On his trip to Mexico, US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly toured Guerrero state to witness opium eradication operations. That very night, a riot broke out at the prison in the state's biggest city, violence-torn Acapulco. The explosion of violence ended with at least 28 inmates dead—many of them mutilated and several beheaded.
An armed clash at a mountain village in Mexico's border state of Chihuahua left at least 25 dead—the latest indication that narco-gangs are stronger than the government across much of the country's drug-producing sierras. The shoot-out erupted in the pueblo of Las Varas, in the foothills of the Sierra Tarahumara—Mexico's prime cannabis and opium cultivation area.
The United Nations charged that Colombia's government is undermining the country's peace process by failing to release imprisoned FARC members and protect disarmed guerillas as promised in the peace deal. Although mores of the 3,400 imprisoned FARC adherents have been officially amnestied, only 837 have been released. More than 1,400 imprisoned FARC members have gone on hunger strike to demand their release. Meanwhile, even released FARC veterans are being targeted for deadly reprisal attacks by right-wing paramilitaries.
Spyware supplied to Mexico officially to track narco-traffickers and terrorists was instead used against human rights investigators looking into the case of 43 "disappeared" college students. Amid the new scandal, the families of the disappeared continue to wait for justice. There has been one arrest in the case, and the remains of only two of the missing students identified.
One year after Rodrigo Duterte took office on a pledge to expunge the "virulent social disease" of drug abuse, the civilian death toll in his crackdown may be as high as 8,000. Among the upwards of 80,000 arrested under Duterte's rule are some, including opposition politicians, who have been clearly framed for speaking out against him. And in the restive southern island of Mindanao, he has made good on his threats to instate martial law.
London's High Court of Justice ruled that the UK can continue to export arms to Saudi Arabia, rejecting a case asserting that the weapons have been used in the commission of war crimes in Yemen. A substantial portion of the court's reasoning is contained in a "closed judgment" document only available to the government's legal team and a security-cleared "special advocate" for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).
Turkish government claims that Kurdish rebels in the country's east are profiting from the hashish trade point to an integrated counter-insurgency and drug enforcement campaign.
Protests are emerging in the Philippines against ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte's declaration of martial law in the southern island of Mindanao.
A new ruling by Colombia's top court may open the way for a resumption of glyphosate spraying to wipe out coca crops, which was suspended in 2015 due to health concerns.
Amid fast-escalating nightmarish narco-violence in Brazil, police in Rio de Janeiro seized 60 assault rifles hidden in a freight shipment that had just arrived on a flight from Miami.
Both the FARC and ELN guerillas denied responsibility for the deadly terror attack in Bogotá, but National Police had warned of an imminent provocation by right-wing paramilitaries.
An aggressive new coca-eradication campaign in Peru was met with a deadly attack on security forces by remnant Sendero Luminoso guerillas in the targeted production zone.
