In a 71-page report released on Dec. 7, Human Rights Watch urged the Department of Homeland Security to upgrade its care and treatment of immigration detainees with HIV, the virus associated with AIDS. According to the watchdog organization, the agency fails to monitor medical care for detainees with HIV, and doesn't even know the extent of the problem among the nearly 30,000 people it holds in immigration detention on any given day. "The US government has no idea how many of these immigrants have HIV or AIDS, how many need treatment, and how many are receiving the care that is necessary," said Megan McLemore of Human Rights Watch's HIV/AIDS program.

On Dec. 7, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he would give landowners in South Texas 30 days to consent to letting federal officials survey their properties to determine whether they are suitable for a planned border fence. If the owners don't give permission, Chertoff said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will turn to the courts to gain temporary access. If the agency finds the land appropriate for fencing and landowners refuse to cooperate, the department will seek court action to confiscate the land. (Los Angeles Times, Brownsville Herald, Dec. 8) Chertoff said the DHS needs access to 225 miles of noncontiguous land, most of it in Texas and Arizona, in order to build 370 miles of border fencing by the end of 2008."The door is still open to talk, but it's not open for endless talk," Chertoff said. "We won't pay more than market price for the land," he added.

On Nov. 23 the workers at the Vaqueros Navarra jeans plant in Tehuacan, in the Mexican state of Puebla, voted to be represented by the September 19 Union, which is affiliated with the independent Authentic Labor Front (FAT). The vote was 263 for the September 19 Union, 187 for the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers of Mexico (CROM) and just three for the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Campesinos (CROC). The CROM and the CROC are both connected to the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000 and continues to dominate politics in Puebla; the CROC was the officially recognized union at the plant before the vote.

The US-owned Star, SA factory in El Progreso, Honduras, has fired 70 pro-union workers illegally since Nov. 7, when workers notified the Honduran Ministry of Labor of their intention to form a legal union. Star is located in El Porvenir Free Trade Zone, an industrial park for the tax-exempt assembly plants known as maquiladoras; the factory's US clients include the Oregon-based Nike, Inc., and the National Football League (NFL) and Anvil Holdings, Inc., which are both based in New York City.

On Dec. 4 the US Senate voted 77-18 to approve the Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC for its initials in Spanish). The House of Representatives ratified the treaty on Nov. 8, and the approval process now only requires the signature of US president George W. Bush, whose government negotiated the agreement. Bush may sign it the week of Dec. 10 in a ceremony attended by Peruvian president Alan Garcia. The FTA is expected to go into effect in July 2008 as the two countries celebrate their independence days, starting a process for eliminating all tariffs which is to be completed in 17 years. Peru exported goods worth $6 billion to the US in 2006; US exports to Peru were worth about $3 billion.

The draft Bolivian constitution approved by the country's Constituent Assembly in Sucre explcitly rejects foreign military bases on the national territory. "Bolivia is a pacifist State, which promotes the culture of peace and the right to peace, and seeks cooperation between the peoples of every region of the world," it reads. The document, yet to be ratified by popular vote, rejects war as a means of addressing international problems, while asserting the right of self-defense in case of aggression.

When the US Air Force Southern Command's 10-year usage rights for Ecuador's Manta air base expire in 2009, they can expect to be evicted in favor of China. President Jamil Mahuad signed a 10-year lease agreement with the US Military's Forward Operating Location (FOL) in 1999. The Manta base is not geopolitically important for US national security, but Southern Command (South Com) currently uses it to combat illegal cocaine trade in the "source zone" of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. The Air Base shares a common runway with Manta's Eloy Alfaro International Airport terminal, but the airbase has a separate office for cargo, while the airport handles passengers. About 475 US military personnel are stationed at the air base under a under a 10-year agreement signed with Quito in November 1999 and due to expire in 24 months.

At least 40 bodies have been found recently in Iraq's southern oil port of Basra, with the pull-out of British troops leaving only chaos and women increasingly targets of religious fundamentalists. "Some women along with their children have been killed," Basra police commander Abd Al Jalil Khalef told the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat. "A woman with two children, oe who was six and the other was 11 years old, were killed." He added that families usually refrain from filing complaints out of fear of retribution, indicating that many killings never get reported. Warnings have appeared written in red on the walls of Basra streets: "We are warning women not to wear makeup and not to be uncovered. Whoever violates this will be punished. As god as my witness, I have informed you."