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:
 

COMERCIO
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NATIONS' LEADERS TRY TO REPAIR TRADE BLOC
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 14, 2006

QUITO - Presidents of the four-nation Andean trade alliance sought on Tuesday to relaunch the bloc without Venezuela and to persuade Washington to extend trade preferences created to help counter the cocaine trade.

Alan Wagner, the Peruvian secretary general of the Andean Community of Nations, said a major focus of the summit was the extension of the preferences that Washington granted in 1991 to help Andean countries diversify their economies away from production of coca leaf, from which cocaine derives.

The preferences, covering thousands of products, are scheduled to end later this year. U.S. lawmakers and diplomats have said that an extension, in lieu of formal trade deals, is not in the cards.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a fierce critic of U.S.-backed trade liberalization, announced in April that he was abandoning the Andean bloc, saying it had been "fatally wounded" when Colombia and Peru signed individual free-trade pacts with Washington. Those deals must be ratified by those nations' legislatures.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia has sided with Chávez, contending that country-by-country free-trade deals with the United States would flood the region with heavily subsidized U.S. food products and undercut the raison d'tre for the Andean Community, which was founded in 1969 to better integrate regional trade.

PERU'S NEXT LEADER VOWS TO SUPPORT FREE TRADE
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 11, 2006

LIMA -- Judging from what President-elect Alan García told me in a one-hour interview last week, he will not be the radical leftist populist he was during his first term in the late '80s: On the contrary, he says he wants to go ahead with a free-trade deal with the United States and follow Chile's example in actively seeking new investments.

Before we get into whether García's assurances are sincere -- or empty promises of an erratic populist -- let's go into the most significant things he said in a wide-ranging interview at his office.

Sitting at his desk and smoking a cigarette, García denied media reports that he would demand a renegotiation of Peru's recently signed free-trade agreement with the United States, which is up for ratification in Peru's Congress. Reports that García will seek a "revision" of the treaty before supporting it in Congress sent shock waves through local business circles.

García, who was elected June 4, blamed such reports on "the typical alarmism of journalists." The free-trade agreement, as signed, allows for any of its parties to ask for a renegotiation a few years down the road, but that would only happen "post-free-trade agreement," if Peru felt in the future that the deal does it more harm than good, he said.

ANDEAN BLOC PRESIDENTS TO CHART NEW COURSE
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

QUITO, Ecuador - Four Andean nations agreed Tuesday to chart new trade plans with the United States without Venezuela, a major U.S. critic.

Bolivia's Evo Morales, Ecuador's Alfredo Palacio, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and Peru's Alejandro Toledo signed an accord pledging to respect the rights of Andean bloc nations to negotiate free trade agreements with the United States.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a fierce critic of U.S.-backed trade liberalization, announced in April that he was abandoning the Andean bloc, saying it had been "fatally wounded" when Colombia and Peru signed trade pacts with Washington.

Another focus of the summit was extending the U.S. trade preferences granted in 1991 to diversify the Andean nations' economies, helping to wean them away from the production of coca leaf, the raw ingredient of cocaine.

The preferences, covering thousands of products, are scheduled to end later this year. U.S. officials have said that an extension, in lieu of formal trade deals, is not in the cards.

POLÍTICA NACIONAL
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PANAMANIANS TO WEIGH IN ON A BIGGER CANAL
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JUNE 14, 2006

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA – It's Tuesday, and the regulars are packed into the capital's landmark Cafe Coca-Cola, discussing events of the day. And the topic today, as yesterday and the day before, is the expansion of the Panama Canal. Almost a century after its opening put this small Central American nation at the hub of world trade, the canal is getting set for a facelift. And the nation is weighing in.

The $5.2 billion plan - building a new set of locks at each entrance and digging a new channel - was unveiled in April by President Martin Torrijos and is expected to be completed by 2014.

But before even one crane is brought in or one hydraulic dredge lowered, the people of Panama need to give the project the go-ahead. A national referendum on expansion is expected in the coming months - and until then, all self-respecting Panamanians are busy educating themselves on the merits of graduated toll systems, high-tech pumps, and future new tugboat fleets.

"This is a critical decision before us," says Amabel Herrera, vice president of the Panamanian Federation of Retirees, who has sat at the same corner table at Cafe Coca-Cola playing dominos since 1946. "This is as historical as it gets in Panama."

The canal was completed by the US in 1914 at a cost of $352 million, and only after two French firms went bankrupt and about 22,000 workers died of tropical diseases. The "path between the seas" linked the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, lifting ships through a system of locks, manmade lakes, and cuts, and saving them the long trip around South America.

VENEZUELA'S RAGTAG RESERVES ARE MARCHING AS TO WAR
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JUNE 11, 2006

CÚA, Venezuela — As dawn broke in this gritty city adorned with revolutionary graffiti and murals one day recently, about 300 residents were practicing military-style marching, strutting under the hot sun and clicking their heels in a salute to their commander. This ragtag army of nurses, students and other citizens is one of many being formed throughout Venezuela, part of President Hugo Chávez's attempt to create Latin America's largest civilian reserve force.

"I always thought of myself as a peaceful person with barely the will to kill a cockroach," said Carmen Tovar, 55, a nurse who had been training with reserves for several months. "But now I'm prepared to defend with ferocity the sovereignty of our homeland."

The drills here and in other towns each weekend are a key part of Mr. Chávez's rising military profile, which includes arms purchases and what he contends will be the training of as many as two million citizens to fight a guerrilla war, all in preparation for what Mr. Chavez insists is the threat of invasion by the United States.

Officials at the American Embassy in Caracas have said repeatedly that no such plans exist. But their denials do not appear to convince Mr. Chávez, who was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup tacitly supported by Bush administration officials.

The two sides have become each other's foils in a war of insults and ideology that has begun to harden into actual policy.

MEXICO'S ENFORCERS TAKE ON ELECTION-YEAR MUDSLINGERS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JUNE 12, 2006

MEXICO CITY, June 10 — On the surface, Mexico's presidential election looks a lot like modern campaigns in the United States, a battle of image makers wielding television advertisements, sound bites and, at times, attack ads with less truth than venom.

But in one crucial respect it is different: Mexico's referee, the powerful Federal Election Institute, has waded into the fray involving the three candidates, ruling that some television spots are too false to be on the air and others simply too rude.

It has also enforced an order of silence on President Vicente Fox, telling him not to interfere with the campaign, even to help his party's candidate.

"This council must maintain its tradition of saying yes to freedom of expression, yes to the maximum amount of criticism, but yes to criticism based on truth and yes to legitimate questions," Luis Carlos Ugalde, the president of the institute, said recently. "We must say no to defamation, no to denigration, no to things taken out of context and to misinformation."

MEXICAN CANDIDATES PROMISE MODERNIZATION
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

TEPETITAN, Mexico - Mexico's presidential candidates are promising to be big spenders, pledging roads, railways and even oil refineries they say will modernize the country and attract investment.

Mexico desperately needs better infrastructure - one group of engineers estimates $330 billion worth. But many fear the candidates' proposals are a throwback to old-style politics, when the government ran up debt and threw together shoddy public-works projects to win over voters.

"A lot of the projects that the candidates are talking about do seem to be white elephants," said Jonathan Heath, chief economist for the Mexico unit of HSBC bank.

Roberto Madrazo, trailing in third place ahead of the July 2 election, sought to revive his campaign this month by announcing plans for an astonishing 1,027 infrastructure and development projects.

Madrazo's Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000. For most of that era, all-powerful presidents could spend at will, unencumbered by congressional oversight or fiscal discipline.

But leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has seen those ambitions and raised him a few, including plans for 30 new public universities during his six-year term.

MEXICO PARTIES TO CURB CAMPAIGN HOSTILITIES
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's political parties agreed Tuesday to respect the results of the July 2 presidential election and curb mudslinging to ease tensions ahead of the vote.

Seven of the country's eight political parties signed the agreement, which also asked President Vicente Fox, who has been accused of campaign interference, to refrain from commenting until after the Federal Electoral Institute has announced preliminary results.

This year's presidential race is one of the closest ever with Felipe Calderon of Fox's ruling National Action Party running neck-and-neck with leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution.

Democratic Revolution representative Leonel Cota said the agreement "is one additional element that will give peace of mind to Mexicans so they can vote without fear."

"We will accept and defend the results," said Manuel Espino, representative of the National Action

BEATING GUNS INTO GUITARS
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JUNE 13, 2006

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – The last chord is hit and smoke floods the stage. The spotlights go crazy, the crowds go crazy, and the rocker thrusts his electric escopetarra into the air. "This is about transformation," César López will explain later, backstage, strumming the strange-looking instrument. "It's about turning something bad into good.... It's about possibilities."

More than 100,000 Colombians have been killed here during 40 years of conflict and a civil war continues to rack the country, pitting leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary forces against both each other and the government.

The past four years under newly reelected President Alvaro Uribe have not ended the bloodshed, but they have seen some advances. Following negotiations with the paramilitaries and initial talks with some of the guerrillas, 39,580 illegal combatants have demobilized, laying down approximately 17,000 weapons, according to President Uribe's office.

The weapons these fighters turn in - Galils, Winchesters, AK-47s, and more - are taken into custody by the attorney general's office and stored in military bases. Some of them will eventually be melted down. Others will be reissued to the police and army.

FARC CONDEMNS SMALLER REBEL GROUP
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

BOGOTA - (AP) -- Guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have declared war on a smaller insurgent group engaged in exploratory peace talks with the government.

In a statement on the rebels' website Monday, the 10th Front of the FARC said it had suffered attacks from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, that it "expected only from the enemy" -- referring to the Colombian government.

Both groups have been battling the government and right-wing paramilitary fighters for more than four decades in a conflict that claims more than 3,000 lives a year.

"We've repeatedly tried to resolve our revolutionary differences, but we haven't received a response that allows us to maintain brotherly relations," the statement said. "For that reason we manifest our decision to punish those responsible."

The FARC also made an implicit call for revolutionaries to desert the ELN and join forces with the much stronger FARC.

The conflict between the two groups appeared confined to the isolated state of Arauca, on the eastern border with Venezuela, long an ELN stronghold.

IN HAVANA, TOBACCO CROPS SPARED FROM FLOODS
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

HAVANA - (AP) -- Tropical Storm Alberto drenched western Cuba on Monday after a weekend of heavy rains prompted evacuations, destroyed dilapidated buildings and flooded low-lying areas in Havana.

A few old buildings around Havana crumbled in the heavy rains, the official Prensa Latina news agency reported -- a common occurrence during storms. There were no reports of other major damage or injuries.

"The intensity of the rains has diminished, although in some localized areas of Pinar del Rio they could remain heavy, as well as in the Havana area and on the Isle of Youth," Cuba's National Meteorology Institute said in a statement.

Some areas of Pinar del Río province near Havana lost electricity for up to 12 hours, the official daily newspaper Granma reported.

Granma said heavy rains caused damage in some agricultural regions, but Cuba's most important crop -- tobacco -- was unaffected because the harvest has been completed, with the leaves used to make the island's famed cigars safe and dry inside curing houses.

FARMERS' FEARS HIGHLIGHT GROWING RIFT WITH MORALES
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 14, 2006

CUATRO CAÑADAS, Bolivia -- Tsutomu Fukuhara spent 22 years building up his soybean farm in this corner of eastern Bolivia, starting with 250 acres worth $2,000 and now farming 12,000 acres worth $2 million.

But beyond the usual worries of weather and crop prices, the son of Japanese immigrants has a new concern: President Evo Morales' decision to confiscate "idle" lands from large farmers and give it to the landless poor.

"I have a family," said Fukuhara. "I have debts, I have people who work for me, I've dedicated my life to the farm. I'll fight to the death to protect it."

Fukuhara is not alone in feeling threatened by Morales, who last week began awarding 9,600 square miles of state lands to poor Indians -- the first step of a program to distribute 77,000 square miles of state and private lands, an area larger than Florida's 54,000 square miles.

The National Farming Confederation has announced it would create "self-defense" groups to protect members' lands. The government, in turn, said such groups would be illegal and branded those who defend the farmers "traitors."

HOW CHILE'S GROWTH SKIPPED ITS SCHOOLS
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JUNE 14, 2006

SANTIAGO, CHILE – "A country's development is expressed by the quality of its schools, not by the quality of its highways." The hand-painted sign hung outside a Santiago high school last week, one of hundreds that have been paralyzed in recent weeks by massive student demonstrations calling for education reform in Chile.

The sign sums up the pent-up frustrations in one of Latin America's most stable economies, whose modern sewage plants, envied subway system, and automated-toll superhighways are icons of Chile's rapid economic growth. Meanwhile, many of the country's public schools are in dire need of new infrastructure, resources, and better-trained teachers.

Chile's education system has reached this state after years of neglect and outdated teacher training, says Rodrigo Vera, an education expert with the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO). "Even church ceremonies have changed more than our classrooms," says Vera.

He also blames what he calls a misguided faith in privatized services: "We've had a neoliberal-system way of trying to organize health and education, and after 30 years of this model we find that the market has produced differences and not equity."

REGIONAL
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HAITI REINSTATED BY CARICOM
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 08, 2006

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - (AP) -- A Caribbean regional group has lifted its 28-month suspension of Haiti in response to the country's return to democratic rule after elections earlier this year.

The 15-member Caribbean Community suspended Haiti's membership shortly after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled in 2004 after a bloody revolt.

The group refused to recognize a U.S.-backed interim government, calling it unconstitutional.

Caricom had said it would reinstate Haiti if February's presidential and parliamentary elections were deemed free and fair. Haitians elected René Préval, an agronomist and former Haitian president, as their leader.

"Heads of government wish to congratulate the people of Haiti who, through their patience, resolve and courage, demonstrated their attachment to the democratic process," the Guyana-based secretariat said in a statement late Tuesday.

Preval will make a speech at Caricom's annual conference in St. Kitts in July. On Tuesday, Préval named a coalition government in a bid to unite the impoverished nation. Haiti's Parliament must approve the Cabinet in a vote due to be completed Wednesday.

POLÍTICA BILATERAL
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POWER RESTORED TO U.S. MISSION IN CUBA
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

HAVANA - Electricity was restored Tuesday to the U.S. mission in Cuba after Washington accused Fidel Castro's government of deliberately cutting off the building's power and Havana angrily denied it.

U.S. Interests Section Chief Michael Parmly said power to the building, which was cut June 5, was restored midmorning. Parmly said he still believed the weeklong power outage was deliberate, despite the Cuban government's adamant denials.

"I find it hard to explain otherwise," Parmly said. "They are denying it now because it became public."

U.S. officials in Havana and Washington on Monday accused Cuba of harassing the mission by deliberately cutting off power and lessening the building's water supply.

Castro's government hit back Tuesday with a front-page editorial in the Communist Party newspaper Granma saying the power outage was caused by a problem in the neighborhood grid and that U.S. officials "lie shamelessly."

"Our Revolution would never assault or violate a diplomatic mission," the Communist Party daily Granma said indignantly. "It never has and it never will."

VISIT TO U.S. ISN'T A FIRST FOR CHILE'S FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JUNE 8, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile, June 7 — Michelle Bachelet has lived in the United States twice, first as a child and then as a single mother studying military affairs at the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington. On Thursday, she will return to the capital, but this time on her first official visit as president of Chile.

Elected with a comfortable majority in January, Ms. Bachelet, 54, is her country's first female president, a pediatrician and, like her predecessor Ricardo Lagos, a Socialist. But at a time when Washington's relations with paladins of the Latin American left like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia are increasingly contentious, trade and political ties between the United States and Chile are cordial and growing stronger.

"We share fundamental values and principles about democratic development with an open economy, and a respect for human rights," she said during an hourlong interview Tuesday at the presidential palace here. "Because we have a fluid and frank friendship, there is room for both agreement and divergences."

CONFESSION IN FIU CUBA CASE CHALLENGED
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 09, 2006

June 22, 2005: Carlos Alvarez, mild-mannered psychology professor, Catholic volunteer, suspected covert agent for communist Cuba stops at Publix to swig java after Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle.

FBI agents confront him. Melodrama dominates the brief exchange. The FBI agents tell him, that "this would be the most important day of his life."

It may well have been.

The Florida International University professor followed the FBI to a parking lot, ditched his car, and rode with agents to a hotel room.

According to defense motions filed this week based on snippets of declassified transcripts of the FBI's meetings, Alvarez spoke openly about his life, information coaxed by agents who assured him that "everything is going to turn out fine."

U.S. DIPLOMATIC MISSION IN HAVANA HAS NO ELECTRICITY
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Cuban government has cut off electricity to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana as part of a sharp increase in harassments that include holding up visas for American diplomats waiting to take up posts there and restricting gasoline supplies, the State Department said Monday.

The electricity to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana -- not quite an embassy because Cuba and the United States do not have formal diplomatic relations -- was cut off at 3 a.m. on June 5, said Ashley Morris, a State Department spokeswoman

Although electricity in Cuba is notoriously unreliable, Morris said no other buildings around the Interests Section on Havana's seaside Malecón boulevard have been affected, so U.S. officials believe the cutoff is deliberate.

Asked if the Cuban government had given any reason for the cutoff, Morris said, "you'll have to ask the Cubans. We'd like to know as well."

The latest Cuban harassments were first reported in today's El Nuevo Herald.

U.S. officials also confirmed that diplomatic personnel in Havana have started destroying some documents that are not essential, but called that a standard procedure when power to a diplomatic facility is cut.

CUBA CUTS POWER TO U.S. MISSION
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - Cuba has cut off electricity to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, a dramatic escalation of a campaign of harassment of American diplomats that allegedly includes poisoning a family pet and shutting off water.

U.S. officials also confirmed Monday that the U.S. Interests Section has been destroying nonessential documents, but said that was routine at U.S. embassies when power supplies become uncertain.

The measures underlined the sharp tensions between the Bush administration and Cuba's communist government, but U.S. officials gave no indication whether they would retaliate against the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. The Cuban mission could not be reached for comment.

Cuba's harassments, U.S. officials said, also include holding back visas for American diplomats newly assigned to Havana; denying U.S. requests to import vehicles, computers and other supplies; preventing the mission from hiring Cuban workers to do maintenance, construction or other such work; restricting access to gasoline; and denying exit permits to Cuban employees who need to undergo training abroad.

CUBA RESTORES ELECTRICITY TO U.S INTERESTS SECTION
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

Electricity at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana was restored Tuesday, the same day that Cuba's Communist Party daily published a scathing 2,000-word editorial denying that the week-long outage was intentional.

The Cuban government "categorically denies" claims by the U.S. State Department that it deliberately cut off power and water to the U.S. Interests Section, and such accusations are an attempt to provoke a total break in relations and end immigration accords and food sales, the Granma editorial said.

On Monday the U.S. State Department said its Havana mission was running on generators since June 5, when electricity was shut off. The State Department also said faucets ran dry for a month this year -- plus another three days last week.

"Our revolution has never assaulted or violated the diplomatic headquarters," the newspaper said. "It never did it and never will."

The flap over water and lights comes amid increasing hostility between the two nations. The U.S. Interests Section infuriated Cuba in January when it put up an electronic ticker-tape board that carried messages critical of the government. Cuba fired back by posting a sea of flags to block its view.

CUBAN GOVERNMENT RESTORES ELECTRICITY
MIAMI HERALD
JUN. 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - The State Department Tuesday said the Cuban government has restored electricity to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, ending a one-week cut-off that triggered Washington complaints and strong Cuban denials of a deliberate power cut.

State Department spokesman Eric Watnik confirmed the restoration of electricity in an email to the Miami Herald. The U.S. Interests Section in Havana had been using back-up generators and had operated normally. U.S. officials also complained of water shortages and other harassments.

An editorial today in Cuba's Granma newspaper said the government there "categorically denies" the accusations that it had deliberately cut off electricity and water to the American diplomatic mission in Havana.

The Communist Party newspaper blasted the U.S. government and El Nuevo Herald, which first reported the news, as "brazen liars."

The U.S. State Department Monday said the Cuban government had intentionally cut off electricity to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana June 5. The mission -- not quite an embassy because the two nations do not have formal diplomatic relations -- has continued working with emergency generators.