The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, rejected the Mexican government’s take on the UN’s report and denounced “widespread” torture in Mexican police stations. 

According to a report, since 1990 Colombia has had 11,073 registered victims of landmines; and President Santos has set aside land for the Museum of Memory dedicated to the ongoing armed conflict.

Rio de Janeiro’s Military Police (PM) force has started the takeover of the Complexo da Maré favela communities from the national army forces currently stationed there.

The government of Enrique Peña Nieto would like to relegate the disappearance of the 43 “normalistas” from Ayotzinapa to the status of a “merely criminal” matter.  Yet their parents refuse to let it pass quietly out of sight.   

There are more than 500 mayors and former mayors threatened in Colombia. And the mayor of a small town in Peru’s southern Andes was gunned down over political differences, officials said, rejecting earlier claims that he was killed during a robbery. 

A new anti-extortion law prohibits telephone signals in areas near penitentiaries. 

A Mexican mayoral candidate was decapitated in the state of Guerrero, while the federal government arrests the Zetas drug kingpin. 

Journalism, a dangerous profession in northern Paraguay, also proved deadly in Guatemala, where a journalist was murdered, soon after he reported feeling threatened. 

There is increasing pressure on former President Uribe to join Colombian peace talk efforts; the FARC will not accept an agreement that calls for jail time; and the armed forces are trying to envision their role in post-conflict Colombia. 

The comments about “transitional justice” by former President César Gaviria in relation to the peace process have stirred debate and praise, even though many pundits say his proposals are “problematic and incomplete.”