Two Honduran presidential candidates announced in a communiqué on Sept. 9 that they will not participate in the Nov. 29 general elections unless four conditions are met: the return of President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who was removed from office by a military coup on June 28; an end to human rights violations; the demilitarization of Honduran society; and an end to a slander campaign against the leftist Democratic Unification (UD) party, which currently holds four of the 128 seats in the Congress. The two candidates are former union leader Carlos H. Reyes and legislative deputy César Ham, who heads the UD. Both are active in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat, the leading resistance coalition; the front issued a communiqué on Sept. 7 calling for a boycott of "the electoral farce called by the coup perpetrators."

Honduran business leader Adolfo Facussé arrived at Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport near the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula the morning of Sept. 13 after being deported from the US. He was reportedly detained by US immigration authorities and sent back to Honduras after flying to Miami on Sept. 12. Facussé was apparently a casualty of a decision announced by the US State Department on Sept. 3 to revoke visas of Hondurans involved in the June 28 coup. Also on Sept. 12, Honduran officials said the US had revoked visas for de facto president Roberto Micheletti, 14 Supreme Court judges, the de facto foreign relations secretary and attorney general, and the armed forces chief (El Heraldo, Honduras, Sept. 13; New York Times, Sept. 13 from AP)

An independent union of Argentine transit workers, the Union Association of Subte and Premetro Workers (AGTSyP), held job actions on Sept. 9 and 10 in the Buenos Aires transit system in a push to win official recognition. In the Sept. 9 action the workers opened the turnstiles for two hours, letting commuters ride for free. On the second day, they shut much of the system down for two hours, affecting about 160,000 riders, according to Metrovías, S.A., the company that has managed the capital's subway and commuter lines since they were privatized in 1994. A unionist jumped on the tracks at the Pueyrredón station to block the trains, while a group of workers blocked the C Line tracks at the Avenida de Mayo station.

On Sept. 9 Haitian riot police and SWAT teams entered the grounds of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (FMP) of the State University of Haiti (UEH) in downtown Port-au-Prince and arrested about 20 students who had been occupying a building there since Sept. 7 to prevent the start of classes. Although police agents are generally not allowed on campuses in Haiti, the authorities said the raid was legal because the school's administration had asked for it and a justice of the peace was present to monitor the operation. Students from the UEH's Faculty of Ethnology responded to the raid by throwing rocks, and demonstrations continued at least through Sept. 11, when some 40 vehicles were reportedly attacked by students.

On Sept. 11 Guatemalan and United Nations authorities arrested nine suspects in connection with the May 10 murder of attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. The suspects include William Gilberto Santos Divas, a former officer of the National Civil Police (PNC) who is considered the ringleader; his brother, Alberto Estuardo Santos Divas, also a former PNC officer; two former police agents; and a former army specialist. According to Carlos Castresana, head of the UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), the investigation was based entirely on physical evidence: tapes from video cameras near the crime scene in Guatemala City's Zone 14; a search of William Santos Divas' car, identified from the tapes; and some 12,000 messages on Santos Divas' cell phone.

Self-defense committees in indigenous communities of Peru's conflicted Apurímac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) received 400 rifles from the army Sept. 14 to fight "narco-terrorists" operating in the high jungle zone. Commander of the VRAE Military Region, Gen. Ricardo Moncada Novoa, and commissioner for Peace and Development of the Central Selva, Mario Jerí Kuriyama, presided over the ceremony, where the arms were turned over to indigenous leaders from Pangoa and Río Tambo districts in Satipo province of Junín region, near the borders with Ayacucho and Cusco regions. Jonatan Sharete Quinchoquer, president of the Campa Asháninka Organization of the Río Ene (OCARE), said indigenous communities are suffering harassment by resurgent Sendero Luminoso guerillas, and called for more armed forces patrols in the zone. A photo with the story shows a mixed group of soldiers in camouflage and Asháninka warriors in traditional ceremonial robes holding aloft their rifles. (El Comercio, Lima, Sept. 15)

On Sept. 14, the same day a US Special Forces helicopter raid reportedly killed a Shabab insurgent leader in Somalia, residents at the southern village of Erile reported a second chopper raid by foreign forces. Abdinasir Mohamed Adan, an elder from the nearby village of Barawe, told AFP by phone: "There was a military operation carried out by four foreign choppers in Erile village. A car was destroyed, we are also hearing that some of the vehicle's passengers were taken on the choppers."

Human rights activists and legal experts reacted swiftly Sept. 14 to disclosures that the US government is planning to introduce new measures officials claim would give inmates at Afghanistan's notorious Bagram prison more opportunities to challenge their detention. Their views range from cautious optimism to total condemnation.