Andes, Latin America: Week in Review, Venezuela
Venezuela Prison Deaths On The Rise, Says Report
August 14, 2012 By Staff
Top Story — The Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a prisoners’ rights watchdog group, said that 304 inmates have been murdered in Venezuelan prison violence during the first half of 2012, a fifteen percent increase over the same period last year. The group released a report describing the Venezuelan government’s failure to reduce overcrowding and violence by prison guards and inmate groups, though Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has promised to reform the country’s troubled prison system. Iris Varela, the Venezuelan minister in charge of the country’s penitentiaries, says the government is planning to build eight new prisons by next year to reduce overcrowding. Venezuela’s 33 prisons are designed to hold only 12,000 inmates, but they currently hold about 47,000 people.
Read more from the Associated Press.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- A family of seven, including three young children, was found murdered in a ranch outside Veracruz, Mexican authorities said on Sunday.
- The Mexican navy arrested a suspected member of the Nueva Generación cartel who may be responsible for killing a newspaper employee and three photographers in May.
- Lawyers for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said they will fight an attempt to prevent the state’s SB 1070 “show me your papers” provision from taking effect.
Caribbean
- Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro turned 86 on Monday, but he has not appeared in public recently, fueling more speculation about his health.
- Associated Press journalist Julio Ghigliotty Matos, of Puerto Rico, died Monday of stomach cancer at age 62.
- Francisco Alberto Gautreaux Calcano, of Maryland, told a court that he had lied that he was a Dominican diplomat in order to solicit donations.
Central America
- Guatemalan victims of U.S.-conducted STD experiments in the 1940s are appealing a judge’s decision to dismiss their case because their injuries were suffered outside the U.S.
- Drug traffickers are reportedly preventing Costa Rican teachers in the province of Limón from teaching in the village of Alto Telire after a class building was burned down.
- A hearing for former Salvadoran military officer Inocente Orlando Montano, accused in the slaying of 6 Jesuit priests in 1989, has been rescheduled.
Andes
- Colombian guerrillas from the ELN on Monday released journalist Elida Parra Alfonso and environmental engineer Gina Paola Uribe, who were both taken hostage on July 25.
- Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa may or may not announce a decision on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s asylum request now that the Olympics are over.
Southern Cone
- Paraguay’s new government said it may not continue an Itaipu Dam power-sharing agreement with Brazil due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
- The Brazilian government is launching a natural childbirth campaign as more women are protesting the fact that the country has one of the world’s highest rates of C-section births.
- Ten people were killed and 89 injured in a 5-vehicle accident in Brazil’s Paraná state on Saturday night.
- A postal workers’ strike in Uruguay has left 50 tons of international mail piling up at the Carrasco Airport since July 10.
Image: Globovisión @ Flickr.
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