Nadia Lochard, coordinator of Haiti's Civil Protection agency, confirmed on Sept. 25 that five people had died and 57 were injured the day before when a violent storm hit Port-au-Prince and areas to the south, including Petit Goâve and Îles Cayimites. Lochard said most of the injuries and damage took place in the camps where some 1.3 million local residents have been living since they were displaced by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Jan. 12.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive met in New York on Sept. 20 to discuss international efforts to help Haiti recover from the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated much of the capital and nearby areas. About 1.3 million Haitians continue to live outdoors, mostly in some 1,300 improvised encampments, more than eight months after the quake and almost six months after international donors pledged $9.9 billion in aid.

From Reuters, Sept. 26:

U.S. should be able to shut Internet, former CIA chief says
SAN ANTONIO — Cyberterrorism is such a threat that the U.S. president should have the authority to shut down the Internet in the event of an attack, Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said.

NATO forces in Afghanistan launched two airstrikes against Taliban fighters on the Pakistani side of the border, killing more than 30 people on Sept. 24 and 25, military spokesmen confirmed. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) initially denied that its forces had launched the airstrikes, although they were confirmed by Afghan police officials. On Sept. 27, however, a statement from ISAF confirmed the attacks. Initially, a base close to the border in Khost province, known as Combat Outpost Narizah, came under fire from insurgents. When what ISAF described as an "air weapons team" responded, they came under fire from the insurgents across the border in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, and returned fire. When two ISAF helicopters returned to the area the next day, they were again fired on from the Pakistani side of the border, and again returned fire.

Several thousand Israeli settlers and supporters celebrated to mark the end Sept. 26 to a 10-month moratorium on new construction in their West Bank enclaves. "The building freeze is over," Danny Danon, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, declared as balloons were released into the air at the West Bank settlement of Revava. "Today we mark the resumption of building in Judea and Samaria!" Netanyahu had urged Israeli settlers to show restraint as the limited building freeze expired at midnight. But at Revava, outside Nablus, residents expressed their defiance at a groundbreaking ceremony where a mixer symbolically poured cement into a hole in the ground amid cheers and the blasting of car horns. The celebration was attended by thousands bused in for the occasion. (Reuters, Sept. 26)

A protest was held in Albuquerque, NM, on Sept. 18, demanding police intensify their search for a culprit in a mass grave discovered at West Mesa on the outskirts of the city last year. The protest, called by the group Justice of the West Mesa Women, was held outside the city police headquarters, with marchers carrying crosses draped in women's clothing. In February 2009, authorities in West Mesa found the bodies of 11 women, including one who had been pregnant, in a mass grave. At least 10 other women in the West Mesa area have been reported missing, and authorities fear that there are more missing persons that may have gone unreported. Most of the women went missing between 2001 and 2005. The case has drawn parallels to the Ciudad Juárez femicide. (The Scribe, University of Colorado, Sept. 20; KOB-TV, Albuquerque, Sept. 18)

On Sept. 21, Ciudad Juárez municipal police destroyed a house that had been occupied for 40 years by Refugio Tagle Valdez and his family at Lomas de Poleo, a community on the outskirts of the border city. Tagle, who built the house four decades ago, said that neither he nor his attorney had been informed that the demolition was imminent. The lands at Lomas de Poleo are claimed by local businessman Pedro Zaragoza. Local residents assert that the lands were found to be national property by a 1975 ruling of the Agrarian Reform Secretariat. (La Jornada, Sept. 23)

The National Front of Popular Resistance and other organizations protested the participation of the Honduran de facto president, Porfirio Lobo, in the sessions of the UN General Assembly. In an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the signatories state that Lobo's presence in the forum violates the spirit of the UN resolution of June 30, 2009, which condemned the coup in Honduras. The letter points out that the resolution remains in force, and charges that political persecution and human rights abuses continue in the Central American country. The letter also states that Lobo's government has given no guarantee for a safe return of ousted president Manuel Zelaya to Honduras. "Consequently, we reject the presence of Mr. Lobo in this forum, set up to ensure democratic freedoms, fundamental freedoms and human rights," reads the text. The letter was also signed by the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, the Center for Women's Rights and FIAN-Honduras. (Inside Costa Rica, Sept. 24)