A former paramilitary fighter testified in special judicial proceedings that Colombia's armed forces chief, Gen. Mario Montoya, delivered weapons to a paramilitary death squad when he was a commander in Medellín, and the Colombian prosecutor general has opened an investigation into the charges, the Washington Post revealed on Sept. 17.

Latin American leaders who came to New York the week of Sept. 22 for the annual opening session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that the US and European countries should use economic models from the South to resolve the growing financial crisis in the North.

According to exit polls, Ecuadoran voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal for a new Constitution in a referendum held Sept. 28. The Santiago Pérez Investigación y Estudios polling firm showed 66.4% of voters supporting the measure, while Cedatos-Gallup put the proportion at 70%. President Rafael Correa, who had called for the new charter, said the vote was a "new historic triumph" and led supporters in chanting: "The people united will never be defeated." The center-left president got the results while visiting his hometown, Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most prosperous city.

Teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos, on strike since Aug. 13, escalated their tactics on Sept. 22 by blocking access to state government offices in Cuernavaca, the state capital. Gov. Marco Antonio Adame Castillo, of the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN), responded by asking the federal government for 400 anti-riot agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP). Some 20,000 Morelos teachers have been trying to force Adame Castillo to cancel the state's participation in the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan supported by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo. The teachers are members of Section 19 of the SNTE.

The US government is not currently scheduling any deportations to Haiti, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said on Sept. 19. According to Gonzales, federal officials are evaluating conditions in the country, which was hit by four tropical storms in less than a month. Some Congress members from south Florida, which has a large population of Haitian origin, said they were disappointed Haitians have not been granted temporary protected status (TPS), which allows immigrants to stay in the US for a limited time because of wars or environmental disasters in their home countries. But Gonzalez made it clear that the deportation of Haitians would continue: "When we feel it's appropriate to resume, we'll notify members of Congress." (AP, Sept. 19)

Jury selection began under unusual security measures Sept. 29 in the federal trial of five men accused of planning an attack on Fort Dix, NJ, where reservists are trained for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. The men—all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who have lived for years in New Jersey—are charged with conspiracy to murder soldiers and attempted murder. They'll face life imprisonment if convicted. No attack was carried out and attorneys for the men say there was no plot. (AP, Sept. 29)

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that fighting between the Pakistani military and militants in the autonomous tribal districts on the Afghan border has driven 20,000 to flee as refugees into Afghanistan. The exodus from the Bajaur tribal agency into Afghanistan's Kunar province echoes the earlier mass exodus across the border—but in the opposite direction. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, an estimated five million Afghans fled to neighboring countries, chiefly Pakistan. The UNHCR and aid agencies are rushing emergency supplies to the Kunar refugees. (NYT, Sept. 29)

A car bomb detonated Sept. 30 near a crowded restaurant at lunchtime in central Baghdad's Karrada district, killing at least four civilians and wounding nine others. Most of the victims were eating lunch on the first day of the five-day Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan for Sunnis. Eid begins for Shi'ites two days later. On Sept. 28, a suicide car bombing in the same district killed and wounded scores of Iraqis getting preparing for Eid al-Fitr. (CNN, Sept. 30)