WITH RAÚL IN CHARGE, ECONOMIC REFORMS DEBATED
The Miami Herald
Jan. 21, 2007
A debate over economic reforms that flourished inside Cuba in the early 1990s, until a crackdown in 1996, appears to be reemerging under the presumably more pragmatic rule of interim leader Raúl Castro.
Barbed complaints by Raúl Castro about inefficiencies in the economy, unusually public comments by intellectuals, and edgy newspaper articles about the dysfunctional economy are just a few signs of the ongoing discussions, Cuban and foreign analysts say.
''There is a debate,'' said Rafael Hernández, the editor of the quarterly Cuban magazine Temas, or Issues, and one of the country's leading intellectuals.
Hernández said the debate taking place at different levels of Cuba's government and society focuses on proposals such as decentralizing the highly centralized economy, forming cooperatives in areas outside of agriculture, and creating openings for more small and medium-size private enterprises.
CUBANS REMAIN SUBDUED ABOUT CASTRO'S HEALTH
The Miami Herald
Jan. 18, 2007
Many Cubans are aware of a Spanish newspaper's report of Fidel Castro's prognosis as ''very grave'' but are keeping their reactions to themselves, a dissident in Havana said Wednesday.
The Cuban media has made no mention of the El País newspaper reports that Castro has undergone three surgeries and is wasting away, but word has filtered in nevertheless.
''In Cuba, lots of people have seen or heard about the news reports, but comments are kept at a whisper,'' Laura Pollán, the wife of a jailed dissident, said in a telephone interview from Havana. ``People realize that [Castro] is in bad shape and wonder what will happen when he dies.''
MORE ISOLATED INDIANS SURVIVE IN AMAZON RAIN FOREST, BUT FACE PERIL
The New York Times
January 18, 2007
BRASÍLIA, Jan. 17 — Far more Indian groups than previously thought are surviving in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest isolated from the outside world, but they risk destruction at the hands of encroaching loggers and miners, experts said Wednesday.
A study by Funai, the government’s National Indian Foundation, estimates that 67 Indian groups live in complete isolation, up from previous estimates of 40.
“With the rate of destruction in the Amazon, it is amazing there are any isolated people left at all,” said Fiona Watson, campaigns coordinator with Survival International, an advocacy group for tribal peoples.
PULLING THE PLUG ON ANTI-CHAVEZ TV
The Washington Post
January 18, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan. 17 -- Inside Radio Caracas Television, actors make racy soap operas about love gone bad while an influential television host pillories President Hugo Chavez. Outside the station, none of that sits well with Alberto Carias, a beefy man with a bullhorn whose agitated followers promise that the days of Radio Caracas Television are numbered.
He makes no pretense about who made the decision -- the president, who is poised for sweet revenge against one of his most dogged antagonists, known here by its call letters, RCTV.
"Here they practice yellow journalism, treacherous journalism that goes against the people's rights," Carias told a crowd earlier this week. And then, discussing the entertainment side, he said: "The children are the ones affected for many years by the sex, by the violence of these programs that go against the morality of children, that go against the morality of the Venezuelan people."
COST OF CORN SOARS, FORCING MEXICO TO SET PRICE LIMITS
The New York Times
January 19, 2007
MEXICO CITY, Jan. 18 — Facing public outrage over the soaring price of tortillas, President Felipe Calderón abandoned his free-trade principles on Thursday and forced producers to sign an agreement fixing prices for corn products.
Skyrocketing prices for corn on the world market have pushed up the price of the humble tortilla, the mainstay of the Mexican diet, by nearly a third in the past three weeks, to 35 cents a pound in Mexico City and even higher in other parts of the country.
CUBAN ARTISTS' UNION ENTERS CENSOR DEBATE
The Miami Herald
Jan. 19, 2007
HAVANA - The Cuban government's union of writers and artists on Thursday backed intellectuals who protested the recent TV reappearance of a censor blamed for Stalinist-type purges in the 1970s, but issued what appeared to be a warning that limits remain on criticisms of Fidel Castro's revolution.
The statement by the National Union of Cuban Artists and Writers appeared aimed at defusing a fiery and unusually public debate among Cuban intellectuals on and off the island about the former censor's TV appearance. Two other former hard-line culture officials also appeared on TV recently.
Published in the Communist Party daily Granma, the union's statement said it shared the ''just indignation'' of intellectuals disturbed by the resurfacing of the official.
VAST PIPELINES IN AMAZON FACE CHALLENGES OVER PROTECTING RIGHTS AND RIVERS
The New York Times
January 21, 2007
URUCU, Brazil — In theory, the issue is a simple one: Brazil needs more sources of energy to keep its economy humming, and huge reserves of gas and oil are in the Amazon jungle. Problem solved.
Over the years, Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, has, in fact, invested more than $7 billion in Amazon exploration and development, and in 1986 it made a major find here. But only now — after a seemingly endless sequence of geographic, logistical, environmental and political challenges were overcome — is the first in what is intended as a series of pipelines finally being constructed, this one to carry gas the 400 miles from here to Manaus, a port city of 1.5 million at the junction of the region’s two biggest rivers that is emerging as an important industrial center.
“Everything in the Amazon requires preparation that is big, long and complicated, especially a pioneering effort like this one,” explained Joelson Falcão Mendes, the company’s regional director here. “You’ve got a harsh climate that limits you to working only four months a year in some places. You’re working in mud and crossing rivers that are not navigable, and there are 47 tropical diseases to worry about.”
AFTER CASTRO
WHAT WAS ONCE THEIRS
The New York Times
January 21, 2007
FOREIGNERS almost never show up on the ragged streets of the old town across the bay from Havana. But there was a knock recently on the front door of the battered yellow house in Guanabacoa that is home to Marielena and Francisco, a working-class couple, and outside stood an American.
The stranger explained that his wife had lived in that four-room house as a child. In 1962, almost four years after Fidel Castro took power, she and her family fled to New York, and now she wanted pictures to show their children where she had twirled in the patio and sung old Spanish ballads as she grew up in another time, and another world.
Marielena welcomed the stranger, but Francisco (he was afraid to give his last name) stood with arms folded over his bare chest. “You came here all the way from America just to take pictures,” he said suspiciously. “Are you going to reclaim this house?”
COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT IS ENSNARED IN A PARAMILITARY SCANDAL
The New York Times
January 21, 2007
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Jan. 20 — The government of President Álvaro Uribe, the largest recipient of American aid outside the Middle East, has found itself ensnared in a widening scandal as revelations surface of a secret alliance between some of the president’s most prominent political supporters and paramilitary death squads.
Testimony this week from Salvatore Mancuso, a former paramilitary commander who admitted to orchestrating the killing of more than 300 people, as well as a document made public on Friday implicating more than a dozen politicians in the pact with paramilitaries, have injected fresh detail into a slow-burning scandal that has caused Colombia’s elite political class to shudder in recent weeks.
BOLIVIA'S POLITICAL FISSURES FORCE MORALES TO SHIFT COURSE
The Washington Post
January 22, 2007
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Jan. 21 -- The elected assembly charged with redrawing Bolivia's political blueprint has not debated a single proposal after six months of sessions. When the 255 members meet, they fight over how many votes it will take to pass constitutional changes, if the changes are ever proposed.
But the people of this politically divided country are growing increasingly impatient, and they have started to do what the assembly has not. They are once again debating Bolivia's future, in an even more volatile setting than the contentious assembly hall: the streets.
As President Evo Morales celebrates his first year in office Monday, he remains determined to launch what he calls a "democratic revolution," built on the traditions of the country's indigenous population. But the rising public unrest -- by his opponents and supporters -- has forced the government to come up with new ways to try to get there.
BRAZIL'S LULA SEEKS TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH
The Miami Herald
Jan. 23, 2007
SAO PAULO - Brazil's president on Monday unveiled an economic package that seeks to boost lackluster growth to 5 percent annually by 2008, largely through a combination of public and private spending to attack long-standing infrastructure woes.
''The challenge now is to accelerate economic growth,'' said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former labor union leader who was put on the defensive during his reelection campaign last year for slow Brazilian economic expansion that lagged behind the rest of Latin America.
The plan for Lula da Silva's second four-year term calls for more than 503 billion reais ($240 billion) through 2010 to be spent on repairing and building highways, boosting electric power generation, expanding ports and airports and providing housing and water and sewage service for poor Brazilians.
CALDERÓN'S CHALLENGE: CONFRONTING MONOPOLIES
The Christian Science Monitor
January 23, 2007
MEXICO CITY - Mexicans run into near-monopolies at every turn. When they pick up a phone (to be charged rates above the international average), it's almost certain that the service provider is Telmex, which owns 94 percent of landlines. When they turn on the TV at night, they're probably viewing a channel owned by one of two dominant broadcasters.
But this month, the price of corn tortillas, dominated by a company owning 70 percent of the tortilla and cornmeal market, shot up by more than 50 percent in some parts of the country. That sent the war against price gouging, usually reserved to regulatory agency meetings, pouring into the streets – with housewives marching to demand an answer.
CANTV TAKEOVER RAISES RED FLAG
The Miami Herald
Jan. 23, 2007
CARACAS - Investors sold off shares in Venezuela's main telephone company on Monday, and some Venezuelans fretted about President Hugo Chávez's plans to impose new taxes on luxury items from second homes to expensive cars.
Chávez said Sunday that shareholders in CA Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela, or CANTV, will not be compensated at market value when the company is nationalized and also said that his government will soon hit the rich with new taxes.
CANTV's American Depositary Receipts sank 17 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, ending Monday at $11.22. The Caracas Stock Exchange also fell, closing the day down 7.7 percent.
LOCAL POLICE TO PLAY KEY ROLE IN MEXICO'S CRIME WAR
The Miami Herald
Jan. 23, 2007
MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderón pledged Monday to wage a permanent war against organized crime by coordinating more closely with local police and giving all law enforcement better training, equipment and intelligence work.
Calderón has largely relied on federal police and soldiers for a series of massive anti-crime sweeps in several Mexican states, but he has said future efforts will need to rely more on local police.
''In order to win the war on crime, it is indispensable that we work in a united manner,'' Calderón told a national gathering of state governors and top public safety officials.
His comments came three days after his administration extradited four alleged drug lords and 11 other suspects to the United States. He said he wouldn't give up the battle.
MORALES STILL POPULAR IN A DIVIDED BOLIVIA
The Miami Herald
Jan. 23, 2007
LIMA - Bolivian President Evo Morales celebrated his first year in office Monday with a vow to continue pushing to transform his poor and backward nation through a ''democratic revolution'' that has increasingly rattled the middle and wealthy classes.
At one point during a 4 ½-hour anniversary speech to Congress, boycotted by the main opposition, he said his critics ``should be worried because this little Indian won't be leaving office easily.''
In another sign of the political divisions, which some Bolivians say could ultimately lead to civil war, leftist groups trying to force the resignation of La Paz's governor on Monday shut down El Alto, the indigenous shantytown on the rim of the city of La Paz and a strong base of Morales support.
BRAZIL SET TO START RIVER PROJECT
The Miami Herald
Jan. 24, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Officials in Brazil say they will probably start work next month on a huge river-diversion project meant to benefit millions by irrigating large sections of the country's arid northeast, despite claims it will cause widespread environmental damage.
A spokeswoman for National Integration Minister Pedro Brito confirmed on Tuesday that work on the new river channel would begin after Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency issues a license for the project, expected in February.
The $2 billion project will create a new channel for the 1,600-mile Sao Francisco River, Brazil's fourth-largest, to irrigate much of the country's arid Sertao region.
But the project, which was first proposed in 1886, has been criticized as too costly and as damaging to the environment.
Roman Catholic Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio held an 11-day hunger strike in 2005 in an attempt to stop diversion of the river. He called it off after the federal government agreed to open the project to further discussion.
WEALTH GAP TESTS MEXICO'S CONSERVATIVE NEW LEADER
The Christian Science Monitor
January 24, 2007
SAN ISIDRO VISTA HERMOSA, MEXICO - This small community of 500 sits four miles up a mountain's steep back road, its dirt-floor homes sprawled across rocky fields in the northern highlands of Oaxaca state.
There is neither a health clinic nor high school here, and families are fragmented as nearly all the young men, and many women, head to the US to work as dishwashers or construction workers for years at a time. The only modern homes, simple cement blocks, are built with the money they send back.
For most residents in towns like these in Mexico's impoverished south, the opportunities of a more prosperous north and a Mexico City flush with luxury cars and mansions are out of reach. In a country with more billionaires than Switzerland, according to Forbes magazine, most Oaxacans live on the opposite side of the nation's stubborn rich-poor gap.
EX-CHAVEZ CONFIDANT A CRITIC IN VENEZUELA
The Miami Herald
Jan. 24, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez's political mentor - who once persuaded the fiery leader to seek power through elections after he led a failed coup - now says the regime has "all the characteristics of a dictatorial government."
Luis Miquilena, who helped guide Chavez to his initial 1998 election win and later was his interior minister, spoke out Tuesday five years after he left Chavez's Cabinet, while hundreds of government opponents held a separate protest over a congressional measure that would grant Chavez broad powers to pass laws by decree.
"This is a government with a hypocritical authoritarianism that tries to sell the world certain democratic appearances," said the 87-year-old Miquilena, who has maintained a Low profile since resigning from Chavez's government in early 2002.
"The government is not abiding by any rule. It has all the characteristics of a dictatorial government," Miquilena told reporters during a ceremony at the newspaper El Nacional, which is highly critical of the government.
FALKLANDS ARE STILL A PRIORITY TO ARGENTINA
The Washington Post
Jan. 24, 2007
BUENOS AIRES - As they organize separate 25th anniversary ceremonies to remember their war over the Falkland Islands, Argentine and British officials have found that remembering is the easy part.
Resolving, however, is a much trickier proposition.
The windblown archipelago is once again claiming headlines, climbing back near the top of Argentina's international agenda a quarter-century after its military surrendered the territory to Britain.
Last week, Argentina aimed yet another rhetorical dart at Britain, publicly reasserting its claim to the islands it says were stolen by the English in 1833. The British should be getting the message by now: in the past year, President Néstor Kirchner's government has issued official complaints concerning rights to the islands at a rate of more than one per month.
Meanwhile, Argentina's legislature has convened a committee dedicated to bolstering its claim over the islands, which sit about 350 miles off its coast and where sheep outnumber people by about 220-1. The Argentine government has pushed for, and received, attention from the United Nations, which drafted a committee resolution last year recommending negotiations.
LEFTIST PROTESTERS ACCUSE POSADA SUPPORTERS OF ASSAULT
The Miami Herald
Jan. 24, 2007
Two members of the Bolivarian Youth group, saying they were spit on, slapped and chased as they peacefully protested in Little Havana last week, filed a police report Tuesday against a group of Cuban exiles.
''They attacked us without any provocation,'' Bolivarian Youth member Michael Martinez, 24, said as he filed charges at the Miami Police Department. ``We didn't respond in any way to the violence. We just ran from them.''
Martinez, a local graphic artist, and three others staged a counter-protest Friday across the street from a rally attended by about 100 Cuban exiles supporting anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, who is being held on immigration violations at a Texas federal detention center. The CIA-trained Posada, who has been implicated in several bombings at tourist sites in Cuba in the 1990s, is considered a hero by some Cuban exiles.
IN VENEZUELA, CHAVISMO IS DISSECTED BY FANS AND FOES
The New York Times
January 24, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela — “You and I know that, as some people say, I’m only a lieutenant colonel, I’m not a summa cum laude doctor,” President Hugo Chávez casually told a few million viewers of his Sunday talk show, “Hello President.” “I modestly contribute a few ideas.”
Lately, those ideas have lurched leftward to include nationalizing companies controlled by foreign investors, strengthening ties with Iran and Syria, and ruling by decree for the next 18 months.
Mr. Chávez has also wheeled out a baffling array of influences on his political thinking, from Jesus and Marx to Trotsky and a Peruvian Marxist theoretician, José Carlos Mariátegui. In a speech this month, he lauded Albert Einstein for his theory of relativity and his 1949 essay, “Why Socialism?”
LET NATIONS HELP, U.S. URGES ECUADOR'S NEW PRESIDENT
The Miami Herald
Jan. 24, 2007
WASHINGTON - Ecuador's new left-wing president, Rafael Correa, should avoid picking conflicts with countries and institutions that want to help him, a top U.S. official warned Tuesday, referring to a possible debt default by the Andean nation.
Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, also expressed unease over Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's plans to nationalize companies owned by U.S. interests, but reiterated the Bush administration's desire to enter into a dialogue with one of Washington's harshest critics on the international scene.
Speaking on U.S.-Latin American relations at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a Washington think tank, Shannon continued the Bush administration's ongoing charm offensive toward left-wing governments in Latin America. He said U.S. diplomacy should ''wash out'' ideology and rhetoric to ``focus on results.''
NO SIGN OF FIDEL AS CUBANS WAIT, WONDER
The Miami Herald
Jan. 24, 2007
HAVANA - Some Cubans express frustration, others apathy as 80-year-old Fidel Castro battles an unnamed illness and remains unseen six months after handing power to his younger brother. But most seem willing to wait patiently to see how Acting President Raul Castro might change things after his brother is gone.
"We need to give him time, to see what he does," Joaquin Hernandez, 70, said of the younger Castro. "Raul is more family oriented, so he might reach out more to the Cuban people to better understand their problems. He is also more approachable, and seems to listen more to his advisers."
The caretaker government has done nothing to lighten restrictions on freedom of speech or to change a punishing economy in which state salaries averaging about $15 aren't always enough to buy basic foodstuffs not always provided by government rations, such as cooking oil or milk for older children and teenagers. Cubans still lack details about their leader's medical condition.
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