Regional
InSight Crime analyzes why the region’s governments tend to disagree on the threat posed by Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan organized crime group.
Haiti
The U.S. government sent supplies to bolster Haiti’s beleaguered police force, and for much needed humanitarian aid, reports the Miami Herald.
Venezuela
Venezuela’s opposition unity presidencial candidate, Edmundo González spoke to El País: he said Lula and Petro’s intervention helped convince the Maduro government to let him run for presidency. (El País)
Guatemala
Guatemala’s public ministry — led by officials sanctioned by the U.S. — searched the offices of Save the Children, “in an inquiry into claims of child abuse that was widely viewed as a political attack in a country with a history of targeting nonprofit groups and human rights organizations,” reports the New York Times.
Ecuador
The Noboa administration’s crackdown on organized crime — ratified by citizens in a referendum last week — risks “militarizing law enforcement, overwhelming overcrowded prisons, fragmenting the country’s two dozen crime groups, and ignoring underlying challenges that are fueling insecurity in the first place,” writes Robert Muggah in Americas Quarterly.
Regional Relations
Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he would seek entry for Colombia into BRICS+. (Latin America Brief)
Culture Corner
“The six-foot woman, carved in pale stone, wears a peaked headdress, circular earrings and the wide hip belt and kneepads of an ancient Mesoamerican athlete. Her expression is fierce, her pose triumphant. In her right hand, she grips the severed head of a sacrificial victim by the hair.” — New York Times on a life-size representation of a ritual ballplayer found in the Huasteca