Tens of thousands of Chilean students and supporters marched through downtown Santiago on the central Alameda avenue on July 14 in their fourth massive demonstration demanding a reversal of the system of privatized education instituted under the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. As in previous days of action, there were also large marches in other major cities.

Some "gun trafficking 'higher-ups'" who supply weapons to Mexican drug cartels may have been "paid as informants" by US government agencies, according to a letter two ranking US Congress members sent US attorney general Eric Holder on July 5. "The evidence we have gathered," Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) wrote, "raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department"—which Holder heads—"not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities." The "other agencies" may include the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the letter said.

Two armed men gunned down Mexican activists Isabel Ayala Nava and her sister, Reyna Ayala Nava, in the early afternoon of July 3 as they were leaving a church in Xaltianguis, a village in Acapulco municipality in the western state of Guerrero. The killers took the women's cell phones, and later in the day Isabel Ayala's daughter, Micaela Cabañas Ayala, received a threatening call made from her mother's phone.

On June 25, a group of 10 to 12 heavily armed hooded men wearing camouflage clothing and traveling in a red sport utility vehicle fired their weapons indiscriminately at the "Discovery Villanueva" disco and pool hall in the center of Villanueva, a village in Colón Génova municipality in the southern Colombian department of Nariño. Eight campesinos were killed in the attack: Celso López, Sandro López, Horacio Gómez, Luis Gil, Libio Noguera, Luis Arcos, Plinio Noguera and 15-year-old Albey Gaviria. Four other campesinos were wounded. (Agencia Prensa Rural, June 28, from Comité de Integración del Macizo Colombiano-CIMA; Noticias Terra, June 26, from AFP) The victims were all campesinos who earned a living cultivating coffee. (El Tiempo, Colombia, July 4)

As of July 5 the Guatemalan government had still failed to comply with instructions from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) to help more than 600 campesino families that had been evicted from land in the Polochic Valley in the northeastern department of Alta Verapaz. The IACHR, the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS), gave the government 15 days to carry out "precautionary measures" (medidas cautelares) to guarantee the life and physical integrity of the displaced campesinos, to ensure that they had food and shelter, and to report on investigations into the violence that accompanied the evictions.

Residents of Caracol, a village in Haiti's Northeast department, say they were never consulted or even warned about plans to build a huge new "free trade zone" (FTZ, a complex of assembly plants) on land where many of them have been farming for some 20 years. "It's the most fertile area we have at Caracol," resident Renel Pierre told journalist Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus. "It's inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park."

During the last week of June several Haitian social organizations called on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to pay reparations to the victims of a cholera epidemic that appeared to originate at the international occupation force's base near Mirebalais in the Central Plateau. Representatives of Haitian Women's Solidarity (SOFA), the Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA) and other groups said MINUSTAH should pay out to the Haitian people 25% to 30% of its annual operating budget of $853 million. SOFA made similar demands in January. The epidemic, which started in October, has killed some 5,500 people to date and sickened about 300,000. (AlterPresse, Haiti, July 1)

Chileans celebrated LGBT Pride in Santiago on June 25 with a march from the central Plaza Italia to the La Moneda presidential palace. Organizers said 30,000 people joined the march, while the police gave a crowd estimate of 12,000. Participants carried signs with such slogans as: "Marriage and civil union law for all couples" and "Antidiscrimination law for everyone." The march came one day after New York became the largest state in the US to allow same-sex marriage. Rightwing president Sebastián Piñera announced on May 28 that he would send Congress a proposal for a law to legalize civil unions for the country's more than two million couples, including same-sex couples, but he insisted that the law wouldn't permit same-sex marriage. Chilean LGBT activists are pushing for full marriage equality. (AFP, June 25, via Terra.com)