Daily Headlines: January 30, 2014

* Venezuela: Exports of Venezuelan oil to the U.S. are expected to reach its lowest level in twenty-eight years partly due to decreased production and increased demand from China.

* Central America: Nicaraguan legislators backed a constitutional reform that could permit President Daniel Ortega to seek a third straight term, while Panamanian first lady Marta Linares was chosen by the country’s ruling party to run for vice president.

* Argentina: A pair of new studies concluded that climate change is hindering the growth of penguin populations in Antarctica and Argentina.

* Ecuador: Edgar Vaca, the former police chief of Ecuador who was recently arrested in the U.S., will be extradited to his native land and formally charged with crimes against humanity.

Video Source – Press TV via YouTube

Online Sources- Bloomberg; The Guardian; Voice of America; Reuters; GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: July 16, 2012

* Honduras: A radio reporter shot and killed while on vacation became the twenty-first journalist killed in Honduras since the ouster of president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009.

* Brazil: Why have the bodies of over five hundred penguins washed up on beaches of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul?

* Cuba: According to Cuban health officials a cholera outbreak that killed three people has been contained and weakening.

* Guatemala: A Guatemalan court reportedly granted the early release of a former colonel sentenced to twenty years in prison for the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi.

Video Source– YouTube via The VJ Movement (Video posted to YouTube in March 2011).

Online Sources- The Sun Daily, The Telegraph, Fox News Latino, The Guardian

World Watch: March of the (Fossilized) Penguins

* New Zealand: Scientists discovered the fossilized remains of an extinct penguin species that were over four feet tall and lived between 24-27 million years ago.

* South Sudan: The South Sudan Democratic Movement, one of the county’s largest rebel groups, signed a peace agreement with the government.

* Egypt: Three judges recused themselves from overseeing the trial of over forty “pro-democracy activists” including defendants of Egyptian and U.S. background.

* Syria: According to the U.N. over 7500 people have been killed over the past eleven months as part of the Syrian government’s crackdown against dissidents.

Video Source– YouTube via slatester

Online Sources – Reuters, Voice of America, MSNBC

Today's Video: Penguins!

We'll be back for a few posts over the weekend. For now here's a CNN story on penguins that swim thousands of miles north and land on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro:

Daily Headlines: May 16, 2007

* Scientists believe that a penguin from southern Chile “strayed off course” after traveling over 3000 miles to Peru (image).

* U.S. border inspectors are rarely using screening technology, according to a report from the Associated Press.

* Fidel Castro’s health woes are “definitely behind us,” said Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque to Mexican newspaper Reforma.

* Bolivia’s government nearly quadrupled the price of natural gas it sells to Brazil.

* Jamaican police still are not certain on how Pakistan team cricket coach Bob Woolmer died despite it being nearly two months after his death.

Links- Sydney Morning Herald, MSNBC, Bloomberg, Prensa Latina, International Herald Tribune

Image- BBC News