Daily Headlines: September 23, 2013

* Venezuela: Three Venezuelan National Guard officials were arrested and accused of being involved in the smuggling of 1.3 tons of cocaine via a Air France flight between Caracas and Paris.

* Brazil: Brazilian rancher Vitalmiro Vastos de Moura was retried and sentenced once again to thirty years in prison for planning the 2005 murder of U.S. nun and environmentalist Dorothy Stang.

* El Salvador: El Salvador's soccer federation punished fourteen national team players with lifetime bans after they supposedly received bribes to fix matches.

* Peru: Catholic officials reportedly removed Peruvian bishop Gabino Miranda from his post due to allegations that he sexually abused minors.

Video Source – YouTube via user afpbr

Online Sources- Reuters; The Latin Americanist; ABC News; Al Jazeera English

Daily Headlines: May 27, 2011

* U.S.: Venezuelan oil exports to the U.S. may not be seriously affected after the U.S. sanctioned state-run oil firm PDVSA for selling oil to Iran.

* South America: Uruguayan side Penarol’s attempt at their first Copa Libertadores crown since 1987 received a boost after winning 1-0 in their semifinals first leg over Argentina’s Velez Sarsfield.

* Mexico: According to Reuters, the World Trade Organization ruled that U.S. meat labeling rules discriminated against Canadian and Mexican companies.

* Brazil: French investigators revealed the difficulties that the pilots of Air France flight 447 faced before the airplane crashed off the Brazilian coast in 2009.

Image – Reuters via BBC News
Online Sources- The Globe and Mail, Reuters, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: May 2, 2011

* Latin America: The presidents of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru agreed to creating the Pacific Alliance, an economic bloc aimed at seeking greater access to the Asian market.

* U.S.: A White House report released last week highlighted a serious “educational crisis” in the Latino community.

* Brazil: Divers "localized and identified" the black box of Air France Flight 447 that crashed nearly two years ago off the Brazilian coast.

* Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega blasted last Friday’s royal wedding since the British monarchy is “tainted with blood because they are celebrating while…blood is being spilled in Libya."

Image – AP via ABC News (“Chile's President Sebastian Pinera, right, shakes hands with Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, left, as Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, center, looks on at the government palace in Lima, Peru, Thursday, April 28, 2011.”)
Online Sources- CNN, Huffington Post, CBC News, MSNBC

Daily Headlines: April 5, 2011

* Cuba: The U.S. Justice Department reversed its previous stance and said that the alleged plotters of the 9/11 attacks will be tried in military courts at the Guantanamo Bay facility.

* Chile: The prices of copper have risen in part due to decreasing supplies at some of Chile’s main copper mines.

* Colombia: Over 150 soldiers sentenced for the “worst human-rights violations” are in a prison with “privileges and comforts worthy of a hotel,” according to Semana magazine.

* Brazil: French officials said that it could take weeks to recover over 200 bodies from the wreckage of an Air France plane that crashed off the Brazilian coast in 2009.

Image – Colin Perkel/The Canadian Press/AP/File via CSMonitor.com (“The entrance to Camp Delta at Guantánamo Bay is seen on Oct. 24, 2010.”)
Online Sources- Xinhua, Bloomberg, LAHT, BBC News

Daily Headlines: December 14, 2009

* Honduras: Manuel Zelaya’s next move might be to meet with President-elect Porfirio Lobo for conciliatory talks in the Dominican Republic. (Thanks to one of our commentators for the tip!)

* U.S.: Musicians in Philadelphia paid tribute over the weekend to Joaquin Rivera, a beloved Latino community activist who died in a hospital waiting room and was subsequently robbed.

* Paraguay: President Fernando Lugo’s favorability has slipped a bit over the past year though nearly six in ten Paraguayans feel he’s doing an “average” job.

* Brazil: French investigators will soon resume the search for the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 that crashed off the Brazilian coast roughly six months ago.

Image – Times Online (“Manuel Zelaya has been living in the Brazilian embassy since September.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, BBC News, Philly.com, CNN, Angus Reid Consultants

Daily Headlines: October 27, 2009

* Puerto Rico: Was last weekend’s massive fire at an oil storage facility an “act of sabotage” or an unfortunate accident?

* Brazil: French investigators will publish in December their next interim report on Air France Flight 447 which crashed off the Brazilian coast nearly five months ago.

* Mexico: Mexicans are divided over a recent video that revealed five accused thieves being harassed and abused by vigilantes.

* Chile: Members of the Mapuche indigenous community protested in Chile for their ancestral lands and “against police repression.”

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Los Angeles Times, Reuters, The Latin Americanist, UNPO, UPI

Air France flight victims bodies found (updated)

Update (June 7):

Brazilian and French ships have recovered 17 bodies over the weekend that are believed to be from Air France flight 447. (Link via BBC News).

Original Post:

In the most recent development to the presumed crash of Air France flight 447, Brazilian air force officials claimed that bodies of some of the 228 passengers and crew were located floating in the Atlantic:

The remains were taken from the water at 0814 Brazilian time (1114 GMT), said (Brazilian air force) spokesman Jorge Amaral.

Experts on human remains are on their way to examine the find…

"We confirm the recovery from the water debris and bodies from the Air France plane," Col Amaral said at a news conference in the northern city of Recife.

"We can't give more information without confirming what we have."

Some of the debris allegedly located includes a suitcase and a seat. On Thursday, debris had been located and initially been attributed to the missing flight but that was later confirmed as wrong.

Investigators said today that the Rio de Janeiro-to-Paris flight may’ve gone down due to “multiple systems failures” after the plane sent out sent out 24 automated error messages including one saying the plane’s autopilot was disengaged. Meteorologists also said that the A330 did cross a storm zone but that it didn’t seem strong enough to threaten the aircraft.

Image- Al Jazeera English (“Search crews have yet to locate the wreckage
in the deep Atlantic waters [AFP].”)
Online Sources- Xinhua, CNN, BBC News, The Latin Americanist

Today’s Video: Needle in a haystack

Update (10:15pm)

Some debris that was found off the Brazilian coast and believed to be of the downed Flight 447 was not from that plane according to a Brazilian air force official. Nonetheless, authorities in Brazil and France contend that the Airbus 330 crashed somewhere over the Atlantic. (Link via BBC News).

Original Post

What’s the latest news on the crashed Air France Flight 447? Two words: not good.

Online Sources- YouTube, The Latin Americanist

“Missing” jet debris found (updated)

Update (5.45pm):

Braziliain officials confirmed that the wreckage found this morning floating in the Atlantic does belong to Flight 447.

Defence Minister Nelson Jobim gave few details but said that debris of the doomed flight was spread out over a three-mile strip roughly 400 miles off the Brazilian coast. "The plane went down" said Jobim who added that none of the 200+ passengers and crew have been located. (Sources via MSNBC and BBC News).

Original Post:

It appears as if the worse has occurred for an Air France flight gone missing since Sunday night.

Brazilian officials claimed that they may’ve located the wreckage of Flight 447 several hundred miles off the country’s coast.

Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral said in a televised broadcast that airplane seats and other debris were found floating in the ocean waters along what is believed to be the jet's flight path, wire services reported. The debris was found about 390 miles (650 kilometers) northeast of the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha. Some of it was white in color, as was the missing plane, Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

However, Amaral said it was not immediately known whether the debris came from the missing plane. Authorities will need to find a serial number or other identifying information in order to make that determination.

In the meantime, speculation continues as to what could’ve caused the Airbus A330 to lose communication and drop off the radar. The plane was said to have been hit by lightning and encountered heavy turbulence though Air France officials have yet to pinpoint a precise cause. The pilots reportedly had extensive flight experience with the chief pilot logging over 1100 hours on Airbus 330 jets.

The families and loved ones of the 228 people on Flight 447 continue to await the fate of the apparently doomed aircraft. The passengers and crew were of 32 different nationalities; 59 of them were Brazilian and 72 were French.

Online Sources- AFP, New York Times, Washington Post, UPI, The Latin Americanist
Image- AFP

Suspected air crash off Brazilian coast (updated)

Update (10.00 pm):

Search operations continue to try to locate Flight 447 though hopes of survival fade away with every passing hour. Barring a miracle, the plane went down somewhere over the Atlantic possibly due to stormy conditions.

Of the 216 passengers on the missing plane, 61 were French and 58 are Brazilian. Passengers are on the flight also included people from Canada, Argentina, the U.S., and roughly 20 other nationalities.

(Links via MSNBC and BBC News).

Original Post:

Brazilian air force planes are searching off the country’s coast after an Air France flight with over 200 people possibly crashed over the Atlantic.

Flight AF 447 left Rio de Janeiro bound for Paris, France last night before all communication suddenly got cut off from the plane to air traffic controllers. According to a Brazilian Air Force spokesman, the plane disappeared off the island of Fernando de Noronha, a small island roughly 186 miles northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal. The search area itself is vast and finding the airliner will be a difficult task.

Air France officials claimed that the packed airliner was hit by lightning though also noted that the plane reported an electrical fault after hitting some rough turbulence. Whatever the case may be, French authorities have suspected the worst:

Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, the airline's chief executive, said: "We are probably facing an air catastrophe".

Jean-Louis Borloo, France's environment minister, said the plane would have certainly run out of fuel by now, adding "we must now envisage the most tragic scenario"...

John Guntrip, a former crash investigator, said the plane's disappearance indicated a "catastrophic failure".

"The fact that the Brazilian authorities have released air search and rescue units ... would seem to indicate it has gone down fairly early on in the flight from Brazil," he told Al Jazeera.

Today’s occurrence is the first major incident in Brazilian air space since 199 people died in a TAM flight that crashed in Sao Paulo two years ago. That incident- coupled with a 2006 collision over the Amazon which killed over 150 people- had placed Brazil's beleaguered air traffic control system under close scrutiny.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Bloomberg, The Telegraph, Al Jazeera English, BBC News, Guardian UK, New York Times