Weekly Links

Uber is working with the US Army to advance research on quiet aircraft technology. Mexico continues to deal with a kidnapping problem. Negotiations on a new NAFTA trade deal are ongoing. Guatemala has accused Swedish and Venezuelan ambassadors of interfering in their internal affairs and is requesting that the ambassadors leave the country. Riots and protests continue in Nicaragua. Are human rights activists under threat in Peru? Officials in Argentina have started formal talks with the IMF in an effort to work their way out of the country’s financial woes. Officials from twelve countries met in El Salvador this week to discuss transnational efforts at combatting cartel violence. Gruesome details have emerged about the recent pirate attack off the coast of Suriname.

Catalonia will have a new leader after Carles Puigdemont opts out of the role due to his self-imposed exile in Berlin. Italy gets closer to forming a government. France plans to push back against US sanctions on Iran. The Hungarian foreign minister feels that Europe is ‘defenseless’ against migrant flows and needs to do more to stop asylum seekers. The leaders of Armenia’s police and security services have been dismissed at the request of the new Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan.

If you’re not following events in Malaysia, then start now. A riot inside a maximum security prison in Indonesia killed five officers. The chief justice in the supreme court of the Philippines has been removed. A Vietnamese citizen has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison over ‘anti-state propaganda’ on Facebook. Take a look at China’s bike graveyards. Kim Jong Un paid a visit to China this week, his second such trip in the last two months. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to North Korea this week, and returned with three Americans that had been detained in the country. The leaders of Japan, China, and South Korea met in Tokyo this week. A shooting in southwest Australia is the country’s worst mass shooting in more than two decades.