Daily Headlines: November 4, 2015

* Mexico: According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, about 150 journalists were murdered in Latin America since 2010 while roughly one in three cases occurring in Mexico.

* Brazil: Brent crude futures jumped by 3.6% to $50.70 on Tuesday partly due to worries over decreased oil production from Brazilian state-run film Petrobras.

* Argentina: Credit agency Moody’s improved Argentina’s credit rating in an apparent sign that the national economy will improve regardless of who wins the presidential runoff later this month.

* Ecuador: Ecuador’s government received another legal victory over the oil industry after arbitrators reduced from $1.77 billion to $1 billion a compensation owed to Occidental Petroleum.

YouTube Source – AJ+ (“Mexican photojournalist Rubén Espinosa was found dead in his Mexico City apartment (last July), along with 4 women”).

Online Sources – Benzinga, Reuters, teleSUR English, NBC News

Daily Headlines: September 7, 2015 (Updated)

* Mexico: Families of 43 Ayotzinapa college students missing for nearly a year have called on meeting with Mexico’s president after an independent probe contradicted the official investigation.

Update: President Enrique Peña Nieto said on Monday that he would be willing to meet again with families of the missing students and claimed that the government's investigation into the disappearances remains open.

* U.S.: While some politicians on the campaign trail deride immigrants, a recent study found that “immigrant adolescents are actually less likely than native-born peers in the United States to commit crimes, use drugs or behave violently.”

* Latin America: Representatives from seventeen nations celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Petrocaribe oil alliance that has been shaken by the low price of crude and Venezuela’s economic problems.

* Colombia: FBI agents reportedly placed the late Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez under surveillance including monitoring his ties to then-Cuban president Fidel Castro.

YouTube Source – euronews
 
Online Sources including Update – El Universal, The Latin Americanist, Latina, The Washington Post, Xinhua, Excelsiór (in Spanish)

Daily Headlines: August 18, 2015

* Peru: Peru may have registered a 30% drop in coca cultivation over the past two years yet hundreds of coca growers accuse authorities of providing them insufficient compensation to grow other crops.

* Caribbean: Cuba’s civil defense system was placed on alert due to the effects of a year-long drought, while Puerto Rico sought U.S. Defense Department aid to combat one of the worst droughts in the island’s history.

* Ecuador: Senior disaster official Maria del Pilar Cornejo claimed that about 325,000 people living near the active Cotopaxi volcano are at risk of being hit by possible mudslides and rock flows.

* Mexico: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accused the Mexican government of preventing them from fully investigating the disappearances of 43 missing (and possibly murdered) students from Ayotzinapa.

YouTube Source – VICE News (“Despite the United Nations confirming in 2013 that Peru has overtaken Colombia as the world's top coca and cocaine producer, the country’s place atop the drug supply chain has — at least so far — not included the levels of violence seen in Colombia, Mexico, and other international narcotics hubs.”)
 
Online Sources – Reuters, ABC News, Business Insider, Fox News Latino, BBC News

Daily Headlines: June 11, 2015

* Brazil: Family of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian national shot and killed in 2005 by London police officers searching for suspected suicide bombers, have taken their legal challenge to the European Court of Human Rights.

* Paraguay: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended the Paraguayan government take the necessary steps to protect the life of a ten-year-old pregnant and sexually abused girl barred from undergoing an abortion.

* Nicaragua: Scientists reviewing early drafts of the environmental assessment report to Nicaragua’s planned interoceanic canal deemed the study as “insufficient given the magnitude of the proposed projects associated with...construction.”

* Latin America: The five member states of Latin America’s Mercosur alliance are divided over whether the bloc should push for a trade pact with the European Union.

YouTube Source – Andy Smart

Online Sources – The Globe and Mail, The Latin Americanist, International Business Times, MercoPress, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: December 11, 2013

* Uruguay: Legislators in Uruguay approved a landmark proposal that would grant the government authority to regulate marijuana production and distribution.

* Dominican Republic: The Dominican government strongly criticized a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights opposing a recent court decision that could remove the citizenship of thousands of people.
  
* U.S.: The Spanish-language Obamacare/Affordable Care Act enrollment website commenced running this week after a two-month delay.

* Peru: Gastón Acurio, one of Peru’s best-known celebrity chefs, rejected the possibility that he will run for his country’s presidency in 2016.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources- The Guardian; ABC News; The Latin Americanist; Fox News Latino; Peru This Week