Following his visit to Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations earlier this month, Burmese junta leader Min Aung Hlaing thanked Russia for the fighter jets and helicopters it has provided his military government. The junta, which came to power in the February 2021 coup, is currently facing an insurgency by a number of armed ethnic and opposition groups across Burma. Rights groups accuse the Tatmadaw, as the Burmese military is known, of routinely targeting civilian populations and infrastructure in its aerial attacks. While in Moscow, Min Aung Hlaing also met for the first time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, another key patron of his regime. (TNH)

A May 21 suicide attack on bus serving an army-run school in Khuzdar district of Pakistan's Balochistan province killed five people, three of them children. Islamabad, which faces accusations it was involved in last month's attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, quickly pointed the finger at neighboring India and Afghanistan. Both New Delhi and Kabul have denied the allegations. Balochistan has been the subject of a decades-long armed struggle for autonomy. Ethnic Baloch communities have accused Pakistani authorities of disenfranchisement, neglect and forced disappearances.

Amid the hype about how Trump "snubbed" Netanyahu on his Middle East trip come reports that his White House is pushing a plan to relocate some 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya—which is in the midst of a massive human rights crisis. Even while on the ground in Qatar, Trump plugged his relocation scheme for the Gazans, who now face complete ethnic cleansing from the devastated Strip. In Episode 279 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg debunks the notion of a Trump tilt away from Israel, and asks why some "progressives" are joining with paleocons to view massive arms deals with the repressive and arch-reactionary monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar as a good thing. 

Syrian Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri accused the interim government on May 1 of carrying out a "genocidal attack" on his community following two days of sectarian violence that left 100 dead. Al-Hijri said: "We no longer trust an organization that claims to be a government. A government does not kill its people through takfiri gangs to which it belongs." Takfiri is a popular pejorative used by Shi'ites and Druze for Sunni militants. Clashes broke out in the Damascus suburbs of Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, and armed residents began to mobilize in the Druze-majority southern city of Sweida (Suwayda) before a truce was reached. (Al-Monitor, Al-Jazeera)

Turkey has sent 500 troops to the Somali capital Mogadishu, the first phase of a planned 2,500-strong deployment to bolster the government against recent advances by the insurgent group al-Shabaab. Turkey already has 300 soldiers in Mogadishu, primarily to train the elite Gorgor brigade. Meanwhile, Turkey has also struck a controversial oil and gas exploration deal with the government in which it will receive 90% of all future revenues as a cost-recovery mechanism. Somalia will earn just 5% in royalties. (TNH)

The representative body of the Crimean Tatar people has vowed to oppose any international recognition of Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The Tatar Mejlis, now sitting in exile in Kyiv, said Apri 22 that any move to recognize Crimea as Russian territory would violate international law.  Refat Chubarov, the body's chairman, asserted in a statement: "Crimea is the homeland of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and an integral part of Ukraine. Accordingly, no one can decide the fate of Crimea under any circumstances, except for the Ukrainian state and the Crimean Tatar people."

Former Blackwater CEO and and mercenary boss Erik Prince is to lead a team helping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) secure and tax its extensive mineral wealth, news reports reveal. The deal, reached before the M23 rebels launched a major offensive in January, was just confirmed to Reuters by Congolese officials and diplomats. M23 has since January seized the eastern DRC's two largest cities, Goma and Bukavu, and is threatening to march on Kinshasa, the capital. The Prince-led initiative runs parallel to a broader "minerals-for-security" deal being negotiated between the DRC and the Trump White House. (Mining.com, TNH)

It was tragically appropriate that the second anniversary of Sudan's devastating civil war was marked by yet another massacre. At least 400 people were killed when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overran the Zam Zam displacement camp in North Darfur on April 11. They also executed 10 staff members in the camp's last remaining clinic, including medics and ambulance drivers. Eighty percent of the camp's original 500,000 population has escaped to the nearby government-held town of el-Fasher, although the RSF is believed to be trying to stop people—especially young men—from leaving.