The Iraqi government has refused to provide the UN with civilian casualty figures for its 10th report on the human rights situation in the occupied country since August 2005, but numbers from various ministries indicate more than 5,500 people were killed in the Baghdad area alone in the first three months of 2007. The numbers, provided to the Los Angeles Times by government ministry employees, could not be independently verified.

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), April 27:

The Discriminatory Wall of Adamya Must be Abolished Immediately
In an unprecedented action in the history of Iraq, the U.S.-led occupying troops have begun the building of a wall made of concrete to separate the district of Adamya from neighboring districts on a pretext of stopping the terrorist activities. The Prime Minister, Nouri Almailki, even went further to say that the wall aims to protect the residents of the district from violence.

Security forces in Saudi Arabia have arrested 172 national and foreign "terror suspects." Those arrested are alleged to have been training as pilots in order to launch suicide attacks in the country, an interior ministry spokesperson has reported. Large quantities of weapons and money were also seized in the "anti-terror" raid. [AlJazeera, April 27]

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]

A Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter has been shot down by Chechen fighters during an army operation near the town of Shatoi, southern Chechnya. Its four crew members and 13 passengers are all suspected killed. Violence is said to have erupted at the site of the crash between Russian forces and insurgents. [AlJazeera, April 27]

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed concern that construction of a US missile shield in Eastern Europe would heighten the "threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction." The proposed scheme "is not just a defense system," he exclaimed, "this is part of the US nuclear weapons system." [BBC, April 27]

Ecuador has expelled World Bank representative to Quito, Eduardo Somensatto, on the order of President Rafael Correa. Though Ecuador did not give an official reason for the expulsion, but Correa had protested the Work Bank's withholding of a $100 million loan in 2005, when he was the country's economic minister. Correa charges it was because of the country's moves to nationalize the oil sector. The bank contends the loan was suspended because Ecuador violated terms by dissolving an oil fund set aside to pay off foreign debt. Ecuador last week paid off the balance of its debt to the International Monetary Fund, but Correa has threatened to default on the remaining foreign debt. The country owes the World Bank an estimated $748 million. (UPI, April 26)

Tierramérica reports [April 21] that grassroots organizations in the department of Olancho, Honduras, are fighting both for the enforcement of a partial ban decreed to stop illegal logging, as well as justice punishment of the assassins of two Honduran environmentalists on December 20, 2006. Six environmentalists have been killed in the Olancho region since 1998, and more than half of the original 2.5 million hectares of forested land has been cut.