Daily Headlines: October 15, 2014

* Latin America: Twenty-five Latin American and Caribbean countries signed an agreement pledging to abolish child labor throughout the region.

* Brazil: Are Brazilian presidential polls like the recent one that put challenger Aécio Neves ahead of incumbent Dilma Rousseff “inaccurate and misleading”?

* Colombia: Proceedings began this week in a British court where more than one hundred Colombian farmers are suing BP over alleged environmental damages.

* Mexico: A new survey in Mexico found that over half of respondents cut down on the consumption of sugary beverages after a new tax on soft drinks went into effect.

Video Source – International Labour Organization via YouTube (Video from 2005).
 
Online Sources – The Guardian; LAHT; Xinhua; BBC News; The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: April 13, 2012

* Mexico: According to the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, Mexican journalists and members of the media were targeted by a “record number” of attacks in March.

* Argentina: The Argentine government praised BP’s decision against offshore oil exploration near the Falklands though other British firms continue to go ahead with their projects.

* Haiti: Tens of thousands of Haitians received cholera vaccines yesterday as part of an initiative to prevent the spread of the disease that has killed over 7000 people since October 2010.

* Peru: Over 1500 troops and police have been deployed in order to search for at least three dozen energy company workers kidnapped in southern Peru this week.

Image Source – Flickr via Knight Foundation (In August 2010, “hundreds of Mexican journalists silently marched in downtown Mexico City in protest of the kidnappings, murder and violence against their peers throughout the country”.) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- CNN, LAHT, The Latin Americanist, The New York Times, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Daily Headlines: January 12, 2011

* Central America: Costa Rica took its border dispute with Nicaragua to the International Court of Justice and accused Nicaragua of “tainting Costa Rica's long institutional and democratic tradition."

* Brazil: Heavy rain and flooding killed at least thirteen people in and around Sao Paulo.

* Colombia: An environmental damage lawsuit was filed in the name of 73 Colombian farmers against oil giant BP.

* Mexico: A long-running trade disagreement could soon end after the Mexican government announced changes in certain tariffs on U.S. products.

Image – Momento24 English (Both Costa Rica and Nicaragua have claimed sovereignty of a disputed area near the San Juan River border).
Online Sources- The Guardian, Xinhua, Reuters, MSNBC

Weekend Headlines: August 7-8, 2010

* Paraguay: President Fernando Lugo was diagnosed in the early stages of cancer though doctors say, “there is a good chance the illness can be treated successfully.”

* Venezuela: The country’s oil and energy minister said that BP has not offered to sell its Venezuelan assets in order to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

* Chile: Rescuers are searching for at least 34 miners who are trapped nearly 1500 feet underground.

* Haiti: Pras- former Fugees colleague of Wyclef Jean- isn’t too enthused over Jean’s bid for the Haitian presidency.

Image – Al Jazeera English
Online Sources- MSNBC, BBC News, BusinessWeek, Reuters

World Watch: No more mister nice guy?

* France: Is president Nicolas Sarkozy’s crackdown on certain immigrant communities a necessary anti-crime measure or, as this Foreign Policy article implies, a sign of upcoming “repression and retrenchment”?

* Middle East: In a tit-for-tat move Israel launched air strikes against Gaza after a rocket was launched into a coastal Israeli city.

* Britain: The incoming CEO of BP, Bob Dudley, claimed that the clean up efforts in the Gulf of Mexico may need to be “scaled back” despite serious damage from a major oil spill.

* Africa: A trio of Kenyans has been accused of being behind the deaths of 76 people killed by a bomb in Uganda.

Image – The Guardian (“Nicolas Sarkozy has been criticized over plans to clamp down on Traveller, Gypsy and Roma populations.”)
Online Sources- Foreign Policy, MSNBC, BBC News, The Guardian

World Watch: From Yellow to black

* China: An emergency cleanup operation has been launched in order to contain over 11,000 barrels of crude oil that has spilled into the Yellow Sea.

* U.K.: BP’s alleged role in release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi will reportedly be one of the main topics to be discussed during British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to the White House.

* South Africa: A three-year study conducted in South Africa found that an experimental vaginal gel cuts the HIV infection rates in 889 women by 50%.

* India: At least 61 people died and nearly 100 were injured after a pair of express trains collided in the eastern part of the country.

Image – MSNBC (“Oil covers the Yellow Sea coast near Dalian, China, on Monday.”)
Online Sources- MSNBC, Xinhua, Reuters, BBC News

Today's Video: "The crude connection" revisted

Last month we noted how the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico led to some Ecuadorian indigenous groups to help their counterparts in Lousiana. Are there lessons that can be learned from Brazil's worst oil spill over a decade ago or is the situation in the Gulf unique? See for yourself:

Online Sources - YouTube, The Latin Americanist

BP looks at LatAm to pay for spill

The BP oil well disaster has caught the attention of countries like Mexico and Cuba who are worried that their shores could be polluted by wayward crude. With the price tag for the disaster climbing upwards of $3.1 billion dollars, the oil giant is looking for ways to pay such massive costs. One option could be in Latin America.

According to the Wall Street Journal, oil fields in Colombia and Venezuela may be part of the over $10 billion in “non-core exploration and production assets” BP could sell in order to pay for the spill. After helping develop the Cusiana and Cupiagua fields in eastern Colombia in the 1990s BP last week ceded “direct operation” of the lands to local company Ecopetrol. Those fields are between Colombia’s largest and produce 177,000 barrels a day.

The larger asset that could be sold by BP is its 60% stake in Pan American Energy, Argentina’s second-largest oil producer. BP’s stake in the company is valued at $9 billion, which makes it an interesting choice for the company to sell according to one analyst:

“Pan American is the obvious place to start,” said Christopher Wheaton, who manages about $400 million of securities at Allianz RCM’s Energy Fund in London, including BP shares. “It’s got a valuation from (offshore oil producer) Cnooc in mid-March and is one of the assets you could carve out of the portfolio easily”…

Pan-American, a venture created when BP bought Amoco Corp. in 1998, produces about 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day and 450 cubic meters of gas, according to the BP website.

An estimated 30,000 to 65,000 barrels of oil are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico daily and numerous efforts to stop the leak have been insufficient. Tar balls from the spill have reached shores as far away as Texas, while cleanup efforts have been hampered by inclement weather.

Image- CBC (“BP workers in Cocodrie, La., pile booms that have been cleaned and repaired for reuse after they were stained with oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Voice of America, LAHT

World Watch: Madiba in mourning

* South Africa: We’ll have more detailed coverage tomorrow of the first day’s action in the 2010 World Cup. Despite the great celebrations throughout South Africa, Nelson Mandela mourned in private the tragic death of his great-granddaughter.

* Myanmar: The government denied allegations from defectors claiming that the state is developing a nuclear arms program.

* U.S.: Exactly how large is the BP oil spill? It depends on which expert you ask.

* Kyrgyzstan: At least 46 people were killed as a result of “ethnic riots” occurring in the southern part of the country.

Image – AFP (“Zenani Mandela (in green) was on her way back from a spectacular eve of tournament concert in Soweto” when she was killed allegedly by a drunk driver).
Online Sources- ABC News, BBC News, MSNBC, Reuters

Cuba concerned over BP spill

Last week we mentioned that Mexican environmental officials have been “closely monitoring” the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and were contemplating taking legal action against BP.

With the possibility that crude oil leaking from the underwater well could reach Cuban shores, authorities on the island are calling for increased action to prevent the oil from spreading. Though a spokesman at the Cuban Interests Section told the Miami Herald that Cuba would be “ready to prevent this kind of oil spill”, some environmentalists are unsure if that would be the case. “The fact that it's Cuba creates a rat's nest of red tape and bureaucracy and inaction on just about anything,'' said senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation in the aforementioned article.

The potential negative impact on Cuban fauna and flora has reportedly forced authorities from that country and the U.S. to undergo "working level" talks. According to the AP those discussions would also “rare moment of cooperation between two countries locked in conflict for more than half a century.”

The supposedly newfound collaboration between Cuba and the U.S. comes days after former leader Fidel Castro blasted multinational firms for what he believes is their global “imposition” of imperialism:

The ecological disaster which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico shows how little can governments do against those who control financial capital," Castro said in his article published by the local media, adding "The hateful tyranny imposed on the world"…

According to the former Cuban leader, these companies are those "who decide the fate of peoples" from the United States and Europe through "the economy in our globalized world."

Image- The Telegraph
Online Sources- Xinhua, Miami Herald, Daily Mail, AP, The Latin Americanist

Mexico Contemplates Taking Legal Action Against BP

As the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew over 200,000 gallons of oil per day, Mexico's Environmental Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada says his agency is closely monitoring the impact of the oil spill on various wildlife species. The Mexican turtle species Tiny Lora also spend part of their year off the coast of Louisiana, which has been polluted by the spill. Mexico is weighing whether to take legal action against BP PLC and Quesada and his agency are looking into international environmental law to see what can be done to hold BP PLC responsible.

While the oil spill has not yet reached the shores of Mexico, and is not expected to, a representative from Greenpeace Mexico explained that the "environment has no borders."

Image Source: Mirror.co.uk

Online Source: Associated Press, Mail Online