Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region as the lean season gets underway. Altogether some 284,000 Malians have fled the north according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 107,000 of them thought to be displaced within Mali; 177,000 in neighbouring countries. New arrivals have pushed refugee numbers to 56,664 in Burkina Faso and to 61,000 in Mauritania, and to 39,388 in Niger, according to UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) . These governments are already struggling to get aid to millions of their inhabitants, who are facing hunger due to drought. Fleeing Malians have told the UNHCR they want to avoid getting caught up in possible conflict if government soldiers or foreign troops intervene in the north.

A new Human Rights Watch report charges that Syrian government forces killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in northern Idlib governorate shortly before the current "ceasefire" took effect. The occurred in late March and early April, as UN special envoy Kofi Annan was negotiating with Damascus to end the fighting. (HRW, May 2) Fighting of course continues despite the supposed "ceasefire," and the Turkish government warned May 2 that clashes are once again approaching the border zone between the two countries. Syrian government forces clashed with a group of army defectors who supposedly tried to seize territory near the Turkish border. Recalling the April 9 incident in which Syrian government forces fired on a refugee camp across the border at Oncupinar, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week invoked a threat of NATO intervention, warning: "If border violations continue in a way that disturbs us, we, as a member of NATO, will take the necessary steps." (AP, May 3; The National, UAE, May 2)

Members of Pakistan's Shi'ite Hazara ethnic minority held protests in London and Hamburg over the past days, charging "genocide" against their people with the complicity of the Islamabad regime—and the silence of the international community. Under the slogan "Stop Hazara Genocide," leaders said that a network financed from Saudi Arabia and operating with the protection of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency has terrorized Hazaras with killings and suicide bombings on a near-daily basis for the past 10 years, especially naming the groups Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi—which has publicly threatened to turn Quetta (capital of Baluchistan province, where most of the country's 600,000 Hazaras live) into a graveyard of Shi'ites. “There is a heavy presence of the law-enforcement agencies in Quetta city but it is matter of great concern that Hazaras get killed on daily basis," said Ali Raza Mogul of London's Hazara Progressive Alliance. "The government has failed to catch terrorists." (AFP, The News, Pakistan, May 1)

Gunfire continued in Mali's capital Bamako for a third day May 2, as patrols under the command of the ruling junta hunt down soldiers who had tried to stage an counter-coup. Accounts are sketchy, but it appears units of the "Red Berets" presidential guard loyal to the ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure took up arms to displace the junta that overthrew him. BBC tells us shots were also fired into the air to break up a student protest—without saying what the students were protesting, or which faction they are aligned with. The counter-coup attempt comes as coup leader Cpt. Amadou Haya Sanago rejected plans by regional bloc ECOWAS to send a military force to the country, and for elections to be held within 12 months. (BBC News, RFI, May 2; AFP, AP, May 1) Human Rights Watch has meanwhile issued a report charging that the Tuareg rebels, Islamist armed groups, and Arab militias now in control of northern Mali have committed numerous war crimes, including rape, use of child soldiers, and pillaging of hospitals, schools, aid agencies, and government buildings. The report, issued April 30 after a 10-day fact-finding mission to Bamako, says Islamists have carried out summary executions, amputated the hand of at least one man, held public floggings, and threatened women and Christians.

The Libertarian Book Club,* New York City's oldest continuously active anarchist institution (founded 1946), kicks off a new season of its Anarchist Forum series as World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru where he was on assignment for The Progressive, speaks about the Quechua indigenous struggle against US-backed mining projects and in defense of land, water and autonomy in the Andes.

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called on April 30 for a new intifada to support Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, who started a mass hunger-strike two weeks ago. The Hamas premier urged Arab and Muslim nations to intervene to support detainees, in remarks at a rally for prisoners in Gaza City. The prime minister challenged human rights groups to "break their silence" and demand freedom for all Palestinians held in Israel. More than 4,000 Palestinians are currently imprisoned in Israel—around 320 of them without any charge. On April 17, marking Palestinian Prisoners Day, at least 1,200 prisoners in Israel launched an open-ended hunger strike, with prisoner groups estimating that 2,000 people are now refusing food. They are demanding improvements in living conditions, and an end to solitary confinement, night raids and bans on family visits for prisoners from Gaza. Prison authorities have responded by denying all striking inmates family visits, and separating them from the inmates not taking part in the protest. (Ma'an News Agency, April 30)

An Islamist group calling itself "al-Nusra Front" claimed responsibility for the latest suicide bombing in Damascus—which killed 11 at the city's Zain al-Abideen mosque during Friday prayers April 27. Although it seems two worshippers were among those killed, the assailant blew himself up amid members of the security forces who were gathered outside the mosque, which is popular with Sunni opponents of the Assad regime and has gained a reputation as a launch site for protests. Scores of government troops are now routinely mobilized to the mosque on Fridays. In a statement posted on the Islamist web forum al-Shamukh, the previously unknown al-Nusra also claimed responsibility for a January suicide bombing in the same Damascus district of Midan, and other bombings in Damascus and Aleppo. It said Friday's bombing targeted the "aggressors who surround the houses of God" to attack worshippers after weekly prayers. (Reuters, April 29; IBN, Vatican Radio, April 28; NDTV, April 27)

The Chinese firm Camc Engineering (CAMCE) was awarded the contract to build a major oil facility on Nicaragua's Pacific coast—a key project of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). The contact was announced in a Managua press conference April 27 by representatives of CAMCE and ALBA Nicaragua SA (ALBANISA). The complex to be built at Miramar outside Puerto Sandino, León department, is a centerpiece of the Venezuela-led ALBA, but has languished since being first announced in 2007. The facility will have a storing capacity of 1.8 million barrels of oil, and a processing capacity of 150,000 daily barrels. In addition to a refinery, it will include 15 tanks for fuel oil, diesel, jet-al (aviation fuel), gasoline and liquid gas. It is projected to double Nicaragua's oil intake capacity, as well as supplying other Central American nations. Venezuelan engineers will help oversee construction. (Inside Costa Rica, April 28; La Voz de Sandinismo, April 26; Downstream Today, Oct. 25, 2011)