Daily Headlines: September 17, 2014

* Venezuela: Standard & Poor's lowered Venezuela’s credit rating “based on continued economic deterioration, including rising inflation and falling external liquidity.”

* Puerto Rico: Reggaeton star Don Omar was arrested this morning in Puerto Rico and charged with domestic violence against his partner.

* Mexico: Thousands in Mexico’s Baja California Sur are without electricity, water or phone service due to Hurricane Odile though no fatalities have been reported.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos blamed an alliance of the FARC rebels and neo-paramilitary fighters for being behind the killing of seven policemen on Tuesday.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube

Online Sources – Bloomberg; CBS News; La Prensa; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: February 7, 2014

* Uruguay: Members of Uruguay’s ruling party and a Dutch NGO have nominated President Jose Mujica for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his support of decriminalizing marijuana use.

* Costa Rica: Is the Super Bowl to blame for the low turnout of Costa Rican expat voters to last Sunday’s elections?

* Bolivia: Meteorologists predicted that more rain would continue to hit heavily flooded areas of northern Bolivia where the inclement weather has killed at least thirty-eight people.

* Puerto Rico: Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla criticized Standard & Poor’s decision to lower Puerto Rico’s bond status to “junk” levels despite his claims that officials were “committed to taking correct and sensible actions to rebuild” the commonwealth.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube

Online Sources- LAHT; Reuters; Tico Times; The Latin Americanist; Huffington Post

Daily Headlines: April 26, 2012

* Venezuela: Suspected drug trafficker Walid Makled claimed in court that he maintained close ties to Eladio Aponte, a former Venezuelan Supreme Court judge who alleged that government officials have links to drug traffickers.

* South America: Standard & Poor's downgraded its credit rating outlook for Argentina in the wake of the government takeover of YPF, while Moody’s revised Uruguay's rating outlook from stable to positive.
 
* Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff is expected to use her line-item veto powers against a controversial environmental bill that critics believe will lead to increased deforestation.

* Panama: Security minister Jose Raul Mulino denied corruption allegations linking President Ricardo Martinelli to an Italian associate of disgraced ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Video Source – YouTube via NTDTV (Suspected drug trafficker Walid Makled was sought by both the U.S. and Venezuela but he was eventually extradited from Colombia to its South American neighbor in May 2011). 
 
Online Sources- UPI, Reuters, MSNBC, CBS News, AFP

Common currency, credit, and passport for SICA countries?

Following their lackluster meeting to respond to the financial crisis in October, the presidents of Central America came together yesterday and agreed to a 41 point plan including several major stimulus and stabilization plans.

Among them are agreements in principle for common passports allowing freer traffic between the member countries (4 countries have already signed on to this), a credit fund accessible to member governments, and perhaps most notably, a common currency (El Salvador and Panama are currently dollarized, while the other 6 SICA countries use their own currencies; no agreement was made as to what currency would be adopted, or if a new one altogether would be instituted).

Details on each of these have yet to be laid out, and while the proverbial devil will inevitably be found therein, these agreements should be seen as potentially major shifts in moving towards regional financial integration. While international press coverage has been slim so far, I expect the development (if it happens) to become major news in the coming weeks, and for the comparisons to the EU will abound (if not only by the EU countries themselves, with whom the Central Americans just signed a separate agreement, making the EU the largest development aid donor to the sub-region).

In other news to come out of the meeting, Daniel Ortega assumed the SICA presidency for a 6 month term. In his acceptance speech, the Nicaraguan president didn't miss the chance to stick to the world's capitalists, declaring "Nos vendieron un modelo, nos impusieron un modelo, y ese modelo nos tenía y nos tiene amarrado de manos de pies, y nos ha tenido amordazado," and adding "Hoy más que nunca tenemos que unirnos."


Sources: SICA, Univision, El Nuevo Diario, AFP, Deutcshe-Welle