Daily Headlines: September 5, 2016

* Argentina: The indigenous Mapuche community in Argentina is campaigning against fracking at one of the world’s top shale gas producing sites that has caused environmental damage including groundwater pollution.

* South America: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was reportedly chased by demonstrators during a visit to Margarita Island, while tens of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets of several major Brazilian cities yesterday.

* Ecuador: A 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Ecuadoran capital city of Quito nearly five months after a stronger tremor killed at least 700 people and caused some $2 billion in damages.

* Puerto Rico: Now that Congress returned today from its summer recess, will federal legislators soon back a plan to combat the spread of the Zika virus in Puerto Rico?

YouTube Source – AJ+ (“From September 2014: “The Mapuche (people indigenous to Argentina's Patagonia region) have long fought for their land and rights. Now they're witnessing the side effects of fracking, and taking action to keep oil companies off the land.”)

Online Sources – UPI, Fox News Latino, BBC News, Reuters, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: July 28, 2014

* Chile: A series of “violent attacks” this month in southern Chile have increased tensions between the government and the indigenous Mapuche community.

* Nicaragua: Did a bus driver plan recent deadly attacks against Nicaraguan political activists or is he being used as a “scapegoat”?

* Bolivia: Workers at a construction site in the Bolivian mountain city of Potosi uncovered a mass grave with the remains of some 400 people.

* Mexico: Thirty-two police officers including the former top public safety chief of a town in Michoacán were arrested over alleged ties to drug gangs.

Video Source – YouTube user canaltvu tvu (At least two Chilean police officers were injured during a confrontation with members of the Mapuche community.)

Online Sources – New Zealand Herald; VICE News; NDTV; BBC News

Daily Headlines: March 25, 2013

* Caribbean: Legendary Afro-Cuban jazz musician Bebo Valdes passed away last Friday at the age of 94.

* El Salvador: Hundreds of people marched in San Salvador on Palm Sunday and called for the sainthood of the assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero.

* Mexico: Scientists from Mexico's National Institute for Anthropology and History located three ancient playing fields at the at the Tajin World Heritage site.

* Chile: Approximately 500 members of the indigenous Mapuche community attended the funeral of recently deceased tribal chief Logko Pascual Pichun.

Online Sources - Billboard.com; Miami Herald; BBC News; Jakarta Post

Daily Headlines: January 7, 2013

* Venezuela: Chavistas and opposition politicos continue to be at loggerheads over the health of ailing President Hugo Chavez who is supposed to be inaugurated on Thursday for a third straight term.
    
* Chile: President Sebastián Piñera announced the application of Chile's tough Pinochet era anti-terrorism law as a result of increased tensions with indigenous Mapuche activists.

* Mexico: Could Canada’s guest worker program for Mexicans serve as an example for the U.S. to emulate?
 
* Colombia: Honduras’ ambassador to Colombia resigned after it was discovered that a bacchanalian holiday party was held at the embassy in Bogota last month.

Video Source – YouTube via euronews

Online Sources- Businessweek, Huffington Post, VOXXI, The Guardian

Daily Headlines: September 5, 2012

* Mexico: Authorities arrested Mario Cardenas, one of the suspected leaders of the Gulf drug trafficking gang, and presented him to the media yesterday.

* Colombia: Now it’s official – the Colombian government and FARC guerillas will start peace negotiations next month in Oslo, Norway.

* Haiti: Will a huge billboard located along I-95 in south Florida help boost tourism in Haiti?

* Chile: Indigenous Mapuche protesters agreed to end their 39-day occupation of UNICEF offices in Santiago.

Video Source – YouTube via user ElUniversalTV

Online Sources- UPI, MSNBC, The Latin Americanist, CBS Miami, Santiago Times

Today’s Video: Injustice in Chile

The Chilean government and indigenous Mapuche activists have had an uneasy relationship in recent years. Tensions worsened over the past week after authorities accused the Mapuche of setting off major wildfires followed by the suspected arson of an indigenous leader's house over the weekend.

In the latest incident a magistrate on Wednesday ordered an investigation into a suspected case of brutality by the military police (or Carabineros) against a Mapuche woman and her one-year-old son. Judge Federico Gutiérrez also called on the Carabineros to "respect the law through their actions" after permitting as evidence amateur video showing the alleged aggression by police.

Gutiérrez ordered the release of two women from custody who where arrested yesterday after being accused of disturbing the peace by supposedly participating in an attempted highway blockade.

Gen. Iván Bezmalinovic, the Carabineros chief in the region where the occurrence took place, claimed that one of the Mapuche apparently lunged at the officers but he also admitted that he will examine the video "frame by frame" to see if there was abuse by the police. See for yourself the video of the incident that took place in the presence of several seemingly traumatized children:

Online Sources - Univision.com, La Tercera, NPR, BBC News,The Latin Americanist

Video Source - YouTube via ELHERALDOINTERNET

Weekend Headlines: January 7-8, 2012

* Chile: Is the government correct or scapegoating Mapuche indigenous activists who are accused of intentionally setting off wildfires in central Chile?

* Argentina: According to a team of doctors President Cristina Kirchner did not have thyroid cancer as was originally diagnosed yet the “surgical treatment performed (last Wednesday) is sufficient.”

* Mexico: Authorities captured the supposed mastermind behind last year’s Casino Royale arson in Monterrey that killed fifty-people.

* U.S.: The Labor Department revealed yesterday that the unemployment rate for Latinos dropped by 0.4% last month to 11.0%.

Video Source – YouTube via teleSUR English

Online Sources- Bloomberg, NPR, Voice of America, Hispanically Speaking News

Daily Headlines: December 1, 2011

* Honduras: The Honduran legislature voted in favor of deploying troops in order to combat organized crime and drug traffickers.

* Latin America: Haiti and Venezuela are among the world’s most corrupt countries according to a report released by Transparency International.

* Mexico: The Interior Department reprimanded officials in Sonora for publicly discussing the criminal record of a recently killed anti-crime activist.

* Chile: A Chilean court convicted a police officer and sentenced him to five years in prison for the shooting death of an indigenous Mapuche man.

Image Source – Flickr via madmack66 (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources - Reuters, MSNBC, The Guardian, UNPO

Daily Headlines: October 11, 2011

* Brazil: Sugar mills in Sao Paulo state shutdown roughly a month early as national domestic output is expected to fall for the first time in six years.

* Chile: An estimated ten thousand people marched in solidarity with the indigenous Mapuche community in a protest held on Columbus Day.

* Haiti: According to Doctors Without Borders the number of cholera cases in Port-au-Prince has nearly tripled over the past few weeks.

* Peru: President Ollanta Humala fired two-thirds of the generals in the country's national police force as part of a reported push to combat corruption.

* Puerto Rico: A former Puerto Rican health secretary could face Gov. Luis Fortuño in a gubernatorial primary.

* Uruguay: Is the small South American nation of Uruguay on the verge of becoming a “major exporter of natural gas”?

Image – Via Flickr user cliff1066

Online Sources- Bloomberg, BBC News, Mercopress, MSNBC, LAHT, UPI

Daily Headlines: June 10, 2011

* Guatemala: Authorities arrested former police chief Hector Bol de la Cruz who is accused of masterminding the kidnapping and disappearance of a “student union leader” during the Guatemalan civil war.

* Chile: Four imprisoned Mapuche activists protesting Chile’s controversial dictatorship-era, “anti-terrorism” ended their 86-day hunger strike on Thursday.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos is expected to sign a landmark victims' law days after rights leader Ana Fabricia Cordoba was murdered.

* South America: Over 100 flights throughout Latin America were cancelled as a result of a massive ash cloud from the eruption of Chile’s Puyehue volcano.

Image – AP via BBC News (“More than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, most at the hands of the security forces.”)
Online Sources- MSNBC, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Globe and Mail

Follow-up: Chile court rejects retrial for Mapuche strikers

Yesterday we examined the case of four imprisoned indigenous Mapuche activists who have been on a hunger strike since the middle of March. The protesters, who were hospitalized this week due to their fragile health, sought a retrial after they were convicted under a controversial dictatorship-era law. (That law severely limits the legal rights of the accused including permitting the state to hold people for up to two years without charges and the use of anonymous witnesses during trials).

Earlier today the Chilean Supreme Court refused to grant the strikers a retrial. The tribunal ruled to annul one of the convictions against the four men and, thus, reduces their prison sentences. Nonetheless, the court upheld another conviction for assault, which means that three of the protesters would have to serve prison sentences of 8 years while the group’s “leader” faces 14 years behind bars.

Mapuche spokeswoman Natividad Llanquileo deemed the decision as “unacceptable” and added that she would take the four men’s cases to the international courts. Meanwhile, the prisoners vowed to continue their hunger strike, which reached its 81st day on Friday.

According to local reports, police arrested twelve Mapuche demonstrators who gathered outside of the La Moneda presidential palace.

The Chilean government has yet to make a public declaration regarding today’s verdict. Both current President Sebastián Piñera and his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, have strongly defended the controversial anti-terrorism law that opponents view as unjust and draconian:

It is necessary "to bring our ant-terrorism legislation into line with the standards of democracies in the developed world, but that must not mean that we let our guard down against this cruel, merciless scourge, which is itself a grave violation of basic rights," Piñera said in his annual state of the nation address on Saturday May 21.

"It's true that after 2001 (the 9/11 attacks in Washington and New York), powers to combat terrorism at a global level increased…but in the case of this Chilean law, it allows crimes against property to be treated as terrorist crimes, which is disproportionate," (attorney Julio) Cortés said.

Image- 123.cl
Online Sources- UNPO, La Nacion, La Tercera, Terra.com, The Latin Americanist, 123.cl, teleSUR, Houston Chronicle

Chile: Mapuche hunger strike enters eightieth day

For several decades, Chile’s government and indigenous Mapuche activists haven’t seen eye-to-eye with each other. One of the more pressing concerns is the application of a dictatorship-era law that limits the legal rights of the accused including permitting the state to hold people for up to two years without charges. (Mapuche leaders claimed that the law is used to specifically target members of their community).

Several Mapuche activists who have been imprisoned under the aforementioned law have gone on hunger strikes and have gotten some concessions from the government. On Thursday a hunger strike by four incarcerated activists protest seeking a retrial reached an eightieth day. The protesters are all very ill and two of them, Héctor Llaitul and Jonathan Huillical, were transferred to a local hospital due to the fragile medical state. (One of them allegedly lost as much as 90 pounds).

The Archbishop of Concepción, Fernando Chomalí, visited the strikers this week and he subsequently told the press that the Church “is not indifferent” to their situation. The Mapuche case “is a human problem, not a judicial one” said Chomali who may serve as an intermediary much like his predecessor, Ricardo Ezzati.

Protests in solidarity with the strikers were held in recent days in several European countries. One group of French demonstrators on Wednesday chained themselves for several hours to the Chilean embassy in Paris.

In response to the strikers, government spokeswoman Ena von Baer said that the Pinera administration “100% fulfilled the promises made at the previous negotiation table” last year. Despite government claims that the four strikers were not tried under the controversial anti-terrorism law penal public defender Paula Vial rejected such an assertion.

As discussed in the below video, the Chilean Supreme Court is expected to decide on Friday if the strikers are owed a retrial:

Video Source – teleSUR via YouTube
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, LAHT, La Segunda, La Nacion, La Tercera, terra.com, UNPO

Daily Headlines: September 30, 2010

* U.S.: Rest in peace Greg Giraldo; the comedian of Spanish and Colombian decent died yesterday possibly from an accidental overdose of prescription medicine.

* Venezuela: Two inmates could soon be freed after they were elected to the Venezuelan legislature in Sunday’s elections.

* Nicaragua: A representative of President Daniel Ortega received a petition with 37,000 signatures advocating for the decriminalization of Nicaragua’s strict anti-abortion laws.

* Chile: Three jailed Mapuches joined 35 of their fellow companions in a hunger strike against alleged government repression.

Image – New York Daily News
Online Sources- Sify, El Universal, LAHT, CBS News, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: September 22, 2010

* Brazil: Brazil, along with the emerging economies of India and China, have over taken the U.S. as the best places to invest according to a Bloomberg survey.

* Cuba: The Castro regime continues to make major changes in response to a weak economy; the latest move was the firing of a key cabinet member.

* Chile: While Chileans celebrate the bicentennial, the government and jailed Mapuche activists continue to air their disagreements with each other.

* Ecuador: Is there an Italian term similar to schadenfreude?

Image – The Globe and Mail (“A technician of the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras works on the GASENE natural gas pipeline in Itabuna, Bahia state.”)
Online Sources- Goal.com, LAHT, Miami Herald, The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg

Daily Headlines: September 13, 2010

* Brazil: One of Latin America’s top architects, Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, received Spain's Arts and Letters medal last Friday.

* Uruguay: Soccer matches nationwide were suspended over the weekend due to the tragic death of defender Diego Rodriguez.

* Chile: Four legislators have joined 34 Mapuche inmates in a hunger strike against alleged government repression.

* U.S.: A federal appeals court voided an anti-immigration law in the Pennsylvania town of Hazelton that was opposed by local Latino activists.

Image – EFE (Spanish culture minister Ángeles González-Sinde gave Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer one of her country’s top arts awards).
Online Sources- Yahoo! Eurosport, Reuters, MSNBC, USA TODAY

Daily Headlines: October 27, 2009

* Puerto Rico: Was last weekend’s massive fire at an oil storage facility an “act of sabotage” or an unfortunate accident?

* Brazil: French investigators will publish in December their next interim report on Air France Flight 447 which crashed off the Brazilian coast nearly five months ago.

* Mexico: Mexicans are divided over a recent video that revealed five accused thieves being harassed and abused by vigilantes.

* Chile: Members of the Mapuche indigenous community protested in Chile for their ancestral lands and “against police repression.”

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Los Angeles Times, Reuters, The Latin Americanist, UNPO, UPI

Daily Headlines: October 16, 2009

* Chile: Tensions between Chile’s government and the indigenous Mapuche are near the boiling point after the Bachelet administration controversially invoked a Dirty War-era law against violence.

* Latin America: According to an Inter-American Development Bank study Brazil has Latin America’s worst gender and racial gap while the margin in Bolivia and Guatemala is nearly zero.

* Mexico: Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested yesterday against the federal government’s closing of state-run energy firm Luz y Fuerza.

* Cuba: A U.S. federal judge reduced the sentence of one of the “Cuban Five” convicted over a decade ago of being a Cuban spy.

Image- Santiago Times ("Mapuche flag.")
Online Sources- Guardian UK, csmonitor.com, LAHT, The Latin Americanist, New York Times

Daily Headlines: August 25, 2009

* Latin America: Brazil and Bolivia confirmed their close economic ties as presidents of both nations cordially met in the province of Cochabamba.

* Chile: While tensions are still high between the Chilean government and the Mapuche, prosecutors are seeking ten years in jail for the policeman accused in the fatal shooting of an indigenous protestor last year.

* Guatemala: Activists have accused the Obama administration of preventing access to more affordable drugs in developing countries including Guatemala where supplies of AIDS drugs have diminished.

* Mexico: Students in the state of Chiapas will have to wait a little longer to return to school due to the swine flu.

Image- New York Times (“From left, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and President Evo Morales of Bolivia at a meeting” in February 2008.)
Online Sources- Mercopress, LAHT, The Latin Americanist, Los Angeles Times, CNN

Weekend Headlines: August 22-23, 2009

* Argentina: Argentina’s government along with Jewish groups are angry that Iran’s choice for defense minister is Ahmad Vahidi- a suspect in the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires.

* Mexico: A deal has reportedly been reached between Volkswagen and workers at its Puebla plant who went on a five-day strike.

* Chile: Chile’s government is reevaluating its plan to buy lands and redistributing to indigenous Mapuche communities in light of recent deadly clashes between police and demonstrators.

* Haiti: Authorities claimed that about 140,000 tons of emergency food has been stockpiled in preparation for possible hurricanes and tropical storms.

* Peru: Peru’s national men’s soccer team has rescinded a boycott of September’s World Cup qualifiers after several player demands were met.

* Cuba: The manager of Colombian singer Juanes said that he will go ahead with a planned September 20th peace concert in Havana despite receiving death threats.

Image- BBC News (Argentina has accused Iran’s government of masterminding the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people and injured hundreds.)
Online Sources- CNN, Wikipedia, Bloomberg, The Latin Americanist, LAHT, UPI, USA TODAY, BBC News

Daily Headlines: August 19, 2009

Before we give today’s headlines, I wish to apologize to all of you for the late time of this post. It’s inexcusable and hopefully won’t happen again anytime soon.

* Chile: A police officer was indicted by authorities for the shooting death of an indigenous Mapuche last week.

* Honduras: Police brutality in Honduras has been rampant in the seven weeks since President Manuel Zelaya was ousted according to a report released today by Amnesty International.

* Mexico: Workers at the Puebla Volkswagen plant have gone on strike and are seeking higher wages.

* Caribbean: Days after running a world record 9.58 seconds in the 100-meters at the World Championships, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt is aiming for another top performance in the 200-meter dash.

Image- El Ciudadano (The colors of the Mapcuhe flag fly in Chile)
Online Sources- LAHT, The Latin Americanist, CNN, Reuters, BBC Sport, YouTube