Daily Headlines: October 8, 2012

* Uruguay: “The use of the military to perform civil law enforcement cannot be a long-term solution,” declared U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to his Latin American counterparts at a conference this morning in Punta Del Este, Uruguay.

* Mexico: No reports of casualties or major damage have resulted after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck in the Gulf of California off the Mexican coast in the overnight hours.

* Peru: The Shining Path rebels are believed to have been behind the burning of three helicopters owned by “international gas pipeline consortium” Transportadora de Gas del Peru.

* Cuba: Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez and her husband were released from police custody over thirty hours after they were detained last Thursday.

Video Source – YouTube via user ElMuerto

Online Sources- RTT News, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor

World Watch: Withdrawal

* Afghanistan: President Barack Obama will reportedly announce tomorrow that 30,000 troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by November 2012.

* Greece: The Greek parliament approved by a very narrow margin a vote of confidence in the government led by prime minister George Papandreou.

* Syria: The E.U. may extend sanctions against Syria while several people died during clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters.

* U.S.: In a rare unanimous vote all 100 members of the U.S. Senate backed Leon Panetta's nomination to become defense secretary at the end of this month.

Image – Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian (“A US soldier from Viper Company (Bravo) on guard in Khost province in the east of Afghanistan on 21 June as President Barack Obama plans to withdraw troops.”)
Online Sources- CNN, Voice of America, Reuters, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: February 26, 2009

* Cuba: The U.S. House of Representatives approved a spending bill that included provisions to relax travel and remittance restrictions to Cuba. The bill will likely face a serious challenge in the Senate, however.

* Latin America: Could Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela be “destabilized” due to the global economic crisis? CIA Director Leon Panetta thinks so.

* Guatemala: The country’s government still has a long way to go to repair the human rights violations during the civil war according to Amnesty International.

* Colombia: Time magazine examines the shortcomings of extraditing suspected Colombian drug capos to the U.S.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Time, AP, Amnesty International, BBC News, Reuters