■ Jamaica
Police force to expand
The Jamaican government wants to expand the island nation's struggling police force by around 30 percent to stem a surge in murders and crime that threaten its crucial tourist trade. Jamaica's minister of national security, Peter Phillips, said late on Sunday that 2,500 police officers would be added to the country's 8,500-strong force within 18 months. Fueled largely by the drug trade, there have been 1,417 murders in Jamaica so far this year, compared with last year's record of 1,469. Phillips said that an all-out effort would be made to capture gang leaders and drug lords. More than 500 policemen would be taken off desk duty and sent into the streets to fight crime as part of the new strategy, he said.
■ Colombia
Detectives face lie detectors
Colombia's scandal-shaken state security agency will investigate detectives' bank accounts and make them take lie detector tests in a drive to root out corruption. The anti-corruption drive comes as the Administrative Security Department, or DAS, which is Colombia's equivalent to the FBI, is reeling from the resignation of its chief, Jorge Noguera, amid media reports that agents had links to right-wing paramilitaries. The paramilitaries have their origins in vigilante groups set up by drug smugglers and cattlemen to fight Marxist rebels and have been proven to have links to sectors of the armed forces in the past.
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