The Nueva Vida Women's Cooperative Maquiladora (COMAMNUVI), a Nicaraguan women's sewing cooperative in Ciudad Sandino, just outside Managua, says that it is about to lose its land. According to the cooperative, a certain Yelba Carvajal is suing in court to take over the land because of a typographical error in COMAMNUVI's land title; the cooperative says it purchased the land from another cooperative in the 1990s and that Carvajal bought some other land from the same cooperative.

While at a Feb. 5 Havana screening of a documentary on his youth, popular Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez criticized regulations that keep Cubans from staying in Cuban hotels reserved for tourists. "I belong to a generation that when we had 30 pesos in our pockets, we could stay in any hotel," he said. Rodriguez also criticized the requirement for Cubans to get special permission to travel out of the country. These and similar criticisms have become common since July 2007, when acting president Raul Castro called for a reform of the system; in September and October people participated in a series of meetings in which they were encouraged to voice criticisms.

On Feb. 7 the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Puerto Rican independence activist Avelino Gonzalez Claudio, a suspected leader of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros. According to Luis Fraticelli, who heads the FBI in Puerto Rico, the arrest was carried out without incidents in the northern town of Manati. "We don't know what condition our companero is in at this point," Alvin Couto, an attorney and spokesperson for the Socialist Front of Puerto Rico, said on Feb. 10.

Local residents burned tires and blocked roads around Cuzco, Peru, Feb. 7 to protest government proposals to expand private development at Machu Picchu and other tourism sites. Tourist access to Machu Picchu was cut off by the protests, with visitors transported out in police vehicles. Further such actions are pledged if Peru's congress does not reject two proposed laws to ease construction restrictions in Cuzco department and allow for more hotels to be built near archaeological sites. (AP, Feb. 9)

After meeting with UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced Feb. 6 that he would gradually remove army troops from drug enforcement duty, replacing them with newly-trained police units. Use of the military in Mexico's war on the drug cartels has been harshly criticized by rights groups, including the official National Human Rights Commission. However, the official plan still posted to the website of Mexico's Federal Registry says military forces will remain involved in drug enforcement through the end of Calderón's term in 2012. (Bloomberg, Feb. 6)

The New York Times reports Feb. 9 that military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing a "sweeping" case against suspected conspirators in the 9-11 plot. The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay, are said to involve six detainees at the camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, known as "KSM." However, KSM was subject to waterboarding while in CIA custody, the agency's director Gen. Michael V. Hayden confirmed this week—throwing into question his supposed confession that "I was responsible for the 9-11 operation, from A to Z."

Security sources in Cairo said Feb. 8 that hundreds of Egyptian nationals who have returned from the Gaza Strip over the past three days are under investigation following claims they were trying to join Hamas. The Egyptians were reportedly members of fundamentalist groups who entered the Palestinian territories after the toppling of the Gaza border fence on Jan. 23 to join Hamas and fight against the Israeli occupation. The sources said Hamas asked them to return to Egypt. The sources told Reuters news agency that 600 Egyptians were seized, but women and children were allowed to return to their homes. (Ma'an News Agency, Feb. 8)

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith signed an order Feb. 7 for the extradition of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical cleric imprisoned in the UK who is wanted by federal prosecutors in New York. Al-Masri, the former imam of north London's Finsbury Park Mosque, has 14 days to lodge an appeal to the High Court against extradition and may also appeal to the House of Lords or the European Court. Al-Masri, who is blind in one eye and sometimes wears a hook in place of one of his missing hands, is currently serving a seven year sentence at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London. He denies US claims that he tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and aided a 1998 hostage-taking raid in Yemen. (Bloomberg, Feb. 8)