Shell Oil and Malaysia's state-run Petronas finalized a contract Jan. 17 to develop Iraq's giant Majnoon oil field. In December, Shell and Petronas beat a rival bid from France's Total and China's CNPC to develop the 12.6 billion barrel field in southern Iraq. The field currently produces just 46,000 barrels per day. Shell and Petronas have pledged to increase that output to 1.8 million bpd. (BBC News, Jan. 17)

Mexico's National Defense Secretariat announced the mobilization of 860 army troops to Tijuana in anticipation of reprisals following the capture of Tijuana Cartel kingpin Teodoro García Simental AKA "El Teo". Baja California state officials say 76 people have been killed in the city so far this year. The toll for 2009 was over 700 murders.

The body of abducted Mexican journalist José Luis Romero was found on a roadside in Sinaloa Jan. 16. State authorities said he had been dead for two weeks. Romero, abducted Dec. 30 while vacationing in Los Mochis, covered police and crime issues for the radio station Línea Directa de Sinaloa, which said he was kidnapped "for carrying out his work."

The Chinese news agency Xinhua, citing "local media," reports Jan. 16 that the Honduran congress approved a decree to grant amnesty to de facto president Roberto Micheletti and others involved in last June's military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya. However, actual local media (Radio Progreso, Jan. 15; El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa, Jan. 12) report that the National Congress voted Jan. 12 to put the issue off until a new congress convenes after president-elect Porfirio Lobo Sosa takes power later this month.

Chinese lawyers and US-based rights group ChinaAid Jan. 15 called on Beijing police to conduct a search for missing Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Police reported the previous day that Gao, who has been in police custody since last February, went missing in September. Gao's brother, Gao Zhiyi, said he was told that police believe his brother "got lost and went missing while out on a walk"—from a high-security prison. Rights groups suspect Gao died while under torture.

The US Department of Justice announced Jan. 14 that four men have been charged in connection with the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and an attempted attack on Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper in the ongoing cartoon backlash. The superseding indictment reiterates the 12 charges against Chicago resident and US citizen David Coleman Headley filed last month and adds three defendants.

US Department of Defense officials Jan. 15 released the names of prisoners held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, in response to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) last year. The list, containing the names of 645 prisoners, several of whose last names were listed as unknown, was heavily redacted, omitting some requested information about the prisoners, such as citizenship, date of capture, and circumstances of capture. US law allows withholding of information in compliance with an executive order or because requested information details the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.

A group of prominent Muslim clerics warned Jan. 14 they will call for jihad, or holy war, if the US sends troops to fight al-Qaeda in Yemen. The group of 15 clergymen includes the highly influential Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who is deemed a spiritual mentor of Osama bin Laden by the US but who is courted by the Yemeni government for his important backing. "If any foreign country insists on aggression and the invasion of the country or interference, in a military or security way, Muslim sons are duty bound to carry out jihad and fight the aggressors," the clerics said in a statement.