Calle 13 plan Central America prison concert

Puerto Rican reggaeton duo Calle 13 is no stranger to politically charged music whether it is denouncing police brutality or solidarity with Chilean protesters. They are working on their latest project whose goal is to call attention to the problem of urban violence throughout Latin America. As part of this project, the group announced this week that they will record the music video for the single “La bala” (The Bullet) in Mexico and also is reportedly seeking a director for a planned documentary on street violence. More ambitiously, however, the duo reportedly plans to perform at a unique venue: a Guatemalan prison.

According to one of Calle 13’s members:

“This is one of our projects: to go to a maximum security prison where the “maras” are located in order to give a concert that will also be transmitted online,” said “Visitante”, whose real name is Eduardo José Cabra. His announcement was made in Guadalajara where Calle 13 is on tour…to promote their new album "Vamos a portarnos mal" (We are going to misbehave).

During the press conference fellow group member Rene “Residente” Perez also floated the idea of having a “student concert” at the campus of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). He claimed that this notion came about as part of the duo’s solidarity with Chilean student protesters.

It is estimated that hundreds of people each year including disenchanted youth and deportees from the U.S. with criminal records join Central American street gangs.

Image- EFE via El Informador
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Fox News Latino, AFP, El Informador, Milenio, impre.com

Daily Headlines: November 24, 2010

* Cuba: The country’s baseball federation may reportedly allow ballplayers to play in other countries though it would exclude the Major Leagues due to the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

* Venezuela: Italy’s Eni will join with Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA in a $17 billion oil project in the Orinoco basin area.

* Brazil: Hundreds of additional police were deployed in Rio de Janeiro in order to combat in uptick in gang violence.

* Argentina: The government has requested the International Monetary Fund to help redesign an inflation index that is supposedly inaccurate.

Image – Reuters (Alexei Ramirez, seen here playing for Cuba at the 2006 World Baseball Classic, defected in 2007 and currently plays for the Chicago White Sox.)
Online Sources- BusinessWeek, Reuters, Miami Herald, BBC News

Weekend Headlines: June 26-27, 2010

* Brazil: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised $300 million in emergency aid to villagers whose towns were swept away by deadly floods.

* El Salvador: The U.S. and El Salvador pledged to share records of deportees as a move to combat gang violence.

* Latin America: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began yesterday his state visit of Latin America that will include stops in Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina.

* Guatemala: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights blasted the Guatemalan government over the 1981 disappearance and possible murder of a prominent indigenous rights activist.

Image – CBC (“A boy stands next to a damaged car after heavy flooding in Agua Preta in Brazil's Pernambuco state, Brazil, on Tuesday. Brazilian rescuers continue to search for 600 people declared missing.”)
Online Sources- BBC News, Washington Post, AFP, LAHT

El Salvador: Gang violence kills fourteen

The murder of a northern Mexico mayor was the latest killing in a nation wracked by violence related to drug gangs. Several hundred miles south, however, the Central American country of El Salvador is reeling after brazen attacks against innocent civilians.

According to police street gang members were behind the deaths of sixteen people on Sunday. In the first attack, witnesses described armed men on motorcycle stopping a bus in San Salvador, dousing the vehicle with gasoline, and set it ablaze. Rescuers tried to save passengers by breaking windows after the assailants reportedly blocked the exit doors.

Ten minutes after that incident gunmen boarded another bus and opened fire, killing three people including two girls.

Eight suspects have thus far been arrested in the attacks that President Mauricio Funes labeled as “acts of terrorism.” Despite an increased crackdown on gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha, violence by criminal groups such as extorting bus companies continues to be common in El Salvador. It’s no wonder then that some Salvadorans opt to flee their country:

(Jose) Alfaro Peralta returned to San Salvador in 2005 after working for 40 years in Los Angeles and set up a small grocery store. But the unrelenting violence in his Salvadoran neighborhood has made life here impossible, he said. He plans to return to Los Angeles.



"I gave my statement today to the state prosecutor, and you know what he told me? He said I'd better go back because here there is no safety."

Image- CNN
Online Sources- Los Angeles Times, Reuters, AP, AHN, AFP, BBC News

Head choppings shock Guatemala

Some stories tragically speak for themselves:

Three human heads and three decapitated bodies with notes aimed at high government officials were found Thursday in different parts of Guatemala's capital, national police said.

The notes were addressed to Interior Minister Carlos Menocal and Eddy Morales, the nation's director of prisons. One of the notes said the officials must impose order in the nation's prisons or these atrocities would continue, police said. The other said that impunity against lawlessness must end, according to police...

"That's obviously a first for Guatemala," said Samuel Logan, an expert on Latin American gangs and founding editor of the Southern Pulse intelligence report. "That's something we've seen the Zetas (drug cartel) do in Mexico."

Online Source: CNN

Image: Reuters

Daily Headlines: April 26, 2010

* Cuba: Dissident group the Ladies in White was once again harassed and “manhandled by government supporters” while trying to march in Havana.

* U.S.: Hundreds of people rallied yesterday in the Arizonan capital of Tucson in protest against a controversial immigration proposal that was signed into law last Friday.

* Latin America: According to the International Monetary Fund Latin America is “recovering nicely” from the global economic crisis though results vary from country to country.

* El Salvador: Are Salvadoran street gangs a U.S. security threat similar to terrorists? One FBI agent thinks so.

Image – Reuters (“Members of the "Ladies in White", a group made up of family members of imprisoned dissidents, hold up flowers and gesture as they tried to march in Havana April 18, 2010.”)
Online Sources- International Monetary Fund, Los Angeles Times, The Latin Americanist, CNN, Washington Post

Daily Headlines: October 17, 2008

* Argentina: Officials with the D.E.A. claimed that Argentina is becoming “an increasingly important hub” in the distribution of meth by Mexican gangs to the U.S.

* Latin America: Despite some gains earlier this week, Latin American stocks suffered modest losses in trading on Thursday.

* El Salvador: The U.S. government granted El Salvador $2.6 million in order to combat gang violence.

* Honduras: Thirteen Cuban migrants arrived on the Honduran shore after spending roughly two weeks at sea on a makeshift boat.

Image- Canada.com
Sources- IHT, UPI, miamiherald.com, forbes.com

Daily Headlines: September 11, 2008

* Venezuela: “It's a show. The trial is fixed,” declared President Hugo Chavez as he blasted the “Maletagate” trial currently underway in a U.S. federal court.

* Mexico: Telecom billionaire Carlos Slim- reportedly the world's second-richest man- purchased a 6.4% stake in the New York Times Company.

* Guatemala: A U.N. report called for Guatemalan authorities to do more in eliminating the “illegal bodies and clandestine structures encrusted in many public arenas.”

* U.S.: A federal appeals court denied Jose Santos-Lemus’ request for asylum despite his claims that Salvadoran gangs killed his brother and threatened his family.

Image- washingtonpost.com (“Guido Antonini Wilson was detained with nearly $800,000 in cash. (Marcelo Hernandez - Associated Press).”)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, Middle East Times, SFGate.com, New York Times, Reuters

SanFran murder case highlights “sanctuary” policy

San Francisco has served as a “sanctuary city” for immigrants since 1989; a view that despite carrying no legal weight has been reinforced by Mayor Gavin Newsom. Yet a triple murder case involving an immigrant has brought harsher than usual criticism against the policy.

Twenty-one-year-old Edwin Ramos- an El Salvadoran suspected of being an MS-13 gang member- pled not guilty to the triple murder of a father. Ramos' immigration status has been disputed by lawyers and officials, while local and federal authorities have blamed one another for Ramos being out on the streets:

The (San Francisco) Chronicle reported on Sunday how Ramos, a native of El Salvador, was repeatedly shielded as a juvenile from deportation by city officials who failed to notify federal authorities of separate assault and attempted robberies he committed when he was 17.

Things took an unexplained turn earlier this year when Ramos, now a 21-year-old adult, was jailed on gun and gang allegations in San Francisco. Federal and local officials struggled Monday to explain the circumstances surrounding his release - given that his status as an illegal immigrant was known to federal authorities - when local prosecutors didn't file charges.

Ramos’ case has led to a firestorm on numerous talk shows over San Francisco’s “sanctuary” policy; right-wing commentator Bill O’Reilly lent his opinion earlier this week, for example.

Regardless over the rabble-rousing on immigration or whether Ramos’ committed the murders or not, the fact of the matter is that a woman is mourning the deaths of her husband and kids. Our sympathies go out for her and in the end she deserves for justice to be served.

Image- KCBS

Sources- FOX News, SFist, SFGate.com

Violence getting out of hand in Mexico

The title to this post may be stating the obvious, but the past few days have been especially sanguinary and brutal in the battles between police and drug gangs in Mexico.

According to local media reports, over 120 people were killed in the past week due to gang violence including at least 21 people in the western state of Sinaloa. Authorities estimate that on Thursday alone 16 people were killed in separate incidents including the execution of a police chief in Chihuahua.

Mexican president Felipe Calderon has continued to stand by his aggressive anti-crime plan; “we are determined to recover streets that never should have ceased being ours,” said Calderon in May while attending the memorial of a slain officer. Yet the seemingly out-of-control violence has increasingly claimed the lives of innocent civilians and has had a very strong impact on migration into the U.S.:

Dozens of Mexicans — including police officers, businessmen, at least one prosecutor and a journalist — are asking for political asylum in the U.S. in a desperate and probably hopeless bid to escape an unprecedented wave of drug-related killings and kidnappings south of the border…

"It's hard. I've been doing this work for 25 years. I've been a reporter for 25 years," said newspaperman Emilio Gutierrez Soto, who is seeking asylum. "We had a life there, a house, my family. It's my country. But it's not safe for a journalist."

Image- AFP (Policemen carry on the coffins of three officers killed…in Culiacan, Sinaloa State”)

Sources- Los Angeles Times, The Latin Americanist, Houston Chronicle, Newsday.com, La Plaza, Canada.com, Monsters & Critics

Daily Headlines: June 25, 2008

* Central America: An operation conducted in the U.S. and El Salvador led to the arrest of 26 people accused of being part of the notorious MS-13 gang.

* U.S.: Communicable diseases common in certain regions like Latin America have increasingly infected people in the U.S. according to a scientific study.

* Venezuela: A heavy-carb big breakfast could be the key to cutting cravings and losing weight, says one scientific study led by a Venezuelan doctor.

* Haiti: Could a woman by the country’s next prime minister?

Image- CNN (“Police arrest a suspected MS-13 member during an April operation targeting the gang in El Salvador.”)

Sources- AFP, Bloomberg, Monsters & Critics, ZDNet Healthcare

Daily Headlines: June 17, 2008

* Cuba: “Fidel (Castro) is sitting there, alive and well,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as he continues his visit of Havana.

* Brazil: Authorities arrested eleven soldiers accused of cooperating with a Rio de Janeiro gang.

* Argentina: Anti-government protestors banged on pots and pans and called for the Kirchner administration to drop its plan to raise export taxes.

* Bolivia: The U.S. ambassador to Bolivia was ordered to return to Washington in the aftermath of protests last week in La Paz.

Sources- Voice of America, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Age

Image- Guardian UK (“Hugo Chavez visits Fidel Castro in hospital, August 2006.”)

Bloggers of the world unite!

• Anarchy in the U.K. Argentina?
• Former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda talks about immigration in his newest novel.
• The sad tale of the parents of gang members indoctrinating their kids from a very early age.
• El Salvador will expand its contingent of troops to the Middle East, but how will the public take it?
• Guatemalan bloggers keep the memory alive of those who have “disappeared.”
• Boricua legislators rejected a proposal to ban same-sex marriage in Puerto Rico.
• Lastly, two blogs examine at a story we talked about last week: the use of telenovelas to lower fertility rates.

Sources- Inside South America, Two Weeks Notice, The Latin Americanist, kottke.org, Gothamist, Tim’s El Salvador Blog, Global Voices Online, The Plainsman Politico, Freakanomics

Image- CNN (“People on Saturday wave flags at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires backing the government's decisions.”)

Sheriff Arpaio misused funds in Honduras?

In a game of good cop/bad cop Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio would undoubtedly fit the role of “bad cop.” His persona is that of a no nonsense officer with little respect for lawbreakers that includes a very tough anti-immigrant stance.

Arpaio’s views have been loved by some and loathed by others yet the latest controversy involves the “Bay Islands Sister Agency Project for Justice and Service”.

Arizonan senator Bob Burns wants to look into the spending of $30,000 for the project which was used to send state employees to Honduras. Burns has raised doubts over RICO funds that paid for the project and were said to be used to combat violence by gangs such as MS-13. However, some officials don’t believe Arizona is under serious threat from MS-13:

“A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Honduras does not play a significant role when it comes to organized crime in Arizona. “Obviously there are Hondurans involved in criminal enterprises here in the state of Arizona. But when you look at human smuggling and narcotics, that’s all going to be driven mostly by Mexican citizens. They are more familiar with the border area. They have the infrastructure here that supports those criminal activities,” said Vincent Picard, ICE Spokesperson.

Arpaio fully backed the program though yesterday he decided to suspend it due to the county’s “budget crunch”.

Sources- Wikipedia, Arizona Republic, azcentral.com, KTAR, CNN

Image- Village Voice

Daily Headlines: December 17, 2007

* Brazilian Kaka’s goal and two assists were key in leading AC Milan to a 4-2 win in the World Club Cup final over Argentine side Boca Juniors.

* The American Bar Association backtracked from naming former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “Lawyer of the Year” and will instead deem him “Newsmaker of the Year”.

* Central American gangs have undergone an “extreme makeover” in their recruiting and operations, according to the Associated Press.

* The first joint space launch between Brazil and Argentina was carried out successfully yesterday.

* Follow-up: Last week’s floods and rains caused by Tropical Storm Olga in the Caribbean has raised the official death count to 38 people.

Sources- Guardian UK, The Latin Americanist, BBC News, USA TODAY, Wonkette, Associated Press

Image- BBC Sport

Video of the Day: Everybody panic!

If you take the Aztlan “threat” gibberish too seriously then you’ll probably fall for the following Tom Tancredo ad hook, line, and sinker.

(Video link):

(Hat tip: Wonkette).

Sources- illegalaliens.us, YouTube, Wonkette

MLB drops licensed gang caps

Sports blog Deuce of Davenport recently picked up a story where Major League Baseball (MLB) officially licensed ball caps with colors and symbols of gangs like the Latin Kings. As they reported from Fox News’ New York City affiliate (naturally):

"Companies involved should not profit from the promotion of gang affiliation, which leads only to gang violence," the activists, who call themselves the Coalition to Protect Our Children, said in a statement. The coalition is concerned that unsuspecting kids could buy one of the hats, wear it in the wrong turf and then be targeted for attack.
The group marched in East Harlem Thursday and pressured local shops to pull the caps from their shelves. One store operator agreed to do so.”

Despite New Era representatives claiming that “they had no idea” that the caps were being licensed, New Era and MLB agreed today to stop making the controversial headwear.

Apparently they were afraid that the following people would wear it:

• Impressionable, albeit stupid, children
• Hipsters looking past Von Dutch caps for the next fad
• Journalists angling for an easy story

(Hat tip: Deadspin).

Sources- Deuce of Davenport, MyFoxNY.com, Deadspin

Image- MyFoxNY.com (New York Yankees cap festooned with the colors and symbols of the Latin Kings gang)

Daily Headlines: July 31, 2007

* It was exactly one year ago today in Cuba that Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother Raul. More on that later today (tomorrow; I promise).

* Follow-up: Peruvian president Alan Garcia criticized his own mandate as protests continue throughout the country.

* Latin American stocks rallied during trading on Monday as investors were advised to buy in growing firms.

* Canada and Argentina have agreed to start discussions on a new nuclear power plant in the South American nation.

* Spain’s government is encouraging the Guatemalan legislature to pass a measure creating special anti-gang commission.

* Investigators are looking into the cause of a subway accident in Caracas, Venezuela that killed one person.

Sources (English)- Bloomberg, International Herald Tribune, El Universal, Reuters Canada, The Latin Americanist

Sources (Spanish)- El Diairo/La Prensa

Image- Toward Freedom (Violence and unrest in Peru have escalated over the past few weeks)