Assadullah Wafa, the new governor of Afghanistan’s restive Helmand province, vowed upon taking office Dec. 19 not to allow further peace deals like the one struck earlier this year between British NATO forces and tribal elders in Musa Qala district. "I am not pro-agreements such as in Musa Qala where there is no government control," Wafa said. The previous governor, Mohammad Daud, brokered the deal under which British forces and Taliban militants pulled out of the desert district following a request from war-weary residents. Daud, facing charges of tolerating Helmand's booming opium trade, was just pressured into resiging.

From The Independent, Dec. 15:

France yesterday defended recent fighter jet raids on towns bordering Sudan's Darfur region by claiming the aggressive action was aimed at preventing regional chaos.

The commanders of six small Mexican guerilla groups said in an interview published in the national daily La Jornada Dec. 15 that the message from the recent events in Oaxaca is that "any attempt to transform our society in a peaceful way is doomed to failure." But the commanders agreed that the "routes to social change [aren't] necessarily armed" and acknowledged the importance of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), the civil "Other Campaign" of the larger rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and the electoral struggle that formed around center-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who officially lost the July 2 presidential election.

From El Universal, Dec. 18:

Over 2,000 women marched through Oaxaca City on Sunday calling for Gov. Ulises Ruiz's ouster and the immediate release of the more than 200 members of the Oaxaca People's Assembly (APPO) detained since the street battles on Nov. 25.

Our December issue featured the story (reprinted from our sibling publication Toward Freedom) "Nuclear-Free Central Asia: A Model for the Korean Peninsula?" by Rene Wadlow. It noted a real glimmer of hope in the terrifyingly bleak world situation: the repudiation of the logic of nuclear proliferation by the governments of a highly restive and militarized part of the planet. The Central Asian nuclear-free zone is bad news for the nuclear ambitions of super-powers (which seek to station atomic weapons in the region), as well as "rogue states" (which seek accomplices in their efforts to build atomic weapons) and terrorists (always happy to have more atomic weapons infrastructure to raid or pirate, especially in unstable regions). It is good news for the rest of us—the overwhelming majority of humanity. We can only hope that the two Koreas follow the Central Asian example.

From Nunatsiaq News, principal newspaper of Nunavut, the autonomous territory of the Inuit people in Canada's far north (links added):

The effort to link climate change with human rights has suffered a setback. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights won’t consider a petition that alleges that the United States government is violating the human rights of Inuit by refusing to limit its greenhouse gas emissions.

Mexico's new (and still-contested) President Felipe Calderon, touring Chiapas on Dec. 14, announced new steps to beef up border control and fight organized crime, drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Accompanied by Public Security Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna and Chiapas Gov. Juan Sabines, Calderon spoke before a gathering in the town of Tuxtla Chico on the Guatemalan border. "Along with overcoming poverty and creating jobs, I'm convinced that the government has the obligation and the ability to achieve a secure border while guaranteeing human rights for everybody," said Calderon. "I see no contradiction in that." Specific measures will include the creation of a new border security force consisting of state and federal enforcement officers, and a guest worker program that will grant temporary visas to Guatemalan agricultural workers. Calderon also indicated that the federal government will crack down on Central Americans living illegally in Chiapas. "Beginning next month, a program will be put into operation that will review the migratory status of those who are already in the zone," he said. (El Universal, Dec. 15)

John Mohawk, a leading scholar and spokesman for the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), died at his home in Buffalo, NY, on Dec. 12. Mohawk was an international voice for the soveriegn and territorial rights of the Iroquois Confederacy, a functioning system of government that predates the founding of the United States by some 600 years, and for the cultural survival of indigenous peoples worldwide.