Power returned slowly to Venezuela April 29, hours after outages blacked out nearly half the country, halting the Caracas subways and forcing hospitals and oil facilities onto emergency generators. An explosion is being investigated at the Guri hydroelectric power station, Caracas Mayor Juan Barreto said. (CNN, April 29) CA Electricidad de Caracas was administered by US-based AES Corp. until last year. AES agreed to sell its majority stake in the national utility to the government in February 2007 after President Hugo Chavez announced plans for the government to take over the power sector. (Bloomberg, April 29)

A court in Tibet sentenced 30 people to prison terms ranging from three years to life April 29 in charges related to the March uprising. (NYT, April 30) China has detained scores of Buddhist monks over the past month, according to the International Campaign for Tibet. The group said more than 160 people were detained from several monasteries in the Lhasa area in April. Authorities detained at least six monks from the Nechung monastery, eight from the Nalanda monastery and some 60 from the Pangsa monastery. The group also said up to 100 monks were detained at the Rongwu monastery in Qinghai province. (AP, April 30)

One step closer to an October Surprise? From The Telegraph, April 30:

America said it had despatched a second aircraft carrier group to the Gulf on Wednesday, as the State Department branded Iran the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism.

Residents of western Baghdad's al-Salam district say militant groups in the area are hunting down women and killing them, and have petitioned the Iraqi parliament for urgent action. "Over the past six months 15 women were killed in al-Salam neighborhood for religious reasons or because they had criticized the militants, or because of their previous affiliation to the Baath Party," MP Safia al-Suhail told the UN news agency IRIN.

From the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq, via US Labor Against the War, April 29:

May Day Message from the Port Workers in Iraq to West Coast dock workers in the US
In solidarity with the ILWU, the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq will stop work for one hour on May Day in the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Al Zubair.

On April 22, a riot broke out at the Mira Loma immigration detention center in Lancaster, Calif., which holds nearly 1,000 immigrants. The riot allegedly involved the South Siders and Paisa gangs, according to a detainee who spoke with the Los Angeles Daily Journal. Deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department fired tear gas grenades at the detainees; additional deputies came to the detention center from nearby Lancaster and Palmdale stations to assist the guards with separating detainees.

On April 11, Palestinian professor Sami Al-Arian was transferred into ICE custody after completing a sentence on civil contempt citations for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury. On April 15, ICE agents transported Al-Arian from the Northern Neck Regional jail in Warsaw, Va., to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Va. Just hours after he arrived at Hampton Roads, jail officials placed Al-Arian on suicide watch in a segregation unit and confiscated all of his belongings, allegedly because of his refusal to eat. Al-Arian had been on hunger strike since March 3, protesting the government's refusal to release him.

On a visit to Mexico City April 29, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress to approve the pending $500 million anti-drug program for Mexico, telling reporters, "Failure to do so would be a real slap at Mexico and would be very disappointing and it clearly would make it more difficult for us to help Mexican armed forces and their civilian agencies deal with this difficult problem."