A Feb. 18 National Public Radio story on the crackdown on human rights activists in Iran makes the point that the US "regime change" campaign has prompted Tehran to turn up the heat on internal dissent—and makes it easier to tar activists as American agents. Iran's foremost rights activist Shirin Ebadi is quoted saying the recent closure of her office by the authorities came in response to "a resolution passed against Iran in the United Nations."

Saying the war against the Taliban is "still winnable," President Barack Obama ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to tackle an intensifying insurgency, the White House announced Feb. 17. This will bring US troop levels in Afghanistan to around 55,000. US troops in Afghanistan have already risen from around 30,000 at the beginning of this year to 38,000 now under orders signed by the Bush administration. The new forces will include a Marine expeditionary brigade of some 8,000 troops and an Army brigade of 4,000 soldiers equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, the Pentagon said.

Chinese police in Lithang County, Sichuan province, detained 15 Tibetans who marched peacefully in support of the Dalai Lama Feb. 16. Five more local Tibetans who are believed to have participated in the march were detained the next day. Citing reports from witnesses on the ground, the India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said the town of Lithang has been effectively shut down since the protest, with shops closed and traffic brought to a halt by police checkpoints.

From the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Feb. 16:

ALBANY, NY — On February 12, 2009, in Orchard Park, Buffalo, NY, forty-four year-old Muzzamil Hassan, a prominent Muslim businessman, was arrested for having allegedly beheaded his wife, thirty-seven year-old Aasiya Z. Hassan. What was Aasiya's crime? Why, Aasiya was having Muzzamil served with divorce papers. And apparently, on February 6, Aasiya obtained an order of protection which had forced her violent husband out of their home.

Another US drone struck Pakistan's Tribal Areas Feb. 16, again killing some 30. Like the drone strike that killed similar numbers in South Waziristan Feb. 14, the raid targeted militants loyal to Baitullah Mehsud. But this time the missiles struck the Kurram tribal region—which had not been targeted before, signaling a broadening of the drone-strike campaign. The US has now targeted Pakistan four times since President Barack Obama took office last month.

Late on the evening of Feb. 15, Venezuela's National Electoral Council announced that a proposal to end term limits had won with 54% of the vote in a referendum held that day. The government of President Hugo Chávez Frias, whose second six-year term ends in 2012, had pushed hard for the measure. "The doors of the future are wide open," Chávez, a former lieutenant colonel, shouted from the balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace after the results were announced. "In 2012 there will be presidential elections, and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate."

On Feb. 14 a court in Temuco in the southern Chilean region of La Araucania formally charged indigenous Mapuche activist Miguel Angel Tapia Huenulef with six counts of possession of firearms and explosives under the Anti-terrorism Law. Police agents said they had found the weapons and explosives during raids the night of Feb. 11 at Tapia Huenulef's home in Lo Prado community in Santiago and in a house in the Huallalin sector of Padre las Casas in Novena region. The court ordered Tapia Huenulef held in prison during the investigation, which it said should be completed in four months. He also faces drug possession charges in Santiago and charges of arson and assault from a Jan. 12 attack on the San Leandro estate in Lautaro in La Araucania.

On Feb. 12 the Collective Against Extreme Exploitation (LKP) abruptly broke off negotiations aimed at ending a general strike that has paralyzed the French overseas department of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean since Jan. 20. The LKP, a coalition including political parties, grassroots organizations and 47 unions, insisted that the French government should sign on to a preliminary accord the strikers worked out with management on Feb. 8 giving the poorest workers a raise of 200 euros (about $259) a month. The government refused. "The state has done all it should," Raymond Soubie, an aide to French president Nicholas Sarkozy, told the media. "The rest, negotiations on wages, is a matter between management and the unions."