Daily Headlines: November 12, 2012

* Guatemala: A 6.5-magnitude earthquake shook off the Guatemalan coast days after a stronger tremor killed at least fifty-two people and was felt as far away as Mexico City.
 
* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa officially launched his bid for reelection during a rally with thousands of his supporters in Quito.

* Cuba: Five hundred rabbis from around the world wrote a letter to Cuban president Raul Castro urging the release of imprisoned U.S. contractor Alan Gross on “humanitarian grounds.”

* Paraguay: Suspected Bolivian drug capo Marco Antonio Rocca Ali was nabbed by Paraguayan authorities along with over 3700 pounds of cocaine.

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- USA TODAY, Reuters, AFP, ABC News

Feud Over the Falklands: Star of David

Last week we examined offshore oil drilling near the Falklands and how this has helped fuel the diplomatic tug-of-war between Argentina and Britain. Today we will briefly examine alleged anti-Semitism within the Argentine military during the Falklands War.

The recently declassified Rattenbach Report concluded that the Argentine troops “weren't adapted or equipped to handle the weather or the living conditions” in the south Atlantic during the Falklands War thirty years ago. According to journalist Hernan Dobry, Jewish troops faced additional difficulties due to their background and religious beliefs.

Today’s Video: Barrio Judio

Yesterday we looked at the Holy Week celebrations in a small city located in southern El Salvador. Today we’ll take a quick look at Uruguay’s Jewish populace in honor of the Passover holiday that began on Friday night.

According to the World Jewish Congress, Jews compromise an estimated 20,000 of Uruguay’s 3.2 million total population. Despite such a low number, immigrants from countries like Germany, Hungary and Morocco over the past 140 years have helped create a very diverse Jewish community in Uruguay.

They are also a very politically active community as seen last year when numerous local Jewish institutions blasted controversial remarks made by Iran’s ambassador in Uruguay.

The following video clip comes from a documentary on the development of Montevideo’s Barrio Judio, a traditionally Jewish neighborhood that includes some residents who have lived there over several generations:

Video Source – YouTube via elapapacho

Online Sources- World Jewish Congress, JTA, The Latin Americanist

Today’s Video: True Faith

We'll return over the weekend to highlight recent news and notes from the Americas.

This weekend marks the end of the Christian Holy Week and also the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Millions of followers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are celebrating their respective religious holidays including in Cuba where Good Friday was recognized as an official holiday for the first time in decades.

The following video via teleSUR shows how residents of Izalco, El Salvador observed Holy Week with cultural events and remembrances of the recently deceased. The participation of indigenous communities and women was encouraged according to the report that also shows scenes of a fourteen-hour procession carried out by devoted piadosos.

Video Source - YouTube via teleSUR

Online Source - BBC News

World Watch: Long arm of the law

* Libya: While unrest continues in Libya International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that he will investigate possible crimes against humanity perpetrated by the government.

* Japan: Designer John Galliano’s career may be over due to anti-Semitic remarks but it remains to be seen what repercussions await a Japanese boy band that appeared on TV wearing Nazi-like uniforms.

* Yemen: President Ali Abdullah Saleh is reportedly negotiating stepping down later this year amid pressure from the opposition and swelling protests against him.

* U.S.: According to researchers regular use of the painkiller ibuprofen could reduce the risk of getting Parkinson’s by over one-third.

Image – “Sean Smith for the Guardian” via The Guardian (“An injured Libyan rebel is treated at a clinic in Bregga, after pro-Gaddafi fighters attacked the town on Wednesday.”)
Online Sources- The Guardian, MSNBC, BBC News, Voice of America, CBC News

De Musica Ligera: Feliz Hanukkah! (Again)

Tonight is the fifth evening in the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Judaism has had a strong (albeit understated) history in Latin America. Jewish immigrants from Europe were part of a strong "colonization" push in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Argentina, for instance. Hundreds of thousands of Jews escaping the Holocaust during World War II were provided safe haven in Latin American countries like Brazil, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Though some Jewish leaders in the region claimed that there has been an uptick in anti-Semitism, Latin America's Jewish community continues to thrive.

In honor of the eight-day "Festival of Light", the following video is from the extraordinary group Hip Hop Hoodios. "Ocho Kandelikas" is a song that we featured last year and, is a unique take on the Hanukkah festivities. Enjoy!

Online Sources - The Latin Americanist, CSMonitor.com, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Video Source - YouTube

Today’s Video: Viva Argentina!

This month two Latin American countries, Chile and Mexico, will celebrate two hundred years of independence from Spanish colonial rule. 2010 is a banner year for Latin America as bicentennial independence festivities have been observed already in two other countries, Argentina and Colombia. In this week's "Today's Video" series we will commemorate the bicentennials of the aforementioned states by briefly taking a look at their respective histories.

Decades of immigration to Argentina, especially from Europe, have contributed to the country's unique national identity. One of the groups are the Jews whose migration to Argentina occurred primarily in two waves before the country's independence and during the late 19th-century. Argentina's Jewish population has thrived and is reportedly the third-largest in the Americas.

The following video clip looks at the Argentine town of Villa Dominguez, which became the site of "Jewish colonization" from eastern Europe in the 1890s and extending into the early 1900s:

Online Sources - YouTube, Wikipedia

Argentina: Convicted skinheads to work at Holocaust Museum

The following sounds like a modern-day O. Henry story.

Last August a pair of Argentine skinheads were arrested for vandalizing a synagogue and other buildings with anti-Semitic graffiti. They were subsequently convicted for their crime and, in an ingenious twist, will be forced to work for fifty hours at Buenos Aires’ Holocaust Museum. Aside from janitorial duties the skinheads will also have to participate in "educational and cultural activities” held at the museum.

The prosecutor in charge of their case hopes that the pair will learn more than the axiom that crime doesn’t pay:

“The law is granting them a chance to face reality. With this probation we hope that they may be truly aware of what they did,” said…Luis Duacastella Arbizu. – [ed. Translated text]

One can easily call it a case of the punishment fitting the crime.

Image- BBC News (Please note that this image of painted swastikas are not those mentioned in the aforementioned Buenos Aires case).
Online Sources- Wikipedia, ABC.es, Clarin

Today's Video: Feliz Hanukkah!

The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah starts at sunset tonight and lasts through sundown December 19, and what better way to celebrate than with the Hip Hop Hoodios:

The Latino-Jewish hip-hop duo released their latest album earlier this year.

Online Sources - NPR, New York Times, YouTube

Daily Headlines: September 1, 2009

* Mexico: Residents of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula are gathering supplies and officials are preparing evacuations ahead of the Hurricane Jimena to hit land tonight.

* Venezuela: Venezuela’s economy may be sagging but the country’s stock market has been pretty bullish this year.

* Argentina: According to a local Jewish group the number of anti-Semitic attacks in Argentina has gone up this year.

* Cuba: The Castro administration is none too pleased that a group of European Union diplomats visited the home of an imprisoned dissident last week.

Image- ABC News (“In this satellite image released by NOAA Monday, Aug. 31, 2009, Hurricane Jimena is seen off the coast of Mexico. Jimena, a dangerous Category 4 storm, could rake southern Baja California by Tuesday evening, forecasters said.”)
Online Sources- Reuters, BBC News, LAHT, JTA

Daily Headlines: May 19, 2009

* U.S.: Rest in peace Sgt. Christian Bueno Gardos; the Peruvian-American soldier was slain last week by a comrade at a combat stress clinic in Iraq.

* Argentina: Buenos Aires police had to break up a clash between anti-Semitic demonstrators and Jews commemorating the 61st anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel.

* Nicaragua: Russian officials donated 130 buses to Nicaragua in gratitude for being the only other country to recognize the independence of a pair of breakaway Georgian republics last year.

* El Salvador: Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco began his investigation of fourteen Salvadoran officers allegedly involved in the brutal 1989 “Massacre of the Jesuits.”

Image- New York Daily News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, abclocal.com, Moscow Times, Expatica Spain, Radio Netherlands

Today’s Video: Yehuda Glantz

Thursday was the first day of Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the exodus from Egypt. In honor of Passover, the following Spanish-language news report highlights the Latin American/Jew musician Yehuda Glantz. His unique music combines South American and contemporary rhythms together with traditional Jewish sounds:

Online Sources- Wikipedia, YouTube

Brazilian bishop caught in Holocaust faux pas

Brazil’s Catholic Church is still trying to recover from the intolerance and lack of understanding by some leaders over an abortion done by a raped minor. Some local priests, to their credit, have tried to show more compassion at the nine-year-old girl who was systematically abused by her stepfather.

Another firestorm has developed after a Brazilian archbishop made several eye-raising remarks over the Holocaust:

"The Jews talk about six million people killed. But how many Catholics were victims of the Holocaust? They were 22 million in all," Archbishop Dadeus Grings, from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, told advertising magazine Press & Advertising.

The archbishop also contended that while "Jews say they were the main victims of the Holocaust, the biggest victims were the gypsies, because they were exterminated."

Grings’ comments were quickly criticized by local Jewish groups. "To diminish the Holocaust is an attack against the millions of people killed in a war unleashed by fanaticism and intolerance," said a statement from the Jewish federation of Rio Grande do Sul.(Porto Alegre is home to Brazil's third largest Jewish community, with approximately 12,000 Jews.)

Grings’ diatribe also blasted stem-cell research and defended the Crusades against the Muslims several centuries ago.

Nearly two months ago a British bishop was ousted from his post as head of an Argentine seminary after he publicly denied the Holocaust from ever occurring.

Image- pastoral.com.br
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, LAHT, JTA, AFP, PRESS TV

Daily Headlines: March 27, 2009

* Venezuela: Eleven people including eight police officers face several charges related to the vandalizing last January of Venezuela’s main synagogue.

* Mexico: A high court upheld a ruling that denied the involvement of ex-President Luis Echeverria in the infamous 1968 Tlatelolco massacre.

* Latin America: Peru, Bolivia, and Chile continue to quarrel over territory gained and lost over a century ago.

* Puerto Rico: Hundreds of teachers may soon go on strike to protest Governor Luis Fortuño’s economic austerity plans.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- MSNBC, Caribbean Net News, New York Times, Xinhua

Daily Headlines: March 9, 2009

* Venezuela: Could the government’s threatened takeover of a local food conglomerate affect the country’s arepa production?

* Argentina: A former investigator of the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires claimed that he was “kidnapped and tortured”.

* Mexico: Three people, including a U.S. citizen, were found decapitated near the border in Tijuana.

* Colombia: Approximately 500 people marched on Friday in protest of military corruption and human rights violations.

Image- cocina.org
Online Sources- SignOnSanDiego.com, JTA, LAHT, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: February 10, 2009

* Mexico: A new law published yesterday calls for the creation of a national phone registry that includes capturing fingerprints of suspected criminals.

* Latin America: China may be upping its investments in Latin America yet Morgan Stanley warms that the economic slump in Asia may cause “aftershocks” in the Americas.

* Central America: Countries in the region are worried that U.S. immigration raids are dumping thousands of criminals into already crime-infested areas.

* Venezuela: Police have arrested eleven suspects- including a policeman who served as a bodyguard for a local rabbi- for the recent attack on a Caracas synagogue.

Image- abc.net.au
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Bloomberg, chicagotribune.com, Xinhua, MSNBC

Weekend Headlines: February 7, 2009

* Costa Rica: Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador called Costa Rica a "banana republic" after his Costa Rican counterpart justly defended any future war crimes indictment of the Sudanese president.

* Peru: A mayor has suggested the legalization of illicit drugs in order to combat “hypocritical” federal drug laws.

* Cuba: Fidel Castro’s latest article blasts U.S. President Barack Obama’s economic plans and questioned what will happen to the U.S. within the next four years.

* Venezuela: Security tapes of the recent attack on a Caracas synagogue have been recovered and will be examined by investigators according to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

* Latin America: The global economic downturn could cause poverty to rise in the region by as much as 15% according to the U.N.

* Argentina: Ex-President Carlos Menem has refused to testify at his trial where he’s accused of secretly trafficking arms during his time in power.

Image- AFP (“Sudanese refugee children from Darfur pictured at the Farchana refugee camp in Chad, June 2008.”)
Online Sources-Reuters, CNN, BBC News, AP, MSNBC

Vatican offices targeted in Venezuela

Days after the vandalizing and desecration of Caracas’ oldest synagogue, assailants have targeted the Vatican mission in the Venezuelan capital:

Tear gas canisters were lobbed into the Vatican's diplomatic compound in Caracas on Wednesday, the head of the mission said, days after armed men vandalized a synagogue in the capital...

Venezuelan media said two canisters landed inside the compound and two fell outside.

"We totally reject these actions, they cannot be permitted," Giacinto Berloco, who heads the mission, told Reuters.

A spokesman at the Israeli Foreign Ministry insinuated that Venezuela’s government was behind the attack on the synagogue though that was vehemently denied by Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. Pro- and anti-government factions have accused each other of perpetrating the attack on the Israeli Association of Venezuela on Saturday.

The incident has caught the attention of several U.S. legislators. A group of sixteen Republican and Democratic congressmen wrote to Hugo Chávez and urged him to "end to the intimidation and harassment of the Jewish community" in Venezuela.

Image- AFP (“Men look on at the damage caused by an unknown group inside the main synagogue of Caracas.”)
Online Sources- Reuters, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Guardian UK, MSNBC

Daily Headlines: February 2, 2009

* Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez condemned a recent attack on Caracas' oldest synagogue while Israeli officials insinuated that the vandalizing occurred with government approval.

* U.S.: A Mexican newspaper reporter seeking political asylum in the U.S. was freed after spending seven months in a detention center.

* Peru: Did the country’s navy really have plans to stage a coup d’état against Peru’s’ government?

* Cuba: Hundreds of Spaniards demonstrated for and against the Castro regime during a pair of marches commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

Image- MSNBC (“A member of the Jewish community views a vandalized tabernacle in a synagogue at the Israeli Association of Venezuela headquarters in Caracas on Saturday.”)
Online Sources- IHT, El Paso Times, AP, LAHT, Bloomberg

Today’s Video: Feliz Chanukah!

Wednesday may be Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) but we would be remiss in not observing other holidays taking place around this time of the year.

To best celebrate Chanukah (which enters its fourth night on Wednesday) what better option is there than the music of the Hip Hop Hoodios:

Sources- YouTube