Lucia Newman

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Lucia Newman
Latin America Editor | United States
Biography

Lucia Newman, based in Buenos Aires, is Al Jazeera's Latin America editor. She has 25 years of experience in television and journalism.

A recipient of many awards in journalism, in 2001 Lucia picked up the prestigious Edward R. Morrow Award for "sustained coverage of Elian Gonzalez", the child at the centre of a heated custody and immigration battle in 2000 involving the Cuban and US governments.

Latest posts by Lucia Newman

By Lucia Newman in Americas on April 14th, 2012
[Photo: Reuters]

If this hadn’t been an election year , things may have been different.

Nobody realistically expected Barack Obama, the US president, to bow to unanimous demands by his Latin American and Caribbean peers to re-incorporate Cuba into the Organisation of American States (OAS) , from which  it was expelled - on Washington’s insistence - exactly 50 years ago.  

At the time, the communist island's Sino-Soviet alliance was considered a security threat to the region.

Fast forward to the last Summit of the Americas, held four years ago in Trinidad and Tobago, where nearly every country in the hemisphere, except Canada and the United States, called for Cuba’s reincorporation behind closed doors.

Pressure from the US State Department  managed to ensure that the subject did not make it to the official list of talking points.

By Lucia Newman in Americas on August 21st, 2011
Differing accounts of their time underground have divided the miners [EPA]

When I went to Copiapo to find out how Chile's famous miners were faring one year after their dramatic rescue, I was amazed at the things that they refused to talk about: exactly how much food did they have during those first 17 days after the mine collapsed? What were the relationships like between them as they waited to be rescued? Is it true that one miner received illegal drugs?

The reason for all the mystery, I was told, was that the lawyer who was handling negotiations for a book and Hollywood movie deal had told them that they could not spill the beans about what happened down under, or the deal would be off.

Some of the things they would not discuss were in fact already common knowledge, such as how much food they had to survive on - two teaspoons of tuna, a biscuit and half a cup of watered down condensed milk every two days.

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By Lucia Newman in Americas on August 17th, 2011

Almost five years ago, Mexicans watched their President Felipe Calderon send soldiers out onto the streets of cities like Ciudad Juarez, announcing an unprecedented frontal attack on the country’s drug cartels.

Then, they saw the death toll rise year by year, from around under 3,000 in 2007 to almost 20, 000 in 2010. This year could be even higher.

When I went to Cancun for the Climate Summit in late November, a taxi driver told me that the leve of violence was seriously disrupting the economy - especially tourism - and that he hoped the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) , which ruled Mexico for 70 years, would be brought back to power in the next presidential elections.

By Lucia Newman in Americas on August 15th, 2011

A few days ago, Mexican authorities captured Osvaldo Garcia Montoya, alias El Compayito, one of the most brutal of the new drug lords and the leader of the Hand with Eyes Cartel that operates in Mexico State and parts of Mexico City.

He is said to have admitted responsibility for killing more than 600 people, most of them rivals who were beheaded and further dismembered.

In fact, he was supposedly planning to kill five members of his own gang who were going to desert, and then post the gruesome murders on the internet, when he was captured.

By Lucia Newman in Americas on August 14th, 2011

I had not returned to El Salvador for 20 years, since the end of the country’s civil war, so I was of course, expecting it to be very changed.

I knew that there was now an acute economic crisis, and that the right-wing death squads that used to terrorise the country when I was covering the war in the late 1980s, had been replaced by violent gangs and drug traffickers.

I also knew that for the first time in its history, central America’s smallest and most densely populated country had a moderate left-wing president, Mauricio Funes.

By Lucia Newman in Americas on August 14th, 2011


It was National Armed Forces Day, a holiday in Guatemala, and I was standing on the field of the Mariscal Sabala Military Base in Guatemala City talking to a high-ranking member of the government as we watched a show of aerial skill put on by the air force and special forces commandos.  

The exhibition began with a large US made Bell UH1H military helicopter, similar to the kind used in the Vietnam War, from which a half dozen or so soldiers jumped out.
By Lucia Newman in Americas on May 17th, 2010
Photo by AFP

Whether or not the Iranian uranium swap deal just bartered by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (with Turkey's co-operation) lays the grandwork for an ultimate solution to the conflict, it is worth noting those who were laughing at President Lula last week are not laughing anymore.

The US state department and others in the G8 and in Brazil, had been ridiculing President Lula for even attempting to mediate in the conflict.

"He's letting Brazil's emerging power status get to his head" and "He thinks he's playing in the majdor leagues!", a top level US state department official recently mocked.

In Brasilia, respected analysts such as Andre Cesar told me that he thought Lula's "inflated ego" was the driving force for his involvement in messy issues like Iran and Palestine, adding that he risked making a fool of himself.

"What makes Lula think that he can succeed where the United States, Russia and France failed?" critics asked.

By Lucia Newman in Americas on March 8th, 2010

As I write this the earth is again shaking. 

The aftershocks of Chile's earthquake, which experts say was at least 600 to 800 times stronger than the one in Haiti, are almost impossible to count. 

A few days ago there was a particularly strong one at 6:20 in the morning that sent journalists staying at a small hotel in downtown Concepcion running out the door in their underwear.  

I was better dressed for the occasion. 

As a Chilean, I know the golden rule: after an earthquake, always sleep with your clothes on and always leave the doors open.

Earthquakes and aftershocks can jam doors, making it impossible to get out.  

Two hours later there were two more, very long and strong aftershocks, 6.2 and 6.6 in magnitude. 

Again, we flew out the door.

Tags: Chile
By Lucia Newman in Americas on January 28th, 2010
Photo from AFP

What a difference from Davos! 

No fashionable three piece suits, no fancy parties or waiters serving cocktails to the world's richest and most powerful after a day of discussions in state of the art conference rooms.  

Here in Porto Alegre it's strictly sandals and tennis shoes at the world's largest gathering of social movements and NGO's, the World Social Forum. The heat is excrutiating and there is no airconditioning at the seminars taking place in old warehouses and - fittingly - in a recycled therno-electric plant.

It has been exactly ten years since the first World Soical Forum was convened here in Porto Alegre as an alternative  to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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By Lucia Newman in Americas on November 5th, 2009
Photo by Getty Images

TEGUCIGALPA – If what is happening in Honduras were the script of a Hollywood movie, you would probably brush it off as too bizarre to believe: a president whisked out of his bed at dawn at gunpoint by soldiers, put on a plane – still wearing his pajamas - and sent to a neighbouring country.

The congress, led by his own political party, which has turned on him, then presents a false resignation letter and replaces him with the man who used to be his close friend and campaign manager!

The deposed president tries to get back into the country, overflying the runway in a borrowed plane while the world watches the whole thing live on television ... but he can’t land because the runway is blocked, so he sneaks back in by land, wearing a disguise, and takes refuge at the Brazilian Embassy, betting that his countrymen will rise up to reinstate him in the Presidential Palace.