It has taken 50 years for a commercial flight from the United States to have official permission to land with American passengers in Cuba, but recently a small plane from Key West has done just that. Despite it being a small plane with less than a dozen passengers, it is representative of a thaw between […]
President Obama’s election victory last month proposed many new policy changes for the next four years. One of the most important policy relationships may be the one between the United States and Mexico. This past Saturday, Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in as Mexico’s new President. With policy challenges for Nieto tied greatly to Mexico’s […]
Colombia is enjoying a growth spurt, thanks in large part to security gains made in recent years. The amount of coca cultivated in Colombia has decreased from 357,800 acres in 2001 to 140,847 acres in 2010. An international aid effort is helping the Colombian government. Notes an article in today’s Miami Herald: The alternative development […]
The discovery of a drug tunnel, no matter how long it may be or how lavishly outfitted–even the seizure of millions in coke or marijuana–means nothing, unless it leads authorities, in hot pursuit on both sides of the border, up the criminal hierarchies, to the drug lords, and their corrupt accomplices in the police, military, banks, business, and government. To everybody waiting, in Mexico and the US, for their ‘taste.’
Human rights abuses have been making headlines almost daily in the burning hot battles of Mexico’s drug wars. From the horrific massacre of 72 migrants last week, to the gruesome display of four decapitated corpses strung from a bridge along with a warning sign, to human rights investigators gone MIA, the news is dark and […]
As newspapers continue their steady financial decline and the press is criticized for everything from false news reports to jeopardizing national security, those of us who live in the comfort of a democracy may start to say, Who needs them? There are plenty of blogs to fill the gap, and as tech-savvy critical thinkers trained […]
Last week, the official drug czar of Guatemala as well as the chief of national police were arrested for allegedly leading a police ring that stole cocaine from drug traffickers. Now that is deep-rooted corruption. Guatemala is caught in a vicious cycle. On one side, the police and security forces have become involved in organized […]
Stories of soldiers murdering civilians, illegal wiretapping, targeted killings of indigenous people, assassinations of labor rights activists and other human rights abuses are troubling, but not troubling enough for the US State Department. Last week the State Department certified Colombia as complying with basic human rights requirements, a necessary condition for releasing the remainder of […]