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: February 14, 2013

* Argentina: Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said that a prosecutor from his country will question Iranians suspected of involvement in the deadly 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish cultural center.

* Brazil: Odilo Scherer, a Brazilian Cardinal who could become the next Pope, noted that geographic origin or age should not matter much in determining the next pontiff.

* Mexico: The family of Jaime Zapata, a U.S. federal agent who was killed in Mexico in 2011, filed a $75 billion lawsuit against more than twenty defendants.

* Venezuela: Vice President Nicolas Maduro claimed that President Hugo Chavez is in a “complex and difficult treatment” over two months after undergoing cancer surgery in Cuba.

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English
 
Online Sources- GlobalPost, Voice of America, The Latin Americanist, ABC News, CNN

Daily Headlines: June 4, 2012

* Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez and campaign rival Henrique Capriles both sent messages to Johan Santana congratulating him for throwing a no-hitter on Friday night. (Note: link is in Spanish).

* Latin America: Argentina tops the South American World Cup qualifying standings after routing Ecuador 4-0 while FIFA is looking into a match-fixing scandal involving games played by the Guatemalan national team.

* U.S.: The ACLU and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service over alleged discrimination against Latinos.

* South America: Authorities in Venezuela captured Diego Perez Henao, a high-ranking member of Colombia's Los Rastrojos neo-paramilitary drug gang.

Video Source – YouTube via ESPN (Johan Santana became the fourth Venezuelan and first member of the New York Mets to pitch a no-hitter).

Online Sources- El Universal, Canada.com, SI.com, Fox News Latino, Reuters

Daily Headlines: March 31, 2011

* Mexico: A combined reward of up to $5.8 million was offered by the U.S. and Mexican governments in relation to the attack against a pair of U.S. immigration agents in February.

* Chile: The attorney representing the three daughters of assassinated former army chief Carlos Prats confirmed that they filed a $15 million lawsuit against the Chilean government.

* Haiti: According to documents obtained by the Canadian Press news agency officials in Canada worried that a "popular uprising" would take place after a major January 2010 earthquake.

* Brazil: Could Brazil's growing reliance on China hurt the South American country's growing economy or are such fears unfounded?

Image – CNN (“Special Agent Jaime Zapata was shot and killed February 15 while traveling between Mexico City and Monterrey.”)
Online Sources- BusinessWeek, Reuters, MSNBC, CTV

Checkered Past for Unofficial Chevron Operative

The ongoing $27 billion civil suit against Chevron in Ecuador has had enough twists and turns to be mistaken for a Tom Clancy bestseller.

In the latest development, Wayne Douglas Hansen - who used a camera hidden in a pen to record bribe offers purported to involve a judge from the case and president Rafael Corea's sister - has turned out to be a convicted felon with a long history of run-ins with the law.

Both sides have been battling for the upper hand in the court of public opinion, with Chevron claiming the Ecuadoran political climate makes a fair trial almost impossible and the plaintiffs claiming that original defendant Texaco (purchased by Chevron in 2001) has caused extreme suffering among residents of the Ecuadoran rain forest.

Since Chevron no longer operates in Ecuador and could simply refuse to pay any judgment against it, even a win for the plaintiffs could lead to a rather anticlimactic conclusion to this most compelling of legal thrillers.

Image source: AP
Online sources: AP, Miami Herald, NY Times, Chevrontoxico.com, Chevron.com

Children to Obama: Halt parents' deportations

Lawyers representing over 600 children of immigrant parents filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration.

In a press conference held yesterday, representatives for pro-immigrant group American Fraternity claimed that they filed the lawsuit in order to halt the deportations of undocumented parents. "Children continue to suffer by being separated from their parents because of deportations that the President may be able to suspend", said the executive director of the organization.

It’s been reported that the children represented in the lawsuit are all U.S. citizens and most are of Latino background. Two of them-whose parents were originally from Nicaragua- have even taken the extreme measure of going on a hunger strike:

Cecia Sosa, 12, and her brother Ronald, 9, said Tuesday they had initiated a hunger strike to prevent their mother from being deported on the scheduled date, which is (on Wednesday).

“We’re doing a hunger strike to help my mom get out of jail,” a sobbing Cecia told The Associated Press. “I would do whatever it takes to get my mommy out… I want Obama to see me to help my mother.” The girl said she had only ingested liquids in the previous 24 hours.

The children’s mother, Maricela Sosa –who entered the U.S. on foot from Mexico in 1997–, was detained at the family’s Pompano Beach, Fla., home on Dec. 19. She had just taken Cecia to the school bus stop when Immigration officers took her away.

American Fraternity had previously filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration and that case was thrown out by the Supreme Court. Yet as one lawyer with the group noted, the lawsuit intends to reverse changes made to immigration policy in 1996 that hurt children whose parents were illegal immigrants.

Image- BBC Mundo
Online Sources- Feet in 2 Worlds, Houston Chronicle, New America Media, 20minutos.es, BBC Mundo

U.S. gov’t sued over wrongful deportation of disabled man

The family of a mentally disabled citizen deported to Mexico filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Monday. Though spokesmen for the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department claimed that proper procedure was followed, the family of 29-year-old Pedro Guzman believes he is missing in Tijuana:

“"My worst fear is that he is no longer living," said Guzman's brother, Michael Guzman.”He doesn't know how to read. He often can't remember the family phone number. He even gets lost if he gets off the main street in Lancaster (California)."”

Guzman has not been heard from for over a month. The American Civil Liberties Union- a partner in the lawsuit- blamed the Sheriff's Department for acting as “de facto immigration agents.”

Update: The Associated Press issued a minor correction to their original story on Guzman. (See second link).

Sources- Reuters, International Herald Tribune, The Washington Times

Image- Tijuana.com (U.S.-Mexico border crossing into Tijuana)