Jueves 15 de febrero 2007. Año II, No. SESENTA

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 correspondientes a la semana del 09 al 15 de febrero 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

MIGRACION
ver noticia(s)

The Ku Klux Klan appears to be on the rise again after years of irrelevance and splintered obscurity.

"Due to the successful exploitation of hot-button issues," the Klan has seen "a surprising and troubling resurgence," states a new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Gay marriage and urban crime are part of the picture. But, in particular, it is the debate over what to do about the nation's nearly 35 million immigrants, of whom about 11 million are in the US illegally, that has become the Klan's main recruiting tool.

"If any one single issue or trend can be credited with reenergizing the Klan, it is the debate over immigration in America," says Deborah Lauter, the ADL's civil rights director. "New groups [are] sprouting in parts of the country that have not seen much activity."

In addition to the South, where the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate Civil War veterans in 1866, this now includes active or growing Klan chapters in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

The websites have names that are unique to their Caribbean heritage: afiwi.com -- Jamaican patois for ''It's for all of us'' -- or sakapfet.com and whata-gwan.com -- the Haitian creole and Jamaican patois phrases for ``What's going on?''

Brisk updates of political upheaval in Haiti share space with details of the Haitian Independence Festival. A surge in crime in the Jamaican parish of St. James runs next to a headline on the war of words between rival dancehall stars Beenie Man and Bounty Killer. A colorful wall of fliers online details upcoming parties here and on the islands for the jet-setting crowd -- including those gearing up for the carnival in Trinidad that starts Feb. 16.

For the 465,000-plus immigrants of Caribbean ancestry who call South Florida home, the websites serve as a vital connection to the islands -- from lists of alumni associations to chatrooms.

SEGURIDAD
ver noticia(s)

ACAPULCO, Mexico, Feb. 6 -- More than a dozen armed assailants staged and videotaped simultaneous attacks against two offices of the state attorney general Tuesday in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, killing at least seven people.

The attacks took place before 11 a.m. in two neighborhoods about nine miles north of the tourist zone, said Enrique Gil Mercado, special prosecutor for the attorney general's office in the state of Guerrero, which includes Acapulco.

About eight men armed with assault weapons participated in each attack. Gil said he did not know how many people were wounded. He said all the attackers escaped, including one who fled on foot. Authorities initially said city police stations had been attacked, but later revised the information.

Acapulco government official Felipe Kuri Sanchez said that the attackers, dressed in military uniforms, entered the offices and that one of them asked, "Are you the only ones here?"

When the officials responded in the affirmative, some of the assailants opened fire while at least one videotaped the shootings in each office, Kuri said.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
ver noticia(s)

BRAZIL'S SLUMS FACE A NEW PROBLEM: VIGILANTE MILITIAS
The Christian Science Monitor
February 08, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO - Homicides claimed more than 6,000 victims in Rio de Janeiro last year, many of them in gang violence fought by organized crime gangs seeking to control the sale of marijuana and cocaine in the city's favelas, or shantytowns.

As if inter-gang violence were not enough, there is now a new element in the mix. Militias formed by off-duty and former cops, prison guards, and firefighters are moving in to oust the drug gangs and install their own brand of extortion.

"The militias are unquestionably criminal groups," says Marcelo Freixo, a former human rights activist who studied the phenomenon before being elected to Congress in October. "They push out the traffickers and they charge residents a security tax they are obliged to pay. They control through force but it is not to provide security, it is to make money. One group makes money by selling drugs, the other through terror."

Two Cuban army officers were shot dead when three young conscripts detailed to a prison near the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba tried to help an inmate escape, a dissident Cuban news service has reported.

A dispatch by the Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental (APLO), an independent journalists' group in eastern Cuba, said the incident -- fatal attacks on Cuban soldiers are rare -- took place Dec. 20 at the El Manguito prison.

The report said that when three conscripts detailed to the prison headed to the infirmary to subdue their superiors, an officer told conscript Yoelvis Delgado Arvelo to quit fooling around with dangerous weapons.

Delgado answered: ''I am not playing. This is the truth,'' and opened fire, killing Lt. Oliverio Orozco and 2nd Lt. José Antonio Tamayo, according to the report by APLO member Lisette Bravo.

FIDEL CASTRO 'DOING VERY WELL,' OLDER BROTHER SAYS
The Miami Herald
Feb. 10, 2007

HAVANA - (AP) -- Fidel Castro's older brother Ramón said Friday his brother is recovering well from surgery six months ago, joining his other brother Raúl in a growing number of upbeat assessments of the ailing leader's health.

''He is doing very well, protected by the socialist saints!'' a beaming 82-year-old Ramón said after lunch with Florida cattleman John Parke Wright, a good friend and frequent visitor to the island.

''Fidel is recovering well,'' added Ramón, who looks remarkably like Fidel -- down to the now-wispy white beard. ``All of us brothers are very resistant.''

Ramón spent his life in agriculture and ranching and has never held any major government positions.

Ramón Castro's positive assessment came one day after his 75-year-old brother Raúl, the defense minister and acting president, told reporters that 80-year-old Fidel is getting better and that he is taking part in all important issues facing the Cuban government.

CHACALTAYA JOURNAL
BACKSTORY: THE COOK HAS NO BEEF WITH FISH
The Christian Science Monitor
February 12, 2007

ARROYO LEYES, ARGENTINA - We are pressed by Herefords, surrounded by Holsteins, and from the shade beneath the roof of rushes and straw, we see Black Anguses grazing on the island across the wide arroyo. We are in Santa Fe Province, Argentina's cow country.

So where's the beef?

Well, out there on the hoof. In here, fish is the dish, and has been for the 40-odd years since Nidia Concepcion Centurion Uleriche collected the recipes from people who lived out on the island, the gauchos and others who worked the great estancias, and who ate beef when they could afford it, but also took their food from the waters around them. She and her husband opened a fish restaurant and named it after the knuckle of land jutting into the arroyo, La Vuelta del Pirata, the place of the pirate, once a depot for smugglers bringing contraband down from Paraguay.

One must live in Argentina awhile to appreciate the audacity of the Uleriche family. Fish is not common to Argentines. For most of them it's meat – meat from the cow here at the country's geographical center, meat from the goat in the Andean northwest, meat from the sheep down in Patagonia.

NATION LOOKS TO CITY'S MODEL TO CURB CRIME
The Miami Herald
Feb. 13, 2007

SAN MARTIN, El Salvador - Humberto Henríquez remembers the days not long ago when bullets flew across the city's central plaza and tattooed corpses frequently appeared on street corners, sometimes naked and headless.

''The mareros ruled all this,'' Henríquez said, using the slang for gang members, while sitting on a bench in the plaza. ``This park was their battleground.

''Before, everybody was armed,'' said Henríquez, 66, a mechanic. ``After a few drinks, the mareros would terrorize the people. They would threaten them, and lots of times, they would shoot.''

Fed up with violence that made this bustling city of about 150,000 among the most dangerous in this Central American nation -- with an average of seven homicides per month -- municipal leaders joined police in a program that outlawed weapons in public spaces such as parks, sports facilities and restaurants.

A year after the Libres de Armas -- free of weapons -- program was launched, San Martín has seen a significant reduction in the homicides and other types of violent crimes that are bedeviling El Salvador 15 years after peace accords ended a brutal civil war that left an estimated 75,000 dead.

''Things are much better,'' Henríquez said. ``You can go out on the street now. You don't see dead bodies all over the place anymore.''

DRUG RIVALS WAGE A WAR OF GRISLY IMAGES
The Miami Herald
Feb. 14, 2007

MEXICO CITY - For months, video artists and videographers of varying skill have been peppering the Internet with a gruesome cavalcade of images: a woman slain in the cab of a pickup truck, an alleged Mafia hit man being tortured and executed, an assassinated singer's body splayed on a coroner's table.

Many of the videos are posted at one time or another on the website YouTube. They seek to cheer on or denigrate the opposing sides in Mexico's drug wars, the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquín ''El Chapo'' Guzmán and the Gulf cartel believed led, until recently, by Osiel Cardenas. Mexican authorities extradited Cardenas last month to face charges in a U.S. courtroom.

Last week, assassins armed with assault weapons and cameras appeared to take the cultural battle to a new level. Police said two groups of gunmen videotaped themselves assassinating five officers and two secretaries at police stations in Acapulco.

ECUADOR CONGRESS OK'S REFERENDUM ON CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY
The Miami Herald
Feb. 14, 2007

QUITO - (AP) -- Congress on Tuesday approved a national referendum on whether to call a constitutional assembly, bowing to demands by new leftist President Rafael Correa.

Correa, who took office Jan. 15, is calling for an assembly to rewrite Ecuador's Constitution in an effort limit the power of traditional political parties, which he blames for problems in this poverty wracked nation. Ecuador has had seven presidents in the last decade.

The referendum initiative was approved 57-1 in the 100-member Congress.

Most opposition congressmen abandoned the session before the vote in protest, calling the measure unconstitutional.

CHANGE FROM FIDEL TO RAÚL IS A-COMING
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Feb. 14, 2007
By Michael Putney

We are witnessing important changes in Havana and Washington. Small, nuanced changes that may not mean much individually, but collectively they point to the possibility of positive, if modest, improvements in relations between the two countries. That's a siren song we have all heard before, but the evidence is there. And it's not just based on my impression of recent events, but those of Cuba experts whose judgment I trust, hard-eyed realists not given to Pollyanna-ish views.

I'm talking about people like Brian Latell, former lead CIA analyst on Cuba and now a research associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami; Teo Babun, a Cuba-born business consultant who prepares for some of the Forbes 100 companies minutely detailed reports on Cuba's infrastructure and the people who manage it; and Damian Fernandez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

ECUADOR: CONGRESS APPROVES REFERENDUM ON CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY
The New York Times
February 14, 2007

President Rafael Correa won congressional approval of a plan to hold a nationwide referendum on convening an assembly to rewrite Ecuador’s Constitution. The measure was approved by a vote of 57 to 1 in the 100-seat Congress after opposition legislators declined to vote. Mr. Correa, left, a leftist economist educated in the United States and Belgium, says a new constitution is needed to weaken the influence of traditional political parties, which have ousted presidents with ease over the last decade. The country’s top election court set April 15 for the referendum, a court member told a local radio station

RELACIONES BILATERALES
ver noticia(s)  

U.S. PUBLIC'S FEELINGS MIXED ON CASTRO
The Miami Herald
Feb. 08, 2007

WASHINGTON - In nearly equal measure, Americans say they don't like Cuban President Fidel Castro but do want the United States to reestablish regular diplomatic relations with the communist island nation after 46 years of estrangement.

Less than half of those polled think Cuba will become a democracy after the 80-year-old revolutionary leader dies or permanently steps aside. However, 89 percent in The Associated Press-Ipsos poll say they think Cubans will be better off or about the same when Castro is gone.

''It's probably not very likely in the short term,'' Kelly Shanley, 29, of North Haven, Conn., said of prospects for a democratic shift. ``I just hope for the citizens of Cuba that it's something that's realized in the next few decades.''

¿UN NUEVO CORTEJO ENTRE ESTADOS UNIDOS Y MÉXICO?
The Washington Post
February 9, 2007

Durante su primera visita a Washington después de haber sido elegido presidente de México, Felipe Calderón no sonó muy distinto a otros presidentes mexicanos que intentan causar revuelo en esta capital. Repitió con frecuencia su deseo de hacer de México "uno de los mejores lugares para invertir en el mundo" y agregó que la prosperidad mexicana ayudaría a reducir el número de inmigrantes que ingresan ilegalmente a Estados Unidos. En vez de tener "gente que cruza la frontera en busca de capital . . . Necesitamos capital que cruce la frontera en busca de personas."

Si algunos de quienes lo escuchamos hablar con reporteros y editores del Washington Post parecíamos escépticos no era para menos. No solo habíamos escuchado pronunciamientos similares antes sino que, además, Calderón había ganado la elección por un angosto margen y su legitimidad era tan dudosa que su principal rival amenazaba con crear un gobierno paralelo y fuerzas en el Congreso planeaban impedir su posesión.

Pero Calderón ha actuado con rapidez y determinación desde su caótica inauguración en diciembre. Ha desplegado miles de tropas a media docena de estados mexicanos que enfrentan la amenaza de una creciente y aterradora ola de violencia generada por el narcotráfico. También ha despejado el camino para la extradición de 15 narcotraficantes a los Estados Unidos incluidos algunos peces gordos como Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, líder del poderoso Cartel del Golfo.

CARACAS - Thousands of Cuban doctors and other medical personnel working in President Hugo Chávez's popular health clinics in poor neighborhoods have left Venezuela, according to Cuban doctors and Venezuelan health volunteers.

Though some 15,000 remain, the departures have forced the government to close many of the clinics, severely disrupting the Barrio Adentro program -- Inside the Barrio -- that many say helped Chávez win a recall referendum in 2004 and a resounding reelection Dec. 3.

''They began to remove them eight or 10 months ago,'' said Judith Aponte, coordinator of the volunteer neighborhood health committee in the Caracas barrio of Santa Eduwigis. ``We were lucky enough to have eight doctors. Now there are just three.''

BOGOTA - The fourth anniversary of the crash and kidnapping of three U.S. defense contractors by leftist rebels in Colombia today might have passed unnoticed if not for the recent rescues of two Colombians kidnapped long ago.

The rescues of the two Colombians revived a never-ending debate here over the use of military force to try to free kidnap victims, running the risk they could be killed, negotiating a prisoner swap or paying a ransom.

A rescue attempt ''would be a death sentence for my son, his colleagues and the rest of the hostages,'' said Jo Rosano, the outspoken mother of Marc Gonsalves, a Florida Keys man captured by guerrillas along with Thomas Howes, who grew up in Cape Cod, Mass., and Keith Stansell, who has two children living in Georgia.

They were working for California Microwave Systems, a subsidiary of defense contractor Northrup Grumman, when their airplane crashed in southern Colombia. Their plane was locating clusters of coca crops, the raw material of cocaine. They are now the longest-held U.S. government hostages in the world.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican lawmakers said on Monday that they plan to introduce a watered-down version of a 2006 drug bill criticized by the United States because it would have effectively decriminalized possession of marijuana and other drugs.

The new measure, to be presented in a joint Senate committee Wednesday, drops the previous proposal for a blanket decriminalization for all drug ''consumers,'' and reduces the amount of drugs that can be considered possession for personal use to a ``single dose.''

''An error was made, unfortunately, in the lower house, adding the [exemption for] consumers,'' said Sen. Alejandro González Alcocer, president of the Senate Judiciary committee.

A wing under construction at St. Brendan Catholic School in Miami harbors a pile of goodwill -- some of it withering in the dank humidity -- that was meant to be delivered to Cuba's needy.

Donated diapers, baby formula, wheelchairs, even Christmas decorations are stacked from floor to ceiling.

But for almost two years, the Archdiocese of Miami has had little face-to-face contact with Catholics in Cuba, a byproduct of tightened travel restrictions for religious organizations imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Rev. Fernando Heria, St. Brendan's pastor and an archdiocese spokesman, said the Cuba-bound goods sometimes expire or rot, so the archdiocese tries to give perishable goods to Miami's needy before they go bad.

The church would send the aid with Catholics who traveled to the communist island or ship it with their humanitarian license, which expired in 2005, Heria said.

WASHINGTON - The tough U.S. talk on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is back.

After Chávez won reelection in a December landslide, Washington seemed to reach out to the feisty socialist leader who routinely calls President Bush as the main cause of the world's ills.

The U.S. ambassador in Caracas, William Brownfield, met with Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolás Maduro. And the top U.S. diplomat to Latin America, Thomas Shannon, offered to ``look for ways to engage with the government of Venezuela to underscore the pacific nature of our relationship.''

But in recent weeks, a parade of U.S. officials has stepped up criticism of Chávez's latest moves, like nationalizing telecommunications and electricity companies, and securing the right to rule by decree for 18 months without having to go to his congress. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a House panel last week that Chávez was ``really destroying his own country economically, politically.''

CARACAS - Venezuela, moving to nationalize areas of the economy President Hugo Chávez's government deems strategic, signed deals to buy stakes in local companies owned by two U.S. corporations -- Verizon Communications and CMS Energy.

The companies' shares rose Tuesday after the apparently amicable deals eased investors' fears that Venezuela would not fully compensate the U.S. companies for their assets.

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez and CMS Vice President Joseph Tomasik signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday for Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, to purchase the Michigan-based firm's 70 percent stake in Seneca -- a small power company operating in eastern Venezuela -- for $105 million. Tomasik said CMS' board of directors was expected to approve the deal later Tuesday.

REGIONAL
ver noticia(s)

THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
BUSH'S LAME-DUCK VISIT TOO LATE?
The Miami Herald
Feb. 11, 2007

President Bush's upcoming visit to five Latin American countries starting March 8 will be his biggest effort ever to improve ties with the region, but the trip may come too late to counter Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's checkbook diplomacy and the growing anti-American sentiment in the region.

Bush, who during his 2000 campaign vowed to make Latin America a ''fundamental commitment of my presidency'' but later put the region on the back burner, will travel to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. The six-day trip will be Bush's longest to the region ever.

But Bush will visit the region as a weak president. The Latin American presidents who will receive him will be aware that he is a lame-duck leader with an opposition Congress, whose vice president is not running for president. In fact, this will be the first White House in 80 years with no candidate for the presidency.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 9 -- U.N. troops fought a block-by-block gun battle with gangs in one of this capital's notorious slums Friday, in the force's largest offensive since being deployed here in 2004.

At least two U.N. soldiers and six gang members were injured in heavy fighting that sent the loud clap of automatic weapons fire into the air above Cite Soleil, where poverty is rampant and canals serve as open sewers. By late afternoon, the 700-member U.N. force had seized control of a large section of the slum but failed to capture the main target of the raid, a powerful gang boss known as "Evens."

Evens is said to run a kidnapping and extortion empire in Cite Soleil. U.N. officials suspect him of being a cannibal and say he earned the nickname "Little Knife" because he carves the bodies of his victims, according to Edmond Mulet, head of the U.N. mission in Haiti. Mulet said Evens is also suspected of killing cats in ritualized voodoo ceremonies because he considers them bad luck.

"He's a psychopath," Mulet said in an interview Friday at the heavily guarded Hotel Christopher, which now serves as U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 5 — For years, street gangs have run Haiti right alongside the politicians. With a disbanded army and a corrupted wreck of a police force, successive presidents have either used the gangs against political rivals or just bought them off.

Recently, something extraordinary has occurred. President René Préval decided to take on the gangs and set the 8,000 United Nations peacekeepers loose on them, a risky move that will determine the security of the country and the success of his young government.

“We’re taking back Port-au-Prince centimeter by centimeter,” said Lt. Col. Abdesslam Elamarti, a peacekeeper from Morocco. “We’re pressing these gangs so the population can live in peace.”

The offensive by the United Nations forces, who arrived here in 2004 after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, began in earnest in late December. One of the fiercest battles took place on the morning of Jan. 25 with a raid by hundreds of United Nations forces on a gang hide-out on the periphery of Cité Soleil, this sprawling seaside capital’s largest and most notorious slum.

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 9 — The leader of a Colombian drug cartel that American prosecutors say flooded New York City streets with cocaine remained in custody in Colombia on Friday awaiting extradition, after Cuba turned him over to the authorities there.

Cuba’s decision to send the suspect, Luis Hernando Gómez Bustamante, to Colombia surprised American authorities, law enforcement officials said. Cuba’s government has no diplomatic relations with the United States, and some people charged with crimes on American soil have found a haven in Havana.

Not Mr. Gómez Bustamante. He arrived in Bogotá late Thursday on a Colombian Air Force plane after Cuban authorities handed him over to Colombian antinarcotics agents.

Mr. Gómez Bustamante, the reputed boss of the Norte del Valle cartel who is known as Rasguño, had been held in Cuba since 2004, when he was arrested on immigration charges. He is wanted in New York City on charges of money laundering, racketeering and drug smuggling.

A story in a Spanish-Mexican magazine has challenged Cuba's claim that it found the long-missing remains of revolutionary hero Ernesto ''Ché'' Guevara in Bolivia in 1997.

Guevara was leading a guerrilla force when he was captured and executed in 1967 by Bolivian army troops assisted by CIA operatives. The remains found in 1997 are now in a mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara.

The Letras Libres magazine reported in this month's edition that there were several inconsistencies in the identification of the remains recovered in 1997 by a team of Cuban forensic experts from an unmarked grave in Vallegrande, where Guevara's body was last seen.