Egyptian authorities detained 39 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Eleven were arrested May 20 in the southern province of Beni Sueif on charges of holding "a secret meeting." Fourteen more were detained in dawn raids May 21 in the province of Sharqiyah, including Abdel Aziz Abdel Qader, who heads the group's Sharqiyah office. The move comes as Egypt closes the door for candidate nominations for next month's upper house parliamentary elections. (AlJazeera, May 21) The Brotherhood is officially banned, but its leaders are sometimes allowed to run for office as independents.

Pakistani security forces clashed with militants at an al-Qaeda camp near the Afghan border May 22, leaving at least three dead. Maj.-Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said that after receiving reports about the training camp in North Waziristan, tribal elders were sent in to tell its leaders to shut it down. They came under fire, triggering a gun battle. "Security forces returned the fire and are in the process of clearing the miscreants' training facility," the military said in a statement. (AlJazeera, May 22)

Syria distanced itself May 22 from the Islamist militants battling Lebanese army troops for control of Tripoli's Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. "We renounce Fatah al-Islam," said Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. "Members of the group are wanted by the Syrian security services. This group serves neither the Palestinian cause nor the interests of the Palestinian people." The group's Palestinian leader Shaker al-Abssi slipped into Lebanon last year after serving three years in a Syrian prison. Lebanese officials accuse Damascus of backing Fatah al-Islam to stir up trouble in Lebanon. Said MP Walid Jumblatt: "The Nahr al-Bared camp is hostage to Fatah al-Islam, which is a terrorist gang that has been exported towards us from Syria."

Two months after the detention of a group of young people protesting the visit of President George Bush to the southern Mexican city of Merida, Yucatan state, five remain behind bars, unable to pay bail which has been set at 30,000 pesos ($3,000). The only woman detained, Victoria Texeira, has been denied bail because she is accused of violently attacking a reporter. (La Jornada, May 18)

Renewed violence in Dili left one dead as Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta was sworn in May 20 as East Timor's president. UN police to fire teargas and warning shots, and arrested 42. Following the first election since independence in 2002, Ramos-Horta was sworn in to replace the former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao on the same day that East Timor marked five years since independence. Gusmao, a close Ramos-Horta ally, did not contest the election for the largely ceremonial job of president, but will run for the more powerful post of prime minister in next month's parliamentary polls. Ramos-Horta was sworn in by the man he trounced in the May 9 election, parliament speaker Francisco Guterres from the ruling Fretilin party. The street violence was apparently between Ramos-Horta supporters and Fretilin youth. (AFP, May 21)

A ship carrying tons of UN aid has refused to leave Kenya for Somalia following the May 19 pirate attack on an aid ship. The pirates failed to seize the ship, but one crew member was killed. It was the eighth priate attack of the year off Somalia's coast. The US Navy warned vessels to stay clear of Somalia's coast. The UN World Food Program has appealed for international action to secure the waters off the coast.

Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, gave Russian President Vladimir Putin an icon May 17, as a token of appreciation for his contribution to the unification of the Moscow-based Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The agreement signed earlier in the day reunited the two branches of the Russian Orthodox Church, ending the generations-long breach that followed the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.

Lebanese security forces fought militants linked to al-Qaeda in the northern city of Tripoli and at the adjacent Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared early May 20, leaving at least 10 dead, including four police. Witnesses said gunmen from the Fatah al-Islam faction seized Lebanese army positions at the entrance to the camp, then moved out to roads leading to the city and ambushed a military unit. Army reinforcement were called in and fighting spread. The attack may have been a reaction to a police raid on a Tripoli apartment that morning. Police were looking for suspects in a bank robbery a day earlier in Amyoun, a town southeast of Tripoli, in which gunmen made off with $125,000 in cash. The militants resisted arrest and a gunbattle ensued.