Mohamed al-Korshan, representative of the Bedouin community in the West Bank, spoke May 24 at the 10th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, where he appealed for recognition of his people as a displaced indigenous group living as refugees under occupation. Korshan said there are currently 40,000 Bedouin in the West Bank, who were separated from Bedouin tribes in the Negev desert after Israel became a state in 1948. They hold Palestinian identity documents, but many live in Area C of the West Bank, which is under direct Israeli military occupation. Others, who fled the Negev in 1948, are in UN-run refugee camps, where they have lost their traditional livelihood as nomads and are experiencing an erosion of their culture.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez held a phone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad on May 22, "to give him a personal message of affection and hope at a time when imperialist forces are violently attacking the Syrian people," on the words of the official Venezuelan News Agency. The Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed in an official statement that Assad had given Chávez "a thorough report on the real situation affecting the Arab nation, in which a fascist conspiracy is trying to sow chaos and disorder so as to subjugate Syria to Western powers." The statement reads that "President Hugo Chávez informed his Syrian counterpart of the demonstrations of solidarity made by many Latin American and Caribbean leaders. He also took the opportunity to convey his unconditional political and personal support to President al-Assad, expressing his sincere conviction that the dignity of the Syrian people and government would prevail over imperialist aggressions." (VenezuelAnalysis, May 22)

Gun battles erupted across the capital of Yemen on May 23 as security forces clashed with fighters from the country's most powerful tribe. The fighting came a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh formally reversed his earlier promise to sign a deal brokered by the Gulf states that would end his 33 years in power, prompting regional leaders to abandon their efforts at mediating a solution to Yemen's political impasse . The violence began outside the Sana'a residence of Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, leader of the country's largest tribe, the Hashid. Saleh himself belongs the tribe, but Ahmar announced in March that the Hashid were joining the popular uprising against the president. As the violence flared, convoys of armed tribesman in SUVs raced towards the area where the fighting broke out. The area was cordoned off by security forces making it difficult to establish an exact number of casualties. However, a doctor at the nearby al-Kuwait hospital said more than 60—both tribesmen and soldiers—were treated for bullet wounds and at least 10 soldiers had died. Stray missiles hit a nearby Yemenia Airlines headquarters, setting it on fire, and one journalist was among the injured.

NATO stepped up air raids on targets in Tripoli May 24, carrying out more than 20 strikes—many near Moammar Qaddafi's compound, the Bab al-Aziziya. A regime spokesman said at least three were killed and dozens wounded in the raids, which targeted buildings used by volunteer units of the Libyan army. NATO said in a statement that a number of the raids hit a vehicle storage facility adjacent to the Bab al-Aziziya that has been used to supply regime forces "conducting attacks on civilians." The regime made a show of support for Qaddafi, with loyalists filling the streets outside hotels where Western journalists stay, declaring their love of the dictator, honking horns and firing guns in the air. (The Guardian, May 24)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC in Washington DC was interrupted May 24 by pro-Palestinian protesters affiliated with the Move Over AIPAC coalition. The five protesters—apparently all American Jews— unfurled banners and chanted slogans before they were escorted out of the conference hall by security. "Do you think they have these protests in Gaza?" Netanyahu jokingly asked the audience.

Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, ousted by a coup d'etat nearly two years ago, met May 22 with the Central American republic's current sitting president, Porfirio Lobo, and signed a pact that will allow him to return to the country. The accord also opens the way for Honduras to re-join the Organization of American States (OAS), from which it was suspended after the coup. The meeting took place in Cartagena, Colombia, and the pact was brokered by the governments of Colombia and Venezuela. "This agreement is great news to Latin Americans because it normalizes the situation in the inter-American system," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in a statement after the signing. (BBC News, CNN, May 22)

A long-standing maritime border dispute between Chile and Peru that is currently before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague took a new turn last week when a third country, Ecuador, moved to formally demarcate its sea boundaries with the government in Lima. The deal reaffirms the Peru-Ecuador sea border as a straight line that runs west parallel to the equator from the land boundary. But it also contains a clause in which Ecuador confirms that Peru's 1950s accords with Chile were fishing agreements—not a three-way border agreement. Peru's government is now hoping to use the agreement with Ecuador as a legal argument to finally settle its dispute with Chile. Lima's Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Antonio García Belaunde said the signing of the agreement with Quito "is important because it ratifies the premise that Peru has always held up that the agreements of 1954 and 1952 are fishing [accords], and that will strengthen our position at The Hague."

Following a regional summit in Bamako, the leaders of Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger agreed May 20 to form a 75,000-man security force to police the Sahel and Sahara regions against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and trans-border organised crime networks linked to terrorism. A new body based in Algiers, the Joint Military Staff Committee of the Sahel Region (CEMOC), will co-ordinate the military force. The participating nations also agreed to hold regular ministerial meetings every six months, with the next gathering set for Nouakchott, and a summit external partner states is to be held in Algiers. "Our partners from outside the region, such as the European Union and the United States, will be invited to this meeting that will be probably held during the last quarter of this year," said Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs. "Our countries have started to take action. Today, it is about enhancing the path that was kicked off to confront the terrorist threat and its branches."