The National Ballet of Cuba, under the direction of the renowned Alicia Alonso, marked International Women's Day with a special performance on the evening of March 7, honoring women heroes of the 1959 Revolution, including the late Vilma Espín, wife of current president Raúl Castro. (AFP, March 8, via Terra, Peru)

Mexican social organizations and human rights groups carried out actions in at least eight states on March 8, International Women's Day, to demand that the authorities end the murders of women, categorize femicide as a special crime, and pay attention to women's demands.

Central America is said to have the highest rate of femicides—misogynist murders—in Latin America, and many women's rights organizations marked International Women's Day on March 8 with street protests demanding that the region's governments take measures to stop the killings.

South Americans celebrated International Women's Day on March 8, the holiday's 100th anniversary, with actions calling attention to the murders of women, along with other forms of violence against women and failures by the region's governments to provide security from these crimes.

Two more reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan are reported to have lost cooling functions March 15, as technicians continue their struggle to contain what threatens to become a meltdown. Reactors Number 5 and Number 6 now appear to going out of control, with rises in temperature recorded. This follows explosions at reactors 1, 3, and 2 since March 12, as well as a fire now reported at reactor Number 4. Technicians have now lost control of all six reactors at the plant. Additionally, the water in the plant's waste fuel storage pool may be boiling due to loss of coolant, officials said.

In a nationally televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation from the three stricken reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has reached the danger zone: "The level seems very high, and there is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out." Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano added: "Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health." He urged residents who have not heeded evacuation orders to close their doors and windows and not wear clothing that has hung outside. A fire is also reported in Fukushima Dai-ichi's reactor Number 4, which means that four of the plant's six reactors are in crisis. (Globe & Mail, DPA, March 15)

A third hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is reported early March 15, destroying the outer building of reactor Number 2. This means that all three of the reactors that technicians have lost control of at the six-reactor site have now experienced hydrogen explosions that have destroyed or seriously damaged the outer turbine buildings. Engineers had been struggling overnight to cool the nuclear core at Number 2, and stave off a catastrophic meltdown. As with the explosions at reactors 1 and 3, authorities say there was no damage to the containment vessel.

It is now clear that the second explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was at reactor Number 3 on March 14, two days after the first explosion at reactor Number 1. Reactor Number 3 is of special concern because, unlike the other two which use standard uranium fuel, it contains "mixed oxide" or MOX fuel—a mixture of uranium and plutonium reprocessed from spent uranium, and significantly more toxic than standard uranium fuel. Safety concerns have long made MOX reactors controversial, and Number 3 may have already started to melt down.