Daily Headlines: September 11, 2015

* Venezuela: Could the controversial prison sentence last night against opposition activist Leopoldo Lopez provide a boost to anti-government politicos in December's legislative election?

* Puerto Rico: Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla proposed a series of austerity measures in order to attempt to decrease most of Puerto Rico's $72 billion debt.

* Cuba: Cuban authorities will pardon more than 3500 prisoners ahead of Pope Francis’ visit next week though jailed political dissidents might not be released.

* Argentina: The Argentine government welcomed a U.N. General Assembly resolution for “creating a new global framework for sovereign debt restructuring”.

YouTube Source – euronews (“Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has been sentenced to nearly 14 years in jail. The court found him guilty of inciting violence during anti-government street protests in 2014 in which more than 40 people were killed.”)    

Online Sources – NBC News, Reuters, BBC News, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: September 10, 2015

* Latin America: According to the Pan American Health Organization, “ultra-processed food products and fast food are occupying a larger and larger share of what people eat and drink in Latin America, with very negative results.”

* U.S.: The Washington State Attorney General plans to review the decision made by a local prosecutor to not charge police officers who killed an unarmed Mexican national last February.

* Haiti: A record fifty-four Haitians registered as presidential candidates amid a poor economy, controversy over corruption and a humanitarian crisis involving stateless residents of Haitian background.

* Mexico: Did fugitive Mexican drug capo Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman flee to Costa Rica or is his son trying to throw authorities off his father’s trail?

YouTube Source – Duetsche Welle
 
Online Sources – GlobalPost, Jamaica Observer, King 5, Tico Times

Daily Headlines: September 9, 2015 (Updated)

* Brazil: Financial analysts surveyed by Brazil’s central bank believe the country this year will face its worst economic performance since 1990 and predicted that the economy will keep shrinking in 2016.

Update: More bad news for the economy as Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday downgraded the Brazilian government’s sovereign debt rating to junk status.

* Ecuador: Canada’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of proceeding with an environmental damages lawsuit against Chevron though the tribunal did not “endorse the underlying Ecuadorian legal case.”

* Latin America: A new study found that digital use in Latin America grew between April 2014 and April 2015 including increases of 147% and 351% in activity for Facebook and Twitter, respectively.

* Cuba: Some 140 Cuban dissidents including twenty members of the Ladies in White were reportedly arrested yesterday while on their way to a Catholic mass.

YouTube Source – CNNMoney (“Brazil is struggling with high unemployment, rising inflation and a currency trading at 12-year lows.”)
 
Online Sources including Update – MercoPress, The Latin Americanist, Financial Post, Billboard, Latin American Herald Tribune, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: September 8, 2015

* South America: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro expanded the partial border shutdown with Colombia that he claims is needed to combat smuggling and crime but has led to the return of at least 10,000 Colombians.

* Mexico: Two Mexican intelligence agents and two prison guards have been charged regarding their alleged roles in the jailbreak last July of Sinaloa drug capo Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

* Guatemala: TV comic turned candidate Jimmy Morales won last Sunday’s Guatemalan presidential election but was unable to prevent a runoff next month.

* Chile: A Chilean court upheld the conviction of two men involved in the killings of filmmaker Charles Horman and journalist Frank Teruggi shortly after the 1973 military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. 

YouTube Source – CCTV News

Online Sources – Bloomberg, Reuters, USA TODAY, JURIST

Daily Headlines: September 7, 2015 (Updated)

* Mexico: Families of 43 Ayotzinapa college students missing for nearly a year have called on meeting with Mexico’s president after an independent probe contradicted the official investigation.

Update: President Enrique Peña Nieto said on Monday that he would be willing to meet again with families of the missing students and claimed that the government's investigation into the disappearances remains open.

* U.S.: While some politicians on the campaign trail deride immigrants, a recent study found that “immigrant adolescents are actually less likely than native-born peers in the United States to commit crimes, use drugs or behave violently.”

* Latin America: Representatives from seventeen nations celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Petrocaribe oil alliance that has been shaken by the low price of crude and Venezuela’s economic problems.

* Colombia: FBI agents reportedly placed the late Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez under surveillance including monitoring his ties to then-Cuban president Fidel Castro.

YouTube Source – euronews
 
Online Sources including Update – El Universal, The Latin Americanist, Latina, The Washington Post, Xinhua, Excelsiór (in Spanish)

Daily Headlines: September 4, 2015

* Cuba: A Florida International University study found that the push towards normalized relations would help U.S. tourism to Cuba though the embargo against the island serves as a major obstacle.

* Latin America: The number of Internet users in Latin America has nearly doubled from 2006 to 2013 according to a new report yet “local (Web-based) services and applications have not grown at the same rate as connectivity.”

* Brazil: The government rejected rumors alleging that Finance Minister Joaquim Levy was resigning over planned austerity measures backed by President Dilma Rousseff.

* Mexico: A U.S. appeals court ruled against deporting an undocumented transgender woman back to Mexico where she was under threat of being sexually abused again.

YouTube Source – AFP 

Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune, Fox News Latino, Voice of America, SFGate.com

Daily Headlines: September 2, 2015

* Argentina: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo helped positively identify the 117th child stolen and illegally adopted during military rule from 1976 to 1983.

* Puerto Rico: The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reportedly reached a deal with one of their main bondholders to provide some relief to its $9 billion debt and potentially prevent bankruptcy.

* El Salvador: The 907 murders in August made it the deadliest month in El Salvador since the country’s civil war in the 1980s.

* Chile: Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s approval rating hit a record low of 24% though it’s greater than the 15% support given by poll respondents to the opposition Alianza coalition.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – UPI, CNBC, NBC News, Reuters

Daily Headlines: September 1, 2015

* Mexico: Mexican human rights groups claimed that forced disappearances are on the rise including an estimated 26,000 cases over the past eight years.

* Nicaragua: An extra $700 million could be added to the $50 billion price tag for the construction of Nicaragua’s interoceanic canal.

* South America: The Organization of American States (OAS) rejected a Colombian proposal to hold an urgent meeting over a growing migratory crisis with Venezuela.

* Brazil: A feature article in Brazilian newsmagazine Epoca accused ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of acting as a lobbyist in Cuba for a construction firm involved in a major bribery scandal.

YouTube Source – La Jornada (Several thousand protesters marched in Mexico City last week to mark the 11-month anniversary of the disappearance and possible massacre of 43 Ayotzinapa college students.)  

Online Sources – JOC.com, Reuters, NBC News, teleSUR English

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

The Weekender: Mad Man

“The Weekender” is our feature where every weekend we hope to highlight a short film, movie or documentary pertaining to the Americas. 

Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach were some of the most influential figures in the field of advertisement. For Latin America, however, one of the most renowned names in the ad game is Washington Olivetto of Brazil. Since the 1970s, the Chairman of WMcCann Brazil has won dozens of industry awards for his unique, creative and amazing ads. He has reached such high cultural status in his native country that he graced his image for a Brazilian post office stamp and was celebrated by one of the samba schools at the 2013 Carnaval parade in Sao Paulo.

The video below the page break is the video created in his honor for earning the Clio Achievement Award last year. Included in this video are several of his critically acclaimed ads including the first Latin American entry to win top prize at the prestigious Clio Awards.

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

Today’s Video: The Nose Doesn’t Know

Last Tuesday we looked at a short yet clever 1995 Argentine advert that received two gold Clios. Today we continue to highlight award-winning commercials made by Latin American ad agencies with an anti-drug PSA from Colombia. This brief but deft piece below the page break earned Colombia a Golden Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival over a decade ago:

Daily Headlines: August 27, 2015

* Latin America: Economic experts and environmental analysts warned that Latin American and Caribbean states must lower water consumption for agricultural needs in order to ensure water security throughout the region.

* U.S.: A Texas court issued a reprieve against the execution of a convicted Nicaraguan national, while the mother of an Argentine on death row in Texas for 19 years is hoping that Pope Francis will intervene during his U.S. visit next month.

* Ecuador: For the second straight year an InterNations survey named Ecuador as the best country for expats including the highest scores in areas like “feeling welcome,” “personal finance” and “cost of living”.

* Colombia: A coalition of Colombian women’s rights groups called for the government to take a more active role in investigating sexual violence by “state security forces, paramilitaries and other private actors.”

YouTube Source – CCTV Americas Now

Online Sources – Economic Times, Fox News Latino, The Guardian, U.S. News & World Report, NBC News

Daily Headlines: August 26, 2015

* Guatemala: The Guatemalan Supreme Court gave the green light for impeachment proceedings against President Otto Perez Molina, while another tribunal ordered former dictator Efrain Rios Montt to face a retrial on genocide charges.

* Argentina: Police clashed with protesters in the Argentine province of Tucuman over allegations of ballot burning following last Sunday’s gubernatorial election.

* El Salvador: El Salvador’s Attorney General claimed to have uncovered a plot by street gangs to detonate explosives against his office and other government agencies.

* Puerto Rico: The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, which is in more than $8 billion in debt, cut its ties to Brazilian state-run oil firm Petrobras as part of a move to save costs.

YouTube Source – Al Jazeera English (Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty of ordering the massacre of over 1700 indigenous Guatemalans in 1982 but the conviction was overturned in 2013).
 
Online Sources – CNN, Business Insider, Voice of America, ABC News, Yahoo News

Today’s Video: Buzzed

In early July we examined a commercial for a German company conceived by Brazilians, filmed in Uruguay, and recipient of one of the top prizes at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival. This week we will look at other award-winning commercials made by Latin American ad agencies.

Made by the Argentine creative team of Carlos Bayala and Gabriela Scardaccione, the 1995 spot below the page break received two gold Clios for a deceptively simple ad hiding a very clever twist ending:

YouTube Source – Clip40AnnReel
 
Online Sources (English) – Campaign Magazine, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: August 25, 2015

* Latin America: China’s recent economic woes could have major financial repercussions to Latin American states that rely heavily on trade with the Asian country and are heavily dependent on oil exports. 

* Caribbean: Tugboat operators are concerned over potential safety hazards regarding the expansion of the Panama Canal, while the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua criticized potential land expropriation for the construction of a new interoceanic waterway.

* Brazil: The Brazilian government will eliminate 10 of its 39 ministries as part of “President Dilma Rousseff's commitment to an unpopular austerity plan.”

* Puerto Rico: The number of murders in Puerto Rico dropped by 40% since a record high 1164 homicides in 2011 according to the FBI.

YouTube Source – Associated Press

Online Sources – PRI, Tico Times, International Business Times, Reuters, Latin American Herald Tribune