Daily Headlines: October 31, 2016

* Venezuela: Venezuela’s weakened economy is to blame for lowered output at Cuba's joint oil refinery with PDVSA, while government officials and opposition figures from the south American country met in discussions aimed at quelling rising political tensions.

* El Salvador: Ex-President Tony Saca was arrested over the weekend over the alleged embezzlement of an estimated $5 million dollars in public funds and, thus, became the latest former Salvadoran leader to be accused of corruption while in office.

* Mexico: Compatriots Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez did not fare well during the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Mexico held for the second straight year in Mexico City.

* Brazil: Students at more than 1100 high schools and universities occupied their respective educational institutions last week to protest policies under President Michel Temer.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Xinhua, Al Jazeera English, Newsweek, BBC Sport, Latin American Herald Tribune

Daily Headlines: October 13, 2016

* El Salvador: Lawmakers of El Salvador’s ruling political party backs a proposal to ease the total ban on abortion while an opposition legislator countered with a bill to punish anyone involved with abortions with fifty years in prison.

* United States: A poll of Latino registered voters taken show 58% respondents prefer Hillary Clinton in the race for the presidency, while the support for third party candidates Jill Stein (6%) and Gary Johnson (10%) both nearly equal the percentage who back Donald Trump (19%).

* Colombia: Tens of thousands of protestors advocating for peace took to the streets of Colombia’s major cities for the third time since voters narrowly rejected an accord between the government and FARC rebels.

* Haiti: In the wake of Hurricane Matthew, the United States government suspended deporting Haitian migrants back to their home country.

YouTube Source – France 24 English (Video uploaded in March 2016).

Online Sources – UPI, CNN, ABC News, The Los Angeles Times

Daily Headlines: October 3, 2016

* Argentina: “This is a government that governs for the rich and only responds to corporations and multinationals,” proclaimed the head of a Buenos Aires teachers’ union amid growing social unrest that threatens the rule of President Mauricio Macri.

* Caribbean: Hurricane Matthew is expected to hit Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic today with sustained winds as high as 130 miles per hour and potential rainfall of up to forty inches.

* El Salvador: A Salvadoran judge ordered accepted reopening the investigation into the El Mozote massacre of at least 500 villagers by the army during the civil war in 1981.

* Brazil: Political outsiders were among the big winners in local elections on Sunday as voters punished candidates of major parties tainted by corruption scandals.

YouTube Source – AFP (“Argentine farmers give away 10 tons of apples and pears (last August) in Buenos Aires in a protest to denounce a crisis in the fruit growing sector and demand help from the government”).

Online Sources – Financial Times, Voice of America, Reuters, USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: September 7, 2016

* Chile: A Chilean Senate panel approved a controversial proposal to relax a total ban on abortion and allow it under certain cases including when the pregnancy is caused by rape.

* Brazil: Much like his predecessor, interim President Michel Temer faces his own corruption scandal that could taint his rule less than a week after taking office.

* Latin America: While World Cup 2018 qualifiers were held through the Americas, the bigger news may be that FIFA president Gianni Infantino would be open to a possible joint United States-Mexico bid for the 2026 version of the tournament.

* El Salvador: the Nicaraguan government conceded asylum to former Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes who is under investigation in his home country for purportedly not declaring $700,000 of his personal income.

YouTube Source – PBS NewsHour (The 2013 rape and impregnation of an eleven-year-old girl in Chile helped reopen the debate on abortion, which is illegal under all circumstances in that country.)

Online Sources – Deutsche Welle, Reuters, teleSUR English, Vanguard, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: August 18, 2016

* Haiti: The United Nations admitted to have “played a role” in a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 10,000 people in Haiti but stopped short of admitting peacekeepers caused the epidemic.

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran Supreme Court unanimously ruled to send former Colonel Guillermo Benavides to prison over civil war crimes and refused an extradition request from Spain relating to the 1989 massacre of a group of Jesuit priests.

* Venezuela: “Venezuela will represent a growing supply risk for oil markets in 2017,” concluded a recent report from Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

* Paraguay: Several hundred protesters participated in an anti-government march on the second anniversary of the inauguration of President Horacio Cartes.

YouTube Source – AFP (From January 2015: “Five years since the 2010 earthquake, the cholera epidemic in Haiti is still claiming lives, and there are recriminations over who was responsible for bringing it to the country.”)
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latino, Bloomberg, Reuters, The New York Times

Daily Headlines: July 29, 2016 (Updated)

* El Salvador: Amid the mass arrest of 120 suspected Mara Salvatrucha gang members, ombudsman David Morales warned of the emergence of death squads and extrajudicial killings “for purposes of social cleansing.”

* Brazil: The federal judge overseeing the “Lava Jato” investigation should be removed from the case, according to a petition from a lawyer on behalf ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the United Nations.

Update: Lula will be forced to stand trial on obstruction charges related to his alleged role in the "Lava Jato" corruption probe.

* Costa Rica: Nearly 2300 metric tons of cocaine was seized by Costa Rican authorities from a fishing ship off the Pacific coast.

* Venezuela: Several firms from the United States operating in Venezuela are reportedly using an accounting maneuver known as deconsolidation in order to protect themselves from the severely weakened economy in the South American country.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources including Update – Xinhua, Fox News Latino, Voice of America, Bloomberg, Reuters, BBC News

Daily Headlines: July 15, 2016

* El Salvador: El Salvador’s Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional an amnesty law protecting individuals suspected of committing crimes linked to the civil war from 1980 to 1992.

* Brazil: The recession battering Brazil has worsened with May showing the worst level of economic activity in more than six years.

* Mexico: The Mexican government announced changes to a teacher evaluation program following protests by educators arguing that the exams adversely affect rural communities with few resources.

* Peru: Environmentalists and opposition lawmakers will likely push back against President-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s plan to lower air quality standards in order to boost investment in mining.

YouTube Source – Catholic News Service (The 1980 murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero could be one of the cases reopened after a top court declared a civil war crimes amnesty as unconstitutional).

Online Sources – Fox News Latino, Xinhua, Latin American Herald Tribune, Reuters

Daily Headlines: July 11, 2016

* Haiti: The State Department pledged support by the United States to Haiti despite suspending financial help to the Caribbean country’s troublesome election process.

* Latin America: The quality of higher education in Latin America has been unable to meet the growing demand for a university education, according to new research.

* El Salvador: Ten people including five police officers were arrested over allegedly participating in a death squad linked to the deaths of forty suspected gang members in El Salvador.

* Mexico: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called the North American Free Trade Agreement a “win-win mechanism” for job creation and economic growth for his country, the United States and Canada.

YouTube Source – AJ+ (From January 20, 2016: “Protesters calling for fresh elections clashed with riot police in Haiti as the presidential run-off vote looms.”)
 
Online Sources – The Washington Post, Fox News Latino, The Hill, Times Higher Education

Daily Headlines: July 1, 2016

* El Salvador: Around 300 protesters marched to the residence of El Salvador’s president and called for better prison conditions for inmates including suspected gang members targeted in a security crackdown.

* Brazil: The head of Brazil’s anti-doping agency was replaced though the sports ministry claimed it had nothing to do with the suspension of its Rio de Janeiro laboratory weeks before the start of the Olympics.

* Latin America: “We cannot remain frozen in the face of a decision that could be difficult and catastrophic,” said Mexico’s economics secretary in reference to the possible aftermath of this year’s U.S. presidential election.

* Colombia: Thirty-three people were arrested and eleven tons of cocaine seized in a joint counternarcotics operation involving Italian and Colombian authorities.

YouTube Source – CCTV Americas Now (From December 2012: An “in-depth look at the issue of prison overcrowding in El Salvador, where many are packed into penitentiaries way beyond their limits forced to live a life of filth.”)

Online Sources – The Washington Post, Yahoo Finance, Reuters, MercoPress

Daily Headlines: June 3, 2016

* Haiti: The results of Haiti's first-round presidential election held last year should be thrown out and a new vote ought to be held, according to the recommendations issued this week by a special verification panel.

* Brazil: The Brazilian economy is still in recession though the decline in the first quarter of this year was only 0.3% less than the final trimester of 2015.

* Paraguay: More than one hundred people participated in the reconstructing the massacre of seventeen people in 2012, which was an incident cited in the impeachment and ouster of then-President Fernando Lugo.

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran legislature could approve a probe against the country's ambassador to Germany for purportedly selling weapons illegally on the black market.

YouTube Source – AFP (Haiti’s presidential runoff has been postponed multiple times amid accusations of fraud in the first round and heightened political tensions).
 
Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune, Reuters, Quartz, CBS News

Daily Headlines: May 27, 2016

* Mexico: While questions continue in the official investigation of the 43 Ayotzinapa college students missing since September 2014, one of the survivors of the attack against his classmates has sought political asylum in the U.S.

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran legislature approved issuing $152 million in bonds in order to finance proposals to combat rampant gang violence.

* Brazil: Police are searching for at least thirty suspects behind the gang rape of a sixteen-year-old girl in Rio de Janeiro that was recorded and uploaded on Twitter.

* Panama: The Panamanian Supreme Court urged the federal government to seek the extradition of ex-President Ricardo Martinelli from the U.S.

YouTube Source – AJ+ (Video uploaded in September 2015.  Yesterday marked twenty months since the 43 Ayotzinapa students have disappeared and may have been murdered).
 
Online Sources – The Atlantic, Vice News, euronews, CBC, Reuters

Daily Headlines: May 11, 2016

* Brazil: The Brazilian Senate later today will likely approve holding an impeachment trial against embattled President Dilma Rousseff where she would be suspended from her post for 180 days.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos claimed that a peace deal with FARC rebels can be reached “in the very near future” hours after his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, called for a “civil resistance” against such an agreement. 

* Nicaragua: A new study blasted planned construction of an interoceanic canal though Nicaragua, which would be disastrous for a number of endangered wildlife species.

* Peru: Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, continues to post a slight lead in the polls ahead of next month’s runoff.

* U.S.: At least 875,000 eligible Latino voters could face difficulties voting in the upcoming presidential election according to an analysis by National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials.

* El Salvador: The murder rate for El Salvador in the first four months of this year has reportedly surpassed the rates in other Central American countries for 2015.

YouTube Source – AFP
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latino, Colombia Reports, CNN, Reuters, The Tico Times, NBC News

Daily Headlines: May 9, 2016

* U.S.: Immigration authorities in the U.S. might grant Temporary Protected Status to the members of the Ecuadoran expat community in the wake of a major earthquake last month in the South American country.

* Mexico: Does the transfer of Sinaloa drug cartel head Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to a prison in Ciudad Juarez mean that he will soon be extradited to the U.S.?

* South America: The border dispute between Bolivia and Chile heated up after President Evo Morales claimed that the Chilean military established a base near the disputed Silala River.

* El Salvador: Mauricio Funes of El Salvador could soon be the next former Central American president to face a trial over potential corruption.

YouTube Source – AFP (At least 660 people died following a 7.8-magintude earthquake on April 16, 2016 that devastated areas of Ecuador near the Pacific coast).
 
Online Sources – Fox News Latin, The Atlantic, Deutsche Welle, JURIST

Daily Headlines: May 6, 2016

* El Salvador: Salvadoran authorities claimed that homicides declined last April by 15.8% but some analysts worry the government’s “zero tolerance approach” could lead to increased gang violence.

* Venezuela: At an Organization of American States meeting, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez accused the U.S. of orchestrating a campaign of “ongoing and relentless aggression” against her country.

* Colombia: Colombian police arrested Nidal Waked, a man named by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as “one of the world's most significant drug money launderers and criminal facilitators.”

* Haiti: Several thousand protesters took to the streets of Port-au-Prince to demonstrate over the political crisis stemming from delayed presidential elections.

YouTube Source – CCTV America (“In El Salvador, it's estimated someone is murdered every hour.  It could become the world's most violent country if not already.”)
 
Online Sources – Reuters, The Miami Herald, BBC News, SBS

Daily Headlines: April 26, 2016

* Costa Rica: Some 600 migrants from Africa will be deported back to their respective countries of origin even though Costa Rican immigration officials admitted that such an action would be expensive.

* Colombia: A new report from a Colombian NGO found that paramilitaries continues to exist and are behind criminal actions including “drug-trafficking, smuggling, (and) illegal mining.”

* El Salvador: The Salvadoran Legislative Assembly approved a series of measures to combat gang violence such as labeling the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 as "terrorist groups.”

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan Supreme Court halted opposition-led efforts to cut President Nicolás Maduro’s term short by two years.

YouTube Source – africanews (“Costa Rican authorities (earlier this month) deported some 250 African migrants of different nationalities to Panama”.)

Online Sources – BBC News, InSightCrime, The Tico Times, Colombia Reports

Daily Headlines: April 21, 2016 (Updated)

* Latin America: The presidents of Mexico and Colombia each called out for reforming global antidrug efforts at the U.N. Drug Policy Summit though they face opposition from other leaders more satisfied with the status quo.

Update: Bolivian President Evo Morales also criticized the contemporary "war on drugs" efforts and urged states to take an approach that "respects human rights and national sovereignty."
 

respects human rights and national sovereignty

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
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respects human rights and national sovereignty

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
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* El Salvador: Salvadoran authorities unveiled a new special unit containing “600 army commandos and 400 specially trained elite police officers” aimed at combating rampant gang violence.

* Puerto Rico: Time is not on Puerto Rico’s side as the U.S. Congress continues to delay discussion on a plan to help restructure a $70 billion debt.

* Mexico: At least thirteen people died and 130 are injured following an explosion at a Pemex facility located in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

YouTube Source – The National

Online Sources including Update – Reuters, The Guardian, NBC News, Voice of America, Fox News Latino, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: March 30, 2016

* Costa Rica: A Costa Rican court convicted and sentenced four men to prison sentences of between 74 and 90 years for the 2013 murder of sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora Sandoval.

* Argentina: British Prime Minister David Cameron tried to downplay a U.N. commission decision finding that waters around the disputed Falkland Islands belong to Argentina.

* Venezuela: In the latest clash between Venezuela’s government and opposition, President Nicolás Maduro threatened with vetoing a law granting amnesty to political prisoners.

* El Salvador: Salvadoran authorities declared a state of emergency for the prison system and cracked down against inmates allied to street gangs.

YouTube Source – Vice News (Video uploaded in June 2015).

Online Sources – The Telegraph, The Guardian, Tico Times, euronews

Daily Headlines: March 28, 2016 (Updated)

* El Salvador: “We have ordered all of our people . . . to halt all types of homicides nationwide,” said a masked figure purportedly representing the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs in a video claiming that both groups will renew an anti-murder truce.

Update: El Salvador's police chief and a spokesman for President Salvador Sánchez Cerén each rejected the possibility of negotiating with the gangs.
 
* U.S.: Santiago Erevia, a former U.S. Army sergeant who in 2014 received the Medal of Honor after decades of racial discrimination, passed away last week at the age of 69.

* Cuba: Ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the island last week even though Obama held multiple talks with current Fidel’s brother and current Cuban President Raul Castro.

* Mexico: Authorities have reportedly arrested a man nicknamed “King Midas” who allegedly laundered up to $400 million yearly for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

YouTube Source – Vice News (Video uploaded on December 2015).
 
Online Sources including Update – The Toronto Star, Fox News Latino, BBC News, CNN, ABC News

Daily Headlines: March 10, 2016 (Updated)

* Peru: Keiko Fujimori’s path to the Peruvian presidency (and possibly pardoning her imprisoned ex-presidential father, Alberto) became a lot easier after electoral officials disqualified her main rival.

Update: The Organization of American States expressed concern over the ruling against Julio Guzman and will send an observer mission ahead of the April 10th election.

* Cuba: U.S. book publishing industry representatives signed a petition urging the White House to eliminate the Cuba trade embargo for texts and educational materials.

* Puerto Rico: A U.S. District Court judge upheld Puerto Rico’s ban on same-sex marriage and claimed that the 2015 Supreme Court ruling overturning gay marriage prohibition does not apply to the commonwealth.

* El Salvador: Salvadoran officials are considering declaring a “state of exception” in order to combat violence though critics believe such a measure is illegal and an abuse of authority.

YouTube Source – CCTV English

Online Sources including Update – ABC News, Publishers Weekly, NBC News, InSight Crime

Daily Headlines: March 3, 2016

* El Salvador: New police data released yesterday showed a whopping 117% jump in the homicide rate for January and February 2016 compared to the same period in 2015.
 
* Brazil: Vale and BHP Billiton, the co-owners of a Brazilian dam that collapsed last year and killed nineteen people, agreed to pay approximately $1.5 billion in damages.

* Venezuela: Venezuela’s opposition parties will formally present a plan seeking the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro prior to the end of his term in 2019.

* Peru: Peru might lose at least $6 million per day in export revenue due to heavy rain, flooding and extreme heat from the El Niño weather phenomena.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English (Video uploaded on November 2015).
 
Online Sources – BBC News, NBC News, Reuters, Voice of America