British Petroleum (BP) announced Aug. 24 that it expects to move ahead next year with deep-sea drilling work off the coast of Libya—resuming its $2 billion exploration program halted by the revolution against Moammar Qaddafi's regime last year. The oil major, which in May lifted a freeze on its activities in the North African country, will shortly resume preliminary work on the project, with drilling itself set to start some time in 2013. BP is currently choosing contractors for underwater geological surveying, a tender invitation posted on the Libyan National Oil Company website indicates. Under the deal signed with the Qaddafi government in 2007, BP will explore in the Sirt basin, more than ten times the size of its deep-water blocks off Angola. Under the 2007 contract, BP acquired 31,000 square kilometers of three-dimensional seismic data both offshore and onshore, with explorations in the Ghadames basin of Libya's western desert. (MarketWatch, Aug. 24)

Police agents stopped a group of Dominican youths of Haitian descent from marching on Aug. 13 in Monte Plata, in the central province of the same name, to demand that the government respect their rights as citizens. The protesters, members of the youth movement Reconoci.do, were trying to march from the city's central part to the local Civil Status office, the registry for identification documents. According to the group's spokesperson, Ana María Belique, the protesters applied for a permit from the Monte Plata government but were turned down on the grounds that they weren't Dominicans and had no right to demonstrate. When they attempted to march without a permit, a police contingent commanded by a Col. Antígua dispersed them with tear gas, arresting eight protesters. Three of those arrested were beaten by an agent from the robbery unit identified only as "Papo," who told them to hold their demonstrations in "their country."

Arizona's Gov. Jan Brewer issued an executive order on Aug. 15 that instructs state agencies not to provide driver's licenses and other public benefits to undocumented immigrants who have gained the right to work under a new federal program known as Deferred Action. Brewer's executive order rebuffs the Deferred Action program, a recent Obama administration policy that allows undocumented immigrants who served in the armed forces or have graduated high school, came to the US at a young age and are under 30 not to be deported. In her executive order, Brewer argued that the Deferred Action program does not grant legal status to undocumented immigrants and that she is enforcing current state law that denies public benefits to these immigrants: