Daily Headlines: April 1, 2016

* Peru: The archbishop of Arequipa has come under fire after he claimed that presidential candidates Alfredo Barnechea and Veronika Mendoza should be barred from running due to their support of abortion and same-sex marriage.

* Brazil: George Hilton resigned as Brazil’s sports minister roughly four months prior to the Rio Olympics, while Cuban defector Orlando Ortega will be unable to compete at Rio due to residency issues.

* Latin America: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization an average of 348,000 tons of food are wasted each day in Latin America, which could feed some 300 million people.

* U.S.: A recent study found that Latinos in the U.S. including those who are native-born have opted to reside away from states that have enacted harsh anti-immigration measures over the past decade.

YouTube Source – Ruptly TV (Mass protests for and against the right to choose have been held in Peru over the last few months).

Online Sources – phys.org, teleSUR English, PRI, Fox News Latino, SBS

Daily Headlines: March 2, 2016

* Latin America: The Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged strides throughout Latin America to combat hunger but warned that 34.3 million people in the region lack access to food.

* Cuba: British rock group the Rolling Stones announced that they’ll play a free concert this month in Havana, while U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to attend a Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cuba baseball game during his visit to the island on the 22nd.

* Peru: Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru became the latest prominent Latin American figure to assail Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

* Haiti: A three-judge court in the U.S. began listening to the case of Haitian plaintiffs suing the United Nations regarding a cholera epidemic has killed more than 9,000 people in the Caribbean state.

YouTube Source – AFP (Video uploaded in 2012).
 
Online Sources – Xinhua, NPR, ESPN, The Guardian, The New York Times

Daily Headlines: September 18, 2014

* Argentina: Three medical staff and two former commanders of a secret military hospital have gone on trial over their alleged roles in the illegal adoption of babies from political dissidents during the Dirty War era.

* U.S.: New Census Bureau data found that the poverty rate for Latinos dropped by 2.1% in 2013 while median income grew last year for the first time since 2000.

* Panama: Is the Central American nation of Panama really the world’s happiest country?

* Brazil: The U.N. removed Brazil from the World Hunger Map after concluding that the number of undernourished residents decreased by more than 80% in ten years.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube (Estela de Carlotto, leader of Argentina’s Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, reconnected last month with her long-lost grandson).

Online Sources – BBC News; Los Angeles Times; The Guardian; ABC News

Daily Headlines: March 18, 2010

* Cuba: Cuban police have been accused of heavy-handedness and repression after breaking up a peaceful protest yesterday by the Ladies in White.

* Mexico: According to the FBI the recent killings of three people connected to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez may have been a case of mistaken identity.

* Latin America: Agriculture ministers from thirteen countries are meeting in Ecuador in order to figure out how to eliminate malnutrition and hunger.

* Peru: The country’s justice minister was let go from his post over alleged irregularities in the 2009 pardoning of a former TV executive.

Image – Al Jazzeera English (“The wives and mothers of political prisoners marched (as the Ladies in White) to demand that they be freed.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, The Independent, Miami Herald, Living in Peru, People’s Daily Online

Today's Video: Women's worth

Today is International Women's Day (IWD), a day in which we celebrate the accomplishments of women throughout the world as well as recognize that much still needs to be done to prevent gender inequality, discrimination, and prejudice. 2010 marks the centenary anniversary of the first IWD and the this year's theme is "equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all."

As part of its IWD campaign the World Food Program created a video designed to highlight the role of women to combat malnutrition. "Empowered, we are one" is one of the captions in the video below:

Online Sources- YouTube, Huffington Post, CNN

World Watch: Hunger to live

* World: There are over one billion people with not enough food to eat as prices are too high in developing countries according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

* Afghanistan: U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry has reportedly opposed plans for a troop increase of up to 40,000 soldiers.

* Iraq: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be called to testify at a public inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq War.

* Europe: The region’s third-largest air carrier is expected to form after British Airways agreed to buy Spain’s Iberia.

Image – Guardian UK (“A boy looks at corn, rice and millet at the food market in Maradi, Niger.”).
Online Sources- MSNBC, BBC News, Reuters, Bloomberg

Today’s Video: Angioplasty not included

Two years ago when I traveled to Colombia I was amazed to nosh on hot dogs with toppings like scrambled eggs and bacon as well as burgers from fast food chain El Corral. Yet that was rabbit food compared to the below video of a carnivorous gut-busting mega-burger served by a Venezuelan street vendor:

Here are the contents of the burger, appropriately named "La Diabla," or The Devilish (sic): ketchup, mayo, mustard, onions, cabbage, shoestring potatoes, more ketchup, mayo and mustard, avocado, tomato, burger patty, chorizo, chicken, eggs and bacon, and a mountain of shredded Roquefort cheese.

Admittedly it may be hypocritical to publish this post a day after talking about global hunger. Yet as the cameraman said in the video, “F**k McDonald’s”!

With that said, hope you all have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday.

(Hat tip: A Hamburger Today).
Sources- A Hamburger Today, El Corral, YouTube, The Latin Americanist

Website enriches minds and empty stomachs

The following bit of news is not Latin America-related per se, but still worth mentioning.

Does anyone remember The Hunger Site- a website created in 1999 where one could click on a tab every day and help donate a cup of food to people in undeveloped countries? The brain behind that website has come up with a novel approach to provide food to the needy.

Dubbed FreeRice.com, the site allows users to play an English-language vocabulary game in order to help donate rice.

The rice is distributed via the U.N.’s World Food Program and paid for by advertisers to the site:

When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

The website is addictive to play, and a worthy charitable effort. Click here to check it out.

(Hat tip: Snopes.com)

Sources- The Hunger Site, FreeRice.com, Snopes.com, CTV.ca

Image- BBC News

U.N. report: Child hunger is a costly burden on C. America

A U.N. study calculated that child hunger in Central America costs several billions of dollars each year in diminished education, health care and overall productivity. Malnutrition becomes “a critical economic concern,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday as the report also found that nearly one million children under five-years-old in Central America and the Dominican Republic suffer from malnutrition.

Source- Reuters AlertNet

Image- Stuff.co.nz