Under pressure from UNESCO, Israel has agreed to remove the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb—two Jewish holy sites on the West Bank—from its list of "National Heritage Sites." This of course immediately sparked a backlash from Israel's religious right, with Science and Technology Minister Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz calling the omission "like denying our elementary heritage." (The Algemeiner, Feb. 1) Following recent clashes at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Palestinian protesters also vented rage at the Rachel's Tomb site Feb. 21, hurling stones and prompting closure of the compound. Jewish visitors were evacuated by the Border Guard. (YNet, Feb. 21)

The two most annoying icons of the rad left, WikiLeaks and Anonymous, team up to target the equally annoying Stratfor. Their joint press release of Feb. 24 headlines that Dow Chemical paid the "strategic intelligence" firm to spy on satire group Yes Men and grassroots activists seeking justice in the Bhopal disaster. The small print says they sent someone around to attend the Yes Men's public appearances. The coup wins WikiLeaks more gushing alterno-coverage, while Max Fisher in The Atlantic scoffs that WikiLeaks has fallen for Stratfor's "marketing campaign," and that nobody has taken them seriously for years. But, predictably, nobody is talking about WikiLeaks' shameful silence on charges of complicity with grave human rights abuses in Belarus, the country dubbed "Europe's last dictatorship."

Haitian prime minister Garry Conille submitted a letter of resignation the morning of Feb. 24 as rumors grew of tension between him and President Michel Martelly ("Sweet Micky"). The prime minister was said to have become more and more isolated in the government; according to several sources no other government ministers appeared at a cabinet meeting he called the day before. Conille only served four months. After rejecting two previous choices, Parliament approved Conille's appointment in October, and he took office on Oct. 18. At the time Martelly said that he and his prime minister were"a winning pair of dice."

About 1,000 indigenous people and campesinos held a march in Huixtán in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas on Feb. 25 to protest the high rates the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) charges, to oppose the construction of more dams in the region, and to demand that electric power generation not be privatized. The march was organized by the Feb. 29 Popular Struggle Front, which was also marking the eighth anniversary of its founding.

In a ceremony broadcast on national television from the presidential residence in Tegucigalpa on Feb. 17, Honduran president Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa and National Agrarian Reform Institute director (INA) César Ham signed an accord with two campesino organizations to finance the purchase of land for campesino cooperatives in the Lower Aguán Valley in the north of the country. The government has presented the land deal as at least a partial solution to long-running disputes in the Aguán that have left more than 50 people dead over the past two years.

After blocking roads for 13 days to demand more resources for Chile's isolated southern Aysén region, local citizens' groups opened up the Presidente Ibáñez Bridge in Puerto Aysén on Feb. 25. The move came one day after the Social Movement for the Aysén Region, the coalition of fishing people, unionists, cab drivers and students that has led the protests, presented the national government with a new list of demands, asking for a response over the weekend. Iván Fuentes, one of the movement's leaders, told Radio Cooperativa that the protesters opened the bridge"first of all [to provide] free access to the community, and most importantly, to give a signal to the government that just as we are vigorous in our mobilization, we're also rational people who can carry on a conversation." (AFP, Feb. 25, via La Nación, Paraguay)

An Argentine commuter train smashed into a barrier at Station 11 in the center of Buenos Aires on the morning of Feb. 22, killing 51 passengers and injuring 706. Failing brakes caused the crash, the train's operator told a judge. According to a source in the judicial system, Marcos Córdoba testified that the brakes had failed twice before the crowded train crashed, and that he had warned his supervisors."In each station I advised the traffic controller by radio that I had problems with the brakes," Córdoba said."From the other side they answered: 'Go on, go on, go on.'"

Syria held a referendum Feb. 26 to vote on a new constitution. The gesture towards the opposition by President Bashar al-Assad has widely been seen as an empty one, with much of the international community calling it a "sham." The vote comes just one day after 89 people were reportedly killed in Homs, the center of the opposition. The proposed constitution will impose term limits on the president as well as provide for a multi-party system. However, the term limits will theoretically begin once the constitution passes, meaning Assad's previous time in office will not be counted against the term limits.