Daily Headlines: March 4, 2016 (Updated)

* Haiti: Haiti’s prison system is stretched to its limits by overcrowding as inmates reside in squalid conditions, according to “independent U.N. expert on human rights” Gustavo Gallon.

* Brazil: A court ordered House Speaker Eduardo Cunha to face trial as part of the “Lava Jato” corruption scandal that has implicated figures of Brazil’s political and economic elite.

Update: Speaking of figures implicated in the "Lava Jato" probe, Lula has some explaining to do.
 
* Venezuela: U.S. President Barack Obama issued a one-year extension to an executive order presented in March 2015 deeming the deep political unrest in Venezuela as a national security threat.

* Guatemala: Two ex-military men recently convicted of torturing and raping eleven indigenous women during the civil war three decades ago have been ordered to pay a $1 million restitution to their victims.

YouTube Source – The New York Times (Video uploaded in May 2010).

Online Sources including Update – Yahoo News, ABC News, Fox News Latino, Reuters, BBC News

Daily Headlines: February 29, 2016

* Guatemala: Two former military officials were sentenced to over one century in prison for the enslavement and systemic raping of indigenous women during the Guatemalan civil war.

* Argentina: The Argentine government reached a $4.65 billion deal to repay four holdout creditor funds as part of a settlement to repay debt from the country’s $100 billion default in 2001.

* Brazil: Ex-Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is reportedly considering running for another term in 2018 despite being investigated under the “Lava Jato” corruption scandal.

* Venezuela: A new $5 billion loan and gold mining venture could save Venezuela from falling into default.

YouTube Source – AFP
 
Online Sources – Christian Science Monitor, Reuters, The Guardian, Bloomberg

World Bank: LatAm Indigenous Still Face Major Struggles

During a mass at the southern Mexican state of Chiapas on Monday, Pope Francis criticized how Mexico’s indigenous populace has suffered from the “culture of rejection” found in our modern world. His comments could also apply to the indigenous peoples of other nations in Latin America and the Caribbean that continue to confront major obstacles for socioeconomic advancement.

A new World Bank study concluded that indigenous people make up 14% and 17% of the region’s poor and extreme poor, respectively, even though they account for 8% of the total populace. The report further claimed that indigenous people face great difficulties to obtain basic social services and access new technologies.

Amerindians in some countries fare bother than others such as in Bolivia and Brazil where poverty levels have decreased while the education gap is shrinking in Ecuador and Nicaragua. Overall, however, process has moved at a glacial pace compared to non-indigenous peoples.

"Latin America has undergone a profound social transformation that reduced poverty and expanded the middle class, but indigenous peoples benefited less than other Latin Americans," said Jorge Familiar, World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, in a statement.

Nearly half of the indigenous populace reside in cities and tend to reside in neighborhoods that are “less secure, less sanitary, and more disaster-prone” than those typically inhabited by residents of other groups.  The labor outlook for indigenous urban residents does not fare much better as the World Bank found that it is more likely for them to work in the informal sector.

Daily Headlines: February 1, 2016

* El Salvador: Ex-President Francisco Flores passed away on Saturday prior to standing trial over the alleged embezzlement of $15 million in earthquake relief funds.

* Chile: Manuel Pelligrini will depart from coaching English soccer club Manchester City, while ex-Spanish international Juan Antonio Pizzi will head Copa America titleholders Chile.

* Guatemala: Two former Guatemalan military commanders are expected to go on trial today over the raping and enslavement of eleven women during the brutal civil war thirty years ago.

* Ecuador: Ecuadoran officials finalized the $80 million sale of 500,000-acre oil blocs to a pair of Chinese firms despite resistance from environmentalists and indigenous Amazon communities.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – USA TODAY, The Guardian, BBC Sport, SBS, The Los Angeles Times

Daily Headlines: January 13, 2016 (Updated)

* U.S.: President Barack Obama’s call to eliminate the trade embargo against Cuba in his State of the Union speech might not sit well with Cuban-American legislators but perhaps they could agree to reform policy for migrants coming from the island.

* Puerto Rico: The Puerto Rican government will allegedly begin discussions today with creditors over the restructuring of approximately $70 million in public debt.

Update: On a related note, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday on a case that could have serious consequences for the island's future sovereignty. 

* Nicaragua: Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean community leaders claimed that officials are obligating them to allow for the building of a controversial interoceanic canal through their lands.

* Guatemala: In one of the latest chapters in the “FIFA-gate” corruption scandal, former Guatemala soccer federation president Brayan Jimenez was detained and accused of bribery.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources including Update – The Hill, The Guardian, Al Jazeera America, Bloomberg, Reuters, ABC News

Daily Headlines: December 8, 2015

* Mexico: Coca-Cola has come under fire after airing a Christmas-themed ad depicting a “group of young, white Mexicans traveling to an indigenous town…to ‘help‘ wide-eyed locals by giving them bottles of Coke and a giant Christmas tree.”

* Venezuela: Nearly three out of four Venezuelans eligible to vote participated in Sunday’s legislative elections won by the opposition coalition with a potential “supermajority.”

* Colombia: Representatives of the FARC traveled to the Colombian town of Bojaya to ask for forgiveness for the massacre of some eighty residents in 2002.

* Cuba: The Cuban government is reportedly close to reaching a deal with the Paris Club of creditors to restructure a $16 billion debt.

YouTube Source – Diario de Mexico TV (Parody video poking fun at a Mexican Coca-Cola commercial criticized as racially insensitive and offensive against indigenous people).
 
Online Sources – Fusion, Xinhua, Colombia Reports, Voice of America

Daily Headlines: November 11, 2015

* South America: Polls this week have given Argentine opposition candidate Mauricio Macri a minimum six-point lead ahead of the November 22nd runoff, while Organization of American States chief Luis Almagro blasted Venezuelan officials for failing to guarantee the December 6th legislative elections.

* El Salvador: A media probe found that authorities have not looked into the murders of fourteen people by death squads despite El Salvador’s high homicide rates.

* Honduras: Indigenous people living on the Caribbean coast of Honduras claimed that their land is being illegally seized by squatters and narcotraffickers.

* Latin America: Leaders at the Summit of South American-Arab Countries called for a political settlement in Syria and condemned Iranian interference in the Middle East.

YouTube Source – Financial Times
 
Online Sources – Reuters, Gulf News, NBC News, InSight Crime, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: October 27, 2015

* Brazil: The first-ever World Indigenous Games commenced in Brazil yet much like preparations for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the competition has not been free from controversy.

* Mexico: Residents in Mexico’s Golden Triangle region claimed that they have been unfairly displaced as part of the manhunt to find fugitive drug capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

* Colombia: Preliminary peace talks between the Colombian government and ELN are in jeopardy after at least eleven security agents were killed and two were kidnapped in a guerrilla ambush.

* Venezuela: Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz tried to downplay allegations by ex-prosecutor Franklin Reyes who claimed that false evidence was used to convict opposition activist Leopoldo López.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources – Scotsman, Global Voices Online, Voice of America, BBC News

Daily Headlines: May 4, 2015

* Cuba: The “Buena Vista Social Club”, the critically acclaimed 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary on Cuban music, will have a sequel that has reportedly gone into production.

* South America: The Colombian Supreme Court requested an investigation of ex-president Alvaro Uribe over his suspected role in the wiretapping of political opponents, while Brazilian prosecutors opened a preliminary corruption probe against former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

* Puerto Rico: Using medical marijuana in Puerto Rico is now legal following a “surprise” executive order signed by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla yesterday.

* U.S.: Native Americans have protested in California are upset at Pope Francis for his push to canonize Junipero Serra, an 18th-century friar accused of “brutally converted indigenous people to Christianity.”

YouTube Source – MOVIECLIPS
 
Online Sources – Variety, Financial Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: November 12, 2014

* Colombia: According to a new poll two in every three Colombians back the peace process between the government and the FARC despite the uproar over a deadly rebel attack on an indigenous community last week.

* Peru: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the recent murder of a Peruvian journalist reportedly investigating on violence caused by local gangs.

* Venezuela: A music lecturer at a British university accused Venezuela’s famed El Sistema youth music program of being “a cult, a mafia and a corporation.”

* Argentina: More than seventy banks, currency exchange locales and other financial institutions were raided as part of a tax fraud investigation.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube
 
Online Sources – teleSUR English; Al Jazeera English; BBC News; The Guardian; The Committee to Protect Journalists

Daily Headlines: October 7, 2014

* Ecuador: As many as 2500 “micro-traffickers” of drugs could be freed from prisons in Ecuador as part of a new crime law that took effect in August.

* Argentina: U.S. federal judge Thomas Griesa continues to put pressure on the Argentine government in its legal battle against paying millions of dollars to bondholders.

* Colombia: At least eleven residents of a Colombian indigenous village died due to a lighting strike yesterday.

* Haiti: Researchers examining a shipwreck near Cap-Haitien, Haiti concluded that it did not belong to the Santa Maria, one of the three vessels used by Christopher Columbus in his 1492 voyage to the Americas.

Video Source – The Washington Office on Latin America via YouTube

Online Sources – NBC News; CNN; MercoPress; The Latin Americanist; The Guardian

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: July 31, 2014

* Guatemala: The remains of thirty-one indigenous people killed during Guatemala’s brutal civil war thirty-two years ago received a proper burial yesterday.

* Latin America: The Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed its “deep disappointment” at El Salvador, Peru and Chile for withdrawing their respective ambassadors due to the conflict in Gaza.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos warned the FARC that he could end peace talks as a result of several recent attacks on infrastructure allegedly by the rebels.

* Venezuela: The U.S. State Department announced that it would revoke visas held by Venezuelan officials accused of human rights abuses relating to political violence this year.

Video Source – YouTube user WITNESS (Video made in 2000 and 2001).

Online Sources – Yahoo News; Reuters; LAHT; seattlepi.com

Weekend Headlines: July 26-27, 2014 (Updated)

* Venezuela: Former Venezuelan military intelligence chief Gen. Hugo Carvajal was arrested in Aruba could soon be extradited to the U.S. where he’s charged with drug trafficking and collaborating with Colombian rebels.

Update: Much to the disappointment of the U.S. State Department, Cavajal was released Sunday and returned to a "hero's welcome" in Caracas.

* Mexico: Rosa del Carmen Verduzco, the owner of a Mexican shelter recently raided by the authorities, denied allegations of sexual abuse against hundreds of residents but admitted to hitting children as a means of “correcting” them.

* Peru: The executive board of state-owned oil company Petroperu was reshuffled after it was revealed that children were employed to clean an oil spill.

* Brazil: Brazil's National Indian Foundation claimed that they made contact with an isolated indigenous group near the border with Peru that has been hurt by disease and violent attacks.

Video Source – CNN en Español via YouTube (The Venezuelan government has accused the U.S. of orchestrating the “kidnapping” of Hugo Carvajal, the head of military intelligence from 2004-2008 during late president Hugo Chavez' rule).
 
Online Sources including Update – Fox News Latino; Los Angeles Times; The Latin Americanist; VOXXI; Reuters; ABC News

Daily Headlines: May 29, 2014

Note: Before getting to today’s headlines, I would like to sincerely apologize for the lack of posts over the past to weeks including the inexcusable absence of posts on Wednesday.

* Brazil: Indigenous groups have joined the growing number of protests opposed to the massive public spending on venues and other preparations for the upcoming World Cup.

* Colombia: Thousands of people lined the streets of Barranquilla and the nearby town of Fundacion as part of the funeral procession for twenty-eight children who died in a recent bus fire.

* Mexico: Leaders of the vigilante movement in Michoacán called for the creation of “self-defense” groups across Mexico in order to combat violence.

* Argentina: The Argentine government reached a deal with the Paris Club of creditors to repay nearly $10 billion dollars in debts.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube
 
Online Sources – GlobalPost; euronews; TIME; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: April 28, 2014

* Vatican: Pope John II was officially declared a saint yesterday partly due to the reported healing of a brain aneurysm that affected Gloribeth Mora Diaz of Costa Rica.
 
* Panama: According to the latest polls the election for Panama’s next president on May 4th could be a neck-and-neck race between Jose Arias representing the ruling conservative party and “moderate leftist” candidate Juan Navarro.

* Brazil: Brazil’s civil aviation minister admitted that Rio de Janeiro’s main international airport could be hit by blackouts during the World Cup of soccer that begins in roughly six weeks.

* Peru: Some five hundred members of the Achuar indigenous group occupied Peru’s biggest oil field in the Amazon rainforest in order to call for the cleanup of oil that has spilled over the last few decades.
  
Video Source – AFP via YouTube

Online Sources – BBC News; ABC News; Reuters; Bloomberg; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: April 21, 2014

* Peru: In the latest case of the growing international problem that is counterfeit drugs, researchers found that 28% of contraceptive medicine in Peru is either counterfeit or ineffective.

* Venezuela: Argentine-born Pope Francis used his Easter homily to call for the “reconciliation and fraternal accord” in Venezuela, a country torn by political unrest though tempers have calmed somewhat after talks between the government and opposition. 
 
* Bolivia: President Evo Morales urged Bolivian peasants and impoverished residents to teach children how to be fluent in foreign languages so they can apply for scholarships to study abroad.
  
* Colombia: A new report found that at least thirty-four Colombian indigenous groups are going through a "humanitarian crisis" and this could lead to their extinction.
 
Video Source– YouTube user VOAvideo (“The World Health Organization estimates that 25 percent of medicines sold in poor countries are counterfeit. Monitoring by the World Bank and others suggests the overall global trade in fake and substandard drugs is now more than 30 billion dollars per year”.)

Online Sources – Vox; The Telegraph; The Guardian; LAHT; Fox News Latino

Sobredosis de TV – Fiction or Racism?

Sobredosis de TV is our occasional look at television shows in the Americas.  It is also the name of a song from famed Argentine rock music group Soda Stereo.
A Peruvian television show that showcases the misadventures of an indigenous woman in the big city has not sat well with some people in the Andean country including one politician who spoke out this week.

Hilaria Supa, a Peruvian member of the Andean Parliament, sent a letter to local television channel Frecuencia Latina requesting that the La Paisana Jacinta program get taken off the air.

“It is outrageous that in the middle of the twenty first century, when we believe that we are advancing, you can see racist attitudes in stadiums, public places, schools, and on the media with Frecuencia Latina which offends us as citizens when it reprograms like ‘El Negro Mama’ or ‘La Paisana Jacinta’”, said Supa who is of indigenous background.

“These programs defame us, they make us seem like stupid, unkempt people, and that has to stop,” she added against the program that retuned to the airwaves in mid-February.

Other critics of the program have used the hashtag #NoalaPaisanaJacinta to organize protests such as one scheduled to take place outside of the Frecuencia Latina studios in Lima today.   

Not everyone sees eye-to-eye with Supa including several Twitter users who responded by launching racist insults against her. 

“Hilaria Supa, learn to read and write,” “Go back to your hometown and plant potatoes” and “Shitty Chola” were just some of the messages issued against the legislator. 

A more measured reply was provided by actress Magaly Solier who said that La Paisana Jacinta “is fiction and acting because Andean women are not like that.”

Jorge Benavides, the male comic who portrays the protagonist of La Paisana Jacinta, is no stranger to controversy.  Last year he defended his portrayal of “Negro Mama,” a blackface character with a prosthetic wide nose and thick lips as “a character with an established name. Therefore, you can’t accuse us of generalizing and saying that all black people are thieves.” Peru’s television regulatory body did not agree and fined Frecuencia Latina over $26,000 for airing sketches with “Negro Mama.”

Should La Paisana Jacinta be yanked off the air permanently?  Judge for yourself below the page break by watching an episode where Jacinta becomes a construction worker:

Daily Headlines: September 20, 2013

* Vatican: In an interview released yesterday, Argentine-born Pope Francis called on Catholics to show greater acceptance towards gays, divorcees and women who have had an abortion or risk that “the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards.”

* Chile: Sen. Isabel Allende, the daughter of the president who was ousted in a coup over forty years ago, said that prison privileges should be halted for people convicted of human rights violations during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

* Paraguay: Recently inaugurated Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes claimed that he hoped his country would be reintegrated into the Mercosur trading bloc by “early 2014”.

* Honduras: Amnesty International urged authorities to do a better job protecting the lives of indigenous community leaders.

Video Source – YouTube via CNN
 
Online Sources- Amnesty International; Christian Science Monitor; Washington Post; euronews; The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: September 13, 2013

* Uruguay: Recent polls have shown growing public support for a proposal to legalize marijuana use though most Uruguayans are still opposed to it.

* Honduras: The government granted the rights to over 1.6 million acres of coastal land to some 21,800 members of indigenous Miskito communities.

* Cuba: Hundreds of people marched to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana yesterday and called for the release of four Cuban intelligence agents convicted of spying in 2001.

* Venezuela: Regional newspapers are reportedly in danger of shutting down due to the escalating costs of newsprint.

Video Source – YouTube via AFP (Video uploaded on Aug 1, 2013).

Online Sources- GlobalPost; Businessweek; Christian Science Monitor; UPI