Police are seeking 10 men, including several tribal elders, accused of pressuring a Pakistani woman to hand over her teenage daughter as payment for a 16-year-old poker debt. Nooran Umrani of Hyderabad says that, despite paying off her late husband's debt of $165, she was threatened with harm if she failed to hand over her daughter, Rasheeda, 17. (AP, Feb. 27)

Anti-war marchers took to the streets in London and Glasgow Feb. 24 to demand the return of all troops from Iraq, and an end to plans to replace the UK's Trident nuclear missile system. Organizers from the Stop the War coalition said 60,000 people turned out in London's Trafalgar Square. In Glasgow, around 2,000 gathered in George Square. The protests, jointly organized with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the British Muslim Initiative, also opposed any military action against Iran. Marchers carried "Don't attack Iran" banners and posters calling US President George Bush a "terrorist." (BBC, Feb. 24)

US military officials displayed another cache of "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs) to reporters at a base outside Baghdad Feb. 26, saying the weaponry was clearly made in Iran. They admitted, however, there was no way to know if the Iranian government was involved in supplying the weapons. US officials make much of claims that the Quds Force, a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, is supplying weapons to Shiite militia groups in Iraq—charges denied by Tehran. (Gulf News, UAE, Feb. 25) A day earlier, two people were killed and four wounded when an explosives-laden bus exploded in a parking lot in front of the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad, according to initial reports. However, Iran's official news agency quoted anonymous officials in Tehran's Foreign Ministry saying the blast "was not near Iran's embassy." The official stressed that no Iranian diplomats or embassy were wounded. (IRNA, Feb. 25)

Religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq are facing unprecedented levels of violence, and in some cases risk being eradicated entirely, according to a new report from the London-based Minority Rights Group International. In a major survey of the plight of Iraq's minorities, the report finds that these groups—some of whom have lived in Iraq for over two millennia—are being targeted by Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish militias as the battle for power and territory in Iraq intensifies.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon visited a small village outside the Rosario monarch butterly reserve in Michoacan state to announce a "zero tolerance" policy against illegal logging, and pledged to mobilize army troops to protected areas. (Scientific American, Feb. 26) The policy is part of Calderon's new Conservation for Development Strategy, 2007-2012. He also announced the creation of several new protected areas, including at Manglares de Nichupté coastal wetlands near Cancún, and measures to protect the threatened El Hundido aquifer at Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila. (La Jornada, Feb. 25 via Chiapas95)

Women from the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) blocked roads at various locations across Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, in protest of the "anti-national and pro-imperialist" government of President Felipe Calderon. They also demanded lower electricity rates. Traffic was halted for several hours on major roads through the Highlands, Selva, Northern Zone and Central Valley. (La Jornada, Feb. 25 via Chiapas95) In a Feb. 14 communique, the FNLS protested the massive federal immigration raids in Chiapas, saying they revealed the "fascist and ultra-right" nature of the Calderon government. (FNLS, Feb. 14 via APIA)

A Feb. 22 press release from Narco News, via New Zealand's Scoop:

Zapatistas to Raise Two Peace Encampments on Indigenous Territory

Subcomandante Marcos, spokesman of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), recently announced that the Sixth Commission and the EZLN will be supporting two peace encampments, one in Baja California and the other in Chiapas, on Zapatista and Cucapá territory.

In recognition of International Mother Language Day, lawmakers in southern Mexico's Chiapas state proposed Feb. 21 a reform to the state constitution recognizing the existence of the indigenous tongues of Jacalteco, Chuj and Kanjobal, which are threatened with extinction. Articel 13 of the Chiapas constitution recognizes nine indgenous langauges: Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, Zoque, Tojolabal, Mam, Kakchiquel, Lacandon and Mochó. The three now being considered are spoken by only a few thousand residents, mostly Guatemalan refugees who settled in Chiapas to escape genocide in the 1980s.