Security forces stormed the provincial council building in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on March 29 after an hours-long shootout with gunmen that left 41 dead and 95 wounded. The gunmen, wearing military uniforms and suicide vests, swarmed into the council building immediately after a suicide bomber detonated his payload and cleared the way. A car bomb exploded shortly afterwards as police reinforcements were arriving. Those who did not die as a result of explosions were murdered, execution-style, by the gunmen, authorities said. A curfew was imposed in Tikrit, capital of the Sunni-majority Salaheddin province, which has long been a bastion of the insurgency.

In a long-awaited public address, President Bashar Assad blamed foreign conspiracies for Syria's unrest March 30. "Syria is a target of a big plot from the outside," Assad said as Syrians gathered around television sets at homes and in town squares. He said protesters have been "duped" into taking to the streets. Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otri on March 29 tendered his government's resignation to Assad, who promptly re-appointed him caretaker premier. The next government, expected to be formed in the coming days, will be charged with implementing reforms promised after protests erupted in mid-March. The reforms are expected to include the end of emergency rule, in place since the Baath party came to power in 1963, and the liberalization of laws on media and political parties.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters again took to the streets in Yemen on March 30—despite a new offer from the President Ali Abdullah Saleh to remain in office until the end of the year but only in a ceremonial role. Opposition officials negotiating with the president said that Saleh’s offer would see him handing over the bulk of his powers to a transitional ruling council until elections are held at the end of the year. The opposition said it is still considering its response, but protesters accused Saleh of stalling and seeking unduly to influence the appointment of his successor. "The president throws his different cards here and there every minute and every day and manoeuvres... in an attempt to remain in power," said Mohammed Qahtan the parliamentary opposition's spokesman. (The Telegraph, March 30)

The number of displaced Haitians living in camps in the Port-au-Prince area after the destruction of their homes in a January 2010 earthquake has now fallen to about 680,000, according to estimates by the International Organization for Migration (IOM, or OIM in French). In July about 1.5 million people were living in 1,555 camps in the metropolitan area, the IOM reported; the number of camps has come down to 1,061. But a survey of 1,033 heads of households found that the people who left the camps haven't necessarily found better shelter: about 50% are still living in inadequate housing. Most are staying in tents in their old neighborhoods, while some are staying with relatives or friends. Others have gone back to their damaged homes, despite the risks involved. An IOM report found that while some people moved out of the camps because they managed to get transitional housing, many left because of forced expulsions, the deterioration of sanitary conditions, the high rate of crime in the camps or the reduction of services there.

Honduran riot police threw a tear gas canister at journalists Lidieth Díaz and Adolfo Sierra from TV Cholusat Sur (Channel 36) as they were trying to film a protest by striking teachers on March 21 in Tegucigalpa, according to Channel 36 owner Esdras Amado López and other sources. Two other journalists, Radio Gualcho director Sandra Maribel Sánchez and Globo TV camera operator Uriel Rodríguez, also reported being assaulted by the police. "I was filming the military and the police when one of them fired rubber bullets, injuring both of my legs," Rodríguez said. "Then another group of police rushed at Sandra Maribel Sánchez to take her camera."

Over 41,000 Colombian judicial workers demonstrated at the Paloquemao Judicial Complex in downtown Bogotá on March 25 to protest the murders of judicial officers. The protest was part of a one-day national strike that the National Association of Employees of the Judicial Branch (Asonal Judicial) had called after the murder of Judge Gloria Constanza Gaona. The judged was shot dead on March 22 while on her way to a municipal court in the town of Saravena in the northeastern department of Arauca.

Some 115,000 Mexicans fled their homes last year because of drug-related crime, according to a report released on March 23 by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The Geneva-based group, which was established by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in 1998 at the United Nations' request, estimated that the total number of people displaced by drug violence in Mexico since 2007 has reached about 230,000. Some 35,000 people have died in fighting among drug gangs and between the gangs and the authorities in the four years since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa militarized the fight against drug traffickers shortly after taking office in December 2006.

Activists for women's rights in Saudi Arabia decried the regime's decision March 28 to keep a voting ban in place at a time when Arab governments are taking steps to avert pro-democracy uprisings. The announcement came from the head of the electoral committee charged with preparing for next month's municipal polls. "We are not ready for the participation of women in these municipal elections," said Abdulrahman al-Dahmash, while renewing pledges that authorities will allow women to take part "in the next ballot." The Saudi monarchy announced last week that it is to hold municipal elections for only the second time, kicking off on April 23 from region to region. The March 28 announcement is "an outrageous mistake that the kingdom is committing. It's just repeating the same mistake of 2005," said Hatoon al-Fassi, a history lecturer at King Saud University in Riyadh.