Daily Headlines: March 30, 2015

* Chile: At least twenty people are dead as a result of heavy rains, flooding and landslides affecting usual arid regions in northern Chile and portions of eastern Peru.

Update: The death toll has risen to at least twenty-five while some twenty people are still missing in Chile.

* Latin America: Jose Juan Ruiz, the chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, warned that Latin America’s economic growth could slow down in 2015 and for the fourth consecutive year.

* Colombia: U.S. counternarcotics officers in Colombia participated in “sex parties” with prostitutes that were organized by drug dealers according to a recent Justice Department report.

* U.S.: The organizers of Saturday’s El Salvador vs. Argentina soccer friendly apologized for playing the anthem of Kazakhstan instead of the one for the Central American country.

YouTube Source – BBC News (“Heavy rains have brought torrential floods and mudslides to parts of Peru and Chile - including the Atacama desert, one of the driest regions of the world.”) 

Online Sources including Update– Bloomberg, Latin American Herald Tribune, SI.com, Yahoo News UK, BBC News

Daily Headlines: March 22, 2010

* Argentina: Lionel Messi’s extraordinary playing continued on Sunday with a hat trick in Barcelona’s 4-2 win over Zaragoza.

* Brazil: Higher oil prices helped fuel a 31% rise in fourth quarter profits for state-run firm Petrobras.

* Latin America: According to the Inter-American Development Bank economic growth in Latin America has been hampered by sluggish productivity.

* Cuba: No fatalities have been reported after a magnitude 4.8 earthquake hit Cuba on Saturday.

Image – Guardian UK
Online Sources- Xinhua, Reuters, BusinessWeek, AHN

Daily Headlines: March 9, 2010

* U.S.: Jury selection in the hate crime murder of Marcelo Lucero has been anything but easy based on this New York Times piece.

* Mexico: Why was the late Ricardo Montalban left out of the "In Memoriam" tribute at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony?

* Latin America: According to a recent Inter-American Development Bank Latin America’s economy is expected to grow at least by three percent this year.

* Colombia: The political tug-of-war between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the FARC guerillas has delayed the release of pair of soldiers kidnapped in 1998.

Image- New York Daily News (“Toddler contributes to makeshift memorial at scene of brutal murder of Marcello Lucero.”)

Online Sources- Mercopress, MTV News, Reuters, The Latin Americanist, New York Times

Daily Headlines: March 8, 2010

* Colombia: Days after Colombia’s Constitutional Court rejected holding a presidential referendum the tribunal will examine the validity of a controversial military pact with the U.S.

* Latin America: According to a recent Inter-American Development Bank report remittances to Latin America may be “stabilizing” after plummeting by 15% last year.

* Mexico: Seven out of every ten Mexican women above the age of fifteen have been abused and roughly one in eight has been the victim of sexual harassment according to the country’s main human rights commission.

* Bolivia: President Evo Morales blasted U.S. counternarcotics efforts and called them a “tool for realizing its hegemonic goals or expressing the discredit of the governments, including Bolivia.”

Image – Javno
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, AFP, LAHT, Reuters, People’s Daily Online

Daily Headlines: October 16, 2009

* Chile: Tensions between Chile’s government and the indigenous Mapuche are near the boiling point after the Bachelet administration controversially invoked a Dirty War-era law against violence.

* Latin America: According to an Inter-American Development Bank study Brazil has Latin America’s worst gender and racial gap while the margin in Bolivia and Guatemala is nearly zero.

* Mexico: Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested yesterday against the federal government’s closing of state-run energy firm Luz y Fuerza.

* Cuba: A U.S. federal judge reduced the sentence of one of the “Cuban Five” convicted over a decade ago of being a Cuban spy.

Image- Santiago Times ("Mapuche flag.")
Online Sources- Guardian UK, csmonitor.com, LAHT, The Latin Americanist, New York Times

Daily Headlines: August 13, 2009

* Latin America: According to a newly released report by the Inter-American Bank remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to nosedive by 10% this year.

* Peru: Prosecutors brought up homicide charges against two police generals and fifteen other officers for their supposed role in last June’s deadly clashes with protesters in the Amazon.

* Mexico: Citing “illegally obtained evidence” and other irregularities, the country’s top court overturned the convictions of twenty people accused in a 1997 massacre in Chiapas.

* Bolivia: Authorities are looking into who is behind the mailing of two explosive envelopes that have injured seven people including the wife of a pro-government union leader.

Image- La Plaza
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, AFP, MSNBC, Guardian UK, CNN

IADB: LatAm remittances to decrease in ‘09

Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean are likely to decline in 2009 after posting nearly a decade of growth according to an Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) report released Monday.

According to the study the growth in remittances during 2008 was only 1%, yet the decrease began late last year with slumps regionwide from Mexico to Ecuador. This could spell bad news across the region; remittances represent at least 12% of Gross Domestic Product in seven Latin American countries.

Why the expected slide in remittances? The weakening global economy and stricter U.S. immigration policy are two factors along with less favorable exchange rates between some currencies and the dollar. Yet IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno doesn’t predict a major change in migration trends:

“(Remittance) flows will be affected by length and severity of the crisis and the ability of migrant workers to weather this storm,” said Luis Alberto Moreno...

"Our take is that migrants are likely to exhaust all other options before considering a return to their countries of origin," he said. "Remittances reflect a strong commitment to family and community, and senders have shown in the past that they will do anything in their power to fulfill that obligation."

Image- Foreign Policy
Online Sources- IHT, Voice of America, WSJ.com, The Latin Americanist

IDB’s early holiday gift to Haiti

As we’ve noted before, Haiti’s citizens have been going through some very rough times over the past several months. (Worse than usual for the Western Hemisphere’s most impoverished country.)

Therefore, any assistance for the Caribbean country is more than welcome:

The Inter-American Development Bank will double its aid to Haiti next year to help the impoverished nation upgrade its crumbling infrastructure and broaden social programs, the bank's chief announced Sunday.

IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno, in comments at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, said the bank will double its grants to Haiti to US$100 million for 2009 to help the country's government with a raft of vital investments.

"Haiti is the most fragile of our member countries. No other nation in Latin America and the Caribbean is as vulnerable to economic shocks and natural disasters," Moreno said. "It requires extraordinary assistance from the international community."

The additional $50 million from the IDB will help fund several projects including the establishing of a social development fund and a potable water project for several cities.

Image- Al Jazeera English (Tropical storms swept through Hispaniola during the summer).
Sources- The Latin Americanist, miamiherald.com, AP

Costa Ricans are the happiest, says IDB

An interesting new survey titled Beyond Facts: Understanding Quality of Life, was released this week by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) . Designed and collected in conjunction with Gallup, the survey spans 24 countries in the region and over 40,000 respondents from 2005 to 2007. Among other indicators of relative satisfaction, it measures a composite indicator called "life satisfaction," on a scale from 1 - 10 (10 being the most satisfied).

On this indicator, Costa Rica topped the chart with a score of 7.4, followed by Panama and Mexico, with 6.8 and 6.6, respectively. Not surprisingly, Haiti is at the bottom of the list, with a score of 3.8, and the neighboring Dominican Republic is not far behind with a score of 4.9 (tied with Ecuador and Nicaragua).

Nonetheless, the survey data suggest that satisfaction and income are not necessarily tied. Guatemala scored above both Chile and Uruguay, and Belize was just barely a notch above Jamaica. Using comparable data from world surveys, the study explains, on average, Latin America displays higher levels of satisfaction than most other regions of the world, including for satisfaction of jobs, housing, and health.

IDB president, Luis Alberto Moreno, summarized these results as follows:

“Overall, Latin Americans are satisfied with their lives, but interestingly, people in some of the poorest countries are the most optimistic while citizens of some of the most-developed countries are the most pessimistic... Not surprisingly, people with higher incomes are more satisfied with their lives than those with lower incomes, but economic growth actually breeds discontent rather than greater happiness, at least in the short run.”

Click here to download the full report (PDF).

Daily Headlines: October 12, 2008

* Argentina: Election Day may be approximately one month away yet U.S. expats in countries like Argentina have already cast their ballots for president.

* Mexico: The country’s crime wave continued with the killing of over two dozen people in a matter of hours last week including eleven gunned down in a bar.

* Ecuador: Oil and mining minister Galo Chiriboga quit from his post as the government renegotiate contracts with foreign oil firms.

* Panama: The Inter-American Development Bank approved a $400 million loan to fund the Panama Canal expansion project.

Image- MSNBC (“Alan Bonder of the U.S. signs his envelope after filling out his absentee ballot for the U.S. presidential election at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City” in 2004.)
Sources- Buenos Aires Herald, Guardian UK, IHT, Los Angeles Times, Monsters & Critics

Daily Headlines: October 1, 2008

* Latin America: In a worrying trend, the growth in money transfers to Latin America continues to decrease according to an Inter-American Development Bank report.

* Bolivia: The Russian ambassador to Bolivia claimed that both countries will strengthen ties and possibly "approach the level" of its partnership with Venezuela.

* Chile: The Chilean government will supposedly seek compensation from foreign banks that held of accounts of late ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet.

* Colombia: A Bogota-based human rights group claims that at least 270,000 Colombians were displaced due to armed conflict between January and June.

Image- SignOnSanDiego.com (“Jaouad Khadim, manager of Murphy's Market in City Heights, helped Carmen Pavon send money…to family in Veracruz state.”)

Sources- MSNBC, The Latin Americanist, USA TODAY, miamiherald.com, washingtonpost.com

Report: Lower growth rate of remittances to L. America

An Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) report released on Tuesday showed that the rate of remittances sent to Latin America has grown at a slower pace than in previous years. Though previous IADB reports have shown double-digit increases, the latest study showed that money transfers only grew by 7%. The amount of remittances hit a record $66.5 billion in 2007, yet there are several factors which explain the slower rate:

The decline in Brazil reflected the strength of the Real against the dollar, which made it less attractive for the estimated 350,000 US-based Brazilians to send money home.

The attractions of the thriving Brazilian economy are also leading many migrants to return home from the US. Anecdotal evidence shows that many Brazilians in the area around Boston - a traditional centre of Brazilian emigration - are doing just that…

The US housing crisis and decline in the construction sector, where many Latin American migrants have jobs, was partly to blame…

All this suggested that tighter law enforcement against illegal migrants, especially at a state and municipal level in areas where Mexicans tend to be the dominant immigrant group, was playing a role. "The slowdown clearly has something to with it but the general atmosphere is more to do with it," said [Donald Terry, manager of the IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund].

Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia are the top 3 countries receiving remittances according to the IADB, while 7 countries in Latin America get more than 12% of their gross domestic product from money transfers.

Sources- UPI, azcentral.com, ft.com, earthtimes.org

Image- La Voz

IADB: Remittances to L. America have slowed down

According to figures from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the amount of money sent from immigrants in the U.S. to Latin America has been at a slower rate in January and February than during the same period last year. This could spell trouble for countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Jamaica whose economies rely on funds received from abroad:

“We don't know if it's a trend or a minor correction," (IADB official Donald) Terry said. "If it becomes a trend as opposed to a moment in time, this would not be good in terms of U.S. interests in Central America.”

Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia received the most money in remittances in 2006; however, remittances to Central America countries totaled almost 65% of all remittances to Latin America in 2004.

An interesting addendum to the story- a global economics blog linked to a recent Wall Street Journal article connecting the U.S. housing slump to the slowdown in remittances.

Links- The Indianapolis Star, Inter-American Development Bank, Migration Policy Institute, RGE Monitor

Image- The Earth Institute at Columbia University

Multi-billion dollar debt forgiveness from IADB to L. America

The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) forgave almost $4.5 billion in debt to five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean: Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and Guyana. The IADB canceled the entire debts of all the aforementioned countries except Haiti, much to the disappointment of several non-government organizations. In other notable financial news:

• IADB figures revealed that the amount of remittances sent to Latin America outnumber all foreign aid and direct investment to the region.
• International Monetary Fund deputy managing director Murilo Portugal said that government policies throughout Latin America have reduced the risk of a regionwide economic slowdown.
• China’s economic expansion into the Americas continues with the Chinese government wanting to become a member of the IADB.

Links- The Latin Americanist, Guardian UK, Xinhua, BBC News, Reuters, BusinessWeek