Daily Headlines: January 5, 2015

* Latin America: Argentine-born Pope Francis selected fifteen new cardinals including one each from Panama, Uruguay, and Mexico reportedly in order to promote diversity within the Catholic Church.
 
* Panama: A consortium led by Spanish firm Sacyr claimed to have won a $234 million ruling for cost overruns on the expansion of the Panama Canal.

* Cuba: The U.S. Coast Guard have apparently noticed a spike in Cuban migrants traveling by sea since the leaders of both countries agreed to improve relations.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro proposed freeing imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez if the U.S. would liberate Puerto Rican activist Oscar Lopez Rivera.

Video Source – YouTube via ROME REPORTS in English

Online Sources – New York Times; CBC News; Reuters; NBC News

Daily Headlines: January 2, 2015

* Mexico: The F.B.I. is reportedly aiding in the search for 43 Ayotzinapa students missing for more than three months while relatives of the disappeared continue to put pressure on Mexican authorities.

* Brazil: In her second inauguration speech, President Dilma Rousseff vowed to lead a “national pact against corruption” in response to a major kickback scandal hitting state-run oil firm Petrobras.

* Cuba: Despite the recent rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba, the State Department criticized an apparent crackdown against dissidents on the island.

* Argentina: Survivors and victims’ families of the Republica Cromañon nightclub fire gathered this week to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the tragedy that killed 194 people.

Video Source – YouTube user Ojos DePerro

Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; CNN; NBC News; CBC News

Daily Headlines: January 1, 2015

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro promised to enact a series of reforms over the next six months in order to boost a Venezuelan economy that is officially in recession.

* Cuba: Performance artist Tania Bruguera and the husband of blogger Yoani Sanchez were among the roughly fifty dissidents briefly detained and then released by Cuban authorities.

* Colombia: Colombian Teofilo Gutierrez and Jose Pekerman of Argentina have been chosen in a poll by the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais as South America’s top soccer player and coach of the year, respectively.

* Argentina: Argentina may be struggling with a debt default and rising inflation but that hasn’t stopped the country’s Merval from being named the “best performing global index of 2014.”

Video Source – YouTube user CNN

Online Sources – Reuters; NBC News; CNBC

Daily Headlines: December 30, 2014

* Brazil: The Aurelius Capital hedge fund that was reportedly ‘a leading member of a group of investors that refused to accept a debt restructuring with Argentina” is now campaigning for Petrobras to fall under default.

* Argentina: If you believe that Argentina’s president became the godmother of a Jewish baby to stop him from becoming a werewolf then there’s a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying.

* Venezuela: According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, the South American country ranks only behind Honduras for the highest number of homicides in 2014.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet submitted to Congress a labor reform package aimed at promoting unionization and expanding the use of collective bargaining in contract negotiations.

Video Source – YouTube user FRANCE 24 English

Online Sources – New York Daily News; The Guardian; NBC News; Zee News; Reuters

Daily Headlines: December 29, 2014

* Puerto Rico: Will the U.S. follow up the liberation of former contractor Alan Gross by intervening to free imprisoned Puerto Rican activist Oscar Lopez Rivera?

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro named Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez as the next ambassador to the U.N. days before Venezuela will be represented on the international body’s Security Council.

* Paraguay: “I'm healthy after all this time, I'm calm, I'm okay,” admitted former hostage Arlan Fick who was let go by his EPP rebel captors.

* El Salvador: A Salvadoran man kidnapped by the armed forces at the age of three in 1982 reunited with his biological family last week.

Video Source – YouTube user Fusion (Video uploaded in June 2014).
 
Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; Reuters; teleSUR English; The Latin Americanist; MercoPress

Daily Headlines: December 26, 2014 (Updated)

* Argentina: Former dictator Reynaldo Bignone received a twenty-five year prison sentence for the illegal adoptions of children during the “Dirty War” era.

* U.S.: U.S. immigration officials began a pilot program earlier this month to place GPS tracking devices on undocumented migrants caught crossing the border from Mexico. 

* Colombia: The FARC rebels agreed to release a Colombian soldier who was kidnapped hours before a ceasefire want into effect on December 20th.

Update: Th FARC freed soldier Carlos Becerra Ojeda on Friday.

* Nicaragua: At least two people have died during protests this week against construction of a $50 billion interoceanic canal.

Video Source – YouTube user locomotiv63

Online Sources – The Independent; The Guardian; Voice of America; Latin American Herald Tribune; NBC News

Daily Headlines: December 24, 2014

* Spain: Immigrants from several Latin American counties were among the big winners who will receive about $490,000 from Spain’s $3 billion “El Gordo” lottery.

* Cuba: The U.S. government will pay $3.2 million as part of a settlement to recently liberated former subcontractor Alan Gross.

* Brazil: The first woman to head Brazil’s biggest agrarian lobbying group was selected to become the country’s first female agriculture minister.

* Argentina: Researchers in Argentina have reportedly created “the first prosthetic arm in Latin America to use sensors to respond to nerve impulses.”

Video Source – YouTube user Reuters

Online Sources – Bloomberg; Reuters; The Latin Americanist; ABC News

Daily Headlines: December 23, 2014

* Nicaragua: Work officially began on Monday on a $50 billion interoceanic canal that is backed by China and expected to be completed in 2020.

* Uruguay: At least 1200 cannabis growers have been registered as part of a program allowing the legal cultivation and selling of marijuana.

* Argentina: A U.S. appeals court upheld a ruling forcing the Argentina government to pay millions of dollars to holdout creditors.

* Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff pledged to take “drastic” measures to jumpstart Brazil’s sagging economy and claimed that the corruption scandals hitting Petrobras are “overblown.”

Video Source – YouTube user euronews

Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune; Reuters; Voice of America; The Latin Americanist; NBC News

Daily Headlines: December 22, 2014

* Latin America: Argentine dark comedy “Savage Tales” and a Venezuelan biopic on Simon Bolivar were two of the movies selected for the Best Foreign Language Film shortlist at the upcoming Oscars.

* Mexico: Leaders of Mexico's Roman Catholic Church are expected to meet today with relatives of forty-three missing (and possibly massacred) university students.
  
* Dominican Republic: Prosecutors in Poland suspended the investigation against an ex-Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic accused of child sex abuse.

* Colombia: Five Colombian soldiers were killed in combat hours before an “indefinite” ceasefire by the FARC went into effect on Saturday.

Video Source – YouTube user TrailerHD

Online Sources – Al Jazeera America; The Latin Americanist; The A.V. Club; BBC News

Daily Headlines: December 19, 2014

* Brazil: According to new government data nearly one in four Brazilians “experienced food insecurity despite advances in the fight against poverty.”

* Haiti: Several hundred anti-government marchers protested yesterday in Port-au-Prince as pressure continues to mount against President Michel Martelly. 

* Colombia: Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, warned that he wouldn’t fully accept an indefinite ceasefire from the FARC due to the rebels’ demands for independent verification.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro blasted his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, for signing into law sanctions against Venezuelan officials accused of human rights abuses.

Video Source – YouTube user CCTV America
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latino; The Guardian; Latin American Herald Tribune; Reuters

Daily Headlines: December 18, 2014

* Costa Rica: Costa Rica legislators began debating a bill this week that could place a moratorium on the production of genetically modified crops.

* U.S.: A new poll indicated that U.S. President Barack Obama's approval rating among Latinos rose since he announced an executive action that could benefit millions of undocumented immigrants.

* Central America: The U.N. recently warned that Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador face “a creeping humanitarian crisis” due to severe drought conditions.
 
* Colombia: Images of the late Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez could soon appear on Colombian currency.

Video Source – YouTube user Scientific American

Online Sources – NBC News; BBC News; Christian Science Monitor; Tico Times

FARC Announce Indefinite Ceasefire

Colombia's FARC will start a unilateral ceasefire on December 20th in a move that could help lead to a peace deal between the rebels and the government.

"We have resolved to declare a unilateral ceasefire and an end of hostilities for an indefinite period,"
according to a statement issued by the FARC on Wednesday and read by chief guerilla negotiator alias "Ivan Marquez." The militants called on Pope Francis, the UNASUR bloc, the Red Cross and other international organizations to monitor compliance with the ceasefire.

The FARC expressed their hope that the ceasefire could lead to "an armistice" in Colombia's decades-long armed conflict but warned that they would resume hostilities if the rebels are attacked by the military. 

Negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government began in November 2012, and both sides have reached partial pacts in areas like land reform and political participation. Discussions were suspended for a few weeks over the kidnapping of a Colombian army general but were renewed following his liberation.

More than 200,000 people have died in the past fifty years of conflict in Colombia.

Online Sources - FARC-EP; MercoPress 

Alan Gross Freed Amid Historic U.S.-Cuba Rapprochement

Cuban authorities freed imprisoned U.S. subcontractor Alan Gross on a day when the leaders of both countries vowed to improve bilateral relations.
 

The sixty-five-year old was released on humanitarian grounds as part of a prisoner exchange that also included an unnamed U.S. intel agent. Three convicted Cuban spies were let out of prison as part of a purported deal between the U.S. and Cuba. 

Gross was detained in 2009 on charges of spying and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. His detention served as one of the main points of diplomatic tension in recent years between Washington and Havana. 

"What a blessing it is to be a citizen of this country," exclaimed a relieved Gross in a press conference from Andres Air Force Base.

"Today is the first day of Hanukkah, and so far it's the best Hanukkah that I’ll be celebrating for a long time," added Gross who also thanked all those who helped secure his release.
 
Cuban-American Senators Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio heavily criticized the prisoner swap as well as the Obama administration's push to reestablish diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Cuba.  For Gross, however, the White House's actions were the correct actions to take:

Daily Headlines: December 17, 2014

* Brazil: The presidents of Guatemala and Costa Rica could be implicated in a multibillion-dollar bribery scheme allegedly carried out at Brazilian state-run energy giant Petrobras.

* Haiti: Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe may have resigned but that didn’t stop thousands of Haitians from participating in anti-government protests on Tuesday.

* Mexico: At least eleven people died in clashes between rival “self-defense” groups in Michoacán state.

* Panama: The World Bank’s International Finance Corp will provide $300 million in financing for construction of a Panama wind farm that will be the largest in Central America.

Video Source – YouTube user AFP
 
Online Sources – Reuters; Al Jazeera; Tico Times; euronews

Daily Headlines: December 16, 2014

* Honduras: Julian Pacheco Tinoco will become the first serving general to act as security minister in a country with the world’s highest murder rate.

* Latin America: A new report from the Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization found that the number of babies born with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean dropped by 78% between 2001 and 2013.

* Colombia: Armed groups illegally recruited at least 110 minors this year according to new data from the Colombian government.

* Venezuela: “They can shove their U.S. visas where they should be shoved,” thundered an angry President Nicolás Maduro over planned sanctions against Venezuelan officials accused of human rights abuses.

Video Source – YouTube user Associated Press

Online Sources – Reuters; Fox News Latino; euronews; Jamaica Observer

Daily Headlines: December 15, 2014

* Haiti: Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe resigned amid growing anti-government sentiment and calls for President Michel Martelly to also step down.

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan government has yet to officially respond to the asylum request of Arturo Pierre Martinez, a U.S. man who illegally crossed into North Korea.

* Ecuador: At least thirteen people including ten of Chinese origin died at a construction accident in an Ecuadoran hydroelectric station.

* Brazil: The former head of Petrobras' distribution subsidiary, a Brazilian lobbyist and two others were charged today for their alleged roles in a multibillion-dollar bribery scheme.

Video Source – YouTube user euronews
 
Online Sources – CNN; SBS; The Guardian; NBC News