Daily Headlines: January 2, 2015

* Mexico: The F.B.I. is reportedly aiding in the search for 43 Ayotzinapa students missing for more than three months while relatives of the disappeared continue to put pressure on Mexican authorities.

* Brazil: In her second inauguration speech, President Dilma Rousseff vowed to lead a “national pact against corruption” in response to a major kickback scandal hitting state-run oil firm Petrobras.

* Cuba: Despite the recent rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba, the State Department criticized an apparent crackdown against dissidents on the island.

* Argentina: Survivors and victims’ families of the Republica Cromañon nightclub fire gathered this week to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the tragedy that killed 194 people.

Video Source – YouTube user Ojos DePerro

Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; CNN; NBC News; CBC News

Daily Headlines: January 1, 2015

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro promised to enact a series of reforms over the next six months in order to boost a Venezuelan economy that is officially in recession.

* Cuba: Performance artist Tania Bruguera and the husband of blogger Yoani Sanchez were among the roughly fifty dissidents briefly detained and then released by Cuban authorities.

* Colombia: Colombian Teofilo Gutierrez and Jose Pekerman of Argentina have been chosen in a poll by the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais as South America’s top soccer player and coach of the year, respectively.

* Argentina: Argentina may be struggling with a debt default and rising inflation but that hasn’t stopped the country’s Merval from being named the “best performing global index of 2014.”

Video Source – YouTube user CNN

Online Sources – Reuters; NBC News; CNBC

Daily Headlines: December 30, 2014

* Brazil: The Aurelius Capital hedge fund that was reportedly ‘a leading member of a group of investors that refused to accept a debt restructuring with Argentina” is now campaigning for Petrobras to fall under default.

* Argentina: If you believe that Argentina’s president became the godmother of a Jewish baby to stop him from becoming a werewolf then there’s a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying.

* Venezuela: According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, the South American country ranks only behind Honduras for the highest number of homicides in 2014.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet submitted to Congress a labor reform package aimed at promoting unionization and expanding the use of collective bargaining in contract negotiations.

Video Source – YouTube user FRANCE 24 English

Online Sources – New York Daily News; The Guardian; NBC News; Zee News; Reuters

Daily Headlines: December 29, 2014

* Puerto Rico: Will the U.S. follow up the liberation of former contractor Alan Gross by intervening to free imprisoned Puerto Rican activist Oscar Lopez Rivera?

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro named Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez as the next ambassador to the U.N. days before Venezuela will be represented on the international body’s Security Council.

* Paraguay: “I'm healthy after all this time, I'm calm, I'm okay,” admitted former hostage Arlan Fick who was let go by his EPP rebel captors.

* El Salvador: A Salvadoran man kidnapped by the armed forces at the age of three in 1982 reunited with his biological family last week.

Video Source – YouTube user Fusion (Video uploaded in June 2014).
 
Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; Reuters; teleSUR English; The Latin Americanist; MercoPress