Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Soccer game slayings: Gunmen opened fire with machine guns during a soccer game at a Juárez park this week, killing seven people, including two of the players. The park had opened just four months ago as part of the government’s anti-violence campaign, “We Are All Juárez.” The city, directly across the border from El Paso, Texas, is the most violent in Mexico. More than 3,000 people were killed there last year as drug gangs battled for control of trafficking routes into the U.S. The latest massacre came just before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived to emphasize U.S. support for President Felipe Calderón’s war on the drug cartels. “It is hard,” Clinton said. “It carries all kinds of costs. But there is no alternative.”
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
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Aristide, too? Just days after former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti, another former leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, said he wanted to come back too. Aristide was first elected president in 1990, but was ousted by a military coup a few months into his term. The U.S. restored him to power in an invasion in 1994, but he was ousted again in 2004 in a violent rebellion and has been teaching at the University of South Africa ever since. In a letter to newspapers last week, Aristide said he wanted to “contribute to serving my Haitian sisters and brothers as a simple citizen in the field of education,” adding that the South African climate was harming his health.
Cobquecura, Chile
Emergency landing: Chilean President Sebastián Piñera’s practice of piloting his own helicopter drew criticism this week when he had to make an emergency landing on a busy highway after he ran out of gas. Piñera, a billionaire who took office last year, was flying from the capital to his vacation home more than 400 miles away when he touched down on the highway and asked local police to fetch him some fuel. Opposition lawmakers said they would investigate whether an abuse of services had occurred. One opposition member, Camilo Escalona, said the president should concentrate on governing rather than “playing at being a helicopter pilot.”
