Daily Headlines: October 23, 2015 (Updated)

* Mexico: A state of emergency has been declared in three Mexican states in anticipation of the expected landfall today of the category five Hurricane Patricia.

Update (October 24th, 12:30 AM): The storm was downgraded to a category four hurricane hours after it reached Mexico's Pacific coast on Friday night. As of this update, some material damage was reported but no fatalities.  Civil defense chief Luis Felipe Puente nevertheless warned that Patricia could still cause flash floods, landslides and infrastructural damage to states like Colima and Jalisco. (Link in Spanish).


Update (October 24th, 5:15 PM): 

So far, there are no reports of major damage from #Patricia. Our gratitude to all for your thoughts, prayers and actions #PrayForMexico.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) October 24, 2015

Nevertheless, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto traveled to Colima to oversee the aftermath of Patricia, which was downgraded to a tropical storm and is now drenching the northern border state of Nuevo Leon. (Link in Spanish).

* Paraguay: Former Paraguayan President Federico Franco could become the latest Latin American leader to be investigated for alleged corruption during his rule.

* Cuba: Will the U.S. reverse its historic vote in the U.N. General Assembly next week and opt to condemn the decades-long trade embargo against Cuba?

* Ecuador: Scientists have discovered a new species of giant tortoise on the Galapagos Islands and named them after the longtime caretaker of the late emblematic tortoise George.

YouTube Source – Reuters
 
Online Sources including Updates – BBC News, Xinhua, The Guardian, InSight Crime, Milenio.com, Twitter, El Economista

Daily Headlines: February 6, 2015

* Haiti: Carnival celebrations in Port-au-Prince later this month could be disrupted by protests critical of the government’s handling of gasoline prices.

* Cuba: At least two Cuban baseball players including the rookie of the year in the island’s league last year defected during the Caribbean Series hosted in Puerto Rico.

* Peru: Researchers discovered a new yellow frog species in the coastal valleys of central Peru that is under threat from a deadly type of fungus.

* Uruguay: According to Israel’s Haaretz daily, Uruguay expelled an Iranian diplomat suspected of placing a bomb near the Israeli embassy in Montevideo last month.

Video Source – YouTube user No Comment TV (“Protests continued in Haiti (on January 11th) with demonstrators making urgent calls for President Michel Martelly to resign as they clashed with police in the capital.”)
 
Online Sources – UPI; Reuters; ABC News; Haaretz

Daily Headlines: November 13, 2014

* Brazil: A new report from the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety accused the police of killing on average about six people each day over the past five years.

* U.S.: Family members of some of the 265 victims of the Flight 587 crash commemorated yesterday the thirteenth anniversary of the accident that occurred as the plane was en route to the Dominican Republic.

* Panama: Researchers believe that more than two million migrating raptors including hawks, eagles and falcons flew above Panama City this past Sunday.

* Venezuela: The start of the trial against Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a Venezuelan judge seen by the opposition as “among the country's highest-profile political prisoners,” continues to be delayed.

Video Source – InSight Crime via YouTube

Online Sources – UPI; NY1; BBC News; ABC News

Daily Headlines: August 11, 2014

* Cuba: A letter from 300 U.S. rabbis sent to President Barack Obama last week urged the White House to push more strongly for the “immediate release” of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross from a Cuban prison.

* Argentina: Judge Thomas Griesa, the U.S. magistrate overseeing the legal tug-of-war between the Argentine government and holdout creditors, threatened the South American country’s representatives with contempt of court.
 
* Brazil: A poll conducted roughly ten weeks before Brazil’s presidential election found that incumbent Dilma Rousseff’s strong lead over her rivals remains unchanged and she would win a possible run-off over her closest opponents.

* Bolivia: Researchers concluded that a recently discovered yellow bat in Bolivia is its own species and will receive the scientific name of Myotis midastactus.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube (“Former U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor Alan Gross has said goodbye to his family after being held in Cuban prison for the past five years.”)

Online Sources – ABC News; Bloomberg; CNN; National Geographic; The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: January 30, 2013

* Venezuela: The U.N. human rights office expressed concern over “an alarming pattern of violence in Venezuelan prisons” in the wake of a recent deadly riot at the Uribana prison.

* Haiti: Will an aggressive campaign to promote tourism in Haiti help revive a country still ailing from a major earthquake that struck two years ago?

* Peru: Legislators are considering approving a proposal that would protect the “near threatened” Andean condors.

* Mexico: Electoral authorities claimed they found violations made by the campaign of defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
 
Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- Huffington Post, The Latin Americanist, NBC News, NPR

Daily Headlines: August 8, 2012

* Puerto Rico: The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a new penal code that is allegedly “intended to suppress speech, to stop people from protesting against government policies.”

* Mexico: Thousands of people were evacuated from parts of the Yucatan Peninsula as Tropical Storm Ernesto reached landfall this morning.

* Venezuela: Opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles vowed that “during my term in office not even a single barrel of oil will be given to other countries for free.”

* Peru: Researchers have identified Sira Barbet, a new bird species located in a remote cloud forest of the Andes.

Video Source – YouTube via user acluvideos (This 2011 video from the American Civil Liberties Union features alleged “acts of police brutality in Puerto Rico over the past year against civilians demonstrating peacefully.”)

Online Sources- Miami Herald, Reuters, El Universal, Discovery News

Daily Headlines: June 30, 2011

* Brazil: A neat individual effort from Rosana in the 54th minute was enough for Brazil to win 1-0 over Australia in their opening women's World Cup match.

* South America: Ecuador extradited to Colombia an alleged FARC guerilla leader who is linked to Sinaloa’s drug gang.

* Haiti: A scientific study "strongly suggests" that U.N. peacekeepers spread a deadly cholera strain that has killed thousands of Haitians.

* Honduras: The Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras was placed back on the UNESCO list of endangered world heritage sites.

Image – Getty Images via BBC News (“Brazil's Rosana celebrates her goal for the runners-up of the last World Cup.”)
Online Sources- UPI, Goal.com, Xinhua, MSNBC

Venezuelan beetle named after Stephen Colbert

Some stories speak for themselves:

“What has six legs and is way cooler than a spider?” asks a riddle on the cover of a birthday card recently sent to Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central.

The answer - Agaporomorphus colberti - a diving beetle from Venezuela that was recently identified by entomologists Quentin Wheeler of Arizona State University and Kelly Miller of the University of New Mexico.

“Last year, Stephen shamelessly asked the science community to name something cooler than a spider to honor him,” Wheeler said. “His top choices were a giant ant or a laser lion. While those would be cool species to discover, our research involves beetles, and they are way cooler than a spider any day.

Image- physorg.com
Online Sources- ecospeak

Daily Headlines: August 20, 2008

* Puerto Rico: Nearly five months after being charged with possible electoral fraud and corruption, boricua Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila faces a new set of indictments of wire fraud and money laundering.

* Venezuela: Mexican officials are hoping that Venezuela’s government will negotiate with cement firm Cemex after President Hugo Chavez ordered its nationalization.

* Chile: Chilean stocks dipped in trading on Tuesday and the country’s currency also fell in value.

* Caribbean: The tropical red lionfish has somehow invaded Caribbean waters and is “wreaking havoc on an ecologically delicate region.”

Image- Los Angeles Times

Sources- Los Angeles Times, IHT, Guardian UK, The Latin Americanist, UPI

Daily Headlines: June 11, 2008

* Caribbean: Say “goodbye” to the extinct Caribbean monk seal.

* Cuba: Leading dissident Hector Palacios said that he would return from exile and would even be willing to meet with President Raul Castro.

* Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez denied the allegations of a 31-year-old man claiming to be his illegitimate son.

* Brazil: A bad economic sign – Brazilian inflation has reached a three-year high.

Sources- TIME, Bloomberg, Associated Press, MSNBC

Image- La Plaza

Today's Video: Chile's Chaiten volcano

Emergency evacuations took place on Tuesday in a pair of southern Chilean towns after the Chaiten volcano erupted in lava and heavy ash. Over 4000 residents of Chaiten and Futaleufu have left for safer areas as the formerly dormant volcano spewed a huge column of smoke.

The video below shows the activity of the Chaiten volcano and how nearby residents try to cope with it:

Uruguay: One-ton rat fossil found

Scientists discovered the fossil of a prehistoric rodent that may have been about ten feet long, nearly five feet tall and weighing 2000 pounds. Two Uruguayan paleontologists “stumbled upon the” fossil which would have belonged to the world’s biggest rodent.

One of the scientists told CNN:

"We can give an educated guess that the rodent would have been 3 meters long -- assuming that it was similar to a Capybara (the largest rodent alive today) and taking it into account that large mammals generally have relatively smaller heads. It's tail probably was closer to the one of capybara or guinea pig (very short) and not like a rat," Ernesto Blanco says.

It’s believed that the rodent, named Josephoartigasia monesi, was an herbivore and existed between two and four million years ago.

Image- BBC News

Sources- Guardian UK, Associated Press, CNN, Reuters

Daily Headlines: November 22, 2007

* A twelve ton whale that made its way up several Amazon River tributaries died this week.

* Bonds in emerging markets like Latin America tumbled during trading on Wednesday.

* An article in the Christian Science Monitor ponders if “(Hugo) Chavez, with or without Iran's help, has the power to push oil to $200 a barrel?”

* Follow-up: The starting date of the trial of recently extradited ex-Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori two weeks to December 10^th.

Sources- Bloomberg, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters UK, The Latin Americanist, Xinhua

Image- BBC News

Daily Headlines: September 21, 2007

* While most attention on Alan Greenspan’s memoirs focused on his criticism of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, the novel also blasts Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and his “economic populism.”

* A bad case of crabs may delay expansion of the Panama Canal. (Double entendre not intended).

* One of the greatest interviews of the 20^th-century according to Guardian UK – Herbert Matthews’ 1957 interview of soon-to-be Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

* Signals have been received from a satellite jointly worked on by Brazil and China.

* Puerto Rican racehorse Doña Chepa reached a milestone by recording its 125^th straight loss on Wednesday.

Image- MercoPress

Sources- Canada.com, AFP, Xinhua, Monsters & Critics, Associated Press, Guardian UK

Daily Headlines: September 13, 2007

* Another name to add to the list of 9/11 conspiracy theorists: Fidel Castro.

* Some people take this whole “North American Union” b.s. a little too seriously.

* Paraguay’s government declared a state of emergency for thousands of acres of forestland decimated by wildfires.

* Brazil's economy grew at its fastest pace in three years according to government figures.

* Follow-up: The U.S. Senate voted 74-24 to block a pilot program permitting Mexican trucks to travel on U.S. highways.

Sources- Guardian UK, Snopes.com, BBC News, Bloomberg, Monsters & Critics, The Latin Americanist

Image- Guardian UK (“Smoke billows from the Pentagon in Washington after (the 9/11) attack”)

Oil spill threatens Puerto Rican sea life

Pristine areas of Puerto Rico's southwestern shore have come under danger due to a mysterious oil spill. Despite efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard to clean up the mess, officials are investigating where the spill originated from:

"We don't know exactly what it is. It's a black, oily, tar-like substance," (Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo) Castrodad said. "The aerial view showed four or five patches, each of up to 500 yards long and 50 yards wide, spread out about five miles."

The cleanup efforts are expected to take several weeks though that could be delayed by inclement weather.

Image- National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (The coral reefs at La Parguera, Puerto Rico are in danger from an oil spill)

Sources- SR.com, UPI, FOX News, Forbes

Daily Headlines: August 30, 2007

* 2005: Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona traveled to Colombia for gastric bypass surgery. Friday: Maradona will arrive in Colombia for cosmetic dental surgery.

* Brazil’s government issued a text detailing the crimes and human rights abuses committed under military rule from 1964 to 1985.

* A volcano erupted yesterday on an uninhabited area of the Galapagos Islands.

* Could the use of nuclear power spread across Latin America?

* One of Costa Rica’s most vital reefs is being decimated by algae caused by untreated sewage and other trash dumped into the sea.

Sources- BBC Sport, Xinhua, MarketWatch, Reuters AlertNet, People’s Daily Online, BBC News

Image- SI.com (Diego Maradona cheering from the stands during the 2006 World Cup)

Daily Headlines: August 29, 2007

* Scientists discovered a new “golden frog” (image) whose home is a small area in central Colombia.

* China continues to make inroads into Latin America; the latest example being plans for increased oil exploration in Peru.

* Chile’s Supreme Court has upheld a life sentence for a retired officer convicted of overseeing the deaths of twelve guerillas in 1987.

* Mexico’s economy grew by a less-than-expected 2.5% in June.

* Millions of dollars in foreign aid from Sweden to Nicaragua will be phased out over the next four years.

Sources- MSNBC, Bloomberg, International Herald Tribune, Reuters

Image- FOX News

The adventures of Curious “Jorge” and the flight from Peru

A passenger who took a flight from Peru to New York while hiding a small monkey under his hat has been detained for questioning by immigration authorities. The primate- a marmoset, to be exact- had somehow avoided being detected in Peru, by passengers on the Sprit Airlines flight, and even during a layover Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Centers for Disease Control said that the monkey (image) is of little risk to public health, and plans are underway for the monkey to be transferred to a zoo.

Image- BBC News

Sources- Xinhua, Pravda, NY1

Mexico: Landslide buries dozens in bus

There is little hope that survivors will be found after a landslide yesterday buried a bus with approximately forty to sixty passengers. The governor of Puebla said this morning that so far fourteen dead bodies were found in the front part of the bus. Over five hundred people have joined in the rescue efforts despite the risk of another landslide occurring in the area.

Sources (English)- Guardian UK, Xinhua

Sources (Spanish)- El Universal, Sol de Mexico

Image- Milenio