Khartoum has agreed to an interim deployment of 3,000 UN peacekeepers in support of the African Union (AU) in Darfur. UN officials, however, have announced that enacting this measure may take as long as six months, while Sudan is yet to condone the third phase of peacekeeping operations, which would involve deployment of a further 20,000 personnel in support of the overstretched AU teams already on the ground. Although described by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as "a very positive sign," US Ambassador Alejandro Wolff has expressed scepticism. After all, this path has been stymied before. US-British intensions to enact sanctions against the Khartoum government remain on the table. [Reuters, April 17]

The conflict in Darfur is an early sign global security threats prompted by climate change, a senior representative of the British government warned April 16 on the eve of a special United Nations debate. "Like most conflicts, it's complex. It results from an interplay of a lot of social and political and possibly ethnic factors," said John Ashton, Prime Minister Tony Blair's special ambassador on climate change. "But there is absolutely no doubt that it's a more difficult conflict to deal with, because on top of all that, you've had a 40% fall in the rainfall in northern Darfur over the last 25 to 30 years, again in a way that's entirely consistent with what the climate models would have told you to expect."

Hundreds of rural workers occupied the offices of the National Agrarian Reform Institute in Brasilia, and thousands more invaded farms and blocked roads on April 16, demanding the government speed up moves to give land to small farmers and peasants. Protesters stormed the building at dawn and shut the doors to staff. They moved to the cellar by early evening, after authorities agreed to dialogue.

Hassan Hattab, founder of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC)—now dubbed "al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb," which has claimed responsibility for last week's deadly Algiers bombings—called on militants to put down their weapons under a government amnesty. Hattab made the comments in an open letter to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika published in the Echorouk daily. "I call on the militants to give up the fight," he wrote, accusing the organization of being "a small group that wants to transform Algeria into a second Iraq."

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), called on the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Manila to abide by a 1996 agreement that was meant to end conflict in the southern Philippines. An ongoing battle over the past three days has killed 18 people, including a child, and displaced thousands. Government forces dropped 250-pound bombs and fired rockets into the base of MNLF commander Habier Malik near Panamao town on the southern island of Jolo over the weekend after he fired mortars on their headquarters on April 13, killing a child that lived nearby. (Reuters, April 16)

Venezuela is advocating regional integration at a two-day, 12-nation energy summit of South American leaders that opens April 16 on the Caribbean island of Margarita. "Gradually, the US empire will end up a paper tiger and we, the peoples of Latin America, will become true tigers of steel," President Hugo Chávez said on the eve of the summit. Chávez is expected to use the summit to promote his plan to build a 8,000-kilometer gas pipeline linking Venezuela to Brazil and Argentina.

A new Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, officially opened on March 19 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian, is emerging as a source of speculation about regional energy alliances. A trip to Armenia by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili two days after the pipeline's opening has provided fuel for conjecture despite the official line that it was a ski vacation. Saakashvili's spokesmen admit he met with Kocharian and that talks touched on the pipeline.

Tens of thousands of people marched throughout Argentina on April 9 as part of a general strike called to protest the death of a teacher, Carlos Fuentealba, who died on April 5 in the southwestern province of Neuquen after being shot at close range with a tear gas canister. The country's teachers observed a total one-day strike called by the Confederation of Education Workers of the Argentina Republic (CTERA). The protests were backed by the two main labor confederations: the leftist Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) and the General Confederation of Workers (CGT), associated with the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist). The CGT limited its general strike to one hour, from noon to 1 PM.