Brazilian Bishop Luiz Cappio of Barra, Bahia, announced during mass Dec. 20 that he was ending his 23-day hunger strike against a massive government water diversion project. President Luiz "Lula" Inacio da Silva said the previous day that the project will go forward, as Brazil's Supreme Court overruled a federal judge who had ordered construction halted. Brazil's largest public works project is to divert water from the Rio Sao Francisco through 700 kilometers of canals to towns and farms in the arid northeast, where Lula was born. Bishop Cappio, who had been hospitalized the previous day, "decided to interrupt the fasting, but not the fight," said his assistant Adriano Martins. (Reuters, BBC, Correio da Bahia, Dec. 20)

Panama's National Assembly Dec. 20 voted unanimously to declare the anniversary of the 1989 US invasion a day of "national mourning," and established a commission to determine how many people were killed in the episode. "This is a recognition of those who fell on Dec. 20 as a result of the cruel and unjust invasion by the most powerful army in the world," said Rep. Cesar Pardo of the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party. The measure, likely to be signed by President Martin Torrijos, also calls for a monument to honor the dead, most likely in El Chorrillo neighborhood, which was destroyed aerial bombardment.

Haitian women's organizations are now demanding reparations from Sri Lanka and an investigation by Haitian authorities of alleged sexual abuses by troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). In November Haitian women's groups and human rights groups had reported that at least 111 Sri Lanka MINUSTAH soldiers were repatriated because of their involvement in the abuses. The United Nations now acknowledges that Office of Internal Oversight Services started an investigation after reports in August of abuses in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Martissant neighborhood, but it has failed to make its findings public or share them with the Haitian government.

After a two-day trial, on Dec. 12 Haitian judge Emmanuel Tataye sentenced Jean Remy Demosthene and Joubert Saint Juste to life at hard labor for the Dec. 3, 2001 murder of journalist Brignol Lindor in the southwestern city of Petit-Goave. A third defendant, variously referred to as "Fritzner Doudoute," "Fritznel Doudoute" and "Lyonel Doudoute," was held over while his identity was being verified. A fourth defendant, Simon Cetoute, was acquitted; he apparently was arrested instead of his son, who is deceased. The judge has ordered six other defendants to turn themselves in.

Rights activists in Guatemala are denouncing the Dec. 17 decision by the country's Constitutional Court finding that the government of Spain has no standing to bring charges against five Guatemalan generals and two civilians accused of genocide. The court also ruled last week, citing sovereign immunity, that the arrest orders of army officers Angel Aníbal Guevara Rodríguez and Pedro García Arredondo should be dropped. The rulings could affect the prosecution of genocide charges against generals Efraín Ríos Montt and Benedicto Lucas García.

Felipe Alvarez, a member of a local Community Development Council (COCODES), was shot dead on his way to work in the early morning of Dec. 8 near his home in Microparcelamiento El Naranjo in the southern Guatemalan department of Escuintla. Alvarez hadn't received any direct threats, but he had told people that he was being followed on various occasions. He is the third member of the local COCODES to be killed in two years. Unknown assailants killed Moises Ajbal in September 2005; Juan Jose Atz, the group's president at the time, was murdered in September 2006. Only two of the original five members are still alive—Manuel Antonio Aguita and current president Juan Francisco Almira.

On the evening of Dec. 12 Melanie del Carmen Salgado Lopez was assaulted by an unknown man near the entrance of her home in Mexico's Federal District (DF, Mexico City). He pushed her against the wall, grabbed her by her hair and hit her head against the wall, giving her a cut on the face. "Don't be a jerk," he warned her. Salgado Lopez is a student at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and a member of the Cerezo Committee Mexico, which works for the legal defense of the brothers Alejandro, Antonio and Hector Cerezo Contreras and for other cases of suspected human rights abuses.

On Dec. 10 some 400 police broke up a demonstration by the unemployed in Mexico's southern state of Tabasco. Some 300 people were blocking an avenue in Villahermosa to demand benefits that PRI governor Andres Granier Melo had promised to those who lost their jobs because of severe flooding in the state in October and November. Payments had started on Nov. 30, but they were suspended on Dec. 9 and 10, supposedly for technical reasons. Five people were reportedly arrested in the incident, which Gov. Granier Melo blamed on "agitators who are trying to disturb the peace." (LJ, Dec. 11)