DUAL ECONOMY COULD TROUBLE CUBA'S FUTURE
The Miami Herald
Nov. 17, 2006
HAVANA - Joel earns $200 per month in tips from playing percussion in a band that performs
for tourists in Old Havana -- more than 30 times what the Cuban government pays him for the same work.
Meanwhile, Irene, a government secretary without access to U.S. dollars, subsists on her
monthly salary of 300 Cuban pesos -- the equivalent of nearly $13.
''Those with dollars have a big advantage,'' Irene said as she sat outside Havana's famed
Coppelia ice cream shop. ``It's not fair.''
With Cuban leader Fidel Castro ailing, the inequities created by the dual dollar-peso economy that Cuba
established to overcome the catastrophic collapse of Soviet subsidies may well become one of the major
challenges faced by his successors, experts say.
KILLINGS AND THREATS RATTLE JOURNALISTS IN VENEZUELA
The New York Times
November 19, 2006
EL TIGRE, Venezuela, Nov. 13 — Nancy Cecilia Flores still trembles when she recalls how a gunman
unloaded eight rounds into her father, Jesús Flores Rojas, a well-known journalist in this oil city.
It was 8:50 p.m. on Aug. 23. They had just returned from the pharmacy in her father’s prized
possession, a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu. A young man approached as they entered their driveway, motioned for her to
remain silent, then he did his work.
“He died immediately from the first bullet to enter his head,” Ms. Flores, 21, a soft-spoken
chemistry major at a university here, said of her father. He was the third journalist killed in Venezuela this
year, and the fifth since the beginning of 2002.
Though it is not clear that they were all related to the journalists’ work, human rights
groups say, the killings and other aggression toward journalists point to a trend in which threats and intimidation
have become all too common, even in what remains a flourishing free press under President Hugo Chávez.
SETBACKS FOR VENEZUELA'S LEADER EMBOLDEN A VIGOROUS OPPONENT
Washington Post
November 19, 2006
CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chávez exercises broad power over Venezuela. His
allies sit on every seat in the National Assembly. His supporters stack the Supreme Court. And every futile
opposition effort to oust him, from a coup to a national oil strike to a recall referendum two years ago,
has left him stronger and his foes weaker.
But now, with Chávez buffeted by setbacks abroad and rising complaints about rampant crime,
corruption and mismanagement at home, the opposition has united in recent weeks to mount a vigorous, if extremely
difficult, challenge to unseat him.
Analysts say they believe Chávez will ultimately win the Dec. 3 presidential election.
Still, there are signs the government is anxious about a strong showing by the opposition, prompting an
avalanche of pro-Chávez ads, which his foes say are paid for with state funds, and a campaign to pressure
state employees to vote for the president or face dismissal.
At opposition rallies, loudspeakers on trucks blare the message "Dare to," as in dare to
vote against Chávez and his party, the Fifth Republic Movement. Thousands have flooded streets for anti-government
marches and rallies, a reminder of the multitudes who emerged in 2002, when the opposition movement reached its
peak before its long, hard fall.
MEXICAN LEFTIST PLANS TO BE SWORN IN
The Miami Herald
Nov. 20, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Andrés Manuel López Obrador has toured the country as if taking a
victory lap. He's named a Cabinet and called for donations to fund his government.
Now the fiery leftist plans to be sworn in as ''Mexico's legitimate president'' today
as the country celebrates its 1910 revolution -- thumbing his nose at the country's highest electoral court,
which declared conservative Felipe Calderón the presidential election winner by less than 1 percentage point.
Based in Mexico City, the parallel government will not try to collect taxes or make laws. It will
have one objective: to hamper Calderón during his six-year term that begins Dec. 1. His supporters have pledged to
block Calderón's swearing-in ceremony before the Mexican Congress, although they have not announced how.
''We're not going to give the right free rein,'' López Obrador said in a final stop in
the southeastern state of Veracruz this weekend. ``We're going to confront it.''
CHÁVEZ RIVAL GAINS MOMENTUM, STILL FACES LONG ODDS
The Miami Herald
Nov. 20, 2006
BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela - At first glance, Manuel Rosales seems like a strange choice
for a presidential candidate to take on the powerful and charismatic incumbent, President Hugo Chávez.
The 53-year-old Rosales dresses and talks like a cattle rancher and has traditional
political roots. He's not a particularly charming man in person or on stage, and has been caught on more
than one occasion fumbling his words.
But Rosales' straight talk and his gumption to face up to Chávez -- who has won the last
two elections, survived a coup and a recall referendum -- seems to have won him some fans and rejuvenated
a moribund opposition.
On a recent campaign stop in this northwestern city, Rosales lifted his 7-month-old daughter,
Alejandra, high above his head, while a surprisingly large crowd of supporters chanted a slogan befitting a man
who is putting his political neck on the line: ``Risk it! Risk it! Risk it!''
NICARAGUA ELIMINATES LAST EXCEPTION TO STRICT ANTI-ABORTION LAW
The New York Times
November 20, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 19 — Hopes among women’s groups in Nicaragua that President Enrique Bolaños would stop
one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Latin America from taking effect have been dashed, as the
president signed it into law late Friday.
Abortion has been illegal in Nicaragua for more than a century, and most women who decide
to end unwanted pregnancies seek procedures at underground clinics. But the new law strikes out a clause that
made it possible for a woman to obtain an abortion legally when three doctors certified that unless she did,
her own life would be in danger.
For months, the proposed law has drawn fierce criticism from several local women’s groups,
the country’s association of gynecologists, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Human
Rights Watch, among others.
COCAINE SUB IS SEIZED OFF COSTA RICAN COAST
The Miami Herald
Nov. 21, 2006
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - (AP) -- Tipped off by three PVC pipes mysteriously skimming the
ocean's surface, authorities seized a homemade submarine packed with 3.3 tons of cocaine off Costa Rica's
Pacific coast.
Four men were arrested after they were found traveling inside the 49-foot wood and fiberglass
craft, breathing through the pipes.
The submarine was spotted Friday 103 miles off Costa Rica's coast near Cabo Blanco National
Park on the Nicoya peninsula, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said in a news release Sunday. It moved at
about seven miles per hour and was about six feet below the surface.
''This is the first time in the country's history that a craft with these characteristics
has been caught near the national coasts,'' Berrocal said.
PERUVIAN PRESIDENT'S PARTY DRUBBED IN REGIONAL ELECTIONS
The Miami Herald
Nov. 21, 2006
LIMA, Peru - (AP) -- President Alán García's party was trounced in regional elections
across the nation as independents took advantage of frustration with Peru's traditional parties in the
weekend voting.
With 85 percent of votes counted Monday, García's center-left Aprista party was holding
on to only two of the 12 regional governments it won in the 2002 ballot, and official results showed it
with a slim 564-vote lead over a new independent party for the presidency of the regional government in
the state of Lima.
Independent candidates were winning in 21 of Peru's 25 regions as frustrated Peruvians
punished traditional parties for failing to improve their lives.
García's Cabinet chief, Jorge del Castillo, saw a bright side for the president despite
his party's losses: the popular García now stands out even more as a strong national leader in a divided
political landscape.
COLOMBIAN LAWMAKERS LINKED TO DEATH SQUADS
The Miami Herald
Nov. 21, 2006
BOGOTA - The government of President Alvaro Uribe is being shaken by one of its most serious
political crises yet, as details emerge about members of Congress who collaborated with right-wing death squads
to spread terror and exert political control across Colombia's Caribbean coast.
Two senators, Alvaro Garcma and Jairo Merlano, are in custody, as is a congressman,
Eric Morris, and a former congresswoman, Muriel Benito. Four local officials have been arrested, and
a warrant has been issued for a former governor, Salvador Arana. All are from the state of Sucre,
where the attorney general's office has been exhuming bodies from mass graves -- victims of a
paramilitary campaign to erode civilian support for Marxist rebels in Colombia's long conflict.
The investigation, which has revealed how lawmakers and paramilitary commanders rigged
elections and planned assassinations, has shaken Colombia's Congress to its core. One powerful senator
from Cesar state, Alvaro Araujo, has warned that if he is targeted in the investigation, it could taint
relatives of his in the government and, ultimately, the president, whom he has strongly supported.
INNOCENTS SUFFER THE BRUNT OF RIO'S STREET WARS
The Miami Herald
Nov. 21, 2006
RIO DE JANEIRO - To the residents of the Little Alligator slum in the heart of this
city's violent northern neighborhoods, what happened to pizza delivery man Bruno Ribeiro de Macedo
on a recent Friday afternoon could have befallen any of them.
After his 77-year-old father suffered a heart attack at home, the 19-year-old mounted
his motorcycle in shorts and sandals and zoomed to the slum's entrance to find a taxi to take his father
to a hospital.
Police Officer Julio César de Oliveira Lira, who was on patrol outside the slum,
thought Ribeiro de Macedo was trying to rob the taxi and shot him in the head with a rifle. Ribeiro
de Macedo died instantly, followed by his father minutes later.
The tragedy was one of hundreds of senseless killings that plague this violence-torn city every year,
where police and powerful drug gangs are locked in a bloody battle for control of the slums and their
lucrative drug sales.
YES, HE LOST MEXICO’S VOTE, SO HE’S SWEARING HIMSELF IN
The New York Times
November 21, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 20 — Don Quixote, move over. The losing leftist candidate for
president swore himself in on Monday as “the legitimate president of Mexico” before a huge crowd
of his avid fans, ignoring rulings by federal electoral authorities and the courts that he narrowly
lost the election last July.
The candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who took on
Mexico’s entrenched oligarchy, chose the anniversary of the Mexican revolution for the event. He has
continued to assert that his opponents used fraud to deny him victory.
Appearing on a stage in the historic Constitution Plaza, with Mexican flags and
an enormous eagle banner behind him, Mr. López Obrador promised to goad the government of the
president-elect, Felipe Calderón, a conservative from the National Action Party of President
Vicente Fox, into adopting his proposals.
POLITICS CONTROLS VENEZUELAN HOSPITALS' FATES
The Miami Herald
Nov. 22, 2006
CARACAS - Inside the Venezuelan government's José Gregorio Hernández Hospital
in the sprawling underclass neighborhood of Catia, many of the ceiling tiles are missing or
have years-old water stains, and much of the metal is rusting.
Patients are crammed into small waiting rooms, and some carry their own needles.
Problems are not simply aesthetic: Four patients in the critical care unit died earlier this year
when the hospital ran out of oxygen.
Contrast this with the Catia Popular Clinic down the road, which has the latest
X-ray and sonogram machines, fresh sheets for new beds and a shiny finish on the signs that point
the way through the facility.
Welcome to the strange world of public healthcare in Venezuela, where two systems -- divided largely
by politics -- are operating on virtually different planets, even while they serve the same population
and are supposed to be integrating into a seamless unit.
EUROPEAN UNION SENDS ELECTION OBSERVERS TO VENEZUELA
The Miami Herald
Nov. 22, 2006
CARACAS (AP) -- More than 100 observers from the European Union are fanning out over
17 of Venezuela's 23 states to observe the South American nation's upcoming presidential election,
the mission's leader said Tuesday.
Monica Frassoni said at a news conference that Venezuela's National Elections Council
had granted the delegation permission to oversee balloting on Dec. 3 as well as to conduct audits of
results immediately following the vote.
''They have access to all the stages of the electoral process,'' Frassoni said.
The EU delegation will be joined by observers from the Organization of American States
and the Atlanta-based Carter Center. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who founded the Carter Center,
is not expected to travel to Venezuela for the election.
PINOCHET STILL IN LEGAL LIMBO
The Miami Herald
Nov. 22, 2006
SANTIAGO, Chile - As prosecutors race against the biological clock to bring 90-year
old Augusto Pinochet to justice, the former dictator is facing a slew of court proceedings on both
human rights and financial fronts.
Pinochet now spends his time between house arrest and seclusion in a rich Santiago
suburb, with his family and attorneys portraying him as senile and unfit to stand trial on any of
the many charges he faces.
Victims of the Pinochet regime, however, have been steadfast in their battle for justice,
arguing that he is sane and able to stand trial, and that a guilty verdict is a needed step for national
reconciliation. Many fear that the atrocities that occurred under the regime will be forgotten by history
if Pinochet is not found guilty before his death.
ORTEGA MUST OFFER MORE ACTION AND LESS RHETORIC
Opinion
The Miami Herald
By Beatrice e. Rangel
Nov. 22, 2006
Daniel Ortega's impressive showing in the Nicaraguan election polls was the chronicle
of a foretold death for the country's right.
Indeed, after having gone through an abject dictatorship with the Somoza dynasty and
an inept, self-proclaimed socialism that triggered a regional war and then returned to democratic
stability with little progress in well-being, the Nicaraguan people decided to give Ortega a second
chance. And while the U.S. foreign-policy establishment does not seem to understand why, the mile
markers to this destination where clearly displayed throughout the electoral road.
Why then are we surprised? Because we seem to obstinately refuse to accept that Latin
America is undergoing the same transformation that was experienced by Europe at the turn of the 18th
century and most of the 19th century. Instead of reading the popular discontent as a sign of progress,
we read it as a threat. Thus resulted our incredible chain of policy pitfalls, which included undiplomatic
statements by the U.S. envoy in Managua and a parade of visitors that represented a world long gone with
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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