Former navy captain Alfredo Astiz AKA "Blond Angel of Death" went on trial Dec. 10 with 18 other former police and military officers charged with crimes against humanity during Argentina's 1976-1983 "dirty war." Astiz, whose nickname came from his cherubic looks when in the 1970s he infiltrated human rights groups whose members were later abducted, is charged in the killings of two French nuns, and the disappearance of dozens—including an Argentine journalist, a Swedish adolescent, and the founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement, Azucena Villaflor. With his co-defendants, Astiz is accused of overseeing abuses at the Navy Mechanics School detention center. Dozens of people, among them relatives of people who disappeared, attended the opening of the trial, holding pictures of the victims. (BBC News, Dec. 12; AFP, Dec. 11)

Leaders of local peasant organizations marched on the offices of the judicial authorities in Piura in northwest Peru Dec. 10 to demand justice in the deaths of Vicente Romero Ramírez and Cástulo Correa Huayama, shot by police Dec. 2 in the hamlet of Cajas Canchaque, Huancabamba province. Police were apparently attempting to arrest local comunero Lorenzo Rojas García, suspected in a Nov. 1 attack on the "Henry's Hill" mining camp, run by Rio Blanco Copper, local venture of the Chinese Zijin Consortium with the UK's Monterrico Metals. Two security guards and the mine site manager were killed in the armed attack. The site has been the focus of repeated violent protests over land rights and environmental impacts, which have left two other local campesinos dead since 2004. (CNR, Dec. 10; UDW, Dec. 7; LAHT, Dec. 3)

Some 100,000 marched Dec. 12 on Copenhagen's Bella Center, the sprawling and heavily fortified convention center where delegates and observers from 194 nations are gathered for the UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP 15, or the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Police made at least 968 arrests, including about 400 members of militant "Black Bloc" groups from across Europe. About 150 were released after questioning. (NYT, AFP, Dec. 12)

On the day the Barack Obama received his Nobel Prize in Oslo, one of the runner-up Peace Prize nominees, Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar, was on the 25th day of a hunger-strike at an airport in Lanzarote, Spain. On Dec. 10, leaders from around the world received a hand-signed letter from Haidar, asking for their urgent support. In the letter, Haidar, who is protesting her unlawful deportation to Spain after she refused to acknowledge Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara says, "my spirit remains strong but I feel my physical strength is fading fast." She is now unable to stand and a doctor who examined her this week listed her symptoms as anemia, muscular atrophy and gastric hemorrhaging.

Several hundred women, many carrying pictures of relatives killed by drug lords or Taliban militants, held a loud but peaceful protest in Kabul Dec. 10, demanding that President Hamid Karzai purge from his government anyone connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban. "These women are being very brave," said the protest leader, her face hidden by a burka. "To be a woman in Afghanistan and an activist can mean death. We want justice for our loved ones!"

Iran's government charged Dec. 9 that a newly built United Nations station to detect nuclear detonations near its border was established to allow world powers to spy on the country. Construction was completed last week on the seismic monitoring station in neighboring Turkmenistan, a few miles from the Iranian border. It is one of about 275 such facilities operating around the world to detect seismic activity set off by nuclear tests. Abolfazl Zohrehvand, an adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, said the international treaty that allows for setting up such observatories is an "espionage treaty."

Iranian human rights violations following the disputed presidential election in June were among the worst in the past 20 years, according to a report published Dec. 12 by Amnesty International. The report, "Iran: Election contested, repression compounded," contains testimony from individuals detained during the protests that ensued after the election. According to AI, individuals were unlawfully detained, beaten, tortured, and raped, resulting in numerous deaths in detention.

In several places around the world, marches commemorating Human Rights Day Dec. 11 were met with official harassment and repression. In Srinagar, capital of India-administrated Kashmir, police fired teargas and live rounds to disperse protesters, leaving at least 15 injured, including a young boy who sustained a bullet wound. (World Bulletin, Dec. 11) In Cuba, hundreds of government supporters jostled and jeered dissidents who staged two small marches in Havana. A 30-strong group of female relatives of political prisoners—known as "the Ladies in White" (Damas de Blanco)—marched through the capital chanting "liberty," carrying flowers, Cuban flags and copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A crowd of some 250 surrounded them and shouted "traitors" and "the street belongs to Fidel." A smaller march of about 10 dissidents in a park in the Vedado district was also surrounded and harassed. (The Guardian, Dec. 11)