The Spanish prime minister has outlined plans to remove Catalonia's leaders and take control of the separatist region. Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday, Mariano Rajoy stopped short of dissolving the region's parliament but put forward plans for elections.
The measures must now be approved by Spain's Senate in the next few days. Large crowds have gathered in Barcelona to protest against direct rule from Madrid.

It comes almost three weeks after Catalonia held a disputed independence referendum. Spain's supreme court had declared the vote illegal and said it violated the constitution, which describes the country as indivisible. Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has ignored pleas from the national government to abandon moves towards independence.

1. Trump said that Puerto Rico didn´t suffer a real catastrophe like Katrina.

 

President Trump kicked off his visit to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico Tuesday by continuing to applaud his own federal recovery efforts while simultaneously attempting to downplay the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria, which has left 95 percent of the island without power and more than 50 percent without access to clean water two weeks after making landfall.

 

While “every death is a horror,” Trump told Puerto Rican officials, they “can be very proud” that only 16 deaths have been counted so far as a result of Maria. He compared the number with “a real catastrophe” like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused more than 1,800 fatalities when it slammed into Louisiana and Alabama.

 

It’s unclear what Maria’s actual death toll will end up being, as the hurricane wrecked lines of communication throughout much of the island. And many people there are still struggling to get potable water and other basic supplies.

2. Colombia asks Venezuela to allow international observers to monitor regional elections.

 

Colombia and nine allied nations in the Americas urged neighboring Venezuela to allow international monitoring of regional elections later this month.

 

Venezuelans will take to the polls again on October 15 for the first vote since a vote held earlier this year that sidelined the country’s opposition-controlled National Assembly.

 

The so-called Group of Lima, which consists of nine Latin American nations and Canada, called on the government of President Nicolas Maduro to allow the elections “to be realized with full respect for the free, confidential, effective and universal vote.”

 

The Lima Group

 

Argentina

Brazil

Canada

Chile

Colombia

Costa Rica

Guatemala

Honduras

Mexico

Panama

Paraguay

Peru

 

The July 30 election of a constituent assembly that ended up replacing the country’s democratically elected spurred fierce rejection throughout Latin America.

 

Maduro disallowed foreign press and electoral observers in these allegedly corrupt elections that solidified the power of his socialist PSUV party.

 

United States President Donald Trump went as far as to suggest a military response, a possibility widely rejected in Latin America.

3. Chile 2 - 1 Ecuador: Alexis Sanchez sends La Roja third in World Cup qualifier group after late scare in Santiago.

 

Chile survived a late scare to beat Ecuador 2-1 and keep their hopes of reaching the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia alive.

 
The Copa America champions moved into third-place in the 10-team South American qualifying group with their win on Thursday.

The top four teams qualify automatically for Russia with the fifth-placed side facing Oceania champions New Zealand in a two-legged play-off.

With just one game remaining, Brazil are the only South American side to have guaranteed their spot.

Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Peru are all dependent on results in Tuesday's final round of matches.

Chile have perhaps the toughest task in their final match, against Brazil in Sao Paulo.

Chile tiene quizás la tarea más difícil en su partido final, contra Brasil en Sao Paulo.

The five-times world champions have never lost a World Cup qualifier at home.

Chile have failed to sparkle this year, losing three of their last four qualifiers before Thursday.

 However, Tigres striker Eduardo Vargas helped them back to their winning ways with a goal after 22 minutes.

 Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez stole the ball on the edge of the box and fed midfielder Jorge Valdivia and his pass left Vargas in space 12 yards out to crash the ball past keeper Maximo Banguera.

 Romario Ibarra equalised for Ecuador with eight minutes remaining but Sanchez was on hand three minutes later when Banguera could only parry a shot on the edge of the six-yard box.

 

League leading Manchester City are ready to make a January move for Alexis Sanchez — but only if they can get him on the cheap.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger effectively tried to start an auction by admitting he could sell Sanchez and midfielder Mesut Ozil in the winter window rather than lose £100m worth of talent for nothing when their contracts expire at season's end.

Mirror Sport understands Sanchez has made up his mind to move to the Etihad, which leaves City in a strong position.

They failed with a deadline-day £60m offer for the 29-year-old in August and could yet sign him as a free agent, when the player would also get a more lucrative contract.

If City do move for Sanchez in January, it would be for a fraction of the money on offer in the summer.

His value could plummet to as little as £20m with just six months left on his contract.

Sanchez would also not be cup-tied for the Champions League — another attraction for City boss Pep Guardiola, who signed him for Barcelona in 2011.

written by Adriaan Alsema October 3, 2017

Colombia’s aviation authority allowed the country’s largest private airline, Avianca, to hire foreign workers to curb the effects of a pilot strike.

Some 700 pilots went on strike to demand better labor conditions two weeks ago.

The strike left Avianca without half its pilots, forcing the airline to cancel more than 3,000 flights, which has affected 280,000 passengers.

Aerocivil restricted the employment of foreign pilots, demanding at least one of two pilots on board an aircraft must be Colombian.

Foreign pilots assuming command over an airplane must speak Spanish if they want to land on national airports.

A foreign cockpit commander additionally must have done a course on Colombian flight regulations.

 

Obesity rates in the U.S. have hit a new high, and public health experts are renewing calls for an aggressive shift in strategy — one that would change the food environment through initiatives such as soda taxes, rather than just focusing on behavior.  

Nearly four out of 10 U.S. adults were considered obese in 2015-2016, a 30% increase from 1999-2000, according to recent research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. 

“The individual choice model for obesity prevention is not working,” said Sara Benjamin Neelon, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion.

Traditionally, public health efforts have centered on communicating messages about what is healthy in the hopes of changing people's behavior, Neelon said. “But just telling people how to eat better does not equal behavior change. That's part of the problem." 

“Obesity rates have been going up for years while soda consumption has been going down," Dermody said, pointing to ABA figures that show full-calorie soda sales have plummeted 12 straight years to a 30-year low in 2016. "Shouldn’t obesity have gone down with the reduction in soda consumption? It hasn’t, because beverages are only 6 percent of the diet.”