On Jan. 14 Mexican poet and human rights activist Javier Sicilia and Mexican political scientist Sergio Aguayo Quezada brought the US embassy in Mexico City a letter signed by 54,558 people calling on US president Barack Obama and other officials to stop the flow of smuggled firearms from the US to Mexico. "Our country is bleeding to death," the letter read, referring to the violence that followed the militarization of the "war on drugs" by former president Felipe Calderón  Hinojosa (2006-2012). "More than 60,000 Mexicans were murdered during the Calderón administration. In the first month of [current president] Enrique Peña Nieto, December 2012, 755 people were executed. The majority of them died from wounds caused by weapons obtained in the US."

Citing documents and interviews with several US officials, Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press wire service reported on Jan. 17 that the US military's Northern Command (Northcom) has a new special operations headquarters in Colorado, to be used "to teach Mexican security forces how to hunt drug cartels the same way special operations teams hunt al-Qaida." A Dec. 31 memo signed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta transformed the Northcom special operations group into the new command headquarters, which will be led by a general rather than a colonel. The staff will increase from 30 to 150.

Juan Orlando Hernández, the president of Honduras' National Congress, introduced a bill the evening of Jan. 14 to create Special Development Regimes (RED), semi-autonomous jurisdictions that proponents say would attract international investment and stimulate the country's economy. The proposed special regions are similar to the "model cities," autonomous zones to be managed by North American corporations, that Hernández and Honduran president Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa pushed for last year; these were called Special Development Regions (RED), with the same acronym as the new entities. The Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) ruled the earlier proposal unconstitutional on Oct. 17.

New information about the inner workings of the Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program (CDCPP)--a multimillion-dollar program administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) ostensibly to promote democracy in Cuba—were made public on Jan. 15 when a major USAID contractor filed program-related documents in federal court in Washington, DC. The documents are being used in an effort by Maryland-based Development Alternatives Inc (DAI) to win the dismissal of a $60 million lawsuit against it and USAID by the family of US citizen Alan Gross, a DAI subcontractor now serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba for his work there for the CDCPP. The DC-based research group National Security Archive posted the documents on its website on Jan. 18.

World War 4 Report has been keeping a dispassionate record of Barack Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing and escalating (he has done all three) the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) established by the Bush White House. On the day of his second inauguration, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves over the past year have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score:

At least one suspected drug trafficker was killed Jan. 16 in the first US-supported drug raid in Honduras following a five-month suspension in radar intelligence sharing between the countries, authorities said. The Honduran navy said that one of three Jamaican men on a speedboat carrying 350 kilograms of cocaine died when a Honduran coast guard vessel rammed the craft before dawn about four kilometers off the country's north coast. A contingent of DEA agents was apparently on board the Honduran naval craft. Rear Adm. Rigoberto Espinal said one of the Jamaicans jumped into the sea and disappeared, and his fate had not been confirmed. The third man was detained, and interrogated by the DEA. The radar cooperation was halted after the Honduran air force shot down two suspected drug planes in violation of agreements with Washington designed to prevent deaths in such operations. (AP, Jan. 17; NYT, Sept. 7)

In the first sign of a thaw in relations between the US and Venezuela, the Caracas government is weighing a request from Washington to allow a high-level DEA official to visit the South American country. Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Roy Chaderton, told the Associated Press Jan. 18: "We are open to improving  relations with the United States, but we are not seeking in this overture a good conduct certification on the part of the government or congress of the United States." The US has for the past four years "blacklisted" Venezuela for its alleged failure to take measures against drug trafficking. Chaderton and US deputy assistant secretary of state Kevin Whittaker met in late 2012 in an effort to improve relations between their countries. (AP via Fox News Latino, Jan. 19; Informe, Zulia, Globovision, Caracas, Jan. 18)

Guerillas of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) abducted five gold prospectors working for a Canadian company on an exploratory mission in Norosi municipality, Bolívar department, Jan. 19. One of the seized men was from Canada, two from Peru and two from Colombia. Toronto-based Braeval Mining said the three company employees and two consultants were working at its Snow Mine project, where the company is seeking gold, silver and copper. The area, in the San Lucas mountains, is a traditional ELN stronghold. President Juan Manuel Santos announced the following day that three suspected guerillas believed to have taken part in the abduction had been captured. Unlike the larger FARC guerilla organization, now in talks with the government, the ELN has not disavowed ransom kidnappings. (AP, Jan. 21; Fox News Latino, Jan. 19)