Two months before the presidential elections in El Salvador, new links between the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and international drug trafficking have come to light. After chavista aid failed to secure the Honduran presidency for the Zelayas two weeks ago, the reelection of the ruling FMLN would entail a radicalization of the political environment in El Salvador and its integration into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the international bloc promoted by the...

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday criticized the recent visit of Guatemalan President Perez Molina to east Jerusalem. PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat expressed “strong dissatisfaction with the response given by the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry regarding complaints made by the State of Palestine on the issue,” according to a statement issued by the PLO. “We will not accept any attempt to legitimize Israel’s occupation policies, particularly in East...

Iran has built an infrastructure of terror in Central and South America in order, among other goals, to target Israelis and Jews there and have a base from which to attack the US, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday. Ya’alon, meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Fernando Perez Molina, himself a former director of military intelligence, warned that Iran, which operates the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah as a proxy, was using diplomatic cover to spread terror in the...

Reporters Without Borders is dismayed at the release on bail of Fermín Marcelino Calderon (photo), one of those charged over the 2011 abduction and murder of the journalist , also known as “Gajo”. He was bailed on the orders of Judge Haydeliza Henriquez in the eastern city of San Pedro de Macorís on 29 November. The prosecution has said it will appeal against the decision. “In view of the seriousness of the charges against Fermin Marcelino Calderon in the...

The Colombian journalist Deisy Rodriguez Lagos and the Italian documentary maker Bruno Federico (photo) had a narrow escape when a gunman opened fire as they were covering an operation to expel peasants two days ago in Pitalito in the Chimichagua district of the northern department of Cesar. “In South America, landowners and their henchmen frequently behave as predators of freedom of information,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We call on the authorities to get to the...

As the United States forges ahead with its unpredictable negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina is doing her best to let the Iranians off the hook for the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina in 1994. Even though this was described as the worst act of terrorism to have occurred on the South American continent resulting in the death of 83 individuals, and in spite of overwhelming evidence as to Iran’s complicity, the case...

Reporters Without Borders calls for a thorough investigation into yesterday’s attempted murder of TV journalist Diego Gómez Valverde in the eastern city of Cali, in which Gómez reportedly sustained five gunshot injuries. “We hope that Gómez recovers quickly,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Given that nothing was taken from the victim and the possibility that he was ‘warned’ before this shooting, acording to a few of his colleagues,...

Reporters Without Borders calls for justice for journalists who have been persecuted or killed and an overhaul of the entire Honduran media after the parliamentary elections that are due to be held on 24 November. Represented by an observer on the ground, Reporters Without Borders hopes that key issues that are important to the population, such as agrarian reform, environmental conflicts, a purge of the police and obviously human rights, will be the vehicles of a new pluralism and the...

Chile’s outgoing president has vetoed the Digital Television Act, a law that would have opened the way to modest progress in broadcasting in Chile despite being criticized for not going far enough to redistribute frequencies. Reporters Without Borders regards the arguments deployed by the president’s office in a 19 November paper defending the veto as a misuse of the concept of “pluralism” to defend the economic interests of a few at the expense of real pluralism. New...

Reporters Without Borders condemns police harassment and violence against journalists amid a wave of protests by students disputing the preliminary results from last weekend’s presidential election. “We call for an end to acts of intimidation and violence against journalists and we urge both the government and the opposition to respect their work,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The authorities must guarantee the safety of journalists and must punish the police...