On Feb. 7 Haiti's Immigration and Emigration Service issued a diplomatic passport for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), who has lived in exile in South Africa since he was forced from office in 2004. The passport is good for five years, with an expiration date of Feb. 6, 2016. Aristide's US lawyer, Ira Kurzban, arrived in Haiti several days earlier to pick up the document for his client. (Radio Kiskeya, Haiti, Feb. 7)

Some 100 members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug gang, had settled in the north central Guatemalan city of Cobán, capital of Alta Verapaz department, by early 2009 and were enjoying protection from "corrupt" police who were reportedly "allied with traffickers," according to a Feb. 6, 2009 confidential diplomatic cable by US ambassador Stephen McFarland. The cable was one of about 3,000 US diplomatic cables from the WikiLeaks organization that were given to the Mexican daily La Jornada because they dealt with issues relating to Mexico. The Los Zetas gang grew out of a group of Mexican Special Forces soldiers, some of them reportedly trained in counterinsurgency by the US military.

The left-of-center Mexican daily La Jornada announced on Feb. 10 that it had received some 3,000 US diplomatic cables from Sunshine Press Productions, which is presided over by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The cables deal with Mexican issues and provide "a window on the background and the tone of the bilateral relation between Mexico and the US," La Jornada's editors wrote. The paper said it "has taken on the task of reading, systematizing and treating [the material] journalistically." (LJ, Feb. 10)

Friends of the Women of Juárez, an organization based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has written US Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano to call for the release of three-year-old Mexican national Heidi Barraza Frayre and her uncle, Juan Manuel Frayre, to the care of relatives in El Paso, Texas. The granddaughter of slain Mexican activist Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, Heidi Frayre is in US custody while the government investigates whether her El Paso relatives will be able to care for her. She has been staying in a Houston shelter for immigrant children run by a Catholic charity. Juan Manuel Frayre, one of Escobedo's sons, is in immigration detention in Chaparral, New México.

A confrontation between police and University of Puerto Rico (UPR) students on Feb. 9 at the Río Piedras campus in San Juan quickly escalated into what appeared to be the most violent event in two months of protests against an $800 tuition surcharge imposed this year.

Tunisia's government harshly condemned a suggestion by Rome that Italian security forces could be sent to the North African country to stem the flow of undocumented migrants. An estimated 5,000 Tunisians have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in recent days, fleeing unrest and repression. Rome has requested emergency aid from the European Union to deal with influx. (RTE News, Feb. 15; AFP, Feb. 14)

A 26-year-old man died in central Morocco Feb. 13 after setting himself on fire in despair at his economic situation since being dismissed from the army. "He poured five litres of petrol over himself and set himself alight in the weekly market at Benguerir," said Mohammed Hanofi of the Moroccan Human Rights Association. It was the first reported death in the country from self-immolation, which has also occurred in neighboring Algeria and sparked the revolution in Tunisia. (Middle East Online, Feb. 13)

In the Yemeni capital Sana'a, protesters marched for a fourth consecutive day Feb. 14, demanding the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. They faced attacks by government supporters wielding broken bottles, daggers and rocks. Police were unable to control the crowds in Taiz, where thousands of protesters had held an all-night rally. (The Guardian, Feb. 14)