Unregistered Afghan refugees face an uncertain future after the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) announced it will discontinue the repatriation program April 15, the same day that the Pakistani government had set as the deadline for all unregistered refugees to return home. Last year more than 2.15 million Afghan refugees received registration cards from the Pakistani government recognizing them as legally residing in Pakistan until December 2009. After this date, the Pakistani government says it will consider unregistered Afghans to be illegal immigrants, and that there will be no extension of the deadline.

A new Human Rights Watch report, "The Human Cost," accuses the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and other insurgent groups of war crimes in Afghanistan. Joanne Mariner, HRW's terrorism and counter-terrorism director, said in a statement: "Suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks have risen dramatically since 2005, with almost 700 civilians dying last year at the hands of the Taliban and other insurgent groups. The insurgents are increasingly committing war crimes, often by directly targeting civilians. Even when they're aiming at military targets, insurgent attacks are often so indiscriminate that Afghan civilians end up as the main victims." (AlJazeera, April 16)

Late at night on April 5, a permenant protest vigil (plantón) outside the government palace in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, was attacked without warning and borken up by the state police. The vigil, organized by the San Luis Potosí State Front of Social Movements and Organizations (FEMOS) had been ongoing for several days to demand a halt of mining operations by the company Mineria San Xavier. Pedro Rebolloso and several other protest leaders were arrested on what the organizers call false charges. (Colectivo Nuevo Huachichil via Enlace Zapatista, April 11; La Jornada San Luis, April 6) On April 15, some 30 organizations joined for a "mega-march" in the state capital to demand the release of the prisoners and a halt to the mining operations. (La Jornada San Luis, April 16)

On April 14, a group of gunmen opened fire with small arms on Rufino Juarez Hernandez, director of the Triqui Region Social Welfare Union (UBISORT) in Putla de Guerrero, Oaxaca. Hospitalized with a leg wound, Juarez named as intellectual author of the attack Heriberto Pazos Ortiz, director of the rival Triqui Movement for Unification and Struggle (MULT). MULT is linked to the Popular Unity Party (PUP), while UBISORT is linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). (La Jornada, April 15)

Hussein Aideed, a veteran Somali warlord who is now deputy prime minister of the transitional government, accused Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu of committing "genocide" since arriving in December. Ethiopia dismissed the comments as an absolute fabrication. Hundreds of residents have been killed and thousands forced to flee since Ethiopian troops arrived in the Somali capital at the transition government's invitation. Aideed, an influential leader of the Hawiye clan, many of whose members are joining the armed resistance. (BBC, April 13)

Scott Ritter has been wrong before, but The Nation is still enamored of him. Robert Scheer has also been wrong before. Now they team up for a little collaborative error. In an April 13 piece on Scheer's TruthDig, "The Final Act of Submission," Ritter once again displays his right-wing nationalist colors, scapegopating the usual suspects for Washington's misadventure in Iraq. His charming closing lines:

For the first time since his tour stop in Matamoros in December, Subcommander Marcos of the Zapatista rebels arrived back on Mexico's US border April 11. Traveling with 10 Zapatista comandantes from Chiapas, Marcos stopped at the desert village of Magdalena de Kino in Sonora state to meet with leaders of the Tohono O'odham (Papago) indigenous people, whose territory is intersected by the international line. The Zapatistas are en route to El Mayor Peace Camp in neighboring Baja California. Marcos said he will return to Magdalena de Kino within two weeks to announce plans for the Intercontinental Indigenous Conference, slated for northwest Mexico in the fall of 2007. (Narco News, April 11) When Marcos was in Magdalena de Kino last October, he briefly crossed into the USA.

Florentin Melendez, president of the Interamerican Human Rights Commission (CIDH), in Mexico on an official visit, registered protest on the Mexican government's policy for indigenous peoples. He said the pre-NAFTA reform of the Mexican constitution's Article 27, allowing privatization of collective lands, has had a "destructive" effect on indigenous culture. He especially cited the example of Chiapas, where the "individual parcelization" of collective lands has broken up comunities, left many without land, and sparked a violent struggle over conflicting claims. (APRO, April 12)