Daily Headlines: March 10, 2014

* El Salvador: Electoral authorities could take days to declare a victor in the second round of El Salvador’s presidential race where leftist Salvador Sanchez holds a razor-thin 0.16% lead over conservative rival Norman Quijano.

* Mexico: Mexican officials say Knights Templar drug cartel chief Nazario Moreno Gonzalez was killed in a shootout yesterday even though the government in 2010 claimed he was dead.

* Colombia: After yesterday’s local elections, President Juan Manuel Santos’ coalition in the Colombian Congress shrank slightly but will still retain a legislative majority.

* Brazil: Paulo Nogueira Batista, Brazil’s representative at the International Monetary Fund, warned that the institution “will suffer a loss of credibility” if it were to ease its rules in order to provide a large loan to the Ukraine.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube

Online Sources- Bloomberg; GlobalPost; Reuters; CNN

World Watch: Pugilistic parliamentary procedure

* Ukraine: The above video shows how some Ukrainian legislators threw eggs and launched smoke bombs in protest over Russia’s military presence there.

* World: Stock indexes worldwide fell in trading on Tuesday after Europe’s debt crisis worsened.

* Zambia: Several human rights groups including Human Rights Watch condemned Zambian prisons as “’death traps’ beset by overcrowding, malnutrition and rampant disease.”

* South Korea: South Korea’s Oh Eun-sun became the first woman to climb the world’s fourteen highest mountains.

Online Sources- YouTube, USA TODAY, FOX News, New York Times, BBC News

World Watch: Still mourning in Poland

* Poland: Investigators are leaning towards human error as the cause of Saturday’s plane crash that killed 95 people including Polish president Lech Kaczynski and “dozens of Polish political, military and religious leaders.”

* Ukraine: According to White House officials Ukraine pledged to get rid of its stockpile of weapons-grade nuclear material.

* Thailand: The goal of anti-government “Red Shirt” protestors to hold new national elections is closer to becoming a reality.

* South Africa: The murder of white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche has taken a turn towards the weird.

Image – The Telegraph (“A Russian serviceman stands guard near the engine of the crashed Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft.”)
Online Sources- Al Jazeera English, BBC News, MSNBC, CBS News

World Watch: Revelations

* U.K.: A British court ordered the release of intelligence information related to a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who claimed that he was tortured.

* Iraq: Officials have ordered the expulsion of 250 people linked to security firm Blackwater.

* Ukraine: Former Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich appears to have won Ukraine’s presidential election.

* Afghanistan: At least 165 people died as a result of a series of avalanches.

Image – MSNBC ("Former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed in a picture taken in London in 2000, prior to his detention.")
Online Sources- Reuters, Guardian UK, CNN, BBC News

World Watch: Why did Mehmet do it?

* Turkey: Mehmet Ali Agca- the man who shot Pope John Paul II in a failed 1981 assassination attempt- was released from prison earlier today.

* Ukraine: Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich won Sunday’s presidential election but will have to face Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a February runoff.

* North Korea: The government said it would refuse to return to stalled nuclear disarmament negotiations until international sanctions are lifted.

* Afghanistan: Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers assaulted Kabul in what one news source described as “the worst attack on the city in nearly a year.”

Image – Guardian UK (“Mehmet Ali Agca waits in a military hospital in Ankara. Photograph: Reuters.”)
Online Sources- Guardian UK, AHN, BBC News, Reuters

World Watch: Beauty is more than skin deep

* China: What would have been China’s first gay pageant was shutdown at the last minute by authorities who said that the event was not “properly licensed.”

* Ukraine: Eighteen candidates are contesting Ukraine’s presidential election this weekend; the first since the 2004 “Orange Revolution.”

* Russia: The country’s legislature backtracked from its strong opposition to the European Court of Human Rights.

* U.S.: According to government data up to 80 million people in the U.S. received the swine flu vaccine though that only represents roughly one of every five in the total population.

Image – BBC News
Online Sources- Guardiann UK, Xinhua, New York Times, Reuters