Brazil, Latin America: Week in Review
Brazilian Soccer Stadium Workers May Strike
February 9, 2012 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — Brazilian workers busy renovating the country’s soccer stadiums for the 2014 World Cup have said they may go on strike, deepening concerns that Brazil’s preparation for the games is not on schedule. Brazilian unions leaders say that construction workers in the country’s south and southeast are making almost twice as much as those in the poorer northern regions of Brazil, and are asking that the salaries be uniform across the country, starting at about 1,000 reais per month. Strikes have delayed renovation and construction in several of the twelve World Cup host cities, including in Rio de Janeiro, whose famous Maracanã stadium will also host the Olympic Games in 2016.
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Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Mexican authorities were led by a suspected member of the Zetas cartel to two mass graves containing 15 bodies in the state of Veracruz.
- Former “Survivor” producer Bruce Beresford-Redman was extradited to Mexico to face charges for the murder of his wife during a vacation in Cancún.
Caribbean
- Rescuers recovered 22 more bodies Wednesday from the shipwreck off the coast of the Dominican Republic after migrants hoping to reach Puerto Rico capsized on Saturday. At least 47 were killed.
- A U.N. official said the international body supported Haitian human rights victims attempting to appeal a recommendation that former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier only face charges for lesser financial crimes.
- A lawyer for the “Cuban Five”, sentenced for espionage in the U.S. in 1998, is preparing an appeal based on inadequate counsel.
Central America
- Former Salvadoran military officer Inocente Orlando Montano, suspected of involvement in the 1989 deaths of six Jesuit priests and two women, was indicted in Massachusetts on charges of lying on immigration forms.
- The Panamanian government and indigenous groups in the country agreed to end a blockade of the Pan-American highway if the government releases demonstrators.
- A special prosecutor’s office in Honduras says that 22 of the army’s grenade launchers have gone missing and are likely in criminal hands.
- The U.N. International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala says that it will remain in Guatemala for another 3 years.
Andes
- Venezuelans living abroad will be permitted to vote in Sunday’s primary election for the first time.
- Ecuadorian journalist Emilio Palacio has requested asylum in the United States after being sued for libel in his home country.
- Loggers in Peru have reportedly raided an illegal logging site inhabited by the previously uncontacted Mashco-Piro tribe.
Southern Cone
- Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner criticized Britain for “militarizing the South Atlantic” with the deployment of Prince William to the Falkland Islands.
- A subway train crashed into a building in Santiago, Chile, on Wednesday, but no injuries except minor bruises to the driver were reported.
Image: Rodrigo_Soldon @ Flickr.
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