A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on March 7 issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of a recent Ecuadoran court judgment against US oil company Chevron. The injunction blocks plaintiffs from attempting to secure $8.6 billion in damages from the company, which were awarded last month by the Provincial Court of Sucumbios after finding that Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, polluted large areas of Ecuador's rainforest.

On March 8, International Women's Day 2011, the voices of many prominent human rights defenders were absent from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Within the past 14 months, human rights campaigner Josefina Reyes, poet Susana Chávez and activist mother Marisela Escobedo all have been murdered, while Cipriana Jurado of the Worker Solidarity and Research Center (CISO) and Paula Flores have been forced to flee the city.

Some 20 prisoners escaped in Burkina Faso on March 8 after middle and high school students set four police stations on fire to protest the killing of four youth by police last month. The police stations were burned down in the towns of Yako, Koupela, Gourcy and Dori. Peaceful protests were held in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso's second city, and six other towns. Six people, including four students and a police officer, were killed in riots in late February in the town of Koudougou, 100 kilometers west of the capital Ouagadougou, after a student died in disputed circumstances. (SAPA, March 8)

International consensus is growing for some kind of foreign military intervention in Libya as Moammar Qaddafi's forces continue to press their offensive against rebels both east and west of Tripoli. The Organization of the Islamic Conference joined calls for a no-fly zone over Libya on March 8. The demand was also raised by the the Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of six Arab states on the Persian Gulf. Britain and France are drafting a UN resolution calling for such a no-fly zone, although Russia is expected to use its veto power against it.

US President Barack Obama on March 7 issued an executive order allowing military commissions for Guantánamo Bay detainees to resume. New charges in the military commission system have been suspended since shortly after Obama took office in 2009. The new order also establishes a procedure for establishing a review process for detainees who have not been charged, convicted or designated for transfer. In a statement, Obama said:

Muslim student Yasir Afifi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit against the FBI on March 2 after Afifi discovered a global positioning system (GPS) device on the undercarriage of his car. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Afifi's rights were violated when FBI agents attempted to retrieve their tracking device, without explanation for why Afifi was being tracked. Afifi's suit alleges civil rights and constitutional violations, specifically unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment, chilling and recording of First Amendment activities, and unlawful agency action:

On March 3 Venezuela's highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), ordered the conditional release of union leader Rubén González, who had been in prison since Sept. 29, 2009. Just two days before the TSJ order, Bolívar state judge Magda Hidalgo sentenced González to seven and a half years in prison for instigating a job action and blocking a highway in Ciudad Guayana at the government-owned Ferrominera Orinoco (FMO), an iron ore mining subsidiary of CVG, the national heavy industry holding company. González is general secretary of the Ferrominera Workers Union (SINTRAFERROMINERA). Under the terms of the conditional release, he is required to report every 15 days to the authorities in Ciudad Guayana.

US president Barack Obama expressed strong support for Mexico's "war on drugs" during a joint press conference in Washington, DC on March 3 with Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinijosa. "I have nothing but admiration for President Calderón and his willingness to take this on," Obama said, referring to Calderón's militarization of the fight against drug trafficking since he took office in December 2006. Some 35,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since then, and many Mexicans reject the militarization strategy.