Daily headlines: October 31

• PopMatters interviews famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer including his ambition at the age of 99 years as well as his support for President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva’s successful reelection campaign.
• It’s a crime to grab a woman’s butt, ruled Colombia’s Supreme Court in the case of a man who had initially been sentenced to four years in jail for fondling a woman without her consent.
• Foreign oil firms signed new deals with Bolivia’s government which allow for plans to nationalize the country’s gas and oil sectors to move forward.
• Álvaro Noboa easily leads in the polls for Ecuador’s next president.
• Former Haitian paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant (who we discussed on here) was ordered to pay $19 million as part of a civil suit against him.
• A recent poll showed that most Mexican voters would elect Felipe Calderon as president if given a second chance.
• Shakira’s future father-in-law said that she is in no rush to wed her longtime boyfriend, Argentine Antonio de la Rua. (So perhaps New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has an outside chance, eh?)
• Venezuela’s finance minister said that their country’s economy will grow by 6% next year.
• Scientists in Argentina discovered the fossilized remains of a prehistoric carnivorous bird that stood over 10 feet tall.
• A belated rest-in-peace to ex-Peruvian president Valentin Paniagua who bravely stepped in to lead the Andean country in the immediate wake of the Alberto Fujimori scandal.
• Florida governor Jeb Bush denied that he would attend political rallies against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

Links- Angus Reid Consultants, PopMatters, The Latin Americanist (blog), International Herald Tribune, NPR (U.S.), The Australian, BBC News, Miami Herald, Irish Examiner, MarketWatch

Image- Great Buildings Online (Brasilia’s Metropolitan Cathedral, designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built in 1958)

Tags- Latin America