On the evening of Feb. 19 French president Nicholas Sarkozy met in Paris with elected officials from the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and promised to work to restore calm to the Caribbean island, which has been paralyzed by a general strike since Jan. 20. He also announced 580 million euros ($737 million) in aid for France's overseas departments, with emphasis on the Active Solidarity Revenue (RSA), a social welfare program.

On Feb. 16 Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) published its definitive list of candidates for the April 19 elections, which will fill 12 posts in the Senate. The lists did not include the candidates of the Lavalas Family (FL). The CEP had insisted that it needed official confirmation from the party's leader, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now living in South Africa, in order to confirm the FL's candidates. According to Maryse Narcisse, the leader of one of the party's rival factions, Aristide refused to sign documents before consuls appointed by people who forced him from power in 2004. (Haiti Support Group New Briefs, Feb. 17 from Reuters; AlterPresse, Feb. 17)

A US federal judge has placed 30,299 Haitians under final deportation orders, the US government announced the week of Feb. 16. The government suspended deportations of Haitians living in the US in September, after four tropical storms ravaged Haiti in one month, devastating crops and killing at least 800 people; the US resumed deportations in December. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau was only holding about 600 of the deportable Haitians as of Feb. 9; 243 others were being monitored with electronic ankle bracelets. The government says it expects the other Haitians with deportation orders to leave voluntarily. Otherwise, they will be sought by "fugitive alien teams," according to ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez.

A Colombian refugee living in Panama was killed on Feb. 18 near the town of Boca de Cupé in Darién province, a jungle region bordering Colombia that has experienced incursions in the past by Colombian armed groups. Government and Justice Minister Dilio Arcia said the victim was killed when he went outside with his son to work on his property. Local media reported that the victim was named Aureliano Graciano Sepúlveda ("Bolaños" and "Mono Bolaños"); he was granted asylum in 1996, they said, and the three armed men who killed him were probably from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). (Telemetro Reporta, Panama, Feb. 18; Univision, Feb. 18 from AP; Crítica en Línea, Panama, Feb. 19)

On Feb. 17 the Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia (ANNCOL) published a Feb. 11 communiqué from the Antonio José de Sucre column of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) taking responsibility for the killing of eight people on Feb. 6 at Río Bravo, Barbacoas municipality in the southwestern department of Nariño. The communiqué charges that the eight victims had collaborated with the military and that due to "their responsibility in the death of numerous guerrilleros and their undeniable active participation which involves them in the conflict, they were executed." The FARC didn't specify the ethnicity of the victims but insisted that the "action was not against indigenous people." The communiqué didn't comment on any other recent killings of indigenous people attributed to the FARC in the same area. (ANNCOL, Feb. 17)

On Feb. 16 some 150 people greeted the brothers Antonio and Héctor Cerezo Contreras as they left a medium security prison in Morelos state, close to Mexico City. The Cerezos were arrested in 2001 along with their brother Alejandro after three small bombs exploded at Mexico City banks. Many people believe the arrests were connected to reports that their parents, Francisco Cerezo Quiroz and Emilia Contreras, are leaders in the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The brothers were never charged in the bombing but convicted of weapons and explosives possession. Alejandro was released in February 2005 after a court overturned his conviction.

Some 500,000 Mexican bus and truck drivers and owners held a one-day strike on Feb. 16, slowing freight deliveries and forcing many passengers to find alternative transportation in 17 of the country's 32 entities (31 states and the Federal District). The strike was called by the Alliance of Multimodal Transport, recently formed by about 200 transport associations. The alliance is demanding that the federal government freeze diesel fuel prices at 6.31 pesos (about $0.43) a liter; the fuel is distributed by the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) oil company.

Gunmen in a car fired on the three-car motorcade of José Reyes Baeza Terrazas, governor of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, as it stopped at an intersection in the state capital, Chihuahua City, late Feb. 22. Baeza insisted he wasn't the target, saying the gunmen fired at guards who were trailing him at a distance of several meters. A bodyguard died in the shootout; two other bodyguards and an assailant were wounded. "There was never direct aggression against the governor," Baeza told reporters. He declined to suggest a possible motive. The Prosecutor General of Republic is investigating the incident. (LAT, Feb. 24; El Universal, Feb. 23)