This year the World Economic Forum (WEF), an annual meeting of business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland in late January, was focused on a financial crisis that shook world stock markets Jan. 18-21—the worst in 60 years, according to one participant, US financier George Soros. Other participants tried to minimize the dangers that a likely US recession would pose for emerging economies. The present crisis "isn't the first and won't be the last," said Mexican central bank president Guillermo Ortiz. But according to former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel prize for economics, Mexico's economy isn't more resistant than in the past to contagion from the US, a situation made worse by the fact that the majority of banks in Mexico are now subsidiaries of US banks. (La Jornada, Jan. 24, 26 from AFP, DPA, Reuters)

As of Jan. 27 Chilean activist Patricia Troncoso Robles had rejected an Interior Ministry offer to ease her prison conditions if she would end the hunger strike she started 109 days earlier to demand the release of 20 indigenous Mapuche prisoners and an end to the military's presence in Mapuche territories. Troncoso's father, Roberto Troncoso, and a mediator, Conference of Bishops president Alejandro Goic, said the government offered a transfer to a prison work and study center, with Sunday releases after six months at the center. But Troncoso Robles demanded an immediate easing of conditions for Mapuche prisoners Jaime Marileo and Juan Millalen and a resolution of the prisoners' situation by March.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited Colombia on Jan. 24 and 25, meeting with right-wing president Alvaro Uribe in Medellín at the end of the trip. The high-level delegation, including US legislators, was intended to show support for Uribe and to push for ratification by the US Congress of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC) between the two countries. In Medellín, Rice also met with former right-wing paramilitaries who had demobilized under a plan sponsored by Uribe; she visited a flower cultivation business where ex-paramilitaries are employed. At a meeting between the delegation and Colombian unionists, Carlos Rodriguez of the Unitary Workers Confederation (CUT) said 40 leaders of the union federation had been murdered in 2007, bringing the number of unionists murdered in the last 22 years to 2,574. Many were killed by paramilitaries. (La Jornada, Jan. 26 from AFP, DPA, Reuters)

There is real possibility for peace between the Colombian government and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), according to Antonio Navarro Wolf, a former rebel who is now governor of the southern department of Nariño and a leader in the center-left Democratic Alternative Pole. Following the FARC's release of two hostages on Jan. 10, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frias has pushed for the Colombian government to advance the peace process by designating the FARC a "belligerent force" rather than "terrorists."

Simón Trinidad [nom de guerre of Ricardo Palmera Piñeda], the FARC's well-known prisoner-exchange negotiator, was today sentenced to 60 years in prison in Federal District Court in Washington, DC. Several months ago, Trinidad was found guilty of conspiracy to take three [US] military contractors as hostages, a crime occurring back in 2003. The sentence was determined in a separate proceeding held today.

At least five were killed in Beirut Jan. 27 in clashes between Lebanese soldiers and young Shi'ite residents protesting electricity cuts. Hezbollah issued a statement holding "the de facto authorities" fully responsible for "every drop of blood shed," and demanding that the army identify "who opened fire on innocent citizens demanding their social rights." Meanwhile, the 14 March coalition, which supports the western-backed government, accused "forces of the Syrian-Iranian axis" of "detonating the situation and stirring up dangerous disturbances." It said the opposition were "acting on the orders of the Syrian-Iranian axis, which is openly inciting disorder, and exploiting economic problems..." (BBC, Jan. 28)

Freedom's on the march. From the Winston-Salem Journal, NC, Jan. 26:

An inmate claiming widespread harassment of Muslims in U.S. prisons cannot sue prison guards who he says took his Qurans and prayer rug, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

From the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), Jan. 28:

Accountability for Suharto's Crimes Must Not Die With Him
Indonesia's former dictator General Suharto has died in bed and not in jail, escaping justice for his numerous crimes in East Timor and throughout the Indonesian archipelago. One of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century, his death tolls still shock: