The Obama administration is suddely making much of Assad's supposed preparations for a chemical weapons attack on Syria's opposition strongholds. Conspiranoid blogs, including one with the unappetizing name Sic Semper Tyrannis, assert that the supposed intelligence is coming from neocon groups like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) which is in turn getting the claims entirely from Syrian insurgent sources. However, the lead story on the WINEP website, "How Would Assad Use Chemical Weapons?," starts off: "US intelligence has detected increased activity at Syrian chemical warfare facilities, raising concerns about the regime potentially using chemical weapons (CW) against the opposition." Are the sources for that "US intelligence" WINEP istelf? Could things really be quite that incestuous? And—contrary to the conspiranoid assumption of a neocon-jihadist plot—the jihadists, like al-Nusra Front, seem to have made the neocons a little gun-shy in Syria. Insurgent sympathizers have been placing lugubrious propaganda videos on YouTube (via a stream called SyriaTube) luridly warning of an imminent chemcial attack. NBC News merely quotes anonymous US "officials" to the effect that "nerve agents" were loaded into warheads, without saying how this was determined. The agents are apparently "precursor chemicals for sarin," the gas that was used by Saddam at Halabja in 1988. Fox News merely cites the NBC account. The New York Times vaguely warns that stockpiles are being moved around to various of Syria's chemical weapons facilities, and that US officlals repeatedly warn Assad will be "held accountable" for their use...

We have noted the confusion over whether the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allows for the indefinite detention of persons apprehended on US soil. Now it appears that an effort by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to clarify the question in the upcoming 2013 NDAA is so poorly worded that it unintentionally (?) makes matters worse. Feinstein's proposed amendment (online as a PDF at the Lawfare blog) states that:

An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen of lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention.

A joint statement by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Victims of Torture, Bill of Rights Defense Committee and other groups (online as a PDF at the ACLU website) protests:

Iranian lawyer and prominent human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh on Dec. 4 ended a 49-day hunger strike in protest of her prison conditions and a travel ban imposed on her family. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay had expressed concern for Sotoudeh's deteriorating health and urged the Iranian government to lift the travel ban, saying it was not justified by international law. After judicial authorities agreed to lift the travel ban on Sotoudeh's daughter, Sotoudeh ended her strike. Sotoudeh was sentenced in January 2011 to 11 years in prison after being found guilty of "acting against national security" and "making propaganda against the system" for which she will serve five and one years, respectively. The remaining five years of her sentence result from allegations that she was a member of the Human Rights Defenders Center, an organization originally founded by Shirin Ebadi and four other Iranian lawyers, many of whom have also been detained or otherwise punished for their work. In addition to her prison term, Sotoudeh's punishment also requires that she refrain from leaving the country or practicing law for the next 20 years. Sotoudeh has spent a large part of her detention in solitary confinement.

Protesters clashed with police in Slovenia's second city Maribor Dec. 3 in a march against austerity measures. Police said more than 20 were arrested and at least one officer was injured after some from a crowd of around 6,000 protesters threw rocks and fireworks. Protests began in the city last week to demand the resignation of Mayor Franc Kangler, who is accused of corruption. But over the weekend, deomstrations spread to the capital, Ljubljana, taking up general anti-austerity demands. Protests in Ljubljana and five other cities of small post-Yugoslav state were peaceful but large, bringing thousands to the streets.

In the ninth YouTube edition of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg takes a tour of the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS), on Manhattan's Lower East Side, with veteran California eco-activist Darryl Cherney, in town to promote his new documentary Who Bombed Judi Bari? Weinberg, Cherney and the MoRUS crew discuss the cross-fertilization of ecological struggles from Northern California's redwoods to the streets of New York City.

The government of Mali is now confirmed to be holding direct talks with two of rebel groups that seized control in the country's north, in a bid to resolve the country's political crisis and head off foreign intervention. Top government officials gathered in neighboring Burkina Faso Dec. 4 for preliminary talks with delegates from the MNLA Tuareg separatist group and the radical Islamist organization Ansar Dine. But meanwhile in Washington DC, the chief of the Pentagon's Africa Command, Gen. Carter F. Ham, warned that rebel-controlled northern Mali has become a staging area for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). "As each day goes by, al-Qaeda and other organizations are strengthening their hold in northern Mali," Gen. Ham said in remarks at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. "There is a compelling need for the international community, led by Africans, to address that." (VOA, Dec. 4; NYT, Dec. 3)

A new report by Amnesty International documents a "raft of gross and deeply disturbing abuses" committed by both Islamist rebels and Yemeni government forces during their struggle for the control of the southern region of Abyan in 2011 and 2012, and called for an urgent inquiry. The report, "Conflict in Yemen: Abyan’s Darkest Hour," examines abuses by Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) when they controlled the governorate of Abyan and other areas in the south of Yemen between February 2011 and June 2012, including public summary killings, crucifixion, amputation and flogging. 

A series of demonstrations that started in the city of Jérémie in the southwestern Haitian department of Grand'Anse on Nov. 27 turned violent on Nov. 30 when more than 50 agents of the Haitian National Police (PNH) arrived to reinforce the local police. Agents of the Company of Intervention for the Maintenance of Order (CIMO), the Haitian riot police, reportedly used tear gas and gunfire to disperse several hundred protesters, who responded by hurling rocks at the agents. A vendor whose name was given as Wilber Bien-Aimé by one source and Hilder Victor by another was shot dead in the Sainte-Hélène neighborhood, and three other people were wounded. Three police agents were injured by rocks.