Week in Review Share This /

In the News

• Colombian authorities arrested Dolly Cifuentes Villa on charges of money laundering for Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. Police allege that Cifuentes took over after her brother, who served as drug lord Pablo Escobar's personal pilot, was killed 18 years ago. The head of the national police called her "a high-ranking link between Colombian and Mexican drug dealers."
• Colombian Attorney General Vivian Morales announced that corruption costs the country $4.2 billion dollars a year. However, only 7% of the Justice Department's nearly 20,000 corruption cases are currently being actively investigated.
• The Peruvian Supreme Court rejected former president Alberto Fujimori's habeas corpus request. The Constitutional Tribunal upheld the verdict that sentenced Fujimori to 25 years in prison for directing government death squads in the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos massacres.
• Mexico's National Statistics Institute reported that Mexico's net outflow of migrants has dropped to "almost nothing."
• Following similar rulings from the Supreme Court and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Guatemala's highest judicial authority, the Constitutional Court, rejected former first lady Sandra Torres bid to run for the presidency. Torres divorced her husband, President Alvaro Colom, to try and get around the law banning relatives of the president from running for office.
• Brazilian authorities are still searching for an uncontacted Amazon tribe after armed drug traffickers overran a government guard post near the tribe's land. Officials hope the tribe moved deeper into the jungle to avoid the traffickers, but fear they may have been harmed.
• Chilean protestors continued to clash with police, after tens of thousands of students staged another massive protest on Tuesday. While most of the protestors were peaceful, some broke off from the group and tried to penetrate police barriers.
• According to a new report from the Mexican government, kidnappings have increased 300% over the past five years. On average 3.72 kidnappings are reported every day throughout the country.
• Six people were killed in Córdoba, Colombia, prompting a march demanding the government to do more to protect the population from criminal gangs.
• Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's popularity took a hit following multiple scandals in her administration and a slowdown in the economy.

Recommended Articles

• Elizabeth Dickinson at Foreign Policy reports on how Colombia's armed groups are profiting from the current gold boom.
• Elyssa Pachico of InSight Crime investigates the new threats facing the Rosales family, which she calls "Bolivia's version of Mexico's Arellano Felix family."
• On the Just the Facts Blog, Lucila Santos has a new piece on Argentina's Operation Escudo Norte (Northern Shield), a new border security effort launched to support Plan Fortin II.
• Also on the Just the Facts blog, Adam Isacson has a graph showing trends in economic and military aid to Latin America between 1999 and 2010.
• An editorial in the Los Angeles Times implores the U.S. government to expedite the asylum applications of Mexican journalists threatened by drug cartels or by the military.

U.S. Southern Command Updates

• U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command and U.S. 4th Fleet changed command this week. Rear Admiral Vic Guillory, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command and U.S. 4th Fleet was relieved by Rear Admiral Kurt Tidd.
• SOUTHCOM announced that PANAMAX, a 12-day multinational exercise aimed at "ensuring the security of the Panama Canal," will begin next week. Over 3,500 civil and military personnel from 17 countries will participate in the exercises, at various locations in Panama and the United States.

This blog was written by CIP Intern Claire O'Neill McCleskey