After an eight-month strike, the Grupo Mexico mining company has started to shut down its San Martin copper, silver and zinc mine in Sombrerete municipality in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, according to Jesus Jiménez, a delegate in Zacatecas and Jalisco for the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM). Jiménez said the company has already terminated 100 of the mine's 450 workers on a claim that the mining operation was unsustainable. The workers went on strike on July 30, 2007, as part of a strike over safety conditions that included the huge copper mine in Cananea, Sonora, and a mine in Taxco, Guerrero. Grupo Mexico has reportedly lost $120 million in revenues at San Martin since the strike began. (La Jornada, April 18)

According to the US-based Colombia Support Network (CSN), the Northern Block of the Black Eagles, a rightwing paramilitary group, has threatened three activists in Tiquisio, a community in the northern Colombian department of Bolivar. The threat names Father Rafael Gallegos, Marta Lucia Torres and Said Echevez, members of Citizens Process for Tiquisio, and mentions their opposition to the "democratic security" policies of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez. The government is promoting development of the area around Tiquisio by AngloGold Ashanti, a South African-based multinational gold mining company. CSN charges that the paramilitaries are seeking to force campesino communities off their lands "to make them available for the multinationals to extract gold."

Former Roman Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo won an historic victory in Paraguay's presidential election April 20, ending the long rule of the conservative Colorado party with a mandate to help the nation's poor and indigenous. Winning 41% of the vote to Colorado candidate Blanca Ovelar's 31%, Lugo said he had no intention of persecuting the Colorado party. "Our government is not going to start a witch hunt," Lugo said the day after his victory. "We'll try to co-govern by seeking consensus and harmony."

On April 8, 123 immigrants from the Philippines and Indonesia were deported on a plane contracted under special charter with the ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Flight Operations Unit. The plane took off from Yuma, Arizona on April 8; the deportees arrived in Pampanga, Philippines and Jakarta, Indonesia on April 10. The deportees included 98 males and 25 females, according to ICE. Of the total 123 deportees, 43 had criminal convictions.

Early on April 16, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carried out coordinated raids on poultry processing plants owned by the Pilgrim's Pride company in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia. A total of 311 workers were arrested, according to figures supplied by ICE in an Apr. 17 news release. At least 91 workers were charged with criminal violations, including false use of a Social Security number and document fraud, and have been turned over to the custody of the US Marshals Service. The other workers arrested are being processed for removal on administrative immigration violations. Of the total number of workers arrested, 58 were released under supervision for humanitarian reasons such as childcare or medical issues. (ICE news release, April 17)

Israel has announced an investigation into the killing of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana by the IDF in the Gaza Strip following demands by the news agency and rights groups. Shana was killed while filming a central Gaza combat zone, and film from his camera showed an Israeli tank firing in his direction. An autopsy revealed that he had been hit by a kind of dart used in Israeli shells. Some suggest the tank crew targeted Shana knowing he was a journalist. The Israeli military rejected this. "The IDF wishes to emphasize that unlike terrorist organizations, not only does not it deliberately target uninvolved civilians, it also uses means to avoid such incidents," it said in a statement. "Reports claiming the opposite are false and misleading." (JTA, April 21)

From AP, April 20:

Armenian and Greek Christians scuffle at tomb of Jesus on Orthodox Palm Sunday
JERUSALEM - Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at one of Christianity's holiest shrines on Orthodox Palm Sunday, and used palm fronds to pummel police who tried to break up the brawl.

Two small blasts hit Burma's first city Rangoon April 20, damaging cars in the downtown area but causing no injuries. The blasts, the latest in a spate of similar incidents this year, come three weeks before a referendum on a proposed army-backed constitution—Burma's first public voting since 1990. The first explosion struck outside a bar a few streets away from Rangoon's City Hall. Just over an hour later, a second blast went off near a luxury hotel in the city center.