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The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled May 21 in al-Maqaleh v. Gates that detainees held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan cannot bring habeas corpus challenges in US courts. The circuit court reversed the district court's ruling, which allowed habeas challenges by three Bagram detainees pursuant to the Supreme Court's test in Boumediene v. Bush. Chief Judge David B. Sentelle, delivering the opinion of the three-judge panel, stated that the district court underestimated the significance of Bagram being located in an area of armed conflict, which differentiates the defendants' jurisdictional status from those detained at Guantánamo Bay. The court held that the current case is more comparable to 1950's Johnson v. Eisentrager, where the Supreme Court ruled that US courts had no jurisdiction over war criminals held in a US-administered German prison.

Timoteo Alejandro Ramírez, 44, leader of the Triqui indigenous "autonomous municipality" of San Juan Copala in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca, was killed May 20 along with his wife Cleriberta Castro, 35. The attack took place in Yosoyuxi, a hamlet within municipality, where the couple lived. Witnesses said an unmarked truck stopped outside the couple's store, and an "armed commando" emerged and carried out the murders. A statement from the autonomous municipality said the commando was made up of four "non-Triqui individuals," but asserted that the Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) is responsible for the crime. Ramírez was leader of the rival Independent Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULTI, which established the autonomous municipality in 2007). (San Juan Copala Autonomous Municipality statement, May 22)

A reserve for uncontacted tribes in the remote Peruvian Amazon has been made off-limits to oil and gas companies. The decision was revealed May 21 at a promotional event held in London by Perupetro, the state company responsible for promoting oil and gas exploration in Peru. The vast majority of the reserve had been previously open to exploration by Brazilian company Petrobras, in an area known as Lot 110.

Following a cross-country march that converged on the capital from some 30 indigenous communities across Argentina, some 15,000 protesters established themselves in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo on May 20, and are demanding a dialogue with the government on establishing a "pluricultural" state. The National March of Original Peoples comes just before Argentina celebrates its bicentennial Revolution Day on May 25, marking the beginning of the independence struggle from Spain in 1810. Dressed in colorful ponchos and other traditional garb, and carrying whipalas—the rainbow flag of South America's indigenous movement—many of the protesters had marched up to 2,000 kilometers. Representing the Wichi, Toba, Kolla, Mapuche, Huarpe and Guaraní peoples, among others, the protesters' first demand is for the recuperation of traditional lands. (BBC Mundo, La Jornada, Mexico; Informador, Mexico, May 21)

Two-time Honduran dictator Oswaldo López Arellano died over the weekend after being hospitalized for several weeks. He was 89. Born in Danlí in eastern Honduras, López Arellano would lead two coups d'état as an army officer. In October 1963, López, then a colonel, ousted President José Ramón Villeda of the Liberal Party, when was just months from finishing his six-year term in office. In 1965, with the backing of the currently ruling National Party, López took office as constitutional president and handed over power in 1971 to Ramón Ernesto Cruz—only to oust him in a second coup in December 1972.

The International Court of Justice announced May 20 that Honduras has dropped a case against Brazil that was brought last year by the coup-installed government. The Honduran de facto government launched the proceedings in October, in response to the sheltering of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in the Brazilian embassy. Honduras, now under a new government following elections late last year, asked to withdraw the case on April 30 and the request was granted May 12. Zelaya remains in exile in the Dominican Republic. (AP, Jurist, May 20)

Four suspected members of armed Basque separatist group ETA were arrested May 20 in a raid on an apartment bloc in Bayonne, France—including presumed ETA military commander Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe, Spain's most wanted man. One detained accomplice was identified as Arkaitz Aguirregabiria del Barrio, ETA's presumed second in command, who is wanted in France for the shooting of a police officer in March. The arrests come as a Spanish court convicted three ETA militants in the 2006 Madrid airport bombing that killed two Ecuadorans. ETA is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and is held responsible for more than 800 deaths over the past 40 years. (Irish Times, Reuters, May 21; Jurist, May 20)