The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville said March 6 that his office may investigate whether Sudan's expulsion of foreign aid agencies is a breach of human rights law or war crime. UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond warned that the removal of the aid agencies could have a serious impact not only in Darfur, but also in the rest of Sudan and the region.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled March 5 that Russia is liable for the death of an ethnic Chechen at the hands of Russian forces in 2000, finding Moscow in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judgment orders the Russian government to pay damages of nearly €37,000 to the victim's wife, Russian national Luiza Khalitova, who brought the action after her husband, Lech Khazhmuradov, was killed by Russian troops while chopping wood.

A Turkish court ordered the arrest of Cumhuriyet newspaper journalist Mustafa Balbay March 5 for his alleged involvement in a plot to overthrow the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Balbay was arrested along with Internet publisher Neriman Aydin as part of the probe into secular group Ergenekon. The Ergenekon probe has been criticized as an attempt by the AKP to silence opposition and further their imposition of Islamic principles in violation of Turkey's secular constitution.

A federal judge at the US District Court for the District of New Jersey March 5 upheld the guilty verdicts reached by a jury against five men convicted of plotting to kill US soldiers at Fort Dix. The five men, Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, and Shain Duka, were acquitted of attempted murder, but convicted in December 2008 of conspiracy to commit murder and weapons offenses. Lawyers for the five men appeared before the court to argue that the claims against their clients were not supported by the evidence presented, and asked the court to overturn the verdicts. The court denied the request, and upheld the jury verdicts. The defense had argued that there was no plot, but the government paid informants to get the accused to discuss one.

Nearly 7,000 Mexican soldiers and federal police arrived in Ciudad Juárez this week in a bid to restore order amid an escalating bloody turf war between rival drug cartels. Masked soldiers are patrolling the streets in long convoys of military vehicles and conducting traffic checkpoint. Another 1,500 soldiers are expected to join the 3,500 that rolled into the northern border city earlier this week. "They'll stay as long as necessary," said Juárez police spokesman Jaime Torres Valadez. Surveillance cameras will be installed throughout the city to help police stem executions and assassinations in the streets. (CNN, March 6)

Meeting with members of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities impacted by floods, displacement and violence in Colombia, the top United Nations relief official last week called for stepped up assistance for these minority groups. Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes travelled to the northwest Chocó department, where leaders in the Afro-Colombian community of Bebedó described the destruction of their homes by severe flooding last year, when the San Juan River broke its banks. Also in the same town, he met with representatives of the Wounaan indigenous people who told him how they had been uprooted from their traditional lands in 2005 by armed gangs.

One of Colombia's most feared paramilitary commanders was extradited to the US March 5—over the protests of local human rights groups concerned that details of atrocities and government collusion with paras may never be revealed. US Drug Enforcement Administration officials escorted Hebert Veloza Garcia AKA "HH" onto a plane headed for New York, where he faces drug-trafficking charges.

Environmental and energy groups across New York state are calling on Gov. David Paterson to back away from promises he made to power producers to rewrite the state's role in nation's first plan to cut global warming pollution, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). According to a March 6 story in the New York Times, the governor made a deal with the Independent Power Producers of New York (IPPNY) last fall to re-open the regulations after the group failed to pressure the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to weaken the RGGI rules.