When Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas official reportedly behind the smuggling of Iranian arms to Gaza, was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai, UAE, on Jan. 20, the organization was quick to point the finger at Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, vowing revenge attacks. But a preliminary investigation conducted by Hamas suggests that the assassination was likely carried out by agents of an Arab government, Israel's Ha'aretz reports.

An Afghan Taliban spokesman denied reports that the organization's military commander had been arrested by US and Pakistani forces in a secret operation. "The rumors reported today on the arrest of Mullah Baradar are all untrue. It is a big lie," Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. "He is currently in Afghanistan, where he is leading all jihad activities... He is here with us and is in contact with us."

A heavy rain fell on Port-au-Prince for about a half hour in the early morning of Feb. 11, drenching the estimated 1.1 million people who have been sleeping outdoors or in improvised shelters since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake destroyed or seriously damaged their homes on Jan. 12. This was the first heavy rain in Haiti's capital and the surrounding area since the quake, which occurred during the dry season. More frequent rainstorms may come as early as March, and medical experts warn of a great increase in disease if better shelters aren't constructed in time.

On Feb. 14 a group of Mexican unions announced their intention to hold a general strike in 25 of the country's 32 states on March 16 if the government attempts to remove striking workers from the giant Cananea copper mine in Sonora state. Some 1,400 workers in Section 65 of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) have maintained a strike at the facility—which is owned by the powerful Grupo México—since July 30, 2007.

On Feb. 11 the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d'Etat, a coalition of grassroots organizations that formed after the June 28 coup in Honduras, issued a communiqué charging that Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa was planning to lay off a large number of public employees and that the National Association of Public Employees of Honduras (ANDEPH) had received threats that its current leadership might be replaced. The Lobo administration was on its way to "intensifying the application of the neoliberal model, which would allow [big business owners] to go on concentrating wealth at the cost of [labor] exploitation, and the theft and destruction of natural resources." (Communiqué #47, Feb. 11)

Four campesinos were wounded, two with bullets, on Jan. 27 when police and private security guards attacked members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) at the Río Aguán in Trujillo municipality, near La Ceiba in northern Honduras. Antonio Estrada was shot in his left eye, and Rosendo Reyes was hit in the leg; both were hospitalized in La Ceiba. The incident occurred the day Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa of the National Party began his four-year presidential term."

Despite the supposed normalization of Honduras since the transfer of power to President Porfirio Lobo last month, grave human rights abuses targeting opponents of last year's coup d'etat continue unabated. On Feb. 15, Julio Funes Benítez, a member of the water and sewage workers union SITRASANAA and a local leader of the anti-coup National Resistance Front, was shot dead in the city of Comayagüela by four unknown men in a taxi.

Right-wing gubernatorial candidate José Pérez Restrepo in Colombia's southeastern Guaviare department was wounded in the leg and three of his bodyguards killed Feb. 14 when presumed FARC guerillas attacked his election caravan in an apparent kidnapping attempt. Media reports said the politician was taken captive by the rebels, but freed when police and soldiers came to the scene. Two police officers were also killed in the shootout.