Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono AKA "Timochenko" signed a new peace agreement Nov. 24 to replace the one signed in September but turned down by voters in a national plebiscite. Santos and Timochenko signed the 310-page agreement in a ceremony at the Colon Theater in Bogotá, a short distance from the government palace. Attended by some 800, the ceremony was austere compared the one celebrated in Cartagena in September, at which there were over 2,000 guests, including 14 heads of state, and an aerobatic show by the Colombian air force. However, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon sent a statement this time around, expressing his "hopes that Colombians will come together at this time to move the peace process forward."

A fire swept through the Cantagallo shanty-town, just across the Río Rímac from downtown Lima, on Nov. 4, leaving some 2,000 residents of the informal settlement facing an uncertain future. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and a child badly injured in the blaze, which authorities say started near a leather workshop that used flammable chemicals. The settlement was established by Shipibo-Konibo indigenous migrants from Ucayali in in Peruvian Amazon in 2001. Lima's conservative Mayor Luis Castañeda is proposing to relocate the community to the Barrios Altos area east of downtown. But community leaders say they will refuse to move, and intend to rebuild where they are.

The mammoth Chinese-owned copper mine at Las Bambas, in Peru's Apurímac region, was prepared to halt operations as protesters blocked roads last month, but the blockades were relaxed after Vice President Martin Vizcarra flew in from Lima to meet with local leaders Oct. 22. Vizcarra pledged a review of community grievances over environmental impacts and recompense to localities for use of roads. Two days earlier, the body of Quintino Cereceda, a protester killed by police Oct. 14, was buried at his community of Choqquecca, signaling a de-escalation of the stand-off. Residents had pledged not to bury the body or turn it over to authorities until President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski came to meet with them. The Interior Ministry acknowledged that Cereceda had been killed by National Police fire.

Commemorations were held in Cuzco, Peru, marking 236 years since claimant to the Inca throne Túpac Amaru II launched his indigenous uprising on Nov. 4, 1780. The ceremony, at the highland city's iconic Túpac Amaru Plaza, was attended by the fabled leader's direct descendant, Pedro Noguera Prada, who came from his home in France for the event. Loaning credence to the claim of royal Inca descent, Noguera asserted that contrary to most historical accounts, his ancestor's given name was not José Gabriel Condocarqui but José Gabriel Túpac Amaru Noguera. He asserted that the leader's 1760 marriage certificate, from when he wedded his later co-revolutionist Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua, remains on file in Canchis municipality, and shows this correct name.

Nearly 100 were arretsed across Venezuela in a wave of massive opposition protests Oct. 26. Among those arrested were seven police officers accused of excessive force. Authorities said a total of 86 people were injured nationwide, including 26 police and National Guard troops. National authorities also intervened to remove the head of the police force in the municipality of San Francisco in the western city of Maracaibo, in response to the injury of four opposition protesters. The mobilization was called by the right-wing opposition, in response to the National Electoral Council's temporary suspension of a presidential recall referendum process last week, pending investigations into possible fraudulent signatures. As the protesters approached the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, thousands of Chavistas gathered there in support of President Nicolas Maduro, and a tense face-off ensued.

Peru's National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) is investigating the death of some 10,000 frogs whose bodies have been found in the Río Coata, which flows into Lake Titicaca. The alert was sounded by the local Committee Against the Pollution of the Río Coata, which accused the authorities of ignoring the river's severe pollution. Activists brought 100 of the dead frogs to the central square in the regional capital, Puno. Said protest leader Maruja Inquilla: "I've had to bring them the dead frogs. The authorities don't realize how we're living. They have no idea how major the pollution is. The situation is maddening." The committee has long been petitioning for construction of a sewage treatment plant for the river, and also for bringing informal minig camps up the river under control. Last year, arsenic, presumably from unregulated gold-mining in the area, was found to have contaminated several wells in the Coata watershed. The Puno regional health department conducted the study following a campaign by local campesino communities. 

Chilean national Jaime Castillo Petruzzi, imprisoned for 23 years in Peru for his participation in the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), was immediately deported upon his release Oct. 14. Elite National Police troops escorted him to Lima's airport, where he was put on a commerical flight. Arriving in Santiago, he was greeted by a crowd of supporters waving banners of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), which carried out an armed resistance under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Castillo's first political involvement was as a MIR militant in the 1970s. He later fled Pinochet's repression of the MIR, seeking exile in France—where he met MRTA founder Víctor Polay, and decided to join the struggle in Peru. He was captured in 1993 and charged in the kidnapping of 12 businessmen and the deaths of nine police and army troops. At the Santiago airport he addressed supporters: "We are free today, but we are not completely free. We are happy, but not completely happy. Many of our political compañeros remain [imprisoned] in Peru." (Biobio, Chile, Oct. 15; Ojo, Peru, Oct. 14)

The first death due to a social conflict in Peru under new President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski came Oct. 14 as campesinos clashed with National Police over the contested mine at Las Bambas. Quintino Cereceda Huiza, 28, of Choqeqa community, was killed and 34 others wounded as police troops opened fire to clear some 200 protesters blocking a newly built access road to the mine in Challhuahuacho district of the Cotabambas province, Apurímac region. Las Bambas, Peru's largest copper mine, was brought online this year by Chinese company MMG Ltd—over the protests of local campesino communities in Challhuahuacho and Tambobamba districts. "The community has never disagreed with the project. They are not anti-mining," protest leader Rodny Cabrera told RPP Noticias. "The issue is that they cheated us, they lied to us. The mining company changed the environmental impact plan. The ore was going to go through a pipeline, not trucks that are polluting the fields. How will people live?" (OCMAL, Peru Reports, Oct. 15, La Mula, Reuters, Oct. 14; La Mula, Sept. 30)