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)

The US Justice Deparment April 12 obtained an emergency order from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans barring the imminent release of Cuban right-wing militant Luis Posada Carriles. The move came after Posada's family in Miami posted the balance of a $350,000 bond with the federal court in El Paso, where he faces trial on immigration fraud charges.

The problem is a lot bigger than a dangerous intersection in Brooklyn, folks. From Newsday, April 12:

DOT under fire about its pedestrian safety plans
The Brooklyn intersection where 3-year-old James Jacaricce was struck and killed by a car last February was just a few blocks away from where two fifth-graders died the same way in 2004.

From The Guardian, April 9:

Five Turkish punk rockers and their agent face up to 18 months in jail for insult after a bureaucrat took offence at their song criticising the country's unpopular university entrance exam.

India successfully tested an Agni III missile April 12, capable of launching a 300-kiloton nuclear warhead across 3,000 kilometers—a dramatic increase on prior missile systems principally designed to strike at Pakistan. The missile was launched from Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal off the Orissa coast. An earlier test last July had failed to reach its target. Defense Minister A.K. Anthony boasted: "India has matured in the missile technology area and [is] definitely at par with many other developed countries." (AP, April 12)

One of Iraq's main insurgent groups has confirmed a split with al-Qaeda, according to a spokesman for the dissenting organization. Ibrahim al-Shammari told AlJazeera TV that the Islamic Army in Iraq decided to break from al-Qaeda in Iraq after its members were threatened. "In the beginning, we were dealing with Tawhid and Jihad organisation, which turned into al-Qaeda in Iraq," he said, his identity hidden for security reasons. "Specifically after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died, the gap between us [and al-Qaeda] widened, because [they] started to target our members... They killed about 30 of our people, and we definitely don't recognize their establishment of an Islamic state—we consider it invalid.""

Army harassment is reported at both of the ecological reserves recently declared by the Zapatista rebels at opposite ends of Mexico—one at Cerro Huitepec in the southern Chiapas Highlands; the other at El Mayor, Baja California, just south of the US border. In both cases, Mexican and international volunteers have established "peace camps" in support of the local indigenous peoples seeking to reclaim their rights to sustainable use of the lands. In Chiapas, the local Fray Bartoleme de Las Casas Human Rights Center issued a statement protesting incursions into the Cerro Huitepec reserve by army vehicles. (La Jornada, April 7)