US military advisors to Yemen, pulled out last year due to human rights abuses by the crumbling regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, are set to return—as drone strikes continue on territory controlled by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The Pentagon is this week leading “Eager Lion 2012″—the largest multinational military exercises in the history of Jordan, with maneuvers planned along the Syrian border as well as in the Gulf of Aqaba, across from Israel.
The New York/Hong Kong-based Human Rights in China reports that You Minglei, an independent activist in Nanchang, was arrested on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” after distributing leaflets.
Bahraini authorities arrested Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, for messages he posted on Twitter criticizing the Interior Ministry and demanding the release of other arrested rights advocates.
The DEA refuses to confirm claims by the Colombian National Police that top drug lord Javier Antonio Calle Serna AKA “Comba” turned himself in to US agents. Calle Serna’s “Rastrojos” gang is linked to both the FARC and paramilitaries.
While mainstream accounts emphasize the defendants’ refusal to respect the court, the ACLU points out that the Gitmo tribunal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants falls short of international standards for justice.
Ali Mussa Daqduq, a former detainee of the US with alleged ties to Hezbollah, was cleared of all charges in an Iraqi court. The US handed Daqduq over to Iraqi authorities in December, over the protests of Republicans.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted qualified immunity to former Bush administration official John Yoo in a suit over his controversial memos asserting the legality of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Controversial Nicaraguan revolutionary Tomás Borge, the last of the group that founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front, died in a Managua military hospital at age 81.
Port-au-Prince assembly plant owners warned workers not to march on May 1, and rewarded them if they stayed at work by paying out an unprecedented $12 for a day’s work.
Tens of thousands of unionists and campesinos joined the independent unions’ annual march in Mexico City, while the mineworkers union may have won in a six-year confrontation with the government.
As workers mobilized throughout the hemisphere, Peru and Venezuela marked May Day by raising the minimum wage. Chile and Cuba said they would maintain the current wage levels.
