(Even more here)

August 6, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

• Andres Oppenheimer, “Biden Right to Oppose Trump Choice to Head Latin America Development Bank — but for the Wrong Reason” (The Miami Herald, August 6, 2020).

The Biden campaign told me in an email that the presumptive Democratic nominee for president considers Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s candidate to head the Washington D.C.-based Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), to be “overly ideological” and “under-qualified”

• Hamed Aleaziz, “There’s Been a Major Increase in the Use of Force Against Immigrants at Ice Detention Centers During the Pandemic” (BuzzFeed, August 6, 2020).

Since the end of March through the beginning of July, guards at detention centers across the country deployed force — pepper spray, pepper balls, pepper spray grenades — in incidents involving more than 10 immigrants at a time on a dozen occasions

• “Editorial: Migrants at Ice Detention Centers Are Sitting Ducks Because of an Inhumane Policy” (The Washington Post, August 6, 2020).

To continue detaining nonviolent detainees as the virus tightens its grip on ICE facilities is pointless and dangerous — for detainees and for employees

Brazil

• Monica Gugliano, “Vou Intervir!” (Piaui (Brazil), August 6, 2020).

O dia em que Bolsonaro decidiu mandar tropas para o Supremo

• David Biller, Joshua Goodman, “Trump’s Envoy Close to Brazil’s Leader — Some Say Too Close” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 6, 2020).

One of the State Department’s top Brazil experts, who has lived 11 years in the country, the Texas native grabbed headlines cozying up to Bolsonaro with an assertive style

Central America Regional

• Hector Silva Avalos, “¿Que Le Espera a Centroamerica Si Biden Derrota a Trump?” (Nomada (Guatemala), August 6, 2020).

Acaso el principal cambio puede ser que la migración deje de ser la moneda de cambio en la política exterior hacia la región

Colombia

• Sebastian Forero Rueda, “Dos Anos del Gobierno Duque: Campesinos Sin Tierra No Han Sentido la Reforma Rural” (El Espectador (Colombia), August 6, 2020).

Aunque la implementación de los PDET ha avanzado, el gobierno Duque solo ha entregado 27 mil hectáreas de tierras a campesinos

• “Las Amenazas Contra los Testigos del Caso Uribe” (Semana (Colombia), August 6, 2020).

Los exparamilitares claves en el proceso han denunciado amenazas contra ellos y sus familias. Juan Guillermo Monsalve incluso fue víctima de un ataque con cuchillo hace ocho años

• Erika Pineros, Carolina Loza Leon, “In Colombia, the Pandemic Provides Fertile Ground for Illegal Armed Groups” (Foreign Policy, August 6, 2020).

Rights groups warn that armed groups including the ELN are using the pandemic to expand their control, threatening those who break the curfew with punishments and even death

• “Colombia Cometio Error en Solicitud de Extradicion de Mancuso” (El Tiempo (Colombia), August 6, 2020).

El trámite se basó en una orden de captura contra el exparamilitar que estaba vencida. Y si bien esta fue prorrogada, la defensa de Mancuso alegó que el juez no era competente para tal prórroga

Guatemala

• “Former Guatemalan Official Who Used Drug Trafficking Proceeds and Other Dirty Cash to Bribe Corrupt Politicians Charged in Miami Federal Court” (U.S. Department of Justice, August 6, 2020).

South Florida federal prosecutors have charged a former Economics Minister of Guatemala, Asisclo Valladares Urruela, 44, with helping to launder close to $10 million of illegal drug proceeds and other ill-gotten money

Honduras

• Yessica Morales, “David Castillo; Uno de los Autores Intelectuales del Asesinato de Berta Caceres, Podria Quedar en Libertad” (Chiapas Paralelo (Chiapas), August 6, 2020).

El término de su prisión preventiva vence el próximo 2 de septiembre, luego de 2 años y medio

• Jackie Mcvicar, “Indigenous Men in Honduras Are Being Abducted. Are the Police to Blame?” (America The Jesuit Review, August 6, 2020).

“There’s so much hate,” she said. “So much rejection of what it means to be indigenous. So much contempt”

Mexico

• Lizbeth Diaz, “Second Journalist Killed in Mexico in Under a Week” (Reuters, The New York Times, August 6, 2020).

Unidentified assailants shot a journalist dead outside his home in the western Mexican state of Michoacan

• “Grupo Armado Ataca Base de la Guardia Nacional Con Ayuda de Simpatizantes en Tomatlan, Michoacan” (EFE, SinEmbargo (Mexico), August 6, 2020).

El ataque contra el recinto policial estuvo liderado por Omar Mora Rojas, un presunto jefe de sicarios del cártel de La Nueva Familia Michoacana en la zona de La Ruana

U.S.-Mexico Border

• Julian Resendiz, “Border Lawmakers Worry About Gaps in Border Security, Seek Mile-by-Mile Analysis From Dhs” (Border Report, August 6, 2020).

“It’s a way we can identify what our biggest needs and the right mix in terms of personnel, technology and infrastructure along our border,” said U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, D-New Mexico

• C. Nicholas Cuneo, m.d. m.p.h., Hannah Janeway, m.d., “From Icebox to Tinderbox — a View From the Southern Border” (The New England Journal of Medicine, August 6, 2020).

The migrant shelters where we provide care remain crowded tinderboxes for infectious diseases such as varicella, mumps, and norovirus, and now Covid-19. The situation on the border is a public health crisis of our country’s own manufacturing

• Barbara Sprunt, “Biden Would End Border Wall Construction, but Wouldn’t Tear Down Trump’s Additions” (National Public Radio, August 6, 2020).

Biden committed to fully ending land confiscations, a more aggressive stance than President Barack Obama took when he came into office after President George W. Bush had approved border fencing

• A.c. Thompson, “After a Year of Investigation, the Border Patrol Has Little to Say About Agents’ Misogynistic and Racist Facebook Group” (ProPublica, August 6, 2020).

Congressional investigators say the agency is blocking them and revealing little about its internal investigation

Venezuela

• Antonio MarÍa Delgado, “Maduro General Promoted to Venezuela’s Top Military Rank Despite Drug Charges” (The Miami Herald, August 6, 2020).

The Nicolás Maduro regime promoted Interior Minister Néstor Reverol to General in Chief — the highest military rank in Venezuela —even though the officer is charged by federal prosecutors in New York with accepting large bribes in exchange for protecting drug shipments

• Luna Perdomo, “Ong Defensoras de Ddhh Tambien Son Vulnerables a la Violencia Policial y Militar” (Tal Cual (Venezuela), August 6, 2020).

La debilidad más importante que existe en Venezuela «es que no hay un mecanismo especial para las personas defensoras de DDHH, como lo tiene Colombia y la mayoría de los países centroamericanos

• Sofia Nederr, “Inclusion de la Milicia en Nueva Constitucion Sera Corolario de un Plan Iniciado en 2005” (Tal Cual (Venezuela), August 6, 2020).

En el texto, hecho a puerta cerrada, se pondrá a la milicia como un nuevo componente especial de la Fuerza Armada Nacional