The number of planes smuggling cocaine through Honduras has surged since the US suspended drug cooperation after the June coup d'etat, the de facto government's drug policy chief Julián Arístides González said Oct. 13. Honduras lost $16.5 million of US military aid after the coup. In the last month alone, de facto authorities say they have found 10 planes abandoned on runways and remote highways, compared with just four last year. "These are the facts, the flights have intensified," said Arístides, head of the National Directorate for the Struggle Against Narco-traffic (DNLN).

At around 11 PM the night of Oct. 10, Mexican soldiers and federal police agents occupied facilities of the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) in Mexico City and several central Mexican states, reportedly using force to remove workers on the night shift. About an hour later Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's center-right administration published a decree liquidating the company and terminating some 41,000 active employees. The decree promised respect for the workers' labor rights: the government said it would guarantee severance pay and pensions, at an estimated cost of some $20 billion pesos ($1.512 billion).

On Oct. 6 Haiti's WIN Group conglomerate and the US-based Soros Economic Development Fund announced plans to build a $45 million industrial park named "West Indies Free Zone" near Port-au-Prince's impoverished Cité Soleil neighborhood. The 1.2 million square foot facility, to be completed in 2012, will "offer tax, customs and processing advantages to tenants" and is expected "to create 25,000 jobs and improve the standard of living for the 300,000 residents" of Cité Soleil, according to a WIN Group press release. The free trade zone's executives "are already in preliminary discussions with North American and European apparel manufacturers."

The Washington, DC-based investigative nonprofit National Security Archive released several documents on Oct. 6 written by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1965 and 1966 about its Cuban-born longtime "asset" Luis Posada Carriles, who currently lives in Miami under indictment after entering the US illegally in 2005. The Archive's Peter Kornbluh obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

After a week of marches and roadblocks, Ecuador's indigenous movement and President Rafael Correa have opened talks. On Oct. 5, a delegation of some 150 representatives from the three regional organizations of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) attended a meeting with the president and his cabinet in Quito.

Prosecutors in Guadalajara, Mexico, say they have filed charges against two suspected members of a gang blamed for what the press has dubbed the "clown jewels" caper. The gang—some members dressed in clown costumes—burst into a jewelry store July 26 and made off with at least $900,000 worth of loot. The clown costumes were later found abandoned in a car. The Jalisco state prosecutor's office says two of six suspects have been caught and charged while a third has been detained pending investigation. One of the suspects reportedly confessed to being the one of the men behind the masks. (AP, Oct. 9)

A group of independent UN experts expressed concern Oct. 9 over the increased use of mercenaries in Honduras since the June coup d'etat. The panel said it received reports that 40 former Colombian paramilitary veterans had been hired to protect properties and individuals in Honduras since the June 28 ouster of President Jose Manuel Zelaya. The panel also heard reports that 120 mercenaries from various Latin American countries had been contracted to support the de facto regime.

Supporters of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya warned the de facto government that a crackdown on opposition media could derail talks scheduled to resume this week aimed at resolving the country's political crisis. "It is a really appalling issue, something right out of a dictatorship," said Rafael Alegria, a leader of protests against the coup-installed regime.