Last year's Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip has left a high concentration of toxic metals in the soil, according to a study by the New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC), an Italy-based group of academics, physicians and researchers. Those metals can cause tumurs and problems with fertility, and can have serious effects on newly born babies, including deformities and genetic pathologies. The metals are in particular tungsten, mercury, molybdenum, cadmium and cobalt.

The suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives and one Jordanian intelligence official in Afghanistan last week sheds light on secretive partnerships the US has forged in its shadow war against al-Qaeda. Jordan has evidently been involved in supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, despite the unpopularity of both wars among Arabs. The death of Jordanian Army Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, a distant relative of Jordan's King Abdullah II, alongside CIA operatives—and the fact that the attacker was apparently Jordanian double agent—has brought at elements of this partnership into the open. The suspected bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was a Jordanian informant who CIA and Jordanian intelligence officials hoped would lead them to al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The blast was the worst loss of life for the CIA since the Beirut embassy bombing of 1983. (CSM, Jan. 6)

Four Christian churches in Malaysia were attacked Jan. 8 amid tensions over the use of the word "Allah" by non-Muslims in the country. Attackers threw a molotov cocktail at a church in Selangor state, although it failed to ignite. Hours earlier, a petrol bomb was thrown at a church in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, as attackers attempted to set another two ablaze in a nearby suburb. The attacks come amid protests over last week's court ruling that overturned a ban on non-Muslims using the word "Allah" in their literature—allowing a Catholic newsletter to use the term to refer to God in the Malay language.

UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Philip Alston on Jan. 8 urged an investigation into possible Sri Lankan war crimes after authenticating a video of captive members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) being executed by members of Sri Lanka's military. Alston said that an investigation by experts in forensic pathology, forensic video analysis, and firearm evidence concluded that the video was authentic.

US authorities on Jan. 7 announced charges against two former employees of security firm Blackwater in connection with the May 5 shooting death of two Afghans in Kabul. Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff each face 13 counts under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), including two counts of second-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and discharging a firearm during a violent crime, for which they could receive life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. The men are accused of shooting three men, reportedly during a traffic incident, while working for Blackwater subsidiary Paravant LLC, under contract with the US Department of Defense to provide weapons training to the Afghan National Army. (Jurist, Jan. 8)

Honduran Prosecutor General Luis Alberto Rubi on Jan. 6 filed charges against six military chiefs in connection with the ouster of president Manuel Zelaya in June. The prosecutor general's office filed abuse of power charges before the Honduran Supreme Court against armed forces commander Romeo Vásquez Velásquez (a School of the Americas graduate), air force commander Luis Javier Prince (also an SOA graduate), army commander Miguel Ángel García, naval commander Juan Pablo Rodríguez, high command sub-chief Venancio Cervantes, and brigade general Carlos Antonio Cuéllar. According to the charges, the six violated the Honduran constitution when they seized Zelaya and put him on a plane to Costa Rica because the charter prohibits the forcible removal of a citizen. The court has three days to decide whether to take up the case.

In the early hours of Jan. 6, unknown assailants carried out an arson attack against the Garifuna-language community radio station Faluma Bimetu (also known as Radio Coco Dulce) at Triunfo de la Cruz in Tela municipality on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. The blaze gutted the studio and destroyed equipment. The international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said the attack "confirms the persistent danger" to independent media under the Honduran de facto authorities, and that investigating the case will be a "test" for the new government that is to take power on Jan. 27.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Jan. 7 proposed stricter smog standards that would replace the Bush administration's broader 2008 national smog regulations, complying with scientific recommendations. The new smog restrictions would reduce the amount of smog emissions to between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million (ppm) from the previous 0.075 ppm. The EPA estimates that these changes will help reduce the effects of climate change and improve public health, saving the US between $13 billion and $100 billion in health care costs.