At a meeting in Rome, the international Contact Group on Libya agreed to establish a fund that the rebels can access, ostensibly to provide services in their areas of control.
The lack of angry protests over the killing of Osama bin Laden indicates how al-Qaeda has been left behind by the Arab Spring. Only those who fetishize Osama because he fetishized America could fail to get it.
An explosion ripped through a military vehicle in the Yemeni town of Zinjibar, killing five soldiers, while four civilians died in the ensuing firefight—hours after an al-Qaeda leader vowed revenge for the killing of bin Laden.
As momentum builds for the May 8 protest against violence and impunity in Mexico, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) announced its support for the movement started by poet Javier Sicilia.
Far-right Cuban activist Orlando Bosch died in Miami at the age of 84. Accused in a number of terrorist actions against Cuba, he denied he was involved in a string of 1997 attacks on hotels in Havana.
The “international community” is pressuring Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council to change 18 questionable decisions in the Parliament race—as presidential candidate “Sweet Micky” Martelly is accused of intimidating journalists.
A leading Mexican feminist, Marcela Lagarde, says President Felipe Calderón’s militarization of the fight against drug trafficking has increased the level of violence against women.
Central American militaries are the main source of the Mexican cartels’ heavy weapons, the US embassy in Mexico wrote in a confidential 2009 cable released by the WikiLeaks.
Some international law experts are calling the Osama bin Laden killing an illegal “extrajudicial assassination”—as the White House equivocates on whether an effort was made to take bin Laden alive.
Osama bin Laden was apparently killed in a US Special Forces raid on a mansion in Abbottabad, a military garrison town just 100 kilometers outside Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, and supposed nerve-center of the counter-insurgency.
As nearly 300 bodies were unearthed from clandestine graves in the northern Mexican states of Durango and Tamaulipas, human rights activists were accosted by naval troops in the military-occupied border city of Matamoros.
President Yoweri Museveni has ordered the Uganda Communication Commission to shut down all social networking sites, fearing they will be used as a tool for organizing protests following deadly unrest in Kampala.
