One person was killed and one wounded in the early morning of Nov. 11 during protests over power outages in the community of Canca, Licey al Medio municipality, in the northern Dominican province of Santiago. Police spokesperson Jesús Cordero Paredes told the Spanish EFE news service that masked protesters had been blocking a highway with tree trunks and burning tires at 3am when Ramón Martín Medina Rivas and Emilio José Vargas drove up to the barricade in a truck carrying plantains and other farm products to be sold in the Santiago market. The protesters fired on the truck, killing Medina and wounding Vargas, according to the police.

Amnesty International has called on Brazilian and Paraguayan authorities to redouble their efforts to find an indigenous teacher who has been missing since Oct. 30, following a violent eviction of activists on the border between the two nations. Fears for the life of the teacher, Rolindo Vera, have intensified following the discovery of the badly bruised body of his cousin and fellow indigenous teacher, Genivaldo Vera, in a nearby river.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) and US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) expressed support Nov. 15 for the Obama administration's proposal to move Guantánamo Bay detainees to a facility in northwestern Illinois. The Obama administration is reportedly evaluating the Thomson Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison located about 150 miles west of Chicago, as a possible location to house accused terrorists. Quinn and Durbin requested that the administration conduct a preliminary economic impact analysis on the purchase of the facility for use by the federal Bureau of Prisons. They pointed to the addition of an estimated 3,000 new jobs to the community and an estimated $790 million to $1.09 billion impact over four years as reasons to support the proposal. Durbin said the sale is a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to inject a much-needed economic boost to a struggling region.

International human rights officials toured the new US detention facility in Parwan, Afghanistan, at the edge of Bagram Air Base Nov. 15. The new facility, which has room for 1,400 detainees, is part of the Obama administration's wider efforts to improve its Afghan detainee system and will eventually be controlled by the Afghan government. In a US Embassy press release, officials promised greater transparency based on a case management system, which will allow detainees to be informed of the charges against them and provide them with the right to challenge government witnesses. Amnesty International and other human rights groups called on the Obama administration to make sure its detention policy conforms to international law.

Business leaders in Ciudad Juárez are calling on the United Nations to send peacekeepers to police the Mexican border city in the face of escalating drug-related violence. Groups representing maquiladora plants, retailers and other businesses announced Nov. 12 that they will submit a request to the Mexican government and the Inter American Human Rights Commission. Members of the Maquiladora Association of Ciudad Juarez and Chamber of Commerce say the peacekeepers are needed to end the wave of extortion, kidnappings and murders.

The chief of the DAS, Colombia's secret police, says a mob assaulted three of its agents as they tried to arrest a suspect with guerilla ties Nov. 15. DAS director Felipe Muñoz says Ivan Danilo Alarcon, wanted for rebellion and drug trafficking, was detained near a university in the city of Cali. Muñoz says Alarcon cried out he was being kidnapped and 100 people surrounded the officers. The crowd detained the agents for over an hour, threatened them with death and took their weapons and armored vests. They freed Alarcon from handcuffs, and he fled. Muñoz charged that Alarcon posed as a human rights activist but was in fact giving logistical support to the FARC. (AP, Nov. 15)

Colombia Nov. 14 deported four members of the Venezuelan National Guard who were allegedly detained on Colombian territory a day earlier. Bogotá says the men were stopped by a Colombian naval patrol in a boat on a river in the remote border department of Vichada. Colombia's Administrative Security Department said the men were turned over the Venezuelan authorities at the border town of Puerto Páez. Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe made much of the deportations as a magnanimous gesture, saying he intended them as a message of the "unbreakable affection" between the two countries. Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez called Uribe a "mafioso" in comments on the detainment of the guardsmen, and ruled out any dialogue with his "traitorous" government. (BBC News, Nov. 15; EFE, Nov. 14)

The New York Times virtually sneers in a Nov. 12 headline, "Blackouts Plague Energy-Rich Venezuela," reporting that despite vast reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, electricity is being cut for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana, with water rationing instated in Caracas. This has all started since the government has largely taken over the energy sector. "We're paying for the mistakes of this president and his incompetent managers," said Aixa López, president of the Committee of Blackout Victims, which has organized protests in several cities. In some cities, protesters have left household appliances on the steps of state power companies.