El Salvador, Latin America: Week in Review
El Salvadoran Hostage Crisis Ends after Several Hours
August 1, 2011 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — A farmer and his son in El Salvador held 30 people hostage for several hours at an evangelical church north of the capital of San Salvador. The farmer, 50-year-old José Miranda, and his 17-year-old son raided the Temple of God church early Sunday armed with M16 rifles while the parishioners in Guzapa were holding a traditional vigil at the church, said National Civil Police Director Carlos Ascencio. Salvadoran authorities were able to persuade Miranda to release all the hostages before dawn, but a motive for the raid is still unclear. As he was being led away by authorities Miranda shouted that he was motivated by injustices and claimed that one of his daughters had recently been jailed.
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Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Cuba commemorated the attack on the Moncada barracks of July 26, 1953, that propelled Fidel Castro to national fame and became the first battle of the Cuban Revolution. Get a visual sense of daily life in Havana 58 years after the historic day in this photo essay by Jorge Royan.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Mexican authorities captured the alleged leader of the La Línea gang who was supposedly behind the killing of a U.S. immigration agent earlier this year.
- The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said that oil and gas companies are restoring production in the Gulf of Mexico after Tropical Storm Don dissipated.
Caribbean
- A United Airlines jet made an unplanned stop in Cuba on Sunday, after detecting a strange odor on board.
- The Cuban government may consider a law this week to allow the island’s inhabitants to sell and buy homes for the first time in five decades.
- The number of tourists visiting the Dominican Republic dropped in June for the first time since 2007.
Central America
- Guatemala’s former first lady lost her bid before the country’s supreme court to run for president in the upcoming presidential elections.
- Honduran authorities recovered another 4.5 tons of cocaine from a small submarine that was used by drug smugglers on the country’s Caribbean coast.
- Former Costa Rican President Mario Echandi died at the age of 96 as a result of bronchopneumonia.
Andes
- Venezuela plans to release 20,000 of its 50,000 prisoners, in order to relieve prison overcrowding.
- Ex-President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe’s then-Chief of Staff Bernardo Moreno was sent to jail on Saturday for alleged involvement in the DAS scandal.
- Ecuador’s Rafael Correa joined the social media site Twitter on Friday.
Southern Cone
- Workers at Chile’s Collahuasi Cooper mine went back to work on Sunday, but the stoppage at the giant Escondida deposit enters its 10th day.
- Argentine authorities are investigating the killing of two French tourists on a hiking trail.
- A Brazilian hospital said that the lymphatic cancer afflicting Paraguay’s president Fernando Lugo is in complete remission.
Image: Damejiar @ Flickr.
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