The World War 4 Report House Band, featuring Subcommander Pogo, will play Otto's Shrunken Head, 538 East 14th St. (near Ave. B) on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Sunday Dec. 12 at 5:30 PM. If you missed the politically didactic power trio's premier performance at the World War 4 Report benefit in June, this is your chance. Other bands to follow on the bill include Iconicide, Fast Lane and Damn Kids.

On Dec. 1 indigenous Guatemalan Angelica Choc and her lawyers, Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, announced a lawsuit in Ontario, Canada, against the Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals Inc. for the murder of Choc's husband, Adolfo Ich Chamán, in the community of El Estor in the eastern department of Izabal on Sept. 27, 2009. Choc charges that security guards working for HudBay, HMI Nickel Inc., and their Guatemalan subsidiary, Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel, murdered Ich, a leader in the local Q'eqchi' community, because of his opposition to violations by the mining companies.

Hundreds of campesinos marched in Tegucigalpa on Dec. 2 to demand that the Honduran government resolve longstanding land conflicts in the Lower Aguán River Valley in the north of the country. The march, from the National Pedagogic University to the National Congress, was organized by various campesino groups and by the local section of Vía Campesina, an international federation of campesino organizations.

Mexico has the highest rate of violent deaths for women among countries not at war, the regional director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Ana Güezmes, said in Mexico City on Nov. 23, citing a study of 135 countries by the Queen Sofia Center in Spain. A Mexican organization, the Origin Foundation, announced on the same day that between the ages of 15 and 44 Mexican women are in greater danger of rape or abuse at home than of cancer or accidents. "Every day six women die violently: four by homicide and two by suicide," the group said, "and 30-50% of abuse victims are under 15 years of age; 20% are under 10." (La Jornada, Mexico, Nov. 24)

Mexican president Felipe Calderón has been advising the US on how to fight the influence of leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, according to a secret Oct. 23, 2009 US embassy cable that was made public by WikiLeaks on Dec. 2, 2010. During a meeting on Oct. 19, 2009 with US national intelligence director Dennis Blair, Calderón "emphasized that...Hugo Chávez is active everywhere, including Mexico," the embassy reported. "Calderon also commented that he is particularly concerned about Venezuela's relations with Iran, and that the Iranian embassy in Mexico is very active."

The US government hopes to develop a closer relationship with the Mexican military as a result of Mexico's "war on drugs" and international humanitarian operations, according to US diplomatic cables obtained by the WikiLeaks group and posted on Dec. 2 by the Spanish daily El País. The cables also show that US and Mexican officials know the "drug war" itself is going badly, despite their public expressions of optimism.

About 5,000 activists marched in front of the US Army's Fort Benning base in Columbus, Georgia, on Nov. 20 in the 20th annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). The school trains Latin American soldiers; SOA Watch, which sponsors the protests, says SOA graduates are among the region's most notorious human rights violators.

Some 500 Honduran soldiers and police agents reportedly occupied the regional office of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) in Sinaloa community, Tocoa municipality, Colón department, on the morning of Nov. 23. Apparently the security forces were searching for arms in the office, which is located in northern Honduras' Lower Aguán Valley, the site of protracted and often violent disputes over land ownership. The INA is a semi-autonomous government agency charged with implementing agrarian reform; no arms were found in the office.