Baghdad on Tuesday 2 November went through its worst day of attacks in months, with suicide bombers striking several areas at the same time, killing scores of people (unconfirmed numbers vary from 20 to 80) and injuring many more (unconfirmed numbers vary from 150-300) several news agencies are reporting. There is confusion over the number of blasts, but fear of a revived insurgency appears to be growing among officials and media closely following Iraq since the US pulled out earlier in 2010. The east side of the city was under curfew as night fell, Iraqi government authorities say.

Updates from Guardian, AP/Washington Post, Reuters

Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, known as Mono Jojoy, has been killed in a military operation at his headquarters in central Colombia by Colombian military forces, it was announced 23 September. Suarez was the top military strategist in Colombia’s armed rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and one of the most influential commanders.

Government officials said that the killing was a severe blow to the FARC and predicted a wave of desertions. The killing is the last in a line of high-profile successes the government has scored against Latin America’s longest-running insurgency.

Links to other sites: Christian Science Monitor, El Tiempo (Spa), Xinhua

Update 17:00 Reports from Kabul say that the Electoral Complaints Commission has finalized its tally and, discarding fraudulent ballots, the new total vote for Afghan President Hamid Karzai gives him 48 percent, less than the 50 percent necessary to avoid a run-off. The new results have been communicated to the Independent Election Commission, which has not yet decided whether to accept them. Nor is it clear what the reaction will be in the president’s office. AP, New York Times

Pressure is mounting on Karzai to accept a run-off election between him and the runner-up in last August’s elections, or to agree to some sort of power-sharing deal. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has been holding talks with both sides, and John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was also in Kabul this past weekend, 17 and 18 October. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has been witholding the results of its investigation into massive electoral fraud, which may rob Karzai of his first-round victory. Karzai won with 54 percent of the vote.

A run-off election must be held within two weeks by law, but winter is closing in quickly in Afghanistan and would greatly hamper the logistics of a new election. The US administration is debating whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan to fight an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency. On Sunday, 18 October, a top aide to US President Obama said that the Afghan government needed to be “a credible partner” for the US to be able to deal with it. CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters