Daily Headlines: September 16, 2016

* Colombia: A Colombian court found the state responsible for the murder in 1999 of Jaime Garzón, one of the country’s most acclaimed satirists in the 1990s, who was killed purportedly at the behest of paramilitary commanders.

* Peru: Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski deemed his visit to China as “a success” but his government doesn’t seem to be too pleased over the $60 billion price tag placed by Chinese officials on a proposed railway crossing South America.

* Brazil: Television actor Domingos Montagner will be buried in his native city of Sao Paulo on Saturday after he drowned while filming a scene for Brazil’s most popular telenovela.

* Mexico: “We don't have a reason to shout 'viva Mexico' ... There are thousands of injustices,” said one of the many hundreds of protestors in Mexico City who called on President Enrique Peña Nieto to resign from office.

YouTube Source – Señal Colombia 

Online Sources – Reuters, Colombia Reports, Forbes, BBC News, Peru this Week

Daily Headlines: July 19, 2016

* Guatemala: Byron Lima, a former military officer convicted of assassinating outspoken Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi, was killed by a few of his fellow inmates during a prison riot.

* Peru: An arbitration panel ruled in favor of the Peruvian state in its environmental damages case against Renco Group.

* Argentina: On the twenty-second anniversary of the AMIA center bombing, family members of some of the 85 dead called for justice and stronger government support for the investigation into the attack.

* Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled a series of measures to combat corruption and also publicly apologized for allegations of wrongdoing linked to the purchase of a luxury home by his wife, Angelica Rivera.

YouTube Source – AP Archive (Guatemalan Roman Catholic bishop Juan Jose Gerardi was a strong human rights defender who was murdered in 1998 after he published a report on abuses by the army during the country’s civil war).

Online Sources – UPI, MercoPress, BBC News, Bloomberg

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: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Bolivias-Evo-Morales-Denounces-War-on-Drugs-at-UN-Summit-20160421-0027.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

respects human rights and national sovereignty

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: 
 "http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Bolivias-Evo-Morales-Denounces-War-on-Drugs-at-UN-Summit-20160421-0027.html". If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

* 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: April 14, 2016 (Updated)

* Cuba: Cruse ship giant Carnival has come under fire in the Cuban-American community after it emerged that the firm complied with a law in Cuba barring those who were born on the island to return there by sea.

Update: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry entered the fray and criticized the "discriminatory policy" by the Cuban government.
 
* Argentina: A tribunal gave the green light for Argentina to move ahead with its first international bond sale in more than a decade as the country hopes to end to a legal battle over repaying debt from its $100 million default in 2001.

* Puerto Rico: Delays have hit a proposal in the U.S. Congress that could alleviate the Puerto Rican debt crisis and prevent an economic catastrophe on the commonwealth but that some legislators criticize as a bailout.

* Mexico: Is President Enrique Peña Nieto “putting his head in the sand”, as one critic claimed, by skipping a special U.N. General Assembly session on drug policy next week?

YouTube Source – Miami Herald (“A small group of protesters including Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of the Democracy Movement, demonstrate outside the Carnival Corp. in protest of the ban by the Cuban government of Cubans and Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba by sea.”)
 
Online Sources including Update – USA TODAY, ABC News, Reuters, Vice News, Fox News Latino

Mexican Fugitive Drug Boss "El Chapo" Recaptured (Updated including Video)

Mexican drug cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán was reportedly recaptured nearly six months following his second prison escape according to President Enrique Peña Nieto:

Misión cumplida: lo tenemos. Quiero informar a los mexicanos que Joaquín Guzmán Loera ha sido detenido.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 8, 2016

Few details are known about the Friday morning operation though the Mexican media reported that Guzmán was nabbed in Los Mochis, Sinaloa state. At least five members of the fugitive's security convoy were killed amid a gunfight with approximately seventy Mexican soldiers.

The Sinaloa cartel boss had been on the run since July 11, 2015 when he fled the maximum security Altiplano prison via an underground tunnel from his jail cell. This incident thoroughly embarrassed the Peña Nieto administration and shone an uncomfortable light on corruption within the Mexican security structure.

Despite rumors alleging that Guzmán escaped Mexico for another country in Latin America, his pursuers focused primarily on the "Triangulo Dorado" ("Golden Triangle") area of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango states. It was in this region where Guzmán was caught today and nearly nabbed last November in an operation that left him injured in his face and a leg.

If the rumors of his capture are true, then Guzmán will more than likely be extradited to the U.S. as soon as today, He is charged in several federal courts with drug trafficking and related crimes.

Updates can be read below the page break.

Daily Headlines: December 16, 2015

* Mexico: At least seventeen corpses were found abandoned in a ravine days after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed two new legal initiatives in the battle against disappearances and kidnappings.

* South America: The former head of South America’s soccer federation, Juan Angel Napout, pled not guilty to charges related to the “FIFA-gate” corruption scandal while Paraguayan officials allowed the extradition one of Napout's predecessors, Nicolas Leoz, to the U.S. for questioning.

* Venezuela: U.S. investigators will reportedly charge Venezuela’s National Guard chief Néstor Reverol with cocaine trafficking as part of a widening probe aimed at Venezuelan military officials.

* Latin America: According to the Inter-American Development Bank exports from Latin American and Caribbean will drop by 14% this year and the outlook for 2016 may not be much better.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English (“Data just released by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office indicates that 185 mass graves containing over 500 corpses have been found in the country in the last five years.”)

Online Sources – NDTV, InSight Crime, New York Daily News, Fox News Latino, MercoPress

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)

Mexico: Investigators ID One of 43 Missing Students

Forensic experts in Argentina have reportedly identified the charred remains of Alexander Mora Venancio, one of forty-three Mexican students missing since September 26th.

According to a post published on December 6th on the Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa Facebook post, what was left of Mora was found amidst where in a garbage dump where three detained hit men claimed that the young adults where tortured, killed and had their remains burnt.

Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam confirmed the news at a December 7th news conference. He claimed that the remains of the twenty-one-year-old were identified by a team from Austria that compared a bone fragment with the DNA of Venancio's parents.

"Using data from the University of Innsbruck, it was determined that the remains belong to a male with a probability a billion times higher, that’s ‘b’ for billion, of being the biological son of Ezequiel Mora Chavez and the sibling of Omar Mora Venancio and Hugo Mora Venancio than for any other unrelated person,"  asserted Murillo Karam.

He also claimed that the results support his hypothesis presented last month alleging that the students were allegedly kidnapped by police from the town of Iguala and subsequently massacred by a local drug gang.

"This is scientific proof that the remains found at one of the scenes (of the crime) along with the confessions of some of the detained suspects coincide with our investigation," Murillo Karam said.   
Austria team though the result were tipped off to a parent of one of the missing students.

Daily Headlines: November 20, 2014

* Chile: A Chilean court ruled that the state should pay around $7.5 million to the families of thirty ex-political prisoners incarcerated on a remote island during the military rule of Augusto Pinochet.

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro decreed twenty-eight laws this week including ones that would raise taxes on luxury items and increase international reserves.

* Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto will reportedly release details of his personal wealth following the controversy over first lady Angelica Rivera’s ownership of a $7 million mansion.

* Colombia: An agreement was reportedly reached for the liberation of a Colombian army general and four others captured by the FARC, and whose kidnapping led to the suspension of peace talks between the government and the rebels.

Video Source – YouTube user comunaburguesa (Footage circa 1973 of detainees at the prison on Chile’s Dawson Island, which was located near the southernmost tip of South America).

Online Sources – BBC News; Bloomberg; ABC News; The Guardian

Daily Headlines: November 19, 2014

* Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro announced plans to arrange a meeting with countries excluded from the OPEC cartel in order to discuss the plummeting prices of oil.

* Brazil: Eike Batista, the man once named as Brazil’s wealthiest person but is allegedly $1 billion in debt, went on trial over charges of insider trading. 

* Mexico: Mexican first lady Angelica Rivera said that she would sell her shares in a $7 million mansion built by a construction firm that received government contracts under President Enrique Peña Nieto.

* Honduras: Police discovered the bodies of the reigning Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado, and her sister who had been missing for approximately one week.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube

Online Sources – BBC News; The Guardian; Bloomberg; ABC News

Mexico: Social Media Outrage Over Offensive Missing Student Tweets

Social media has been beneficial for businesses looking to promote their brand, increase sales and gain an advantage above their competitors.  But it can also be a double-edged sword for companies that either inadvertently or purposefully post controversial messages in the aftermath of tragedies. This is a lesson that at least two Mexican companies faced after publishing a tweet alluding to the possible massacre forty-three students.

Marca de chocolates Crunch publica tuit de burla sobre los normalistas http://t.co/AKNIJDC79g
— Proceso (@revistaproceso) November 9, 2014

As seen above, the original message posted Sunday just after midnight on the twitter account for Mexico’s Nestlé Crunch roughly translates to “We Crunched the ones from Ayotzinapa.” The offending tweet was removed approximately two-and-a-half hours later and Nestlé apologized in four subsequent tweets.

“We regret for the recently published content and offer our deepest apologies. We are united with the families (of the disappeared)…and extend our apology to all of the brands affected by this bad joke,” read some of the content tweeted by Nestlé. Yet another message alleged that the Twitter account was hacked and that Nestlé was going to take all measures to prevent future infiltration.  This excuse did not sit well with some netizens who voiced their anger at the candy company.

“Hahahaha ‘we were hacked’ hahaha,” “You finally got what you wanted … to make some noise” and “I will never again buy your product…and I hope you fire the idiot (behind the tweet)” were just some of the messages left behind by indignant social media users to the Mexican Nestlé Crunch twitter account.

Mario Vera, vice president for communications of Nestlé in Mexico, later told the press that the company would investigate if the “offensive message” came from someone within Nestlé or via a hacker.

Meanwhile, a Mexico City pizzeria belonging to the 50 friends chain of eateries also came under fire following an insulting tweet regarding the missing and reportedly murdered students.

Missing Mexican Students Murdered Says Attorney General

Forty-three Mexican students missing for forty-one days were reportedly murdered according to Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam.

At a press conference on Friday, Karam presented videos of two suspects who confessed to allegedly carrying out the killings of the students. They claimed that the students from Ayotzinapa were taken in large trucks to a dump in nearby village of Cocula where some of them where shot dead while others died from bags placed over their heads. The corpses were then thrown into the dump and burned for six to fifteen hours before being disposed into a river.

"The confessions we have gathered ... very sadly point to the murder of a large number of people," said Karam.

Despite the confessions, Karam kept open the investigation while forensics tests are conducted to properly identify the remains.

On September 26th, several dozen students were riding local buses back to their school following a protest over job discrimination in Iguala.  That evening, armed men from the town of Iguala fired upon the buses and killed three passengers while others fled in terror.  Eyewitnesses claimed that local police shot at some of the escaping students while others were caught and bundled into police vehicles.

Ongoing Protests in Solidarity with Missing Mexican Students (Updated)

University students in several parts of Mexico are protesting on Wednesday as part of a continuing push for the safe return of 43 young adults missing for more than a month.

At least one hundred protesters have taken control of several highways of access Mexico City today and have allowed motorists to avoid paying at the tollbooths. The demonstrators reportedly include pupils from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) and are calling for support of the students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state who have disappeared since September 26th. 

In addition, students from the IPN and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) plan to take control of the radio stations to their respective schools and provide messages of support for the families of those missing.  Meanwhile, both teachers and students at one of the campuses of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) have suspended classes today as part of their own protest.

Today’s events are part of three days of action planned by several universities with the aim of calling to justice those responsible for the missing students, defend public education and criticize state-sponsored violence.  Students, teachers and other demonstrators plan to march in Mexico City on Friday, for example.

On September 26th, were riding local buses back to their school in Ayotzinapa following a protest over job discrimination in Iguala.  That evening, armed men from the town of Iguala fired upon the buses and killed three passengers while others fled in terror.  Eyewitnesses claimed that local police shot at some of the escaping students while others were caught and bundled into police vehicles.

Breaking: Mexican Drug Capo Caught? (Updated: Yes)

Mexican officials claimed one of the country's most wanted drug lords, Hector Beltran Leyva, was apprehended on Wednesday.

The chief of Mexico's criminal investigations bureau, Tomás Zerón de Lucio, said at a news conference that the suspected head of the Beltran Levya drug gang was nabbed while eating at a seafood restaurant in Guanajuato state.  Hector was allegedly nabbed in a rapid operation where not even a single shot was fired and at the end of an eleven-month law enforcement investigation.
 

Zerón noted that the man nicknamed "El H" maintained a low profile by pretending to be a local businessmen involved in real estate and the buying and selling of art.
Hector was believed to have lead the Beltran Levya drug cartel since the death of his brother Arturo in a 2009 shootout with Mexican troops. (Two other Beltran Levya brothers are currently in prison over their respective roles with the drug gang). 

Two U.S. federal courts have indicted Hector while U.S. officials placed a $5 million bounty on top of the $3.7 million reward offered by Mexican authorities for his capture.

The Beltran Leyva cartel, which was originally part of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa drug gang, has been blamed for trafficking cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine.
  
According to the Associated Press, Hector presided over a cartel that had been weakened but supposedly trying to regain strength:

Daily Headlines: June 20, 2014

* Latin America: Today is World Refugee Day and according to the U.N. the number of refugees in Latin America is expected to rise this year as a result of “increasing violence from new criminal entities.”

* Ecuador: As Julian Assange’s stay in the Ecuadorean embassy in London moves past its second year, Ecuador's Foreign Minister admitted that talks with Britain to safely release the WikiLeaks founder have reached a legal “impasse.”

* Cuba: Russia state-owned firm Rosneft is reportedly seeking an agreement that would allow for the exploration of potentially lucrative Cuban offshore oil fields.

* Mexico: Legislative approval of a major energy reform backed by President Enrique Peña Nieto has been delayed due to opposition from both the left and right in Mexico’s Congress.

Video Source – YouTube user The VJ Movement (Video uploaded in 2011 shows Colombian refugees laboring as sex workers in neighboring Ecuador).
 
Online Sources – Newsweek; The Wire; Reuters; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Daily Headlines: June 2, 2014

* Spain: King Juan Carlos I of Spain will abdicated his throne after nearly four decades that included numerous accomplishments like promoting better political, economic and cultural ties with the Latin America.

* Colombia: 2013 Tour de France runner-up Nairo Quintana of Colombia became the first Latin American cyclist to win the Giro d'Italia while his compatriot, Rigoberto Uran, finished in second.

* Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto announced that the government would spend some $4.5 billion to modernize ports throughout Mexico.

* Latin America: Mexico’s Luis Montes and Ecuador’s Segundo Castillo will miss the upcoming World Cup after they both collided with each another during a friendly match on Saturday.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube

Online Sources – CNN; The Latin Americanist; ESPM; SI.com; LAHT

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: December 2, 2013

* Latin America: According to the U.N., Latin America is the region that provides the highest proportion of AIDS treatment coverage though several countries have seen an increase in HIV infection in seniors over 60 years old.

* Mexico: A poll released days before the one year anniversary of the inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto found that his popularity has fallen and more Mexicans disapprove him than back him.

* Costa Rica: Costa Rica, which is a country labeled by the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation as a tax haven, signed a deal with the U.S. to comply with a new anti-tax evasion law starting next year.

* Honduras: Thousands of supporters of defeated opposition presidential candidate Xiomara Castro protested the results of the November 24th election that she claimed where "fraudulent."

Video Source - YouTube via Metro Guatemala (Dozens of Guatemalans held a vigil in order to commemorate World AIDS Day, which was observed on December 1st).

Online Sources - GlobalPost; Reuters; The Guardian

Mexico, Brazil Seek Answers Over U.S. Spying Claims

The governments of Mexico and Brazil are each looking for answers from U.S. officials over new allegations of intelligence surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, was summoned by the Mexican government to explain the supposed spying of President Enrique Peña Nieto during his campaign for the presidency.

“The Mexican government requested via a diplomatic later that the U.S. government undergo a thorough investigation and, where appropriate, identify those responsible” behind the surveillance, according to a statement from the Mexican foreign minister (SRE in Spanish).

The SRE communiqué also reportedly mentioned that the Mexican government doesn’t prejudge the surveillance allegations but “rejects and categorically condemns any spying of citizens from that country as a violation of international law”.

On Sunday, Brazilian TV network O Globe aired a report where journalist Glen Greenwald divulged several secret documents obtained from former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.  Some of those papers detailed then-candidate Peña Nieto’s campaign actions weeks before the election including his potential cabinet choices.

The O Globo report also accused the NSA of examining communications between aides of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff as well as the use of software to access all internet content that Rousseff visited online.

Another NSA document on U.S. geopolitical challenges through 2019 named Mexico and described Brazil as a possible “stressor” to regional stability and a potential risk to U.S. interests.