It is a sign of just how far things have deteriorated in Mali that weeks after Tuareg rebels seized the northern half of the country—with its precious uranium deposits—no move has been made by the central government to try to take it back. What happened to the multinational intervention that was supposedly being planned? Some possible explanations for the delay: 1. They are waiting for the French elections to be over with, and to see if Paris will be as eager for military action after Sarkozy's now seemingly inevitable defeat; 2. They are waiting for the MNLA to consolidate greater control of the territory, sparing the central government, France and ECOWAS the trouble of putting down the Islamists; 3. The central government doesn't really exist.

UN agencies in the occupied West Bank said April 22 that Israel last week destroyed 21 homes of Palestinian Bedouin refugees—leaving 54 people homeless, including 35 children. A joint statement from the refugee agency UNRWA and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs condemned the April 18 demolition of the structures at Khalayleh north of Jerusalem, along with the removal the same day of refugees from two houses in East Jerusalem's Beit Hanina neighborhood. Ma'an News Agency reported that Jewish settlers moved into the homes the same day. A day later, Israeli forces demolished and confiscated emergency tents provided to the evicted Khalayleh families by humanitarian organizations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Relief and Works Agency said in a joint statement.

It's hard to imagine it could come to a shooting war in this age of economic interpenetration, but both sides are sure acting like they're itching for one. Weeks after Obama announced what the media have dubbed the Pentagon's "return to Asia" (we call it a New Cold War with China), Russia and China team up for joint naval maneuvers in the Yellow Sea, northern inlet of the East China Sea. (See map.) Simultaneously, the US and Philippine navies hold their own joint exercises in the South China Sea, a drill dubbed "Balikatan," meaning"shoulder-to-shoulder" in the Tagalog language. Both dills involve multiple warships and thousands of troops. The Sino-Russian drill is being carried out under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional body established after the Soviet collapse to counter-balance the US presence in Asia and the Pacific.

A man was found dead April 21 after overnight clashes between the pro-democracy protesters and police in Bahrain, as the Formula One Grand Prix car-racing spectacle is set to open in the conflicted Persian Gulf mini-state. Some media reported the man had been beaten to death by riot police, while other said there were gunshot wounds on his body. Claiming Friday the 20th as the first of "three days of rage" against Bahrain's rulers, some 50,000 anti-government protesters gathered in the capital Manama, 25 miles away from the Formula One site. Demonstrators called for the "overthrow of the regime" and demanded freedom for the dissident Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who has been on hunger strike in prison for more than 70 days. Police fired tear gas and sound bombs to disperse the crowds. The protest movement has called a boycott of the Grand Prix, but Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa rules out cancelling the event, saying such a move would only "empower extremists." (AllVoices, April 21)

South Sudanese forces retreated from the oil-producing enclave of Heglig on April 20, as northern forces moved in. Khartoum portrayed it as a military victory, while South Sudan said it has ordered its forces out. "The Republic of South Sudan announces that SPLA troops have been ordered to withdraw from Panthou [Heglig]," said South Sudan's information minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin. "An orderly withdrawal will commence immediately, and shall be completed within three days." In the wake of the fighting, Sudanese President Omar Bashir announced that he will not allow the South to export any oil through the cross-border pipeline. "We don’t want fees from the oil of South Sudan and we will not open the pipeline," Bashir told thousands of supporters at a Khartoum rally. "There is no oil from South Sudan that will pass through our pure land, so that not one dollar goes to these criminals." Referring to the South Sudanese as "insects," he accused them of backing rebel movements in the north's territory: "We tell the president of insects Salva Kiir, your forces left through force and did not withdraw from Heglig and our men entered it by force and your aggression is continuing in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan..." (Sudan Tribune, April 21)

An elderly man set himself on fire as a protest in Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh on April 15, and died of his injuries later in a hospital. The incident is being portrayed as a "protest against protests"; he apparently left a note calling on the Central Asian republic's citizens "to stop constant protest actions" and respect the country's leadership. The city is near the border with Uzbekistan, and has seen ongoing rival demonstrations since a wave of deadly clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 2010. Kyrgyzstan's government has been trying to remove acting mayor Melis Myrzakmatov since the clashes, fearing his Kyrgyz ethno-natoinalist politics are fueling unsrest. His followers have repeatedly rallied in his support, with ethnic Uzbeks holding counter-demonstrations. According to official data, over 3,000 protests took place in the country in 2011; a major mobilization was held in the south this March, with Myrzakmatov's supporters demanding the government's resignation. (RFE.RL, RIA-Novosti, April 16; The Telegraph, March 29; International Crisis Group, March 29)

The April 19 self-immolation of two young cousins in front of Jonang Dzamthang monastery brings the number of such acts of protest martyrdom by ethnic Tibetans to a total of 34 since a young monk at the Kirti monastery set himself on fire in March 2011 to protest against Chinese rule over his homeland—or 35 since a similar event at the Kirti monastery in February 2009 presaged the current wave. Trying to make sense of accounts of the incidents is a challenge given that two sets of geographical nomenclature are used. Both the Jonang Dzamthang and Kirti monasteries are in what the Chinese call Aba prefecture, which is known to Tibetans as Ngaba. The Jonang Dzamthang monastery is in Barma township, in what the Chinese call Rangtang county but the Tibetans name Dzamthang. Most controversially, pro-Tibetan sources (Free Tibet, Phayul) refer to Ngaba as being in "Eastern Tibet," while mainstream sources (BBC News, RTT News) refer to it as being in Sichuan province. Tibet Society, thankfully, opts for clarity by giving both the Tibetan and Chinese place names. But the politicization of geographical terms is explicit.

The Pentagon announced on April 19 that two Uighur detainees were released from the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay to be transferred to El Salvador, where they have chosen to resettle. They are being released pursuant to a 2008 order by the US District Court for the District of Columbia. An executive order issued in 2009 mandated review of the cases by the Interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force (IGRTF), and all six agencies on the force gave consent to release the two detainees. The US said it has worked with El Salvador's government to ensure that the two men arrive safely and are not harmed upon arrival, as well as to protect them against inhumane treatment at any stage of the transfer.