Latin American leaders who came to New York the week of Sept. 22 for the annual opening session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that the US and European countries should use economic models from the South to resolve the growing financial crisis in the North.

According to exit polls, Ecuadoran voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal for a new Constitution in a referendum held Sept. 28. The Santiago Pérez Investigación y Estudios polling firm showed 66.4% of voters supporting the measure, while Cedatos-Gallup put the proportion at 70%. President Rafael Correa, who had called for the new charter, said the vote was a "new historic triumph" and led supporters in chanting: "The people united will never be defeated." The center-left president got the results while visiting his hometown, Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most prosperous city.

China and Venezuela signed 12 energy agreements in Beijing Sept. 25, calling for the South American country to export half a million barrels of oil a day to the Asian giant starting next year. The deal was signed on the final day of a three-day visit to China by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The South American nation is the fifth exporter of crude oil in the world, but currently provides only 4% of Chinese imports of the product. The agreements also involve the construction of a new refinery in Venezuela with Chinese aid. (Radio Australia, Sept. 25)

Latin American currencies rose dramatically on Sept. 19 after the US government proposed an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of US financial companies holding bad debt. The Brazilian real went up 3.5% to 1.8298 to the US dollar, its biggest gain in six years, while the Colombian peso jumped 6.7% to 2,050.9 per dollar—the peso's biggest advance in at least 13 years, according to the Bloomberg news service. The rise in the currencies followed four days of equally dramatic declines as markets reacted to a financial crisis in the US that included the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. investment firm and a $85 billion bailout of the American International Group Inc. (AIG) insurance company. The real fell 4% from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18, while in Mexico City, stock prices on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) fell 8.3% between Sept. 16 and Sept. 17. (Bloomberg, Sept. 19; La Jornada, Mexico, Sept. 18)

On Sept. 15, at least 12,000 Colombian sugar cane cutters went on strike to protest the systematic violation of their labor rights and human rights. The workers cut sugar cane for 16 sugar mills in the Cauca river valley, primarily in the department of Valle del Cauca but also in the neighboring departments of Cauca, to the south, and Risaralda, to the northeast. The same day the strike began, hundreds of agents from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the Colombian National Police, together with army soldiers and private sugar company guards, attacked a group of striking cane cutters from the Incauca and Providencia sugar mills, injuring more than 100 workers, at least five of them seriously.

From Human Rights Watch, Sept. 19:

Sao Paulo – The Venezuelan government's expulsion of two Human Rights Watch staff underscores the Chávez administration’s increasing intolerance of dissenting views, Human Rights Watch said today. The government expelled José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, and Americas deputy director Daniel Wilkinson on September 18, 2008, hours after they held a news conference in Caracas to present a report that describes how the government of President Hugo Chávez has weakened democratic institutions and human rights guarantees in Venezuela.

Bolivia's government said Sept. 17 it had recovered full control of the country's network of natural gas pipelines after 17 days of anti-government protests. Protesters who occupied the Vuelta Grande natural gas processing plant and a pipeline control station in the southern Chaco region of Chuquisaca department surrendered the facilities early Wednesday after the government signed a deal to start talks with opposition leaders. "Today, the pipeline to Argentina has been reopened and full pumping levels will be reached starting on Friday," an Energy Ministry said in a statement.

Bolivian soldiers arrested the opposition prefect of Pando department, Leopoldo Fernández, on Sept. 16. He was flown to La Paz to face genocide charges in connection with last week's massacre of at least 16 peasant supporters of President Evo Morales. In response to Bolivia's political crisis, the US evacuated its 2,500 Peace Corps volunteers from the country. (AP, Sept. 17)