From the AP, April 22:

CALEDONIA, Ontario — As an uneasy calm settled amid the barricades, fresh tensions erupted Friday as protesters shut down a vital Ontario rail corridor in solidarity with those occupying a disputed tract of southwestern Ontario land.

This may not be linked to the recent ascendence of reactionary elements in the Vatican—but it does point to an intersection of clerical reaction and organized crime in Sicily, at least. From The Guardian, April 21:

Italian police codebreakers are turning to the Bible in their efforts to get at the many secrets of the Mafia's "boss of bosses".

Bernardo Provenzano was arrested this month after 43 years on the run. When an undercover policewoman known as "the Cat" walked into his rural hideout on April 11 she found him surrounded by encoded messages to and from his lieutenants.

Here are the first vaguely credible claims that Darfur refugees are being recruited for the Chad insurgency. But numerous questions are left unanswered. Its a little ironic that Chad's President Déby is using these claims to imply that Sudan is behind the rebels. Why would refugees forced from their homes by agents of the Sudanese government (the Janjaweed) do that government's bidding? Why would they want to unseat Déby, who provided support to the Darfur guerillas they presumably support? If they were press-ganged by the guerillas, then how is Khartoum implicated? Then there was the April 21 New York Times story claiming the rebels are led by Déby's relations from his own Zaghawa tribe—which, conveniently, straddles the Chad-Sudan border. Sudan may be exploiting the conflict in Chad, but does not appear to have created it—and Déby may be playing up the Sudanese angle for his own purposes. From Reuters, April 23:

From Newsday, April 23:

LAGOS - A militant group that has been attacking Nigeria's oil pipelines and helping to drive up world oil prices added a new tactic last week by detonating a car bomb in a major oil city to publicize its standing threat to shut down the country's entire crude output.

On April 19, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 1,187 immigrant workers employed by IFCO Systems North America, Inc., which manufactures and recycles pallets and crates. ICE also arrested seven current and former IFCO Systems managers on criminal charges of conspiring to transport, harbor and encourage unauthorized workers to reside in the US for commercial advantage and financial gain. Two of the seven were arrested in Guilderland, New York; one in Amsterdam, New York; two in Houston, Texas; one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and one in Westborough, Massachusetts. All seven were released on bond and are to appear May 4 in Albany, New York, where the criminal complaint was filed. Two other IFCO employees were arrested in Guilderland on criminal charges relating to fraudulent documents.

From Reuters, April 20:

TORONTO - Native protesters used a mound of burning tires and parked vehicles to blockade a road in a southern Ontario town on Thursday after provincial police evicted a group occupying a local construction site.

Anti-mining protests have made some international news from Mongolia and Indonesia. The latest entry is from the French colonial holding of New Caledonia. Note that protests causing "millions of dollars" in damages to the mine took place weeks ago with not a flicker in the world media, and that a labor-indigenous alliance is now emerging around the issue. From Radio New Zealand, April 21:

Here's a clue as to the political scorecard in Kyrgyzstan. From Turkey's Zaman, April 20:

The United States was asked to evacuate its military base in Uzbekistan last year and now it has been delivered a "note over its base" in Kyrgyzstan.