Daily Headlines: August 8, 2016

* Mexico: At least forty people died following several landslides in Puebla and Veracruz states following Tropical Storm Earl though heavy rain is expected to continue and potentially cause “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.”

* Cuba: Cuban officials blamed the United States for a surge of nationals fleeing from the country including several hundred migrants awaiting deportation from Colombia.

* Ecuador: Maria Duarte, Ecuador's Minister of Urban Development and Housing, claimed to be “optimistic” over the rebuilding of homes destroyed in a major earthquake nearly four months ago.

* Brazil: Several upsets in tennis at the Olympics on Sunday including Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina beating Novak Djokovic, and the Colombian pair of Juan-Sebastián Cabal and Robert Farah surprising the top seed in men’s doubles.

* Bolivia: Bolivian authorities last week seized nearly eight tons of cocaine valued at around $350 million from a cargo truck.

YouTube Source – Associated Press 
 
Online Sources – Reuters, CNN, Business Insider, Houston Chronicle, Al Jazeera English, The Tico Times

Daily Headlines: August 3, 2016

* Haiti: Observers from the Organization of American States will monitor Haiti’s upcoming elections but warned that more than a dozen reforms are needed for the much maligned and delayed electoral process.

* Latin America: At least six people are dead and four others are missing in the Dominican Republic following Tropical Storm Earl, which is advancing towards the Gulf coast of Mexico and Honduras.

* Guatemala: The daughter of the fifth Guatemalan journalist murdered this year was herself shot and killed though it’s unknown if the motives behind both deaths are linked.

* Venezuela: Jamaica will pay back some of its oil debt under the Petrocaribe alliance with food and medicine to a Venezuelan state mired in an economic crisis.

YouTube Source – AFP (Haiti’s presidential election was initially held nearly ten months ago but the election will be rerun this October amid deep political tension and accusations of voter fraud).

Online Sources – The Miami Herald, The Weather Channel, Bloomberg, Yahoo7 News, The Independent

Daily Headlines: April 22, 2016

* South America: Nine teams from Brazil and Argentina advanced to the round of 16 of the Copa Libertadores bracket led by top seeds Atletico Nacional from Colombia and Mexico’s UNAM.

* Latin America: Soybean prices have dipped as a result of floods damaging the crop in Argentina, while Chile’s El Teniente copper mine restarted operations following days of heavy rainfall.

* Guatemala: The shooting death of a thirteen-year-old Guatemalan boy has led to increased tensions between the Central American country and neighboring Belize.
 
* Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto presented to Mexico’s Congress a plan to decriminalize the use of marijuana for personal use up to 28 grams and legalize medical marijuana.

YouTube Source – Football Mania (Defending Copa Libertadores titleholders River Plate of Argentina join eight former championship teams to the last sixteen of this year’s edition of the tournament).

Online Sources – Goal.com, Bloomberg, Reuters, Vice News, GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: December 28, 2015 (Updated)

* South America: The El Niño weather phenomenon has been blamed for massive flooding in Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina as well as an elevated alert of forest fires in Colombia.

* Central America: Pope Francis called on Central American leaders to bring about a “timely solution to (the) humanitarian drama” of an estimated 5000 Cuban migrants stranded in Costa Rica.

Update: The SICA bloc of Central American states agreed to start a pilot program next month to help the stranded migrants travel legally northward to Mexico. (Link in Spanish).

* Haiti: The United Nations Security Council pushed Haitian officials to quickly reschedule a presidential runoff that was supposed to take place yesterday but has been indefinitely postponed.

* Chile: The Chilean government proposed eliminating a law enacted under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that provides the military with 10% of the country’s yearly copper exports.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources including Update – UPI, NDTV, The Tico Times, teleSUR English, Jamaica Observe, Agencia EFE

Daily Headlines: August 31, 2015

* U.S.: In the decade since Hurricane Katrina ravaged through New Orleans, the booming Latino community has been instrumental in the city’s often-arduous reconstruction efforts.

* Caribbean: Could the tropical storm that recently ravaged the island if Hispaniola affect the hundreds of thousand of former Dominicans of Haitian background who are currently stateless?

* South America: More than 7000 Colombian nationals residing in Venezuela have fled across the border after President Nicolas Maduro on August 19th ordered the closure of several border posts in Táchira state.

* Brazil: The brother of an indigenous Guarani leader became the latest fatality in the bloody and violent land disputes involving small communities and large, wealthy landowners.

YouTube Source – WDSU News (“The Hispanic population in New Orleans took off after the storm and the boom has carried over to neighboring parishes, too.”)
 
Online Sources – BBC News, Fox News Latino, NBC News, USA TODAY, CBS News

Daily Headlines: August 28, 2015

* Guatemala: Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Guatemala City on Thursday and businesses closed shop in order to call for the resignation of scandal-hit President Otto Perez Molina.

* Puerto Rico: Tropical Storm Erika hit Puerto Rico this morning as the commonwealth faces one of its worst droughts in more than a century.

* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa claimed that Ecuador’s economy, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar, has caused oil production to outpace earnings from sales of crude.

* Brazil: Brazil’s largest telecommunications firms are reportedly campaigning to place more regulations against popular messaging tool WhatsApp.

YouTube Source – EFE
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latino, Reuters, USA TODAY, NBC News, ZDNet

Daily Headlines: August 18, 2015

* Peru: Peru may have registered a 30% drop in coca cultivation over the past two years yet hundreds of coca growers accuse authorities of providing them insufficient compensation to grow other crops.

* Caribbean: Cuba’s civil defense system was placed on alert due to the effects of a year-long drought, while Puerto Rico sought U.S. Defense Department aid to combat one of the worst droughts in the island’s history.

* Ecuador: Senior disaster official Maria del Pilar Cornejo claimed that about 325,000 people living near the active Cotopaxi volcano are at risk of being hit by possible mudslides and rock flows.

* Mexico: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accused the Mexican government of preventing them from fully investigating the disappearances of 43 missing (and possibly murdered) students from Ayotzinapa.

YouTube Source – VICE News (“Despite the United Nations confirming in 2013 that Peru has overtaken Colombia as the world's top coca and cocaine producer, the country’s place atop the drug supply chain has — at least so far — not included the levels of violence seen in Colombia, Mexico, and other international narcotics hubs.”)
 
Online Sources – Reuters, ABC News, Business Insider, Fox News Latino, BBC News

Daily Headlines: May 27, 2015

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro quashed speculation of dollarizing the Venezuelan economy in light of a rapidly depreciating national currency and rumors of local divisions of foreign car companies considering making transactions in U.S. dollars.

* Colombia: The International Crisis Group warned that the recent suspension of the FARC’s unilateral ceasefire could lead to an escalation of Colombia’s armed conflict and “fresh humanitarian damage.”

* Brazil: Brazil has accepted nearly 2000 Syrian refuges, which is more than any other nation in Latin America.

* Mexico: At least fourteen people died in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Acuña following a tornado that occurred on Monday.

Online Sources – NBC News, ABC News, Fox News Latino, International Crisis Group

Daily Headlines: May 18, 2015

* Venezuela: Venezuela’s main opposition coalition held legislative primaries with the hope that they can take advantage of growing discontent against the government and capture the National Assembly later this year.

* Cuba: Several Caribbean countries are being hit with very dry weather conditions including Cuba where more than 1 million people are reportedly affected by “an intense drought.”

* Latin America: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is expected to announce a series of major investment projects in Latin America during his official visit to Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile this week.

* Vatican: Argentine-born Pope Francis canonized two Arab nuns from Palestine days after the Vatican formally recognized the state of Palestine.
 
YouTube Source – Al Jazeera English

Online Sources – Miami Herald, Fox News Latino, USA TODAY, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: March 30, 2015

* Chile: At least twenty people are dead as a result of heavy rains, flooding and landslides affecting usual arid regions in northern Chile and portions of eastern Peru.

Update: The death toll has risen to at least twenty-five while some twenty people are still missing in Chile.

* Latin America: Jose Juan Ruiz, the chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, warned that Latin America’s economic growth could slow down in 2015 and for the fourth consecutive year.

* Colombia: U.S. counternarcotics officers in Colombia participated in “sex parties” with prostitutes that were organized by drug dealers according to a recent Justice Department report.

* U.S.: The organizers of Saturday’s El Salvador vs. Argentina soccer friendly apologized for playing the anthem of Kazakhstan instead of the one for the Central American country.

YouTube Source – BBC News (“Heavy rains have brought torrential floods and mudslides to parts of Peru and Chile - including the Atacama desert, one of the driest regions of the world.”) 

Online Sources including Update– Bloomberg, Latin American Herald Tribune, SI.com, Yahoo News UK, BBC News

Daily Headlines: October 20, 2014

* Nicaragua: At least 24 people are dead and more than 33,000 are homeless as a result of heavy rain and flooding in areas of Nicaragua.

* Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff has apparently reversed a downturn in recent polls and is currently in a statistical dead heat with challenger Aécio Neves ahead of Sunday’s Brazilian presidential runoff election.

* Mexico: The World Trade Organization criticized the U.S. for not complying with a 2012 ruling to change meat labeling rules that were deemed discriminatory against Mexico and Canada.

* Uruguay: Will former president and current ruling party candidate Tabaré Vázquez earn an outright win in the October 26th general election or be forced into a second round next month?

Video Source – teleSUR English (Video uploaded on October 11, 2014).

Online Sources – NTDTV; NBC News; The Latin Americanist; Reuters; Buenos Aires Herald

Daily Headlines: October 13, 2014

* Bolivia: According to exit polls and a quick count Bolivian president Evo Morales won reelection to a third straight term in office with roughly 60% of voters backing him.

* Mexico: The governor of Guerrero claimed that the remains found in recently unearthed graves do not belong to forty-three students missing since September 26th.

* Venezuela: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro reportedly called for an emergency meeting of O.P.E.C. as the prices of crude oil have hit a four-year low.

* Puerto Rico: Tropical Storm Gonzalo could reach hurricane strength by the time it is expected to hit Puerto Rico tomorrow morning and dump as much as a foot of rain on the island.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube
 
Online Sources – Voice of America; LAHT; The Weather Channel; Bloomberg; The Latin Amercanist

Daily Headlines: September 17, 2014

* Venezuela: Standard & Poor's lowered Venezuela’s credit rating “based on continued economic deterioration, including rising inflation and falling external liquidity.”

* Puerto Rico: Reggaeton star Don Omar was arrested this morning in Puerto Rico and charged with domestic violence against his partner.

* Mexico: Thousands in Mexico’s Baja California Sur are without electricity, water or phone service due to Hurricane Odile though no fatalities have been reported.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos blamed an alliance of the FARC rebels and neo-paramilitary fighters for being behind the killing of seven policemen on Tuesday.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube

Online Sources – Bloomberg; CBS News; La Prensa; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: September 15, 2014

* Mexico: Hurricane Odile swept through parts of the Baja California peninsula early this morning with 125 mile per hour winds and dumping a “mind-boggling” eleven inches of rain in the span of an hour.

* Cuba: Some 165 Cuban medical professionals will be sent to parts of Africa ravaged by a deadly Ebola outbreak.

* Brazil: FIFA admitted that senior officials with the world soccer governing body illegally received Swiss watches worth $25,000 after arriving in Brazil for this year’s World Cup.

* Colombia: The extradition process between Colombia and the U.S. has been called into question when a recently released “humble carpenter” was mistaken for a drug smuggler and held in prison for six months.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube 

Online Sources – NBC News; Associated Press; GlobalPost; InSight Crime

Daily Headlines: August 26, 2014

* Caribbean: At least five people died in the Caribbean due to storm conditions caused by Hurricane Cristobal while an estimated 10,000 families in Mexico were affected by Hurricane Marie.

* Cuba: Guatemalan authorities will determine the fate of thirty-six Cuban migrants who traveled on a single raft by sea to Honduras’ Swan Islands.

* Puerto Rico: According to the U.S. the Justice Department sixteen former Puerto Rican police officers pled guilty to “commit robbery and extortion, to manipulate court records in exchange for bribes, and to sell illegal narcotics.”

* Mexico: Mexican officials announced that satellite imagery would be use to monitor freight train lines used by undocumented migrants heading north such as "La Bestia".

Video Source – YouTube user ExcélsiorTV Noticias (“Hurricane Marie has weakened but rain continues” to fall in southern Mexico.)

Online Sources – LAHT; NBC News; Miami Herald; CBS News

Daily Headlines: August 1, 2014

* Uruguay: A group of former Philip Morris workers in Uruguay have become activists supporting the country’s strict anti-tobacco measures.

* Dominican Republic: A former senior official of the Dominican Republic’s counternarcotics agency pled guilty to charges that he collaborated with drug traffickers.

* Brazil: The higher than forecast growth of the U.S. economy reportedly led to a 1.1% drop in the value of Brazil’s currency on Wednesday.

* Guatemala: An estimated 40,000 families have been affected by a drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon and that has also led to damages to corn crops.

Video Source – YouTube user Latest news

Online Sources – LAHT; Bloomberg; Reuters; Rappler

Daily Headlines: June 25, 2014

* U.S.: The U.S. government is carrying out a propaganda campaign in Central America in order to try to stem the recent influx of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant children.

* Paraguay: Heavy rainfall and river flooding has led to the evacuation of some 200,000 people in Paraguay.
 
* Cuba: According to the Cuban opposition, the authorities have jailed at least 114 political prisoners including 80 “peaceful dissidents”.

* South America: The Qhapac Nan road network that spread through six South America countries and was used mainly by the Incan empire was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Video Source – PBS NewsHour via YouTube

Online Sources – Miami Herald; PRESS TV; LAHT; ABC News

”Extreme Emergency” in Drought-Hit Haitian Region

When referring to the affects of weather on Haiti one probably thinks of hurricanes and other tropical storms ravaging the Caribbean nation.  Yet northeastern Haiti has been hit by a doughty so severe that one government official called the situation an “extreme emergency.”

According to Pierre Gary Mathieu, representative of Haiti’s National Coordination of Food Security (CNSA), the drought has lasted eight months and has led to the loss of two harvest seasons. As a result, farmers have been forced to travel farther in order to obtain water while some schools where meals are provided to impoverished students do not have water or food.

“People need jobs immediately but they also need food,” Mathieu said to the Associated Press (AP) in an article published on Wednesday.

Even though some rain has fallen recently in the affected area, Mathieu believes that it will take at least six months for a recovery to occur.  Nevertheless, government officials are expected to meet tomorrow with international aid workers in order to plan out a proper response to the drought affected area.  (A World Food Program spokesman told the AP that the organization would send food kits containing rice, beans and cooking oil to some 120,000 people in northwestern Haiti).

The latest CNSA outlook for the first six months of this year concluded that the drought may not affect national food production and availability yet could cause a “deterioration” in food security in dry areas.  For example, Haiti has imported thousands of tons of rice from Vietnam to satisfy local demand yet rice farmers in areas like Maribaroux and Fort Liberté have experienced difficulties due to “the lack of water in irrigation systems.”

Daily Headlines: February 24, 2014 (Updated)

* Venezuela: Will a planned meeting today between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition figure Henrique Capriles help quell some of the unrest in major Venezuelan cities?

Update: "I will not attend the Federal Council meeting and wash Maduro's face while he's repressing (the people)", declared Capriles regarding his decision on Monday afternoon to skip the meeting with Maduro.  

* Bolivia: At least fifty-nine people have died and tens of thousands of families are homeless due to heavy rains and flooding that have affected Bolivia over the last few weeks.

* Mexico: Mexico is expected to surpass Japan and Canada in order to become the largest exporter of cars to the U.S. by the end of this year.

* Haiti: A Haitian appeals court reversed a 2012 ruling and found that ex-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier can be tried on charges of crimes against humanity.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube

Online Sources including Update - El Universal; Bloomberg; The Latin Americanist; Reuters; LAHT; USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: February 11, 2014

* Latin America: The presidents representing the four member countries of Latin America's Pacific Alliance signed a deal aimed at promoting free trade between Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Chile.

* Brazil: A Brazilian TV cameraman seriously injured while covering a protest in Rio de Janeiro last Thursday was declared brain dead by doctors treating him.
 
* Cuba: E.U. foreign ministers agreed to negotiations with the Cuban government as part of a push to improve ties between Europe and the Caribbean island.

* Bolivia: Rescuers in Bolivia suspended the search for potential survivors of a mudslide caused by heavy rains that have killed at least forty-two people during the current rainy season.

Video Source – teleSUR via YouTube (Costa Rica and Panama could join the Pacific Alliance trade bloc that was formed by Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Chile in 2012).
 
Online Sources- Miami Herald; Reuters; ABC News; The Latin Americanist; Voice of America