A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Nov. 5 ordered further review of a lower court decision to release Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Olud Slahi, allegedly linked to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The order vacated US District Court Judge James Robertson's decision to release Slahi and remanded the case, instructing the court to conduct further review to see if Slahi has abandoned ties to al-Qaeda, to which he swore an oath of allegiance in the early 1990s.

California voters defeated Proposition 23 in the Nov. 2 elections, voting 61.3% in favor of keeping the state's 2006 greenhouse gas reduction law, the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), considered the strongest in the nation. A "yes" vote on Prop 23, backed by Texas oil money, would have suspended the law until the state's unemployment rate stayed at or below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters. Assembly Bill 32 requires industry to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and is set to go into effect in 2012.

The Iraqi oil ministry's auction of three natural gas fields last week has been angrily opposed by all the governorates in which they are located, with provincial officials threatening legal action against Baghdad and warning that they will refuse to cooperate with the developers. Bids were granted to companies from Turkey, Kuwait, Kazakstan and South Korea to develop gas fields holding approximately 10% of the country's reserves. The fields in Anbar, Diyala and Basra are primarily being developed for domestic consumption to improve Iraq's feeble power supply, oil ministry officials said.

Some 4,000 indigenous people ended their blockade of the Río Marañon in northern Peru Oct. 30, after reaching an agreement with the government and Argentine oil company Pluspetrol. After an oil spill in June, Peru's government started distributing food and goods to the people most affected in the region. However, with Pluspetrol declaring the pollution problem resolved, the government has cut off aid—in spite of indigenous complaints that their lands and waters are still impacted. The agreement calls for peace on both sides until the government's water authority can test the Marañon for pollution. (EFE, Earth First!, Oct. 30)

Up to 3,000 villagers are facing arrest after taking part in a "silent protest" against the Jaitapur nuclear power project in India's Maharashtra state Oct. 29. The villagers, upset about the lack of transparency surrounding the project, organized a "Jail Bharo" (fill up the jail) protest, by showing up at the project site to await their arrest. The government reacted by issuing "preventive arrest" warrants, prohibitory orders and setting up road blocks. According to media reports, 750 people were arrested including a former Supreme Court Judge. (Times of India, Oct. 29)

Voters chose Dilma Rousseff of the leftist Workers Party (PT) to be Brazil's 36th president in a runoff election on Oct. 31. Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) president Ricardo Lewandowski said in a press conference in the early evening that Rousseff's victory was now mathematically certain. With 93.25% of the ballots counted, Rousseff had won 55.43% of the valid votes to 44.57% for José Serra of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB); the two candidates had led in the first round on Oct. 3. More than 93 million Brazilians participated in the Oct. 31 voting.

On Oct. 30 Mexico's Public Security Secretariat (SSP) announced that it had put two federal police agents "at the disposal" of Public Ministry officials investigating the shooting of a college student the evening before near the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) campus in the northern state of Chihuahua. José Darío Alvarez Orrantía, a sociology student at UACJ, was hit in the abdomen as dozens of students marched in the 11th Walk Against Death in Ciudad Juárez, an opening event in a three-day conference treating the dramatic surge in violence in northern Mexico. Alvarez Orrantía was reported in stable condition at the city's General Hospital after emergency surgery the night of Oct. 29 that included the removal of about one-third of his intestine.

Representatives of Honduran unions and grassroots movements agreed on Oct. 30 to schedule a series of actions over the next two weeks around four issues: the national minimum wage, a law suspending pay increases for teachers, restrictions on pay increases for other public employees, and proposed legislation to allow temporary work.