A new assassination of a campesino leader is reported from the self-declared "peace community" of San José de Apartadó, in Colombia's conflicted northern Urabá region. On Dec. 17, Uber Velásquez was slain by unknown assailants in the vereda (hamlet) of La Balsa, one of those adhering to the "peace community" which for more than 20 years has refused all cooperation with armed actors in Colombia's conflict—and whose leaders have been repeatedly targeted for death. Velásquez had recently been involved in a citizen oversight committee monitoring a road improvement project in the area, and had reported delays that could point to corruption.

Rural communities in Colombia's northeastern Arauca department held anti-war protests amid inter-factional guerilla violence that has been terrorizing the region. Demanding attention from the government and international human rights organizations, some 1,200 marched in the hamlet of Puerto Jordan on Jan. 4, and another 500 in nearby Botalón, both in Tame municipality. Mayerly Briceño, an organizer of the protests in Tame, told El Espectador: "The state has no presence here, absolutely none; they only come here to protect the oil companies, to safeguard the petroleum. This is not about them coming to militarize... More zones are leaving behind fear and taking to the streets to demand peace. It is the only thing we can do as a people, to demand that peace comes to our territory." 

Kazakhstan's President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev on Jan. 5 called participants in the protests that have swept the Central Asian nation this week "terrorists," accusing them of attempting to undermine his government at the behest of foreign powers. He also issued a call for Russia and the other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to come to his country's defense.

Russian warplanes are reported to have carried out an air-raid on the main water pumping station for the city Idlib, capital of the besieged province of that name in Syria's north. Witnesses on the ground said Russian Sukhoi jets dropped bombs on the water plant as well as several towns outside the provincial capital on Jan. 2. UN humanitarian official Mark Cutts acknowledged the air-raid without naming the perpetrators, tweeting: "The country is already facing a water crisis & continued destruction of civilian infrastructure will only cause more suffering of civilians." Abu Hazem Idlibi, an official in the opposition administration of the city, said the plant is now out of operation, charging: "The Russians are focusing on infrastructure and economic assets. This is to add to the suffering of people."

Iraq's Ministry of Oil on Dec. 30 signed an $8 billion agreement with China's state-owned Hualu Engineering & Technology to oversee expansion of al-Faw Petrochemical Complex, allowing its refinery to process 300,000 barrels per day of crude. The expansion of al-Faw complex, along the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway in Basra governorate, is the largest yet undertaken in the Iraqi energy sector, and is seen as facilitating a new thrust of output by the country's oil industry. The deal is a "build-own-operate transfer" (BOOT), which means Hualu could gain effective control of the facility. Hualu is majority-controlled by the giant China National Chemical Engineering Company (CNCEC). (IraqiNews.com, MENAFN, Argus)

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In the latest escalation of its crackdown on opposition, Russia on Dec. 30 designated a disparate group of activists, satirists, and others as "foreign agents." A statement released by the Ministry of Justice listed the high-profile figures as designated "foreign agents," a controversial term with Cold War-era implications of espionage that carries burdensome reporting responsibilities and exposes designees to hefty fines. Among those named were Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Veronika Nikulshina of the activist group Pussy Riot.

Exercising a form of injunction reserved for exceptionally serious cases, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has instructed Russia to halt efforts to shutter Memorial International and its subsidiary organization, the Court announced Dec. 29. The move follows two high-profile decisions by Russian courts this week to dissolve respected non-governmental organizations that were created to shed light on the victims of historical and contemporary political repression in the country.