Security forces are on alert in Bolivia ahead of rallies planned in four eastern departments to inaugurate declarations of autonomy. Rejecting the draft constitution recently completed by supporters of President Evo Morales, regional assembly members in Santa Cruz Dec. 13 voted up a statute giving the department power to keep two-thirds of its tax revenues. Three other eastern departments—Tarija, Beni and Pando—are planning similar declarations at rallies on Saturday. Once the autonomy charters are declared, they will be put to the local populations for approval. Morales has ordered 400 extra national police troops to Santa Cruz, with the army prepared to protect public buildings.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari met with officials in Damascus Dec. 12, with both governments agreeing to speed reactivation of the oil pipeline from the Kirkuk fields to Syria's Banias terminal on the Mediterranean. The Syrian government pledged to help Baghdad secure the pipeline route from insurgent attack, and new oil deals are said to be in the offing. "There is a Russian company performing surveys and what this pipeline needs," Zebari said.

Ruling in a case brought by Nicaragua, the International Court of Justice found Dec. 13 that three Caribbean islands in the disputed San Andrés Archipelago belong to Colombia under a 1928 treaty. But the ICJ said the treaty did not determine the status of other islands in the archipelago or the maritime boundary. The archipelago, which is believed to have oil, lies 775 kilometers (480 miles) off Colombia and just 220 kilometers (140 miles) off Nicaragua's Miskito Coast. In 2003, Nicaragua invited oil companies to explore in the archipelago's waters—drawing protests from Colombian officials.

The legal advisor to the Convening Authority for Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay testified before members of Congress Dec. 11 that evidence gathered from interrogation techniques such as waterboarding may be admissible during military commission proceedings if it is "reliable and probative." Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W.Hartmann declined to answer senators' questions regarding whether waterboarding is illegal when used by or against Americans.

For once we get some joy from being able to say "told you so." When the Liberty Seven were first busted lasted year, we called out the case against them as bogus. It is a glimmer of hope that a jury agreed with us. From VOA, Dec. 13:

Terror Trial in Miami Ends in One Acquittal, Six Mistrials
A federal jury in Florida has cleared a man accused of plotting terrorist attacks in the United States, but said it was unable to agree on a verdict for six other defendants.

Democratic Republic of Congo Armed Forces (FARDC) troops clashed again Dec. 13 with forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda in the Gungu heights of North Kivu province. Earlier in the week, Nkunda's fighters forced back government troops and reclaimed positions they had held three months ago. The FARDC pulled back to the town of Sake, about 30 kilometers northwest of the UN-defended provincial capital of Goma—leading many local residents to flee the area, fearing reprisals by the rebels.

A Peruvian court Dec. 11 sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori to six years in prison for abusing his powers by ordering an illegal search of the home of Trinidad Becerra, wife of his fugitive spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos in November 2000. The ex-president was also fined 400,000 soles ($135,000 dollars). But he claimed the search was necessary as part of a nationwide hunt for Montesinos, then wanted on both Swiss charges of money-laundering and Peruvian charges bribing opposition figures.

On Dec. 10, Chiquita Brands filed a motion to dismiss in a case brought by 144 survivors of Colombian paramilitary victims in federal district court in Washington DC. The case, first filed in June under the Alien Tort Statue, holds the company responsible in the reign of terror by the United Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC), a State Department-listed terrorist group that Chiquita has admitted to underwriting. Attorney Paul Wolf, who filed the case with Terry Collingsworth of the International Labor Rights Fund, has opened an office in the town of Apartadó, in Colombia's northern banana-growing region of Urabá, to continue to gather evidence in the case. Writes Wolf in an e-mail update: "If we survive the Motion to Dismiss, there's little doubt the case will be before a jury, and if that happens, there's little doubt we'll win. The estimated 800-1,000 cases we have now are just too gruesome, involving machete massacres, beheadings, numerous children, and entire communities that were virtually eliminated."