Mexico's ambassador to the US, Arturo Sarukhan, speaking to Bob Schieffer of CBS' "Face the Nation" April 12, once again called the norteamericanos to task for allowing a highly unregulated gun trade which is fueling armed violence south of the border. Transcript from CQ Politics:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in El Paso deported former Gulf Cartel kingpin José Manuel Garza Rendón back to Mexico, handing him to Mexican federal authorities across the international bridge with Ciudad Juárez April 10. Garza Rendón had already served a nine-year term in a US federal prison in West Texas for conspiracy to distribute marijuana. He has been wanted in Mexico since 2002 on charges of organized crime, attempted murder and possession of firearms that can be legally used exclusively by the Mexican army. (Reuters, April 11)

For the third time in less than a week, an industrial fire scarred the skies of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The April 7 fire at the MCS (ex-Zenith) plant near the city’s airport sent huge columns of black smoke climbing into the heavens and drifting across the borderland. The blaze spread to factories belonging to the Foxconn, Cormex and Dometic companies, temporarily idling about 1,000 workers. The disaster also caused delays and evacuations at the Ciudad Juárez airport.

Bolivia's Congress April 9 approved the "overall content" of an electoral law—hours after President Evo Morales went on hunger strike to protest efforts by opposition lawmakers to block the bill. Lawmakers must still vote on the details of the election reform law, which is seen helping the left-wing president in a general election in December by assigning more seats to poor, rural areas where he is popular. Morales remains on hunger strike.

The summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Thai resort town of Pattaya was abruptly canceled April 11 after hundreds of protesters forced their way past security forces into the convention center where leaders were preparing to discuss the global economic crisis. About half of the leaders at the meeting were evacuated by helicopter, including those of Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, while other officials fled by boat.

The administration of President Barack Obama will appeal a ruling made last week by Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia that allowed detainees being held by the US in Afghanistan to proceed with habeas corpus challenges to their detention. Word of the appeal came April 10 in a motion filed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) seeking certification of the court's order so that the DoJ can file an interlocutory appeal of the ruling, which approved habeas challenges by four foreign-born detainees being held at Bagram Air Base.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of the long-ruling National Liberation Front (NLF) won 90.24% of the vote to secure his third mandate on April 9, in elections marred by terror attacks despite tight security throughout the country. A bomb exploded at a polling station in Imeghenine, near Boumerdes, and a police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Tebessa. At least nine polling stations in eastern Algeria were vandalized and ballot boxes set on fire, while in Bouira, in upper Kabylie, streets were reportedly blocked to prevent ballots from being delivered to polling stations.

After Turkmenistan accused the Russian state energy company Gazprom of causing a pipeline explosion by giving less than a day's notice before abruptly cutting its imports, observers see heightened tension between Moscow and Ashgabat. Dimitri Alexandrov, an analyst for the investments company Financial Bridge, said "that kind of explosion can only happen when the pipes are defective.... [T]he tone of the Turkmenistani Foreign Minister's accusation suggests that this is a political issue."