Mexico City, Mexico — Following the raid by Ecuadorian security forces on Mexico’s embassy in Quito — which resulted in the arrest of former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas who was seeking asylum there — Mexico denounced Ecuador before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and requested that the country be expelled from the United Nations.  “Mexico’s demands seek to strengthen the international legal framework for the peaceful settlement of disputes that should govern international coexistence. This demand is based precisely on the conviction that the use of force is not the mech ..read more

São Paulo, Brazil – Brazil’s lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, on Wednesday upheld the arrest of a suspected mastermind behind the 2018 murder of Rio de Janeiro city councilor Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes.  In a 277 to 129 vote with 30 abstentions, the deputies surpassed the 257 votes needed to uphold the arrest of the suspect, Chiquinho Brazão, who is a federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro. Under Brazilian law, whenever a deputy is arrested, the Chamber must analyze the court order before it can be upheld.  At the end of March, Chiquinho Brazão was arr ..read more

Mexico City, Mexico — The United States Embassy in Mexico last week announced criminal charges against 41 members of the Jalisco Cartel Nueva Generación (CJNG), currently one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, linked to the smuggling of illegal drugs into the U.S. Through a press release dated April 3, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico announced decisive action against the largest drug cartels in the country.  “Working with our partners in Mexico, we have criminally charged the leaders of the world’s largest drug cartels, such as the Sinaloa cartel ..read more

Mexico City, Mexico—– Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on local authorities to provide security to candidates for the upcoming general elections amidst a spate of 22 murders of candidates for public office thus far.  Mexico’s 2024 general election is making history; both for being the largest election in recent memory, as well as for being the most violent. The June 2 general election will see 97 million Mexican voters elect more than 20,000 federal and local elected officials, including eight governorships, 500 members of the lower house, 128 senators, city hall ..read more

São Paulo, Brazil – Free speech laws in Brazil garnered international attention over the weekend as Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), went on a rant about Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes has been leading investigations into the dissemination of fake news during the country’s 2022 presidential elections.   Musk criticized Moraes’ decisions to suspend accounts on X that were allegedly spreading fake news about the country’s electoral process. In retaliation, Moraes included Musk in a Supreme Court investigatio ..read more

São Paulo, Brazil – As Brazil’s government continues to grapple with suppressing a surge of illegal gold mining in the Amazon, the Yanomami, an Indigenous community that inhabits one of the largest reserves in the region, continues to suffer from mercury contamination in its rivers. On April 3rd, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Socio-Environmental Institute released a joint study showing that 94% of people living within nine Yanomami communities have been contaminated with high levels of mercury in their bodies. The real scope of the devastation, however, may be far worse, as on ..read more

Lima, Peru — On April 4, a group of alleged illegal miners dynamited transmission towers that supply power to two shafts at the “La Poderosa” mine in Pataz province, in the northern Peruvian region of La Libertad. Shortly after 11:00 p.m. on April 4, immediately following the attack, the miners unsuccessfully attempted to take control of two company galleries, despite the presence of around 300 members of the National Police and the army in the area. The next day, the “Unified Command of Pataz,” composed of the Army and the police, confirmed the death of one person and said that two others we ..read more

São Paulo, Brazil – After 50 days and a cost of R$2 million (USD $400,000), the search for two fugitives from a maximum security federal prison in Mossoró, Brazil ended on April 4 with security forces re-capturing the fugitives.  The escape, which took place on February 14, was the first in the history of Brazil’s federal prison system, which opened in 2006 during the first term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.  Brazil has five federal prisons which are designed to receive the most dangerous of the country ‘s criminals. Such was the case of fugitives Rogério da Silva Mendonça ..read more

São Paulo, Brazil – Brazil has launched an electronic document that allows its citizens to formalize their interest in donating organs during their lifetime. The initiative is called “One Heart: Be Life in Someone’s Life.” From now on, any Brazilian citizen who wishes to become an organ donor will be able to fill out, for free, an electronic organ donation authorization (AEDO) at any of the 8,300 registry offices in the country. The validation can also be done by digital signature. The authorizations will be available in the National Transplant System, an electronic system that can be accesse ..read more

Medellín, Colombia — During a college graduation party in 2015, Luis Perez listened as several classmates complained about their tight schedules for moving out of their student housing while also studying for midterms. So Perez, originally from Venezuela but studying in the United States, offered to pick up their stuff, store it, and even sell the junk they didn’t want.  That initiative quickly turned into his startup, Remoov, which now converts belongings that will no longer be used into items for sale or donation, keeping much of it out of harmful landfills.  “At a party a week bef ..read more