In Mexico’s northeastern state of Sinaloa, the Noreste newspaper issued a statement saying that its facilities were the target of an armed attack on 1 September 2010. The attack took place after a reporter received a threatening phone call from unidentified members of an organised gang. They fired bullets at the Noreste building and placed a banner with a message accusing the federal government of protecting two men who have been accused of being drug-traffickers.
In Colombia, on 30 August 2010, journalist Marco Tulio Valencia, the editor of the El Norte newspaper in Mariquita in southern Colombia, was the target of an assassination attempt when an unidentified individual fired shots at him. Valencia’s newspaper has reported on small-scale drug trafficking networks in Mariquita and that he believes the assassination attempt and threats could be linked to those reports.
