Relatives of people who were killed when the US military invaded Panama in 1989 marked the 20th anniversary of the intervention on Dec. 20 with a protest outside the old US embassy in Panama City, burning effigies of US president Barack Obama and Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli. The Association of Relatives of the Fallen is calling for a Truth Commission to investigate the events of December 1989, including possible war crimes. The protesters said they have brought this demand to four Panamanian governments without success and are now trying to get action from right-wing president Martinelli, who took office on July 1.

At a ceremony in La Paz marking International Migrants Day on Dec. 18, Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca said the leftist government of President Evo Morales had an "obligation" to help Bolivian migrants return to their country. "The recovery of our natural resources is important for us so that Bolivians who for different reasons have gone abroad to look for work or to study can return to our country and can build [their] dreams in our lands," Choquehuanca said, linking the issue to the government's nationalization policies. He also announced accords with Spain to make it easier for Bolivian immigrants to Spain to get drivers' licenses there.

On Dec. 21 Mexico City's legislature, the Federal District Legislative Assembly (ALDF), voted 39-20 to permit same-sex marriage; another 39-20 vote later in the session gave same-sex couples the legal right to adopt children. Deputies from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the small leftist Workers Party (PT) voted for the measure, while the center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the small Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) opposed it. Two deputies from the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) voted with the opposition, and five abstained. PAN coordinator Mariana Gómez del Campo and PRI coordinator Israel Betanzos said they would challenge the law's constitutionality before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).

The Red Cross says that of the 39 killed Dec. 28 in a clash between government forces and the Yan Kala-Kato Islamic sect in the Nigerian state of Bauchi, some 60% were students aged between nine and 15. Sect leader Malam Badamasi was reportedly among those killed by a joint army and police squad at Zango. Fighting broke out at Zango, on the outskirts of Bauchi city, after a sermon delivered by the sect's leader created a disturbance. Preachers reportedly threatened those who refused to convert to their brand of Islam with being expelled from the area. (BBC News, IPS, Dec. 29)

A UN High Commissioner for Refugees official protested Thailand's move to forcibly repatriate some 4,000 ethnic Hmong back to Laos. "UNHCR is extremely dismayed that Thailand has commenced the deportations of the Lao Hmong today from the camp in Phetchabun," said Ariane Rummery, UNHCR spokesperson in Bangkok. "We don't have access to the area, but we have had reports that deportations began this morning and about 400 people have been removed so far."

In a fourth consecutive day of protests during the Ashura holy period in Iran, police fired teargas Dec. 28 to disperse supporters of reformist leader Mirhossein Mousavi who gathered in Tehran to express their condolences over his nephew's death in an anti-government rally. Iranian authorities say the death toll in the past 48 hours stands at eight, with some 60 injured. (Reuters, Dec. 28)

A bomb ripped through a procession marking Ashura in the northern Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmatu, outside Kirkuk, killing five and wounding 27, including five women and one police officer. The attack came a day after three Shi'ites were killed when bombs struck separate Ashura processions in Baghdad. Over the past six days, 32 have been killed and more than 160 wounded in violence targeting Ashura, including attacks on worshippers in Karbala and Baghdad. (AFP, Dec. 28)

A suicide bomb in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-administrated Kashmir, killed at least 15 and injured over 100 in an attack on a Shi'ite religious procession marking the Ashura holy period Dec. 28, while another explosion near a procession in the port city of Karachi injured 35. Police said the Karachi blast was triggered by a build-up of gas in a manhole, but doctors who treated the victims found pellets in the bodies, suggesting that an explosive device was detonated. (ANI, Dec. 28)