Four Russian police and three suspected rebels were killed in fighting in Ingushetia, in Russia's troubled North Caucasus, officials said Feb. 12. Gunmen opened fire and then detonated a landmine when police tried to raid a house in the city of Nazran. The blast destroyed the two-storey house, and a large cache of explosives was reportedly found in the rubble. "While cleaning the rubble, we found four 200-kilogram barrels filled with potassium nitrate and with detonators attached. The bomb could have exploded at any time," a spokesman for the Federal Security Service's Ingushetia department said. (RIA Novosti, BBC News, Feb. 12)

Seven members of the Baha'i faith will stand trial in Iran on charges of "spying for Israel" and "desecrating Islam and campaigning against the Islamic Republic," the official ISNA agency reported Feb. 11. Last May, Israel's Haaretz reported that Iran had detained six Baha'is on similar charges, but it was not clear whether the seven were the same leaders arrested in 2008. The European Union reiterated its deep concern over "the ongoing systematic discrimination and the persecution of the Iranian Baha'is." (Haartez, Feb. 11)

From WPIX, Feb. 11:

Pedestrian Struck, Dragged 17 Miles
BRIGHTON BEACH, NY — A driver is being questioned by police Wednesday after it was discovered he struck a pedestrian in the Corona section of the Queens and dragged him 17 miles away to Brooklyn.

A trial started last week in federal court in Tucson against vigilante rancher Roger Barnett, his wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald—all charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of undocumented immigrants who crossed through his sprawling property along the Mexican border near Douglas, AZ. Attorneys for the immigrants—five women and 11 men—accuse Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, brutalizing one, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape. The 16 migrants are seeking $32 million in actual and punitive damages.

The government of New Zealand agreed Feb. 11 to pay $140 million in compensation to eight Maori tribes for illegal land seizures and breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. The tribes will also receive control of land and other resources, and will receive rent from forests on state land and greenhouse gas emission credits. The tribes have 12,000 members living in both the north and south islands. Many packed into parliament to watch New Zealand Prime Minister John Key sign the letters of agreement.

James McCarthy, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), speaking on the eve of the group's annual meeting in Chicago, warned that Barack Obama has just four years to save the planet. "We have a moment right now of extraordinary opportunity, with a new president, positioned with scientific leadership that has known no equal in recent times," he told BBC News. "If in his first term, in the next four years, we don't make significant progress in these areas, then I think the planet is in huge trouble. Without US leadership, which has been sorely lacking, we will not get to where we need to be." (BBC News, Feb. 12)

The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Barack Obama administration Feb. 10 to end the indefinite detention of journalists by the US military overseas. The organization cited 14 cases in which US forces had detained journalists for long periods—with one reporter, in Iraq, still incarcerated. Paul Steiger, chairman of the committee and a former Wall Street Journal editor, also called on the government to investigate the killings of 16 reporters by US forces in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. (NYT, Feb. 11)

The Barack Obama administration apparently surprised a panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Feb. 9 by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration in a case involving Guantánamo Bay. In the case, Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees filed suit against a Boeing subsidiary for arranging flights for the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" program. The Bush administration argued that the case should be dismissed because even discussing it in court could threaten national security.