New satellite analysis shows that at least once in the past several years, masses of unusually warm air—up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit—pushed to within 300 miles of the South Pole, melting surface snow across an expanse the size of California. The warm spell, which occurred over one week in 2005, was detected by scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The findings were based on data from NASA's QuickSCAT satellite system which uses radar to distinguish the ice signatures of melting in the Antarctic snow. This is the first time melt zones have been detected so far inland. "It is too soon to know whether the warm spell was a fluke or a portent, said JPL scientist Son Nghiem. "It is vital we continue monitoring this region to determine if a long-term trend may be developing." (NYT, May 16)

On May 15, wealthy landowner Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura was given the maximum sentence, 30 years, for being one of the masterminds of the February 2005 murder of US-born nun Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old defender of the Amazon rainforest and landless people. It is the first conviction of a member of Pará state's landed elite in a wave of killings of peasant leaders and forest defenders in recent years.

Imprisoned Colombian paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso fingered the nation's vice president, defense minister and two of it's top conglomerates as collaborators in an explosive judicial hearing. He also said the paramilitaries, branded "foreign terrorist organizations" by Washington in 2001, were aided by top army brass in training and logistics. Mancuso said he would offer details later. In press interviews last week, he promised details of how multinational companies including all banana exporters helped bankroll the paramilitaries. President Alvaro Uribe said in a radio interview that he had "every confidence in the honesty and moral fiber" of Vice President Francisco Santos and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.

Sonora state police killed 15 in a fierce gunbattle just south of the Arizona border May 16 after tracking into the hills a group of heavily-armed gunmen who earlier that day killed five municipal police in Cananea. Three Cananea residents who had been aducted were freed. Police seized 15 assault rifles following the hours-long shoot-out near the village of Arizpe. Meanwhile in Coahuila, four men in the black unforms and insignia of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) kidnapped the state‘s chief anti-kidnapping investigator, Ruiz Arevalo, in Torreon. (El Universal, El Tiempo, AP, May 16)

Two years ago, following rumors that Osama bin Laden had taken refuge in Nuristan, we warned that the remote mountain region immortalized as "Kafiristan" in Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King would be drawn into Afghanistan's war. Now, alas, our prediction has been vindicated. A roadside bomb killed seven Afghan soldiers in Nuristan's Kamdesh district May 14, and the following day Afghan soldiers killed six Taliban insurgents in the province, governor Tamim Nuristani said. Over 1,300, mostly said to be Taliban militants, have been killed in Afghanistan this year. (Pakistan Online News, Reuters, May 16)

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has brought in trainers from Colombia to prepare a new Afghan anti-narcotics force. Opium cultivation has steadily grown in Afghanistan since the US invasion of 2001, leaping from 183,000 acres in 2002 to 408,000 last year. So far this year, about 20,000 acres have been destroyed, according to the United Nations. The crop is expected to yield more than 6,500 tons of opium, exceeding global demand. The export value—about $3.1 billion—is equivalent to about half of the legal Afghan economy. The Taliban, which banned opium cultivation when they were in power, are now said to be overseeing its cultivation to fund their insurgency. (NYT via Pakistan Tribune, May 16)

From the Zochrot (Remembering), a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948:

International Nakba Day, May 15, 2007
The Nakba is the story of the Palestinian tragedy: the destruction of communities, civilization, culture and identity, the expulsion and the killing that took place in 1948. It is a story that constitutes the past and present of the Palestinian people and shapes a large part of Palestinian identity. Yet in many respects the Nakba is also the story of Jews who live in Israel. A story that is not easy to cope with, a story that raises difficult questions about the possibilities of life together in the space that is today the state of Israel.

An interesting report from IraqSlogger, May 15:

An unknown left-wing group calling itself the Iraqi Armed Revolutionary Resistance distributed leaflets in the Mid-Euphrates area around Najaf, Hilla and Karbala calling for "resistance against American, British and Zionist occupiers in order to liberate Iraq and form a free socialist, democratic alternative," according to the Al-Badeel Al-Iraqi website. The group, which described itself as a "movement of Iraqi Communists and Marxists experienced in armed struggle, leftist Iraqi nationalists, and their supporters," claimed responsibility for an attack against U.S. troops at the Khan Al-Nus area between Najaf and Karbla on Sunday. The leaflets, which carried a photo of Cuban Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, announced the launch of the resistance in the Mid-Euphrates and condemned the "puppet government, the so-called Council of Representatives, terrorist Salafis, militias, the Interior Ministry, Iraqi traitors who came on American tanks, the American and British mercenaries, contractors, and their servants from the South Lebanese Army." Printed in both Arabic and English, the statement said car bombs and roadside bombs killing Iraqis are planted by the above groups to damage the reputation of Iraqi resistance groups.