Two US Black Hawk combat helicopters were observed flying over the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti on at least two occasions in March: 4:00-4:30 AM on March 23 and 10 PM-12:00 AM on March 24. The flights, reported by Dominican military commanders in Duverge and Jimani, in the southwestern province of Independencia, alarmed the residents of several communities.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 49 Mexicans and two Salvadorans on March 30 and 31 in Merced County in central California. ICE said all those arrested had prior deportation orders. In at least two cases, ICE seized US citizen children off school buses before or after arresting their parents. In Firebaugh, two unmarked ICE vans pulled up alongside a school bus on the morning of March 31, said Brian Walker, superintendent of the Dos Palos Oro Loma Joint Unified School District. One van drove in front of the bus, forcing the driver to stop. Armed ICE agents boarded the bus and took three children away in a van. The concerned bus driver followed the vans to a home where he saw agents handcuffing people who appeared to be the students' parents, said Walker. In Merced, agents took two students from Franklin Elementary School off a bus after arresting their parents.

For those who remember similar threats in the prelude to the Iraq invasion, there's a sense of deja vu here. From AFP, April 8:

WASHINGTON - The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.

From the Wayne Madsen Report, via VHeadline.com, April 6:

In a replay of US naval maneuvers held during the time the Bush administration tried to unseat Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an April 2002 abortive coup, the US Navy is deploying a task force led by the USS George Washington to waters off the Venezuelan coast in "Operation Partnership of the Americas."

Magdalena Gomez writes for Mexico's La Jornada, March 28, via the Chiapas95 archive (our translation):

The Jornadas Andino-Mesoamericanas, held last week in La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia, provided an unusual tequio [Mexican indigenous word for collective effort] of thought. Indigenous leaders and academics from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru debated and took count of the progress of their struggles, but above all the problem of the State—and here they included Bolivia, because their leadership is clear that "we put Evo in power" [lo pusimos al Evo], but has serious concerns about the possibilities of reconstitution of the State.

The Zapatista "Other Campaign" continues to advance through central Mexico, with recent stops emphasizing peasant ecological struggles. In Campos, Colima state, Delegate Zero (Subcommander Marcos) and other Zapatista leaders met with fishermen at Cuyutlán lagoon, whose livelihood is falling victim to environmental damage caused by the port’s thermoelectric plant. (La Jornada, April 1) In Michoacan, they met with Purepecha indigenous campesinos defending the local Lake Zirahuen from the real estate and tourism development that is encroaching from the nearby bigger Lake Patzcuaro. (La Jornada, April 5) Emulating the Zapatista rebel zones in Chiapas, the Purepecha have established a "Caracol in Rebellion of Lake Zirahuen." (Narco News, April 4) In Morelia, Michoacan's capital, Marcos called for a new "national force" to combat the neoliberal capitalist program, and affirmed that indigenous peoples are critical to "the possibility to build a different reality for our nation" because they have "another relation with nature." (La Jornada, April 3) The Other Campaign has just arrived in Ocotepec, Morelos, heartland of the original Zapatista insurgency (La Jornada, April 8)

A prominent opponent of India's controversial Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada River is forcibly hospitalized to break her hunger strike. From Rediff, April 6:

In a late night swoop, the Delhi police have forcibly removed Narmada Bachao Andolan [Save the Narmada Movement] leader Medha Patkar from the spot of her indefinite hunger strike.

More evidence that, whatever the hubristic schemes of the neocons three years ago, Washington is terrified of losing control of Iraq, having over-played the divide-and-conquer card. From the Irish Examiner, April 8:

SUICIDE attackers wearing women's robes blew themselves up yesterday in a Shi'ite mosque in northern Baghdad, killing at least 79 people and wounding 164.