About 50 Chilean students and their supporters took over a congressional budget subcommittee's meeting in Santiago on Oct. 20 to demand that the government hold a binding plebiscite on their demands. A massive student movement has paralyzed universities and secondary schools for nearly six months around calls for reversing the privatization and decentralization of the education system that started during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Various polls show about 80% of the population supporting the students' demands, which won some 87% of the more than one million votes case in a nonbinding grassroots plebiscite students and teachers held Oct. 7-9.

As protests have repeatedly rocked the Chilean capital Santiago in recent days, environmentalists and Mapuche indigenous leaders rallied peacefully in the remote town of Curarrehue (Cautín province, Araucanía region) Oct. 16 to oppose the planned Panqui hydro-electric project, which would inundate several small Mapuche communities. The company charged with building the 9-megawatt dam, RP El Torrente SA, has met with Curarrehue municipal authorities to win support for the project, but it is opposed by the local Movement for the Defense of the Territory of Curarrehue. (Radio Biobio, Oct. 16; La Opinión, Santiago, Sept. 27)

Latin America's protests on the Oct. 15 global day of action around the economic system were not especially large—in comparison either to the massive protests in Europe that day or to many Latin American demonstrations around the same issues over recent years. But for leaders, writers and activists in the region the day was an historic event, both because of the participation of people around the globe and because of the unusual leading role of a movement based in the US.

Joining others in more than 900 cities around the world, Latin American activists protested on Oct. 15 to demonstrate their discontent with the global economic system. The demonstrations got a significant boost from Occupy Wall Street, a US movement that started with an action in New York on Sept. 17, but the Latin American protests also referenced the Real Democracy Now movement that developed in Spain last spring; the Spanish protests were inspired in turn by protests in Tunisia and Egypt at the beginning of the year. In Spanish-speaking countries the movement is widely known as "15-M," from May 15, the day when protests started in Madrid. Like the Spanish protesters, Latin American participants call themselves los indignados and las indignadas—"the angry ones," or "the indignant ones."

A new allegation has emerged in the supposed plot by agents of Iran's elite Quds Force to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, which resulted in federal indictments being unsealed in Manhattan last week. Reuters reports Oct. 14 that "Saudi officials advised Argentina four months ago of an alleged Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and possibly attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires," according to an unnamed "Argentine diplomatic source." Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Argentine source reportedly told Reuters: "The Saudis advised us four months ago, at the request of the United States."

On Oct. 11, the indigenous Aché community of Chupa Pou in Paraguay sent warriors armed with bows and arrows into a 2,000-hectare area to defend it from Brazilian farmers who had invaded the land. The Chupa Pou community not only claims the land as their traditional territory, but notes that in 2007 the Paraguayan government—after a struggle of many years—purchased the land for the Aché people, thus giving them legal title as well. The community’s stance did successfully get 250 Brazilian farmers to leave the area without bloodshed, after a local prosecutor was called in to mediate. However, the departing farmers they told the media that they would return.

Some 10,000 indigenous Mapuche activists and their supporters marched peacefully through the center of Santiago on Oct. 10, many dressed in traditional costumes and carrying flags. The march was called to mark the 519th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas—the start of the Spanish conquest. Manuel Díaz, spokesman for the indigenous organization Meli Witran Mapu told the Spanish news agency EFE that the day is one of mourning for his people, because it "signifies the arrival of the Spanish usurpers and all they brought with them, colonialism and imperialism."

In what appeared to be a sudden increase in repression, Chile's militarized carabineros police used water cannons and tear gas to break up an unauthorized march by student strikers in Santiago on Oct. 6. Many protesters responded by throwing rocks and sticks at the agents. More than 130 people were arrested during the confrontations, and 25 police agents and dozens of civilians were injured. The police action came one day after student leaders and the rightwing government of President Sebastián Piñera broke off talks they had been holding on education reform.