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)

Security forces in Bahrain fired tear gas and bird shot Feb. 15 on mourners gathered for a funeral procession for a man killed in the first Egypt-inspired protests to reach the Gulf, killing at least one more and leaving many injured. Witnesses said the attack on the funeral march was "completely unprovoked." Bahrain's ruling monarchy is a strategic Western ally and home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet. (AP, BBC World Service, Feb. 15)

Tens of thousands of protesters battled security forces in Tehran Feb. 14, leaving at least one dead. Amid clouds of tear gas fired by police and pro-government militiamen, the protesters marched down a central boulevard shouting "Death to the dictator," "We are all together," and "Down with Taliban, in Cairo and Tehran!" Dozens were arrested for participating in the banned rally. Similar protests and clashes are reported from Isfahan and Shiraz. (WP, Feb. 15)

A prominent New York Times article of Feb. 13 will doubtless be seized upon as vindicating paranoia about neocon conspiracies behind the Egyptian revolution. It seems that one of the early protest groups, the April 6 Youth Movement—so named for their failed plan for an uprising on that date in 2008—drew inspiration (although not, by any indication, money or training) from the Serbian protest movement Otpor and international non-violence guru Gene Sharp.