Colombia is the worst humanitarian disaster in the western hemisphere, and the worst on the planet after Congo and Darfur. But the world is paying very little attention—even as Ecuador is starting to look more and more like the next domino. From the UN News Center, May 5:

The United Nations refugee agency is appealing for just $69,000 by the end of the month — a mere $10 per person — to help 7,200 Colombians who have fled into Ecuador from violence in their homeland.

From EFE, April 29 via ServIndi (our translation):

QUITO - The government will investigate an alleged massacre of indigenous people in the Amazon, at the hands of presumed armed madereros [pirate loggers], in a dispute over a forest zone, the local press reported today.

From El Universal, May 4 via the Chiapas95 archive:

A state judge on Wednesday exonerated a Michoacan police officer accused of shooting and killing a striking steel mill worker last month, despite video footage showing the officer firing his rifle toward the workers.

With Darfur in the headlines, if not the minds of our policymakers, it is generally forgotten that armed attacks, forced deportations and even slavery continue against Black African peoples throughout the Sahel. On Tuesday, May 9, at 7:30 PM, the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum will present a discussion in New York's Greenwhich Village on "Ethnic Cleansing and Slavery in Contemporary Africa," with an emphasis on Mauritania, Sudan and Darfur. The featured speaker will be Abdarahmane Wone of the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM), which has been attempting to resist and expose the system of slavery in that country for a generation.

Sarah Ferguson writes for the Village Voice, May 2:

A Day Without White People
On May Day, the masses rose up in New York. But where were the white peaceniks?
A bit of revolution hit the streets on May Day in New York. Folks will debate the size of the crowd that jammed Union Square and beyond yesterday afternoon. People filled sidewalks along side streets, searching for a way into the rally. By 3 p.m. the park was full; by 5 it was bursting--so much so that police pulled back the metal barricades blocking 14th Street and let the throngs spill down Broadway an hour before the rally inside the park was supposed to end.

One civilian was killed and several injured (both police and civilians) in a clash that erupted when police opened fire on protesters blocking a road in Dagestan's Dokuzpari district April 25. The protesters, who were demanding the dismisal of a local prosecutor accused of corruption, responded by hurling stones. (ITAR-TASS, April 26)

Another (very tentative) glimmer of hope in the battle for your privacy rights. From AP, April 25:

WASHINGTON -- An appeals court on Tuesday returned the criminal case against an Islamic scholar to a trial judge to determine whether the Bush administration's domestic spying program was used to gather evidence against him.

From Newsday, April 26:

Nine New York City firefighters sued the city and its fire pension fund yesterday saying they were denied disability pensions even after the department told them their breathing disorders sustained at Ground Zero had left them unfit to serve.