Several hundred Haitians marched in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Pétionville to protest corruption and profiteering in the distribution of food to earthquake survivors.
Puerto Rican independence activist Avelino González Claudio, suspected leader in the Macheteros rebel group, pleaded guilty to armed robbery of $7 million from a Wells Fargo depot.
According to the Unitary Workers Central (CUT), 40 union leaders and activists were killed in Colombia during 2009—representing 60% of all trade unionists killed worldwide.
A Colombian prosecutor called on the country’s Vice President Francisco Santos to testify about allegations of collaboration by ex-paramilitary warlord Salvatore Mancuso.
Three of 21 drug suspects arrested in a joint US-Colombian operation are closely linked to Joaquin Guzmán AKA “El Chapo,” Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, authorities say.
Iranian authorities have arrested seven for allegedly planning to provoke riots on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Several are charged with being in the employ of the CIA.
Russia’s foreign ministry voiced its concern at Romania’s plans to host part of a new US “missile shield” system for Europe, demanding explanations from Washington.
New Honduran President Porfirio Lobo named a “Truth Commission” to examine the June 2009 coup d’etat—as more murders and abductions were reported against coup opponents.
Gunmen killed six at a nightclub in the Mexican beach resort of Mazatlán, as six more decapitated bodies were found in an SUV in a town in Michoacán state.
Bolivian President Evo Morales declared his second inauguration the founding of a “pluri-national state,” as constitutional provisions for indigenous autonomy take effect.
The Native Alaskan coastal village of Kivalina, its lands rapidly eroding, is appealing a suit against oil and power companies, charging that climate change endangers their community.
Sea ice in Canada’s Arctic is melting faster than previously expected, Ottawa’s largest climate-change study yet has found—raising a worst-case scenario of an ice-free Arctic by 2013.
