Latin America: Week in Review, Mexico, North America
Mexico’s Attorney General Releases Files on ‘Flawed’ Iguala Probe
October 12, 2015 By Staff
Top Story — Mexico’s attorney general on Sunday released a massive trove of files pertaining to her office’s investigation of the disappearances last year of 43 students in the state of Guerrero.
A team of more than 100 investigators took over seven months to collect the nearly 54,000 files (available at the website of the attorney general’s office, in Spanish), divided into 85 volumes and 13 annexes. The collection was reportedly an initiative of Attorney General Arely Gómez González, who took over the investigation of the disappearances after her predecessor Jesús Murillo Karam resigned in February.
Experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found several flaws in the official account of the students’ disappearance.
Also on Sunday, Mexico’s National Transparency Institute ordered the army to release its records of any communications with the United States from the night of the students’ disappearance, The Associated Press reported.
The release of the documents “appears to meet” a separate order by the Transparency Institute, the AP notes.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- The United Nations Committee Against Torture concluded that Mexican soldiers tortured four suspects in the northern state of Baja California in 2009 — the U.N. committee’s first-ever decision on an individual case in Mexico.
- A member of Mexico’s city council was shot and killed Saturday in the city of Acapulco, a tourist destination that has recently seen a rise in drug-related violence.
- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will be visiting Puerto Rico from Monday to Wednesday along with other representatives as part of an effort to help the island address its health care challenges and reform its Medicaid system.
- Meanwhile, leaders from the Puerto Rican diaspora will convene in Florida to develop a plan that will push the federal government to take action and help the island during its financial crisis, the first time in decades such a meeting will take place.
Caribbean
- Higher numbers of Cubans have made the dangerous journey to the United States by sea in homemade vessels following the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations, in part because Cubans fear the detente will make the United States alter its current “wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy that grants Cubans unique immigration privileges.
- A shootout in Puerto Rico Sunday left three dead and four wounded in an incident that may have been related to drug activity, according to the local press.
- A fugitive wanted in Jamaica for his suspected role in a guns-for-drugs networking scheme was shot and killed by police in Haiti on Sunday.
Central America
- Panama’s Supreme Court has found enough evidence to connect the country’s former president Ricardo Martinelli to the illegal eavesdropping of over 100 people during his administration.
- Authorities in Guatemala evacuated around 40 families near the site of a devastating landslide last week for fear of another landslide hitting the area.
- Honduran officials ordered the “forced liquidation” of Banco Continental, which was accused of money laundering and supporting drug trafficking by the United States.
Andes
- Finance ministers from 20 of the countries most vulnerable to climate change held the inaugural Vulnerable 20, or V-20, meeting in Lima, Peru, two months ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris.
- Food scarcity and malnutrition are urgent concerns for the Wayuu population in the Alta Guajira region of northeastern Colombia, as repeated El Niño systems have left the region without rainfall for three years, the BBC reports.
Southern Cone
- Brazil Finance Minister Joaquim Levy has quashed rumors that he plans to resign amid a worsening economic recession, telling Reuters that President Dilma Rousseff supports his policies and that he has “a long agenda to fulfill.”
- While maintaining a comfortable lead in Argentina’s presidential race, ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli is unlikely to win outright in the Oct. 25 ballot, meaning he is likely to face an opponent in a run-off election, according to a poll released Sunday by the Poliarquia consultancy.
- Just 10 days after Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes signed legislation that banned ride-hailing apps like Uber, a judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the legislation.
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