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.

Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez met in Cartagena in the northern Colombian department of Bolívar on Jan. 24 to discuss economic cooperation in response to the global crisis. They set up an economic commission which started working immediately "to design a package of new tools, to review the ones that exist and to strengthen them," Chávez said during a press conference after the meeting. The two presidents also agreed to create a $200 million joint fund to extend credits to small and medium businesses and to stimulate trade between the two countries; in addition, they plan a fund for infrastructure work in the areas along the Colombia-Venezuela border.

On Jan. 21 the Colombian Attorney General's Office reported that Julio César Ardila Torres, the former mayor of Barrancabermeja, Santander department, had been found guilty of ordering the April 6, 2003 murder of local journalist José Emeterio Rivas. Judge Nelly Vallejo Aranda sentenced Ardila to 28 years and eight months in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of 1.192 billion pesos (about $530,000). The court also convicted two former municipal employees, Fabio Pajon Lizcano and Abelardo Rueda Tobon, and sentenced them to 26 years and eight months.

The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the administration of Barack Obama to prosecute former president George W. Bush and his defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. "Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said in remarks to Germany's ZDF TV.

President Barack Obama Jan. 26 directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration decision that prevented California and 17 other states from setting their own, stricter limits on auto emissions. Obama also directed his administration to move forward on tougher fuel-efficiency guidelines for the auto industry in time to cover 2011 model-year cars.

For six years, since before the Iraq war began, peace activists in the upstate New York town of Potsdam have held a weekly vigil in front of the village post office. On Jan. 24, they gathered one last time. The group is going on "hiatus" to give President Barack Obama a chance to fulfill his campaign promise to bring the troops home from Iraq. (North Country Public Radio, Jan. 26)

Iran's largest university student union has been under attack recently for taking an opposition stance against the government. On Dec. 30, the government shut down Kargozaran, a major daily newspaper in Iran, after it published a statement from the student group criticizing those who use the Palestinian issue as a tool to promote their own agenda. The statement condemned Israel's invasion of Gaza but, in a surprising move, it also "equally condemn[ed] the way in which terrorist groups take refuge in kindergartens and hospitals to attack the other side." Following the banning of Kargozaran and attacks on several Iranian human rights activists, the student organization published a second statement to clarify its position. Below are translated excerpts from their latest statement. They are asking for support from students worldwide.