A deliberate strategy by Colombia's former intelligence agency to undermine NGOs and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been revealed in secret documents. According to files discovered by Radio Caracol, the 2004 strategy by the Department of Administrative Security (DAS), dubbed "Operation Internet," aimed to generate controversy through the creation of fake NGOs that released targeted information online. The strategy reported directly to the president, at that time Alvaro Uribe, and was taxpayer-funded. Rafael Nieto Loaiza, who had recently left his post as vice-minister of the Interior, and José Miguel Narvaez, DAS vice-director, are listed as "direct support centers" for the operation.

After an all-night overtime session, negotiators at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) climate summit in Durban on the morning of Dec. 11 issued a formal agreement to work towards a new legally-binding treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions and applying to all 194 member governments of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The "Durban Platform for Enhanced Action" pledges a new "agreed outcome with legal force" to be negotiated by 2015 and to take effect by 2020. In principle, the treaty is to ensure that Framework Convention member states take measures to meet the goal agreed to at last year's climate conference of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

The website Algeria ISP reports (citing unnamed "Arab" sources) Dec. 11 that the US and France have jointly established a secret drone base in the Libyan desert, near the area of Katroune. Craft from the secret base are allegedly flying missions to Niger, Mali and Mauritania, with the ostensible objective of seeking out Saharan arms trafficking networks of al-Qeada in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algeria has reportedly refused to allow the drones to fly through its territory.

Peru's Prime Minister Salomón Lerner resigned Dec. 10 after less than five months in the post—immediately after his failed attempts to negotiate an end to protests that have blocked the $4.8 billion Conga gold mining project in Cajamarca region. His resignation letter, posted online by the newspaper La Republica, does not make direct reference to the conflict but suggests Lerner was unhappy with the government's handling of it. The letter states that "our direct mandate has been dialogue and the seeking of consensus to avoid confrontation between Peruvians." But it charges that this aim "requires an adjustment of the general conduct of the government."

El Salvador's Foreign Minister Hugo Martínez held a ceremony at El Mozote village to ask survivors' forgiveness for the "blindness of state violence" on Dec. 10, anniversary of the 1981 massacre there. "This event seeks to honour the memory of hundreds of innocent people who were murdered 30 years ago here in El Mozote and in nearby towns," said Martínez. El Salvador is today governed by the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the former guerilla movement that won the country's election in 2009. (BBC News, Dec. 10)

Human rights organizations in El Salvador noted the anniversary of the 1981 massacre at El Mozote, decrying continued impunity after 30 years. Between Dec. 11 and 13 of that year, at least 966 unarmed men, women and children were killed at the village in Morazán department after it was occupied by a special US-trained counter-insurgency unit of the Salvadoran army, the Atlacatl Battalion. Said a statement by the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL): "On the 30th anniversary of the events, the surviving victims continue to assert their rights to truth, justice and reparation. Nonetheless, none of the persons responsible for perpetrating the massacre have been tried for these acts to date."

The Dutch government on Dec. 9 formally apologized for a massacre at the village of Rawagede, in West Java, 64 years ago that day. Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Tjeerd de Zwaan presided over a tearful ceremony at the now renamed village of Balongsari. The Dutch apology in the 1947 massacre of at least 150 boys and men at the village comes after a long legal battle by survivors and widows. Survivors and their advocates say the actual death toll was closer to 400. "Today, we remember your family members who died 64 years ago at the hands of the Dutch military troops," de Zwaan said at the ceremony. "On behalf of Dutch government, I deeply apologize for the tragedy."

At least four Palestinians are dead in new Israeli air-strikes on the Gaza Strip over the past two days. The first strikes came on Dec. 8, targeting cars carrying presumed operatives of Hamas' armed wing and Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, both of whom were killed. Militants responded with a barrage of rockets, some of which landed near Beersheba. No one was hurt in the rocket attacks, but aiir-raid sirens summoned residents of southern Israel to shelters. Another Israeli air-strike followed before dawn on Dec. 9, hitting a Hamas target in Gaza City. The blast flattened a nearby home, killing its owner; the man's 12-year-old son was pronounced dead hours later. The man's wife and five other children were wounded, hospital officials said. (Ma'an News Agency, Dec. 9)