Tens of thousands of striking workers were joined by students in marches through cities across Colombia Oct. 7 to demand the right to unionize, public health care and education, and an end to labor contracting. In some cities the protesters were joined by rural workers, displaced people and indigenous communities demanding an end to the abuses they suffer at the hands of Colombia’s armed groups. In Bogotá, marches led by different unions and student organizations blocked traffic as they converged on Plaza Bolívar from points around the city. In Cali, over 10,000 marchers coverged on San Francisco square, while in Medellín different blocs took over the city streets in staggered marches throughout the day, the last lighting the way with torches.

Forty of the firearms that Mexican police seized on April 30 at the home of an alleged drug trafficker in Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua turn out to be among the 2,000 weapons that reached Mexico as a result of the US government's bungled Operation Fast and Furious. The house, which was empty when police arrived, belonged to José Antonio Torres Marrufo, considered by US authorities a top enforcer for the Sinaloa drug cartel of Joaquín Guzmán Loera ("El Chapo"). The weapons were bought legally in Phoenix, Ariz., then taken to El Paso, Tex., and smuggled across the border to Ciudad Juárez.

Right-wing Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño is now trying to control damage from a Sept. 8 report by the US Justice Department condemning unconstitutional conduct by the island's police force. The report cited "continued civil rights violations," "the failure to implement meaningful reforms," discrimination against Dominicans, and failure to report and investigate alleged sex crimes and domestic violence. The US government's criticisms followed repeated charges of police brutality from Puerto Rican student protesters and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Chanting "This has to change," some 200 Haitians marked World Day for Decent Work on Oct. 7 with a march to the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi), where most of Port-au-Prince's low-wage assembly plants are located. Some of the marchers had their faces covered to keep from being identified; managers at three Sonapi plants fired a total of six officers of the newly formed Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA) in the last week of September. Police agents from the Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO) were stationed at the industrial park to keep the marchers from accessing the plants.

In what appeared to be a sudden increase in repression, Chile's militarized carabineros police used water cannons and tear gas to break up an unauthorized march by student strikers in Santiago on Oct. 6. Many protesters responded by throwing rocks and sticks at the agents. More than 130 people were arrested during the confrontations, and 25 police agents and dozens of civilians were injured. The police action came one day after student leaders and the rightwing government of President Sebastián Piñera broke off talks they had been holding on education reform.

McClatchy Newspapers' Pulitzer-winning reporter Roy Gutman writes from Baghdad Oct. 7 that an Anglican priest in the city is working with the US embassy in an effort to convince the remaining nine Jews in Iraq to flee the country, because their names have appeared in cables published last month by WikiLeaks. The Rev. Canon Andrew White said he first approached members of the Jewish community about the danger he believes they face after a local news story was published last month that made reference to the cables. "The US Embassy is desperately trying to get them out," White said. So far, however, only one—a regular confidante of the US embassy, according to the cables—has expressed interest in emigrating to the United States.

Another 32 bodies were found in three houses in the Mexican port city of Veracruz Oct. 7, the latest in a series of attacks on presumed members of Los Zetas narco-network by a rival group calling itself the Mata Zetas, or Zeta Killers. The Mata Zetas announced their existence in July, but made their presence known dramatically two weeks ago, leaving 35 bodies on a busy Veracruz highway during rush hour traffic. They later claimed responsibility for the massacre in a video posted to the Internet, in which hooded men presenting themselves as if at a press conference urged Veracruz residents to say 'no' to extortion and intimidation by the Zetas. But authorities say they believe the Mata Zetas are an arm of the New Generation cartel, which is resisting Zeta control of smuggling routes. "The phenomenon in Veracruz is a result of a rivalry between two criminal groups," said President Felipe Calderón's national security spokesperson Alejandra Sota. "Therefore, they must be taken on." (CSM, Oct. 7; LAT's World Now blog, Sept. 30)

Police clashed with more than a thousand striking workers Oct. 10 at a mine run by US-based Freeport McMoran in Indonesia's Papua region, leaving at least one worker dead. The All-Indonesian Workers Trade Union (SPSI) told the Jakarta Globe that three other miners were critically wounded as police fired on the crowd. Authorities said at least six police officers were injured in the violence at the sprawling Grasberg complex, one of the world's biggest gold and copper mines. The workers, who are mostly indigenous Melanesians, are demanding that their current minimum wage of $1.50 an hour be raised to $12.50. (Jakarta Globe, Oct. 10)