Get the latest security and defense stories from across the Americas.
South America This Monday the Brigadier General José Bonilla took office as Commander of the Uruguayan Air Force (FAU), replacing Lieutenant General Airman Enrique Bonelli, who retired in a ceremony led by President Tabaré Vázquez.
Transnational Crime Colombia's badly battered FARC rebels freed three police officers and a soldier held hostage for more than a year, handing them over to the International Red Cross on Sunday in the country's southern jungles.
South America Brazil has promised to offer comfortable and safe stadiums for local and foreign fans at the World Cup in 2014, the government said today in a meeting with FIFA President Joseph Blatter.
South America Peru and Thailand have agreed to cooperate with each other to share ideas and projects related to the replacement of drug crops with alternative ones, an official source said today.
Central America Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is "in very poor health," and depends heavily on his wife Rosario Murillo to govern; priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal said in a meeting this Monday with a mission belonging to the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and attended by AFP journalists.
South America The US drug enforcement military post that the United States has kept in the Ecuadorian base of Manta (west) for ten years will be closed next November or earlier, said Heather Hodges, the American ambassador at Quito.
Central America Salvadorian President Antonio Saca announced this Thursday that he has authorized sending 50 soldiers to Lebanon to be integrated into the UN “blue beret” peacekeeping contingent in that country.
South America The director of the UN World Food Program (WFP) in Ecuador, Helmut Rauch, issued a warning today concerning the uncontrolled level of child undernourishment in Ecuador.
South America Digital inclusion programs in Brazil are looking for ways to provide total Internet access to the 180 ethnic groups that live within the national territory, in spite of the fact that 20% of Brazilian tribes are already connected, participants of the Campus Party Brasil 2009 stated today.
Central America Un teatro popular de reminiscencias indígenas se volcó esta semana a las calles de Diriamba, en una mezcla cultural y religiosa, principal atractivo de las fiestas patronales en que miles de nicaragüenses celebran a San Sebastián, a quien atribuyen poderes milagrosos.
Transnational Crime The Colombian police uncovered an alliance between drug traffickers from former Norte del Valle cartel and FARC guerrillas to export cocaine from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru in exchange for weapons, and seized seven people from that network.
South America Soldiers seized nearly half a ton of explosives and dozens of landmines from a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, factory, but no one was arrested, the army said Sunday.
