Colombia's lower house voted overwhelmingly May 23 to request President Alvaro Uribe "immediately remove for incompetence" Sergio Caramagna, head of the OAS peace mission in the country. Jose Castro Caycedo, the legislator who sponsored the resolution, told the Associated Press that paramilitaries made a mockery of the peace talks by "holding orgies on the negotiating table," excesses which he said Caramagna should have denounced.

New Delhi has rushed additional paramilitary forces to Assam following a bombing in Guwahati which left seven dead and 30 injured—apparently the work of the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). Days earlier, the ULFA warned that it would step up attacks on Hindi-speaking residents of the eastertn state to retaliate against the death of several of its cadres in the hands of security forces. (Indian Express, Udayavani, May 27)

A US delegation is headed for Kabul to persuade President Hamid Karzai to approve a program of glyphosate spraying over the opium-producing lands of southeast Afghanistan. The private contractor Dyncorp is to carry out the spraying in cooperation with a specially-trained Afghan force. The US is willing to negotiate, but makes clear it will not take glyphosate off the table. "There has to be a stick that goes with the carrot," said Thomas Schweich, State Department co-ordinator for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan. Eradication had to be a component of US policy, he emphasized.

Jakob Kellenberger, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said May 24 he was not optimistic about a breakthrough in talks with Iraqi officials to gain access to up to 20,000 held in the country's prisons. "We are still in negotiation about an agreement with them," Kellenberger told a news conference. Asked about the impasse, he replied: "I don't think that I am expressing extreme optimism."

Exiled Somali leaders in Eritrea issued a call to boycott a Mogadishu peace conference scheduled for next month, warning of further violence if it goes ahead. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and Sheikh Sharif Hassan Aden, a former Somali parliament speaker, released the joint statement in Asmara.

Police in southern China's Guangxi region arrested 28 as thousands staged angry protests against draconian local enforcement of the government's family-planning policy. In Bobai county, more than 3,000 people smashed through the gates of a town government compound, setting fire to vehicles and damaging files and office equipment. Disturbances were reported in sveen Bobai towns following a drive by local officials to enforce fines for families who failed to comply with China's national one-child policy.

Interesting. A Pew survey finds that 87% of Muslim Americans polled (just some 1,000 out of the total 2 million-plus) condemn the practice of suicide bombings. But for those under 30, the 13% finding them sometimes justified doubles to 26%. So the lefty InterPress Service headline states: "Major Poll Finds U.S. Muslims Mostly Mainstream." The reactionary New York Post editorializes May 23 (all caps in original, of course): "TIME BOMBS IN OUR MIDST"

The United States has sped up its commitment of military aid to the Lebanese army. Three out of a proposed eight military supply planes have arrived in Beirut thus far. The steps are designed to bolster efforts to dislodge Fatah al-Islam combatants from the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. [AlJazeera, May 25]