Monica Chuji, Ecuador's former communications minister under President Rafael Correa and well-known indigenous activist, was on Nov. 25 sentenced to one year in prison and a ordered to pay a $100,000 fine for "defamation" of Correa's Minister of Public Administration, Vinicio Alvarado. However, after the sentence was imposed by the court at Pichincha penitentiary, Alvarado exercised his prerogative to pardon Chuji—an implicit admission that the move would have broken the remaining ties between Correa and the country's powerful indigenous movement.

On Nov. 22, one man was killed by an arrow shot by an "isolated" or "uncontacted" indigenous band in the rainforest of Peru's Madre de Dios region, according to the regional indigenous alliance FENAMAD. The report said the incident happened some eight kilometers from the native community of Diamante (Harakmbut ethnicity), at an outlying chacra (farm plot). A Diamante family was preparing to harvest banana and yuca on the cleared plot when an arrow was fired from the forest, bringing down one of the harvesters. The land is in the buffer zone of Manu National Park, which FENAMAD has long maintained shelters isolated indigenous bands—despite official denials. FENAMAD president Jaime Corisepa called the incident "lamentable," and said growing attacks by isolated peoples indicates they feel threatened by rapid encroachment. FENAMAD called on Peru's national parks agency SERNANP to work with Diamante and other indigenous communities of the Río Yanayacu sector to establish control points to keep out intruders, and avoid such incidents in future. (FENAMAD, Nov. 25)

Venezuelan officials Nov. 25 announced the first air shipment of overseas gold holdings as part of a move to repatriate the country's foreign reserves from Europe and North America. The gold was unloaded from a plane and taken under heavy guard to the Central Bank in Caracas. Said President Hugo Chávez: "Now [the gold] will go to a place from which it should have never left: the Central Bank vaults; not those in London or in Europe, but our own land." Venezuela plans to return some 160 tons of gold, worth more than $11 billion and making up 85% of the country's bullion reserves.

The government of Belize this month quietly granted a US oil company drilling rights to protected Maya lands inside Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP) in southern Toledo district. The move comes in defiance of an historic Supreme Court ruling that confirmed Belize's obligation to adhere to the international standard of informed consent, says the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM). SATIIM, a community-based indigenous environmental organization that co-manages the STNP, found out that Belize had granted a permit to US Capital Energy only after being alerted by residents that the company had suddenly returned to the protected lands. SATIIM reports that seismic equipment has already been brought in and trees felled to begin operations near Sunday Wood village, one of the reserve's "buffer zone" communities.

Colombia's FARC guerillas executed four captive members of the security forces as the army raided the camp where they were being held in a rescue attempt, authorities said Nov. 26. National Police Sgt. Luis Alberto Erazo, who had been held since December 1999, was able to escape his captors as four of his colleagues were executed by the rebels, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said. "At the moment the first shots were heard, Sgt. Erazo took the decision to run," Pinzón claimed. "He run and he hid in the jungle. According to reports, he was pursued by three terrorists of the FARC who even threw grenades at him during the chase. This caused him facial injuries."

Molajula Koteswar Rao AKA "Kishenji," most-wanted leader of India's Naxalite guerillas, was killed in a gun battle with security forces in the Burisole jungle region of West Midnapore district, West Bengal, authorities said Nov. 24. Sympathizers of the Maoist rebel movement as well as human rights groups immediately questioned the government's version of events, and charged that Kishenji had been illegally executed. Varavara Rao of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committeeo called the slaying a "political murder." The New Power website said, "These fake encounters mask a campaign of targeted assassination." (PTI, Nov. 27; NewPower.org, Nov. 26)

German police on Nov. 27 battled thousands of anti-nuclear protestors—many chained to railroad tracks—who blocked the shipment of radioactive waste returning from a French treatment plant. The rail convoy was halted for 18 hours outside its final destination at Dannenberg, including overnight, amid mass demonstrations. Protesters boasted that the blockade's duration now topped the record set during a shipment one year ago. Police said they detained about 1,300 people. The 150 tons of uranium waste, originally from German nuclear plants, was being moved in 11 containers from a facility run by the French nuclear giant Areva in Valognes, Normandy. It was the last of 12 shipments, because of a German move away from nuclear power.

New street clashes broke out in Cairo Nov. 26, the day after a young protester was killed when he was run over by a police truck. The incident occurred when protesters attempted to march on the Interior Ministry, which oversees the security forces, to oppose repression that has now left 40 dead in a week of demonstrations. Police erected a concrete barricade on the street connecting Tahrir Square and the Interior Ministry, which protesters have sprayed with graffiti reading, "Freedom is coming." Protesters remain in control of Tahrir Square, and have extended their sit-in to the nearby building that houses the cabinet, demanding the formation of a civilian-led "national salvation government."