Daily Headlines: March 7, 2013

* Colombia: Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez claimed that he was “very happy” to be celebrating his 86th birthday on Wednesday.

* Haiti: Ex-President Rene Preval is being questioned behind closed doors by a judge investigating the 2000 murder of journalist Jean Dominique. 

* Mexico: Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim topped Forbes magazine’s list of more than 1400 billionaires that excluded drug capo Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

* Brazil: A news study concluded that “disarmament campaigns launched in 2004” have helped stabilize the number of gun deaths over the past decade.

Video Source – YouTube via user Evandro Motta (Excerpt from a documentary on famous Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)
 
Online Sources- GlobalPost, Miami Herald, Reuters, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: March 8, 2012

* Argentina: Lionel Messi became the first player to score five goals in a UEFA Champions League match after his club team, Barcelona, hammered Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen 7-1.

* Cuba: Citing the inability “to find a consensus” Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said that Cuba will not be invited to the Americas Summit in Cartagena next month.

* Mexico: For the third consecutive year Carlos Slim has topped the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated worth of $69 billion.

* Venezuela: Chevron will reportedly inject a $2 billion credit line into a joint project run by the company and Venezuelan state-owned firm PDVSA.

Video Source – YouTube via TVPublicaArgentina

Online Sources- CNN, Reuters, The Telegraph, El Universal

Daily Headlines: November 4, 2011

* Latin America: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was named to Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful people along with Chilean leader Sebastián Piñera, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim and wanted drug gang chief Joaquín Guzmán.

* Cuba: Officials announced a new property law that allows Cubans to buy and sell real estate openly for the first time since the 1959 revolution.

* Puerto Rico: A lengthy legal battle regarding the mistreatment of the mentally ill appears to have come to an end.

* Colombia: The Russian government is not too pleased with the conviction of arms dealer Viktor Bout who allegedly tried to sell weapons to Colombian guerillas.

Image Source – Via Flickr user Isaac Ribeiro. (2010 image of then-presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff). (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- Huffington Post, Reuters, MSNBC, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: April 25, 2011

* Argentina: An Argentine judge concluded that “the Turkish state committed the crime of genocide against the Armenian people” between 1915 and 1923, much to the chagrin of Turkish officials.

* South America: Twenty-three Brazilian cities have declared states of emergency due to the wild weather while nearly one hundred are dead in Colombia due to heavy rains and flash floods.

* Mexico: The country’s antitrust agency confirmed that a $1 billion fine was levied against the Carlos Slim-owned America Movil telecom firm.

* Venezuela: Authorities at a Venezuelan airport detained a Colombian citizen suspected of running the website of the FARC guerillas.

Image – AFP (“People carry torches during a rally through the streets of Yerevan”, the capital city of Armenia.)
Online Sources- Mercopress, LAHT, Colombia Reports, MSNBC, CNN

Daily Headlines: April 19, 2011

* Costa Rica: Researchers working off Costa Rica's Pacific coast will extract rocks over one mile below the surface in order to study tectonic plate movements and perhaps gain a better understanding of the effects of climate change.

* Cuba: One of president Raul Castro’s key economic reforms will come to fruition after the Communist Party congress approved permitting Cubans to buy and sell their homes.

* Mexico: The country’s antitrust agency hit the Carlos Slim-owned America Movil telecom firm with a record $1 billion fine.

* Latin America: The presidents of Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico are expected to meet later this month in order to sign a multilateral trade pact.

Image – Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate via Reuters (“The JOIDES Resolution, a U.S. scientific vessel, is docked at Costa Rica's Pacific port of Puntarenas April 15, 2011.”)
Online Sources- Huffington Post, Bloomberg, BBC News, UPI

Daily Headlines: March 11, 2011

Note: The big news of the day is the massive earthquake and tidal wave that have officially killed about 100 people in Japan. Later today we will discuss this latest natural disaster and how it pertains to Latin America.

* Latin America: Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim was ranked by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest person while the number of Brazilian billionaires spiked over the past year.

* Peru: Scandal has hurt several presidential candidates who have been accused of accepting funds from suspected drug traffickers.

* Guatemala: The U.S. government could be sued by attorneys representing hundreds of Guatemalans secretly infected with syphilis between 1946 and 1948.

* Bolivia: President Evo Morales blasted the U.S. and the U.N. for issuing recent reports criticizing Bolivian anti-drug efforts.

Image – Jeremy Piper/AP via CBC News (“Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim Helu is the world's richest person according to Forbes magazine. Here, he is pictured at the Forbes Global CEO conference in Sydney on Sept. 29, 2010.”)
Online Sources- Reuters, CNN, The Globe and Mail, BBC News

Daily Headlines: March 11, 2010

* Mexico: According to Forbes Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim is the world’s wealthiest person with a personal fortune of $53.5 billion.

* Chile: The Chilean government may’ve faced harsh criticism due to their response to last month’s earthquake yet that has not diminished the high popularity of outgoing President Michelle Bachelet.

* Ecuador: To arbitrate or not to arbitrate? That is the question being examined in Ecuador’s environmental damage case against Chevron.

* Cuba: In a move that could help Cuban dissidents the U.S. Treasury Department lifted technological restrictions on email, instant messaging and social networking.

Image – Guardian UK
Online Sources- Bloomberg, Reuters, The Citizen Daily, BusinessWeek, Guardian UK

Daily Headlines: January 19, 2010

* Latin America: Spaniard Carlos Sainz won the prestigious Dakar Rally that was held for the second straight year in Chile and Argentina.

* Central America: No major damages or casualties have been reported after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook El Salvador and Guatemala yesterday.

* Colombia: A Colombian worker and three British contractors were freed after they spent six days kidnapped in Nigeria.

* Mexico: Carlos Slim is reportedly trying to integrate the three-telecom firms he owns into one mega-company.

Image – CNN
Online Sources- BBC News, New York Times, Canada.com, Canadian Press

Daily Headlines: December 30, 2008

* Argentina: Memorial services are expected to take place to commemorate the fourth anniversary of a deadly Buenos Aires nightclub fire that killed 194 people.

* Spain: Hundreds of Cubans lined up outside the Spanish embassy in Havana in order to apply for a special program granting Spanish citizenship.

* Venezuela: The country’s economy grew by its lowest rate in five years according to central bank figures.

* Mexico: Billionaire telecom tycoon Carlos Slim denied reports alleging that he will buy the Honda Formula One team.

Image- BBC News (Ambulances transported over 700 injured from the Republica Cromagnon nightclub fire on December 30, 2004).
Online Sources- Guardian UK, Voice of America, Bloomberg, AFP, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: December 3, 2008

* Paraguay: A substance derived from the stevia plant and popular in Paraguay may serve as the “holy grail of sweeteners.”

* Mexico: Will telecom tycoon Carlos Slim make a tidy profit from the global financial crisis?

* El Salvador: Defense minister announced that he will travel to Iraq and decide how much longer Salvadoran troops will be stationed there.

* Argentina: The Argentine peso fell in value for the fifteenth straight day in a move being reportedly managed by the country’s central bank.

Image- Dallas Morning News
Sources- Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC News, IHT

LatAm could benefit over crisis says Carlos Slim

The $700 billion economic bailout plan may’ve been passed by the U.S. Senate tonight yet it has received great opposition domestically and abroad. The lack of a bailout sent Latin American stocks tumbling on Monday though leaders like Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez have vehemently rejected the rescue package.

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has some misgivings over the bailout though from a different angle as Lula and Chavez. Rather than purchase bad assets, Slim proposed that the U.S. government take up majority ownership of ailing investment banks. The telecom mogul praised Berkshire Hathaway head Warren Buffett for investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and also claimed that the financial crisis could be helpful to the Latin American market.

In remarks made to the foreign media on Tuesday, Slim added that China should take a more active role in helping the U.S.

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men, said Tuesday that China should lead rescue efforts for the US financial crisis, and that worldwide stock markets needed better rules.

"China is now the most important country to help responsibly in this crisis"…

"China has great liquidity, large resources, surpluses in its current accounts and a lot of capital flow," he said.

"There is a systematic crisis in the whole financial system and the problem is that everything is interconnected."

Image- MSNBC

Sources- The Latin Americanist, BBC News, Monsters & Critics, Bloomberg, IHT, Reuters, AFP

Daily Headlines: September 11, 2008

* Venezuela: “It's a show. The trial is fixed,” declared President Hugo Chavez as he blasted the “Maletagate” trial currently underway in a U.S. federal court.

* Mexico: Telecom billionaire Carlos Slim- reportedly the world's second-richest man- purchased a 6.4% stake in the New York Times Company.

* Guatemala: A U.N. report called for Guatemalan authorities to do more in eliminating the “illegal bodies and clandestine structures encrusted in many public arenas.”

* U.S.: A federal appeals court denied Jose Santos-Lemus’ request for asylum despite his claims that Salvadoran gangs killed his brother and threatened his family.

Image- washingtonpost.com (“Guido Antonini Wilson was detained with nearly $800,000 in cash. (Marcelo Hernandez - Associated Press).”)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, Middle East Times, SFGate.com, New York Times, Reuters

Daily Headlines: January 22, 2008

* Richard Chavez- the brother of famed civil rights activist Cesar Chavez (image)- publicly backed Hillary Clinton’s run for the U.S. presidency.

* Speaking of Clinton, last night’s Democratic debate was an ugly verbal slugfest between her and fellow frontrunner Barack Obama.

* Did you know that despite the trade embargo the U.S. is the top provider of food to Cuba?

* Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s increasing power is not sitting well with the country’s cable companies.

* Follow-up: In early morning trading, Latin American currencies and stocks have made small gains which could lead to a halt in recent losses.

Sources- Boston.com, International Herald Tribune, Guardian UK, Bloomberg, The Latin Americanist, Reuters

Image- PBS

Daily Headlines: October 30, 2007

* Mexican antitrust authorities will begin an investigation against the telephone companies owned by billionaire Carlos Slim (image).

* Opposition has come from several groups- including immigrants rights organizations- against New York governor Eliot Spitzer's plan to provide licenses to illegal immigrants.

* Archeologists encountered a vital find in Puerto Rico: a large space possibly used for ceremonial rites by pre-Columbian peoples.

* Brazil’s government plans to increase defense spending by over 50% in 2008.

* Venezuela’s Attorney General admitted in an interview that corrupt officers have helped drug traffickers from neighboring Colombia.

* Follow-up: From one current presidenta to a future presidenta – Chile’s Michelle Bachelet congratulated Argentine Cristina Kirchner for her victory on Sunday.

Sources- International Herald Tribune, news.com.au, earthtimes.org, Newsday.com, New York Times

Image- Sydney Morning Herald

Daily Headlines: July 04, 2007

* Follow-up: Remember the incredibly shrinking Chilean lake? Scientists believe that global warming is to blame for its disappearance.

* Mexico’s Carlos Slim: world’s wealthiest man.

* Colombian guerilla group FARC released a video showing several hostages.

* The pitfalls of the U.S. asylum system have hurt the Haitian community, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

* Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is caught in a bit of a problem after confessing to being in a relationship with a reporter while divorcing his wife.

* Osvaldo Romo died in jail earlier today; he was one of the main members of Chile’s intelligence/torture operations during Augusto Pinochet’s rule.

Sources- BBC News, The Latin Americanist, Guardian UK, Christian Science Monitor, Yahoo! News

Image- International Herald Tribune (According to the caption “Large pieces of ice and some areas with water at the bottom of a lake in southern Chile that was discovered dried up in late May. Experts believe water flowed to a nearby fiord through a hole in a glacier at the northern end of the lake.”)

Mexico’s Slim close to top spot of world’s wealthiest

Look out Bill Gates; Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim (image) has become the world’s second-richest person according to Forbes. The magazine estimates that Slim’s fortune has grown by $4 billion to $53.1 billion due to a rise in stocks in the numerous companies he owns.

Slim’s business holdings are very extensive according to Reuters:

“Slim's companies have such an octopus-like reach in Mexico that it is difficult to spend a day in the country without putting more pesos in his pockets.

His empire also includes telephone giant Telmex, department stores, a banking group, restaurants and other firms that make cigarettes, kitchen and floor tiles.”

Image- CNBC

Links- Guardian UK, SignOnSanDiego.com, The Age