Despite a democratic opening and hopes for peace with the ethnic insurgencies in the northern hinterlands, horrific accounts of rights abuses continue to emerge from the multi-sided war over Burma's opium production. According to reports from village leaders, Burmese army troops on Jan. 19 tortured, raped and killed two young volunteer teachers. The women were both Kachin and Christians, so may have been targeted for ethnicity or religion. The attacks came when the village of Shabuk-Kaunghka, in Shan state's Mungbaw township, was occupied by a Light Infantry battalion that entered the area following clashes with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). New fighting erupted after three police officers and a local highway administrator were detained by the KIA while carrying out a road inspection in the area. They were released after mediation, but clashes continue.

Adel Abdel Bary, a member of al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) was sentenced to 25 years in prison Feb. 6 by Us District Judge Lewis Kaplan. The Egyptian national pleaded guilty last September to threatening to kill, injure, intimidate, and damage and destroy property by means of an explosive; conspiracy to make the threat; and conspiring to kill US nationals. The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said that Bary "facilitated communications" for al-Qaeda leaders, including claims of responsibility and threats for the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people. The 25-year sentence was the maximum allowed under his plea agreement, and Bary will likely serve about eight more years to complete his sentence, as he has been incarcerated since 1999. Along with prison time, Bary was also sentenced to pay over $7.5 million dollars in restitution to victims' families, and over $26.3 million in restitution to the US. Khalid al-Fawwaz, one of Bary's co-defendants, is currently still on trial.

The new ISIS propaganda video showing the immolation of a captive Jordanian pilot is very professionally done, its special creepy quality coming from the mix of slick production and utterly barbaric content. Before the big climax, we are shown several images of mangled children, purported to be victims of bombardment by the US-led coalition. Each image is engulfed by photo-shopped flames, symbolizing the explosions that left them dead or maimed. Then the eerily ritualistic finale, in which the pilot stands erect in an orange jump-suit, inside a metal cage in a bombed-out site, surrounded by an impassive phalanx of masked thugs with machine-guns. One thug approaches with a torch, and it becomes clear the captive has been drenched with gasoline. His body is quickly engulfed by real flame, and the camera lovingly details his agonizing death. The implication is that this is just retribution for the lives claimed by the air-strikes. Fox News is one of the few media outlets to display the full video (with the warning: "EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO"). Fox only wants to make the point that ISIS is a barbaric enemy (as if we didn't know), but there are other points to be made here too...

Hundreds of Achuar indigenous protesters occupied 16 wells at Peru's biggest oil bloc Jan. 27, halting production to demand better compensation for use of native lands by Argentine firm Pluspetrol. Lot 1-AB, in Loreto region, includes 117 wells and produces some 15,000 barrels per day, nearly a quarter of Peru's output. Pluspetrol has operated the bloc since 2001, and has faced repeated protests from the local Achuar communities of Pampa Hermosa and Nuevo Jerusalen over contamination of lands and waters. The 16 wells and a Pluspetrol base camp at the community of Jibarito remain under occupation. On Feb. 4, the protesters said they would seize more wells if the company does not come to the dialogue table. "They have taken their measures of protest and are waiting for dialogue to resolve this as soon as possible," said Carlos Sandi of the Federation of Native Communities of Corrientes (FECONACO). He said demands include better compensation for the use of their lands, and installation of an industrial sawmill promised by the company. They also want a community-run company to provide services for the oil bloc. Pluspetrol says it has already paid nine communities, and the Achuar settlements are outside the bloc's area of influence.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met in Cartagena Feb. 2 with women victims of violence at a forum overseen by two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi—an event linked to the ongoing peace process in the country. (El Tiempo, Feb. 2) Williams, who won the prize in 1997 for her work against land-mines,  took the opportunity to weigh in on the future of FARC guerilas, a contentious issue as peace talks with rebel leaders resume in Havana. "It is complete craziness [locura completa] to think that they are all going to go to prison," Williams said, adding wryly: "They can put all the combatants—FARC, paramilitaries, militaries and narco-traffickers—in prison, but who's going to be left to walk the streets in Colombia?" (AFP, Feb. 1)

In another case of Colombian villagers staging a local uprising in response to militarization of their communities, on the night of Jan. 18 residents of La Emboscada hamlet at Argelia municipality, Cauca, detained 36 army troops for several hours. The rebellion was sparked by the death of a local resident who was shot when he tried to run an army checkpoint on his motorbike. Troops of the 56th Infantry Battalion were immediately surrounded by angry villagers, disarmed, and marched off to the Argelia cabacera (municipal building). Village authorities finally released the soliders after the government agreed to send a team to mediate. Colombia's official human rights ombudman, the Defensoría del Pueblo, is backing up villagers' demands that civilian rather than military authorities conduct the investigation into the killing. The army claims the slain man was carrying 25 pounds of coca paste. (ColPrensa, ColPrensa, Semana, Bogotá, El Heraldo, Barranquilla, Jan. 19)

Panamanian officials and leaders of the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group were scheduled to meet on Feb. 2 to discuss the controversial Barro Blanco hydroelectric project, which is being built on the Tabasará river in the western province of Chiriquí. Ngöbe-Buglé representatives are calling for the cancellation of the dam and say there will be forceful actions if the government doesn't agree to their demand by Feb. 15. President Juan Carlos Varela has named a committee to represent the government in the talks; it is headed by Vice President Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, who is also the foreign relations minister, and includes security minister Rodolfo Aguilera, governance minister Milton Henríquez, labor minister Luis Ernesto Carles and environmental minister Mirei Endara. Some members of the committee held a preliminary meeting with indigenous leaders on Jan. 29, and the government's technical commission was studying the area around the dam on Jan. 31.

Retired Chilean army colonel Pedro Espinoza and former Chilean air force intelligence agent Rafael González Berdugo have been convicted in the murder of US journalist Charles Horman and US graduate student Frank Teruggi during the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew leftist president Salvador Allende Gossens. Judge Jorge Zepeda sentenced Espinoza—formerly an officer in the now-defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) who has been described as the right-hand man of DINA head Manuel Contreras—to seven years in prison for the two murders. González Berdugo was sentenced to two years of police surveillance as an accomplice in Harmon's murder. Judge Zepeda ruled in the case on Jan. 9 but the decision wasn't announced until Jan. 28. Last summer the judge officially ruled that "US military intelligence services played a fundamental role in the murders" by supplying information to the Chilean military. (El Ciudadano, Chile, Jan. 31)