A recently discovered video from online hacker group, Anonymous, has threatened to expose collaborators of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel in retaliation for the kidnapping one of the members of the online collective. The video claimed that they would release the names of journalists, taxi drivers and others who have worked with Los Zetas in the past.

The video, published on Oct. 6, and picked up today by major media outlets, was in response to an alleged kidnapping of an Anonymous member following a street protest in the Veracruz state. The video deptics a man wearing a suit and a Guy Fawkes mask delivered his threat in Spanish. The style is similar to other videos put out by Anonymous group in the past. The original video is embedded below, with a translated version provided by The Guardian linked here.

Global intelligence company, STRATFOR, released a report several days ago, where they argued that any action by Anonymous was certain to lead to more violence on the part of the cartels. In the report, they specified that this could be especially detrimental on bloggers and journalists who have risked their lives to report on the drug cartels activities.

Last month, a separate set of online activists who used social media platforms to deliver news and reports about the drug cartels to local citizens, were found hanging from a bridge. A message found next to their bodies was clear to all passersby: "This is what happens to people who post funny things on the Internet. Pay attention." As a result, many journalists and activists may face a new threat in their quest to increase transparency and report on the crisis facing Mexico.

A tracksuit-clad Hugo Chávez is seen doing leg lifts, neck rolls, and some other mild exercises in a video recently released by the Venezuelan government. "Healthy government, healthy body, healthy mind," Chávez says between routines. Other members of his cabinet appear in the workout video as well, though from the snippet we've seen no one really seems to be working up much of a sweat. At one point, the group walks slowly around a circle at a snail's pace, following Chávez. P90X, this is not (in fact, it doesn’t even look as vigorous as Jane Fonda's routine), though, given Chávez's cancer fight, the 57-year-old Venezuelan leader probably needs to take things slowly.

Chávez, who celebrated his birthday on July 28, said he completed his first round of chemotherapy last month and will soon begin a second round. He is undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba, where he had a tumor removed on June 20 -- though he has yet to say what kind of cancer he has.

In televised remarks last week, Chávez said: "I'm in the best mood possible.… My mood is unbeatable." Chávez has said he plans on running again for president in 2012. His approval remains at about 50 percent, according to a recent opinion poll -- meaning there has been little negative reaction so far to his cancer. Analysts had said his initially cagey explanations for what he was doing in Cuba were because he feared looking weak and sick -- which may be one reason for the recent exercise video. Chávez also said he had lost 30 pounds recently.

"I was too fat. I'm doing exercise, rehabilitation," he said.

A Brazilian woman with the title of oldest person in the world died yesterday. Maria Gomes Valentim was just two weeks shy of her 115^th birthday. For those keeping track, the new oldest person in the world is an American, Besse Cooper, who is 48 days younger than Valentim.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks supercentenarians -- people older than 110 -- there are 87 known people in the world who fit that description.  

Foreign Policy crunched the numbers to figure out the countries in the world with the most supercentenarians.

Read on

In addition to questioning Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's mental state, the health of Bolivia's firebrand President Evo Morales also comes up in the WikiLeaks document dump (The WikiLeaks website appears to be down at the moment but I'll add a link to the original cable once it become available):

The U.S. ambassador in Brazil said in a January 2009 dispatch that Brazil's defense minister had confirmed a rumor that the leftist leader was suffering from "a serious sinus tumor" that might explain "why Morales has seemed unfocussed and not his usual self" at recent meetings.

Ambassador Clifford Sobel quoted the Brazilian, Nelson Jobim, as saying that "surgery will be an effort to remove it" and that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva "had offered Morales an examination and treatment at a Sao Paulo hospital."

Morales underwent surgery in February 2009, but the official story was that he had a deviated septum as a result of a soccer injury. Morales' spokesman stuck by that line today, saying the cable "had a big dose of speculation."

This is a new tactic. Having failed to legally amend the Nicaraguan constitution to keep his political allies in office, President Daniel Ortega simply had the constitution reprinted with a few key changes while the country was away on vacation. The Christian Science Monitor reports: 

Taking advantage of last week's public holiday decreed by President Daniel Ortega, top Sandinista legislator Rene Núñez ordered the reprinting of the Nicaraguan Constitution while the rest of the country was on vacation. When opposition lawmakers returned to work this week, they discovered that the "new edition" of the Constitution mysteriously included an old law that many left for dead 20 years ago.

According to the resurrected second paragraph of Law 201, supreme court judges, electoral magistrates, and other public officials can remain in office beyond their term limits until new officials are appointed. The problem is, according to legal analysts, that the law was a "transitory" provision in the 1987 Constitution and expired more than two decades ago. That's why it wasn't included in the current Constitution, which was printed after the reforms of 1995.

Yet with elections happening next year, Mr. Ortega, who hopes to run despite a constitutional ban on presidential reelection, wants to keep his "dream team" government in office, even though the terms of 25 top officials have already expired.

Some opposition groups have gone as far as to call on citizens to burn copies of the new constitution in the streets. A better approach might be to print up their own editions, removing Ortega from power. It's the Calvinball approach to constitutional reform. 

Yesterday I touched on Fidel Castro's apology for anti-gay measures that occurred under his rule -- including detaining gays in forced labor camps -- calling it a "great injustice." But this is not Castro's only clarification of late. The former Cuban leader seems hellbent on crafting his legacy in a more positive light. Why the re-emergence, and why the rehabiliation campaign, now?

As revealed in La Jornado Monday, Castro was "at death's door" in 2006. At the time,  speculation was rife that he had already died. Thus, it makes sense that Castro is pushing himself in the limelight -- faced with death, the old revolutionary wants to clean up his name while he has a chance. There's certainly also a chance that he has mellowed in his later years. As he's no longer facing the threat of assassination, his stress levels have also probably declined some.

Perhaps most interesting are the pictures of Jeffrey Goldberg -- yes, that Jeffrey Goldberg -- accompanying the old revolutionary on various stops throughout Cuba. How Goldberg -- rather than, you know, a journalist with a background in Cuban affairs -- came to be side-by-side with Castro is a total mystery. But I'm sure we can look for Goldberg to illuminate his trip in the near future -- though I imagine it'd garner a lot less interest than some of his other recent writings. (Council on Foreign Relations expert Julia E. Sweig was also on the trip.)

In addition to his comments on gay rights, Castro said during a press conference with Goldberg that he is by no means an anti-Semite:

I was never anti-Jewish and I share with him a deep hatred against Nazi-Fascism and the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people by Hitler and his followers.

President Barack Obama has made tentative steps to end the hostility between Cuba and the United States, and Castro's words may be a recognition of that. While his brother is now president, it's obvious that Fidel's words carry great weight in the island nation. Maybe it's time for Obama to launch a more audacious foreign policy venture, one that may even bear some results: a direct meeting with Castro. Perhaps the old U.S. nemesis could aim to improve relations in his last years. More importantly, it'd prove that engagement is -- as it should be -- still a part of the Obama administration's strategy, and it would send another signal to the rest of the world that, if you are reasonable, the United States will deal with you.

Colombia's top court may have just put new President Juan Manuel Santos in something of a tough spot:

The Colombian constitutional court ruled yesterday that last year's agreement giving the US military access to more bases in the country is unconstitutional because it was not approved by legislators.

The court's decision, reached by a 6-3 majority, said however that the ruling does not affect US military personnel and contractors working from Colombian bases covered by earlier accords.

This means any US personnel at the seven bases included in the 2009 pact could shift to bases permitted by previous agreements while the government decides whether to put the latest accord before congress, where new President Juan Manuel Santos has a big majority.

Santos has defended the deal, which was inked by his predecessor Alvaro Uribe, but has also made a point early in his presidency of trying to improve relations with neighboring Venezuela, which is strongly opposed to the construction of a new U.S. base in Colombia.

While Santos may be able to get the agreement through congress easily, doing so will require him to take political ownership of the issue and force him to choose between increasing tensions with Venezuela just when they were starting to ease and offending Colombia's longtime backers in Washington.

Looking for some summer reading? FP's got you covered. In coming weeks, we'll feature reading lists from some of the top thinkers and experts on the topics they have made their own. Today's list -- a collection of the best English books about Latin America -- comes from Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington: 

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat

It's not surprising Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa's take on a dictator novel, a popular Latin American genre, is superb. Blending fiction and history, Vargas Llosa offers shrewd insights into how Rafael Trujillo, or El Jefe -- the boss, was able to extend his rule of the Dominican Republic for three decades. The novel was published in 2000, a decade after Vargas Llosa himself lost as a candidate to Alberto Fujmori in Peru's presidential elections. 

Sally Bowen, The Fujimori File: Peru and its President, 1990-2000

Fujimori's election as Peru's president in 1990 was the most stunning political upset in recent Latin American history.  Through meticulous research, Bowen, a British journalist who worked for the Financial Times, draws a vivid portrait of the "man who came from nowhere," as she put it.  Bowen later wrote a fine biography of Fujimori's right-hand man,  The Imperfect Spy: The Many Lives of Vladimiro Montesinos.

"The Fall of Fujimori" (Documentary Film, Directed by Ellen Perry)

After watching this documentary, it is not hard to understand why Alberto Fujimori enjoyed high approval levels during most of his decade-long presidency and why his daughter Keiko, a congresswoman, is a serious contender for next April's presidential elections.  This prospect is striking in light of her father's regime -- one marked by human rights abuses and spectacular corruption for which Fujimori is now serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Gabriel Garcia Márquez, "The Two Faces of Hugo Chávez" (essay)

Garcia Márquez's short essay, written after a flight from Havana to Caracas accompanied by Hugo Chávez at the start of the Venezuelan president's rule in February 1999, contains some of the most perceptive observations about Chávez ever written. The concluding lines are remarkably prescient:  "I was struck by the impression that I had traveled and talked delightfully with two opposite men -- one who good luck had given the opportunity to save his nation. And the other, an illusionist, who could go down in history as just another despot."

Cristian Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, Hugo Chávez: The Definitive Biography of Venezuela's Controversial President

There have already been many Chávez biographies and there are doubtless many more to come, but unfortunately most tend to be either hagiographies or hatchet jobs. This one, by contrast, is a judicious and measured treatment of Chávez by two young Venezuelan journalists who did extensive research and succeed in shedding light on his complex personality and what drives him. It nicely shows how particular events shaped Chávez, and it depicts how he, in turn, is shaping his country's and the region's history.

Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait

No Latin American leader has drawn as much attention as Fidel Castro.  There have been many biographies, some of them quite good, but this one by longtime Latin American journalist Tad Szulc particularly stands out. Szulc, who covered the Cuban Revolution for the New York Times, had extraordinary access to Castro and to Cuban government archives. Though the book is a bit dated (it was written in 1985), it contains incomparably rich material and captures the many contradictions of this larger-than-life figure who remains the subject of endless fascination.    

Heraldo Muñoz, The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet

Chilean intellectual and diplomat Herald Munoz has written what he calls a "political memoir" on the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. After two decades of a center-left coalition in power and the recent shift to a conservative government in Chile, Pinochet's legacy is still hotly debated. Munoz does not pretend to be unbiased, but he makes a cogent argument that Pinochet's repression was terribly costly and that the foundation for the country's recent economic success could only have been achieved in a democracy.  

The too strange for words scandal surrounding the death of Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg -- who apparently arranged his own assassination and blamed it on the Guatemalan government -- seemed to come to a close today with the sentencing of the eight hit-men who carried out the deed: 

Four of the accused men were sentenced to between 38 years and 48 years on homicide and other charges, and four other co-consipirators received eight-years sentences for "illegal association."

But sentences for two of the men were reduced to two years and to 12 years in return for the suspects' cooperation with prosecutors. Another suspect was released after turning state's evidence.

The eight were members or collaborators of a gang of hit men that planned and carried out the killing, allegedly for a payment that originated with Rosenberg himself.

Rosenberg's death erupted into street protests and a major political scandal after a YouTube video was circulated showing the antigovernment laweyer, "If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom."

Rosenberg reportedly believed that Colom's government was behind the murder of one of his clients and arranged to be fatally shot while riding his bicycle. The plan backfired when a subsequent U.N. investigation exonerated Colom. 

It's tempting to try to draw some larger lesson from this case about the unreliability of social media or commentators jumping to conclusions at the smallest sign of unrest, but it's probably too unusual for that. 

Welcome to the ultimate Bolivarian oasis: the 23 de Enero slum -- a veritable hotbed of die-hard chavismo and radical socialism in Caracas. What can you expect to find in this little slice of heaven? Stockpiles of Communist Manifesto, murals depicting Jesus Christ brandishing AK-47's,  and an oddly high number of dogs who will respond to the name "Comrade Mao."

The 100,000 inhabitants, who can see the presidential palace from the hills where they reside, have evidently internalized the image of chavista majesty framed by the sunset: they have adopted the dream of a fully socialist Venezuela -- as espoused by President Hugo Chavez himself -- and set it into motion in their own community.

This chavista neighborhood was named for January 23, 1958, when former president Marcos Perez Jimenez and his military dictatorship were overthrown. Following in the legacy of revolution and radicalism, the town's leftist ways now extend beyond the ubiquitous Che Guevara bandanas and "revolutionary car washes"; in fact, the Caracas slum is actually surpassing Chavez in his most precious goals: advancing socialism and eradicating capitalism. For starters, the inhabitants of "Little Vietnam" (as it has tellingly come to be called) have rejected the devalued bolivar -- which Chavez still struggles to revive -- and circulated little pieces of cardboard as communal currency instead. They plan to use their communal banking system to extend micro-credit and foster economic independence in the future. Meanwhile their residents work on a voluntary basis, and their markets purchase goods solely from nationalized distributors.

The town's ardent support for Chavez's cause has, paradoxically, created a chasm between the president and his most devout followers. After militant groups hailing from 23 de enero claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Chavez's opponents, the Comandante was forced to distance himself from the very community his leadership brought to fruition. And the vexation goes both ways: leaders from 23 de enero have repeatedly expressed disappointment that Chavez has yet to rid his government of "false socialists." Despite these conflicts, Chavez is ideologically bound to the town; not to mention, he relies upon the increasingly extremist electorate's support to keep his political career afloat.

Looks like Hugo's caught in a bit of a Catch-22 here. Unfortunately for him, 23 de enero shows no sign of slowing down its radical rampage anytime soon:

'Here in 23 de Enero we are committed to take this process to the very end,' said cooperative member Martin Campos, a 38-year-old retired soldier sporting a yellow baseball cap with a red star. 'We are chavistas. Red, very red.'

Lula being Lula:

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says no "gringo should stick their nose in where it does not belong."

Silva was visiting Para state Tuesday, where the Belo Monte dam is planned. It would be the world's third-largest hydroelectric project.

The dam has been opposed by figures such as British singer Sting and more recently by "Avatar" director James Cameron.

I'm relying on the AP's translation and I'm not sure if the word was meant to have negative connotations, but da Silva did also once blame the financial crisis on "white people with blue eyes," and in any case, this probably isn't the most productive way to deal with the legitimate criticisms of the Belo Monte project.

That said, Lula's comments are a useful reminder that while Cameron and his cohorts view this as a case of rapacious multinational corporations exploiting the wilderness and the Na'vi … er … I mean … indigenous people who live there, Brazilians are justifiably proud of their country's industrial growth and don't like being lectured by foreign celebrities. Cameron and Sting probably don't want any part of a fight with Lula for the sympathy of the Brazilian public.   

Costa Rica, increasingly known as a haven for medical tourism, is putting a stop to one controversial practice:

The health ministry last month ordered the country's largest stem cell clinic to stop offering treatments, arguing there is no evidence that the treatments work or are safe.

"If (stem cell treatment's) efficiency and safety has not been proven, we don't believe it should be used," said Dr. Ileana Herrera, chief of the ministry's research council. "As a health ministry, we must always protect the human being.

The clinic's owner, Arizona entrepreneur Neil Riordan, told Reuters he closed the clinic and admitted the treatments, involving the removal and re-injection of stem cells, had not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"I think her point was that it is not FDA approved," he said in a telephone interview from Panama.

The ministry said the clinic had a permit to store the adult stem cells, extracted from patients' own fat tissue, bone marrow and donated umbilical cords, but is not authorized to perform the treatment.

Riordan has patients suffering from multiple sclerosis and other forms of paralysis who are coming to his defense, but the evidence that his treatments work is mostly anecdotal. It certainly makes sense that the Costa Rican government doesn't want to be held liable for an unproven treatment, but with patients becoming more comfortable with medical tourism, you can expect similar clinics to open elsewhere. 

This is still very much developing: 

The man, who had been in Chile since January, was applying for a visa to the United States, said Lt. Col. Fernando Vera of the Carabineros, Chile's uniformed national police.The suspect was arrested Monday at the embassy and turned over to Chilean authorities.

A senior State Department official confirmed the arrest, telling CNN "we found traces of explosives residue and the man was turned over to the Chilean police."

CNN Chile, CNN's partner network, said the national police identified the suspect as Mohammed Said. Dawn, an independent Pakistani news organization, said the suspect's name is Mohamed Said Uf Rejaman. The suspect was doing an internship in tourism at a Chilean hotel, CNN Chile said.

He is scheduled to be charged Tuesday with violating Chile's law on weapons and explosives, CNN Chile reported.

It hasn't gotten the same attention at developments in Europe and the United States, but the Catholic Church's pedophilia has been increasingly making news around Latin America in recent weeks. 

In Brazil, an 83-year-old priest who allegedly molested altar boys as young as 12 has been placed under house arrest -- some of the cases were caught on video and released on the Internet. The Mexico City archdioece barred a priest after it came to light that he had pleaded guilty to assaulting an 11-year-old girl in 1989. A priest in Chile is under investation for molesting five young men. Bishops in Chile and Brazil have condemned the abuses and asked forgivenes while Colombia's Cardinal controversially defended the church's past practice of keeping abuse allegations private.

As Steve Kettmann wrote recently Pope Benedict XVI has made reviving the church in increasingly secular Europe one of the main goals of his papacy -- a goal that's been severely undermined by the unfolding scandals in Ireland, Germany, and elsewhere.

But the damage to the church's credibility in Latin America may be an even bigger concern for the Vatian, particularly given the increasingly popularity of Pentacostalism and other protestant offshoots.