Americas-MOAS

The citizens of Mexico, feeling deceived by all political parties and all politicians, have been roused to fury by the events in Iguala. They demand not merely a few arrests, but the detention of all those responsible from top to bottom. Above all, they demand that every possible step be taken to refute those who would say that the country is spiraling out of control or has become a virtual narco-state.

It is no exaggeration to say that the viability of democracy in Mexico depends on the outcome.

Human rights workers have criticized the investigation from the start, faulting federal authorities for initially keeping a distance from the case and leaving much of the forensic work to ill-equipped state authorities. It took 10 days for federal authorities to take over the case and begin their investigation, precious time lost, in the view of independent observers.“He reacted late and poorly,” José Miguel Vivanco, director for the Americas for Human Rights Watch, said of Mr. Peña Nieto on Thursday after meeting prosecutors.“The rule of Mexico is impunity,” he said. “It is not a nation of laws.”

“We’re emerging from an election that has revealed a rift between economic classes,” said Murillo de Aragão, the president of Arko Advice, a political consulting firm in Brasília. “The level of tension is remarkably high, accentuating a loss of confidence in the president among big economic interests.”

few changes are expected in the popular antipoverty programs that have shielded poorer Brazilians from an economic slowdown, with the unemployment rate remaining low even as the economy went into recession this year.

But Ms. Rousseff has signaled other changes, including the appointment of a new finance minister. That could open the way for a shift away from policies that have created ire in Brazil’s business establishment, like price controls on fuel in a bid to keep inflation from accelerating.

Even as Mr. Neves and Ms. Rousseff have sparred about corruption and the tactics of each campaign, seeking to emphasize their differences, they retain remarkably similar positions on numerous issues.For instance, both express support for preserving subsidy payments for the poor, state control of giant companies like Petrobras and affirmative-action programs for Brazilians of African descent.But their differences on economic policy have accentuated certain rifts, with the challenger’s call to resist Ms. Rousseff’s efforts to assert greater state control over the economy resonating among many voters, especially in the middle and upper classes.

Whoever wins on Sunday will face the challenge of governing in a political system in which presidents must forge alliances with an array of different parties, including some with sharply different ideologies. The rising political tension in the country is not expected to make this process any easier.“The negative aspect of the presidential race sets the stage for the fractious political scene which will emerge on Monday,” said Fernando Rodrigues, a columnist for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. “The next president will have enormous difficulties in building some kind of consensus.”

Alec MacGillis shines a light on US gun trafficking to Central America, making the argument that our loose gun regulations are contributing to these countries’ gang violence problem:

Of the $3.7 billion requested by the administration for dealing with the child migrant crisis, a very small percentage of it, about $295 million, goes to addressing root causes of the violence

There’s been a focus in the US and elsewhere in the region on capturing drug kingpins, but I think a lot of people who have looked at this, given the weakness of institutions, including police and law enforcement, including the judiciary, have said that a better approach is to try to reduce the violence connected with local illegal markets, and focus on providing citizen security to the general population. You can’t abandon the attempt to capture major traffickers, but you cannot do that without providing for safer communities and creating greater resilience at the individual and the community level.

“Colombians will have two options, between those who prefer an end to the war and those who want a war without end,” Mr. Santos said after the results were made public. His main challenger, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a former treasury minister, received 29 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent of polling stations counted, officials said. Mr. Santos received slightly more than 25 percent in the field of five candidates.

Mr. Santos, 62, had cast himself as the peace candidate and urged voters to empower him to finish talks he started in 2012 with the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Mr. Zuluaga, 55, an ally of the right-wing former president, Álvaro Uribe, has been a harsh critic of the talks and could break them off if he becomes president.Colombia, a country of 47 million people, is one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and has received billions of dollars in American aid in recent years to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla groups.