World | VivirLatino

Archive for the ‘World’ Category

Developing: Air France Plane Missing After Takeoff in Brazil

8:35 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Brazil| World| france| travel · 2 Comments

1 Jun 2009

An AirFrance jetliner went missing last night about an hour and a half after takeoff from Rio De Janeiro International Airport. AF 447 was bound for Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport and was carrying 228 passengers and crew when, at about 8:30 p.m. local time, the plane reported mechanical problems and disappeared from radar screens. While there are little details to report, Air France is preparing for the worst. CNN reports:

“I can say without doubt that this is a catastrophe,” Gourgeon said, adding “the entire Air France company and its staff are very moved and affected by this.”

A crisis center was being set up at Charles de Gaulle to deal with anxious relatives and friends waiting for news of passengers. Air France has also set up a hotline: 0800 800 812 in France, or +33 157021055 for international callers..

Airbus has opened a crisis room and their flight safety team is in place, a company spokesperson told CNN. Airbus is working closely with authorities and Air France, he said, declining to comment further.

Brazil has just launched search teams to recover the aircraft, an Airbus A330-200, around where it was last seen, 365 kilometers off the Brazilian coast in the Atlantic Ocean.

We’ll tell you more as the story develops.

Via / CNN

Dangerous Swine Flu Breaks Out in Mexico

10:50 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Health| Immigration| Latin America| World| mexico · 3 Comments

26 Apr 2009

Mainstream media was a-buzz all weekend with news that a flu originating in swine had broken out in Mexico, killing some 60 people and making several people sick stateside. The SF Chronicle reports:

California doctors and other health experts are on the lookout for cases of a new strain of swine flu, a potentially dangerous virus that has reignited fears of a pandemic flu outbreak after killing about 60 people in Mexico and sickening eight people in the United States.

Hospitals and public health departments throughout California, where six of the American cases have been found, were told Friday to increase surveillance of the rare strain of flu that combines genetic material from humans, pigs and birds.

Today it appears that the death toll has risen to 81 in Mexico, and all public events in Mexico City have been cancelled for fear of the disease spreading from person to person, which is apparently how the flu gets around (not from consumption of pork). Kissing has also been banned, as has all other “close contact”.
Read more…

Obama and Chavez Make Nice

18 Apr 2009

While Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might have called President Obama a “poor ignoramous” last month, he appears to be changing his tune — at least a little. At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago last night, the South American leader had something very different to say about his U.S. counterpart:

“I think it was a good moment,” Chavez said about their initial encounter. “I think President Obama is an intelligent man, compared to the previous U.S. president.”

OK, so he’s not calling him Einstein, but he isn’t calling him ignorant either.

In the meeting, Chavez gave Obama the Eduardo Galeano book, “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” (video after the jump…check out Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s reaction when that happens). And if you’re wondering if Obama took the hint, not right away. AP reports that he thought Chavez was giving him his own book and wanted to give Huguito one of his, too. Oh, well. Understanding comes poco a poco.

Read more…

Bolivia Evades Evo Assassination

1:45 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bolivia| Latin America| Politics| World| crime · 1 Comment

16 Apr 2009

01_evo Evo Morales announced today that Bolivian security forces have apprehended 3 alleged international mercenaries who were out to kill him, as the country goes through a very difficult political moment.

Morales stated that the assassins were from Ireland, Hungary and Bolivia, and were planning to kill him and the vicepresident with “bombs and sophisticated weapons”.

Upon arrival in Venezuela for the Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y el Caribe (ALBA) Summit, Morales told reporters:

“I’ve been informed that there was a shootout that lasted half an hour in a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz where 3 foreigners have fallen, with two arrests [...]

Last year in Bolivia the right tried to use the vote of the people to get me out with a revocation referendum. They failed. Afterwards they tried a coup d’etat. They failed. Now they were planning to shoot us to pieces. They are failing.”

This news comes one day after a dynamite bomb exploded outside the home of the Roman Catholic cardinal of Santa Cruz, Julio Terrazas.

Via / CNN Expansión

Mexican Government Up in Arms Over Burger King Ad

14 Apr 2009

Burger King has pissed off Mexico’s Ambassador to Spain because of a new ad campaign running in that country for a product called the “Texican Whopper”. Ambassador Jorge Zermeno wrote to Burger King in Spain to denounce what he called “denigration” of the Mexican flag.

“This advertisement denigrates the image of our country and uses improperly Mexico’s national flag,” Jorge Zermeno wrote in a letter to Burger King in Spain, the Reforma newspaper reported on Monday.

The ambassador contacted the local offices of Burger King after he saw the posters in Spain, Reforma said. The burger is only available in Europe, according to the paper.

Mexico has strict laws prohibiting the defamation of the flag, Zermeno said. He asked Burger King to cancel the ad campaign that “offends Mexicans and Mexico.”

You might remember from numerous posts on VL over the past few years that Mexico doesn’t like people doing weird things with their flag, and this offense can be punishable with harsh fines and even jail time.

Reuters reports that Zermeno’s complaint was related to posters (image above) for the campaign found around Madrid, but I wonder if he’s seen the TV version (video after the jump) – which from the looks of it was created for the U.S. or Canadian market — as it’s much worse.

Protests at the G-20

1 Apr 2009

As expected, protests at the G20 have gotten violent. Tonight it is being reported by several news sources that a man is dead as a result of the protests. I haven’t been able to find out yet if it was accidental, police induced, or stupid protestor induced–usually when there is little or no information, it is accidental (as in had a heart attack or got too dehydrated or something). But we’ll have to wait and see, I guess.

Here is what MSNBC is saying about the protests:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I tend to be very conflicted by protests. On the one had, I am your basic scary frightening anti-capitalist and support the right of any human being (including conservatives!) to protest the government that they live under. On the other hand, I’ve tended to notice through the years of going to protests and/or documenting them, that a very large portion of the violence starts with young men. Which, to me, speaks volumes about how protests become gendered and disconnected from anti-violence movements.

What do these protests hope to achieve (outside of the death of capitalism?)? And has a protest ever led to the down fall of a structure of living? Or has building a new structure to replace the old had to happen first?

Although I am critical–I hope that everybody is ok–and that the man who is dead was not murdered. I also hope that somewhere there is a world leader that is paying attention to what *the people* are saying is important to them.

A Town Bands Together to Save a Friend from Deportation

10:47 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration| Spain| World · 1 Comment

26 Mar 2009

20090313elpgal_2 For a change from the posts about raids and militarized borders, an immigration story with a very happy ending.

It happened in Spain, a country with an “immigration problem” like the U.S., but where people as a whole tend to be a lot more likely to look at immigrants as people rather than “problems”. Hassane Moctar, at 21 years old, arrived by night on a makeshift raft to Spain from Mauritania, taking his life into his own hands to try to find a better life in Europe. He ended up in Galicia, where a family from Cangas do Morrazo, a town near Pontevedra “adopted” him. Hassane has been living with the Veiga family for 6 months, and the family who were once strangers now consider him part of their family.

But things weren’t so rosy with Hassane’s legal situation. Two weeks ago, Hassane, now 24, went to court to answer to a deportation order which would send him back immediately if something wasn’t done. His attorney demonstrated that the people of Cangas supported him, that he spoke Spanish, and that he even had job offers. The Veiga family began a signature campaign and managed to collect 5,000 names from townspeople in support of Hassane staying in Spain. His Galician “sister” testified on the stand to the fact that he was now part of the Veiga family:

“Ever since he started living with us, he’s been just like any member of the family. He’s never had any problems and we all love him. My 95 year old grandmother asks where Hassane is as soon as she gets up, and he spends a lot of time with her. If he gets deported, my grandmother will die.”

But initially much of this was considered irrelevant to his case by the judge. Now he had to wait for the verdict.
Read more…

Obama Administration Will Reportedly Sign UN Gay Rights Agreement

11:07 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism| GLBT| Politics| World| society · Comments Off

18 Mar 2009

3105057712_feec724e1b Not to be all Obama administration “rah, rah, sis, boom ba!” but after quietly celebrating the latest reversal to the Bush farm worker rule, I’m celebrating this piece of unofficial news as well:

The Obama administration will support a United Nations declaration affirming that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in international human rights protections, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday evening.

According to officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Congress was still being notified, the Obama administration had reviewed the reasons why the Bush administration opposed the declaration, and decided to notify the French sponsors that the United States would support it.

As you might already know, the U.S. was, thanks to the prior administration, part of a shameful list of oppressive, anti-gay countries such as Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Egypt and the Vatican City. It’s impossible for people in Europe and other places that signed the agreement to understand this kind of hatred. Luckily, with this move, we are a millimeter closer to a more dignified world image.

There’s still a lot left for the Obama administration to do when it comes to gay rights. Namely: approve gay marriage.

Via / Advocate

Fires in Australia

12:32 pm By Maegan La Mala · Australia · Comments Off

10 Feb 2009

This is just horrible:

My heart goes out to all of Australia, but especially those people like the man in the video who have lost family, homes, towns.

Italian President to Force Doctors to Report Undocumented

9 Feb 2009

Ah, Silvio Berlusconi. We’ve reported on the Italian Prime Minister a couple of times here on VL and none of it has been good news. In sharp contrast to the majority of the leaders of the countries within the European Union, Berlusconi has it out for immigrants and apparently will stop at nothing to advance his fascist ways in Italy, the country with the largest number of immigrants in Europe — some 7 million. In what may be his most disgusting move yet, Berlusconi’s government has crossed the line of common decency to make it obligatory for medical doctors to report undocumented patients. Reports The Telegraph:

The Italian parliament passed a bill on Thursday which will compel medical staff to contact the police if they believe that the patient they are treating does not have a valid visa or work permit.

Opposition MPs condemned the measure as “racist” while doctors groups said it would turn them into informers of the kind last seen in Italy during Mussolini’s fascist regime.

VivirLatino