US officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since Pres. Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians. While the number of “sectarian murders” not involving bombs has decreased, the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising: up from 323 in March to 365 just through April 24. Bush told Charlie Rose that counting those bombings would be handing their perpetrators “victory.”

Experts who have studied car bombings say it's no surprise that US officials would want to exclude their victims from any measure of success. Car bombs are almost impossible to detect and stop, particularly in a traffic-jammed city such as Baghdad. US officials in Baghdad concede that while they've found scores of car bomb factories in Iraq, they've made only a small dent in the manufacturing of these weapons.

Main Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Gunmen plundered 12 truck-loads of computers and bags of sugar from a shelled Coca Cola plant in Mogadishu on Friday during a lull in fighting between allied Somali-Ethiopian troops and insurgents, a local manager said. The odd stray bullet was heard in the Somali capital, a day after PM Ali Mohamed Gedi claimed gains in the government's 9-day offensive against Islamist fighters and some clansmen. But many Somalis, undergoing a refugee exodus worse than Iraq in recent months, were skeptical the war was winding down.

There was no respite for medical workers struggling with little or no supplies to patch up the wounded, many ferried to overflowing hospitals in wheelbarrows and donkey carts. Trapped by fighting, several women gave birth in an improvised maternity ward – a grass hut under a tree, where one midwife has delivered 6 babies in the last 3 days. Some 350,000 people have fled Mogadishu since February, more than 1/3 of its 1 million population.

Main Source: Reuters

Citing US plans for missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, Pres. Vladimir Putin has announced Russia will withdraw from a treaty, seen as the cornerstone of stability in Europe, that limits troop deployment and conventional weapons. Putin accused the US of a plot to build up its military forces in the region, rejecting US claims the shield is to defend against attack by Iran. Putin has quadrupled defense spending and plans a new class of ballistic missiles, while the US has resisted Russian proposals for mutual nuclear weapons reduction.
Main Source: The Telegraph

Canada's Conservative government has announced a new emissions-reduction plan that falls well short of the country’s commitments under the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Large emitters of industrial greenhouse gas not meeting the timetable will be allowed to pay into a fund for pollution control technologies and companies will be given credit for emission reductions in the past.

Environmental groups said that because the planned reduction by 18% over 3 years is tied to units of production, not overall output, total greenhouse emissions in Canada may continue to rise. They specifically noted the oil sands projects in Alberta – an increasingly important energy source for the US – would probably increase production by twice the rate they are required to curb per-unit gas emissions during the 3-year period.

Main Source: New York Times

Japan's Supreme Court on Friday cited a 1972 agreement when denying Chinese people's rights to demand compensation from the Japanese government for their forced labor during World War II. The decision overturned a 2004 lower court ruling that ordered a construction company to pay $231,000 to 2 workers and relatives of 3 others forced to labor in severe conditions on the construction of a Hiroshima hydroelectric plant.

The new decision sets precedent expected to affect rulings in other cases in which Chinese and South Korean plaintiffs are demanding war-related compensation. Victims of Japan's wartime aggression – forced labourers and sex slaves – have so far filed about 60 lawsuits with Japanese courts, seeking compensation and apologies from the Japanese government and concerned companies. Many of the lawsuits have been dismissed because of a 20-year statute of limitations to demand compensation, others have been settled outside of court.

Main Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

A US Army officer who was commander of a military prison in Iraq has been charged with giving a cell phone to suspected insurgents who were detained there, a charge described as "aiding the enemy." Lt. Col. William H. Steele, who was commander of the Army's Camp Cropper, was also charged with having an improper relationship with a detainee's daughter and an interpreter and possessing pornography, the military said. Steele was arrested last month and confined in a military jail in Kuwait while he awaits preliminary hearings.
Main Source: CNN

The Iraqi government has refused to provide the UN with civilian casualty figures for its latest report, but numbers from various government ministries indicate over 5,500 people killed in Baghdad alone in the first 3 months of 2007. Numbers provided by ministry employees could not be independently verified but were higher than an independent death count based on news accounts and indicate an increase in the recent weeks of the “security plan.” In October, researchers estimated over 600,000 Iraqi civilians killed since the 2003 invasion.

The UN also accused the Iraqi government of failing to “seriously address” problems of detainee abuse, including torture, and to ensure timely and fair prosecution. The emergency regulations governing the Iraq-US crackdown permit arrest without warrants and open-ended pretrial detention, the report said, estimating that over 3,000 people were taken into custody during the plan's first seven weeks. A rights group reported last month that hundreds of people detained in the security crackdown had been jammed into woefully overcrowded detention centers.

Among the UN report's other findings: More than 200 academics have been killed since the start of the war for sectarian reasons or because of their largely secular views and teachings; detainees in Iraqi government-run prisons have frequently been tortured or forced to confess to alleged crimes; at least 40 women in the Kurdistan region have died this year in suspected "honor killings." Such deaths, many of them from burning, followed family members' accusations of immoral conduct involving the victims, the report says.

At least 9 Iraqi police were killed and 15 people wounded by a suicide bomber at an army checkpoint in the Diyala province town of Balad Ruz, a stronghold of Sunni Muslim insurgents. A roadside bomb in north Baghdad killed at least 3 more people and injured 8. Rockets killed 2 more civilians in a southeast Baghdad area where another rocket attack killed 10 people on Tuesday. Yet another rocket attack killed 2 people southwest of Baghdad.

Main Source: LA Times

US and Iraqi efforts to win international support to stabilize Iraq’s economy are running up against serious obstacles, with key countries balking at provisions for debt relief and others concerned about blanket endorsement of an Iraqi government that has failed to follow through on many political promises, according to sources involved in the negotiations.

Kuwait, Russia, China and Iran in particular are hesitant to sign a proposed resolution that calls for 100% debt relief for Iraq, given the tens of billions each country is owed in outright debts or in war compensation by Baghdad. Washington has officially forgiven the $4.5 billion Iraq technically owed the US, but other Western creditors have only forgiven up to 80%, which is the same relief most Middle Eastern and Asian creditors are now saying they’ll consider. Still, the US is asking them for more.

All of Iraq’s debt and war compensation was accumulated under Saddam Hussein, whose regime creditors now uniformly consider to have been illegitimate. This has led dissident debt-relief advocates to argue that the debt is “odious” and should therefore be forgiven as a matter of principle, acquired as it was by a dictator.

Main Source: Washington Post

Ethiopian tanks pounded supposed insurgent positions in Mogadishu on Thursday, intensifying an offensive that has emptied half the city of its residemts. Insurgents fired back with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades in a second week of fighting that has centered around an anti-government stronghold in the north of the city.

Fighters called the escalation the heaviest since US-backed Somali-Ethiopian forces defeated Islamists in a 2-week war at the end of 2006. Locals and rights activists say nearly 300 people have been killed in the sustained battles. A car-bomb attack on Ethiopian trucks killed 4 civilians in Mogadishu and a suicide car bomber blew up at an Ethiopian military base west of of the capital on Tuesday. An aid director said a missile stuck the roof of a children’s hospital packed with 20-30 adult civilians already wounded in fighting. The children had been evacuated.

Main Source: Reuters

Peru's largest miners federation is planning an indefinite, nationwide strike for Apr. 30, and workers at many of the country's largest pits – including the largest gold mine in Latin America – vow to join the walkout for better benefits. The federation of 74 mining unions, representing some 22,000 workers, is demanding Pres. Alan Garcia fulfill campaign pledges to eliminate mining-company outsourcing and to improve pension benefits. Mine owners have described the strike as a political protest and asked the government to declare it illegal.
Main Source: Reuters

Cuba appears to have taken a step toward blunting international criticism of repression on the island with the release of 7 political prisoners, including well-known dissident leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who’d spent 17 years in prison when he was released Sunday. On Tuesday, Havana released another 6 men, whose arrests in 2005 led to the adoption of sanctions by the EU, which have since been lifted temporarily. The releases come ahead of a high-level meeting between Cuba and Spain at which Cuba will seek a permanent end to EU sanctions.
Main Source: The Independent

More than 400 North Koreans being held in a Thai immigration facility have launched a hunger strike, demanding they be sent to South Korea. The asylum seekers – 100 men and 314 women – have waited in the cramped detention center for about 3 months. A South Korean asylum aid official told the defectors they could go to South Korea if they ended the hunger strike, but the refugees demanded to see their air tickets before complying.

More North Koreans began fleeing the country after the 1990s, when famine caused by natural disasters and mismanagement led to as many as 2 million deaths. Some 10,000 North Koreans have sought refuge in South Korea, most arriving in recent years. Those seeking to flee North Korea do so through the comparatively porous frontier with China, since the border with South Korea is among the world's most fortified – the Koreas remaining technically at war. Thousands more North Koreans are believed to be hiding in China, which deports them to North Korea.

Main Source: Associated Press

A crowd of abortion-rights activists welcomed Mexico City lawmakers' 46–19 vote requiring city hospitals to provide abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. But the law, which also opens the way for private abortion clinics, is facing a run-in with the Catholic church and a likely court battle. Opponents vowed to go to Mexico's supreme court to challenge the bill expected to have effects far beyond the capital, which is North America's largest city and home to much of the country's hospital and healthcare infrastructure.

Under the Mexico City bill, women having an abortion after 12 weeks would be punished by 3–6 months in jail. Those who perform the abortion operation after the first 12 weeks would face 1–3 years in jail. Girls under 18 would need their parents' consent for any abortion. In the rest of Mexico, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the woman's life is at risk. Doctors sometimes refuse to perform the procedure even under those circumstances.

Main Source: Associated Press

Scores of gunmen attacked a Chinese-run oil field in a remote area of Ethiopia on Tuesday, killing 9 Chinese and 65 Ethiopians, in a raid claimed by a separatist rebel group. Guerillas with the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region, also kidnapped at least 6 Chinese workers. A government spokesman said some Ethiopians may also have been kidnapped during the assault in a location where China's Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau is searching for oil.
Main Source: Agence France-Presse

Outrage over the construction of a wall around a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad has revealed the depths of Iraqi frustration with the petty humiliations created by the occupation forces’ new security plan, ostensibly intended to protect them. American and some Iraqi officials were clearly taken aback by the ferocity of the opposition to the wall, and on Monday the US was showing signs of backing away from the plan.

At a rally on Monday, residents of the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adhamiya pledged support for PM Nouri Al-Maliki because of his declaration on Sunday in Cairo that construction of the wall around their neighborhood must stop. Their endorsement was revealing because many Sunnis see Maliki as the representative of a government bent on annihilation of Sunnis. But Shia groups fear that though Sunni Arab neighborhoods are the ones being cordoned off this week, next month it could be Shiite areas as well.

Main Source: New York Times

Ecuador police fired tear gas in sporadic confrontations with some 400 pro-reform protesters rallying against lawmakers who rejected a court decision backing a national referendum to rewrite the country's constitution. A prosecutor ordered the arrest of 24 right-wing deputies, nearly half of the 50 who the country's highest court had ordered reinstated after being sacked for opposing Pres. Rafael Correa's far-reaching reforms. Several of the deputies fled to Colombia to avoid charges of treason.

The accusations followed Congress's dismissal of the country's 9 Constitutional Tribunal justices for reinstating the lawmakers who opposed Correa. With the political opposition out of the way, voters then this month approved the convention by a 5-to-1 margin, giving Correa the go-ahead in his effort to revamp the legislature and other government structures to pursue his nationalist, “socialist” agenda.

Main Source: Agence France-Presse

The map of Greenland will have to be redrawn. A new island has appeared off its coast, suddenly separated from the mainland by the melting of Greenland's enormous ice sheet, a development that is being seen as the most alarming sign of global warming. Several miles long, the island was once thought to be the tip of a peninsula halfway up Greenland's remote east coast but a glacier joining it to the mainland has melted away completely, leaving it surrounded by sea. It’s discoverer named the newly isolated spot “Warming Island.”
Main Source: The Independent

Somalia transitional government troops have clashed with clan members in the southern port of Kismayu, where government soldiers were reportedly pushed to the edge of the town. Residents count up to 15 killed by the fighting. In Mogadishu, at least 37 more people were killed and locals say casualties are steadily increasing as Ethiopian forces are attacking civilians indiscriminately. This week's fighting alone has displaced at least tens of thousands of people. Mogadishu hospitals are full and short on bandages, but victims keep pouring in.
Main Source: Aljazeera

Microsoft has responded to EU regulators just hours before a deadline, but the panel is still considering millions of euros in daily fines if not satisfied with the company's response to charges of antitrust violations. In 2004, the European Commission fined the US company a record $674 million for abuse of its dominant market position through its Windows operating system. Microsoft has since failed to comply with simultaneous orders to divulge the protocols underpinning Windows to enable rivals to make compatible software.
Main Source: Agence France-Presse

The armed wing of the Palestinian movement Hamas terminated a 5-month truce with Israel on Tuesday as it claimed to have fired dozens of rockets in response to Israeli troops' killing of 9 Palestinians, including 2 teenagers, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza on Apr. 21–22. The deaths marked the bloodiest weekend in Israeli-Palestinian violence since the November truce. Hamas's barrage caused no injuries or damage but the Israeli government refused to rule out a retaliatory invasion, only saying that "all possibilities are being explored."
Main Source: Agence France-Presse

At least 33 Iraqis were killed in 4 suicide bombings across Iraq on Monday. The first bomber killed 10 people and injured another 10 in front of a police station. Another 10 people were killed by a bomber in Mosul. A suicide attack near the Green Zone killed 8 and severely injured 14 others. A blast in the same district killed a civilian, wounded 2 and set 22 cars on fire beside Iran's embassy. A suicide car bomber killed 9 US soldiers and injured more than 20 north of Baghdad in the deadliest attack on US ground forces for more than a year.

PM Nouri Al-Maliki ordered to stop the US’s construction of the wall that would isolate a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad from other areas, supposedly in order to safeguard the public. He espoused “other methods” of protection and alluded to its resonance with the despised Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank.

Main Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Mexico City lawmakers will vote today on whether to legalize abortion in the capital of the world's second-largest Roman Catholic country. The abortion law, likely to be passed by the city's left-leaning assembly, would apply only to the capital and limit the termination of pregnancies to the first trimester. Federal legislators also have filed a proposal in Congress for a national abortion law. Mexico City lawmakers have recently voted to allow gay civil unions and considered permitting euthanasia, but the abortion issue has split Mexico.

Supporters of abortion, who are well-represented in the capital, say 2,000 women die unnecessarily each year in Mexico – often poor women who have to resort to unhygienic “back alley” clinics. In Latin America, only Cuba, Guyana and US commonwealth Puerto Rico allow abortion on demand. Some nations like Mexico and Brazil permit it in special cases, including after rape, if the fetus has defects or if the mother's life is at risk.

Main Source: Reuters

Eight months after Israeli attacks devastated many villages in southern Lebanon, reconstruction comes with mounting anger toward both Israel and the central Lebanese government. The month-long war mounted by Israel mostly against Lebanon’ civilian population last summer destroyed many villages in the south, and left others badly damaged. But Lebanon’s central government has shown what locals in the South consider a distinct lack of concern. PM Fouad Siniora has failed to make so much as a token visit to the area.
Main Source: InterPress Service

Calls for a rerun of Nigeria’s presidential election on Saturday grew yesterday in response to another poll marked by ballot rigging, fraud and violence. The crisis threatens to destabilize one of the Africa’s biggest countries and casts doubts on the legitimacy of the next presidency due to begin on May 29th. Nigeria’s national election-observation group began the call for a rerun. Foreign observers uniformly called the elections illegitimate. One opposition leader, VP Atiku Abubakar, called for the annulment of the polls.

Citing early results, the ruling People's Democratic Party has claimed victory for its presidential candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua. Shortages of ballots, long lines, untrained election workers and charges of ballot-box stuffing all contributed to popular frustrations. At least 200 people were killed in election-related violence nationwide between April 14 and 21, European Union observers said Monday. Casualties included both police and candidates to the governorship elections held on April 14.

Main Source: The Independent

Also...

» At least 200 killed in Nigeria election violence  (Agence France-Presse)

» Observers, opposition slam Nigeria polls  (Associated Press)

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's rightwing former interior minister, last night stormed to one of the most impressive first-round victories in French presidential history, making him favorite to beat socialist Ségolène Royal to the Palace in next month’s run-off ballot. According to early official counts, he scored 30.5% of the vote. Royal, the first woman with a chance of becoming president, comfortably qualified for the second round run-off on May 6, with an estimated 25.7% of the vote, the highest for a Socialist since 1988.

Sarkozy, the head of France's ruling UMP party, emerged as the most-popular right-wing politician in 30 years after promising to introduce a mixture of free-market reforms and to restore "authority" with tough law-and-order measures, clamp down on immigration and instill a sense of "national pride." Royal has styled herself the defender of social justice who "listens to the people," challenging Sarkozy indirectly for his "brutal" style, divisiveness and "dangerous" authoritarianism.

Main Source: The Guardian

Gunmen methodically executed 23 members of the ancient primarily Kurdish Yazidi sect in northern Iraq on Sunday after stopping a busload of textile workers and allowing Christians to disembark. After the killings, hundreds of angry chanting Yazidis protested in the victims' town of Bashika, which is about 80% Yazidi. Police said the executions were in response to the killing 2 weeks ago of a Yazidi woman who converted to Islam after eloping with a Muslim. Her relatives had dragged her back to Bashika, where she was stoned to death.

Meanwhile, 2 suicide car bombs killed at least 20 people at a police checkpoint in a mixed Sunni-Shia area of Baghdad. The blasts collapsed buildings, smashed windows and peeled back metal roofs. Police said 8 civilians and 5 officers were killed and that 46 officers and 36 civilians were wounded. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a parked car bomb killed 7 civilians and wounded 42, police said. A roadside bomb then killed a police officer responding to the blast, wounding 2 others. In all, at least 72 people were killed or found dead in Iraq on Sunday.

Main Source: Associated Press

Oxfam and several other international aid agencies have said they are temporarily suspending their work in the Darfur town of Um Dukhun because of increased violence. The agencies said the decision would disrupt services to some 100,000 displaced Darfuris and refugees fleeing violence in Chad and Central African Republic. They said attacks on their operations had increased in the past 3 weeks, with a humanitarian convoy shot at and robbed and an aid agency security guard badly beaten in another attack.

A rebel group has said that government aircraft bombed the village of Amray in northern Darfur late on Sunday, killing at least 2 civilians. It said another village in the same area was bombed on Saturday, killing 2 women.

Main Source: Reuters

A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in the eastern Afghan city of Khost, killing 6 civilians and wounding nearly 50 others while police chased him. An earlier bombing at a Khost market killed a shopkeeper and injured 8 people, police said, describing the attack as a dispute between different tribes. A remote-controlled roadside bomb hit an Afghan intelligence service vehicle and killed all 4 people inside in the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam.

Southwest of Kabul, an intelligence service employee was invited into a home, then kidnapped and beheaded by the Taliban, officials said. In neighboring Paktia province, an ambush of a police patrol by suspected Taliban resulted in the deaths of 5 militants and a police officer.

Main Source: Associated Press

Criticism mounted yesterday over a wall US troops are building around a Sunni enclave surrounded by Shia areas in Baghdad, with residents calling it “collective punishment” and the local council leader saying the community did not approve the project before construction began. The US military says the wall in the minority Sunni community of Adhamiyah is meant to secure the neighborhood. Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maliki said on Sunday he had asked for an end to construction work on the wall. US forces say the wall should be complete soon.
Main Source: Associated Press

Shells pounded Mogadishu Saturday, killing at least 73 people to swell a death toll already at 131 for the week after battles pitting militias and Islamists against Somali and Ethiopian troops. At least another 51 people were killed Sunday in the capital, bringing the toll to more than 219 after 5 days of fighting. Witnesses said the count could be much higher as wounded and dead people lay in areas too dangerous to reach.

Residents said both sides were firing without regard for the consequences to civilians. One witness reported tanks and mortars firing “indiscriminately” into civilian areas. Hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed with casualties.

Main Source: The Independent

Also...

» 51 more killed as Somalia fighting rages  (Agence France-Presse)

An Army general’s report on the Haditha massacre says the US Marine Corps chain of command ignored “obvious” signs of “serious misconduct” in the 2005 slayings of 2 dozen civilians. Commanders fostered a climate that devalued the life of innocent Iraqis to the point that their deaths were considered an insignificant part of the war, according to the investigation. The report is scathing in its criticism of Marines’ actions, from the enlisted men involved in the shootings to the 2-star general who commanded the 2nd Marine Division at the time.

“All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics,” the report reads. “Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get ‘the job done’ no matter what it takes.”

Main Source: Washington Post

At least 20 people were killed in Mogadishu on Thursday as heavy artillery was used in residential areas. Witnesses reported bodies strewn along the street and people fleeing Ethiopian troop gunfire. Only fighters and men protecting their property remain in the city, aid workers say. The main route used by people fleeing Mogadishu has been closed after an Ethiopian convoy on the road was mined and a blast at a nearby military base on Thursday.

More than 200,000 people have fled their homes since US-backed Ethiopian troops helped the government oust an Islamist group from Mogadishu in December, the UN says. Most lack food and water and hundreds have already died from cholera and diarrhea. There are also claims that the transitional government has blocked aid distribution. Last month, more than 1,000 people were killed in the heaviest fighting since 1991. Ethiopian troops have started to withdraw but only 1,200 of the 8,000 replacement AU troops said needed have been deployed.

Main Source: BBC

NATO troops killed a 12-year-old girl and wounded a 2-year-old girl when shooting at a civilian vehicle in Afghanistan on Thursday, police said. US-led occupation and government forces claim to have killed 24 suspected Taliban fighters when ambushed in the Helmand province. NATO and Afghan troops have killed scores of alleged militants since launching an offensive last month intended to support Pres. Hamid Karzai's shaky government. The effort has been marred by mounting civilian casualties, caused by coalition forces as well as militants.
Main Source: Associated Press

A Sudanese rebel group has said a government air strike totally destroyed the village of Jemmeiza in northern Darfur on Thursday, inflicting unknown casualties and causing civilians to flee, with some gone missing. An army spokesman denied the accusations but a confidential UN report has said the government is using planes painted white to resemble UN aircraft to bomb and spy on Darfur villages. The UN also accused the Sudan government of flying weapons and other military equipment into the region in violation of Security Council resolutions.
Main Source: Reuters

A human-rights group has filed suit against Yahoo for allegedly providing information to the Chinese government that led to the persecution, torture and imprisonment of dissidents. The suit seeks damages for Wang Xiaoning, who is serving 10 years in prison after cops raided his home and repeatedly beat him in detention without informing his family of charges for distributing political journals and articles by e-mail through a Yahoo message group and later over the Internet anonymously. It also seeks to block Yahoo from similar future actions.

US technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems have drawn mounting criticism after admitting to Congress the policies enabling them to do business in the world's second-largest Internet market, which has at least 130 million users. Google is accused of blocking access to sites that the Chinese government deems sensitive. Cisco Systems has sold China equipment that authorities use to block access to such sites. Yahoo has come under fire for signing a pledge to abide by all censorship laws.

Main Source: LA Times

Even while bodies from Wednesday's record bombings lay unidentified in morgues across Baghdad, violence did not abate. A suicide bomber in another mostly Shia district killed at least 11 people and wounded 28, police said. The car bomb exploded next to a fuel tanker, setting fire to the truck. The death toll was expected to rise. Passers-by gawked at the giant crater left by one of 4 attacks on Wednesday and Baghdad residents described "charred dead bodies... still inside the twisted cars, some cars are still covered with ashes."

Other violence on Thursday included a police officer and a civilian killed and 5 other police injured when gunmen attacked a patrol northeast of Baghdad, an Iraqi soldier gunned down southeast of Baghdad and 7 employees of the state-run North Oil Company seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, police said.

Main Source: Associated Press

The Nigerian Army says it has shot dead 25 alleged members of an Islamist group accused of attacking a police station in the northern Muslim-majority city of Kano. A reporter witnessed several hundred residents fleeing the fighting, one of whom said "the entire place is under bombardment.” The police station attack killed 12 officers and a civilian and was believed to be a revenge attack for the killing of a radical Muslim cleric and 2 of his followers in a suburban Kano mosque last week.

Nigeria's 18 opposition parties have called for disbanding the national election commission and threatened to boycott this weekend's presidential elections, demanding the ballot be postponed until "transparency and fairness" can be ensured. The government of outgoing Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo immediately rejected the demand for a postponement. The opposition parties also called for the annulment of last Saturday's regional polls, which were slammed by international observers as being marred with fraud. The crisis has triggered violence that killed at least 20.

Main Source: Agence France-Presse

Canadian coast guards are trying to rescue the occupants of about 100 seal-hunting boats trapped in ice off the Newfoundland coast. Several of the boats are threatened with damage or sinking, some reportedly are running out of food and fuel, and at least one crew has abandoned ship. Fishermen have described conditions as the worst in more than 20 years. The hunt, described by activists as cruel and unnecessary, is currently in its third and largest stage. The Canadian Fisheries Dept. said 2/3 of the 270,000-seal quota had already been killed.
Main Source: BBC

Dozens of Mexican police and soldiers have stormed a Tijuana hospital where about 6 masked gunmen searched for a wounded accomplice, police and witnesses said. The 7-story facility evacuated hundreds of patients as a barrage of gunfire shattered windows and gouged walls around the emergency room. No patients or staffers were injured, but 2 police were killed and 5 suspects arrested. The gunmen apparently shot their way into the hospital to either rescue or kill a man wounded in an earlier gun battle with federal agents that killed another man.
Main Source: LA Times

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 US-led invasion. The bombings were by far the bloodiest in Baghdad since US and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown 2 months ago in an attempt to halt the country's slide into sectarian civil war. One car bomb near a market in the mainly Shia district of Sadriya killed 140 people and wounded 150, police said.

Wednesday's attacks killed a total of 191 people and wounded 250, police said. Witnesses said many of the dead were women and children. The apparently coordinated attacks –several within a short space of time – occurred hours after PM Nouri Maliki said Iraqis would take security control of the whole country from foreign forces by the end of the year. Authorities reflexively blame an entity they call Al-Qaeda for most of the major bombings targeting Shia in Iraq. There are fears the Mehdi Army militia, which has been standing down during most of the security crackdown, may take to the streets in retaliation.

Main Source: Reuters

The UN’s nuke watchdog says Iran has begun making nuclear fuel in an underground enrichment plant. A confidential note by the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran had started up more than 1,300 centrifuge machines in an accelerating campaign to lay a basis for "industrial scale" enrichment in the Natanz complex. The note also said Iran had stopped letting inspectors verify design work at the Arak heavy water reactor, under construction and scheduled for launching in 2009, but Agency inspectors visited Natanz this week.
Main Source: Reuters

The Sudanese government is flying weapons into Darfur and using them against the population, all in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, a confidential UN report says. The government used planes and choppers disguised as UN aircraft to bomb and carry out surveillance of villages in the violence-torn western region, said the report by a panel of 5 experts. The experts reported observing one such aircraft in Darfur bearing the letters "UN" on its wing, in addition to white helicopters. The report was accompanied by photographs.
Main Source: Reuters

Liberia would be allowed to resume diamond exports under a draft UN resolution introduced on Wednesday, ending a 6-year-old ban aimed at stopping so-called blood diamonds reaching the world market. The resolution, introduced at the Security Council by the US, applauded Liberia for setting up controls on its diamonds, which helped fuel a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003. The Council unanimously renewed the ban last December for 6 months, having found that Liberia remained unable to track diamond-mining activity within its borders.
Main Source: Reuters

After students and teachers noticed a putrid odor and stray dogs digging in the area, police in Ramadi, Iraq uncovered 17 decomposing adult corpses buried beneath 2 schoolyards in a district reportedly under Al-Qaeda control until recently. And in a sign that Shia death squads are on the move again after more than 2 months of quiescence, 25 bodies were found dumped in Baghdad on Tuesday; most had been tortured. The 3-day total, after several weeks of much-smaller numbers under a US-led security crackdown in the capital, was 67.
Main Source: Chicago Tribune

The UN World Food Program has said a shortage of donations has forced it to cut food rations for more than a million people uprooted by a vicious 2-decade civil war in northern Uganda. The WFP provides emergency food to 1.3 million people displaced by fighting between the government and Lord's Resistance Army rebels. Many are unable to till fields around their camps for fear of attack by marauding guerrillas.

The WFP was forced to reduce the individual food aid package for the displaced to just 40% of the minimum daily energy requirement, warning of an imminent rise in malnutrition figures, particularly for those under 5 years old. Those deprived of aid may be forced into unsafe areas in search of alternative sustenance, more children would drop out of school, and more women and girls would be forced into prostitution to survive, the agency warned. The WFP also said it had cut some food aid to 182,000 Sudanese refugees still in Uganda.

Main Source: Reuters

About 4,000 flag-waving Ukraine protesters backing Pres. Viktor Yushchenko's call for an early election delayed a Constitutional Court's examination of the decree before riot police forced them aside to allow 15 of the 18 judges into the courthouse to assess whether Yushchenko acted legally. Yushchenko, long at odds with PM Viktor Yanukovich over Ukraine's future direction, has dissolved the chamber and ordered the snap parliamentary election for May 27. The prime minister and his allies have asked the Constitutional Court to assess the decree.
Main Source: Reuters