On Allegations that Argentine & Italian Dictatorships Fixed World Cups

This week, FIFA is hosting a conference on the World Cup in history. Scholars from throughout the world are gathering to look at how the World Cup has been more than just a sporting event, filtering into the politics, society, and economics. At the conference, however, two scholars have made some rather bold claims about the connections between the World Cup and politics:

Soccer’s biggest prize may have twice been won with the help of dictators fixing matches for the host team.

Argentina’s triumph in 1978 and Italy’s in 1934 were said to be influenced by military leaders seeking propaganda coups, delegates were told Thursday at a symposium titled ”The Relevance and Impact of FIFA World Cups.”

”It’s the same old story: Sport and politics are brothers and sometimes sport is under the other brother,” Italian writer Marco Impiglia told The Associated Press.

Impiglia presented a paper suggesting Benito Mussolini ensured favorable refereeing decisions, helping the Italian team win.

Raanan Rein, an Israeli professor of Latin American history, said he was ”100 percent persuaded” that Argentina’s military junta influenced a 6-0 win against Peru. The match is a notorious chapter of World Cup lore and ensured Argentina advanced to the final instead of great rival Brazil.

Certainly, there is little doubt that dictatorships benefited from World Cup victories, and it is not even limited to Argentina and Italy. Though Brazil was not the host country in 1970 (Mexico was), its victory there and its status as the first ever tri-champion allowed dictator Emilio Garrastazu Medici to lead the country into the worst excesses of nationalistic pride, even while the military dictatorship was at the height of its most repressive phase. Certainly, dictatorships and repressive governments have benefited from World Cup victories in the past. Nonetheless, as tantalizing and fascinating as the idea is, the key sentence from the article is really this:

Still, Rein and Impiglia said their claims lack documentary proof.

Suffice to say, that’s a pretty big problem. That’s not to say the allegations are totally baseless – for years, there have been allegations and oral accounts from participants or politicians suggesting that Argentina’s 6-0 defeat of Peru in particular was suspect and may have counted on support from any number of officials, be they Peruvian coaches or players, or the referees themselves. Nonetheless, these allegations have generally been whispers, with a lot of contradictions between stories and not a lot of corroborating evidence. Documentary evidence could go far in helping clarify the issue, but that is something Rein and Impiglia lack. One can be “totally convinced” that match-fixing took place, but that does not address the actual issue of whether there is enough evidence to empirically say it did indeed occur. Indeed, although the allegation of manipulating the 1978 or 1934 World Cups is a sexy argument, it distracts from perhaps the more important (and demonstrable) fact that, regardless of whether or not regimes fixed matches, the World Cup played a key role in drumming up popular support for brutal regimes not just in Argentina and Italy, but in Brazil as well. Indeed, the World Cup was and continues to be one of the most visible forms of ultranationalism and sport in the world today, regardless of regime types or match-fixing.

Around Latin America

-While Hugo Chávez’s health is increasingly in question as he underwent surgery for cancer yet again, his political vision appears to remain alive. In gubernatorial elections yesterday in Venezuela, his political coalition won 20 of the 23 elections for state offices. Henrique Capriles, who lost the presidential election to Chávez in October, was also re-elected governor of the state of Miranda.

-Human rights appear to have taken a step backwards in Colombia, where Congress passed a bill that allows military members who commit crimes to face trial in military courts rather than in civil courts. The move further strengthens the potential for impunity for Colombia’s military, already closely tied to numerous human rights violations, and represents a significant step backwards in the quest for preventing human rights violations in Colombia.

-In a case of an unbalanced counter-offer, Chevron countered two civil lawsuits for $20 billion for its role in oil spills in Brazil by offering to instead pay $150 million to resolve the suits.

-In a step towards equal marriage rights, Uruguay’s Chamber of Deputies overwhelmingly passed a bill that would allow gay marriage and would permit couples to decide whose surname goes to their children in what order (thus helping equalize what has culturally been a patriarchal practice). The bill next heads to the Senate, where it is also expected to pass.

-On the other end of the spectrum of equal rights, two teenagers in Brazil were arrested in the murder of a gay college student. One of the two teens confessed to killing Lawrence Corrêa Biancão out of homophobia in what appears to have been a calculated and cold-blooded murder that, in its homophobic extremity, is not so dissimilar from the murder of Chilean Daniel Zamudio earlier this year.

-Honduras is in the midst of a brewing institutional crisis as Congress and the Supreme Court are locked in a battle over power and legislation even as President Porfirio Lobo bandies about allegations of a planned coup against him.

-Brazilian rapper Mano Brown has begun pushing for the impeachment of São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin (who unsuccessfully ran for president of Brazil in 2006) for allowing police to allegedly target Afro-Brazilian youths in South America’s largest city.

-Speaking of police violence in Brazil, police were caught assautling a journalist covering a protest in one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

-Authorities in Paraguay have charged 14 farmers for killing 17 people in land disputes that ultimately led to the removal of President Fernando Lugo from office in June. The charges come even as the causes and events of the actual showdown remain unclear.

-While the image of indigenous peoples as inherently better stewards of the environment is a highly-charged and problematic image, that does not take away from the fact that indigenous groups have become important actors in environmental conservation in the 21st century, as Peru’s Achuar people remind us.

-Finally, it was an excellent weekend for Brazilian sports, as Brazil officially opened the first finished stadium a year and a half in advance of hosting the 2014 World Cup, even while São Paulo’s Corintians football team defeated Chelsea 1-0 to become the first Brazilian club to win the World Club Cup since Internacional did it in 2006.

Around Latin America

-In a move that could have implications for equal marriage rights throughout the country, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that a state law in Oaxaca that banned gay marriage is unconstitutional.

-Gunmen assassinated Paraguayan peasant leader Vidal Vega, who fought for the rights for Paraguay’s landless and whose land occupations marked a key moment in the eventual coup that removed Fernando Lugo, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is calling for an investigation into the murder.

-Speaking of Lugo, he has announced his plans to run for Senate in April of next year in a move that could make for some uncomfortable moments should he win and take seat with those who removed him from the presidency.

-In a case that is prompting international outrage, human rights groups have found severe abuse of women and children at one of the larger psychiatric hospitals in Guatemala, where newly-admitted minors were kept in isolation and where patients had died from preventable illnesses.

-In the ongoing struggle for indigenous rights among Chile’s largest indigenous peoples, a Mapuche community is protesting the creation of a new airport that some say will encroach upon indigenous lands in the southern part of the country.

-Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Brazilian indigenous peoples from 70 groups are also protesting the invasion of their lands by loggers, ranchers, and others. At the same time, hundreds of people, including native peoples, students, and artists, marched in protest of the planned privatization of Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã stadium, the largest stadium in the country and the host of the 2014 World Cup final.

-Famous (or infamous, depending on one’s tastes) Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer was laid to rest in Rio de Janeiro’s São João Batista cemetery, the resting place of other famed Brazilians, including Carmen Miranda and Tom Jobim.

-In a likely reminder that the wounds of torture victims run deep long after authoritarian regimes fall, Rodolfo Picheni, an Argentine union leader who suffered torture at the hands of the military dictatorship in 1976, committed suicide this week. While the sources of his decision may have been diverse, it’s nonetheless a reminder of the ways the basic violation of human rights can impact one’s life in the long term.

-Colombia has withdrawn from the International Court of Justice after the court ended a decades-long dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua by granting Colombia possession of  a series of small-but-contested islands but extending Nicaragua’s maritime borders further into what could be oil- and gas-rich waters.

Around Latin America

-With just over a month to go before the Mexican Presidential Election, center-left candidate Manuel López Obrador has narrowed the gap, and is now trailing PRI-candidate and frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto by only four percentage points in one poll.

-Venezuelan soldiers captured Diego Perez Henao, the suspected leader of the Colombian drug cartel Rastrojos (“Leftovers”), in Venezuela this weekend.

-A controversial dam project in Chile has suffered a major blow as Colbun, one of the two major sources of funding for the dam, withdrew its support for the project. The dam would flood thousands of acres in Chilean Patagonia and had faced significant opposition from a variety of groups, including indigenous peoples and environmental groups, even while increasingly-embattled and unpopular president Sebastián Piñera continues to support the project.

-It has been just over one week since Honduran President Porfirio Lobo named Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares the new national police chief, and already Bonilla Valladares is once again facing allegations of being involved in the the murder and/or disappearance of at least three civilians ten years ago, when he served as a regional police official in the late-1990s and early-2000s.

-Peru declared a state of emergency last week as protests against mining projects after protests took a violent turn, and officials have arrested a mayor for “inciting” the protestors. This is not the first time the government of Ollanta Humala has taken such measures; late last year, the government took similar measures during protests against a gold mine in Cajamarca.

-In a different type of protest, thousands of Colombians took to the streets to protest and demand justice for Rosa Elvira Cely, a street vendor who was assaulted and raped and who died of her injuries.

-As expected, Rio de Janeiro closed its largest landfill, the Jardim Gramacho, just six weeks after it announced the shutdown of the site, which provided over 1000 people with their livelihoods.

-Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo returned from a two-week trip to Asia that his administration described as an attempt to find new markets for Paraguayan goods (especially soy and beef), while his detractors criticized him the time and money spent abroad. While the trip may not lead to any definite trade deals, not traveling to spur foreign investment would certainly prevent any trade deals, so time will tell whether Lugo or his detractors were right.

-A new poll shows that Chileans overwhelmingly support reforms to the dictatorship-era electoral system Augusto Pinochet’s government left behind, with less than 25% of those polled supporting the so-called “binomial system” that favors coalition politics and larger parties/coalitions over smaller parties and that undermines majoritarian governance in Congress.

-Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine who prosecuted high-profile human rights violations cases (including Moammar Ghadafi) for the International Criminal Court, will now be going after a different type of criminal activity, as FIFA has nominated Ocampo to serve as the football organization’s chief of anti-corruption.

-Ricardo Patiño, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ecuador, spoke out against this week against what he called US and British colonialism in Puerto Rico/Guantanamo Bay [Cuba] and the Malvinas/Falklands Islands, respectively.

-Finally, in mixed environmental news from Chile, people donated over 60,000 trees to reforest the Torres del Paine National Park that was ravaged by a forest fire last December, while Chile’s largest hog farm is trying to figure out what to do with half a million pigs after months of complaints and pollution led to the industrial agribusiness having to shut down operations.

Around Latin America

-Amnesty International has issued a report criticizing Colombia for failing to investigate human rights violations and allowing an atmosphere of impunity to persist, including failure to investigate and prosecute right-wing paramilitary groups and individuals who historically have been tied to Colombian governments. However, in at least one isolated instance of progress, a Colombian court sentenced six soldiers to serve 30-50 years in prison for murdering a developmentally disabled man and then falsely reporting his death as a guerrilla combatant.

-As many had hoped she would, Dilma Rousseff has used her line-item veto power to reject 12 clauses and amend 32 others in a highly controversial rainforest bill that had the support of powerful landowners and the business elite but the opposition of the Brazilian Academy of Science, the Catholic Church, and environmental groups (and which saw several Facebook campaigns to promote awareness of and speak out against the law).

-In Argentina, authorities have identified the body of Roque Orlando Montenegro, one of the tens of thousands of “disappeared” in Argentina whose remains washed up in Uruguay in 1976 but were never identified. Both Montenegro and his wife were “disappeared” in the months leading up to and during the Argentine military dictatorship, and their daughter, Victoria, became one of the many cases of children who were adopted and falsely raised by military officials and their supporters as if they were their own children after the infants’ biological parents were arrested, murdered, and “disappeared.”

-Following their protest against PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, thousands of Mexican university students again took to the streets this week to protest against what they argue is the media’s clear bias in favor of Peña Nieto.

-Further south, Hondurans also took to the streets yesterday to protest the increasing violence against and  murder of journalists in Honduras specifically and in the region more generally.

-While three Uruguayan ex-presidents came out to declare that Mercosur has “failed,” their words should be taken with more than a slight grain of salt, as the three men represent parties not included in the current leftist ruling coalition of President José Mujica.

-Five hours after going on strike, São Paulo’s subway workers returned to work after agreeing to a 6% increase in wages and increases in their meal and household foodstuffs vouchers (among other things, Brazilian labor laws require many employers to provide workers with payment for their meals while on the job).

-All of that talk that Argentina’s nationalization of oil producer YPF would lead to European countries reducing trade with Argentina clearly does not apply to one product, at least: the United Kingdom’s importation of wine from Argentina jumped 15%, making the UK the third-largest consumer of Argentine wine (just behind the US and Canada and ahead of Brazil).

-Speaking of alcohol, a new report says that Latin America consumes “considerably less” alcohol than the United States or Europe, though regional metrics vary widely, with El Salvador at the bottom end with only 30% of its population having consumed alcohol in the past year, while 83% of Venezuelans had consumed alcohol in the same time period. Given the deliciousness of Brazilian cachaça, Peruvian chicha, Chilean pisco, and Argentine wine, I can’t help but admire and question (in equal parts) the 15% of the population that are teetotalers.

-Finally, for all of the criticism that NBA owners received for their business practices prior to last year’s lockout, it appears they may not be the worst offenders in the hemisphere; in Brazil, the twenty football (soccer) teams in the first division have a collective debt of $1.85 billion dollars, with four of the top five indebted teams from Rio de Janeiro (sadly, my Botafogo is in the first slot).

Around Latin America

-The Sixth Summit of the Americas ended yesterday with the United States (with support from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper) and the remaining 31 countries in attendance remaining divided over the issue of including Cuba in the Summit. While the rest of Latin America has at least some degree of diplomatic relations with Cuba, the United States continues its anachronistic policy of total isolation of the island country. While at the Summit, President Obama also spoke out against legalizing drugs to combat drug violence, even while other countries proclaimed the need to end the “War on Drugs.”

-Argentine Jorge Videla, an ex-leader of the military junta that took power in 1976, has admitted that the dictatorship he headed for awhile killed at least 7,000-8,000 people, even while he continued to excuse and defend the regime’s actions as “the price to win the war against subversion.” Meanwhile, Peruvian ex-officer Telmo Hurtado admitted he participated in the 1985 Accomarca massacre that left dozens murdered at the hands of the Peruvian military.

-Colombian José Antonio Ocampo has withdrawn his name from candidacy to serve as president of the World Bank. Ocampo’s departure leaves the US’s nominee, Jim Young Kim, and Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the remaining candidates, though Okonjo-Iweala is a long shot given that a US citizen has always been the World Bank’s president and the US has the most votes in the process.

-Speaking of economics and Colombia, does recent economic stability and growth point to a “miracle”?

-A British company has admitted to illegally sending waste exports to Brazil and dumping contaminated waste on the country’s shoreline in 2009.

-Three Brazilians have been charged with murder and cannibalism after killing at least two women and “using their remains to make stuffed meat pies sold in the northeastern town on Garanhuns,” meat pies which it seems at least some of the residents ate, including hospital patients and/or schoolchildren.

-Peruvian forces freed thirty-six contract workers who the Shining Path guerrilla movement had kidnapped and held hostage last week.

-Finally, between a video accusing FIFA head Sepp Blatter of human rights violations and Brazil’s Senate refusing to consider controversial bills regarding the 2014 World Cup without Blatter in attendance, it seems safe to say it has been a moderately rough week for Blatter (though he’s certainly had worse weeks in the past, thanks to his own insensitive and sexist remarks).

Reconsidering Argentina’s 1978 World Cup Team

As a fan of Brazilian football (soccer), I find it almost impossible to root for Argentina. They are the worst of the floppers among Latin American countries (rivaling Italy). The Cult of Maradona* is so omnipresent that it is as obnoxious as the “Maradona or Pelé?” debate is ridiculous (short answer: Pelé; long answer: Pelé). There is only one circumstance in which I would ever root for Argentina in the World Cup, and that is if/when they play England. Say this for Argentina’s obnoxious fans: at least they have two World Cup victories to boast about. I’m sure that there are international rivalries fiercer than the Argentina-England rivalry, but with the legacy of the “Hand of God” and extra-sporting matters like the ongoing tensions over the Malvinas/Falklands Islands, that particular rivalry always seems particularly heated to me. So when an English sports journalist says it’s time to give Argentina’s 1978 team its due as a great team, you know it’s a big admission of just how good that 1978 World Cup champion team (which, coincidentally, did not have Maradona on it)was. It’s just too bad that their victory fueled the nationalism of a military regime that was in the process of killing upwards of 30,000 of its own civilians in its “Dirty War.”

*True story: when I visited Buenos Aires a few years back, I caught a game between Boca Juniors, Maradona’s old team, and somebody else. Throughout the entire broadcast, the screen was split into two shots: on the left half of the screen was the actual game; on the right was a camera focused solely on Maradona sitting in the stands, letting everybody see his exact responses and facial expressions throughout the 90-minute game (plus the time between halves). Because why would you want to be able to actually see the game on the full screen, when you could have a poor picture that limited your ability to follow the game on the left, all while watching a single man sitting for an hour and a half?

Around Latin America

-UNESCO is investigating whether or not to include Brasília on its list of endangered World Heritage sites. The entire city, which was built in the late-1950s and inaugurated in 1960, is on the World Heritage list for its value as an engineering feat of the mid-20th century and a paragon of the high modernist aesthetic that people seem to either love or hate.

-Last week, Mexican authorities found  a cave that contained the remains of 167 bodies in the southern state of Chiapas, and this week, anthropologists say the cave is part of an indigenous cemetery that is around 1300 years old.

-I’ve talked plenty here about the Argentine dictatorship’s crimes against humanity, but human rights abuses were not the limits of the regime’s abuse of power. As investigations into military officials’ past acts continue, authorities’ economic crimes and abuses are also coming to light, revealing the greedy side of authoritarian rule.

-While LGBT rights have a long way to go in Latin America (and much of the world), but the increasing presence of gays, lesbians, and trans-gendered individuals in government posts throughout the region is an important step in shattering stereotypes and increasing acceptance of the LGBT community throughout Latin America.

-A Guatemalan court sentenced an ex-soldier to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the massacre of civilians. Pedro Pimentel, now 55, was convicted for his role in the Dos Erres massacre that took the lives of 201 people in December 1982. While the 6000+ year sentence is symbolic (Pimentel can legally only serve 50 years), it is still an important step towards justice for one of the more gruesome events in what was a horribly gruesome 36-year civil war in the Central American country.

-The US Department of Justice has blocked a Texas Voter ID law that would discriminate against Latino voters in the state.

-While there are certainly many areas in which one can legitimately criticize the Obama administration, Obama’s record in treating Brazil as the increasingly-important global power it has become in the last ten years is excellent and marks a major improvement in US-Brazilian relations, as Boz reminds us.

-Ricardo Teixeira, the head of the Brazilian Football Confederation (Confederação Brasileira de Futebol, CBF) has stepped down amidst allegations of corruption.

-Bolivian president Evo Morales appeared before the UN to again defend the indigenous practice of chewing coca leaves. The leaves, which function as a mild stimulant in the same way as coffee or tea when consumed in their natural state, are also chemically processed and refined into cocaine.

-On the other side of the coca leaf issue, the US Coast Guard recently seized two tons of cocaine worth nearly $43 million in the Caribbean.

-In Peru, hundreds of nude cyclists took to the streets in Lima to protest reckless driving that kills scores of cyclists.

-In El Salvador, mid-term elections gave a “victory” to the right-wing ARENA party, which won a plurality of the vote over the left-wing Farabundo Marti Liberation Front. ARENA’s legislative gains could make  passing legislation difficult for President Mauricio Funes. Tim breaks down what the elections mean going forward,

-Finally, returning to Guatemala, Greg provides this answer for anybody who wonders why Latin Americanists may be more-than-occasionally skeptical of the US government’s rhetoric on and policy towards Latin America [hint: "the Guatemalan people themselves" most certainly did not rise up to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 in a coup that ultimately led to a 30+ year civil war that left more than 250,000 Guatemalans dead].

Around Latin America

-In Honduras, 355 prisoners died in a horrific fire this past Tuesday, resulting in one of the worst prison disasters in history. While families struggle with their losses, survivors express outrage, and human rights activists again point to the problems of prison overcrowding and treatment of prisoners (an issue facing many countries in Latin America), the tragedy is increased by the fact that many of those who were imprisoned had not been charged with or convicted of crimes.

-Earlier this week, Peruvian armed forces captured Florindo Eleuterio Flores-Hala, better known as Comrade Artemio,  the military leader of Peru’s increasingly-isolated Shining Path guerrilla movement. The capture led president Ollanta Humala to declare that the Shining Path is “no longer a threat to the country.” While time will tell whether Ollanta Humala’s declaration is accurate or not, the capture is a major blow to the leftist guerrilla group.

-Forty-five years ago, Latin American countries signed a treaty that designated the region a nuclear-weapon-free zone, a treaty that UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon commended this week in honor of the treaty’s anniversary.

-In Argentina, a recent trial on the trafficking of women has raised the issue of the sex trade and sex slavery in South America’s third most-populous country.

-In a reminder that border violence is not limited to the Mexico-US border, the editor of a newspaper on the Paraguay-Brazil border was murdered this past week. As has been the case in other murders of journalists in Brazil, the editor had campaigned against the corruption and abuses of power on the part of local and national officials.

-Fans of Latin American or British history with a little cash to toss around can buy one of the three remaining copies of the telex of Argentina’s 1982 surrender to England in the Malvinas/Falklands War, with the copy going on auction on April 3.

-Speaking of the Malvinas/Falklands, while tensions have been increasing recently (with both the United Kingdom and England exaggerating the situation), it’s probably not the best diplomatic move (or a classy move) for the islanders’ press  to call Cristina Kirchner a “bitch.”

-From the Department of Irony, a Brazilian woman is suing Weight Watchers for firing her after she gained weight.

-Hundreds of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest this week in the wake of an oil-spill in Venezuela that contaminated rivers and streams.

-When right-wing ex-general Otto Perez Molina won the presidential election in Guatemala, few probably imagined that he would move closer to the legalization of  some types of drugs, but that appears to be a possibility as he attempts to address the increasing drug violence in the Central American country. And he is not alone, as El Salvador’s president, Mauricio Funes, has also made references to considering legalization.

-Venezuela’s opposition has nominated 39-year-old governor Henrique Capriles Radonski to run against Hugo Chavez in October of this year, setting the stage for what could be an interesting campaign.

-Human rights activists in Colombia are finding themselves increasingly threatened; the country’s former Peace Commissioner has fled the country, fearing for his life, a fear that many other human rights activists share as attacks on them are increasing.

-Argentine officials are targeting corruption within the country’s national football (soccer) league in an attempt to stamp out the mafia-like organizations that are not uncommon among fan bases and club organizations.

-Giving new meaning to the phrase “hot action,” a Colombian fire department has come under fire *ahem* for allowing the station to be used to film a porno.

Around Latin America

-Over the weekend, Simon Romero had an interesting article up on Haitians moving to Brazil (on which I’ll have more to say later). The UN has declared that the recent migration of Haitians to Brazil is not a humanitarian crisis. While many Haitians who have fled to Brazil have claimed they are refugees, the UN has ruled that Brazil’s willingness to grant humanitarian visas was a generous act for Haitians to improve their lives.

-A Salvadoran judge has ruled that it is too late to seek prosecution in the murder of famed leftist poet Roque Dalton Garcia. Roque Dalton had been a member of leftist organizations that had become divided over tactics and strategy, and in 1975, his opponents in a small cell ordered his execution for betraying revolutionary ideals. He died on May 10 of that year, but his poetry, which beautifully blends themes of love, politics, and death, continues to resonate with readers today.

-The ongoing war between loggers and elites on the one hand and indigenous groups and environmentalists on the other has claimed another victim, as loggers burned an indigenous child to death while trying to illegally buy wood on an indigenous reservation.

-Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 is facing another legal challenge, as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ACLU asked a federal court to block the parts of the law that prohibit day laborers from looking for work on the streets, arguing the prohibitions discriminate against the right of some to work in the U.S. Other groups have already challenged the law on other grounds, and the Supreme Court will rule on whether or not the law is constitutional after a lower court suspended portions of the bill that required police to ask for documentation from people stopped on suspicion of criminal activity.

-Panama has pledged aid to those who participated in the 1964 protests in the Canal Zone, during which 23 Panamanians (and 4 U.S. soldiers) died.

-Argentine footballer Lionel Messi won FIFA’s Ballon d’Or, making him the fourth player to win the award for best player three times.

-Finally, from the world of science, researchers believe they have found a carnivorous plant that eats underground worms. The Philcoxia minensis lives in the cerrado, or savanna, of Brazil, the second-largest natural habitat in the country (after the Amazonian basin), home to 5% of the world’s biodiversity, and a region under increasing environmental threat.