On the morning of Jan. 3 a unit of 15 masked people armed with AK-47 rifles set fire to three backhoes belonging to the Constructora Torreblanca, a construction company building a highway in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. "No to the gas price increase!" and "Join the armed struggle!" were some of the slogans the group painted at the site, in Tixtla municipality, about 15 kilometers from Chilpancingo, the state capital. The company had the slogans removed, and news of the incident didn't become public until Jan. 5. No group took responsibility for the action, although the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) and other rebel groups have been active in Guerrero in the past. (La Jornada, Jan. 6) [It is not clear from news sources whether the company is linked to Guerrero governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo.]

On Dec. 23 Italian authorities arrested former Uruguayan navy captain Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli in Salerno. Fernandez Troccoli, who headed Uruguay's secret services for the 1973-1985 military dictatorship, had been ordered arrested on Dec. 17 by an Uruguayan judge investigating Operation Condor, a clandestine program of cooperation between South American militaries. The arrest led Italian authorities to renew their request for the detention of a total of 140 military officers and soldiers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in connection with crimes against more than 25 people of Italian origin.

On Jan. 4 Argentine federal judge Sandra Arroyo charged two coast guard officers, Angel Volpi and Ruben Iglesias, with homicide in connection with the death of former navy officer Hector Febres. Febres, who was 66, was found dead on Dec. 11 in the Naval Prefecture in Buenos Aires, two days before he was to be sentenced for participation in torture and other crimes, including the theft of babies from dissident women during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Febres' wife, Stella Maris Guevara, and their children, Hector and Sonia Febres, were charged with concealment.

Chilean agronomy student Matias Catrileo Quezada, an indigenous Mapuche, was shot dead early on the morning of Jan. 3 at the Fundo Santa Margarita estate, in Vilcun in the southern region of Araucania, presumably by police agents. He and other Mapuche activists were setting fire to bales of hay; the estate, which the local Mapuche community claims as part of its traditional ancestral lands, has been attacked several times in recent years. Activists told Bio-Bio radio station Catrileo was shot in the back with a machine gun.

A petition from the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), Jan. 5:

The southern cities of Iraq which are totally under the grip of Islamist parties have turned into no-woman zones. Female physical appearance is not acceptable in the streets, educational institutions, or at work places. Although veiled and passive, death awaits women around street corners, in the market, and visits them inside their homes daily in the city of Basra.

Zapatista women at La Garrucha

To celebrate the 14th anniversary of their New Years Day uprising, Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) hosted a Women's Encuentro ("encounter" or "meeting") at the jungle settlement of La Garrucha, Chiapas state. Officially dubbed the "Encuentro of the Indigenous Zapatista Women with the Women of the World," the meeting brought together women from throughout Mexico and several other countries around the globe. In a case of self-conscious role reversal, men at the gathering were confined to cooking and cleaning, while women did all the talking. Accounts and images are online at Chiapas IMC.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners have gathered at the holy city of Touba to pay last respects to Senegal's late spiritual leader, Serigne Saliou Mbacke, who died at the age of 92 on Dec. 28. Saliou was the last surviving son of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, 19th-century founder of the Mouride sufi order, and had been "caliph" since 1990. About a tenth of Senegal's 11 million citizens are said to be Mourides, including President Abdoulaye Wade, who declared three days of national mourning. Mouhamadou Lamine Bara Mbacke, a grandson of Ahmadou Bamba, is to become the sixth caliph. (Press Association, Dec. 31; Reuters, Dec. 30; BBC, Dec. 29) Gambian President Yahya Jammeh also expressed sadness at the passing of the caliph, calling it a "great loss" for both Senegal and Gambia. (Afriquenligne, Dec. 31) However, Gambia is being accused in the assassination a week earlier of another prominent Senegalese marabout, or holy man, with intrigues over armed separatist movements in the background...

Kenyan police sealed Nairobi and broke up protests with water cannons and baton charges Jan. 3, barring supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga from holding a planned rally in Nairobi's Uhuru Park. Odinga made his own accusations of "genocide" against supporters of President Mwai Kibaki. Attorney General Amos Wako called for an independent investigation into the contested vote. (BBC, Bloomberg, Jan. 3) Three people were reported dead, a church and two petrol stations set ablaze, and five cars torched. (Daily Nation, Nairobi, Jan. 3) Reuters reports from the ethnically-mixed, impoverished Nairobi district of Mathare which residents have renamed "Kosovo"—violently contested by Kikuyu gangs such as the Mungiki and a Luo militia calling itself the "Taliban." (Reuters, Jan. 3)