Daily Headlines: July 12, 2016

* Uruguay: An World Bank arbitration panel ruled against an appeal by tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris over Uruguay’s strict anti-smoking laws that include placing a health warning on 80% of cigarette packs.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro claimed Citibank “with no warning” will close several key Venezuelan government accounts, and ordered the seizure of the only local factory belonging to the departing Kimberly-Clark personal care firm.

* United States: A new poll of Latino voters found that immigration is the most important issue while nearly three out of four respondents back Hillary Clinton in the race for the United States presidency.

* Panama: Interpol warned drug traffickers could take advantage of the anticipated boost in maritime shippers using the expanded Panama Canal.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Christian Science Monitor, Reuters, ABC News, Latino Decisions, InSight Crime

Daily Headlines: July 21, 2014

* Uruguay: Officials in Uruguay claimed that the country’s harsh anti-tobacco laws, which includes banning smoking in all public enclosed spaces and prohibiting all tobacco advertising, has led to a 22% drop in the number of heart attacks nationwide.
 
* Mexico: A Mexican judge freed Rosa del Carmen Verduzco, the founder of a shelter where residents were reportedly abused and kept in squalid conditions, after a preliminary probe cleared her of any wrongdoing.

* Latin America: Chinese President Xi Jinping signed several economic agreements with Venezuela and Argentina as he enters the tail end of his official visit to Latin America.

* Colombia: Spanish police captured Hernán Alonso Villa, the main “enforcer” of Colombia’s Office of Envigado drug gang, who will likely be extradited to face trial on some 400 counts of murder.

Video Source – YouTube user insidermedicine

Online Sources – InSerbia News; Reuters The Latin Americanist; The Guardian; DW.de

Daily Headlines: April 16, 2014

Note: The following video contains graphic images and is Not Safe for Work (NSFW).

* Caribbean: Cuba and the Dominican Republic joined three other nations including Honduras in their World Trade Organization dispute against Australia’s strong anti-tobacco laws.

* Bolivia: Bolivian President Evo Morales personally handed over documents to the International Court of Justice as part of the landlocked country’s case seeking to regain a coastline from Chile.
  
* Argentina: The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear a case next Monday regarding unpaid debts from the Argentine government’s massive $82 billion default in 2001.

* Haiti: According to Amnesty International, “leading human rights activist” Pierre Esperance received a threat implying that he “won’t escape” the next assassination attempt against him.
    
Video Source– AFP via YouTube

Online Sources – GlobalPost; Reuters; The Latin Americanist; USA TODAY; The Washington Post

Daily Headlines: September 17, 2013

Note: This video might Not Be Safe for Work

* Honduras: The Honduran government filed a dispute at the World Trade Organization against Australia’s anti-tobacco laws that include selling cigarettes in plain packaging.

* Venezuela: Officials in Venezuela strongly rejected a recent White House report claiming that the Latin American country had "failed demonstrably" to combat the illegal drug trade for a fifth consecutive year.
 
* Haiti: Forty-one recruits will be working alongside Ecuadorean military engineers and could possibly become the first members of a potential new Haitian army.

* Mexico: The death toll from inclement weather caused by two converging tropical storms has increased to a minimum of forty-one fatalities.

Video Source – YouTube via Associated Press (Video uploaded in August 2012).

Online Sources- news.com.au; ABC News; The Guardian; NBC News

Daily Headlines: July 19, 2012

* Colombia: The federal government and indigenous protesters in southern Colombia started a dialogue aimed at lowering tensions in the war-torn Cauca province.

* Mexico: Andrés Manuel López Obrador continued his legal challenge against Mexico’s recent presidential election and accused the campaign of apparent president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto of money laundering.

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan foreign ministry condemned the attack yesterday that killed three senior Syrian military officials and called for global powers to “avoid any armed intervention.”

* Dominican Republic: The Dominican Republic joined Honduras and the Ukraine and filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization against Australia's cigarette package laws.

Daily Headlines: April 6, 2012

* U.S.: Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for attempting to sell weapons to Colombia’s FARC rebels, while a separate U.S. court sentenced a “top Juarez cartel figure” to life behind bars.

* Argentina: At least fourteen people were killed after as a result of a “severe storm” that swept through the Buenos Aires area on Thursday.

* Venezuela: At a pre-Easter Mass in Barinas an emotional President Hugo Chavez called on Jesus to “give me life” and “do not take me yet.”

* Honduras: Honduran officials filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against Australian anti-tobacco regulations including a ban on displaying logos on cigarette packs.

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English

Online Sources- The Guardian, Boston.com, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: October 24, 2011

* Cuba: A Freedom House report concluded that economic reforms announced by the government last year represented the “most significant positive change to have taken place in Cuba since communism was introduced half a century ago.”

* Bolivia: President Evo Morales gave in to demands from indigenous protesters and dropped the plans for the construction of a highway through a national park.

* Latin America: U.S. President Barack Obama signed a trio of free trade agreements including deals with Panama and Colombia.

* Uruguay: Tobacco giant Philip Morris blamed strong anti-smoking laws in its decision to close its plant in Uruguay.

Image – Flickr via user darkroomillusions

Online Sources- Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Xinhua, Reuters

World Watch: Smoke screen

* World: A recently released study found that tobacco companies knew for decades that cigarette smoke contains radioactive and possible carcinogenic particles.

* Saudi Arabia: King Abdullah reportedly overturned a sentence against a woman who was convicted of breaking the country’s law banning female drivers.

* U.S.: According to new government data unemployment claims hit its lowest point in five months and second quarter growth was larger than initially anticipated.

* Kenya: Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta rejected charges of crimes against humanity at a preliminary hearing at the International Criminal Court.

Image – Flickr via user eschipul (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- USA TODAY, CBS News, CBC News, BBC News

Daily Headlines: June 3, 2011

* Cuba: Famed musician Pablo Milanes, who is best known for helping found the nueva trova genre, will play in Miami as part of a U.S. concert tour beginning in August.

* Chile: A judge ordered an investigation into the death of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda days after the body of former President Salvador Allende was exhumed.

* U.S.: According to a Pew Research Center report 19% of Latinos use Twitter, which is slightly less than blacks but more than double the percentage of whites.

* Argentina: Congress passed a new anti-tobacco law that bans smoking in public places and bars tobacco ads and sponsorship.

Image – RPP (Cuban musician Pablo Milanes in concert in Lima, Peru in 2009.)
Online Sources- CBS News, CNN, The Latin Americanist, The Hill, BBC News

World Watch: Scary science

* World: According to the World Health Organization tobacco use will kill six million people worldwide this year while cell phone use may be carcinogenic.

* Europe: Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic was extradited to The Hague where he will face charges of genocide at a U.N. war crimes tribunal.

* Afghanistan: President Hamid Karzai issued a stern warning against NATO airstrikes that kill afghan civilians.

* U.S.: The Pentagon has reportedly considered that certain cyber attacks may be interpreted as “acts of war.”

Image – Franck Perevel/AP via The Guardian
Online Sources- MSNBC, AFP, Reuters, Voice of America

Weekend Headlines: May 27-28, 2011

* Peru: Indigenous protesters continued their two-week protest against a Canadian firm’s plans for a silver mine in southern Peru.

* South America: Philip Morris filed a lawsuit in international court against Uruguay’s strict anti-smoking measures while British American Tobacco purchased Colombia’s second-largest tobacco company.

* Haiti: A draft report commissioned by the US Agency for International Development found that the death toll from a 2010 earthquake might have been between 46,000 and 85,000 instead of the estimated 250,000.

* Guatemala: Human rights groups including Amnesty International called on Guatemalan authorities to fully investigate the murder of a labor union official on Thursday.

Video Source – Al Jazeera English via YouTube
Online Sources- Amnesty International, Radio New Zealand, CBC News, The Telegraph, UPI

Ex-Uruguay president blasts Philip Morris

Under then-President Tabare Vazquez, Uruguay became one of the world's strongest anti-tobacco countries. Since 2006 smoking is barred in public places and the former cancer specialist prohibited all tobacco advertising. Though Vazquez has been out of the presidency since last March he has not shied away from emphasizing the ill effects of smoking as well as criticizing tobacco multinationals.

During a speech given at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Montevideo, Vazquez accused Philip Morris of unfairly trying to “intimidate” countries like Uruguay. Philip Morris “like all tobacco companies does not care for the health of their consumers” said Vazquez who also accused the firm of attempting to “punish” Uruguay due to the anti-smoking laws. “Tobacco, like war, produces deaths among citizens around the world while enriching a few," said Vasquez at the conference.

Earlier this year Philip Morris filed for arbitration at the World Bank against the Uruguay government. The company claimed that the tobacco restrictions violated signed trade pacts and that they also unjustly hurt business with the South American country. In July current president Jose Mujica partially caved into pressure from the tobacco giant by modifying the anti-smoking laws. Yet he reversed himself in September by strengthening the ban on smoking indoors.

At the WHO meeting this week, Mujica refused to bow down completely to the tobacco industry:

President Jose Mujica described Uruguay Monday as a "laboratory of confrontation" with Big Tobacco…

Mujica said the trade violation claim seeks to "complicate the life and sovereignty of a small nation that has the boldness to defend itself and try to defend the health of its people."

He said Uruguay will maintain its anti-smoking laws despite the pressure.

A statement from Philip Morris (via Reuters) said that the firm “disputed several regulations” that “go far beyond public health objectives” of Uruguay.

Uruguay’s push against tobacco has earned praise not only from health care advocates worldwide but also from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On Monday he reportedly pledged $375 million of his own money to pay for Uruguay’s legal defense.

Image- trussel.com
Online Sources- La Republica, The Guardian, BusinessWeek, MSNBC, AFP, New York Times,

World Watch: Thailand’s bubbling cauldron

* Thailand: The crisis between the Thai government and opposition protesters worsened after a soldier was killed and eighteen demonstrators were wounded in clashes.

* Europe: The region’s debt crisis has gotten worse after Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spain’s credit rating one day after doing the same to Greece and Portugal.

* Australia: The country's government will reportedly soon announce plans for plain packaging of cigarette boxes.

* Britain: Gordon Brown’s time as British Prime Minister is likely coming to an end after he insulted a Labour Party supporter by calling her “bigoted”.

Image – Los Angeles Times (“Anti-government protesters using shields advance on police and military forces during clashes in Bangkok, Thailand.”)
Online Sources- Guardian UK, AP, BBC News, Reuters

Study: Tobacco endangers “Third World” women

Women in underdeveloped countries are under increasing danger from tobacco use according to a National Institute of Health (NIH) study. The comprehensive report interviewed roughly 8000 women in developing countries worldwide and does not present a very rosy picture for Latin American women:

"Latin America is where the epidemic of cigarette smoking is most advanced, particularly in Uruguay, where 78 percent of all pregnant women said they had ever tried a cigarette," [researcher Dr. Michele] Bloch said in a telephone interview.

In Argentina, she said 75 percent of pregnant women interviewed said they had tried smoking.

All of the Latin American sites studied found large numbers of women who had experimented with smoking. Bloch said she thinks that as more cultural and economic barriers to women's smoking fall, more of these women will become regular smokers.

The study’s findings come on the heels of a harsh smoking ban passed this week in Mexico as well as other recent bans in countries like Uruguay. Yet the report seems to show that bans are not enough and stronger public heath efforts are needed.

Sources- ScienceDaily, Reuters Africa, Houston Chronicle, the Latin Americanist

Image- BBC News

Daily Headlines: May 16, 2007

* Are the rumors true that Colombian singer Shakira will get married in the Dominican Republic this September?

* Will Venezuelan smokers be pleased at a recent government anti-tobacco initiative?

* Is Colombian president Alvaro Uribe’s defense of his vice president against charges of paramilitary involvement justified?

* Are fewer births really the reason why Cuba’s pollution is in decline?
* Will the idea of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan to buy water utilities in Chile pay dividends?

Links- Dominican Today, Guardian UK, BBC News, CNN, Toronto Star

Image- LT24onLine (Shakira with her fiancée, Argentine Antonio de la Rua)