From the Middle East Newsline, Jan. 8:

Morocco has reported another crackdown on Al Qaida. Officials said security forces have arrested Al Qaida operatives suspected of recruiting Muslims for the Sunni insurgency war in Iraq. They said the Al Qaida network contained scores, if not hundreds, of people, and operated in several major cities in the North African kingdom.

Unknown Somali fighters opened fire with automatic weapons and launched rockets at Ethiopian and allied Somalian troops in Mogadishu Jan. 9. The attack came as the troops had established themselves in a building formerly used by the police force. No casualties have yet been reported, but the gunfight lasted several minutes, and was the second attack targeting Ethiopian troops in Somalia's capital in the past three days. Somalia's Ethiopia-backed interim government has postponed plans to disarm the public for the moment, but pledges to carry them out—by force if necessary. (Garowe Online, Somalia, Jan. 9)

Another sign of Nigeria's social breakdown—and similar tensions are reported from Ghana. From Xinhua, Jan. 9:

Six persons were killed at the weekend in a bloody clash between herdsmen and farmers in Korenganuwa village in Nigeria's northwestern state of Zamfara, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported on Monday.

From the Arab American Community Coalition, Jan. 1:

The Arab American Community Coalition has just learned of an entire Palestinian family - the Ibrahims - being held in jail in Texas while waiting an unjustified deportation. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) grabbed the family of five in a Gestapo-like raid on November 3, 2006.

On Jan. 2, a California National Guard helicopter assisting the Border Patrol crashed in the mountains about 20 miles southeast of downtown San Diego. Two National Guard soldiers and three Border Patrol agents were hospitalized with neck and back injuries; another two Border Patrol agents and two Guard members survived the crash unhurt. On Jan. 3, officials grounded the remaining six Guard helicopters doing border duty, including one UH-1 Huey and five OH-58 observation craft. The chopper that crashed was a 1973 Huey transport helicopter; Col. Mitchell Medigovich, an aviation expert who is leading the California National Guard's investigation into the crash, said it was one of six Hueys left over from the Vietnam war era still flown by the state Guard. (AP, Jan. 3)

On Dec. 5, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of an immigrant deported for a first-time drug conviction in South Dakota. "Conduct that is a felony under state law but a misdemeanor under the Controlled Substances Act is not a felony for purposes of immigration," stated the majority opinion by Justice David Souter in the case, Lopez v. Gonzales, 05-7664. Jose Antonio Lopez became a lawful permanent resident in 1990; in 1997 he pled guilty to state charges of aiding and abetting possession of drugs for having told someone where to obtain cocaine. He served 15 months in prison for the crime, which is a felony in South Dakota but a misdemeanor under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Treating a misdemeanor under the federal law as a felony for deportation purposes "would be so much trickery," Souter wrote. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.

Swift & Co. said on Jan. 4 that a series of Dec. 12 immigration raids at its six of seven meatpacking plants nationwide are expected to cost the company $30 million. Swift, the nation's third-largest processor of fresh beef and pork, said it has hired hundreds of new workers to replace employees who were detained, incurring about $10 million in hiring incentives and worker-retention efforts. The company expects to lose $20 million more in lost operating efficiency as workers are trained. Swift is operating on all shifts but likely won't "return to a state of normalcy" until the end of this year, said Don Wiseman, the company's general counsel. "We might have the warm bodies back, but they do not represent the same efficiency and skill level we had on the morning of Dec. 12," he said. (Denver Post, Jan. 5) The nearly 1,300 workers arrested in the raids amounted to about 9% of the company's work force. Swift's two main rivals, Cargill and Tyson, ramped up their production after the raids. (Rocky Mountain News, Jan. 5)

More than a thousand peasants and fishermen marched in Campeche, in the Yucatan peninsula, Jan. 6 to protest the degradation of their lands and waters by the state oil company Pemex. Participants included members of the National Campesino Confederation, the Supreme Maya Council, the Council of Campesino Organizations, and other member groups of Campeche's newly-formed Frente Estatal de Organizaciones Campesinas y Pesqueras (State Front of Peasant and Fisherman Organizations). In its first statement, issued the day of the march, the State Front denounced the rural development policies of President Felipe Calderon and demanded restitution for damaged lands and waters. (La Jornada, Jan. 7 via Chiapas95)