Daily Headlines: May 6, 2014

* Cuba: A delegation of four U.S. legislators visited Cuba and called on the Castro regime and U.S. President Barack Obama to “make a serious commitment to engage in negotiations” for the liberation of imprisoned contractor Alan Gross.

* Mexico: In his latest full-page advertisement in Mexican newspapers, acclaimed film director Alfonso Cuarón called for public debates in order to discuss a major energy reform proposal supported by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

* Latin America: Former U.S Secretary of State George Schultz, British deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and five Nobel-prize winning economists became the latest prominent voices to speak out against the “war on drugs.”

* Brazil: Brazil’s main stock index rose to its highest point in nearly five months yesterday after polls showed that President Dilma Rousseff’s odds of winning reelection in the first round have decreased.

Video Source – YouTube user JewishNewsOne (Alan Gross, a U.S. contractor serving a fifteen-year prison sentence in Cuba following a 2011 conviction, went one a seven-day hunger strike last month).

Online Sources – GlobalPost; NBC News; Reuters; Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: April 29, 2014

* Brazil: A social media campaign has grown in support of Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves who responded to the racist taunt of having a banana thrown at him in the middle of a match in Spain by nonchalantly gobbling up the fruit.

* Mexico: Acclaimed film director Alfonso Cuarón published a full-page advertisement in Mexican newspapers yesterday of a list of questions for President Enrique Peña Nieto to answer regarding a controversial energy reform proposal.

* Peru: Indigenous leader Ruth Buendia was named as a co-recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts to halt construction of the Paquitzapango hydroelectric project.

* Colombia: Thousands of farmers are protesting against the Colombian government’s agrarian polices in a demonstration that could affect the May 26 general election and President Juan Manuel Santos’ chances of winning reelection.
  
Video Source – YouTube user Love Football

Online Sources – GlobalPost; The Guardian; Reuters; The Telegraph

Daily Headlines: April 25, 2014

* U.S.: Streaming media service Netflix ordered its first Spanish-language series, which will be a comedy on professional soccer and starring Mexican actor Louis Gerardo Méndez.

* Brazil: Riot police clashed again with dozens of residents of a Rio de Janeiro favela who were still angry at the authorities for possibly causing the death of a local professional dancer.
 
* Latin America: Several Latin American figures were named to TIME magazine’s list of the “100 most influential people in the world” including Argentine-born Pope Francis, Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and the presidents of Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela.
 
* Cuba: Conrado Marrero, the oldest former Major League Baseball player, died in Havana this week just two days prior to his 103rd birthday.
 
Video Source– YouTube user Film Festivals and Indie Films (Actor Louis Gerardo Méndez and director Gaz Alazraki worked on the Mexican film Nosotros los Nobles and they will reunite for Netflix’s first Spanish-language series).

Online Sources – The A.V. Club, BBC News; LAHT; The Latin Americanist; Reuters

Today’s Video: Feliz cumpleaños Alfonso Cuarón!

Today is the 47th birthday of Mexican director-producer Alfonso Cuarón. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Children of Men" are two of the films he’s best-known for, yet for my money his best work was 2001’s "Y tu mamá también". Below is the trailer for that movie, one of my favorite films:

Sources- imdb.com, YouTube

Video of the Day: “The Shock Doctrine”

Acclaimed Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron produced a short film currently making the rounds at several films fests: “The Shock Doctrine.” The movie bases itself on a book by political activist Naomi Klein of the same name which suggests that corporations and governments exploit disasters in order to institute extreme economic policies.

Foreign Policy’s blog describes the film thusly:

“Given the participants, it's a bit disappointing at first to see Michael Moore-style use of period stock footage. But this film, which was actually directed by Cuarón's son Jonas, is really far slicker and subtler than anything Moore has done…Cuarón pulls off a particularly daring Kuleshov by interspersing facts about various privatization schemes with images of electrocutions and Abu Ghraib-style torture illustrations as well as scenes of devastation and violence. The facts and figures go by too fast to really process but what sticks in one's mind is the association between free market ideas, catastrophes and torture.”

Interested in watching? Below is a YouTube clip of “The Shock Doctrine” where you can judge for yourself if Klein/Cuaron is on to something or not (video link):

Sources- Wikipedia, The Daily Reel, YouTube, Foreign Policy Passport