Daily Headlines: August 26, 2016

* Bolivia: Protesting Bolivian President Evo Morales accused protesting miners of being part of a "political conspiracy rather than a legitimate social claim" following the beating and death of Deputy Interior Minster Rodolfo Illanes.

* United States: A poll showed 61% of respondents including majorities across racial lines condemned presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal for a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.

* Venezuela: The main opposition coalition called for rallies on September 1st in Caracas to support a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro that might be scheduled for next year.

* Uruguay: Has the plan to legally sell marijuana in Uruguay failed before it began or are concerns over limits on production and pricing overblown?

YouTube Source – No Comment TV (From August 13, 2016: “Miners' protest over ‘neoliberal’ agenda of Bolivian President Evo Morales ends in clashes with several people injured and hostages taken”).

Online Sources – Reuters, Latin American Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, NBC News

Daily Headlines: July 5, 2016

* Chile: The Chilean men’s soccer team on Sunday celebrated its recent Copa America Centenario triumph with an open-top bus parade in Santiago and a ceremony attended by 30,000 fans of La Roja at the Estadio Nacional.

* Latin America: New academic research indicates that Venezuela’s homicide rate is high but not as much as scholars believed, while the murder rate in El Salvador has fallen in recent months.

* Uruguay: The head of the Uruguayan National Drug Board said that officials are considering expanding an upcoming program to legally sell marijuana beyond pharmacies and into other retail options.

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan government ended its plan to save energy that was enacted last April and included electricity rationing, shortened work weeks for state employees and moving clocks forward half an hour.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources – Goal.com, Vice News, InSight Crime, Xinhua, Lift

Daily Headlines: April 22, 2016

* South America: Nine teams from Brazil and Argentina advanced to the round of 16 of the Copa Libertadores bracket led by top seeds Atletico Nacional from Colombia and Mexico’s UNAM.

* Latin America: Soybean prices have dipped as a result of floods damaging the crop in Argentina, while Chile’s El Teniente copper mine restarted operations following days of heavy rainfall.

* Guatemala: The shooting death of a thirteen-year-old Guatemalan boy has led to increased tensions between the Central American country and neighboring Belize.
 
* Mexico: President Enrique Peña Nieto presented to Mexico’s Congress a plan to decriminalize the use of marijuana for personal use up to 28 grams and legalize medical marijuana.

YouTube Source – Football Mania (Defending Copa Libertadores titleholders River Plate of Argentina join eight former championship teams to the last sixteen of this year’s edition of the tournament).

Online Sources – Goal.com, Bloomberg, Reuters, Vice News, GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: January 28, 2016

* Brazil: A new spill has been reported at the same mine where a landslide of toxic sludge last November was deemed as the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history.

* Latin America: Should women avoid pregnancy in order to halt the spread of the Zika virus or is such a warning unnecessary?

* U.S.: A new study noted an increase in Latino college enrollment though most head to Hispanic-Serving Institutions found in a limited number of states.

* Mexico: Legislators in Mexico’s Congress began a series of discussions this week that could open the door to legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.

YouTube Source – euronews (At least seventeen people died after the Samarco dam mine in southwest Brazil overflowed last year).

Online Sources – Latin American Herald Tribune, ABC News, Reuters, NBC News, Quartz

Daily Headlines: December 31, 2015

* Chile: Education reform activists including those participating in protests since 2011 won a key victory when Congress approved a law last week dropping tuition for most state universities.

* Venezuela: Venezuelan opposition leaders blasted a high court ruling blocking the election of four legislators to the National Assembly and, thus, preventing a critical two-thirds supermajority for anti-government forces.

* Puerto Rico: 2016 will not start of well for Puerto Rico’s finances after Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla admitted that the commonwealth will default on $37 million of its $72 billion in public debt.

* Mexico: According to the Los Angeles Times, the relaxing of marijuana laws in several U.S. states has led to reduced earnings for Mexican drug gangs.

YouTube Source – AFP (Video uploaded in June 2015).
 
Online Sources – ABC News, Latin American Herald Tribune, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times

Daily Headlines: December 23, 2015

* Colombia: Colombia became the latest Latin American country to partially decriminalize marijuana use after President Juan Manuel Santos decreed the production and sale of the plant for medical use.

* Venezuela: The Venezuelan legislature approved stacking the Supreme Court with thirteen new judges less than two weeks before the opposition gains control of congress.

* Mexico: The number of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the Mexican border into the U.S. has dropped by 30% in the fiscal year 2015 and by 80% from the peak year in 2000 according to Border Patrol data.

* Guatemala: Guatemala is considering voluntarily taking in several thousand Cuban migrants stuck for the past few weeks in Costa Rica.

YouTube Source – AFP

Online Sources – Washington Post, Yahoo News, Vice News, teleSUR English

Daily Headlines: December 7, 2015

* Colombia: The Colombian government claimed to have found the world’s largest sunken treasure, a 300-year-old vessel carrying an estimated $17 billion, though the question of who owns the spoils could become a costly legal battle.

* Mexico: Seven countries including the U.S., Canada and France issued travel warnings to visitors journeying to Mexico after authorities believed that two missing Australian surfers were killed in Sonora.

* Nicaragua: “We do not want to be accomplices to the death, damages and destruction that a 3C or 4C world will represent,” declared Nicaragua’s representative to the COP21 summit after the Central American state became the first to publicly reject a global blueprint to combat climate change.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet reportedly signed a decree eliminating marijuana from a list of hard drugs in anticipation of an expected Congressional debate to reform Chile’s narcotics laws.

YouTube Source – euronews (“Colombia claims to have discovered what's been described as the 'holy grail' of shipwrecks of the coast of Cartagena”.)
 
Online Sources – teleSUR English, Financial Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor

Daily Headlines: November 10, 2015

* Argentina: “This is a result of our struggle, which we will continue until the other hundreds that are missing are found,” said Delia Giovanola de Califano after her grandson was positively identified as a victim of forced adoption during Argentine military rule.

* Mexico: In light of a Mexican Supreme Court ruling last week, President Enrique Peña Nieto expressed his willingness to open a “national debate” on drug use but is opposed to marijuana legalization.

* Uruguay: French firm Total and Exxon Mobil of the U.S. will collaborate to drill Uruguay's first offshore oil well that is located some 250 miles near Montevideo.

* U.S.: A new poll showed that Latino voters in fourteen battleground states prefer Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominees for the Republicans and Democrats, respectively.

YouTube Source – Agencia EFE

Online Sources – Buenos Aires Herald, The Guardian, The Latin Americanist, Fox News Latino, Reuters

Daily Headlines: November 5, 2015

* Colombia: The Mexican Supreme Court’s ruling on marijuana wasn’t the only key judicial decision made in Latin America yesterday as Colombian magistrates legalized adoptions by same-sex couples.

* U.S.: President Barack Obama will reportedly unveil as soon as this week a new plan to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and transfer inmates to mainland maximum security facilities.

* Latin America: Panamanian authorities claimed to have found a drug trafficking connection between Colombia’s FARC rebels and fugitive Mexican drug capo Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

* Puerto Rico: Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla introduced a plan to restructure the $8 billion debt held by Puerto Rico’s main electricity company.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English
 
Online Sources – NBC News, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, UPI, The Latin Americanist

Mexican Supreme Court Opens Door to Possible Marijuana Legalization

Mexico’s Supreme Court by a 4-1 margin ruled in a case on Wednesday that could open the door to legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.

A majority of magistrates of the high court’s criminal chamber declared unconstitutional portions of the national health law that have allowed he government to prohibit personal use of marijuana. The decision thus allows for the “ludic” use, growth and consuming of marijuana exclusively for personal usage.

“The Supreme Court calls on all institutions related to public policy on drugs to revise the current prohibitionist model,” said judge José Ramón Cossío. Doing so would help refocus the problems with drugs as a public health issue, he added.

“The absolute prohibition (of marijuana) is excessive and does not protect the right to health,” noted justice Olga Sánchez Cordero. “Recreational use of marijuana should be authorized in order to respect personal liberties,” she also mentioned.

The decision only applies to the four individual plaintiffs belonging to a cannabis club and who brought up the lawsuit, and the ruling does not have the power to overturn laws currently on the books regarding drugs.

Prior to the ruling, Mexican national security chief Manuel Mondragón expressed his rejection against any proposal to legalize marijuana. “I don’t want to live in a society addicted to marijuana,” said Mondragón, who also claimed that over half of consumers in Mexico are minors.

Despite Mondragón’s criticism, the high court’s ruling could be an antecedent to Congressional action towards decriminalizing marijuana usage. Legislative leaders representing the ruling PRI, conservative PAN and leftist PRD said they would be willing to debate the marijuana issue though refrained from providing any strong opinions. President Enrique Peña Nieto, meanwhile, called on federal health officials to publicly explain the impact of the high court verdict.

Daily Headlines: October 28, 2015

* Cuba: Despite a diplomatic rapprochement towards Cuba, the U.S. once again opposed a U.N. General Assembly resolution overwhelmingly condemning the trade embargo against the island.

* Mexico: The Mexican Supreme Court may emit a ruling this week that could open the door to legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.

* U.S.: Kansas City Royals pitcher and World Series Game 1 starter Edinson Volquez left for the Dominican Republic hours after his father suddenly passed away at the age of 63.

* Colombia: President Juan Manuel Santos proposed a bilateral ceasefire with the FARC rebels to begin on New Year’s Day of 2016.

YouTube Source – euronews (191 U.N. member states condmned the U.S. embargo against cuba in a resolution that for the second straight year was only opposed to by the U.S. and Israel).
 
Online Sources – USA TODAY, GlobalPost, BBC News, CNN

Daily Headlines: May 4, 2015

* Cuba: The “Buena Vista Social Club”, the critically acclaimed 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary on Cuban music, will have a sequel that has reportedly gone into production.

* South America: The Colombian Supreme Court requested an investigation of ex-president Alvaro Uribe over his suspected role in the wiretapping of political opponents, while Brazilian prosecutors opened a preliminary corruption probe against former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

* Puerto Rico: Using medical marijuana in Puerto Rico is now legal following a “surprise” executive order signed by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla yesterday.

* U.S.: Native Americans have protested in California are upset at Pope Francis for his push to canonize Junipero Serra, an 18th-century friar accused of “brutally converted indigenous people to Christianity.”

YouTube Source – MOVIECLIPS
 
Online Sources – Variety, Financial Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: October 30, 2014

* U.S.: According to a new Pew Research Center poll, Latino voter support of the Democratic Party has diminished slightly while more respondents believe that there is no difference between the Democrats and the rival Republican Party.

* Brazil: The Brazilian central bank rose interest rates as a possible sign that President Dilma Rousseff is seeking too woo investors spooked by her recent reelection.

* Dominican Republic: At least one person was killed during protests where demonstrators called for improvements to social services.

* Chile: 850 marijuana seeds were planted as part of a pilot program in a Santiago municipality to grow medical marijuana for cancer patients.

Video Source – AFP via YouTube 

Online Sources – Pew Hispanic Center; ABC News; BBC News; GlobalPost; The Latin Amercanist

Daily Headlines: July 10, 2014

* Uruguay: President Jose Mujica announced that Uruguay’s plan to legalize the selling and distribution of marijuana would be delayed until 2015 because of “practical difficulties.”

* Cuba: Aero Marti, “an airborne broadcasting platform that sent radio and television signals to Cuba,” was cancelled by U.S. authorities allegedly due to its cost and ineffectiveness.

* Mexico: The Mayan ruins of Calakmul became Mexico’s first site to receive the “mixed” World Heritage status from the U.N.

* Argentina: Vice-President Amado Boudou may be indicted on charges of corruption but that didn’t stop him from presiding over the Argentine government’s official Independence Day celebration.

Video Source – Fusion via YouTube

Online Sources – LAHT; ABC News; The Straits Times; Buenos Aires Herald

Daily Headlines: June 13, 2014

Note: As we mentioned yesterday, we will be posting several articles throughout the next month on the World Cup hosted by Brazil.  Thus, our “Daily Headlines” entries over the next few weeks will focus primarily on non-World Cup news.


* Cuba: Forty-four Cuban dissidents including Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White protest movement, were briefly detained by the police as part of a suspected crackdown.

* Mexico: A new report published yesterday found that the background of Mexicans is “so rich, so genetically differentiated, you can’t just lump them all in.”

* Venezuela: New data showed that inflation in Venezuela has reached an eighteen-year high while anti-government street protests entered a fourth month.

* Caribbean: Jamaica could become the latest country in Latin America and the Caribbean to decriminalize marijuana for personal use.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube (Video posted in 2011).
 
Online Sources – The Guardian; Los Angeles Times; El Universal; UPI

Daily Headlines: May 21, 2014

* Central America: The U.S. Agency for International Development will work with university researchers as part of a $5 million partnership in order to combat a crippling Central American coffee fungus.

* Venezuela: The U.S. Senate could soon vote on a bill that would raise sanctions against Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations stemming from protests and political unrest since February.  

* Cuba: Cuban dissident blogger and activist Yoani Sanchez launched a new website today that will reportedly “provide daily news about the communist-run country, but insisted it would not be a platform against the government”.

* Uruguay: The plan to legalize the sale and distribution of marijuana in Uruguay will allegedly be exempted from taxation with the goal of “undercutting the black market.”

Video Source – YouTube user CBS Evening News

Online Sources – Reuters; Tico Times; LAHT; BBC News

Daily Headlines: May 5, 2014

* Dominican Republic: Dominican health officials have documented some 3500 suspected cases of the chikungunya virus, which is a mosquito-borne virus that causes intense joint and muscle pain and has spread throughout the Caribbean over the past five months.

* Venezuela: A Human Rights Watch report published today blasted “Venezuelan security forces” for being behind “an alarming pattern of abuse” against opposition protesters and civilians since early February.   

* U.S.: Did the judges rob Argentine boxer Marcos Maidana from what would have been the first defeat in welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s career?

* Uruguay: Uruguayan officials set guidelines for the legal selling and production of marijuana including limiting individuals to purchases of 40 grams of the drug per week and set the price at less than $1 per gram.

Video Source – YouTube user ExcélsiorTV (The chikungunya virus, which is commonly found in Asia and Africa, has spread throughout several Caribbean countries and, as seen in this video, reached the Mexican state of Jalisco). 

Online Sources – The Huffington Post; Human Rights Watch; The Latin Americanist; USA TODAY; The Independent

Daily Headlines: February 17, 2014

* Argentina: Emiliano Lasalvia won a World Press Photo award in the Sports category for his image of a polo player falling underneath his horse.

* Latin America: Mexico City could become the latest Latin American area to decriminalize marijuana use while the Colombian government and FARC guerrilla might soon reach an agreement on drug trafficking.

* Haiti: Officials in Haiti will start an investigation into the deaths of human rights activist Daniel Dorsinvil and his wife who were gunned down on February 8th.

* Brazil: President Dilma Rousseff met with Brazilian land rights campaigners and pledged to make a new push for agrarian reform.

Video Source – Vimeo user elasalvia

Online Sources- LAHT; Reuters; Al Jazeera America; thesundaily; World Press Photo

Reports: Increase in Argentines Smuggling Pot from Uruguay

“Marijuana tourism” has allegedly boomed in the U.S. state of Colorado ever since a law permitting the recreational use of the drug went into effect on January 1st.  A similar case appears to be occurring several thousand miles away in Uruguay where a major marijuana legalization proposal became law nearly one month ago.

Officials in neighboring Argentina have reported an uptick in the number of residents caught trying to smuggle marijuana after having visited Uruguay.  Three to four people per day are allegedly caught with cannabis in their attempt to return to Argentina via points of entry such as ferry terminals and major airports.  This increase is said to be “unprecedented” compared to previous end-of-the-year holiday breaks.

Federal prosecutors subsequently intervened and most cases were rapidly closed since the amount of marijuana found was small and did not break Argentine law allowing “personal doses” of the drug.
As long as the marijuana is “not shown off ostentatiously and found discreetly within the luggage” then it is not a punishable offense, according to unnamed “judicial sources” cited in news reports.

The new law permits the sale of up to 1.4 ounces of cannabis to registered users over the age of 18 via a government-regulated marketplace.  Yet the pilot program is expected to go into effect later this year and it bars tourists from legally purchasing marijuana in the South American country.

“This is not like the Netherlands… (The Uruguayan government) is not promoting in any shape or form tourism related to marijuana” said Uruguayan Tourism Minister Benjamín Liberoff in an interview weeks ago with the Europa Press. 

He also denied that a spike in requests for residency in Uruguay are related to marijuana legalization and could be because of “other laws such as allowing same-sex marriage…or economic growth that we’ve enjoyed in recent years.”

Daily Headlines: December 13, 2013

* Mexico: Mexicans worldwide including scores of pilgrims who traveled to Mexico City's Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe celebrated the December 12th birthday of Mexico's patron saint.

* Uruguay: The U.N.-linked International Narcotics Control Board claimed that a marijuana legalization law passed this week is illegal and against a global drugs treaty.

* El Salvador: Police believe that the twenty-four bodies uncovered in a clandestine burial ground in El Salvador may have all been victims of gang violence.

* Brazil: Brazilian legislators are considering dropping a ban on genetically modified "terminator" seeds in a move that is reportedly backed by “powerful landowning groups” but opposed to by environmentalists and small farmers.

Video Source – YouTube user CadenaTres

Online Sources- The Huffington Post; Reuters; LAHT; The Guardian