The government of Bolivia announced a preliminary study for a program of uranium exploration in the southern department of Potosí this month, and broached the possibility of uranium exports to Venezuela. The program, projected at costing $500,000, will be financed by the Potosí departmental government and carried out by the National Mineral Geological and Technical Service (Sergeotecmin). The Bolivian Institute of Nuclear Technology, a moribund agency since its uranium processing plant in Potosí was closed 25 years ago, may be revived if the exploration program is successful.

Four lion cubs freed under Bolivia's circus-animal ban arrived at San Francisco International Airport this week, heading to a new life in a northern California refuge built with the help of TV personality Bob Barker and the Performing Animal Welfare Society. The deal was arranged by Animal Defenders International. The Bolivian law, to take effect in July, prohibits circuses from having any animals, the world's most comprehensive ban. (ADI press release, May 26 via Business Wire; AP, May 27; KTVU, San Francisco, May 22)

The Bolivian government says it will negotiate with an indigenous group that apparently lynched four police officers on May 23. Government rights ombudsman Rolando Villena said he was travelling to the southern department of Potosí to try to convince the group to hand over the officers' bodies. An assembly of "Ayllus Guerreros" (generally translated as "Warrior Clans," although ayllu is perhaps better rendered as "community") has declared the local municipality of Uncía a "zona roja," and are barring authorities from entering to search for the bodies.

The US Senate May 27 approved a $60 billion supplemental spending bill to help support a "surge" in troops in Afghanistan. About half the funds will go to the Pentagon for the additional 30,000 troops. The package also includes $349 million in economic and security aid for Pakistan. The vote comes just as the number of US military casualties in Afghanistan surpassed 1,000. (RTTNews, VOA, Daily Times, Pakistan, May 28)

Two US tourists taken hostage earlier this week were released by tribal militants on May 25 after Yemen's president agreed to free a prisoner held by the state. The release came as Yemeni authorities apologized for an erroneous air-strike that killed Sheik Jabir al-Shabwani, deputy governor of Marib province, who had been trying to persuade a local leader of "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" to surrender. The target of the attack, Mohammed Saeed Jardan, escaped, with reports conflicting on whether he was injured. Al-Shabwani was reportedly travelling to meet him when he was killed.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights on May 14 called for the release of nine adherents of the Ahmadiyya sect detained under a controversial emergency law extended by parliament that week. The nine were arrested in March and charged with insulting Islam. "The arrest and interrogation of the Ahmadis is only the latest instance of the security apparatus' abuse of the shameful, vague and unconstitutional provision on 'contempt of religions,'" the statement said.

Teams of gunmen and suicide bombers simultaneously attacked two mosques packed with hundreds of worshippers from the minority Ahmadiyya sect in two different districts of Lahore during Friday prayers May 28, taking hundreds of hostages and battling the police as authorities responded. Some 80 worshippers were killed, and dozens wounded in the worst attack ever against the Ahmadi sect. One attacker was killed and two were arrested; the remainder, numbered at some 10, presumably escaped. At least one of the detained had a suicide belt. Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab claimed responsibility for the attacks, Pakistani TV reported. (AP, NYT, The Financial, May 28)

For the much of April, World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg was in Bolivia, covering the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of the Mother Earth in Cochabamba and related peasant and ecological struggles. Our May Exit Poll was: "Did you see or hear any media coverage of the Bolivia climate summit? Do you think the event was worthy of coverage?" We received one response: