Labor ministry inspectors from the Argentine national government and the Buenos Aires provincial government said they found 199 farm workers in conditions close to slavery during raids carried out at the end of December and the beginning of January on estates in the area of San Pedro, about 100 kilometers west of the national capital. The inspectors said 130 of the laborers, including some 30 children and adolescents, were producing for the Dutch-based multinational Nidera, and 69 were producing for the Argentine company Southern Seeds Production SA; the workers appear to have been subcontracted through temporary agencies.

Criticism of both the Haitian government and the international community continues to mount as the Jan. 12 anniversary of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake approaches. The quake killed as many as 250,000 people and destroyed much of Port-au-Prince and other cities in southern and western Haiti, leaving more than 1.5 million people homeless. One year later the majority of the displaced still live in improvised shelters without proper nutrition, sanitation or medical care.

On Jan. 6 United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon announced the names of the four experts who will serve on a panel to investigate the causes of the cholera epidemic that broke out in Haiti in mid-October. The panel will be headed by Dr Alejandro Craviolo, a Mexican who works with the International Center for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research in Bangladesh; the Peruvian Claudio Lanata, a researcher at the Nutritional Research Institute in Lima; US national Daniele Lantagne, who works at Harvard University; and Indian national Balakrish Nair, director of the National Institute of Cholera & Enteric Diseases in Kolkata (Calcutta).

As of Jan. 7 it was still unclear when or whether the second round of Haiti's controversial Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections would take place. A runoff was originally scheduled for Jan. 16 but has been postponed indefinitely as a result of charges that political groups, including the Unity party of President René Préval, compromised the voting through fraud. A 12-member technical team from the Organization of American States (OAS) was in Port-au-Prince analyzing the voting results and was expected to issue a report early in the week of Jan. 10 on the validity of the elections.

The right-wing chattering and blogging classes are squealing with unanimous denial that Jared Loughner was influenced by their recent effluence of ultra-bellicose thunder. Timothy P. Carney on the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog takes issue with Paul Krugman's sensible call in the New York Times ("Climate of Hate," Jan. 9) for partisans to refrain from "eliminationist rhetoric." Writes Carney:

As South Sudan voted in its independence referendum Jan. 9-10, more than 60 were killed in the disputed region of Abyei, in a series of clashes between a local police force made up of Ngok Dinka tribesmen and militias of the nomadic Misseriya tribe, said an official of the Abyei Referendum Forum (ARF). The casualties included about 40 Misseriya tribesmen and 24 Dinka civilians. (Xinhua, Jan. 11)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Jan. 10 for the release of opposition candidates, journalists and others detained in Belarus during the crackdown on protests following the Dec. 19 election. Police beat and arrested protesters and rounded up opposition candidates after the vote, which officially handed a fourth term to President Alexander Lukashenko. As of last week, some 200 of the estimated 650 detainees were still being held. (Reuters, Jan. 10)

The defense chiefs of South Korea and Japan met in Seoul Jan. 10, agreeing to work on two pacts aimed at boosting military cooperation. Seoul's defense minister Kim Kwan-jin and his Japanese counterpart Toshimi Kitazawa pledged to seek "future-oriented" military relations. The talks came after a recent high-profile visit to Seoul by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who called for greater cooperation with Tokyo and Washington in the wake of North Korea's Nov. 23 attack on a border island. Following his talks with South Korean brass last month, Mullen urged "much more trilateral cooperation" in response to security challenges from Pyongyang, and suggested unprecedented three-way military drills.