France is escalating its military mission in the Central African Republic, airlifting troops and equipment to the capital Bangui ahead of an anticipated UN-backed intervention. With some 400 French troops stationed in Bangui presently, at least another 1,000 are on their way, said Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Paris, echoing the findings of rights groups, says the country has descended into chaos since the Seleka rebel coalition, many of its fighters apparently from neighboring Chad and Sudan, ousted president François Bozize in March 24. (France24, Nov. 29) With the French announcement, Amnesty International issued a statement calling for the UN Security Council to "authorize a robust peacekeeping force" for the CAR. "If the Security Council does not act now to stem the horrific cycle of violence in the Central African Republic, that failure will hang heavily on the international community for years to come," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general. (AI, Dec. 12)

The Shuar Association of Bomboiza, in Ecuador's eastern rainforest province of Morona Santiago, is demanding answers from the government over a Nov. 7 incident in which a member of the Shuar indigenous people was killed in an army operation against illegal gold-miners in the region. The confrontation, at Kukus community on the banks of the Río Zamora, Bomboiza parish, Gualaquiza canton, also left nine army troops wounded. The army maintains that a patrol boat came under fire from presumed outlaw miners, and the Shuar man, Freddy Taish, was among the attackers. But Shuar leaders are demanding that the government reveal what kind of bullet killed Taish, saying that the official version of events contains "contradictions," and accuse the army of tampering with forensic evidence.

On Nov. 13, members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota brought representatives TransCanada to the reservation to make the case for the Keystone XL Pipeline—where they met an angry response from many in attendance. Debra White Plume of the Owe Aku International Justice Project told them: "Run home and tell your corporate headquarters in Canada that the Lakota are going to make a stand. Tell them, you're going to have to run over them or throw them in jail.  That's the message you have to take home… So I think you need to leave our land!  We're ready to go to jail to get you out of here NOW, so you can leave on your own or be escorted out now…" A YouTube clip of the meeting shows speaker after speaker echo this sentiment—followed by the TransCanada reps heading for the door, visibly shaken. (Causes.com, Nov. 16)

Recent headlines from the Democratic Republic of Congo are exceptionally optimistic, with government gains against the M23 rebels in the country's war-torn east followed by the guerilla army's pledge to lay down arms. (IRIN, Nov. 8) Few media accounts have noted that this development comes immediately after the US announced a suspension of military aid to Rwanda, the M23's patron, over use of child soldiers. The DRC itself was also officially blacklisted, but received a "partial waiver." Rwanda was explicitly held responsible for use of child soldiers by its proxy force in the DRC. (VOA, Oct. 3)

Cesar García, a campesino leader who opposed the mining operations of AngloGold Ashanti at La Colosa in the central Colombian department of Tolima, was assassinated Nov. 2 by an unknown gunman as he worked his small farm at the vereda (hamlet) of Cajón la Leona. Supporters said he had been targeted for his work with the Environmental Campesino Committee of Cajamarca, the local municipality. In a statement, the Network of Tolima Environmental and Campesino Committees said the Cajamarca group had been "stigmatized as enemies of progress in the region," and falsely linked to the guerilla movement. The statement noted a growing climate of fear in the area.

Peru's government has issued an "ultimatum" to small-scale artisanal miners in southern Puno region, saying that if they do not remove their dredges and other equipment from the watersheds of the Ramis and Suches rivers (which both flow into Lake Titicaca), they will be dynamited. The warning was made by Daniel Urresti, high commissioner for Formalization and Interdiction of Mining. "We would be grateful if these people abandon the area and take their machinery with them, because when we arrive we are going to conficate it, and those which weigh 20 or 30 tons and are impossible to confiscate, we will detonate," he told RPP radio. He said the operation is set to begin in December. (Terra, Nov. 6)

Campesinos from some 40 pueblos across Celendín province, in Peru's northern region of Cajamarca, held a meeting at Huasmín village Oct. 23 to announce a cross-country march that would arrive in mid-November at the planned site of the Conga gold mine, where marchers would join the encampment that has been established there. Campesinos have occupied the site for months to protect alpine lakes slated be destroyed to make way for open-pit operations. By Nov. 24, which will mark the two-year anniversary of the start of the protest action, the ​Celendín campesinos hope to have a "Casa Rondera" built on private land adjacent to the Conga site which has been volunteered for the cause by local residents. The casa will be a communal residence for the protesters, who are organized in rondas, peasant self-defense patrols. (Servindi, Oct. 25; Celendin Libre, Oct. 23)

In a popular assembly Nov. 6, residents of Espinar village in Peru's Cuzco region declared themselves on a "war footing," pledigng to resist imminent construction of the Majes Siguas II irrigation mega-project, which would divert water from indigenous communities in the highlands to agribusiness interests on the coast. Profesor René Huamani Quirita, president of the Unified Defense Front for the Interests of Espinar Province, protested that hundreds of National Police troops have been stationed in the nearby community of Yauri, apparently in anticipation of protests. (Radio Universal, Cuzco, Nov. 6) Later that day, Espinar's mayor Oscar Mollohuanca announced that some 100 police troops had attacked local villagers at Urinsaya in Coporaque district, beating five. The whereabouts of one villager has been unknown since the attack, and Mollohuanca joined the missing campesino's family in demanding an urgent investigation. (Radio Universal, RPP, Nov. 6)