Federal regulators have fined the operators of New York's Indian Point nuclear power plant $130,000 for failure to meet an April 15 deadline to install a new emergency siren system for the 10-mile evacuation zone around the plant. Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that the failure to get the replacement sirens working properly, even with a 75-day extension, was a "significant regulatory concern." NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that Entergy Nuclear Northeast has 30 days to deliver a plan to get the new system online, the same amount of time company officials have to contest the fine.

A group of Mexican writers, intellectuals and artists have issued an open letter to Gov. Patricio Patrón Laviada of Yucatan state demanding the release of 22 people still being held in Mérida after being arrested at the March 13 protests against the visit of George Bush to the colonial city. Signed by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Carlos Monsiváis and others, the letter charges that the 22, as well as 26 others already released, were subject to "torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention and denial of the right to adequate legal defense." (La Jornada, April 26)

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), based in the Highlands of Mexico's conflicted southern Chiapas state, has issued a new report charging that 13 years after an armed uprising in the state, the roots of the conflict still prevail. The report, "Armed Conflict and its Actors in 2006," finds a resurgence of paramilitary activity, especially attacks on Zapatista communities and attempts to evict them from their lands. The Zapatistas have observed a truce since shortly after their New Years Day 1994 rebellion. Noting that the Zapatistas have concentrated over the past year on an unarmed civil initiative, the "Other Campaign," the report protests that "Military...actions have intensified against...social protest and...organizations that have opted for the construction of a civil and pacific national movement." The report finds that a de facto "state of exception" has persisted in Chiapas despite federal administrations in Mexico City coming and going.

The Mexican senate has passed a package of reforms to Article 139 of the Federal Penal Code modeled on anti-terrorist legislation in the United States—above the objections of the left-opposition PRD, PT and Convergence, whose legislators assailed the changes as "criminalizing social protest." Under the changes, any act of violence aimed at influencing government policy is classified as terrorism, with a penatly of six to 40 years in prison. (La Jornada, April 27)

Aunty Maiduguri, a Nigerian lesbian who married four other women last weekend in Kano State, has gone into hiding from the Islamic police, along with her partners. Under Sharia law, adopted in the state seven years ago, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are outlawed. The theater where the wedding celebration was held April 22 has been demolished by Kano city's authorities. Lesbianism is also illegal under Nigeria's national penal code, and parliament is considering tightening its laws on homosexuality.

Authorities arrested several hundred Iranian women and issued a warning to thousands of other over their poor Islamic dress this week in the most harsh crackdown on what's known as "bad hijab" for more than a decade. Police cars are stationed outside major shopping centers in Tehran, with patrols stopping pedestrians and cars—warning female drivers not to show any hair. Women are arrested and their vehicles impounded if they argue back. Iranian TV reported that a Tehran opinion poll found 86% in favor of the crackdown. (BBC, April 27)

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), April 27:

Safety Force Rescues Innocent People in Baghdad
On April 11, 2007, the Safety Force was deployed to Alatba’a suburb of Baghdad after a fierce fighting erupted between the US troops and unknown armed men in nearby Alfathal suburb. A sniper barricaded on a building started shooting children escaping from Khawla Bent Alzwar primary school.

The Iraqi government has refused to provide the UN with civilian casualty figures for its 10th report on the human rights situation in the occupied country since August 2005, but numbers from various ministries indicate more than 5,500 people were killed in the Baghdad area alone in the first three months of 2007. The numbers, provided to the Los Angeles Times by government ministry employees, could not be independently verified.