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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VOTERS IN PANAMA HOLD KEY TO FUTURE OF CANAL'S LOCKS
The Washington Post
October 21, 2006

PANAMA CITY -- Squeezing the hulking container ships known as "Panamaxes" into the Panama Canal's Miraflores Locks requires a marvel of precision steering and patience.

The ships top out at 965 feet long and 106 feet across, leaving only two feet of wiggle room on each side. As many as four pilots employed by the canal must jump on board to help ship captains get through without shredding their vessels' hulls or crushing the 92-year-old locks.

Built to comfortably accommodate the biggest ships of their day, the locks are feeling awfully snug these days. The waistlines of the world's shipping fleet have swelled so much that the biggest new ships simply can't wedge through Miraflores anymore; instead, they have to find another route.

All that lost business -- and the prospect of more -- has made Panama jumpy enough that it wants to spend at least $5 billion to dig three parallel shipping channels and build two sets of enormous new locks, which lift and lower ships to overcome the differences in elevation on the route between Panama's Atlantic and Pacific coasts

PANAMANIANS VOTE ON A BIGGER CANAL
The Christian Science Monitor
October 23, 2006

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA – Here at the capital's landmark Cafe Coca-Cola, the regulars are 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 $5.25 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. On Sunday, citizens went to the polls to vote on in national referendum on the new canal. Results are expected Monday.

"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."

PANAMANIANS VOTE OVERWHELMINGLY TO EXPAND CANAL
The New York Times
October 23, 2006

GUATEMALA CITY, Oct. 22 — Panamanians on Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the country’s aging canal, won over by government arguments that the $5.25 billion project would generate jobs and keep the canal relevant for future generations.

 “Panama is betting on its future,” said President Martín Torrijos, chief backer of the plan, after casting his ballot on Sunday morning in a nationwide referendum.

The overhaul, to begin next year, will double the canal’s capacity by adding a third set of locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than the current ones. Constructed by the United States in 1914, the canal these days is congested and too small to handle the world’s largest container vessels and tankers.

Opposition to the project was vigorous as skeptics questioned the government’s cost estimates and raised fears that corruption would doom the project.

ECUADOR REAPS COSTS OF ANTI-TRADE FERVOR
The Washington Post
October 24, 2006

MALCHINGUI, Ecuador -- For weeks, the rumor had circulated through the greenhouses and fields of the flower export business here: The American owner was going to abandon the country.

Then the rumor became reality. The owner, a division of the giant Dole Food Co., announced this month that it would close this farm and another in a nearby town, wiping out 850 jobs, as it sought to streamline operations.

"They said it was not a bankruptcy, but that business was not good," said Teresa Ayala, 36, a mother of three who worked for seven years at Middle of the World Flowers. "Our supervisor said we paid higher tariffs."

The closing, Dole executives said, was based on a number of factors, including rising costs and stiff competition from other overseas growers. But those costs were clearly made more onerous by the fact that Ecuador had no trade agreement with Washington.

The United States, in pursuing a hemisphere-wide trade pact, had assumed free trade would be an easy sell when negotiators began fanning out across Latin America in the 1990s. But many in the region, disenchanted with economic policies they say failed to bring prosperity, have supported a slew of populists sharply opposed to trade deals and other economic proposals initiated in Washington.

U.S. VIEWS WIDER PANAMA CANAL AS BARGAIN
The Miami Herald
Oct. 24, 2006

PANAMA CITY - Motor scooters in Manhattan should eventually get cheaper. So should sneakers in South Carolina.

A wider Panama Canal means shoppers across America's East Coast likely will pay less for products from Asia in years to come, the U.S. ambassador to Panama said Monday, a day after voters in this country easily approved a $5.25 billion plan to build a third set of locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the waterway.

The massive project is supposed to double the 50-mile canal's capacity, allowing container ships, cruise liners and gas tankers currently too wide for its dimensions to squeeze through.

''There will be an impact on the pocketbook,'' U.S. Ambassador William Eaton said at his residence in Panama City. ``The transit costs will be cheaper and that will have an effect on the market.''

Washington had been mum on the plan that represents the largest overhaul in the 92-year history of the canal, so as not to sway Sunday's referendum. But Eaton said on Monday that Panama made the right choice.

YES, EXPAND THE CANAL
OUR OPINION: MODERNIZED WATERWAY WILL BE A BOON TO COMMERCE
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

Without a doubt, the people of Panama made the right choice on Sunday by approving a $5.25 billion plan to modernize the Panama Canal by building a third set of locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the waterway. This will ensure that newer container ships, cruise liners and tankers that are too wide for the canal's present dimensions will be able to navigate it in the future.

The project will double the capacity of the 50-mile canal, which remains one of the engineering marvels of the world. If completed in eight years as currently expected, the new locks could be inaugurated in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the canal.

Over the years, the canal has been a mainstay of Panama's economy, providing jobs and revenue. The expansion will ensure that it remains an essential route for seafaring commerce in an age when global business networks are multiplying.

CANAL UPGRADE PLAN APPROVED
The Washington Post
October 23, 2006

PANAMA CITY, Oct. 22 -- Voters overwhelmingly approved the largest modernization plan in the 92-year history of the Panama Canal on Sunday, backing a multibillion-dollar expansion that will allow the world's largest ships to pass through the shortcut between the seas.

About 78 percent of voters favored the expansion, with ballots from 90 percent of polling stations counted by the country's electoral tribunal. Nearly 22 percent opposed the plan. There were not enough uncounted ballots left to reverse the outcome. Early returns pointed to a low turnout, with nearly 57 percent of the country's more than 2.1 million voters abstaining.

Thousands of supporters in green "Yes" T-shirts cast ballots endorsing the $5 billion overhaul, which would allow the canal to handle modern container ships, cruise ships and tankers that are too large for its current 110-foot-wide locks. The plan is to build two sets of new locks between Panama's Atlantic and Pacific coasts by 2015.

MIGRACIÓN
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FLOW OF IMMIGRANTS’ MONEY TO LATIN AMERICA SURGES
The New York Times
October 19, 2006

There is a common cycle to immigration from Latin America. Immigrants arrive in the United States and quickly find work. Several months later — in the case of illegal migrants, as soon as they have finished paying off the smuggler who brought them across the border — they start sending money home.

According to a new report about immigrants’ money transfers to Latin America, the remittances flow from almost every state. Even in states that had virtually no Latin American immigrants only a few years ago, like Mississippi and Pennsylvania, a growing trickle of money is making its way south to places like Tlalchapa, Mexico, or Panajachel, in the Guatemalan highlands.

MIGRANTS ARE SENDING MORE CASH BACK HOME
The Miami Herald
Oct. 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - Latin American migrants in the United States will send a record $45 billion to support relatives back home this year, according to a study released Wednesday that sheds new light on the powerful economic forces driving migrants -- legal and undocumented -- to America's labor-hungry regions.

With about 12.6 million Latin American-born migrants now sending an average of $300 every month, remittances from the United States should grow a brisk 51 percent compared to 2004, according to the report by the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank, or IDB, the biggest official lender to the region.

Based on interviews with hundreds of Latino migrants, the IDB survey also reveals some of the roots of the migration phenomenon: Many Latin American nations are unable to create enough attractive jobs to keep their young from leaving. Most of those interviewed said they were either unemployed or earned very little money at home and quickly found jobs once they reached U.S. streets.

LA POBREZA ES RELATIVA
The Washington Post
October 20, 2006

El secreto ha sido revelado -- los inmigrantes latinos en Estados Unidos son en su mayoría pobres. Según un cálculo, hasta tres quintas partes son "clase trabajadora" o "clase media baja", con ingresos anuales inferiores a los $30.000 dólares.

La noticia parece peor todavía cuando se considera que a medida que el número de hispanos crecía dentro de la población estadounidense, la proporción de hispanos en pobreza se duplicaba: de un 12 por ciento en 1980 pasó a un 25 por ciento en el 2004. A los inmigrantes recién llegados es a los que les va peor. En el 2006, el gobierno estadounidense estableció que la línea de pobreza comienza bajo ingresos de $20.000 dólares anuales para una familia de cuatro, es decir, un poco por encima de $1600 dólares al mes. Pero para aquellos que no llevan mucho tiempo en este país, el salario promedio mensual es de $900 dólares, según un nuevo informe emitido esta semana por el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID).

A SET OF BORDERS TO CROSS
The Washington Post
October 23, 2006

NIXON, Tex. -- Seventeen-year-old Guillermo Antonio Iraheta Hernandez traveled thousands of miles from his native El Salvador only to land in limbo.
Left behind more than a decade ago by his parents, illegal immigrants living in Northern Virginia, Iraheta made part of his trek to the United States hidden in the baggage compartment of a Mexican bus. But soon after surreptitiously crossing the Rio Grande into Texas, he was picked up by the Border Patrol and brought here to a converted nursing home run by the federal government where 136 children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are temporarily housed.

Iraheta is but one drop in a new and fast-growing stream of illegal immigration to the United States, those under 18 who are sneaking into the country without their parents. Authorities say the phenomenon is growing and includes girls traveling alone and even toddlers being carried by older siblings or entrusted to smugglers.

Many of those who are apprehended by the Border Patrol end up in a burgeoning network of shelters set up by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

There they run up against Washington's paradoxical approach to the problem of children who entered the country illegally without their parents. The government agency that runs the shelters tries to reunite the children with relatives living here, regardless of their legal status. Another federal agency works to deport them -- as well as their parents. Iraheta's mother and father are reluctant to come forward to claim their son, fearing that would lead to being sent back to El Salvador. So are his sisters, who are also in the country illegally. Even uncles who are legal U.S. residents living in Texas have stayed away.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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BRAZIL'S FARMERS COULD DECIDE ELECTION
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

PULINOPOLIS, Brazil - Three years ago, farmers raced to plant more soybeans from Brazil's rolling southern hills all the way to the Amazon, profiting handsomely as the nation prepared to surpass the United States as the world's top soy producer.

Now they're cutting acreage amid sharply lower soy prices and mounting production costs, and blaming President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for failing to support the agribusiness that fuels a third of Brazil's economy.

Farmers who helped Silva to the presidency in 2002 are pledging to deny him a second term in his Oct. 29 runoff against the centrist Geraldo Alckmin, a former governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's richest and most populous state.

Slammed hardest by a Brazilian currency that has grown ever stronger against the U.S. dollar under Silva's administration, the farmers now grimly sowing their 2006-2007 crop are getting much less cash for soy, Brazil's most lucrative agricultural commodity.

CUBA'S GRIP ON WEB IS SOPHISTICATED
The Miami Herald 
Oct. 20, 2006

IN CUBA: Members of Cuba's Jose Marti Pioneers organization sing the national anthem during a ceremony at Jose Marti's monument in Havana on Oct. 6.

On a monthlong assignment to Cuba, the French journalist hopped from Internet cafe to cafe on a hunt: determine to what extent the government censored the Net.

The results were surprising: her report, released Thursday by Reporters Without Borders, says Internet cafes at hotels and the post office allowed mostly unfettered access to websites, even those considered ''subversive.'' But prices were excessive and security warnings popped up when the names of well-known Cuban dissidents appeared on the screen.

''I was surprised I could visit all websites,'' the journalist -- who used the pseudonym of Claire Voeux to write the report so she would be able to return to Cuba -- said in a telephone interview from France.

IN SURPRISE, BRAZIL’S DA SILVA IS BACK ON TOP
The New York Times
October 22, 2006

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 21 — For those who hope to keep Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from a second term as Brazil’s president, time is running out. After forcing Mr. da Silva onto the defensive and into a second round of voting he was sure he could avoid, the opposition candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, is once again very much the underdog.

“The president has turned things around,” said Lúcia Hipólito, a prominent political scientist who is also an analyst for television and radio networks. “Alckmin went into the second round with a lot of momentum, but the opposition has made one mistake after another, and now he has lost the impetus he had.”

According to polls published this week, 60 percent of the electorate now supports Mr. da Silva in the runoff election to be held Oct. 29. That is slightly below his performance in the runoff that brought him to power four years ago, but in the past two weeks he has gained ground among all social classes and in all regions.
Editorial

PUERTO RICO, AN ISLAND IN DISTRESS
The New York Times
October 23, 2006

After decades of economic progress, Puerto Rico is struggling, and the mainland has both missed this horrific economic slide and contributed to it through benign neglect.

Poverty on the island is rampant. The per capita income is just about half that of the poorest state in the United States. Nearly one-third of the population was unemployed in 2000. And a good quarter of all employment is in government jobs. If the goal is more than survival, the bloated public payroll will need to be significantly pared back.

The bleak picture is set out in a long-overdue, exhaustive study — “The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth” — from the Center for the New Economy, a nonpartisan Puerto Rican research group, and the Brookings Institution.

POLL: VENEZUELA'S CHAVEZ HAS WIDE LEAD
The Miami Herald
Oct. 24, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez has a wide lead over his top contender as he seeks re-election in Venezuela's upcoming elections, according to a new poll.

The survey by Zogby International found 59 percent support Chavez, compared to 24 percent for the opposition's top candidate, Manuel Rosales.

The poll released Monday also dealt with Chavez's comments last month when he called President Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations.

Asked generally about Chavez's U.N. speech, 36 percent said it made them proud of him as their president, while 23 percent said it made them ashamed. An additional 15 percent were indifferent, while 26 percent said they were either unfamiliar with the speech or unsure what to think about it.

The Zogby poll, conducted with support from the University of Miami School of Communication, found just 2 percent preferred second-tier Chavez opponent Benjamin Rausseo, a well-known comedian.

SILVA LEADS BRAZIL PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF
The Miami Herald
Oct. 24, 2006

PINDAMONHANGABA, Brazil - Brazilians are angry about a corruption scandal circling President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but polls suggest they have doubts about handing the job to the notoriously bland alternative, former Sao Paulo Gov. Geraldo Alckmin.

Surveys give Silva a strong lead heading into Sunday's presidential runoff election. Still, he had been expected to easily win the initial ballot Oct. 1, when a surprisingly strong showing by Alckmin denied the incumbent a majority of the votes and forced a runoff.

After the first round, when Silva won 49 percent and Alckmin had 42 percent in a field of six candidates, many analysts gave the challenger an even chance of victory in the runoff. But Silva's popularity has rebounded despite Alckmin's continued hammering at the corruption issue, which commentators blamed for the president's stumble.

Alckmin, 53, is a hardworking conservative widely admired for his effectiveness as governor of Brazil's wealthiest and most populous state, yet he also is seen as robotic and self-righteous.

PERUVIAN LEFTIST LOSING SUPPORT OVER RIGHTS CHARGES
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

LIMA - Once seemingly unstoppable in his quest for Peru's presidency, retired army officer Ollanta Humala has seen his star plummet over human rights charges and dissatisfaction with his leftist politics.

Now the man who had appeared poised to join Latin America's club of leftist leaders is stumping for a list of unpopular candidates ahead of Nov. 19 municipal and regional elections, and struggling to save his political future.

His appeal in Lima's slums is still evident. People chanted ''Ollanta! Ollanta!'' from markets and doorways of shacks as Humala's green SUV led two dozen vehicles ferrying candidates and supporters from one impoverished Lima district to another.

REPORT: PINOCHET GOLD DEPOSIT DISCOVERED
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile - A Hong Kong bank has a multimillion-dollar gold deposit registered to Augusto Pinochet, the government said Wednesday. Newspapers put the total at some $160 million, but a lawyer and spokesman for the former Chilean dictator denied it.

Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley said the Chilean government received information about the account "through one of our diplomatic missions abroad several days ago."

Foxley said the information, which included photocopies of documents, "is not official yet" but was relayed to the courts that have been investigating Pinochet's fortune abroad for more than two years.

A spokesman for Pinochet, retired Gen. Guillermo Garin, said he had no information on the alleged deposit at the HSBC bank in Hong Kong.

SOME WORRY 'SUPERPOWERS' MAKE ARGENTINA'S KIRCHNER UNSTOPPABLE
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

BUENOS AIRES - The past three years have been kind to Argentine President Néstor Kirchner. But now there are growing concerns that he is getting just too powerful.

The once little-known provincial governor has more than tripled his popularity since his election in 2003 in the wake of Argentina's economic meltdown and is basking in the benefits of 9 percent annual economic growth, and budget and trade surpluses.

He commands a comfortable majority in both houses of Congress; the opposition is splintered; and, buoyed by brand-new ''superpowers'' that allow the government to unilaterally modify spending plans already passed by lawmakers, Kirchner looks unstoppable in presidential elections due next year.

But concerns are growing about the power-centric style that Kirchner cultivated in more than a decade as governor of the windswept southern province of Santa Cruz, and now as president. The superpowers -- which Congress approved in August -- give the government the permanent faculty to make changes to how the budget is spent, instead of limited time periods as has been the case in the past.

REGIONAL
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VENEZUELAN’S DIATRIBE AT U.N. MAY HAVE BACKFIRED
The New York Times
October 25, 2006

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 24 — Venezuela’s populist leader, Hugo Chávez, earned giggles and guffaws at the United Nations last month with his mass appeal diatribe ridiculing President Bush as the devil. Mr. Chávez said he could still smell the telltale scent of sulfur on the General Assembly rostrum where Mr. Bush had spoken the day before.

Now it appears that Mr. Chávez’s histrionic performance — styled to win him support from the United States’ many detractors at the United Nations — may have cost his country the seat on the Security Council that he has conducted a global campaign to win.

Developing nations make up a vast majority of the 192 countries in the General Assembly and generally warm to rants against Washington. But they also value the United Nations as a place where their voices can be heard in a dignified setting, and both supporters and detractors here say Mr. Chávez may have miscalculated in turning it into his bully pulpit.

IN UN POLITICAL DRAMA, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE US
The Christian Science Monitor
October 18, 2006

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. – In the war of Hugo Chávez versus George W. Bush, Venezuela versus the United States, and anti- Americanism versus American leadership, the latest battle is ... a draw.

In marathon voting at the 192-country United Nations General Assembly that continued midday Tuesday, Venezuela had not won a coveted seat on the 15-member Security Council. Mr. Chávez's trash talk about Mr. Bush from the same General Assembly hall a month ago has not won him the support he needs to claim one of the Council's 10 rotating seats -a post from which he had hoped to goad "the imperial power," or "the master of the house," as he is wont to say.

But neither has the US been able to definitively squash Venezuela by assuring the election of Guatemala, its favored candidate, to the open two-year position. The writing on the wall was getting clearer: Neither country seems likely to win the rotating seat reserved for Latin America. Speculation intensified over possible replacement "consensus" candidates.

Yet the stalemate also has deeper roots and explanations, to listen to delegates as they filed out of the hall after each ballot, or to UN officials milling around to see how the vote was going.

IMPASSE REMAINS IN U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL CONTEST
The Washington Post
October 19, 2006

The open Latin American/Caribbean seat on the U.N. Security Council remained vacant this evening as the 192-member General Assembly again failed to give either front-runner Guatemala or second-place Venezuela the required number of votes to break a week-long impasse.

The General Assembly plans to resume voting next Wednesday.

In the 35th round of balloting late this afternoon, Guatemala received 103 votes, placing it far ahead of Venezuela, which attracted 81 votes, but short of the needed two-thirds majority.

The stalemate has triggered a war of words between Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.

Chavez has vowed to stay in the race, calling the United States "the empire" and accusing the American government of using "blackmail" in its backing of Guatemala.

CARICOM OPTIMISTIC FOLLOWING HAITI TRIP
The Miami Herald
Oct. 19, 2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Three Caribbean leaders concluded a one-day fact-finding visit to Haiti Wednesday, saying they were pleased with the progress President René Préval has made toward reconstructing the country but concerned about the slow pace of international community assistance for that process.

POWER BROKERS

The prime ministers of Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Kitts and Nevis spent the day in meetings with Préval, Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis and all of the members of the Haitian Senate and lower House.

Following a luncheon hosted by Préval, they also met with 15 members of the private sector.

The heads-of-government meeting came two days after a seven-member technical team from the 15-member nation Caribbean Community arrived in Haiti to assess the situation following the February election of Préval and parliament.

The three visiting heads of government expressed optimism at the end of their one-day visit that Haiti is on the right path back to rebuilding following a violent revolt in 2004 that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and then two years without a democratically-elected government.

THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
LATIN AMERICA MAY BE TOO OBSESSED WITH ITS PAST
The Miami Herald
Oct. 22, 2006

LIMA, Peru -- Last week's bizarre scenes of violence in Argentina during the reburial of former populist President Gen. Juan Domingo Perón, who died more than three decades ago, raise an interesting question: Is Latin America too fixated with its past and not focused enough on its future?

It's not an academic question. Wherever you look in the region, you see passionate -- sometimes violent -- national debates over historical issues. It's something that is not seen, at least with the same virulence, in much of the rest of the Western world.
''There is an obsession with the past,'' former two-time Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist by training, told me Friday in a wide-ranging interview during a visit here. ``The idea that the living are very much led by the dead is pretty much alive in Latin America.''

In Argentina, shots were fired and several people were injured in a melee among rival groups of followers of Perón -- a three-time president who died in 1974 -- during transfer of his remains from the Buenos Aires Chacarita Cemetery to a new $1.1 million mausoleum about 30 miles southwest of the city.

GUATEMALA SAYS IT WON'T QUIT U.N. FIGHT
The Miami Herald
Oct. 23, 2006

GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemala's foreign minister said Monday his country is not giving up its fight for a seat on the U.N. Security Council and will court non-Latin American members to sway the vote in its favor over rival Venezuela.

"It would be unfair if someone else would capitalize without effort on the huge amount of work we've put into this," said Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal.

Guatemala has led Venezuela in 34 of 35 of the votes held since voting started a week ago, but hasn't been able to muster the necessary two-thirds majority in the 192-nation General Assembly needed to win the seat. The 36th round of voting is slated for Wednesday

Venezuela has also refused to withdraw, saying that to do so would be to cede victory to the United States, which has campaigned against it and for Guatemala.

U.N. WILL SLAM TRADE EMBARGO, CUBAN PREDICTS
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

WASHINGTON - (AP) -- American hostility toward Cuba has reached ''unprecedented levels'' under the Bush administration, a senior Cuban official said Tuesday. He predicted that the U.N. General Assembly will deliver a sharp rebuke of U.S. policies in a resolution next month.

Cuba's chief diplomat in Washington, Dagoberto Rodríguez, said the world assembly will denounce the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, as it has each year since the early 1990s.

''The longest running and most ruthless blockade ever known to mankind will be rejected again,'' Rodríguez said, noting that 182 countries voted to end ''this cruel and genocidal policy'' last year.

He said the United States pursues regime change in Cuba and seeks to annex the island.

U.N. AMBASSADORS SEEK COMPROMISE IN DEADLOCKED ELECTION
The Washington Post
October 25, 2006

The debate over a prized, vacant seat on the United Nations Security Council picked up steam today as the ambassadors from front-runners Guatemala and Venezuela met to discuss the deadlocked election.

Guatemala has beaten Venezuela in 34 of the 35 rounds of voting during the past two weeks but it has not garnered the two-thirds majority required by the 192-member General Assembly. Ambassadors from the two countries planned to discuss a possible compromise candidate, according to news reports from the United Nations and Latin America.

The General Assembly is scheduled to meet this afternoon to continue voting, Reuters reported. But Argentina's U.N. ambassador, Cesar Mayoral, said he would prefer delaying the vote until tomorrow if Guatemala and Venezuela cannot reach a compromise at their meeting.

VENEZUELA DENIES ENDING U.N. BID
The Washington Post
October 25, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela, Oct. 24 -- Venezuelan officials on Tuesday denied Bolivian President Evo Morales's claim that Venezuela had decided to withdraw from the competition for a seat on the U.N. Security Council and would instead nominate his country as a candidate.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro demanded that Guatemala, its rival for the position, and the United States meet three conditions before Venezuela would drop its bid.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal said a Bolivian compromise candidacy "was apparently a unilateral decision by Venezuela, because they have not notified me." He rejected the idea that Guatemala would step aside in favor of Bolivia.

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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CHÁVEZ: U.N. BID HAS HURT 'THE EMPIRE'
The Miami Herald
Oct. 23, 2006

CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez said Sunday that Venezuela had achieved its objective by preventing Washington's preferred candidate from winning a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Venezuela is trailing Guatemala after 35 rounds of secret balloting in which both countries have failed to garner the two-thirds majority required to win the seat.

But despite falling behind Guatemala, Caracas has successfully challenged U.S. interests, Chávez said.

''We have taught the empire a lesson,'' Chávez told thousands of supporters in Valencia, an industrial city about 65 miles west of Caracas. Even if ``Venezuela isn't able to enter the Security Council, we've done damage to the empire. That was our objective.''

The U.N. General Assembly is slated to resume voting on Wednesday. Guatemala has led Venezuela in 34 of 35 of the votes by the 192-nation General Assembly. Chávez says his country will not withdraw, vowing to continue confronting the U.S.

SEGURIDAD
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AID TO COLOMBIA WILL STAY THE SAME DESPITE RIGHTS ALLEGATIONS
The Miami Herald
Oct. 25, 2006

BOGOTA - The Bush administration plans to keep U.S. aid to the Colombian military at current levels through 2008 despite human rights and corruption scandals that already have delayed some U.S. disbursements, a top official said Tuesday.

''We intend to ask our Congress to maintain the current level of funding'' for 2007 and 2008, said Nicholas Burns, the State Department's acting No. 2 official, with the title of under secretary of political affairs.

But Burns also noted that he would raise the recent allegations of corruption scandals and human rights abuses in the army, reported by the media and non-government organizations (NGOs) here, during his two-day visit.