Daily Headlines: September 7, 2011

* Haiti: Uruguayan President Jose Mujica apologized to his Haitian counterpart over the suspected rape of a Haitian man by Uruguayan U.N. troops while Brazil plans to remove some of its troops from the Caribbean country.

* Peru: President Ollanta Humala approved a law that would allow indigenous groups to be consulted before any rural land development projects.

* Mexico: Police arrested a U.S. man suspected of smuggling grenade parts across the border to the Sinaloa drug gang.

* Argentina: A judge opened an inquiry into allegations of rape and sexual abuse committed at a “notorious torture center” during the Dirty War period.

Image – AP via CSMonitor.com (“In this picture taken Sept. 3, 2011, people walk in front of a UN base where Uruguayan peacekeepers allegedly sexually abused an 18-year-old man in Port Salut, Haiti.”)

Online Sources- Reuters, MSNBC, BBC News, Voice of America, Times of India

Today’s Video: Playing Freddie's game

Yesterday would've been the 65th birthday of Freddie Mercury, the former frontman for the rock band Queen. Numerous tributes have been held in his honor this week including an animated video on Google's home page and a limited edition sports car.

In 1997 several Latin American rock musicians interpreted Queen songs to Spanish as part of a tribute album. Soda Stereo, Molotov and Fito Paez where among those who participated in the unique project. Colombia's Aterciopelados contributed "Juegale, Apuestale", their version of "Play the Game", which you can appreciate below during the group's MTV Unplugged performance in 1997:

Online Sources - cduniverse.com, Auto Guide, The Atlantic

Video Source - YouTube

Latin American press face “tragic” times

Robert Rivard, the head of a commission of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), proclaimed that 2011 is the “most tragic year in the last two decades” for Latin American journalists. Since Rivard made those remarks in late July a series of incidents seem to have validated his claim.

• The bodies of a pair of Mexican journalists, the founder of an investigative magazine and a freelancer, were found near Mexico City last week. Authorities said that the corpses of Ana Maria Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocio Gonzalez were naked with their limbs bound and strangulation marks around their necks. Mexico City’s Attorney General mentioned the possibility that both women may’ve been targeted as part of a “gender crime” but did not discard their professions as a possible motive for their murders.
• A suspected Dominican drug trafficker is believed to be behind the murder of local journalist Jose Agustin Silvestre. Silvestre, who was reportedly preparing a “bombshell” corruption story in the next edition of his magazine, was kidnapped and slain just over a month ago. The alleged mastermind behind the murder, Matias Avelino Castro, remains at large though police have detained his daughter.
• Peruvian journalist Kitty Vela asserted that she has been the target of numerous threats possibly related to her investigative work. She further claimed that an hit man confessed to being paid $1800 in exchange for killing her.
• IAPA president Gonzalo Marroquín recently called on Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa to “cease his harassment against the press.” Carlos Lauria, the senior program coordinator for the Americas at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, appeared to echo these concerns in a report published last week. “Over the course of Correa’s tenure, the administration has created an elaborate legal framework to restrict news media,” mentioned the report that also accused Correa of using the state media as his “political megaphone.”
• The above examples have thus far detailed instances of external dangers to the press but there are occasions when a few bad apples spoil the barrel. Such was the case of Ernesto Yamhure, columnist for Colombian daily El Espectador, who resigned last Wednesday over alleged ties to the late paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño. Yamhure and Castaño would provide pointers to one another such as the time the former advised the latter “over a communiqué that the paramilitaries were going to present to (then-president) Alvaro Uribe” concerning the demobilization process.
  

Image- AFP via The Guardian (“The Mexican journalists Marcela Yarce (left) and Rocio González, who were found dead in Mexico City.”)

Online Sources- Too many to list!

Daily Headlines: September 6, 2011 (Updated)

* Haiti: President Michel Martelly lashed out against an alleged sexual assault of a Haitian teen by U.N. troops from Uruguay and deemed it “an act that revolts the national conscience.” (Update: According to one Uruguayan legislator there are "two more videos and photographs" depicting abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti).

* Guatemala: The race for the presidency hasn’t show signs of slowing down ahead of Sunday's first round of elections.

* Brazil: Is the Brazilian economy about to go on the decline?

* U.S.: According to a government report released last week the Latino unemployment rate is 11.6%, a figure that nearly doubles “when the underemployed and discouraged workers are included.”

Image Source – AP via The Guardian (Haitian President Michel Martelly urged a full investigation into the supposed sexual assault of a teen by Uruguayan U.N. peacekeepers).

Online Sources- The Independent, insdecostarica.com, Bloomberg, Fox News Latino

World Watch: Presidential problems

* World: Clashes broke out at the trial against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak while ex-president Jacques Chirac of France faces a maximum ten-year prison sentence if convicted of corruption.

* Africa: The U.N. warned that as many as 750,000 people could die in the upcoming months due to a famine that originated in Somalia.

* Libya: Authorities in China denied a report by Canada's The Globe and Mail newspaper alleging that Chinese firms were planning to sell $200 million in weapons to deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

* Japan: At least 34 people died as a result of one of the worst typhoons to hit Japan in recent years.

Image – Reuters via The Guardian (“Riot police clash with anti-Mubarak protestors on the first day of the former Egyptian president's return to trial.”)

Online Sources- Voice of America, euronews, MSNBC, CNN, BBC News

Today’s Video: Walk this way

Several Latin American cities, such as the Colombian capital of Bogota last February, have held car-free days designed to raise environmental awareness. Bolivia upped the ante on Sunday with the "Day of the Pedestrian", which restricted individual auto users public transit buses nationwide during ten hours. "The city is not only for vehicles but also for the people," declared La Paz mayor Luis Revilla as street performers and marathon runners took to the auto-free streets yesterday.

Sunday's activities came amid protests against the construction of a major highway through the Amazon rainforest.

Video Source - ntn24 via YouTube

Online Sources - Global Voices Online, Milenio, BBC News

Daily Headlines: September 5, 2011

* Chile: Two days of national mourning were declared in honor of twenty-one people that are beloved to have died after an air force plane crashed off near the remote Juan Fernandez islands.

* Haiti: Five Uruguayan U.N. peacekeepers were recalled from Haiti over allegations that troops sexually assaulted an eighteen-year-old man.

* Cuba: President Raul Castro is among the thousands of Cubans paying tribute to Defense Minister Julio Casas who died on Saturday at the age of 75.

* Latin America: A “sharp decline” in Peruvian silver mining this year has allowed Mexico to overtake the Andean country to become the world’s top silver producer.

Image – Reuters via BBC News (The Chilean navy search for bodies and aircraft wreckage near the Juan Fernandez Islands. Among those still missing from Saturday's accident is popular television host Felipe Camiroaga.)

Online Sources- Xinhua, The Guardian, MarketWatch, UPI

World Watch: Crisis in Syria

* Syria: Government repression continued against protesters and opposition activists while the E.U. backed an embargo on Syrian oil exports.

* U.S.: Could another recession soon hit the already weakened and struggling U.S. economy?

* Japan: New Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pledged "swift fiscal reforms" while also seeking economic growth.

* Britain: Rupert Murdoch will receive a raise even though an illegal wiretapping scandal shook his media empire.

Image Source - Sky News

Online Sources - CNN Money, Reuters, BBC News, CSMonitor.com, Voice of America

Daily Headlines: September 2, 2011

* Brazil: Brookfield Asset Management or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mall.

* Guatemala: Local health authorities claimed that as many as 2500 people may’ve been infected with sexually transmitted diseases during a series of medical experiments conducted in the 1940s by U.S. researchers.

* U.S.: As part of a court settlement the Environmental Protection Agency admitted that there was discrimination against Latino schoolchildren who were exposed to toxic pesticides in California.

* Peru: The government is expected soon present a plan that would raise mining royalties in order to pay for new social programs backed by President Ollanta Humala.

Image – LAHT (Outdoor facade of the Sambil shopping mall in Caracas, Venezuela. Foreign firms like Brookfield Asset Management and the Westfield Group are behind a boom in the construction and development of shopping malls in Brazil.)

Online Sources- The Globe and Mail, Fox News Latino, Reuters, BBC News, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: September 1, 2011

* Chile: Three months after Chilean police came under fire for using tear gas against protesters officers are again embroiled in controversy after a demonstrator was killed.

* U.S.: Spanish-language media sources are enjoying greater financial stability and growth compared to their mainstream counterparts according to the Pew Research Center.

* Mexico: The Nuevo Leon state government will launch a corruption investigation in light of last week’s deadly casino fire arson that killed 52 people.

* Colombia: Legislators approved a law that punishes people found guilty of discrimination based on areas like gender, race, sexual orientation and religion.

Image – Reuters via BBC News (“Manuel Gutierrez's death came amid heightened social tensions.” Despite initial denials by police, investigators discovered that the sixteen-year-old anti-government protester was killed by a police weapon.)

Online Sources- UPI, Voice Of America, Fox News Latino, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC

Daily Headlines: August 31, 2011

* U.S.: Kenneth Melson resigned from his post as chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in response to criticism over the ill-fated "Operation Fast and Furious" gun trafficking program.

* Haiti: A Human Rights Watch report found that thousands of impoverished Haitian women continue to face great economic and health hardships since a major earthquake struck in January 2010.

* Latin America: The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean concluded that regional economic growth for this year will be slightly less than originally prognosticated.

* U.S.: According to the Pew Research Center population growth and increased high school graduation rates have helped boost Hispanic college enrollment.

Image – Matt York/AP via CSMonitor.com (“A cache of seized weapons is on display at a news conference in Phoenix in January. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is under fire over a Phoenix-based gun-trafficking investigation called 'Fast and Furious,' in which agents allowed as many as 2,500 high-powered firearms into the hands of straw purchasers in hopes of making a bigger case. Some of those weapons have turned up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico.”)

Online Sources- Huffington Post, Monsters and Critics, CNN, Reuters

World Watch: Deadline

* Libya: Rebels gave besieged leader Muammar Gaddafi a deadline of the Saturday to "peacefully surrender."

* Asia: The Food and Agriculture Organization warned of a possible resurgence of the H5N1 avian flu virus in several Asian nations.

* South Africa: Police in Johannesburg clashed with backers of Julius Malema, the head of the African National Congress' youth wing.

* India: A court ordered the postponement of the execution of three people convicted of participating in the 1991 assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Image Source - AP via MSNBC ("Libyan rebel fighters prepare to patrol the village of Heisha on Tuesday.")
Online Source - BBC News, Al Jazeera English, Sydney Morning Herald, CNN

Today’s Video: Mad science

Last year it was revealed that U.S. government researchers exploited thousands of Guatemalans for a series of experiments on sexually transmitted diseases in the 1940s. President Barack Obama subsequently apologized to his Guatemalan counterpart, Alvaro Colom, and ordered a bioethics panel to investigate the experiments and they revealed some of their preliminary findings yesterday. What they discovered was absolutely jaw-dropping:

• Approximately 1300 people including prison inmates and mentally disabled individuals were used as guinea pigs in the experiments that members of the panel described as a "shameful piece of medical history" and terribly unethical even for its time.
• In some of the worst cases seven women with epilepsy were injected with syphilis in the back of their heads while a dying female syphilis patient woman was infected with numerous diseases including gonorrhea.
• The actions in Guatemala led by head researcher Dr. John Cutler from 1946 to 1948 were amazingly similar to a 1943 experiment where Indiana prison inmates were deliberately infected with gonorrhea.
  

Guatemala's Vice President Rafael Espada told BBC News that his country's government will extend a public apology since local doctors were involved in the gruesome procedures.

The video below via PBS News Hour from last October includes an interview with Wellesley College professor Susan Reverby who ironically uncovered documents on the Guatemalan experiments while researching the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study:

Daily Headlines: August 30, 2011

* Venezuela: Human Rights Watch urged the Venezuelan government to protect Umberto Prado, an activist who has been highly critical of the country’s prison system.

* Haiti: Political infighting and gridlock have hindered Haiti's reconstruction in the three months since President Michel Martelly was inagurated.

* Honduras: According to the country’s Human Rights Commissioner roughly 2400 women “died violently” since 2002 including twelve femicide victims whose bodies were found over the past week.

* Bolivia: Seven members of a Bolivian Mennonite community where sentenced to twenty-five years in prison after being convicted of raping over one hundred girls and women.

Image – AP via BBC News (“An inmate's relative argues with national guardsmen outside the El Rodeo I prison.” Venezuelan prison authorities were heavily criticized after twenty-two people died in a riot at that facility last June.)
Online Sources- Honduras Weekly, AlertNet, Voice of America, BBC News

Today’s Video: Disappeared but not forgotten

According to the Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (FEDEFAM) a “forced disappearance consists of a kidnapping, carried out by agents of the State or organized groups of private individuals who act with State support or tolerance, in which the victim ‘disappears’.” The plights of these victims and the pain their families face will be remembered on the annual International Day of the Disappeared, which is this Tuesday.

Latin America has had a sordid history with disappearances such as the victims under the former authoritarian military regimes in countries like Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Yet the unfortunate issue of the disappeared continues to manifest itself in the Americas. Yesterday approximately one hundred protesters in the Mexican state of Coahuila urged authorities to do more in resolving the over 200 disappearance cases since 2008. Last month roughly 600 people including the families of dozens of disappeared Central American migrants marched from Mexico’s southern border to Mexico City.

According to the International Red Cross (IRC) governments throughout the region to either prevent or solve disappearances have not done enough. As Guilhem Ravier, collaborator for the IRC’s on the disappeared in Colombia, said to EFE:

“The magnitude of this problem is huge. There is no other way to describe it. We don’t even know exactly how many people have disappeared but we think it’s a lot. There are many families who, throughout the recent decades of armed conflict, wait for news about their loved ones and suffer in the uncertainty of not knowing.”

One of the most notable instances of a disappearance in the Americas is the case of Argentine teen Luciano Arruga. His whereabouts are unknown since January 31, 2009 when Buenos Aires police intercepted him. Several eyewitnesses have come forward and claimed that they saw him being harassed and beaten at a police station. There are too many questions that have been unanswered in the over thirty months that Arruga has gone missing though he continues to be remembered by friends and family as seen in the following video from last January:

Video Source - YouTube
Online Sources- BBC News, Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared, NACLA, Milenio, Diario ABC Color, Global Voices Online

Daily Headlines: August 29, 2011 (Updated)

* Mexico: Over 1000 demonstrators took to the streets of Monterrey to denounce political leaders in the aftermath of last week's deadly arson attack. (Update: Authorities arrested five suspects linked to the attack and claimed that they are supposedly linked to the Zetas drug gang.)

* Central America: El Salvador and Honduras became the latest Latin American countries to urge state recognition of Palestine.

* Puerto Rico: Local Sen. Roberto Arango quit from his post after sexually explicit photos supposedly of him appeared on "an iPhone application for gays and bisexuals."

* Guatemala: Increasing violence and how to combat organized crime were two of the main topics discussed at last week's debate between Guatemala's three leading presidential candidates.

Image Source - Reuters via BBC News ("Casino staff who survived gathered a day after the attack to pray for those who died." At least 52 people died in the incident last week that authorities blamed on drug gangs.)
Online Sources - CNN, PRESS TV, MSNBC, Boston.com