The Colombian Senate on May 19 approved a proposal to hold a referendum on amending the country's constitution to allow for a third presidential term. Passed by a vote of 62-5, the measure would allow current two-term Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to seek a third presidential term in 2010, although a similar proposal passed in the Chamber of Representatives last year would require Uribe to postpone a third term until 2014. The two proposals must be reconciled in a conference committee and be approved by the Constitutional Court before the referendum can take place.

The Bolivian Supreme Court of Justice opened the trial of former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada May 18 in connection with the deaths of 63 protesters in October 2003. Sanchez de Lozada and 17 other former government officials face "genocide" charges related to the repression, for which he faces 30 years in prison if convicted. Nine of the defendants were tried in absentia, including Sanchez de Lozada, who fled to the US after resigning from office in 2003. Warrants were issued for the missing defendants after they were found to be in contempt of court. Some 200 relatives of the dead gathered in hot sunshine outside the Supreme Court in the city of Sucre to demand justice. (Jurist, May 19; BBC News, May 18)

Some 50 relatives of a group of men ordered detained for 30 days in connection with the dramatic jailbreak at a high-security prison in Mexico's north-central Zacatecas state blocked the Zacatecas-Guadalajara highway for 30 minutes May 19, outside the local offices of the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) in Zacatecas City. They demanded to see the detained, who are being held incommunicado, and the evidence against them. Among the 44 detained is the former director of the Cieneguillas prison, Eduardo Román García. (El Financiero, Notimex, May 19)

US satellite photos released this week show Pakistan has expanded two sites crucial to its atomic program—apparently in an effort to bolster its nuclear arsenal. A report from the Institute for Science and International Security said the images reveal a major expansion of a complex near Dera Ghazi Khan. Photos of a second site near the garrison town of Rawalpindi suggested that Pakistan had added a second plutonium separation plant adjacent to the old one. (Radio Australia, AFP, April 21)

A judge in the US District Court of New Jersey dismissed a lawsuit May 19 brought by the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at the Rutgers School of Law alleging that former president George W. Bush violated Congress's constitutional power to declare war by initiating a preemptive war against the nation of Iraq.

Members of the US Senate on May 19 voted 90-6 to approve an amendment eliminating $80 million from pending legislation intended to fund the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. Introduced by Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and co-sponsored by five Republican senators, the measure prohibits using any funding provided by the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 to "transfer, relocate, or incarcerate Guantanamo Bay detainees to or within the United States."

A US military judge on May 19 granted a government motion to postpone hearings for Saudi Guantánamo Bay detainee Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi. Chief judge for military commissions Col. James Pohl granted the government's motion for a continuance until Sept. 24, reasoning that such a delay will permit the government to implement changes, complete the Detention Policy Review, and finish reviewing individual cases in a way that will serve the interests of justice.

Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled May 19 on the limits of detaining terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay who are not actual members of terrorist groups under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), rejecting the Obama administration's "substantial support" standard. The opinion rejected the government's argument that an individual who "substantially supports" a terrorist organization such as the "Taliban, al-Qaeda or an associated force" but is not a member can be detained pursuant to the AUMF.