Daily Headlines: January 21, 2011

* Bolivia: A report in Der Speigel claimed that the late Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie served as a West German secret agent while hiding in Bolivia after World War II.

* Latin America: According to the International Labor Organization unemployment in Latin America and the Caribbean fell last year but did very little to alleviate poverty throughout the region.

* Chile: Several large mining firms agreed to pay an increase in royalties with the aim of helping coastal areas rebuild from last year's earthquake.

* Colombia: Renown artist Fernando Botero announced that his newest work will open this November and will feature "without satire" the Stations of the Cross.

Image - European Jewish Press ("In the early 1970s French Nazi-hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld tracked Klaus Barbie down and France succeeded in extraditing him in 1983. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 and died in jail in 1991.")
Online Sources - Bloomberg, France24, UPI, Der Spiegel

Daily Headlines: May 10, 2010

* Latin America: According to the International Labor Organization one in ten minors age 5-17 in Latin America and the Caribbean are child laborers.

* Mexico: Rest in peace Joaquin Capilla; the Mexican diver who won three Olympic medals died yesterday at the age of 81.

* U.S.: A jury is expected to continue deliberations into one of the men accused of the hate crime murder of Jose Sucuzhañay in New York.

* Bolivia: Is the U.S. government complicity aiding a strike by Bolivian labor unions against the Morales regime?

Image – PRESS TV
Online Sources- NY1, AFP, NBC Sports, Reuters

Daily Headlines: March 5, 2010

* Mexico: Hundreds of gay couples lined up in Mexico City’s registry yesterday after a groundbreaking gay marriage law went into effect.

* Latin America: First it was Colombia. Now Coca-Cola may be sued for “negligence and complicity in violence aimed at union activists” in Guatemala.

* Brazil: In a bad sign for the Brazilian economy the country’s inflation rate rose to its highest point in nearly two years.

* Colombia: Shakira’s charitable efforts had recently caught the attention of the White House and now the International Labor Organization who honored her this week.

Image – CBC (“A lesbian couple kiss after beginning the legal process towards marriage in front of a city government building in Mexico City, Thursday.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Vancouver Sun, Guardian UK, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, LAHT, Bloomberg

ILO: LatAm youth "hit hardest" by bad economy

The global economic slowdown has had a particularly negative effect on young people in the Americas. While the U.S. unemployment rate is near 10%, the unemployment rate for young Latinos is a staggering 37%. For Latin American youth already struggling to find work before the economic crisis, a recent International Labor Organization (ILO) report presented a darker picture.

According to the ILO study released last week at least 600,000 young people in Latin America were unemployed in 2009. “All indications are that youth were hit hardest by the crisis,” said ILO Latin American chief Jean Maninat as part of the agency’s report on unemployment in the region. Maninat urged countries to “invest in the creation of jobs” much like the emphasis placed on “salvaging the financial system.”

Aside from jobs, the ILO report also gave alarming data on education:

Of the 104 million young people in the region 34% only go to school, 33% only work, and 13% do both.

The body’s study also noted that 20% of Latin American youth neither attend school or work. – [Ed. Translated text]

Unless serious social, economic, and political steps are taken Latin America risks having a “lost generation” on its hands. Needless to say this would be an unfortunate and preventable waste.

Image- azcentral.com (“Ivan Garcia, 15 (center), who says he started working in the fields when he was 13, cuts broccoli near Celaya, Mexico.”)
Online Sources- Millenio, AFP, Los Angeles Times, New American Media

2 million jobs lost in LatAm: ILO

The economic state of Latin America has not fared well in the almost two weeks of 2010. From the sharp devaluation of the Venezuelan Bolivar to the central bank controversy in Argentina, the region has started the year on the financial wrong foot.

Whether Latin America’s economy rebounds soon remains to be seen yet there will be undoubtedly by a rough road ahead:

The economic crisis eliminated 2.2 million jobs last year in Latin America and the Caribbean, a figure that boosted the rate of unemployment from 7.5 percent to 8.4 percent, according to a report by the International Labor Organization released here Monday…

The U.N. body said that the unemployment rate increased in 2009 in 12 of the 14 countries studied. Only Peru and Uruguay escaped…

ILO regional director Jean Maninat said that what did increase in the region was informal employment, “which continues to be a kind of refuge from unemployment.”

“Of every 10 jobs created, six were in the informal sector,” Maninat said.

The increase in unemployment last year put a halt to six years of regional job growth. Though the ILO study did point out that unemployment was expected to decline slightly by 0.2% this year, the report found that the change would do very little to alleviate the region’s crushing poverty. “The invisible hand of the market is not strong or efficient enough to develop sustainable businesses or to create the employment levels we need," he observed while calling on governments to be more active in creating jobs.

Image- New York Times (“In Santiago, (Chile) graffiti says “unemployment is humiliation.”)
Online Sources- CNN, Bloomberg, LAHT, Reuters BusninessWeek, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: January 28, 2009

* Mexico: U.S. immigration officials claim that most of the controversial “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico border has been done.

* Cuba: Did Fidel Castro betray Ernesto "Che" Guevara as a former Cuban guerrilla has claimed?

* Latin America: Up to 2.4 million workers in Latin America could lose their jobs this year according to an International Labor Organization report.

* Venezuela: Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said that Venezuela will not yet recall U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy; Duddy was booted from Venezuela last September.

Image- AP (“In this Nov. 17, 2008 file photo, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle stands guard along the border fence with its concertino wire topping it, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File).”)
Online Sources- LAHT, IHT, Reuters, The Latin Americanist