Latin America: Week in Review, Mexico, United Nations
Mexico: Charges For “Twitter Terrorists” To Be Lessened
September 21, 2011 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Lawmakers in the Mexican state of Veracruz approved a law Tuesday designed to lessen terrorism and sabotage charges filed against the so-called “Twitter terrorists.” Gilberto Martínez and María de Jesús Bravo allegedly caused a panic last month in the Mexican port city of Veracruz by tweeting rumors of purported drug cartel shootouts. The new legislation creates a disturbance of the peace charge so prosecutors can revise the indictments against the two. Javier Duarte , the governor of Veracruz, proposed the changes last month after receiving pressure from the Roman Catholic Church and civic groups. He has still not set a date for signing the legislation into law.
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Mexican President Felipe Calderón called on the U.S. government to reduce weapon sales to Mexico and domestic demand for illegal drugs, in a talk before business leaders at the Waldorf-Astoria on Monday. Mari Hayman has more.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- The man who many Mexicans believe will be their next president, Enrique Peña Nieto, announced Monday that he plans to seek the nomination to run in the July 2012 election.
- Authorities in Mexico announced Tuesday the capture of a top member of the Knights Templar drug cartel in the western state of Michoacán.
- Some of Mexico’s top newspapers have stopped publishing advertisements for sexual services in an effort to combat human trafficking.
- The U.S. will review the case of a deported Haitian man who died in custody.
- Family members and survivors of the 1997 attack in the Mexican state of Chiapas that killed 45 indigenous people sued former President Ernesto Zedillo.
Caribbean
- Cuban authorities are investigating two Canadian companies over alleged corruption scandals involving government ministries and state-owned enterprises.
- The Haitian government says a plane crashed outside the northern coastal city of Cap-Haitien.
- EFE has more information on the murder of the Dominican Republic’s drug enforcement agency aide César Augusto Ubri.
Central America
- U.S. authorities asked Guatemalan officials not to torture or illegally detain suspected drug traffickers, according to a document released by Wikileaks.
- A court in Nicaragua sentenced a man from the U.S. to 22 years in a maximum security prison for money laundering, drug trafficking and organized crime.
- Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli called Yankee closer Mariano Rivera to congratulate the pitcher on his record-breaking 602 save.
Andes
- An Ecuadorean court upheld a criminal libel verdict against three newspaper directors and an editorialist after the newspaper El Universo published a column calling Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa a “dictator”.
- Venezuela deported a group of alleged drug smugglers, five from Colombia and one from the U.S., back to their home countries on Monday.
- Two religious portraits from the 17th century have been returned to Bolivia after they were stolen from the Church of San Andrés de Machaca in La Paz in 1997.
Southern Cone
- Brazil deployed 7,000 troops to its borders with Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina over the weekend as part of the “Agata 2” operation, launched earlier this month to combat drug trafficking across the four countries’ borders.
- South Korea is considering using the name “Malvinas Sea” instead of “Falklands Sea” in retaliation for Britain’s use of the name “Sea of Japan” to refer to the the waters known as “East Sea” in South Korea.
- Paraguay has ordered the public slaughter of 1,000 cattle to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease, while neighbors Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Uruguay have banned Paraguayan imported meat and animals.
Image: Rosaura Ochoa @ Flickr.
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