Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Casablanca close to the city's American Cultural Centre April 14—apparently causing no casualties other than themselves. (AlJazeera, April 14) After the blasts, the US consulate in Casablanca was ordered closed until further notice. (AKI, April 16) Police raided the city's Sidi Moumen suburb, an impoverished district of slums and shanty-towns, arresting the third brother of the two boys who blew themselves up. The boys' mother, Rashida al-Raidi, told AlJazeera: "My son is innocent. He is innocent. Shame on them [the police] for taking him away from us. He never left my side. And he is very young." (AlJazeera, April 15)

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), called on the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Manila to abide by a 1996 agreement that was meant to end conflict in the southern Philippines. An ongoing battle over the past three days has killed 18 people, including a child, and displaced thousands. Government forces dropped 250-pound bombs and fired rockets into the base of MNLF commander Habier Malik near Panamao town on the southern island of Jolo over the weekend after he fired mortars on their headquarters on April 13, killing a child that lived nearby. (Reuters, April 16)

Venezuela is advocating regional integration at a two-day, 12-nation energy summit of South American leaders that opens April 16 on the Caribbean island of Margarita. "Gradually, the US empire will end up a paper tiger and we, the peoples of Latin America, will become true tigers of steel," President Hugo Chávez said on the eve of the summit. Chávez is expected to use the summit to promote his plan to build a 8,000-kilometer gas pipeline linking Venezuela to Brazil and Argentina.

Hungary's Finance Minister János Kóka has presented a bill in Parliament to make the country an attractive route for transnational gas transport. The intended beneficiaries of the tax exemptions on gas transported across Hungary are the interests behind the planned Nabucco and Blue Stream pipelines, both slated to carry gas from Turkey to the EU. Nabucco is backed by a consortium headed by Austrian oil firm OMV and championed the EU, and would carry gas produced in Caspian Sea countries. The Blue Stream pipeline is a planned extension to an existing pipeline carrying Russian gas under the Black Sea to Turkey. György Gilyán, Government Commissioner for Eastern Economic Relations, said in an interview with daily Népszabadság, "it is in Hungary's interest to have as many transit gas pipelines cross its territory as possible." (Budapest Times, April 16)

A new Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, officially opened on March 19 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian, is emerging as a source of speculation about regional energy alliances. A trip to Armenia by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili two days after the pipeline's opening has provided fuel for conjecture despite the official line that it was a ski vacation. Saakashvili's spokesmen admit he met with Kocharian and that talks touched on the pipeline.

Moqtada al-Sadr has pulled his faction out of the Iraqi government in protest of the continuing US presence in the country. Said Nassar al-Rubaie, head of the bloc: "Al-Sadr's ministers will withdraw immediately and give the six cabinet seats to the government." While relinquishing their cabinet seats, the Sadrists are expected to remain in parliament. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says he sees no need to set a timetable for a US troop withdrawal, but his government is working to build up Iraq's security forces as quickly as possible so the US-led forces can leave. (AlJazeera, April 16)

Unregistered Afghan refugees face an uncertain future after the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) announced it will discontinue the repatriation program April 15, the same day that the Pakistani government had set as the deadline for all unregistered refugees to return home. Last year more than 2.15 million Afghan refugees received registration cards from the Pakistani government recognizing them as legally residing in Pakistan until December 2009. After this date, the Pakistani government says it will consider unregistered Afghans to be illegal immigrants, and that there will be no extension of the deadline.

A new Human Rights Watch report, "The Human Cost," accuses the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and other insurgent groups of war crimes in Afghanistan. Joanne Mariner, HRW's terrorism and counter-terrorism director, said in a statement: "Suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks have risen dramatically since 2005, with almost 700 civilians dying last year at the hands of the Taliban and other insurgent groups. The insurgents are increasingly committing war crimes, often by directly targeting civilians. Even when they're aiming at military targets, insurgent attacks are often so indiscriminate that Afghan civilians end up as the main victims." (AlJazeera, April 16)