Yemen's Parliament enacted several emergency measures March 23 at the request of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in an effort to end anti-government protests. The new laws give the government greater power to arrest and detain protesters and to censor the media. The new laws follow Saleh's declaration last week of a 30-day state of emergency. The measure passed easily as many minority party members of the 301-seat parliament did not attend the session. Saleh warned that Yemen could face a civil war after opposition leaders rejected his offer to step down by the end of this year. The emergency laws expire in 30 days. despite an appeal from youths at the forefront of anti-regime protests that it could lead to a new "massacre." (Jurist, March 23)

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in Cairo March 23 that the UN Security Council resolution authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya is "not time-limited" and that it was unrealistic to expect military action to be over in a matter of weeks. "So I think that there is no current timeline in terms of when it might end," he told reporters. The comments came as nearly 12 hours of Allied air-strikes broke the Libyan regime's five-day siege of the key rebel-held town of Misurata. Aerial bombardment destroyed tanks and artillery, sending the bulk of Moammar Qaddafi's besieging forces fleeing, and securing the town for the rebels. The battle for Misurata is said to have cost some 100 lives from shelling, snipers and street fighting. (Middle East Online, The Guardian, March 23)

An Israeli woman critically wounded when a bomb ripped through a bus near Jerusalem's central bus station on March 23 died of her injuries after being hospitalized. The attack was the first major bombing in Jerusalem since 2004. More recent deadly attacks involved gunmen, as in the case of the Mercaz Harav attack in March 2008 that left eight yeshiva students dead, or Palestinians commandeering bulldozers or cars and using them as weapons. (Maan News Agency, JTA, March 23)

Syrian security forces killed 15 people March 23 in the city of Deraa, witnesses and rights activists said. Seven were killed when security personnel fired on a group of protesters that gathered after dawn prayers outside al-Omari mosque. Later, about 3,000 protesters from neighboring towns gathered outside Deraa and clashed with an army unit. Syrian state television reported the government fired the governor of Deraa province, and promised reforms. The protest wave in Deraa was apparently sparked after local schoolchildren painted a mural depicting scenes and slogans from the recent revolutions in other Arab countries, and were detained by police. (CNN, FT, March 23)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US civil and human rights organization, wrote the US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on March 10 asking the agency to conclude an ongoing investigation of alleged abuses by the Puerto Rican police and to publish its findings. The ACLU said that its Puerto Rican branch has been reporting these allegations to the Justice Department since around May 2008. The letter, signed by ACLU executive director Anthony Romero and addressed to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, follows through on the organization's decision in February to make the situation in Puerto Rico "a high priority."

Honduran teacher Ilse Ivana Velásquez Rodríguez died around noon on March 18 in a Tegucigalpa hospital from injuries she received that day when riot police and the special Comando Cobra unit attacked a demonstration of thousands of teachers in front of the National Institute of Teachers' Social Security (Inprema). Protesters initially said Velásquez was hit in the face by a tear gas grenade and was then run over by a police vehicle. The Spanish wire service EFE later reported that she fell in the confusion when the police attacked and was hit by a vehicle belonging to a local television station; EFE said the driver, Carlos Eduardo Zelaya Ríos, turned himself in to the police that evening.

Observers said Haiti's March 20 presidential and legislative runoff elections were relatively calm, at least in comparison to the chaotic first round on Nov. 28. A number of polling places in the capital opened hours late, apparently because the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 13,000-member military and police occupation force, failed to get voting materials to them on time. In some cases voters held spontaneous protests over the delays. There were also a few armed confrontations: two people were killed and three were wounded in electoral disputes, one at Marre Rouge, Northwest department, and the other at Marchand Dessalines, in the North department's Artibonite region.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced on March 19 that the US ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, had resigned. Pascual, who has only been at the post for a year and five months, will remain in Mexico to organize an "orderly transition," Clinton said. Pascual's resignation came after a number of embarrassing revelations about US-Mexican relations, starting with the WikiLeaks group's publication of diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Mexico. Some cables showed US diplomats losing confidence in the militarized "war on drugs" that President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa ordered shortly after taking office in December 2006. Calderón made it clear during a visit to Washington on March 3 this year that he wanted Pascual replaced, but State Department officials said at the time that they had no plans to remove the ambassador. (La Jornada, Mexico, March 20)