Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images photo at The Guardian (UK). Caption: “US aerial view of the US-Mexico border fence seen from Tijuana.”

(Even more here)

January 15, 2019

Western Hemisphere Regional

It’s not clear exactly how many troops are currently at the border or how the number is expected to change — a Pentagon official said in November that the number was expected to dip below the 5,900 initially deployed

An ever larger number of families are being released with nowhere to stay, no money, no food and no means of getting to friends and relatives who may be hundreds or thousands of miles away

Brazil

Brazil’s right-wing government under President Jair Bolsonaro will seek to classify invasions of farmland by landless workers movements as akin to terrorism, with harsher penalties for perpetrators

It is seen not just as a direct challenge to the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, but also as stark evidence that Brazil urgently needs penal reform and alternatives to the tough-on-crime policies he is promising

Colombia

¿Cuándo un hecho de estos está relacionado con el conflicto? ¿Cuándo, entonces, podrán los implicados recibir beneficios penales?

Ayer en la tarde el Alto Consejero para el Posconflicto, Emilio Archila, dijo que “están dadas las condiciones” para que la Jurisdicción Especial de Paz, JEP, le abra un incidente de incumplimiento a Iván Márquez

La situación de Ever Payares la viven otros 111 personeros del país, lo que significa que cerca del 10% del total de los representantes del ministerio público se encuentran amenazados

Colombia, Venezuela

Cristina Vélez habló con SEMANA un día antes de que el Distrito cierre el campamento humanitario transitorio que se creó hace dos meses para dar fin a la invasión del espacio público que generaron más de 500 venezolanos

Colombia

Hubo un incremento de 3,25 por ciento en ese delito. En el 2018 se registraron 12.458 homicidios, mientras que en el 2017 fueron 12.066

Ecuador, South America Regional

The headquarters of the Union of South American Nations outside Ecuador’s capital seems as moribund as the group itself

Guatemala

Morales ignored a ruling by the nation’s highest court that reversed that decision, and appears to support an effort underway by his allies in Congress to impeach the Constitutional Court judges who have opposed his efforts

Por primera vez —y ante la ONU— Iván Velásquez responde a las acusaciones hechas por Jimmy Morales sobre la CICIG. Estos son los detalles de la carta

Mientras Arzú Escobar y Morales hablaban, cientos de personas secundaban, tanto en la capital como en los departamentos, protestas contra la corrupción y la expulsión de la Cicig

Haiti

Some residents and local rights groups say the killers were gang members working with corrupt police to seize territory in the La Saline gang war. But others accuse Haitian government officials of orchestrating the massacre to head off anti-corruption protests

Mexico

The Guardian travelled to five border locations to discover how Trump’s rhetoric jars with the reality on the ground

Venezuela

“Now it’s a new dynamic. We are no longer going to be tinkering along the edges. Nowadays, everything will be put on the table”

In a context in which those responsible for these human rights abuses are more likely to be rewarded than brought to justice in Venezuela, it is critical to explore avenues to hold them accountable abroad

Guaidó inherited the top post at the Popular Will party, partly because most of its leadership has been jailed or fled the country. On Jan. 5, he was named the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly