From the New York Times, Dec. 28, via IHT:

A recent series of indictments and revelations about corrupt federal agents has rocked the attorney general's office here and undermined one of President Vicente Fox's few solid accomplishments: the creation of an elite, honest federal force to fight kidnappers and drug dealers.

It has been four years since Fox established the force, known as the Federal Investigation Agency, under the attorney general, aimed at ridding Mexico of the scourge of kidnappers and drug kingpins. Since then the agents and the prosecutors who work with them have won praise here and in Washington as an effective crime fighting force, Mexico's version of the Untouchables.

But the recent accusations against the force, known by its Spanish acronym, AFI, have shaken that image and undermined Fox's claim to have dealt a body blow to organized crime. The charges accuse federal agents of doing the bidding of drug traffickers and carrying out kidnappings and extortion plots, the same kind of corruption the agency was created to stop.

From Newsday Dec. 28, via Sikhnews:

From Queens to a rural district in his native India, word of the Yellow cab driver's death spread quickly Tuesday.

Gurbaj Singh immigrated five years ago to Richmond Hill, where he lived and died.

Singh worked a grueling overnight shift as a cabbie, hoping to bring his wife and children to the United States. He died early Monday trapped in that Yellow cab, which became became engulfed in flames after it was broadsided by a minivan that ran a red light just blocks from Singh's 118th Street home, police said.

Tensions are mounting between Russia and Ukraine over the former's massive hike in the price of natural gas it sells to the latter. Ukraine has until now received cut-price gas in return for allowing Russia to pipe fuel across its territory to western Europe. But Gazprom, the state-owned Russian fuel company, has announced it is raising the price for gas supplied to Ukraine by more than 400%.

A very enlightening piece from the Dec. 28 Christian Science Monitor, "Kremlin reasserts control of oil, gas" by Fred Weir, points to Moscow designs to reassert its power in Eurasia, and possibly eventually on the global stage. This, in turn, sheds much light on why the US is really in Iraq...

From The Scotsman, Dec. 26:

French police said about 100 vehicles were burned overnight, which marked an average weekend tally for urban violence and did not signify a flare-up of violence after riots last month.

More than 3,500 Congolese soldiers, supported by 600 UN troops and helicopter gunships, launched attacks Dec. 24 on guerillas operating in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sixteen government troops and some 35 guerillas are reported killed in fighting near the city of Beni in Nord-Kivu province. An Indian blue beret peacekeeper was killed and four of his colleagues wounded when their camp was hit by a guerilla rocket-propelled grenade. But 300 Nepalese peacekeepers and 1,500 government troops captured the guerilla-held village of Nioka, 50 miles north-east of Bunia, the main town in Ituri district. The guerilla militia the operation was launched to uproot, the ADF/NALU (Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda), is seeking the overthrow of President Yoweri Museveni's regime in Uganda, across the eastern border.

One of the real signs of hope in Afghanistan is that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), until recently active only in the refugee camps in Pakistan, has been able to establish an open presence in the country. Forced underground and into exile by the Taliban and Mujahedeen warlords decades ago, RAWA is now running a network of small shelters for Afghanistan's many war orphans where equality between the genders and progressive values are fostered. RAWA is seeking donations in a year-end fund drive for this initiative, and we urge our readers to participate.

Dear Supporter:

RAWA are helping to bring very poor and often homeless girls and boys off of the streets in Afghanistan and give them a chance for a brighter future. The shelters are run like a family home; a local husband and wife care for the children and make sure they have a warm bed, warm and clean clothing, regular meals, and a place to call home. Your help will enable RAWA to further help the neediest of Afghan children, by providing them with an environment of love, tolerance and respect for others. Not only will you providing these children with a brighter future, you will helping to provide them with the skills they need help build a modern and peaceful Afghanistan.

From AP, Dec. 23:

PARIS — A French military tribunal opened an investigation Friday into allegations that French peacekeepers facilitated attacks on ethnic minority Tutsis during the 1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans, judicial officials said.