Greater Middle East
Saudi Arabia executions break 20-year record
Saudi Arabia has executed 151 people so far this year, the highest number since 1995—contributing to a global spike in use of the death penalty.
Tag: narco wars
The Andes
Colombia: official apology for 1985 high court raid
President Juan Manuel Santos apologized for the 1985 army raid on the guerilla-occupied Supreme Court building in which nearly 100 people were killed.
Southeast Asia
Burma: will ceasefire wind down opium war?
Burma’s regime signs a "national ceasefire" with ethnic rebels in the opium-producing north ahead of historic elections—but the biggest rebel armies didn’t sign on.
Mexico
Mexico: narcos in assassination attempt on ex-gov?
Fernando Moreno Peña, ex-governor of Mexico's narco-stronghold Colima state, survived an assassination attempt. Two predecessors were not so lucky.
Mexico
Extraditions signal continued Sinaloa impunity?
Mexico extradited 13 top drug-trafficking suspects to the United States—but all from Los Zetas and other rival organzations to the Sinaloa Cartel.
Central America
Honduras oligarchs busted for money-laundering
Three members of the the Rosenthal family, a pillar of ruling elite in Honduras, were charged by US authorities with money-laundering.
Mexico
Mexico: protesters mobilize on massacre anniversary
On the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico's southern state of Guerrero, thousands of protesters filled the streets of Mexico City.
Mexico
Mexico: more holes in missing students case
The Mexican government says it has identified a second set of remains from the 43 missing students, but an Argentine forensic team working on the case questions the claim.
Mexico
Mexico: cover-up claimed in El Chapo escape
Mexico's interior ministry is accused by a senate committee of covering up evidence pointing to official complicity in the escape of drug kingpin "El Chapo" Guzmán.
Mexico
Official version of Mexican massacre questioned
An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report calls into question the Mexican government's own investigation of the disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero.
The Andes
Peru: protests as US military forces arrive
Angry protesters took to the streets of Lima as 3,000 US troops arrived in Peru for an anti-drug "training mission" in the country's coca-growing jungle zones.
Central America
El Salvador rules street gangs are ‘terrorist groups’
El Salvador's Supreme Court ruled that the country's notoriously violent street gangs and those who support them financially will now be classified as "terrorist groups."