. This followed last month's attack on a rural police station by a group of young men after the shooting to death of a suspected burglar.
The head of the Colombian army says the number of left-wing Farc guerrillas has diminished considerably since President Alvaro Uribe came to power eight years ago. General Oscar Gonzalez said numbers had dwindled from about 20,000 to an estimated 7,000. He said the Marxist rebel group had no unified command, no control and that its atomized groups didn't communicate with each other.
Police in Mexico say at least 14 inmates have died in a prison riot in Matamoros on the border with the United States. Local media say rival gangs fighting for control of the prison attacked each other with knives and other sharp weapons. Soldiers and police eventually regained control of the jail.
Rescue workers in Chile are trying to free 34 miners who've been trapped in a copper mine for almost a day. Officials at the mine in Atacama in the north of the country say the men were cut off after the main access tunnel collapsed. They are believed to be near a shelter with oxygen, food and water, considerably improving their chances of survival.