Daily Mail – A hazardous drug that eliminates free will and can wipe the memory of its victims is currently being dealt on the streets of Colombia. The drug is called scopolamine, but is colloquially known as ‘The Devil’s Breath,’ and is derived from a particular type of tree [The borrachero plant: Datura stramonium] common to South America. Stories surrounding the drug are the stuff of urban legends, with some telling horror stories of how people were raped, forced to empty their bank accounts, and even coerced into giving up an organ. Read article
Money News – Who are the long-term unemployed? Increasingly, it’s baby boomers who have the bad luck of getting laid off and then find they are locked out of the work force, possibly for good. A new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts throws a harsh light on the retirement prospects of millions of middle-income Americans. “In the ?rst quarter of 2012, older workers were less likely to lose their jobs in the first place,” Pew researchers write in an update on the job crisis. Read Article
AFP – Severe drought gripping northeastern Brazil — the worst in a half-century — is taking its toll on more than 1,100 towns, even triggering fighting in rural areas, local media reported Sunday. An average of one person a day is being killed in “water wars” in rural areas, while scores of animals are wasting away before perishing, the O Globo newspaper reported over the weekend. Read article
IpNews – The Brazilian government of Dilma Rousseff is taking firm steps towards stronger relations with Africa, such as the creation of a special fund to finance development projects together with multilateral lenders like the World Bank. Read article
LA Times – A nation still struggling to clear up one housing debacle has run smack into another — soaring rents. The foreclosure mess has pushed millions of former homeowners with tarnished credit into a competitive apartment market across the U.S. Add fresh demand from young workers, few new units and tight standards for home loans, and the result is rental sticker shock not seen in years. Read Article
Reuters – Peru’s government has declared a health alert along its northern coastline and urged residents and tourists to stay away from long stretches of beach as it investigates the unexplained deaths of hundreds of dolphins and pelicans. At least 1,200 birds, mostly pelicans, have washed up dead along a stretch of Peru’s northern Pacific coastline in recent weeks, according to health officials, and an estimated 800 dolphins have died in the same area in recent months. Read article
BBC – A British-owned advertising agency has condemned its team in Argentina over an “offensive” video showing an Argentine athlete training in the Falklands. Read article
AFP – More Mexicans were deported from the United States than those who migrated there last year, according to a second study this week showing a changing pattern of migration in the region. The study, released Wednesday by Mexico’s College of the Northern Border, said the flow of Mexicans to the United States started falling in 2008, when more than 700,000 crossings were recorded, to less than 350,000 in 2011. Read Article
Wired – Back in 2006, the U.S. Army began a controversial program to send cultural specialists to unfamiliar warzones. Now the Human Terrain System is investigating the idea of sending social scientists to a place that’s neither alien nor a declared battlefield for U.S. troops: Mexico. Earlier this month, two HTS advisers were dispatched to the Colorado headquarters of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which oversees the military’s actions in this hemisphere. It’s a pilot program, to explore whether there are gaps in cultural knowledge “that might warrant sending human terrain experts to Mexico,” Defense News reports. Read Article
UPI – What began as a joint Chilean-U.S. base for training peacekeepers before their dispatch to the wider world is growing into a major destination for regional military trainers and defense industry contractors. The $460,000 facility is a burgeoning site for what the U.S. Army South calls a training ground for Military Operations on Urban Terrain. When completed the MOUT base will support the Chilean Joint Center for Peace Operations and the U.S. Department of State’s Global Peace Operations Initiative. Chile is an active participant in international peacekeeping operations and has sent military experts and troops over the years to trouble spots on the India-Pakistan border, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Balkans and various potential flashpoints in the Middle East. Read Article
Reuters – French journalist reporting alongside Colombian security forces tracking FARC disappeared after a gun battle with the rebels. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
BBC – The number of babies born in the US showing symptoms of opiate withdrawal increased threefold in the 10 years up to 2009, a medical study has found. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said one in every 1,000 newborns was affected in 2009. The number of pregnant women testing positive for illegal or legal opiates increased fivefold in the same period. Read Article
AFP – Brazil will boost its military presence in the Amazon region to protect its huge natural resources from any external threat, Defense Minister Celso Amorim told the Senate Thursday. “The commitment to the defense of the Amazon is fundamental. Navy, Air Force, all services will boost their presence in the Amazon in the next few years,” he said without giving further details. Amorim said Brazil did not feel threatened by any neighboring country but added: “We cannot rule out that some power from outside the region” may covet the natural resources of the Amazon, the planet’s largest rainforest and its main source of fresh water. “We are working on a plan to deploy (security) forces and the Amazon plays a very important role. It’s the most vulnerable part of our country,” Amorim said. “We have a wealth of resources which can make us the target of adventures,” he added. Read Article
Reuters – Shining Path rebels on Friday killed three members of Peru’s security forces and wounded two others while they were searching for police who disappeared in an earlier ambush, the armed forces said. It was the latest setback to the government’s push to retake a lawless bundle of jungle valleys in southeastern Peru where a remnant band of Maoist rebels runs cocaine trafficking in the world’s most densely planted region of coca plantations. Read Article
ENENews – Alarmed by widespread reports of visibly sick, deformed seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, state officials have closed area waters to shrimping this morning (April 23). The waters will be closed indefinitely as scientists run tests in an effort to get a handle on a situation that is fast becoming a full-blown crisis on the Gulf Coast. The closures – including all waters in the Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay, areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay and Little Lagoon – mark the first official step in responding to increasingly urgent reports from fishermen and scientists of grotesquely disfigured seafood from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle. Read article
Reuters – Residents in the towns surrounding Mexico’s Popocatepetl adjust to life with daily rumblings and ash clouds from the massive volcano. Rough Cut (no reporter narration) Page with Transcript Link
From a region that contains the mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, boasting nearly 10% of the world’s biodiversity, Central and South America is a rich source of varies news items. Police, protests, politics… we view it all. From the mexican drug cartels to the deforestation of the Amazon. Keep up to date with a look at our regional news archive of 857 articles on the topic CLICK HERE
GlobalEnergyWorld – Spain’s government announced Friday it will restrict imports of Argentine biodiesel in protest at Buenos Aires’ expropriation of oil group Repsol’s YPF subsidiary. Madrid says it will favour domestic or European biodiesel — diesel made from vegetable oil or animal fat — over oil from other nations that export to Spain, principally Argentina. Read article
New York Times – Confronted with evidence of widespread corruption in Mexico, top Wal-Mart executives focused more on damage control than on rooting out wrongdoing, an examination by The New York Times found. In September 2005, a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country. The former executive gave names, dates and bribe amounts. He knew so much, he explained, because for years he had been the lawyer in charge of obtaining construction permits for Wal-Mart de Mexico. Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Read Article
bbc – The coordinated invasions took place in several locations across the country, activists and officials say. Farmers groups say the areas taken over are public lands where poor farmers have the right to grow food under Honduran law. The government said the seizures were illegal and targeted private holdings. Read article
BBC – Argentina has nationalised YPF, wiping out the Spanish firm Repsol’s controlling-stake in the oil firm. The resolution asks the European Commission to consider a “partial suspension” of tariffs that benefit Argentine exports into the EU. Read article
AP – The White House weighed in sharply Wednesday against a House GOP move to break last summer’s budget pact by cutting the annual budgets for nondefense programs funded through annual appropriations bills. Read Article
BBC – Argentina says it will seize a controlling interest in oil company YPF that is owned by Spanish firm Repsol. President Cristina Fernandez said a bill would be presented to the Senate allowing the government to expropriate 51% of YPF shares. The move, announced on national television, was welcomed by her cabinet and Argentina’s regional governors. Read Article
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