Argentine judge Fernando Juan Lima ruled on Jan. 16 that the Buenos Aires city government could continue for now with a 127% increase it had imposed for the subway fare on Jan. 6. A coalition including unions, student groups and political and social organizations had filed for an emergency injunction to halt the increase, which raises the fare to 2.5 pesos (about 58 cents).

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 third anniversary of his inauguration, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score:

NewsOne now brings to light a YouTube video in which Ron Paul gives a "South was Right" speech to an evident gathering of Confederacy nostalgists. No date or place is offered, but this supposed "libertarian" is speaking against the backdrop of a giant Confederate battle flag! The video was apparently first placed on YouTube by a neo-Confederate channel with the slightly ironic name "Patriot Review." In it, Paul regurgitates several of the usual revisionist tropes—he dismisses slavery as an "excuse" and "rabble-rousing issue" that "really wasn't the issue of why the war was fought"; he suggests differences over "protectionism" and the "banking system" were really behind the war; he points out that other countries "got rid of slavery without war" through "legislation" (as if the abolitionists hadn't fought generations for that!) or (of course, the free-market solution) "literally buying slaves' freedom." Et cetera. NewsOne adds:

The Zionist propaganda machine (e.g. Palestinian Media Watch, Arutz Sheva, Christian Broadcasting Network, FrontPageMag) is having the predictable field day with the latest indiscretions from Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who at a celebration (presumably in Ramallah) marking the 47th anniversary of the founding of Fatah, said (apparently quoting a hadith): "The hour [of resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call, 'O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'"

Big kudos to the African American-oriented NewsOne website for relentlessly calling out Ron Paul's ties to the white supremacist radical right. Now they have dug up an unseemly affair covered by the New York Times in 1981—today disgracefully ignored by the supposed "liberal media"!—that implicates the supposed "libertarian" presidential hopeful in an attempted mercenary invasion and coup d'etat to establish a white separatist homeland in the Black-majority Caribbean nation of Dominica. No, we aren't kidding. It seems that one of Paul's more ugly contemporary supporters, Don Black of the neo-Nazi outfit Stormfront, at that time a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, was indicted by US federal authorities in the plot, dubbed "Operation Red Dog." The scheme called for hiring mercenaries to overthrow then-Prime Minister Eugenia Charles and restore the previous prime minister, Patrick John—and then creating an Aryan paradise on the island, funded through casinos, cocaine and brothels. On the day the mercenary force was to set out for Dominica in a small ship on the Louisiana coast, they were busted by BATF agents—who found over thirty automatic weapons, shotguns, rifles, handguns, dynamite, a confederate flag and a Nazi flag. In a brief flurry of coverage, the media dubbed the plan the "Bayou of Pigs." Prosecutors tried to subpoena then-congressman Paul and ex-Texas governor John Connally after mercenary leader Mike Perdue said they were in on the plot. The request was turned down by a federal judge. David Duke—also now an outspoken Paul supporter (check out his website)—was called to testify before a grand jury, but took the Fifth Amendment.

At least 20,000 marched in Istanbul Jan. 19 to mark five years since the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink—and to protest the lack of justice in his case. Marchers carried black signs reading "We are all Hrant, we are all Armenian," written in Turkish and Armenian. Three people have been imprisoned in the slaying of the writer, but charges of official negligence or state collusion were rejected. A 17-year-old Turkish nationalist soccer player was convicted of the killing, but earlier this week an Istanbul court acquitted 19 suspected accomplices.The journalist, shot dead outside the Istanbul offices of Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, had angered Turkish nationalists by describing the mass killing of Armenians a century ago as genocide. (CNN, BBC News, Jan. 19)

Japanese industry minister Yukio Edano on Jan. 20 promised the mayor of a city where gravel apparently contaminated in the Fukushima nuclear disaster was used for building material that he will instruct Tokyo Electric Power Co. to pay compensation for related damage. Radioactive gravel is believed to be responsible for high radiation readings in a new apartment complex in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima prefecture. The contamination was first discovered when dosimeter readings of children in the city revealed that a high school student had been exposed to 1.62 millisieverts in a span of three months—well above the government's annual 1 millisievert safety limit. Investigations traced the radiation back to the student’s three-story apartment building, where officials detected radioactive cesium inside the concrete. The gravel used in the cement came from a quarry in Namie, a town within the 12-mile evacuation zone instated in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant last March. Investigators found that some 5,200 metric tons of gravel from Namie was likely shipped to over 200 companies, making its way into apartment buildings, schools, bridges, and possibly temporary homes for Fukushima evacuees. A dozen families live in the tainted Nihonmatsu apartment complex, which was built six months ago. (Kyodo, Jan. 20; ABC News, Jan. 16; Mainichi Daily News Jan. 6)

An Israeli government plan to create a greenbelt around Jerusalem is fueling opposition among Palestinians and their supporters. Mayor Nir Barkat hopes the plan, which focuses on archeological preservation, will boost tourism in Jerusalem, but critics say the parks amount to a land grab that consolidates Israel's grip on occupied East Jerusalem. "People say, 'It's just a park,' but these parks change totally the political scope of Jerusalem and have a direct impact on the lives of Palestinians," says Hagit Ofran, who monitors Jewish settlements for Peace Now. Efrat Cohen Bar, an architect with the progressive Israeli urban planning group Bimkom, which recently conducted a study of national parks in East Jerusalem and evirons, terms them "green settlements"—serving to keep Palestinians off the land while expanding Israeli control.