Headlines: A(rgentina) to G(uatemala)

The following is the first part of news headlines from several Latin American and Caribbean countries over the past few days. Today we’ll post on Argentina through Guatemala. Part two (Haiti through Venezuela) will be the next post and will be published Thursday night.

Enjoy!

Argentina

-On Tuesday, Argentines remembered the twelfth anniversary of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires (left image) that left 85 people dead.

-Stocks ended fairly even after trading on Tuesday with losses by steel tube maker Tenaris offsetting gains made by other stocks.

-Argentina plans to sell fighter aircraft to Israel, Chile, and Bolivia which would by the first major export of military equipment since president Nestor Kirchner took office 3 years ago.

Bolivia

-The IMF applauded Bolivian efforts to lower inflation while maintaining moderate economic growth.

-The government named four companies to audit its foreign-owned natural gas fields while it continues the process of nationalizing gas reserves.

Brazil

-Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attended last week’s G8 summit (right image) in Russia and, amongst other topics, emphasized the need for increased investment and use of alternative fuel sources.

-The calm after the storm: violence in Sao Paulo has cooled down after more than a week of hostilities by organized crime.

-Support for President da Silva has gone down for the second straight month and his lead in the polls over Gerardo Ackman has gone down from 16% to 10%.

Chile

-Hundreds of Arabs in Chile protested Israeli actions against Lebanon by staging a sit-in in Santiago.

-The country’s Supreme Court gave the green light for charges to be presented against ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet for the deaths of two men in the 1970s.

-President Michelle Bachelet declared that Chile will sharply curb its dependence on natural gas flowing from neighboring Argentina.

-Legislators okayed a free trade agreement with China which aims to be “the widest, most comprehensive (trade deal) negotiated by the Asian country with any nation.”

Colombia

-Foreign diplomats and human rights groups accused President Alvaro Uribe of carrying a secret campaign to curtail U.N. human rights monitors. These are the same U.N. monitors that have reported of a surge in displaced Colombians over the past few days due to intense fighting between paramilitaries and guerillas.

-Apparently having solved all other important issues, president Uribe wants to launch a bid for Colombia to host the 2014 soccer World Cup inasmuch as the South American Football Confederation has yet to receive a formal bid from Colombia.

-Colombian rockero Juanes (second left image) received France’s highest artistic award, the Knight of Arts and Letters, in recognition of his charity work for landmine victims.

Costa Rica

-The casket of a woman killed last week during a partial collapse of a tunnel in Boston arrived in her homeland of Costa Rica on Tuesday where it was buried on Wednesday.

-Nicaragua denounced Costa Rica with discrimination against immigrants including the death of a Nicaraguan woman by police dogs.

Cuba

-Press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (second right image) condemned the Cuban government’s abuses of journalists and the press including the recent detention without trial of two Cuban journalists.

-Care to learn more about U.S.-Cuba relations? Then read this fantastic article from the Council on Foreign Relations.

-Cuban athletes have won 28 gold medals so far during the Central American and Caribbean Games. Only Mexico has more medals.

Dominican Republic

-Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is thinking about selling its assets in the Dominican Republic.

Ecuador

-The country’s highest court banned an appeal by ex-president Lucio Gutierrez (third left image) that would have allowed him to run for political office.

-Thousands of people have been evacuated from the area around a volcanic mountain that has been spewing ash and debris over the past few days.

-8 Ecuadorian stowaways that spent 10 days at sea were captured by U.S. Customs Officials in California.

El Salvador

-Police raids nabbed approximately 200 gang members outside of the Salvadoran capital.

Guatemala

-The government has been lax in investing the unsolved deaths of hundreds of women, according to a report released on Tuesday by human rights organization Amnesty International.

-The Bank of Guatemala said that remittances sent to Guatemala have grown by 21% since January; remittances make up 10% of the country’s GDP.

argentina, bolivia, brazil, Chile, colombia, Costa Rica, cuba,
ecuador, Dominican republic, el salvador, guatemala