Daily Headlines: December 10, 2015

* Mexico: Mexican health officials approved the world’s first vaccine against the dengue fever, which would be applied to individuals “between ages 9 and 45 who live in areas where dengue is endemic.”

* South America: Colombia’s Independiente Santa Fe captured the Copa Sudamericana crown and, thus, broke the recent hegemony of Argentine teams in South American soccer club tournaments.

* Cuba: Some 4500 Cuban migrants continue to be stuck in limbo in Costa Rica while Central American countries continue to figure out what to do with them.

* Brazil: Stronger public pressure has reportedly led to greater scrutiny of cases of alleged abuse and extrajudicial killings by military police in Brazil.

YouTube Source – Journeyman Pictures

Online Sources – NPR, ESPN FC, Fox News Latino, GlobalPost, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: October 9, 2015

* South America: World Cup qualifiers in South America began yesterday with noteworthy matches including Ecuador shocking Argentina in Buenos Aires and Copa America titleholders Chile beating Brazil.

* Brazil: Nine police officers allegedly avenging the shooting of an off-duty cop were arrested and charged with killing nineteen people on August 13th near Sao Paulo.

* Mexico: Mayor Enrique Serrano of Ciudad Júarez has called on a boycott of the hit film Sicario since it “speaks badly of the city.”

* Venezuela: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez accused the Guyanese government of “misleading the international community” over a heated territorial dispute between the neighboring countries.

YouTube Source – Futbolpasionmundial3 (Patricio Javier Diaz of La Red Ecuador radio provided emotional play-by-play of Ecuador’s two goals in their upset over Argentina on Thursday).
 
Online Sources – ESPN FC, The Guardian, BBC News, Xinhua

Daily Headlines: June 11, 2015

* Brazil: Family of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian national shot and killed in 2005 by London police officers searching for suspected suicide bombers, have taken their legal challenge to the European Court of Human Rights.

* Paraguay: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended the Paraguayan government take the necessary steps to protect the life of a ten-year-old pregnant and sexually abused girl barred from undergoing an abortion.

* Nicaragua: Scientists reviewing early drafts of the environmental assessment report to Nicaragua’s planned interoceanic canal deemed the study as “insufficient given the magnitude of the proposed projects associated with...construction.”

* Latin America: The five member states of Latin America’s Mercosur alliance are divided over whether the bloc should push for a trade pact with the European Union.

YouTube Source – Andy Smart

Online Sources – The Globe and Mail, The Latin Americanist, International Business Times, MercoPress, The Guardian

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: July 30, 2014

* Brazil: A Human Rights Watch report released this week documented some sixty-four cases of torture in Brazil since 2010 and noted, “impunity in cases of serious abuses by police and prison guards is the norm.”

* Venezuela: One of the numerous proposals by the U.S. Congress to sanction the Venezuelan government for human rights abuses could soon come to a vote in the Senate.

* Colombia: The Colombian government blamed the FARC guerillas for causing a blackout that left 500,000 people in the key port city of Buenaventura without power.

* U.S.: A new study found that “women and minorities who promote diversity from corporate leadership positions tend to get lower evaluations from their bosses and colleagues.”

Video Source – Sky News via YouTube (“An investigation was launched in Brazil (in 2013) after video emerged of a police helicopter machine gunning the car of a suspected drug dealer in a built up area of Rio de Janeiro”.)

Online Sources – The Huffington Post; Colombia Reports; Miami Herald; The Latin Americanist; ABC News

Brazil: Rio Cop Allegedly Shoots at Protesters (Updated)

Police in Rio de Janiero have come under scrutiny after a video apparently showed an officer firing a live gun round at protesters on Sunday night.

As seen in the following video via the Associated Press, what appears to be a policeman sitting on a motorcycle pulled out a pistol and fired at demonstrators outside the Maracaná stadium prior to Argentina’s World Cup group match against Bosnia-Herzegovina:

In addition, another man in plainclothes who identifies himself as a police officer also pulls out gun and fired two shots into the air near the stadium.

Rio law enforcement spokesman Pedro Dantas said that the authorities would not comment until they can review the video though he alleged that Molotov cocktails had been thrown at officers.  He also claimed that there were no reports of any shooting victims during the protest even though the video footage showed protesters holding up some of the live ammunition purportedly used against them.

Update: Rio authorities announced on Monday that they have placed under administrative leave two policemen believed to have fired live rounds during Sunday's protest.  One of the officers will be "investigated by internal affairs to determine if any wrongdoing occurred."

An estimated 200 anti-World Cup demonstrators carrying banners reading “FIFA go home” marched towards the Maracaná but their progress was halted by police on horseback.  Some of the protesters lashed with police who fired tear gas and stun grenades against the multitude.

Much like the actions in Rio, other small protests were held over the weekend near World Cup matches in Brasilia and Porto Alegre. These actions were peaceful, however, as demonstrators in the Brazilian capital held a sign welcoming tourists to the “World Cup of protests.”

Anti-World Cup demonstrations have been held across Brazil over the past year primarily over the billions of dollars spent on stadiums and other preparations for the tournament instead of social services.

Brazil: Rio Residents Protest Against Police (Updated)

At least one person was killed in the Brazilian metropolis of Rio de Janeiro as protesters clashed with police on Tuesday night.

Streets in the tourist area of Copacabana where closed and fires where set alight in the impoverished Pavao-Pavaozinho favela as a result of the protests.

Hundreds of residents were angry against police who they blamed for the recent death of 26-year-old Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira.  Demonstrators argued that the professional dancer who appeared on TV Globo died at the hands of the police who allegedly mistook him for a wanted criminal. 

Rio de Janeiro's State Security Secretariat said in a Twitter post that he died as a result of a fall and that the death was still under investigation.  Yet a forensic expert reportedly said to investigators that the blood trail from da Silva Pereira’s body indicates that he ran across the roofs of several houses prior to his death. This lends credibility to the hypothesis that the deceased may have been chased by police officers as he was trying to escape a shootout between the authorities and local drug gangs.

Several cars and buses were burned on Easter Sunday in separate protests by residents in another part of Rio regarding the deaths of two teenagers on Friday while under police custody.

The incidents occurred as authorities step up security roughly six weeks prior to the start of the World Cup.  Their strategy to combat violence, particularly in the poorer areas of Rio, has been controversial:

Daily Headlines: March 28, 2011

* Brazil: Five policemen in the city of Manaus were arrested after a security camera caught them harassing and shooting at a fourteen-year-old boy.

* Venezuela: A group of university protesters ended their month-long hunger strike after the government reportedly met their demands of increased public spending on universities.

* Colombia: Residents of the Amazon village of Nazareth have banned tourists partly due to the visitors' alleged disrespect towards indigenous people.

* South America: At least 38 people have died in Paraguay and Bolivia as a result of a dengue outbreak began roughly three months ago.

Video Source – AP via YouTube
Online Sources- UPI, MercoPress, The Canadian Press, BBC News

Daily Headlines: March 17, 2011

* South America: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff claimed that the 2014 World Cup will lead to the creation of 730,000 new jobs while Argentina and Uruguay might present a joint bid for the 2030 tournament.

* Honduras: Officials announced that embassies would be closed in five Latin American countries that refuse to recognize the government that came into power after the ouster of Manuel Zelaya.

* Cuba: The Catholic Church claimed that the Cuban government would release another political prisoner who has been behind bars for at least eight years.

* U.S.: A Los Angeles police oversight panel ruled that a police officer was justified in the controversial shooting death of a Guatemalan day laborer last September.

Image – BBC Sport (Argentina won the 1978 World Cup on home soil after beating the Netherlands in the championship game).
Online Sources- Xinhua, UPI, TVNZ, Forbes.com

Daily Headlines: October 4, 2010

* Peru: Vladimiro Montesinos, former spy chief and aide to disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori, was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison over his role in a pair of massacres.

* Ecuador: The government may reconsider a controversial law that led to violent protests against President Rafael Correa last Thursday.

* Cuba: Spain’s Repsol will reportedly drill several oil wells off the northern Cuban coast next year.

* Puerto Rico: Police on the island have come under fire as a result of several recent incidents where cops may have used excessive force.

Image – teleSur
Online Sources- AP, LAHT, Miami Herald, The Guardian, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: July 5, 2010

* Puerto Rico: Police in the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan have been accused of brutality during clashes last week with anti-government protestors.

* Haiti: Tens of thousands of Haitian earthquake survivors living in makeshift camps face eviction from landowners worried about insecurity.

* Venezuela: Officials claimed that they arrested an accused Salvadoran accomplice of wanted ex-CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles.

* Brazil: At a summit in Cape Verde, President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva pledged increased Brazilian cooperation with west African countries.

Image – The Guardian (“A student demonstrator, Elisa Ramos, left, and her mother, Betty Pena, shelter from teargas amid riots over budget cuts at the Capitol building in San Juan, Puerto Rico.”)
Online Sources- El Universal, Huffington Post, AFP, Christian Science Monitor

Dominicans allege torture via onions

A Dominican Republic human rights organization claimed that local police use onions as a torture device.

The National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) claimed to have records of dozens of cases where police force onions into people’s mouths in order to give the sensation feeling that they are choking. “It appears that the onion has given them results,” said NCHR vice president Joselin Melo who also noted that it was the first time that onions had been used as weapons.

The Dominican Republic has had a poor record on human rights; earlier this month, Amnesty International highlighted the case of two men detained by police without an arrest warrant and were subsequently been harassed by police. Other instances of police abuse have been uncovered by the NHCR:

The National Commission of Human Rights said it documented 70 cases of alleged torture so far this year, compared to 300 for all of 2008. It said the cases involving onions have occurred at the police station in Santo Domingo and five other detention centers.

The Dominican Committee of Human Rights also is planning to file complaints after investigating torture allegations at the country's biggest prison, committee president Virgilio Almanzar said.

He charged that officials tortured seven inmates in La Victoria by beating them and even breaking one man's arm. Authorities also have demanded up to $140 from inmates' relatives to transfer them out of isolation cells, Almanzar said.

Most of those targeted in the prison are Haitian, he said.

Image- daylife.com (“Dominican Republic police officers from the SWAT team patrol the neighborhood of Capotillo to control demonstrations during a national strike for an increase in workers' salaries in Santo Domingo April 9, 2008.”)
Online Sources- Amnesty International, etaiwannews.com, The Daily Mail

Massive settlement reached in “May Day melee”

Remember the excessive force used by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers after a peaceful immigrants’ rights march in May 2007?

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An LAPD report later concluded that “the failing leadership, breakdown in supervision and breakdown in personal discipline” led to the unnecessary show of force by officers.
Repercussions have still been felt nearly two years after the “May Day melee”:

Demonstrators who sued the city in the wake of a MacArthur Park May Day melee in which Los Angeles police fired about 12 dozen rubber bullets into the crowd will receive $12.85 million under a settlement approved Wednesday by the City Council…

Attorney Carol Sobel with the National Lawyers Guild said the $12.85 million payout is the largest single settlement in a demonstration case anywhere in the country.

Hopefully the settlement can heal some of the wounds that emerged between Los Angeles’ Latino community and the city’s police. (Obviously the settlement isn’t a cure-all but it’s a just decision after unjust actions by the police).

Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, MSNBC

Louima cop wants sentence commuted

One of the former New York policemen convicted in the infamous Abner Louima (image) sodomy case is seeking a reduced sentence.

Justin Volpe was convicted of torturing the Haitian immigrant in 1997 and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He has spent nearly 12 years in jail without parole and recently petitioned the Justice Department for a reduced sentence.

Along with Volpe’s petition were notes sent by family and friends on his behalf. Yet his crime outraged New Yorkers and shined a light on police abuse during the Giuliani administration:

One officer, Justin A. Volpe, admitted in court in May 1999 that he had rammed a broken broomstick into Mr. Louima’s rectum and then thrust it in his face. He said he had mistakenly believed that Mr. Louima had punched him in the head during a street brawl outside a nightclub in Flatbush, but he acknowledged that he had also intended to humiliate the handcuffed immigrant. He left the force and was later sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Image- CNN
Sources- Gothamist, NY1, newsday.com, City Room