Caribbean, Cuba, Latin America: Week in Review
Cuba Investigates Spaniard In Crash That Killed Dissidents
August 1, 2012 By Staff
Top Story — Cuban authorities may charge Spaniard Angel Carromero with vehicular manslaughter because he was driving the car that crashed into a tree and killed dissident leader Oswaldo Payá and fellow dissident Harold Cepero on July 22. A formal accusation against Carromero, who is currently under investigation, could spark a diplomatic row with Spain, where Carromero is a youth leader of the ruling Popular Party and, according to Cuban authorities, had illegally entered Cuba with a tourist visa when he was planning to meet with dissidents. Carromero and Swedish citizen Jens Aron Modig, who was released and allowed to return to his home country, both survived the July 22 crash and have both maintained that no other vehicles were involved in the crash. Payá’s wife and children have suggested that the crash was not an accident and was caused by another vehicle, an accusation that Cuban authorities reject.
Read more from the Miami Herald.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Mexican prosecutors on Tuesday formally charged four high-ranking military officers with providing protection for the Beltran-Leyva cartel.
- Mexican human rights activist Javier Sicilia and others have criticized the fact that a planned memorial to drug violence victims will be built next to Mexico City’s Campo Marte military base.
- Plaintiffs in the discrimination case against Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio rested their case on Tuesday.
Caribbean
- For the 30th year in a row, the U.S. State Department has decided to include Cuba on a list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism.
- Namibia is planning to capture 150 wild animals and transport them to the national zoo in Cuba.
Central America
- Gang members accused of murdering Argentine folk singer Facundo Cabral in Guatemala last year have allegedly laundered $1 billion in drug money in Nicaragua recent years.
- Five people, including two teenagers, burned to death in a car accident Monday in central El Salvador.
- A masked man who calls himself “Urban Maeztro” has been staging artistic interventions in Honduras to draw attention to rising violence in the country.
- Costa Rica’s vice minister of culture and youth, Karina Bolanos, was forced to resign after a racy online video she had recorded for her husband in 2007 began to circulate.
Andes
- U.S. Air Force General Douglas Fraser said he did not believe that Venezuela poses a national security threat to the U.S., echoing a similar statement by U.S. President Barack Obama that was sharply criticized by Republicans.
- A New York Judge who once blocked an $18 billion award for Ecuadorean plaintiffs against Chevron has now said it’s too soon to say that the judgment cannot be enforced.
- Peru’s new prime minister, Juan Jimenez, said Tuesday that the government would listen more closely to residents of Cajamarca opposed to the Congas mining project.
Southern Cone
- The Mercosur trade bloc formally inaugurated Venezuela as a full member of the bloc on Tuesday over oppositions by suspended Mercosur member Paraguay.
- Brazil’s Olympic Committee may take action against Twitter users who posted racist comments about Afro-Brazilian judo fighter Rafaela Silva.
Image: United Nations Photo @ Flickr.
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