Daily Headlines: September 15, 2015

* Bolivia: The U.S. State Department claimed Bolivia “failed demonstrably” to combat drug trafficking even though coca leaf cultivation has fallen by over one-third since 2010.

* Puerto Rico: A group of eight Latino legislators called on Treasury secretary Jacob Lew to work with Congress and help push proposals that would allow debt-ridden Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy.

* Brazil: The Brazilian government unveiled a $17 billion austerity plan though President Dilma Rousseff may not have sufficient political and popular support to implement the package.

* Cuba: Cuban police detained some fifty dissidents marching in Havana less than a week prior to Pope Francis’ scheduled visit to the island.

YouTube Source – wochit World (“According to a new UN report, Bolivia has reduced coca production by 34 percent in four years…(President Evo) Morales forced the DEA and USAID to leave the country in 2008 and 2013 respectively”.)

Online Sources – Voice of America, Bloomberg View, Time, The New York Times, GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: August 18, 2015

* Peru: Peru may have registered a 30% drop in coca cultivation over the past two years yet hundreds of coca growers accuse authorities of providing them insufficient compensation to grow other crops.

* Caribbean: Cuba’s civil defense system was placed on alert due to the effects of a year-long drought, while Puerto Rico sought U.S. Defense Department aid to combat one of the worst droughts in the island’s history.

* Ecuador: Senior disaster official Maria del Pilar Cornejo claimed that about 325,000 people living near the active Cotopaxi volcano are at risk of being hit by possible mudslides and rock flows.

* Mexico: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accused the Mexican government of preventing them from fully investigating the disappearances of 43 missing (and possibly murdered) students from Ayotzinapa.

YouTube Source – VICE News (“Despite the United Nations confirming in 2013 that Peru has overtaken Colombia as the world's top coca and cocaine producer, the country’s place atop the drug supply chain has — at least so far — not included the levels of violence seen in Colombia, Mexico, and other international narcotics hubs.”)
 
Online Sources – Reuters, ABC News, Business Insider, Fox News Latino, BBC News

Daily Headlines: July 3, 2015

* Colombia: The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca cultivation in Colombia increased by 44% in 2014.

* Brazil: The Brazilian Congress rejected a bill that would have allowed criminals as young as 16 to be tried as adults and potentially sent to overcrowded adult prisons.

* Venezuela: The Spanish government will seek from Venezuela the extradition of a convicted member of Basque separatist group ETA.

* Mexico: Human rights investigators accused the Mexican army of the extrajudicial killings of drug gang suspects including twenty-two people in Tlatlaya last year.

YouTube Source – AFP
 
Online Sources – BBC News, teleSUR English, ABC News, ABC Online

Daily Headlines: September 2, 2014

* Europe: Mexican soccer star Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez left Manchester United to Real Madrid on a season-long loan hours before Colombian striker Radamel Falcao joined the famed Mancunian team via his own season-long loan.

* Peru: Police in Lima displayed a record 7.7 tons of cocaine seized last week that were reportedly destined for Spain and Belgium.

* Uruguay: A senior Uruguayan official claimed that the process of transferring six Guantanamo detainees to the South American country would likely occur after presidential elections next month.

* Cuba: Cuban expats traveling to the island are none too pleased with new government restrictions on items including “hard-to-obtain” consumer goods.

Video Source – Liga BBVA via YouTube

Online Sources – Los Angeles Times; TVNZ; Uruguay; CBS Miami

Daily Headlines: June 26, 2014

* South America: According to the U.N., the growing of coca is stable in Colombia and has decreased in Bolivia and Peru though cocaine production is not expected to diminish.

* Uruguay: FIFA suspended star striker Luis Suárez for nine games and fined him about $112,000 for biting an Italian player during a World Cup match this week.

* Costa Rica: President Luis Guillermo Solís has barred his name from public work projects and his image in government offices since “the worship of the image of the president is over.”

* Cuba: Six Cuban baseball players were taken off the national team due to “attempts to leave the country illegally.”

Video Source – NTDTV via YouTube

Online Sources – BBC News; USA TODAY; The Latin Americanist; Tico Times; ABC News

Daily Headlines: June 3, 2014

* Mexico: Representatives of numerous Latin American governments including Mexico’s foreign secretary praised King Juan Carlos I of Spain who announced yesterday that he will abdicated his throne.

* Cuba: Could the exchange of a U.S. soldier held captive in Afghanistan for five Guantanamo detainees serve as a precedent for a possible swap of a U.S. civilian jailed in Havana for three imprisoned Cuban spies?

* Peru: Peru’s government postponed a planned coca eradication program that would’ve been partially funded by the U.S.

* Brazil: The Foreign Minister of Brazil rejected U.S. intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden’s claims that he has formally sought asylum in the South American country.

Video Source – Associated Press via YouTube

Online Sources – USA TODAY; Time.com; LAHT; ABC News; Xinhua

Daily Headlines: April 11, 2014

* Central America: A new U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime report concluded that Central America is the world’s most violent region with Honduras leading the pack with a whopping 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people.

* Brazil: Drought conditions in Brazil have been blamed for an increase in the price of coffee to its highest point since February 2012.

* Nicaragua: An earthquake measuring at least 6.1 on the Richter scale struck off the western coast of Nicaragua that reportedly did not cause any major damage.

* Colombia: Colombian police uncovered over seven tons of cocaine with a street value of about $250 million hidden in packages bound for Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube (Video uploaded in November 2013).

Online Sources – swissinfo.ch; The Guardian; Reuters; The Washington Post

Daily Headlines: November 15, 2013

* Latin America: A Pew Research Center concluded that remittances to Latin America has more than doubled since 2000 despite a decrease in money orders to Mexico.

* Brazil: The Brazilian government reported a 28% increase in Amazon rainforest deforestation after four years of declining rates.

* Bolivia: A new study found that three in ten Bolivians nsume coca leaves for traditional and medicinal purposes.

* El Salvador: Armed men reportedly tried to destroy the records of a non-profit group investigating the disappearances of thousands of children missing during the Salvadoran civil war.

Daily Headlines: September 27, 2013

* Latin America: The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime found that Peru surpassed Colombia as the world’s top producer of coca, while Guatemalan Otto Perez Molina called for reforming global drug policy during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

* Chile: Chilean President Sebastian Piñera ordered the shutdown of a “luxury prison” where ten ex-senior officials who served under the late dictator Augusto Pinochet are serving sentences for human rights violations.

* U.S.: The National Association of Hispanic Journalists denounced a recent Fox News headline referring to U.S. citizens with undocumented parents as “children of the corn.”

* El Salvador: Two members of the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority who were released from the Guantanamo prison in April 2012 to El Salvador have reportedly left the Central American country.

Video Source – YouTube via user JewishNewsOne

Online Sources- Miami Herald; Huffington Post; Reuters; CSMonitor.com; Al Jazeera America

Daily Headlines: March 13, 2013

* Chile: The world’s biggest radio telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, will be officially inaugurated on Wednesday though it has been in use for the past two years.

* Bolivia: Should the next Pope accept Bolivian President Evo Morales’ suggestion and try wine made from the coca leaf?

* Venezuela: According to the International Energy Agency, Venezuelan oil spending will likely decline if interim leader Nicolás Maduro wins next month’s presidential election.

* Argentina: Former military strongman Reynaldo Bignone was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity committed under his rule during the 1980s. 

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- Huffington Post, Sky News Australia, Bloomberg, TVNZ

Daily Headlines: September 27, 2012

* Colombia: A Colombian anti-landmine campaign group concluded that over ten thousand people in the South American country have been either injured or killed due to landmines.

* Peru: Coca production in Peru increased for the sixth consecutive year despite government efforts to promote alternative cash crops according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

* Mexico: The Mexican navy announced the capture of Ivan Velazquez Caballero, one of the suspected co-leaders of the notorious Zetas drug gang. 

* Cuba: A bipartisan group of forty-four U.S. senators sent a letter to Cuban President Raul Castro calling for the release of imprisoned contractor Alan Gross.

Video Source – YouTube via user unmineaction
 
Online Sources- Fox News Latino, BBC News, Reuters

Daily Headlines: September 18, 2012

* Chile: Scientists released photos taken from the world's most powerful digital camera, which is sitting on a mountaintop in Chile.

* Bolivia: A U.N. report released days after Bolivia was placed on a White House drug trafficking "black list" found that coca production in the Andean country dropped by 12% in 2011.

* Brazil: Finance Minister Guido Mantega criticized the latest round of U.S. monetary alleging, “the depreciation of the dollar will cause lots of problems for emerging nations.”

* Mexico: Authorities are searching for over 130 inmates who escaped from a prison in the northern Coahuila state.

Video Source – YouTube via Fermilab

Online Sources- Wired.com, ABC News, Reuters, Businessweek, USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: March 13, 2012

* U.S.: The Justice Department on Monday blocked enforcement of a Texas voter identification law due to the potential disenfranchisement of Latino voters.

* Latin America: Colombian police nabbed the suspected mastermind behind the murder of Argentine singer and composer Facundo Cabral in Guatemala last year.

* Bolivia: At a United Nations anti-drugs meeting in Vienna, President Evo Morales defended coca chewing as an “ancestral right” for Bolivians.

* Brazil: Corruption allegations may’ve finally got the better of Ricardo Teixeira who resigned as the head of Brazil's soccer federation and the 2014 World Cup organizing committee.

Image Source – Flickr via Vox Efx (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources- Fort Worth Star-Telegram, CNN, Reuters, BBC News

Daily Headlines: August 19, 2011

* Peru: A statement from the U.S. State Department said that the agency doesn’t feel that “the temporary suspension of (Peruvian coca) eradication this week represents a permanent shift in the government's counternarcotics policy.”

* Brazil: Spanish fashion chain Zara was accused by Brazilian authorities of the mistreatment and exploitation of workers in a Sao Paulo facility.

* U.S.: An ex-Salvadoran army colonel accused of being involved in the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests was found living in impunity in Massachusetts.

* Venezuela: After months of legal wrangling the family members of the late President Carlos Andres Perez reportedly reached a deal that would permit him to be buried in Venezuela.

Image – Mariana Bazo/Reuters via The Guardian (“A coca farmer in Tingo María, Peru.” According to The Guardian, Peru’s prime minister claimed, “the government was committed to reducing the illegal crop and would convene a special panel next month to chart a strategy that would stress alternative development, ‘social inclusion and fighting poverty’.”)
Online Sources- AFP, The Guardian, UPI, Reuters

Daily Headlines: July 29, 2011

* Bolivia: The government announced a unique plan to purchase excess coca leaves in order to keep them out of the reach of cocaine producers.

* Chile: Could a weeklong strike at one of Chile’s main copper mines soon come to an end?

* El Salvador: President Mauricio Funes’ centrist policies have apparently put him at odds with hardline members of the ruling FMLN.

* Peru: A former police officer accused of participating years ago in a “death squad” might be deported today from Canada to his native Peru.

Image – David Mercado/Reuters via CSMonitor.com (“A Bolivian woman gives her baby coca leaves in La Paz.”)
Online Sources- Insight Crime, Reuters, IPS, Toronto Sun

Daily Headlines: July 5, 2011

* Venezuela: "The return has begun," decalared Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to thousands of supporters last night hours after the ailing leader returned to his homeland.

* Colombia: Authorities claimed that they are close to capturing and possibly killing FARC guerilla chief Alfonso Cano, while at least two eyewitnesses who testified against politicos in the “para-politics” scandal were slain last week.

* U.S.: At least 125 Atlanta-area businesses were reportedly closed on Friday as part of a "day without immigrants" protest organized by a Georgia Latino rights group.

* Peru: President-elect Ollanta Humala is supposed to arrive today in Washington, D.C. where he’s scheduled to speak with U.S. officials including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

* Bolivia: The Andean nation pulled out of a U.N. anti-drugs convention after failing to overcome U.S. objections against relaxing global norms to legalize coca chewing.

* Mexico: The country’s political dinosaur, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, may be in the midst of a comeback after the party swept a trio of gubernatorial elections over the weekend.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube (Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez returned to his country yesterday days after he admitted that doctors in Cuba removed a tumor with “cancerous cells.”)
Online Sources- BBC News, LAHT, UPI, The Telegraph, Living in Peru, News-Leader.com

Daily Headlines: January 31, 2011

* Bolivia: Thousands of people marched outside of the U.S. embassy in La Paz last week in protest against a global ban on coca chewing.

* Uruguay: Striker Luis Suarez may be best known for his infamous handball in last year's World Cup yet his blinding speed and knack for scoring helped him secure a $36 million deal to play for English club Liverpool.

* Haiti: The country's electoral council announced that on Wednesday it would declare the winners of the first round of the presidential election that international observers claimed was rigged.

* Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez denied that the government has any plans to takeover Spanish-owned Banco Provincial.

Online Sources - MSNBC, BBC News, Reuters, Democracy Now, The Latin Americanist
Image - AP Photo/Juan Karita via Boston.com ("Indigenous gather in front of the U.S. embassy to inaugurate the national day of coca leaf-chewing in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday Jan. 26, 2011. Bolivia has petitioned the U.N. to end an international ban on coca leaf-chewing. A mild stimulant, the leaves have deep cultural and religious value in the region. The U.S. will file a formal objection...to Bolivia’s proposal, according to a senior U.S. government official.")

Daily Headlines: January 28, 2011

* Venezuela: At least 37 people are reportedly infected with cholera in Venezuela while a dozen Venezuelans are being treated for the disease in areas like Madrid and Boston.

* Brazil: The country’s environment agency gave the green light for the construction of a massive dam in the Amazon rain forest that opponents claim would cause widespread damage.

* Colombia: Researchers at New York’s Stony Brook University concluded that coca cultivation has led to a rapid deforestation in Colombia.

* Chile: An official investigation will be opened in order to examine how former president Salvador Allende died in a 1973 military coup.

Image – SPL via BBC News (“Cholera is spread by contaminated food or water.” It has been alleged that cholera spread into Venezuela by visitors who traveled to the Dominican Republic.)
Online Sources- El Universal, Reuters, UPI, Al Jazeera English

Coca Cultivation and Cocaine Production Decrease in Colombia

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced that coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia has sharply decreased.  Cultivation dropped by 18% to 81,000 hectares, while production dropped by 28%, from 600 metric tons in 2007 to 430 metric tons in 2008.  The UNODC attributes this to a decline in the value of the coca leaf for Colombia farmers, as well as successful manual eradication and fumigation tactics.

"Cocaine supply is shrinking, as is demand in major markets in North America while cocaine use in Western Europe has stopped growing," said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UNODC.  "This may explain why prices are up, and purity is down.  This may also explain why cartels are becoming so violent."

A decline was not the case for two other Andean nations:  Cultivation increased by 6% in Bolivia and 4.5% in Peru.  Their cocaine production levels increased by 9% and 4.1% respectively.

Online sources: UNODC, CNN

Image: International Business Times

Bolivian president halts hunger strike

Bolivia’s president Evo Morales ended his five-day hunger strike after the country’s Congress approved an electoral proposal.

At a public ceremony in La Paz, Morales signed into law the bill which allows him to run for reelection on December 6, grants 14 congressional seats for indigenous candidates and permits Bolivians abroad to vote. Legislators reached the compromise in the pre-dawn hours after days of negotiating.

After signing the proposal, Morales thanked domestic supporters as well as foreign followers that held their own hunger strikes in solidarity with him:

Morales, a husky Aymara Indian, looked exhausted and a few pounds thinner as he formally enacted the law before a crowd that chanted "Evo, the people are with you!"

Morales, 49, had spent the weekend reclining on a mattress in the presidential palace, drinking chamomile tea and chewing coca leaves, a mild stimulant that helps suppress the appetite.

"The people should not forget that you need to fight for change. We alone can't guarantee this revolutionary process, but with people power it's possible," the leftist leader said before dawn, flanked by 13 union activists who joined him in the fast.

Last week Morales claimed that he was going through his eighteenth hunger strike and that he once went eighteen days without eating when he was a union leader protesting the eradication of coca.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English, Bloomberg