A Somali court on Feb. 5 sentenced a woman who accused Somali security forces of rape to a year in prison for insulting a government body and making false claims. The same court in Mogadishu also sentenced freelance reporter Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, who interviewed the woman in January, to a year in prison on the same charges. Both sentences have been criticized by human rights groups. Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the charges as "politically motivated" and "a mockery of the new Somali government's priorities."

As of Feb. 2 rescue workers had found the bodies of 34 people killed in an explosion the afternoon of Jan. 31 at the Mexico City headquarters of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the giant state-owned oil monopoly, according to government officials. At least 101 other people were injured in the massive blast, which damaged part of the B2 administrative building, next to the company's main building, a 52-story tower that dominates the city's skyline. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto declared three days of national mourning, which coincided with a long holiday weekend; the Constitution Day holiday falls on the first Monday of February.

Thousands of laid-off Mexico City electrical workers suffered a major setback on Jan. 30 when a panel of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) overturned a lower court decision supporting the workers' claim to jobs at the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Lawyers for the workers' union, the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), had argued that the workers were entitled to replacement jobs at the CFE because the decision by former president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-2012) in October 2009 to close down their employer--the Central Light and Power Company (LFC), which serviced the Mexico City metropolitan area—was unjustified. The federal government owned LFC before its closing, and the government continues to own and operate the CFE.

The government of the western Argentine province of San Juan released a report the week of Jan. 28 finding that two controversial mines owned by the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation have no "potential or actual environmental impact on glaciers or peri-glaciers in the areas" surrounding them. The Argentine branch of the environmental group Greenpeace had charged in July 2011 that Barrick's Pascua Lama and Veladero mines were damaging three small glaciers, in violation of a 2010 federal law meant to protect Andean glaciers. Barrick challenged the law, but the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice made a July 2012 ruling that left the law in effect for the time being.

The first opinion poll relating to this year's Nov. 10 general elections in Honduras, released on Jan. 29, showed Xiomara Castro, the presidential candidate of the newly formed center-left Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), slightly ahead with 25% of voter preferences. She was followed by National Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández, the candidate of the rightwing governing National Party (PN), with 23% and Mauricio Villeda of the center-right Liberal Party (PL) with 16%. The sampling, carried out by Cid Gallup firm Jan. 14-18 with responses from 1,256 likely voters, was published by the San Pedro Sula daily La Prensa.

Guatemalan civil organizations held a protest in Guatemala City on Jan. 29 as the opening of an international campaign to demand that the government of President Otto Pérez Molina provide land for 769 indigenous campesino families that were expelled from their fields in the Polochic Valley in the northeastern Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz in March 2011. The campaign—led by Intermón Oxfam, a Spanish group affiliated with the relief organization Oxfam International—is being carried out in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Spain.

Recent reports (LAT, Jan. 19) have militia forces of the Kurdish National Council battling jihadist rebels of the Nusra Front for control of villages along Syria’s northeast border with Turkey. The jihadists seem to be alarmingly well-armed, using tanks and artillery to attack Kurdish positions and civilian neighborhoods in Ras Ayn village. There is a growing sense that the Islamization of the rebels is solidifying an alliance between the secular-minded Kurds and the Damascus regime—with much fear about the role of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the separatist group in Turkey which is on the US Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

The Iranian Parliament on Feb. 3 voted 192-56 to impeach the country's labor minister, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, because he appointed an official who was implicated in the deaths of anti-government prisoners in 2010. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that this constituted an abuse of power by parliament speaker Ali Larijana. Larijana is the leader of the conservative party in the parliament, which has been in a power struggle against Ahmadinejad. Lawmakers sought to impeach Sheikholeslami after he appointed former chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi to the head of the Social Security Organization. Mortazavi had been suspended from his post as chief prosecutor in 2010 after a parliamentary inquiry found that he was responsible for the deaths of three prisoners who were arrested during anti-government protests after the country's disputed presidential election.