Following through on threats made last month, President Donald Trump announced Dec. 25 that he had ordered air-strikes against Islamic State targets in Nigeria, ostensibly in retaliation for the group's targeting of Christian communities.

The rising wave of far-right populism has arrived in Chile with the run-off presidential election of Dec. 14. José Antonio Kast, a 59-year old ultra-conservative who campaigned on fighting crime and carrying out mass deportations, defeated left-wing candidate Jeanette Jara by about 16 points. His victory marks the country's furthest shift to the right since the restoration of democracy after the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet 30 years ago—an era and figure Kast has openly admired.

Yemen's separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), which is said to be backed by the United Arab Emirates, has been rapidly advancing through large parts of the country's south and east, in Hadramawt, al-Mahra and Shabwa provinces. They are taking over control from groups backed by Saudi Arabia, including the Hadramawt Tribal Alliance (HTA). While all forces involved are supposed to be on the same side in a broader anti-Houthi alliance, the move is yet another reminder that Yemen's war is not over, and that it involves a variety of actors and local grievances. (TNH)

It has been a tumultuous few days in Honduras. Since voting in elections on Nov. 30, former president Juan Orlando Hernández—convicted in the US last year of drug trafficking and bribery—was pardoned by President Donald Trump and subsequently released. The country has remained on tenterhooks as the results of the presidential election have still not yet been finalized, and Trump has threatened reprisals if his favored candidate fails to win. Adding to the unease is the country's deeply flawed vote-transmission system, which has crashed twice.

A comprehensive global report on "uncontacted" indigenous peoples, published Oct. 27 by UK-based Survival International estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted or isolated peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. Nine out of 10 of these groups face the threat of unwanted contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining, and oil and gas drilling. It's estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups. After contact, indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International found that unless governments and private companies act to protect them, half of these groups could be wiped out within 10 years.

Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez was assassinated during a Day of the Dead celebration Nov. 1 in the main square of Uruapan, in the violence-torn Mexican state of Michoacán. He had been an outspoken opponent of the drug cartels and their reign of terror in the state, and his death sparked protests across Michoacán. At a demonstration in state capital Morelia the day after the murder, protesters demanded the resignation of Gov. Ramírez Bedolla, of Mexico's ruling MORENA party; one faction broke into and vandalized the Government Palace. President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced a new "Michoacán Plan for Peace & Justice" to finally pacify the lawless state. 

Summary executions of civilians by fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are being reported from Bara city, in Sudan's North Kordofan state, after it was captured by the paramilitary army on Oct. 25 following a major offensive. The victims were apparently accused of supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces in its defense of the city. Reports indicate that dozens of civilians have been killed, according to the UN Human Rights Office. A local medical group describes horrific conditions in the taken city. "Dozens of bodies are piled up inside homes after the RSF prevented the victims' families from burying them, leaving the dead trapped in their houses while the living are surrounded by fear, hunger, and thirst," the Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on Oct. 23 announced that he will open the entire 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas leasing. These lands are sacred to the Gwich'in Nation, home to irreplaceable wildlife, and have never seen industrialization.

In an action taken during a government shutdown, the Department of Interior (DoI) held a press conference to announce a series of resource development decisions aimed at opening up Alaska for the benefit of corporate interests. A key announcement was the rescission of the Biden administration's restrictive drilling program for the refuge. The DoI is now essentially replacing that program with the previous Trump-era plan to fully open the Coastal Plain of the ANWR to oil and gas development.