Daily Headlines: January 6, 2012

* Brazil: Heavy rains have hit parts of Brazil including the town of Campos dos Goytacazes whose 20,000 residents were evacuated due to a dam burst.

* U.S.: The Justice Department gave Congressional investigators documents relating to the failed Operation Fast and Furious gun smuggling program to Mexico as well as a similar plan run under the Bush administration.

* Colombia: Officials vowed to continue their offensive against the Urabeños crime gang in response to the group imposing a “shut-down of northern Colombia” yesterday.

* Peru: Lori Berenson returned to Peru on Thursday after spending seventeen days in a legally approved visit to the U.S.

Video Source – YouTube via Associated Press

Online Sources- TVNZ, CNN, Colombia Reports, Reuters AlertNet

Weekend Headlines: December 31, 2011 – January 1, 2012

* Chile: Officials announced the arrest of a tourist suspected of starting a wildfire that has consumed at least 27,000 acres of forest land in the Torres del Paine National Park.

* Latin America: The Venezuelan and Bolivian governments offered to remove for free defective breast implants made by a now-defunct French firm.

* Peru: President Ollanta Humala told a local radio station that he “can't help but show my annoyance” at a judge who allowed paroled activist Lori Berenson to return to the U.S. during the holidays.

* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa pledged to extend the deadline for protecting the Yasuni rainforest reserve from oil companies.

* Brazil: Brazilian firm Embraer won a U.S. defense contract that would allow it to sell twenty fighter jets for use by the Air Force in Afghanistan.

* South America: The 2012 Dakar Rally will begin on Sunday in Mar de Plata, Argentina and will be held during fifteen days in that country along with Chile and Peru.

Video Source – YouTube via cnnchile

Online Sources- CNN, ABC News, Expatica France, NPR, Reuters, TSN

Daily Headlines: December 21, 2011

* Uruguay: The English Football Association suspended striker Luis Suarez over alleged racial abuse against an opposing player during a match last October.

* Peru: Julio Galindo, Peru’s “anti-terrorist attorney general”, was none too pleased that paroled activist Lori Berenson was allowed to leave the country in order to spend the holidays with her family.

* U.S.: The number of National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico will be reduced starting next month in order to put a greater emphasis on “aerial surveillance missions.”

* Argentina: The political tensions between the government and the Clarin media group are expected to worsen after police raided the offices of a Clarin-owned cable TV firm.

Image Source – Flickr via jikatu (#9 Luis Suarez celebrates with his teammates after scoring all four goals in Uruguay’s victory over Chile in World Cup qualifiers last month). (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- USA TODAY, Reuters, Christian Science Monitor

Daily Headlines: December 19, 2011

* Peru: Federal authorities have yet to explain why Lori Berenson was barred from leaving Peru despite a court allowing her to spend the holidays with her family in the U.S.

* Mexico: Senior officials issued an apology to an indigenous woman who was raped and tortured by the military in 2002.

* Cuba: Restrictions on travel and remittances from the U.S. to Cuba were dropped by Congress from a $1 trillion spending bill.

* Brazil: The environmental secretary for Rio de Janeiro state claimed that thousands of barrels of oil from a leak reached the shore.

Video Source – YouTube via larepublicaweb1 (The above video from Peruvian TV claimed that paroled activist Lori Berenson arrived late to the airport and subsequently missed her flight to the U.S. But according to Gothamist “witnesses claim that Berenson was ‘at the airport hours before the flight was to leave.’”)

Online Sources- Gothamist, Houston Chronicle, UPI, MSNBC, ABC News

Daily Headlines: January 26, 2011

* U.S.: A federal judge handed down a sentence of life in prison in the case of the first former Guantanamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court.

* Venezuela: One month after he passed away legal wrangling continues amongst family members of ex-Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez over where he should be buried.

* South America: After meeting on Tuesday the presidents of Uruguay and Peru both called for greater unity and cooperation throughout Latin America.

* Peru: Lori Berenson might not return to prison after a Peruvian court upheld her parole.

Image – Shirley Shepard /AFP-Getty Images via MSNBC (Ahmed Ghailani was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted for his role in a pair of deadly U.S. embassy bombings in Africa in 1998).
Online Sources- Bloomberg, People’s Daily Online, NPR, BBC News

Daily Headlines: January 13, 2011

* Brazil: Approximately 400 people are believed to have died as a result of heavy rain, flooding, and mudslides in southeastern Brazil.

* Panama: The government has requested that France extradite former strongman Manuel Noriega.

* Chile: A government spokesperson said that officials would be “open” to modifying gas price hikes after two people died in violent protests.

* Peru: At a judicial hearing on Monday, activist Lori Berenson requested to remain on parole and not return to prison.

Image – Bruno Domingos / Reuters via MSNBC (“An aerial view shows damage caused to a street after heavy rains in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, on Wednesday. Floods and landslides devastated towns in a mountainous area near Rio de Janeiro, killing hundreds of people.”)
Online Sources- Monsters and Critics, Democracy Now, LAHT, CNN

Daily Headlines: November 8, 2010

* Central America: Nicaraguan officials criticized Google Maps for erroneous data that led to an accidental incursion into Costa Rica while a Google spokesman blamed the U.S. State Department.

* South America: On a similar note, Argentina’s Foreign Minister said that a Bolivian coronel is to blame for “a long-standing series of incidents” in the border area between both countries.

* Cuba: Dissident groups such as the Ladies in White are upset that the government has yet to release 13 of the 52 political prisoners pledged to be freed by yesterday.

* Peru: Lori Berenson could leave prison today after having been granted parole by a Peruvian judge on Friday.

Image – El Informador (Costa Rican police conduct a patrol near the border with Nicaragua. Courtesy EFE).
Online Sources- Sydney Morning Herald, Buenos Aires Herald, BBC News, The Latin Americanist, LAHT

Peru: Lori Berenson released…again

Convicted rebel ally Lori Berenson was freed on parole by a Peruvian judge. This may sound like déjà vu but it’s not:

A Peruvian court Friday granted freedom to U.S. citizen Lori Berenson, who has served 15 years of a 20-year prison sentence for collaborating with leftist insurgents.

Berenson, who will turn 41 next week, was initially freed in May but sent back to jail in August when a panel of judges ruled the release of the American was flawed because police had failed to confirm where she would be living in Lima while on parole.

It’s unknown if Berenson, a U.S. citizen who gave birth to a child while jailed last year, will again petition to leave Peru and return to the U.S. Peruvian president Alan Garcia did admit in a September interview that she was “not a threat” to his country and seemed inclined to have her leave. The same may not be said for most Peruvians who “widely disapproved of the decision to release her” according to polls cited by BBC News.

Image- CBS News (“U.S. activist Lori Berenson attends her hearing at court in Lima, Peru, Monday Aug. 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia).”)
Online Sources- BBC News, MSNBC, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Gothamist

Sour times for Peru’s Garcia

In a poll taken in late August roughly two out of three Peruvians disapproved of President Alan Garcia’s performance. This figure is unsurprising, as the leader of the Andean country has apparently made several missteps in recent weeks.

In May convicted rebel supporter Lori Berenson was released from prison after having served fifteen years behind bars. Last month, however, an appeals court overturned her parole and she was ordered to return to prison. Yet Garcia may have rubbed some of his countrymen the wrong way when he mentioned in an interview last week that he does not consider Berenson as a “threat” to Peru. "How much can Peru really fear a woman who spent 15 years in prison?... She has a little boy, and that moves me a lot," said Garcia who added that he would consider commuting her sentence so she can return to the U.S.

Yesterday Garcia suddenly backtracked from a controversial decree he emitted recently. Originally he presented Decree No. 1097 as a reform that would’ve allowed judges to dismiss charges against those “whose cases have suffered an excessively long investigation." The government claimed that the law would not affected those already sentenced for human rights violations such as ex-president Alberto Fujimori.

Critics of the move claimed that the law would’ve granted amnesty against those being investigated of human rights violations during the Peruvian civil conflict. Opposition grew against Garcia’s decree including among some members of his political party. One of Peru’s foremost literary figures even came out against the law:

Acclaimed novelist Mario Vargas Llosa tendered his “irrevocable” resignation from presiding over the commission charged with the construction of a memorial to victims of 20 years of politically motivated violence in Peru, a move he said he made to reject a controversial decree he called a “barely disguised amnesty” for rights abusers.

Garcia has also come under fire for supporting the possibility of expanding the U.S. military presence in Peru in order to combat the illegal narcotics trade. One former senior army official claimed that such a move would hurt “the moral and combative spirit of (Peru’s) troops.”

Under Peru’s constitution Garcia is not allowed to run again for the presidency; that could be a relief for some of his countrymen disappointed at his current term in office.

Image- EFE
Online Sources- Gothamist, MSNBC, EFE, BBC News, LAHT, Angus Reid Consultants

Daily Headlines: June 1, 2010

* Central America: The death toll in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras from Tropical Storm Agatha has risen into the triple digits.

* Peru: Could recently paroled U.S. citizen Lori Berenson have her sentence commuted and get the chance to leave Peru?

* Cuba: In his latest article ex-president Fidel Castro blasted European and U.S. antidrug efforts and praised Bolivian coca leafs.

* Mexico: As part of Mexico's bicentennial celebration the bones of ten historical figures where exhumed and will be examined.

Image –Sky News
Online Sources – CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, The Latin Americanist, Reuters,

American Released After 15 Years in Peruvian Prison

Seven years ago I was in Peru and saw from a distance the jail where Lori Berenson was being held. High up in the barren, frigid Andean highlands, I remember thinking to myself, "man, it would suck to be in jail there."

Lori was released from prison today after serving 15 years for assisting the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Lori was originally sentenced to a life term and always maintained she was innocent.

Image Source: Life Magazine

Online Sources: BBC News

Peru: Lori Berenson transferred for treatment

A U.S. citizen imprisoned since 1995 for supposedly aiding Peruvian rebels has been allowed to transfer to another facility due to her pregnancy.

Peruvian prison officials permitted Lori Berenson to be relocated in order to treat a back ailment brought on by her pregnancy. According to Reuters a media frenzy surrounded her transfer today as she underwent a health examination before being taken to a Lima jail.

The 39-year-old is currently five months pregnant and, should she successfully give birth, will be allowed to raise the baby until its three-years-old. The father of the child is a paroled former guerilla she met in jail and married in 2003.

Berenson’s imprisonment has been a source of controversy with her supporters alleging that she was unfairly punished by a kangaroo court. Berenson’s prison sentence was originally life in jail yet that was reduced in a retrial to twenty years in prison.

In a 2000 interview with CBS News, Berenson professed her innocence:

"The charges against me are preposterous and they're obviously false," Berenson said. "I am not a terrorist by any means; quite the contrary I do not believe in any act of terrorism"…

"I believe in human beings," said Lori Berenson. "I believe in the rights of justice. I believe that everyone has the right to live with dignity"…

Mario Cavagnario, chief investigator in the Berenson case, claimed she was part of the (Tupac Amaru guerilla) organization. "All the people around her in Peru belong to the MRTA. In Spanish we say: Tell me who you run with and I'll tell you who you are."

Image- AP (“Lori Berenson, of New York, is escorted in handcuffs by police as she is transferred to a different jail before undergoing a medical exam in Lima, Friday, Jan. 9, 2009.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, New York Daily News, Committee to Free Lori Berenson, Reuters, CBS News, MSNBC

Reports: Lori Berenson is pregnant

She is a U.S. citizen who was convicted in 1995 accused aiding Peru’s Tupac Amaru guerillas. To some she was a gringa interloper who knowingly helped one of Peru’s most ruthless terrorist organizations. To others she is innocent and was unfairly jailed by a Fujimori-era kangaroo court. She is Lori Berenson and she currently sits in a Peruvian prison serving a 20-yeaR sentence. (Originally it was life in jail).

According to press reports out of the Andean nation, prison doctors found that Berenson is approximately four weeks pregnant. “It's a euphoric feeling for us,” said the father of the 37-year-old who has been wed since 2003 to a former guerilla she met in prison.

Berenson’s sentence finishes in 2011 (assuming no other charges are filed against her). According to Peruvian law, women whom give birth in jail can keep the child for the first few years.

Peru’s RPP Noticias claims that Berenson is not in good health despite her pregnancy:

A su embarazo se suman problemas de salud en la columna y el oído debido a lo cual se estarían realizando gestiones a través de la embajada de los Estados Unidos para que esta sea trasladada a otro penal con la finalidad de recibir mejor atención en un hospital.

[Trnsaltion – Along with her pregnancy she has had health problems relating to her spinal column and ear. This is why gestures are being made to the U.S. Embassy so she can be transferred to another facility and then recive better attention at a hospital.]

Image- CNN

Sources (English)- ABC News, Reuters, Free Lori Berenson, Opinionjournal.com

Sources (Spanish)- RPP Noticias, La Republica