On Sept. 30 the National Refugee Commission of Argentina (Conare) granted political asylum to Sergio Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former leader of Chile's rebel Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). Chile is seeking Apablaza's extradition to stand trial for the assassination of Chilean senator Jaime Guzmán, a close ally of dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, in 1991, a year after the end of Chile's 1973-1990 military dictatorship. Apablaza is also charged with the 1991 kidnapping of Cristián Edwards del Río, the son of one of the owners of the Santiago daily El Mercurio.

On Sept. 27 Colombian inspector general Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado announced that he was removing Senator Piedad Córdoba from her position and barring her from public office for 18 years because of what he said were her links to the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Córdoba, a member of the centrist Liberal Party, has mediated in negotiations which led to the release of 14 prisoners held by the FARC. She is also a member of Colombians for Peace, formed in 2008 by politicians, intellectuals, artists, journalists and former FARC prisoners to seek solutions to the armed conflicts in the country.

At a press conference in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 29, a reporter asked conservative Honduran president Porfirio ("Pepe") Lobo Sosa about calls from unions and grassroots organizations for a constituent assembly to rewrite the country's 1982 Constitution. "But what's the problem with that?" Lobo responded. "What's the problem?" The president said he considered it his "moral duty…to invite the sectors that promote it to hold a dialogue... Let's sit down and discuss [these things]. That isn't the problem."

On Sept. 24 Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), published an article describing policy changes intended to expand Cuba's small private sector. The changes are part of a plan announced on Sept. 13 to lay off some half million public employees, about 10% of the total labor force, over the next six months; the government expects about 465,000 of the laid-off workers to move to the private sector or to form cooperatives, according to unofficial sources.

The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, located in the Urabá region of northwestern Colombian department of Antioquia, wrote in communiqués dated Sept. 22 and 24 that right-wing paramilitaries were continuing to attack and threaten its members. The community, which for 13 years has rejected the presence of all weapons and armed groups in its territory, charged the authorities with "complacency" regarding the paramilitary activity.

Nadia Lochard, coordinator of Haiti's Civil Protection agency, confirmed on Sept. 25 that five people had died and 57 were injured the day before when a violent storm hit Port-au-Prince and areas to the south, including Petit Goâve and Îles Cayimites. Lochard said most of the injuries and damage took place in the camps where some 1.3 million local residents have been living since they were displaced by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Jan. 12.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive met in New York on Sept. 20 to discuss international efforts to help Haiti recover from the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated much of the capital and nearby areas. About 1.3 million Haitians continue to live outdoors, mostly in some 1,300 improvised encampments, more than eight months after the quake and almost six months after international donors pledged $9.9 billion in aid.

On Sept. 16 Miami federal district judge William Zloch sentenced former Guatemalan soldier Gilberto Jordán to 10 years in prison for concealing his role in a 1982 massacre when he applied for US citizenship. Jordán, a member of the notorious Kaibil counterinsurgency force, is one of 14 soldiers wanted in Guatemala for the brutal murder of some 250 campesinos in the village of Las Dos Erres, Sayaxche (or Libertad), in the northern department of Peten. He moved to Miami in 1990 and became a US citizen in 1999. Arrested by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on May 5 this year, he pleaded guilty in July to charges of lying on a citizenship application. Ten years is the maximum sentence for the offense.