President Hosni Mubarak on Nov. 6 condemned threats by the al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq against Coptic Christians in Egypt and promised to protect them. The Islamic State of Iraq, claiming responsibility for a bloody hostage taking in a Baghdad church last weekend, threatened to target the region's Christians if the Coptic church did not release two women the group claimed had were being held against their will after converting to Islam. Mubarak told Pope Shenouda III in a phone call that he rejected "pushing Egypt's name into the terrorist act that targeted a church in Baghdad."

California voters defeated Proposition 23 in the Nov. 2 elections, voting 61.3% in favor of keeping the state's 2006 greenhouse gas reduction law, the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), considered the strongest in the nation. A "yes" vote on Prop 23, backed by Texas oil money, would have suspended the law until the state's unemployment rate stayed at or below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters. Assembly Bill 32 requires industry to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and is set to go into effect in 2012.

The Iraqi oil ministry's auction of three natural gas fields last week has been angrily opposed by all the governorates in which they are located, with provincial officials threatening legal action against Baghdad and warning that they will refuse to cooperate with the developers. Bids were granted to companies from Turkey, Kuwait, Kazakstan and South Korea to develop gas fields holding approximately 10% of the country's reserves. The fields in Anbar, Diyala and Basra are primarily being developed for domestic consumption to improve Iraq's feeble power supply, oil ministry officials said.

Some 4,000 indigenous people ended their blockade of the Río Marañon in northern Peru Oct. 30, after reaching an agreement with the government and Argentine oil company Pluspetrol. After an oil spill in June, Peru's government started distributing food and goods to the people most affected in the region. However, with Pluspetrol declaring the pollution problem resolved, the government has cut off aid—in spite of indigenous complaints that their lands and waters are still impacted. The agreement calls for peace on both sides until the government's water authority can test the Marañon for pollution. (EFE, Earth First!, Oct. 30)

Up to 3,000 villagers are facing arrest after taking part in a "silent protest" against the Jaitapur nuclear power project in India's Maharashtra state Oct. 29. The villagers, upset about the lack of transparency surrounding the project, organized a "Jail Bharo" (fill up the jail) protest, by showing up at the project site to await their arrest. The government reacted by issuing "preventive arrest" warrants, prohibitory orders and setting up road blocks. According to media reports, 750 people were arrested including a former Supreme Court Judge. (Times of India, Oct. 29)

A Guatemalan judge sentenced two former national police officers to 40 years in prison Oct. 28 over the February 1984 disappearance of union leader 27-year-old Fernándo García, the first case to use evidence discovered in abandoned police archives. García, an organizer at the Cavisa maquiladora, was on his way to work when he was shot, taken to a police hospital and never seen again. Evidence in the archive, found covered in bat droppings in a rat-infested former munitions dump in Guatemala City in 2005, implicated police officers Hector Ramírez and Abraham Gómez. "Everything indicates that the accused were definitely in the place where Fernando Garcia was detained," Judge Odilia González said at the hearing.

A suicide bomber struck Istanbul's Taksim Square the morning of Oct. 31, injuring at least 32 in the city's busiest node. The apparent targets were police officers at a substation at the square's north end. At least 15 of those injured were police. The attack came on the last day of the unilateral ceasefire declared by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The so-called "no-action period" had been extended for one month on Sept. 30. (LAT, EÖ/VK, Oct. 31)

From Human Rights Watch, Oct. 28:

Roma and related minority groups deported from Western Europe to Kosovo face discrimination and severe deprivation amounting to human rights abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.