Lake Cachet II in southern Chile's Aysén region vanished in less than 24 hours last week, leaving behind just some large puddles and chunks of ice. Lake Cachet II's 200 million cubic liters of water gushed out into the Río Baker, tripling its volume and emptying the five-square-kilometer lake bed. (See map.) The lake is usually held behind a natural glacier dam, but rising temperatures weakened the ice. This was actually the 11th time that the lake has drained since 2008, leaving downstream residents terrified of sudden deluges. Lago Témpanos in Magallanes region of far southern Chile drained in a similar fashion in May 2007. "Climate models predict that as temperatures rise, this phenomenon, known as GLOFs [glacial lake outburst floods], will become more frequent," said glaciologist Gino Casassa from Chile's Center for Scientific Studies (CES). The GLOF phenomenon has also been reported in recent years in the Himalayas, and in Iceland due to volcanic activities, Casassa said. (The Watchers, May 23; AFP, May 22; El Mundo, Spain, May 7, 2007)

Indigenous Miskito residents of Ahuas village on the remote Caribbean coast of Honduras are demanding justice in the wake of a deadly raid by Honduran National Police and DEA agents May 11—with details still emerging on the scope of the violence. Villagers report that machine-gun fire from two helicopters lasted 15 minutes near the man village pier, adding to initial accounts of four killed in a combined air and ground assault on a canoa or pipante (dugout canoe) on the Río Patuca. As residents cowered in their homes, the two choppers—marked with the US flag, villagers say—next landed and disgorged some 50 heavily armed and uniformed men, who then proceeded to break down the doors of local homes. Residents were menaced at gunpoint and threatened with death to demand information about one "El Renco," as their modest homes were ransacked. Residents say English-speaking "gringos"—presumably, DEA agents—took part in the raids and rough interrogations, which lasted up to two hours.

In the seventh YouTube edition of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru where he was on assignment for The Progressive, speaks at the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum on the Quechua indigenous struggle against US-backed mining projects and in defense of land, water and autonomy in the Andes.

It is bitterly disappointing, but there is a sense of the inevitable to it. When the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA first claimed to have seized northern Mali and declared the independent state of Azawad last month, they trumpeted their commitment to secularism and dismissed the Islamist factions that had evidently taken power in Timbuktu and elsewhere in the territory as insignificant "groupsicles" that they would shortly crush. Now, just a few weeks later, the MNLA announces that it is merging with the most significant of these factions, Ansar Dine. The marriage of convenience is an obvious one. The MNLA, despite its boasting, was not able to crush the Islamists and is adhering to the old adage "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." They have betrayed their supposed commitment to secularism in order to achieve their more fundamental aim of an independent Azawad. Ansar Dine, in turn, have sacrificed their loyalty to a unified Mali (which probably never meant much to them anyway) in order to achieve their more fundamental aim of an Islamic state.

Following last week's indecisive elections, the Muslim Brotherhood is urging Egyptians to support its presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi in next month's seemingly inevitable run-off with Ahmed Shafiq, the ex-air force chief who was Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister. The Brotherhood is deriding Shafiq and his supporters as "feloul"—a scornful Arabic term for "remnants" of Mubarak's order. (Middle East Online, May 26; Egyptian Gazette, May 25) The Brotherhood's own website Ikhwanweb.com sports a headline reading "Muslim Brotherhood, Freedom and Justice Party: We Seek National Unity to Save Revolution," calling on "all patriotic parties and political players to join hands and face up to [presumably meaning 'stand up to'] the heinous coup of reactionary Mubarak-era leftovers." But Egypt's secular progressives are no more heartened by the Brotherhood than the "feloul." Ahmed Khairy of the liberal Free Egyptians Party called the likely runoff "the worst-case scenario," describing Mursi as an "Islamic fascist" and Shafiq as a "military fascist." (Ahram Online, May 25)

The opposition Syrian National Council is urging the UN Security Council to act after regime forces "massacred" more than 110 people in the town of Houla—half of them children. "Some of the victims were hit by heavy artillery while others, entire families, were massacred," the SNC's Basma Kodmani in a statement. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 50 civilians, including 13 children, were killed in shelling of Houla, in the central province of Homs. But the SNC put the figure twice as high, and said that after the army shelled the opposition stronghold, pro-government militia went house to house and killed residents at close range. (NPR, Sept. 27; Middle East Online, May 26)

Demonstrators marked Jordan's 1949 independence from British rule on May 25 by demanding reform and rejecting government plans to hike commodity prices and taxes to offset a $3 billion budget deficit. Chanting "No independence without reform" and "Do not set the country on fire by raising prices," more than 1,000 people, including opposition Islamists, trade unionists and youth groups, chanted as they marched in central Amman. The demonstration came a day after MPs gave a vote of confidence to Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh's government, which plans to increase commodity prices and taxes as part of an austerity package to avoid the huge deficit in the 2012 $9.6 billion budget. (Middle East Online, May 26)

A court in Bahrain on May 24 sentenced Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of jailed pro-democracy activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja to one month in prison for trying to organize an anti-government protest, according to Bahraini opposition groups. The court also fined her $530 on a separate charge of insulting a government employee. Zainab al-Khawaja refused to pay the fine and will face an additional 40 days in prison unless she pays it. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja has been on hunger strike for three months, expressing opposition to the Bahraini government's ongoing trials of pro-democracy protesters. He was sentenced to life in prison n June 2011. Zainab al-Khawaja is scheduled for another hearing this weekend on other protest-related charges.