The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Feb. 1 upheld the listing of polar bears as a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Designation of the animal as threatened gives polar bears the lower of two levels of protection. This designation was challenged by both environmental groups, which argued that the polar bears should be considered endangered and be given the highest level of protections, and industry and sporting groups, which argued that they should not be protected under the act at all. The court determined that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) used "reasoned decisionmaking" in deciding to list polar bears as threatened, and therefore did not disturb its designation. The agency went through a three-year rulemaking process and determined that, due to the effects of global warming, polar bears are likely to become an endangered species in the foreseeable future, warranting their designation as threatened.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on March 4 began the trial of 94 people charged with plotting to overthrow the government. The group of defendants includes unnamed doctors, academics, lawyers and other professionals arrested over the past year and accused of forming a secret network with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and designs to raise money in a plotted coup against the UAE's ruling families. International human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the charges and raised concerns regarding the transparency and fairness of the trial. Most of the defendants are members of the conservative Reform and Social Guidance Association (al-Islah), a nonviolent Islamist political association.

From Gothamist, March 4:

Baby Whose Parents Were Killed
in Williamsburg Hit-And-Run Has Died

The infant who was delivered prematurely after his parents were killed in a Williamsburg hit-and-run has died, according to Orthodox community leader Isaac Abraham. The child had been listed in stable condition after being delivered in the wake of the crash that killed parents Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21. But Abraham now says the child has died. Regarding the driver who fled the horrific scene, Abraham tells the Times, "This guy's a coward and he should pay his price."

Lenca indigenous communities of San Francisco de Opalaca municipality, in Intibucá department, Honduras, have declared a state of "maximum alert," pledging to resist development projects planned for their territory. Especially named is a new hydro-electric complex to be built on the Río Gualcarque by the private company Ríos Power SA (RIPOSA). Last month, when newly elected municipal president Socorro Sánchez took office, hundreds of Lenca campesinos, organized by the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), gathered at the cabildo (town hall) to demand that he adhere to the mandate of the indigenous communities and take a stance against the hydro project, which they say represents a privatization of local water resources.

The Association of Victims of March 3 in Vitória, Spain, marked the 37th anniversary of the massacre at the Basque Country city with a public demonstration demanding that the Madrid government officially recognize the facts of the incident, which they say have been excised from the history of the democratic transition after the death of dictator Francisco Franco. The demonstration was coordinated with protests against Spain's pending neoliberal education reform, which brought 3,000 to Vitória's streets. Similar numbers were reported in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria.

Sri Lanka's Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is demanding the government conduct a comprehensive investigation into a mass grave uncovered by a construction project late last year in the Central province town Matale, asserting that the more than 140 sets of human remains date to a wave of bloody repression 25 years ago. In 1988 and '89, when the JVP was outlawed and led an armed insurrection, paramilitary groups and death squads were formed by the army, and some 60,000 were killed in massacres and assassinations. The JVP was allowed to re-enter the political process after 1993 peace accords and now holds seats in parliament, but charges that there has never been an accounting for the bloodletting of the 1980s. (Groundviews, Feb. 24; Sunday Leader, Feb. 10; Colombo Page, Feb. 5, JVP)

Chad's military announced March 2 that its forces in Mali killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the renegade AQIM commander who apparently ordered January's attack on an Algerian gas plant where at least 37 hostages were killed. The statement on Chadian national TV said Belmokhtar was among several militants killed when its forces destroyed a "terrorist base" in the Adrar de Ifhogas mountains. One day earlier, Chad's President Idriss Deby said his forces had killed another al-Qaeda commander, Adelhamid Abou Zeid, in an operation in the same area near the Algerian border. Belmokhtar and Abu Zeid, both Algerians, were said to have been rival AQIM commanders in Mali. (Reuters, BBC News, March 2)

Hundreds of campesinos on March 1 established an encampment and began building a large shelter on the shores of Laguna Azul, within the lease area of the Conga mining project, pledging to block any attempt by the Yanacocha company to bring in equipment. At nightfall, the campesinos from the provinces of Bambamarca, Celendín and Cajamarca, are holding an assembly as some 300 National Police have surrounded them. Edy Benavides, a leader of the camp and president of the Defense Front of Hualgayoc (a municipal district in Bambamarca), accused Yanacocha of lying to the people of the region in its claim to have "suspended" the Conga project. Other leaders of the encampment are Milton Sánchez, president of the Interinstitutional Platform of Celendín, and Marco Arana, leader of the political movement Tierra y Libertad. (La Republica, RPP, March 1)