Police and striking miners clashed at Grupo Mexico's Cananea copper mine in Sonora state Jan. 11 after Mexico's Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA) declared a five-month-long strike there "non-existent" (illegal) and announced a provisional suspension of the National Syndicate of Mine, Metal and Similar Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM). Police called in to break up a picket line at the mine gate fired tear gas at workers who were trying to block the entrance with heavy machinery. Company spokesman Juan Rebolledo told Reuters: "They threw machinery at the police and that is why the tear gas was fired." SNTMMSRM leader Napoleon Gomez, now in Canada to avoid corruption charges in Mexico, said that state and federal police were trying to occupy the mine. "They are violating both the constitution and labor law," Napoleon told Reuters.

On Jan. 7, some 100 campesinos successfully blocked the spraying of pesticides on soy fields in Ybypé community, Lima district, San Pedro department, Paraguay. Although riot police were mobilized to protect the fumigation tractors, the protesters convinced the officers of their right to resist the spraying, and the police refused to break up the blockade. A public campaign led by the Paraguayan Human Rights Committee (CODEHUPY) has led to popular support for the anti-pesticide movement in San Pedro department, where vast areas of land have come under the control of Brazilian soy-growers, and traditional small peasant holdings have been taken over. (Upside Down World, Jan. 10)

Wilber Funes

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Jan. 11:

FMLN mayor assassinated in Usulután
Wilber Moises Funes, mayor of Alegria, Usulután, was assassinated on January 9 while visiting community projects in the Las Casistas area of his municipality. A member of the FMLN opposition party, Funes was shot along with municipal staff member Zulma Rivera. Rivera was killed immediately, while Funes died in transit to a hospital in Santiago de Maria.

Salvos of missiles fell on southern Israel Jan. 9 and Israeli aircraft hit a location in the north of Gaza Strip in response. Al-Quds Brigades, military wing of Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the new missile strikes, saying they were "in retaliation for US President George W. Bush's visit to the region due later today." The National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also claimed a rocket strike on an Israeli military position in the eastern Gaza Strip. Al-Nasser Salah-Eddine, military arm of the Popular Resistance Committees in Palestine, said in a statement one of its fighters was killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a group of its militants near Beit Lahia in the northern Strip. The Israeli Army announced it was blocking all checkpoints around the strip and the West Bank as a security precaution ahead of Bush's visit. In a statement, Hamas said Bush's visit it "would be part of international schemes against the Palestinian cause." (KUNA, Jan. 8)

On Dec. 31, Latino groups in Oregon turned in over 5,000 petition signatures to the state's Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division in Salem, asking for a one-year delay in implementation of new rules that will require driver's license applicants to show proof of legal residence starting on Feb. 4.

In a Dec. 17 press release, Colorado's Park County announced it would pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought in February 2005 by Moises Carranza-Reyes, who was held in federal immigration custody at the county's Fairplay jail for seven days in 2003. According to the suit, Carranza-Reyes, now 31, was held in a filthy, freezing jail pod designed for 18 people, but holding 60.

On the morning of Jan. 3 a unit of 15 masked people armed with AK-47 rifles set fire to three backhoes belonging to the Constructora Torreblanca, a construction company building a highway in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. "No to the gas price increase!" and "Join the armed struggle!" were some of the slogans the group painted at the site, in Tixtla municipality, about 15 kilometers from Chilpancingo, the state capital. The company had the slogans removed, and news of the incident didn't become public until Jan. 5. No group took responsibility for the action, although the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) and other rebel groups have been active in Guerrero in the past. (La Jornada, Jan. 6) [It is not clear from news sources whether the company is linked to Guerrero governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo.]

On Dec. 23 Italian authorities arrested former Uruguayan navy captain Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli in Salerno. Fernandez Troccoli, who headed Uruguay's secret services for the 1973-1985 military dictatorship, had been ordered arrested on Dec. 17 by an Uruguayan judge investigating Operation Condor, a clandestine program of cooperation between South American militaries. The arrest led Italian authorities to renew their request for the detention of a total of 140 military officers and soldiers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in connection with crimes against more than 25 people of Italian origin.