Local trade unionists are demanding answers following the apparent killing in custody of Sipho Jele, an activist in the Swaziland Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union (SAPWU) and People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), who was arrested during May Day protests. Swaziland's largest opposition party, PUDEMO is being relentlessly persecuted under the government's notorious Suppression of Terrorism Act. Swaziland has been living under a State of Emergency since 1973. Swazi authorities are calling the Jele's death a suicide.

Iranian teacher, trade unionist and human rights activist Farzad Kamangar was among five political prisoners executed by hanging May 9 at Tehran's Evin Prison. The five, including one woman, were accused of collaboration with the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an armed separatist organization. "They confessed carrying out deadly terrorist operations in the country in the past years," the official news agency IRNA said. However, the charges against the five were considerably more vague, and included "moharebe," or enmity against God. The five were convicted in 2008, and Iran's Supreme Court later upheld their death sentences. None of the lawyers or the families of the defendants were made aware of executions beforehand.

US drones killed 21 presumed Taliban militants in two separate strikes in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan on May 11. In the first strike, a drone fired 10 missiles at a vehicle and tents in Doga Maza Khel area of Datta Khel tehsil (administrative division), 50 kilometers west of Miranshah, killing 14. In the second attack, in Gurwak area of Shawaal tehsil, 70 kilometers from Miranshah, the drone fired two missiles at a vehicle and a house, killing seven. Ten drones were seen hovering over the area. (Daily Times, Pakistan, May 11)

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed the existence of a secret US detention facility at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base, according to a May 11 BBC News report. Last month, BBC News reported that nine Afghan witnesses claimed that they were held and tortured in a secret US prison at Bagram. The witnesses say that they were captured by US forces and taken to a secret location where they were abused and interrogated, then later transported to an official detention facility in Parwan, a new prison recently opened at the edge of Bagram Air Base. Torture allegations include sleep deprivation, disorientation, beating, and humiliation tactics. The US continues to deny the existence of secret prisons in Afghanistan.

Dozens of schoolgirls in Afghanistan were hospitalized May 11 after two apparent poisonous gas attacks on schools, officials said, the latest in a spate of similar incidents. Thirty schoolgirls in the northern city of Kunduz and six in Kabul are hospitalized, with health officials reporting more coming in. One of the girls taken ill in Kunduz said she saw a man in black clothes and face mask throw a bottle near the school, which released a foul-smelling fume. Three suspected poison gas attacks on girls' schools have taken place in Kunduz over the past few weeks; last week 22 schoolgirls and three teachers fell ill when their school was struck. The Taliban have denied responsibility. (Reuters, May 11)

Hundreds of Iraqis were injured and 85 killed in a series of bomb attacks across the country May 10, marking the bloodiest day since the beginning of this year. The capital alone was hit by more than a dozen attacks, carried out by roadside bombs, rigged cars and automatic weapons fired from cars against police and security forces at checkpoints. In Basra 13 were killed and 64 injured in an attack apparently aimed against a police patrol. Nonetheless it turned out that almost all of the victims were civilians, mostly hit in crowded places.

Two Colombian soldiers, Sgt. Pablo Emilio Moncayo and Pvt. Josué Daniel Calvo, returned to their hometowns on April 15 following their release by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and more than two weeks of rest and medical tests in Bogotá. Calvo, who was freed by the FARC on March 28 after 11 months in captivity, was greeted by family, friends and the departmental governor in Popayán, capital of southwestern Cauca department, while Moncayo, released on March 30, arrived at Sandoná in the southwestern department of Nariño accompanied by his parents and other family members.

Civil Pact for Life, Liberty and the Rights of Women of Mexico, an association of 90 groups, held a rally in Mexico City on May 5 to call for a boycott of the seaside resort city of Cancún in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo as a protest against the state government's anti-choice policies. Like more than half of Mexico's 31 states, Quintana Roo recently passed a strict anti-abortion law. The protesters charged that the state, governed by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), acts "as if it was a church." "Get your rosaries out of our ovaries," they chanted.