On Feb. 12 the Collective Against Extreme Exploitation (LKP) abruptly broke off negotiations aimed at ending a general strike that has paralyzed the French overseas department of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean since Jan. 20. The LKP, a coalition including political parties, grassroots organizations and 47 unions, insisted that the French government should sign on to a preliminary accord the strikers worked out with management on Feb. 8 giving the poorest workers a raise of 200 euros (about $259) a month. The government refused. "The state has done all it should," Raymond Soubie, an aide to French president Nicholas Sarkozy, told the media. "The rest, negotiations on wages, is a matter between management and the unions."

On Feb. 13 Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) granted a three-day extension for candidates to appeal its decision to bar them from running in an April 19 election for 12 of the 30 seats in the Senate. The 40 excluded candidates, including all 16 candidates on two rival slates from the Lavalas Family (FL) party, have until Feb. 16 to file their appeals.

After 22 hours of negotiations, on the morning of Feb. 8 management and strikers in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe reached a preliminary agreement that could form the basis for ending a general strike that has paralyzed the island since Jan. 20. Under the agreement, the 45,000 Guadeloupean workers who earn up to 1.6 times the minimum wage (SMIC, for Minimum Interprofessional Growth Salary in French) would get an increase of 200 euros (about $259) a month, while workers with higher salaries could negotiate with management for raises of 2.5% to 3%. Of the strikers' 146 demands, the government and business owners have already met about 50, including measures to bring down the cost of fuel. (Nouvel Observateur, France, Feb. 8; Le Parisien, France, Feb. 8)

Hundreds of supporters of Haiti's Lavalas Family (FL) party demonstrated in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 7 to protest the decision of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to reject all 16 candidates from two different slates that the party's rival factions had tried to run in a partial senatorial election slated for April 19. The CEP rejected a total of 40 of the 105 candidates who had filed to run for the 12 Senate seats at stake. Another candidate barred from the race was former military officer Guy Philippe, who led a 2004 insurgency against the FL's founder, former president Jean Bertrand Aristide; Philippe is suspected of narco trafficking. (AlterPresse, Feb. 8)

Latin American leaders were generally cautious in their assessment of Barack Obama, who was sworn in on Jan. 20 as US president. On Jan. 19, during his weekly radio show, "Breakfast with the President," Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said: "I think if he wants to, Obama can improve the bilateral relations" between Brazil and the US. He urged the new president to end the US trade embargo against Cuba since "there is no scientific and political explanation for the embargo to continue." (Xinhua, Jan. 20)

On Jan. 21 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Castro met with former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz during a brief visit to Havana. In a column published the same day, Castro said his discussion with Fernández was "intense and interesting, as I expected." Fernández told reporters afterwards that Castro seemed to be "very well." This was apparently Castro's first meeting with a visiting leader since Nov. 18, when he was photographed with Chinese president Hu Jintao; the article was his first statement in 20 days. There had been speculation that Castro was seriously ill.

Nine Dominican police agents, including two officers, should be tried for the Dec. 30 shooting deaths of five men in Santo Domingo's Mirador Sur section, according to a report that a special commission presented to National District attorney general Alejandro Moscoso Segarra on Jan. 15. The police had claimed that the five men died during an exchange of gunfire, but an autopsy report from the Forensic Pathology Institute found that four of the victims had been shot in the back. One of the four was shot in the back of the neck at close range, according to forensic physician Sergio Sarita, and the fifth victim was shot "in front while seated, lying down or on his knees." Attorney General Moscoso Segarra said he would decide in 48 hours whether to proceed with the case.

The administration of Barack Obama, sworn in as US president Jan. 20, will eliminate some current US sanctions against Cuba but "it is not time to lift" the 47-year-old US economic embargo, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, DC on Jan. 13. Her appearance before the committee was part of a process that is expected to win her a quick confirmation as the new administration's secretary of state. Clinton answered a number of questions orally and in writing about US relations with Latin America. The Obama administration "will return to a policy of vigorous involvement" in the region, she said.