The Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT), a Dominican civil organization, has filed for an injunction against a contract the government signed with the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation for the Pueblo Viejo gold mine in Cotuí in the Dominican Republic's central province of Sánchez Ramírez. The mine, a joint venture of Barrick and the Vancouver-based multinational Goldcorp Inc., opened last August despite strong opposition from environmental groups. It is set to begin exporting gold in February.

The effort to bring former Haitian "president for life" Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier (1971-1986) to trial for human rights abuses inched forward on Feb. 7 when an appeals court panel in Port-au-Prince heard from lawyers representing people who say they were victims of his regime. Duvalier had failed to appear at an earlier hearing, scheduled for Jan. 31, and he refused to attend the new hearing, which fell on the 27th anniversary of his 1986 overthrow. Defense lawyers read the judges a letter from Duvalier saying that Feb. 7 should be "a day of national reconciliation" and complaining about "abominable acts" that he said were committed against his supporters after his ouster—apparently a reference to the lynching of some members of the notorious Tonton Macoute paramilitary group.

José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, a 16-year-old Mexican shot dead by US Border Patrol agents at the Mexico-US border near Nogales, Arizona, the night of Oct. 10, 2012, was hit by at least eight bullets and maybe as many as 11, according to an autopsy report made available to reporters on Feb. 7. The report, prepared by doctors for the Sonora State Attorney General's Office, found that at least seven of the bullets hit the unarmed teenager in the back. The shooting came a week after an Oct. 2 incident in which a Border Patrol agent was shot dead by other agents in the dark near the border in Cochise County, Arizona.

Tension remains high in Gao after a pitched battle over the weekend as French troops beat back an attempt by MUJAO fighters to retake the remote northern Malian city. Jihadist fighters succeeded succeeded in taking a cluster of buildings in the center of town, including the former administrative building that had been used by MUJAO "Islamic police." After the builging was destroyed in a French helicopter assault, fighting ensued for hours over the ruins. French President Francois Hollande said his goal is that "not one space of Mali's territory be under the control of terrorists." A death toll could not immediately be established,  but Col. Mamadou Sanake of the Malian army said, "Many Islamists were killed."

Norma Enríquez, a leader of the Permanent Assembly of Civil Society for Peace, an umbrella of Colombian NGOs and popular organizations, on Feb. 10 called on the government to include the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the talks now underway in Havana with the FARC guerillas. Enríquez told the Mexican news agency Notimex that failure to include the ELN "would be to risk marginalizing one of the expressions of the conflict from the peace dialogue." Initial contacts between the government and the ELN, brokered by the Catholic Church, apparently broke down in November, when the guerilla group took hostage two German nationals in Santander department. (Notimex, Feb. 11; Sexenio, Mexico, Feb. 10)

Panama announced Feb. 10 the arrest of the top leader of the Oficina de Envigado, a Colombian crime syndicate said to be a surviving remnant of Pablo Escobar's notorious Medellín Cartel. The suspect, identified only by his alias, "Pichi," was apprehended at a luxury home in Panama City in a joint operation by Panamanian and Colombian police. He is accused of having ordered the murder of nine—including three rival kingpins—in December at Envigado, a town on the southern outskirts of Medellín. Colombian authorities have also named him in the assassination of two police agents in Medellín in July last year. Pichi is said to have taken over the crime syndicate after the arrest of its former leader "Sebastian" last year. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos congratulated the National Police via Twitter, calling the operation "a good hit." (Colombia Reports, BBC News, Feb. 10)

Edén Pastora, the Nicaraguan government official responsible for the dredging project on the Río San Juan—seen as a step towards a Nicaraguan inter-oceanic canal— confirmed to local media Feb. 6 that Managua has asked the International Court of Justice at The Hague for navigation rights on the Río Colorado, located entirely within Costa Rican territory. "This government of Daniel Ortega...applies the logic of  'what's good for the goose is good for the gander,'" he told Managua's Channel 15 TV. "if [Costa Rica] can navigate our waters, why can't we travel the waters of the Río Colorado, if 90% of its water is from the Río San Juan?" This is a reference to the fact that the Colorado is a branch of the San Juan, which is claimed in its entirety by Nicaragua—despite a pending case at The Hague over disputed islands.

Peru's Yanacocha mining company—that seeking to develop the controversial Conga project in Cajamarca region—is appealing a ruling of  the National Water Authority (ANA) barring expansion of its existing mine into new lands within its concession area. The lands, at a place called La Quinua Sur, lie within the headwaters of the Río Grande, which supplies water to the city of Cajamarca. Technically, the expansion, dubbed Yanacocha Oeste, was approved late last year by the Ministry of Energy and Mining (MINEM), but ANA denied approval to discharge effluent into local waterways that drain into the river. This effectively bars plans to develop a new open-pit mine at Quinua Sur.