Daily Headlines: April 17, 2015

* Chile: Tens of thousands of university students marched in Chile yesterday to protest against growing corruption scandals and to call for stronger education reform.

* Brazil: Police in Rio de Janeiro evicted 100 squatters from a building that was supposed to be converted into a luxury hotel for the 2016 Olympics.

* Argentina: Argentine minister Daniel Filmus announced that the government started legal proceedings to prevent British firms from oil drilling near the disputed Falkland Islands.

* Mexico: Approximately 2.5 million children reportedly work in Mexico including nearly one out of every five farmworkers.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Bloomberg, The Globe and Mail, Latin American Herald Tribune, BBC News

Daily Headlines: July 22, 2014

* Venezuela: Authorities today started to peacefully evict thousands of squatters residing in the "Tower of David", a Caracas skyscraper abandoned in 1994, to instead live in a publicly-funded housing project.

* Colombia: James Rodriguez, the Colombian player who was the top scorer in the recently finished World Cup, will reportedly join Spanish giants Real Madrid for about $100 million.

* Honduras: Police found the body of Honduran TV reporter Herlyn Espinal who was apparently kidnapped and subsequently murdered.

* Argentina: “Terrorism only knows to kill, it does not know how to build. It destroys,” said Pope Francis in a message last week commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the AMIA center bombing.
 
Video Source – YouTube user Vocativ

Online Sources – Reuters; Buenos Aires Herald; CBSSports.com; ABC News

Daily Headlines: July 25, 2013

* Brazil: More than one million people are expected to attend a mass at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach today as Pope Francis continues his visit to Brazil.

* Venezuela: “We are open to having a positive relationship with Venezuela moving forward,” said a State Department spokesperson in response to Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro ending efforts to improve diplomatic ties with the U.S.

* U.S.: A recent study concluded that Latino housing consumers in three major cities face discrimination including hostility from housing agents and being requested to pay additional fees.

* Ecuador: The Ecuadorian government has offered thousands of jobs to Spanish teachers who are willing to leave their economically weak country.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews (“Tens of thousands of people turned out in southeastern Brazil (on Wednesday) to witness the Pope celebrate his first mass outside Italy as pontiff”).
 
Online Sources- Voice of America; The Latin Americanist; GlobalPost; Think Progress; LAHT

Daily Headlines: May 21, 2013

* Guatemala: In a 3-2 decision the Guatemalan Constitutional Court annulled the recent historic conviction of former strongman Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide.

* U.S.: At least 23 student groups at Harvard University called for an investigation of the doctoral thesis of Jason Richwine, an ex-Heritage Foundation policy analyst who claimed in 2009 that Latino immigrants have lower IQs than white natives.

* Latin America: Alicia Barcena, the head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed her concerns over weaker exports possibly hurting the region's economic growth.

* Mexico: Venture capitalists are reportedly being attracted to purchasing and refurbishing thousands of homes that were foreclosed and abandoned.

Video Source – YouTube via PBS NewsHour (“Efrain Rios Montt, former dictator of Guatemala, was found guilty (on May 10th) in the massacre of more than 1,700 Mayan Indians in the early 1980s”.)

Online Sources- Fox News Latino; Bloomberg; Reuters; The Latin Americanist; USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: March 26, 2013

* Chile: A Chilean court rejected a request seeking to indict ex-president Michelle Bachelet for negligence in the 156 fatalities caused by a tsunami in 2010.

* Guatemala: Supporters of former Guatemalan ruler Efraín Ríos Montt launched a campaign in his name despite the emotional eyewitness testimony against the ex-dictator at his genocide trial.

* Brazil: The BRICS group of emerging economic powers, which includes Brazil, could start a new development bank to compete with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

* Haiti: Houses in one of the biggest slums in Port-au-Prince have been painted in bright colors as part of a government-funded relocation plan.

Video Source – YouTube via CBS (A magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked Chile in February 2010 caused a tidal wave that killed 156 people living in several coastal and island communities).
 
Online Sources- GlobalPost, ABC News, The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg, Huffington Post

Daily Headlines: December 7, 2011

* Brazil: According to Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research deforestation in the Amazon rainforest dropped to its lowest level since record-keeping began in 1988.

* Honduras: Luz Marina Paz became the seventeenth Honduran journalist killed since 2010 after she was gunned down and murdered yesterday.

* Venezuela: Plans for a government-backed housing initiative have slowed down due to labor unrest at Venezuela’s largest steelmaker.

* Chile: Colo Colo, one of Chile’s most popular soccer teams, was the fifth-most popular sports topic on Twitter in 2011 according to the social networking service.

Image Source – Flickr via CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources – MarketWatch, Fox News Latino, Twitter, CNN

Daily Headlines: November 4, 2011

* Latin America: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was named to Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful people along with Chilean leader Sebastián Piñera, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim and wanted drug gang chief Joaquín Guzmán.

* Cuba: Officials announced a new property law that allows Cubans to buy and sell real estate openly for the first time since the 1959 revolution.

* Puerto Rico: A lengthy legal battle regarding the mistreatment of the mentally ill appears to have come to an end.

* Colombia: The Russian government is not too pleased with the conviction of arms dealer Viktor Bout who allegedly tried to sell weapons to Colombian guerillas.

Image Source – Via Flickr user Isaac Ribeiro. (2010 image of then-presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff). (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- Huffington Post, Reuters, MSNBC, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: July 6, 2011

* Mexico: In an action praised by U.S. counternarcotics officials Mexican law enforcement captured the suspected third in command of the violent Zetas drug gang.

* U.S.: South American investors buying and renting out apartments in South Florida is one example of how foreign buyers are reportedly boosting the sagging housing market in some areas of the U.S.

* Chile: President Sebastian Pinera proposed the creation of a $4 billion higher education fund in response to several weeks of student protests.

* Bolivia: According to Bolivian officials the governments of that country and the U.S. are close to reestablishing diplomatic relations that have been broken for nearly three years.

Image – AP via BBC News (“Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar is accused of being a founder of the Zetas.”)
Online Sources- El Universal, BBC News, USA TODAY, Reuters, AHN

Brazil: Criticism grows against Olympics slum removals

Brazilian authorities have received plenty of criticism in preparing for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The latest critique has to do with the unfair treatment of residents of Rio’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

International human rights group Amnesty International (AI) expressed concern over evicting favela dwellers in order to accommodate several infrastructure projects for the 2016 games. AI Secretary General Salil Shetty expressed his strong doubts over officials providing fair compensation to slum residents obligated to relocate. "Everybody fully understands that some degree of movement might be inevitable when you're undergoing such a major project, but the issue is whether the fair process is being followed," Shetty said to the press.

Shetty is expected to address his concerns later this week in meetings with favela residents and government officials maybe including President Dilma Rousseff. In the meantime, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing Raquel Rolnik accused authorities of possible violations against the “right to adequate housing” in slum communities. She echoed Shetty’s concerns over unfair compensation and added that “insufficient attention is being given to access to infrastructure, services and means of subsistence in relocation sites.”

So far there have been few evictions but plenty of poor people have been affected. Rolnick noted that for the expansion of Line 5 of the Sao Paulo metro “thousands of families have bee evicted…and another ten thousand face the same fate.”

Latin American soccer columnist Tim Vickery observed in his blog that the World Cup would likely have a hard affect on the “hard-pressed Brazilian tax payer”. While that may probably be the case, Brazil’s poor are carrying a greater burden while preparations continue for the upcoming sports mega-events:

Video Source – Al Jazeera English via YouTube
Online Sources- BBC Sport, El Espectador, Reuters, Democracy Now, U.N. News Center, BBC News

Luck Mervil tries to make a difference in Haiti

Much has been said in over the past few weeks over Wyclef Jean’s run for the presidency. Yet there is another Haitian musician who has attempted to help his countrymen ravaged by earthquakes and poverty.

Luck Mervil is a Haitian-born and Quebec-raised singer best known in Canada for being a member of the band Rudeluck since the 1990s. The expat has forged a successful music career yet he will soon leave it all behind in order to launch an ambitious housing project in Haiti. Mervil’s Vilaj Vilaj project will use shipping containers in order to be used as homes for 5,000 people.

Each residence will use materials to protect families from the hot and stormy weather that tends to hit Haiti. Mervil showed off a prototype days ago in Montréal that cost several thousand dollars yet he believes that costs will be low due to hundreds of shipping containers left behind due to Haiti’s import-driven economy.

The Vilaj Vilaj project is ambitious and will rely solely on private donations, but Mervil is confident that it can be done:

"I'm putting everything aside just to do this: by (building) the village, the idea is not to put a village there and leave, we're building the village with the people," Mervil said in a telephone interview.

"We came up with a solution where everything (we need) was already on the ground and part of the solution is that people are going to build their own village."

Before Jean was barred from running for president, Mervil predicted that Jean could win November’s elections.

Image- CBC (“Luck Mervil will be working with Vilaj Vilaj, an initiative to build homes in Haiti from recycled shipping containers, like the one seen here on display in Montreal Aug. 11, 2011.”)
Online Sources- CBC, CTV, CANOE, Winnipeg Free Press

Daily Headlines: August 23, 2010

* U.S.: According to a study from the Center For Responsible Lending the foreclosure rate for Latinos in California is higher than most other groups.

* Mexico: Six police officers were arrested and charged with the kidnapping and murder of mayor Edelmiro Cavazos.

* Venezuela: A judge overturned an order barring “violent, bloody or grotesque" photos from appearing in newspapers.

* El Salvador: The White House made four recess appointments including selecting Maria del Carmen Aponte as ambassador to El Salvador.

Image – ABC News (“In this (AP) file photo taken July 21, 2010, a "bank owned" sign is seen on a home that is listed as a foreclosure on a HUD website, in Hawthorne, Calif.”)
Online Sources- Reuters, BusinessWeek, BBC News, CNN

Daily Headlines: June 22, 2010

* Latin America: Southern Mexico is expected to soon be hit by a strengthening Hurricane Celia while floods and mudslides have killed at least 31 people in northeastern Brazil.

* U.S.: According to a Center for Responsible Lending report Latino families are 71% more likely than whites to lose their home to foreclosure.

* Chile: The archbishop of the capital city of Santiago has requested that the Vatican investigate a priest accused of abusing minors.

* Colombia: Alejandro Falla nearly pulled off one of the greatest upsets in tennis history against Roger Federer in the first round of Wimbledon.

Image – AFP (“A teenager enjoys body boarding at a beach in Acapulco in 2006.”)
Online Sources- CNN, Democracy Now, Xinhua, MSNBC

Daily Headlines: March 1, 2010

* Mexico: Oil production in Mexico continues to decrease reportedly as a result of a lack of exploration deals with foreign firms.

* Brazil: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to provide funds for the building of homes for over one million impoverished Brazilians.

* Latin America: In light of a FARC attack in Ecuadorian territory President Rafael Correa threatened the guerillas with “to (not) mess around with Ecuadorian lives here.”

* Puerto Rico: Controversy has grown over a recently passed law that would void the birth certificates of over one million Puerto Ricans.

Image – MSNBC (Mexican offshore oil rigs)
Online Sources- Houston Chronicle, LAHT, API, BusinessWeek

Daily Headlines: November 19, 2009

* U.S.: A report written for the William C. Velasquez Institute concluded that Latinos and blacks face a disproportionate risk of foreclosure as a result of higher unemployment rates and a greater probability of signing off on high-risk loans.

* Venezuela: The country is officially in recession due to the global economic slowdown and decreasing oil prices according to government officials.

* Brazil: Execs at state-run oil firm Petrobras claimed to have found a massive offshore field with the capacity to produce an estimated 25 million barrels of light crude.

* Mexico: Harvard University recently recognized Mexico City's bus rapid transit system for helping reduce pollution in the metropolis.

Image – MSNBC
Online Sources- Forbes, LAHT, boston.com, WCBS

Report: Immigrants key to housing recovery

One of the reasons given for the seemingly perpetual delay in the Obama administration’s ignoring of immigration reform is that it’s more vital for the White House to tackle the terrible state of the economy. Yet such an excuse belies the fact that immigration, legal and otherwise, has a notable impact of the economy.

A report released this week by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that the U.S. housing market “faces an uphill climb" to recovery. The study found that high unemployment and consumer debt have hurt the housing market as “sales of both new and existing homes continued to struggle to find a bottom.”

Researchers cited groups such as so-called “echo boomers” as key to maintain a future recovery. Take a guess at who the study also cited:

A perceived strain on government resources has caused some Americans to begrudge the country's immigrant population. But Harvard researchers, in a new white paper released Monday, are saying that a slowdown in immigration could hurt the long-term real estate market…

While the natural ebb and flow of family formations is expected to reinvigorate housing, the unknown variable, future immigration levels, "remain a wild card that could either dampen housing demand or lift production even higher." Fewer people have been moving to the U.S. since job opportunities have slumped, and if this continues "a deep, prolonged recession would likely suppress immigration to levels that are never fully made up.

Furthermore, the report said that “minorities will fuel 73 percent of household growth in 2010-20, with Hispanics leading the way at 36 percent.”

But go ahead and keep up the delays, boys. Your short-sightedness has become a sad joke.

Image- MSN Money
Online Sources- Joint Center for Housing Studies, Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg, Forbes, Politico

Daily Headlines: April 17, 2009

* U.S.: “Bless Me, Ultima” by Chicano lit author Rudolfo Anaya is fifth on the list of the most frequently challenged books of 2008 according to the American Library Association.

* Chile: Thousands of Chileans marched yesterday demanding better job security and more help from the government.

* Brazil: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that stricter regulations are needed to prevent a future global economic slowdown.

* Puerto Rico: According to a study from The National Low Income Housing Coalition, Puerto Rico is one of the least expensive territories and states to live in.

Image- latina.com
Online Sources- Xinhua, bizjournals.com, Reuters, Guardian UK, Wikipedia

Study: Racial inconsistency in subprime loans

A New York University study found that black and Latino home buyers in New York were more likely to get subprime mortgages than white buyers with similar incomes. The disadvantage in this discrepancy is that subprime loans typically contain high interest charges that are very difficult for borrowers to pay off. In addition, there is a worry over a global economic slowdown due to the excess of subprime borrowers in the U.S.

Hence, Latino families trying to achieve the “American dream” find themselves heavily in debt and with their homes in foreclosure:

Like other groups, Hispanics see home ownership as progress. The equity that comes with a home is a means of building wealth. It’s leverage for starting a small business, financing an education and building a stake in a community.

While market sticklers blame the subprime crisis on bad financial decisions, allowing the market to act as if it functions outside of racism would be absurd.

Mortgage Bankers Association economist Jay Brinkmann claimed that the analysis did not have enough information, yet previous studies seem to strongly support the conclusions of the NYU report.

Sources- New York Times – City Room, WNBC, The Latin Americanist, UPI, El Diario/La Prensa, Washington Post, CNNMoney.com

Image- Financial Ambition

News briefs – immigration

* The government of Irving, Texas is standing by its strong anti-immigrant measures despite criticism from the Mexican consul and the desertion of nearly 100 children of immigrant parents from area schools. “If they're not being booked into our jail, there's nothing they should be worried about,” declared Irving Mayor Herbert Gears regarding anxiety over the city’s police department cooperating with federal authorities to identify arrested illegal immigrants for subsequent deportation.

* The increase in Cubans entering the U.S. via Mexico has forced the Castro administration to seek a migratory agreement with Mexico. U.S. immigration authorities claimed that in the fiscal year 2007 twice as many Cubans (11,000) trekked across the U.S.-Mexico border rather than the Florida Straits.

* Last July we mentioned how legislators in Prince William County, Virginia passed an anti-immigrant ordinance that included barring emergency services from illegal immigrants. Local politicians voted on Tuesday to delay action on the entire ordinance until they could verify if the state government allotted sufficient funds for the plan to be carried out. (Hat tip: Hispanic Tips).

* Speaking of Prince William County, a Washington Post article published on Friday that concludes that the combination of anti-immigrant measures and excessive housing has crippled the area’s housing market. According to an except of the WaPo article:

Many real estate agents shudder at the prospects of a drop in population and more foreclosures. With little equity in their properties and adjustable-rate mortgages adjusting sharply upward, some immigrant families are gathering up their belongings and walking away from their homes in the middle of the night, several real estate agents have said.

"These people are slammed," said Mary Donaldson, a former mortgage settlement consultant..."They've lost their jobs because the construction industry has slowed or shut down, and when they get into trouble, they don't read their mail. A lot of them just don't understand the process, and they're so afraid that they can't talk to the bank."

Sources- Dallas Morning News, ImediNews, Houston Chronicle, Hispanic Tips, The Latin Americanist, dailypress.com, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Reuters, MSNBC

Image- MSNBC (“Juan Alfaro, who immigrated from Honduras, recites the Pledge of Allegiance after taking the oath of citizenship at the Betsy Ross House during a Flag Day and naturalization ceremony in Philadelphia.”)