Israel's public sector workers walked out for four hours Nov. 7, shutting down trains, buses, airports, banks, government ministries and municipalities. Traffic jams clogged Tel Aviv, and the city's stock exchange and Ben Gurion International Airport were closed. A general strike by the Histadrut Labor Union was limited to four hours by an order of the National Labor Court. The union is demanding that the government officially hire some 250,000 contract workers, who are denied representation and job security. (Haaretz, JTA, AFP, Nov. 7)

Occupy Boston activists "stormed" the Israeli consulate in Beantown Nov. 5 in protest of the Gaza blockade. The activists—chanting "Occupy Wall Street not Palestine"—were also protesting the interception of the Gaza-bound "Freedom Waves" flotilla by Israeli naval forces the day before. Israel says it has started deportation of 22 detained on the two-ship flotilla, including Greek crew members. The Electronic Intifada website provided a live map, which followed the ships' course after they departed the Turkish port of Fethiye on Nov. 2, indicating that the vessels were still in international waters when they were intercepted. The Israeli military also admitted that the interception happened in international water. (Tripoli Post, Nov. 7; YNet, Nov. 5)

Sandinista candidate and incumbent President Daniel Ortega was re-elected to lead Nicaragua Nov. 6. The United Nicaragua Triumphs Alliance headed by the Sandinista party (FSLN) won some 64% percent of the vote, followed by the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) candidate Fabio Gadea with 30%, and the Constitutional Liberal Party candidate Arnoldo Alemán with 6%. The US State Department expressed its "concern" with "reports" of "procedural irregularities and voter intimidation." A youth of 18 was shot in the leg in a clash between Sandinista and opposition supporters in Jalapa, Nuevo Segovia department. Local PLI supporters said soldiers fired on the crowd. Electoral violence was also reported from Totogalpa, Madriz department, where a truck belonging to a local cooperative had its windows smashed.

Retired military general Otto Pérez Molina emerged victorious from Nov. 6 run-off elections for the presidency of Guatemala, vowing a crackdown on crime and drug-related violence. Pérez Molina was elected despite being accused by rights campaigners of having overseen genocide when he commanded military forces at Nebaj, Quiche department, in 1982-3. Pérez Molina will take office the first week of January. The US embassy released a statement congratulating him.

The future of Colombia's FARC guerillas is in question following the death of leader "Alfonso Cano" at the hands of the Colombian army Nov. 4. Local media reports anticipate a power struggle between "Iván Márquez" and "Timochenko." Marquez, FARC's "foreign minister," is portrayed as more moderate than Timochenko, commander of the feared Bloque Magdalena Medio. Both leaders have the geographical disadvantage of being in the northeast of the country or even in Venezuela, far from the FARC's heartland in Colombia's south. Two other possible successors mentioned by analysts are "Pablo Catatumbo," commander of the Western Bloc, and "Joaquín Gómez," commander of the Southern Bloc. Gómez is said to control the FARC's drug trafficking operations in Nariño and Putumayo departments. Catatumbo, said to have been Cano's principal rival, runs the FARC's elite "special forces" that have been carrying out deadly attacks in Cauca and Nariño departments. (Colombia Reports, Nov. 5)

At least 63 people were killed in bombings and armed attacks by the Islamist movement Boko Haram in the northeastern Nigerian town of Damaturu Nov. 5. Bombs went off at both civilian targets and the headquarters of the Yobe state police. A Roman Catholic parish priest told the BBC his church had been burnt down and eight other churches also attacked. Suicide attacks also targeted a military headquarters and Christian theological school in Maiduguri, capital of neighboring Borno state. Boko Haram contacted called Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper to say it carried out the attacks. The attacks come days after Yobe police commissioner Suleimon Lawal denied that Boko Haram had any presence in the state.

Colombia's Defense Ministry announced Nov. 4 that the army has killed Guillermo Leon Saenz AKA "Alfonso Cano"—the supreme leader of the FARC guerillas. According to Colombia's Radio Caracol, Cano was killed in a bomb raid and found by ground forces in a rural area of the Suárez municipality, Cauca department. The BBC later reported his body had multiple bullet wounds, suggesting he had been killed by ground forces. Cano, 63. assumed leadership of the FARC in May 2008 after the death of founder "Manuel Marulanda."

In a 122-page report, "'You'll Be Fired If You Refuse': Labor Abuses in Zambia's Chinese State-owned Copper Mines," Human Rights Watch charges that despite improvements in recent years, safety and labor conditions at Chinese owned mines in Zambia are worse than at other foreign-owned mines, and that Chinese mine managers often violate government regulations. The report details persistent abuses at four Chinese-run mines, including substandard health and safety conditions, 12- to 18-hour shifts of strenous labor, and anti-union activities. The violations were based on interviews with more than 170 mine workers, from both the four Chinese-run companies and from other multinational copper mining operations. The Chinese companies are subsidiaries of China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corp., a state-owned enterprise.