Forrest Hylton

In response to attacks by warring guerrilla factions that have killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands in north-east Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has declared an ‘estado de conmoción interior’ for the country, as well as an ‘emergencia económica’ in the Caribbean department of the Guajira. (The last Colombian president to have declared a ‘state of internal commotion’ was Petro’s nemesis, Álvaro Uribe, leader from 2002 to 2010 and now facing trial on charges of bribery and witness tampering.) Petro will call on the armed forces to resolve the conflict by force rather than negotiation.

Daniela Z wanted to be a doctor like her father. He died in 2023, soon after her brother and mother, as a consequence of his efforts to protect one of his patients, Víctor Peña, a persecuted Indigenous Zenú leader. Orphaned, with only Víctor to look after her – she didn’t trust government institutions – Dani planned to attend the University of Antioquia, in northwest Colombia, after finishing high school. Instead, she died with ovarian cancer and a lung infection on 22 December, before she turned eighteen.

Following a prolonged drought, smoke from wildfires in the Amazon basin is choking people over an enormous swath of territory in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru and Bolivia.

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García, the senior leader of the organisation known as the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on 25 July, together with his godson Joaquín Guzmán López – one of ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s sons. The best Mexican coverage was informed by long experience, scepticism and sober realism. It was hard to believe the authorities had finally captured the man who never left the Sierra Madre. Across the border in the US, where the arrest took place, more than a few journalists appear to have cut their sociological teeth on the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico.

Bolivia is known for having experienced frequent coups throughout most of its history, and some have been brief and/or bizarre, but last month’s may have set a new record. On Wednesday, 26 June, General Juan José Zúñiga, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Bolivian Army, drove up to Plaza Murillo in La Paz with six tanks. He smashed his way into the Palacio Quemado (the former seat of government) through a metal door, made phone calls to the political opposition and the military, and demanded the release of Jeanine Áñez and Luis Fernando Camacho, both currently imprisoned for plotting the coup of 2019.