Daily Headlines: September 12, 2016

* Honduras: Authorities last week arrested the final suspect in the murder last March of acclaimed Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres though investigators are still looking into who masterminded her death.

* Colombia: Nairo Quintana became the first Colombian in nearly three decades to win the Vuelta a España, and has thus won two of the three cycling grand tours in his career.

* Ecuador: The legal tug-of-war between energy company Chevron and Ecuadoran plaintiffs over pollution in the Amazon rainforest heads to a Canadian court this week.

* Brazil: Brazil’s currency weakened this morning to its lowest point since July 28th following street protests nationwide against the government led by President Michel Temer.

YouTube Source – GreenpeaceVideo

Online Sources – NBC News, Bloomberg, The Independent, Fortune

Daily Headlines: August 9, 2016

* Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega and First Lady Rosario Murillo are the odds-on favorites of winning in November’s elections according to a survey of 2000 likely voters.

* Ecuador: A United States court upheld a lower tribunal ruling barring the payment of an $8.6 billion environmental damages fine against Chevron to plaintiffs in Ecuador.

* Peru: Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said prosecutors are looking into allegations of police officers running “death squads” from 2011 to 2015.

* United States: A poll of Millennials found that 89% of Latino respondents are concerned over “terrorism committed by U.S. residents inspired by group like ISIS,” while 55% are “very concerned about terrorism committed by White American citizens.”

YouTube Source – CCTV News (Earlier this month “Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega picked his wife, Rosario Murillo, as his running mate for November's election”.)
 
Online Sources – Yahoo News, The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters

Daily Headlines: July 26, 2016

* Brazil: Amid the plethora of negative news on the upcoming Rio Olympics there’s a small glimmer of hope –Brazil’s economy could emerge from a deep recession by the end of this year.

* Mexico: In light of free trade becoming a hot topic in the U.S. presidential race, Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu suggested “modernizing and updating” the North American Free Trade Agreement.

* Latin America: LATAM Airlines, Latin America’s largest air carrier, was fined some $22 million over “violating accounting laws connected to a scheme to bribe Argentine union officials.”

* Argentina: Ex-Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner claimed to be unafraid of going to jail over allegations of corruption and compared her situation to that of suspended Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff.

* Ecuador: As part of the latest legal tug-of-war between Ecuador and Chevron, the South American country’s central bank paid $112 million as part of an arbitration ruling favoring the U.S. oil firm.

* Chile: The Chilean Supreme Court last week unanimously lengthened the prison sentences against two former military officers convicted in the 1973 deaths of documentary filmmaker Charles Horman and university student Frank Teruggi.

YouTube Source – CCTV News (Brazil’s economy entered its fifth straight quarter at a loss at the beginning of 2016, but could emerge from its crippling recession by the end of this year).

Online Sources – Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, MarketWatch, Reuters, USA TODAY, Al Jazeera English
 

Daily Headlines: July 6, 2016

* Mexico: The Mexican government has offered to hold negotiations with representatives of teachers on a strike that has expanded beyond Oaxaca and into Mexico City.

* Ecuador: Ecuadorian Finance Minister Fausto Herrera admitted that officials are looking into creating a framework to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to pay Chevron $96 million.

* Brazil: U.S. and Brazilian authorities are looking for a former Guantanamo military prison detainee who resettled in Uruguay nearly two years ago but whose current whereabouts are unknown.

* Spain: A Spanish court sentenced Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi and his father to twenty-one months in prison for tax fraud but both men could escape jail time.

YouTube Source – CCTV America (From July 1, 2016: “The situation in Oaxaca still remains tense after clashes between teachers unions and the police. Blockades remain, while shortages of basic products are affecting the region.”)

Online Sources – teleSUR English, Fox News Latino, Marca, CNN

Daily Headlines: June 7, 2016

* Panama: Suez Canal operators are offering discounts to container lines in an attempt to stem an expected increase of traffic on the soon to be reopened and expanded Panama Canal.

* Puerto Rico: A bill to provide relief for Puerto Rico’s $70 billion public debt moves gradually through the U.S. House of Representatives but that didn’t stop Boricuas from selecting an opponent of the proposal as the gubernatorial candidate representing the pro-statehood party.

* South America: In the latest chapter of the decades-long dispute between Chile and Bolivia over coastal access, the former sued the landlocked state over rights to the Silala River.

* Ecuador: The U.S. Supreme Court rejected hearing an appeal by the Ecuadoran government to avoid paying $96 million in arbitration to Chevron.

YouTube Source – Financial Times (Video uploaded in March 2015).
 
Online Sources – GlobalPost, The Street, Reuters, JOC.com, NBC News

Daily Headlines: January 25, 2016

* Haiti: “We are ready for war…we will divide the country,” declared former coup plotter and suspected drug smuggler Guy Philippe over the chaos resulting from the latest delay in the Haitian presidential elections.

* Ecuador: Chevron welcomed a judicial ruling at The Hague against Ecuador in relation to a years-long environmental damages lawsuit.

* El Salvador: Former Salvadoran President Francisco Flores is hospitalized under a coma and reportedly in critical condition after he was found unconscious in his home last night.

* U.S.: Latino rights groups such as LULAC are trying to push Iowa’s growing Hispanic population to participate in the February 1st presidential caucuses.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Al Jazeera America, The Latin Americanist, Fox News Latino, NPR, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: October 29, 2015

* Ecuador: In the latest twist to the legal telenovela that is the Ecaudoran environmental damages ordeal against Chevron, the oil giant’s main witness at a 2014 appeal recanted his entire testimony.

* Mexico: Mexican federal police committed extrajudicial killings in two incidents earlier this year that left some fifty people dead according to Human Rights Watch.

* Brazil: Community groups in Rio de Janeiro claimed that the government’s relocation program ahead of the 2016 Olympics is in reality segregating thousands of impoverished families.

* U.S.: The Kansas City Royals won the first two games of the World Series with help from Dominican starter Johnny Cueto who pitched a complete game gem on Wednesday night.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English (“The Canadian Supreme Court (last month) voted to a allow the lawsuit that seeks to recover US$9.5 billion from a 2011 compensation settlement arising from the pollution of land belonging to Amazonian indigenous villages by Chevron.”)
 
Online Sources – ESPN, The Guardian, Vice News, Al Jazeera America

Daily Headlines: September 9, 2015 (Updated)

* Brazil: Financial analysts surveyed by Brazil’s central bank believe the country this year will face its worst economic performance since 1990 and predicted that the economy will keep shrinking in 2016.

Update: More bad news for the economy as Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday downgraded the Brazilian government’s sovereign debt rating to junk status.

* Ecuador: Canada’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of proceeding with an environmental damages lawsuit against Chevron though the tribunal did not “endorse the underlying Ecuadorian legal case.”

* Latin America: A new study found that digital use in Latin America grew between April 2014 and April 2015 including increases of 147% and 351% in activity for Facebook and Twitter, respectively.

* Cuba: Some 140 Cuban dissidents including twenty members of the Ladies in White were reportedly arrested yesterday while on their way to a Catholic mass.

YouTube Source – CNNMoney (“Brazil is struggling with high unemployment, rising inflation and a currency trading at 12-year lows.”)
 
Online Sources including Update – MercoPress, The Latin Americanist, Financial Post, Billboard, Latin American Herald Tribune, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: August 5, 2015

* Chile: Chile is one step closer to modifying its complete ban on abortions as legislators move forward with a bill that would partially legalize the procedure.

* Venezuela: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blasted the U.S. government hours after the State Department called on barred opposition figures to be allowed to run in upcoming local elections.

* Ecuador: A U.S. appeals court ordered Ecuador’s government to pay “a $96 million international arbitration award” to Chevron in a case unrelated to an environmental damages lawsuit between both parties.

* Guatemala: A Guatemalan judge ordered ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt to undergo medical exams in order to see if he’s healthy enough to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English 

Online Sources – Yahoo News, Reuters, The Hill, Bloomberg

Ecuador: Court Upholds Environmental Damages Ruling Against Chevron

In a Solomon-like ruling, Ecuador’s National Court of Justice upheld a verdict against U.S. oil company Chevron yet cut a $19 billion fine by more than half.

The National Court of Justice (NCJ) agreed with a 2011 lower court ruling that found Chevron responsible for the environmental damages caused by Texaco during a twenty-eight year period of operating in the Ecuadorian rainforest. The NCJ further ordered Chevron to pay an $8.8 million fine that includes reparations to indigenous communities that claim to have suffered adverse health effects due to Texaco’s actions between 1964 and 1992.

Yet the high court eliminated the roughly $9 billion in punitive damages levied against Chevron, which purchased Texaco in 2001, and reduces the fine to its original decision made by a local judge in February 2011.

The NCJ’s decision did not sit well with representatives of Chevron as well as the Ecuadorian plaintiffs.

“The only decision that the Court of Justice could have taken .. was to declare the trial null and void and leave this illegitimate sentence without effect,” Chevron spokesman James Craig reportedly said.  He further claimed that the NCJ’s ruling was “illegitimate and inapplicable.”

Juan Pablo Saenz, an attorney for the plaintiffs, deemed the high court’s lowering of the fine against Chevron as a “folly” that leaves “unpunished the arrogance, bad faith and irresponsibility” of the oil firm.  Nevertheless, he praised the court for issuing “a sentence that confirms all the evidence gathered, the damage and the payment Chevron must make.”

Daily Headlines: November 7, 2013

* Vatican: Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles asked Pope Francis to help mediate in the politically fractured country, while several photos were released showing the Argentine-born pontiff embracing a severely disfigured man. 

* Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega is pushing a proposal through the Nicaraguan legislature that would eliminate term limits for presidents.

* Ecuador: A former judge behind a $19 billion environment damages ruling against Chevron rejected allegations of fraud against him and claimed that another magistrate did not ghostwrite his decision.

* U.S.: Latino voters played a key role in several elections on Tuesday including reportedly backing Terry McAuliffe by a 2-to-1 margin in a close Virginian gubernatorial race.

Video Source – YouTube via Rome Reports

Online Sources- The Huffington Post; Reuters; Al Jazeera English

Daily Headlines: October 16, 2013

* Ecuador: Proceedings began yesterday in a trial where Chevron is attempting to prevent having to pay an $18 billion restitution to Ecuadorian villagers in an environmental damages case.

* Chile: Three years after the rescue of 33 miners trapped hundreds of feet below the surface, most of the men reportedly continue to suffer from “psychological trauma.”

* Brazil: A Brazilian Senate investigative panel and the country’s the federal police's intelligence chief expressed their willingness to interview Edward Snowden.

* Central America: Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla claimed that her country enjoyed a “moral victory” at an International Court of Justice hearing regarding the construction of two interoceanic canals through Nicaragua.

Video Source – YouTube via Pulitzer Center (Video uploaded in 2008).
 
Online Sources- Tico Times; IOL; CSMonitor.com; The Latin Americanist; Businessweek

Daily Headlines: October 1, 2013 (Updated)

* Brazil: A Brazilian court dismissed a lawsuit against Chevron and Transocean seeking about $18 billion in damages for a November 2011 offshore oil spill.

* Latin America: According to the International Monetary Fund, Latin America is the region that would be the most hurt if U.S. interest rates rise faster than that country’s economic recovery.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro expelled three senior U.S. Embassy officials from Venezuela and accused them of plotting to sabotage the economy.

Update: The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela claimed today that the expelled officials "were in Bolivar state conducting normal diplomatic engagement" and "completely rejected the Venezuelan government's allegations of U.S. government involvement in any type of conspiracy to destabilize the Venezuelan government."  

* Argentina: Representatives of Argentina and Iran will meet in Geneva next month in order to continue discussions related to the deadly 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires cultural center.

Video Source – YouTube via user WSJDigitalNetwork

Online Sources including Update- NBC News; Mercopress; BBC News; Reuters

Ecuadorian President Calls for Boycott Against Chevron

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, called for an international boycott against U.S. oil giant Chevron.

“We will not allow to an abusive, corrupt and polluting company to fool the world,” declared Correa regarding the company that has been accused of polluting Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest region.

“Thirty years later, Chevron said it cleaned up the contamination, but what it did was to damage the jungle even more by using the worst methods. That was not a solution, but a cover-up of the contamination with layers of earth,” said Correa on Tuesday during a visit to an oil well in the province of Sucumbios.

It was in Sucumbios where a court ruled last year that Chevron was liable for environmental damage caused by Texaco when it operated from 1964 to 1990 and prior to its purchase by Chevron. 
The court fined Chevron $18 billion, which the company has yet to pay for despite losing judicial appeals in the U.S.

The plaintiffs accused Texaco of causing higher rates of illnesses like cancer among locals by dumping drilling waste in unlined pits. Chevron rejected the accusations and blamed state-run Petroecuador for causing pollution at sites after Texaco left the country.

Daily Headlines: June 5, 2013

* El Salvador: A Salvadoran woman barred from obtaining a legal abortion survived a Caesarean section though her anencephalic baby died five hours after birth.

* Argentina: An Argentine court sided with Chevron and freed up to $19 billion in assets that were frozen as part of an environmental damages lawsuit in Ecuador.

* Mexico: An Aldo de Negris goal was enough for Mexico to earn their first victory in the CONCACAF final group for World Cup qualifying and virtually eliminate Jamaica.

* Honduras: Arrest warrant were issued against five Honduran policemen accused of killing seven gang members in a 2011 incident.

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- Huffington Post; ABC News; The Latin Americanist; Fox Sports; Washington Post

Daily Headlines: April 4, 2013

* Colombia: Senior Colombian defense officials denied claims made by U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. John Kelly alleging that the FARC guerillas have obtained surface-to-air missiles.

* Cuba: Seven members of the National Ballet of Cuba reportedly defected in March while they took part in a tour of Mexico.

* Ecuador: A U.S. judge rejected Chevron’s subpoena request for a deposition from Amazon Watch regarding an environmental pollution case in Ecuador.

* Venezuela: Opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles accused interim leader Nicolás Maduro of acting like a “skin-deep socialist” while Maduro claimed that Capriles “has his bags packed” and is ready to quit.

Video Source – YouTube via user noticiascaracol

Online Sources- Edmonton Journal, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Reuters

Daily Headlines: February 25, 2013

* Cuba: President Raul Castro announced that he would step down in 2018 and declared several political reforms allegedly aimed at attracting younger leaders to the Cuban Communist Party.

* Venezuela: The supposed return of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to his homeland one week ago has apparently done little to calm Venezuelans who are worried over the future of their country.
    
* Argentina: More than fifty African countries pledged their support of Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the disputed Falklands.

* Brazil: A Brazilian court last week dropped all the charges filed last year against Chevron and Transocean regarding a 2011 offshore oil spill.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources- Bloomberg, NBC News, NPR, The Latin Americanist, Mercopress

Daily Headlines: January 31, 2013

* Cuba: Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez claimed that she would soon travel abroad after receiving her passport under Cuba’s recently implemented migration reforms.

* U.S.: In an interview with Telemundo, U.S. President Barack Obama expressed his hope that major immigration reform can become a reality before the end of this year.
 
* Colombia: Peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC are renewed today amid growing tensions over the rebels’ latest military offensive.

* Ecuador: An Argentine appeals court opened the doors for Ecuadorian plaintiffs to collect billions of dollars in an environmental damages case against Chevron.

Video Source – YouTube via AFP
 
Online Sources- Reuters, Huffington Post, The Latin Americanist, IOL, Businessweek

Daily Headlines: December 5, 2012

* Brazil: At least sixty-one police officers were arrested in Rio de Janeiro state and accused of taking bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for turning a blind eye to illicit activity.

* Latin America: Venezuela and Haiti are tied as the most corrupt countries in Latin America and the Caribbean according to an analysis by Transparency International.

* Argentina: Attorneys for Spanish oil firm Repsol filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court against Chevron regarding that company’s dealings with Argentina's YPF.

* Guatemala: A lawyer for software company founder John McAfee said that his client will seek political asylum in Guatemala despite being wanted on murder charges in the U.S.

Video Source – YouTube via user tvbrasil

Online Sources- CNN, Reuters, Transparency International, Sydney Morning Herald

Daily Headlines: November 8, 2012

* Guatemala: At least 52 people are dead and 22 are missing after a massive 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Guatemala yesterday.

* Argentina: A judge ordered the freezing of Chevron’s $19 billion in assets held in Argentina while courts decide on whether those funds should be paid to plaintiffs in Ecuador.

* Peru: Bolivian officials returned to Peru a 700-year-old mummy that was stolen by traffickers in 2010.

* Brazil: FIFA approved six cities to host the Confederations Cup next year despite the slow construction progress of new soccer stadiums.

Video Source – YouTube via Associated Press

Online Sources- New York Times, IOL, The Guardian, BBC News