The Canada-based Linear Gold Corp. ceded to pressure from indigenous communities who oppose plans to exploit gold and silver deposits at Ixhuatán in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, and announced the closure of its offices in the state on Sept. 28. Along with the company Blackfire Exploration Corporation, Linear Gold Corp. holds most of the concessions granted by the Mexican government to foreign mining outfits in the conflicted state. The company's statement upon closing its Chiapas offices cited the world financial sitaution, and left open the possibility of resuming local operations. The Mexican Network of the Mining-Affected (REMA) had held numerous protests against the project. (No a la Mina, Sept. 28)

Four suspected militants were killed Sept. 30 when a presumed US drone fired missiles at two vehicles in Nurak, a village just east of the city of Miran Shah, in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area. It was the third suspected US drone strike in Pakistan's tribal areas in the past 24 hours. (CNN, Sept. 30) Tahir Yuldashev, leader of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was killed in an Aug. 27 drone attack in South Waziristan, local media report. (Xinhua, Oct. 2)

Tribal elders said Oct. 1 that eight people—at least five of them civilians—were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan on the previous day. A US military spokeswoman, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, confirmed the strike, in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, but declined to estimate the number of casualties before a review of the attack. According to Hajji Talib, a district council member from the area, the strike killed a farmer, his family and three guests in the village of Khushal. (NYT, Oct. 1)

Argentina's former President Carlos Menem was charged Oct. 1 with obstructing an investigation into the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded more than 300. At the time of the bombing, Menem, now 79, was in the midst of his 12 years as president. He also faces charges in a separate case involving a scheme to smuggle weapons to Croatia and Ecuador. (NYT, Oct. 1)

The American Civil Liberties Union is offering to help University of Pittsburgh students who were arrested during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh—some of whom say they weren't even protesting. ACLU attorneys made the offer at a rally Oct. 1 attended by some 150. They say police conducted unlawful mass arrests and used excessive force.

Internationally-known Mexican environmentalist and forest defender Felipe Arreaga was killed Sept. 16, while driving his ATV in Petatlan, Guerrero. The longtime campesino leader was struck by a mini-bus and died a few hours later in a hospital in nearby Zihuatanejo. Although Petatlan is the site of a military base, it lacks civilian medical facilities capable of handling serious injuries. The driver of the mini-bus fled the scene of the crash, and many circumstances of the incident are still unclear.

Taking a cue from Argentina's Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, relatives of disappeared persons staged a loud demonstration in Tijuana on Sept. 25. Banging pots and pans, protesters gathered outside the Baja California state government building to demand answers about the whereabouts of 320 people forcibly disappeared or kidnapped. In an action that attracted public attention, relatives of the disappeared plastered pictures of their loved ones on the exterior of the government offices.

The African Union, European Union and United Nations Sept. 29 strongly rebuked the Guinean army's repression of a protest in the capital, Conakry, in which 157 people are said to have been killed. France has suspended its military co-operation with the country's ruling junta. The military crackdown on junta opponents killed 157, the Guinean Human Rights Organization said, citing army and hospital sources.