Daily Headlines: July 21, 2016

* South America: The Copa Libertadores title is up for grabs and will be decided in Medellin next Wednesday as Independiente del Valle of Ecuador and Colombia’s Atletico Nacional tied 1-1 in the first leg of the finals.

* United States: A federal appeals court ruled that that the voter ID restrictions in Texas violated the federal Voting Rights Act by discriminating against the poor and minorities like Latinos.

* Mexico: Pedro Rosas Tamayo, a Mexican journalist who received death threats and was purportedly under police protection, was shot and killed at his home in Veracruz.

* Puerto Rico: Several hedge funds who are bondholders of Puerto Rico’s multi-billion dollar debt filed a lawsuit against the Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla and the government of the commonwealth.

YouTube Source – Fox Deportes

Online Sources – SBS, Fox News Latino, teleSUR English, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: April 12, 2016

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan Supreme Court overturned a law approved weeks ago by the opposition-controlled legislature that would’ve granted amnesty to political prisoners including anti-government activists.

* Peru: Keiko Fujimori may have won in the first round of Peru’s presidential election but will surely face a very stiff challenge from runoff rival Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and voters wary over the controversial legacy of imprisoned ex-leader Alberto Fujimori.

* Honduras: “We demand the investigation and trial of those responsible for the deaths of those journalists,” said a protester at a demonstration in Tegucigalpa to call attention to the twenty-two members of the press killed since 2014.

* Brazil: The impeachment process against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff continues after a Congressional committee recommended the process head to a vote by the lower chamber.

YouTube Source – France 24 English (Last month “Venezuela's opposition-led legislature approved an amnesty bill for political prisoners, setting up an epic political clash with embattled President Nicolas Maduro, who opposes the move.)

Online Sources – NBC News, Fusion, The Latin Americanist, Fox News Latino, BBC News

Daily Headlines: November 4, 2015

* Mexico: According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, about 150 journalists were murdered in Latin America since 2010 while roughly one in three cases occurring in Mexico.

* Brazil: Brent crude futures jumped by 3.6% to $50.70 on Tuesday partly due to worries over decreased oil production from Brazilian state-run film Petrobras.

* Argentina: Credit agency Moody’s improved Argentina’s credit rating in an apparent sign that the national economy will improve regardless of who wins the presidential runoff later this month.

* Ecuador: Ecuador’s government received another legal victory over the oil industry after arbitrators reduced from $1.77 billion to $1 billion a compensation owed to Occidental Petroleum.

YouTube Source – AJ+ (“Mexican photojournalist Rubén Espinosa was found dead in his Mexico City apartment (last July), along with 4 women”).

Online Sources – Benzinga, Reuters, teleSUR English, NBC News

Daily Headlines: April 23, 2015

* Chile: Authorities evacuated more than 5000 people living near the Calbuco volcano that erupted twice after having been dormant since 1972.

* Puerto Rico: “The island's financial state is extremely uncertain,” was the grim warning issued by Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank over a potential local government shutdown.

* U.S.: A defunct movie theater in Texas has sued the AMC megachain over alleged “conduct (that) was anticompetitive, unlawful, and harmful to Houston’s substantial Hispanic and Spanish-speaking community.”

* Argentina: Spanish coach Josep “Pep” Guardiola could be fined for wearing a shirt supporting a campaign for Jorge “El Topo” López, an Argentine journalist killed at last year’s World Cup in Brazil.

YouTube Source – Associated Press

Online Sources – ABC News, The A.V. Club, Al Jazeera, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: March 11, 2015

* Venezuela: An irate President Nicolás Maduro said that he will lead a Venezuelan defensive military exercise this weekend in light of the diplomatic crisis between his country and the U.S.

* Brazil: The office of the comptroller general opened a case against ten construction firms connected to the scandal-ridden oil giant Petrobras.

* Guatemala: Two members of the media and local journalist rights activists were murdered in southern Guatemala.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the one-month suspension of military bombings on FARC camps in recognition of the progress made in peace talks with the government.

Video Source – YouTube user Reuters (“Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares support in a letter to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro following U.S. measures against Venezuela.”)
 
Online Sources – teleSUR English; NBC News; Reuters; BBC News; The Latin Americanist

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: 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

Venezuelan President Threatens to Expel CNN (Updated)

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro threatened to expel CNN from the country due to the network’s coverage of growing unrest.

“CNN will leave Venezuela. Enough of war propaganda. If they do not make amends (then) out of Venezuela!” declared Maduro on Thursday.

He accused the U.S.-based news network of “showing the world that Venezuela is in a state of civil war” and instructed Communications Minister Delcy Rodríguez to inform CNN that "an administrative process has begun to take them off the air if they do not mend their ways."

Maduro’s remarks came during a televised event where he showed vandalized Caracas buses allegedly damaged by “violent gangs” allied to government opponents.  As a result, he threatened with taking those responsible for damaging the public transit system to court.

On Tuesday, CNN journalist Karl Penhaul reported on the air that he was held up at gunpoint by a motorcycle gang in Caracas.

“The men on motorcycles rounded on us, the next thing I knew I was staring down the barrel of a chrome-plated nine-millimeter pistol and three armed men then proceeded to rob our crew of all the camera gear, all the transition gear as well,” he said regarding the incident on Monday night.

He further claimed that the “group of armed thugs” was most likely plain-clothed police officers.

Last week the Venezuelan government removed Colombia’s NTN24 from cable TV systems and blocked the news channel’s website from being viewed.  William Castillo, the head of Venezuela’s telecommunications regulator, claimed that NTN24 was “actively supporting destabilizing efforts” by transmitting violent incidents live on the air. NTN24 CEO Claudia Gurisatti called the actions against the network a “censorship of free press, an affront to citizens’ right to be informed and an attack on freedom of expression.”

Venezuela is ranked 116th out of 180 countries in the latest Press Freedom Index report issued by media rights group Reporters Without Borders.

[Update below the page break]

Daily Headlines: February 13, 2014

* Mexico: Members of the media in the Mexican state of Veracruz decried the recent murder of journalist Gregorio Jiménez and expressed doubt that he was killed due to a personal vendetta.

* Haiti: The Haitian government has launched a new program aimed at providing documentation to expats including the tens of thousands whose citizenship was controversially stripped in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

* Honduras: A report from Human Rights Watch blasted Honduran authorities for failing to properly investigate the deaths of scores of people due to land disputes.

* Argentina: Reports of Buenos Aires officials ordering a cruise ship to lower down its British flag has become the latest point of tension in the diplomatic relations between the U.K. and Argentina.

Video Source – YouTube user CadenaTres

Online Sources- Global Voices Online; Washington Post; The Latin Americanist; Los Angeles Times; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: January 29, 2014

* Argentina: President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil said that her country will not help neighbors Argentina, which is going through financial difficulties that could affect the economies of both countries.

* U.S.: Could a proposal aimed at attracting migrants to work in bankrupt Detroit help push the impasse over much needed federal immigration reform?

* Latin America: State-oil Indian firms could become major beneficiaries of a boom in Latin American shale oil output.

* Venezuela: Venezuelan journalists have urged swift action from the government in order to help  newspapers that could shut down in the next few weeks due to a shortage of paper.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube

Online Sources- Wall Street Journal; Christian Science Monitor; Reuters; Politico; Washington Post

Daily Headlines: January 21, 2014

* Argentina: Juan Gelman, the renown Argentine poet and political activist whose son and daughter-in-law were killed during the “Dirty War”, died last week at the age of 83.

* Haiti: A Haitian judge charged nine people including several close allies of ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of being involved in the April 2000 murder of radio station owner and journalist Jean Dominique.

* Colombia: The Colombian military claimed that troops killed fourteen members of the FARC guerillas during a raid in the eastern state of Arauca.

* Nicaragua: Nicaraguan officials pledged to mediate in the tense and violent standoff between sugarcane cutters seeking greater medical benefits and their employers.

Video Source – EFE International via YouTube (The late wordsmith Juan Gelman located his granddaughter, Macarena, in 2000 after she was stolen from her parents in 1976 and illegally put up for adoption).

Online Sources- Salon.com; Reuters; The Latin Americanist; ABC News; NBC News

Daily Headlines: December 10, 2013

* Brazil: A Sao Paulo-based truth commission concluded that ex-president Juscelino Kubitschek was murdered as part of a “conspiracy, a plot and a political crime.”

* Honduras: The Committee to Protect Journalists and Journalists Without Borders called on a full investigation into the recent death of a Honduran member of the media.

* Colombia: Thousands of people gathered in the main square of Bogota, Colombia to support the city’s mayor after he was controversially removed from his post by the country’s inspector general.

* Argentina: At least seven people died in the overnight hours in northern Argentina as disgruntled police in ten provinces have gone on strike.

Video Source – YouTube user jornaldobrasil (Former Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek died under mysterious in an auto accident in 1976).

Online Sources- BBC News; ABC News; Latin Times; AFP

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: September 4, 2013

* Mexico: Press group Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of four journalists who were recently arrested while covering protests against the Mexican government’s plans for educational reform.

* U.S.: A new report from the Pew Research Center found that nine of the top ten U.S. states where the Latino population has grown the fastest are located in the South.

* Chile: Three men who claimed to have been sexually abused by “prominent priest” Fernando Karadima in the 1980s have filed a $900,000 lawsuit against him.

* Argentina: Another day, another trial for ex-Argentina president and convicted arms trafficker Carlos Menem. 

Video Source – YouTube via user panamericanavideos (“Thousands of protesters (on Monday) took to the streets of Mexico City to protest against the reforms proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto”).

Online Sources- LAHT; Huffington Post; GlobalPost; Businsesweek

Daily Headlines: August 20, 2013

* Peru: Local environmental groups released video purportedly showing members of the heavily isolated Mashco-Piro indigenous tribe emerging from their jungle area and attempting to seek food.

* Mexico: Mexican politicians continue to debate a major energy reform proposal made by President Enrique Peña Nieto, while plans are reportedly in the works for state-run oil giant Pemex to expand further into the U.S.
  
* Cuba: Major League ballplayer Yasiel Puig said that he would be willing to play for the Cuban national team if the government were to allow defectors to participate.

* Guatemala: The Guatemalan Interior Minister rejected the possibility that journalists are under attack in response to the murder on Monday of the fourth member of the media so far this year.

Image Source – YouTube via user Leandro Cabrera

Online Sources- LAHT; ESPN Los Angeles; Businessweek; Reuters; BBC News

Daily Headlines: July 10, 2013

* Honduras: Police believe they have found the dismembered and beheaded body of Anibal Barrow, a popular television journalist missing since last month.

* Mexico: Archaeologists have uncovered thousands of stone carvings in Coahuila that are believed to be up to 6000-years-old.

* Cuba: “Reform czar” Marino Murillo allegedly said that the government plans to deregulate several large state-run companies including nickel producer Cubaniquel and oil company Cubapetroleo.

* Ecuador: According to Finance Minister Fausto Herrera, Ecuador is seeking as much as $1.4 billion in financing from China to fund this year’s budget.

Video Source – YouTube via NTN24
 
Online Sources- Bloomberg; Voice of America; Huffington Post; Reuters

Daily Headlines: June 28, 2013

* Puerto Rico: “Puerto Ricans don't want to be a U.S. state,” declared Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla even though a majority of the island’s voters backed statehood in a non-binding plebiscite held last November.
 
* Brazil: At least six people died in ongoing street protests against government corruption, misspending of public funds and public transit fare hikes.

* Venezuela: Several Venezuelan press groups are none too pleased that the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez was posthumously given a top journalism award.

* Peru: Archeologists uncovered artifacts from roughly 1200 years ago in a royal tomb that belonged to the pre-Incan Wari empire.

Video Source – YouTube via Democracy Now

Online Sources- ABC News (U.S. and Australia); BBC News; GlobalPost; The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: June 13, 2013

* Argentina: At least three people died in a train accident this morning near Buenos Aires that occurred over a year after fifty-two people were killed in a train crash in the Argentine capital.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro claims to have received Wednesday a tweet from the late leader Hugo Chávez in the form of a bird, while opposition rival Henrique Capriles started a weekly webcast.

* Brazil: Newspaper editor Jose Roberto Ornelas de Lemos was killed in what investigators believe was a “murder-for-hire” related to his work.

* Colombia: The Colombian Senate approved an animal rights bill that would ban the exhibition of wild animals like bears and lions at circuses.

Video Source – YouTube via user TVPublicaArgentina

Online Sources- Latin Times; Fox News Latino; CNN; LAHT; The Latin Americanist

Latin American Press Under Fire

Today is World Press Freedom Day and, as we mentioned briefly yesterday, Freedom House report found that there is a decline in media freedom throughout Latin America.  Several recent incidents in the region appear to prove Freedom House’s assertion.

• Mexico

Radio and TV announcer Jose Gerardo Padilla Blanquet has gone missing since Tuesday in Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila state.  Padilla Blanquet works for Radio Grande de Coahuila, a radio station whose director was assaulted months ago after receiving numerous threats.

The disappearances come days after photographer Daniel Martinez Bazaldua was murdered and dismembered in Saltillo.  An editorial in Vanguardia, the newspaper Martinez Bazaldua worked for, subsequently blasted local authorities for implying that the victims worked for one of Mexico’s drug gangs.

• Colombia

Semana reporter Ricardo Calderón was attacked by gunfire while driving on a Colombian highway yesterday.  The veteran investigative journalist, who helped uncover an illegal and massive wiretapping operation in 2007, may have been targeted in a possible assassination attempt.

The Colombian International Press Association condemned the attack on Calderón and expressed their worry over “the security of all journalists nationwide, especially those in high conflict zones.”

• Argentina

The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA, in Spanish) denounced the firing of tear gas and rubber bullets by police on media members covering a protest one week ago.  FOPEA alleged that at least seven journalists were injured while covering the demonstration and authorities prevented some of them from receiving medical attention.

Meanwhile, an editorial in Diario Los Andes yesterday blasted the suggestion of Chaco province governor Jorge Capitanich to enact a “press ethics law” on the same day several newspapers reported money-laundering allegations against him.

• Guatemala

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) yesterday highlighted a series of cyberattacks against the website of major news outlet elPeriódico.  According to the CPJ, the hacking had been occurring for the past several months but had intensified after elPeriódico published an April 8th article that “alleged corruption, embezzlement, and abuse of authority by President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti”.

• Latin America

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) issued today its list of thirty-nine “predators of freedom of information” and it includes four figures from Latin America and the Caribbean.  The heads of Colombia’s rightwing paramilitaries, Mexico’s Zetas drug gang and Cuban President Raul Castro are among those criticized by RWB.

RWB said the following on Honduran businessman and political figure M. Facussé Barcum as if he were the one mentioning it:

Daily Headlines: April 16, 2013

* Puerto Rico: Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla warned that he would push for a Constitutional Assembly over Puerto Rico’s statehood issue if Washington does not take action this year.

* U.S.: Mexicans Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab and Narciso Contreras along with Rodrigo Abd of Argentina won Pulitzer Prizes for their respective work in journalism.

* Latin America: A new study found that Costa Rica and Chile are the Latin American and Caribbean states with the most “social progress” for its citizens.

* Vatican: Argentine-born Pope Francis supports a controversial plan passed by his predecessor to overhaul the largest umbrella group of nuns in the U.S.

Video Source – YouTube via Newsy (Puerto Rican voters last year backed changing the island’s political status from a commonwealth to the 51st U.S. state).

Online Sources- Hispanically Speaking News, Huffington Post, Inside Costa Rica, USA TODAY