Pope Benedict Jan. 24 rehabilitated a breakaway "traditionalist" bishop who denies the Holocaust—ignoring warnings from Jewish leaders that it would seriously harm relations with the Catholic church and foment anti-Semitism. The Vatican said the pope issued a decree lifting the 1988 excommunication of four traditionalist bishops for being ordained by the late "traditionalist" Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without Vatican consent. The four bishops lead the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), which has about 600,000 members and rejected modernizations of Roman Catholic worship and doctrine. The Vatican said the excommunications were lifted after the bishops affirmed their acceptance of Church doctrine and papal authority.

Hundreds in Moscow attended the funeral Jan. 23 of Anastasia Baburova, the 25-year-old journalist killed as she tried to defend human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov when a masked gunman shot him at point-blank range in broad daylight on a busy Moscow street this week. The two had just emerged from a press conference, in which Markelov had said he would appeal the early release of the killer of a Chechen girl, raped and murdered by a Russian army colonel during the war in Chechnya. (RFE/RL, Reuters, Jan. 23)

Both Russia and Georgia share blame for an "indiscriminate and disproportionate" use of force that violated humanitarian law during their August 2008 war, Human Rights Watch announced on Jan. 23. In a 200-page report, the watchdog group also took South Ossetian separatist forces to task for allegedly attempting to "ethnically cleanse" ethnic Georgian villages within the enclave. The report calls for individual "prosecution of war crimes where appropriate." "The violations by one side of the laws of war do not justify or excuse violations by the other side," said Human Rights Watch director Carroll Bogert said at a Tbilisi press conference.

Village elders in Mehtar Lam district of Afghanistan's Laghman province say that as many as 22 noncombatants were killed in a Jan. 25 US air-raid, in the fist controversy over civilian casualties since Barack Obama took office. US military officials insisting only 15 were killed, all Taliban fighters. An official statement said the strike targeted a Taliban commander "known to traffic foreign fighters and weapons into the region" after coalition ground troops came under fire in the village. Village elders said there were no Taliban in the area, wand said the hamlet was populated mainly by shepherds. They said women and children were among the 22 civilian dead, according to Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, head of the provincial council. (LAT, Jan. 25)

Details are emerging on the victims in the Jan. 23 US air-strikes on Pakistan—the first since President Barack Obama took office. In the first strike on Zeraki village near Mir Ali in North Waziristan, three missiles hit a compound of tribal elder Khalil Khan Dawar, killing him and eight others on the spot. Khalil Dawar was reported to be associated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militia of Baitullah Mehsud, and four Arab militants were said to be among the dead. But in the other attack, in the Gangikhel area of South Waziristan, two missiles hit the house of pro-government tribal elder Malik Deen Faraz, killing him, his three sons and a grandson.

In one of its first statements since President Barack Obama took office, the US State Department Jan. 23 called for "the immediate return to constitutional order" in Mauritania, and protested "[t]he junta's announced plans to organize unconstitutional elections" and "its attempts to silence" ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and his supporters. "We call on the military junta to permit President Abdallahi's full participation in the political process, to assure his freedom of movement and association, and to assure his personal safety," the statement said. (State Department press release, Jan. 23)

Fox News is having a field day with reports that a Saudi man who was released from Guantánamo Bay after a six-year stint has joined al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen and is now said to be the terror network's number-two in the country. The announcement, made this week on an Islamist militant website, comes as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year.

Gen. Laurent Nkunda, leader of the largest guerilla army in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested in Rwandan territory Jan. 23. He reportedly crossed the border after fleeing a joint Rwandan-Congolese operation to arrest him. Reports call it a startling about-face by Rwanda, which had been widely accused of backing Nkunda. The DRC government has issued an international warrant for Nkunda's arrest following accusations that his forces committed atrocities.