Hell seems ever more liable to bust loose in western Mexico’s Michoacan state, with heavily armed civilians squaring off against feared meth-producing gangsters who’ve had the run of rural hamlets and towns for years. The self-defense militias, at least some of them accused of connivance with criminal rivals of the local Knights Templar gang, have been working to encircle the Templar-dominated city of Apatzingan since last summer.

The US government estimates that heroin production has sharply declined in Colombia over the past decade, yet the United Nations claims the country remains the primary supplier of the drug for the US market. So which is it? The picture is confusing, beginning with the most recent World Drug Report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In the report, the UN said Colombia continued to be reported by US officials as the main supplier of heroin to the United States.

Mexico saw the highest number of reported kidnappings in the first half of 2013 since at least 1997, according to a national civil society organization, a figure that reflects the increasing diversification of criminal activities in the country. According to a report from the National Citizen Observatory (ONC), there were 757 reports of kidnappings recorded between January and June this year, the highest number for any semester in the time period 1997 to 2013.

Venezuela has rejected US criticism over its fight against international drug trafficking, after Washington said the South American country had "failed demonstrably" for a fifth year running. The White House said in an annual report on Friday that Venezuela, along with Bolivia and Burma, had not made substantial efforts in the last 12 months to meet its obligations under global counternarcotics agreements.