Relatives of 9-11 victims were brought to Guantánamo Bay to witness as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four co-defendants appeared before a US military tribunal. The five men told a military judge they intend to confess in full—an evident challenge to the government to put them to death. (NYT, AFP, Dec. 9) A Dec. 9 New York Times piece, "Relatives of 9/11 Victims Add a Passionate Layer to Guantánamo Debate," explicitly states that the survivors are being played in a political strategy over the prison camp's future under President Barack Obama:

About 20,000 peasant families in La Paz department have been affected by drought for months, the Bolivian Information Agency reports. If there is no rain in the next 30 days, there will be a massive loss of livestock, warned Victor Saravia of Bolivia's Early Warning and Risk Prevention Bureau. "We traveled to four regions: Camacho, Ingavi, Pacajes and Loayza, and found that there is a shortage of water for both human consumption and for animals'," said Saravia. He also named Ixiamas district in the north of La Paz as at risk, saying that 6,000 head of cattle could die in the department in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, hailstorms have wiped out crops in lowland Cochabamba department. Civil defense authorities are considering declaration of a state of emergency. (Xinhua, Dec. 8; Prensa Latina, Dec. 5)

Bolivian President Evo Morales, defending his decision to expel the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said the agency was actually involved in the drug traffic, and "did not respect the police, or even the [Bolivian] armed forces." Announcing that the staff from the US agency has three months to leave the country, he added: "The worst thing is, it did not fight drug trafficking; it encouraged it." He said he had "quite a bit of evidence" backing up his charges. Morales said that after a 1986 operation in Huanchaca National Park, it was determined that the largest cocaine processing plant "was under DEA protection." He also accused the agency of spying on and even killing cocaleros and other opponents of US policies.

Unions and social organizations held a commemoration Dec. 6 at Ciénaga, in the Colombian Caribbean coast department of Magdalena, marking the anniversary of the 1928 "Masacre de las Bananeras," carried out by the army against hundreds of striking workers of the United Fruit Company. Hundreds gathered in what is now called Plaza of the Martyrs to hear speeches and testimony from aging survivors and descendants of the massacre victims. Up to a thousand were killed by some estimates when the army surrounded and opened fire on a union rally in Ciénaga's central plaza in the midst of a strike over collective bargaining rights—although the official death toll was put at nine. (Radio Caracol, Dec. 6)

Killings linked to Mexico's narco wars have more than doubled this year compared with 2007 and are likely to escalate before they start to fall, Prosecutor General Eduardo Medina Mora said Dec. 8. The number of narco-killings since the start of the year stood at 5,376 Dec. 2, a 117% increase over the 2,477 killings in the same period in 2007, Medina Mora said in a luncheon meeting with foreign correspondents. The bulk of the killings occurred in the northern states of Chihuahua, Baja California and Sinaloa. "These criminal organizations don't have limits," said Medina Mora. "They certainly have an enormous power of intimidation." But the New York Times reports that he "said the overall level of violence in Mexico remained moderate compared with that in other Latin American countries." (NYT, Dec. 8)

On Dec. 2 Altos Hornos de Mexico (AHMSA), Mexico's main steelmaker, announced plans for laying off 8,500 contract workers in its Proyecto Fenix modernization project and 3,500 of its own employees. (La Jornada, Dec. 3) In the two days after the layoff announcement, the Mexican government froze some funds belonging to the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), which represents AHMSA workers, and arrested two union leaders. Based on complaints that the union mishandled a $55 million miners' fund, the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested the union's Vigilance and Justice Council president Juan Linares Montufar on Dec. 3 and political affairs secretary Carlos Pavón Campos on Dec. 4.

On Dec. 2 Venezuelan interior and justice minister Tarek El Aissami announced the arrest of Julio Cesar Agrinzones (also given as "Arguinzones") Romero the night before on charges of killing three leftist Venezuelan unionists—Richard Gallardo, Carlos Requena and Luis Hernández—the night of Nov. 27 in the city of Cagua, southwest of Caracas in Aragua state. Although El Aissami said the government had not established who was behind the killing, he implied it was "over a job," hinting at internal conflicts in the pro-government National Workers Union (UNT), in which the victims were leaders.

On Nov. 25 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced an economic stimulus package that includes tax breaks for Argentines who repatriate money they've sent abroad and invest it in infrastructure, real estate, agriculture, industry or government bonds; tax breaks for firms that create new jobs; an amnesty on unpaid taxes for the smallest employers if they give formal employment status to off-the-books workers; and a $21 billion public works plan intended to double the number of jobs in construction.