New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton announced Jan. 29 a new 350-strong unit, the Strategic Response Group, dedicated to "disorder control and counterterrorism protection capabilities." An invoked example was the December hostage crisis in Sydney, which NYPD deputy commissioner for Intelligence John Miller said was an inevitability in NYC. But Bratton made clear the new unit will also be used against protesters: "It is designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris. They'll be equipped and trained in ways that our normal patrol officers are not... They’ll be equipped with all the extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns—unfortunately sometimes necessary in these instances." (Gothamist, Jan. 29)

Here we go again. The same trick over and over—and the sad part is, we fear most people are falling for it. (Or at least those who take note of such news at all.) Yesterday's AP headline read: "Tape: Scientist offers to build nuke bomb targeting New York." If you just read that and the lede, you would come away thinking Venezuela was trying to develop the capacity to nuke Gotham City. It is only if you bother to read futher that the bait-and-switch becomes clear. Venezuela was not involved at all. The dumb sucker who got busted had no actual contact with Venezuela—only an FBI agent posing as a Venezuelan official. To wit:

Hezbollah fighters attacked an Israeli military convoy in the Shaba'a Farms border area Jan. 28, killing four soldiers. After Israeli forces were hit by missile fire, they responded by firing shells into southern Lebanon. A Spanish UN peacekeeper was accidentally killed by the Israeli return fire. Hezbollah issued a communiqué saying the attack was retaliation for an Israeli air-strike that killed six of its fighters and an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general on the Syrian-held side of the Golan Heights 10 days ago. Hezbollah said the attack had been carried out by a cell calling itself the "Heroic Martyrs of Quneitra," a reference to the area where the Israeli strike took place on Jan. 18. (BBC News, YNet, Israel, Daily Star, Lebanon, Jan. 28)

Security forces in Egypt arrested 516 supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced Jan. 26. The previous day, which marked the fourth anniversary of the 2011 uprising and the fall of Hosni Mubarak, supporters of the Brotherhood and ousted president Mohamed Morsi battled with security forces while rallying against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government. Twenty people were killed during the demonstrations in addition to the 516 arrested. Ibrahim stated, "We confirmed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that all those who took to the streets yesterday were Muslim Brotherhood elements alone. ... We arrested 516 elements from the Muslim Brotherhood group who were involved in firing ammunition, planting explosives and bombing some facilities." The arrests were the largest police sweep of Morsi supporters since Sisi took office in May.

Egypt's Court of Cassation upheld convictions and three-year prison sentences of three activists Jan. 26 for violating the country's protest laws. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohammed Adel were arrested under a law that bans political gatherings of more than 10 people without prior government permission. As the Court of Cassation is Egypt's highest, the convicted men have no further legal redress. Human Rights Watch has criticized the law since its drafting, claiming that it goes "well beyond the limitations permitted under international law" for the right to peacefully assemble. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also condemned the law, its spokesperson stating that "no one should be criminalized or subjected to any threats or acts of violence, harassment or persecution for addressing human rights issues through peaceful protests." Thousands have been arrested under this law, including many supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Argentine federal prosecutor Natalio Alberto Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment late on Jan. 18 with a gunshot wound to his head. Nisman had filed a 289-page criminal complaint on Jan. 14 charging that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman and eight others, including two Iranians, had acted to cover up the alleged role of the Iranian government in the July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires. The bombing, which left 85 dead and some 300 injured, is considered the deadliest anti-Semitic attack carried out anywhere since World War II. Nisman's death came the day before he was to testify to the National Congress about the charges.

While the US media focused on the late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman's Jan. 14 charges against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, many people have been accused over the years of blocking the investigation into the deadly 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building. The people suspected include a former president, a judge, an intelligence chief, and officials of two foreign governments. After an inquiry that has gone on for 21 years under several different governments, Argentine prosecutors have still not won a single conviction in the case.

Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico's giant state-owned oil monopoly, signed contracts worth $149 billion with outside companies from 2003 to 2012, according to a Jan. 23 investigative report by Reuters wire service; about 8% of the contracts were cited by a congressional watchdog, the Chamber of Deputies' Federal Audit Office (ASF), as having irregularities "ranging from overcharging for shoddy work to outright fraud," Reuters wrote. The problems involved more than 100 contracts with a total value of $11.7 billion.