After raiding Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park and killing a wildlife officer, the Mayi-Mayi militia are threatening to slaughter rare mountain gorillas, officials said. The attackers looted the three sites—research stations and tourism camps—seizing arms and communications equipment. Thirteen park workers were also briefly held hostage. According to WildlifeDirect, an organization involved in conservation at Virunga, the area attacked is only two hours walk from a unique and isolated population of gorillas. The park is home to half of the 700 mountain gorillas that remain in the world. "This was an unprovoked attack on our Rangers and other wildlife officers who protect Virunga’s wildlife," Virunga’s park director Norbert Mushenzi said in a statement distributed by WildlifeDirect. "And the Mayi-Mayi said that if we retaliate, they will kill all the gorillas in this area." (Reuters, May 23)

From Newsday, May 22:

18 Hours, Three Fatals
It was a treacherous 18-hour span in which three people died in separate crashes on Long Island's highways — and one family survived an ordeal on the LIE.

Declaring fires set at a police station, an SUV dealer and a tree farm were acts of "terrorism," US District Judge Ann Aiken May 23 sentenced former Earth Liberation Front militant Stanislas Meyerhoff to 13 years in prison. Judge Aiken commended for informing on his fellow arsonists after his arrest, saying he had the courage to "do the right thing." But he said: "It was your intent to scare and frighten other people through a very dangerous and psychological act – arson. Your actions included elements of terrorism to achieve your goal."

Talk about non-news. The Democratic majority, after all their hot air, agrees to drop a timetable for troop withdrawal from the war funding bill. The only real news here is how thoroughly the Republicans have set the terms for the debate. Writes the New York Times, May 24: "Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting."

Farmers in southern Iraq are turning to opium cultivation for the first time, the Belfast Telegraph reports. Traditional rice farmers along the Euphrates, outside the southern city of Diwaniya, have now abandoned rice—for which the area is famous—in favor of poppies. The well-irrigated lands around the towns of Ash Shamiyah, al Ghammas and Ash Shinafiyah are controlled by Shi'ite militias and the government has little control there.

Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops have traded in gold and sold weapons to Congolese militia groups they were supposed to be disarming, according to a BBC report. These militia groups were guilty of some of the worst rights in during the Democratic Republic of Congo's long civil war. The trading went on in 2005 around the mining town of Mongbwalu, in northeastern Congo—the scene of brutal fighting between the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups. A UN investigative team sent to gather evidence was obstructed and threatened, the report charges. The team's report was finally suppressed by the UN itself to "avoid political fallout."

Egyptian authorities detained 39 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Eleven were arrested May 20 in the southern province of Beni Sueif on charges of holding "a secret meeting." Fourteen more were detained in dawn raids May 21 in the province of Sharqiyah, including Abdel Aziz Abdel Qader, who heads the group's Sharqiyah office. The move comes as Egypt closes the door for candidate nominations for next month's upper house parliamentary elections. (AlJazeera, May 21) The Brotherhood is officially banned, but its leaders are sometimes allowed to run for office as independents.

Pakistani security forces clashed with militants at an al-Qaeda camp near the Afghan border May 22, leaving at least three dead. Maj.-Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said that after receiving reports about the training camp in North Waziristan, tribal elders were sent in to tell its leaders to shut it down. They came under fire, triggering a gun battle. "Security forces returned the fire and are in the process of clearing the miscreants' training facility," the military said in a statement. (AlJazeera, May 22)