Ali Mohamad Gedi, prime minister of Somalia's Federal Transition Government (FTG) announced his parliament will declare a period of martial law to maintain control of the country after Ethiopian and FTG troops wrested the capital from Islamists Dec. 28. "This country has experienced anarchy and in order to restore security we need a strong hand, especially with freelance militias," he said, speaking from Mundul Sharey, a village some 40 km southwest of Mogadishu. FTG spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the Islamists had fled to the southern port city of Kismayu and that the administration now controlled 95% of Somalia. (Reuters, Dec. 29)

Zachary Goelman writes for the Jerusalem Report, Dec. 22:

Army Directive lashed as "crime of apartheid"
Israeli human rights organization has charged that an army ban on Israel drivers carrying Palestinian passengers in the west bank falls into the category of the "crime of apartheid", as defined by international law.

On Dec. 12, nearly 300 indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani people and supporters occupied the Portocel port facilities used by the Aracruz Celulose wood pulp company at Aracruz, in Brazil's Espirito Santo state. The protesters are demanding that the Brazilian government fulfill its constitutional obligation by demarcating the traditional territory of the Tupinikim and Guarani. The company has taken over more than 11,000 hectares of indigenous land. In February 2006, after federal police violently ejected the Tupinikim and Guarani people who had retaken their land, Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos promised to demarcate the territory as soon as the government's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) approved it. FUNAI approved the demarcation last Sept. 12, but Bastos has not yet signed it. Bastos is due to leave the government at the end of January 2007.

Agents from the Haitian National Police (PNH) and soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) carried out a huge joint operation in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Cite Soleil neighborhood the night of Dec. 21-22. According to MINUSTAH spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de la Combe, the operation was intended to stop a recent wave of kidnappings in the capital and to "reopen the main road into Bois Neuf," part of Cite Soleil. She said that in this and other recent operations about 24 kidnappers had been arrested and six kidnapping victims had been freed.

Ethiopian troops seized towns throughout southern and central Somalia Dec. 25 and bombed the international airport at Mogadishu, in a dramatic escalation of a new offensive against Islamic militants who have taken power in much of Somalia. Ethiopian forces seized Baladweyne, a strategic town on the main road from the border into central Somalia, and Aadado. Ethiopian troops and allied Somali militiamen are reportedly advancing toward Jowhar, an Islamist stronghold 50 miles north of Mogadishu.

The lobby prevents Rachel Corrie's voice from being heard—again. From Variety, Dec. 22:

'Corrie' canceled in Canada
Play has potential to offend Jewish community

It's curtains for My Name Is Rachel Corrie in Canada.

CanStage, the country's largest not-for-profit theater, has changed its opinion and decided not to present the show as part of its 2007-2008 season.

Dear Readers:

In our winter fund pitch, we noted the irony that our journalism and commentary this year has won us the epithets of both "ultra-left" and co-opted "gatekeepers"; both "anti-Semites" and part of the "Zionist media." We always say there's no greater vindication than getting it from both sides, so we wear this opprobrium like a badge of pride.

On Dec. 8, Haitian and Jamaican detainees at Krome Service Processing Center outside Miami in Dade County, Florida, refused to leave their dormitory to protest delays in obtaining travel papers from their consulates, immigration officials said; these delays have delayed their stay in detention awaiting deportation. The protest led Michael Rozos, field office director for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Florida office of detention and removal, to visit the Krome dormitory and speak to the detainees there on Dec. 8, accompanied by a "disturbance control team," said ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez. She said team members were "dressed appropriately."