David Phinney writes for Iraq Slogger, May 31:

Rumors of labor trafficking and abuse have plagued building contractor now completing the $592 million Baghdad embassy building project, but a State Department Inspector General investigation reported finding nothing untoward. Now an IraqSlogger exclusive reveals previously unreported instances of appalling living conditions, abuse, and coerced labor, making clear that the allegations against the contractor managing the embassy project remain unresolved.

The "Awakening in Anbar" movement, which was started in the conflicted province by local tribes and Sunni insurgents opposed to al-Qaeda's attempts to impose its leadership, has now spread to all of the provinces bordering Baghdad and been officially renamed the "Awakening in Iraq." Over the past month, Awakening movements formed in Diyala and Salahadin, and, this week, the Babil Awakening was formed. Al-Qaeda in Iraq immediately targeted the leader of the Babil Awakening, Sheikh Obeid Al-Masoud, seriously wounding him and his wife in an attack in the city of Iskandaria. (The Weekly Standard, NPR, May 31)

Artillery shelling against the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon resumed on Friday, as fighting broke out between the army and Fatah al-Islam fighters. As tanks surrounded the camp, artillery struck the north and north-west entrances of the camp, gearing-up for a potential ground offensive to draw the 13-day standoff to a close. At least 12 people have been killed within the camp, along with two Lebanese soldiers. [AlJazeera, June 1]

From the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, June 1:

Israeli army fire kills two children in northern Gaza

GAZA -- Israeli soldiers stationed in northern Gaza Strip shot dead on Friday afternoon two Palestinian children, paramedics and eyewitnesses said.

Teachers from the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) clashed with capital police and elite Federal Preventative Police at blockades of the federal Government Ministry and the central offices of the national TV network Televisa in Mexico City May 31. The blockades were called to protest the reform now pending in Mexico's Congress of the State Workers Social Services and Security Institute (ISSSTE). Televisa was chosen as a target because the CNTE says its reportage has mis-represented their cause, and to demand that their statements be given air time. The protesters also demanded the nationalization of Televisa as well a halt to the proposed semi-privatization of the ISSSTE.

A prisoner has died in an apparent suicide at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the US military announced May 30. A statement by the US Southern Command said the inmate, a Saudi Arabian national, was found unresponsive and not breathing by guards, and attempts to revive him failed. Two Saudis and a Yemeni prisoner were found hanged in an apparent suicide at the camp in June last year. There were no details as to how the prisoner died. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has opened an inquiry into the incident. There are about 380 prisoners at the camp, some held for five years.

Turkish authorities have announed the seizure of weapons hidden on a Syria-bound train from Iran after Kurdish PKK guerillas derailed it with a bomb near the town of Genc in Bingol province. News reports said the weapons included 300 rockets and a rocket launch pad. Turkish authorities suspect Iran is using Turkey as a transit route to send arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, in a recent visit to Mogadishu, refused to give a date for Ethiopian troops to withdraw from Somalia, saying Somalia's transition government and civil society leaders had asked Ethiopia not to abandon the Somali people. (Shabeelle Media Network, May 29) Now reports are mounting that Somali troops are actually headed for Ethiopia. The pro-Islamist Somali website Somaaljecel reports that Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, his Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Mesfin agreed in talks at Mogadishu "that it is the interim Somali government's turn to help the Ethiopian government, which is planning to go into war with Eritrea soon." (Somaaljecel, May 26)