From the New York City environmental group Time's Up, May 29:

NYPD Issues "Parading Without a Permit" Summons on City-Advertised Critical Mass Ride
Ride was listed on Bike Month Calendar financed by Department of Transportation
Last Friday, May 25th, NYPD issued at least 7 tickets for parading without a permit to cyclists at the Critical Mass ride. The majority of the tickets were issued to cyclists even before they left Union Square, the meeting point of the ride. Tickets were also issued to cyclists just walking their bikes out of the park. The May 25th Critical Mass ride was advertised in the Bike Month calendar financed by the NYC Department of Transportation.

At least 16 were killed and 67 injured in two attacks in the eastern Ethiopia towns of Jijiga and Degah Abur May 28. Up to 11 were killed when a hand grenade was thrown as hundreds of people gathered at a stadium in Jijiga. Regional president Abdullahi Hassan was wounded as he spoke at a ceremony to mark the 1991 overthrow of Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. The Ethiopian government blamed the attack on the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). Adurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, the ONLF's spokesman in London, denied the claim. "Our policy is not to attack civilian targets or Jijiga," he told Reuters. "The ONLF attacks military targets only." (AlJazeera, May 28)

At least 13 people were killed and more than 32 wounded in Shiberghan, capital of Afghanistan's northern Jowzjan province, when police opened fire to break up a protest against governor Juma Khan Hamdard on May 28. Provincial spokesmen said protesters hurled stones and police fired to stop them from raiding government offices. Provincial authorities also said the casualties were caused by the protesters, who were armed supporters of supporters of northern warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum. (AlJazeera, May 28)

From Reporters Without Borders via AllAfrica, May 25:

Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of Abdel Fettah Ould Ebeidna, managing editor of the daily newspaper "Al-Aqsa", who was sent to prison in Nouakchott on 24 May 2007 because of a libel complaint against him by a businessman.

US and Iranian diplomats met in Baghdad for their first formal direct talks in more than a quarter of a century May 28, to discuss the security situation in Iraq. Washington's ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker called the proceedings "businesslike." (LAT, May 28) Meanwhile in Iran, authorities summoned the Swiss Ambassador Philippe Welti to complain that a US espionage network organizing sabotage and subversion campaigns has been discovered.

Since his election as Nicaragua's president last November, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has pledged to end his country's participation in the IMF, weighed in for Iran's right to nuclear power, and announced new drives for rural literacy and development. Our May issue featured the story "The Return of Plan Puebla-Panama: the New Struggle for the Isthmus" by WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg, noting how Nicaragua has become pivotal in a race between two regional development plans for Central America: the US-backed PPP, which aims at building the infrastructure to facilitate CAFTA; and the populist Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), pushed by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Tensions are rapidly escalating between Nicaragua and the US allies in the region—Honduras, Costa Rica and, most significantly, Colombia. We also featured the retrospective "Sandinista Redux: Nicaragua Sticks It to Tio Sam —Again!" by Michael I. Niman of Art Voice weekly in Buffalo, NY, which looked back at the US destabilization campaign against Nicaragua the last time Ortega was in power in the 1980s. Our May Exit Poll was: "Were you obsessed with Nicaragua in the '80s? Are you feeling nostalgic since Daniel Ortega's resumption of power? C'mon, tell the truth." We received the following responses:

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez called on Pope Benedict XVI to apologize to the indigenous people of Latin America for his comments on the evangelization of the region. During an official visit to Brazil last week, the Pope defended the evangelization of the indigenous people of Latin America, claiming that Christianity had not been "imposed" upon them. Chavez disputed this in a speech Friday night, calling on his nation to challenge the old capitalist hegemony and create a new society.

Busloads of people surrounded the Salvador del Mundo monument in front of the Canadian Embassy in San Salvador today to protest the Canadian Government’s role Central American mining, and specifically in the 29 mining projects currently active in El Salvador. The event was the culmination of the Central American Alliance against Metallic Mining conference held last weekend in Cabañas, El Salvador, where the Canadian "Pacific Rim" company is currently operating.