Media have over the past week and change been full of voices plugging hydro-fracking as the key to finally achieving US "energy independence." Forbes on April 17 cites its own survey of "more than 100 energy executives" (no doubt a very objective group) finding that "fully 70% of energy executives believe that, given a true national commitment, the US could achieve a high degree of energy independence within 15 years." This exercise in industry self-promotion disguised as a study, "2012 US Energy Sector Outlook," wins the headline "US Energy Independence in 15 Years?" Forbes does concede: "Admittedly, energy executives are hardly a disinterested group, but they should have a good sense of their own industry's capabilities." (Gee, thank you.) And the "fly in the ointment" of the fracking future—i.e. environmental concerns—is mentioned. But: "The vast majority of energy executives (88%) believe either that fracking is safe or that it will become safe as the kinks get worked out." The saturation use of the "energy independence" catch-phrase smells like a coordinated campaign. Here's a still worse example...

Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region as the lean season gets underway. Altogether some 284,000 Malians have fled the north according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 107,000 of them thought to be displaced within Mali; 177,000 in neighbouring countries. New arrivals have pushed refugee numbers to 56,664 in Burkina Faso and to 61,000 in Mauritania, and to 39,388 in Niger, according to UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) . These governments are already struggling to get aid to millions of their inhabitants, who are facing hunger due to drought. Fleeing Malians have told the UNHCR they want to avoid getting caught up in possible conflict if government soldiers or foreign troops intervene in the north.

The Mexican Chamber of Deputies on April 30 approved a bill that will recognize, protect and provide aid to victims of crimes stemming from the gang-related drug wars that have engulfed the country for nearly the last six years. Known as the General Victims Act, the law was passed by Mexico's lower house of Congress as a means to compensate those persons adversely affected by fighting between gangs and security forces. The law will provide financial, legal and medical aid to those in need; victims of criminal violence will be eligible for relief of up to 950,000 pesos ($73,000). The bill was passed by the Mexican Senate last week in response to longstanding demand, as more than 47,500 people have died in Mexico over the last five-and-a-half years due to drug-related violence, and thousands more have gone missing.

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it is starting to smell that way. The controversy over destruction of a mosque near the Golden Temple of Dambulla—a Buddhist cave-temple in central Sri Lanka which has been a pilgrimage destination since the third century, and is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site—bears echoes of the 1992 destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, which ultimately led to the Gujarat genocide. This May 2 report by Sudha Ramachandran for Asia Times (interspersed with our annotation) is pretty chilling:

A new Human Rights Watch report charges that Syrian government forces killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in northern Idlib governorate shortly before the current "ceasefire" took effect. The occurred in late March and early April, as UN special envoy Kofi Annan was negotiating with Damascus to end the fighting. (HRW, May 2) Fighting of course continues despite the supposed "ceasefire," and the Turkish government warned May 2 that clashes are once again approaching the border zone between the two countries. Syrian government forces clashed with a group of army defectors who supposedly tried to seize territory near the Turkish border. Recalling the April 9 incident in which Syrian government forces fired on a refugee camp across the border at Oncupinar, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week invoked a threat of NATO intervention, warning: "If border violations continue in a way that disturbs us, we, as a member of NATO, will take the necessary steps." (AP, May 3; The National, UAE, May 2)

Members of Pakistan's Shi'ite Hazara ethnic minority held protests in London and Hamburg over the past days, charging "genocide" against their people with the complicity of the Islamabad regime—and the silence of the international community. Under the slogan "Stop Hazara Genocide," leaders said that a network financed from Saudi Arabia and operating with the protection of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency has terrorized Hazaras with killings and suicide bombings on a near-daily basis for the past 10 years, especially naming the groups Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi—which has publicly threatened to turn Quetta (capital of Baluchistan province, where most of the country's 600,000 Hazaras live) into a graveyard of Shi'ites. “There is a heavy presence of the law-enforcement agencies in Quetta city but it is matter of great concern that Hazaras get killed on daily basis," said Ali Raza Mogul of London's Hazara Progressive Alliance. "The government has failed to catch terrorists." (AFP, The News, Pakistan, May 1)

In his surprise visit to Afghanistan May 1, President Barack Obama signed an agreement with President Hamid Karzai to maintain a major US military presence in the country through the end of 2014—and to allow an indefinite, significant but unspecified presence beyond that date. Obama stressed that no permanent US bases will be involved, but the agreement requires Afghanistan to let US forces use Afghan bases. According to the the White House press release on the new US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA):

Gunfire continued in Mali's capital Bamako for a third day May 2, as patrols under the command of the ruling junta hunt down soldiers who had tried to stage an counter-coup. Accounts are sketchy, but it appears units of the "Red Berets" presidential guard loyal to the ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure took up arms to displace the junta that overthrew him. BBC tells us shots were also fired into the air to break up a student protest—without saying what the students were protesting, or which faction they are aligned with. The counter-coup attempt comes as coup leader Cpt. Amadou Haya Sanago rejected plans by regional bloc ECOWAS to send a military force to the country, and for elections to be held within 12 months. (BBC News, RFI, May 2; AFP, AP, May 1) Human Rights Watch has meanwhile issued a report charging that the Tuareg rebels, Islamist armed groups, and Arab militias now in control of northern Mali have committed numerous war crimes, including rape, use of child soldiers, and pillaging of hospitals, schools, aid agencies, and government buildings. The report, issued April 30 after a 10-day fact-finding mission to Bamako, says Islamists have carried out summary executions, amputated the hand of at least one man, held public floggings, and threatened women and Christians.