Weekly Report - 25 September 2008 (ISSN 1741-7422)

President Alvaro Colom appointed Guatemala's first-ever female police chief this week. Marlene Raquel Blanco Lapola, former director of the Policí­a Nacional Civil (PNC) crime prevention unit, replaced Isabel Mendoza, who was fired in a series of high level “restructurings" of the PNC. The move follows a shake-up in the presidential security team, following the spying scandal “Guategate" two weeks earlier [WR-08-36] as well as a flurry of changes in the interior and defence ministries after the appointment of interior minister Francisco Jiménez in July.