Sudan and Chad are to co-operate with the African Union (AU) and UN in an effort to stabilize the troubled Darfur region. As part of the agreement signed in Saudi Arabia, a joint border force is to be created and observers assigned to the region, while both parties have also pledged not to aid one another's dissident movements. [BBC, May 4]

Receiving virtually no international coverage, this past weekend saw an outburst of ethnic violence in Madagascar, with homes and shops of the Indo-Pakistani immigrant community looted in the southwest coastal town of Toliara. A serious escalation is reported April 30 in the Madagascar Tribune—a grisly killing and ritual desecration at a mosque in Ankatso, near the capital Antananarivo. The body of the 20-year-old student was found in the mosque on the morning of April 29, the day after the Toliara violence. His blood had apprently been intentionally spilled around the mosque's interior, and the Koran was torn. The Tribune writes that following this development, and the slaying of a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden in Madagascar earlier this year, the island nation "risks being placed on the black-list of Muslim extremists."

It has received no international coverage, but a BBC Monitoring translation of an April 28 report from the Madagascar Tribune indicates as explosion of ethnic violence in the African island nation over the weekend. What began as a street protest by the political opposition (called to oppose austerity measures, according to a brief item on the BBC World Service) escalated when "uncontrolled" elements started harassing the crowd, calling them "foreigners." Ire seems to have been focused on members of "the Indo-Pakistani community" and "Merinas" (defined by BBC Monitoring as the "largest ethnic community of Malay origin"). Homes and businesses belonging to people who hail from the highlands (around Antananarivo) or "karanas" (Indo-Pakistanis) were looted. Police apparently used bullets and teargas, resulting in at least 12 casualties. The report was unclear on whether there were any deaths, but several were hospitalized. "It all reminds me of the events of 6 March 1986," an eyewitness reached by telephone said, referring to the "anti-karana pogrom of the 1980s."

We agree that there is something utterly perverse about the fact that the Darfur genocide is now entering its fifth year, as the world stands by and watches. And of course the vast majority of those participating in the Global Day for Darfur actions are well-intentioned. But a part of what makes the situation perverse is the increasingly surreal spectacle of celebrity and "Holocaust Industry" (TM Norman Finkelstein) exploitation of the genocide. That Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocuast memorial, can moralize about Darfur while remaining silent about the oppression of the Palestinians far closer to home only confirms our cynicism. From Haaretz, April 30:

Aunty Maiduguri, a Nigerian lesbian who married four other women last weekend in Kano State, has gone into hiding from the Islamic police, along with her partners. Under Sharia law, adopted in the state seven years ago, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are outlawed. The theater where the wedding celebration was held April 22 has been demolished by Kano city's authorities. Lesbianism is also illegal under Nigeria's national penal code, and parliament is considering tightening its laws on homosexuality.

Interim Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi insists that government and Ethiopian forces have successfully "won" their fight against the Union of Islamic Courts in Mogadishu. Fierce combat has been raging in the city for nine days, in an effort led by Somali-Ethiopian troops to clear "pockets of resistance." [AlJazeera, April 26]

Two prominent Somali clan leaders, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and Hussein Aideed, have issued an ultimatum to the Ethiopian forces to leave Somalia now or prepare to fight to the death. The two leaders of the Hawiye clan that dominates the Somali capital, Mogadishu, spoke after holding talks in Eritrea. Aideed said that Somalis will unite against "the brutal occupation" by Ethiopia.

Some 25 Islamist militants calling themselves the "Taliban" have been killed in an army offensive near the northern city of Kano, Nigeria. Militants took an area of the city after attacking a police station on April 17. Nine Islamists have been captured, as well as a quantity of arms, the army says. Authorities say the action was launched to avenge the assassination of a radical Islamic cleric shot dead April 13. The militants, numbering some 300, killed at least ten when they took the police station. The unrest adds to rising tension, with opposition parties threatening to boycott the upcoming presidential polls. Islamists have maintained a low-level insurgency in the Kano region for last few years.