On Feb. 13 Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) granted a three-day extension for candidates to appeal its decision to bar them from running in an April 19 election for 12 of the 30 seats in the Senate. The 40 excluded candidates, including all 16 candidates on two rival slates from the Lavalas Family (FL) party, have until Feb. 16 to file their appeals.

Honduran teachers started an open-ended strike on Feb. 9, when students were to begin registering for a new semester. The strike continued a campaign that unions representing the nation's 48,000 teachers started in January before schools reopened; the earlier actions included "informational assemblies" and sit-ins to protest the government's delays in paying salaries for some 2,600 teachers and its failure to pay full year-end bonuses. On the morning of Feb. 12, after a meeting with Education Minister Marlon Breve Reyes and aides to President Manuel Zelaya, union leaders agreed to suspend the strike while the government sought a solution. The unions also dropped their demand for Breve's resignation.

A team of gunmen in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco opened fire on the home of a state police officer and his extended family Feb. 14, killing 12 people, including a 2-year-old and five other children. The killing of police officer Carlos Reyes López and his family came days after police in Tabasco captured four accused narco-gunmen and left one suspect dead. However, state authorities are saying a family feud may be behind the attack. The victims included Reyes López's mother, wife, two children, and nephews. Also killed was a fruit vendor who had stopped at the home in the Monte Largo community of Macuspana municipality, west of Villahermosa. No arrests were reported. (LAT, AFP, La Jornada, El Universal, Feb. 16)

Peru's President Alan García said Feb. 13 the government will launch an auction for rights to build a new pipeline to connect the massive Camisea gas field in the Amazon region to Chimbote on the country's north coast. Currently, the only pipeline from Camisea runs to the southern Pacific coast. The new pipeline would branch off to the north near the city of Cuzco. (Reuters, Feb. 13)

Bolivian President Evo Morales flew to Moscow Feb. 14 to discuss cooperation in energy and counter-narcotics efforts with the Russian leadership. The visit comes a week after Russia's Gazprom and the Bolivia's state hydrocarbons company YPFB signed a memorandum on drafting a plan for the joint development of the Bolivian gas industry up to 2030. Construction of hydropower stations in Bolivia by the Russian company Tekhnopromexport is said to be under consideration as well. Before his departure for Moscow, Morales also said that he would discuss with the purchase of Russian planes and helicopters for drug enforcement. (ITAR-TASS, Feb. 15)

Neo-Nazis and anti-fascist counter-demonstrators clashed with riot police and each other in Dresden Feb. 14 as the Hitler-nostalgist National Democratic Party used the 64th anniversary of the 1945 Allied bombardment of the German city to hold a 6,000-strong "mourning march." Counter-demonstrations, led in part by the city's unions, drew almost 10,000. Two police cars were over turned and several arrests were made in the street-fighting. For the last ten years, groups linked to NDP have marked the day with marches, but this year's was their largest yet. (EuroNews, Bloomberg, Feb. 14)

Police clashed with protesters in several Turkish cities as Kurds marched in defiance of a ban to mark the 10th anniversary of the capture of separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence. The biggest protests were in Diyarbakir, where police brought out armored vehicles, tear gas and water cannons to disperse a crowd of 2,500 that gathered outside the headquarters of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the only legal Kurdish political party. Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir and lawmaker Aysel Tugluk, both DTP members, were present at the protest, but police barred them from addressing the crowd. Protests were also held in towns across the southeast. In Sirnak, protesters threw fire bombs at police, and authorities in Semdinli near the Iraqi border set up roadblocks to prevent marches, witnesses said. There were also clashes in Istanbul. More than 85 were arrested, and several injured.

A team of British officials flew into Guantánamo Bay Feb. 14 to visit hunger-striking detainee Binyam Mohamed and prepare for his likely return. "The visit will make preparations for his return, should the ongoing US review into Guantanamo Bay detainees confirm a decision to release him," a Foreign Office statement said. "The team includes a doctor, who would take part in any return, so that he may assess Mr Mohamed's condition himself and report back." Mohamed, 30, has been on hunger strike since Jan. 5 and is being force-fed through a tube. He has refugee status in the UK, and Foreign Secretary David Miliband says he wants him back "as soon as possible." (AFP, Feb. 14*)