SANDINISTA AIMS FOR COMEBACK IN NICARAGUA
The Washington Post
July 23, 2006
MANAGUA, nicaragua -- sixteen years after voters swept sandinista leader daniel ortega from nicaragua's presidency, the former marxist icon appears to have his best chance yet for a comeback in elections scheduled for nov. 5.
The bloc of staunch anti-ortega voters who denied him victory by backing the rightist liberal party in three previous elections has been fractured by the recent emergence of popular splinter parties on both the left and the right.
Ortega, 60, whose armed revolution made him the reagan administration's chief antagonist in the hemisphere during the 1980s, is also getting a boost this time from washington's current bête noir in latin america: venezuelan president hugo chávez.
Among other shows of support, chávez recently bypassed nicaraguan president enrique bolaños and negotiated a deal directly with ortega to sell oil to nicaragua under a long-term credit scheme intended to free more government funds for social spending.
Yet in recent elections in peru and mexico, chávez's backing has proved a mixed blessing for the losing candidates. And the shifting political landscape could prove ortega's undoing if a breakaway sandinista party, known as the sandinista renovation movement, or mrs, manages to peel off more of ortega's traditional supporters in the next several months.
MEXICAN STATE MAY FUEL ELECTION PROTESTS
The Christian Science Monitor
July 21, 2006
OAXACA CITY, MEXICO – When leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador this week called for a wave of civil resistance to press for a vote-by-vote recount of the disputed July 2 presidential election, nowhere did his appeal resonate more than in the restive city of Oaxaca.
A variety of groups, mostly leftist, have recently launched a series of protests in Oaxaca - located in the heartland of Mexico's impoverished south, which voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obrador - transforming an annual teacher strike into a massive people's movement aimed at ousting the state governor. The city's main plaza has been a sea of tents and tarps, manned day and night. The windows of the government palace are shattered.
Observers say demonstrations here have primed the area to be a hotbed of pro-Obrador protest if the people ultimately feel the election was stolen, and that what happens here in coming days and weeks will be a good indicator of whether Obrador's call for resistance will gain much traction beyond Mexico City.
"This is a region that is excited about the fact that maybe there will be a president who cares about the southern states, and [a region that] would be willing to be quite militant [to defend Obrador]," says Chuck Collins, an Oaxaca-based scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "If there was a call to shut down the state of Oaxaca, it would just be like rolling out of bed."
MEXICO’S LOSING LEFTIST DEFIANTLY AWAITS ELECTION RULING
The New York Times
July 23, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 22 — As he fights his loss in court, the leftist candidate in Mexico’s July 2 election says he has been the victim of a broad conspiracy among the incumbent, election officials, other party leaders and business tycoons to rob him of the presidency.
The candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, charged in an interview on Friday that the vote had been plagued by fraud and widespread human errors. He made it clear he would not accept any ruling from the special electoral court short of an order to recount all 41 million ballots.
How far he would take acts of civil disobedience to protest the results would be guided by “the feelings of the people,” he said. Without a recount, he said, the peace of the country is in jeopardy, a threat his opponents have said amounts to blackmail.
“One can interpret it however one likes,” he said in the interview, at his campaign headquarters here.
MEXICAN LEFTISTS PUSH FOR VOTE RECOUNT
The Miami Herald
Jul. 24, 2006
MEXICO CITY - A top adviser to the leftist candidate in Mexico's presidential vote said Monday the election should be annulled unless there is a full recount, arguing that conservative Felipe Calderon won't have a mandate strong enough to govern otherwise.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent a letter to Calderon urging him to support a re-count while his supporters continued their increasingly combative protests, blockading the entrance of the Mexican stock exchange before marching to the residence of President Vicente Fox. Stock trading was not affected.
The protests aim to pressure Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal to order a re-count of all 41 million ballots cast on July 2, and thereby resolve allegations of fraud involving the ballot box tally sheets. Those sheets - and not the votes inside the boxes - were tallied up in the official but still uncertified count that put Calderon ahead by less than 0.6 of a percentage point.
"I think that an illegitimate president won't be able to govern. It's better to correct this by declaring the elections invalid," said Arturo Nunez, one of those representing Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party in court appeals.
Lopez Obrador's advisers said Monday they won't be responsible if protesters turn violent.
"On our part, we have asked that the civil resistance be peaceful, but this group of citizens are organizing on their own and doing their own activities," said Lopez Obrador adviser Claudia Scheinbaum.
Over the weekend, Democratic Revolution spokesman Gerardo Fernandez warned of "radical actions" and "very hard confrontations" ahead.
CUBAN REGIME FEELING HEAT FROM CZECHS
The Miami Herald
Jul. 24, 2006
SOLIDARITY: Waving a Cuban flag Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda, in a mock Cuban jail cell in Prague's Wenceslas Square, protested in March the arrest of dissidents in Cuba.
WASHINGTON - Czech diplomats will say only that the two 30-foot radio antennas looming behind their embassy in the lush Rock Creek Park neighborhood are used primarily to communicate with Cuba.
But it's unlikely that they are used to contact the Cuban government.
Once a subservient member of the Soviet bloc, the Czech Republic is now one of Fidel Castro's top foreign tormentors, providing material and moral support to dissidents, leading efforts to condemn the island's human-rights record in U.N. bodies and pushing a reluctant European Union to take a tougher stance on Castro.
Such actions have earned the tiny nation of 10 million vitriolic condemnations by the Castro government, the harassment of its diplomats in Havana and the gratitude of the Cuban-American community.
GREENPEACE SAYS BRAZIL SOY BAN SMALL STEP
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2006
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The environmentalist group Greenpeace praised soy traders Tuesday for refusing to buy soybeans from newly deforested land but said the two-year ban is insufficient to protect the Amazon rain forest from destruction.
Cargill Inc. and other multinational soy traders agreed Monday to the two-year moratorium in response to protests against expanding soy plantations, which have become a major source of destruction of the rain forest.
"Industry has never taken such a bold step toward protecting the Amazon," Paulo Adario, director of Greenpeace's Amazon campaign, said by telephone from the jungle city of Manaus. "But it could have little practical effect."
The moratorium calls for monitoring of soy plantations, stricter enforcement of an existing forest code and collaboration with rural groups and the federal government.
Taking part are U.S. commodities giants Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge Ltd., as well as France's Dreyfus and Brazilian-owned Amaggi. Together, the companies account for the majority of the soy trade in Brazil, the world's No. 2 producer after the United States.
INTERNATIONAL DONORS MEET ON HAITI
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2006
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Representatives from more than 50 international organizations and nations Tuesday promised $750 million in aid toward Haiti's efforts to claw its way out of an economic and social pit.
The pledge was $250 million above Haiti's appeal for an immediate cash input of $500 million over the next year and a total of $7.1 billion over five years to fund eight priority projects, including road construction and strengthening the security, education and health systems.
"We are happy for the support and commitment," Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis said at the closing of the day-long International Conference for the Economic and Social Development of Haiti. "This will allow us to erase the burden and errors of past governments."
President René Préval called the promises "an opportunity for Haiti to get back on track on the path to democracy."
CHÁVEZ FOE FAILS TO EMERGE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2006
CARACAS - Less than five months before a December presidential election, Venezuela's fractured opposition still has no clear candidate to square off against President Hugo Chávez, a charismatic leftist seeking a new six-year mandate.
None of the potential contenders individually is a match for Chávez, whose support stands at about 55 percent in opinion polls. Although there is broad consensus on the need for a united candidacy, there is controversy over the selection method -- and even over whether to take part in the December balloting at all.
On Aug. 13, nine opposition hopefuls will submit themselves to a primary election, organized by the independent electoral pressure group Súmate. But that is unlikely to resolve the issue.
Eight months ago, the opposition boycotted legislative elections, alleging they were rigged. The result was that the government won all the seats in the National Assembly. Many believe that tactic should be repeated, so as not to lend legitimacy to a Chávez reelection.
Participants in the primaries are "like drunks fighting over an empty bottle," said Henry Ramos Allup of the once-powerful Democratic Action Party, a prominent supporter of boycotting the vote.
Meanwhile, Teodoro Petkoff, a leading candidate, former planning minister and editor of Tal Cual newspaper who is a critic of the abstention movement, has refused to participate in the primaries.
ROOTS OF CUBAN REVOLUTION LIE IN THE EAST
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2006
SIBONEY, Cuba - It was the summer of 1953, and dozens of young men and women huddled before dawn in a red-and-white farmhouse listening to a young Fidel Castro detail their impossible mission.
The Cuban revolution was born that July 26 when the group attacked the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Though the assault failed and many militants died, Castro went on to oust his nemesis, dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Fifty-three years later and just weeks from his 80th birthday, President Castro is returning to eastern Cuba with his legacy very much in mind. His mission now is to remind Cubans of the sacrifices that brought them this far, and show the revolution lives on.
Talk of what will happen after Fidel is gone is creeping into public discussion here as his Aug. 13 birthday nears. Cuban officials are strengthening the Communist Party to ensure the system survives far into the future.
The president's designated successor is his 75-year-old brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, who also participated in the Moncada attack.
$750 MILLION IN AID PLEDGED TO HELP HAITI
The Miami Herald
Jul. 26, 2006
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Representatives from more than 50 international organizations and nations Tuesday promised $750 million in aid toward Haiti's efforts to claw its way out of an economic and social pit.
The pledge was $250 million above Haiti's appeal for an immediate cash input of $500 million over the next year and a total of $7.1 billion over five years to fund eight priority projects, including road construction and strengthening the security, education and health systems.
"We are happy for the support and commitment," Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis said at the closing of the daylong International Conference for the Economic and Social Development of Haiti. "This will allow us to erase the burden and errors of past governments."
PERU'S TOLEDO ENDS PRESIDENCY ON UPSWING
The Miami Herald
Jul. 26, 2006
LIMA, Peru - Alejandro Toledo grew up shining shoes in a slum, earned a Stanford University graduate degree and a World Bank job, and five years ago became Peru's first democratically elected president of Indian descent. His presidency ends Friday with Peru's economy looking its best in decades.
Yet his poll numbers reflect the depth of Peru's social divide and Toledo's failure to deliver on his promises to better the lot of the poor.
Things could be worse for him. His approval rating has rebounded from 10 percent six months ago to more than 30 percent, enough to prompt hints from him that he may seek the presidency again when he becomes eligible for re-election in 2011.
But the jump is attributed largely to upper- and middle-class Peruvians who have benefited from his economic policies, and to a feeling that the two men who qualified for the June runoff to succeed him looked even worse.
"Toledo," pollster Luis Benavente said, "is ending his term without an economic crisis and with macroeconomic successes, an export boom, solid GDP growth, a trade deal with the United States and institutional stability."
Peru's economy has grown by 20 percent since 2001 - 6.5 percent last year alone - with inflation totaling just 10 percent during that time. Toledo boasted during the election battle that "for the first time in 60 years, the campaign has not revolved around a debate on how to resolve the economic crisis."
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