Archive for July, 2009
LAMC Events Kick Off Esta Noche With Los Amigos Invisibles at Apple Soho
10:47 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Music|New York City · 1 Comment
7 Jul 2009
The Latin Alternative Music Conference kicks off with a series of events all over NYC featuring some of the best well known and not so well known acts in the crazy mixed up genre that is Latin alternative music.
Tonite, the LAMC and iTunes present Los Amigos Invisibles from 7:00pm – 9:00pm at the Apple Store in SoHo.
Hopefully I can make it out there. So far everytime los Amigos are in town something happens preventing me from going. A ver if tonite’s the nite.
Strange Rape Case Rocks Bolivian Mennonite Community
9:48 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bolivia|crime|Latin America|Religion|society|Violence|Women · Comments Off
7 Jul 2009The Mennonites are a religious group akin to the Amish that was driven out of Europe by persecution over centuries, eventually landing in North and South America, mostly in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. There are thousands of Mennonites all over the Americas, with large communities in Mexico and Bolivia. And it is from Bolivia that comes a strange story that has shocked the country and rocked its Mennonite community to its core. A mass rape of the community’s women, with up to 100 victims. Spain’s El Periódico reports:
The first accounts, which are pending investigation, indicate that at nightfall some men sprinkled a sleep inducing [susbtance] around the homes of the residents and when they were sure that everyone was sleeping, they came in through the windows and raped women and girls. There are suspicions that this had been going on for 9 years, which would make the initial victim count fall short. But what is more terrifying and shameful for the Mennonites is that the rapists are people from their own community. Blood of their blood.The Mennonites have kept the names and surnames of their ancestors. Their names are Ham Neostater and Cornelio Wal and Abraham Blats and Daniel Martens. Their native language is German and they speak Spanish with an accent. “Here people are afraid, because they say that it was our own friends who committed the sin,” Wal, a farm worker (like almost everyone in Manitoba) told a Bolivian newspaper. 8 community residents were arrested this week, which means that in a community of around 2000 people, most of them are related to the suspects: cousins, nephews, son-in-laws. Ultraconservative Christians, the Mennonites see the suspects as more sinners than criminals. Because to them, sin is much more serious.
The Mennonite community is calling the rapes “an act of the devil” and is ordering the medical examination of teenage girls to confirm which ones are victims. El Periódico reports that the results of these exams could have sinister implications, as the Mennonite community requires that its women remain virgins until marriage in order to retain the respect of their peers.
Via / El Periódico and VideoBolivia
Want Happiness? Move to Costa Rica
7:31 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Costa Rica|Environment|Health|Latin America|society · 2 Comments
7 Jul 2009
Contrary to what the writers of South Park would have you think, Costa Rica is a paradise on earth. At least that’s that’s what a new poll by a UK environmental institute has shown: Costa Rica ranks as not only one of the most environmentally friendly countries, but also as the world’s happiest:
The New Economics Foundation looked at 143 countries that are home to 99 percent of the world’s population and devised an equation that weighed life expectancy and people’s happiness against their environmental impact.By that formula, Costa Rica is the happiest, greenest country in the world, just ahead of the Dominican Republic.
85% of Costa Ricans say they are happy with their lives.
In contrast, the United States came in at 114, and Britain at 74. Speaking of the UK, the BBC’s Mark Easton says he has an idea as to why the richest countries come out last. Quite interesting.
What is it about Latin America and happiness anyway?
Via / AFP
Image via mikebaird on Flickr
Chancellor of Honduras’s Micheletti Government Calls Obama “That black man”
6:34 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · honduras · 2 Comments
7 Jul 2009In parts of Latin America, calling someone negrito(a) can be a term of endearment however, I doubt that was the intention of Chancellor of Honduras, Enrique Ortez, in this interview. Although, I don’t know if the subtitled translation is exactly accurate either. Given how Ortez is playing up President Obama’s ignorance on Latin America in general, and specifically his knowledge of Honduras, I would be more likely to translate the use of “negrito” as the N word.
Via / Inca Kola News
Meanwhile in Peru, More Oil Drilling in the Amazon
6:09 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Peru · 2 Comments
7 Jul 2009With the digital age fostering short term memory and not connecting any dots, it’s easy to focus only on Honduras and forget the recent violence in other parts of Latin America.
Hardly a month since 30 plus Indigenous people from Peru were killed by police for protesting the exploitation and violation of their homes (we’re not talking about some mythical rainforest land, people live there), Peru has approved an oil drilling project in the Amazon for an Anglo-French company.
The project, located on land inhabited by two tribes of uncontacted Indians, is believed to be Peru’s biggest oil discovery in thirty years. The company, Perenco, a major gas supplier to the UK, has in the past denied any uncontacted Indians live there.
Until recently, Perenco had been blocked from entering the area by local indigenous protesters. With help from Peru’s armed forces, the company managed to break through the blockade on at least one occasion.
High-ranking figures in Peru’s government hope that Perenco’s project will transform the Peruvian economy. While protests against the company were taking place, Perenco’s chairman, Francois Perrodo, an Oxford University polo blue and scion of one of the wealthiest families in France, met Peru’s President Garcia in Lima and pledged to invest $2bn in the project.
Perenco intends to build new platforms and wells involving airlifting in, amongst other things, 42,000 sacks of cement. It admits that ‘contamination of soil’, ‘contamination of water’ and the flight of game and birds are possible consequences of its work
Via / Survival
Media Coverage of Honduras
8:16 pm By la Macha · honduras · 3 Comments
6 Jul 2009To add more complexity to the various conversations we’ve had here at VL about the media coverage of the coup in Honduras, there is this really important interview on Democracy Now! with John Pilger, a journalist covering Honduras.
But for most people, the primary source of their information is the mainstream. It is mainly television. Even the internet for all its subversiveness has still a very large component of the mainstream. And that means we’re getting still either its this singular message about wars, about the economy, about all those things that touch our lives. All we are getting is what I would call is a contrived silence, a censorship by a mission. I think this is almost the principal issue of today because without information, we cannot possibly begin to influence government. We cannot possibly begin to end the wars.
All of this, it seams to me, has come together in the presidency of Barack Obama who is almost a creation of this media world. He promised some things, although most of them were more for us, and has delivered virtually the opposite. He started his own war in Pakistan. We see the events in Iran and Honduras in quiet subtlety, but very directly influenced in the time-honored way by the Obama administration. And yet the Obama administration is still given this extraordinary benefit of the doubt by people, who in my view are influenced by the mainstream media. It is a time when I think, where either we are going to begin to understand how the media really works, or we’re going to let that opportunity pass. Its almost a historic opportunity the we understand that the perception of our world is utterly distorted, most of the time through what are seen as credible sources of information.
There was also discussion in the interview about comparisons between the election in Iran and the election Honduras. It is a really important interview, if only because it asks all the questions I haven’t been able to think through because I’m not sure of the exact history in Honduras.
VivirLatino Goes to Hogwarts: Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince Giveaway!
9:28 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Books|Entertainment|Events|Gifts|Los Angeles|Marketing|Miami|New York · 12 Comments
6 Jul 2009
We Latinos know a little something about mixed blood and the trouble that brings. Perhaps a little magical training would help?
VivirLatino is lucky enough to offer some of our readers the chance to see special screenings in New York, Miami,
and Los Angeles of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.We also have 2 Harry Potter Mini Posters to give away.
Want to win? Click after the jump to find out how.
His Sangre is on Whose Hands?
8:12 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · honduras|Violence · Comments Off
6 Jul 2009After the jump there is a disturbing image of a child shot after the Honduran military opened fire on unarmed protesters supporting the arrival of exiled President Zelaya.
“Miss Spain” Moves to Mexico
6:03 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · business|Events|mexico|society|Spain|travel|TV · 1 Comment
6 Jul 2009Times are tough for beauty pageants. With every year that passes they become more irrelevant and more of a joke than a competition to most. Perhaps that’s why Spain’s “Miss España” pageant is suffering so much that they need to take the show on the road: to Mexico. The organization’s president admits that the economic crisis is what lead Miss España to leave la madre patria and move to el nuevo mundo:
It is the first time in 49 years that the event will be celebrated outside of the country. “The world economic situation has forced us to open up borders,” said Andrés Cid. He also mentioned that the decision will “possibly open doors to future events in different places around the world…”
Why Mexico? Because the Mexican tourism industry is still suffering the effects of the swine flu and needs a platform from which they can talk the hundreds of thousands of Spanish tourists who visited the Riviera Maya each year into coming back.
So it works out like this: lack of interest on the part of the Spanish public and low ratings = the pageant needing money. Mexican tourism authorities buy something that won’t work for them, since no one is watching this in the first place. Nice little deal.
Via / 20 Minutos
Zelaya Turned Away from Honduras, Vows to Return
9:54 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · honduras|Politics · 3 Comments
5 Jul 2009Deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, attempted to land at the international airport in Tegucigalpa in a Venezuelan plane that left Washington D.C. earlier today. Despite thousands of Zelaya supporters on the ground, the Honduran military, under orders of Interim President Roberto Micheletti, converged on the runway making a landing impossible. Meanwhile, the Honduran military opened fire and used tear gas on the unarmed protesters, killing two, including one child according to reports, and leaving over a dozen wounded.
In an interview with Telesur from the plane, which ended up landing in Managua, Nicaragua, President Zelaya said that he would keep trying to return to Honduras, tomorrow or the day after that. He also called on the United States to use economic sanctions against the Micheletti government and for international agencies to investigate and prosecute the human rights violations that occurred at the hands of the Honduran military.
Read more…
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