Alak Khasutsang, disappearedProtests against the Olympic torch continue to make global headlines. Some 100 protesters braved an overwhelming police presence of several hundred, as well as a large force of pro-Chinese counter-demonstrators, outside the local UN offices as the torch arrived in Bangkok April 19. (Bloomberg, April 19) Two days earlier, up to 180 Tibetan activists were arrested in protests as the torch arrived in New Delhi. Thousands of police and guards made the route virtually inaccessible to the public. Another 46 Tibetans were arrested in Mumbai as they tried to storm the Chinese consulate. (News.com.au, April 17) Ironically, as the torch spectacle grabs media attention, harsh repression continues in the Tibetan lands of the People's Republic, with over a hundred new arrests, monks beaten and disappeared—and the world paying little note...

A suicide attack in front of a mosque in Zaranj, capital of Nimroz province in southwest Afghanistan, killed 16 and wounded more than 30 others April 17. The attack took place as worshipers were preparing for evening prayers. At least two other suicide attacks have hit Nimroz this month, including an attack April 1 that left two police officers dead in Zaranj, and another on April 12 that killed two Indian road construction engineers and their Afghan driver in Khash Rod.

Having been busily building separation walls between Shi'ite and Sunni districts of Baghdad for the past two years, the US is now building one around the southern quarter of the Shi'ite enclave of Sadr City—to keep out Mahdi Army militants, effectively separating Shi'ite from Shi'ite and turning the quarter into an armed camp, patrolled by tanks, Stryker vehicles and Apache attack helicopters. (NYT, April 18)

An agreement on a draft oil law for Iraq may finally have been reached this week, bringing multinationals like BP and Royal Dutch Shell closer to long-sought contracts, Forbes reports. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told United Press International April 16 that a new understanding had been reached between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), after a year of deadlock over the future of the country's oil industry.

Nicaragua, an outspoken member of the new anti-imperialist bloc in the western hemisphere, last month won the backing of the 33-member Latin American and Caribbean group at the UN for presidency of the General Assembly—nearly assuring it of election to the one-year post in June. The man Nicaragua has put forward to be the new GA president this fall is Rev. Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a Catholic priest who was foreign minister of the Sandinista government from 1979 to 1990 and last year became a foreign affairs adviser to Daniel Ortega, the first Sandinista president, when he returned to office.

Guatemalan authorities announced April 15 they had captured Daniel Pérez, a senior member of Mexico's powerful Gulf Cartel, the latest sign that Mexican cartels are seeking control of Central American trafficking routes. Perez (alias Cachetes, or "Cheeks"), who is wanted in the US, is said to be second-in-command of the cartel's vicious armed wing, the Zetas. Guatemala's interior ministry said Pérez—a former elite Mexican soldier who helped found the Zetas in the late 1990s—was arrested last week in Guatemala City, accused of involvement in a shootout in March in southern Guatemala in which 11 people were killed. Both Mexico and the US have announced they will seek extradition. (El Universal, April 17; Reuters, April 15)

Which is worse: that Absolut vodka is commodifying Mexico's claim to its lost northern territories (Aztlan), or the predictable uptight gringo backlash? From the Daily 49er, the Cal State Long Beach student newspaper, April 15:

Mexican booze ad not intoxicating to U.S. buyers
A recent Absolut Vodka ad running in Mexico City has shaken, not stirred, some of the American public. With its recent advertising campaign strategy, Absolut attempts to tap into some very real nationalistic sentiment of Mexico.

James McKinley reports for the New York Times April 16 that cartel wars for control of Ciudad Juárez are reaping a "Wild West Blood Bath" in the border city, with more than 210 lives lost in the first three months of this year. The number of homicides this year is more than twice the total number for the same period last year. Mass graves hiding a total of 36 bodies have been discovered in the backyards of two raided cartel safe-houses. At the height of the violence, around Easter, bodies were turning up every morning—at a rate of nearly 12 a week. Mayor José Reyes Ferriz and Chihuahua state authorities have asked the federal government to intervene. "Neither the municipal government, nor the state government, is capable of taking on organized crime," Reyes Ferriz said. In late March, President Felipe Calderón sent in 2,000 soldiers and 425 federal agents, who patrol in convoys of Humvees and pickup trucks, wearing ski masks to hide their faces.