Twenty-four men at an Afghan refugee camp on the outskirts of the Pakistani port of Karachi are among those arrested on suspicion of involvement in the ethnic clashes still shaking city. At least 44 have been killed in the clashes which began Nov. 30, pitting local Urdu-speakers against Pashtuns from northwest Pakistan. The incidents were mainly blamed on activists from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP). Leaders from both the parties denied their members were involved in the violence. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif raised the specious possibility that India instigated of the Karachi violence as a response to the Mumbai attacks. (AFP, AlJazeera, Dec. 2)

Five were killed and 35 others injured Dec. 2 in two separate attacks in the Karbi Anglong district of India's eastern Assam state. A bomb went off inside a second-class coach of a passenger train at the Diphu railway station at about 8 AM, killing three, including a five-year-old child. Thirty-five others were injured, 10 of them seriously. Elsewhere in the district, two motorcycle-borne militants with an AK–47 gunned down a couple at the Dolamora village later that morning.

Tijuana's Public Security Secretary Alberto Capella was ousted Dec. 1 and replaced by his second-in-command, army Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola, following three days of violence that left 37 people dead in the border city. Another army officer, Capt. Gustavo Huerta, has been appointed the new number two on the city's police force. Mayor Jorge Ramos' office said that putting army officers in charge will help "regain security" in Tijuana. Among the 37 killed over the weekend were two children aged four and 13—and nine headless corpses dumped in a patch of wasteland. More than 200 people have been killed in the past month in Tijuana. (AP, The Guardian, Milenio, Dec. 2)

As protests by teachers continued in several southern and central Mexican states, on Nov. 28 the State Institute of Public Education of Oaxaca (IEEPO) announced plans to work with Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) to produce an alternative to the government's new Alliance for Quality Education (ACE). The alternative program will be carried out "in accordance with the characteristics of the state," IEEPO director Abel Trejo Gonzalez said. This is first time a state government has distanced itself from the ACE, which is promoted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and SNTE national president Elba Esther Gordillo Morales. Teachers have protested against the ACE since August, calling it an opening to privatization. A strike by Section 22 set off a major uprising in 2006 that paralyzed much of the state for five months. (Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News and Analysis, Nov. 30; La Jornada, Nov. 29)

Three leftist Venezuelan unionists were shot dead the night of Nov. 27 in the city of Cagua, southwest of Caracas in Aragua state, just days after two of them ran unsuccessfully in Nov. 23 state and municipal elections. In what appeared to be a planned assassination, one or two armed men on a motorbike gunned the unionists down as they were leaving a nightclub. The victims were Richard Gallardo, president of the Aragua branch of the National Workers Union (UNT), the main leftist labor confederation; Carlos Requena, a UNT national coordinator; and Luis Hernández, the general secretary of the union at Pepsi Cola de Venezuela's plant in Villa de Cura in southern Aragua.

The 15 unions representing Chile's government workers agreed on the night of Nov. 20 to end their four-day-old strike after the Senate approved a 10.4% raise earlier that day. The unions had demanded a 14.5% pay increase, arguing that the annual inflation rate had risen to 9.9% in October. Arturo Martinez, president of the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), acknowledged that the raise "[m]aybe isn't all we hoped for." He noted that the settlement was between President Michelle Bachelet and the Congress, not the government and the unions, but said the salary increase was the result of the unionists' mobilizations, and "today it's possible to celebrate; the workers have triumphed."

In a five-day operation that ended Nov. 21, ICE agents arrested 104 people in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Among those arrested were 94 "fugitives" who had failed to comply with deportation orders. Of the 104 people arrested, 23 had prior criminal convictions. (ICE news release, Nov. 25)

On Oct. 24, about 60 people demonstrated in Minneapolis to protest a recent ICE sweep through southern Minnesota. The demonstration was called by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition. (The Militant, Nov. 10) From Oct. 21 to 23, ICE Fugitive Operations Team members arrested 17 people in southern Minnesota's Watonwan County: 10 in the town of Madelia, five in St. James and one each in Butterfield and Lewisville. ICE also arrested two people in Windom, the county seat of neighboring Cottonwood County. Four of the 19 people arrested had been deported previously; five had prior criminal convictions. All 19 were from Latin American countries: 11 were from Mexico, six were from Honduras and one each were from Guatemala and El Salvador. (ICE news release, Oct. 24)