Daily Headlines: February 16, 2009

* Brazil: Swiss police said that a Brazilian woman may’ve faked her claims that she was pregnant and attacked by a trio of skinheads.

* Paraguay: Today is President’s Day in the U.S. and apparently nobody can be prouder of that than Paraguayans.

* U.S.: A Department of Homeland Security report released on Friday concluded that over 100,000 immigrant parents of U.S. citizens were deported between 1997 and 2007.

* Mexico: The country’s Supreme Court ruled that riot police “committed serious human rights violations” such sexually abusing women during 2006 protests in the town of San Salvador Atenco.

Image- AP (“The scarred midsection, allegedly of Paula Oliveira, 26, of Brazil, can be seen in this photo taken in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009, and given to a Brazilian newspaper by Oliveira's family. Zurich police on Thursday were investigating an alleged skinhead assault on Oliveira that caused her to miscarry twins and left her scarred with the initials of Switzerland's main right-wing party.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg, MSNBC, New York Times, LAHT

Skinheads attacked pregnant Brazilian?

A Brazilian women living in Switzerland claimed to have been the victim of a terrible racial attack.

26-year-old lawyer Paula Oliveira said that three skinheads assaulted her outside a local train station in Zurich and scarred the initials of the far-right Swiss People's Party on her stomach and legs. The pregnant Oliveira claimed that the attack caused her to miscarry twins that she had in her womb.

Brazil’s government is looking into allegations made by Olivera:

Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the charge d’affaires of the Swiss embassy had been summoned to receive the request.

"We can’t draw any conclusions yet, but we have asked the Swiss authorities to conduct their investigation with more transparency so we can have all the information," he told reporters...

He said Switzerland should carry out an exhaustive investigation "not only for the person attacked, but also for the good relations between Brazil and Switzerland."

Olivera’s ordeal has outraged people in her native Brazil including her father who said that “what they did to my daughter is like a horror movie.”

Image- AP
Online Sources- canoe.ca, Montreal Gazette, BBC News, JTA