Daily Headlines: February 4, 2016

* Ecuador: British authorities threatened with arresting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange if he decides to leave the Ecuador’s embassy in London where he has been given refuge since June 2012.

* Chile: A Chilean judge ordered the remains of the late Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda to be returned to his tomb nearly three years after they were uncovered.

* Cuba: Cuba’s foreign minister claimed that relations between his country and the U.S. would not be fully normalized until the trade embargo against the island is eliminated.

* Panama: Software giant SAP will pay a $3.9 million settlement in relation to a bribery scandal involving former Panamanian government officials including ex-president Ricardo Martinelli.

YouTube Source – Reuters (“The founder of whistleblower website, Wikileaks, returns to the spotlight ahead of a U.N. panel decision that could determine whether he has been ‘arbitrarily detained’ in London”.)

Online Sources – euronews, The Register, Reuters, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: November 6, 2015 (Updated)

* Brazil: At least one person is dead and fifteen others are missing after a dam holding mine waste burst in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state.

Update (October 8): Minas Gerais Gov. Fernando Pimentel claimed that the 28 people missing after the dam burst are unlikely to be found alive.

* Central America: A program introduced last December to curtail the influx of unaccompanied Central American children in 2014 has yet to accept a single minor according to a report originally published in The New York Times.

* Puerto Rico: Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of San Juan to demonstrate against U.S. government cuts to federal health programs.

* Chile: The Chilean government called that it was “possible and highly probable” that acclaimed poet Pablo Neruda was killed days after a 1973 military coup.

YouTube Source – ODN

Online Sources including Update – Business Insider, ABC News, Latin American Herald Tribune, Flavorwire

Daily Headlines: May 28, 2015

* Latin America: The presidents of Brazil and Mexico signed a series of trade and investment agreements in order to strengthen Latin America's two biggest economies.

* Argentina: An Argentine judge issued arrest warrants for the apprehension of three sports marketing execs named yesterday in a U.S. Department of Justice soccer corruption probe.

* Chile: Spanish investigators found no conclusive evidence indicating that renowned Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned to death in 1973.

* Venezuela: Rosneft, Russia’s top oil producer, will spend $14 billion as part of its increased investment in the Venezuelan energy sector.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources – Buenos Aires Herald, RTT News, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, euronews

Daily Headlines: June 18, 2014

* Brazil: Following a meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden expressed his confidence that both countries can improve diplomatic relations weakened by revelations last year of U.S. intelligence surveillance on the South American state.

* Cuba: Health officials have confirmed the first six cases of the mosquito-born chikungunya virus, which has ravaged through the Caribbean and recently reached South America.

* Chile: A Spanish firm will release a volume of previously unpublished poems by Pablo Neruda that were found in a library named after the late Chilean Nobel laureate.

* Bolivia: Animal rights activists in Bolivia are up in arms after a military instructor killed a live dog and smeared its blood on students’ faces.

Video Source – PBS NewsHour via YouTube (Uploaded in September 2013).
 
Online Sources – Reuters; ABC News; Latin Times; The New York Times; The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: November 11, 2013

* Venezuela: Scores of Venezuelans including some looters gathered outside Daka electronics stores after the government seized the chain over alleged price gouging.

* Colombia: Authorities in Spain captured the head of Los Urabeños, a Colombian neo-paramilitary criminal gang involved in narcotrafficking.

* Chile: Forensic exams concluded that no chemical agents were found in the body of acclaimed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who died under mysterious circumstances in 1973.

* Mexico: Police in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas located sixty-one migrants including ten children residing in "inhumane conditions."

Online Sources - LAHT; BBC News; USA TODAY; Reuters

Video Source - YouTube via euronews

Daily Headlines: June 3, 2013

* Chile: A judge issued an order for police to make a portrait of and look for the possible killer of famed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who died days after a 1973 military coup.

* Venezuela: Timothy Tracy, a U.S. filmmaker detained last April and accused of spying against the Venezuelan government, was allegedly transferred to the El Rodeo prison.

* Brazil: The iconic Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro was reopened yesterday with a 2-2 tie between Brazil and England.

* Mexico: Mexican author turner peace activist Javier Sicilia praised a recent Organization of American States report on drugs as a tool that could “lead to the formulation and implementation of new drug policies”.

Video Source – YouTube via AFP (The body of famed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was exhumed last April in order to examine if he was murdered via poison in September 1973).
 
Online Sources- Huffington Post; Fox News Latino; The Latin Americanist; BBC Sport; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: May 3, 2013

* Venezuela: Henrique Capriles said that he will not “throw in the towel” as he filed a lawsuit protesting the results of last month’s presidential election.

* South America: Peru and Ecuador temporarily recalled their main diplomatic envoys after the Ecuadorian ambassador to Peru got into a fight with customers at a Lima supermarket.

* Chile: Renowned poet Pablo Neruda may have died of cancer and was not poisoned according to preliminary results conducted on his exhumed remains.

* Cuba: The FBI added Joanne Chesimard, a fugitive living in Cuba who was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper, to its list of “most wanted terrorists.”

Video Source – Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- GlobalPost; Reuters; PhysOrg; Huffington Post

Daily Headlines: April 8, 2013

* Brazil: A Brazilian federal prosecutor will look into allegations that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was involved in a vote-buying scheme known locally as the mensalao scandal.

* Chile: The body of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is scheduled to be exhumed today and will be examined to determine if he died due to cancer or if he was murdered.

* Panama: Expansion of the Panama Canal has neared the halfway point though the major construction project is running eight months behind schedule.

* Argentina: Argentina advanced to the Davis Cup semifinals where they will face defending champion Czech Republic.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources- Miami Herald, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera English, SI.com

Daily Headlines: June 3, 2011

* Cuba: Famed musician Pablo Milanes, who is best known for helping found the nueva trova genre, will play in Miami as part of a U.S. concert tour beginning in August.

* Chile: A judge ordered an investigation into the death of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda days after the body of former President Salvador Allende was exhumed.

* U.S.: According to a Pew Research Center report 19% of Latinos use Twitter, which is slightly less than blacks but more than double the percentage of whites.

* Argentina: Congress passed a new anti-tobacco law that bans smoking in public places and bars tobacco ads and sponsorship.

Image – RPP (Cuban musician Pablo Milanes in concert in Lima, Peru in 2009.)
Online Sources- CBS News, CNN, The Latin Americanist, The Hill, BBC News

Arte para la gente: Peru’s prized poet

Yesterday Antonio Cisneros was announced as the winner of this year’s Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize, an honor chosen by the Chilean government in honor of the late Neruda. Cisneros is “a poet with notable influence over the younger generations” in the Americas according to a statement published by the awards jury.

Cisneros will receive a $30,000 prize from Chilean President Sebastian Pinera at a ceremony next month. Perhaps the biggest prize for Cisneros was the ideal timing of the award based on comments he made to the Peruvian press:

“I was driving my car after having gone to the doctor for a pneumonia vaccine and I was damning my luck for having reached such a senile age. Suddenly I received a call on my cell informing me of the award given by Chile’s Culture Ministry. That changed my mood very quickly.” – [ed. Translated text]

Below is Cisneros reading one of his more interesting works (to put it delicately) entitled “To make love”:

Online Sources- LAHT, RPP, YouTube, sify.com

Daily Headlines: April 12, 2010

* Chile: Conservative legislators banded together and defeated a measure that would’ve renamed Chile’s main international airport in honor of the late poet Pablo Neruda.

* Nicaragua: A study done on Lake Apanas- a UNESCO-listed nature reserve- found that the lake is polluted and endangering local wildlife.

* Puerto Rico: Puerto Rican pugilist Miguel Cotto will fight WBA super welterweight champion Yuri Foreman in a June bout at Yankee Stadium.

* Argentina: Spanish authorities approved the extradition of an Argentine pilot accused of participating in “death flights” during the infamous Dirty War period.

Image – Guardian UK (“Lover boy ... Pablo Neruda with his wife Delia.”)
Online Sources- Expatica Spain, Bloomberg, Xinhua, AP

Video of the Day: A musical ode to Neruda

We’ll be posting a few odds and ends on Saturday Sunday (sorry!) so please tune in to our blog over the weekend (ugh, busy weekend.)

In the meantime, we want to embed a video of Brazilian singer Luciana Souza during a recording session for her 2004 album “Neruda.” It’s a lovely tribute to the legendary Chilean poet.

(Video link):

Souza is currently touring the U.S. and Italy if you’re interested in seeing her live and in concert.

Sources- Wikipedia, YouTube, lucianasouza.com