Daily Headlines: October 12, 2016

* Haiti: An official report said Hurricane Matthew decimated Haiti’s agricultural sector including the loss of tens of thousands of acres of farmland and more than 350,000 heads of livestock.

* Venezuela: Venezuelan intel chief Gustavo González López accused the opposition of planning a terrorist escalation aimed at deposing President Nicolas Maduro, while critics point out that state-owned PDVSA is falling closer to default in the oil-rich country.

* Honduras: Authorities in the United States and Honduras are collaborating in the investigation of thirty-five members of the Honduran political elite with potential ties to criminal groups.

* South America: In the latest round of World Cup qualifiers, Brazil heads the standings with four straight wins and Argentina was stunned at home against Paraguay.

YouTube Source – CCTV News (“Hurricane Matthew has left Haiti in a catastrophic state…Making things worse is that the country is still struggling after it was devastated by a magnitude-7 earthquake in 2010.”)

Online Sources – Xinhua, InSight Crime, UPI, Finanical Times, Goal.com

Today's Video: Sowing the Seeds

Note: This post was originally published on March 2014. We are repeating it today in recognition of Helen Chavez, the widow of iconic Mexican-American civil rights and labor activist Cesar Chavez, who passed away on June 6th at the age of 88. 

March 31st would have been the 84h birthday of the late civil rights activist and labor leader Cesar Chavez.  His life has received renewed attention with the new release of a Hollywood biopic that was directed by Diego Luna and stars Michael Peña, America Ferrera and Rosario Dawson.

The Mexican-American Chavez devoted his life to improving the conditions of farm workers by campaigning for equal pay and fair working conditions.  He championed nonviolent efforts to promote the rights of farmworkers who generally suffered from abusive labor conditions as well as low pay for their work.  Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW), which helped organize strikes and other actions such as a boycott in the 1980s to protest the use of toxic pesticides on grapes.

Chavez’s views on immigration varied; on the one hand, he was opposed to undocumented immigrants who he viewed as “scabs” that would potentially undermine his efforts to campaign for farmworkers.  Yet he also successfully campaigned to end the Bracero guest worker program that he believed had exploited migrant laborers and unfairly displaced domestic farmworkers.

Below the page break is the first part of a documentary depicting the Delano grape strike of the mid-1960s where Chavez and his allies fought for union recognition for farmworkers.  The film includes footage of the poor working conditions faced by laborers, picketing protesters in front of a California supermarket, and an interview with one of the grape owners who admitted to have never met Chavez but still labeled his tactics as “distasteful.”

Daily Headlines: May 16, 2016

* Venezuela: A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that his country, which has given Venezuela about $50 billion in financing since 2007, views the South American state’s economic crisis as a domestic matter but did not specifically mention if more aid will be provided.

* Argentina: President Mauricio Macri may be seen as “business-friendly” but that hasn’t stopped him from siding with farmers in a dispute that could lead to Monsanto removing its biotech soybean seeds from Argentina.

* Colombia: The Colombian government and FARC took a big step towards a final, full peace deal after the rebels pledged to free all solders under the age of 15 years.

* Dominican Republic: Danilo Medina is expected to easily win a second straight term as president of the Dominican Republic following an election marred by problems with new technology at voting stations.

YouTube Source – euronews (“Opposition protesters have rallied in Caracas. Their calls to remove the Venezuelan president are taking on a more urgent tone.”)
 
Online Sources – New York Daily News, euronews, Buenos Aires Herald, ABC Online, Reuters

Daily Headlines: February 2, 2015

* Brazil: Brazil's worst drought in decades has led to special alerts in four Brazilian states including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, decreased agriculture production in Espirito Santo and water rationing in more than ninety cities.

* South America: The Argentine government wants to create a new intelligence agency in the wake of the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman while scandal-plagued former Colombian intel chief Maria del Pilar Hurtado turned herself in to police.

* Venezuela: Is U.S. Vice President Joe Biden planning a coup against Venezuela’s government or is Nicolás Maduro searching for scapegoats amid a domestic economic crisis?

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet proposed reforming Chile’s complete ban on abortion by legalizing the procedure in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk.

Video Source – YouTube user Reuters (“Agricultural producers in Rio de Janeiro state battle with the worst drought Brazil has seen in 80 years which is killing large numbers of livestock and crops.”)
 
Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; Buenos Aires Herald; BBC News; Bernama; UPI

Daily Headlines: September 10, 2014

* Guatemala: The Guatemalan Constitutional Court recently suspended the “Monsanto Law,” which would have forced farmers to obtain permission from firms like Monsanto, DuPont or Bayer in order to grow certain crops.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet announced a series of legal reforms including strengthening a Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law in response to a bombing in Santiago, Chile on Monday.

* Peru: Four indigenous environmental activists were murdered in a remote area of Peru allegedly at the hands of illegal loggers.

* Haiti: At least twenty-three people died and thirty-two were injured when a bus fell into a ravine in southern Haiti yesterday.

Video Source – teleSUR English via YouTube

Online Sources –VOXXI; Fox News Latino; The Latin Americanist; Voice of America; Reuters

Daily Headlines: April 29, 2014

* Brazil: A social media campaign has grown in support of Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves who responded to the racist taunt of having a banana thrown at him in the middle of a match in Spain by nonchalantly gobbling up the fruit.

* Mexico: Acclaimed film director Alfonso Cuarón published a full-page advertisement in Mexican newspapers yesterday of a list of questions for President Enrique Peña Nieto to answer regarding a controversial energy reform proposal.

* Peru: Indigenous leader Ruth Buendia was named as a co-recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts to halt construction of the Paquitzapango hydroelectric project.

* Colombia: Thousands of farmers are protesting against the Colombian government’s agrarian polices in a demonstration that could affect the May 26 general election and President Juan Manuel Santos’ chances of winning reelection.
  
Video Source – YouTube user Love Football

Online Sources – GlobalPost; The Guardian; Reuters; The Telegraph

”Extreme Emergency” in Drought-Hit Haitian Region

When referring to the affects of weather on Haiti one probably thinks of hurricanes and other tropical storms ravaging the Caribbean nation.  Yet northeastern Haiti has been hit by a doughty so severe that one government official called the situation an “extreme emergency.”

According to Pierre Gary Mathieu, representative of Haiti’s National Coordination of Food Security (CNSA), the drought has lasted eight months and has led to the loss of two harvest seasons. As a result, farmers have been forced to travel farther in order to obtain water while some schools where meals are provided to impoverished students do not have water or food.

“People need jobs immediately but they also need food,” Mathieu said to the Associated Press (AP) in an article published on Wednesday.

Even though some rain has fallen recently in the affected area, Mathieu believes that it will take at least six months for a recovery to occur.  Nevertheless, government officials are expected to meet tomorrow with international aid workers in order to plan out a proper response to the drought affected area.  (A World Food Program spokesman told the AP that the organization would send food kits containing rice, beans and cooking oil to some 120,000 people in northwestern Haiti).

The latest CNSA outlook for the first six months of this year concluded that the drought may not affect national food production and availability yet could cause a “deterioration” in food security in dry areas.  For example, Haiti has imported thousands of tons of rice from Vietnam to satisfy local demand yet rice farmers in areas like Maribaroux and Fort Liberté have experienced difficulties due to “the lack of water in irrigation systems.”

Daily Headlines: July 20, 2012

* South America: Brazil's oil regulator confirmed that Chevron will have to pay a $24.7 million fine for an offshore oil leak last November, while Chevron will invest an additional $2 billion in a joint venture with Venezuela’s PDVSA.

* U.S.: A U.S. immigration judge granted asylum to a woman who fled her native Guatemala in 2004 after she was “brutally beaten and raped by her common law husband.”

* Argentina: One of the worst droughts to hit the U.S. in recent history could benefit Argentine grain farmers.

* Mexico: The head of the Mexico's National Institute of Indian Languages warned that sixty-four indigenous dialects could soon “die out.”

Video Source – YouTube via Associated Press (Video from November 2011).

Online Sources- Reuters, San Jose Mercury News, Busninessweek, GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: May 23, 2011

* Chile: The body of former President Salvador Allende will be exhumed today in order to potentially find out whether his death in a 1973 military coup came by suicide or by attacking troops.

* Costa Rica: According to a new study most Canadians would be willing to seek medical treatment abroad in countries like Costa Rica if it were covered by the healthcare system.

* Peru: Researchers concluded that the Inca civilization was able to grow partly due to the innovation of using llama dung as a fertilizer at high altitudes.

* Puerto Rico: Police are considering imposing a curfew in order to combat violent crime.

Image – AP via boston.com (“In this Sept. 11, 1973 picture, soldiers and firefighters carry the body of Chile's President Salvador Allende, wrapped in a Bolivian poncho, out the destroyed La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile after a coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that ended Allende's three-year government.”)
Online Sources- CBS News, The Guardian, CTV.ca, Fox News Latino

Report: Mexican rural, indigenous women face challenges

Illiteracy and insecurity are just some of the problems Mexican rural women face according to a report released on International Women's Day.

The report by a Mexican peasants’ rights group found that most of the country’s thirteen million indigenous and rural women face many challenges. According to the Central de Organizaciones Campesinas y Populares (COCP) one out of every ten peasant women have some level of secondary education and that a third of indigenous peasant women are illiterate.

The conditions these women face affect their families; for example, children of these women tend to suffer from malnutrition. According to COCP, some families face difficulties when women migrate abroad due to a “lack of alternatives”. The report also claims that those women who work as migrant workers usually face abuses at the hands of their employers such as earning roughly half as much as their male counterparts.

With so few options available and increasing number of indigenous and rural women are getting involved in the drug trade. COCP president José Jacobo Femat told Mexican daily Excelsior that growing corn has become much less lucrative compared to narcotics. As a result, rural areas have become much more insecure and corrupt according to Femat.

The extreme situation face by rural women in Mexico raises the need for more action to be taken by the private and public sectors to help them move forward. The problems of rural women has not gone lost on the head of the U.N.’s agency against hunger:

“Gender equality is not only a noble idea but also crucial for agricultural development and food security,” said Food and Agriculture Organization director-general Jacques Diouf, according to the DPA news agency.


He insisted “we should promote gender equality and the potential of women in the agrarian field in order to…beat hunger and extreme poverty.”

Image- SDP Noticias
Online Sources- SDP Noticias, Excelsior, El Universal, Telam

Weekend Headlines: February 26-27, 2011

* Brazil: Citing unmet environmental requirements a Brazilian judge blocked the planned construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rainforest.

* Panama: Hundreds of indigenous protests angry at a controversial mining law are expected to continue demonstrations for a third straight day on Saturday.

* U.S.: The Agriculture Department has set up a $1.3 billion fund to settle bias claims from Latino and women farmers.

* Latin America: A representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Latin American governments to emulate Peru and cut off diplomatic relations with Libya.

Image – AFP via BBC News (Environmentalists and indigenous groups protested against a massive dam that was to be built in in the Amazon rainforest.)
Online Sources- Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg, MSNBC, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: October 1, 2010

* Peru: Paleontologists discovered the 36-million-year-old fossil of a “giant penguin” that had gray and reddish brown feathers and was over five feet tall.

* Latin America: Over 600 people in thirteen South American countries were arrested for counterfeiting products according to Interpol.

* Venezuela: At least sixteen people were killed after a four-day riot took place in a northern Venezuelan prison.

* Mexico: Farmers in the world’s fourth-largest producer of corn are expected to grow a record 24.9 million tons of the vegetable this year.

Image – BBC News
Online Sources- CNN, LAHT, MSNBC, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: May 6, 2010

* Bolivia: A nationwide strike took place yesterday as protesters demanded higher wages from the federal government.

* Haiti: A pair of Senators from each major party introduced a bill that would give $3.5 billion over five years to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

* Colombia: Antanas Mockus vowed that he would prevent a Venezuelan-style “revolution” if he were elected as Colombian president.

* Cuba: According to the Cuban press the country’s sugar harvest was the worst in over a century.

Image – AFP
Online Sources- Bloomberg, Washington Post, El Universal, MSNBC

New rules for H-2A visa program

U.S. immigration officials expanded a key guest worker program that affects laborers that have come from several Latin America countries.

The H-2A visa program facilitates the hiring of temporary foreign agriculture workers and was recently expanded to include migrants from Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Uruguay. The new rules would obligate companies to “make a greater effort” to fill those jobs with U.S. workers but also permit higher wages and greater protection for immigrant employees. The new regulations- which roll back restrictions implemented during the Bush administration- include providing employees with a copy of their contract as well as ensure that worker housing is not substandard.

The changes come after a January study highlighted the abuses against foreign sheepherders in Colorado who worked under the H-2A program:

“There are close to 300 sheepherders who are confined to their place of work, receive salaries far below the minimum established by law and are housed in precarious trailers, without electricity or running water,” Jennifer Lee, managing attorney of Colorado Legal Services’ migrant farm worker division and one of the authors of the report, told Efe.


She said the shepherds “are a practically unknown and unrecognized labor force that works in solitude, (enduring both) cold and hot weather, for an average wage of less than $2 an hour”…

The interviews revealed that 66 percent of these workers are from Peru, 12 percent from Mexico, 10 percent from Bolivia, 10 percent from Chile and the remainder from Nepal.

On a related note, a report released this week analyzed Census data and concluded that the number of illegal/undocumented immigrants dropped by about one million between 2008 and 2009.

Image- CBS News
Online Sources- Migration Expert, ABC news, la Opinion, LAHT, CBS News

Daily Headlines: October 15, 2009

* Colombia: As seen in the above video, former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria reiterated comments made in part last February criticizing the U.S.-led “war on drugs” and calling for a greater emphasis on rehabilitation.

* U.S.: A group of Latino farmers alleging that they were discriminated from receiving federal loans are trying to push their case so that it receives class-action status.

* Ecuador: The mother of a California teen killed last month in Ecuador has urged officials there to do more to solve the murder.

* Latin America: The world’s first vegetarian spider has been purportedly located in a species found in southern Mexico and most of Central America.

Online Sources- UPI, CNN, the Latin Americanist, New York Times, Voice of America

Daily Headlines: August 3, 2009

* U.S.: Family of Jose Sucuzhañay was present at the dedication of the Brooklyn street corner where he was murdered in a suspected hate crime.

* Argentina: Representatives of President Cristina Kirchner’s government will meet with farm leaders threatening to go on strike over Argentina’s weakened economy.

* Cuba: "We are ready to talk about everything, but ... not to negotiate our political and social system," declared Cuban President Raul Castro in a speech to the country’s legislature.

* Colombia: A symbol of Colombia’s continued armed conflict- the roughly 2000 displaced people in Bogota’s Tercer Milenio Park- agreed to leave the site after four months of peaceful occupation.

Image- New York Daily News (“A business card belonging to Jose Oswald Sucuzhanay” who was slain in December 2008.)
Online Sources- AFP, Colombia Reports, NY1, Reuters, The Latin Americanist

Castro warns Cubans of faltering economy

Earlier this month the International Monetary Fund prognosticated that Latin America’s economy has yet to hit rock bottom. The communist country of Cuba is no exception to that assessment.

Yesterday President Raul Castro told his countrymen at a public speech that the Cuban economy will not grow at the rate initially estimated by the government. He addressed the country’s agriculture shortages and implored people to take more advantage of farmland reforms enacted last year. "It is not a question of yelling 'Fatherland or death! Down with imperialism! The blockade hurts us… The land is there waiting for our efforts" said Castro who emphasized that agrarian production was an issue of national security.

Adding to Cuba’s woes was the multibillion dollar damage caused by several storms that hit the island last year. The government has already enacted several austerity measures designed to heal the ailing economy:

The government has already taken measures ranging from scheduled power blackouts to limiting the use of air conditioners at state offices, schools and shops to just three hours a day (from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.). Public transportation has been cut back and selective factory and workplace closedowns are being implemented. Foreign businesses operating on the island have found their bank accounts frozen (a policy that apparently has been slightly tempered in recent days), and some individuals say they have had trouble cashing checks or making hard currency withdrawals from their private bank accounts.

Castro is set to meet with senior officials tomorrow in order to discuss revising the Cuban budget due to “the effects of the world economic crisis on our economy."

Image- BBC News (Circa 1999 photo of a Cuban farmer tending his land)
Online Sources- Reuters, CBS News, The Latin Americanist, CNN, AP

Daily Headlines: June 11, 2009

* Brazil: The country may be officially in recession but that won’t stop the government from making a $10 billion loan to (not from) the International Monetary Fund.

* Dominican Republic: Dominican cacao farmers are learning the pros and cons of fair trade as cited in the Christian Science Monitor.

* Cuba: Cuba’s ambassador to the U.N. launched heavy attacks against Human Rights Watch calling them a “clown act” paid to act as "mercenaries" for the U.S. government.

* Caribbean: British and Canadian researchers concluded that climate change is to blame for the destruction of Caribbean coral reefs.

Image- CNNMoney.com (“Partial view of a Petrobras off-shore oil platform in Angra dos Reis, 180 km south of Rio de Janeiro.”)
Online Sources- Christian Science Monitor, AP, BBC News, LAHT, Reuters

Daily Headlines: June 9, 2009

* Brazil: In the latest development to the Air France Flight 447 accident, searchers found an additional seven bodies yesterday as well as a large chunk of the plane’s tail.

* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa urged his newly installed energy minister to pursue “a tougher line to all these (foreign oil) companies that still believe they can continue to abuse our country.”

* Mexico: The government gave the green light to the experimental planting of genetically modified corn as early as September.

* Cuba: Now it is official – Cuba’s government rejected a path to be readmitted to the Organization of American States.

Image- CBS News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg, MSNBC, Reuters

Daily Headlines: May 18, 2009

* Venezuela: General Motors’ woes have hit Venezuela where the troubled automaker will close assembly plants there for three months.

* U.S.: Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a guest-worker bill last week that would legalize the status of about two million illegal immigrant farmworkers and their families.

* Cuba: The White House should press for Cuba to return to economic bodies like the International Monetary Fund according to the personal views of one senior IMF official.

* Uruguay: Now it’s official – the Uruguayan government lifted the ban on gays joining the military.

Image- AP (“A flag flies over a General Motors dealership, Friday, May 15, 2009, in Willoughby Hills, Ohio.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg, AFP, New York Times, miamiherald.com