Authorities in Serbia on May 26 announced the capture of Ratko Mladic, ending a 16-year manhunt for the former military commander of the self-declared Serb Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mladic faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He is most infamous for ordering the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war in 1995. Extradition proceedings to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague are to begin immediately.

World War 4 Report today unveils a preview of our new website, New Jewish Resistance: Fighting Zionism and Anti-Semitism, Defending Pan-Semitic Unity. New Jewish Resistance aspires to be a movement, not just a website—uniting all Jews who believe in fighting Jew-hatred in the diaspora, not rallying around an illegitimate settler state. We will have the .org online soon (at the moment only the .com is up), but think of it as an organization in embryo. We will have more bloggers writing for us in the coming days. And we will post the following mission statement:

Five days of protests in the Georgian capital Tbilisi culminated in harsh repression May 26 as riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse several hundred demonstrators demanding resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili. At least two are reported dead following a confrontation outside the parliament building. A government statement accused protesters of "planning to violently resist the police" and intending to illegally occupy the main street outside parliament to prevent the annual Independence Day parade. Protest leader Nino Burjanadze, who has promised a "revolution," pledged further demonstrations: "We will not stop. We will do everything to get rid of this government which hates its people." (AFP, Reuters, May 26)

Rae Abileah, the woman of Israeli descent who interrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu's speech before the US Congress on May 24, claims she was beaten by AIPAC activists. "I yelled 'Stop the occupation' and immediately they jumped on me," she told Ynet May 25. "They assaulted me and I fell on the floor. The activists strangled me and beat me. Then I was dragged out by police who arrested me." She says she sustained injuries to the neck and shoulders which required hospitalization.

Mohamed al-Korshan, representative of the Bedouin community in the West Bank, spoke May 24 at the 10th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, where he appealed for recognition of his people as a displaced indigenous group living as refugees under occupation. Korshan said there are currently 40,000 Bedouin in the West Bank, who were separated from Bedouin tribes in the Negev desert after Israel became a state in 1948. They hold Palestinian identity documents, but many live in Area C of the West Bank, which is under direct Israeli military occupation. Others, who fled the Negev in 1948, are in UN-run refugee camps, where they have lost their traditional livelihood as nomads and are experiencing an erosion of their culture.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez held a phone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad on May 22, "to give him a personal message of affection and hope at a time when imperialist forces are violently attacking the Syrian people," on the words of the official Venezuelan News Agency. The Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed in an official statement that Assad had given Chávez "a thorough report on the real situation affecting the Arab nation, in which a fascist conspiracy is trying to sow chaos and disorder so as to subjugate Syria to Western powers." The statement reads that "President Hugo Chávez informed his Syrian counterpart of the demonstrations of solidarity made by many Latin American and Caribbean leaders. He also took the opportunity to convey his unconditional political and personal support to President al-Assad, expressing his sincere conviction that the dignity of the Syrian people and government would prevail over imperialist aggressions." (VenezuelAnalysis, May 22)

Gun battles erupted across the capital of Yemen on May 23 as security forces clashed with fighters from the country's most powerful tribe. The fighting came a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh formally reversed his earlier promise to sign a deal brokered by the Gulf states that would end his 33 years in power, prompting regional leaders to abandon their efforts at mediating a solution to Yemen's political impasse . The violence began outside the Sana'a residence of Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, leader of the country's largest tribe, the Hashid. Saleh himself belongs the tribe, but Ahmar announced in March that the Hashid were joining the popular uprising against the president. As the violence flared, convoys of armed tribesman in SUVs raced towards the area where the fighting broke out. The area was cordoned off by security forces making it difficult to establish an exact number of casualties. However, a doctor at the nearby al-Kuwait hospital said more than 60—both tribesmen and soldiers—were treated for bullet wounds and at least 10 soldiers had died. Stray missiles hit a nearby Yemenia Airlines headquarters, setting it on fire, and one journalist was among the injured.

NATO stepped up air raids on targets in Tripoli May 24, carrying out more than 20 strikes—many near Moammar Qaddafi's compound, the Bab al-Aziziya. A regime spokesman said at least three were killed and dozens wounded in the raids, which targeted buildings used by volunteer units of the Libyan army. NATO said in a statement that a number of the raids hit a vehicle storage facility adjacent to the Bab al-Aziziya that has been used to supply regime forces "conducting attacks on civilians." The regime made a show of support for Qaddafi, with loyalists filling the streets outside hotels where Western journalists stay, declaring their love of the dictator, honking horns and firing guns in the air. (The Guardian, May 24)