The US-owned Star, SA factory in El Progreso, Honduras, has fired 70 pro-union workers illegally since Nov. 7, when workers notified the Honduran Ministry of Labor of their intention to form a legal union. Star is located in El Porvenir Free Trade Zone, an industrial park for the tax-exempt assembly plants known as maquiladoras; the factory's US clients include the Oregon-based Nike, Inc., and the National Football League (NFL) and Anvil Holdings, Inc., which are both based in New York City.

On Dec. 4 the US Senate voted 77-18 to approve the Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC for its initials in Spanish). The House of Representatives ratified the treaty on Nov. 8, and the approval process now only requires the signature of US president George W. Bush, whose government negotiated the agreement. Bush may sign it the week of Dec. 10 in a ceremony attended by Peruvian president Alan Garcia. The FTA is expected to go into effect in July 2008 as the two countries celebrate their independence days, starting a process for eliminating all tariffs which is to be completed in 17 years. Peru exported goods worth $6 billion to the US in 2006; US exports to Peru were worth about $3 billion.

Meeting in Oruro rather than its official seat of protest-wracked Sucre, Bolivia's Constituent Assembly approved all 411 articles of the new constitution in a marathon 16-hour session dominated by the ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS) and its allies—and boycotted by the opposition. Said Assembly president Silvia Lazarte at the end of the session Dec. 9: "Although suffering many sacrifices, we have approved...this new constitution. We have done this for the people, and not for the parties of the right who want failure." Boycotting Assembly member Samuel Doria Medina said the new document "undermines democracy." (Univision, Dec. 10)

The draft Bolivian constitution approved by the country's Constituent Assembly in Sucre explcitly rejects foreign military bases on the national territory. "Bolivia is a pacifist State, which promotes the culture of peace and the right to peace, and seeks cooperation between the peoples of every region of the world," it reads. The document, yet to be ratified by popular vote, rejects war as a means of addressing international problems, while asserting the right of self-defense in case of aggression.

Marking his first year in office, Mexican President Felipe Calderón said Dec. 1 that fighting the war on drugs and organized crime remain his highest priority. The speech came as the death toll in 2007 narco violence topped 2,000—making it the bloodiest year yet. "The biggest threat to Mexico's future is lack of public safety and organized crime," Calderón said in a speech at the National Palace. "But with one year in office, I am more convinced than ever that we are going to win this battle." Having started his first year by sending army troops into Baja California and Michoacán, Calderón marked its end by dispatching army special forces into Reynosa, Tamulipas, on the Texas border.

Three popular Mexican musicians met violent deaths in six days this week. José Luis Aquino Lavariega, 33, trumpet-player with the band Los Conde, was found Dec. 5 under a bridge in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, bound with a plastic bag over his head. On Dec. 3, the tortured body of Sergio Gomez, 34, singer for K-Paz de la Sierra, was found the night after he was abducted while leaving a stadium concert in Morelia, Michoacán. Zayda Peña, 28, singer for Zayda y Los Culpables, survived an attempt on her life only to be shot to death in the hospital in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Dec. 1. A friend and hotel manager were killed in the initial attempt Nov. 30. Eight popular musicians have been murdered this year in Mexico.

Faiz Mohammed Baluch and Nawabzada Herbiyar Marri, two exiled human rights activists from Baluchistan, were arrested Dec. 4 by London Metropolitan Police in a supposed anti-terrorist operation code-named "Super-Sweep." Fellow rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: "I know one of the detained men, Faiz Baluch, and have worked with him on campaigns against Pakistani human rights abuses in occupied Baluchistan. In all the work that I have done with him, he [has] been engaged in an entirely lawful, constitutional struggle for the independence of their homeland."

Ashish Khetan, the journalist who secretly taped Hindu rightists boasting of their role in the mass murder of Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat pogroms, says he now fears for his life and is frustrated by the lack of response. Khetan's "sting operation" for the left newsweekly Tehelka caused a national scandal, but the Hindu nationalists linked to the killings seem set for re-election in Gujarat state polls this month. "I got them to speak to me, make self-damning revelations, details of the killings and rapes," Khetan told AFP. "Despite the evidence, the political reaction to the exposé has been at best tepid and I feel very, very disappointed. There has been no action." Khetan said he was also shocked to receive "hate mails and even threats from journalists." He added: "My work has angered a lot of people. Who knows, some fanatic sitting in some corner of the country may have made a plan to kill me. Yes, I am afraid that I could be on the hit list of some fanatic or another." (AFP, Dec. 5)