A US-led raid on a suspected militant cell in Bati Kot district, Nangarhar province, killed as many as six Afghans April 30, including a woman and a teenage girl, sparking protests by hundreds of angry Afghans chanting "Death to Bush!" The protest was held on the same highway where a US Marine convoy fired indiscriminately on vehicles and pedestrians in the wake of a suicide bombing, killing 12 people March 4. "Their operation was based on incorrect reports, and they carried out a cruel attack on these houses," said local resident Akhtar Mohammad at the protest. "We are not the enemy; we are not al-Qaida. Why are they attacking us?"

Over the past weeks, Somalia has seen the worst fighting since the fall of the Said Barre dictatorship in 1991, leaving some 350,000 displaced from the capital, Mogadishu. (BBC, April 27) Our April issue featured the story "Somalia: the New Resistance" by Osman Yusuf, examining the Islamist factions that took up arms against the US-supported transition government and its Ethiopian allies. We also featured the story "Yemen: On the Brink of Sectarian War" by Mohamed Al-Azaki, a chilling account of the armed Shi'ite rebellion and harsh government repression shaking Washington's strategic Red Sea ally. Yemen, although rarely in the news, lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia—and we can be sure that the Pentagon is warily eyeing it as a "next domino," and potential threat to the stability of the bordering Saudi dictatorship. There have already been reliable reports that US Special Forces were directly involved in the Somalia fighting. Our April Exit Poll was: "Is Somalia the next Iraq? Is Yemen the next Somalia?" We received the following responses:

It has received no international coverage, but a BBC Monitoring translation of an April 28 report from the Madagascar Tribune indicates as explosion of ethnic violence in the African island nation over the weekend. What began as a street protest by the political opposition (called to oppose austerity measures, according to a brief item on the BBC World Service) escalated when "uncontrolled" elements started harassing the crowd, calling them "foreigners." Ire seems to have been focused on members of "the Indo-Pakistani community" and "Merinas" (defined by BBC Monitoring as the "largest ethnic community of Malay origin"). Homes and businesses belonging to people who hail from the highlands (around Antananarivo) or "karanas" (Indo-Pakistanis) were looted. Police apparently used bullets and teargas, resulting in at least 12 casualties. The report was unclear on whether there were any deaths, but several were hospitalized. "It all reminds me of the events of 6 March 1986," an eyewitness reached by telephone said, referring to the "anti-karana pogrom of the 1980s."

Legislators in Mexico's Federal District (DF, Mexico City) voted 46-19 with one abstention on April 24 in favor of a law decriminalizing abortion in the DF during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The law also requires the DF government to provide abortions in public hospitals, along with medical and social counseling and education on sexual and reproductive health. The law will take effect the day after it is officially published; the DF government has 60 days to make arrangements for providing the new services.

On April 1 the community of Nuevo Carrizalillo, in Eduardo Neri municipality in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, signed a 22-point agreement with Salvador Garcia Ledesma, general operations director of the Luismin mining company, to end a blockade the community had maintained at the Los Filos-El Bedmejal gold mines at various times since Jan. 8. The company agreed to pay the community an annual rent of 13,500 pesos (about $1,234) for each of the 970 hectares of land used for the mines. Luismin also agreed to rehire 60 laid-off miners; to pay the community 2.5 million pesos ($228,312) for losses due to the conflict; to rehabilitate the community's childcare center and basketball court; to create a computer center; and to provide 14 scholarships for community children. Luismin is the Mexican mining division of the Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc.

Tens of thousands of people marched on April 29 from Gualeguaychu, in the Argentine province of Entre Rios, to the international bridge that crosses the Uruguay river to protest a pulp plant under construction in Fray Bentos, on the Uruguayan side of the border. Organizers said 130,000 people took part in the march; Argentine border police put the number at 80,000. The Argentine and Urugayan governments are negotiating over the conflict generated by the plant, which is being built by the Finnish multinational corporation Botnia. The Environmental Assembly of Gualeguaychu has maintained a protest blockade on the border post since last Nov. 20. Environmental assemblies from two other border cities, Colon and Concordia, also took part in the march; on April 28 protesters blockaded the border crossings in all three cities. (EFE, April 29; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, April 29 from EFE)

On April 18, some 30 police agents accompanied by armed civilians detained and beat up five campesinos in the Paraguayan community of Paraguai Pyahu, in Guajayvi district of San Pedro department. Led by Menelio Orue, chief of the local police station, the agents also tied 11-year-old Blas Argana to a tree, slapped him and beat him on the soles of his feet to try to get him to reveal the location of his father, who was being sought by police. The agents kept Argana tied to the tree for a half hour. When they released him, they gave him 2,000 guaranies and demanded he keep quiet about the incident.

Abd al-Malik al-Houthi, the Shi'ite rebel leader in Yemen, speaking to reporters in the northern city of Saada, accused government forces of "genocide" in their campaign against the insurgents: "Cities and villages are being subjected nowadays to the most dreadful forms of annihilation by the corrupt authorities, and the citizens are the only damaged side because of this fierce bombing." Aid organizations say several Shi'ite villages near Saada have been almost destroyed by heavy fighting, estimating at least 5,000 people in the area have been forced from their homes.