Back in February, rebels in Chad penetrated N'Djamena, the capital, after driving across hundreds of miles of desert from the east in a fleet of armed pick-up trucks. Chad's government quickly accused Sudan of supporting the operation. On May 10, Darfur's rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) penetrated Khartoum, Sudan's capital, after driving across hundreds of miles of desert from the west in a fleet of armed pick-up trucks. Sudan's government quickly accused Chad of supporting the operation—and broke off diplomatic relations.

Award-winning journalist and World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg will present a video and discussion on the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), a new alliance of trade unions, women's organizations, neighborhood assemblies and student groups opposed to both the US occupation and the sectarian militias. The IFC is leading a campaign against the pending law that would privatize Iraq's oil, and has established self-governing zones, which both occupation forces and sectarian militias are barred from accessing, in neighborhoods in Baghdad and Kirkuk. Recently, their leaders have been targeted for attack by US forces. Solidarity efforts and coordinated actions are growing between Iraq's civil resistance and organized labor in the US—but more is needed.

Juan Antonio Román García, second highest ranking police commander in Ciudad Juárez, was killed May 10 when his car was sprayed with bullets outside his home. The attack came months after his name appeared at the top of a hit list left at a monument for fallen police officers. Two days earlier, Edgar Guzmán, 22-year-old she son of presumed Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was killed by a 40-man hit squad in Culiacán. Later that day, presumed Sinaloa Cartel gunmen murdered Edgar Eusebio Millán, a top commander of the Federal Preventive Police, at his home in Mexico City. Hours before Millán's funeral May 9, Esteban Robles, a senior Mexico City police detective, was gunned down in front of his apartment. Authorities say the Millán assassination was vengeance for the recent capture of Sinaloa Cartel kingin Alfredo "El Mochomo" Beltrán Leyva.

From Reporters Without Borders, via AllAfrica, May 7:

Egypt: TV Agency Boss Facing Charges Over Food Riots
Reporters Without Borders has voiced concern about legal action against Nader Gohar, owner of the Egyptian TV news agency Cairo News Company (CNC), who was charged on 5 May 2008 with unlicensed broadcasting of food riots in the north of the country on 6 April.

Get this. The Senate fails to pass the new FAA reauthorization bill—because of "non-aviation provisions" that would have doubled the tax on oil spills, using the revenues to replenish the strapped Highway Trust Fund! And this is deemed so un-newsworthy (even with the headlines full of the Clinton-McCain gas tax holiday hoopla) that the only media outlets that even make passing note of it are aviation trade journals like Helicopter Association International (May 2). Now, surely this tax must be onerous, a true burden on the oil industry, right? Well, a Petroleum Marketers Association of America report of March 24, 2006 (when the tax was re-instated after a ten-year lapse) informs us that the current tax is...five cents per gallon (as opposed to 18.4 cents per gallon that consumers pay Uncle Sam at the pump). And with a significant reduction for "petroleum products" and "alternative fuels" such as ethanol and bio-diesel. Additionally, the oil companies are allowed to "pass on" the tax to consumers at the pump.

Never mind the silly Canadian angle. The really sinister thing here is the embryonic hybridization of man and machine—a phenomenon we have already predicted. From the Canadian Press, May 5:

Canadian military looking for Iron Man-type suits for overburdened soldiers
OTTAWA — Iron Man Canuck may be appearing soon at a theatre near you. The Defence Department posted a contract tender Monday asking companies for proposals for high-tech body suits that could help Canadian soldiers carry bigger loads into battle.

Contrary to widespread media reports, BBC says May 9 that the man detained in Mosul is not in fact Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. An earlier statement from the Iraqi defense ministry said that al-Masri had been captured. But an US military spokeswoman, Peggy Kageleiry, said confusion had arisen because a man with a similar name had been detained.

The US administration has finally seen fit to release another group of prisoners from Guantánamo, including the Sudanese AlJazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj. Despite claims from within the administration that it was hoping to scale down operations at Guantánamo, no prisoners have been released since December 2007, when two other Sudanese, 13 Afghans, ten Saudis and three British residents were released. Instead, one prisoner died—of cancer—and another prisoner was actually transferred into Guantánamo from a secret prison run by the CIA. (AlterNet, May 2)