Mexican President Felipe Calderón said Dec. 19 his government "does not and will never negotiate" with the drug lords, and vowed to press ahead with his military crackdown on the cartels. Drug-related deaths have doubled this year, to more than 5,300, despite the deployment of 36,000 troops across the country. Mexico has also extradited a record 85 criminal suspects to the US so far this year. Mexico extradited 83 in 2007 and 63 in 2006, but still refuses to extradite anyone who could face the death penalty. (AP, Dec. 21; AFP, Dec. 20)

A Canadian mining company intends to sue El Salvador's government for several hundred million dollars if it is not granted permission to open a widely unpopular gold and silver mine that scientists warn would pollute local water supplies. Pacific Rim Mining Corp., through its Nevada-based subsidiary Pac Rim Cayman LLC, filed a Notice of Intent Dec. 9 under provisions of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that allow corporations to sue governments over laws and decisions that put public interests ahead of corporate profits.

At 4 AM on Dec. 16, indigenous leader Edwin Legarda Vázquez was killed by the Colombian army as he was driving a pickup truck belonging to the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), in which his partner, Aida Quilcué often traveled in. CRIC leader Quilcué gained national stature for her role in the indigenous rights campaign that mobilized thousands throughout Colombia this fall.

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.