Daily Headlines: September 13, 2016

* Nicaragua: A new poll published weeks before the November 6th presidential election showed that incumbent Daniel Ortega continues with a massive lead ahead of his rivals.

* Venezuela: Human rights activists claimed extrajudicial killings in Venezuela have been on the rise since a government-backed crackdown on crime began fourteen months ago.

* Brazil: A spokesman for the International Paralympic Committee claimed that more than 1.9 million tickets have been sold for the Rio Paralympics, and the 170,000 plus attendees last Sunday surpassed any single day of the recently held Olympics.

* Argentina: Former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner received a subpoena to testify as part of a corruption probe focused on her time in office.

YouTube Source – CCTV News (From August 3, 2016: “Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega has picked his wife, Rosario Murillo, as his running mate for November's election.”)
 
Online Sources – teleSUR English, Voice of America, CBC News, InSight Crime

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 7, 2016

* Brazil: A new study concluded that the Rio Olympics starting in less than a month have gone a whopping 51% over budget with a price tag of some $1.6 billion.

* South America: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he will push for the reopening of the border with Venezuela after several hundred women from the neighboring country surged into Cucuta to obtain basic goods and medicine.

* Cuba: The Cuban government will reportedly enact additional energy rationing on top of other austerity measures including cutting work hours and limiting the use of automobiles.

* Argentina: Former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner filed a legal complaint a Buenos Aires judge who froze her assets over alleged financial irregularities.

YouTube Source – Get to Know (Uploaded on February 14, 2016).

Online Sources – Colombia Reports, UPI, BBC News, Financial Times, The Globe and Mail

Daily Headlines: June 21, 2016

* Venezuela: Moody’s credit agency warned that Venezuela could fall into a debt default this year starting with state-owned oil giant PDVSA.

* Brazil: More concerns over the upcoming Rio Olympics center on security following the muggings of two Paralympics hopefuls from Australia and an attack on Rio’s largest public hospital.

* Cuba: Russian media reported that the government of that country plans to develop several “production faculties” in Cuba as the island could serve as a “window” for Russia to Latin America.

* Argentina: Argentina’s most wanted criminal could help reveal possible endemic corruption under the rule of ex-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

YouTube Source – CNN

Online Sources – CBC, CNN, TASS, Bloomberg, InSight Crime

Daily Headlines: April 11, 2016

* Panama: As part of Panama’s campaign to save face in light of the “Panama Papers” leak, President Juan Carlos Varela in a New York Times op/ed piece tried to shift attention towards tax evasion as a “global problem.”

* Latin America: The Inter-American Development Bank anticipates a 0.3% contraction of the Latin American regional economy in 2016 and weak growth in the next few years.

* Argentina: Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner might be charged in relation to an investigation into alleged money laundering.

* Puerto Rico: Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla ordered emergency financial measures aimed at preventing a default on a debt payment scheduled for May 1st.

YouTube Source – AFP (Over the weekend “police raided the El Salvador offices of the Panama-based law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal that has revealed how the wealthy in many countries stashed their riches offshore”.)
 
Online Sources – Reuters, MercoPress, The Economic Times, Bloomberg, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: June 22, 2015

* Venezuela: Approximately 400 people protested in Caracas on Saturday and called for the liberation of imprisoned Venezuelan opposition activists such as Leopoldo Lopez.

* Argentina: Outgoing president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner ruled out running for a seat in the Argentine legislature but “she has set up supporters in key candidacies for the primaries in which 13 presidential hopefuls are participating.”

* Brazil: Corruption scandals and a floundering economy could explain why poll results published on Sunday showed Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s approval rating has reached a record low of 10%.

* Cuba: Venezuelan National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello revealed photos purportedly of him and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro at a meeting in Havana over the weekend.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Yahoo News, Fox News Latino, NASDAQ, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: May 26, 2015

* Cuba: Tourism in Cuba grew by 14% between January and May including a 36% boost from U.S. visitors traveling to the island despite restrictions.

* South America: Police are looking into alleged e-mail threat made last month by the Islamic State against the presidents of Argentina and Chile.

* Puerto Rico: Legislators in Puerto Rico continue to hammer out the final details of a $1.2 billon tax proposal that could be signed into law as early as next week.

* Brazil: At least eight people died following a riot at a Brazilian prison built for 644 inmates but housing over 1400 prisoners.

YouTube Source – Bloomberg Business (Video uploaded in March 2015).
 
Online Sources – International Business Times, Reuters, ABC News, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: April 27, 2015

* Brazil: Petrobras reported a $16.8 billion write-down and an approximately $8 billion loss in 2014 that wiped out profit made by the state-run oil company in its previous four years.

* Argentina: Visiting Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed numerous agreements with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as part of an “all encompassing strategic partnership” between both countries.

* Bolivia: Bolivia has reportedly become the country with the greatest number of dinosaur footprints with more than 10,000 of them found in the landlocked nation.

* Venezuela: Antonio Ledezma, the former Caracas mayor detained on charges of allegedly plotting a coup against President Nicolás Maduro, successfully underwent a hernia surgery yesterday.

YouTube Source – France 24 English

Online Sources – Fortune, Fox News Latino, MercoPress, Rappler

Daily Headlines: March 27, 2015 (Updated)

* Cuba: Cuban foreign ministry official Pedro Luis Pedroso claimed that his country will discuss human rights on March 31st as part of the next stage in bilateral diplomatic talks with the U.S.

* Argentina: An Argentine judge upheld a prior ruling to dismiss charges of a cover-up by President Cristina Fernandez in the investigation of the 1994 AMIA bombing.

* Brazil: In another sign of Brazil’s economic troubles, the central bank admitted that it would miss its inflation target for the first time since 2003.

Update: The Brazilian government on Friday reported that the national economy surprisingly grew by 0.1% in 2014.  But financial experts predict that the economy could soon slide into a recession later this year.  

* Mexico: A mayor in Mexico has come under fire for advising female workers to avoid watching the news on TV and instead focus on telenovelas.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources including Update – The Huffington Post, Reuters, euronews, Bloomberg

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

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.

Daily Headlines: December 30, 2014

* Brazil: The Aurelius Capital hedge fund that was reportedly ‘a leading member of a group of investors that refused to accept a debt restructuring with Argentina” is now campaigning for Petrobras to fall under default.

* Argentina: If you believe that Argentina’s president became the godmother of a Jewish baby to stop him from becoming a werewolf then there’s a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying.

* Venezuela: According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, the South American country ranks only behind Honduras for the highest number of homicides in 2014.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet submitted to Congress a labor reform package aimed at promoting unionization and expanding the use of collective bargaining in contract negotiations.

Video Source – YouTube user FRANCE 24 English

Online Sources – New York Daily News; The Guardian; NBC News; Zee News; Reuters

Daily Headlines: July 1, 2014

* Argentina: President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is trying to survive being rocked by two major scandals involving an indictment against Vice President Amado Boudou and Argentina potentially falling into debt default.

* U.S.: Can President Barack Obama use executive orders to make more progress on major immigration reform than a deadlocked and divided Congress? 

* Mexico: Mexico’s painful elimination from the World Cup proved to be a big ratings gain for Univision and ESPN as 17 million people watched the match on Sunday between El Tri and the Netherlands.

* Guatemala: Authorities in Texas believe that a dead eleven-year-old boy recently found near the U.S.-Mexico border was an undocumented Guatemalan migrant who got lost during his trip.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube

Online Sources – CNN; ABC News; MSNBC; USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: November 12, 2013

* Latin America: Mexico and Uruguay are each hoping to avoid shock defeats tomorrow in the first match of a two-leg World Cup playoff series against New Zealand and Jordan, respectively

* Argentina: A spokesman for Argentine president President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who underwent surgery last month, said that she will return to her duties next week.

* Puerto Rico: Could Puerto Rico's financial woes provide a golden opportunity for Wall Street investors?

* Brazil: According to the International Energy Agency, Brazil could become one of the world's top suppliers of oil by 2035.

Online Sources - Reuters; FIFA; Miami Herald; BusinessWeek

Video Source - YouTube via sntv

Hackers Attack Argentine President’s Twitter Page

Visitors to the Twitter page of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner where received with a surprise earlier this week after it was reportedly attacked by hackers.

The Argentine government was forced to shut down the president’s official Twitter page on Tuesday in response to the apparent infiltration. 

On Monday the background of Kirchner’s account was changed to the logo of Argentine newspaper Clarin and included a photo of Jorge Lanata, a journalist who has accused Kirchner of widespread corruption.  Several tweets were written poking fun at the government ("No me borren los tuits corruptossssssssssssss" and "ineptosssssssssssssssssssssss") as well as teasing Lanata and the TV channel that airs his weekly program (“El living de canal 13, defendiendo al gordo chanta que les vende un buzón son de terror”).  These messages were removed within minutes of their publication and the account was subsequently suspended. 

As of the time of this blog post, Kirchner’s Twitter page continues to be down and with a headline reading “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”

A statement from the Argentine government was made yesterday that denied making any alterations to the president’s Twitter page aside from suspending it.  Officials did not identify who could’ve infiltrated the account but did allege that her website was the target of at least three distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) over the weekend.  (The Telecom Argentina phone company corroborated these claims).

Kirchner hasn’t been the only Latin American leader whose Twitter account has been compromised.  Last April, Peruvian hackers purportedly infiltrated the Twitter page of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.  In February 2012, Interpol arrested twenty-six supposed members of the Anonymous collective and accused them of planning DDoS attacks against Chilean and Colombian government websites.

Daily Headlines: August 12, 2013

* Mexico: The White House is reportedly working with Mexican officials to bring new charges against Rafael Caro Quintero, a former top drug gang leader who was released from prison last Friday.
 
* Argentina: The odds of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner running for reelection became slimmer after the opposition made several key gains in Sunday’s midterm primary elections.

* Chile: Tensions between Chilean authorities and the local Mapuche community have intensified over accusations of police involvement in the recent killing of a Mapuche land rights activist.

* El Salvador: The U.S. State Department issued a new travel advisory to citizens visiting El Salvador where “crime and violence levels remain critically high”.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources- Bloomberg; CBS News; Department of State; MercoPress

Britain to Pope: Stay Out of Falklands Debate

Several British government officials urged the newly elected Argentine-born Pope Francis to refrain from making any political statements regarding the disputed Falklands Islands.

"The Holy See is clear that it considers the question of the Falkland Islands as a bilateral one between sovereign nations, and that it does not have a role to play. We do not expect that position to change," the Foreign Office said in a statement issued on Monday.

The communiqué came hours after the pontiff met and had lunch with Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on Monday. After they talked, Fernández said at a press conference that she “asked him to intercede in opening a dialogue between the U.K. and Argentina”.

Baroness Warsi, the Brtish Faith and Communities Minister, claimed that Francis will be neutral concerning the diplomatic tug-of-war between her country and Argentina over the archipelago.

“The Holy See have always taken the view that this is a bilateral matter.  I don’t anticipate that that will change, said the minister who attended this morning’s inauguration Mass.

British Prime Minister David Cameron criticized the pontiff’s remarks less than two days after Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the new Pope.

“The white smoke over the Falklands was pretty clear,” said Cameron.  He also mentioned that the results of a recent non-binding referendum held on the disputed islands “is a message to everyone in the world that the people of these islands have chosen very clearly the future they want and that choice should be respected by everyone.”

Warsi denied rumors that Cameron “snubbed” the Pope by skipping out on the inauguration Mass and noted how when “Benedict was inaugurated eight years ago, neither the prime minister or deputy prime minister attended.”  Fernández, meanwhile, attended the Mass and was among the dozens of foreign dignitaries who subsequently greeted Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Daily Headlines: March 18, 2013 (UPDATED)

* Argentina: Despite their disagreements over issues like gay marriage and birth control, newly elected Pope Francis met and had lunch with Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner today.

Update: Fernández told the press after her meeting that she urged the new Pontiff to intervene and "facilitate dialogue" between Argentina and Britain regarding their dispute over the Falkland Islands.  (This might be a topic of shared views between both figures though Pope Francis has yet to issue an official response).     

* Puerto Rico: Alex Rios’ two-run home run helped guide Puerto Rico to a 3-1 upset victory in the World Baseball Classic semifinals over two-time defending champion Japan. 

* Chile: Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet resigned from her post as the head of the U.N.’s women’s rights agency and will be named as a presidential candidate for the 2014 elections.

* Peru: Exit polls showed that Susana Villaran, the progressive mayor of the Peruvian capital city of Lima, narrowly won a recall election held on Sunday.

Video Source – YouTube via casarosada

Online Sources including Update- CNN, USA TODAY, GlobalPost, Reuters, ABC News, The Latin Americanist

British Media Focus on Bergoglio’s Falklands Remarks

During his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio did not see eye-to-eye with Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, on several issues like gay marriage and birth control.  Yet one of the topics where both Fernández and Pope Francis share the same opinion has apparently unnerved some in the British press.

Several media outlets across the Atlantic have republished remarks made by Bergoglio at a 2012 mass commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Falklands War.

"We come to pray for those who have fallen, sons of the homeland who set out to defend his mother, the homeland, to claim the country that is theirs and they were usurped," he said.

During the service, 649 red roses were placed on the altar in tribute to commemorate the hundreds of troops killed during the war that affirmed Britain’s control over the Falklands.

“The country cannot exclude from its memory any of those who were called; it has to take care of so many hearts with scars and say thank you, to those who remained on the islands or submerged in water, all of them,” Bergoglio added.

While Bergoglio’s comments may have raised some eyebrows some British analysts like Victor Bulmer-Thomas, an associate fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House, doubt that the new Pontiff will issue any strong opinions over Las Malvinas:

Daily Headlines: March 2, 2012

* Guatemala: A court ruled that former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt is not exempt from prosecution on charges of genocide related to his time in power thirty years ago.

* Haiti: Days after rallying on the anniversary of the 2004 coup against ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide, one of his key supporters said that more anti-government protests will be held next week.

* Argentina: President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner rejected calling for the nationalization of Argentina’s biggest energy firm, which is owned by Spain’s Repsol.

* Brazil: Air accidents in Brazil increased by over forty percent last year according to new figures published by the air force.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews (Video from last January showed ex-Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt in court facing genocide charges).

Online Sources- CNBC.com, Bloomberg, MSNBC, CNN, The Latin Americanist