Breaking ranks with the loopiness of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ilk, Bassem Naeem, health and information minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian administration in Gaza, explicitly acknowledges the historical fact of the Holocaust—while calling out Israel's manipulation thereof. From The Guardian's Comment is Free, May 12:

On May 21, as oil prices leaped to an unprecedented $133 a barrel, Big Oil's biggest executives got grilled on the Senate floor. "Where is the corporate conscience?" Sen. Dick Durbin asked execs from ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP America, Shell Oil and ConocoPhilips. Together the five companies earned $36 billion during the first three months of 2008. Their answers trotted out all the usual propaganda tactics...

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega is under scrutiny for supposed links to Colombia's FARC guerillas. In one "partially decoded" February e-mail supposedly recovered from the computer of late FARC commander Raúl Reyes, fellow FARC director Iván Márquez wrote that Ortega could send via Venezuela's Hugo Chávez "some old caucheras they are keeping there [in Nicaragua], and he believes still function." Cauchera is said to be code for rifles.

In what the Colombian press is explicitly portraying as a "farcpolítica" scandal to rival the "parapolítica" outrage, chief prosecutor Mario Iguarán asked the Supreme Court to investigate three opposition legislators for alleged links to the FARC guerillas. The investigations were reportedly prompted by data from laptop computers seized in the March 1 cross-border raid into Ecuador. Under suspicion is Sen. Piedad Cordoba (Liberal Party), who helped mediate the recent release of six FARC-held hostages. She maintains her links with FARC were only to help free the hostages. Only the high court can bring charges against sitting legislators.

The New York Times's Nazila Fathi writes in a May 20 story entitled "Iranian Clerics Tell the President to Leave the Theology to Them":

TEHRAN — In his almost three years as president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been harshly criticized in the West. But he is increasingly drawing fire from Shiite clerics here, who accuse him of using religion to distract attention from his government’s failure to deliver on promises of prosperity and political freedoms.

Nelly Ávila Moreno AKA Karina, commander of the FARC's 47th Front, surrendered to agents of Colombia's Administrative Security Department (DAS) May 18 in Sonsón, Antioquia. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos called it an "important blow" against guerilla organization. Karina was "nearly dying of hunger" when she and another guerrilla, "Michin," handed themselves in, Santos said. The surrender is a coup for President Alvaro Uribe, who made her a priority target for the security forces and put an $800,000 reward on her head. A military ring had been closing in on Karina for months. Two weeks ago, Uribe sent a public message to Karina, guaranteeing her safety if she turned herself in.

Colombia's Defense Ministry assured that the US air base now housed at Manta, Ecuador, would not be relocated to the Colombian Caribbean coastal zone of La Guajira—hours after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said Bogotá was "playing with fire," and that his country could revive claims to sovereignty over La Guajira if the plan went ahead.

Again displaying his penchant for name-calling, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called Interpol chief Ronald Noble a "corrupt" and "immoral" "gringo policeman" and "international vagabond," and branded as "ridiculous" a new report authenticating computer data allegedly seized from a FARC camp in Ecuador. The data reportedly indicate the FARC had sought arms from the Chávez government. Chávez also called the report a "show of clowns," and asked: "Where is the evidence that the computers came from that camp?"