Israeli forces on Dec. 31 delivered evacuation orders to around 100 Palestinian families in the northern Jordan Valley ahead of a military training exercise. The evacuation affects around 1,000 Palestinians living in rural communities around Wadi al-Maleh, local mayor Arif Daraghma told Ma’an News Agency. They must leave their homes by Dec. 2 for 48 hours, or they will be subject to penalties, he said. The orders state that Israeli troops will be holding military drills in the area. "To ensure the safety of the local inhabitants, temporary eviction notices were distributed today to the residents of the illegal structures located in a closed military zone to be used in the exercise," Israel's army said in a statement. The residents will be allowed to return after the military exercises have been completed. "It should be emphasized that these structures, located in closed military zones actively used by the IDF, are illegal in nature," the statement added.

At least 23 people were killed and scores more wounded in a series of attacks across Iraq Dec. 31. At Mussayib on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, seven people—three women, two children and two men—were killed when three houses were blown up. In central Baghdad, a parked car bomb went off next to a tent for Shi'ite pilgrims in Karada neighborhood, killing five people and injuring 25 others. At Khalis, 80 kilometers north of Baghdad, two more Shi'ite pilgrims were killed. Another pilgrim was killed and 11 wounded at Latifiyah, south of Baghdad. Near Baquba, west of Baghdad, gunmen assaulted the house of Kalid Luhaibi, a local leader of the government's National Reconciliation dialogue initiative, killing a security guard and wounding two. (Al Jazeera, Middle East Online, Dec. 31; al-Shofra, Dec. 6)

Two Egyptians were killed and two injured in an apparent attack on a Coptic church near the Libyan city of Misrata Dec. 30. "Unknown assailants targeted a church building in the town of Dafniya, in Misrata [province], causing the death of two Egyptian citizens and wounding two others," official news agency LANA reported. "The explosion happened after the mass ended and people were on their way out." There were an estimated 1.5 million Egyptians living and working in Libya before the 2011 revolution. About two-thirds left during the war but many returned in 2012.

Peru's Minister of Mines and Energy, Jorge Merino, assured international investors Dec. 21 that his government will make every effort to see the controversial Conga and Tía María mining projects move forward in 2013. The two projects, in Cajamarca and Arequipa region, respectivamente, have both been suspended after campesino protests.  The pledge is part of the Ollanta Humala government's plan to attract $10 million in mining investment in 2013, $10 million more than this year. Merino also vowed to build new compression plants to expand the capacity of the trans-Andean Camisea gas pipeline from 1,200 cubic feet to 1,600. (El Comercio, Dec. 21)

On Dec. 19, some 6,000 campesinos and their supporters filled the streets of Chiclayo, capital of Peru's northern Lambayeque region, demanding the repeal of the National Water Authority's resolutions  089-2012 and 090-2012, which authoritize La Zanja mining company to begin dumping waste water in the canyons of La Pampa and El Cedro, inland across the border in Cajamarca region. These canyons empty into the Río Chancay, which flows back into Lambayeque (where it joins with the Río Reque to meet the sea near Chiclayo). The rally concluded at the Lambayeque regional government headquaters, where representatives of different organizations making up the Lambayeque Unitary Struggle Command (CULL) delivered a message to regional president Humberto Acuña Peralta, demanding that he take immediate action to protect the waters of the Río Chancay.

Total area planted with coca in Bolivia dropped by up to 13% last year, according to separate reports by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Bolivia stepped up efforts to eradicate unauthorized coca plantings, and reported an increase in seizures of cocaine and cocaine base—even as the Evo Morales government expanded areas where coca can be grown legally. "It's fascinating to look at a country that kicked out the United States ambassador and the DEA, and the expectation on the part of the United States is that drug war efforts would fall apart," Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, told the New York Times. Instead, she said, Bolivia's approach is "showing results." 

Traditional authorities at the Aymara community of Mallku Khota in Bolivia's Potosí department declared two technicians from Canadian mining company South American Silver to be fugitives from justice for failing to to follow through on pledges to provide a payment of two thousand abode bricks each as a fine after they were found to be "spying" on community meetings. "We lament that they have not complied, despite their commitment, and despite guarantees from the national authorities," said community leader Leonardo Montaño. "This implicates that the Political Constitution of the State is not being complied with."

Félix Becerra, a leader of the Aymara indigenous organization CONAMAQ, has called upon Bolivia's judicial authorities to widen the investigation of the current corruption scandal to include Presidency Minister Juan Ramón Quintana, Government Minister Carlos Romero and UN Ambassador Sacha Llorenti. Noting longstanding CONAMAQ claims that the Evo Morales government is setting up state-controlled "parallel" organizations to divide the indigenous movement, Becerra implied that the same cabinet figures who have pursued this strategy could be involved in the scandal.  "We have seen that Ramón Quintana, Carlos Romero and Sacha Llorenti have always been preparing to armar paralelos, and these maximum authorities should be investigated to see if they are implicated in acts of corruption," he said. A total of 10 officials have been detained in the case so far, although none at the cabinet level. (Erbol, Dec. 21; ANF, Dec. 17)