Accused al-Qaeda operative and former "enemy combatant" Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri pleaded guilty April 30 to charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after reaching a plea agreement federal prosecutors that may send him to prison for 15 years. Prosecutors said that al-Marri, a "sleeper operative" for al-Qaeda who arrived in the country on September 10, 2001, will admit to conspiring with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plan attacks on the US.

The right-wing hate circuit is reaping a windfall from the "Swine Flu" (Influenza A/H1N1) scare. Live links for each of these outbursts are provided by Associated Content, May 1:

Take for instance talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Jay Severin. Savage told his audience that people should have "no contact anywhere with an illegal alien."

Turkish warplanes again bombed PKK strongholds in northern Iraq on April 29 and 30 Anakara said. The new strikes targeted positions in the Zap and Avashin-Basyan region of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous zone, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) said in a statement on its Web site. "The targets ... have been hit effectively and with full accuracy," the statement said. There was no estimate of casualties.

Lawyers for two Guantánamo Bay detainees captured as juveniles called for their release April 29—the same day the UN Security Council held an open meeting on children in armed conflict. Lawyers for Canadian Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, who was 14 or 15 when he allegedly killed a US soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan, and Mohammed Jawad, who was 16 or 17 when he allegedly injured soldiers with a grenade, argued that their clients' detention violates the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, to which the US is a signatory.

Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón announced April 29 he has decided to initiate an investigation into torture allegations at Guantánamo Bay made by four former prisoners held at the facility. Garzón said he based his decision on statements from Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien, Jamiel Abdul Latiff Al Banna, and Omar Deghayes, who claim they were subject to various forms of physical and mental abuse during their imprisonment.

President Barack Obama reaffirmed April 29 his position that the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding amounts to torture and defended his decision to ban use of the technique. Speaking at a press conference marking his first 100 days in office, Obama again said that the US has "rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals by closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and banning torture without exception," affirming a statement from his inaugural address.

The Mexican military is failing to hold its members accountable for human rights abuses, according to a report released April 29 by Human Rights Watch (HRW). According to the report, the use of the military by President Felipe Calderón to combat drug cartels has resulted in human rights violations by soldiers, including killings, torture, rapes, and arbitrary detentions. The report states that these abuses have gone unpunished, with no convictions resulting from any investigations.

The mothers of three young women who were tortured, raped, and brutally murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in 2001 testified before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Santiago, Chile, this week. The families brought the case against Mexico on behalf of victims Claudia Ivette González, Esmeralda Herrera Monreal and Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, charging that the families of hundreds of murdered women and girls in Juárez have been denied their right to a trial. Mexico is also accused of violating the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Sanction and Eradicate Violence Against Women (1994 Belem Convention). The case is known as "Campo Algodonero," for the outlying area where the three women were killed, along with several others. (El Diario, Juárez, April 30; Santiago Times, Chile, April 27)