La Secretaría General de la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) ha iniciado la coordinación del proyecto “América Latina ante la Segunda Administración Bush”.  

Como parte de este  proyecto, la Secretaría General de FLACSO ofrece otro canal de información con un resumen noticioso semanal sobre lo que se publica acerca de América Latina en algunos de los principales diarios de los Estados Unidos.  Esto permitirá identificar   cuales son los temas que despiertan mayor  interés en Estados Unidos sobre la región latinoamericana y su tratamiento en la prensa estadounidense.  Las noticias han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:
 

POLÍTICA NACIONAL
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URIBE LOOKS TO STOP LEFTIST INSURGENTS
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 29, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia - Strengthened by his landslide presidential re-election, staunch U.S. ally Alvaro Uribe declared Monday that he will fulfill his "huge responsibility" to Colombia.

In Colombia's least violent election in more than a decade, Uribe won a second term with 62 percent of the votes on Sunday - far outpacing his closest rival.

Colombians overwhelmingly returned Uribe to office - the first time for an incumbent in more than a century - because of a surge of economic growth and a decline in crime and violence.

But he has acknowledged the job is far from finished and foremost among his tasks will be fulfilling pledges to end the threat from leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.

"I have a huge responsibility to serve the fatherland," Uribe told cheering supporters outside the Santa Teresita church in his hometown of Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city.

CHAVEZ EDUCATES MASSES AT A UNIVERSITY IN HIS IMAGE
WASHINGTON POST
MAY 25, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela -- As his students copied down their homework assignments, Jose Fernando Benitez reminded them why they should take the work seriously: There were their own interests to consider, but also those of President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.
"The government is spending millions on you," Benitez said before the students in his communications class at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela spilled into the halls. "It is not an option to avoid reading and doing the work. You have an obligation to do your best."
The vast majority of students at the three-year-old university grew up in poverty. Now they are recipients of a tuition-free education. They are also part of a massive underclass that Chavez aims to empower through the social programs that have fed his domestic popularity. The school, the cornerstone of those programs, is aimed at educating millions and promoting the sort of social activism that Chavez says can help Venezuela's poor majority to overcome decades of oppression by the rich.

The government has already built a network of health and education programs. But Chavez has promised more, and to keep those promises from souring into disillusionment, officials acknowledge they will need a lot of industrious bodies, all tuned to roughly the same ideological wavelength.

Thousands of students expected to staff free public health clinics as physicians will get their diplomas at Bolivarian University. So will social workers slated for neighborhood literacy centers, and journalists whom the government believes are necessary alternatives to an opposition-controlled national media.

PERUVIAN ELECTION PRIMER
Round Two: Humala vs. Garcia
WASHINGTON POST
MAY 25, 2006

On June 4, Peruvians will return to the polls for the second round of the presidential election. The candidates have now been whittled down from 30 to two: nationalistic ex-military commander Ollanta Humala and charismatic former president Alan Garcia .

SÃO PAULO DEVELOPERS EYE BOOM TIMES AHEAD
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
MAY 25, 2006

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – When the Duke of Westminster talks about real estate, people listen.

As the richest man in Britain and head of a real estate company with $8.6 billion in worldwide assets, his tips of where and when to buy are widely watched by the world's property developers.

So when his firm, the Grosvenor Group, suggested that São Paulo would be a 21st-century boomtown, many were a little surprised. Perhaps only in São Paulo, where the first signs of a property resurgence are already under way, was the Duke's affirmation treated with calm.

"It is no coincidence that he would say that," says Candido Malta Campos, one of the city's best-known urban planners. "We all believe that São Paulo is going to enter a new stage of development as a big international city."

Although a spokesperson for Grosvenor stressed the comment was not a tip to buy, the message was clear - São Paulo is catching the eye of international developers. When asked to name five future hot spots, Grosvenor cited São Paulo as one of three front-runners, along with Shanghai and the southern California corridor between San Diego and Los Angeles.

A LATIN LEADER SET TO DEFY LEFTIST TREND
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
MAY 26, 2006

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – As leftists and populist politicians - some of them overtly anti-American - gain strength across Latin America, Colombia's conservative president, Alvaro Uribe, stands out as a political island.

The slight, bespectacled yoga enthusiast with an amateur historian's interest in the US Civil War (he knows the Gettysburg Address by heart) is expected to be reelected here Sunday. Uribe has more than 57 percent support, enough to win elections in the first round, according to the Napoleón Franco Group, a polling firm here.

The reason, say observers, is that Colombians feel safer - and better off economically - today.

"Uribe is a remarkable leader," says Michael Shifter, vice president of the InterAmerican Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, D.C. "He has an acute sense of what the people want, and despite continuing, serious problems, has made real progress on the security front."

Indeed, three days before the elections wealthy young Colombians while away the late afternoon at trendy outdoor cafes in Bogotá. In Plaza Bolivar, school children in plaid uniforms race to scatter the pigeons and small groups of tourists gather for the changing of the presidential guard nearby.

HAITI'S STORM-TOSSED BRACE FOR NEW SEASON
THE WASHINGTON POST
MAY 28, 2006

GONAIVES, Haiti -- Tropical Storm Jeanne blew away Markley Maitre's concrete-block house in a rush of wind and water, forcing her to dig through the mud for debris to rebuild.

Now, almost two years later, Maitre, a mother of five, still lives in a skeletal dwelling of scrap metal and sticks that won't provide much shelter when the next powerful storm strikes Haiti.

"If we have another storm, I think we're all going to die," she said outside her home in Gonaives, a seaside city of dirt streets and open sewers in a region left vulnerable to storms by decades of deforestation.

Jeanne killed about 3,000 people in Gonaives and displaced many more. Today -- with the start of the new hurricane season just days away -- there is still a large fetid lake formed by floodwaters on the city's outskirts and thousands of people crammed into a shantytown that sprang up to house survivors.

The dire situation is not unusual in the poorer corners of Latin America and the Caribbean, where tropical storms and hurricanes often bring death and destruction on a far greater scale than in more-developed areas with evacuation routes, modern communications and better drainage.

COLOMBIAN LEADER, SEEKING RE-ELECTION, WARNS OF CATASTROPHE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 28, 2006

BOGOTÁ, Colombia , May 27 — His handlers portray President Álvaro Uribe as a wonkish technocrat too busy solving Colombia's problems to become mired in its tumultuous politics. But as he finished campaigning for re-election ahead of Sunday's voting, Mr. Uribe transformed himself into a master salesman whose message was simple and effective: it's me or catastrophe.

On a recent night, his staccato voice filling the Plaza de Bolívar here, Mr. Uribe rattled off his accomplishments — military victories against Marxist guerrillas, expanded nutritional programs for the elderly, a free-trade pact with Washington.

"All of it appears like a lot, but it is not very much in the face of what the Colombian people need," Mr. Uribe said in a long speech, emphasizing that more work needed to be done and that he was the man to do it. "The victory will be the Colombian people's, the victory will be yours."

Mr. Uribe's projection as a determined and steady caretaker of a troubled country, coupled with his talents for imagery and populism, have made him the man to beat, and perhaps one of the most popular presidents in Colombia's history.

COLOMBIANS KEEP URIBE IN POWER IN LANDSLIDE
THE  WASHINGTON POST
MAY 29, 2006

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 28 -- President Álvaro Uribe was reelected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia's most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally's mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers.

Uribe's win marks the first time in more than a century that an incumbent Colombian leader has been reelected, and bucks a trend of leftist leaders taking office across South America.

With 96 percent of ballots counted, the conservative Uribe won a stronger-than-expected 62 percent of the vote, according to official results. A majority was needed to win in the first round and avoid a runoff.

In second place, with 22 percent, was Sen. Carlos Gaviria of the Alternative Democratic Pole party. Gaviria's strong support -- a record outcome for the left -- confirmed the growing strength of the democratic left in this conservative nation. Horacio Serpa, of the century-old Liberal Party, finished third with just under 12 percent of the vote.

"We're very happy with the results," Gaviria told Caracol Radio Sunday night after recognizing his defeat. "For the first time in the country's history, the main opposition party will be comprised of the democratic left."

In recent years, left-leaning leaders have taken office in Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

VIOLENCE THREATENS BRAZIL ISOLATED INDIANS
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 30, 2006

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - More than one-quarter of Brazil's isolated Indian tribes face extinction unless the government defines the boundaries and gives them control of their land, a missionary group said Tuesday.

More than 100 Indians have been killed in recent years as loggers, ranchers and farmers have expanded farther into the Amazon rain forest, according to a report by the Catholic Church Missionary Council, known as CIMI.

Of 60 groups that have little or no contact with Western civilization, at least 17 "are under serious risk of death and even extinction," it said.

"There are native people contacted only recently, or rarely contacted, who cannot escape the violence triggered by settlers and the extension of the agricultural frontier," Saul Feats, vice president of CIMI, said at a news conference.

He said CIMI learned about the isolated groups from reports by other Indians.

Feats said that Indians in the southern Amazon states of Rondonia and Mato Grosso have been victimized by people working for land speculators and loggers.

The elimination of Indians in those areas "frees their land for private appropriation aimed at exploiting natural resources," the report said.

BOLIVIA LEADER CLAIMS ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 30, 2006

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Leftist President Evo Morales said Tuesday the U.S. government had organized groups to kill him and said he believed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's assertion that Washington was preparing to overthrow his administration.

"I've been informed recently how the U.S. had organized teams - groups to persecute Evo Morales, to kill Evo Morales. They haven't been able to and now we're organized, from unions to this political party and they can't stop us anymore," Morales said, without giving more details.

The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia called the charges "baseless."

"We're supporting democracy in Bolivia in a consistent manner and are looking for a constructive relationship with the Bolivian government based on dignity, mutual respect and common interests," the Embassy said in a statement Tuesday.

Chavez said during a visit to Bolivia last week that the U.S. government was plotting to overthrow Morales. His comments came after President Bush said he was "concerned about the erosion of democracy" in Bolivia and Venezuela.

POLICE ARE CRITICIZED IN WAVE OF GANG VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 30, 2006

SÃO PAULO, Brazil , May 28 — The street combat between the police and criminal gangs that left at least 186 people dead and brought this metropolis of nearly 20 million people to a halt two weeks ago has ceased, at least for now.

But recriminations against the police and the way they handled the attacks are intensifying, fed by indications that irate officers may have sought revenge with a killing rampage that swept up lawbreakers and innocent civilians alike.

"It is barbarity against barbarity, truculence against truculence, firepower against firepower," a group of 10 prominent lawyers, law professors and bar association leaders complained in a recent statement. "Down this path, only chaos can be sowed."

The underlying cause of the outbreak is what political leaders, lawyers and human rights groups describe as endemic corruption and brutality in law enforcement agencies and prisons.

Gangs depend, for example, on cellphones, which are banned in prisons. But the authorities estimate that more than 1,200 of them are circulating in the São Paulo prisons, smuggled in by relatives and lawyers, with the complicity of poorly paid prison guards willing to accept bribes.

POWERFUL PARTY IS STRUGGLING
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 30, 2006

MEXICO CITY - After dominating Mexican politics for 71 years, until Vicente Fox was elected president in 2000, the Institutional Revolutionary Party finds itself in disarray coming into the July 2 presidential election.

Party candidate Roberto Madrazo remains far behind conservative Felipe Calderón and left-of-center candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador in recent polls.

Now, the party, known by the Spanish acronym PRI, has several of its own senior members calling for voters to cast ballots for López Obrador rather than Madrazo, making a PRI comeback even less likely than it already was.

Madrazo, a 53-year-old former congressman, senator and state governor, spent the equivalent of $11.5 million on advertising between Jan. 19 and March 15, outpacing any of the other campaigns. Most of the money, about $9.2 million, went toward television ads.

ELECTORAL BOARD STILL UNDER FIRE
MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 30, 2006

CARACAS - The appointment of new leaders at Venezuela's electoral agency, and their promise to again audit the controversial voter registry, appears to have failed to allay opposition fears of fraud by backers of President Hugo Chávez.

Chávez is the front-runner for presidential elections Dec. 3. But it's not clear whether the National Electoral Council will be able to persuade the opposition that the balloting will be fair, and that they should not boycott the contest.

The council's new board of directors, appointed April 28 by the Chávez-controlled legislature, is already facing allegations that they are all Chávez supporters and likely to continue the previous directors' allegedly pro-Chávez bent.

Council president Tibisay Lucena is a holdover from the previous board, but the other four members -- Germán Yépez, Janeth Hernández, Sandra Oblitas and Vicente Díaz -- are all new to the Council. All but Díaz have previous electoral experience at the national or state levels.

STRIKE BY CHILE STUDENTS TURNS VIOLENT
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 30, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile - A nationwide protest by Chilean high school students demanding school reforms turned violent Tuesday as police struggling to contain hundreds of raucous marchers opened fire with tear gas and water cannons.

The government said at least 12 people were injured in the clashes and nearly 400 demonstrators arrested.

The protest began as some 600,000 students walked out of classrooms across the country to demand reforms in Chile's education law.

Protest leaders had urged students to remain inside their schools without attending classes, a decision supported by many teachers, parents and politicians.

But shortly after noon, hundreds of students attempted to march downtown Santiago. Masked young men threw rocks and erected barricades at some key intersections, and police responded with water cannons and tear gas.

The clashes lasted until dusk, as police dispersed demonstrators who repeatedly regrouped. Authorities and leaders of the students' movement said the masked men were infiltrators.

EUROPEAN STATES BAR EX-LEADER
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 31, 2006

MANAGUA - (AP) -- Former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán, who is accused of money laundering, has been banned from 15 European countries, according to a statement released by the Spanish Embassy in Nicaragua.

The 10-year ban, issued Monday by Spain, is valid in Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland, all of which signed treaties with Spain.

Alemán, who was president from 1997 to 2002, is wanted in Panama and the United States.

SEGURIDAD
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VENEZUELA SPENDING BILLIONS ON DEFENSE
THE MIAMI HERALD
May. 30, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela is buying helicopters, boats and military transport planes in defense deals worth about $2.7 billion, modernizing its military as tensions grow between leftist President Hugo Chavez and the United States.

Flush with oil profits but blocked from buying U.S. arms, Chavez is increasingly looking to countries like Russia and Spain as suppliers.

A cargo ship carrying 30,000 Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles is headed to Venezuela with the first shipment of an order totaling 100,000 guns to arrive by year's end. The military is looking to buy more submarines, and Chavez is planning an even bigger deal for Russian fighter jets.

"The United States is failing in its attempt to blockade us, to disarm us," Chavez said after announcing the first shipment of Kalashnikovs.

Washington has pointed to the mounting defense deals with concern and urged Russia and Spain not to do business with Venezuela. Both countries have shrugged off the warnings.

GANG KICKS AROUND POLITICAL CLOUT
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 31, 2006

SAO PAULO - The crime gang called The First Command of the Capital began 13 years ago as a prison soccer team. Today, it's the biggest gang in the Western Hemisphere, with an estimated 85,000 to 125,000 members.

It's so powerful that when prison officials planned to move 765 of its leaders to an isolated, maximum security facility earlier this month, gang leaders responded with a crime wave that paralyzed Sao Paulo, a state of 40 million people, for four days.

Gang members burned dozens of Sao Paulo's public buses, attacked banks and subway stations and incited 82 prison rebellions. Police estimate the gang launched 339 attacks from May 12 to May 20. More than 170 people died, including 42 police officers and prison guards.

"The government didn't know the gang's reaction would reach this level of intensity," said José de Jesus Filho, a lawyer with a prison ministry in Sao Paulo. "They didn't realize the [gang] has enormous ambitions. It doesn't just want to challenge the government's power. It wants to take that power."

The attacks by the PCC, as it is known by its Portuguese initials, further fueled intense national concern over public security in Brazil, whose rate of firearms fatalities -- 36,000 in 2004 in a country of 188 million people -- is the highest in the world. That's a rate of about one per 5,222 people, compared to one per 182,311 people in the United States.

The May attacks also were a public coming out for the gang that has quietly dominated the prisons and slums of Sao Paulo but been overshadowed, at least in the media, by gangs in Rio de Janeiro, which regularly fight flashy turf battles.

MIGRACIÓN
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NATE COALITION SET TO PASS BILL ON IMMIGRATION
WASHINGTON POST
MAY 25, 2006

The Senate moved to the verge of passing landmark immigration legislation yesterday, scheduling a final vote for today on a bill that would tighten the borders while allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country and permitting new guest workers to come and go.

But the very mixture of get-tough and be-kind measures that have made Senate approval possible could prove the biggest obstacle to reaching an accord with the House, where conservatives are determined to secure the borders before tackling other matters. Senate leaders said their coalition is fragile, and it may be hard pressed to survive changes that House members signal they will demand this summer.

"There are plenty of things wrong with this bill, but there are plenty of things right with it," Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said yesterday, acknowledging the hodgepodge of compromises built into the Senate measure that leave virtually no one enthusiastic about it without reservation.

The Senate voted 73 to 25 to prevent endless debate on the legislation, setting up a final vote for today. Proponents called yesterday's "cloture" vote a bipartisan victory and a momentum-builder that virtually ensures passage of the bill today. But some of the measure's harshest critics voted for cloture, suggesting the final margin may be closer.

SENATE BACKS JOB VERIFICATION FOR IMMIGRANTS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 24, 2006

WASHINGTON, May 23 — The Senate voted on Tuesday to require employers to use a vast new employment verification system that would allow businesses to distinguish between legal and illegal workers.

Employers would be required to enter the Social Security numbers or immigrant identification numbers of all job applicants, including citizens, into the computerized system, which would be created by the Department of Homeland Security. The system would notify businesses within three days whether the applicant was authorized to work in the United States.

Those job applicants determined to be illegal would have to be fired. The measure, approved 58 to 40, is included in a bill that would legalize the vast majority of the nation's illegal immigrants, which is expected to pass the Senate later this week.

The new requirements would result in a broad operational shift for employers who have relied almost entirely on a paper system — the collection of identity documents — to determine the legal status of their workers. The measure is considered a linchpin of the current immigration legislation because it is designed to deter illegal immigration by making it extremely difficult for undocumented immigrants to find work.

SOME IN MEXICO SEE BORDER WALL AS OPPORTUNITY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 25, 2006

SEATTLE, May 24 — To build, or not to build, a border of walls? The debate in the United States has started some Mexicans thinking it is not such a bad idea.

Nationalist outrage and accusations of hypocrisy over the prospect have filled airwaves and front pages in Mexico, as expected, fueled by presidential campaigns in which appeals to national pride are in no short supply. But, surprisingly, another view is gaining traction: that good fences can make good neighbors.

The clamorous debate over a border wall has confronted President Vicente Fox of Mexico at every stop during a visit to the United States that began Tuesday. While he did not publicly endorse the idea, he made clear that his government was prepared to live with increased border security as long as it comes with measures that opened legal channels for the migration of Mexican workers.

Outside his government, several immigration experts have even begun floating the idea that real walls, not the porous ones that stand today, could be more an opportunity than an attack.

A wall could dissuade illegal immigrants from their perilous journeys across the Sonora Desert and force societies on both sides to confront their dependence on an industry characterized by exploitation, they say.

ON A PAPER BORDER, MEXICO'S POOR HIDE, SCRAMBLE AND HOPE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 25, 2006

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Mexico, May 24 — President Vicente Fox was not the only Mexican citizen traveling to Washington State on Wednesday.

As an orange sun rose over the desert here, José Ángel Huerta, 36, a silversmith down on his luck, waited under a shrub pine with several other migrants, watching for a chance to scurry across the border and make the 20-mile hike to Yuma, Ariz. It would be his second try. Two days earlier, the Border Patrol had picked him up and returned him to Mexico.

"I just want to improve my life a bit," the sad-eyed Mr. Huerta said, explaining that his silver shop in Taxco, in southern Mexico, went under last year. He left three children and a wife behind to try to find work picking apples or working construction in Washington.

Mr. Huerta's trip was cut short again on Wednesday when an orange pickup truck from Grupo Beta, the Mexican border patrol, rolled up. Jorge A. Vazquez Oropeza, the agent in charge, rounded up Mr. Huerta and the others, among them a 10-year-old boy, and asked them to climb into the truck. Then he ferried them back to his office at the border crossing here.

MEXICO'S FOX URGES FAIRNESS FOR IMMIGRANTS
WASHINGTON POST
MAY 25, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY, May 24 -- Adding a voice from south of the border to the national debate on immigration, Mexican President Vicente Fox is barnstorming the western United States this week, arguing against fencing off the U.S.-Mexico border and asking Americans for "decent treatment of our people."

Reminding his audiences that he once worked for a "a little small U.S. business you may have heard of: Coca-Cola," Fox is visiting the states of Utah, Washington and California in a four-day trip that includes speeches in English to business and political leaders and Spanish-language rallies with Mexicans working in this country, legally or otherwise.

The U.S. tour is designed partly to enhance cross-border trade and investment. But Fox has also taken pains to present the Mexican view of the raging U.S. debate over immigration -- or, as he calls it, "the migration phenomenon."

Addressing the Utah legislature Wednesday in accented but clear English, Fox insisted that Mexican immigrants have been a boon to this country. "Mexico is proud, very proud, of its people here, whose working spirit and moral values contribute every day to the economy and society of this great nation," he said.

IMMIGRATION REFORM PROPOSALS
 THE WASHINGTON  POST
 MAY 25, 2006

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have passed competing immigration reform bills. The two sides are expected to meet in conference committee in an attempt to hammer out a compromise bill. The Senate bill's guest worker and "path to citizenship" programs are expected to be points of contention. The House bill includes no such provisions.

IN CALIFORNIA, FOX GETS WARM EMBRACE AND A COLD SHOULDER
THE  NEW YORK TIMES                                                            
MAY 26, 2006

SACRAMENTO, May 25 — In an echo of the debate on immigration under way in Washington, the California Legislature gave visiting President Vicente Fox of Mexico a two-edged welcome on Thursday.

Democratic and Latino members, including the Assembly speaker, Fabian N úñez, embraced Mr. Fox, while some Republicans boycotted his evening address to a joint session of the Legislature. Other Republicans attended the speech, but wore yellow buttons reading "No más!" to protest Mr. Fox's support for liberalizing American policies on immigration.

In his address, Mr. Fox praised the immigration bill passed by the Senate on Thursday as a "historic step" and as a "moment that millions of families have been hoping for."

"Mexico believes that it will take more than just enforcement or building walls to truly solve the challenges posed by the migration phenomenon," he said, "and that a comprehensive reform is in the interests of both nations."
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Republican of Orange County, refused to attend Mr. Fox's speech because, he said in an interview, a foreign leader has no right to come to the United States to lobby openly on a piece of domestic legislation.

CRITICS SAY BILL DIMINISHES DUE PROCESS FOR IMMIGRANTS
WASHINGTON POST
MAY 26, 2006

Correction to This Article
A May 26 article on the Senate-passed immigration bill incorrectly identified a co-sponsor of an amendment that eliminated a section that would have made it more difficult for immigrants to avoid being deported while they are appealing asylum applications. The co-sponsor was Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), not Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

The legislation approved by the Senate yesterday would offer many illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship. But advocates of expanded immigration rights complain that "hidden traps" woven through the bill's 300 pages erode significant due-process protections for all foreign-born people living in the United States.

A coalition of civil rights, religious and legal groups says the legislation would make it easier for the government to detain or deport immigrants -- whether in the country legally or not -- while making it more difficult for them to prove they deserve asylum or naturalization.

One provision would add to the list of acts considered "aggravated felonies" under immigration law -- automatic grounds for removal from the country. The rewritten list would include carrying fraudulent documents. According to immigration and civil rights lawyers, that change could prompt the government to expel people who use such documents to escape oppressive regimes or those who have been working in the United States for years under false Social Security numbers.

Another change would give federal courts less latitude to review the cases of immigrants who have applied for asylum or citizenship and been turned down by immigration boards. Currently, U.S. circuit courts consider such appeals from scratch. Under the bill, courts could consider only whether the immigration agency had any reasonable grounds for its decision -- not whether its decision was correct.

MEXICAN PRESIDENT THANKS BUSH FOR SUPPORT ON CHANGES IN IMMIGRATION
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 27, 2006

LOS ANGELES, May 26 — On the last day of his four-day visit to the United States, President Vicente Fox of Mexico spoke with President Bush to thank him for his support for the sweeping immigration changes that were passed by the Senate this week.

Deputy Foreign Minister Geronimo Gutierrez said Mr. Fox had reached President Bush Friday morning. Mr. Gutierrez said President Fox "recognized President Bush's leadership" in standing against fierce opposition from within the Republican Party, promoting increased security along the United States-Mexico border and expanding guest worker programs.

Mr. Fox also restated Mexico's commitment to working with the United States to strengthen security along the border and to create more jobs so that its people do not feel the need to migrate.

Mr. Gutierrez said: "We know that this visit came at a sensitive time. But all the comments that have come to us from Washington have told us that President Fox did a good job, and that his visit was a positive, not a negative."

IMMIGRATION DEAL AT RISK AS HOUSE GOP LOOKS TO VOTERS
WASHINGTON POST
MAY 28, 2006

Republican House members facing the toughest races this fall are overwhelmingly opposed to any deal that provides illegal immigrants a path to citizenship -- an election-year dynamic that significantly dims the prospects that President Bush will win the immigration compromise he is seeking, according to Republican lawmakers and leadership aides.

The opposition spreads across the geographical and ideological boundaries that often divide House Republicans, according to interviews with about half of the 40 or so lawmakers whom political handicappers consider most vulnerable to defeat this November. At-risk Republicans -- from moderates such as Christopher Shays in suburban Connecticut and Steve Chabot in Cincinnati to conservative J.D. Hayworth in Arizona -- said they are adamant that Congress not take any action that might be perceived as rewarding illegal behavior.

Shays, one of the few vulnerable House Republicans open to a broad compromise with the Senate, said strong protests from his constituents this month prompted him to speak out for the first time against citizenship for undocumented workers. "It would be a huge mistake to give people a path to citizenship that came here illegally," he said.

The nearly united front of Republicans from the most competitive districts against Bush's approach to immigration underscores the difficulties the president is facing as he tries to coax his partisans in the House to embrace what he calls a "rational middle ground," along the lines of a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate by 62 to 36 Thursday. GOP leaders in the House are basing their legislative strategy in large part on how it will affect members in the most jeopardy this fall.

HAITIANS STAND TO BENEFIT FROM BILL
MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 28, 2006

Marie Michel still recalls seeing dead bodies in her Port-au-Prince neighborhood and the fear she felt remaining in a country wracked by so much violence.

The Haitian woman escaped using a fake passport to board a flight to the Bahamas and a second flight to Miami. The year was 1994.

"I used those documents because I was trying to save my life and my son's life," said Michel, 46. "We would have died if we had stayed in Haiti."

Michel sought legal residency through the 1998 Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act but was deemed ineligible because she had used false documents to enter the United States.

Congress approved the law to rectify the mistreatment of Haitians who fled their country's bloody governments of the 1980s and early 1990s by offering them legal residency.

BORDERLINE
THE  WASHINGTON POST
May 28, 2006

A country's borders should not be confused with those familiar dotted lines drawn on some musty old map of nation-states. In an era of mass migration, globalization and instant communication, a map reflecting the world's true boundaries would be a crosscutting, high-tech and multidimensional affair.

Where is the real U.S. border, for example, when U.S. customs agents check containers in the port of Amsterdam? Where should national borders be marked when drug traffickers launder money through illegal financial transactions that crisscross the globe electronically, violating multiple jurisdictions? How would border checkpoints help record companies that discover pirated copies of their latest offering for sale in cyberspace -- long before the legitimate product even reaches stores? And when U.S. health officials fan out across Asia seeking to contain a disease outbreak, where do national lines truly lie?

Governments and citizens are used to thinking of a border as a real, physical place: a fence, a shoreline, a desert or a mountain pass. But while geography still matters, today's borders are being redefined and redrawn in unexpected ways. They are fluid, constantly remade by technology, new laws and institutions, and the realities of international commerce -- illicit as well as legitimate. They are also increasingly intangible, living in a virtual and electronic space.

In this world, the United States is adjacent not just to Mexico and Canada but also to China and Bolivia. Italy now borders on Nigeria, and France on Mali.

COMING TO AMERICA
THE WASHINGTON POST
MAY 28, 2006
LOCKOUT

Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends On Getting It Right

About halfway through Michele Wucker's timely book Lockout, she spends a few days with the 40 finalists competing in the 2005 Intel Science Talent Search. These are formidably bright high school seniors already doing scientific research not just a notch or two above their peers' work but well beyond the understanding of most adults. And, as at most science and math competitions in the United States today, the Intel finalists are disproportionately immigrants or the children of immigrants.

As Wucker mingles among these foreign-born best and brightest, exploring their personal stories, it's hard to miss her point: We need this talent. And any policy that helps us take advantage of it will be good not only for the immigrants and the United States but also for the world, which will eventually reap the benefits of what these new Americans produce.

In a season when the country has been caught up in a national conversation about immigration, Wucker, a fellow at the World Policy Institute, has come out with a forcefully argued and informative book. It's far from comprehensive, and some parts of her case are stronger than others. But the overarching argument -- that, as her subtitle puts it, "America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right" -- is both correct and important.

IMMIGRATION BILLS COMPARED

Highlights of the House and Senate and border security measures

REGIONAL
ver noticia(s)

VENEZUELA'S OIL MODEL: IS PRODUCTION RISING OR FALLING?
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
MAY 31, 2006

CARACAS, VENEZUELA – In recent weeks, both Bolivian president Evo Morales and Ecuador's president Alfredo Palacio have taken a page out of Venezuelan populist president Hugo Chávez's natural resources manual.

It's the page that features politicizing the oil and gas industries and nationalizing them - keeping more of the petro dollars at home but alienating longtime foreign investors. A good model? Many oil industry analysts are skeptical.

While the government denies it and high oil prices mask it, analysts say Venezuelan oil production is declining. Since Chávez took over in 1999, production in the state-run oil fields has fallen almost 50 percent, say analysts at PFC Energy, a global energy consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., who spoke on condition of anonymity rather than risk the wrath of the Venezuelan government.

During the same period, no new significant oil reserves have been discovered. And with new, smaller profit margins for outside companies, foreign investors are now slowing the rate of investment in the jointly run oil and gas fields.

VENEZUELA SAYS OPEC SHOULD CUT OIL OUTPUT
THE MIAMI HERALD
May. 30, 2006

CARACAS - (AP) -- Venezuela's oil minister on Monday called for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to consider cutting oil production, while his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates said he expects the cartel to maintain current output levels.
"There is a consensus that the market is well supplied, and the levels of oil inventory are above historic averages," Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez told reporters.

Asked if that meant Venezuela thought OPEC countries should maintain output at current levels, he answered: "At least maintain it." But he then added, "If we were to base it on the fundamentals of the market, we should propose a production cut."

The United Arab Emirates' oil minister, Mohamed al Hamili, said he expects OPEC to take a decision to maintain production levels at its upcoming meeting because there is no shortage of supply of crude oil on the market, the official Emirates news agency reported. In April, OPEC pumped 29.8 million barrels per day.

The 11-nation producers' group is due to meet Thursday in Caracas. The group's official production target, which does not include Iraqi output, is 28 million barrels per day.

POLÍTICA BILATERAL
ver noticia(s)  

BUSH ALLY COASTS TO 2ND TERM IN COLOMBIA
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 29, 2006

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 28 — President Álvaro Uribe, considered by the Bush administration to be an unswerving caretaker for Washington's drug war in Latin America, was re-elected Sunday in a landslide to a second four-year term.

Colombians gave Mr. Uribe 62 percent of the vote, with nearly all of the votes counted. Voters were apparently satisfied that he had made headway during his first term in wresting control of this country from Marxist rebels and drug traffickers. He overwhelmed the second-place finisher, Carlos Gaviria, a left-of-center former Constitutional Court justice who received 22 percent of the vote, and Horacio Serpa, the Liberal Party's standard-bearer, who garnered less than 12 percent.

"The victory by President Uribe will permit the young people of Colombia to learn about the conflict from the history books — not like us who have had to live with it," said Martha Lucía Ramírez, a former defense minister under Mr. Uribe.

Buttressed by more than $3 billion from the United States, most of it military aid, Mr. Uribe has fought Latin America's most persistent leftist insurgency while cooperating with an ambitious American program intended to eradicate drug crops through aerial spraying.

SOUTHCOM GENERAL: CUBA POLICY NEEDS FRESH LOOK
MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 26, 2006

WASHINGTON - In unusually frank criticism of U.S. policy on Cuba by a top military officer, the outgoing head of the Miami-based Southern Command said Thursday he favors a top-to-bottom review of the policies, including a long-standing ban on most contacts between the U.S. and Cuban militaries.

The comments by Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock came just days before President Bush is to receive a major report on U.S. policies toward the island, coordinated by the State Department but with input from other agencies, including the Department of Defense.

"One of the things that we as a government probably don't do well is to review our policies and our laws routinely, based upon the conditions in the world changing," Craddock said in response to a question about Cuba during a briefing for a small group of reporters.

"My judgment is we need to relook laws, policies more often to ensure that they still make sense, given the changing conditions in the world," he said, adding, "I don't want to make a judgment on whether or not to change [the Cuba policy], but I think it needs to be re-looked."

U.S. SENATE, SOCCER MAY HELP MEXICO'S CALDERÓN
MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 28, 2006

The U.S. Senate's passage of a bill to legalize about eight million undocumented workers in the United States will give an extra push to Mexico's government-backed candidate, Felipe Calderón, in his bid to win the July 2 presidential elections.

Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose little-disguised campaigning for Calderón is drawing growing complaints from the opposition, is making the most of the U.S. Senate vote.

Despite the fact that the Senate bill has yet to be approved by a House-Senate conference committee, where it will face strong opposition from House conservatives, Fox heralded Thursday's 62-36 Senate vote as a "a historic day" for Mexico.

The Senate bill creates a path for the legalization of eight million to 8.5 million undocumented immigrants, many of them Mexicans, and calls for a guest- worker program that would allow 200,000 temporary workers a year into the country. This would, among other things, give economic reassurance to millions of Mexicans and other Latin Americans receiving $52 billion in remittances from their relatives living in the United States.

BUSH CONGRATULATES URIBE
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 30, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia - (AP) -- Strengthened by his landslide reelection, conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Monday prayed for good fortune in his second term and for peace in this violence-wracked nation.

"I have a huge responsibility to serve the fatherland," Uribe told cheering supporters outside the Santa Teresita church in his hometown of Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city.
Foremost among his tasks will be fulfilling a pledge to end the threat from leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers, while dispelling concerns he may abuse his powerful new mandate.

In Colombia's least violent election in more than a decade, Washington's staunchest ally in Latin America won a second term with 62 percent of the votes on Sunday -- 40 points more than his closest rival, Sen. Carlos Gaviria of the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole party.

It was the first reelection of a Colombian incumbent in more than a century. Congress last year approved a constitutional amendment allowing reelection.

URIBE'S RE-ELECTION ALSO A WIN FOR U.S.
THE MIAMI HERALD
MAY. 31, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe's landslide re-election victory wasn't only celebrated in Colombia. The clear win for the law-and-order conservative was a triumph as well for U.S. policymakers, who some observers say may be losing Latin America to a rising tide of leftist nationalism.

In recent years, a wave of left-leaning governments has swept across South America - from Chile's relatively friendly socialist Michelle Bachelet to the Washington-bashing Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Meanwhile, nationalization of foreign-owned companies is on the rise, most recently in Bolivia, while free market reforms have fallen to the wayside.

With its influence waning, Washington sees Uribe - who won Sunday by 40 percentage points over his closest rival - as a regional model for the virtues of free trade and friendship with the United States.