Former Guatemalan military dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-83) is to appear before a judge on Jan. 26 in what could become a trial for genocide. Ríos Montt headed the government during one of the bloodiest periods in a 36-year counterinsurgent war that left more than 200,000 people dead, mostly civilians. After the fighting ended in 1996 Ríos Montt re-emerged as a politician, leading the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) and holding a seat in Congress from 2000 until this month. The legislative position gave him immunity from prosecution, which has now ended.

Three unidentified men gunned down attorney José Ricardo Rosales the morning of Jan. 17 near his office or residence (the accounts differ) in the coastal city of Tela in the northern Honduran department of Atlántida. The murder came just four days after the San Pedro Sula daily El Tiempo ran a news report on Rosales' claim that Tela police agents had been abusing detainees. Rosales may also have offended the authorities by carrying out a successful defense of Marco Joel Alvarez ("Unicorn") against government charges that he was responsible for the March 2011 murder of radio and television journalist David Meza in the nearby city of La Ceiba. Meza had regularly criticized the police force on his programs.

On Jan. 10 the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the country's main indigenous umbrella group, issued a communiqué reporting a "surprising and inexplicable" police presence in the organization's headquarters in Quito. "[A]round 9:45 am police arrived [in a] truck [at] the CONAIE offices, and two police agents dressed in black entered inside the offices," the group wrote. Asked to explain their presence, one agent mentioned a possible danger to CONAIE president Humberto Cholango; later the agents said they were there to protect a meeting of indigenous organizations scheduled for that day. CONAIE said it hadn't reported any dangers or asked for protection, and the group denounced the "arbitrary and illegal acts against social organizations that [are] being implemented in Ecuador." (CONAIE communiqué, Jan. 10)

Argentine judge Fernando Juan Lima ruled on Jan. 16 that the Buenos Aires city government could continue for now with a 127% increase it had imposed for the subway fare on Jan. 6. A coalition including unions, student groups and political and social organizations had filed for an emergency injunction to halt the increase, which raises the fare to 2.5 pesos (about 58 cents).

World War 4 Report has been keeping a dispassionate record of Barack Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing and escalating (he has done all three) the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) established by the Bush White House. On the third anniversary of his inauguration, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score:

NewsOne now brings to light a YouTube video in which Ron Paul gives a "South was Right" speech to an evident gathering of Confederacy nostalgists. No date or place is offered, but this supposed "libertarian" is speaking against the backdrop of a giant Confederate battle flag! The video was apparently first placed on YouTube by a neo-Confederate channel with the slightly ironic name "Patriot Review." In it, Paul regurgitates several of the usual revisionist tropes—he dismisses slavery as an "excuse" and "rabble-rousing issue" that "really wasn't the issue of why the war was fought"; he suggests differences over "protectionism" and the "banking system" were really behind the war; he points out that other countries "got rid of slavery without war" through "legislation" (as if the abolitionists hadn't fought generations for that!) or (of course, the free-market solution) "literally buying slaves' freedom." Et cetera. NewsOne adds:

The Zionist propaganda machine (e.g. Palestinian Media Watch, Arutz Sheva, Christian Broadcasting Network, FrontPageMag) is having the predictable field day with the latest indiscretions from Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who at a celebration (presumably in Ramallah) marking the 47th anniversary of the founding of Fatah, said (apparently quoting a hadith): "The hour [of resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call, 'O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'"

Big kudos to the African American-oriented NewsOne website for relentlessly calling out Ron Paul's ties to the white supremacist radical right. Now they have dug up an unseemly affair covered by the New York Times in 1981—today disgracefully ignored by the supposed "liberal media"!—that implicates the supposed "libertarian" presidential hopeful in an attempted mercenary invasion and coup d'etat to establish a white separatist homeland in the Black-majority Caribbean nation of Dominica. No, we aren't kidding. It seems that one of Paul's more ugly contemporary supporters, Don Black of the neo-Nazi outfit Stormfront, at that time a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, was indicted by US federal authorities in the plot, dubbed "Operation Red Dog." The scheme called for hiring mercenaries to overthrow then-Prime Minister Eugenia Charles and restore the previous prime minister, Patrick John—and then creating an Aryan paradise on the island, funded through casinos, cocaine and brothels. On the day the mercenary force was to set out for Dominica in a small ship on the Louisiana coast, they were busted by BATF agents—who found over thirty automatic weapons, shotguns, rifles, handguns, dynamite, a confederate flag and a Nazi flag. In a brief flurry of coverage, the media dubbed the plan the "Bayou of Pigs." Prosecutors tried to subpoena then-congressman Paul and ex-Texas governor John Connally after mercenary leader Mike Perdue said they were in on the plot. The request was turned down by a federal judge. David Duke—also now an outspoken Paul supporter (check out his website)—was called to testify before a grand jury, but took the Fifth Amendment.