Acapulco, Mexico

It's early in the evening and they're already on the streets looking for customers.

They are all very young, some still in their teens. One teenage girl wearing a tight, revealing, deep pink dress walks by while prying eyes follow her every move. At La Noria Street in downtown Acapulco, this is part of daily life. It's supposed to be illegal, but it's not hard to find underage girls offering sex for money here.

This is Acapulco's dark secret and the reason why the Mexican beach resort has gained a sad notoriety with tourists seeking children for sex.

Rosario Santos, who runs a shelter for street boys and girls called New Hope, says that customers are "mostly foreigners" coming to Acapulco on cruises or by plane.

"We have rescued children as young as 10," says the 52-year-old who has made protecting children her mission in life.

One of the children she rescued is Irene Lopez. The 20-year-old says she was only 16 when she got caught in the trap of prostitution after running away from an abusive home. "We would do things with them after making a connection," she says, sometimes in broad daylight too, often under the influence of drugs. To "make a connection" in the parlance of the street here means to pick up a customer for sex.

Lopez says her customers were all tourists, mostly from the United States. She would get 500 pesos, or about $42, per customer, but says that in some instances she was so high on drugs that she doesn't know what she was paid. "My mind was blank," she says.

It is an open secret that the main square in downtown Acapulco was the place to go for pedophiles.

Customers would wait at the square to make "a connection" with children providing sex for money, children's rights activists say. The square is sometimes known as "La Pasarela" which means "The Catwalk" in Spanish.

But some children's right activists like Rosa María Cruz Muller say things have improved dramatically in the last few years.

She and others have pressured officials to increase police presence at The Catwalk, while helping as many children as possible get off the streets.

Colombian military kills 15 rebels, president says

Colombian armed forces have killed 15 guerrillas in the western province of Cauca, President Juan Manuel Santos said Saturday.

Santos described the military operation against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC, as a "decisive blow," after recent police assassinations in the western town of Calota.

The raid spanned Friday night into Saturday morning. It took place less than two weeks after the military led an assault that killed a rebel leader near Colombia's border with Ecuador in Putumayo province.

Known as Oliver Solarte, the rebel leader had been linked to Mexican drug cartels, Santos said.

Solarte was sought for extradition to the United States for drug trafficking and was wanted in Colombia for terrorism, kidnapping, rebellion and murder.

By contrast, Colombian military officials says only lower-ranking FARC combatants were killed in Friday's assault.

The FARC is a leftist rebel army that claims to work as a bulwark against Colombia's elite ruling class, and has traditionally funded operations by way of narcotics sales and kidnappings.

Mexican drug arrests come close to drug lord's inner circle

Eight drug traffickers belonging to Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's organization have been captured, including a man presumed to be Guzman's relative and confidant, officials said Wednesday.

Federal police captured Victor Manuel Felix, alias "El Senor," who worked for the Sinaloa cartel and was the leader of one of its financial networks, anti-drug police chief Ramon Eduardo Pequeno said.

Felix is believed to be Chapo's "consuegro" -- a Spanish word for the father-in-law of one's son or daughter.

Felix and seven others were captured in what was called Operation Beehive. Some 500 kilos of cocaine and $500,000 were seized as a result of the arrests, which took place last Friday in the states of Jalisco and Quintana Roo, as well as in Mexico City, authorities said.

Police from Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia worked jointly in the investigation that led to the arrests, Pequeno said.

Guzman is one of Mexico's most-wanted drug kingpins, and has made Forbes Magazine's list of the world's billionaires, with a net worth of about $1 billion.

The Mexican federal police investigation revealed those arrested participated in international drug trafficking and organized crime, police said. The agency conducted undercover operations that led to the discovery of the details of the illegal activities in Ecuador and Mexico.

In the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, the organization had a cell comprised of members from Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico, who used various houses to gather and store drugs before shipping them to Mexico and the United States, the federal police said.

Acting on this information, Ecuadorian police seized about four tons of cocaine and arrested nine suspects in Ecuador.