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)

Syria distanced itself May 22 from the Islamist militants battling Lebanese army troops for control of Tripoli's Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. "We renounce Fatah al-Islam," said Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. "Members of the group are wanted by the Syrian security services. This group serves neither the Palestinian cause nor the interests of the Palestinian people." The group's Palestinian leader Shaker al-Abssi slipped into Lebanon last year after serving three years in a Syrian prison. Lebanese officials accuse Damascus of backing Fatah al-Islam to stir up trouble in Lebanon. Said MP Walid Jumblatt: "The Nahr al-Bared camp is hostage to Fatah al-Islam, which is a terrorist gang that has been exported towards us from Syria."