The senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), says he has information the suspect in the apparent thwarted Christmas Day terrorism attempt may have had contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based radical imam with ties to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings. The incident on Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit "definitely appears to be al-Qaeda-related," King said. "This was not a firecracker. This was for real." (Bloomberg, Dec. 26)

The Guantánamo Bay military prison may have to remain open until 2011 to allow an Illinois prison time to prepare for the arrival of the detainees, according to Dec. 23 AP reports. A spokesperson for Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the government's plan to purchase the Thomson Correctional Center and refit it will take months to complete, rendering President Barack Obama's original promise to close the Guantánamo detention facility by January 22, 2010, impossible.

Chinese rights activist Liu Xiabo was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Dec. 25 on subversion charges. Liu was tried two days earlier in a trial that lasted only two hours and was closed to foreign diplomats. The trial was called "a travesty of justice" by international rights groups in including Human Rights Watch, which said before the trial that although "Liu's crimes are non-existent ... his fate has been pre-determined." It is unclear whether Liu's legal team will appeal the sentence.

Three bomb blasts in Iraq killed more than 30 people and injured 75 others as the Shi'ite Ashura ceremonies opened Dec. 24. Double explosions struck near a bus station in Hilla, Babil province, killing 14 police and a provincal councillor. Another blast came about 15 minutes later when police arrived. Authorities said the attacks targeted Shi'ite pilgrims who gathered near the bus station. In Baghdad's Sadr City, a bomb planted near a funeral tent killed eight people and wounded another 33. In the Shi'ite sacred city of Karbala, where pilgrims were converging for Ashura ceremonies culminating, another bomb killed one and wounded 12.

Kyrgyzstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a sixth-floor window in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Dec. 16, died in the hospital Dec. 22. The editor of the online version of the opposition journal Bely Parus was apparently thrown from the window, his hands and feet bound. The attack, this time in a neighboring country, is the third in a week against Kyrgyzstan journalists of Russian origin. Political analyst Alexander Knyazev was attacked in the capital Bishkek on Dec. 9 and the correspondent for the news agency BaltInfo, Alexander Evgrafov, was struck and threatened by uniformed police on Dec. 15. (RSF, Dec. 22)

The governor of the southern Colombian department of Caquetá, Luis Francisco Cuellar Carvajal, was found murdered in the rural part of his department Dec. 22. The FARC guerillas had reportedly had kidnapped him the day before. The body was found by security forces taking part in the search for the governor. Troops were not able to immediately recover the body as it was found in the middle of a mine field, presumably planted by the guerillas to exact further casualties.

After two days of talks in Caracas, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation signed a deal to help develop the Boyaca 3 bloc in the Orinoco belt—part of Venezuela's effort to boost oil sales to China to 1 million barrels per day from the current 400,000 bpd. Under President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has tried to reduce oil exports to the US and sought new markets. The US remains the main destination for Venezuela oil, with sales averaging around 1 million bpd.

The funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri Dec. 21 saw hundreds of thousands of mourners take to the streets in Qom, despite harassment and attacks from the Basij militia. Some 2,000 government supporters also attacked Montazeri's commemoration ceremony at Azam Mosque. To avoid any harm coming to mourners, the family has cancelled the customary third day commemoration events. Afterwards, Basij forces in plainclothes swarmed Montazeri's residence, breaking windows and tearing his pictures and the black mourning banners that had been placed there. They also attacked the nearby home of Montazeri's son. Pro-government forces have pledged to mobilize a counter-demonstration against the mourners in Qom.