A May Day rally in Tehran, organized by independent Iranian labor organizations, was attacked by security and intelligence forces, with many beaten and arrested. Arrests are also reported in Sanandaj.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez defied the request of his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe to help catch FARC guerrillas that apparently fled to Venezuelan territory after a deadly battle.
Seventeen people were arrested on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao for involvement in a drug-trafficking ring with connections to Hezbollah, the police there said.
A judge for the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon ordered the release of four generals held on suspicion of their involvement in the suicide bombing that killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
Attorney General Eric Holder hailed the guilty plea of former “enemy combatant” Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri as evidence that “our criminal justice system can and will hold…terrorists accountable.”
The right-wing hate circuit is reaping a windfall from the “Swine Flu” scare. Talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Jay Severin both take the opportunity to contagion-bait “illegal aliens.”
Turkish warplanes again bombed PKK strongholds in northern Iraq, days after a presumed PKK bomb blast killed nine soldiers in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province.
Lawyers for two Guantánamo Bay detainees captured as juveniles called for their release—the same day the UN Security Council held an open meeting on children in armed conflict.
Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón announced he will initiate an investigation into torture allegations at Guantánamo Bay made by four former prisoners held at the facility.
President Obama reaffirmed his position that the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding amounts to torture and defended his decision to ban use of the technique.
The Mexican military is failing to hold its members accountable for human rights abuses, according to a report released this week by Human Rights Watch.
Peru's Supreme Court revoked the pardon of ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, ordering him back to prison. His supporters in Congress are drafting a law to make the pardon permanent, but this is on dubious constitutional grounds and violates international human rights treaties. Meanwhile, survivors of the Fujimori-era "dirty war" continue to seek justice for the crimes of that period. One campaign is to block right-wing candidate Daniel Urresti, accused in the assassination of journalist Hugo Bustíos, from running for mayor of Lima. (Photo: Diario Uno)
