Gregorio Santos, the populist president of Peru's Cajamarca region, was comfortably re-elected Oct. 5—despite being imprisoned as corruption charges are pending against him. The biggest issue in the race by far was the unpopular Conga gold mine project, majority-owned by US-based Newmont Mining. Peru's central government said it would recognize the victory, while his supporters marched in Lima to demand his freedom. Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal called for a "political dialogue with all the actors" to resolve the crisis in Cajamarca. But Jorge Vergara Quiroz, president of the Cajamarca Chamber of Commerce, said that Santos' re-election created a climate of "uncertainty" that would discourage investment, and called on him not to take office. Segundo Mendoza, spokesman for Santos' Social Affirmation Movement (MAS), responded that the party respects private investment. He called on authorities to free Santos, saying he posed no flight risk.

As ISIS forces penetrated the besieged north Syrian town of Kobani, setting off street battles with Kurdish defenders, Kurds across Turkey took to the streets in angry protests at Ankara's inaction. Authorities in the southern province of Mardin declared a curfew in six districts after clashes with police, but Kurds continue to take to the streets in defiance of the order. One young protester was killed in the southeastern city of Mus as police fired on demonstrators—some of whom were armed, by Turkish media accounts. In Diyarbakir, Turkey's largest Kurdish city, two were killed and 10 others injured as Islamist militants attacked Kurdish protesters, sparking a shootout. Protesters reportedly fired shots in the air in the eastern city of Batman. In Istanbul, police used tear gas and water canon to disperse angry protests in Kurdish neighborhoods, and clashes were also reported between demonstrators and Turkish nationalist gangs. One protester was shot in the head and critically injured in the city's Sarigazi district. In the Kadikoy neighborhood, human rights lawyer Tamer Dogan was badly wounded after being hit in the head by a tear-gas canister.

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 3 ordered (PDF) the public release of 28 videos showing the forced feeding of Guantánamo Bay detainee Wa'el Dhiab. Dhiab, a Syrian citizen, has been held at Guantánamo since 2002 and has been on a long term hunger strike in protest of his detention. US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the US Navy's arguments that releasing the tapes would aid detainees in thwarting security measures, produce propaganda, and violate the Geneva convention. She found instead that the decision to disclose classified information lies with the judiciary rather than the executive branch stating that:

On Oct. 4 authorities in the southwestern state of Guerrero announced that they had found charred human remains in a group of mass graves in Iguala de La Independencia municipality, at Pueblo Viejo community in the countryside northwest of the city. Guerrero chief prosecutor Iñaky Blanco Cabrera would only say that there were human bones and that specialists would need to use DNA tests to identify the victims. State police agents at the site on Oct. 4 told reporters off the record that there could be anywhere from four to 19 bodies, but on Oct. 5 Blanco Cabrera said the total number was 28. It seemed likely that the remains were of teachers' college students missing since the night of Sept. 26-27, when Iguala police opened fire on three buses carrying students from the militant Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College, located in the town of Ayotzinapa. Originally 25 students were reported missing after the incident, but parents and student leaders later raised the number to 43.

The Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Sept. 26 condemning "the activities of vulture funds" and regretting the effect payments to the funds could have "on the capacity of governments to fulfill their human rights obligations." The resolution was presented by Argentina, which was forced into technical default on July 30 after US district judge Thomas Griesa in New York blocked the country from paying interest to its bondholders unless it settled with US two hedge funds, NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management; the two companies are known as "vulture funds," investment groups that try to profit by buying weak debt the debtors are likely to default on. Argentina's effort in Geneva was backed by Algeria, Brazil, Russia and Venezuela. The Human Rights Council approved the resolution in a 33-5 vote, with nine countries abstaining; the opposing votes came from the US, UK, Czech Republic, Germany and Japan. "Vulture funds aren't just an economic problem," said Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman, who was in Geneva for the vote. "They represent a political, social problem that affects the lives of all the citizens" in many countries since they deprive governments of resources they could use for social services.

Former Haitian "president for life" Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier (1971-1986) died suddenly of a heart attack the night of Oct. 3 at a friend's home in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Pétionville, according to his lawyer, Reynold Georges. He was 63. Duvalier succeeded his father, François ("Papa Doc") Duvalier, at the age of 19. The older Duvalier had built and maintained a brutal dictatorship from 1957 until his death in 1971. The brutality continued under his son; an estimated 30,000 people were killed during the family's 29 years in power. Massive demonstrations and the withdrawal of US support forced Duvalier to flee to France on Feb. 7, 1986, reportedly carrying off millions of dollars looted from the national treasury. He returned to Haiti on Jan. 16, 2011. Despite facing corruption charges, Duvalier never came to trial; he also never came to trial for human rights abuses committed by his regime, although a court finally ruled on Feb. 20, 2014 that the human rights cases against him could proceed.

On Oct. 1 the National Security Archive, a Washington, DC-based research organization, published declassified US government documents about secret contingency plans that the administration of former US president Gerald Ford (1974-1977) made in 1976 for a possible military attack on Cuba. Then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger called for the plans in response to Cuba's decision in late 1975 to send troops to support the left-leaning government of Angola against rebels funded by South Africa and the US; he was furious that Cuba had defied the US after a round of secret negotiations he had sponsored in 1975 aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries.

The Colombian government, campesinos, indigenous groups and Afro-Colombians have created a dialogue table that seeks to improve the living conditions of rural and minority communities. With more than 650 participants from the National Agrarian Summit, a leftist coalition of social organizations, political parties, and unions, the table is meant to be a "space of dialogue" between the groups and the government, according to press release on the Agriculture Ministry's website. Among the items up for discussion are access to land, productive projects, and human rights. The heads of the Ministry of Interior, Agriculture, Finance, and Mining are among the government officials who are attend the dialogues.