Municipal police in San Nicolás de los Garza, a suburb of Mexico's northern industrial hub of Monterrey, staged protests outside their precinct stations March 6 after three of their colleagues were shot to death and a fourth was gravely wounded in a dawn ambush on a patrol car. The protesting cops demanded better weapons, more bulletproof vests, and life insurance. "We want our rifles back," was a favored slogan. City officials said the police have agreed to continue working "under protest" while talks are underway.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended a five-day tour of Latin America March 5 with a stop in Guatemala, where she promised the assembled Central American leaders more Drug War aid—and repeated her call for them to recognize the new government of Porfirio Lobo in Honduras. "We support the work that President Lobo is doing to promote national unity and strengthen democracy," Clinton said at a news conference, announcing that the US will restore aid to Honduras. Lobo himself attended the meeting—seeming to signal a step toward normalizing relations with Guatemala and El Salvador. Costa Rica and Panama, also in attendance, have already recognized the Lobo government. The Nicaraguan government of Daniel Ortega, who did not attend the meeting, is unlikely to do so. Also on hand were the presidents of Belize and the Dominican Republic. (NYT, CSM, March 5)

The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other organizations steeped in anti-government conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued this week by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Doctors in the Iraq city of Fallujah are reporting an unusually high amount of birth defects in the region, with many medical professionals saying the weapons used by US forces in the intense 2004 fighting are to blame. Heart and nervous system defects among newborn babies is said to have soared in the city in the years since the fighting, now at levels 13 times those of Europe. Doctors and parents interviewed by BBC say they believe toxic materials left over from the 2004 fighting entered the water supply in Fallujah. One doctor says medical officials note two or three cases of birth defects each day, and are urging local women not to have children.

Guatemalan union leaders and their families filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan against Coca-Cola Co., accusing the world's biggest beverage company of complicity in violence against labor leaders. Lead plaintiff José Armando Palacios says he was repeatedly targeted in attempts on his life after he joined the union at a Coca-Cola processing plaint in Guatemala City, owned by Industria de Cafe or Incasa, in 2004. Thugs he charges were hired by Coke invaded his home, held his wife and family at gunpoint, and threatened to shoot them. Palacios fled to the United States in 2006, where he was later joined by his family.

Guatemalan police forces, together with army troops and DEA agents, destroyed 319 million opium plants and 250,000 marijuana plants, together valued at an estimated $780 million, in a four-day operation last month in Ixiguan and Tajumulco municipalities of San Marcos department, near the border with Mexico. The National Civil Police said San Marcos is considered to be a "sanctuary" of opium cultivation. (EFE, Feb. 5)

Guatemalan authorities March 2 arrested three top anti-narcotics officials—days before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to visit the Central American nation to discuss Drug War strategy. Baltázar Gómez Barrios, chief of the National Civil Police (PNC), was detained along with "Drug Czar" Nelly Judith Bonilla and her advisor Fernando Carrillo at the Division of Anti-Narcotics Analysis and Information (DAIA). They are accused of running a corruption ring linked to a gun-battle last April between traffickers and police over a 700-kilo consignment of confiscated cocaine in Amatitlán. Five DAIA agents were killed in the gun-fight, and 13 have been since been arrested in connection with it. (NYT, FT,* Siglo XX1, Guatemala, March 3; El Periodico, Guatemala, March 2)

Following an "extraordinary assembly" Feb. 26 in Ambato, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) issued a call for a nationwide "uprising" to protest the government's development policies and press demands for a "pluri-national state." The statement charged that the government has "not modified the colonial State and continues building the neoliberal capitalist model." CONAIE president Marlon Santi said "CONAIE has terminated the dialogue with the national government, because the process of dialogue has produced no results."