The week at a glance...Americas

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Peace train: A group of human-rights activists traveled through Mexico’s most violent territories last week to protest the drug war. Led by poet Javier Sicilia, whose son was killed by drug cartel members in March, the group stopped in cities throughout Mexico, holding rallies and inviting families of those murdered to speak. Sicilia blames the cartels, the Mexican army, and the U.S. for the violence. At the end of the tour, Sicilia crossed the border into El Paso, Texas, where he urged Americans to restrict gun sales and stop funding corrupt Mexican security forces. “If U.S. citizens don’t pressure their government,” he said, “they will become accomplices of a crime against humanity.” More than 34,000 Mexicans have died in drug violence in the past four years.

Havana

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Chávez recovers: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had emergency surgery in Cuba last week for an abscess in his pelvic region. Chávez was on the last leg of a trip, after visiting Brazil and Ecuador, when he complained of pain and was rushed into surgery. He said that Fidel Castro and his brother, Cuban President Raúl Castro, had visited him in the hospital and brought him movies to watch while he recovered. Chávez said he couldn’t “answer precisely” when he would be well enough to return home, but said opposition calls for him to hand over power temporarily to his vice president were “sadistic.”