Daily Headlines: September 4, 2013

* Mexico: Press group Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of four journalists who were recently arrested while covering protests against the Mexican government’s plans for educational reform.

* U.S.: A new report from the Pew Research Center found that nine of the top ten U.S. states where the Latino population has grown the fastest are located in the South.

* Chile: Three men who claimed to have been sexually abused by “prominent priest” Fernando Karadima in the 1980s have filed a $900,000 lawsuit against him.

* Argentina: Another day, another trial for ex-Argentina president and convicted arms trafficker Carlos Menem. 

Video Source – YouTube via user panamericanavideos (“Thousands of protesters (on Monday) took to the streets of Mexico City to protest against the reforms proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto”).

Online Sources- LAHT; Huffington Post; GlobalPost; Businsesweek

Daily Headlines: January 11, 2013

* Mexico: Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., expressed his hope that new gun control laws in the U.S. could help reduce violence in Mexico.

* Honduras: Reporters Without Borders called on officials in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists to protect a reporter facing several threats.

* Colombia: FARC lead negotiator Ivan Marquez said that the guerillas would not extend a unilateral ceasefire beyond a January 20th deadline.

* U.S.: Does the surprise resignation of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis signify a “diversity gap” in President Barack Obama’s cabinet?

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- Washington Post, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, infosurhoy.com

Daily Headlines: September 6, 2012

* Paraguay: Reporters Without Borders denounced the “purge” of twenty-seven employees of a state-run TV station allegedly due to their support of ousted President Fernando Lugo.

* Latin America: “The balance of the political and economic performance of (Latin America and the Caribbean) during the last twelve months in general is positive,” claimed Organization of American States chief Jose Miguel Insulza.

* Argentina: Debate commenced yesterday in the Senate on a government-backed proposal that would lower the voting age from eighteen to sixteen.

* Peru: President Ollanta Humala said that the military killed Comrade Williams, one of the commanders of the Shining Path rebel army.

Video Source – YouTube via user TvPública Paraguay (Former Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo speaking on state-run TV Pública hours after he was ousted last June)

Online Sources- Reporters Without Borders, Bernama, Huffington Post, BBC News

Daily Headlines: June 11, 2012

* U.S.: A Latino Decisions poll published last week found that 82% of Hispanics and 61% of non-Hispanics prefer the DREAM Act over a stricter immigration proposal by Sen. Marco Rubio.

* Honduras: The mythical Ciudad Blanca ruins may have been located by archeologists using laser image mapping rather than the traditional hacking through forests with machetes.

* Latin America: Latin America and the Caribbean should spend $110 billion a year through 2050 in order to cut greenhouse-gas emissions according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

* Argentina: Press rights group Reporters Without Borders “strongly condemned” the recent attacks against at least ten journalists in the Buenos Aires area.

Video Source – YouTube via bkkaykay (This infographic for a pro-DREAM Act campaign explains the bill’s guidelines including who would benefit from the proposal).

Online Sources- The Hill, LiveScience, Bloomberg, Reporters Without Borders

Daily Headlines: March 14, 2012

* Mexico: The members of Los Tigres Del Norte were declared persona non grata by officials in the capital of Chihuahua state due to their narcocorrido songs.

* Cuba: Reporters Without Borders named Cuba one of its “Enemies of the Internet” for several reasons including police harassment of bloggers and limited access to online resources.

* Haiti: A Pakistani military court sentenced two U.N. troops to one year in prison for the rape of a Haitian boy.

* Latin America: A Costa Rican man accused of masterminding the 2011 attack that killed Argentine singer Facundo Cabral was deported last night to Guatemala.

Video Source – YouTube via LosTigresNorteVEVO

Online Sources- CBC News, Voice of America, BBC News, NPR

Today’s Video: Turn on the News (Revisited)

Note: For the next few days our daily “Today’s Video” posts will examine the freedom of the press in several Latin American and Caribbean countries.

On Tuesday media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (or RSF based on its French initials) published their tenth annual press freedom index. Unfortunately the rankings decreased for most Latin American and Caribbean states including several countries whose position plummeted in 2011 compared to the previous year.

Chile nosedived by 47 spots and was ranked 80 out of 179 countries on the RSF index. Numerous factors accounted for such a sleep decline according to RSF:

In Chile, where student protesters questioned the over-concentration of media ownership, violence against journalists included beatings, cyber-attacks and attacks on editorial staffs. Many of these assaults, often accompanied by heavy-handed arrests and destruction of equipment, were carried out by abusive armed police who were rarely called to account.

Last week the Chilean government dropped their support of a controversial measure that would’ve permitted police to seize media images without a court order. Dubbed the “Hinzpeter Law” after the Chilean Interior Minister, the plan was decried by media groups and free speech advocates. Mauricio Weibel, president of Chilean Foreign Press Association, reportedly warned that the measure could damage Chile’s image and might be factored in to the RSF’s rankings.

In September 2011 we highlighted the case of an Argentine TV news crew who claimed unknown assailants while covering protests in Santiago attacked them. Less than a month after that, police arrested Chilevision journalist Luis Narváez after his cameraman was bumped into and possibly assaulted by an officer. As the following video shows, Narváez was detained seemingly for no reason despite him showing officers his press card and claiming his innocence:

Unfortunately Narváez wasn’t the only media member apparently targeted by the authorities while covering student protests in early October.

In our next "Today's Video" installment we’ll examine another South American state that plummeted in the latest RSF press freedom index.

Video Source – YouTube via hersome

Online Sources- Reporters Without Borders, IFEX, Washington Post, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: October 21, 2010

* Latin America: Freedom for the media in most Latin American countries including Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela has unfortunately worsened according to Reporters Without Borders.

* Mexico: Good luck to the new police chief of the northern border town of Praxedis G. Guerrero – a 20-year-old student “whose only (prior) police experience was a stint as a department secretary.”

* Brazil: The latest polls in the Brazilian presidential race showed that ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff has rebounded against rival Jose Serra.

* Cuba: President Barack Obama said that he would be willing to continue the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations yet warned, “we want to see that the Castro regime is serious about different ways to deal with the situation".

Image – Christian Science Monitor ("Members of the press protest violence against journalists in Mexico City, on Aug. 7. Marco Ugarte/AP/File”)
Online Sources- Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, NPR, LAHT, Reuters

Cuba’s revolving cell door

As the saying goes: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Last week, blogger and “independent Cuban journalist” Dania Garcia was freed from a jail on the island while she appealed charges of “abuse of authority”. The 23 year-old had been sentenced last month to twenty months in prison after allegedly fighting with her daughter over her criticism of the Castro regime.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Garcia has been identified as a supporter of dissident protesters the Ladies in White and her blog has ties to “a radical anti-Castro group based in Miami." A statement on RSF’s website on Friday also advocated that 25 other jailed journalists be freed by Cuban authorities.

While the cell door opened for the freeing of one journalist another one seemed to take her place. RSF denounced the arrest “with force” of Calixto Ramon Martinez Arias who had been covering the death via hunger strike of jailed dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. According to RSF the Cuban police have not revealed details beyond charging him with striking a policeman, a charge that Arias denied:

Noting that Cuban authorities “have offered no details about what allegedly took place” when Martinez was detained, RSF suggested prosecutors “themselves are not sure what they are claiming.”



While being transferred from one jail to another on April 30, Martinez took the opportunity to denounce the charges against him as unfounded.



“This is an invention designed to stop my work and neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office can agree on the lies they are going to use to convict me,” he said.

Is it any wonder why RSF deemed Cuban president Raul Castro as one of forty global “predators” against the press?

Image- ABC.es (“Dania Garcia, at left, in a photo from her website showing her at a Ladies in White protest.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, BBC News, LAHT, CNN, Miami Herald, MSNBC

Castro, cartels, criminals among press “predators”

In commemoration of World Press Freedom Day watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) identified forty global “predators” who are dangers against the media. "These predators of press freedom have the power to censor, imprison, kidnap, torture and, in the worst cases, murder journalists" according to an RSF statement. RSF named to its list of shame leaders such as China's Hu Jintao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as well as criminal organizations like the Italian mafia and Spain’s ETA.

The Americas were not spared of RSF’s anger; Cuban president Raul Castro “has behaved little better than his brother as regards human rights”. Mexican drug gangs were also blacklisted as RSF deemed Mexico as the “most dangerous country for journalists”. Further south, RSF signaled Colombia’s armed groups with threatening the country’s media:

According to RSF, The Black Eagles a paramilitary structure that "continues to spread terror, forcing journalists to self-censorship or exile, when they resort to murder"…

"The death threats directed at journalists, well-known and sometimes at odds with the government of Alvaro Uribe, often bear the signature of the Black Eagles," the group adds.


Regarding the FARC, the organization made the list of "predators" for several reasons including being “behind the abduction of fifty journalists since 1997 and (for making) it practically impossible to work the press in the regions they control. " – [ed. Translated text]

Image- Time (“Monterrey police investigating a 2009 attack on the local offices of Televisa).
Online Sources- AP, Semana.com, BBC News, Reporters Without Borders, New York Daily News

Press groups denounce Honduran journo murders

On Monday radio host Luis Antonio Chévez became the sixth Honduran journalist to be killed over the past two months. The precarious situation members of the media have faced in that country has been denounced by several international press groups.

“In a month (Honduras) has fallen to become the worst country in terms of security for journalists”, said a statement emitted earlier this month by Reporters Without Borders (RWB). The RWB communiqué went on to denounce a climate of impunity and a lack of effective investigation in the murders of several Honduran journalists in the early part of the year. Citing the dangers against the press since the ouster of Manuel Zelaya last month, the group urged Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to withdraw Honduras’ invitation to a May summit.

Other groups have expressed their dissatisfaction and disappointment with the violence against the press:

"We call on Honduran authorities to put an end to this unprecedented wave of violence against the press," said Carlos Lauria, senior program coordinator for the Americas for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

"These attacks are seriously restricting freedom of expression and undermine citizens' right to be informed on issues of public interest," he said…

Such despicable crimes against media professionals undermine the fundamental right of freedom of information, cornerstone of a democratic society," said Irina Bokova, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the U.N. agency that deals with press freedoms.

Honduras hasn’t been the only Latin American state denounced by press groups. The Inter-American Press Association denounced the recent arrest of Globovision president Guillermo Zuloaga in Venezuela while the RWB has called on Colombian authorities to investigate more deeply into the death of a local journalist.

Image- Clarin (A Honduran protestor holds up the image of slain journalist Joseph Hernández Ochoa).
Online Sources- AFP, LAHT, CNN, Milenio, AP

Daily Headlines: March 13, 2009

* Chile: Several U.S. banks are being sued by Chile’s government over allegedly helping the late dictator Augusto Pinochet embezzle public funds.

* Cuba: The country’s government continues to repress independent journalists despite the emergence of bloggers critical of the Castro regime according to Reporters Without Borders.

* Ecuador: The government will formally default on a bond debt of $2.7 billion that is due in 2030.

* Dominican Republic: Hundreds of health professionals demanding higher wages went on a 24-hour strike yesterday.

Image- CBC
Online Sources- Reporters Without Borders, IHT, cbs4.com, CNN

Daily Headlines: September 9, 2008

* Colombia: The New York Times’ Simon Romero takes a look at the reality of Colombia; one where the usually safe cities are at “a disconnect” with the continued armed conflict in the rest of the country.

* Brazil: Days after declining an invite to join OPEC, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to use revenue from recently discovered offshore oil fields to combat poverty.

* Honduras: A court convicted a former jail official with over 1000 years in prison for his role in a 2003 massacre that killed 69 inmates.

* Dominican Republic: International press group Reporters Without Borders denounced Dominican police for posing as journalists in order to infiltrate into “grassroots movements.”

Image- PRESS TV
Sources- The Latin Americanist, BBC News, Thaindian News, Reporters Without Borders, IHT