Enrique Portocarrero, dubbed "Captain Nemo" in Colombia, is accused of building up to 20 fiberglass submarines for narco-traffickers to haul cocaine to Central America and Mexico. Following a three-year investigation involving US and British intelligence, Colombia's Department of Administrative Security (DAS) arrested Portocarrero last month in the port city of Buenaventura (Norte del Valle department), where he apparently led a double life as a shrimp fisherman. A raid on Portocarrero's hidden "shipyard" in a mangrove swamp down the Pacific coast near Tumaco (Nariño department) turned up two of the vessels, each capable of carrying eight tons. (LAT, Dec. 14)

Militants used patrol bombs to torch 25 supply trucks and oil containers for Afghanistan-based coalition forces near Peshawar, Pakistan early Dec. 13. It marked the fifth attack on a Peshawar area freight terminal within ten days, bringing the number of destroyed containers and oil tankers to around 325. (Xinhua, Dec. 13) The following day, three police officers were killed and 12 others wounded in a bomb blast in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the latest in a fast-escalating wave of attacks. (Reuters, Dec. 14)

Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the anti-immigrant Northern League met with protests after proposing a moratorium on the building of mosques in the wake of arrests on Dec. 2 of two Moroccans suspected of plotting terrorist attacks—one of whom was a preacher at an "unofficial" Milan mosque. The left-wing opposition and Italian Muslim leaders criticized the proposed legislation, which would halt the building of mosques without state oversight. A high-ranking Vatican official, Msgr. Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said he was in favor of allowing new mosques provided the state could ensure they would be used for religious purposes.

Greek protesters Dec. 13 attacked a police station and ministry building as well as shops and banks in Athens with petrol bombs in an eighth day of protests following the killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police. Several hundred protesters set up burning barricades and attacked police with rocks and flares. The Exarchia district, where the police station was fire-bombed, and the area around Athens Polytechnic University remained the centers of street-fighting. Hundreds of stores have been smashed and looted, and more than 200 people have been arrested in the unrest so far.

The Indian navy announced Dec. 13 it had captured 23 Somali and Yemeni pirates while coming to the defense of an Ethiopian-flagged merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden. Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking before a Bahrain conference sponsored by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, called for international action against the pirates.

Samir Adil, president of the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), was among those wounded in a Dec. 11 suicide attack on a reconciliation meeting in the divided northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. His wounds are not life-threatening, the IFC reports via e-mail. The IFC has been working across ethnic divides in Kirkuk to unite local communities against the US occupation and sectarian militias.

Calling continued payments "immoral" and "illegitimate," Ecuador's President Rafael Correa followed through on pledges to default on the country's foreign debt Dec. 12, announcing his government will not make a $31 million payment due in two days on the 2012 Global Bonds series. This is Ecuador's second debt default in a decade. Ecuador's external debt totals $3.8 billion. The default comes after a national audit commission identified numerous irregularities in Ecuador's debt and recommended suspension of payments. Oil accounting for 60% of Ecuador's exports, and the recent slide in prices—from $147 a barrel to $45—has hit the country's finances hard. Win Thin, senior currency analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, called the announcement "disappointing and a bit surprising." (EFE, MarketWatch, Dec. 12)

Colombia extradited top kingpin "Don" Diego Montoya, 47, to the US Dec. 12, where he faces charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and murder. Officials say he exported tons of cocaine and was responsible for killing at least 1,500 people in a two-decade career. With a $5 million US price on his head, Montoya was captured by the Colombian army at a finca in Zarzal, Norte del Valle department, in September 2007. Transfered to Bogotá by helicopter from his prison cell in Cómbita, Boyacá, Montoya was flown to Miami in a DEA plane. National Police chief Gen. Óscar Naranjo said the extradition "closes the chapter of the government's offensive to dismantle the Norte del Valle cartel." (El Tiempo, Bogotá; NYT, Dec. 12)