On Oct. 24, Colombian army troops opened fire on community leader Lever Castrillon Sarmiento and his eight-year-old son as the two were fishing near the village of Norosi, Rio Viejo municipality, in Bolivar department. The group of 40 soldiers from the Nueva Granada Battalion of the army's Fifth Brigade were seeking to ambush a guerrilla column, and apparently mistook Castrillon and his son for rebels. Castrillon was killed by a bullet to the chest, while his son was treated in a local hospital for a bullet wound in the knee and was declared out of danger. The local attorney general's office in Rio Viejo has opened an investigation into the incident. (Vanguardia Liberal, Bucaramanga; El Tiempo, Bogota, Oct. 26)

On Nov. 21, US District Judge Thomas Hogan in Washington declared a mistrial in the terrorism and hostage-taking trial of Juvenal Ricardo Ovidio Palmera Pineda, a high-level leader and former negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), better known by his nom de guerre, Simon Trinidad. Palmera was arrested in Ecuador on Jan. 2, 2004, and extradited from Colombia to the US on Dec. 31, 2004.

From BBC, Nov. 23:

Drivers who get stopped by the police could have their fingerprints taken at the roadside, under a new plan to help officers check people's identities.

From AP, Nov. 25:

MEXICO CITY: A violent Mexican drug gang took out a rare, half-page ad in newspapers in which they claimed to be anti-crime vigilantes who wanted to stop kidnapping, robbery and the sale of methamphetamine in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.

General Federation of Trade Unions-Iraq (GFTU-Iraq) Statement on the Merger with the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI):

GFTU-Iraq's first convention was centered on the following statement: "The unity of the working class is the path to salvage the Iraqi society from occupation and civil war."

Between Nov. 14 and Nov. 17, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "Fugitive Operations Units" arrested 70 immigrants in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Manhattan. Of the total, 27 had been ordered removed by an immigration judge and 43 were simply present in the US without immigration status. ICE described those arrested as including "criminal and non-criminal aliens," but declined to say how many of them had been accused or convicted of crimes. The arrested immigrants are from Albania, Algeria, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Panama, Pakistan, Poland, Sierra Leone, Trinidad, Uzbekistan and Yugoslavia. All were transported to detention facilities in New Jersey and placed in removal proceedings. ICE announced the arrests on Nov. 17 as part of a national initiative dubbed "Operation Return to Sender." (ICE news release, Nov. 17)

A civil jury ruled Nov. 22 that rancher and vigilante Roger Barnett must pay $98,000 in damages to a Mexican-American family that he illegally held and threatened at gunpoint. The family were legal residents hunting on lands near his ranch, but Barnett apparently assumed they were "illegals" coming across the border (Douglas Dispatch, Nov. 24)

General Addeh Museh, president of Puntland, the autonomous region in northeastern Somalia, has vowed to resist any attack by fighters from the Islamic Courts Union, saying his administration would not accept "radicalism and extremism." Gen. Museh said, "We will continue to resist the spread of Islamic militants."