Sobredosis de TV: The Movement is Mightier than the Sword

Sobredosis de TV is our occasional feature where we highlight television programs. It is also the name of a song from famed Argentine rock band Soda Stereo.

The fourth season of the PBS documentary series “Voces” commences tonight with a film on the 1955 movie “Giant.” “Children of Giant” will examine how the film that starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean affected the Texan town of Marfa, where it was shot, and was one of the first major Hollywood movies to delve into the racial divide between whites and Mexican-Americans in the Southwest U.S.

Future episodes will look at the experiences of five Latina actresses who are behind the dubbing of the Spanish-language version of “Desperate Housewives” as well as the crusading work of Mexican peace activist Javier Sicilia.

The writer and post began his anti-violence campaign shortly after his son, Juan Francisco, was murdered by narcotraffickers in 2011. Sicilia gave up poetry and founded the Movement for Peace and Dignity campaign to denounce drug-related violence in Mexico.

“What my son did was give a name and a face to the 40,000 dead,” Sicilia said in a May 2011 interview. “My pain gave a face to the pain of other families. I think a country is like a house, and the destruction of someone is the destruction of our families.”

Sicilia has not shied from strongly criticizing the Mexican government and the country’s political class for supporting what he believes has done little to effectively combat violence, and expressed his solidarity with the families of the forty-three missing Ayotzinapa students. Last month he called for voters to abstain from upcoming local elections as an “act of civil disobedience against the treason, deception and crimes” by politicians.

Below the page break is the long trailer from “El Poeta,” which follows Sicilia and his caravans that have crisscrossed Mexico and travelled to the U.S.  This film premieres on PBS on May 1st (check your local listings for exact times of these and all of the future episodes of “Voces”.)

Daily Headlines: April 17, 2015

* Chile: Tens of thousands of university students marched in Chile yesterday to protest against growing corruption scandals and to call for stronger education reform.

* Brazil: Police in Rio de Janeiro evicted 100 squatters from a building that was supposed to be converted into a luxury hotel for the 2016 Olympics.

* Argentina: Argentine minister Daniel Filmus announced that the government started legal proceedings to prevent British firms from oil drilling near the disputed Falkland Islands.

* Mexico: Approximately 2.5 million children reportedly work in Mexico including nearly one out of every five farmworkers.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Bloomberg, The Globe and Mail, Latin American Herald Tribune, BBC News

Daily Headlines: April 16, 2015

* Venezuela: Spain’s ambassador to Venezuela was summoned back to his homeland amid a diplomatic rift stemming from the Maduro regime’s treatment of political dissidents.

* Argentina: The family of the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman has once again locked horns with lead investigator Viviana Fein over the circumstances of his mysterious death last January.

* Latin America: The World Bank warned that the Latin American economy could face a “permanent growth slowdown” if structural reforms aren't made.

* U.S.: it’s déjà vu all over again – the U.S. men’s soccer team beat bitter regional rivals Mexico by a score of dos a cero.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – The Latin Americanist, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Fox News Latino, GlobalPost

Daily Headlines: April 15, 2015 (Updated)

* Colombia: Could the deadly clashes this morning that killed at least ten Colombian soldiers derail the peace process between the government and the FARC guerillas? 

Update: President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed that peace talks will continue though he ordered the renewal of military bombings against FARC camps.

* Cuba: Cuba could be one step closer to being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism though it could set up yet another battle between President Barack Obama and Congress.

* Brazil: The treasurer of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party we detained by police over her potential role in a major Petrobras corruption scandal.

* Argentina: The low prices of crude, not the diplomatic tug-of-war between Argentina and the U.K., has reportedly caused delays in the drilling of oil near the disputed Falkland Islands.

YouTube Source – The New York Times (Video uploaded in January 2015).
 
Online Sources including Update – Colombia Reports, NBC News, The Latin Americanist, CNN, The Telegraph

Late Uruguayan Author Galeano Receives State Honors

The late Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano will receive state honors usually reserved for deceased heads of state and ministers.

The body of the prolific writer who passed away on Monday due to lung cancer will be on view at the legislative chambers in Montevideo. Galeano will be displayed for at least seven hours today in the same hall where other important Uruguayan cultural figures also received honors after their deaths including Mario Benedetti and Carlos Páez Vilaró. In addition, senators from the ruling Frente Amplio bloc proposed a special session of Congress in recognition of the man who died at the 74.

“He was an intellectually brilliant and totally self-made man,” said ex-president José Mujica about Galeano. The current senator also praised the late author as “one of the few chosen people who in the last thirty to forty years dignified us as Latin Americans.”

Born in 1940, Eduardo German Hughes Galeano began his career by publishing cartoon under the pseudonym “Gius” based on the Spanish-language pronunciation of the name “Hughes”.  He would eventually drop that moniker as he began writing news articles while also working a series of other jobs.

In 1971, Galeano published what is considered as perhaps his most famous text: “Open Veins of Latin America.” The book strongly criticized what he viewed as the historic exploitation and ransacking of Latin America’s natural resources at the hands of foreign powers.  His work endeared him as a leftist intellectual but was also banned by in his native country as well as Chile and Argentina. Galeano was imprisoned following the 1973 military coup in Uruguay and forced into exile for nearly twelve years.

Interest in “Open Veins” pique once more in 2009 after then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez gave a copy to U.S. leader Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas and urged him to read it. Galeano generally backed the regimes of Chávez and current chief Nicolas Maduro including co-signing a letter denouncing Obama’s executive order imposing additional sanctions against the Maduro regime. But according to Ticio Escobar, Paraguayan anthropologist and friend of Galeano, the Uruguayan was upset that Chávez used “Open Veins” in order to attract media attention to himself.

Daily Headlines: April 14, 2015

* Chile: Chile will become the latest Latin American country to recognize same-sex unions after President Michelle Bachelet approved a law that will go into effect next October.

* Puerto Rico: Researchers the New York Federal Reserve tried to downplay worries over Puerto Rico suffering from an alleged “brain drain” of young and educated residents opting to leave the island.

* Mexico: Did the Texas Department of Public Safety break federal law by collecting intelligence using drones in Mexico?

* Venezuela: “This year there's no recovery in oil prices forecast,” claimed Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro who also blamed increased fracking in the U.S. for “flooding the world's oil markets.”

YouTube Source – AFP (Chile’s Congress last January approved a proposal legalizing same sex unions that was signed into law yesterday).

Online Sources – BBC News, Reuters, Houston Chronicle, NBC News

Daily Headlines: April 13, 2015

* Brazil: For the second time in less than a month tens of thousands of marchers participated in anti-government street protests throughout Brazil.

* El Salvador: U.S. migration officials deported former Salvadoran defense minister Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova over accusations of committing human rights abuses during the 1980s.

* Peru: A series of abandoned pre-Incan canals built over 1400 years ago will be reused in order to provide water to the residents of Lima.

* Haiti: The bodies of at least twenty-one migrants whose boat sunk in the Caribbean washed ashore on the coast of northern Haiti.

YouTube Source – CCTV America

Online Sources – Bloomberg, Reuters, Newsweek, RTE

Protestors in Panama Pound Pots and Pans Against Venezuelan President

Detractors of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Panama banged pots and pans in protest while he spoke at the Summit of the Americas on Saturday:

As seen in the video above, the cacophony of noise from the “cacerolazo” was done at apartment complexes near the Atlapa convention center in Panama City during the plenary session of the conference. The banging was accompanied by several yells of “Fuera Maduro”, derisive whistling and at least one Venezuelan flag with the acronym “S.O.S.” written on it.

The “cacerolazo” was heard not only outside of the Atlapa center but also allegedly within several of the locale’s rooms. (It does not seem that the protest was heard in the conference room where leaders from across the Western Hemisphere discussed regional matters).

Today’s protest followed a similar “cacerolazo” that occurred on Friday evening as Maduro and his wife entered the convention center. The couple was reportedly “unmoved” by the demonstration.

“Venezuela is stuck in a political, economic and social crisis, and we must prevent that which is preventable,” declared Lilian Tintori, wife of imprisoned Venezuelan opposition activist Leopoldo López, prior to visiting Panama during the Summit. Meanwhile, nineteen former Ibero-Americn leaders signed a declaration last week denouncing the “changes to constitutionality and democracy” in Venezuela.

During his intervention at the Summit, Maduro claimed that he was an “anti-imperialist” and blasted a March 9th executive order from U.S. President Barack Obama. The order placed sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials accused of human rights abuses and named the South American country as a "national security threat".

Daily Headlines: April 10, 2015

* Cuba: The Foreign Ministers of Cuba and the U.S. met on Thursday evening in Panama, while the U.S. State Department will likely confirm rumors earlier this week and recommended taking Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet refused to resign from her post amid abysmal approval numbers and a growing corruption scandal.

* Colombia: The U.S. Army will reportedly investigate allegations of military personnel and defense contractors sexually abusing minors in Colombia.

* Mexico: North Korea claimed that Mexico has “illegally detained” one of its ships, and alleged that the vessel is not owned by a firm blacklisted by the U.N. for owning a boat caught illegally carrying weapons last year.

YouTube Source – euronews

Online Sources – Reuters, Bloomberg, Colombia Reports, The Guardian, The Latin Americanist

Daily Headlines: April 8, 2015

* U.S.: Mexican-born Jesus “Chuy” Garcia forced Chicago’s first ever runoff election for mayor but ultimately he lost to incumbent Rahm Emanuel.

* Argentina: The Argentine government started declassifying secret papers relating to the Falklands War days after intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that Britain allegedly spied on the South American country from 2006 to 2011.

* Brazil: Brazil could benefit from Royal Dutch Shell’s $70 billion proposal to buy BG Group and, thus, create one of the world’s biggest energy firms.

* Chile: The heavy rains that have killed at least twenty-four people in northern Chile have also led to an expected cut in the production of copper.

YouTube Source – Newsy Politics

Online Sources – WGN, CBC, Reuters, CNBC, Latin American Herald Tribune

Cuba to be Removed from U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism List?

Could Cuba soon have its designation by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism removed? Several government officials have indicated that this could be the case amid the White House’s push to improve bilateral ties.

According to CNN, an unnamed U.S. official claimed earlier today that it is “our expectation” that the island could be stricken from the list that includes Iran, Sudan and Syria. The official noted that a formal announcement could come as early as this Wednesday.

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes admitted earlier today that the State Department’s review of Cuban status on the blacklist is almost finished.

“We expect that it's likely in the final stages. But we don’t control the timing. The State Department does,” Rhodes mentioned in a conference call to reporters.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama admitted that he would move quickly once a recommendation is officially given.

“As soon as I get a recommendation, I’ll be in a position to act on it,” Obama said during an interview with NPR.

Obama admitted his optimism over the “real opportunity” to change relations between the U.S. and Cuba including the possibility of opening an embassy. Nevertheless, he acknowledged “I don't expect immediate transformation in the Cuban-American relationship overnight.”

Cuba’s placement on the state sponsors of terrorism list since 1982 has been one of the major stumbling blocks in closing the diplomatic breach between the U.S. and Cuba.

“It is a nonsense. Cuba has been there for more than 20 years… We hope that very soon Cuba will be removed from there,” declared Cuba’s Ambassador to Canada, Julio Garmendia Pena, last month.

Daily Headlines: April 7, 2015

* Brazil: Several hundred people in Rio de Janeiro protested over the weekend against police brutality after a ten-year-old favela resident was killed.

* Honduras: Approximately 15,000 undocumented Hondurans have been deported from the U.S. and Mexico in 2015 according to an analysis from the Returned Migrants Assistance Center.

* Cuba: Retired professional basketball stars Steve Nash and Dikembe Mutombo will travel to Cuba later this month as part of an NBA team participating in a basketball clinic.

* El Salvador: March was the deadliest month in the past ten years in El Salvador with 481 murders or an average of sixteen people killed daily.

YouTube Source – teleSUR English

Online Sources – euronews, Latin American Herald Tribune, The Guardian, Time

Daily Headlines: April 6, 2015

* Guatemala: Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation were named in a US$1 billion lawsuit filed last week over their alleged role in infecting hundreds of Guatemalans with STDs during the mid-20th century.

* South America: Pope Francis may be a popular figure in Latin America but he is facing pushback from Chilean child abuse victims and a “breakaway group of ultra-conservative Catholics” based in Brazil.

* Cuba: The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected hearing an appeal by former subcontractor Alan Gross against the government for negligence related to his five-year imprisonment in Cuba.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet promised that the flood-hit northern region where at least twenty-five people have died and 125 are missing will be “rebuilt”.

YouTube Source – SBS Dateline (Video uploaded in 2011).

Online Sources – The Guardian, Reuters, NBC News, CNN, Baltimore Sun

Daily Headlines: April 3, 2015

* Brazil: World landmarks including the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were lit blue on Thursday as part of World Autism Awareness Day.

* U.S.: A new study concluded that “four-fifths of…Mexican-American toddlers lagged three to five months behind whites in preliteracy skills, oral language and familiarity with print materials”.

* Bolivia: The Bolivian government plans to invest over $600 million to develop at the world's largest reserve of lithium in Potosi according to President Evo Morales.

* Ecuador: Researchers recently identified a frog species in Ecuador as being the first vertebrates with the ability to change its skin texture.

YouTube Source – User BYN – TV News
 
Online Sources – Apex Beats, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Fox News Latino

Daily Headlines: April 2, 2015

* Cuba: According to a new poll a majority of Cuban-Americans support the White House’s push to normalize diplomatic ties with Cuba and back the easing of travel restrictions.

* U.S.: Influential Latino Senator Bob Menendez is expected to face a judge today after he was indicted on Wednesday on fourteen federal corruption charges.

* Panama: As many as 120,000 employees working on the expansion of the Panama Canal who reportedly have not been paid their full wages could soon go on strike.

* Mexico: At least four people died and more than 300 were evacuated from an offshore oil platform run by Mexican state-run company Pemex that exploded.

YouTube Source – Associated Press (“Cuban and U.S. delegations on Tuesday ended a preparatory meeting for holding future negotiations on human rights without setting a date, agenda or host for those talks.”)

Online Sources – Politico, teleSUR English, The Atlantic, ABC News

Daily Headlines: April 1, 2015

* Peru: President Ollanta Humala will have to choose a new Prime Minister to replace Ana Jara after she resigned over allegedly spying on her rivals.

* Puerto Rico: At least 104,000 signatures have been placed since February 18th on a White House petition seeking the removal of Gov. Alejandro García-Padilla.

* Latin America: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico won both of their respective international soccer friendly matches played over the past week.

* Argentina: Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernández warned labor union leaders not to follow-up yesterday’s nationwide strike with another slowdown that could last 36 hours.

YouTube Source – CCTV America

Online Sources – Reuters, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, MercoPress