Observers said Haiti's March 20 presidential and legislative runoff elections were relatively calm, at least in comparison to the chaotic first round on Nov. 28. A number of polling places in the capital opened hours late, apparently because the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 13,000-member military and police occupation force, failed to get voting materials to them on time. In some cases voters held spontaneous protests over the delays. There were also a few armed confrontations: two people were killed and three were wounded in electoral disputes, one at Marre Rouge, Northwest department, and the other at Marchand Dessalines, in the North department's Artibonite region.

A coalition of Puerto Rican feminist organizations held a march in San Juan on March 8, International Women's Day, from the Labor Department building to the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), the site of months of student protests against an $800 tuition surcharge. The marchers held a rally when they reached the campus, with an artistic presentation and various speeches. Adriana Mulero, a leader in the student protests, charged that conservative governor Luis Fortuño had worked against women's rights with his austerity program, which she had left many women heads of households without jobs. She also dismissed "Man's Promise," a program Fortuño has promoted as a way to end domestic violence, as reinforcing male stereotypes.

The National Ballet of Cuba, under the direction of the renowned Alicia Alonso, marked International Women's Day with a special performance on the evening of March 7, honoring women heroes of the 1959 Revolution, including the late Vilma Espín, wife of current president Raúl Castro. (AFP, March 8, via Terra, Peru)

Some 17 Haitian groups have launched a new campaign against the neoliberal economic policies that Haiti has followed under successive governments over the last three decades. The immediate goal is to implement a moratorium "of at least five years on the trade liberalization agreements [between the Haitian government and international lending institutions] and the putting in place of an economic and social policy outside the logic of the market and of structural adjustment policies."

On Feb. 18 Puerto Rican education secretary Jesús Rivera Sánchez fired 11 members of the Executive Committee of the Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR) from their jobs in the public school system and cancelled their teaching certificates, depriving of them of the ability to teach in either public or private schools. In the letter terminating the teachers, Rivera Sánchez accused them of "abandonment of service," citing a one-day strike led by the FMPR and other education workers' unions last August to protest the system's failure to hire enough teachers. FMPR president Rafael Feliciano called Rivera Sánchez's action repressive and unprecedented. He said the fired teachers would continue to lead the union without pay. The FMPR, Puerto Rico's largest union, has a long history of militancy.

Chief US federal district judge José Fusté sent Puerto Rican Bar Association (CAPR) president Osvaldo Toledo Martínez to prison on Feb. 10 for refusing to pay a $10,000 fine for contempt of court. This was the latest incident arising from a federal class action suit that challenges the bar's use of compulsory dues to buy life insurance policies for all its members. CAPR supporters say the association has discontinued the practice and the suit is politically motivated.

On Feb. 7 Haiti's Immigration and Emigration Service issued a diplomatic passport for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), who has lived in exile in South Africa since he was forced from office in 2004. The passport is good for five years, with an expiration date of Feb. 6, 2016. Aristide's US lawyer, Ira Kurzban, arrived in Haiti several days earlier to pick up the document for his client. (Radio Kiskeya, Haiti, Feb. 7)

A confrontation between police and University of Puerto Rico (UPR) students on Feb. 9 at the Río Piedras campus in San Juan quickly escalated into what appeared to be the most violent event in two months of protests against an $800 tuition surcharge imposed this year.