On March 14 the French government and the government of the French Caribbean department of Martinique signed an accord with the "Feb. 5 Collective" ending a general strike that had paralyzed the department since Feb. 5. The accord, which the parties had agreed to on March 11, meets a principal demand of the strikers: a raise of 200 euros a month (about $253) for low-wage workers, with smaller raises for other workers. Major business owners had agreed earlier to bring down prices on some 400 basic items by 20% one month after stores reopen. Negotiations are to continue until March 27 on 87 additional points, including pensions and water and agricultural issues.

Local human rights groups report that more than 300 families have been displaced from their lands by the Peruvian armed forces' Plan "Excelencia 777," launched earlier this month to take control of Vizcatán zone, considered a stronghold of narco-trafficking and "terrorist" organizations in the Valley of the Apurímac and Ene Rivers (VRAE).

Colombia's state oil company Ecopetrol is set to enter territory inhabited by some of the world's last uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon under an agreement reached this week. Ecopetrol signed a deal with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras, which has a contract to explore in two regions—both inhabited by uncontacted tribes.

In a move apparently aimed at appeasing US Congressional opposition to the free trade agreement, Bogotá has ordered nine palm oil companies to return thousands of acres to displaced Afro-Colombian peasants in Chocó department. The Prosecutor General's office is investigating the firms' operators on accusations of homicide, land theft and forced displacement.

Venezuela's military has taken control of key airports and seaports under the terms of a move approved by the National Assembly a week ago. President Hugo Chávez called the move an effort at "reunifying the motherland, which was in pieces." Critics call it a power grab aimed at undercutting state and local leaders who oppose Chávez's rule.

The two biggest right wing political parties in Italy are to merge, leaders announced March 22. The National Alliance, led by Gianfranco Fini, will merge with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party to become the People of Freedom party, and take over the government. In last year's elections, the two parties won a combined 38% of the votes.

In Belgium, police arrested around 100 at a protest outside NATO's headquarters in the capital Brussels March 21. The police intervened when the protesters tried to force their way into the headquarters building. Anti-NATO protests also took place in the Netherlands, where police arrested 35 people outside the air force base at Nieuw Milligen. Some were detained while attempting to climb over the base's fence.

In the first major Tibetan protests since last year's Lhasa uprising, hundreds of local residents in Ragya township, Golog "Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture," Qinghai province, attacked a police station March 22, leading to the arrest of nearly 100 monks from the Ragya Monastery. Some 2,000 ethnic Tibetans took to the streets of Ragya after word spread that a monk had taken his own life after being arrested for possession of "separatist" literature. Authorities said several police were "slightly injured" in the clash.