Daily Headlines: July 29, 2016 (Updated)

* El Salvador: Amid the mass arrest of 120 suspected Mara Salvatrucha gang members, ombudsman David Morales warned of the emergence of death squads and extrajudicial killings “for purposes of social cleansing.”

* Brazil: The federal judge overseeing the “Lava Jato” investigation should be removed from the case, according to a petition from a lawyer on behalf ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the United Nations.

Update: Lula will be forced to stand trial on obstruction charges related to his alleged role in the "Lava Jato" corruption probe.

* Costa Rica: Nearly 2300 metric tons of cocaine was seized by Costa Rican authorities from a fishing ship off the Pacific coast.

* Venezuela: Several firms from the United States operating in Venezuela are reportedly using an accounting maneuver known as deconsolidation in order to protect themselves from the severely weakened economy in the South American country.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources including Update – Xinhua, Fox News Latino, Voice of America, Bloomberg, Reuters, BBC News

Daily Headlines: April 26, 2016

* Costa Rica: Some 600 migrants from Africa will be deported back to their respective countries of origin even though Costa Rican immigration officials admitted that such an action would be expensive.

* Colombia: A new report from a Colombian NGO found that paramilitaries continues to exist and are behind criminal actions including “drug-trafficking, smuggling, (and) illegal mining.”

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran Legislative Assembly approved a series of measures to combat gang violence such as labeling the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 as "terrorist groups.”

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan Supreme Court halted opposition-led efforts to cut President Nicolás Maduro’s term short by two years.

YouTube Source – africanews (“Costa Rican authorities (earlier this month) deported some 250 African migrants of different nationalities to Panama”.)

Online Sources – BBC News, InSightCrime, The Tico Times, Colombia Reports

Daily Headlines: March 28, 2016 (Updated)

* El Salvador: “We have ordered all of our people . . . to halt all types of homicides nationwide,” said a masked figure purportedly representing the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs in a video claiming that both groups will renew an anti-murder truce.

Update: El Salvador's police chief and a spokesman for President Salvador Sánchez Cerén each rejected the possibility of negotiating with the gangs.
 
* U.S.: Santiago Erevia, a former U.S. Army sergeant who in 2014 received the Medal of Honor after decades of racial discrimination, passed away last week at the age of 69.

* Cuba: Ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the island last week even though Obama held multiple talks with current Fidel’s brother and current Cuban President Raul Castro.

* Mexico: Authorities have reportedly arrested a man nicknamed “King Midas” who allegedly laundered up to $400 million yearly for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

YouTube Source – Vice News (Video uploaded on December 2015).
 
Online Sources including Update – The Toronto Star, Fox News Latino, BBC News, CNN, ABC News

Daily Headlines: May 11, 2015

* El Salvador: At least ten suspected MS-13 members were killed on Saturday amid a surge of gang-related violence that has led to 481 murders in March 2015 alone.

* Cuba: Cuban President Raul Castro met with Pope Francis yesterday, thanked the pontiff for brokering the diplomatic thaw between his country and the U.S., and “promised” to attend all the Pope’s masses during his September visit to the Caribbean island.

* Peru: The Peruvian military has been deployed to the southern Arequipa region where police have clashed with residents opposed to the $1.4 billion Tia Maria copper project.

* Mexico: Mexican boxer Saul "Canelo" Alvarez beat James Kirkland in an electrifying bout that was the polar opposite of the dull and overhyped Mayweather-Pacquaio match one week prior.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – Reuters, Christian Science Monitor, The Latin Americanist, ESPN, UPI

Daily Headlines: September 1, 2014

* Nicaragua: “The sadness of feeling yourself trapped in a whole is immense but I never lost hope,” said one of the twenty-two workers recently rescued from a collapsed gold mine in northern Nicaragua.

* Cuba: One of the highest ranking Catholic church figures in Cuba, Apostolic nuncio Bruno Musaro, declared that the island’s people are “victims of a socialist dictatorship that has kept them subjugated for the past fifty-six years.”

* El Salvador: Amid a growing homicide rate, the heads of five of El Salvador’s most dangerous gangs including the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha agreed to renew a 2012 truce.

* Brazil: The sale of Burger King to Tim Hortons could add at least $1.3 billion to the estimated $24.8 billion fortune of Brazil’s wealthiest person, Jorge Paulo Lemann.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube

Online Sources – ABC News; Miami Herald; The Globe and Mail; Reuters

The Weekender – Survival By Learning

“The Weekender” is our new feature where every weekend we hope to highlight a short film, movie or documentary pertaining to the Americas.  We’re showing our latest entry today in order to make up for the lack of posts in the last few days.
One of the main concerns for Central American countries affected by high levels of is how to properly combat gang violence.  Such is the case with El Salvador where governments past and present have largely failed in implementing successful policies against street gangs like the Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) and Barrio 18.  The Mano Dura ("Iron Fist") strategy championed by then-President Francisco Flores in 2004 took a tough approach against gangs but ended up backfiring.  A 2012 truce between the MS-13 and Barrio 18 helped lower El Salvador’s murder rate last year but homicides have spiked since the pact apparently ended months ago.

While President-elect Salvador Sanchez Ceren takes office in June and Salvadoran church leaders look into brokering a new truce, the gang violence problem will likely continue to be front and center in that country.  A potential approach that has not been applied as public policy is to emphasize rehabilitation of gang members away from a life of crime and towards something more meaningful.  Another underused strategy is emphasizing education among the very young in order dissuade being allured into the world of street gangs.

The latter method is employed by the Fundación CINDE nongovernment organization.  Below the page break is a film from that foundation that depicts their work in El Salvador:

Daily Headlines: April 23, 2014

* El Salvador: Salvadoran church leaders have called on the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 street gangs to agree to a second truce in order to combat an uptick in violence following the end of a previous peace pact.
 
* Colombia: A Colombian court ordered that Gustavo Petro should be restored as mayor of the capital city of Bogota over a month after he was ousted over alleged mismanagement.
 
* Puerto Rico: Unemployment in Puerto Rico continues to fall though at 14.7% it’s more than double the latest U.S. unemployment rate.

* Cuba: According to the Costa Rican press, U.S. diplomatic officials in the Central American country ran a now-defunct “Cuban Twitter” social network aimed at creating unrest against the island's government.
 
Video Source– Voice of America via YouTube
 
Online Sources – Reuters; GlobalPost; LAHT; Tico Times

Daily Headlines: March 27, 2014

* Cuba: According to the Cuba state media, the government is planning to introduce a new foreign investment law aimed at boosting the island’s sagging economy.

* U.S.: Could the latest Obamacare deadline change help Latinos trying to apply for medical coverage before the end of this month?

* El Salvador: The F.B.I. placed on “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” an MS-13 gang member suspected of murdering two people and who is allegedly in hiding in El Salvador.

* Uruguay: President Jose Mujica of Uruguay said that his any of the five Guantanamo Bay detainees that might be taken in by his country would be considered as refugees and, thus, could freely travel.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube (“Cuba inaugurated its new Mariel "megaport" (last January), in hopes the project will symbolize a more open stance towards commerce and become a regional hub for shipments despite a lack of investment and the US economic embargo”.)
 
Online Sources- Bloomberg; Reuters; CBS News; NBC News; The Huffington Post

Daily Headlines: February 8, 2013

* Mexico: Mexico’s Yaquis de Obregon won the Caribbean Series over the Dominican Republic's Leones del Escogido in a nail-biting eighteen inning marathon game that took nearly 7.5 hours to play. 

* Venezuela: Ailing President Hugo Chavez might soon be able to rule by decree after an opposition lawmaker changed party affiliation.

* Haiti: A judge ruled that ex-President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier must appear in court later this month to face charges of human rights abuse.

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran military will reportedly be withdrawn from several “peace zone” municipalities where the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs agreed to a non-violence truce.

Video Source – YouTube via user iPhoneActualidad

Online Sources- ESPN, Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: October 15, 2012

* Brazil: Over 1000 police raided a pair of favelas in Rio de Janeiro that are reportedly notorious for crime and drug-related violence.
 
* Haiti: Several hundred protesters marched in Port-au-Prince and called on President Michel Martelly to resign.
 
* Cuba: The Ladies in White dissident group marched in Havana yesterday on the one-year anniversary of the death of former leader Laura Pollan.

* U.S.: The U.S. Treasury Department officially designated the El Salvador-based MS-13 street gang as a “transnational criminal organization.”

Video Source – YouTube via AFP

Online Sources- IOL news, LAHT, The Telegraph, Christian Science Monitor

Daily Headlines: August 14, 2012

* El Salvador: This week marks the fifth month of a truce between the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs that has reportedly led to a sharp decline in homicides.

* U.S.: Security workers at Logan International Airport in Boston engage in racial profiling of numerous groups including “Hispanics traveling to Miami” according to the New York Times.

* Argentina: Workers of the Buenos Aires metro announced a temporary halt to a ten-day strike that pitted the capital city’s mayor against Argentine President Cristina Kirchner.

* Cuba: Former President Fidel Castro apparently did not make a public appearance on the occasion of his 86th birthday yesterday.

Video Source – YouTube via AFP (Video posted in June 2012).

Online Sources- New York Times, France 24, Huffington Post, Time

Daily Headlines: July 24, 2012

* Argentina: Former dictator Jorge Videla, who was convicted weeks ago for the kidnapping and illegal adoptions of over thirty kids, said that the Catholic hierarchy “advised” him on how to deal with the disappearing of “Dirty War” dissidents.

* El Salvador: A truce between the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha street gangs has led to a plummeting murder rate as well as renewed optimism in the Salvadoran economy.

* Colombia: Four suspected FARC rebels were convicted by an indigenous tribunal and will be punished via public flogging.

* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa claimed that he would make a decision regarding Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s asylum request “according to humanist principles.”

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English (In 2010 ex-dictator Jorge Videla was sentenced by an Argentine court to life in prison for human rights abuses during his rule between 1976 and 1983.)

Online Sources- Irish Times, The Latin Americanist, Businessweek, Fox News Latino, Bernama

Daily Headlines: April 18, 2012

* U.S.: A study by the American Association of University Women found that Latina women earned only 61% of what white men earn, on average.

* Central America: Fears of an alliance between Mexico’s Zetas drug gang and Guatemala’s MS-13 may be “unfounded,” while a rumored pact between Salvadoran street gangs may have led to the country’s first murder-free day in three years.

* Cuba: A Cuban human rights group claimed that authorities detained over 1100 dissidents in March including some who were kept away from visiting Pope Benedict XVI.

* Mexico: Police in the border town of Nuevo Laredo found the dismembered bodies of fourteen people yesterday.

Image Source – Flickr via Images_of_Money (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources- USA TODAY, InSight Crime, Huffington Post, MSNBC, MiamiHerald.com

Daily Headlines: April 6, 2011

* Haiti: Defeated presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat rejected preliminary results indicating that Michel Martelly won last month’s runoff by a two-to-one margin.

* U.S.: What has been described as “San Francisco's biggest gang trial in years” opened this week with seven alleged Mara Salvatrucha members accused of bribery, violence, and murder.

* Argentina: Foreign Minister Hector Timmerman emphatically denied media reports claiming that the Argentine government may end investigating the 1994 AMIA bombing in exchange for improved ties with Iran.

* Latin America: U.S. Southern Command Gen. Douglas Fraser told a Senate panel that the U.S. is “watching closely” Iran’s growing influence in Latin America.

Image – The Telegraph (Former singer Michel Martelly reportedly won March’s runoff by a large margin over ex-first lady Mirlande Manigat.)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, SFGate.com, BBC News, Canadian Press, CBS News

Daily Headlines: October 23, 2008

* U.S.: Opening statements began yesterday in the retrial of a Border Patrol agent who shot and killed a Mexican migrant.

* U.S.: Authorities including immigration officers conducted several raids in California targeting alleged members of the MS-13 gang.

* Puerto Rico: Officials have allowed thousands of visually impaired voters to vote by telephone for next month’s local elections.

* Costa Rica: Investigators are checking if President Oscar Arias abused his authority in granting permission for the Crucitas gold mine project.

Image- Boise Guardian
Sources- IHT, AFP, KCBS, Guardian UK

Daily Headlines: June 25, 2008

* Central America: An operation conducted in the U.S. and El Salvador led to the arrest of 26 people accused of being part of the notorious MS-13 gang.

* U.S.: Communicable diseases common in certain regions like Latin America have increasingly infected people in the U.S. according to a scientific study.

* Venezuela: A heavy-carb big breakfast could be the key to cutting cravings and losing weight, says one scientific study led by a Venezuelan doctor.

* Haiti: Could a woman by the country’s next prime minister?

Image- CNN (“Police arrest a suspected MS-13 member during an April operation targeting the gang in El Salvador.”)

Sources- AFP, Bloomberg, Monsters & Critics, ZDNet Healthcare