Briefly

Puerto Rico

U.S. boosts patrols to catch Dominicans

Authorities are stepping up patrols off the west coast of Puerto Rico to meet an unexplained surge in boat people fleeing the Dominican Republic for this U.S. commonwealth.

On Thursday and Friday, the Coast Guard intercepted two boats carrying 61 migrants attempting the dangerous journey across the Mona Passage. That made more than 850 stopped at sea so far this month — more than half the total during all of last year.

On land, meanwhile, authorities have arrested 921 undocumented migrants since Oct. 1 — more than four times the number rounded up during the same period last year.

The reasons for the exodus remain unclear. With a slumping economy going into presidential elections this year, the Dominican Republic has seen general strikes and sometimes violent clashes between protesters and government forces.

Colombia

Army takes battle into rebel strongholds

The Colombian army, under pressure to produce lasting results against a resilient Marxist insurgency, has begun pushing into traditional guerrilla strongholds in a military campaign expected to be more challenging and brutal than its previous battlefield victories.

Since President Alvaro Uribe took office 17 months ago, Colombia’s military has pushed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a roughly 18,000-member guerrilla army known as the FARC, from many towns and highways it had occupied in the previous decade. The guerrillas were never able to win civilian support in those regions, and rarely stood ground to fight. The newly confident Colombian army has been welcomed in many of those towns as heroes.

The military has received nearly $2 billion of U.S. aid since 2000.