Chilean Expats Opt for Bachelet in “Virtual” Election

Chilean expats who do not have the right to vote gave their support to former President Michelle Bachelet in a “virtual” election for the South American country’s presidency.

Much like the real vote that took place on Sunday, the country’s first female president won easily over her eight opponents with 34.9% support among the thousands of registered participants living in more than 100 countries. The 4249 votes in her favor were more than twice that of second-place candidate Marcel Claude but not enough to avoid a runoff according to the “symbolic” election results.

Ruling party candidate Evelyn Matthei ended in fourth among expats though she will participate in a second round against Bachelet in Chile next month.  The conservative ex-minister was one of two candidates that did not publicly back the “virtual” election that was held via Internet between November 10th and 16th. 

“Nearly 12,500 Chileans living abroad took part and their enthusiasm showed that they want to be a part of the Chilean electoral process,” reportedly said a statement from Voto Ciudadano, a group sponsoring the online plebiscite.  “We are still Chileans (despite living abroad) and its time that we are granted the right to vote,” added the group via its Facebook page.

The Chilean Senate in September approved a constitutional amendment that would grant eligible Chilean expats the right to vote in presidential elections and national referendums.   The proposal has been opposed to mainly by conservative politicians such as senator Carlos Larraín who claimed that Chileans living abroad “don’t pay taxes, are absent from the effects of political policies and are unaware of the occurrences of Chilean life”.  (According to one article, the real reason for the opposition may be since some expats are exiles that left Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship).

Conversely, the amendment has received support among leftist politicians such as Bachelet who yesterday lamented that Chilean expats “cannot exercise a right (to vote) that is allowed in many other nations.”

Daily Headlines: November 18, 2013

* Mexico: Mexican legislators are expected to renew the debate this week over the proposed privatization of parts of the country's state-run oil industry.

* Colombia: Representatives for the Colombian government and FARC rebels postponed the next round of negotiations though progress has been made in the year-long peace talks between both sides.

* Brazil: The former chief of staff of ex-president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and the former chairman of the ruling Workers' Party were both sent to prison for their roles in the "mensalao" vote-buying scandal.

* Latin America: A strong storm is expected to hit southern Brazil and Argentina today and, thus, increases the risk of mudslides and flooding in those areas.

Online Sources - MercoPress; GlobalPost; Reuters; USA TODAY; AccuWeather.com

Video Source - YouTube via The Economist (Video uploaded in August 2013).

Daily Headlines: November 15, 2013

* Latin America: A Pew Research Center concluded that remittances to Latin America has more than doubled since 2000 despite a decrease in money orders to Mexico.

* Brazil: The Brazilian government reported a 28% increase in Amazon rainforest deforestation after four years of declining rates.

* Bolivia: A new study found that three in ten Bolivians nsume coca leaves for traditional and medicinal purposes.

* El Salvador: Armed men reportedly tried to destroy the records of a non-profit group investigating the disappearances of thousands of children missing during the Salvadoran civil war.

Daily Headlines: November 14, 2013

* Latin America: Uruguay and Mexico practically secured their spots in next year’s World Cup after routing their respective rivals in the first match of a two-leg playoff qualifying series.

* Dominican Republic: Nearly twenty prominent U.S. Latino civil rights groups signed an open letter to Dominican President Danilo Medina protesting the possible stripping of citizenship to tens of thousands of Dominicans.

* Paraguay: Paraguay is normalizing diplomatic relations with several of its South American neighbors nearly a year and a half after the controversial ouster of President Fernando Lugo.

* Brazil: Brazilian state-run firm Petrobras sold its Peruvian energy division to China’s CNPC for $2.6 billion.

Video Source – YouTube via user oneworldsportstv
 
Online Sources- Bloomberg; Huffington Post; The Latin Americanist; Mercopress; Reuters

Ecuador: Court Upholds Environmental Damages Ruling Against Chevron

In a Solomon-like ruling, Ecuador’s National Court of Justice upheld a verdict against U.S. oil company Chevron yet cut a $19 billion fine by more than half.

The National Court of Justice (NCJ) agreed with a 2011 lower court ruling that found Chevron responsible for the environmental damages caused by Texaco during a twenty-eight year period of operating in the Ecuadorian rainforest. The NCJ further ordered Chevron to pay an $8.8 million fine that includes reparations to indigenous communities that claim to have suffered adverse health effects due to Texaco’s actions between 1964 and 1992.

Yet the high court eliminated the roughly $9 billion in punitive damages levied against Chevron, which purchased Texaco in 2001, and reduces the fine to its original decision made by a local judge in February 2011.

The NCJ’s decision did not sit well with representatives of Chevron as well as the Ecuadorian plaintiffs.

“The only decision that the Court of Justice could have taken .. was to declare the trial null and void and leave this illegitimate sentence without effect,” Chevron spokesman James Craig reportedly said.  He further claimed that the NCJ’s ruling was “illegitimate and inapplicable.”

Juan Pablo Saenz, an attorney for the plaintiffs, deemed the high court’s lowering of the fine against Chevron as a “folly” that leaves “unpunished the arrogance, bad faith and irresponsibility” of the oil firm.  Nevertheless, he praised the court for issuing “a sentence that confirms all the evidence gathered, the damage and the payment Chevron must make.”

LatAm World’s Most Insecure Region Says U.N.

According to a new U.N. report Latin America is the most insecure region in the world and this is greatly hurting the area’s economic development.

“In the past decade, Latin America has been the setting of two areas of growth: economic and criminal,” concluded the 2013-2014 Regional Human Development Report from the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) that was released yesterday.

The report found that crime levels have increased in Latin America over the past decade while at least eleven countries in the region including Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela have high homicide rates of at least ten per 100,000 residents.  Moreover, the number or robberies has tripled over the past quarter century, one in every three Latin Americans reported being a victim of a violent crime in 2012 and half of Latin Americans believe that security in their respective counters has worsened. 

The high insecurity in Latin America cost the region 0.5% of its Gross Domestic Product in 2009 (or roughly $24 billion) according to the report. Latin American youth that are needed to help drive the region’s economy are the most affected by crime and violence and are most vulnerable in countries like El Salvador and Colombia. Additionally, for Latin American countries like Honduras and Paraguay public spending on crime-related factors such as the judiciary, prison system and law enforcement are at high levels.

"There is no magic solution to insecurity, but this serious problem can be remediated—with vision and long-term political will," said UNDP Director for Latin America and the Caribbean Heraldo Muñoz. "Each country needs to secure a National Citizen Security Agreement between the government, political parties and civil society so it truly becomes a state policy."

Among the recommendations made by the UNDP to combat insecurity in Latin America is the need to undergo major reform in prison systems that are plagued by overpopulation as well as creating public policies to protect those most affected by crime.  Furthermore, the UNDP suggests that Latin American countries need to do a better job at combating gender-based violence such as femicides and also reduce “crime triggers” like alcohol and drugs.

For the report’s main author, the approach by several Latin American states to lower crime is having the opposite effect:

“While some threats – such as organized crime, especially drug trafficking – are often used to explain insecurity, the regional, national and local dynamics are much more diverse,” explains the lead author, Rafael Fernandez de Castro. 

One of the main lessons he drew in the report is that “iron fist” policies do not work: strong police and criminal repression in the region have often coincided with high crime rates.

The assessed experiences confirm that protecting the rights to life, to dignity and to physical integrity is essential to citizen security, which, as a public good, is a responsibility of the state, the report highlights.

Video Source– YouTube via AFP
 
Online Sources - U.N. Development Programme; U.N. News Centre

Daily Headlines: November 13, 2013

* Argentina: A top aide to Buenos Aires mayor Mauricio Macri faces criminal charges after he called the late Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler a "spectacular guy."

* Brazil: Forensic scientists are planning to exhume the remains of former president Joao Gulart to examine whether he died of natural causes of was poisoned.

* Cuba: Human rights advocates are none too pleased with the election of several countries to the U.N. Human Rights Council including China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba.

* Latin America: The Chilean government and UNICEF Uruguay are two of the Latin American entities pledging aid to the storm-battered Philippines.

Online Sources - GlobalPost; Fox News Latino; BBC News; Businessweek

Video Source - YouTube via TVPublicaArgentina

Daily Headlines: November 12, 2013

* Latin America: Mexico and Uruguay are each hoping to avoid shock defeats tomorrow in the first match of a two-leg World Cup playoff series against New Zealand and Jordan, respectively

* Argentina: A spokesman for Argentine president President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who underwent surgery last month, said that she will return to her duties next week.

* Puerto Rico: Could Puerto Rico's financial woes provide a golden opportunity for Wall Street investors?

* Brazil: According to the International Energy Agency, Brazil could become one of the world's top suppliers of oil by 2035.

Online Sources - Reuters; FIFA; Miami Herald; BusinessWeek

Video Source - YouTube via sntv

Daily Headlines: November 11, 2013

* Venezuela: Scores of Venezuelans including some looters gathered outside Daka electronics stores after the government seized the chain over alleged price gouging.

* Colombia: Authorities in Spain captured the head of Los Urabeños, a Colombian neo-paramilitary criminal gang involved in narcotrafficking.

* Chile: Forensic exams concluded that no chemical agents were found in the body of acclaimed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who died under mysterious circumstances in 1973.

* Mexico: Police in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas located sixty-one migrants including ten children residing in "inhumane conditions."

Online Sources - LAHT; BBC News; USA TODAY; Reuters

Video Source - YouTube via euronews

Nuestro Cine: Timeless Love

Last month we looked at several films vying for this year’s best foreign film Academy Award from Latin American countries including animated children’s film “Anina” from Uruguay.  Though “Anina” apparently filled the requirements to be nominated for Best Animated Feature Film it was not among the nineteen submissions to that category. 

Among the nominees are big-budget entries like "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2" and "Monsters University" along with the final film from acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.  The only Latin American film among the eligible Best Animated features is an entry from Brazil: “Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury” (“Uma História de Amor e Fúria”).

Set during four different periods of Brazilian history, the drama depicts the adventures of the 600-year-old Immortal Warrior as he courts the love of Janina.  The couple encounters great obstacles throughout the centuries such as slavery in the nineteenth century and a war over water in the future.

Directed by Luiz Bolognesi, “Rio 2096” won the prize for best feature film at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival last June.  But will the film be selected as a finalist by the Academy? See for yourselves by viewing the film’s trailer below the page break:

Daily Headlines: November 7, 2013

* Vatican: Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles asked Pope Francis to help mediate in the politically fractured country, while several photos were released showing the Argentine-born pontiff embracing a severely disfigured man. 

* Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega is pushing a proposal through the Nicaraguan legislature that would eliminate term limits for presidents.

* Ecuador: A former judge behind a $19 billion environment damages ruling against Chevron rejected allegations of fraud against him and claimed that another magistrate did not ghostwrite his decision.

* U.S.: Latino voters played a key role in several elections on Tuesday including reportedly backing Terry McAuliffe by a 2-to-1 margin in a close Virginian gubernatorial race.

Video Source – YouTube via Rome Reports

Online Sources- The Huffington Post; Reuters; Al Jazeera English

Daily Headlines: November 6, 2013

Note: Before we get to Wednesday’s headlines we would like to apologize for the inexcusable lateness of this post.

* Cuba: William Potts said that he would return to the U.S. twenty-nine years after he hijacked a commercial airliner and forced it to land in Cuba.

* Chile: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Chilean government to pay $32,000 to an exiled man who was tortured during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

* Colombia: Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Holguin sent a note of protest to Russia regarding the alleged incursion of a pair of Russian jets into Colombian airspace last week.

* Mexico: U.S. officials have offered a $5 million reward for the capture of recently freed Mexican drug capo Rafael Caro Quintero.

Video Source – YouTube via Associated Press

Online Sources- Fox News Latino; UPI; The Guardian; ABC News

Dominicans Rally For Controversial Court Ruling

Several hundred Dominicans rallied in support of a recent high court decision that would strip the citizenship of tens of thousands of individuals.

“Get out illegal Haitians,” “Them there and us here”, “We will not negotiate our sovereignty” where just some of the signs reportedly seen by the demonstrators who gathered in Santo Domingo’s Independence Park on Monday. 

Several speakers at the event, which was organized by a group calling themselves The National Sovereignty Defense Network, backed the Dominican government’s crackdown on undocumented Haitians. (For example, the organization called for the construction of a wall along the entire Dominican border with Haiti).

Emil Santana, one of the speakers at the rally, told the crowd that Haitian children have overrun schools in San Juan de la Maguana while residents in the town are allegedly without work due to migrants from the neighboring country.

Other presenters blasted the international response against the September 25th ruling by the Dominican Constitutional Court that voided automatic citizenship to the descendants of migrants who came to work in the country after 1929.

“The Dominican people will not accept that their rights will be squashed in order to resolve the Haitian problem”, declared legislator Pelegrín Castillo.

Meanwhile, journalist Consuelo Despradel blasted renowned Peruvian author and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa for recently comparing the ruling of the high court to the stripping of citizenship of Jews living in Nazi-era Germany.

While the rally took place in the Dominican capita city, a protest against the court’s decision was held in the southern Baoruco province.  Hundreds of demonstrators including members of at least twenty community groups participated in the march that rejected the tribunal’s “arbitrary” actions.

Daily Headlines: November 5, 2013

* Argentina: The government declassified hundreds of previously secret files including transcripts of all the meetings held by the “Dirty War” military junta and the names of blacklisted artists.
 
* Puerto Rico: A new survey reveled that about one in three Puerto Ricans are seriously considering leaving the island due to the commonwealth’s financial troubles.

* Guatemala: Guatemala withdrew from the Petrocaribe oil alliance due to the inability to reach “favorable rates for purchases and financing.”

* Cuba: Dissident Guillermo Fariñas claimed that he was attacked by a “government-organized mob” on Sunday when he attempted to file a complaint against the detention of several members of the Ladies in White protest group.

Video Source – YouTube via user TV Pública – Argentina
 
Online Sources- BBC News; LAHT; Reuters; Miami Herald

Brazilian Legislators Urge Investigation Into Spying on Diplomats

Brazilian legislators want to look into their country’s intelligence activities after the government admitted to the surveillance of foreign diplomats.

Rep. Ronaldo Caiado will reportedly summon the Ministers of Justice, Foreign Affairs and Domestic Security along with the chief of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) to testify in front of several Congressional committees.  He questioned the Brazilian government’s credibility abroad, particularly in light of alleged widespread surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

“The (Brazilian) government lost a golden opportunity to have entered high-level discussions with the Americans and possibly reach a deal instead of making a big deal over being the target of surveillance,” said Caiado.

“These charges of espionage must be taken very seriously but we have to see the context in which they occurred,” said Sen. Richard Ferraço.  “If not, then it would seem like two different measures: do as I say but not as I do,” admitted the vice-chair of the Congressional committee on intelligence.    

On Monday, a Folha de São Paulo report that described how approximately ten years ago the ABIN monitored office space rented by the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia due to suspicions of maintaining spying equipment.  The Folha report also outlined how Brazilian intelligence agents followed the movements of Iraqi, Iranian and Russian diplomats in their respective embassies as well as their official residences.

A statement from Brazil's Institutional Security Cabinet, which oversees the ABIN, claimed that any surveillance is being done “develop intelligence activities” for the country’s defense and “national sovereignty, in strict observance of constitutional principles and the laws that guarantee individual rights.”  The letter also said that their intelligence operations “follow Brazilian law for the protection of national interests.”

One Russian diplomat in Brazil was supposedly not bewildered by the Folha report:

Daily Headlines: November 4, 2013

* Brazil: Some 3000 Cuban doctors traveled to Brazil in order to participate in a government program aimed at sending foreign medical professionals to underserved areas.

* Latin America: At least thirteen people died in clashes between drug gangs and the Mexican military in Matamoros while approximately eight people died in an airplane crash in northern Bolivia.
 
* U.S.: Millions of Latino families are expected to be affected by billions of dollars worth of cuts to the federal food stamp program.

* Honduras: In an interview with the Associated Press Honduran police chief Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla rejected rumors that he led a “social cleansing campaign” several decades ago.

Video Source – YouTube via Newsy

Online Sources- Huffington Post; BBC News; CSMonitor.com; Reuters; LAHT