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On September 30, about 1,000 Ecuadoran national police officers staged a rebellion, accusing Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa of vetoing benefits enjoyed by the country's public servants. However, as well-coordinated protests spread over four of Ecuador's provinces, and with the police shooting to kill, the Correa administration accused the country's right-wing opposition of planning a coup. Labor and indigenous organizations in Ecuador, however, have taken a more nuanced line. The police rebellion occurred, they argue, because Ecuador’s right wing is taking advantage of weaknesses created by Correa’s alienating governing style.

A set of policies adopted in January 2010 during the de facto presidency of Roberto Micheletti are now the basis of the goals for USAID's latest round of "democracy promotion" funding in Honduras. This will continue the long history of U.S. funding of the Honduran elite, the very players allegedly behind the June 2009 military coup that ousted former president Manuel Zelaya. What is cloaked as funding for democracy is likely to help these elites further consolidate their power, and serve as an impetus to push through neoliberal economic reforms that were stalled under Zelaya.

If not for the testimony of 18-year-old Ecuadorian migrant Freddy Lala, the August 26 massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas may have remained out of the eye of the mainstream media and chalked up as another example of the violent turf war fought by Mexico's organized crime syndicates. However, the events point to another serious and common issue in Mexico, the chronic human rights violations of migrant workers as they pass through the country in transit to the United States. Every year, according to Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), around 20,000 migrants are kidnapped or abused by gangs, cartels, and government authorities before they reach the United States. This dramatic increase in abuses, however, was predicted in 2001 when Mexico began to take a hard-line stance against immigration on its southern border.

The newspaper Crítica de la Argentina lasted just two years. It had been set up with an editorial agenda and mission to match its name – to criticize. However, its downfall would fit into the broader context created by a battle between the government and the Argentine media powerhouses, Clarín and La Nación. Both of these newspapers face fresh accusations of profiting from business deals that were approved and protected by the military dictatorship during the ”dirty war” of 1976-83. Crítica’s financial distress provided a timely example of the far-reaching effects of those deals.