On Dec. 4 the French wire service AFP reported that with 57% of the votes from Honduras' Nov. 29 general elections officially counted, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) had revised its earlier turnout estimate down from 61.3% to about 49%. Two days later, on Dec. 6, the CNN cable news network reported that it had gotten figures from TSE spokesperson Roberto Reyes Pineda showing that participation was at 56.6%, with 2,609,754 people voting out of a total of 4,611,000 registered voters. The TSE has to provide the final results within 30 days of the election. (Diario el Tiempo, Venezuela, Dec. 4; AFP, Dec. 4; CNN, Dec. 6)

At about 10 PM on Nov. 29, Honduras' Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced at a press conference that Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa of the center-right National Party (PN) had won the presidency in the general elections held that day; Hondurans also voted for deputies to the National Congress and the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and for members of the nation's municipal governments. With 8,682 ballot boxes counted, about 60% of the total, Lobo had won 52.29% of the votes, while his main rival, Elvin Santos of the badly divided Liberal Party (PL, also center-right), trailed with 35.74%. The remaining three candidates got less than 3% each; more than 6% of the votes were blank or invalid. The TSE projected that the turnout was 61.3% of the voting population, about six percentage points higher than in the 2005 elections.

Thousands of campesinos blocked highways in western Guatemala on Nov. 25 to press a demand for the government to allocate 350 million quetzales (about $42 million) to the National Lands Fund (Fontierras) for renting farmland to be used by more than 100,000 campesino families. The protesters stopped traffic on six highways in Cuatro Caminos, Totonicapán, Los Encuentros, and La Cumbre at kilometer 123 of the Las Verapaces and Las Victorias road, between Quetzaltenango and Colomba Costa Cuca. According to José Hernández—one of the leaders of the Coordinating Committee of Regional, Campesino and Independent Organizations, which called the protest—every two hours the protesters were opening the roads up and letting traffic pass for one hour. The organizers said 10,000 campesinos took part; the police estimate was 5,000.

Soldiers are deployed across Honduras as the coup-installed regime holds presidential elections Nov. 29 that the civil resistance has pledged to boycott. The days leading up to the polls have seen numerous instances of violence and repression. Ángel Fabricio Salgado Hernández, 32, is in critical condition after soldiers fired on his car at close range and with no warning or order to stop at a checkpoint near the headquarters of military high command at Comayagüela Nov. 27. Salgado lost control of the vehicle when he was hit, crashing into a taxi and injureing several bystanders, including 45-year-old woman, who was also hit by a stray bullet. She is now also hospitalized in serious condition. Amnesty International is calling on the Honduran Human Rights Prosecutor to urgently investigate the incident. (Honduras en Resistencia, Nov. 29; Vos el Soberano, AI, Nov, 28)

Guatemalan foreign minister Haroldo Rodas announced Nov. 21 that Guatemala was not going to recognize the general elections to be held in Honduras Nov. 29 under the de facto regime installed after the June 28 removal of President Manuel Zelaya. He added that Guatemala would not send observers to the elections. Spain is also planning not to send observers because it "cannot support" elections under these conditions, foreign ministry sources told the Spanish wire service EFE Nov. 21.

On Nov. 17 the US-based United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) announced an agreement with Russell Athletic of Atlanta for the sports apparel maker to rehire 1,200 workers it laid off in January when it closed its Jerzees de Honduras plant soon after the workers joined a union. Russell, a subsidiary of Kentucky-based Fruit of the Loom, is to open a new maquiladora (tax-exempt assembly plant producing largely for export) in the same area as the old plant, the Choloma region of the northwestern Honduran department of Cortés. The new plant will be called Jerzees Nuevo Día ("Jerzees New Day").

Four people were arrested for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base in Columbus, Georgia, on Nov. 22 as thousands marched through pouring rain in an annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). The school trains Latin American soldiers; SOA Watch, which sponsors the protests, says SOA graduates are among the region's most notorious human rights violators. Organizers didn't give a crowd estimate this year, but Columbus police said there were 4,732 protesters at 10 am, down from 7,497 at the same time in 2008. The largest demonstration to date was in 2006, when SOA Watch reported 22,000 participants; 286 activists have served up to two years in prison for civil disobedience at the base since the protests began in 1990.

After two hours of resistance Nov. 19, some 150 troops of Panama's National Police entered the Naso indigenous community of San San Drui in Bocas del Toro province, using tear gas to allow bulldozers and other machinery of the Ganadera Bocas company to destroy several small structures at the settlement of La Trinchera. The structures had been recently rebuilt after a similar confrontation at the contested piece of land in March. Naso leaders say the police had no judicial order to carry out the eviction, but had the political support of the provincial governor, Simón Becker, and Justice Minister José Raúl Mulino. The eviction leaves some 200 people without shelter in the middle of the rainy season. Two remaining structures at the settlement were destroyed by the cattle company's machinery the following day, with the area still occupied by police troops.