The Independent reports April 3 eye-witness accounts that "Military and diplomatic operatives from the US and Western Europe—usually described as experts, consultants and advisers—turned up in the rebel capital, Benghazi. These include UK personnel, among them a former Royal Navy officer who had recently served as a diplomat in Afghanistan. He said he was in Libya as a consultant to the opposition administration." The word comes as Reuters reports that Tripoli has dispatched deputy foreign minister Abdelati Obeidi to Athens in a diplomatic initiative to end the conflict.

A second attempt to stop radioactive water leaking into the Pacific ocean at the Fukushima nuclear plant by using paper and sawdust bound with a chemical compound failed April 4. Engineers are now resorting to a third plan: building mounds of silt around the reactor to filter radioactive particles. (Daily Mail, April 4) Officials in Fukushima prefecture have launched an emergency program to measure radiation levels in school playgrounds. More than 1,400 schools and nurseries will be tested over two days amid growing anxiety among local parents. Officials say there should be no risk to children if they stay outside a 30-kilometer evacuation zone. (BBC News, April 4) Efforts to protect Tokyo’s water supply from radiation have led to a run on Indonesian coconut husks. Granulated charcoal made of the husks is used in Tokyo area treatment plants. Prices for the absorbent carbon material have jumped 44% since the disaster started. (Bloomberg, April 4)

The Libertarian Book Club,* New York City's oldest continuously active anarchist institution (founded 1946), kicks off a new season of its Anarchist Forum series as Bill Weinberg, editor of World War 4 Report (and until recently a producer at WBAI radio), leads a discussion on the theme: "NEITHER NATO NOR QADDAFI, THANK YOU! Anarchist perspectives on Libya, the Arab Spring and the crisis in North Africa, and what has changed with the Western military intervention."

Thousands of Hondurans demonstrated on March 30 in a "National Civic Strike" called by teachers' unions and the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of unions and grassroots organizations. The action was called to support teachers striking to oppose an education reform plan that they say will lead to the privatization of schools. The protesters were also demanding the approval of a general minimum wage increase, a reduction of the price of fuel, and a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the country's Constitution.

Thousands of workers, many of them affiliated with the National Workers Union (UNT), Mexico's largest independent labor federation, marched from the Zócalo plaza in Mexico City to the Chamber of Deputies on the afternoon of March 31 to protest a proposed reform of the labor code. Union leaders said the legislation "intends to finish off collective contracts and make the workers modern slaves." Martín Esparza, general secretary of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), called on workers to stay alert, because the politicians plan "to sacrifice us during Holy Week"—a reference to the possibility that Congress will try to pass the law the week of April 18, when many people are taking Easter vacation. The head of the telephone workers' union, Francisco Hernández Juárez, called for a nationwide mobilization on April 7 to step up the pressure on the legislators. (El Sol de México, April 1)

Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd, South Korea's leading apparel manufacturer, is pushing ahead with plans to open a large garment assembly plant next March near the coastal village of Caracol in Haiti's Northeast department. The firm, which supplies garments to such major US retailers as Target, Wal-Mart, Kohl's and GAP, claims the factory will create 20,000 jobs paying at least four times the average Haitian's share of the annual gross domestic product (GDP)—which would work out to a wage of about $8 a day for the factory workers. The operation is to include the country's first facility for producing textiles, a knit and dyeing mill which will use some 6,000 tons of ground water a day.

Peruvian indigenous forest dwellers have been forced to set up a guard post to protect a reserve established for "uncontacted" peoples, after the authorities ignored their repeated pleas for action. The Isconahua reserve on the Peru-Brazil border was set up with the support of Peru’s Amazon indigenous alliance, AIDESEP, to protect uncontacted Isconahua bands living in its forests. But the reserve has been invaded by illegal loggers, and numerous appeals to the authorities have gone unanswered. Now two local indigenous groups, the Ucayali Regional AIDESEP Organization (ORAU) and the Federation of Native Communities of the Ucayali and Tributaries (FECONAU), have united to create a guard post to protect the reserve themselves.

Brazil signed an agreement with Bolivia March 30 to fight cocaine production and trafficking, replacing assistance formerly provided by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which was ejected from the country by President Evo Morales in 2008 for alleged political interference. Brazil will help train and equip Bolivian security forces, and deploy drone aircraft to patrol the border. The Bolivia-Brazil Action Plan was signed by Brazilian Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo on a visit to Bolivia, during which he visited Cochabamba department to witness security forces eradicating coca crops. (Los Tiempos, Cochabamba, March 31; BBC News, March 30)