Hundreds of families in Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland have fled inter-clan fighting in the mid-west Satiile area in Gabiley region, local officials report. The fighting, the second flare-up in three months, started on 7 April after a group of men drove into Satiile settlement area and shot dead a local farmer and wounded his brother.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled April 7 that US courts cannot prevent the government from transferring detainees held at Guantánamo Bay to foreign countries on the grounds that detainees may face prosecution or torture in the foreign country. The three-judge panel found it had jurisdiction to hear the habeas corpus claims brought by nine Uighur Muslim detainees under Boumediene v. Bush. Relying heavily on the US Supreme Court opinion Munaf v. Geren, the court then overturned a DC District Court decision that would have required the government to give a 30-day notice before sending detainees to foreign nations, ruling that the executive branch has broad authority to order transfers. The court noted that the US government has in place policies against sending detainees to countries that may torture them and concluded "the district court may not question the Government’s determination that a potential recipient country is not likely to torture a detainee."

Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was found guilty of committing human rights abuses during his 1990-2000 rule by a special court in Lima April 7. Fujimori, who maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings, was convicted on charges of approving the November 1991 killing of 15 people in Lima's Barrios Altos neighborhood and the July 1992 kidnapping and murder of 10 people from Lima's La Cantuta University. Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison and plans to appeal.

From April 2 to April 3 hundreds of indigenous Chortí blocked access to Copán archeological park, probably Honduras' most important ancient Mayan site, to press demands for land. Tourism minister Ricardo Martínez said the protesters agreed to leave after the government offered to start negotiations on April 15. An estimated 400 European and US tourists visit Copán a day, each paying a $15 entrance fee.

Three masked men kidnapped Guatemalan attorney and university professor Gladys Monterroso on March 25 as she was eating breakfast in a restaurant in Guatemala City and held her for 13 hours before leaving her on a street in the Atlántida neighborhood. She said the men burned her with cigarettes, beat her and subjected her to sexual and psychological abuse; at one point they put a pistol in her mouth and said they would kill her. They didn't demand a ransom.

In an op-ed in the March 31 New York Times, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon announced economic development plans for Haiti based on the expansion of "free-trade zones" (FTZs), industrial parks for tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export (maquiladoras). Ban said this will enable Haiti to take advantage of 2008 US legislation known as HOPE II, which gives Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to US markets for nine years.

Medical professionals violated codes of medical ethics by participating in and assisting in ill-treatment of Guantánamo Bay detainees, says a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, made public April 6. The report, which was written in 2007 based on interviews of fourteen detainees, alleges that doctors and psychologists in Guantánamo at times stopped waterboarding and other forms of ill-treatment, and at other times modified the severity of the treatment to allow it to continue.

Last year it was the oil shock. This year it's the econo-cataclysm. Either way, there's a lesson here. But how many people are going to get it? From AP, April 6:

WASHINGTON — U.S. highway deaths in 2008 fell to their lowest level in nearly 50 years, the latest government figures show, as the recession and $4 per gallon gas meant people drove less to save more.