A gang in a jungle area of Peru's Huánuco region has been killing people to harvest their fat for sale on an international black market, police charged Nov. 19. Medical experts express skepticism at the authorities' claim that the fat is extracted for use in cosmetics by companies in Europe. But Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of the National Police Kidnapping Division, said three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, and two were arrested carrying bottles of liquid fat. At least five other suspects, including two Italian nationals, remain at large, authorities said. Police said the gang could be behind the disappearances of up to 60 people in Huánuco and Pasco regions.

The governments of Colombia and Venezuela traded angry words again on Nov. 19 following the bombing of two footbridges connecting the two countries by Venezuelan guardsmen. The bridges were at the border town of Rangonvalia, where Venezuela's Táchira state meet Colombia's Norte de Santander department. In a statement, Colombia's Foreign Ministry announced it will denounce the destruction of the bridges before the United Nations and the Organization of American States, charging in a statement that "this is a unilateral act of aggression against the civilian population and the border communities."

The chief of the DAS, Colombia's secret police, says a mob assaulted three of its agents as they tried to arrest a suspect with guerilla ties Nov. 15. DAS director Felipe Muñoz says Ivan Danilo Alarcon, wanted for rebellion and drug trafficking, was detained near a university in the city of Cali. Muñoz says Alarcon cried out he was being kidnapped and 100 people surrounded the officers. The crowd detained the agents for over an hour, threatened them with death and took their weapons and armored vests. They freed Alarcon from handcuffs, and he fled. Muñoz charged that Alarcon posed as a human rights activist but was in fact giving logistical support to the FARC. (AP, Nov. 15)

Colombia Nov. 14 deported four members of the Venezuelan National Guard who were allegedly detained on Colombian territory a day earlier. Bogotá says the men were stopped by a Colombian naval patrol in a boat on a river in the remote border department of Vichada. Colombia's Administrative Security Department said the men were turned over the Venezuelan authorities at the border town of Puerto Páez. Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe made much of the deportations as a magnanimous gesture, saying he intended them as a message of the "unbreakable affection" between the two countries. Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez called Uribe a "mafioso" in comments on the detainment of the guardsmen, and ruled out any dialogue with his "traitorous" government. (BBC News, Nov. 15; EFE, Nov. 14)

The New York Times virtually sneers in a Nov. 12 headline, "Blackouts Plague Energy-Rich Venezuela," reporting that despite vast reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, electricity is being cut for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana, with water rationing instated in Caracas. This has all started since the government has largely taken over the energy sector. "We're paying for the mistakes of this president and his incompetent managers," said Aixa López, president of the Committee of Blackout Victims, which has organized protests in several cities. In some cities, protesters have left household appliances on the steps of state power companies.

Speaking at a ceremony at the Gualberto Villarroel Military Collage in La Paz marking the 199th anniversary of the Bolivian army, President Evo Morales warned that the United States has designs on the country's subsoil resources—especially naming gas, iron and lithium. He also again criticized the new military accord between Washington and Bogotá as a threat to the hemisphere, and said that in response Bolivia will seek new military deals with China and Russia. "It is an obligation of the national government to improve and equip the army," he said, while adding that new equipment will be used to defend Bolivia's sovereignty; "it will not be to humiliate the people or provoke neighbors." (TeleSUR, Nov. 14)

Colombian authorities ordered an extra 2,500 army troops to reinforce security in Corinto, a town in southwestern Cauca department, where nine soldiers were killed in a surprise attack by the FARC guerillas early Nov. 10. The decision to reinforce the present security force in the village was taken by Defense Minister Gabriel Silva and armed forces commander Freddy Padilla in an improvised security council. Gabriel Silva, who canceled a planned visit to the town at last minute for security reasons, also offered a 2 billion peso reward for information leading the arrest of Edgar López Gómez AKA "Pacho Chino"—considered the guerrilla commander in charge of the attack.

Gov. César Pérez of the Venezuelan border state of Táchira, accused President Hugo Chávez of protecting Colombian guerillas that operate in his state. Pérez said that both leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries from Colombia operate in nearly a third of his state, but Venezuelan troops ignore the prior. "The guerrillas are there with the government's blessing, and the military has orders to leave them alone," Pérez told the AP. "The government only fights the paramilitaries, and I think it's good they fight them, but the government has to do the same with the guerrillas, and it isn’t doing that."