According to exit polls by three different firms, Bolivian president Evo Morales appears to have won a second five-year term in general elections on Dec. 6 with 61-63.2% of the vote. Right-wing former Cochabamba governor Manfred Reyes Villa was projected to get 23-25%, followed by center-right business owner Samuel Doria Medina with 7%.

Greek police conducted raids in Athens Dec. 5 in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year's violent protests as the first anniversary of a controversial police shooting approaches. Over 6,000 officers spread across the city, arresting more than 150 people for throwing rocks or vandalism. Students preparing to commemorate the incident gathered in universities, and authorities estimate 150 anarchists converged on the country from across Europe. Prime Minister George Papandreou emphasized the importance of maintaining stability, and said the government had adopted a "zero tolerance policy towards violence."

The Lahore High Court chief justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif served notice on Pakistan's Interior Ministry for not replying to a petition demanding full disclose on the activities of Blackwater in the country, and warned that if the interior secretary does not reply by Dec. 14 he could be prosecuted for contempt of court. Sharif also called for a detailed report from the Foreign Ministry on a request to search of the US embassy to recover illegal weapons. Hashim Shaukat Khan, president of Pakistan's Watan Party, had filed the petition. His attorney, Barrister Zafarullah, said the day Blackwater stepped into Pakistan, terrorism and suicide attacks stepped up. He also alleged that illegal arms are being stored in the US embassy, which were being used for "sabotage acts" in the country. (Pakistan Daily Times, Dec. 5)

Eastern Sudan hosts more than 66,000 registered Eritrean refugees, the first of whom arrived in 1968 during the early years of Eritrea's war of independence against Ethiopia. Today, Eritrea's policy of indefinite military conscription, coupled with drought and poor economic opportunities, prompt some 1,800 people to cross into Sudan every month, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. "It is as far as we know the longest-standing refugee situation in Africa that is still protracted," said Peter de Clercq, the UNHCR representative in Sudan. "That is mostly because of the political situation inside Eritrea."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon "has expressed his dismay at the continuation of demolitions, evictions and the installment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem," a statement said Dec. 2. Speaking from outside the Sheikh Jarrah home of the al-Kurd family, which was occupied by Israeli settlers earlier in the day, Richard Miron, spokesperson for the UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, reiterated the concerns of the secretary general at the continued Israeli violations in Jerusalem.

Egypt has become a police state where citizens receive no protection from torture, human rights groups said in a report published Dec. 3. "The basic feature of human rights in Egypt today is the prevalence of a policy of exception in which those responsible for violations usually escape punishment amid a climate of impunity intentionally created and fostered for several decades," said the report by 16 Egyptian human rights groups.

Deja Vu in Peru — 15 Years After NAFTA
For those following the cycle of free trade "reform" and resultant revolutionary upsurge in Latin America, there was a sense of deja vu in this year's bloody headlines from Peru. In 1993, in preparation for NAFTA, Mexico pushed through constitutional changes allowing privatization of communally held peasant lands. This was the key factor that led to the indigenous Zapatista uprising in Chiapas on New Years Day 1994, the exact moment NAFTA took effect. The Zapatistas anticipated—correctly—that the new policy would mean a massive expropriation of the peasantry from their ancestral lands and a flight to urban shantytowns and ultimately, north of the border. This history now appears to be repeating itself in Peru—where government plans to privatize the communally held indigenous lands of the Amazon rainforest to international oil companies in preparation for a new Free Trade Agreement with Washington has sparked a popular uprising and an unprecedented alliance between Amazonian peoples, highland campesinos and urban workers.

The US Department of Justice announced Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 the transfer of four detainees from Guantánamo Bay to three European countries, as the detainee population at the detention facility continues to be reduced. Two of the former detainees, Tunisian natives Adel Ben Mabrouk and Mohamed Riadh Ben Nasri, were transferred to Italy and will stand trial there. The other detainees include an unidentified Palestinian man transferred to Hungary, the first to be accepted under the agreement forged between the US and Hungary in September, and an Algerian, Saber Lahmar, who was transferred to France. It is unclear when the Italian trial will begin, though Italian authorities may be waiting for transfer of a third Tunisian man. (Jurist, Dec. 1)