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I will be very difficult to reach today. (How to contact me)
It’s a day of legislative work. I have seven or eight meetings with staff today in the House and Senate, mainly to talk about border security and migration concerns.
This means that I’ll be hard to reach, and that this site won’t see updates all day.
Andrés Celis photo at Verdad Abierta (Colombia). Caption: “Cada campamento de las distintas ZVTN o PTN rinde homenaje a través de pancartas a los comandantes que han muerto.”
Although the trip is expensive and long for the Warao — it can take multiple boat and bus rides and several weeks to reach the Brazilian city — those who have made the journey say it was worth it just to see their children eat
Se empieza a vislumbrar lo que pueden ser estos territorios para las Farc y las comunidades cercanas: un enclave de estudio, arte y política
‘Carlos Antonio Lozada’ cuenta detalles de la última etapa del desarme, que comienza el martes
Es el momento de la grandeza de todos: de la sociedad colombiana para obrar sin mezquindades y buscar la reconciliación
Las últimas actuaciones contra el paro cívico en Buenaventura tuvieron un resultado contrario a lo esperado: las manifestaciones fueron creciendo de 10.000 a 120.000 personas
El Gobierno tendrá que meterle el acelerador para que la presión del discurso de Trump no cale. Y eso pasa por resolver el pulso entre Coccam y las demás organizaciones
The rest of Cuba’s entrepreneurs are left to figure out how to recover from the expected drop in American visitors
Despite the incendiary rhetoric in which Donald Trump cloaked his new policy when he rolled it out at a rally of Cuban-American hardliners in Miami, the sanctions he announced were limited
At a Monday news conference, the nation’s foreign minister called the latest deal “a grotesque spectacle straight from the Cold War”
Members of Cuba’s small but vibrant independent civil society say they fear the new policy will do more harm than good
La adquisición de este equipo de última generación está incluido dentro del convenio de cooperación bilateral entre Honduras y el gobierno de Israel, valorado en 209 millones de dólares
The software has been used against some of the government’s most outspoken critics and their families, in what many view as an unprecedented effort to thwart the fight against the corruption infecting every limb of Mexican society
Advanced surveillance and sensing technologies, wide area communications networks, pattern recognition algorithms and power generation systems form the basis for the construction of a virtual wall
The humanitarian group said approximately 30 well-armed Border Patrol agents descended upon the location looking for “bodies” in a coordinated and alarmingly militarized operation
What the DEA could easily do, however, is establish firm and formal protocols for exchanging information with Mexico. Current and former DEA officials describe the system as loose and somewhat random
According to a United Nations report released Monday, some 34,200 Venezuelans sought asylum in 2016 — up from 10,200 claims the previous year
A negotiated resolution remains the best hope for avoiding even greater bloodshed, but not by returning to the futile, time-c0nsuming “dialogue” of 2016
“Half Right” by Heatmiser (1996).
Lessons Learned from Prior Reports on CBP’s SBI and Acquisitions Related to Securing our Border (1.1MB PDF)
Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector-General, June 12, 2017.
The Homeland Security Inspector-General looks at past border wall-building experiences in light of the Trump administration’s proposal to add new fencing.
Central America Regional Security Initiative: Background and Policy Issues for Congress (1.3MB PDF)
Congressional Research Service, June 8, 2017.
A new update of a regular overview of U.S. assistance to Central America to improve public security and governance.
CBP Continues to Improve its Ethics and Integrity Training, but Further Improvements are Needed (1.6MB PDF)
Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector-General, May 31, 2017.
A report finding that U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates in part along the border with Mexico, “misses valuable opportunities to deliver consistent high-quality ethics and integrity training courses across multiple operating environments and components.”
A Special Joint Review of Post-Incident Responses by the Department of State and Drug Enforcement Administration to Three Deadly Force Incidents in Honduras (26.3MB PDF)
Department of Justice and Department of State Offices of Inspector-General, May 24, 2017.
A thorough, strongly worded overview of improper activity following 2012 deadly use of force incidents involving DEA and State Department personnel in Honduras.
Congressional Budget Justification for Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (10.8MB PDF)
U.S. Department of State, May 23, 2017.
The State Department’s annual explanation to Congress of how it is using its budget for both diplomacy and foreign assistance. The 2018 request calls for a steep reduction in U.S. aid to the world.
Congressional Budget Justification for Homeland Security (18.8MB PDF)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, May 23, 2017.
The annual budget request submitted to Congress by the Department of Homeland Security. Includes funding requests and justification language for border security programs and border wall-building.
I’ll mostly be reachable in the early and mid-afternoon. (How to contact me)
After the weekly morning staff meeting, I’ll be in the office until about 4:00, when I’ll be taking my wife and daughter to the train station (the kid is going on a trip with my mother-in-law). Which means I’ll probably be getting most work done this evening, as I’ll have the house to myself.
That work will include finishing an update about Colombia, sending out a lot of emails to set up or follow up on meetings, and hopefully recording a podcast for this site.
The legislative push continues this week, largely on border-security work. As of now I’ve got eight meetings scheduled on Capitol Hill, and that may increase.
When I’m not doing that, I expect to complete two pieces of shorter written work: an update on U.S. policy toward Colombia (such as it is right now), an explainer about a border-security hiring surge, and another (in final edits, awaiting release) about drug flows in the Americas. I’ll finish a book chapter about coca cultivation today. I want to put out podcasts both here and at wola.org. And I want to get started on a super-brief report about what we saw in May at the San Diego-Tijuana border.
OK, that’s more tasks than there are hours for, especially with a pretty heavy meeting schedule. We’ll see how much my team and I manage to get done.
“The Fitted Shirt” by Spoon (2001).
He truly was a man ahead of his time. pic.twitter.com/BzKGUKLWKK
— You Had One Job (@_youhadonejob1) June 17, 2017
Always check your children’s homework before sending them off to school. pic.twitter.com/RICbkk0I7O
— You Had One Job (@_youhadonejob1) June 17, 2017
Soothsayer 2014: “In 2017 we’ll all be talking about Shakespeare, the U.S. Constitution, and basic civic norms.”
“Great. What’s the catch?”— Walter Olson (@walterolson) June 18, 2017
My mother likes to use the microphone function rather than typing to text while driving. pic.twitter.com/vshphoob4V
— Gerald Austin Taylor (@AustintatiousT) June 14, 2017
Card reader: “DO NOT REMOVE CARD”
me: ok
CR: “DO NOT REMOVE CARD”
me: ok
*waits*
CR: “🚨🚨🚨FUCK REMOVE THE CARD 🚨🚨🚨”
me: *scrambles*— Emily G, PDX style (@EmilyGorcenski) June 15, 2017
A stunning product of a lengthy investigation re-creating a massacre in Coahuila, Mexico. “The DEA took a gamble. It shared the intelligence with a Mexican federal police unit that has long had problems with leaks — even though its members had been trained and vetted by the DEA. Almost immediately, the Treviños [then-leaders of the Zetas cartel] learned they’d been betrayed.”
A month after the murder of prominent Sinaloa journalist Javier Valdez, a series of essays from Mexican, U.S. and Colombian reporters reflects on the emergency their profession faces in Mexico, and how to stop it.
Recreating meetings and conversations, Caputo recounts how Sen. Rubio (R-Florida) and Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Florida) used their access to Donald Trump to ram through an unpopular change in U.S. policy toward Cuba.
The reporters talk to shelter and humanitarian personnel on both sides of the border, documenting the post-Trump-inauguration drop in migration to the United States, and the increases of the past month.
It’s commonplace to hear that Venezuela’s opposition protests have been a largely wealthy and middle-class affair, that the poorest are not participating. In an interview, investigator Alejandro Velasco argues that, in fact, poor neighborhoods in Caracas and other cities are sites of constant protest—but the demands and methods are different.
I asked my “narrowdown.org” congressional web database which members of Congress most consistently sign on to legislation or letters, or join caucuses, having to do with U.S.-Mexico border security. The result was the below list of 19 “hardliners” and 20 “reformers” in the House of Representatives.
Of the 19 hardliners, 18 are Republicans who won their districts by more then 10 percentage points in November. (The other is the lone Democrat, Henry Cuellar of south Texas.) Only one is a woman. Three represent districts whose population is over 30 percent Latino. Five sit on committees that oversee border security policy.
Of the 20 reformers, all are Democrats who won their districts by more than 10 percentage points in November. Fourteen represent districts whose population is over 30 percent Latino. Four sit on committees that oversee border security policy.
This is an inexact tool: for instance, it omits hardliner Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and reformer Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-California), a committee chairman and a ranking Democrat whose positions lead them to sponsor fewer bills. But it still yields an interesting result.
Hardliners: favor building up border security and cracking down on immigration
Reformers: favor less coercive border security and welcome immigration
Reformers met at least two of these conditions. Three members met three (Brooks, King, and Smith):
Reformers met at least five of these conditions. One member met nine (Gutierrez):
We’ve been voicing alarm about the incredibly deep cuts to diplomacy and foreign aid that the Trump administration has proposed for 2018. When we talk to people in the House of Representatives, they tend to share our alarm about the cuts, which would slash aid to Latin America by 35 percent from last year’s levels.
But when we talk to Senate staff, they generally wave their hands and say “don’t worry about it.”
You can see that here, in this opening statement by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at Tuesday’s committee hearing on the budget with Secretary of State Tillerson. After heaping praise on Tillerson, Corker, with his usual laconic delivery, lets him have it on the proposed budget cuts.
We sat down yesterday in the middle of the Russia negotiations. I took some time out to sit down with my staff, and we began going through the budget that you’re presenting today. And after about five minutes, I said, “This is a total waste of time, I don’t want to do this anymore.”
And the reason it’s wasted time is, I think you know that the budget that’s been presented is not going to be the budget that we’re going to deal with. It’s just not.
And, I mean, the fact is that Congress has a tremendous respect for the diplomatic efforts that are underway, the aid that we provide in emergency situations, and it’s likely and– and by the way, this happens with every presidential budget, every presidential budget. This one in particular, though, it’s likely that what comes out of Congress is likely not going to resemble what is being presented today.
And so I felt it was a total waste of time to go through the line items and even discuss them, because it’s not what is going to occur.
Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images photo at The New York Times. Caption: “The flags of the United States and Cuba in Havana in 2016. The Trump administration is ending a a two-year-old rapprochement between the nations.”
Para especialistas ouvidos pelo GLOBO, a decisão da corporação pode ser o fim das UPPs
Thursday’s ceremony means that 40% of the Farc’s arsenal has now been decommissioned, marking another success in a peace process that has at times stumbled
El Gobierno y las Farc pidieron a la ONU una segunda misión para verificar la reincorporación de los guerrilleros a la vida civil y política. La próxima semana el Consejo de Seguridad podría decidir
Eduardo Díaz, director de Sustitución de Cultivos Ilícitos de la Presidencia, le responde a Tillerson. Dice que la expectativa de campesinos por incentivos del proceso de paz incidió en el aumento de las cifras pero no fue el único factor
Throngs of predominantly younger Cuban Americans plan to demonstrate against retrenchment from closer connections with Cuba
“Obama was a very wise man. He had something in mind, like playing chess with those people, the communists over there”
Tightening travel restrictions for Americans that had been loosened under President Barack Obama and banning U.S. business transactions with Cuba’s vast military conglomerate
The directive calls for reversing a rule that Mr. Obama put in place last year to allow Americans who are making educational or cultural trips to initiate their own travel to Cuba without special permission
Worried about bureaucratic pushback to preserve Obama’s normalization, the Florida senator went directly to the president with a plan in May
The DEA confirmed that it has been exchanging information with Cuban officials about drug trafficking
Colombia began to express misgivings about how Trump’s Cuba announcement in Miami would coincide with the two-day U.S.-led Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America that begins today, also in Miami
Neither the vice president nor Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who was also asked, committed to doing so
Las diferencias entre generales y soldados no se observan solo dentro de los cuarteles militares. También se ven en los tribunales
The silencing of one of Mexico’s most uncompromising and eloquent chroniclers of the ravages of the Drug War leaves a large hole in the heart of the entire journalistic community
A No More Deaths spokeswoman said the four were patients receiving medical care
The letter highlights abuses being faced in Mexico by refugees and asylum seekers as they flee violence in Central America, and the troubling murders of numerous Mexican journalists and human rights activists
On June 6, Vladimir Padrino López, the defense minister, acknowledged for the first time that National Guard members had committed abuses
In calling on Venezuela to abide by its 1999 Constitution, the countries of the Americas should insist that the government respect the constitutional authority of the National Assembly and free political prisoners
“I tell the vice president of the United States, get your nose out of Venezuela, there will be no gringo, Yankee, imperialist intervention in Venezuela,” Maduro said
I should be reachable much of the day. (How to contact me)
I’ve deliberately tried to clear the schedule today in order to work on a couple of writing deadlines. I finished drafting a memo yesterday about some common misconceptions about drug flows through Latin America, and today will work on two: one on Border Patrol hiring, and one on U.S. policy toward Colombia. I’ll probably post a thing or two here, too, before the day is over.
Though I’ll be reachable today, as writing proceeds I may have to duck into “do not disturb” mode for a few stretches today.
Tomorrow in Miami.
Two things are to happen tomorrow in different parts of Miami.
Most of Latin America celebrated Obama’s December 2014 opening to Cuba. And most of Latin America opposes Trump’s reversal of it. This makes for an awkward situation for the high Central American, Mexican, and Colombian officials who will be at Southcom, a few miles away from Trump’s announcement.
So awkward that Colombia—perhaps after hearing concerns from Cuba’s government—even mulled pulling out of the Central America meeting, Politico reported earlier today.
“Colombia began to express misgivings about how Trump’s Cuba announcement in Miami would coincide with the two-day U.S.-led Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America that begins today, also in Miami, and suggested it might just skip out on the conference if Trump didn’t delay his announcement by a week, said an aide to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).”
Sen. Rubio responded by threatening post-conflict aid to Colombia.
“Rubio nevertheless counseled the White House to send a message to the government run by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos: The actions were jeopardizing the $450 million ‘Peace Colombia’ initiative that President Barack Obama pushed but that remains in limbo under Trump. …’Let me get this right: Santos is coming to us and asking for $400 million to fund his flawed peace plan, but he is threatening to pull out of an event that’s not even about them? It’s about El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras,’ the senator told the White House, according to the Rubio aide.
(This report is partially inaccurate: last month Congress passed, and Trump signed into law, the budget including the $450 million “Peace Colombia” appropriation.) An aide to another critic of Obama’s Cuba policy and Colombia’s peace accord, Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Florida), called the Colombian embassy, Politico reports, “to tell the country to stay out of the Cuba matter or face ‘consequences.'”
Put aside for a minute (just for a minute) the outrageous threats directed at Colombia, one of the hemisphere’s most moderate and staunchly pro-Washington governments. Whose idea was it to hold these two overlapping events in the same city at the same time? Isn’t this the sort of thing that diplomats are supposed to catch, and to stave off ahead of time?
The answer to the first question is that it was nobody’s idea for the events to strangely coincide: it just happened. The answer to the second is that the diplomats aren’t in the driver’s seat here. The people trained to ensure smooth international relations are an afterthought in this administration’s Latin America policy.
Here we are in June, and “assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs” is one of many empty diplomatic posts for which the Trump administration has not even sent a nominee’s name to Congress. The State Department’s profile on both the Central America meeting and the Cuba decision is low.
One hears much more about the Central America conference from the Department of Homeland Security, whose secretary, former Southcom commander John Kelly, has been the driving force behind the Trump administration’s intent to devise a new Central America policy. Just compare Homeland Security’s up-to-the-moment, video-filled site about the conference to State’s web page, which offers a backgrounder from a few days ago and a speech given by Secretary Rex Tillerson, who is only attending the conference’s first day.
When you cut out or demote the diplomats, you’re going to make rookie mistakes. Like, for instance, putting a close regional ally in a politically uncomfortable situation, then threatening it when its government dares to speak up.
Between this and Tuesday’s comments from Secretary Tillerson complaining openly about Colombia’s 2015 decision to stop aerial coca spraying, the U.S.-Colombia relationship is fraying. And Senator Marco Rubio is involved in both episodes.
If Sen. Kamala Harris starts a sentence in a forest and no white guy is there to interrupt her, does she finish the sentence?
— Adam Isacson (@adamisacson) June 15, 2017
“Debate Exposes Doubt” by Death Cab for Cutie (2001).
Below this text, in reverse chronological order, are some maps from U.S. Southern Command that I’ve collected over the years. They show the tracks of aircraft or boats that Southcom and its Key West, Florida-based “Joint Interagency Task Force South” (JIATF-South) component has suspected of trafficking drugs (or other illegal things). These give you a general idea of how trafficking (I believe this is nearly all cocaine trafficking) patterns have shifted over the past 12 years.
Four things stand out:
These aren’t secret or classified, but I don’t know why Southcom and JIATF-South don’t just put these on their websites and in their reporting to Congress and the media. It’s about telling your own story.
It needs to match the rhetoric of an open-door policy with real improvements in the institutionalisation, coordination and management of refugee protection and resettlement
¿Cómo lo vivieron los guerrilleros rasos? Lágrimas, euforia, alegría y nostalgia, todo un nudo de sentimientos que reflejan el comienzo de una nueva vida
Su caso junto al de muchos otros líderes indebidamente condenados por ejercer sus derechos generarán una nueva reflexión sobre el rol de la administración de justicia en el marco del conflicto
“Acá en esta zona hoy no se avanzó en la dejación, solo en la certificación de unos cuantos”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told congress that Trump spoke to Santos about bringing back the controversial aerial spraying of coca crops
Murillo dijo que hay toda una policía de estado que involucra a campesinos y que además piensa en la preservación de recursos naturales por lo que volver al glifosato no es una opción
Las fumigaciones en cerca de 1,8 millones de hectáreas han demostrado que lo único que se produce es un efecto globo, es decir, la resiembra en otros lugares. Es un procedimiento bárbaro
Lideró la fumigación con glifosato, sobre lo cual no tiene dudas de que no fue la fómula de éxito definitiva que todavía algunos pregonan. Él explica por qué
There has been a flurry of letters to the president this week as Miami awaits Trump’s possible arrival Friday in the capital city of Cuban exiles to announce his recalibration of Cuba policy
The administration’s changes are likely to leave in place the basic components of the Obama opening — diplomatic relations, along with conditioned trade and travel — while tightening each in ways that will complicate but not undo them
The wave of targeted killings is the second phase of a retaliation plan by the MS13 street gang, in response to extraordinary prison measures implemented in April 2016
If we focus narrowly on interdicting and eradicating drugs, while capturing and extraditing drug lords, we run the risk of missing the bigger picture
The USA is building a cruel water-tight system to prevent people in need from receiving international protection and Mexico is all too willing to play the role of the USA’s gatekeeper
Hoy, una vez, más los periodistas saldrán a las calles paran exigir justicia no sólo para el periodista sinaloense sino por todos sus colegas asesinados
The document, seen in Mexico, contains an agenda for the two-day meeting in Miami and lists several specific objectives it refers to as “deliverables”
A hierarchy of perceived needs emerged, with Haitians at the top
The criticism from Maduro’s former allies has helped to energize a protest movement that has drawn demonstrators onto the streets almost every day for two months
“La Fuerza Armada ha alcanzado el punto más alto en desagrado y rechazo por parte de los venezolanos”
I should be reachable much of the day. (How to contact me)
After some early-morning personal errands and a conference call, I’ll be in the office all day, finishing a memo that I started yesterday, starting another, finishing a brief book chapter, and posting a thing or two here.
“No Creo” by Shakira (1998).
Municipality of Jocotán photo at Southern Command’s Diálogo website. Caption: “Students from a rural school in the municipality of Jocotán, Chiquimula, thank the Guatemalan Army Corps of Engineers for the desks they donated to their school.”
A pro-military group posted a list of journalists and others who have testified in human rights cases against leaders of Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship, calling them “subversive terrorists from the 1970s.”
A brief and ill-advised use of soldiers against protestors “shocked a capital already shaken by the day’s violence” and brought back memories of the 1964-85 military government. See also: Eduardo Goncalves, “Forcas Armadas Sao Usadas Contra Protestos Pela 2ª Vez” (Veja (Brazil), May 25, 2017).
Gen. Luis Felipe Montoya, an active-duty officer, has been training with foreign “friends of the process” to take a more active role in the Colombian government’s stalled peace talks with the ELN guerrilla group.
The Southern Command-run publication asks the chief of Guatemala’s joint staff, “When will the Armed Forces stop supporting the National Civil Police?” The answer: “In the coming year, if not sooner.”
Guatemala’s army is fulfilling a presidential order “to restore 8,000 kilometers of roads within the shortest possible time.”
An active-duty colonel wrote a book recognizing some of the Guatemalan military’s civil war-era crimes and alignment with the country’s small elite. The author speculates that this could be a step toward cracking open the armed forces’ “pact of silence.”
Soldiers in the state of Tamaulipas, where Mexico’s Army and Navy are in frequent firefights with criminal groups, write a letter asking to be pulled off the streets because “we’ve had enough of killing hitmen.” It voices rage at human rights NGOs and the government because “nobody says anything” when their comrades are killed.
Mexico’s Defense Ministry (headed by an active-duty general) has begun freezing out La Jornada, a left-leaning Mexico City daily, leaving it off its mailing list for press releases and events.
A few glimpses into one of Venezuela’s main “black boxes”: attitudes in the military. “Soldiers’ families suffers along with protesters who skip meals while watching their money become worthless. Some are unsure whether to blame the government or the opposition for the crisis, and what soldiers decide in the coming months could decide the country’s fate.” See also: “Venezuela’s Defense Chief Warns Guardsmen on Excessive Force” (Associated Press, June 8, 2017) and Girish Gupta, Andrew Cawthorne, “Venezuela Jailed 14 Army Officers for Dissent at Start of Protests: Documents” (Reuters, June 6, 2017).
Human rights defenders are denouncing Venezuela’s new practice of trying civilians in military courts for their role in political protests.
Lo ocurrido en Palmarito no debe repetirse porque independientemente de la violación de derechos humanos y la urgente redefinición de la política de seguridad interna, polariza a nuestra sociedad
El Ejército debe respetar el marco legal. Si no lo hace, si no respeta las leyes, si ignora la Constitución, se convierte en un Ejército asesino. Punto
Photo from El Tiempo (Colombia). Caption: “La Corte había prohibido de erradicar cultivos ilícitos a través de la aspersión aérea con glifosato.”
The remaining 40 percent are due to be relinquished by June 20, the expiry date of the extension with the government
En directo, desde los contenedores de la ONU en La Elvira, se transmitieron el recibimiento y la inspección de las armas entregadas por las Farc
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expresses its concern over the repression of protests and demonstrations in Buenaventura, Colombia, by the Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron
El fenómeno SÍ es sistemático. Apabullantemente sistemático. Mirando desde tres perspectivas –semántica, jurídica y estadística– llegamos a la conclusión de que simplemente no es verosímil escamotearle su sistematicidad
La administración del presidente republicano Donald Trump reveló este martes que le ha pedido a Colombia reanudar la fumigación aérea para controlar el crecimiento de los cultivos ilícitos
That story of forgiveness and compromise, at a time when Colombia is struggling to implement a historic peace deal with the leftist FARC guerrillas, is what attracted USAID to the project
Also planned: a reduction in the number of categories for which Americans do not need U.S. government licenses to go to Cuba
Victims’ organizations have told International Justice (IJ) Monitor that they are concerned that the delays in resolving these appeals may be intentional
Few experts seem to think that some sort of military-level confrontation is likely. But an institutional collapse that plunges the country into homicidal chaos and anarchy is not hard to imagine
I’ll be reachable all day except for lunch hour. (How to contact me)
It’s the first day in a long time with less than 3 hours of meetings scheduled. (An informational interview about WOLA and lunch with my new intern.) To celebrate, I plan to write a memo on border security and a memo on Colombia, as well as post here a couple of times.
“Ramon Casiano” by The Drive-By Truckers (2016).
Nick Oza photo at The Arizona Republic. Caption: “Hondurans and Central Americans take a freight train, known by migrants as La Bestia, the beast, to come to the border town of Mexico to cross US-Mexico border.”
Disturbed by growing denialism, women whose fathers committed heinous abuses urge other perpetrators to break their ‘pact of silence’ over their crimes
Las partes mantienen su desconfianza y no se ha avanzado en los puntos más importantes. Pero hay caminos para salir del atolladero
Turning its back on Cuba now would hamper Washington’s attempts to apply pressure on Caracas, diplomats said
65% of American voters support maintaining Obama-era policy changes, while only 18% oppose
Trump’s homeland security chief to lead meeting on region’s economic and security issues, as experts say aid cuts and deportations could fuel instability
We have statistics that suggest that much of the product that is flowing through Central America today in trafficking routes makes a right turn and heads to Western Europe rather than proceeding north into North America
One perception among would-be border crossers is that under Trump the United States has gotten much tougher on migrants who are caught
Cada una de estas regiones —Los Cabos, la Riviera Maya, Acapulco— cuenta una historia distinta. Pero comparten características comunes
The DEA took a gamble. It shared the intelligence with a Mexican federal police unit that has long had problems with leaks — even though its members had been trained and vetted by the DEA. Almost immediately, the Treviños learned they’d been betrayed
The billionaire supermarket magnate served as president of Panama from 2009 to 2014 was taken into custody as he was driving out of his home around 7:30 p.m. (EST) and is being held at the Federal Detention Center
Hoy, el foco en la condena hacia el Estado por su represión de la oposición –sin duda correcto en principio– luce en los barrios como privilegio de clase
“Ustedes también tienen el derecho y el deber de rebelarse, de rebelarse ante ordenes que buscan reprimir al pueblo venezolano”
I’ve got a day full of meetings and will be hard to reach. (How to contact me)
This should, I hope, be the last day for a while where I write this post with a big red line of text at the top. It looks like there’ll be a lot more time to write and catch up after today. But for now I’ve got a dentist appointment (tiny filling), lunch with a longtime Colombian-American colleague, a meeting with a visiting diplomat, and a Skype conversation with a researcher in Colombia. All of that will occupy about 6 hours of the day, making me hard to contact and unable to post significant updates here. Productivity will increase tomorrow.
“Holding On” by The War on Drugs (2017).
Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images photo in The New York Times. Caption: “Wuilly Arteaga, a friend of Mr. Cañizales’s, played the violin in front of riot police officers during a protest against President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas in late May.”
Security forces in Sao Paulo have cleared a central square of crack addicts and homeless people who fled from a similar police operation nearby nearly a month ago
Todos los estudios que desde entonces le hicieron en la Unidad Nacional de Protección señalaron que tenía un riesgo “ordinario” que no ameritaba ningún esquema
The National Instant Response System for Stabilization Progress was activated in January to learn about the community’s concerns and perceptions of security issues
Almirante Orlando Romero, del Mecanismo de Verificación, destaca resultados de la paz con las Farc
Un grupo de 305 integrantes de las Farc, de los que entregaron sus armas a la ONU la semana pasada, se instaló el jueves pasado en una academia de entrenamiento para escoltas
Lo de la fortuna de las Farc parece un refrito. Si fueran multibillonarias no habrían negociado un acuerdo para reintegrarse a la sociedad
El embajador de Estados Unidos, explica por qué expresó inquietudes a la Corte Suprema de Justicia sobre la libertad de un guerrillero pedido en extradición
La migración de ciudadanos del vecino país a Colombia empieza en la capital de Norte de Santander. La ciudad ya está en jaque y el panorama empeora cada día
Those fortunate enough to have such jobs have a degree of economic and personal freedom that would not have been possible had the United States government continued more restrictive travel polices for Americans
Trump is now reportedly considering banning business with the Cuban military and clamping down on travel to Cuba while maintaining the diplomatic relations
“Currently, of the drugs that enter the country, 80 percent come in through the Pacific Ocean and 20 percent through the Caribbean Sea”
El juez insistió en que se necesita “más que un video anónimo obtenido de las redes sociales” para acusar a un soldado
Las investigaciones por portación o acopio ilegal de armas de fuego (incluidas las de alto poder) en la administración del presidente Enrique Peña Nieto muestran un descenso sostenido de casi el 30%
The senator made clear that he was not suggesting unilateral U.S. military action in Mexico, but rather a cooperative effort, as seen in Colombia
Se modificará el Plan Alianza para la Prosperidad del Triángulo Norte (de América Central) con un enfoque “primordialmente militar y de reinversión de capitales privados en la región”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday he would ask Pope Francis to persuade opponents that children should not participate in violent protests
Today, it’s tough to find anyone on the left willing to defend Kelly. He has alienated potential allies on Capitol Hill, including Democrats who voted to confirm him, and is endangering his reputation as a nonpartisan figure
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