Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that his organization "is siding with the resistance in Iraq" in a speech to hundreds of thousands of supporters in Beirut. "The Iraqis, Shia and Sunni, who took part in the political process wanted to give it a chance," he said in his address May 26. "But now that the real American goal in Iraq has been exposed the Iraqi government is put to a test."

From Witness Against Torture, May 20:

Guantánamo Detainess To Get Their Day in Court
Witness Against Torture Activists to "Represent" Detainees in Trial, May 27
WASHINGTON, DC – Detainees at the U.S. Military Prison in Guantánamo will finally get their day in court on May 27 – Superior Court, in Washington DC.

A masked group of some 20 men armed with sticks went on the rampage in Rome's multi-ethnic Pigneto district May 24, smashing the windows of shops owned by Indian and Bangladeshi immigrants while hurling verbal abuse. The mob disappeared before police arrived. The assault comes days after a mob firebombed Gypsy (Roma) camps in Naples.

In late 2006, when Mengistu Haile Mariam was found guilty of genocide by an Ethiopian court, we noted the irony that the verdict came as charges of mass killings of ethnic minorities were mounting against the current Ethiopian regime. Mengistu is now sentenced to death—just as Amnesty International has issued a report accusing Ethiopia of war crimes in Somalia. From AlJazeera, May 26:

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement May 26 its fighters had sabotaged Shell Oil's "major trunk pipeline" at Awoba flow station, and killed 11 soldiers in an ensuing gun battle. Sagir Musa, military spokesman in Nigeria's Rivers state, dismissed the claims as "mischievous lies... There was no attack on the facility and none of our soldiers were killed." But a spokesman for Shell Petroleum Development Corporation said: "SPDC can confirm an attack on the Nembe Creek trunk line at Awoba," adding that an overflight had revealed some oil had spilled. "We have mobilised equipment to contain a further spread of oil," the spokesman said. (Sydney Morning Herald, May 27; AlJazeera, May 26)

A Czech activist, Jan Bednar, has been on hunger strike for two weeks to protest the "military occupation of the Czech Republic by the United States"—by which he means the plans to build a radar base for the new "missile shield" on Czech territory. From the Nonviolence.cz website, May 25:

The US Marine Corps announced it will not bring criminal charges against two officers in command of a unit involved in the shooting deaths of up to 19 civilians near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, last year after a car bomb struck the marines’ convoy. (NYT, May 24) The announcement comes as protests are breaking out in Afghanistan following reports that a US sniper used a Koran for target practice. Hundreds demonstrated May 26 in Balkh and Logar provinces, tearing apart an effigy of President Bush and chanting anti-US slogans. A Lithuanian soldier and two Afghan civilians were killed in protests against the incident last. (AP, May 26)

Japanese media report that Tokyo may end its supply support mission for US-led forces in Iraq next year, under pressure from the powerful opposition. Japan has some 210 Air Self-Defense Force personnel in Kuwait, from where they airlift supplies to Iraq. In 2006, it withdrew 600 ground troops sent to southern Iraq as a gesture of support two years earlier. "Thinking about the state of parliament, it is extremely difficult to extend" a special law which enabled the country to send troops to Iraq, the Asahi newspaper quoted Taku Yamasaki of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The law is set to expire in July 2009. The newspaper also quoted an unnamed executive of the LDP's Buddhist-backed junior partner, New Komeito, as saying it was time to consider withdrawal.