On May 29, two days after Enbridge Inc. filed its application for the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline, over 500 northern British Columbia residents gathered in Kitamaat Village to oppose the controversial plan, which would bring oil supertankers to the BC coast. "Every day more and more people, from all walks of life, are coming together to stop this dangerous project. They are sending a very clear message: Enbridge oil spills will not be allowed to destroy our territory," said Gerald Amos, a Haisla councillor and an organizer of the event.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid AKA Saeed al-Masri, operational leader for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, was apparently killed in a US drone strike at the village of Boya near Miranshah, North Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas. A Qaeda statement, viewed as accurate by US officials, says the death was within the last two weeks. Al-Yazid, an Egyptian, was a founder of al-Qaeda and considered by US intelligence to be the organization's No. 3 leader, behind Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Yazid is thought to have inherited the number three post after his predecessor, Abu Ubaidah al-Masri, died of hepatitis in Pakistan. "His death will only be a severe curse...upon the infidels," al-Qaeda supposedly said in a statement issued to jihadist websites and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. (The Independent, June 1; NYT, May 31)

In a 5-4 decision in the Michigan murder case Berghuis v. Thompkins, the Supreme Court's conservative majority further eroded Miranda rights for criminal suspects June 1. Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion said that when Miranda warnings are properly given, a person wishing to invoke the right to remain silent must do so explicitly. The court overturned a ruling by the Sixth Circuit appeals court, which held that the defendant's nearly three-hour silence in response to questioning constituted a desire not to waive his rights. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent, said the decision "turns Miranda upside down."

The UN Security Council on June 1 called for a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation" into the previous day's raid by Israeli commandos on an aid flotilla bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip in which 10 civilians on a Turkish ship were killed. Reaffirming two earlier resolutions calling for a two-state solution (Resolution 1850) and unimpeded humanitarian assistance (Resolution 1860), the Council urged Israel to allow other nations to retrieve their wounded and deceased and to ensure delivery of the aid materials aboard the ships.

Rural villagers are using hoes and pick axes to hunt for victims of landslides that have killed at least 179 people in Central America after the season's first tropical storm, dubbed "Agatha." Thousands remain homeless and many are still missing. Rescue crews are struggling to reach isolated communities to distribute food and water. The heaviest toll is in Guatemala, where authorities report 152 dead with 100 people still missing. In Chimaltenango department, landslides buried rural indigenous communities and killed at least 60 people. In Guatemala City, a massive sinkhole swallowed an entire intersection, gulping down a clothing factory although causing no casualties. (AP, May 31)

Edmond Mulet, acting head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 9,000-member international military force, issued an apology on May 25 for an incursion by a group of Brazilian soldiers the day before into the Faculty of Ethnology at the State University of Haiti (UEH) in downtown Port-au-Prince. The soldiers arrested a student, Frantz Mathieu Junior, claiming he threw stones at them; they released him later the same day. Students responded to the invasion by burning tires and throwing rocks.

On May 25 US president Barack Obama signed into law a measure intended to promote renewed development of the low-wage apparel assembly industry in Haiti. The Haiti Economic Lift Program (HELP) Act of 2010, introduced in Congress on April 28 by a bipartisan group of representatives and senators, extends through 2020 several existing laws giving tariff preferences for apparel stitched in Haiti: the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) and the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Engagement Acts of 2006 (HOPE Act) and 2008 (HOPE II).

In an interview on Spanish CCN broadcast May 19, Honduran president Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa agreed that the removal of former president José Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) from office on June 28, 2009 was a coup d'état. "Of course, put it how you will, but it was a coup," Lobo Sosa said when CNN's José Levy asked if the removal was a coup. But the Honduran president, in Madrid for a May 18 trade summit of European Union and Latin American leaders, justified the removal. "Democracy did not have sufficient mechanisms to guarantee its maintenance," he said. During his election campaign last year, Lobo Sosa avoided characterizing the June 28 action. Supporters of Zelaya's ouster generally have insisted that it was constitutional and not a coup. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog, May 22; La Vanguardia, Honduras, May 21)