If anyone was celebrating the new year last evening, it must have been the five Blackwater guards charged in the massacre of 17 innocent Iraqi civilians in Nisur Square, Baghdad, two years ago. On New Years Eve afternoon, Judge Ricardo Urbina of the DC District Court dismissed all criminal charges against them, on the basis that their indictment was procured—twice in fact—using statements they made to State Department investigators under threat of losing their jobs. In the United States, coerced confessions are inadmissible as evidence, and cannot be presented to a grand jury in order to obtain an indictment.

The Israeli daily Ha'aretz reports Jan. 1 that construction in West Bank settlements is "booming" despite the freeze that was officially declared Nov. 26. "Haaretz toured the area on Wednesday and witnessed work being carried out in the Barkan and Ariel industrial zones, as well as the construction of housing at Ariel, Elkana North, Peduel and Kfar Tapuah. A sign at Kfar Tapuah announced plans for the construction of 65 new housing units. Israel patrols were evident, but not inspectors of the Civil Administration enforcing the construction ban."

Several international activists were reported injured by Egyptian riot police during demonstrations with the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo Dec. 31. "There was a Moroccan-Italian woman who was punched in the face and was taken for treatment," said Medea Benjamin, a prominent US anti-war activist who organized the Gaza initiative. She said a number of people received cuts, bruises and other injuries. "It was quite the brutal scene."

Israel's supreme court Dec. 29 ordered the military to allow Palestinians to travel on part of a major highway that runs through the West Bank. The move, heralded by human rights activists, reopens to Palestinians a 20-kilometer section of Route 443, which links Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. "It's a huge victory," said Melanie Takefman, a spokeswoman for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which represented the six Palestinian villages that appealed to the court to lift the ban.

World-renowned political organizer and one of Africa's most celebrated poets, Dennis Brutus, died early on Dec. 26 in Cape Town, in his sleep, aged 85. Even in his last days, Brutus was fully engaged, advocating social protest against those responsible for climate change, and promoting reparations to black South Africans from corporations that benefited from apartheid. He was a leading plaintiff in the Alien Tort Claims Act case against major firms that is now making progress in the US court system.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Dec. 28 appointed a delegation to begin an investigation of 10 civilian deaths, including eight schoolchildren, believed to have occurred during a raid by international forces in Kunar province. The raid in the Narang district occurred on Dec. 26, and allegedly involved NATO forces, though this has not been confirmed. The same day that Karzai announced the formation of the special delegation, a UN committee released figures that show that civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2009 are up by 10% over 2008. (Jurist, Dec. 29)

Another indigenous Guarani leader, Osmair Martins Ximenes, was killed in Brazil last week, the latest in a string of killings related to the theft of the people's land. Two other members of his community, Kuretê Lopez and Ortiz Lopez, were killed in 2007 by gunmen hired by ranchers, as they attempted to reoccupy ancestral lands. The Guarani of Kurusu Mba community demand that their land rights be recognized as soon as possible. They said "we are growing impatient with the delay; it is slowly draining us of our life, and exposing us to genocide."

Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba announced on Dec. 26 that she had asked the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to state whether they are responsible for the Dec. 21 abduction of Luis Francisco Cuéllar, governor of the southern department of Caquetá, whose body was found with a slashed throat outside the state capital, Florencia, on Dec. 22. Police agent Javier García Gutiérrez was also killed in the incident, and two agents were injured. The government of right-wing president Alvaro Uribe immediately blamed the FARC for the kidnapping and deaths. Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia (ANNCOL), a news agency which carries communiqués from the rebels, called the government's claim "irresponsible," but as of Dec. 26 there had been no denial from the FARC.