Daily Headlines: November 20, 2014

* Chile: A Chilean court ruled that the state should pay around $7.5 million to the families of thirty ex-political prisoners incarcerated on a remote island during the military rule of Augusto Pinochet.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro decreed twenty-eight laws this week including ones that would raise taxes on luxury items and increase international reserves.

* Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto will reportedly release details of his personal wealth following the controversy over first lady Angelica Rivera’s ownership of a $7 million mansion.

* Colombia: An agreement was reportedly reached for the liberation of a Colombian army general and four others captured by the FARC, and whose kidnapping led to the suspension of peace talks between the government and the rebels.

Video Source – YouTube user comunaburguesa (Footage circa 1973 of detainees at the prison on Chile’s Dawson Island, which was located near the southernmost tip of South America).

Online Sources – BBC News; Bloomberg; ABC News; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: November 19, 2014

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro announced plans to arrange a meeting with countries excluded from the OPEC cartel in order to discuss the plummeting prices of oil.

* Brazil: Eike Batista, the man once named as Brazil’s wealthiest person but is allegedly $1 billion in debt, went on trial over charges of insider trading. 

* Mexico: Mexican first lady Angelica Rivera said that she would sell her shares in a $7 million mansion built by a construction firm that received government contracts under President Enrique Peña Nieto.

* Honduras: Police discovered the bodies of the reigning Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado, and her sister who had been missing for approximately one week.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube

Online Sources – BBC News; The Guardian; Bloomberg; ABC News