Philip Agee, a US citizen and former agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), died in Havana, Cuba on Jan. 7 at age 72, according to US news reports. Louis Wolf, a friend and collaborator, said the cause of death was peritonitis. Agee had been living with his wife, Giselle Roberge Agee, in Hamburg, Germany, but the couple maintained an apartment in Havana and visited frequently. Since 2000 Agee had been running Cuba Linda,
an online agency arranging visits to Cuba for US residents. (The website reported that Agee died on Jan. 8.)

On Jan. 11 lawyers for three Puerto Ricans with subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury in New York that morning announced that the date had been postponed until sometime in February. Social worker Christopher Torres and filmmakers Tania Frontera and Julio Antonio Pabon are apparently being questioned as part of a US probe into the Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, a rebel pro-independence group whose leader, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, was killed by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Puerto Rico in September 2005.

On the morning of Jan. 10 some 200 members of the farmers' group El Barzón Popular took over the toll booths on the privately owned Mexico City-Toluca highway and allowed motorists to ride for free for about three hours. El Barzón director Crescencio Morales said this was a continuation of protests against the elimination of tariffs on corn, beans, sugar and powdered milk that took effect Jan. 1 under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He said there would be more protests, with the next one on the Mexico City-Queretaro highway. Some 7,500 vehicles took advantage of the toll-free ride, costing the owners more than $30,000, the toll booth administrator said. (La Jornada, Jan. 12)

On Jan. 10 a group of about 20 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released two hostages in the southeastern department of Guaviare in an arrangement worked out with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias and Colombian ex-senator Piedad Cordoba. The hostages, Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo and Clara Rojas, were then taken to Santo Domingo, Venezuela, and later to a meeting with Chavez and Cordoba at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.

Yemen has called on the US to free all detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, saying the move would generate global good-will towards Washington. "I hope that the United States releases all those held at Guantánamo, based on the principles of human rights, freedom and justice upon which your country was founded," President Ali Abdullah Saleh told President George Bush in a letter. "I am sure that such an undertaking would draw a wide positive response from peoples and countries across the world." Some 100 Yemenis are held at Guantanamo, making them the largest group among the approximately 275 detainees there. (Reuters, Jan. 12)

From Witness Against Torture, Jan. 11:

Over 80 Arrested in Guantánamo Protests at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON, DC – Early this afternoon, over 80 activists organized by Witness Against Torture delivered a message to the U.S. Supreme Court demanding the shut-down of the U.S. prison at Guantánamo and justice for those detained there. 35 activists were arrested inside the Court building and another 35 on the steps. The arrests followed a solemn march from the National Mall of 400 persons that included a procession of activists dressed like the Guantánamo prisoners in orange jumpsuits and black hoods – part of an International Day of Action that was endorsed by over 100 groups and that included 83 events around the world.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued an internal memo on Jan. 9 setting a new policy, effective immediately, on the sedation of detainees. The agency "may only involuntarily sedate an alien to facilitate removal where the Government has obtained a court order..." reads the memo from ICE detention and removal director John Torres. "There are no exceptions to this policy. Emergency or exigent circumstances are not grounds for departures from this policy." To get a sedation order from court, officials must show deportees have a history of physical resistance to being removed or are a danger to themselves.

Thousands of Mexican army troops and federal police have been mobilized to the Texas border in a new offensive against the "Zetas," paramilitary wing of the powerful Gulf Cartel. Authorities pledge to hunt down the Zetas and raid their safe-houses. "Since the first of January we have changed our operations," said Patricio Patiño Arias, deputy minister for intelligence and strategy at Mexico's Public Security Ministry. "It's no longer just patrolling, but rather a direct fight, a direct fight against specific objects, against specific targets that has grown out of important intelligence work."