LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tensions mount as Honduras defies OAS

Honduras' new leadership ignores OAS deadline to restore Manuel Zelaya, and threatens to arrest him if he returns. The coup has brought deep divisions in Honduras to the fore.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mexican cartels lure American teens as killers

When he was finally caught, Rosalio Reta told detectives here that he had felt a thrill each time he killed. It was like being Superman or James Bond, he said. “I like what I do,” he told the police in a videotaped confession. “I don’t deny it.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Mexican Drug Lord Who Got Away

Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera has become a narco folk hero, and each year that Mexico is unable to catch "El Chapo" his legend grows.

THE WASHINGTON POST

In Mexico, the U.S. Downturn Hits Home

Remittances sent home by Mexicans in the United States are the second-largest source of legal foreign revenue in the country. Last year, according to the Bank of Mexico, migrants sent home $25 billion. But the remittances have been falling steadily since the end of 2007, when construction, manufacturing and service industries began to sputter. These sectors employ a disproportionate percent of the almost 12 million Mexicans living in the United States, most of them illegally.

THE WASHINGTON POST

In Juarez, A Trail of Drugs and Violence

Assailants have been targeting addicts in Ciudad Juarez for the past year. In August, eight men were killed and five wounded by unknown attackers as they gathered for prayer at a treatment facility in this border city. Last week, a man was executed at a third rehabilitation center.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Mexico targets drug trade in Michoacan

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent troops into his home state of Michoacan in 2006 to fight drug traffickers, U.S. and Mexican officials have described a growing free-for-all between warring cartels in the state where 10 mayors were recently detained and are being investigated for alleged ties to drug traffickers.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

In Mexican city, drug war ills slip into shadows

The reminders of Nuevo Laredo’s violent days still mar its streets — bullet holes and the impacts of grenades where drug traffickers once flaunted their power, boarded-up buildings of merchants who fled the lawlessness, and until they were leveled by the government a few weeks ago, garish roadside shrines to Santa Muerte, the saint of death.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Hugo Chávez raising pressure on Globovision

In recent weeks, officials in Venezuela -- where the government controls a media apparatus devoted to glowing coverage of the president -- have appeared increasingly obsessed with Globovision, the 24-hour, all-news station.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Bullets don't stop Guatemala green activist

Yuri Melini was shot seven times by an assailant nine months ago. The outspoken champion of environmental causes has made many enemies, and gained recognition too.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

An independence claim in Nicaragua

After declaring independence from the rest of Nicaragua in April, a group of indigenous activists from the Mosquito Coast readied a grand celebration to commemorate the occasion. Their feast would be ruined, however, when the regional government sent in the police to seize the main course.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Acapulco, long dotted with tourists, now home to drug war

Cliff divers, all-night discos, towering hotels on the sand — that is one side of Acapulco. But a four-hour gun battle over the weekend between soldiers and suspected drug traffickers made clear that the popular beach resort has a dark side and that no part of Mexico may be completely immune from the continuing drug war.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Brazil's novelas may affect viewers' lifestyle choices

Shows started fads in the past -- now they're linked to lower fertility and higher divorce rates

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Subs surface as key tool of drug smugglers

When anti-narcotics agents first heard that drug cartels were building an armada of submarines to transport cocaine, they thought it was a joke. Now U.S. law enforcement officials say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles.

PODER

Rethinking Panama

With trade a hard sell in Washington these days, it's time for the White House to actively support a free-trade agreement with Panama.

Colombia's Ospina wins Gallegos prize for novel

Colombian writer William Ospina won the prestigious Romulo Gallegos International Novel Prize on Thursday in a competition marked by the withdrawal of two Venezuelan authors due to differences with President Hugo Chávez.

THE WASHNGTON POST

U.S. pushed hard for OAS accord

For a few hours this week, the Organization of American States appeared about to splinter: Leftist Latin American governments squared off against the United States over whether Cuba should be allowed to rejoin the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Drug violence spilling into Guatemala

Mexican drug gangs under pressure at home are moving operations to Guatemala, whose proximity, weak law enforcement and deep-rooted corruption provide fertile ground, officials and analysts say.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Drug, gang allegations stain Mexico politics

The claws of collusion dig deep in Mexico these days. Senators, governors, mayors and police chiefs have been arrested or accused of serving as pawns and protectors of vicious drug cartels.

TIME

Inside the OAS's Cuba conundrum

Latin American leaders usually have few qualms about lecturing the U.S. on what they regard as the folly of its Cuba policy, especially of late. Reintegrating Cuba has become a priority issue for many if not most of the region's governments, who see it as a way to break with the Cold War politics and U.S. hegemony that burdened the region in the 20th century.