The Overview: 02.05.08

Burma's lead general urges the Burmese people to vote in favour of the sham constitution the military junta has proposed, while the opposition urges a boycott. At the same time, the US adds new sanctions against the regime. Can't a repressive, backwards, de facto dictatorship get a break?

In Bolivia, tensions between the country's elite, who held power until the recent election of Evo Morales, and the poor indigenous majority that make up much of Morales' support, are worsening, with the richest state holding a referendum on autonomy that the government considers illegal. The dispute is more complex than rich-vs-poor, and is analyzed in detail by John Crabtree at OpenDemocracy. Very thorough coverage as well at the Bolivia-based Democracy Centre, which participated in our Global Blogging project.

The Olympic torch arrives in Hong Kong, as does Mia Farrow, a vocal anti-China critic.

The UN will hang out in Kosovo, where official independence is slated for June 15, longer than planned.

An Al-Jazeera cameraman is freed by the US from Guantanamo Prison after six years.

Official, though dubious, results in Zimbabwe give Morgan Tsvangirai a 48% victory over Robert Mugabe (43 %), not enough to avoid a runoff. Shocking. Conveniently, Mugabe's Zanu-P has been "campaigning" in advance.

Further reading: Not for the first time, Haiti is facing a food crisis, partially a result of global trends that have begun to create suffering in the world's poorest nations. The Guardian's Simon Tisdall looks at the way decisions in the West affect the developing world, while Paul Rogers draws parallels with the food crisis of the early 1970s at OpenDemocracy. See also: The Hunger Project.