Daily Headlines: June 9, 2016

* Brazil: Hundreds of pairs of underwear were laid on Copacabana beach last Monday as part of a protest calling attention to violence against women including the recent suspected gang rape of a sixteen-year-old girl.

* Panama: Shell companies purportedly used by the Cuban government to circumvent the U.S. trade embargo against the island join Argentina’s president and a Chilean anti-corruption activist as some of the entities mentioned in the “Panama Papers”.

* Haiti: U.S. and European Union officials are none too pleased with the decision to rerun Haiti’s disputed presidential elections twelve months after they were first held.

* Guatemala: A UNICEF study found poverty, sexual abuse and machismo have fueled a “shocking” amount of child sex trafficking in Guatemala.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources – The Huffington Post, The Latin Americanist, Quartz, euronews, The Miami Herald

Daily Headlines: September 9, 2014

* Mexico: Drought conditions on both sides of the border over the past few years could explain why Mexico allegedly owes some 380,000 acre-feet of water to the U.S.

* Latin America: A recent UNICEF report found that Latin America and the Caribbean has the worst homicide rate among children and youth, and at roughly three times the global average.

* Venezuela: Has Venezuela unofficially fallen into a recession due to a decrease of goods coming into the country?

* Honduras: According to Honduras’ human rights commissioner the number of deaths caused by firearms had more than doubled between 2005 and 2013.

Video Source – Reuters via YouTube (Areas of northern Mexico were devastated in 2011 due to the worst drought conditions in about seventy years).
 
Online Sources – The Washington Post; MercoPress; LAHT; Reuters

World Watch: Tensions in Libya

* Middle East: According to the Libyan media “multiple arrests” were made in relation to the recent deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

* World: According to UNICEF child mortality rates have sharply declined over the past decade reportedly “amid gains in health care, education, development programs and economic progress”.

* Russia: Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev suggested the early release of three members of the Pussy Riot collective controversially sentenced to two years in prison for ''hooliganism motivated by religious hatred''.

* Afghanistan: Residents in Karachi paid their respects to over 260 employees of a garment factory who died as a result of a massive fire on Tuesday.

Video Source– YouTube via Associated Press (“The U.S. Is deploying two warships to the Libyan Coast, following the attack on a U.S. consulate that killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three others.”)

Online Sources – Voice of America, CNN, Sydney Morning Herald, BBC News

Today’s Video: Watching one's step

Today is the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action and according to UNICEF nearly 5200 people were killed in 2008 as a result of landmines and similar devices. The problem of landmines is not immune to Latin America, especially children whose lives have been forever changed by armed conflict and violence. Such is the case in Colombia as one can see in the jarring video below from Euronews:

Online Sources - UNICEF, YouTube

Daily Headlines: July 23, 2009

* Mexico: Police arrested four men accused of belonging to a drug gang behind the torture and murders of twelve policemen in Michoacan.

* Puerto Rico: Will Congress soon vote on a proposal designed to give Puerto Ricans a chance to decide the island’s political status?

* Brazil: A report by UNICEF found that almost half of teen deaths in Brazil are due to murder.

* Peru: Local meteorologists predict that the recurring weather phenomena known as “El Niño” could hit Peru as early as this year.

Image- AP (“Police officers escort Jose Alberto Lopez, an alleged coordinator for the Mexican drug cartel known as "La Familia," during his presentation to the media in Mexico City, Wednesday, July 22, 2009.”)
Online Sources- Xinhua, BBC News, AP, Living in Peru

Daily Headlines: December 29, 2008

* Haiti: The above photograph of a child walking through a Haitian slum was named as UNICEF’s 2008 “Photo of the Year”.

* Mexico: Organizers of the Queen of Hispanic America pageant stripped the title from Laura Zuniga days after she was arrested in the company of suspected drug traffickers.

* El Salvador: According to government figures 19,701 Salvadorans have been deported this year from the U.S., an increase of almost 5,000 people compared to 2007.

* Venezuela: “We’re preparing a series of measures and initiatives to keep the crisis from whipping us,” said president Hugo Chavez who will continue social spending despite plummeting oil prices.

Image- Spiegel Online
Online Sources- AFP, LAHT, Bloomberg, Global Voices Online, The Latin Americanist