The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced May 16 that he is seeking arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi and two others in his "inner circle" on charges of crimes against humanity. Ocampo said his office has gathered evidence that Qaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Sanussi plotted together to orchestrate attacks on civilians. He said al-Islam was acting as a "de facto Prime Minister" and called al-Sanussi, Qaddafi's "right-hand man" and "executioner." Ocampo said his office was almost prepared for trial, having collected quality testimony from some who have fled Libya. Ocampo said:

A two-year study released last week by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of a massive trove of data on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) seized in a raid by the Colombian military two years ago accuses Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez of collaboration with the guerilla movement, winning sensational headlines across Latin America. The archive of electronic documents apparently included the personal files and correspondence of FARC commander Raúl Reyes, who was killed in the same raid. Entitled "The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Archive of Raúl Reyes," the report charges that Chávez allowed the FARC "to use Venezuelan territory for refuge, cross-border operations and political activity, and effectively assigned the group a role in Venezuelan civil society." Chávez even subsidized a FARC office in Caracas, the study asserts.

Guatemalan authorities announced May 15 the discovery of 27 bodies—all but one decapitated—at a ranch known as Los Cocos in La Libertad municipality of the northern jungle department of Petén. The Public Ministry and National Civil Police (PNC) said the victims were farmworkers who were massacred by a narco-trafficking cell known as "Z-200," believed to be an arm of the Mexico-based criminal paramilitary network Los Zetas. The PNC was alerted to the ranch by local campesinos, and found the bodies spread out on the patio. Only six have thus far been identified.

President Barack Obama announced May 14 that he is ordering the Interior Department to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, and speed up seismic work that is a precursor to drilling off the South and mid-Atlantic coasts. In his radio address, Obama said he would also extend oil company leases in both Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico—where work was delayed by the drilling moratorium imposed during last year's devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He said he is also ordering the Interior Department to hold a Gulf of Mexico lease sale this year and two in 2012, thereby completing the department’s five-year plan for the area. (WP, May 14)

Persistent rumors that private Israeli security companies are recruiting mercenaries for embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi were given new credence by a May 2 report on the Zurich-based International Relations and Security Network (ISN) website. Although the report itself cites unnamed "reports," it for the first time names a particular Israeli firm which is said to have been contracted by the afflicted Tripoli regime:

Diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks reveal that the security company Global CST—led by Maj. Gen. Israel Ziv, the former head of operations for the Israeli military—made such inroads into Latin America that US diplomats saw it as a security threat and moved to thwart the company's expansion. The diplomats' efforts were given an inadvertent boost when an interpreter for the Israeli firm was evidently caught passing on classified Colombian Defense Ministry documents to leftist guerrillas, according to one cable cited by McClatchy Newspapers.

An open letter from Israel's progressive +972 Magazine, where it first appeared in Hebrew and Arabic on April 24:

Ruh Jedida: A New Spirit for 2011
We, as the descendants of the Jewish communities of the Arab and Muslim world, the Middle East and the Maghreb, and as the second and third generation of Mizrahi Jews in Israel, are watching with great excitement and curiosity the major role that the men and women of our generation are playing so courageously in the demonstrations for freedom and change across the Arab world. We identify with you and are extremely hopeful for the future of the revolutions that have already succeeded in Tunisia and Egypt. We are equally pained and worried at the great loss of life in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and many other places in the region.

The annual Jewish pilgrimage to the Tunisian island of Djerba for the Lag B'Omer holy day has been officially canceled for the first time ever due to security concerns this year. For centuries, Mizrahi Jews from throughout the Mediterranean have converged on the island each year for a festival centered on the ancient El Ghriba synagogue on the holiday that follows Passover. But Roger Bismuth, president of Tunisia's Jewish community, said the event was called off thus year after consultations with the government. "We have this fight at the Tunisian border with Libya so the situation is not as we like," Bismuth told the Jerusalem Post by phone from Tunis. "Besides that we have had a revolution. The situation is not completely quiet yet so we took precautionary measures."