A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed vehicle into a police station in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley Oct. 16, killing three officers and wounding 15. (Reuters, Oct. 16). Later that day, a suspected US missile struck a house in Tapargai, South Waziristan, killing one suspected foreign militant and injuring another, Pakistani officials said. Local residents reported seeing unmanned aircraft in the sky before and after the attack. (AP, Oct. 16)

Fifteen anti-war protesters were arrested on disorderly conduct charges outside the presidential debate at Long Island's Hofstra University Oct. 15. A skirmish broke out between protesters and mounted police at the gates when police refused to allow anti-war Iraq veterans into the debate. Mounted police pushed a group of about 200 people away from the gates—injuring at least two, one of whom was taken away in an ambulance. Most of those arrested were members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). (Newsday, The Indypendent, Oct. 16)

More than 900 million people in developing countries face starvation as food prices soar, a new report from Oxfam finds. Spiraling inflation in the cost of basic foods, such as rice and cereals, have pushed an extra 119 million people into hunger this year, according to the report, released to coincide with the UN International World Food Day. Oxfam's "Double Edged Prices" report found 967 million people are now officially living below the hunger line. It found there had been a 300% rise in the cost of wheat in Somalia, a 100% increase in the price of flour, and a doubling of the cost of rice in Cambodia and the Philippines in the past year. Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking said the effects of the price rises are "devastating." (Press Association, Oct. 15)

The number of Christian families who have fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in the past week has reached 1,350, Nineveh provincial authorities said Oct. 15. Fourteen Christians have been slain in the past two weeks in the city. On Oct. 14, the Miskinta Church in the Old City district of Mosul was bombed, causing damage to the building but no casualties. Many of the displaced families have fled to predominantly Christian villages in the Nineveh Plain, northeast of the city. Church leaders accuse the Iraqi government of trying to cover up the extent of the crisis.

Latin American markets continued to be shaken by a global financial crisis set off in September by bad mortgages in the US. On Oct. 7 the stock exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, fell 4.66%; Mexico's market was down 3.97%; stocks in Santiago, Chile, fell 4.29%; and the market in Buenos Aires, Argentina, lost 2.72%. Latin American losses that day were smaller those in New York, where the Dow Jones lost 5.11%. (La Jornada, Oct. 8 from Reuters, AFP, DPA and Notimex) But fallout from the global crisis is likely to get worse. Speaking in Durango on Oct. 6, Mexican Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón said his department expected some 200,000 Mexicans now working in the US to come home during the next year; he denied the number would be in the millions. (LJ, Oct. 7)

Several large operations by federal and local Mexican police from Oct. 7 to Oct. 9 broke up protests by striking teachers and their supporters in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, leaving dozens of people detained or injured. Morelos teachers have been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan promoted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and national teachers union head Elba Esther Gordillo Morales.

The Dominican Republic deported 691 people into Haiti at the border town of Belladere in the Central Plateau department from Sept. 4 to Sept. 30, according to the local Human Rights Committee, which is part of the Jeannot Succes Border Network. Witnesses say the deportees were imprisoned for two to five days before their repatriation.

As of Oct. 7 Puerto Rico's teachers had been voting for a week on whether the Puerto Rican Teachers Union (SPM) should represent them. The island's 40,000 teachers were previously represented by the 42-year-old Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), but the Labor Relations Commission excluded the FMPR from running in the new election, even though 12,000 teachers had already endorsed the union as their bargaining agent. Earlier this year Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila's administration withdrew the union's certification because of its refusal to accept a ban on strikes by public employees in Law 45. The FMPR mounted a militant 10-day strike in late February and early March over wages, classroom size and health issues, winning several key demands.