Daily Headlines: October 26, 2015

* Latin America: Elections were held in four countries of the Americas yesterday including Guatemala where Jimmy Morales became president-elect while a runoff will be needed to see who will replace Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

* Brazil: A recent Human Rights Watch report blasted Brazilian prison authorities for allowing inmates to takeover severely overcrowded Pernambuco prisons.

* Mexico: Six people died in Mexico as a result of accidents related to Hurricane Patricia though damage was minimal and the death toll was lower than anticipated.

* Colombia: Forensics investigators last week positively identified the remains of three women who may have been tortured and killed by security forces during the 1985 Palace of Justice siege.

YouTube Source – euronews (Official results of Haiti’s presidential elections, which involved a whopping fifty-four candidates, are expected to be revealed around November 4th).

Online Sources – Human Rights Watch, Fox News Latino, Colombia Reports, Reuters, CNN

Daily Headlines: October 23, 2015 (Updated)

* Mexico: A state of emergency has been declared in three Mexican states in anticipation of the expected landfall today of the category five Hurricane Patricia.

Update (October 24th, 12:30 AM): The storm was downgraded to a category four hurricane hours after it reached Mexico's Pacific coast on Friday night. As of this update, some material damage was reported but no fatalities.  Civil defense chief Luis Felipe Puente nevertheless warned that Patricia could still cause flash floods, landslides and infrastructural damage to states like Colima and Jalisco. (Link in Spanish).


Update (October 24th, 5:15 PM): 

So far, there are no reports of major damage from #Patricia. Our gratitude to all for your thoughts, prayers and actions #PrayForMexico.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) October 24, 2015

Nevertheless, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto traveled to Colima to oversee the aftermath of Patricia, which was downgraded to a tropical storm and is now drenching the northern border state of Nuevo Leon. (Link in Spanish).

* Paraguay: Former Paraguayan President Federico Franco could become the latest Latin American leader to be investigated for alleged corruption during his rule.

* Cuba: Will the U.S. reverse its historic vote in the U.N. General Assembly next week and opt to condemn the decades-long trade embargo against Cuba?

* Ecuador: Scientists have discovered a new species of giant tortoise on the Galapagos Islands and named them after the longtime caretaker of the late emblematic tortoise George.

YouTube Source – Reuters
 
Online Sources including Updates – BBC News, Xinhua, The Guardian, InSight Crime, Milenio.com, Twitter, El Economista