Residents in Cajamarca, Peru, held a 24-hour general strike Nov. 11, with protestors erecting roadblocks to halt traffic on the Cajamarca-Bambamarca highway. Students from the National University of Cajamarca took over the campus, and almost all urban transport unions, teachers and shops joined the strike. The action was called to demand that the Yanacocha Mining Corp. abandon its development of a giant gold mine at the community of Conga, which residents say will threaten vital water sources. The mine project will destroy four mountain lakes. The company has pledged to replace them with reservoirs—an offer rejected by local residents and municipal governments.

The newly independent government of South Sudan accused Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces of bombing targets in its territory over the past 48 hours, including a refugee camp at Yida in oil-rich Unity state, where reports indicate at least 12 people have been killed and some 20 wounded. Another seven were killed in the remote area of Guffa, Upper Nile State. (See map.) UN human rights commissioners Navi Pillay wanred that a war crime may have been committed, and called for an investigation. The Khartoum government denied that Sudan's armed forces were to blame. (Sudan Tribune, BBC News, NYT, Nov. 11).

Mexican Governance Secretary Francisco Blake Mora was killed when his helicopter crashed Nov. 11 near Chalco, México state. Four other Governance Secretariat and three Air Force personnel were also killed in the crash. President Felipe Calderón said it was probably an accident caused by bad weather, but public speculation points to a hit by one of Mexico's warring drug cartels. Skeptics noted that the government's most notorious Drug War hardliner is Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, and a more likely cartel target. However, the crash eerily comes one week after Blake Mora attended a memorial ceremony for Juan Camilo Mouriño, his predecessor who was killed in a plane crash three years earlier. (NYT, El Economista, Nov. 11)

Bolivia and the US agreed to restore diplomatic relations on Nov. 7, three years after President Evo Morales expelled the US ambassador and then, weeks later, the DEA force in the Andean country. This was the first of several times since then that Morales has accused the US of plotting against him. In announcing the move to restore ties, Morales emphasized that the DEA would not be allowed back in his country. Morales said that he himself had been a "victim" of the DEA as a coca grower. He called the DEA's exclusion from Bolivia a question of "dignity and sovereignty."

At the point of completing 40 days without food, 10 prisoners in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas—plus one who had been transfered out of state—ended their hunger strike Nov. 7, citing the imminent threat to their health and the lack of any response to their demands from state or federal authorities. Their family members and supporters have taken up the struggle by launching an ongoing protest vigil (plantón) outside the State Center of Social Reinsertion (CERSS), and blockading the San Cristóbal-Ocosingo highway that passes by the facility.

Mexico's military and police have committed widespread human rights violations in efforts to combat organized crime, virtually none of which are being adequately investigated, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Nov. 9. The 212-page report "Neither Rights Nor Security: Killings, Torture, and Disappearances in Mexico's 'War on Drugs'," examines the human rights consequences of President Felipe Calderón’s approach to confronting Mexico's powerful drug cartels. The report finds evidence that strongly suggests the participation of security forces in more than 170 cases of torture, 39 "disappearances," and 24 extrajudicial killings since Calderón took office in December 2006. "Instead of reducing violence, Mexico's 'war on drugs' has resulted in a dramatic increase in killings, torture, and other appalling abuses by security forces, which only make the climate of lawlessness and fear worse in many parts of the country," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

Niger's military clashed Nov. 7 with a heavily armed convoy travelling though the desert from Libya. Thirteen of the convoy's gunmen were killed and several captured. Authorities said they believed the convoy is made up of fleeing Qaddafi loyalists escorted by local Tuareg fighters, and headed for Mali. A huge weapons cache, including machine guns and rockets, was seized in the clashes in the Arlit area. Northern Niger's Radio Nomad reported that local traffickers are selling Libyan arms to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). (BBC News, Nov. 9)

Farmers staged sit-in protests at five regional offices of lawmakers of South Korea's ruling Grand National Party on Nov. 9, demanding no ratification of the new US-Korea Free Trade Agreement. "The protests are to denounce the GNP, which is moving to ratify the FTA that will surely devastate the local agricultural industry," said a leader of the Korea Farmers League’s branch for North Gyeongsang province, which organized the protests. "We will mount a campaign against those lawmakers who vote in favor of the deal." (Korea Herald, Nov. 9) Days earlier, police in Seoul fired water cannons to disperse more than 2,000 protesters who tried to break into the National Assembly as lawmakers debated FTA ratification. (AP, Nov. 3)