World Watch

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Jolo
A series of grenade blasts shook the southern Philippines, killing seven people and injuring dozens more. The Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf was held responsible for the attacks, which targeted civilians near a police station, in a crowded alley and at a rice stall. The Abu Sayyaf continued to hold 21 Western and Asian hostages on the island of Jolo and eight more Filipino hostages on nearby Basilan island. Negotiators labored to secure agreement from the rebels on a framework for negotiations to end the crisis. JakartaChampions of human rights in Indonesia won a muted triumph when a joint civilian-military tribunal convicted 24 soldiers and one civilian for last year's massacre of 57 villagers in Aceh. Though the trial was supposed to demonstrate the government's commitment to atoning for the military's history of abuse, the relatively light sentences handed down — eight to 10 years in prison for each perpetrator — disappointed activists. The soldiers and their civilian guide had been charged with killing a group of students and their teacher, a prominent advocate of Aceh separatism, at an Islamic boarding school in the village of Beutong Aceh.

Suva
Seven men armed with AK-47s stormed Fiji's Parliament and detained Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his ethnic-Indian-dominated government. Their leader, George Speight, a former timber industry official, said the group had executed a civil coup on behalf of the indigenous people of Fiji and named government M.P. Timoci Silatolu as the new Prime Minister. As rioters looted and burned shops in downtown Suva, President Ratu Sir Kamasese Mara declared a state of emergency. Speight and his accomplices did not appear to have the support of the military. Sitiveni Rabuka, the former army strongman who seized power in a 1987 coup and lost it to Chaudhry in free elections a year ago, asked the group to reconsider their action.

Bogotá
The brutal murder of a Colombian farmer placed ongoing peace talks in jeopardy. President Andres Pastrana suspended the next round of talks between international delegates and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, farc, guerrillas after Elvia Cortez, a 53-year-old dairy farmer, was killed by a collar bomb allegedly placed on her neck by farc soldiers in a botched extortion attempt. Pastrana called the killings "barbaric" and called on the farc to cease kidnapings, murders and extortions immediately. A public hearing is set to begin May 29 between the farc and representatives from 21 countries, including Canada, the U.S. and the European Union, to discuss crop substitution programs.

Lima
Presidential candidate Alejandro Toledo announced he would not participate in the May 28 run-off round of Peru's presidential elections, saying that doing so would only serve to legitimize a fraudulent election. Toledo requested that the national electoral board postpone the runoff, in which he was set to oppose incumbent candidate Alberto Fujimori, until June 18 to allow more time for improving conditions in what has been a widely criticized electoral process. Toledo's announcement came on the heels of increasing calls from international observer groups to postpone the date in order to review new vote-counting software, which was recently implemented by the office of electoral processes. The National Electoral Board rejected Toledo's request for a postponement.

Birmingham
Two former members of the Ku Klux Klan turned themselves in after a grand jury indicted them on murder charges for the 1963 bombing of a black Baptist church in Alabama which killed four young girls attending Sunday School. The bombing seared the South and galvanized the civil rights movement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long believed that elements of the Klan were complicit in the bombing, but until last week only one suspect had been charged and convicted for the crime.

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