President Barack Obama has included El Salvador and Belize on the list of 22 countries ranked as "Major Illicit Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2012"—for the first time placing all seven Central American nations on the annual list that identifies countries that "significantly affect the United States" through their role in the drug trade. The reports finds that 90% of the 700 metric tons of cocaine that leaves South America bound for the US annually passes through Central America. Four metric tons of cocaine passed through El Salvador in 2009, according to the report assessment. Belize, with a population of only 330,000, saw some 10 metric tons pass through its territory. Perversely if perhaps not intentionally, the new report was released on Sept. 15, El Salvador's Independence Day, and just six days before the Belizean Independence Day ceremonies, in 6 days.

Recent decisions by El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes both both pleased and upset many in the Central American nation. The recognition of the Palestinian state in late August won support from many members of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and social movements who supported Funes in his 2009 campaign. The FMLN has maintained a long-time position of solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation but this is the first time that the government of El Salvador will have diplomatic relations with the Palestinian government. While the Israeli embassy expressed “regret” over the decision, Funes emphasized that many countries in the world enjoy friendly relations with both Palestine and Israel and reiterated El Salvador’s support for Israel’s existence within internationally recognized and secure borders. The UN vote on Palestinian statehood is expected to happen later this month, and several Latin American nations have already formally recognized Palestine.

On Sept. 12, members of the Colombian National Police began training Salvadoran, Mexican, Honduran and Guatemalan police and attorneys general at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador. According to the Colombian embassy in El Salvador, this week-long course specializing in anti-kidnapping and anti-extortion is meant to "share experiences among experts in the region." While extortion is recognized as a one of the principal crimes affecting the population in El Salvador and throughout Central America, critics have raised concern about the increasing role of Colombian police and military in Mexican and Central American policing, pointing to the abysmal human rights record of Colombian law enforcement, as well as the active role of the US State Department in facilitating and funding this collaboration through such institutions as the ILEA.

Two half-naked mutilated bodies left hanging from a bridge in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, were accompanied by "narco-messages" scrawled on cardboard saying the killings were an example of what will happen to "Internet snitches" (relajes del internet). The message was signed "Z," an apparent reference to Los Zetas. The threat was evidently directed against Blog del Narco, which runs graphic accounts and video clips of cartel war casualties, and Frontera al Rojo Vivo, a forum set up by Monterrey newspaper El Norte. Websites have taken up the slack as Mexico's "official" media have stopped aggressive coverage of the cartel wars in response to relentless threats and attacks against journalists. (NPR's The Two-Way blog, Houston Chronicle, Sept. 15; AFP, SDPnoticias, Sept. 14)

In two separate trials, courts in Xinjiang province sentenced to death four members of China's Uighur minority in connection with violent incidents in Hotan and Kashgar in July that left around 40 dead. Two others were ordered imprisoned for 19 years, with a five year suspension of their political rights. The Chinese-language Xinjiang Legal Daily said in a report on the Tianshan.net news portal that the defendants were convicted of "forming and participating in a terrorist organization, the illegal manufacture of explosives, premeditated homicide, arson, and several other related crimes." (Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey, RTTNews, WUC, Sept. 15)

On Sept. 14, Yves Cabannes, UN advisor on forced evictions, visited the contested Dale Farm site at Basildon in England's Essex county, where a community of "Travellers" and Roma face imminent removal. Cabannes charged that the Basildon council and British government are "violating international human rights law on three points. These are the right to adequate housing, the right to be defended from forced eviction and discrimination." To howls of protest from Britain's conservative press (notably the Daily Mail), he drew a comparison to recent forced evictions in Nigeria, in Zimbabwe, and in China. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers has also issued an urgent appeal to local authorities and Prime Minister David Cameron to put off the evictions, saying a postponement would allow for "the brokerage of a solution which we believe is achievable."

Isolated indigenous peoples in remote areas of Peru's Amazon rainforest are being ‘bribed’ with painkillers and pens, as industry giants seek to open up their land to explore for gas, according to Survival International. The UK-based group say it has learned that even members of INDEPA, Peru's indigenous affairs agency, have put pressure on communities so research can be carried out in the reserve where they live. Enrique Dixpopidiba Shocoroa, a Nahua leader, said his tribe have been given medical equipment, stationery, and promises of temporary work. Workers from Argentine gas giant Pluspetrol have recently been into the Kugapakori-Nahua Reserve to conduct environmental tests on the land’s suitability for exploitation. The reserve was created in 1990 to protect the territorial rights of vulnerable tribes.

The international price of copper has soared this week as strikes halted operations at two of the world's largest mines, both owned by the multinational Freeport McMoRan. At Cerro Verde, in Peru's Arequipa region, some 1,200 workers walked out Sept. 14, following through on their threat to launch an indefinite strike to demand higher wages. The next day, 10,000 workers walked out at the company's flagship Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia, demanding that their pay be raised from the current $1.50 to $3 an hour to the global standard of at least $17 an hour. "We are disappointed that union workers decided to implement an illegal work stoppage," local subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia said in a statement, asserting that the company "has negotiated in a diligent good-faith manner" with the union FSP-KEP, an affiliate of the ICEM. Freeport McMoRan president James Moffett earned $21.5 million last year. (WSJ, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, BBC News, Sept. 15; Rebanadas de Realidad, Argentina, Sept. 12)