The Colombian government, campesinos, indigenous groups and Afro-Colombians have created a dialogue table that seeks to improve the living conditions of rural and minority communities. With more than 650 participants from the National Agrarian Summit, a leftist coalition of social organizations, political parties, and unions, the table is meant to be a "space of dialogue" between the groups and the government, according to press release on the Agriculture Ministry's website. Among the items up for discussion are access to land, productive projects, and human rights. The heads of the Ministry of Interior, Agriculture, Finance, and Mining are among the government officials who are attend the dialogues.

Some 2,000 campesinos blocked streets in the city of Celaya, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, demanding that state and federal authorities take measures in response to the plunging price of maiz and sorghum. The protesters used scores of tractors and other farm equipment to shut down the area around the offices of the Agricultural Development Secretariat (SAGARPA). Francisco Escobar Osornio, director of the Democratic Campesino Union (UCD) said the state government had created a 120 million-peso fund to support prices, but a pledged matching fund from the federal government has not been forthcoming. "For this reason, it has been agreed to realize mobilizations to see that this problem is addressed," he said. The protesters have threatened to block federal highways across the state if their demands are not met. (Reforma, La Prensa, Sept. 29)

Afghanistan's electoral dispute was officially resolved Sept. 21, after months of wrangling. Under the deal, Ashraf Ghani becomes president while runner-up Abdullah Abdullah is to nominate a "chief executive officer" (likely himself) with powers similar to those of prime minister. (BBC News) AP reports that the Obama administration hopes to follow this up with a new secuirty deal that will allow some 10,000 US troops to remain in Afghanistan next year after all "combat forces" are supposedly withdrawn at the end of 2014. The outgoing Hamid Karzai had punted on such an arrangement. The deal may be a win for Washington, but not so much for Afghans. Patricia Gossman blogs for Human Rights Watch:

Masked men shot and killed Honduran campesino movement leader Margarita Murillo the night of Aug. 26 on land she farmed in the community of El Planón, Villanueva municipality, in the northern department of Cortés. Murillo reportedly began working for campesino rights at the age of 12. During the 1980s she was a founder of the Campesino National Unity Front (FENACAMH) and the General Confederation of Rural Workers (CNTC). After the military removed then-president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009) from office in June 2009, she was both a local and a national leader in the broad coalition resisting the coup, the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), and then in the center-left party that grew out of it, the Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE). The National Congress observed a moment of silence after reports of Murillo's death were confirmed.

Authorities in Brazil late last month arrested members of a criminal gang that they described as "the greatest destroyers" of the Amazon rainforest. The organization allegedly logged and burned vast areas of the rainforest and illegally sold public lands for farming, resulting in estimated damages worth more than $220 million, according to the Brazilian Federal Police. Eight suspects have been arrested so far, with another six still at large. The police operation covered four Brazilian states, including Sao Paulo and Pará. Last year, the Brazilian government said the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and July 2013, after years of decline. It made a commitment in 2009 to reduce Amazon deforestation by 80% by the year 2020. (BBC News, TeleSUR, Aug. 28; BBC News, Aug. 27)

Israeli authorities on Aug. 31 announced the confiscation of around 4,000 dunums (1,000 acres) of private Palestinian land south of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. Palestinian owners of the land were given 45 days to submit formal objections in Israeli courts, otherwise all confiscated lands would automatically become Israeli government property. Mayor of the nearby Palestinian town of Surif, Muhammad Ghuneimat, told Ma'an News Agency that Israeli forces posted signs in private olive tree orchards in the area warning that they have been confiscated by the Israeli government. Ghuneimat added that the confiscated fields belong to Palestinians from the towns of Surif, Husan, al-Jabaa and Bethlehem.

The Penal Court of Celendín, in Peru's Cajamarca region, sentenced three members of the Chaupe family—Jaime Chaupe, Máxima Acuña, Elías Chávez and Isidora Chaupe—to two years and eight months in prison for the crime of land usurpation against the Yanacocha mineral company. The contested land, in Sorochuco district, Celendín province, is located in the influence zone of the contested Conga mega-mine project. The sentence may be suspended, but the defendants were also fined 5,000 soles, approximately $2,000. Yanacocha's lawyers argued that the presence of a company road through the disputed 30-hectare plot indicated the company's prior ownership of it. Mirtha Vásquez, counsel for the Chaupe family, countered that the company had never legally registered its ownership of the plot since purportedly purchasing it in 1996.

Public prosecutors in Brazil have called on the government to pay 1.4 million reais ($ 630,000) in compensation to a Guarani indigenous community and to install road signs, after eight Guarani were run over and killed. For decades the Guarani of Apy Ka'y community in Mato Grosso do Sul were forced to camp on the side of a perilous main road after they were evicted from their land, which is now occupied by a vast sugar cane plantation. Last year they reoccupied a part of their territory, but the road remains a serious threat. Five of the hit-and-run victims were relatives of the community's leader, Damiana Cavanha, who has been campaigning for the’ ancestral land to be returned. The youngest victim was four years old. Damiana believes they are being deliberately targeted by vehicles belonging to the ranchers occupying their land.