Indigenous leaders from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) ended a three-day meeting in La Paz Dec. 19 with a call for international unity in the struggle against neoliberalism. Delegates from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia denounced the privatization of natural resources and their delivery to corporate transnationals, while expressing support for the pending constitutional reform in the host country.

A dynamite charge was set off in the early hours of Dec. 18 in front of Radio Atlántica, a station owned by Guido Guardia, an opposition senator in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, leaving a sizeable crater and causing damage to the outside of the building. The station is located in the compound where Sen. Guardia lives. Threats were made against the senator in a note left near the site of the blast.

Researchers meeting at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco said liquefied coal could ultimately have a greater impact on global climate than oil, as it starts to come on line in response to shrinking petrol reserves. "Oil and gas...don't have enough carbon to keep us in the dangerous zone for very long by themselves, but that's assuming we do something about coal," said Pushker Kharecha, a researcher for NASA and Columbia University. Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel, and liquefied coal releases 40% more carbon dioxide than oil when burned.

Sweden joined the Netherlands this week in suspending new aid payments to Rwanda after a UN report accused the central African country of supporting guerillas in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. President Paul Kagame responded: "The people of Rwanda should be ready to survive in any circumstance including the absence of aid." He also denied the report's charges that his government supports Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. "I have never spoken to Nkunda. I have never met him by the way. I don't know him other than seeing him on television," said Kagame, calling the report "petty, simplistic and utterly nonsensical".

A Jordan-based Iraqi rights group announced this week it has filed 200 lawsuits against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and US security firms for their roles in torturing Iraqis. Ali Qeisi, head of the Society of Victims of the US Occupation in Iraq, said the cases, relating to abuse of prisoners, have been filed in federal courts in Virginia, Michigan and Maryland. "Around 30 lawsuits have been accepted so far," Qeisi told AFP. The others are still under consideration. "The torture was systemic, and those responsible for it should be punished and the victims should be compensated," he said. Qeisi said he himself was tortured by US troops in Iraq during a six-month detention.

Japanese and South Korean forces both ended their missions in Iraq this week. The approximately 200 Japanese troops in Kuwait for an air support mission in Iraq are to return home by the end of the year. Japan withdrew its 500 ground troops from a reconstruction mission to southern Iraq in 2006. About 520 South Korean soldiers have already returned from northern Iraq's Irbil province, marking the end of a four-year reconstruction mission that had about 3,600 troops at its height—the third-largest contingent after the US and Britain. Both missions were officially noncombatant. Tokyo withdrew its 600-strong force in southern Iraq in 2006 but continued to airlift equipment and troops. The deployment was Japan's first to a combat zone since World War II, and sparked considerable public opposition. (AlJazeera, Dec. 19; BBC, Dec. 18)

Activists called for protests across Europe on Dec. 18 in solidarity with the uprising in Greece, unfurling banners at the base of Athens' landmark Acropolis urging international demonstrations and declaring "Resistance" in several languages. In the northwestern Greek city of Ioannina, some youths took over the town hall for several hours, while others seized the main local radio station and started broadcasting their own programs.

A lone protester at El Paso's Rio Bosque Wetlands Park temporarily halted construction of the US government's border fence Dec. 17, before being arrested by the Texas Rangers. Judy Ackerman, a local Sierra Club activist and founding member of Friends of the Rio Bosque, was one of about 25 who gathered to protest at the construction site. Alone, she donned a work helmet and blocked construction equipment for eight hours. The Border Patrol reportedly called in the Rangers for the arrest. "I am going to stay here until they leave me alone or they arrest me because I believe that the construction of this wall should stop completely," she told supporters. "The river is life; the wall is death." She may face federal charges. (El Diario, Ciudad Juárez; El Paso Times, Bobby Byrd blog, El Paso, Dec. 17)