The UN Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, CEPAL in Spanish) released a report on Nov. 29 showing that the poverty rate in Latin America had dropped from 48.4% to 31.4% between 1990 and 2010, while the indigence rate fell from 22.6% to 12.3%. Despite the progress, 174 million people continue to live in poverty, and their situation is likely to worsen because of rising food costs, according to the UN commission, which is based in Chile.

Unknown assailants gunned down Mexican activist Nepomuceno Moreno Núñez on a street in Hermosillo, the capital of the northern state of Sonora, on Nov. 28. Moreno Núñez had been working with the Movement for Peace With Justice and Dignity (MPJD), which was founded by the poet Javier Sicilia this year to oppose the militarized "war on drugs" that has killed as many as 50,000 Mexican since late 2006.

Chilean judge Jorge Zepeda issued an indictment on Nov. 29 charging former US Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis with involvement in the murders of two US citizens, journalist Charles Horman and graduate student Frank Teruggi, in the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende Gossens. Judge Zepeda asked the Chilean Supreme Court to authorize a request for Davis' extradition from the US. The judge also indicted retired Chilean army Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who is already in prison for several other crimes.

The Montreal-based apparel firm Gildan Activewear Inc. has asked its Haitian subcontractor, Genesis S.A., to reinstate four unionized workers that the plant's managers fired in the last week of September, Gildan senior vice president Peter Iliopoulos told the Montreal Gazette on Nov. 29. The company has "requested the reinstatement of the employees with full back pay dating back to the date of dismissal and also recognition of full seniority for these individuals as though they had never left the company or factory," Iliopoulos said. Another major North American apparel firm, North Carolina-based Hanesbrands Inc., has taken similar action with its subcontractor in Haiti, Multiwear SA, which fired Hilaire Jean-Jacques, a member of the same union, on Sept. 30.

In a major victory for Costa Rica's environmental movement, on Nov. 30 the First Chamber of the country's Supreme Court upheld a lower court's November 2010 decision canceling a concession for an open-pit gold mine in Crucitas de San Carlos near the Nicaraguan border. The Supreme Court's ruling also nullified Environment and Energy Ministry executive decree 34801, with which former president Oscar Arias Sánchez (1986-1990 and 2006-2010) had declared the mine, owned by the Canadian company Infinito Gold Ltd., a matter of "national interest." The court told the Public Ministry to "start an investigation to determine whether it is proper to pursue a criminal case against" Arias, former vice president Roberto Dobles Mora and six other former officials.

Women's organizations throughout Latin America used the United Nation's International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Nov. 25, to highlight continued abuse of women in the region and the failure of governments to take steps to reduce it.

Tens of thousands of students marched in more than a dozen Latin American cities on Nov. 24 in the Latin American March for Education, a coordinated regional demonstration to support free and high-quality public education. The mobilization was planned by Chilean and Colombian students earlier in the month, but by Nov. 24 it had spread to include actions in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Participants stressed that students had similar demands throughout the region and were also united in their support for the movement in Chile.

A little-known office of the US Defense Department is now taking bids from private security firms on a $3 billion contract for US-funded anti-narcotics operations in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. According to a report in Wired News, the Pentagon's Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office (CNTPO) announced a "mega-contract" on Nov. 9 for as much as $950 million for "operations, logistics and minor construction," up to $975 million for training foreign forces, $875 million for "Information" tasks, and $240 million for "program and program support." The cash will start flowing next August, and the contractors may be able to extend the jobs for three more years.