Colombia April 3 denied a request from jailed paramilitary leaders to campaign for candidates in local elections. Fourteen of about 60 para bosses jailed near Medellin sought permission to campaign in their cental and northern hometowns on behalf of gubernatorial and mayoral candidates in October's elections. "The president does not think it would be viable for them to leave jail," Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo told local radio.

Oil prices fell from $68.38 to $66.93 hours after Iran decided to free 15 UK naval personnel it holds captive, easing fears that the international dispute could escalate and disrupt crude supplies. (Forbes, April 4) Meanwhile, it was revealed that Robert Levinson, a US citizen who mysteriously disappeared on a business trip in Iran last month, is a former FBI agent. (AP, April 5)

According to investigative reports by ABC, the CIA has carefully maintained ties and links with the Pakistan-based insurgent group Jundallah, a band of Baloch separatists fighting for an independent Balochestan, a region which straddles southeast Iran and southwest Pakistan. Iranian authorities accuse Jundallah for perpetrating numerous bombings and shootings in Iran's southeast in recent months. (Reuters via Madrid11.net, April 4)

Haaretz, citing Israeli military sources, reported April 2 that the Israeli Defense Forces are preparing for the possibility of a Syrian attack on the Golan Heights that will start as a result of a "miscalculation" on the part of the Syrians. The Israelis supposedly fear that the Syrians fear Israel is planning to strike Syria and Lebanon simultaneous with US strikes on Iran. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was reportedly appraised of the hair-trigger situation when he visited IDF forces in the North last week.

As Somali insurgents square off against Ethiopian and government troops in Somalia's capital city of Mogadishu, bands of pirates have been making life increasingly difficult for ships coming in and out of the city's harbour. An Indian cargo vessel was hijacked April 2, and a UAE-registered ship narrowly managed escape as it pulled into the sea April 4. (Madrid11.net, April 4)

Nine children were among 12 people killed when a suicide truck-bomber drove into a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk April 2. A further 192 were injured in the blast, and many of the victims were children from a nearby primary school. Local hospitals were overrun with the injured, many of them school children.

"As Al Qaeda rebuilds in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has emerged under Osama bin Laden to cement control over the network’s operations, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials." Thus begins "New Generation of Qaeda Chiefs Is Seen on Rise" by Mark Mazzetti on the front page of the New York Times April 2. Mazzetti, mostly citing unnamed "intelligence officials," says a post-9-11 leadership has emerged, replacing apprehended directors like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and running a new network of training camps in the mountains of Pakistan.

Talli Nauman writes for Mexico's El Universal, April 2:

Environmentalists are rejoicing over the cancellation of a liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal project that the federal government had licensed Chevron Texaco to undertake adjacent to the Coronado Islands proposed protected area near Ensenada on the Pacific Coast of Baja California state.