Daily Headlines: May 15, 2015

* Argentina: On a dark day for Argentine soccer yesterday the Copa Libertaodres match between River Plate and Boca Juniors was suspended after players were attacked with pepper spray, while league play this weekend was postponed over the tragic death of Emanuel Ortega.

* Brazil: A new report blamed a “slow justice system and flawed police investigations as well as the widespread availability of firearms” for a record 42,000 people killed by gun violence in Brazil in 2012.

* Chile: Valentina Maureira, the 14-year-old Chilean girl who earlier this year requested for euthanize, died on Thursday from complications related to cystic fibrosis.

* Colombia: A Colombian counternarcotics panel confirmed the ban on using the possible carcinogenic glyphosate in the aerial spraying against drug crops.

YouTube Source – FootballManiaChannel

Online Sources – Bloomberg, The Guardian, BBC News, TIME, sunherald.com

Daily Headlines: May 14, 2015

* Latin America: A new report from the Inter-American Development Bank and International Monetary Fund, a record $65 billion in remittances were sent to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2014.

* Paraguay: Several hundred Paraguayans marched to call attention to the plight of child sex abuse victims amidst a debate over whether or not a raped 10-year-old girl should be allowed to undergo an abortion.

* Cuba: U.S. presidential hopeful Marco Rubio assailed Pope Francis for his stance on Cuba and said that the Argentine-born pontiff is “not a political figure.”

* Chile: Researchers believe that climate change is to blame for the degradation of the world’s oldest mummies that were found in Chile and date as far back as 7000 BC.

YouTube Source – CCTV Americas (Video uploaded in January 2014).
 
Online Sources – MercoPress, TIME, PRI, The Latin Americanist, CBS News

Daily Headlines: May 13, 2015

* Brazil: Most of the stadiums either refurbished or constructed with $3 billion in public funds for last year’s World Cup are reportedly generating very little revenue and are falling into disrepair.

* Caribbean: Authorities in the Dominican Republic warned that the country is facing its worst drought in the last twenty yeas, while several Puerto Rican cities including the capital San Juan will start water rationing.

* U.S.: A new Pew Research Center study found that the both the percentage of Latinos speaking proficient English and the number of those speaking Spanish at home has grown since 2000.

* Mexico: Mexican public health officials suspended infant vaccinations following the deaths of at least two babies administered routine vaccinations in Chiapas.

YouTube Source – Football

Online Sources – Vox, Dominican Today, UPI, Fox News Latino, International Business Times

Daily Headlines: May 12, 2015

* Colombia: U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Kevin Whitaker said that his country will respect the South American’s state decision to suspend the use of possible carcinogenic glyphosate in the aerial spraying of coca.

* Argentina: The Argentine government filed a lawsuit against Citibank regarding the legal tug-of-war over repaying billions of dollars in defaulted debt.

* Brazil: The Brazilian economy is expected to shrink at a greater-than-estimated 1.2% according to the country’s Central Bank.

* Venezuela: Apparently in response to pressure from Brazil, Venezuelan electoral authorities declared that legislative elections would be held in the final quarter of this year.

YouTube Source – CCTV America

Online Sources – Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Fox News Latino, MercoPress

Abortion Debate Intensifies in Southern Cone

The abortion issue is a very sensitive and divisive topic in many areas around the world. This has certainly been the case recently in several countries of Latin America’s Southern Cone region.

• Paraguay

On Monday police in Paraguay transferred to a prison the alleged rapist stepfather of a ten-year-old girl who sought an abortion.

“I never touched her,” said 42-year-old Benitez Gilberto Zarate after he was arrested last Saturday. He denied sexually abusing his stepdaughter and has requested a DNA test in an attempt to clear his name. Yet he was on the run for nearly a month after prosecutors accused him of impregnating the girl who was first seen by doctors in Asuncion on April 21st.

The child’s mother was detained on April 27th and charged with breaching duty of care of her daughter. In January 2014 she denounced her husband for sexually abusing the girl but the authorities allegedly took no action. Earlier this month she requested permission to seek an abortion for her daughter where the procedure is allowed if the mom’s life is in danger. Yet Paraguayan courts rejected the solicitation much to the satisfaction of the federal government.

Health Minister Antonio Barrios on May 4th insisted that the doctors are closely monitoring the girl’s health and declared his opposition to abortion. He further argued that performing such a procedure might be too late.

“It is impossible because the girl arrived in our hands in the 21st week of pregnancy. The abortion should have been done prior to the twentieth week. We are now in the 23rd week,” said Barrios.

Paraguayan feminists and reproductive rights groups believe that the child’s life is certainly at risk and that her mother has been unfairly punished for seeking the abortion.

“When you consider the threat to life and the anatomical and psychological risks, the first step that should be taken in pregnancies of girls under the age of 13 should be an abortion. This is what the authorities fail to understand,” asserted Lilian Soto, an activist at the Centro de Documentación y Estudios.

The abortion case has also caught the attention of international rights groups and entities. The European Union is “closely following the evolution” of the girl’s health and called for the “global protection…of the rights of children.” A panel of U.N. human rights experts blamed the Paraguayan government for refusing to provide the proper treatment for the pregnant girl.

“Every day in Paraguay and average of two girls between the ages of ten and fourteen give birth to a child,” said UNICEF official Andrea Cid. “These cases are a consequence of sexual abuse and, in most situations, from constant abuse where victims have not received opportune assistance,” she added.

[Read about the abortion debate in Uruguay and Chile below the page break].

Daily Headlines: May 11, 2015

* El Salvador: At least ten suspected MS-13 members were killed on Saturday amid a surge of gang-related violence that has led to 481 murders in March 2015 alone.

* Cuba: Cuban President Raul Castro met with Pope Francis yesterday, thanked the pontiff for brokering the diplomatic thaw between his country and the U.S., and “promised” to attend all the Pope’s masses during his September visit to the Caribbean island.

* Peru: The Peruvian military has been deployed to the southern Arequipa region where police have clashed with residents opposed to the $1.4 billion Tia Maria copper project.

* Mexico: Mexican boxer Saul "Canelo" Alvarez beat James Kirkland in an electrifying bout that was the polar opposite of the dull and overhyped Mayweather-Pacquaio match one week prior.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – Reuters, Christian Science Monitor, The Latin Americanist, ESPN, UPI

Daily Headlines: May 8, 2015

* Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff claimed that Brazil is “tirelessly seeking a solution to (Venezuela's) political crisis”, while the Brazilian Senate approved a resolution condemning the “arbitrary detention” of Venezuelan opposition activists.

* Argentina: The government rejected reports claiming that Belgian officials seized two Argentine embassy bank accounts at the behest of hedge fund creditor.

* U.S.: A new study on the health of Latinos in the U.S. concluded that the “Hispanic paradox” exists though results vary by subgroup.

* Mexico: Police rescued 103 migrants from Central America, Sri Lanka and India held hostage in Mexico by a human smuggling gang.

YouTube Source – Venevision (Mitzy de Ledezma, the wife of imprisoned Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, met with former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on May 5th).

Online Sources – Fox News Latino, Reuters, Buenos Aires Herald, Fusion, UPI

Daily Headlines: May 7, 2015

* Cuba: U.S. firms are reportedly “uninterested” in drilling for oil off the Cuban coast despite the push to improve diplomatic and economic ties between both countries.

* Colombia: A new study found that Colombia accounts for a whopping 85% of the population of displaced individuals in the Americas.

* Panama: Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela accused his predecessor, Ricardo Martinelli, of having lost $100 million in government funds due to corruption.

* Peru: Peru will join eleven other countries including Chile, Japan and the U.S. in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade alliance.

YouTube Source – NewsyBusiness (Video uploaded in December 2014).
 
Online Sources – Reuters, teleSUR English, Zee News, Peru this Week

Colombia to Investigate U.S. Military Sex Abuse Allegations

The Colombian government pledged on Tuesday to thoroughly investigate allegations into fifty-four suspected cases of child sex abuse by U.S. military personnel and defense contractors.

“We request through diplomatic channels and bilateral cooperation that U.S. authorities report on the progress of their investigation,” according to a statement from Jorge Armando Otalora of the Ombudsman’s office.  Otalora condemned the rumors that sex acts with minors was videotaped and distributed as pornography.

“Since child pornography is a transnational crime, there exists mechanisms to guarantee justice and prevent impunity regardless of the diplomat immunity of the accused,” emphasized Otalora.

While Otalora called on the prosecution of those behind the suspected abuse, the head of Colombia’s child welfare agency, Cristina Plazas, urged potential victims to come forward.

Furthermore, Plazas also suggested the establishment of special commissions in the Cundinamarca and Tolima provinces where the supposed abuse took place in order to “actively seek girls and teens that were victims of abuse at the hands of soldiers.”

A truth commission seeking details on the decades-long armed conflict in Colombia authorized the “Historic Commission of Conflict and its Victims” study. The section by Renan Vega, a history professor of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Bogotá, describes the fifty-four cases of alleged abuse committed between 2003 and 2007 in a small part of the 809-page study.

“There is abundant evidence of sexual violence and total impunity, thanks to bilateral agreements and diplomatic immunity of U.S. officials…(It is) part of sexist and discriminatory behavior known as ‘sexual imperialism’ similar to what happens in other places where U.S. military forces are stationed,” wrote Vega.

Spokespeople for the U.S. military and defense contractors claimed that there is insufficient evidence to prove Vega’s claims, while an investigation by the Fusion television network concluded that his allegations were “unsubstantiated.” Yet evidence appears to exist of the 2007 case of a 12-year-old girl purportedly raped by a U.S. sergeant and defense contractor:

Daily Headlines: May 6, 2015

* Peru: At least two protesters opposed to the $1.4 billion Tia Maria copper project in the Arequipa region of Peru have been killed over the past two weeks.

* Cuba: The Treasury Department approved ferry service between Florida and Cuba for the first time in over fifty years, while JetBlue announced plans to begin a weekly New York-Havana route this July.

* Colombia: A new White House report found that the amount of Colombian land used for coca cultivation increased by 39% between 2013 and 2014.

* Mexico: About $5.7 billion in remittances were sent from Mexicans living abroad back to their home in the first three months this year, which represents the most transferred since 2008.

YouTube Source – CCTV Americas Now (Video published in December 2013).
 
Online Sources – Reuters, Sun Sentinel, TIME, Voice of America, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: May 5, 2015

* South America: Chilean representatives requested the International Court of Justice to dismiss landlocked Bolivia’s long-standing claims of access to the Pacific Ocean.

* Mexico: The U.S. and Canadian embassies in Mexico issued travel warnings for tourists visiting a Jalisco state that has been the setting for a recent uptick in violent drug-related crime.

* Cuba: Alan Gross, the former contractor who spent over three years in a Cuban jail, will lobby for a new political action committee seeking stronger ties between the U.S. and the Caribbean nation.

* Brazil: Brazil will likely fall into a deeper recession and also raise interest rates according to financial analysts reporting to the Central Bank.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English
 
Online Sources – Bloomberg, CBC News, MercoPress, Voice of America

Daily Headlines: May 4, 2015

* Cuba: The “Buena Vista Social Club”, the critically acclaimed 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary on Cuban music, will have a sequel that has reportedly gone into production.

* South America: The Colombian Supreme Court requested an investigation of ex-president Alvaro Uribe over his suspected role in the wiretapping of political opponents, while Brazilian prosecutors opened a preliminary corruption probe against former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

* Puerto Rico: Using medical marijuana in Puerto Rico is now legal following a “surprise” executive order signed by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla yesterday.

* U.S.: Native Americans have protested in California are upset at Pope Francis for his push to canonize Junipero Serra, an 18th-century friar accused of “brutally converted indigenous people to Christianity.”

YouTube Source – MOVIECLIPS
 
Online Sources – Variety, Financial Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: May 1, 2015

* Cuba: “We will only advance toward the normalization of bilateral relations (with the U.S.) on a basis of respect for the sovereignty…which includes the lifting of the blockade,” declared the lone speaker at Cuba’s annual May Day parade today.

* Venezuela: Ex-Brazilian President Henrique Cardoso, former Mexican leader Felipe Calderon and 24 other heads of state signed an open letter to the Venezuelan government urging the release of imprisoned opposition activists.

* Nicaragua: Lawmakers in Nicaragua approved a proposal that would allow Russia to build satellite bases on the Central American country.

* Brazil: Police in Curitiba have clashed twice with teachers protesting a planned reform to the pension and retirement system of public employees.

YouTube Source – teleSUR (Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro joined Cuban leader Raul Castro and thousands of other attendees at the annual May Day parade in Havana on Friday.)
 
Online Sources – Bernama, Yahoo! News, BBC News, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: April 30, 2015

* Puerto Rico: Puerto Rican legislators rejected a $2.9 billion tax plan that supporters claimed would have helped ease the commonwealth’s debt crises.

* Brazil: “No, I'm not going to be executed, I'm going to Brazil in a year's time,” was allegedly said by death row convict and possible schizophrenic Rodrigo Gularte shortly before he was killed by a firing squad in Indonesia on Tuesday.
 
* Argentina: Families of the 85 victims of the controversial AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires twenty-one years ago could soon receive a “one-time” financial compensation.

* Guatemala: An estimated 15,000 protesters recently called on the resignations of Guatemala’s president and vice president amid a growing corruption scandal potentially involving senior members of government.

YouTube Source – TIME (Video uploaded in March 2014).
 
Online Sources – Bloomberg, BBC News, The Guardian, The Latin Americanist, Global Voices Online

Daily Headlines: April 29, 2015

* Mexico: A Pew Research Center study found that increased deportations from Mexico and declining homicide rates in Central America could be behind the reported drop in unaccompanied child migrants entering the U.S. since last October.

* Venezuela: Vice President Jorge Arreaza announced that the workday for Venezuelan public employees would be shortened as part of a nationwide electricity-rationing plan.

* Ecuador: Ecuador could soon become the latest Latin American country to recognize same-sex civil unions.

* Panama: New research suggests that the isthmus of Panama was first formed twenty million years ago, not between three and four million years as scientists generally believe.

YouTube Source – Vox (Video uploaded in July 2014).

Online Sources – UPI, BBC News, teleSUR English, Pew Research Center

Indonesia Executes Convicted Brazilian National

Indonesian authorities today executed eight convicted drug smugglers including Rodrigo Gularte of Brazil despite an outcry from international governments and human rights groups.

The 42-year-old was shot by a firing squad at around midnight local time along with seven other convicts from Nigeria, Australia, Brazil and Indonesia. A Philippine woman was reportedly the only inmate spared from the execution that was scheduled last Saturday and confirmed by prison officials earlier today.

Gularte was one of three men detained in July 2004 at a Jakarta airport with approximately thirteen pounds of cocaine hidden inside of surfboards. He took the blame for the incident and was subsequently sentenced to death while his companions were let free.

Angelita Muxfeldt, Gularte’s cousin, believe that his mental state has been hammered by drug addiction and depression. She feels criminals exploited this and led him to commit what she called “his biggest mistake.”

Gularte was in a weakened state of health in the days leading to his execution while a last-minute appeal from Gularte’s lawyers was rebuffed. Attorneys argued in 2014 that their client suffered from schizophrenia and were hoping that his sentence would be commuted since its illegal to apply the depth penalty to prisoners with mental disorders in Indonesia. Meanwhile, an evaluation in March requested by Indonesia's prosecutor-general has purportedly not been released.

“The Brazilian is in a very deteriorated psychiatric state. He keeps affirming that it will not happen. At the same time he asks for the procedures to be sped up, that everything happens quickly,” said an anonymous Brazilian diplomatic official.