The 15 unions representing Chile's government workers agreed on the night of Nov. 20 to end their four-day-old strike after the Senate approved a 10.4% raise earlier that day. The unions had demanded a 14.5% pay increase, arguing that the annual inflation rate had risen to 9.9% in October. Arturo Martinez, president of the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), acknowledged that the raise "[m]aybe isn't all we hoped for." He noted that the settlement was between President Michelle Bachelet and the Congress, not the government and the unions, but said the salary increase was the result of the unionists' mobilizations, and "today it's possible to celebrate; the workers have triumphed."

Former Argentine police commander Mario Ferreyra, 63, pulled out a .45 pistol from his boot and shot himself dead in the middle of a TV interview at his home Nov. 22. Ferreyra, also known as "El Malevo," was accused of involvement in the kidnapping and torture of dissidents during the "Dirty War" of Argentina's 1973-83 dictatorship. He climbed at the top of a water tank above his house in Tucumán when he learned authorities were on their way to arrest him. When the crew from Cronica TV arrived, he made a brief statement, uttered, "Maria, goodbye"—referring to his wife—and then took his life. The station later aired the harrowing images, before a court order was issued halting the broadcasts.

Some 400,000 Chilean public employees staged a two-day strike on Nov. 11 and 12 to push for a 14.5% pay increase. The National Association of Government Employees (ANEF), which includes 15 unions and associations, said the job action was 90% effective, with professors, health workers, administrative workers and municipal workers honoring the strike call. Government service offices were closed, garbage collection stopped in some areas, and some medical services were shut down. The government of Socialist president Michelle Bachelet called the protest "blackmail"; Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma said workers wouldn't be paid for the two days they missed.

Two leaders of the Argentine teachers' unions—Stella Maldonado, general secretary of the Federation of Education Workers of the Argentine Republic, and Alejandro de Michelis, press secretary for the Union of Education Workers—were among those injured on Oct. 20 when Buenos Aires city police agents tried to keep protesting teachers from installing a tent in front of the municipal building. The teachers had planned to start a 100-hour vigil at the site. After the confrontation, the teachers' unions and the Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) declared a 24-hour national strike starting at noon on Oct. 21.

Brazilian military exercises along the border with Paraguay are escalating tensions between the South American neighbors. Operation Southern Border II mobilized 3,500 soldiers from the Brazilian armed forces Oct. 19 along the border, as part of a larger force of some 10,000 soldiers also deployed along the borders with Uruguay and Argentina. The troops are to remain in place until Oct. 24. Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo warned Brazil in a news conference in Asunción that "not even one millimeter of the territorial sovereignty of the country can be bothered"—or "the Paraguayan reaction will be swift."

On Oct. 15 the Chilean Supreme Court sentenced the 88-year-old retired general Sergio Arellano Stark to six years in prison for the killing of four people shortly after a Sept. 11, 1973 coup that brought the late dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. Another retired officer, Carlos Romero Munoz, also received a six-year sentence in the same case; three others were sentenced to four years. The victims—Teofilo Segundo Arce Toloza, Jose Esteban Sepulveda Baeza, Segundo Abelardo Sandoval Gomez and Leopoldo Mauricio Gonzalez Norambuena--were killed at the San Javier military facility on Oct. 2, 1973. (La Jornada, Oct. 16)

The public trial for the Argentine government's clandestine sale of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995 in violation of international agreements began in Buenos Aires on Oct. 16. There are 18 defendants; the best known, former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), now a senator from La Rioja province, failed to attend, claiming health problems. Much of the evidence disappeared in the 1995 explosion of an arms factory; at least six potential witnesses had died by 1998, two in a helicopter crash, three from heart attacks and one in what was ruled a suicide. (La Jornada, Oct. 17)

Farmers in Argentina began a six-day strike Sept. 3, halting delivery of grain crops and beef and holding public assemblies by the side of roads in several areas around the country. The strike comes after farmer leaders broke off talks with government over a new policy for the agriculture sector, hard hit by a severe drought. "All of us are Argentina," Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner complained. "That is why no single sector can hold the rest of society hostage, least of all at times like these."