A 69-year-old Palestinian man was killed and three others injured in an attack by the Israeli Air Force on tunnels and a weapons depot in the Gaza Strip on Feb. 12. The Israeli military released a statement saying its aircraft had struck four targets, including "a terror tunnel and a weapon manufacturing facility" near Gaza City. The strikes came in response to a short-range rocket that was launched from Gaza the previous day, wounding an Israeli woman, the statement said. No faction took credit for the rocket attack. Hamas, Gaza's ruling Islamist movement, has tried to rein in attacks on Israel as it seeks political accommodation with the secular Fatah movement that controls the Palestinian Authority. (Ha'aretz, Feb. 12)

The Puerto Rican Civil Rights Commission (CDC) has concluded that the killing of Puerto Rican nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September 2005 was illegal and should be investigated, according to people who say they have seen the commission's 238-page report. The CDC's conclusions apparently contradict the finding of the US Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in 2006 that Ojeda, the leader of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, had fired on the FBI agents first and that they were justified in returning fire and in waiting 18 hours after Ojeda was wounded before entering his house to check his condition.

Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) issued an order on Feb. 1 for the release of seven indigenous Tzotziles who had been convicted of homicide and other crimes in the December 1997 massacre of 45 indigenous campesinos in Acteal, a village in Chenalhó municipality in the southeastern state of Chiapas. The court, which has overturned the convictions of 45 others in the case since August 2009, ruled that the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) had violated the defendants' due process rights by influencing witnesses, who had been shown an album of photographs.

Former soldiers of the disbanded Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd'H) had reportedly been occupying old military bases and training camps for several weeks as of Feb. 9. They took over a base in the Lamentin section of Carrefour, a city just southwest of Port-au-Prince in the West department, according to Carrefour mayor Yvon Jérômel, and occupations were also reported in the northwestern city of Gonaïves, Artibonite department, and at Cerca-la-Source in the Central Plateau, Center department. The former soldiers were said to be wearing uniforms and carrying out exercises; it isn't clear who their leaders are or who has been financing their actions.

Police in the northwestern Argentine province of Catamarca used tear gas and rubber bullets the morning of Feb. 10 to disperse some 100 local residents who were blocking a road near the town of Tinogasta to protest open-pit mining. "[B]etween 12 and 13 people went to the hospital with some type of contusion or wound," Catamarca governance secretary Francisco Gordillo reported, but he claimed that 11 anti-riot police were also wounded. The police operation was necessary, according to Gordillo, because trucks carrying explosives for a nearby mine were being held up on the highway, which he said represented "a danger for society."

A committee composed of deputies from Panama's National Assembly, representatives of the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group, and observers was to meet on Feb. 10 to discuss a possible ban on hydroelectric projects in Ngöbe-Buglé territories. The negotiations resulted from an agreement that indigenous leaders and the government of right-wing president Ricardo Martinelli reached on Feb. 7; the pact ended more than a week of massive protests that had led to at least two deaths and dozens of arrests. (Prensa Latina, Feb. 10)

Peru's President Ollanata Humala flew into a remote jungle military base in the Upper Huallaga Valley Feb. 12 to announce the capture by soldiers stationed there of the last "historic" leader of the Shining Path guerilla insurgency, Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala AKA "Comrade Artemio." Troops at the Santa Lucía base, in Tocache province, San Martín region, brought "Artemio" in via military plane after after finding him gravely wounded near the Río Misholla. Some reports indicated he was hit in a shoot-out with government forces; others that he was shot by his own bodyguards. "Peru has won," declared Humala. "We can now say that the terrorist delinquents have been defeated, and we can begin the process of pacification."

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Feb. 10 expressed its concern over the trial of Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, which involves his investigations of acts that occurred during the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville indicated that judges should not be criminally charged for investigations performed within the scope of their judicial duties. Colville stated, "judges should not be subject to criminal prosecution for doing their job...Spain is obliged under international law to investigate past serious human rights violations, including those committed during the Franco regime, and to prosecute and punish those responsible."