Daily Headlines: March 1, 2016

* Venezuela: Defeated presidential candidate Henrique Capriles claimed that an investigation into alleged improprieties when he was Miranda state governor are part of a government plot against a possible referendum seeking the dismissal of President Nicolás Maduro.

* U.S.: A new poll found that 78% of Latino voters believe women should have the right to an abortion if respondents disagree with such an action.

* Argentina: Former Argentine intelligence chief Antonio Stiuso testified as part of the probe into the apparent murder of crusading prosecutor Alberto Nisman in January 2014.

* Colombia: Santiago Uribe, the younger brother of ex-President Alvaro Uribe, was arrested over supposedly creating a paramilitary force known as the “Twelve Apostles.”

YouTube Source – AFP (Henrique Capriles lost in a tight presidential election to current President Nicolás Maduro in 2013).

Online Sources – GlobalPost, NBC News, Yahoo News, Colombia Reports

Daily Headlines: February 26, 2016

* Argentina: Argentine investigators believe that the mysterious death of crusading prosecutor Alberto Nisman was a homicide rather than the suicide theory presented last year by the government of then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

* Brazil: Fifty families of the Villa Autodromo favela in Rio de Janeiro are holding out against eviction for construction and development of Summer Games venues.

* Colombia: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry could meet as soon as next week with Colombian government and FARC rebel negotiators working out a final peace agreement. 

* El Salvador: Several hundred protesters marched in San Salvador against the extradition from Spain of former military members accused of the massacre of six Jesuit priests in 1989.

YouTube Source – CCTV America (“Nisman was a prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 85 people, when he was found dead from a gunshot. Alberto Nisman was about to present evidence that then Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had covered up Iran’s role in the bombing.”)

Online Sources – Business Insider, ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: August 20, 2015

* Argentina: Attorneys representing the family of Alberto Nisman, a top Argentine prosecutor killed under mysterious circumstances last January, claimed that “someone” erased data from his cell phone shortly before he died.

* Venezuela: PDVSA chief Eulogio Del Pino was named as Venezuela’s new oil and mining minister amid a domestic economic crisis caused in part by the low prices of crude.

* Colombia: Colombia recently became the sixteenth Latin American country to define femicides as a specific crime but will the new law help decrease levels of violence against women?

* Brazil: Brazil’s unemployment rate rose for the seventh straight month in July and jumped from 6.9 percent in June to 7.5%.

YouTube Source – BBC News

Online Sources – Reuters, Financial Times, The Latin Americanist, Buenos Aires Herald

Daily Headlines: April 21, 2015

* Mexico: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the Mexican government to investigate supposed coercion against the families of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students.

* Argentina: The prosecutor who took over for the late Alberto Nisman dismissed allegations claiming that Argentine officials helped protect suspected Iranian involvement in the 1994 AMIA bombing.

* Haiti: The U.S. State Department is none too pleased over a Haitian court dropping charges against a man accused in a kidnapping ring with close ties to the family of President Michel Martelly.

* Venezuela: The President of Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA claimed that they are exporting around 2.5 million barrels of crude each day.

YouTube Source – user AJ+
 
Online Sources –The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Latin American Herald Tribune, CNN

Daily Headlines: April 16, 2015

* Venezuela: Spain’s ambassador to Venezuela was summoned back to his homeland amid a diplomatic rift stemming from the Maduro regime’s treatment of political dissidents.

* Argentina: The family of the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman has once again locked horns with lead investigator Viviana Fein over the circumstances of his mysterious death last January.

* Latin America: The World Bank warned that the Latin American economy could face a “permanent growth slowdown” if structural reforms aren't made.

* U.S.: it’s déjà vu all over again – the U.S. men’s soccer team beat bitter regional rivals Mexico by a score of dos a cero.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – The Latin Americanist, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Fox News Latino, GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: March 23, 2015

* Chile: Scores of protesters gathered in Osorno against the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros and accused him of helping cover up sexual abuse by Father Fernando Karadima.

* Argentina: An Argentine attorney has come under fire for posting a tweet with an “appalling” photo of the bloodied body of the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

* Brazil: A lack of enforcement of strict environmental laws is one of the reasons cited for a recent increase in the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rain forest.

* Mexico: Mexican wrestler Rey Mysterio Jr. could face manslaughter charges in the death of fellow grappler Hijo del Perro Aguayo during a bout last Saturday.


Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources – Sydney Morning Herald; Buenos Aires Herald; The Latin Americanist; Newsweek; Rappler.com

Daily Headlines: March 19, 2015

* Argentina: On the two month anniversary of the mysterious death of Alberto Nisman, Cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez called the late prosecutor a “scoundrel” and accused him of embezzling funds.

* Uruguay: Former Uruguayan foreign minister Luis Almagro was elected as the next chief of the Organization of American States.

* Latin America: PetroCaribe members Haiti and Nicaragua would be the most hurt if the Venezuelan-led oil initiative were to fail according to the International Monetary Fund.

* Mexico: The producer of the next movie in the James Bond spy film series denied receiving $20 million from Mexican officials in exchange for modifying the script.

Video Source – YouTube user BBC News (“Hundreds of thousands of people in Argentina marched (last month) through Buenos Aires to demand answers over the death of a state prosecutor.”)
 
Online Sources – The Hollywood Reporter; Deutsche Welle; The Latin Americanist; Fox News Latino; ABC News

Daily Headlines: February 3, 2015

* Mexico: New doubts have been raised in the government’s findings of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students after a Mexican magazine claimed detained suspects were tortured into confessing.

* Argentina: In one of the latest twists in the Nisman murder case, an Argentine judge refused to handle allegations of a cover-up by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in the investigation of the 1994 AMIA bombing.

* Cuba: Cuban state media published the first photos of former president Fidel Castro to appear publicly since August of last year.

* Venezuela: The already weakened diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela have worsened following the expansion of travel bans against members of the Maduro administration.

Video Source – YouTube user teleSUR English (“Family members of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students are in Geneva, Switzerland, taking their case to the UN Committee on Forced Disappearances.”)

Online Sources – The Huffington Post; Voice of America; CNN; MercoPress; The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: February 2, 2015

* Brazil: Brazil's worst drought in decades has led to special alerts in four Brazilian states including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, decreased agriculture production in Espirito Santo and water rationing in more than ninety cities.

* South America: The Argentine government wants to create a new intelligence agency in the wake of the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman while scandal-plagued former Colombian intel chief Maria del Pilar Hurtado turned herself in to police.

* Venezuela: Is U.S. Vice President Joe Biden planning a coup against Venezuela’s government or is Nicolás Maduro searching for scapegoats amid a domestic economic crisis?

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet proposed reforming Chile’s complete ban on abortion by legalizing the procedure in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk.

Video Source – YouTube user Reuters (“Agricultural producers in Rio de Janeiro state battle with the worst drought Brazil has seen in 80 years which is killing large numbers of livestock and crops.”)
 
Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; Buenos Aires Herald; BBC News; Bernama; UPI

Top Argentine Prosecutor Dead in Possible Suicide (Updated)

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman died less than a week after he accused President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of a cover-up over the deadly 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center.

Police located Nisman’s body with a single gunshot wound in the late night hours yesterday in his Buenos Aires apartment. Security Minister Sergio Berni hinted that Nisman committed suicide based on a pistol and used cartridge found near the body. Yet the prosecutor assigned to investigate Nisman’s death claimed that he had not left a suicide note behind.

The fifty-one-year-old passed away on the eve of scheduled testimony to a legislative committee on his allegations against Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and others. Nisman claimed on January 14th that the pair signed a memo of understanding (MOU) with Iran in 2013 in order to protect former government officials suspected of masterminding the bombing. In return for this immunity, Nisman wrote in a 300-page report that Iran was supposed to increase oil and grain exports to the South American country.

“I have been working on this for over two years, because agents of the Intelligence secretary whose names I cannot disclose are involved,” the prosecutor said last week.

Update: "What could have compelled someone to make the terrible decision to take his own life?" asked Kirchner in a lengthy statement issued via Facebook on Monday evening.

The president vehemently defended her government's role in the investigation of the AMIA bombing as well as the MOU signed with Iran nearly two years ago. She also claimed that there is a "very sordid" history behind the investigator's death and criticized numerous "incendiary" headlines in the Clarin daily newspaper.