Daily Headlines: January 11, 2016

* U.S.: Mexicans Gael Garcia Bernal and Alejandro González Iñárritu received individual Golden Globes last night while the Pablo Larraín-directed Chilean movie “The Club” lost in the top foreign film category.

* South America: The Dakar Rally reached its halfway point on a tragic note after a spectator was run over and killed during the seventh stage between Bolivia and Argentina.

* Cuba: White House chief-of-staff Denis McDonough confirmed the Obama administration’s plans to close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba.

* El Salvador: Gen. José Guillermo Garcia-Merino, El Salvador’s former defense minister, was deported back to his homeland over his likely role in human rights violations during the civil war era.

YouTube Source – TIFF Trailers

Online Sources – Reuters Africa, Business Standard, NBC News, Latin America Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor

Daily Headlines: January 17, 2014

Note: The following video contains some graphic images and is Not Safe for Work.

* Latin America: A new study from Mexican think-tank Seguridad, Justicia y Paz concluded that forty of the world’s top fifty most murderous cities are located in Latin America and that “homicides in (the region) are well above the world average.”

* Colombia: Colombian authorities blamed the FARC for a bombing yesterday that left at least one person dead though a spokesman for the rebels denied that the guerillas were behind the attack.

* Chile: Chilean government officials denied accusations of environmental and archeological damage caused by the Dakar Rally that has been held in South America since 2009.

* U.S.: The American Civil Liberties Union has called for a federal investigation into allegedly abusive practices by the U.S. Border Patrol at checkpoints in Arizona near the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Video Source – Channel 4 via YouTube (For the third straight year Mexican think-tank Seguridad, Justicia y Paz found that the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula is the murder capital of the world.)
 
Online Sources- Fox News Latino; The Guardian; NBC News; Miami Herald

Daily Headlines: March 21, 2013

* Venezuela: The odds of a possible improvement in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Venezuela have apparently gone from slim to practically none.

* Argentina: Pope Francis was publicly opposed to same-sex marriage while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires but was he privately in favor of gay civil unions?

* South America: Bolivia will replace Peru as one of the three South American host countries of the next edition of the Dakar Rally.

* Haiti: The U.N. Security Council called on Haiti’s political leaders to break as soon as possible a sixteen-month impasse and organize local elections.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources- UN News Centre, euronews, New York Times, MercoPress

Daily Headlines: January 10, 2013

* Argentina: An Argentine naval ship detained for two and half months in Ghana because of a financial dispute returned to a “triumphant homecoming” on Wednesday.

* Mexico: U.S. legislators Elijah Cummings and Henry Waxman released documents alleging that Wal-Mart’s chief executive was aware of widespread bribery taking place in Mexico.

* Peru: At least two people are dead and three are injured after a Dakar Rally convoy was involved in a multiple vehicle accident.

* Cuba: Dissident and former political prisoner Oscar Elias Biscet announced a new campaign aimed at collecting thousands of signatures for a pro-democracy manifesto.

Video Source – YouTube via user TVPublicaArgentina

Online Sources- LAHT, The Guardian, The Independent, Reuters

Daily Headlines: January 17, 2012

* South America: Frenchmen Stephane Peterhansel and Cyril Depres won in the car and motorcycle categories, respectively, of the Dakar Rally that wound through Argentina, Chile and Peru.

* Argentina: A federal judge opened an investigation into possible human rights abuses committed in Spain during the 20th-century dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

* Cuba: The family of imprisoned Cuban dissident Wilman Villar reportedly said that he “is in a coma and dying with pneumonia, and breathing only with a machine.”

* Venezuela: Oil minister Rafael Ramirez said that Venezuela will opt out of settling disputes with the World Bank’s international arbitration body days after the panel ordered Venezuela to pay $255 million to Exxon Mobil.

Image Source – Flickr via edowoo (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources – Motorsport.com, GlobalPost, Miami Herald, New York Times

Weekend Headlines: December 31, 2011 – January 1, 2012

* Chile: Officials announced the arrest of a tourist suspected of starting a wildfire that has consumed at least 27,000 acres of forest land in the Torres del Paine National Park.

* Latin America: The Venezuelan and Bolivian governments offered to remove for free defective breast implants made by a now-defunct French firm.

* Peru: President Ollanta Humala told a local radio station that he “can't help but show my annoyance” at a judge who allowed paroled activist Lori Berenson to return to the U.S. during the holidays.

* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa pledged to extend the deadline for protecting the Yasuni rainforest reserve from oil companies.

* Brazil: Brazilian firm Embraer won a U.S. defense contract that would allow it to sell twenty fighter jets for use by the Air Force in Afghanistan.

* South America: The 2012 Dakar Rally will begin on Sunday in Mar de Plata, Argentina and will be held during fifteen days in that country along with Chile and Peru.

Video Source – YouTube via cnnchile

Online Sources- CNN, ABC News, Expatica France, NPR, Reuters, TSN

Daily Headlines: March 23, 2011

* Mexico: Mexican foreign minister Patricia Espinosa claimed that ties between Mexico and the U.S. have not been hurt by the resignation last week of U.S. ambassador Carlos Pascual.

* Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega registered to run for another term despite accusations that his bid for reelection is unconstitutional.

* Puerto Rico: Pedro Pierluisi, the commonwealth’s non-voting Congressional representative, was found to be the top-spending legislator acceding to the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation.

* South America: Organizers of the 2012 Dakar Rally confirmed that the event will take place again in Argentina and Chile, and will be expanded for the first time to Peru.

Image – Reuters/Daniel Aguilar via Reuters (U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual resigned last Saturday after documents uncovered by WikiLeaks showed that he was highly critical of Mexican antidrug efforts).
Online Sources- El Nuevo Herald, CBS News, Sify, USA TODAY, France24

Daily Headlines: March 8, 2011

* U.S.: Military trials at the Guantanamo prison will resume after a two-year hiatus according to a decision made by the White House yesterday.

* Ecuador: A U.S. federal judge extended his temporary order preventing Chevron from paying a multibillion-dollar verdict in an Ecuadorian environmental damages case.

* Latin America: A study conducted in seven countries including Mexico and Colombia found that diabetes cases often go undiagnosed or are poorly treated.

* Peru: The prestigious Dakar Rally, which for its past three editions has been held in Argentina and Chile, could be expanded to Peru for 2012.

Image – Mark Wilson/Getty Images via The Guardian (“Barack Obama had promised to close Guantánamo within a year of taking office in January 2009.”)
Online Sources- Living in Peru, BusinessWeek, The Telegraph, MSNBC, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: January 17, 2011

* Brazil: As seen in the above video from Al Jazeera English, hundreds of people in southeastern Brazil who survived massive flooding and mudslides face an uncertain future.

* Honduras: The wild weather has also affected Honduras where authorities evacuated approximately 2000 people from coastal areas.

* Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez claimed that he would cut the period of Congressionally approved decree powers from eighteen months to possibly four.

* South America: Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar and Spain's Marc Coma won in the car and motorcycle categories, respectively, of the Dakar Rally that was held in Argentina and Chile.

* Peru: Ex-President Alejandro Toledo leads a crowded field of presidential hopefuls according to one recent poll.

Video Source – Al Jazeera English via YouTube
Online Sources- CNN, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: March 25, 2010

* Cuba: Singer Gloria Estefan will help organize a march tonight in solidarity with Cuban dissident group the Ladies in White.

* U.S.: An immigration board decided not to deport to Mexico a former federal drug informant who argued that he would be “tortured” if he were to return to his native country.

* Latin America: Chile and Argentina received permission to run the prestigious Dakar Rally for the third straight year in 2011.

* Brazil: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to “maintain” economic stability ahead of October’s national elections.

Image – CNN
Online Sources- Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, AFP, Reuters

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: June 5, 2009

* Guatemala: Authorities in Guatemala are desperately trying to contain the spillover effect of violence related to drug gangs in neighboring Mexico.

* Colombia: The New York Times takes a look at Colombian singer Shakira and the work she does for the ALAS charity.

* Latin America: Chile and Argentina were confirmed as co-hosts of the famed Dakar Rally in 2010 for the second straight year.

* Venezuela: Plans are under way for the nationalization of petrochemical projects by the Chavez administration.

Image- Los Angeles Times (“Miriam Ramirez Amador, center, mourns her brother Roberto Amador, an anti-drug agent, during his funeral in Guatemala City on April 25. Roberto Amador was killed along with four other agents in a shootout with alleged drug traffickers.”)
Online Sources- RTE, UPI, New York Times, Bloomberg

2010 Dakar Rally to be held again in Chile, Argentina

Organizers of the famed Dakar Rally will again hold the race in Chile and Argentina next January:

"Based on the success and popularity of the 2009 Dakar held for the first time in Argentina and Chile, A.S.O. (Amaury Sports Organization) and the two countries have decided together to renew the organization of the rally in 2010 in South America," they said in a statement on www.dakar.com.

The decision was met with approval from government officials in both Southern Cone countries. Chilean Minster Francisco Vidal praised the rally for promoting his country “to hundreds of millions of people in the world.” "Argentina welcomes again the Dakar Rally," Sports Minister Claudio Morresi said hours after ASO made their decision.

After a year off, this year’s race was held away from Africa for the first time due to the increasingly dangerous West African region.

Last month’s race crossed through diverse areas like the Argentine pampas and the Chilean desert and was considered one of the most difficult ever. South African driver Giniel de Villiers won the competition which was marred by the death of French motorcyclist Pascal Terry.

Image- AP
Online Sources- IHT, Wikipedia, AP, Canadian Press, Xinhua, El Mercurio

’09 Dakar Rally shifts to Southern Cone

The 2009 edition of the prestigious Dakar motor racing rally will be hosted by Chile and Argentina according to the event's organizers. The move came nearly a month after this year’s rally was cancelled due to a “terrorist risk" in Mauritania. Details of the course will be revealed Tuesday though AFP mentioned that the rally will cover over 5000 miles and start and finish in Buenos Aires.

Though the competition is expected to cross areas like the Atacama Desert, the Andes, and the Patagonia, the race's organizer said that the rally will return to the African continent:

Rally director Etienne Lavigne said that the Dakar was not leaving Africa for good.

"The Dakar is visiting South America, it's not quitting Africa. [The cancellation of Dakar 2008] cost us tens of millions of Euros but we did well to err on the side of caution because three weeks later there was another attack in the centre of Nouakchott," said Lavigne.

"In Argentina and Chile, we are guaranteed to find the ingredients that make up the spirit of the Dakar.

Image- The Telegraph

Sources- Reuters UK, AFP, The Telegraph, BBC Sport