An April 19 pre-dawn raid by the New York State Police and DEA agents on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton led to what law enforcement officials called the "dismantling" of "a major narcotics distribution network" on Long Island. Those arrested include eight residents of the Shinnecock Nation, as well as Awan Gumbs, son of tribal trustee Lance A. Gumbs, state police said. Vehicles, handguns, shotguns and rifles were seized, as well as marijuana, heroin, crack, drug paraphernalia, a computer and almost $2,000 in currency. The raid was the result of an investigation police said was opened at "a request from the Trustees of the Shinnecock Indian Reservation" in a letter to Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.

From LabourStart, UK:

Iran: Free Mahmoud Salehi now
On April 9, 2007, a commanding officer of the Saqez security forces appeared at Mahmoud Salehi's work and asked him to attend at the office of the prosecutor to negotiate with the governor and the prosecutor about this year's celebration of the international workers' day, which was being organized by Salehi and his colleagues. However, in the prosecutor's office, Salehi, the former President of the Bakery Workers' Association of the City of Saqez and a well-known labour activist in Iran, was told that the Kurdistan Appeal Court has reached the final verdict on his May Day 2004 case and that he has been sentenced to one year imprisonment and a three year suspended prison sentence. They immediately put Salehi under arrest.

Afghan troops tore down part of a new "anti-Taliban" fence being erected by Pakistan on the border between the two countries April 19, leading to an armed clash with Pakistani forces. An Afghan defense ministry statement said the fighting took place between the Afghan border town of Shkin and Angoor Adda in Pakistan's Tribal Areas. "Today at 9:30 AM the Afghan army moved to the area and removed the fence," the defence ministry statement said. "Pakistani troops fired on our forces, and the Afghan army returned fire." Islamabad said the clash started when Afghan troops fired on a Pakistani border patrol. Pakistani military spokesman Gen. Waheed Arshad, told the BBC that the clashes were unconnected with the fence, which in any case was deep inside Pakistani territory. No casualties have been reported by either side.

Canada has officially protested the sentencing a Canadian Uighur rights activist to life imprisonment in his native China. Huseyincan Celil was convicted on charges of "splitting the motherland" and participating in terrorist groups. Celil, who was born in China's Xinkiang autonomous region but won Canadian citizenship as a political refugee, was arrested in Uzbekistan and deported to China last May. Canadian officials have since been trying to gain access to him, and are angry that he had to appear at his trial—in the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court in Xinkiang—without a Canadian diplomat present. Canada also said it was concerned about claims that Celil had been tortured.

Protesters demanding a share of taxes from Bolivian natural gas field remain in control of the key Yacuiba plant that pumps gas to Argentina. The protesters freed some 50 police officers held hostage for over 20 hours, but have not surrendered the pumping plant operated by Transredes, a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. A spokesperson for Transredes told Reuters that company officials had to "run for their lives" and that protesters looted the site, destroyed documents and set several vehicles on fire. The government has sent hundreds of troops to the scene. The government says the plant continues to function despite the protest and that exports to Argentina have not been interrupted. The government, which moved to nationalize Bolivia's energy sector last year, appealed for calm and invited protesters to a meeting in the La Paz.

The recent media coverage of para-politics in Colombia may be the final nail in the coffin for a proposed US-Colombia free trade agreement. Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe, Bush’s strongest ally in the region, not only has an administration filled with people conspiring with right-wing death squads, but allegations are surfacing that his family members housed paramilitary groups on their land in the 1990’s. Colombia's paramilitary state has made the South American nation the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists. [Bloomberg, April 17]

Colombia's government announced April 18 an "experimental" cease-fire with the National Liberation Army (ELN) following talks in Havana. "The president has asked me to accept the ELN's experimental and temporary cease-fire proposal," Colombian peace negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo told reporters. But Restrepo added that the government is still demanding that the ELN concentrate its fighters in a geographic area as part of any longterm peace accord. Chief ELN negotiator Pablo Beltran said earlier in the week the group was willing to temporarily halt attacks, but that to gather its fighters in one place would be "suicide." (Reuters, April 18)

A court in Urumqi, the capital of China's restive Xinkiang autonomous region, has sentenced the son of exiled Uighur nationalist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Rebiya Kadeer to nine years in prison for secessionist activities. Ablikim Abdiriyim was found guilty of posting articles advocating secessionism on the Internet and related (nonviolent) offenses. (Radio Australia, April 18)