Indigenous journalist Mauricio Moreno Medina, founding member of a community radio station for the Pijao people, was murdered April 11 by unknown assailants at his home in the town of Ortega, Tolima department. Medina, 50, died of multiple knife wounds. Police say they see no link to illegal armed groups, asserting that Moreno had not received any death threats. But Reporters Without Borders (RWB) suggest that the murder was not a "crime of passion" as police maintain. "The label 'crime of passion' is too often used to avoid investigation of any link with the victim’s work, even to the extent of covering up a case. This has already happened in several other murders of journalists in Colombia," RWB said. "As a director of a community radio, the kind of media often targeted by the authorities, particularly in conflict areas, Medina ran risks as a result of his work."

On the evening of April 9 agents of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) began removing some 1,300 families—about 7,335 people—from Port-au-Prince's Sylvio Cator soccer stadium, where they had camped out since the Jan. 12 earthquake destroyed much of the city, killing as many as 230,000 people and leaving some 1.3 million without homes. "Soccer has to be brought back to life," said stadium director Rolny Saint-Louis. "There are players waiting to be able to play and feed their families from their work." The stadium's managers say the Taiwanese are planning to repair the bleachers and replace the artificial turf, which the earthquake survivors had reportedly damaged.

Speaking at an April 6 press conference at the ruined National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haitian president René Préval expressed his satisfaction with the results of an international donors meeting held by the United Nations (UN) in New York on March 31 to discuss the reconstruction of Haiti after the devastation of the Jan. 12 earthquake. The donors pledged nearly $10 billion in aid and about $350 million in direct support for the government's 2010 budget. During the next 18 months the management of the various projects will be overseen by a commission made up of Haitians and international representatives. Haitian prime minister Jean Max Bellerive and former US president Bill Clinton, now the UN's special envoy for Haiti, are currently the co-chairs of the commission. Préval insisted that the Haitian president would always have the last word on the plans.

The pro-government Tegucigalpa daily El Heraldo reported on April 11 that Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sosa had ordered a "strong militarization" of the lower Aguán River Valley in northern Honduras, the site of a land conflict between influential landowners and some 3,000 campesino families. "Today, the lower Aguán has been totally militarized, and we've detected at least 30 military vehicles with troops carrying high-caliber weapons," said Yony Rivas, a member of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), which has fought since 2001 for some 20,000 hectares of land it claims were bought illegally by three wealthy business owners, Miguel Facussé Barjum, Reinaldo Canales and René Morales.

On April 11 the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) announced that some 2,300 members were planning to start a mass hunger strike in Mexico City's central plaza, the Zócalo, as part of the union's continuing protest against President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's sudden liquidation of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) the night of Oct. 10. The union says 17,247 of the 44,000 LFC workers laid off in the liquidation have refused to accept the government's severance package; they are demanding either the reopening of the LFC or jobs at the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), which has taken over LFC's operations. These workers have carried out a series of protests, often large and militant, over the last six months, but without success.

Iran announced it will lodge a formal complaint at the UN against remarks by US President Barack Obama that Washington could use nuclear weapons against Tehran. "We will submit our formal complaint against this kind of threats to the United Nations," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast in an interview with the Fars News Agency, calling the remarks "a threat to global security."

Israel's leading human rights groups are mobilizing to halt two new military orders that are to take effect April 13, which will make any resident of the occupied West Bank who does not have an Israeli-issued permit liable for deportation or imprisonment. The new "Order Regarding Prevention of Infiltration" and "Order Regarding Security Provisions" have "severe ramifications," the rights groups say. Palestinians, and any foreigners living in the West Bank, could be labelled infiltrators and deported within 72 hours or imprisoned for seven years if they are found without the correct permit. But the orders do not define what Israel considers a valid permit.

Former Kyrgyz foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva announced April 8 that she will lead an interim government in Kyrgyzstan after violent protests the previous day apparently ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his administration. Otunbayeva, leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, urged Bakiyev to resign and said that her temporary government will rule for six months until the country holds democratic elections. Bakiyev, who has fled the capital Bishkek for the southern city of Osh, said in a statement that he will not resign.