Venezuela's government announced April 9 it will nationalize the country's largest steel maker following months of tense negotiations between the foreign-owned Sidor and its workers, who have been demanding better salaries and benefits. Days earlier, President Hugo Chávez announced a state takeover of leading cement companies.

From the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI), April 14:

About 30 workers of Alborz Tire Manufacturing Company were released on April 14th after signing letters promising not to get involved in any protest actions against their employer. It is reported that about 10 other workers are still incarcerated.

As Ramona Africa reports, this week, the MOVE 9 women were interviewed by the parole board in Philadelphia, while the men are still awaiting their interviews. Following a press conference at the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building, an online petition was delivered to the Parole Board, which urged the board to grant the remaining eight MOVE prisoners parole after 30 years in prison. MOVE is asking supporters to continue contacting the board until the final decision. Local writer David Love wrote in this week's Black Commentator that the MOVE 9 "have been exemplary prisoners, and should be released. But many would argue that they should not have been imprisoned in the first place."

Two announcers of the radio station "La Voz que Rompe el Silencio" (the Voice that Breaks the Silence) were assassinated on April 7 while traveling by car in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, according to the civil society organization Centro de Apoyo Comunitario Trabajando Unidos (Center for Community Support-Working in Unity, CACTUS). According to State Police the two women were killed and four injured—including two children—when their car was shot up near Putla de Guerrero in the indigenous Mixteca region 350 kilometers west of Oaxaca City.

After a week of disturbances in Haiti over the high cost of living, on April 11 the Organization of American States (OAS) announced that in about two weeks it would supply $1 million for the purchase of food. France offered 1 million euros (about $1.5 million). On April 10 Brazil, which leads the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) troops, announced that it would ship 14 tons of food by a Brazilian Air Force Boeing KC-137/707, in coordination with the World Food Program (WFP), to arrive on April 11. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frias made a dramatically larger commitment, announcing on April 12 that his government would send 364 tons of emergency food aid, including beef, chicken, milk, cooking oil and lentils. (AlterPresse, April 11; Brazilian government press release, April 10; Haiti Support Group, April 12 from AFP)

Residents from the southern Ecuadorian province of Azuay used rocks and burning tires to block a stretch of the Panamerican Highway on April 2 to protest a planned industrial-sized goldmine, which they say will contaminate the local water supply. Canadian gold giant Iamgold has been eyeing entry into the region.

Some 700 Japanese anti-nuclear activists protested April 12 in Rokkasho (Aomori Prefecture, northern Honshu) as French Prime Minister Francois Fillon toured a new nuclear fuel reprocessing facility recently built in partnership between Japan Nuclear Fuel (JNFL) and France's nuclear giant Areva. The plant is scheduled to begin operations next month, but critics charge that it poses a safety risk and could be vulnerable to an earthquake.

Eight teenage male immigrant detainees filed a federal lawsuit on April 3, claiming they were beaten and subjected to other excessive force at a privately-run 122-bed detention facility in San Antonio, Tex. The plaintiffs from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Cuba are being represented in the suit by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. According to the lawsuit, the beatings were so severe that some of the boys required hospital treatment for their injuries, and at least one boy was knocked unconscious. Complaints to facility administrators about the abuse were ignored. Officials at the detention center, officially called the Abraxas Hector Garza Treatment Center, also denied the boys access to attorneys by unnecessarily transferring them to other facilities before scheduled lawyer meetings, the lawsuit alleges.