Received by e-mail from UK Pledge of Resistance:

SUPPORT MALCOLM KENDALL SMITH
Yesterday, Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Flight Lieutenant with the RAF was jailed for 8 months for refusing to go to Iraq on the grounds that the war was illegal.

Is forgotten Mongolia about to enter the global stage? Suddenly civil unrest breaks out in the capital, Ulan Bator, with a struggle over mineral resources in the background. Dare we hope that the anti-government protesters represent an indigenous ecological movement and not (or at least not yet) mere pawns of Washington, Moscow or Beijing? From AP, April 11:

ULAN BATOR - Thousands of protesters from rival civic groups faced off in Mongolia's capital on Tuesday, as hundreds of police intervened to prevent minor scuffles from escalating.

More than a year after Kyrgyzstan's "Tulip Revolution," the supposed democratic renewal isn't looking too good, is it? President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, so recently a revolutionary leader, now warns against "lawlessness and anarchy" like a good despot. But is he Washington's son of a bitch now? Or are the neocons planning yet another revolution, deeming him insufficiently compliant? From Reuters, April 14:

From UPI, April 3:

HANIA, Greece — The director of the Mediterranean Architecture Center in Hania on the Greek island of Crete is incensed that all the center's security cameras have been stolen.

Two US Black Hawk combat helicopters were observed flying over the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti on at least two occasions in March: 4:00-4:30 AM on March 23 and 10 PM-12:00 AM on March 24. The flights, reported by Dominican military commanders in Duverge and Jimani, in the southwestern province of Independencia, alarmed the residents of several communities.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 49 Mexicans and two Salvadorans on March 30 and 31 in Merced County in central California. ICE said all those arrested had prior deportation orders. In at least two cases, ICE seized US citizen children off school buses before or after arresting their parents. In Firebaugh, two unmarked ICE vans pulled up alongside a school bus on the morning of March 31, said Brian Walker, superintendent of the Dos Palos Oro Loma Joint Unified School District. One van drove in front of the bus, forcing the driver to stop. Armed ICE agents boarded the bus and took three children away in a van. The concerned bus driver followed the vans to a home where he saw agents handcuffing people who appeared to be the students' parents, said Walker. In Merced, agents took two students from Franklin Elementary School off a bus after arresting their parents.

From the Wayne Madsen Report, via VHeadline.com, April 6:

In a replay of US naval maneuvers held during the time the Bush administration tried to unseat Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an April 2002 abortive coup, the US Navy is deploying a task force led by the USS George Washington to waters off the Venezuelan coast in "Operation Partnership of the Americas."

From AFP, April 6:

TWO British grandmothers are facing up to a year in prison after being arrested under new anti-terrorism legislation that outlaws protests at military bases, The Independent newspaper said today.