Mexico, Colombia and seven Central American nations held a 24-hour summit April 10 in Campeche, issuing a nine-point plan for revitalizing the regional development alliance known as the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP). Joining Mexico's President Felipe Calderon were the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia, and the prime minister of Belize. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was represented by his vice-president, Jaime Moreno. "Latin American integration is not a dream," President Calderón told the gathering. "As our Octavio Paz saw, it's a reality that we're constructing day by day." The major achievement of the summit was an agreement to pursue a region-wide oil refinery, to be located in an as-yet undetermined Central American country. Officials said four companies have expressed interest in bidding on the project.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte leaves April 11 for Sudan, where the State Department says the Khartoum government can expect new sanctions if there is no movement on a long-delayed expansion of international peacekeeping in Darfur. But State officials also made clear they are not saying Negroponte is delivering an ultimatum to Sudan over the issue. Negroponte's North Africa mission will later take him to Chad, Libya and Mauritania. (VOA, April 11)

Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement have both turned proposals for the future status of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara over to the UN. The Moroccan proposal calls for regional autonomy for the territory under Morocco's sovereignty. The Polisario proposal calls for a referendum with three options: local autonomy, complete integration with Morocco, or independence. Polisario's plan does offer a "special relationship" with Morocco, maintaining close economic and political ties, even in the case of independence.

A proposal to make Buddhism the national religion of Thailand in the country's new constitution has sparked huge debate. Though overwhelmingly Buddhist (95% of the country), Thailand is in the grips of escalating strife in the southern, predominantly Muslim parts of the country.

Gloria Muñoz Ramírez, columnist for the Mexican left-leaning daily La Jornada, reports back April 8 from Tifariti, Western Sahara, where the Polisario Front resistance movement recently held its fifth national congress. Tifariti is the principal town in the Morocco-occupied territory controlled by the Polisario Front, whose exile government is recognized by the African Union. Ramírez writes that this year Polisario's national congress was occassioned by the emergence of a "struggle within the struggle"—that of women demanding their right to an equal place within the movement to liberate their homeland.

Amnesty International condemns Egypt's record on torture and illegal detention in a new report, and calls on other countries to abandon diplomatic "no torture" deals with Cairo. Egypt's record on torture recently made headlines after police officers raped a 21-year-old taxi driver with a stick and filmed the torture on a mobile phone. Amnesty's report, "Systematic abuses in the name of security," focuses on the question of "rendition" of terror suspects to Egypt. In 2005, Cairo acknowledged that since 2001 the US had transferred some 60-70 detainees to Egypt.

Forces from the separatist Somali state of Somaliland and neighboring autonomous Puntland clashed April 9 over a disputed strip of land along their shared border in the Sanag region. "Puntland forces attacked the town of Dahar around 8:00 this morning," Somaliland Information Minister Ahmed Hagi Dahir said in a statement. "The attacking forces were supported by 17 technicals and 3 big trucks." Technicals are pick-up trucks mounted with weapons, the Somali version of a tank. At least one fighter was reported killed.

Nine Algerian soldiers and at least four Islamist insurgents were killed in clashes after militants ambushed an army patrol in the southwestern province of Ain Defla, 150 kilometers from Algiers April 7. Government troops, backed by helicopters, are searching for the attackers, estimated at 50 militants. They are presumed to belong to the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. Fighting was also reported between security forces and Islamist rebels in the Biskra region, southeast of Algiers, which has been tense following an April 2 rebel attack which killed three soldiers. The new fighting has brought the largest single casualty toll among government forces since Islamist guerrillas killed at least seven troops in November 2006 in the Bouira region east of Algiers. (Reuters, April 9)