By Wendy Anders Mexican soldiers fighting the Drug War. Wikimedia Commons A recent political analysis of the region raises questions about the continuation of a militarized approach to illegal drug trafficking in an era where the decades long US sponsored “war on drugs” has been repeatedly called a failure. From 2004-2014 the United States provided $768 million in police and military aid...

Photo from one of various Twitter accounts attributed to Caro QuinteroMexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, a fugitive from justice since 2013, said in an interview with Proceso magazine that he did not kill U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena in 1985 and denied that he was trying to grab control of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Caro Quintero, considered one of Mexico's mo...

The number of undocumented Cuban migrants arriving in the U.S. has quintupled over the past five years, increasing dramatically after the December 2014 announcement by Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro of a normalization of relations between Washington and Havana. Fewer than 8,000 Cubans reached the U.S. in the 2011 fiscal year, compared with more than 44,000 so far in fiscal 2016, which ...

Cartoon by Clay JonesGavin Eugene Long, the African-American former U.S. Marine accused of killing three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, left several videos posted online in which he declared he wanted to "fight back" against police for the shootings of blacks. "You gotta fight back - that's the only way a bully knows to quit," Long said in one of his videos, using the pseudonym of ...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons)A black former US Marine today killed three police officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on his birthday, in an incident similar to the one ten days ago in Dallas, Texas, where another black former soldier killed five policemen. The perpetrator of this new police shooting was identified as Gavin Eugene Long, a former marine who turned 2...

Wikimedia Commons A New Jersey resident who was gored as he ran with the bulls in Spain's famous San Fermin festival in Pamplona on Wednesday has described the experience as the highlight of his life. Matthew Levin, 39, had clambered onto a fence during his first ever running of the bulls when a charging bull slammed into him and his friends completely by accident, driving a horn into his l...

Ex Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said on Saturday that the rhetoric used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in its summit in Poland is a sign of war. "All the rhetoric used in Warsaw is almost a declaration of war against Russia," he said to Russian news agency Interfax, adding that "the Cold War is preparing to get hot." The decisions made by NATO, such as the deployment...

Wikimedia Commons President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced that the scheduled reduction of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be decelerated and, when he leaves office next January, 8,400 U.S. soldiers will still remain in that country, significantly more than the 5,500 he initially had promised. In a White House speech, Obama noted that "The security situation in Afghanistan remains prec...

Source: IKEA Swedish furniture giant Ikea said Wednesday it was recalling 29 million dressers and chests in the MALM line from the U.S. market after a sixth child was crushed to death when one of the pieces fell on him. The recall also covers 6.6 million drawers sold in Canada, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, said. "The recalled chests and dressers are unstable if they a...

Activists staged a protest Tuesday morning in front of the Canadian Embassy just south of Manila calling for the removal of garbage shipped from Canada to the Philippines, an epa journalist on the scene reports. About 25 members of the EcoWaste Coalition gathered on a concrete median in the middle of the road in front of the embassy, with many wearing gas masks and straw hats. In addition to...

Orlando Police Twitter Miami, Jun 17 (EFE).- Omar Seddique Mateen, perpetrator of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 people dead - including the attacker - and 53 wounded, exchanged text messages with this wife, Noor Zahi Salman, throughout the assault, local media reported Friday Apparently, according to the NBC News channel, Salman's mother called her dau...

Orlando Police Twitter Orlando, Florida, Jun 14 (EFE).- Two days after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at a gay nightclub in Orlando this Sunday, families of the dead and wounded struggle to carry on with their lives, while authorities investigate the background of the gunman, Omar Seddique Mateen. At Orlando Regional Medical Center where most of those wounded at the Pulse night...

Wikimedia Commons Austin, Texas, Jun 13 (EFE).- Hilda Ramirez is a Guatemalan Indian who has spent four months in a church that has provided her with sanctuary in this Texas city in order to prevent U.S. authorities from detaining her and complying with the deportation order issued against her and her 10-year-old son. She has no wish to return to Guatemala, from where she fled north in 2014...

EFE file photo United States President Barack Obama addressed his nation on Sunday afternoon in the wake of a horrific shooting being investigated as an of terrorism. As of mid-day on Sunday, reports indicated that at least 50 people were killed by a man identified as Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen of Afghan ethnicity, who burst into a nightclub that caters to gay revelers before shooting into...

Beijing, Jan 5 (EFE).- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sent a clear warning to China on Sunday regarding Beijing's possible creation of an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, saying such a move would be a "provocative and destabilizing act." The hypothetical declaration of an air defense zone, discussed in China's state-run press last week, "would automatically raise tens...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 23 (EFE).- Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman will not appeal any ruling opening the way for his extradition to the United States, a move approved by the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat last week, if he reaches an agreement with U.S. authorities, defense attorney Jose Refugio Rodriguez told EFE. "Joaquin is n...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 20 (EFE).- Mexico's Foreign Relations Secretariat said Friday it had approved the extradition of notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman to the United States so he can be tried by federal courts in California and Texas for a range of crimes. In a statement, the secretariat said it conveyed its decision to the ...

Wikimedia Commons Toronto, May 10 (EFE).- Canadian William Gadoury, age 15, discovered an ancient Maya city in the Yucatan jungle without leaving home while reviewing satellite images on his computer, local media reported Tuesday. Gadoury, who admits being fascinated by the Maya civilization, discovered that the location of bright stars in various constellations corresponded to the location...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 7 (EFE).- Mexican authorities on Saturday transferred notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman from the Altiplano prison in the central state of Mexico to another maximum-security prison in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, amid rumors about his possible extradition to the United States. Mexico's Gover...

EFE file photo Washington, May 5 (EFE).- A U.S. Army officer has sued President Barack Obama for waging war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria without congressional authorization, U.S. media said Thursday. Capt. Nathan Michael Smith, an intelligence officer stationed in Kuwait, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Smith argues that ...

Canadian Red Cross Toronto, May 3 (EFE).- Canadian authorities on Tuesday ordered the evacuation of large parts of the city of Fort McMurray, some 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) northeast of Toronto due to the danger posed by forest fires in the vicinity. The city, home to more than 60,000 people, many of them immigrants, is one of the country's petroleum centers. The forced evacuation a...

Wikimedia Commons New York, May 1 (EFE).- Complaints by New Yorkers over the presence of rats in the city have shot up in recent months, according to figures compiled by authorities and published Sunday by the local daily New York Post. Between January and April, a total of 8,335 complaints about rats were phoned in to the free 311 hotline number, 18 percent more than during the same period...

A Russian T-72 battle tank, similar to those heading to Nicaragua. (CC) Russia will deliver 50 new T-72B1 battle tanks to Nicaragua this year, in a deal worth some US $80 million, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency and Nicaraguan media. The first batch of 20 tanks is ready for shipment, and the remaining 30 are to be delivered by the end of the year or early 2017, according to th...

(FILE) WASHINGTON (VOA) Nearly 15 years after terrorists hijacked four passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a farm field in Pennsylvania, 28 pages detailing foreign support for the attackers could soon be made public. Only a select group of U.S. officials have read the highly classified document, which has been l...

Wikimedia Commons Bogota, Apr 24 (EFE).- Colombian and U.S. authorities seized 1,850 kilograms of cocaine in two operations conducted in Guatemalan and Salvadoran waters, arresting four Ecuadorians and two Colombians, Bogota authorities reported Sunday. The first anti-drug operation was carried out in Guatemalan waters by Colombia's Dijin and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, suppor...

(Prince pictured in a publicity photo / MSA) (VOA) American pop icon Prince has died at the age of 57. Media reports said he was found dead early Thursday at his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Details have not been released. Born Prince Rogers Nelson, the multi-talented and influential musician is known for such songs as "1999," "Little Red Corvette," and "Purple Rain," the title track...

File photo Washington, Apr 20 (EFE).- Legal marijuana sales in the United States totaled nearly $5.7 billion in 2015, while more than 100,000 jobs are being created annually in that industry's medicinal and recreational segments, according to a study released Wednesday. Four states (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington) - in addition to the District of Columbia, where the U.S. capital is...

Brian Pallister (R) is pictured here in 2014. (Mark Blevis / Flickr) A public records search of Costa Rica’s Registro Nacional reveals that Brian Pallister, the conservative Canadian politician who opinion polls suggest is leading the Manitoba election but who recently has come under fire for spending nearly 20 percent of his time in the legislature away at his vacation home in Costa Rica, own...

Brian Pallister (R) is pictured here in 2014. (Mark Blevis / Flickr) A conservative Canadian politician who opinion polls suggest is leading the Manitoba election race, which is entering its final days, is facing tough criticism for spending too much time in Costa Rica since being elected to Manitoba’s Legislative Assembly in 2012. Citing public records, Brian Pallister, Manitoba’s Progress...

Wikimedia Commons Miami, Apr 13 (EFE).- The Miami Beach City Commission voted against the opening of a Cuban consulate until significant human rights reforms have been made in that country, local media reported Wednesday. With four votes in favor and three against, the commission "has thrown cold water on their mayor's hotly debated idea of a having a Cuban consulate in the city," according...

(Wikimedia Commons) WASHINGTON (EFE) Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump says he will block remittances sent home by Mexican citizens in the United States if that country does not agree to pay for the wall he wants to build along the border between the two nations, according to a document his campaign released on Tuesday. The two-page memo dated March 31 and entitled "Compelling Me...

Source: Diego Reyna Facebok Toronto, Apr 4 (EFE).- A Mexican construction worker helping to build Trump Tower in Vancouver, British Columbia, placed his country's flag on the building to protest recent statements by U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Diego Reyna placed the flag over the weekend, Canadian media reported Monday, and he later posted a photo on the social media ...

Robert Allen Lopez had been on the run for nearly 20 years. (WFOR Miami / Screen capture / Fair Use) An American fugitive who has been on the run for nearly 20 years was deported to Miami from Nicaragua on Saturday, escorted by officers of the United States Marshals Service. Robert Allen Lopez, 49 was arrested by Nicaraguan authorities on November 14th, 2015, after entering the Central Amer...

Washington, Mar 29 (EFE).- Two suspicious packages found Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol forced police to evacuate a group of tourists and close off streets through the area, a congressional security spokesperson told EFE. The incident occurred after on Monday a man entered the Congressional Visitor Center, pulled out a pistol and caused chaos by pointing it at one of the officers directing tourist...

The U.S. Capitol building is shown on lockdown following a shooting incident at the buildings Visitors Center, in Washington, March 28, 2016. (N. Ardanza/VOA) (VOA) Police at the U.S. Capitol shot a man Monday after he pulled out a gun and pointed it at officers during a routine security screening at the entrance of the site's visitor's center. Authorities identified him as 66-year-old Larry Da...

Wikimedia Commons Miami, Mar 27 (EFE).- The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a group of 26 Cuban migrants on a raft near the Florida coast, seven of whom had bullet wounds, spokesmen for the force told EFE on Sunday. The group of Cubans was discovered on their raft near Key West, where they were attempting to land, on Saturday. Seven of the migrants had been shot and six of them were taken t...

Source: Pixabay Commons As a commercial pilot and flight school instructor, Bruce Wayne (seriously) Wallis flew air passengers around the world for a major United States airline; however, when darkness set upon the Lone Star State, he became Bruno the Pimp, a prostitution impresario who managed a network of brothels in Houston. According to a news report filed by Brian Rogers of the Houston...

US Special Forces. Pentagon file photo Washington, Mar 25 (EFE).- The United States believes it has killed the Islamic State's second-in-command, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said at a press conference Friday morning, confirming earlier media reports. "We are systematically eliminating ISIL's Cabinet. Indeed, the U.S. military killed several key terrori...

U.S. President Barack Obama and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri visit the Parque de la Memoria (Remembrance Park) where they will honor victims of Argentina's Dirty War on the 40th anniversary of the 1976 coup. (REUTERS OMX) (VOA) U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States was slow to speak out on the atrocities committed during Argentina's former dictatorship but says his adminis...

Wikimedia Commons Bogota, Mar 22 (EFE).- The top leader of Colombia's FARC on Tuesday described the meeting the day before in Havana between the rebel group's peace negotiators and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as historic, "unprecedented and unthinkable." "(It was) a historic meeting with the U.S. secretary of state, something unprecedented and unthinkable. We received support from hi...