Guantánamo Bay, Cuba
Terror trials resume: The admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks will be tried in a military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay next month, the Pentagon has announced. President Obama halted the military trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others two years ago and tried to have them transferred to federal district courts, but Congress blocked that attempt. Now Mohammed, who said at his first trial that he would plead guilty, will be tried before a jury of military officers, and will not be allowed to testify publicly about his detention conditions, which included waterboarding, a torture technique that simulates drowning. A judge at Guantánamo is expected to rule this week on whether Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the accused mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, will be allowed to testify publicly.
Guatemala City
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Drug gangs join up: Two of Latin America’s deadliest drug gangs appear to be merging into a criminal force that could threaten the whole region, Guatemalan authorities said this week. The Zetas, a cartel founded by turncoat Mexican special operations troops, have taken over much of rural northern Guatemala in the past few years. Now they are providing paramilitary training to the Maras, a notoriously cruel Central American gang that started on the streets of Los Angeles and spread in U.S. prisons and throughout Central America. A merger would provide the Zetas’ sophisticated criminal operations with thousands of brutal foot soldiers. Guatemalan officials said they learned of the merger through bugged prison conversations as well as the sudden appearance of assault rifles among the Maras.
Kepashiato, Peru
Shining Path attacks: Shining Path rebels in Peru kidnapped a group of gas workers this week, its first major kidnapping in nearly a decade. The Maoist group had its heyday in the 1980s, when it committed numerous massacres and terrorist attacks, but it was routed during a civil war in the early 1990s and is now reduced to a few bands of cocaine traffickers hiding in the mountains. The rebels grabbed at least 10 Peruvian construction workers building a gas plant—some reports said up to 40 people were seized—and demanded $10 million in ransom as well as explosives and other equipment. Some reports said the rebels also demanded the release of their leader, Comrade Artemio, who was captured in February.
Rio de Janeiro
Tall and tan and young and chubby: Nearly half of Brazilians are now overweight or obese, the government said this week. In the past five years, the proportion of people in the land of bikinis who are overweight has ballooned from 43 percent to 49 percent. The Health Ministry blamed the increase on too much fatty food, and said government programs were being enacted to encourage healthier eating habits and more sports programs. “Now is the time to act to ensure we don’t reach the levels of countries like the U.S.,” the Health Ministry said.
