David VenegasAfter nearly 11 months in prison, David Venegas Reyes, a leader of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), was released from Santa María Ixcotel penitentiary, following the issuing of a judicial order (amparo) protecting him from further prosecution, citing insufficient evidence. The charges have not been formally dropped. (La Jornada, March 6) Vengas Reyes received threats on his life and those of his family while in detention last year. (Venegas Reyes letter, May 2, 2007, online at Casa de Paz, Chiapas)

The Chontal Maya community of Villa Vicente Guerrero, in Centla municipality of Mexico's oil-rich Gulf Coast state of Tabasco, has declared itself an "autonomous municipality" in a letter to the Sixth Commission, civil wing of the Zapatista rebel movement in neighboring Chiapas state to the south. The declaration said Vicente Guerrero, in remote swamplands of the Rio Grijalva delta, is withdrawing from all government institutions in response "abandonment" by the official authorities despite "the extraction of millions of barrels of petroleum and natural gas" on local lands. The community also cited human rights abuses, including the arrest of seven residents by federal police in connection with a supposed attempt to illegally detain government functionaries. The statement said the seven were "brutally tortured." (La Jornada, March 3)

The brothers Antonio and Mariano Pucuj were sentenced to 26 years in prison late last month for their participation in the December 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotzil indigenous people at Acteal hamlet in Mexico's southern Chiapas state. They were also ordered to pay more than $70,000 in compensation to the victims' families. The Pucuj brothers are said to be appealing the decision. Officials say the killings were motivated by a land dispute between two Tzotzil communities. But victims' families say the perpetrators were provided weapons and paramilitary training from the government. Last year, courts sentenced 34 men to 26 years each for the killings. (AP, Feb. 27)

Josette Sheeran, head of the UN World Food Program, warned that the global rise in basic food costs could continue until 2010, blaming soaring energy and grain prices—the effects of climate change and demand for biofuels. Some food prices rose 40% last year, and the WFP fears the world's poorest will buy less food, or be forced to rely on aid. Speaking after briefing the European Parliament, Sheeran said the agency needed an extra $375 million for food projects this year plus $125 million to transport the food aid. She said she saw no quick solution to high food and fuel costs. "The assessment is that we are facing high food prices at least for the next couple of years," she said. Sheeran said global food reserves are at their lowest level in 30 years—with enough to cover the need for emergency deliveries for 53 days, compared with 169 days in 2007. Sheeran has already warned that the WFP is considering plans to ration food aid due to a shortage of funds.

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), March 3:

On February 20 more than three thousand Salvadoran bakers participated in a march to protest the high cost of flour and other commodities used by their sector. The marchers demanded that the government step in to alleviate the crisis by means of a subsidy. Thousands of Salvadoran families remain unable to put bread on the table, in part due to the rising cost of flour, which bakers are then forced to pass along to their customers.

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), March 8:

On the 8th of March This Year...
"No to Women Killing... No to the Gangs Who Promote Sexual Cleansing...
Yes to an Iraq that is Free of Women Haters"
The 8th of March is the International Women's Day, on which the voices are lauding and protests against sexual discrimination are widening every day even in the most developed countries. In Iraq however, the discrimination against women has reached to a degree of sexual cleansing carried out by sectarian militias linked to the regime of mullahs in Iran and groups of Al Qaeda. These groups have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity, and women in particular to the extent of sexual genocide in the cities of Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and Diyala.

Iraq's President Jalal Talabani said March 8 he seeks a "strategic" partnership with Turkey as he wrapped up a visit to Ankara aimed at easing tension sparked by the Turkish military's eight-day incursion into Iraq last month. Speaking to members of a Turkish-Iraqi joint business group, Talabani also called on Turkish interests to invest in Iraq's oil sector. "We want to forge strategic relations in all fields including oil, the economy, trade, culture and politics," Talabani said. Addressing Turkish fears, Talabani stressed that Kurdish rebels would not be tolerated inside Iraq's borders, and said Iraq was continuing to put pressure on the PKK to lay down arms. (AP, March 8)

In its 2007 Annual Report, released March 5, the International Narcotics Control Board called on the governments of Bolivia and Peru to ban coca chewing, as well as its sale or export. The indigenous people of the Andes have chewed coca for thousands of years, and the call is likely to fall on deaf ears in the Andes.