Niger's President Mamadou Tandja dissolved parliament May 25, a day after the constitutional court turned down his bid to extend his term. Tandja, 70, was elected in 1999 and had promised to quit at the end of his term later this year, but flipped, even trying to hold a referendum to confirm him for a third term, claiming wide support from Niger's people. In January, Niger set a December deadline for general elections. The opposition warns of a step towards dictatorship. (Afrol News, May 26)

Two people were killed, including a schoolgirl, and at least 12 injured in an explosion May 23 at a Roman Catholic church in Lalitpur, Nepal. No group claimed responsibility, but police said they suspect the Nepal Defense Army, a Hindu extremist group that seeks to restore Nepal's monarchy. The attack came just as parliament prepared to elect a new prime minister following the resignation of the Maoist leader Prachanda, who stepped down after his attempt to dismiss the army chief was blocked by the president May 3. Maoist lawmakers—many of them former guerillas— stormed Nepal's parliament May 18 to block a vote for a new prime minister. (BBC, May 23; CSM, May 18)

Pakistan's government has blamed Taliban militants for a bomb attack in Lahore that killed 23 people and left hundreds more injured. A group of gunmen shot at police officers before detonating a powerful car bomb, damaging buildings in the ISI spy agency complex. At least one ISI agent, 12 police officers and one child were reported killed in the attack. Rescuers are searching the rubble and warn that the death toll could still rise.

Aid officials, human rights workers and community leaders in Sri Lanka say Tamils are being driven out of areas in the northeast of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias. They charge the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages.

On May 21 Assistant US Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat told a Senate Finance Committee hearing that the administration of US president Barack Obama won't seek the approval of Congress for a free trade agreement (FTA) with Panama until the president has established a new "framework" for trade. "It's clear that trade agreements in the last few years have been much too divisive," Eissenstat said. "We want to make sure that Panama doesn't contribute to that divisiveness." This was a reversal from the administration's plan in March to push for early approval of the pact; the change followed a statement by John Sweeney, president of the main US labor federation, the AFL-CIO, opposing the Panama FTA.

On May 20 some 17,500 banana workers in Colombia's northwestern Urabá region ended a strike they began on May 8 over pay and benefits. The workers won an 8% wage hike for the first year of the two-year contract and a cost-of-living adjustment for the next year; this is based on the Consumer Price Index (IPC in Spanish), which is expected to rise by 5% or less this year. The strikers also won benefits including funds for housing, recreation and culture, a bonus, and pay for the days lost to the strike.

On May 20 the Mexican government's National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) announced that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 8.2% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period the year before. The next day Salomon Presburger, president of the Concamin business organization, told a Mexico City press conference that the country had already lost 300,000 jobs in 2009 and would probably lose a total of 600,000 during the year, half of them from the industrial sector, in which he expected a 12-13% contraction. He predicted that the numbers would be even worse when statistics come in on the effect of the H1N1 influenza ("swine flu"), which has caused at least 74 deaths to date, has reduced tourism and led many companies to shut down for a week in late April and early May.

Venezuela's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 0.3% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period the year before, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) reported on May 19. Miguel Carpio, an economist at Banco Federal CA in Caracas, projected a zero growth rate for the year. Finance Minister Ali Rodríguez attributed the situation to the global economic downturn, which has cut the price of Venezuelan oil from an average of $87 per barrel last year to an average $42 per barrel so far in 2009; oil accounts for more than 90% of the country's exports.