A car-bombing attack on the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party [in Makhmur] killed over fifty people [May 13]. The blast comes as the autonomous and relatively stable Kurdish region in Iraq is in the grips of a fit of terrorist violence. [Makhmur's mayor was among the dead.] [AlJazeera, May 13] The militant group "Islamic State in Iraq"—with alleged al-Qaeda leadership—has claimed responsibility for the attack. [Reuters, May 14]

During a visit to the US-allied United Arab Emirates [May 13], Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the withdrawal of all US troops from the Persian Gulf region. [Reuters, May 13] He also promised "severe retaliation" to any attack on Iran by the United States. [AlJazeera, May 14] Ahmadinejad's bluster comes as US and Iranian representatives look likely to meet in the coming weeks to discuss how to stabilize the precarious security situation in Iraq. [AlJazeera, May 13]

Two people were killed [May 14] in bomb blast in a marketplace [at Guwahati] in the restive northeastern state of Assam, where separatists continue to mount a violent insurgency. [AFP, May 14] Elsewhere in Assam, protests staged over the killing of a civilian by state security forces [in a counter-guerilla operation] prompted clashes between Assamese and "tribespeople," who attacked the protesters' barricades with sticks and bows and arrows. [The clashes in the town of Digboi left five dead, including two burned to death, and halted work at the local oil refinery.] [Reuetrs, May 14]

Afghan and Pakistani forces clashed and bombarded each other's border posts over the weekend, leaving 12 people dead. The fighting has been described as the worst in decades between the two prickly neighbors. Pakistani officials claim that the fighting was prompted by a misunderstanding between an Afghan and a Pakistani border post. Both governments and US and NATO representatives have met to resolve the dispute. [AFP, May 14] Despite the political intervention, three American and two Pakistani soldiers were wounded in subsequent firing that allegedly came from the Afghan side. [Reuters, May 14]

After initially denying reports of his death, Taliban spokesmen have now confirmed that Mullah Dadullah, their most public and prominent leader, has been killed in clashes with Afghan and Nato forces in the southern province of Helmand. [Al Jazeera, May 13] Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's military commander, had a bloody reputation earned through numerous alleged atrocities, including most famously the massacre of Hazaras – a Shia minority group – in the province of Bamiyan eight years ago. [The Telegraph, May 15]

At least 61 Haitian migrants drowned after their boat capsized as it was being towed by a police vessel near the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory about 125 miles north of Haiti, in the early morning of May 4. Officials said about 160 people were crowded on to the 25-30-foot Haitian sloop and that 78 were rescued; about 30 people are missing and presumed dead.

A federal grand jury in Newark, NJ, has been investigating charges that Cuban-born Luis Posada Carriles masterminded the bombings of hotels in Cuba in 1997 that resulted in the death of one Italian-Canadian tourist. The Miami Herald revealed on May 3 that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cuban government have been cooperating to an unusual degree on this investigation, with FBI agents traveling to Havana in the fall of 2006.

According to government figures, nearly 2,000 current and former employees of two sugar mills in the Chichigalpa region of northwestern Nicaragua suffer from chronic renal insufficiency (CRI), a fatal kidney disease. While the cause remains a mystery, a workers group puts the death toll at more than 560 employees of one of the mills alone over the past 30 years. Residents point to the chemicals used in sugar-cane fields at the San Antonio and Monte Rosa mills, which produce most of Nicaragua's sugar exported to the US. The mills deny responsibity, and say workers who sued the companies presented no scientific evidence.