Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario said Sept. 24 that one of its reporters, Silvia González, has fled to the United States following threats from supporters of the ruling Sandinista party. National Police spokesman Fernando Borge told Channel 12 TV that the case "had been investigated and she was given police protection." But González said in a call from Miami, told AP: "I am afraid that they will kill me...and that is why I left." The director of El Nuevo Diario, Francisco Chamorro, said the newspaper had complained to international press freedom groups about the threats. González said she had received menacing telephone calls and ext messages, including one that said, "Keep bothering us, we give you 48 hours to live." A severed chicken head with her name on it was also reportedly thrown onto González's patio.

Managers at two factories in northern Honduras owned by the US clothing firm Delta Apparel, Inc. are continuing to threaten women employees suffering from work-related injuries, according to a Sept. 22 statement by the Honduran Women's Collective (CODEMUH). The group, which reported labor abuses at the plants in July, said injured workers had applied to the Labor and Social Security Secretariat (STSS) to have the company reassign them to other work. Management has responded by saying there are no other jobs available and these employees aren't competent at the work, CODEMUH reported. The two plants are Delta Apparel Honduras and Delta Apparel Cortés, maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export) in Cortés department. (Adital, Brazil, Sept. 23)

According to human rights organizations in Honduras, between 200 and 600 soldiers and national police agents raided the campesino community of Rigores in the northern department of Colón on the afternoon of Sept. 19. Residents reported that security forces broke into homes, destroying belongings and hitting both adults and children. There was also a report of homes being set on fire, and being menaced by low-flying helicopters. Two minors were arrested: 15-year-old Darwin Leonel Cartagena and 16-year-old Santos Bernabé Cruz Aldana, the son of local campesino leader Rodolfo Cruz. As of Sept. 20 the community had still not learned where the youths were.

Honduran authorities say armed rebels killed a police agent and a soldier in a military-police patrol the afternoon of Sept. 16 in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of numerous violent struggles over land over the past two years. According to Gen. René Osorio Canales, head of the Armed Forces Joint General Staff, the soldiers and police agents were in two vehicles carrying out a routine patrol at the La Consentida estate, in Sonaguera municipality in the northern department of Colón, when they were ambushed by "people with high-caliber weapons, people who have dedicated themselves to guerrilla activities."

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.

An unidentified man shot and killed Honduran activist Mahadeo ("Emo") Sadloo on Sept. 7 at his small automobile tire shop in eastern Tegucigalpa. Sadloo had been active in the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) from the time when the grassroots coalition was founded to oppose the June 2009 military coup against former president José Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); he was also a strong supporter of teacher and student demonstrations in defense of public education. Zelaya called Sadloo's death a "political assassination" and a "declaration of war" against him and his supporters; the FNPR said it was "a political crime intended to demobilize and demoralize the Popular Resistance."