Recent Travel Warnings and Alerts for the Caribbean, Central and South America

Warnings
Travel Warnings are issued by the State Department to describe long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable.  A Warning is issued when the U.S. Government's ability to help American citizens abroad is limited due to the closure of embassies or consulates.

• The State Department issued a travel warning for Mexico on April 12.  The warning targeted the U.S. - Mexico border where most of the drug gang violence is plaguing Mexico is occurring.
• On April 17, The State Department issued a travel warning for Haiti, saying that infrastructure in that country is still very unstable following the January 12 earthquake.
• The State Department released a warning on March 5 stating that travelers should be concerned about increased narco-violence in Colombia.

Alerts
Travel Alerts are issued to warn Americans abroad about short term threats (coups, terrorist events, anniversaries, holidays or sporting events that might attract violence, etc.)  There have been no recent State Department Alerts issued for the Caribbean, Central and South America recently.

Combatting Counterfeiting

If you are interested in anti-counterfeiting efforts, please take a look at our sister company, Brand Sentry.

Puerto Rico

Sheer and Associates has strong ties to Puerto Rico.  Tom Sheer’s wife is Puerto Rican.  So is Sean, Tom’s son and the Operations Director of Sheer and Associates.  We’ve conducted a number of investigations there and we have a good relationship with two private investigators on the island, both of them former FBI agents.  We have a working relationship with a northern Florida-based private investigator who can also work cases in Puerto Rico.  She is a former Miami-Dade police officer and is an expert in investigating insurance fraud, conducting surveillance, and general investigations.  She was raised in Puerto Rico and speaks fluent Spanish.

Puerto Rico was populated for centuries by aboriginal peoples, the island was claimed by the Spanish Crown in 1493 following Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas.  In 1898, after 400 years of colonial rule that saw the indigenous population nearly exterminated and African slave labor introduced, Puerto Rico was ceded to the US as a result of the Spanish-American War.  Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917.  Popularly-elected governors have served since 1948.  In 1952, a constitution was enacted providing for internal self government. In plebiscites held in 1967, 1993, and 1998, voters chose not to alter the existing political status.  In addiction to a governor, Puerto Rico has a bicameral legislature.  The capital is San Juan.  Puerto Ricans also elect, by popular vote, a resident commissioner to serve a four-year term as a nonvoting representative in the US House of Representatives.  About four million people live on the island; another three-and-a-half million live on the mainland, mostly in the Tri-State Area in the northeast and in central Florida.

The CIA says Puerto Rico has one of the most dynamic economies in the Caribbean region.  A diverse industrial sector has far surpassed agriculture as the primary locus of economic activity and income.  Encouraged by duty-free access to the US and by tax incentives, US firms have invested heavily in Puerto Rico since the 1950s. US minimum wage laws apply.  Sugar production has lost out to dairy production and other livestock products as the main source of income in the agricultural sector.  Tourism has traditionally been an important source of income with estimated arrivals of more than 3.6 million tourists in 2008.  Growth fell off in 2001-03, largely due to the slowdown in the US economy, recovered in 2004-05, but declined again in 2006-08.

Street crime is a significant problem in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is easily reached from the mainland by many major east coast airports.  It is also a popular cruse ship destination.

You can find out more about Puerto Rico on the CIA Factbook website... the Puerto Rican Government site... and the official Puerto Rican tourism site.

Judith Torrea's Ciudad Juárez Blog

If you read Spanish, you should check out freelance reporter Judith Torrea's blog about Ciudad Juárez.  It's called Ciudad Juárez:  En la sombra de narcotráfico, (Juarez: In the Shadow of the Narcotics Trade) and it's pretty compelling reading.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas / April 15

Here's this week's regional news update from the Miami Herald Americas section:

• A Chilean businessman dies in Cuba.
• Mexico's Zetas drug gang is now in El Salvador.
• The opposition in Nicaragua slams the ruling party over Supreme Court term extensions.
• Nine die in drug gang shootings in Honduras.
• Avatar director James Cameron helps delay construction of dam that threatens the Amazon jungle in Brazil.

Arik Arad on Airport Security

Here's an interesting opinion piece on airport security by Arik Arad, a colleague of Sheer and Associates' founder, Tom Sheer.

Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot

Please check out Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot column on Salon.  (Salon is an online newsmagazine published in San Francisco.)  Smith, a pilot, is a good writer, with very interesting insights into the airline industry.  He's very unapologetic, passionate about his career, and above all, smart.  Smith is a keen critic of how airport security is managed in the United States and has a number of ideas of how to make it better.  His column used to appear every other week, now it is published in blog format, with shorter more frequent entries.