The Miami Herald highlights the recent jailing of a Havana journalist as a testament to the lack of a free press in Cuba:

Juliet Michelena Díaz, 32, was arrested April 7 because of her reporting on ‘a case of ordinary police violence she had witnessed in Havana,’ and should be freed, said Lucie Morillon, RWF director of investigations.

Michelena was initially accused of threatening a neighbor, but the charge was raised to attacking the woman on the day her report was published, indicating ‘a desire to silence her and put a stop to all her critical reporting,’ Morillon said.

RWF, a non-governmental organization, ranked Cuba 170th out of 180 countries in its 2014 freedom of the press index. Cuba’s communist government controls all newspapers and radio and television stations on the island of 11 million people.

Sufficed to say, freedom of speech and of the press are the prerequisites of any true democracy.

Last Friday Latin America analyst Geoffrey Ramsey over at The Pan-American Post called attention to a new bill that could potentially limit the rights of protesters in Argentina:

In reality the bill cannot be easily pigeonholed as an uncompromising attack on freedom of speech. Like similar U.S. laws, it would prevent demonstrators from blocking vehicular traffic. Specifically, it would require that protests allow at least one lane open, and — most controversially — to register with authorities at least 48 hours prior to the event. But still, as La Nacion notes, the [ruling Front for Victory party's] sponsorship of the law demonstrates a ‘profound change’ for a government that has striven to be seen as an ally of mass mobilizations.

For critics of the Fernandez administration, the timing of the bill is no coincidence. As both El Pais and the Associated Press point out, the bill comes amid growing discontent with inflation and economic stagnation, and may be an attempt to brace for potentially escalating protests in the coming months.

Perhaps Pres. Fernández senses a storm coming and wants to make sure she doesn’t wet.

While many Americans spent Easter Sunday enjoying the smell of charred meats, citizens in Venezuela’s major cities got another whiff of something burning:

Though millions of Venezuelans have headed for Caribbean beaches and family gatherings over the Easter period, student demonstrators have sought to keep a nearly three-month protest movement going with religious-themed demonstrations.

After a barefoot walk and a “Via Crucis” march in the style of Jesus’ tortured walk towards crucifixion earlier in the week, hundreds of demonstrators began Sunday with a rally denominated ‘Resurrection of Democracy.’ …

Chanting ‘Liberty!’, the youths threw petrol bombs, fired stones from slings, tore down advertising hoardings, and placed wires across streets blocked by debris.

Seems anti-government protesters aren’t willing to turn the other cheek just yet.

National Immigrant Youth Alliance reveals documents that show DHS to “set new guidelines that raise the bar on who can enter the United States and formally file for protection.”

At least 80 immigrants suspected of entering the United States illegally have been arrested in a makeshift encampment in South Texas…Some told authorities they had been there sleeping on pieces of cardboard with little food or water for at least a week.

“The conventional wisdom says that most Latin American migrants who come to the United States are looking for a better life, inspired by the “American Dream.” And it’s hard to deny that there’s a lot of truth in that. But there’s another side to the story…”

Juan Cristobal Nagel over at Caracas Chronicle makes an excellent point about how the current protests in Venezuela are a direct extension of the 2013 election:

With everything that has gone on since, it is easy to forget what preceded the April 14th election. After Hugo Chávez died and millions participated in a cathartic funeral, an election was called. It was supposed to be a mauling for the opposition. …

Its official result, a razor thin margin of victory for Maduro, was completely unexpected.

Elections are supposed to settle things, and this one settled something alright: politics in Venezuela would never be the same again. …

None of what we see now would be happening if Maduro had romped to a twenty point victory, as was expected. None of this would be happening if the election had been close, but if both sides had accepted its results.

Nonetheless, the opposition — led by Capriles and López — represents two alternatives, not one. Even if Maduro had lost last year, chavismo would still be the plurality.

On Sunday The Washington Post published a story on how Mexican Pres. Enrique Peña Nieto’s popularity is skyrocketing in Washington and elsewhere, but not “in the only place it really counts: Mexico”:

The biggest problem, analysts say, has been Mexico’s feeble growth. Last year, the country’s economy expanded at just 1.1 percent, far below the goal of 5 percent growth Peña Nieto set when he ran for president.

His most widely touted move, a constitutional amendment opening Mexico’s state-controlled energy sector to private and foreign investment, was advertised as a catalyst for faster growth. But it may take years for the benefits to materialize. …

‘Peña Nieto is taking on the big issues that most economists would agree have been holding Mexico back, so the view of Mexico has been quite positive,’ said Shannon O’Neil, a Mexico expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

At the same time, O’Neil said, ‘the reforms have yet to make life better for the average Mexican.’

While Peña Nieto and the PRI are playing the long game, they might not have that much time to convince the Mexican people they’re worth keeping in office.

After being criticized for the mishandling of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in 2010, Mother Nature is apparently testing Chilean Pres. Michelle Bachelet again:

A voracious fire that spread through the hills of the port city of Valparaíso left at least 12 people dead and more than 500 families homeless on Sunday, a day after it forced the evacuation of thousands of others.

The fire began on Saturday in a forest on one of the city’s many steep, heavily populated hills. Strong winds and high temperatures quickly turned it into an uncontrollable blanket of flames that covered the colorful maze of wooden shacks and houses on the city’s hilltops. …

Ms. Bachelet declared a state of emergency for the Valparaíso region on Saturday night, putting the military in charge of public security and the evacuation.

This is the second catastrophe that Ms. Bachelet has faced since she took office more than a month ago. On April 1, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck northern Chile, leaving six dead and much devastation.

With an agenda as ambitious as hers, the last thing the president needs is to be dealing with natural disasters.

At least two of the Republicans expected to run for president in 2016 seem to be empathetic on the immigration issue:

Paul’s comment was in response to a question about former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) recent statement that undocumented immigration was ‘an act of love,’ and not a felony. Bush’s remarks were quickly criticized by conservatives who oppose immigration reform.

Paul was not among those critics, however. ‘I don’t want to say [Bush] is terrible for saying this,’ Paul told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. ‘If it were me, what I would have said is, people who seek the American dream are not bad people. However, we can’t invite the whole world.’

Paul and Bush candidacies could make things interesting come debate time.

The New York Times has published an op-ed penned by Nicolás Maduro, the beleaguered president of Venezuela, in which he blames the U.S. media for distorting the nature of the protests currently wreaking havoc in his country:

The claims that Venezuela has a deficient democracy and that current protests represent mainstream sentiment are belied by the facts. The antigovernment protests are being carried out by people in the wealthier segments of society who seek to reverse the gains of the democratic process that have benefited the vast majority of the people. Antigovernment protesters have physically attacked and damaged health care clinics … This is why the protests have received no support in poor and working-class neighborhoods. The protesters have a single goal: the unconstitutional ouster of the democratically elected government. Antigovernment leaders made this clear when they started the campaign in January, vowing to create chaos in the streets. Those with legitimate criticisms of economic conditions or the crime rate are being exploited by protest leaders with a violent, antidemocratic agenda.

Pres. Maduro recently accepted UNASUR’s offer to mediate talks between the government and protesters.

World-renowned Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez revealed on Tuesday that her new digital newspaper should be up and running no later than early May:

Distribution will rely on cell phones and emails because Cubans have more mobile phones than computers — a meager 74 per 1,000 according to the latest official figures, she said — and easily available memory devices such USB flash drives, DVDs and CDs. The staff is also working on several backup ways of distributing the reports and getting around government censors, Sánchez added. … Government officials will likely try to crack down on her digital newspaper, Sánchez told a news conference after the award luncheon, perhaps by blocking its distribution, slandering its staffers or feeding them false information. Arresting the writers would be ‘clumsy,’ added the author of the blog Generación Y, although several independent journalists have been charged under Law 88, known as the Gag Law, with ‘publishing false news against world peace.’

Sánchez also commented on the political unrest in Venezuela, which provides up to $10 billion a year in subsidies to Cuba, saying that she couldn’t see a similar anti-government movement springing up on the island due to the political and social conditions enforced by Havana.

In Brazil, even remembering the 21-year dictatorship can be dangerous:

A session of the Chamber of Deputies to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the military coup started over an hour late on Tuesday morning and was even suspended for a few minutes due to protests from MPs … When the event finally started, [right-wing Congressman Jair] Bolsonaro opened a banner in the gallery with the words: ‘Congratulations Military – March 31, 1964. Thanks to you Brazil is not Cuba.’ One audience member responded with cries of ‘murderer.’ From there, a riot formed in the chamber and the director of the National Union of Military Wives of the Armed Forces, Ivone Luzardo … was shoved to the floor.

This doesn’t bode well for the country hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup, a tournament meant to be bring the international community together under the banner of peaceful athletic competition.

Earthquake experts say the 8.2-magnitude temblor that occurred just off the northern coast of Chile and left at least six people dead last night was nothing compared to what’s to come:

‘Could be tomorrow, could be in 50 years; we do not know when it’s going to occur. But the key point here is that this magnitude-8.2 is not the large earthquake that we were expecting for this area. We’re actually still expecting potentially an even larger earthquake,’ said Mike Simons, a seismologist at the Geological Survey. Chile is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries because just off the coast, the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the South American plate, pushing the towering Andes cordillera to ever-higher altitudes. Nowhere along this fault is the pressure greater than in far northern Chile, an area known as the ‘Iquique seismic gap.’

Newly-elected Pres. Michelle Bachelet, now in her second nonconsecutive term, probably thought she was suffering a terrible case of déjà vu, a 8.8-magnitude earthquake having hit Chile just days before she left office in 2010. More than 500 people lost their lives that time.