Members of Pakistan's Shi'ite Hazara ethnic minority held protests in London and Hamburg over the past days, charging "genocide" against their people with the complicity of the Islamabad regime—and the silence of the international community. Under the slogan "Stop Hazara Genocide," leaders said that a network financed from Saudi Arabia and operating with the protection of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency has terrorized Hazaras with killings and suicide bombings on a near-daily basis for the past 10 years, especially naming the groups Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi—which has publicly threatened to turn Quetta (capital of Baluchistan province, where most of the country's 600,000 Hazaras live) into a graveyard of Shi'ites. “There is a heavy presence of the law-enforcement agencies in Quetta city but it is matter of great concern that Hazaras get killed on daily basis," said Ali Raza Mogul of London's Hazara Progressive Alliance. "The government has failed to catch terrorists." (AFP, The News, Pakistan, May 1)

In his surprise visit to Afghanistan May 1, President Barack Obama signed an agreement with President Hamid Karzai to maintain a major US military presence in the country through the end of 2014—and to allow an indefinite, significant but unspecified presence beyond that date. Obama stressed that no permanent US bases will be involved, but the agreement requires Afghanistan to let US forces use Afghan bases. According to the the White House press release on the new US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA):

Gunfire continued in Mali's capital Bamako for a third day May 2, as patrols under the command of the ruling junta hunt down soldiers who had tried to stage an counter-coup. Accounts are sketchy, but it appears units of the "Red Berets" presidential guard loyal to the ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure took up arms to displace the junta that overthrew him. BBC tells us shots were also fired into the air to break up a student protest—without saying what the students were protesting, or which faction they are aligned with. The counter-coup attempt comes as coup leader Cpt. Amadou Haya Sanago rejected plans by regional bloc ECOWAS to send a military force to the country, and for elections to be held within 12 months. (BBC News, RFI, May 2; AFP, AP, May 1) Human Rights Watch has meanwhile issued a report charging that the Tuareg rebels, Islamist armed groups, and Arab militias now in control of northern Mali have committed numerous war crimes, including rape, use of child soldiers, and pillaging of hospitals, schools, aid agencies, and government buildings. The report, issued April 30 after a 10-day fact-finding mission to Bamako, says Islamists have carried out summary executions, amputated the hand of at least one man, held public floggings, and threatened women and Christians.

The Occupy movement made an impressive return on May Day, with marches held in most cities around the US—although it was by no means the national "General Strike" it had been billed as. Some marches were marred by violence. In Seattle, a Black Bloc smashed windows and the glass doors of the city courthouse, while in Oakland police used tear gas to clear a downtown intersection that had been taken over by protesters. The violence came days after Robert Warshaw, a monitor appointed to review Oakland police conduct by a federal court following a suit over brutality 10 years ago, issued a report decrying the "overwhelming military-type response" to last fall's Occupy protests. Brief clashes with police were also reported from San Francisco and Los Angeles. But the worst debacle was in Cleveland, where media reported the May Day march was cancelled after five young men apparently involved in the Occupy movement were arrested by the FBI on charges of plotting to blow up the Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge. The Occupy Cleveland website appears to make no mention of the bust, but also no mention of any May Day protests.

The Libertarian Book Club,* New York City's oldest continuously active anarchist institution (founded 1946), kicks off a new season of its Anarchist Forum series as World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru where he was on assignment for The Progressive, speaks about the Quechua indigenous struggle against US-backed mining projects and in defense of land, water and autonomy in the Andes.

The Chamber of Deputies of the Haitian Parliament abruptly ended its session on April 17 when a group of armed men in uniforms entered the legislature's grounds in two vans. The men claimed to be former soldiers from the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd'H), which was officially disbanded in 1995 during the first administration of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). Chamber president Levaillant Louis Jeune refused to meet with the men and suspended the session. "It's a serious issue when a working parliament is besieged by armed bandits," he said. Groups of former soldiers have been seen since the beginning of the year carrying out exercises in various parts of the country, sometimes using old military bases and training camps; apparently the government has done nothing to interfere.

A 16-year-old Chilean youth was seriously wounded with metal pellets on April 20 when agents from the carabineros militarized police raided the indigenous Mapuche community of Temucuicui in the southern region of Araucanía. The youth, Lautaro Naín, was rushed to the city of Victoria for emergency treatment. According to Mijael Carbone, the community's werken (spokesperson), about 100 uniformed police burst into the village and began firing at houses. The Chilean Foundation in Support of Children and Their Rights (Anide) denounced "the violence exercised by the police forces against the Mapuche communities, a violence which once again has a child as its victim." The organization called for an end to police raids against Mapuche communities in Araucanía and for negotiations to end "the conflict created by the Chilean state by dispossessing the Mapuche communities of their ancestral land." The Mapuche Territorial Alliance (ATM) demanded the immediate removal of local prosecutor Luis Chamorro from investigations in the area, charging that he had an anti-Mapuche attitude and constituted "an obvious public danger." (Prensa Latina, April 22)

Wal-Mart de México's stocks fell by a total of 15.46% on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV, the Mexico City stock market) from April 23 through April 24 following a report in the New York Times that the company's US-based owner, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., had covered up a major bribery scandal in 2005. The Mexican branch of the giant retailer is the largest private employer in the country, with 2,138 outlets: 1,250 stores under the Aurrerá name, 214 Wal-Mart stores, 127 Sam's Clubs, 88 Superamas, 94 Suburbias and 365 restaurants. (La Jornada, Mexico, April 24: LJ, April 25)