Carlos Castaño, patriarch of Colombia's far-right paramilitary movement, is confirmed dead at the age of 39. Mario Iguaran, Colombia's chief prosecutor, said a skeleton unearthed from a shallow grave was that of Castaño, the long-missing leader of the feared Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The government "has the full identification that this is Castaño," Iguaran said, pointing to a 99.99% match between Castaño's DNA and that of the skeleton.

The Popular Peoples Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) has officially announced the replacement of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz with an alternative government. The organization said the only government they consider legitimate, after 106 days of political crisis which has paralyzed the state, is APPO.

Masked gunmen burst into a nightclub in the west-central Mexican state of Michoacan late on the night of Sept. 4 and flung five human heads onto the dance floor. The "Light and Shadow" club in the city of Uruapan was packed when the men stormed in and ordered clients onto the floor, state police said. Then they pulled the bloody heads from plastic bags and tossed them into the horrified crowd.

A unanimous decision of Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal rejected allegations of systematic fraud and awarded Felipe Calderon the presidency Sept. 5, after two months of uncertainty. But his ability to rule effectively remains in doubt as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refuses to recognise the victory and vows to lead a parallel popular government from below.

From the Chiapas daily Estesur, Sept. 3 (our translation):

PRIista marches against "electoral fraud"
Tuxtla Gutierrez - 13 days after the state elections, the candidate of the Alliance for Chiapas, the PRIista Jose Antonio Aguilar Bodegas, led a march and gathering through the principal streets of Tuxtla Gutierrez [the state capital], where thousands of supporters joined him in demanding that the state Electoral Tribunal Electoral del estado, "adhere to legality and independence".

On Aug. 31 about a dozen armed and masked people blocked the highway from Oaxaca city to Guelatao in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and passed out two communiques which according to the Mexican daily La Jornada were from the rebel Democratic Revolutionary Tendency-People's Army (TDR-EP). The Spanish wire service EFE reported instead that the armed individuals were members of the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR), from which the TDR-EP split in 2000. The literature demanded the removal of the state government, headed by Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, a central demand in a three-month-old protest of striking Oaxaca teachers and their allies. (La Jornada, Mexico, Sept. 1; El Diario-La Prensa, New York, Sept. 1 from EFE)

And not a moment too soon. This is sure to bring a smile to followers of the Global Anti-Golf Movement (GAGM). Chris Kraul reports for the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 31:

In Caracas, the Poor Shall Inherit the Golf Course
CARACAS, Venezuela — Perched in a green and forested aerie in the city's southern hills, the exclusive Valle Arriba Golf Club has long offered its members a breathtaking view and a pleasant escape from urban cacophony and congestion.

Now, a staunch ally of President Hugo Chavez wants it.

On Aug. 20, Brazilian landless activists Josias de Barros Ferreira and Samuel Matias Barbosa were murdered at an encampment of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) in Pernambuco state. Police claim the two men were murdered by other landless workers at the encampment; the MST says they were killed "by people who infiltrated the encampment with the objective of demobilizing the landless workers and demoralizing the movement." State police say the killers wanted $1,000 in compensation to give up their lands to a company building a gas pipeline near the MST encampment, and that Barros and Barbosa had refused the offer and demanded other lands in exchange for the deal.