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:
 

MIGRACIÓN
ver noticia(s)

ON IMMIGRATION, LIBERALIZE TO CRACK DOWN
By Tamar Jacoby
The Washington Post
Opinion
Sunday, July 16, 2006

The first House "field hearings" on immigration legislation have at times seemed more like talk show free-for-alls than serious contributions to the legislative process. Certainly this was true at the session I attended in Laredo, Tex., where Republicans fanned voters' fears by portraying the border as a "war zone" overrun by terrorists while equally partisan Democrats gleefully bashed the GOP members for indulging in such political theater -- and the audience responded in kind with alternating bursts of cheers and boos. The Senate hearings, in contrast, have been relatively dignified.

Even so, no one would seriously claim that the central issues in the immigration debate -- the critical issues that divide the House and Senate -- are being addressed, at least not yet. Most obviously lost in the shuffle has been any real answer to the central question posed at the first two House hearings: How do we effectively secure our borders against terrorists and other criminals?

The House approach has been to stick to diagnosis -- mostly exaggerated diagnosis of cross-border drug wars, gang violence and al-Qaeda infiltration -- apparently in the hope that a remedy would suggest itself to voters: sealing the border. The Senate, meanwhile, tried to change the subject, focusing -- not wrongly but not quite aptly either -- on the contributions of immigrants to the economy and the U.S. military. If the public didn't know better, voters might think we faced a choice: border security or economic well-being -- with no possibility of both.

CUBANS USING HONDURAS AS EXIT ROUTE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 17, 2006

Honduran authorities are devising a plan to halt what they say is an organized smuggling operation, fearing an "avalanche" of illegal landings by Cuban migrants who are using Honduras as a gateway to the United States.

"What we are witnessing is the trafficking of human beings," Germán Espinal, Honduran director general of international migration, told The Miami Herald. "We need to find a mechanism that will distance us from being accomplices to human trafficking."

A record number of Cubans have landed on Honduran beaches this year: at least 380 over the past six months, compared to 179 in all of 2005 and 47 in 2002. Soon after arrival, the Cubans usually leave Honduras by land to make their way to the U.S.-Mexico border and become beneficiaries of the U.S. wet-foot/dry-foot policy upon stepping on U.S. soil.
The number of Cuban migrants illegally entering the United States across the U.S.-Mexico border also reflects the trend. For the first time in recent memory, Cubans now rank among the most often apprehended along the border, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Honduran authorities say they hope to reach some kind of accord with the U.S. and Cuban governments that will dissuade those trying to flee the island from using the Central American nation as a stopover to El Norte.

HILLTOP LESSONS ON IMMIGRATION
Opinion
The Christian Science Monitor
July 17, 2006

VISTA, CALIF. – My cycling buddy, Julie, and I had just ridden up the Torrey Pines hills in San Diego, and were resting under the shade of the pine trees overlooking the beach when a small group of Mexicans strolled past.

Julie shifted and cleared her throat, "Tell me, as an economist, what do you think about legalizing illegals?"

I chuckled, stretched my legs, and told her about a call I received at 3 a.m. that day.

It was my cousin, Ifeoma, calling from Nigeria. She determined a long time ago to deliver all her babies in the US so they can all have American citizenship - "in the land of milk and honey," as she calls it. She's now three months pregnant with her first child. Her plan had been to arrive on a visitor's visa when her baby was almost due, drop the baby on US soil, and then go back. But now her plans have changed; having heard that the US Senate may grant amnesty to illegal aliens, she's in a hurry to arrive. And that was really the purpose of her early morning call.

AMERICAN-BORN CHILDREN SHOULDN'T BE DEPORTED
Opinion
The Christian Science Monitor
July 17, 2006
By Noreen M. Sugrue

CHAMPAIGN, ILL. – As the US government urgently seeks a unified policy to deal with illegal immigrants, law-enforcement officials seem to be paying more attention to enforcing current laws.

In June 2006, for example, more than 2,400 undocumented workers from across the country were seized. They are currently awaiting deportation hearings.

Their legal status in this country is one thing. But the status of their children is another. The overwhelming majority of those arrested in June are parents of American citizens - children born in the US - and the majority of those children are under the age of 10. These children are US citizens; they're no different from my child or the children of most of you. But because of the possible deportations of their parents, these children will probably be deported, too, if they want to stay with their parents.

If they find a way to stay, they will become policy orphans; that is, citizens with no parents in the US to care for them and no place to live except foster care or in the home of some generous community members.

U.S. BORDER TOWN, 1,200 MILES FROM THE BORDER
The Washington Post
July 17, 2006;

DALTON, Ga. -- Jerry Nelson steered his grocery cart out of the Wal-Mart on a recent night, fuming about globalization, Southern style. "Another great night at the Mexican Wal-Mart," he groused to no one in particular.

The mass migration of Latinos to this corner of northwest Georgia known as the carpet capital of the world has changed the character of everything from factory floors to schools to superstores. On this night, Wal-Mart's ubiquitous TV monitors alternately promoted arroz and rice, aparatos and electronics.

Like many working-class natives of this once lily-white area, Nelson blames the changes on the carpet industry, which he insists lured the Mexicans -- and more recently, other Latinos -- to keep down wages and workers' leverage in this nonunion region. "We all know who the culprit is: Big Business. That's who's running our country," he said.

But the immigration-driven transformation of work in the United States is not simple, and Nelson played a role in the story, too. For decades, displaced farmers were the backbone of carpet mills. Nelson's mother left a farm in Appalachia to work in one until age 82. But Nelson didn't follow her. Neither did his wife, Georgia, also a mill worker's daughter. "We wanted more than our parents," said Jerry Nelson, who spent most of his career as a heating and ventilation contractor.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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PROMISE OF PEACEFUL RESISTANCE FIZZLES
The Miami Herald
Jul. 19, 2006

MEXICO CITY - Facing weeks of indecision in Mexico's disputed presidential race, followers of leftist presidential hopeful Andrés Manuel López Obrador launched what they promised would be a peaceful civil resistance campaign.

But despite pledges to avoid confrontation, a knot of leftist supporters waited for conservative candidate Felipe Calderón outside a meeting with trade unions in downtown Mexico City, screaming insults at him and slamming their fists against his car as he left.

López Obrador refused to condemn the incident, saying "people are reacting to an offense."

The confrontation came as his supporters kicked off the resistance campaign with a protest by dancers, musicians and a clown backing López Obrador's claims that vote fraud cost him the July 2 race.

Calderón's National Action Party said Tuesday that it planned to counter the civil resistance campaign by blanketing the press with information on how the vote was clean and fair.

CALDERÓN SAYS HE WOULD ACCEPT PARTIAL RECOUNT
The Washington Post
July 12, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 11 -- Felipe Calderón, a free-trade booster who was declared the winner of Mexico's disputed presidential election last week, said Tuesday that he would accept a partial recount but that a complete recount would be "absurd" and illegal.

Calderón's main opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, has alleged widespread election fraud, called massive street protests and asked Mexico's special electoral court to order a recount of votes cast in all 130,000 polling stations. In his first international media interview since being declared winner, Calderón said Tuesday that he would abide by the decision of the court, even if it orders a recount of as many as 50,000 polling places.
"I will respect what the tribunal says," said Calderón, of the National Action Party.

During the wide-ranging interview at his Mexico City campaign headquarters, Calderón also took exception to remarks made Monday by President Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, about Calderón's opposition to building more walls on the U.S.-Mexico border. Snow told reporters that the "last time I checked, Calderón did not have any official authority over the activities of the United States government."

AN ELECTION WATCHED FROM AFAR
The Washington Post
July 12, 2006

SAN ANTONIO, July 11 -- The ladies at the sewing cooperative run by the nonprofit organization La Fuerza Unida are U.S. citizens by choice but Mexican at heart.

Six years ago, they followed the controversial election in which George W. Bush became president. Now they're reliving presidential electoral drama, but this time it is south of the border.

"It's my country; those are my roots and those are my people," said Petra Mata, 60, a coordinator of La Fuerza Unida who arrived in San Antonio 17 years ago and has been a U.S. citizen for several years.

A seamstress by trade, she now helps run a workers' advocacy group created after Levi Strauss and Co. closed its three factories here in the 1990s and moved its operations overseas, leaving almost 3,000 seamstresses -- mostly Mexican immigrants, like her -- without work.

Following that "trauma," as she calls it, Mata learned the value of becoming involved in civic life, in fighting for workers' rights and in voting in this country. But that does not mean that Mexico's closest presidential election in its history is just a political footnote for her. It is of intense personal interest to her and the seamstresses at La Fuerza Unida because they have parents, siblings and extended family still living in Mexico. Because, as Rebeca Herrera said, "we're divided in two."

REGIME READIES PATH FOR RAÚL CASTRO'S RISE
The Miami Herald.
Jul. 14, 2006

RAUL CASTRO was born June 3, 1931. He spent 22 months in prison for his role in a 1953 attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba to topple Fulgencio Batista.

A recent string of Cuban media reports highlighting Defense Minister Raúl Castro has U.S. analysts saying that Havana is preparing the way for life after Fidel and suggesting that his younger brother already has begun taking on more governance responsibilities.

Raúl, long designated as successor to his 79-year old brother, was the subject of a fawning 6,300-word profile on his 75th birthday, and the government media has reported on his visits to military bases and comments on the island's politics.
While a database search showed the number of media mentions of Raúl has remained constant, one expert Cuba-watcher said the scope and depth of the coverage has changed dramatically -- from close-cropped photos of him at official functions, for example, to wide-angle "almost heroic" shots of him reviewing troops in the field.

NEW ROLE FOR MEXICO'S ONCE-MIGHTY PRI
The Christian Science Monitor
July 14, 2006

MEXICO CITY – Whether the slim win of conservative Felipe Calderón is certified by an electoral court or leftist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador ends up ahead after his legal challenge runs its course, Mexico's disputed July 2 election has already become a tale of a polarized nation split along regional, class, and, now, party lines.

The two rival presidential candidates split the country's 31 states and one federal district right in half, winning 16 each. Mr. Calderón's National Action Party (PAN) and Mr. Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) hold nearly opposite views on most issues, and each gained more legislative clout in Congress. Both have throngs of supporters convinced of their candidate's victory.

Such partisanship has stirred fears of legislative gridlock over the next six years, while dealing the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) a severe blow. But many analysts say that, in the new political landscape, a weakened PRI could ultimately help Mexico push through the labor, fiscal, and energy reforms that eluded President Vicente Fox.

"[The PRI] is no longer a power broker, but a power seeker," says Federico Estevez, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. "It makes for a Congress that will actually move legislation."

VIDEOS, DOUBTS, AND A BACKLASH IN MEXICO VOTE
The New York Times
July 14, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 13 — To an untrained eye, the scenes captured on video certainly looked like Mexico’s bad old days when votes were stolen instead of won. There was a man inside a polling station stuffing one vote after another into a ballot box.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the embattled leftist candidate for president, showed the video to a crowd of reporters on Monday morning and called it proof that poll workers had taken part in a conspiracy of fraud that robbed him of victory and handed it to his conservative rival, Felipe Calderón.

That night, the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, and Mr. López Obrador’s own representative at the polling station said Mr. López Obrador was misrepresenting the video. The tape, they said, showed a poll worker putting misplaced ballots where they belonged, a common procedure that was perfectly legal.

By then, however, doubt had already been planted. Mr. López Obrador has bet his political future that it will not take much to make that doubt grow into a national call for a recount in a country where rigging elections was once a kind of national pastime. His opponents in Mr. Calderón’s camp are betting people will see things the way they do: that the only one playing dirty these days is Mr. López Obrador.

IN A PRESIDENTIAL TONE, CALDERÓN REJECTS RECOUNT
The New York Times
July 14, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 13 — Felipe Calderón, the man electoral officials say won a razor-slim victory in Mexico’s presidential election, dresses in sober blue suits, wears rimless glasses and is comfortable speaking the language of lawyers and economists.

His opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has stirred popular protests with fiery denunciations of fraud in last week’s election. But Mr. Calderón is already making every attempt to act presidential.

In an interview on Thursday, he offered a legal defense of his apparent victory, along with a coolly logical view of the political standoff polarizing this country. He said that a recount of all votes was not necessary under the electoral law. The law had been followed to the last jot on election night, he reasoned, and the Mexican Constitution’s test of “certainty and legality” for the polling had been met.

“It’s absolutely legitimate,” Mr. Calderón said. “The legitimacy comes from the law, and the democratic way in which the election was carried out.”

Electoral officials have determined that Mr. Calderón, 43, a conservative former energy minister, received 243,000 more votes than his leftist rival, who has asked for a complete recount from an electoral court that has yet to approve the results.

MEXICO’S LEFTIST CANDIDATE SAYS HE’LL NEVER CONCEDE DEFEAT
The New York Times
July 15, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 14 — Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the embattled leftist presidential candidate, said Friday that he would never concede defeat, even if a recount of all ballots upheld a victory for his opponent, Felipe Calderón. But he added that if the courts did order a recount and he lost, he would call off demonstrations.

“For me this election is fraudulent from start to finish,” Mr. López Obrador said in an interview broadcast on CNN.

Mr. López Obrador seemed to be pressuring a seven-member electoral tribunal to order a recount while, at the same time, positioning himself to become the leader of a left-wing opposition that will never recognize the validity of the next government, if the court rules against him.

“He doesn’t want to be the leader of the loyal opposition,” said Federico Estévez, a political scientist at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “He’s perfectly happy to be the leader of the disloyal opposition, and that’s what he is poised to do.”

OIL SPAWNS NEW WAVE OF NEWLY RICH
The Miami Herald
Jul. 17, 2006

CARACAS - They drive shiny new Hummers and Audis. They wear Cartier and carry Montblanc bags. They buy up luxury apartments and fly private aircraft to and from Miami. And they almost always pay in cash.

They are the so-called Boliburguesía -- short for Bolivarian bourgeoisie -- a reference to socialist President Hugo Chávez's declared "Bolivarian" revolution on behalf of Venezuela's poor.

But record oil prices and Chávez's efforts to weed out old money, which has generally opposed his policies, have opened the door for a new class of rich here -- bankers, oil contractors and others who have profited mightily from lavish government spending.

"They're selling like warm bread," said Héctor Márquez, a luxury car dealer in Caracas who has seen his fair share of suitcases full of cash in recent months. "We can't keep up with the demand."

Analysts say these nouveau riche are concentrated in the oil, finance, construction and government service industries, and that their riches likely come from their ties to a state overflowing with money as the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
"This wealth can only be explained by their connection to the government, because they became rich very quickly," said José Guerra, a former Central Bank official who now teaches economics at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas.

LEAKY PIPES, STINGY AID SLOW PERU GAS PROJECT
The Christian Science Monitor
July 17, 2006

NEAR CAMISEA, PERU – Across the bow of a cargo boat, Alcides Huinchompi points to loading platforms jutting from the banks of the Urumbamba River. "That is what we are fighting against," says the Machiguenga Indian activist from deep inside the Peruvian rainforest.

The remote outpost is part of the Camisea Gas Project, a $1.6 billion project for piping Peruvian natural gas 340 miles from the jungle floor, crossing 14,000-foot Andean mountains to markets in Peru and - by 2010 - the US.

Supporters say it will be the catalyst for an unprecedented economic boom for impoverished Peru. But environmental concerns have made the flagship project a political football in Washington and Lima.

Camisea is backed by an international consortium of companies, including Texas-based Hunt Oil, and the US taxpayer-funded Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It's slated to turn Peru into a net energy exporter and save $4.1 billion in energy costs from 2004 to 2033, according to the IDB. It will also create government royalties - one Peruvian province has already landed more than $254 million.

CROWDS RALLY AGAIN TO DEMAND RECOUNT IN MEXICO
The New York Times
July 17, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 16 — For the second time in eight days, thousands of supporters of the leftist presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, filled this city’s historic central plaza to demonstrate their support for his demand for a vote-by-vote recount of Mexico’s disputed July 2 election.

The crowds at this rally — several hundred thousand — were considerably larger than the last and seemed to indicate that the movement started by the embattled former mayor of Mexico City remained strong.

Mr. López Obrador told the throngs of people roaring his name that a recount was not too much to ask to resolve the political crisis that has gripped the nation since election officials declared his conservative opponent, Felipe Calderón, who appeared to be the winner by less than 1 percent of 41 million ballots cast.

TENSION STILL HIGH AFTER VOTE PROTEST
The Miami Herald
Jul. 18, 2006

MEXICO CITY - Compromise seemed more elusive than ever in Mexico's bitter presidential election dispute on Monday, one day after leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador mounted the one of largest protests in Mexican history.

Analysts said the demonstration, during which more than one million people jammed this city's main square and the surrounding streets, didn't change anything. The dispute still must be resolved by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.

But the rally sparked an unusually indignant response from the July 2 election's apparent winner, conservative Felipe Calderón, and many of the capital's commentators, promising more acrimony in the weeks ahead.

Cesar Nava, a Calderón spokesman, said that the election would be decided "by votes, not by marches," and that the National Action Party, or PAN, wouldn't succumb to the "blackmail" of street protests.

CALDERON ALREADY WORKING ON NEW GOV'T
The Miami Herald
Jul. 18, 2006

MEXICO CITY - The top vote getter in Mexico's presidential election said Monday he has begun working on his new government, even though the country's electoral court has yet to declare a winner in the disputed race.

Conservative Felipe Calderon, of President Vicente Fox's ruling National Action Party, led official returns from the July 2 election by about 244,000 votes - just 0.6 percentage points. However, under Mexican law he cannot be declared president-elect until an electoral court deals with challenges to the vote.

The party of the runner-up, leftist former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has filed an 836-page appeal alleging ballot stuffing, illicit government and corporate intervention and other irregularities.

The National Action Party has filed its own challenges, seeking to stretch Calderon's advantage.

But Calderon, who briefly served as Fox's energy secretary, said Monday the country can't sit dormant pending a decision from the court, which must rule on the election by Aug. 31 and declare a president-elect by Sept. 6.

"Mexico doesn't have time to waste and that's why I'm working intensely to initiate my government, the government the people wanted," Calderon said during a meeting with religious leaders in Mexico City.

PABLO ESCOBAR'S EX-LOVER FLEES COLOMBIA
The Miami Herald
Jul. 18, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia - A former lover of slain drug kingpin Pablo Escobar fled to the United States on Tuesday after revealing information Colombian prosecutors had hoped would help convict a former justice minister in the 1989 assassination of a presidential candidate.

The U.S. Embassy said "for safety and security reasons," it had escorted former television news anchor Virginia Vallejo to the United States, where her help is sought in ongoing drug investigations.

The abrupt departure by Vallejo, whose leggy ads for a brand of stockings seduced the nation in the 1980s and won her the heart of Escobar, came two days after she broke a decade of silence to tell the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald that she witnessed former Justice Minister Alberto Santofimio urging her lover to kill Luis Carlos Galan.

Santofimio is on trial on charges he ordered a hit squad to kill Galan during the 1990 election campaign in order to boost his own presidential candidacy and prevent Escobar's extradition to the United States. It was unclear how Vallejo's departure would affect the trial and prosecutors' strategy.

Vallejo's surprise interview included details of her long affair with and the pudgy, unkempt Escobar - a love she confessed to "paying for with 20 years of tears."

MEXICO'S LÓPEZ OBRADOR SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS
By JORGE CASTAÑEDA
The Miami Herald
OPINION
Jul. 18, 2006

Close elections are no big deal; they happen nearly everywhere and often. If the close July 2 vote in Mexico, my country, seems surprising and confusing, it's simply because there have been very few real elections, close or otherwise. Most scholars would agree that in the country's entire history, at most four presidential votes would qualify by international standards: those of 1911, 1994 (sort of), Vicente Fox's in 2000 and now Felipe Calderón's.

Mexico has never been very adept at transferring power regularly, peacefully and democratically; indeed, one can argue that only during the past decade has the country even begun to do so. Thus, it is quite logical that Mexico's political actors, institutions and media should be somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed in view of the result: The winner was declared by barely half a percentage point, and the loser's followers are experiencing serious difficulties in digesting what for them is a totally unexpected defeat.

DEFENDER OF BRAZIL'S YOUTH FACES CLASH WITH STATE
The Christian Science Monitor
July 19, 2006

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – In her grubby office in downtown São Paulo, Conceicao Paganele leafs through a pile of letters from all over the world.

She can't read French, German, or English but she doesn't have to. She knows what they say and it is this: "To São Paulo [State] Governor Claudio Lembo: Please stop harassing this woman who has made it her life to defend imprisoned youths. If the death threats and intimidation continue or if something happens to her, you will be responsible."

A petite woman in her 50s, Ms. Paganele is an unlikely poster girl for human rights. But since she was accused by the São Paulo state government of inciting riots and jailbreaks, organized crime, and causing property damage inside juvenile detention centers, or FEBEMs, as they are known in Portuguese, she has become just that.

Police are investigating her, and are considering bringing formal charges. Amnesty International has taken up her case.

Paganele's troubles have highlighted the perennial turmoil inside the FEBEMs and put a human face on juvenile crime and the modernization of the much-maligned institutions. To her critics, Paganele is a dangerous troublemaker, more concerned with her image than the well-being of the state's more than 6,000 detained adolescents. To her supporters, she is the scapegoat for officials trying to shift focus away from the mismanagement and violence that have plagued the FEBEMs for decades.

RELACIONES BILATERALES
ver noticia(s)

AFTER MEXICO'S ELECTION
The United States Ought to Respond Better This Time
By Jorge G. Castañeda
The Washington Post
Opinion
July 16, 2006

Close elections are no big deal; they happen nearly everywhere and very often. If the close July 2 vote in Mexico, my country, seems surprising and confusing, it's simply because there have been very few real elections, close or otherwise. Most scholars would agree that in the country's entire history, at most four presidential votes would qualify by international standards: those of 1911 and 1994 (sort of), Vicente Fox's in 2000 and now Felipe Calderón's.

Mexico has never been very adept at transferring power regularly, peacefully and democratically; indeed, one can argue that only during the past decade has the country even begun to do so. Thus it is quite logical that Mexico's political actors, institutions and media should be somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed in view of the result: The winner was declared by barely half a percentage point, and the loser's followers are experiencing serious difficulties in digesting what for them is a totally unexpected defeat.

Despite the uncharted waters Mexico is navigating, three courses of action are in order.

BUSH PLAN DECRIED AS LAND GRAB
The Miami Herald
Jul. 13, 2006

The Bush administration's updated plan to speed up and support a shift toward democracy in Cuba means three things for the island: terrorism, assassinations and the use of force, Havana said in an official statement Wednesday.

The Cuban government blasted a 95-page report released Monday in Washington by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, a multiagency panel created in 2003 to outline the administration's plans to hasten democracy in Cuba.

This year's report -- an update of a 2004 document -- is controversial because it calls for $80 million in increased funding for anti-Castro activities, such as Radio and TV Martí.

The Cuban government condemned the increased funding as an outright violation of international law, and particularly attacked the report's classified annex, which they allege may include plans to murder Fidel Castro.

MEMO: CHÁVEZ MADE OIL OFFER FOR PUBLICITY
The Miami Herald
Jul. 14, 2006

CARACAS - A memorandum from the Venezuelan Embassy in London suggests that President Hugo Chávez's offers of discounted oil to help the poor there and in the United States were at least partly intended to enhance his image.

The socialist Chávez has repeatedly insisted his offers, handled through social activist groups in places like Boston and other U.S. cities, were motivated purely by humanitarian concerns -- mitigating the effects of winter on the poor at a time of high heating oil prices.

At a news conference during a May 14-15 visit to London, Chávez offered to use production from two British refineries part-owned by the Venezuelan state oil corporation Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, to help the British poor as well.

"We could use those refineries as the starting point to assist in some way the neediest population in London, in Great Britain, especially when the winter comes, and if heating fuel prices rise much more," Chávez said.

CARACAS REBUFFING U.S. ON TERRORISM
The Miami Herald
Jul. 15, 2006

WASHINGTON - Pressing complaints that Venezuela is not cooperating in the war on terror, U.S. government officials say the country has provided no substantive response to 130 written requests for information on terror suspects over the past three years.

In addition, socialist President Hugo Chávez's government has turned down 20 written requests by the U.S. Embassy in Caracas for interviews with senior Venezuelan counterterrorism authorities, without explanation, the U.S. officials said.

The Venezuelan refusals are fueling concerns that the nation, ruled by a president who has repeatedly attacked the Bush administration while maintaining close ties with countries such as Cuba and Iran, is becoming a dangerous blind spot in international counterterrorism efforts.

"Unfortunately, today in Venezuela we see a regime that is increasingly out of step with the world," Frank Urbancic, the State Department's principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism told a hearing Thursday of the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation. He called Venezuela "a liability" in the fight against terrorism.

Charles Shapiro, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the bureau of Western Hemisphere affairs, told the panel that over the past three years the U.S. Embassy in Caracas "has submitted roughly 130 written requests for different types of biographical and immigration related information on potential terror suspects."