Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is interrogating 12 foreign oil firm executives over bribes worth more than $100 million. Executives from US oil services firms Tidewater, Transocean and Noble Corporation are being held. The panel accuses them and executives of Lagos-based Murphy Shipping of offering bribes to Nigerian officials. Last month, Nigeria dropped charges against Houston-based oil services giant Halliburton and executives—including former US vice president Dick Cheney—after a $35 million settlement. (Bloomberg, Jan. 13)

Three bombings near mosques in central and northern Baghdad on Nov. 13 killed two people—hours after US Vice President Joe Biden arrived for meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other senior officials. One bomb exploded near the Husseiniya Shi'ite mosque in the Karrada district of central Baghdad, killing one and wounding four. Another went off near the Abdel Qadir Gilani Sunni mosque, also in the city center, killing one and wounding five. A third exploded near al-Assaf, a Sunni mosque in Adhamiyah in the north of Baghdad, wounding four.

On the morning of Jan. 12, a convoy of military vehicles and bulldozers arrived at the Palestinian village of Dkaika in the Jordan Valley, demolishing 16 homes, an animal pen, a store and one of the village school's classrooms. The demolition orders were issued because the structures were built without official permission—which is almost impossible for Palestinians to get. Dkaika—a community of around 300 people, without electricity or running water—is in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control, which accounts for 60% of the West Bank. Residents said they believed the demolition orders were on hold while a plan to regularize the village was under consideration by the Israeli authorities.

More than 5,000 took to the streets across Jordan in "a day of rage" to protest escalating food prices and unemployment Jan. 14—the same day that Tunisia's president fled after weeks of violent demonstrations. Angry protests are reported from Amman, Irbid, Karak, Salt and Maan, demanding that Prime Minister Samir Rifai step down. "We are protesting the policies of the government—high prices and repeated taxation that made the Jordanian people revolt," former Karak mayor Tawfiq al-Batoush told Reuters at the protest outside Karak's al-Omari mosque. (The Guardian, Jan. 15; Reuters, Jan. 14)

Recent weeks have seen a spate of angry protests by the Bedouin minority in both Jordan and Israel. On Jan. 4-5, thousands battled security forces in the southern Jordanian city of Maan, in the third major incident of Bedouin unrest in the Hashemite kingdom as many months. Protesters torched government buildings and police vehicles after the killing of two Bedouin men. Authorities said the men died in a clash between rival clans over a water project, suggesting Muslim Brotherhood agitators exploited inter-tribal tension to fuel unrest in Maan province. They said at least 37 were arrested. (World Tribune, Jan. 6)

Israeli activist Yonatan Pollack arrived Jan. 11 at the Hermon Prison in the lower Galilee where he will serve his three-month prison sentence. Pollack was convicted of illegal gathering during a Tel Aviv protest against Operation Cast Lead two years ago, where he rode his bicycle slowly along the streets, causing traffic jams.

The Israeli military bombed three sites in Gaza Jan. 12, after five rockets were fired by militants across the border over the past three days. The air-strike came shortly after the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that further military action in Gaza would follow continued rocket fire. Speaking to the press in Jerusalem, he said Hamas would "make a terrible mistake to test our will to defend our people; I think they will make a terrible, terrible mistake."

An Israeli court ruling last week overturned an Israeli Defense Forces decision to allow a Palestinian farmer to work a contested field near the West Bank settlement of Shiloh. The ruling also questioned the army's authority to reach a decision on other such land disputes. Jerusalem Magistrate's Court Judge Shimon Fineberg gave a major victory to settlers, rejecting the land right claims of the farmer from the Palestinian village of Krayot. Shiloh resident Moshe Moskowitz said he has been farming the land since 1980. The court ordered the IDF to allow Moskowitz to work there.