Japanese and South Korean forces both ended their missions in Iraq this week. The approximately 200 Japanese troops in Kuwait for an air support mission in Iraq are to return home by the end of the year. Japan withdrew its 500 ground troops from a reconstruction mission to southern Iraq in 2006. About 520 South Korean soldiers have already returned from northern Iraq's Irbil province, marking the end of a four-year reconstruction mission that had about 3,600 troops at its height—the third-largest contingent after the US and Britain. Both missions were officially noncombatant. Tokyo withdrew its 600-strong force in southern Iraq in 2006 but continued to airlift equipment and troops. The deployment was Japan's first to a combat zone since World War II, and sparked considerable public opposition. (AlJazeera, Dec. 19; BBC, Dec. 18)

Activists called for protests across Europe on Dec. 18 in solidarity with the uprising in Greece, unfurling banners at the base of Athens' landmark Acropolis urging international demonstrations and declaring "Resistance" in several languages. In the northwestern Greek city of Ioannina, some youths took over the town hall for several hours, while others seized the main local radio station and started broadcasting their own programs.

A lone protester at El Paso's Rio Bosque Wetlands Park temporarily halted construction of the US government's border fence Dec. 17, before being arrested by the Texas Rangers. Judy Ackerman, a local Sierra Club activist and founding member of Friends of the Rio Bosque, was one of about 25 who gathered to protest at the construction site. Alone, she donned a work helmet and blocked construction equipment for eight hours. The Border Patrol reportedly called in the Rangers for the arrest. "I am going to stay here until they leave me alone or they arrest me because I believe that the construction of this wall should stop completely," she told supporters. "The river is life; the wall is death." She may face federal charges. (El Diario, Ciudad Juárez; El Paso Times, Bobby Byrd blog, El Paso, Dec. 17)

We recently noted that the ACLU is calling for President-elect Barack Obama to close Guantánamo Bay prison camp his first day in office. Now the Pentagon says it is working on a plan to close the camp—but, based on a new Obama interview in Time magazine, the time frame being posed for the closure is two years. From Reuters, Dec. 18:

A new report by the US Army War College's Strategic Institute warns of massive domestic unrest in the wake of converging crises that it terms a "strategic shock," and discusses the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used at home. "Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security," reads the Nov. 8 report, "Known Unknowns: Unconventional 'Strategic Shocks' in Defense Strategy Development" by Nathan P. Freier of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega at the Kremlin Dec. 18, as a group of Communists in St. Petersburg called for naming one of the city's new subway stations "Nicaragua" or "Sandinista" as "a sign of Russia's recognition and serious intentions to return to Latin America." That same day, The Netherlands announced the suspension of 12 million euros of aid for Nicaragua, charging Ortega with frustrating free and fair local elections. (RIA Novosti, Radio Netherlands, Dec. 18)

A Niger guerilla faction led by dissident Tuareg insurgent leader Rhissa Ag Boula announced Dec. 16 it had abducted Canadian UN special envoy Robert Fowler, who disappeared with an aide while driving some 30 miles northeast of the capital Niamey. The vehicle was found abandoned. In a posting on its website, Ag Boula's Front of Forces for Rectification (FFR), which split from the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) in May, said it was holding four people, including Fowler.

Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 15 that the route of the West Bank "separation barrier" cannot be based on plans to expand Jewish settlements. The court rejected a plan that would route the wall through Bil'in village, on the grounds that this route was not motivated by "security concerns." The ruling will return 250 acres to the village, noting that the Israeli state has still failed to implement a 2007 high court ruling that would also have returned some of the village's lands. Already two-thirds complete, Israel's 723-kilometer wall currently snakes through the occupied West Bank, fragmenting Palestinian territory. Bil'in has become a symbol of popular opposition to the wall for its persistent weekly protests against the enclosure of its lands. (Ma'an News Agency, Dec. 16)