American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
As readers of this blog may recall, 43 student teachers disappeared four months ago in Iguala, in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Now Mexico’s Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam says there is “legal certainty” they were murdered – raising even more questions, but Mexico’s president says it’s time to move on.
Read my article here.
Demonstrators last month
The remains will be sent to the University of Innsbruck in Austria, which officials said had the most advanced forensics laboratory, for further attempts at identification. Because of the extent of the incineration, Mr. Murillo Karam said he set no deadline.
Mexico missing student: Gang members ‘confess’ to killing 43 in Iguala and burning their bodies
Jose Luis Abarca was detained by federal police officers in the capital, Mexico City, a police spokesman said.
Abarca’s wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda was also arrested.
All 43 students are still missing. The BBC has a timeline:
Timeline: Iguala disappearance
26 Sept: Students from a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa travel to Iguala to protest and raise funds
Night of 26 Sept: Police stop the students, 6 people are shot dead, 43 students disappear
30 Sept: Iguala mayor Jose Luis Abarca asks for leave from his post, which is granted
4 Oct: Mass graves are found near Iguala containing 28 bodies
19 Oct: Federal police are deployed to Iguala and replace the municipal force
22 Oct: Mexico’s prosecutor general says an arrest warrant has been issued for Mr Abarca, his wife and the town’s police chief
23 Oct: Guerrero state governor Angel Aguirre resigns
29 Oct: President Enrique Pena Nieto meets the relatives of the missing students and promises a “renewed search plan”
4 Nov: Mr Abarca and his wife are arrested in Mexico City
In other crime news, Mexican Regional Security Chief and Wife Shot Dead
Tamaulipas Is Across Border From Texas
The dead man, Gen. Ricardo Niño Villarreal, was security chief for the area around Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. The area is considered the turf of the Zetas drug cartel, which has been doing battle with the Gulf cartel.
The big news of the week: Mexico finally released Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, after holding him in jail for seven months on gun charges – and how perfectly timed!
AND JUST BEFORE THE ELECTION, TOO. HOW NICE! Mexico Grants Humanitarian Release to Marine H… http://t.co/my0vSjsqG3 via @instapundit
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) November 1, 2014
ARGENTINA
Argentina Borrows $814 Million in Currency Swap with China (h/t Carlos Eire)
BOLIVIA
Freddy Mamani: ‘New Andean’ architecture is turning Bolivia into an electric wonderland
A young pioneer has declared war on the dull and colorless. You might want to reach for sunglasses.
Despite the intransigence of the FARC and the opposition, the peace process is still alive
CUBA
More Uneducated Attacks from The New York Times
Indeed, Brand proclaims himself “a big fan of [Fidel] Castro and [Che] Guevara” because “they were sexy, cool, tough” and the fetid autocracy they imposed on the Cuban people “was a remarkable success in many respects.” (Fidel is also described as being “double cool” for a four-hour, filibustering courtroom speech, while Che Guevara is described as a “dear, beautiful, morally unimpeachable” revolutionary.)
And what were those successes, in a country that routinely ranks as one of the least free countries on the planet? “Education for everyone, land sharing, emancipation of women, and equal rights for black Cubans.” This latter achievement would come as a welcome surprise to black Cubans, who are second-class citizens—equal only in the sense that, like all Cubans, they too have no rights. And yes, education is for everyone—provided they want to read wooden agitprop about how education in Cuba is for everyone.
Of which Fidel boasted, claiming “Cubans are the most cultured people in the world.”
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Oscar Taveras: Road safety in the Dominican Republic
Gone too soon
. . . thorny political, economic and cultural factors have conspired against Dominican motorists. The government’s nominal motorcycle-helmet and seat-belt laws apply only to drivers, not passengers, and enforcement of speed limits and drunk-driving rules is lax. The WHO report scored its efforts in those areas just a three and a two out of ten. Less than 10% of tickets issued for vehicular infractions ever get paid, and drive-through liquor stores and alcohol sales at petrol stations expose drivers to constant temptation. Unions representing bus and taxi drivers have opposed proposed bills that could expose them to new regulation.
IMMIGRATION
Obama’s Border Policy Fueled Epidemic, Evidence Shows
JAMAICA
The Asianisation to Jamaica
LATIN AMERICA
GAO: State Department Fails to Produce Reports on Iranian Adventurism in Latin America
Keeping Mexico’s Revolutionary Fires Alive
Crisis in Mexico: Could Forty-Three Missing Students Spark a Revolution? Revolution against whom?
PANAMA
Panel discusses big changes coming at the Panama Canal
PARAGUAY
The Place Where Rutherford B. Hayes Is A Really Big Deal
PERU
Peru says most of $3 bln in bonds sold to manage existing debt
Puerto Rico Government Looks to Raise Tax on OilLegislators filed a measure Thursday that could raise the excise tax on a barrel of crude oil from $9.25 to $15.50, to generate $178 million a year. It also would allow the Highway and Transportation Authority’s loan to be transferred to Puerto Rico’s Infrastructure Financing Authority, which is authorized to issue bonds
VENEZUELA
Unhappy Halloween: Very Scary Stuff From the Castro Colony of Caracastan
Elías Jaua’s nanny detained in Brazil for gun possession has been released
The week’s posts and podcast:
Bad news for Chile
Mexico: Tahmooressi released, back in US
Mexico: 3 siblings, US citizens, dead
Venezuela: last on property rights
Brazil: The election was tweeted
Venezuela to appeal ICSID Exxon decision
At Da Tech Guy Blog
About those walking in NYC for ten hours videos
Whatever happened to the Carnival Magic with the ebola scare?
Podcast
Elections in Brazil PLUS other US-Latin America stories of the week
The 43 students are still missing. Here are today’s headlines:
The alleged leader of a Mexican criminal band that prosecutors accuse of colluding with police in the disappearance of 43 college students was killed on Tuesday during a shootout with security forces, federal officials said.
The security forces had tracked Benjamin Mondragón to a house in a suburb of Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City, where the battle took place, officials said.
The officials said Mr. Mondragón led the Guerreros Unidos gang, which they said collaborated with police in the September shooting deaths of six people and the subsequent disappearance of the college students—whom most officials presume to be dead—in Iguala, a city in Guerrero state.
The death of Mr. Mondragón, known as Benjamón, or Big Ben, came a day after teachers and students burned and vandalized parts of Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre’s office and the state’s local legislature, demanding the return of the missing students and the governor’s resignation.
. . . .
But the incident in Iguala is a reminder of what Mexicans call “Mexico Bronco,” or “Untamed Mexico”—a wild land rife with poverty, cronyism and violence. Entire states and hundreds of cities and towns are in the grip of drug gangs and corrupt police and city halls, security experts say. The rule of law is shaky: Fewer than 3% of homicides are solved, officials say.
Missing Mexico students: Iguala eyewitness account
The search continues in Mexico for 43 students who have been missing since 26 September following clashes with the police. Omar Garcia is one of the students who witnessed the deadly clashes in which six people died. Here he describes what he saw that evening and what he thinks may have happened to his 43 fellow students.
. . .
We think the municipal police took them – what we think happened is that they kept them somewhere and then, as we say, “disappeared” them – like so many thousands of others in this country who are missing.
The Twitter tag is #Ayotzinapa
#Mexico govt: #GuerrerosUnidos paid #Iguala police $600,000 per month http://t.co/GozgGiVbjC #drugwar #Ayotzinapa
— Michael Deibert (@michaelcdeibert) October 16, 2014
Thousands at UNAM & Ibero gathered today to demand justice for fellow students disappeared by the state. #Ayotzinapa pic.twitter.com/XKa3ZzPgGe
— ThinkMexican (@ThinkMexican) October 15, 2014
ARGENTINA
Argentine Government Blasts “Speculation” by Grain Exporters
Bolivia’s election
Happily Evo after
A third term for a “non-stick” leader
Brazil’s Election Shows How The Left Thrives On Welfare Dependency
The Key Proposals Of Brazil Presidential Hopeful Aécio Neves
CAYMAN ISLANDS
Former Cayman Premier Acquitted
CHILE
Experts Lower Chile’s Growth Forecast to 1.9%
COLOMBIA
Colombia Authorized Guerrilla Leader’s Trips to Cuba
Hours later, President Juan Manuel Santos said that he personally signed off on the trips, which he described as “part of the process, normal.”
Washington Post reporter: White House spin on Cartegena is “demonstrably false”
CUBA
CASTRO’S MOMUMENT
The Castro Legacy: Untold Thousands of Watery Graves
Cuban: I’d Rather Die Trying to Reach Freedom, Than Live on My Knees Living in Tyranny
Estamos en desacuerdo que se levante el embargo a #Cuba de manera unilateral http://t.co/QUtHNTIeJu
— Coco Farinas (@cocofarinas) October 9, 2014
ECUADOR
El escándalo uruguayo
A Raúl Sendic, candidato vicepresidencial de Uruguay, junto a Tabaré Vásquez, por el movimiento izquierdista Frente Amplio, del presidente José Mujica, le salpicó la “maldición“ del petróleo. Un cuestionado convenio de canje de crudo por derivados entre Ancap/Trafigura/Petroecuador que involucra USD 6.400 millones, empezó a pasar las primeras facturas, en medio de la campaña electoral. El escándalo ampliamente cubierto por la prensa uruguaya, hace referencia al libro Ecuador Made in China, y a una carta remitida al gobierno uruguayo y a varios legisladores de ese país.
. . .
La referida cláusula del Convenio señala que Ecuador proveerá hasta 36000 barriles diarios de crudo, sin embargo en el contrato firmado el mismo día en Montevideo, se estableció la entrega de hasta 100000 barriles diarios, con lo que se violó el Convenio. Incluir un volumen de 100000 barriles día notificaba al más ingenuo que el crudo no estaba destinado a la refinería uruguaya, cuya capacidad máxima, cuando está operativa, es de 50000 barriles día, y de un crudo diferente al ecuatoriano. Al respecto, la Contraloría abona con conclusiones que dejan sin respuesta a los autores del Acuerdo: “se contrató con Ancap, sin que existan estudios técnicos que demuestren los beneficios para el país de una contratación directa”, señala en organismo.
Feminists Weigh In for Chevron in Racketeering-Oil Pollution Case
The Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund urged the appeals court to rule for Chevron on a highly technical but critical issue. You read that correctly: The nation’s oldest women’s-rights legal advocacy organization, a left-leaning group that helped enact the landmark 1994 Violence Against Women Act and represents victims of sexual harassment and spousal brutality, supports the multinational oil company in its struggle against a crusading lawyer who claims to represent the impoverished and oppressed.
O’Reilly Discusses WFB’s Reporting On Ecuador PR Firm Paying Liberal US Celebrities
EL SALVADOR
El Salvador tries to rein in crime with community policing
IMMIGRATION
FUSION TV LAMENTS ‘UNDOCUMENTED’ WOMEN HAVING HARD TIME GETTING ABORTIONS IN TEXAS
MEXICO
Mexico Arrests Alleged Head of Juárez Drug Cartel
Federal police arrested alleged Juárez drug cartel leader Vicente Carrillo Fuentes in the northern city of Torreón on Thursday, Mexican officials said. His Arrest Is Seen as Symbolic Amid Police Scandal
Iguala, Mexico and police crimes
NICARAGUA
Russia ban opens opportunities to Iran, Nicaragua
PANAMA
Panama’s National Assembly Ratifies Trade Pact with Mexico
Divide and bribe
Corruption and political fragmentation threaten Peru’s democracy
PUERTO RICO
No More Dunkin’ Donuts for Puerto Rico
Island’s Franchisee Fails to Make Payments, 18 Stores to Close
TRINIDAD TOBAGO
Trinidad and Tobago Mulls Postponing Carnival over Ebola Fears
URUGUAY
Uruguay Welcomes First Group of 42 Syrian Refugees
VENEZUELA
Wouldn’t it be better if they had done this while Maduro was speakinVenezuela: Exxon wins $1.6 billion settlementg at the UN? UN urges Venezuela to release dissenter leader Leopoldo López
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations (UN) described as illegal the actions of the Venezuelan authorities in the proceedings against the political opposition leader for the events of February 12
Miami Venezuelans vs. Mary Landrieu
The week’s posts and podcast:
Why Venezuela should not have a seat at the UN Security Council
Could capitalism save the Arabs?
Mexico: Government paying its citizens to avoid deportation from U.S.
Venezuela: Exxon wins $1.6 billion settlement
4 ISIS Terrorists Arrested in Texas
Mexico: 43 students missing since September 26
Brazil: Aécio’s plan is the economy
At Da Tech Guy Blog:
Why bother covering up the Cartagena, Colombia, prostitution scandal?