Workers at two major industrial enterprises in Iran's southern province of Khuzestan are on strike, according to a report on Radio Farda, Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The report says some 1,500 employees of the Imam Port Petrochemical Complex have been staging gatherings in front of the company headquarters since April 9 to demand their work contracts be concluded directly with the plant's management rather than with contractors. The Free Union of Workers in Iran told Radio Farda that 1,000 workers at the Pars Paper Mill in southwestern Iran similarly launched a strike on April 9, protesting the dismissal of 60 workers who were on temporary contracts with the factory. (RFE/RL, April 12)

A federal jury in El Paso, Texas, acquitted Cuban-born former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "asset" Luis Posada Carriles of 11 counts of fraud and obstruction of justice on April 8, handing US prosecutors their latest defeat in a case that dates back to Posada's illegal entry into the US in 2005. The judge in the case, US district judge Kathleen Cardone, threw out one set of immigration fraud charges in 2007; two years later, US prosecutors filed the new set of charges based on Posada's allegedly lying to immigration officers about his terrorist activities in the past.

On April 5, five days late, Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced the preliminary results from the March 20 presidential and legislative runoff elections. According to the official count, popular singer Michel Martelly ("Sweet Micky," Peasant Response) defeated Mirlande Hyppolite Manigat (Coalition of National Progressive Democrats, RDNP) by 67.57% to 31.74% in the race for president. Turnout was reported at 23%, about the same as in the first round, on Nov. 28, although Martelly claims it was 30%. The CEP is to announce the final results on April 16, and the new president takes office on May 14.

US officials were wrong in 1979 when they thought that the struggle against drug trafficking was "a question that only had to do with complying with the law," one "that could be resolved quickly with an aggressive campaign" and with a "country by country" approach, William R. Brownfield, US assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, told a press conference in Cancún, in the eastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on April 7. "Thirty-two years have passed, billions of dollars and many strategies later," he said, "and I could tell you that we weren't right, we didn't guess right."

Declassified internal documents from the Cincinnati-based banana company Chiquita Brands International made public on April 7 indicate that the multinational's Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, had a much closer relation with leftist rebels and rightwing paramilitaries than Chiquita has admitted in the past. Chiquita agreed in March 2007 to pay the US government $25 million in fines for supporting the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which the US designated as a terrorist group, but the company insisted that Banadex only gave the AUC money to keep it from attacking Chiquita employees; the company said it had also paid off two leftist guerrilla organizations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), for the same reason.

In Colombia's largest demonstration since President Juan Manuel Santos took office last August, tens of thousands of unionists, students and teachers demonstrated throughout the country on April 7 to protest a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US and proposed changes in the education system that they say will lead to privatization. The Unitary Workers Central (CUT), Colombia's main labor federation, estimated turnout at 1.5 million. Demonstrations took place in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Bucaramanga, Santa Marta, Barranquilla and other cities.

The Moroccan media are making much of a report in Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper on March 29 that veteran Polisario guerillas from Morocco-occupied Western Sahara are fighting for Qaddafi in Libya. According to the report: "The regime of Colonel Qaddafi has kept, in the town of Sabha, a reserve of men and material in a base where the new African recruits from the Polisario guerrillas are arriving." Seemingly blind to the self-contradiction, a report on Morocco Board leads with the Corriere della Sera claim ("Mercenaries from the Western Sahara Separatists Polisario Group have been recruited by the Libyan regime")—and then goes on cite elements of the Tripoli regime who charge that the Western Sahara guerillas are fighting against Qaddafi! Former Libyan minister Errishi Ali is quoted as saying that "the western Sahara Separatists Polisario mercenaries were among those that have infiltrated Libya to spread terror and counter the Libyan revolution." Ali said that he was "deeply disappointed and saddened by the hypocrisy of the Western Sahara Separatist Polisario group mercenaries who are taking part in such a vicious and destructive enterprise, while they claim to be freedom fighters."

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei was detained at Beijing airport while attempting to board a flight to Hong Kong on April 3. The artist's wife, assistants, friends, family members and associates were also subsequently detained and interrogated. But Ai himself continues to be held at unknown location. China's Foreign Ministry said only that he is being investigated for unspecified "economic crimes" and that his detention has "nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression." The detention has nonetheless sparked global protests. In London, supporters gathered at the Tate Modern museum on April 11, and climbed into Ai's "Sunflower Seeds" installation—an exhibit of 136 tons of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds—and scattered posters bearing the message: "Free Ai Weiwei." (CBC, April 11)