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.

Nearly 30 heads of state attended the Second Africa-South America Summit, a Sept. 26-27 meeting of representatives of 61 nations on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, intended to increase trade and economic development cooperation between the two regions. The first summit was held in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, in November 2006. "North-North and North-South summits have been held," Venezuelan Deputy Foreign Minister for Africa, Reinaldo Bolívar, told the Inter Press Service (IPS), "but apart from the Summits of South American-Arab Countries in 2005 and 2009, the Africa-South America meetings are the only South-South summits taking place in the world."

Spanish police arrested former Argentine military pilot Juan Alberto Poch on Sept. 21 in Valencia on charges by Argentine courts that he flew some of the "death flights" in which as many as 1,000 opponents of Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship were thrown from planes into the Atlantic while drugged. When he was arrested, Poch, a dual national of Argentina and the Netherlands, was working as a pilot for Transavia, a low-cost airline owned by KLM and Air France. He was arrested while at the controls of a plane in Manises airport, about to fly a holiday group from Valencia to Amsterdam. Spanish police said Poch is named in four separate investigations in Argentina; he will face an extradition tribunal to determine whether he will be sent to Argentina. (The Guardian, UK, Sept. 23)

On Sept. 23 Chevron Corp., the second-largest US oil company, announced that it had asked the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to shift responsibility to Ecuador for paying any money that Amazon Basin residents might win in a lawsuit over environmental damage from oil operations. The suit, brought by indigenous Ecuadorians 16 years ago, could result in an award of $27 billion. If Chevron wins in the arbitration court, Ecuador will have to pay the damages, according to Barry Appleton, an attorney who has represented companies in similar cases. "Judgments from this panel are enforceable around the world," he said.

During a meeting in Brasilia on Sept. 17, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim and US commerce representative Ronald Kirk ratified a plan to allow Brazilian companies operating in Haiti to export products to the US without paying customs fees. This would be done through an extension of two US trade acts ostensibly aiding Haitian industries: the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act of 2006 and the HOPE 2 Act of 2008. Amorim told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that the initiative's goal is humanitarian, "to aid Haiti's economic development through sustainable production activity," although he noted that it would also benefit Brazilian and US companies.

As of the morning of Sept. 28, a 45-day state of siege decreed by the de facto Honduran government was in effect, allowing the authorities to suspend rights of free speech and assembly; police agents and soldiers had already closed the Radio Globo radio station and the Channel 36 television station under the decree. The state of siege followed a week of increasing tensions after president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, deposed by a June 28 military coup, secretly returned to the country on Sept. 21 and established his headquarters in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. (Americas MexBlog, Sept. 28)

Honduras' de facto government backed off Sept. 28 from an emergency decree that barred protests and limited free speech after congressional leaders warned that they would not support the measure. The turn-around came just hours after soldiers raided the offices of Radio Globo, seizing equipment, and shut down Channel 36 TV, leaving it broadcasting only a test pattern. Regime spokesman Rene Zepeda said the outlets had been taken off the air in accordance with an emergency decree announced late the previous day that allowed authorities to close news media that "attack peace and public order."