Lawyers defending detainees at Guantánamo Bay said Nov. 1 that procedures and practices employed by the US government make it impossible for them to do their jobs. In a letter (PDF) directed to the attention of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, the attorneys allege that Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) staff seize, open, interpret, read and review attorney-client privileged communications—actions which the attorneys argue are unlawful. As a result of this practice by the JTF-GTMO, the attorneys find themselves in "an untenable position of having either to violate professional ethical standards in order to communicate with our clients, or cease communicating with our clients," and accordingly request that the practice be stopped immediately. Additionally, the attorneys, who represent six "high value detainees," address the refusal up to this point of the government to respond to their complaints or requests in spite of sending "multiple communications."

Two days after two Spanish aid workers and one Italian were abducted by suspected al-Qaeda militants at the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf in western Algeria, Spain on Nov. 1 called for a UN investigation to evaluate the security situation in the camps, and to probe possible corruption in the distribution of international aid there. "We have asked the United Nations to send a mission to Algeria to assess the security situation in the camps of Tindouf," Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez told reporter after talks in Rabat with her Moroccan counterpart Taieb Fassi Fihri. The camps are under the control of the Polisario Front, which seeks the independence of neighboring Western Sahara from Morocco. Algeria, which traditionally backs the Polisario Front, has reportedly deployed both ground and air forces in an "urgent" operation in the remote Saharan region to prevent the escape of the kidnappers. (Al-Arabiya, Oct. 25)

Indigenous and peasant communities in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao are protesting the armed forces' proposal to allow mining companies to establish their own militia force to secure their operations. The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center is calling on President Benigno Aquino to bar private companies from forming what are to be known as Special CAFGU Armed Auxiliary (SCAA) units, arguing that it is the indigenous peoples and rural communities that are in dire need of protection from violence and attacks, not mining corporations.

Tanzania's last remaining hunter-gatherer tribe won an unprecedented victory over development interests who claimed they were extinct, acquiring a certificate of "customary rights of occupancy" (CCRO) to their communal lands in the Yaeda Chini area of the Great Rift Valley. In announcing the move Oct. 30, Doroth Wanzala, assistant commissioner for land in Tanzania's Northern Zone, said: "We have resolved that the Hadzabe should be given official title deeds to ensure that the country's last hunter-gatherers are not troubled by land-hungry-invaders particularly in the wake of scramble for land." The United Arab Emirates' Safaris Ltd has been seeking to buy the 2,267 square kilometers of virgin bush in northern Tanzania for commercial hunting and tourism. The Hadzabe have resisted efforts to relocate them and "civilize" them since the 1960s by fleeing deeper into the bush.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Nov. 1 it had begun injecting water and boric acid into Reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, after detecting signs of fission. The injection was ordered after analysis of gas samples from the reactor building indicated the presence of xenon 133 and xenon 135, byproducts of a nuclear reaction. "We cannot deny the possibility of a small nuclear fission reaction," TEPCO spokesman Hiroki Kawamata said. The temperature in reactor No. 2 had been brought to below 100 degrees C, one of the conditions for the utility to declare "cold shutdown." TEPCO and the government had said they were on track to bring the damaged reactors to cold shutdown by the end of the year. (AFP, Bloomberg, Nov. 2)

Abdurraheem el-Keib, a dual US-Libyan citizen, was elected prime minister of Libya by leaders of the National Transitional Council who voted in a televised event Oct. 31, dropping ballots into a transparent box. Keib, described favorably as a "technocrat" by the Washington Post, attended the University of Tripoli in 1973, earned his MS at the University of Southern California in 1976, and his Ph.d. at North Carolina State University in 1984. He has taught at the University of Alabama and the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Most recently, he served as chair of the Electrical Engineering Department at the UAE's Petroleum Institute before joining Libya's interim council in the spring. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the US Department of Energy (DoE), Southern Company Services (SC), and the Alabama Power Company (APCO). (AntiWar.com, Nov. 1; WP, Oct. 31; The Petroleum Institute)

Colombia's Department of Administrative Security (DAS) was officially eliminated Oct. 3 after years of scandals concerning paramilitary ties, assassinations, illegal wiretapping and corruption. President Juan Manuel Santos and DAS director Felipe Muñoz formally announced the disbanding of the agency at the Presidential Palace in Bogotá. Replacing the 58-year old DAS will be a new intelligence agency headed by former commander of the navy, Adm. Alvaro Echandia. Interior Minister Germán Vargas Lleras said on Twitter that it will be called the "National Agency of Protection." Meanwhile, 2,300 DAS employees will be transfered to the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) of the Fiscalia, Colombia's justice department.

Haitian police arrested legislative deputy Arnel Bélizaire at Port-au-Prince's international airport on Oct. 27 as he returned from an official visit to France; the agents then took him to the National Penitentiary in the capital. Chamber of Deputies president Sorel Jacynthe and a delegation of other legislators were kept from entering the airport to welcome Bélizaire, while several hundred demonstrators protested outside and chanted slogans against Haitian president Michel Martelly. The president himself left for the US the same day for unexplained health reasons. This was his second medical trip to the US since he took office in May; he was expected to return on Nov. 6.