Coptic Christian shop owners in the Egyptian town of Farshoot are refusing to reopen their stores until the government compensates them for damages in two days of rioting over the weekend. Up to 65 shops were reportedly damaged as thousands of Muslims attacked local Copts in the town some 300 miles south of Cairo. Damages to the burned and looted shops, including jewelry stores and pharmacies, is estimated at $1 million. "There will be no reconciliation before full financial compensation has been paid to the Coptic victims, and the criminals are brought to justice, so that safety and security can be restored to the district," said Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hammadi Diocese.

Civilized and democratic Switzerland isn't looking so civilized and democratic these days. On Nov. 29, Swiss voters approved a ban on minarets by 57.5%, at the urging of the right-wing Swiss People's Party—which argued that the minaret is a symbol of Islamic political power and not protected by guarantees of religious freedom. Switzerland has 400,000 Muslims—many of them Bosnian and Kosovar Albanian refugees from the former Yugoslavia. (CSM, Nov. 30)

An attacker on a motorcycle shot and killed indigenous leader and anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca outside his home in Chicomuselo, a town in the mountains of southern Mexico's Chiapas state Nov. 27. Abarca "was assassinated in a cowardly fashion outside his home," said Gustavo Castro of the Mexican Network of Communities Affected by Mining (REMA), adding that another member of the group was seriously wounded in the attack.

The US Supreme Court Nov. 30 vacated a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that required the Pentagon to release photos of abused detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Court remanded Department of Defense v. ACLU for further consideration under Section 565 of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010. The Act gives the Secretary of Defense the ability to prevent certain protected documents from being made public.

An Algerian court Nov. 29 sentenced in absentia Guantánamo Bay detainee Ahmed Belbacha to 20 years in prison for being part of an "overseas terrorist group." Belbacha has been cleared for release from Guantánamo but says he does not want to return to his home country of Algeria for fear of torture and has requested asylum in the US. Belbacha has been held in Guantánamo since 2002 after he was captured in Pakistan. Human Rights Watch reported that he tried to commit suicide at Guantánamo but would rather stay there than return to Algeria. HRW said that there are approximately 60 detainees who face a credible threat of torture or persecution if they return to their home country. (Jurist, Nov. 30)

Israel's Knesset Nov. 29 unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Argentina extradite those military officers involved in mass killings during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship so that they can be put on trial. MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz) proposed the move, saying that it was a "hypocritical discussion since all the facts have long been known and the government of Israel never once lifted a finger and cooperated with the Argentine murders because of their interest in arms deals."

After missing work for several days, José Emilio Galindo Robles, the regional director for Radio Universidad de Guadalajara in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, was found dead inside his home Nov. 23, Milenio reports. Authorities have given little information about the case but have confirmed that the journalist was killed. A motive had not been confirmed.

Our November issue featured the stories "Venezuelan Labor Between Chávez and the Golpistas" by Venezuelan journalist Rafael Uzcategui writing for the Spanish anarchist journal Tierra y Libertad, and "Venezuela: Demarcation Without Land" by José Quintero Weir writing for the Caracas anarchist journal El Libertario. The stories documented, respectively, repression against unionists and indigenous peoples under the Hugo Chávez regime. Our Exit Poll was: "Are we traitors to the Revolution for airing an anarchist critique of Bolivarian Venezuela?"