Daily Headlines: August 16, 2011

* Bolivia: Over 500 mostly indigenous demonstrators protesting the construction of a highway through the rainforest are marching over 300 miles to La Paz.

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan economy may have its problems but it seems like that hasn’t affected the considerable growth in the country’s stock market this year.

* Cuba: Newly declassified documents showed that several U.S. planes were downed by friendly fire during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

* U.S.: According to a impreMedia and Latino Decisions poll nearly half of Latino respondents believed that raising taxes on the wealthy is the “only way” to solve the budget crisis.

Image – AP via BBC News (“The marchers say the road threatens their ancestral territory.”)
Online Sources- Al Jazeera English, Reuters, LAHT, Voice of America, New American Media

Cuban missile crisis advisor McNamara died

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara died this morning at the age of 93.

McNamara will most likely be remembered for his role in the buildup and failure of the Vietnam War. Though he would later admit that it was "terribly wrong" to have pursued military action in Vietnam beyond 1963, McNamara’s management and focus on statistics ignored the massive humanitarian cost of the war. "McNamara treated everybody like they were a spare part on a Ford," said the executive director for policy and government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America who alluded to McNamara’s previous experience as a former Ford executive.

In terms of Latin America, McNamara was hugely influential in shaping a U.S.-Cuba policy that has changed little over the past four decades:

The former secretary of defense was among John Kennedy’s closest advisers during the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis 18 months later.

Those events shaped U.S. policy by hardening an adversarial relationship with Cuba, setting up a 47-year embargo.

Like many leaders in the Cold War, McNamara was obsessed with fighting communism and deterring nuclear war. The invasion and Missile Crisis represented the good and bad of that policy.

From 1968 to 1981 McNamara served as head of the World Bank where he “increased the bank's loans to developing countries and changed its focus from large-scale industrial projects to development in rural communities.”

The following is an excerpt from the brilliant 2003 documentary “The Fog of War”:

Online Sources- Al Jazeera English, YouTube, NPR, Miami Herald, Guardian UK, DC Blog

Daily Headlines: February 27, 2009

* Mexico: Days after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major crackdown of Mexican drug gangs Sen. Joseph Lieberman said that the Senate will hold hearings over rising violence in Mexico.

* Colombia: Will U.S. military operations become headquartered in Colombia after they leave the base at Manta, Ecuador this August?

* Guatemala: One week after apologizing to Cuba for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom apologized to victims of his country’s cruel 36-year civil war.

* Haiti: Kristian Dyer of ESPN.com takes a great look at the legacy of Joe Gaetjens- the Haitian immigrant who scored the game-winning goal for the U.S. in one of the World Cup’s greatest upsets.

Image- Al Jazeera English
Online Sources- BBC News, Reuters, The Latin Americanist, AFP, ABC Online, ESPN

Daily Headlines: February 18, 2009

* U.S.: Time magazine’s top blogs of 2009 list praised Cuban-based Generación Y and deemed PerezHilton.com as overrated.

* Cuba: Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom apologized to Cuba for his country permitting the CIA to train exiles who participated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

* Mexico: Nearly 500,000 bus and truck operators went on a 24-hour strike in protest of rising fuel costs.

* Antarctica: Almost three months after 122 people were rescued from a sinking ship near Antarctica another cruise ship ran aground with 65 passengers.

Image- Global Voices Online
Online Sources- Time, MSNBC, LAHT, The Latin Americanist, USA TODAY

Book: JFK ill during Bay of Pigs invasion

With the 47^th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion coming up this week, a book alleges that President John F. Kennedy was very sick at the time of the event:

In his riveting volume In Sickness and In Power, former Foreign Secretary and medic David Owen reviews the health and medication of leaders over the last century. The chapter on Kennedy is jaw-dropping.

Owen starts by convincingly asserting that Kennedy was much sicker than is commonly appreciated and certainly much sicker than was appreciated at the time. His Addison's disease was very debilitating and needed constant attention.

And there were other health troubles. During the Bay of Pigs fiasco Owen writes that Kennedy had:

“Constant and acute diarrhea and a recurrence of his urinary tract infection.”

The review of the book adds that JFK was “back on an even keel” by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

(Hat tip: Wonkette).

Sources- Wonkette, Times Online, BBC News, National Security Archive

Image- History Channel UK

On this day: Bay of Pigs invasion

Forty-six years ago today was the start of the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion where U.S.-trained Cuban exiles failed to overthrow the government led by Fidel Castro. According to Wikipedia, the invasion lasted four days and over one hundred members of the invading force were killed compared to between 1600 and 5000 Cuban soldiers.

Several bloggers, especially those of Cuban background, have posted their thoughts on the events of April 1961. Several events in Cuba are being held to commemorate the anniversary as a time when “men and women defended the justice, the truth and the ideas of new system in the Americas in the Bay of Pigs.” However, the dissidence movement in Cuba itself is not taking things quietly; several key members have called for unity within the movement and may create a “unitary bloc.”

Image- BBC News

Links- Politico, Wikipedia, Babalu Blog, Review of Cuban American Blogs, Cuba Data, Granma, Radio Cadena Agramonte, Monsters & Critics