The Argentine Senate on Nov. 19 voted 57-1 to approve a law that would authorize the government to obtain DNA samples from individuals suspected to have been born to forced disappearance victims of the 1976-1983 "Dirty War." The law will amend Article 218 of the Criminal Penal Code to allow minimal biological samples to be taken from a person to determine identity, authorizing judges to issue warrants to obtain samples using the least coercive methods necessary. Controversy around the law stemmed from issues of consent and right to privacy, as well as an individual's right to refuse knowledge of their biological parents.

Amnesty International has called on Brazilian and Paraguayan authorities to redouble their efforts to find an indigenous teacher who has been missing since Oct. 30, following a violent eviction of activists on the border between the two nations. Fears for the life of the teacher, Rolindo Vera, have intensified following the discovery of the badly bruised body of his cousin and fellow indigenous teacher, Genivaldo Vera, in a nearby river.

Populist leaders in Latin America increasingly use legal and political means to silence critics in the media, Enrique Santos Calderón, president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), said Nov. 6. Tactics include revoking broadcast licenses, fostering hostility toward journalists, and giving a free hand to government supporters who have attacked broadcast stations, newsrooms and printing plants. "We are extremely concerned at the growing level in recent weeks of harassment and violence in various countries," Calderón said at IAPA's annual meeting in Buenos Aires. "Democratic systems require a free and unfettered press."

Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo fired the head of the armed forces Nov. 6, two days after he sacked the commanders of the army, navy and air force amid rumors of a coup. Rear Admiral Ciber Benitez was replaced him with Gen. Juan Oscar Velázquez, who was dismissed as army commander. Before the shake-up, Lugo warned that there were "pockets of coup-plotters" in the armed forces. However, a statement issued by the president's office said the changes were part of a "normal and legal administrative process" that should not be considered any indictment on the officers' record. The statement said "there is no reason they should be the subject of speculation."

The trial of Argentina's last military ruler opened this week at a Buenos Aires sports arena, attended by hundreds of relatives of his victims. Reynaldo Bignone is accused of involvement in the kidnapping, torture and murder of 56 people at Campo de Mayo military base. Seven other retired military and police officials, including five generals, are on trial with him.

Two weeks after Rio de Janeiro celebrated winning the 2016 Olympic Games, the Brazilian city was rocked by an intense gun battle that left 12 dead, including two police, in one of the northern favelas, and a Military Police helicopter was shot down, killing two officers. The violence began early Oct. 17, when Morro dos Macacos favela, controlled by the Amigos dos Amigos drug gang, was invaded by members of the rival Comando Vermelho. Both sides then turned against the police who were sent in to intervene. Ironically, the violence took place near a football field known as the Vila Olímpica. Fighting quickly spread to the neighboring favelas of Sampaio and Vila Isabel, where numerous buses were torched in protest of the police invasion. The conflicted favelas have since been flooded with hundreds of Military Police. (BBC News, Jornal de Brasília, Oct. 18; The Guardian; Jornal do Commercio, Recife; eBand, Brazil, Oct. 17)

Argentina's former President Carlos Menem was charged Oct. 1 with obstructing an investigation into the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded more than 300. At the time of the bombing, Menem, now 79, was in the midst of his 12 years as president. He also faces charges in a separate case involving a scheme to smuggle weapons to Croatia and Ecuador. (NYT, Oct. 1)

Spanish police arrested former Argentine military pilot Juan Alberto Poch on Sept. 21 in Valencia on charges by Argentine courts that he flew some of the "death flights" in which as many as 1,000 opponents of Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship were thrown from planes into the Atlantic while drugged. When he was arrested, Poch, a dual national of Argentina and the Netherlands, was working as a pilot for Transavia, a low-cost airline owned by KLM and Air France. He was arrested while at the controls of a plane in Manises airport, about to fly a holiday group from Valencia to Amsterdam. Spanish police said Poch is named in four separate investigations in Argentina; he will face an extradition tribunal to determine whether he will be sent to Argentina. (The Guardian, UK, Sept. 23)