The week at a glance...Americas

Toronto

Crack tape disappears: Gawker, the website that first alleged that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoked crack, now says the video purportedly showing him doing so in the presence of Somali crack dealers has disappeared. The site said that after intense pressure from the local Somali community, the owner of the tape claimed to have gotten rid of it. Ford is close to the Somali community: Toronto’s “Little Mogadishu” neighborhood is located in the ward he represented when he was a city councilor. The Toronto Star’s editor-in-chief, Michael Cooke, said, however, that “the video is slowly making its way to daylight.” An unrepentant Ford denied that the scandal was hurting Toronto’s image. “Any time you can get Toronto on the map!” he said.

San Salvador, El Salvador

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Abortion law at issue: A seriously ill woman with an unviable fetus was denied an abortion by El Salvador’s Supreme Court, sparking a nationwide debate. The woman, known as Beatriz, has lupus, and her fetus had no brain. Her doctors urged an abortion, saying her life could be at risk, but last week the court upheld El Salvador’s total ban on abortion. Still, the justices said that some “medical intervention” could be allowed; this week doctors performed a C-section and the 27-week fetus died within a few hours. Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said the law must change. “There are cases of girls that come with ectopic pregnancies and they are left to bleed to death because here it’s not allowed to terminate the pregnancy,” Rodriguez said. “To me that’s a criminal act.”

Moín Beach, Costa Rica

Sea-turtle activist murdered: The murder of a Costa Rican environmentalist has focused attention on drug gangs allegedly involved in poaching. Jairo Mora, 26, was abducted along with four female volunteers-—three American and one Spanish—while patrolling a beach at night to protect nesting sea turtles. The women were tied up at an abandoned house, and Mora was killed. Mora had recently told La Nación that drug gangs were stealing the endangered sea turtles’ eggs, which are served as a delicacy in Mexico and throughout the Caribbean. His colleagues fear he was murdered for speaking out against increasingly brazen poachers. “This is happening in every coastal protected area,” said Roberto Molina of the Environment Ministry’s labor union.

Lima, Peru

Van der Sloot to marry: Convicted murderer Joran van der Sloot, the only suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway, is planning to marry a Peruvian woman in prison, his lawyer said this week. Van der Sloot, 25, is serving 28 years for the 2010 murder of a Peruvian college student, whom he killed after she discovered he was implicated in the Holloway case. He is currently fighting extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted for allegedly extorting money from Holloway’s parents to tell them the location of their daughter’s body. But if the Dutch national marries and becomes a Peruvian citizen, extradition is much less likely to be approved. Last year, Van der Sloot was also planning to marry a Peruvian; it’s unclear why that marriage did not take place.