Latin America

MEXICO CITY (AP) — One day after Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced it was dropping the drug trafficking case against its former defense secretary, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had “fabricated” the accusations against retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — Hundreds of migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border gathered outside a bus station in this Honduran city Thursday despite continued signs from Mexico and other Central American governments that they would not be allowed through.

Officials at the Salvadoran Prison Bureau ordered the emergency transfer of MS-13 leader Chino Milo from the maximum-security wing of Izalco Prison, where he is incarcerated, to the hospital in Zacatecoluca—despite the prison’s chief doctor’s claim that he had a clean bill of health.

Brazil is undergoing a strange racial reckoning after bombshell revelations that thousands of veteran politicians had changed their self-identified race between the 2016 and 2020 elections.

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba is convinced that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden does not believe the Caribbean island nation sponsors terrorism, a senior Cuban diplomat said Tuesday, a day after the outgoing U.S. administration returned Cuba to a terrorism list.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday re-designated Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” hitting the country with new sanctions that could hamstring President-elect Joe Biden’s promise to renew relations with the communist-governed island.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. federal prosecutors have filed motions saying that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández took bribes from drug traffickers and had the country’s armed forces protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States.

Latino Rebels Radio, January 7, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government official in charge of efforts to deal with the coronavirus pandemic has been spotted at a Pacific coast beach, apparently sitting at sea-side restaurant without a face mask on.

Hector chats with Jordana Timerman, a freelance reporter and public policy researcher based in Buenos Aires, and the editor of Latin America Daily Briefing

In September, President Alberto Fernández signed a decree establishing a 1% employment quota for transgender people in the public sector.

“Behind every death is a family,” Ronald Marín says. “Behind every death is a name.”

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro congratulated U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, becoming the last major Latin American leaders to do so.

Innovative and creative, thirty-year-old singer and songwriter Cimafunk, or Erik Rodriguez, is building a new stage for Cuban music.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Lawmakers in Argentina’s lower house on Friday passed a bill that would legalize elective abortions to the 14th week of pregnancy, a proposal from President Alberto Fernández in response to long-sought demands from women’s rights activists in the homeland of Pope Francis.

According to Dr. Amaya Alvez Marín, the constitutional process is “an invitation to unlearn our Western ways, our extractive ways, our imperialistic ways,” which have not protected nature.

The latest episode of Latino Rebels Radio

Of all the institutions consulted, the organization found that  the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) and the National Guard did not have “complete evidence to evaluate the outcome of the training that was carried out.”

From illegal mining and logging to destructive dams to land grabbers to a federal government that often ignores their concerns outright, the Munduruku along the Tapajós River are under attack on all fronts.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentine lawmakers on Thursday debated a bill that would legalize abortion in most cases as demonstrators for and against the initiative gathered in separate areas outside the congress building.

The resignation came just as lawmakers were to vote to strip Mauricio Arriaza Chicas of immunity.