From the Center for Justice and Accountability via Haiti Action, May 22:

Brooklyn, NY — Today, the judge in the mortgage fraud case of former Haitian death-squad leader Emmanuel "Toto" Constant dropped Constant's plea bargain and ordered him to stand trial. If convicted, Constant could now face five to fifteen years in New York state prison.

International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced May 22 that a war crimes investigation will be opened into hundreds of rapes and other violations in the Central African Republic. The investigation concerns the conflict between the former regime of President Ange-Felix Patasse and rebel forces after a failed coup by current president Francois Bozize in October 2002, but the Court is also monitoring the ongoing war in the country's north.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) denied responsibility for the May 22 bomb attack that killed six and wounded up to 100 in the busy Ankara shopping district of Ulus. "We have no connection with the attack," the PKK said in a statement posted on the Firat news agency website, which has ties to the guerrillas. Turkish authorities initially said a suicide bomber carried out the attack, but that the use of A-4 plastic explosives points to the PKK. The PKK has used the explosive in the past, but typically does not carry out suicide bombings. (Hurriyet, Reuters, May 24)

The two main guerilla organizations in eastern Ethiopia's Ogaden region—the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)—say their forces have killed more than 150 government troops in joint operations this month. Ethiopian officials deny the claim. The OLF seeks autonomy for region's majority Oromo peoples, while the ONLF wants an independent state for ethnic Somalis in the region. Last month, the ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil installation, killing 65 Ethiopian and nine Chinese workers. (BBC, May 21)

Hundreds of Somalis who have fled violence in Mogadishu for the separatist enclave of Somaliland are unable to obtain aid from the UN as refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs), because the UN does not recognize the breakaway republic as independent, while the government of Somaliland is unwilling to compromise claims of independence by recognizing Somalis as IDPs. (AlJazeera, May 21)

Security forces are on high alert in India's Punjab state as Sikh religious leaders called a bundh (general strike) to protest what they say is blasphemy by a breakaway sect. Schools, markets, businesses and transportation were paralysed across Punjab May 22. Sikh protesters also clashed with police in neighboring Haryana state, leaving one dead and dozens injured. The controversy began after Gurmeet Ram Singh, leader of the multi-faith Dera Sacha Sauda, appeared in a newspaper advertisement dressed in the attire of revered Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the tenth and last Sikh guru. (Deccan Herald, AFP, May 3)

From the Global Information Network, May 21:

New York, NY — Mauritanian exiles living in New York filed a class action lawsuit today against Maaouya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, for the crimes committed during a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Black Mauritanians from 1989 to 1991. The lawsuit was filed in United States Federal Court by attorneys from the Refugee Defense Alliance.

Fourteen assassinations attributed to narco gangs were carried out May 20 in Mexico City, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Oaxaca. Additionally, federal army troops exchanged fire with 20 gunmen with AR-15 automatic rifles, bullet-proof vests and uniforms of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) at a checkpoint on the Apatzingán-El Alcalde road in Michoacán.