Mexican federal police on Dec. 28 announced the arrest at Mexico City’s international airport of Luis Rodríguez Olivera AKA "El Guero" (Blondie)—a narcotics kingpin who has collaborated with various of Mexico's warring cartels, and who was indicted in US federal court in 2009. U.S. authorities offered a reward of up to $5 million for Rodríguez Olivera, who with his brother Esteban (extradited to the US in March) is accused of smuggling tons of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States and Europe, mainly through Texas. In a statement, Mexican police said Rodríguez Olivera and his brothers led a gang called Los Gueritos (The Blondies) that formed temporary alliances with the Gulf Cartel and Zetas, but worked between 1996 and 2008 for the Sinaloa Cartel, the country's most powerful. He is being held until a hearing on a US extradition request. (BNO News, Dec. 29; AP, Reuters, Dec. 28)

It would certainly be an irony if the US "withdrawal" from Iraq (which really isn't, with hundreds of military advisors and thousands of private contractors staying behind, and the Pentagon set to augment its troop presence in the Gulf region) only wound up sparking a US military confrontation with Iran. There are growing signs of fear of Iranian power over Iraq, and of a backlash from Sunnis and secularists. On Dec. 27, three leading members of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya coalition had an op-ed in the New York Times, "How to Save Iraq From Civil War." The writers are Iraqiya leader and ex-prime minister Ayad Allawi (actually a Shi'ite but an ex-Baathist); parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi; and finance minister Rafe al-Essawi. They appeal to Washington to pressure Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to stop hoarding power in violation of power-sharing agreements, and are quick to play the Iran card. They charge: "Maliki is welcoming into the political process the Iranian-sponsored Shiite militia group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, whose leaders kidnapped and killed five American soldiers and murdered four British hostages in 2007."

It is a sad day indeed. The most prominent website on what is popularly (if not quite accurately) perceived as the political "left," Counterpunch, on Dec. 27 runs a piece by Dave Lindorff, "Why the Establishment is Terrified of Ron Paul," plugging the far-right populist as "Better Than Obama" (because he opposes the "War on Terror" and will stand up to the Israel Lobby, of course). All Lindorff can say about the ugly racism that repeatedly appeared under Paul's name in his own newsletter is, "The racist bit is funny. After all, if we're honest, the whole political infrastructure of the US is riven with racism." As if the institutionalized racism of the system lets an individual—much less one who is running for president!—off the hook for personal racism. The particular irony is that Paul getting a pass from his supporters for his serial racism is part of the institutionalized racism of the system! This is merely the disgraceful left-wing equivalent of the right cutting a pass for the blatant racism displayed on the Palin-McCain campaign trail in '08. And as the "alternative" media fall for right-wing populism and betray anti-racist principles, it is the dreaded "MSM" that ironically rise to the occasion. The same day Counterpunch ran Lindorff's apologia, the goddam New York Times ran an editorial that said exactly what needs to be said about Ron Paul:

The Jerusalem city council's district planning committee on Dec. 28 approved plans for a large tourism complex in the flashpoint neighborhood of Silwan, just south of the Old City. The project is to be built on a plot of land currently being used as a parking lot opposite the Dung Gate, main entrance to the Western Wall and the Old City's Jewish Quarter. It would be managed by Elad, a hardline settler organization, which runs the nearby archaeological site at David's City. Local Palestinian activists protested the move. "This project aims to promote settler tourism and religious tourism," said Fakhri Abu Diab, head of the Silwan Defense Committee, who said the city had confiscated local land for the project. "This complex will change the character of the area and will emphasize the idea that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people—because it is a political project too."

As of Dec. 22 the US government had sent the Argentine human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo a completely declassified copy of a 1982 US State Department memo discussing the abduction of the babies of alleged leftists during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The document undercuts any claims by former members of the ruling junta that the abductions were not systematic or that the military rulers were unaware of the crimes. The human rights group had asked the US for the memo so that it could be used in trials of former de facto president Gen. Reynaldo Bignone (1982-83) and others.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) has withdrawn a 2010 order for the Guatemalan government to suspend operations at the controversial Marlin gold mine, according to a Dec. 19 press release from the Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc. The action follows a petition by the Guatemalan government saying its monitors had determined that "no proof exists that there is any situation presenting a threat of serious or imminent harm to persons or that there is a probability that any damage will materialize, and therefore there does not exist a situation of extreme seriousness or urgency to avoid irreparable harm to persons as a result of operations at the Marlin mine." (Goldcorp, Dec. 19, via the Wall Street Journal's Market Watch)

Mexican environmental activists Eva Alarcón and Marcial Bautista were reportedly still alive as of Dec. 21, two weeks after their Dec. 7 kidnapping from a bus in the southwestern state of Guerrero. According to Francisco Saucedo—an adviser to their group, the Guerrero-based Organization of Ecologist Campesinos of the Sierra de Petatlán and Coyuca de Catalán (OCESP)—officials of the state government supplied the information during a meeting with Alarcón's daughter, Coral Rosas, and Bautista's daughter, Victoria Bautista, but said that giving out more information might cause problems.

After eight months of mobilizations, strikes and campus occupations, on Dec. 22 Chilean university and secondary students held their last protest of the 2011 school year, a march through the streets of downtown Santiago. As in previous demonstrations, there were clashes with the carabineros militarized police, who said the students didn't have a permit for the protest; some 10 youths were arrested. With an estimated 1,000 to 4,000 participants, the final mobilization was tiny in comparison with the hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and supporters that had marched in the months before.