Well, we hate to say "We told you so," but... We told you so. We've been told for the past several years now that the depressed oil prices were permanent, that thanks to fracking and the surge in US domestic production, the price was now immune to Middle East instability, dramatic spikes and "oil shocks" forever banished. Well, futures for Brent crude just hit $63.37 per barrel, with the spot price for West Texas Intermediate at $57.34. (Panorama.am, Investing.com) Creeping toward the $100 per barrel we were so recently assured was a thing of the past. OilPrice.com blames Trump's announcement that the US will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which has of course unleashed unrest in the Palestinian territories and instability fears across the Middle East. But the jump really began almost exactly a month ago, seemingly prompted by the leadership purge in Saudi Arabia. That brought the Brent crude price up to $62, its highest level since July 2015. (The Guardian, Nov. 6)

An estimated 5,000 Tzotzil Maya peasants have been forced to flee their homes in the municipality of Chalchihuitán, in Mexico's southern Chiapas state, facing threats by armed men in a land dispute with the neighboring municipality of Chenalhó. The displaced, living in improvised camps since their homes were attacked in October, only started to receieve aid this week, as Chenalhó residents blocked all three roads to the community. Army vehicles started delivering aid Dec. 12 after one blockade was relaxed, but on condition that only humanitarian aid be allowed through. The army and state and federal police have established a Mixed Operations Base in the area. The local Catholic diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas said that an "atmosphere of terror" prevails in the area, and warned of a repeat of the 1997 Acteal massacre, when 45 were killed by paramilitary gunmen in a hamlet of Chenalhó.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein on Dec. 5 said that Mexico's proposed security legislation will not assist its armed forces in combating the war on drugs, but will contribute to the atmosphere of impunity in the country. The Law on Internal Security (PDF) was approved by the Chamber of Deputies last month. The law would would under certain circumstances allow place police officers to be placed under the command of the armed forces. Despite pressure from rights groups, the law would not place restrictions on the power of the armed forces to regulate themselves, which has led to widespread rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances.

An Argentine judicial panel on Nov. 28 sentenced (PDF) 29 former officials to life in prison, and 19 to between 8-25 years, for murder and torture during the military junta's 1976-1983 "Dirty War." The sentencing concluded a five-year trial and represented Argentina's largest verdict to date for crimes against humanity. Collectively, the 48 defendants were charged with the deaths of 789 victims. The prosecution called more than 800 witnesses to make their case. Additionally, the court acquitted six former officials.

Argentine Judge Carlos Bonadio ordered (PDF) the arrest of current senator and former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner on Dec. 7 for her possible involvement in a cover-up of Iran's participation in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center that left 85 people dead. Kirchner served as president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015 before being elected senator. During that time, Kirchner is alleged to have signed a deal with the Iranian government that would allow for Argentine magistrates to interview the officials suspected of ordering the attack in Tehran rather than in Buenos Aires, in an attempt to impede the investigation. For this, Kirchner faces a charge of treason. The crime of treason is punishable by 10 to 25 years in prison in Argentina.

We've already noted the unseemly gloating over the chaos in Libya from many who opposed the NATO intervention of 2011. For them, the factional warfare and endemic lawlessness is only an opportunity for schadenfreude—taking glee in the misfortune of others. They were uninterested in loaning support to (or even recognizing the existence of) progressive elements during the Libyan revolution, and they continue to be thusly uninterested today. The Libyan human rights groups that are documenting war crimes by the profusion of militias and foreign powers, the women and ethnic minorities fighting for their rights—all safely invisible to stateside commentators of the left, right and center. For the schadenfreude crew, the Libyans are not actors in their own drama, but pawns to be exploited for propaganda against Obama and Hillary Clinton (tellingly hated by left and right alike). That many of these commentators consider themselves anti-imperialist is high irony, as they have completely internalized the imperial narcissism that makes the Libyans and their struggles and aspirations completely invisible, and turns them into objects for use in political contests within the imperial metropole. Perversely, this attitude even extends to the chilling emergence of a slave trade in abducted Black African migrants in Libya's remote desert south...

Palestinian activists burned pictures of Donald Trump in Bethlehem in response to his Dec. 6 announcement that his administration will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He stated with typical bluster: "While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering." But this time the braggadocio was wedded to a nearly hallucinatory chutzpah: "I've judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America and the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians." (Palestine News Network, The Guardian) Of course precisely the opposite is true.

Just a few weeks after the Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte won rare favorable headlines by pledging to pull the National Police out of his ultra-deadly "war on drugs," he is already backpeddaling and threatening to send them back in—as cynics had predicted. Duterte made his threat Nov. 18 in a speech at a business event in his hometown Davao City (where he first honed his death-squad tactics when he served there as mayor). "The drug problem, if it becomes worse again, the police has to enter the picture," he said in his typically crude syntax. "I want it eradicated if possible."