All Latin America Monitor

A truce between El Salvador's rival gangs this year is off to a good start, but it's worth looking at lessons from Colombia, which created a program to demobilize paramilitaries a decade ago.

A weakening of the Zetas in the northeast may discourage the drug gang's forays into other parts of Mexico, but internal strife often leads to more murders, writes InSight Crime.

Celebrations in honor of Bolivar's birthday come in the middle of Hugo Chavez's reelection campaign, and include the opening of a personal mausoleum, writes a guest blogger.

Mr. Payá was one of the only dissidents whose work for democratic reform reached thousands of Cubans, writes a guest blogger. He died in a car accident on Sunday.

Last week's Google gathering on how to combat organized crime garnered headlines, but many questions remain unanswered.

In 2002, a Caracas art museum discovered the Matisse hanging there since 1981 had been swapped with a fake. This week an FBI sting in Miami recovered the original. What happened?

Ask any self-employed Cuban how she came to possess the goods she's selling, and she might tell you they came from 'Roberto,' a euphemism indicating the goods are stolen, writes a guest blogger.

This is the seventh set of reforms to Venezuela's penal code since Chavez took office. But changes, like allowing trials to proceed behind closed doors, could lead to an abuse of power.

The Nasa tribe has long been caught in the crossfire between the Colombian government and the FARC. As fighting has increased in recent months, the tribe has asked both sides to leave its area.

Today you find cooking oil on the shelves, but tomorrow, who knows, writes a guest blogger.

The Nicaraguan government has blocked zoo funding in the past, so the national zoo is seeking a benefactor for its new African lion. A successful breeding would be a first for Central America.

Brazil's prison population is 66 percent larger than the system has room for, writes a guest blogger. In an effort to curb overcrowding, new policies offer reduced sentences for things like reading.

Venezuela is rationing gas by car in certain border states. This could have 'unintended' economic consequences, like increasing the demand for cars, writes a guest blogger.

The biggest problem in Venezuela is not ties to Iran or the degradation of democracy, it's the lack of citizen security, writes a guest blogger.

Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost Mexico's July 1 presidential election, officially challenged the results last night. He accuses the victorious party of buying votes.

Retired Colombian police chief Oscar Naranjo was appointed Mexico's new security adviser. But the bureaucratic and political challenges he will face in Mexico may surprise him.

US elections always matter in Cuba, writes a guest blogger. The island has been under a half-century US embargo.

Argentina is taking steps, like limiting pre-verdict statements, to speed up their judicial process in an effort to bring closure to victims of dictatorship-era crimes before alleged perpetrators die of old age.

Debt could be the defining factor of whether Brazil's middle class families can maintain an improved standard of living or slide backward, writes a guest blogger.

The DEA shot an alleged drug runner in Honduras – the second since June – but if you rely on Honduran media, you may not have known that, writes a guest blogger.