Colombia's House of Representatives on Dec. 3 agreed to hold a plebiscite to seek popular approval of a peace deal with the FARC. The House vote is not the final decision; a reconciliation commission comprised of member of both the Senate and the House will have to approve the final version. According to the bill as it is sent to the commission, the plebiscite will be held three weeks after publication of the full peace agreement with the FARC. For the peace deal to be approved, more than 50% of 13% of the eligible population must vote in the plebiscite. Concretely, President Juan Manuel Santos will need the approval of 4.4 million Colombians, less than 10% of the population, to validate the eventual peace deal. The peace process cxontinues in spite of vociferous opposition by conservatives who fruitlessly lobbied for a higher threshold. (Colombia Reports, Dec. 4)

Riots broke out in the early hours of Dec. 3 at Greece's frontier with Macedonia as migrants and asylum seekers stranded there for the past two weeks blockaded the border, preventing people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan from crossing. Since Nov. 18, only refugees from those three countries have been admitted into Macedonia, while other nationalities have been turned away. Many of those refused entry have boarded buses and returned to Athens in recent days, but about 3,000 have stayed to protest being discriminated against on the basis of nationality. Some have embarked on hunger strikes while several Iranian asylum seekers sewed their lips closed last week. (IRIN)

Ecuador's National Assembly on Dec. 3 passed a constitutional amendment lifting presidential term limits, beginning in 2021. The 16 constitutional amendments were approved in a vote of 100-8 in a legislature where sitting President Rafael Correa's political party, Alianza Pais, has a two-thirds majority. Though Correa, who has been president since 2007 and will finish his second term in 2017, has said that he will not participate  in the next election in 2017, he will be eligible to run again in 2021 under the new amendment. The vote has caused protests, some violent, against the amendments by demonstrators who believe that the vote represents a power-grab by Correa. They wanted the National Assembly to either not vote on the proposal or to put it to a popular vote, as was done in Bolivia earlier this year. While congressman Luis Fernando Torres called the vote constitutional fraud,  Correa tweeted on the matter to contend that he will continue to govern with "total democratic legitimacy."

OK, here we go. Get ready for the tiresome semantic debate about whether the San Bernardino massacre was "terrorism," or not. As if that's the most important question we should be grappling with.... Was this yet another random "mass-shooting" motivated by some personal grudge and rooted in America's homegrown culture of vigilantism and personal revenge? (This kind of thing is so commonplace that the same day's shoot-up in Savannah, Ga., barely made the news because only four people were shot, one fatally, the WaPo says.) Or was it inspired or even directed by an extremist political tendency of one stripe or another? This question is pathologically politicized...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Dec. 2 that thousands of people, including children, are being arbitrarily detained in Libya. The report highlights torture and other forms of ill-treatment in four prisons in Tripoli and Misrata, which were personally visited by HRW representatives. The report is based upon interviews conducted by HRW with 120 detainees, none of whom have been charged with a crime or granted the opportunity to appear before a judge. According to HRW, the detainees provided "credible and consistent" accounts of mistreatment. HRW representatives saw signs of mistreatment such as beatings on the soles of the feet with plastic pipe, electrical cable, chains, sticks, fists, and even horsewhips; suspension from doors or ceilings for hours; electrical shocks; and solitary confinement. Stating that "Prolonged detention without judicial reviews is a grave violation of international law and may amount to a crime against humanity," HRW urged the UN Security Council to increase pressure on Libya to order the immediate release of all those who have been wrongfully detained. HRW has also called upon the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to open an investigation into arbitrary detentions in Libya.

The Constitutional Court of Spain on Dec. 2 declared unconstitutional (PDF) a resolution by the Parliament of Catalonia that proposed a plan for the region's independence from Spain by 2017. The resolution was approved by Catalonian lawmakers in November, and stated that parliament would take the "necessary steps" to effect the separation from Spain in a peaceful and democratic manner and in a way that would empower citizens. The court held that the resolution violated Articles 1.1, 1.2 , 2, 9.1 and 168 of the Constitution and Articles 1 and 2.4 of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia. The resolution states that the separation of Catalonia from Spain is not subject to the decisions of the Constitutional Court.

After 50 years of internal war, Colombia finally seems to be approaching a peace accord with leftist guerillas. But the US Senate is considering legislation that could throw a big obstacle on Colombia's path to peace. The Transnational Drug Trafficking Act, sponsored by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), aims to target every link in the chain of narco-trafficking—right down the impoverished peasants who grow the coca. The bill has unanimously passed the Senate twice before, but never cleared the House. On Oct. 7, it passed the Senate a third time, and a big push is on to make it law. "Since drug cartels are continually evolving, this legislation ensures that our criminal laws keep pace," said Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and Caucus on International Narcotics Control.

Two nephews of the wife of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro were arrested in Haiti, turned over to DEA agents and flown to the United States to face drug trafficking charges, the New York Times reported Nov. 11. The two men, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, are nephews of Cilia Flores—called by the populist Maduro the "First Combatant" rather than first lady. Flores is a powerful political figure in her own right, and is currently running for Venezuela's congress with the ruling party. The nephews were expected to appear in Federal District Court in Manhattan. They were charged in a sealed indictment accusing them of conspiring to ship 800 kilograms of cocaine to the United States, to be sold in New York City, according to a "person with knowledge of the matter."