On March 3 Venezuela's highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), ordered the conditional release of union leader Rubén González, who had been in prison since Sept. 29, 2009. Just two days before the TSJ order, Bolívar state judge Magda Hidalgo sentenced González to seven and a half years in prison for instigating a job action and blocking a highway in Ciudad Guayana at the government-owned Ferrominera Orinoco (FMO), an iron ore mining subsidiary of CVG, the national heavy industry holding company. González is general secretary of the Ferrominera Workers Union (SINTRAFERROMINERA). Under the terms of the conditional release, he is required to report every 15 days to the authorities in Ciudad Guayana.

US president Barack Obama expressed strong support for Mexico's "war on drugs" during a joint press conference in Washington, DC on March 3 with Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinijosa. "I have nothing but admiration for President Calderón and his willingness to take this on," Obama said, referring to Calderón's militarization of the fight against drug trafficking since he took office in December 2006. Some 35,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since then, and many Mexicans reject the militarization strategy.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Secretariat (SRE) said on March 5 that it had requested "detailed information" from the US government on Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reportedly allowed some 2,000 firearms to enter Mexico illegally in an effort to trace the activities of gun smugglers. The operation was said to be carried out without the knowledge of the Mexican government. (La Jornada, Mexico, March 6) Gun running from the US is considered a major source of weapons for drug cartels in Mexico, which has stricter gun control laws than several US states near the border.

Rightwing Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli announced in San Félix, Chiriquí, on March 3 that he would ask the National Assembly to rescind a mining law that opponents said would encourage open-pit mining for metals by foreign companies and endanger the environment. "A president like me will always listen to his people," Martinelli wrote in his Twitter account, following nearly a month of demonstrations led by the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group. Polls reportedly showed 75% of Panamanians opposing the mining industry. (Adital, Brazil, March 3)

Rain and snow over the past two weeks, together with a huge irrigation effort, appear to have saved much of the wheat crop in northern China from drought, easing fears of imminent shortages. This winter was the driest in perhaps 200 years in parts of China, the world's largest wheat producer. That prompted concerns last month that China might need to sharply increase its usually modest wheat imports—as world food prices are already surging. Global wheat supplies are tight after bad weather in other producers, including Russia and Australia. (NYT, March 7)

An ethnic Uighur website editor was sentenced to seven years in prison in China after a secret trial, Amnesty International said March 7. Tursunjan Hezim, a 38-year-old former history teacher, was reportedly detained shortly after the July 2009 protests in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Tursanjan Hezim ran a popular Uighur-language website, Orkhun, which covered local history and culture until it was shut down shortly after the protests. His family was never informed of the charges against him and his whereabouts remain unknown. The government has not publicly stated the grounds for his detention. (Amnesty International, March 7)

Clashes between South Sudanese forces and two separate rebel militias have left at least 90 people dead, an SPLA spokesman said March 7. In Jonglei state, the SPLA battled a militia loyal to renegade southern general George Athor, while in neighboring Upper Nile state SPLA troops fought an apparently allied militia under a warlord who was formerly backed by Khartoum, and whose name is rendered variously as Ulony or Oliny. Despite obvious fears that Khartoum is sponsoring rebel militias to take back lands from the SPLA before South Sudan's formal secession in July, Jonglei governor Kuol Manyang said that the fighting was due to a "long-time dispute" over land between the communities of Ayual and Dacuek. The clashes come despite the an offer to let the militias join the SPLA as part of South Sudan President Salva Kiir's amnesty to rebel fighters in October. (Middle East Online, BBC News, March 7; Sudan Tribune, March 4)

Moammar Qaddafi's forces gained ground against rebels in the battle over the oil port of Ras Lanuf on March 7, with his fighter jets targeting rebel defenses on the edge of town. Fierce fighting was also reported in the western city of Misrata, with the UN demanding urgent access to scores of "injured and dying." (Middle East Online, March 7)