RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — In a step toward solving one of Latin America’s most unrelenting problems, five Latin American countries sent delegates from police and civil society last week to a conference in Brazil to discuss police reform. The delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico met in Rio de Janeiro at a seminar sponsored by non-governmental organizations, including the Open Society Institute. Next year, they plan to invite five more countries in an attempt to create a permanent forum on the issue. The problems are well known: violence, corruption and a lack of respect for the common [...]
The U.S. military has recently acknowledged that the U.S. and Chinese navies nearly engaged in a direct military clash at the end of last month near the Japanese island of Okinawa. Although the Chinese government has denied knowledge of the incident, U.S. government sources have provided some details of the encounter, which occurred in the international waters of the East China Sea. On Oct. 26, a Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine unexpectedly surfaced within five miles of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. The submarine was apparently rehearsing how to sink the carrier with its torpedoes and cruise missiles — a [...]
It was billed as the, “chance of a lifetime,” by Panama’s President, Martin Torrijos, and 77 percent of Panamanian voters backed this view when they approved plans to expand the Panama Canal in a national referendum last month. The $5.25 billion expansion will make one of the engineering wonders of the world 60 percent wider and 40 per cent longer. The eight-year project involves enlarging existing locks, deepening navigation channels and adding a third set of locks to ease bottlenecks and allow larger container vessels, known as post-Panamax ships, to traverse the famous passage linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. [...]
