Former US presidents George W. Bush (2001-2009) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) visited Haiti for one day on March 22 to call for international aid for the country. The visit helped set the stage for a United Nations (UN) donors' conference which is to be held in New York on March 31. Current US president Barack Obama appointed Bush and Clinton to head up US relief efforts following a Jan. 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people in Port-au-Prince and other parts of southern Haiti. This was Bush's first visit to Haiti, but the third since the earthquake for Clinton, who is also the UN's special envoy for Haiti.

On March 12 several hundred Haitian students and activists gathered at a memorial service for Jean Anil Louis-Juste, a sociology professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH) who was shot dead in downtown Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12 a few hours before a massive earthquake hit the city. A well-known author and activist, Louis-Juste was a strong supporter of the militant student movement that erupted in the spring and summer of 2009.

On March 23, just as a group of seven Honduran lawyers were presenting information to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington DC concerning systematic abuses against the members of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a death squad comprised of heavily armed men wearing ski masks and civilian clothes killed a prominent FNRP figure in an attack on the school where he worked. José Manuel Flores, a teacher at Tegucigalpa's San José del Pedregal high school, was assassinated in front of his students.

In a signal that the Obama administration is preparing a return to military tribunals for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the Pentagon last week appointed a retired three-star admiral with international law experience to run the war court. Retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald replaces Susan Crawford as Convening Authority for Military Commissions. MacDonald, formerly top legal counsel for the Navy, has repeatedly testified before Congress in support of the tribunal system. (Miami Herald, March 25)

A federal grand jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on March 29 returned a five-count indictment against nine suspected members of the "Hutaree" militia group accused of plotting to kill police officers. The group members allegedly planned to kill Michigan law enforcement officers by, among other methods, making phony 911 calls and ambushing those who responded. The members then planned to attack the funeral processions of the fallen officers.

At least 35 people were killed and some 70 injured when female suicide bombers blew themselves up on the Moscow metro during the morning rush hour March 29, Russian authorities say. Two separate blasts hit the Lubyanka and the Park Kulturi metro stations within an hour. Alexander Bortnikov, head the FSB security service, said preliminary findings suggest the attacks were organized by a North Caucasus militant group. (BBC News, MarketWatch, March 29)

Our March issue featured the story "Plan Juárez: Echoes of Chiapas on Mexico's Northern Border" from Frontera NorteSur news service, noting how Mexican President Felipe Calderón's militarized response to the escalating violence on the Rio Grande mirrors the counterinsurgency against the Zapatistas a decade ago. Our Exit Poll was: "If violence continues to escalate in northern Mexico, will the US intervene militarily? Will it happen this year?" We received the following responses:

Colombia's Sen. Piedad Córdoba, flown by a Brazilian helicopter, arrived March 27 in the central city of Villavicencio to oversee the release of two hostages held by the FARC. Brazil is providing logistical support for the operation. Córdoba, the Brazilian team, the bishop of the city of Magangué, members of Colombians for Peace, and members of the International Red Cross are scheduled to leave Villavicencio to pick up one of the two hostages this weekend.