Following a wave of forest fires in the southern Araucania and Bio-Bio regions that left seven fire-fighters dead this week, Chile's government suggested indigenous Mapuche activists may have been responsible. Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter speculated that the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), a Mapuche group struggling to recover land from timber companies in the affected regions, set the blazes. "Behind this premeditated and criminal conduct there is activity of a terrorist nature," he said. The Mapuche Student's Federation accused Hinzpeter of conducting a "media trial" without any evidence and of trying to "delegitimize" the indigenous movement. President Sebastian Piñera has invoked a Pinochet-era "anti-terrorism" law to pursue those responsible for the fires. (Clarin, Argentina, Jan. 7; BBC News, VOA, Jan. 6)

Colombia's National Police have mobilized 500 troops as well as a team of the elite Judicial Police (DIJIN) to northern Urabá region following the declaration of an "armed strike" (paro armada) by a paramilitary group known as Los Urabeños. Gunmen left leaflets in towns throughout the region, threatening residents and business owners—warning them to honor the strike or face arson attacks. Authorities have arrested 12 armed men who were distributing the leaflets and painting threatening graffiti in the municipalities of San Pedro de Urabá, Apartadó, Uramita, Cañas Gordas y Briceño, all in Antioquia department. Despite the police presence, the streets of several local towns have been completely cleared. The strike was apparently declared in response to the slaying of an Urabeños leader named "Giovanni." (El Tiempo, Bogotá, Jan. 5)

The Oromo Support Group reports that authorities in the de facto state of Somaliland are forcibly repatriating asylum-seekers from oppressed ethnic groups to Ethiopia, where they face persecution. Last week, Somaliland deported more than 20 Ethiopian nationals, handing them over to Ethiopian forces at the border town of Wachale—in violation of the international principle of "non-refoulement." Many more have been "refouled" in recent weeks—principally members of the Oromo and Ogadeni peoples. While political asylum applies only to those who can prove a well-grounded fear of persecution, non-refoulement is a generic ban on repatriation of refugees into war zones or disaster areas. (Press Enza, Dec. 29)

President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey released an unclassified version of the defense strategic guidance Jan. 5 at a Pentagon press conference. The document, entitled "Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense" (PDF), calls for $487 billion in proposed defense budget cuts over the next 10 years, amounting to some 8% of the Pentagon's base budget. The defense budget planned for next year is $662 billion, $43 billion less than this year. If automatic "sequestration" cuts mandated by last year's budget deal take effect, the Pentagon could lose some $500 billion more. "The US joint force will be smaller and it will be leaner," Panetta said. "The Army and Marine Corps will no longer need to be sized to support the kind of large-scale, long-term stability operations that dominated military priorities...over the past decade." The army is slated to cut back to 520,000 active duty troops from 565,000 after 2014. The Marine Corps, which has swelled to 202,000, plans to drop to 186,000. This will place US troop strength essentially at the pre-9-11 level. US troop strength grew by some 100,000 after the attacks, and now stands at 1.4 million.

Internet restrictions passed in February 2010 are set to go into effect in Belarus on Jan. 6, amid international criticism. The law creates several tiers of limitations on use of the Internet. Anyone who owns a shared connection, or a cyber-cafe, must monitor all users to insure that they do not visit a "blacklisted" site, or, in some cases, simply a site hosted off of Belarus servers. Users are required to identify themselves, and the owners of shared connections must keep a surfing history of each user for at least a year. Violations of any of these provisions may result in fines.

Mexican federal officials have mobilized thousands more military troops to violence-torn northeastern Tamaulipas state in an emergency move prompted by escalating violence—punctuated by a prison riot that left over 30 dead on Jan. 4. The move brings the total of army troops patrolling Tamaulipas to 13,000, plus thousands more navy troops and federal police agents. The deadly riot broke out at the Santa Amalia prison in the city of Altamira—a facility designed to hold 2,000 inmates but which has a population of more than 3,000. The fighting apparently pitted followers of the Gulf Cartel against adherents of the rival Zetas narco network. A similar incident left 20 dead at a prison in nearby Matamoros in October.

Hundreds of Libyan soldiers protested Jan. 5 in the eastern city of Benghazi, demanding payment of overdue wages and complaining that militia groups have taken over their bases and resist joining a new national army. "The revolutionaries don't want to join an organized military, they want to keep their current situation," Mabrouk Abdullah al-Oraibi, who formerly worked in the military's accounting department, told Reuters. While the Reuters account emphasized that the army had been "marginalized" by Moammar Qaddafi (presumably in favor of mercenaries in his direct pay), Algeria ISP reports that the protesting soldiers chanted "Yes, yes, yes, Moammar is alive!"

Amid growing tensions in the Persian Gulf, the US and Israel are preparing to hold the largest missile defense exercise in the history of the Jewish state. Last month, Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US Third Air Force, based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming exercise, expected to see the deployment of several thousand US soldiers in Israel. The drill will include establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at European Command headquarters in Germany.