A little-known office of the US Defense Department is now taking bids from private security firms on a $3 billion contract for US-funded anti-narcotics operations in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. According to a report in Wired News, the Pentagon's Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office (CNTPO) announced a "mega-contract" on Nov. 9 for as much as $950 million for "operations, logistics and minor construction," up to $975 million for training foreign forces, $875 million for "Information" tasks, and $240 million for "program and program support." The cash will start flowing next August, and the contractors may be able to extend the jobs for three more years.

Some 400 protesters on Nov. 28 clashed with police as they attempted to occupy the site of the planned Conga gold and copper mine at Celendín municipality in Peru's highland region of Cajamarca. National Police troops fired tear-gas and shot-gun blasts, and protesters hurled stones as they tried to take over a work camp at the site. The airport at Cajamarca city, the regional capital, was closed and flights cancelled as another 500 protesters gathered and pledged to occupy the facility. The police force securing the airport was massively outnumbered. Protesters also blockaded surrounding roads. It was the fifth consecutive day of a civil strike to demand a halt to the mining project. Two were arrested at the mine site, and one protester wounded in the leg. Protesters are demanding that President Ollanta Humala come to Cajamarca to hold a town meeting or consulta on the project, and pledged to escalate their tactics if he does not comply within 24 hours.

Mexican human rights attorney Netzaí Sandoval on Nov. 25 filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague asking the court to investigate human rights violations and possible crimes against humanity by the security forces under President Felipe Calderón's campaign against the drug cartels. The complaint, backed by 23,000 signatures, names 470 cases of human rights abuses by government forces since 2006, and estimates 40,000 dead in drug-related violence. The complaint also names Public Security Minister Genaro García Luna, Defense Secretary Guillermo Galván and fugitive Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin Guzmán AKA "El Chapo" (long held to be secretly collaborating with the Calderón administration).

Monica Chuji, Ecuador's former communications minister under President Rafael Correa and well-known indigenous activist, was on Nov. 25 sentenced to one year in prison and a ordered to pay a $100,000 fine for "defamation" of Correa's Minister of Public Administration, Vinicio Alvarado. However, after the sentence was imposed by the court at Pichincha penitentiary, Alvarado exercised his prerogative to pardon Chuji—an implicit admission that the move would have broken the remaining ties between Correa and the country's powerful indigenous movement.

On Nov. 22, one man was killed by an arrow shot by an "isolated" or "uncontacted" indigenous band in the rainforest of Peru's Madre de Dios region, according to the regional indigenous alliance FENAMAD. The report said the incident happened some eight kilometers from the native community of Diamante (Harakmbut ethnicity), at an outlying chacra (farm plot). A Diamante family was preparing to harvest banana and yuca on the cleared plot when an arrow was fired from the forest, bringing down one of the harvesters. The land is in the buffer zone of Manu National Park, which FENAMAD has long maintained shelters isolated indigenous bands—despite official denials. FENAMAD president Jaime Corisepa called the incident "lamentable," and said growing attacks by isolated peoples indicates they feel threatened by rapid encroachment. FENAMAD called on Peru's national parks agency SERNANP to work with Diamante and other indigenous communities of the Río Yanayacu sector to establish control points to keep out intruders, and avoid such incidents in future. (FENAMAD, Nov. 25)

Venezuelan officials Nov. 25 announced the first air shipment of overseas gold holdings as part of a move to repatriate the country's foreign reserves from Europe and North America. The gold was unloaded from a plane and taken under heavy guard to the Central Bank in Caracas. Said President Hugo Chávez: "Now [the gold] will go to a place from which it should have never left: the Central Bank vaults; not those in London or in Europe, but our own land." Venezuela plans to return some 160 tons of gold, worth more than $11 billion and making up 85% of the country's bullion reserves.

The government of Belize this month quietly granted a US oil company drilling rights to protected Maya lands inside Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP) in southern Toledo district. The move comes in defiance of an historic Supreme Court ruling that confirmed Belize's obligation to adhere to the international standard of informed consent, says the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM). SATIIM, a community-based indigenous environmental organization that co-manages the STNP, found out that Belize had granted a permit to US Capital Energy only after being alerted by residents that the company had suddenly returned to the protected lands. SATIIM reports that seismic equipment has already been brought in and trees felled to begin operations near Sunday Wood village, one of the reserve's "buffer zone" communities.

Colombia's FARC guerillas executed four captive members of the security forces as the army raided the camp where they were being held in a rescue attempt, authorities said Nov. 26. National Police Sgt. Luis Alberto Erazo, who had been held since December 1999, was able to escape his captors as four of his colleagues were executed by the rebels, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said. "At the moment the first shots were heard, Sgt. Erazo took the decision to run," Pinzón claimed. "He run and he hid in the jungle. According to reports, he was pursued by three terrorists of the FARC who even threw grenades at him during the chase. This caused him facial injuries."