Jueves 01 de marzo 2007. Año II, No. SESENTA Y DOS

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 23 de febrero al 01 de marzo 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

COMERCIO
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Tens of thousands of union members, farmers and political activists marched through Costa Rica's capital on Monday to protest a free-trade pact with the U.S. they say will be harmful to local businesses.

Costa Rica is the only one of six Latin American signatories to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, that has not yet ratified the accord. Legislators are awaiting a court ruling to clear procedural issues before voting on it.

Some of the protesters who took part in Monday's march carried signs reading "The North is Invading us Again" and "Farmers equal extinct species."

Much of the opposition stems from requirements under the pact that Costa Rica open its telecommunications, services and agricultural sectors to greater competition. Employees of the state-run telecom company were a major contingent in the march.

Also Monday, the newspaper Al Dia published a poll showing that 47 percent of Costa Ricans support ratifying the accord, compared to 34 percent that are opposed. The rest had no response. The pollsters interviewed 1,215 people, and the margin of error was 3 percent.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez had some straight talk Wednesday for lawmakers and business groups pressing for a softer approach toward a post-Fidel Castro Cuba.

The Bush administration won't waver from its tough stance toward Havana, he said.

''The question is not when will the U.S. change its policy. The question is when will the Cuban regime change its policy,'' said Gutierrez, the highest ranking Cuban American in the Bush administration and co-chairman of a high level government commission that makes recommendations on Cuba."

He dismissed Cuba's argument that the U.S. sanctions against the island are to blame for its hardships. The United States, Gutierrez noted, supplies one-third of the island's food and medicines, and millions of mostly Canadian and European tourists have traveled to the island but there's been no improvement in the plight of the Cuban people.

MIGRACION
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OTTAWA, Feb. 23 — American, Mexican and Canadian cabinet ministers met here on Friday to set the agenda for a meeting later this year by the leaders of the three countries, with the discussions taking an increased focus on protecting cross-border trade in the face of increasing border security measures.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez met their Canadian and Mexican counterparts amid concerns that new United States border restrictions — particularly the requirement of passports, beginning in January 2008, for land and sea crossings — would hamper the $880 billion in annual trade among the countries.

No firm agenda emerged for a planned meeting later this year of President Bush, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada. But officials here were optimistic that the countries could continue to increase trade despite concerns by Canada over the passport requirement and by Mexico about United States plans to erect a security wall along their border.

CABRERA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - In a letter adorned with drawings of happy faces and multicolored butterflies, Oscar Castillo Guzmán told his mother who lived in Spain how much he missed her.

''Hi. How are you, mommy? I want to tell you that I miss you a lot and want you to return soon so we can be together again in our home,'' read the letter, dated Nov. 3, 2005.

It had been more than three years since the boy last saw his mother, Georgina, who went to work in Spain so she could provide a better life for her children here.

''It's hard when you leave, live abroad undocumented and leave behind a 1 ½-year-old boy,'' said Georgina, now back in Cabrera, referring to her youngest son, Oliver.

''There are many divided families, much disunity at home,'' added her husband, Oscar.

''Migradollars'' -- remittances sent home by people working abroad -- provide support for millions of homes in Latin America and the Caribbean, but their cost goes beyond the commission that money-order agencies charge: such fractured and dysfunctional families as the Guzmáns.

Mexico's head of migration on Tuesday pledged to improve the agency's detention centers in response to criticism that Mexico fails to give Central American immigrants the same respect it demands for its own citizens in the United States.

Cecilia Romero Castillo, who said many of Mexico's 48 detention centers lack adequate personnel, supplies, medical care and social services, announced a plan to install doctor's offices in 16 centers, upgrade facilities and improve staff training.

Romero also said the agency will no longer use jails as detention centers and will fire any supervisor found violating the rules.

The Mexican government has acknowledged that many officials are bribed by human smugglers. Migrants face abuse from corrupt police as well as violent gangs who wait on the southern border to rob and assault them.

SEGURIDAD
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CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 24 — Venezuela’s arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America’s largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran.

Venezuelan military and government officials here say the arms acquisitions, which include dozens of fighter jets and attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, are needed to circumvent a ban by the United States on sales of American weapons to the country.

They also argue that Venezuela must strengthen its defenses to counter potential military aggression from the United States.

“The United States has tried to paralyze our air power,” Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas, a member of President Hugo Chávez’s general staff, said in an interview, citing a recent effort by the Bush administration to prevent Venezuela from acquiring replacement parts for American F-16s bought in the 1980s. “We are feeling threatened and like any sovereign nation we are taking steps to strengthen our territorial defense,” he said.

SAN SALVADOR - Guatemalan President Oscar Berger on Monday blamed organized crime and corruption for the stunning killings of four jailed police officers who were key suspects in the slayings of three Salvadoran legislators.

A group of heavily armed men wearing prison guard uniforms entered El Boquerón maximum security prison east of Guatemala City late Sunday and shot to death the four police officers in their separate cells, officials said.

Agents from the FBI, which has been asked to assist in the investigation of the Salvadorans' killings, were supposed to have questioned the four police officers on Monday, Salvadoran authorities said.

The police officers' killings added a new twist and fresh blood to the already mysterious slayings of the three legislators, including Eduardo D'Aubuisson, son of the man who founded El Salvador's ruling ARENA Party and was long accused of running death squads during a 1980s civil war that left 75,000 dead.

Gunmen stormed a Guatemalan prison and shot to death four jailed police officers in a mafia hit aimed at stopping investigators from finding out who ordered the slayings of three politicians from neighboring El Salvador, Guatemala's leader said Monday.

The four policemen killed Sunday included Luis Arturo Herrera, head of the Guatemalan National Police organized crime unit, and three of his officers. They were arrested Thursday in connection with the Feb. 19 killings of three Salvadoran representatives to the Central American Parliament, based in Guatemala City.

President Oscar Berger said "organized crime gangs" reached the officers' cell after getting past eight locked doors at the prison, and were responsible for the "violent deaths of four important witnesses who could have helped the investigation."

Berger said it wasn't clear whether drug trafficking or other organized crime was involved, but that officials determined other inmates weren't to blame. A major question is how the gunmen were able to get through the locked doors to reach the suspects, Berger said.

CUILAPA, Guatemala, Feb. 25 (AP) — Four imprisoned Guatemalan policemen were killed Sunday during a rebellion by inmates, days after the officers were arrested in connection with the deaths of three Salvadoran politicians, the police said. The warden and other prison officials were being held hostage.

Riot police gathered outside the jail in Cuilapa, about 40 miles east of Guatemala City.

“It’s confirmed; they killed the four of them,” said a national police spokeswoman, Maria José Fernández. The four killed included Luís Arturo Herrera, head of the Guatemalan National Police organized crime unit, and three of his officers.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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EX-INSIDER: CUBA HAS BIOWEAPONS
The Miami Herald
Feb. 28, 2007

The former chief of Cuba's military medical services is calling for international weapons inspections of a secret underground lab near Havana, where he says the government is creating biological warfare agents like the plague, botulism and yellow fever.

Roberto Ortega, a former army colonel who ran the military's medical services from 1984 to 1994, defected in 2003 and now lives in South Florida.

After living here quietly for four years, this week Ortega went on the Spanish-language media circuit to denounce what he claims is an advanced offensive biological warfare weapons program. He spoke Tuesday night at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies where one angry heckler stormed out accusing him of deliberately sowing fear among Cuban exiles.

''They can develop viruses and bacteria and dangerous sicknesses that are currently unknown and difficult to diagnose,'' Ortega told The Miami Herald. ``They don't need missiles or troops. They need four agents, like the people from al Qaeda or the Taliban, who contaminate water, air conditioning or heating systems.''

BUENOS AIRES -- Even by the standards of Argentina, where people like to joke that soccer is less a pastime than a pathology, a recent surge of fan violence has been exceptional.

In the past two weeks, local stadiums have erupted in mass fights -- some of them all-out brawls injuring dozens of fans -- an average of every other day.

Politicians are vowing reforms, and most fans and league officials are blaming the violence on organized hooligan groups known as barrabravas, which are increasingly labeled as out-of-control mafias eroding the integrity of the sport.

On Tuesday afternoon, as police fired rubber bullets into a crowd to separate warring fans in a Buenos Aires suburb, a congressional committee was grilling the president of River Plate, one of South America's most famous soccer clubs, about the violence that has resulted in the closure of its 65,000-seat stadium for five games.

Among the incidents in question was a gun-and-knife fight Feb. 11 among members of a River Plate hooligan gang that sent picnicking families fleeing the stadium.

FUNERAL TODAY FOR FORMER CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER
The Miami Herald
Feb. 26, 2007

Mario Chanes de Armas, the Cuban political prisoner who served the longest sentence in modern times and symbolized the struggle for civic freedom in 20th century Cuba, will be remembered today with a funeral service in Miami.

Chanes, 80, who suffered a fatal heart attack Saturday, spent his life in prison and in exile, but no adversity convinced him to halt his quest for a democratic future for his homeland.

Certainly not during the 30 years he spent in prison for opposing the regime of Fidel Castro, his comrade-in-arms during the failed raid on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba in 1953.

In the past two years, Chanes' health deteriorated rapidly as a consequence of Alzheimer's disease. His memory failed, and in 2005, he was admitted into an assisted living facility in Hialeah.

Chanes died at Hialeah Hospital, where he had been taken in serious condition. His closest relatives were at his bedside.

Unyielding democrat
IN MEMORIAM: MARIO CHANES DEDICATED TO THE CAUSE OF A FREE CUBA
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Feb. 27, 2007

Mario Chanes de Armas fought for democracy in Cuba, and paid dearly for it. He served 30 years of hard time as the longest-serving political prisoner of the Castro regime. Yet he never renounced his principles. Mr. Chanes died in Miami on Saturday. He was 80 and died of a heart attack.

Mr. Chanes joined Fidel Castro early on in the quest to topple Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Mr. Chanes participated in key events of the revolution, among them the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks and the founding of the July 26 movement. He believed Castro's talk of restoring democracy. Within months of the revolution's triumph in 1959, Mr. Chanes grew disillusioned with Castro's totalitarian turn and went to work as a security guard. ''We didn't fight one dictatorship to get another,'' he once explained.

DESPITE CALDERÓN'S DRUG WAR, CARTELS INTACT
The Miami Herald
Feb. 27, 2007

MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderón's deployment of more than 20,000 soldiers and federal police in the drug war has reduced rampant violence in the areas where they were sent. But the drug cartels' power remains virtually intact, and gangland-style killings have spiked in at least three states formerly immune from the menace, officials and drug experts said.

Since Calderón launched the first arm of the anti-drug offensive on Dec. 7 -- just days after his inauguration -- soldiers have arrested hundreds of suspected traffickers, seized tons of cocaine and other drugs and destroyed thousands of acres of marijuana and heroin poppy fields.

FEW INDICTMENTS

But only 94 people have been indicted so far, none of them top-ranking cartel members. Meanwhile, gangland-style killings have spread to the states of Aguascalientes in central Mexico, Oaxaca in southern Mexico and Campeche in the Yucatán Peninsula.

Earlier this month, suspected cartel hit men gunned down four municipal police officers in Aguascalientes. Last Tuesday, police there discovered a body dumped in a plastic bag with the message: ``This is for mistreating the Family.''

FIDEL CASTRO SAYS HE'S FEELING FINE
The Washington Post
February 27, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro called in to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's radio talk show on Tuesday, declaring he's "more energetic, stronger" and his country is running smoothly without him at the helm.

"I feel good and I'm happy," Castro said in a phone call to Chavez's weekday radio program. "I can't promise that I'll go over there soon, but, yes, I'm gaining ground."

The 80-year-old Castro transferred control of Cuba's government to his brother Raul after undergoing intestinal surgery in July and dropped out of public view, fueling speculation about his condition.

He thanked Chavez for spreading news about his recuperation and complained that his supporters have "the habit, the vice of getting news daily."

"But I ask for patience, calm ... the country is marching along, which is what is important," Castro said in a soft but steady voice.

"And I ask for tranquility also for me so that I can fulfill my new tasks," he said.

In Havana, Cuban state television's nightly Roundtable program reported briefly on the telephone exchange and bits of the conversation were broadcast across the island.

PARAGUAY’S RULING PARTY FACES THREAT OF A POPULIST BISHOP
The New York Times
February 27, 2007

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay, Feb. 24 — No political party currently in power anywhere in the world has governed longer than the Colorado Party here, not even the Kim family’s Communist dynasty in North Korea. But a charismatic Roman Catholic bishop recently suspended by the Vatican is threatening that hegemony and has emerged as the front-runner for next year’s presidential election.

Known as “the bishop of the poor,” Msgr. Fernando Lugo Méndez has been strongly influenced by liberation theology, which emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and contends that the Roman Catholic Church has a special obligation to defend the oppressed and downtrodden. But he is reluctant to position himself on the political spectrum, saying that he is interested in solutions, not labels.

“As I am accustomed to saying, hunger and unemployment, like the lack of access to health and education, have no ideology,” he said in an interview here. “My discourse, my person and my testimony are above political parties, whose own members are desirous of change and want an end to a system that favors narrow partisan interests over those of the country.”

REMAINS OF 14 VICTIMS EXHUMED IN COLOMBIA
The Miami Herald
Feb. 28, 2007

Investigators have exhumed the remains of 14 victims of paramilitary violence buried in a municipal cemetery in northern Colombia without proper funerals, authorities said Tuesday.

Manuel Hernandez, chief of the federal criminal investigation unit for Sucre state, said investigators believe 29 bodies were illegally buried in this fashion from 2001 to 2003.

"The people were buried without any identifying marker or name. The cause of death was violent ... from gunfire," Hernandez said from San Onofre, 370 miles north of Bogota, where authorities have been sifting through dirt in a cemetery since Monday, looking for bone fragments and other clues to help them identify victims.

Hernandez blamed the deaths on a paramilitary group that had long terrorized residents in this cattle ranching area near the Caribbean coast.

PEACE CORPS IS WELCOMED IN EL SALVADOR
The Miami Herald
Feb. 28, 2007

LA UNION, EL SALVADOR - On a parched corner of this Central American nation where searing heat and dust punish those who live here, Brendan McCleary leads a group of youngsters on a hike for an up-close look at the hemisphere's second-most deforested country.

''It's hot here, right? Why?'' McCleary, 24, asks the nodding children at a clearing in the sparse woods.

''Because there are no trees,'' several shout.

McCleary and Nathan Dollar, stationed at another community in the same region, are part of a reviving U.S. program that was launched by President Kennedy in 1961: the Peace Corps.

The agency rose to 15,500 volunteers in the mid-1960s, then dropped to about 5,000 in the Reagan era.

With little fanfare or publicity, the Peace Corps has grown again to some 7,750 volunteers, mostly single young adults involved in everything from health to agriculture assistance programs in 139 countries.

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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CHAVEZ: U.S. TRYING TO SABOTAGE ECONOMY
The Miami Herald
Feb. 23, 2007

President Hugo Chavez warned that the U.S. government, allegedly frustrated by failed assassination plots against him, was now planning to sabotage the oil-producing country's economy.

Chavez, speaking Thursday on his newly scheduled prime-time TV talk show, predicted that "one of the fiercest battle fronts" was coming ahead as Washington readied to destroy Venezuela economically.

He said that recent comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accusing Chavez of "destroying" his country's economy meant that "the imperialist plan of the moment" had turned to economic sabotage.

"(That's) one of the plans. The other is assassination," he said, reiterating past claims that the U.S. government is plotting to kill him. "We've neutralized various attempts, and I have faith we will continue neutralizing them. But they won't rest."

FEDS SHUT DOWN CUBA TRAVEL SCHEME, ARREST 2
The Miami Herald
Feb. 23, 2007

Two Florida men allegedly concocted a scheme to get around the restrictive Cuba travel ban by creating bogus churches and applying for licenses under the name of God that allowed thousands of travelers to visit the communist island nation.

The federal government wasn't fooled for long.

On Thursday, authorities filed a criminal complaint in Fort Lauderdale federal court against David Margolis, 75, of Fort Lauderdale, and Victor Vazquez, 42, of Winter Garden. The pair is accused of conspiracy to violate Cuba-related travel regulations. Vazquez is also alleged to have made false statements in applications for religious travel licenses to Cuba.

Fort Lauderdale attorney Richard Rosenbaum, who is representing Margolis, said his client has never been in trouble with the law and plans to ''vigorously'' defend himself against any charges against him.

Neither Vazquez nor his attorney returned calls for comment.

Under the 43-year-old Cuba trade embargo, U.S. citizens and residents are prohibited from traveling to Cuba. Among the exemptions: those traveling for religious purposes. To make the trip, they must obtain a religious license from the federal government and arrange plans with a travel agency.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (AP) — A Bush administration plan to allow 100 Mexican trucking companies to haul freight deeper into the United States than previously allowed drew an angry reaction Friday from labor leaders, safety advocates and members of Congress.

The administration plan, announced Thursday, would have United States inspectors oversee Mexican trucking companies that carry cargo across the border. The pilot project will let Mexican truck companies travel throughout the United States. No hazardous material shipments will be permitted.

Currently, trucks from each country are allowed only 20 miles into the other to deliver their cargo.

Offering details on Friday, Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said, “This program will make trade with Mexico easier and keep our roads safe at the same time.”

The man whose allegations led to the arrest of the head of Colombia's FBI says the arrested man claimed several times that he was ''under orders'' to cooperate with illegal paramilitary groups.

The accuser, Rafael García, made the comments in a telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald regarding the arrest of Jorge Noguera, former head of the Department of Administrative Security, a top investigative agency known as DAS. His comments could not be independently confirmed.

Noguera was arrested last week on charges that he passed DAS information on labor union leaders to notoriously violent right-wing paramilitary groups that later killed them.

ACCUSER ARRESTED

García, a former DAS computer systems director, launched many of the allegations against Noguera after he himself was arrested and convicted on charges of deleting drug traffickers' information from DAS files.

''From the first day that I arrived at the DAS, (Noguera) manifested to me that he had received instructions to collaborate'' with the paramilitaries, García told El Nuevo from his prison. `Whether that's true or not, I don't know.''

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 27 — “How are you?” President Hugo Chávez asked Tuesday in his nightly live radio program after a special guest phoned in from Havana.

“Very well,” replied Fidel Castro, speaking in what was believed to be his first live broadcast since relinquishing power to his brother last July.

That exchange was in thickly accented but politically pointed English; then the two switched to Spanish for a chat that touched on the plunge in the Chinese stock market on Tuesday, their skepticism about using corn to produce ethanol and mockery of President Bush’s coming visit to several Latin American countries. (Venezuela and Cuba are not on the itinerary.)

“I feel I have more energy, more strength, more time to study,” said Mr. Castro, whose voice sounded thin and frail on “Hello, President,” which Venezuela hears five nights a week.

“You don’t know the happiness it gives us to hear your voice and to know you are well,” Mr. Chávez said. “We send you a hug; we are gratefully surprised.”

REGIONAL
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VENEZUELA RIVALS U.S. IN AID TO BOLIVIA
The New York Times
February 23, 2007

LA PAZ, Bolivia — To understand Venezuela’s growing influence here, consider that more than two dozen ambassadors are in this capital city, including those of Bolivia’s leading trading partners like Brazil, the United States and Argentina. Yet none enjoy the direct conduit that the Venezuelan ambassador, Julio Montes, has established with President Evo Morales.

Mr. Montes often accompanies Mr. Morales on domestic and international trips on executive jets provided by Venezuela’s national oil company, say officials who have seen them traveling together. On many days Mr. Montes, who arrived in La Paz a year ago, can be found at the presidential palace huddled in meetings with Mr. Morales or the president’s top aides.

Since Mr. Morales became president little more than a year ago, Venezuela has quickly come to rival the United States as Bolivia’s main patron. It has provided assistance for the army, cattle ranches, soybean cultivation, microfinance projects, urban sanitation companies and the oil industry.

Perhaps most important to Washington, despite its opposition, Venezuelan financial assistance has helped Bolivia push ahead with plans to increase exports of its industrial production of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.

The question of the week in Latin American diplomatic circles: Is regional giant Brazil about to move a little closer to Washington and a little farther away from Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist leader Hugo Chávez?

Following the announcement that President Bush will visit Brazil at the start of a five-country Latin American tour March 8, and that leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will visit Bush in Washington on March 31, many Brazil watchers say a U.S.-Brazil lovefest is in the making. It's indeed unusual for two presidents to visit one another in such a short period of time.

U.S. and Brazilian officials say the two leaders will discuss cooperation in producing ethanol, which would allow Brazil to export its ethanol-producing technology, and help the United States reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil.

''This is not public relations; there is real substance to this,'' says Donna Hrinak, a former U.S. ambassador to Brazil. ``It's a concrete issue with a lot of potential for the two countries.''

In addition, officials familiar with U.S.-Brazil negotiations tell me that the two presidents will launch a ''Latin American and Caribbean biofuels initiative'' aimed at developing alternative fuels in about seven Caribbean and Central American sugar cane-producing countries, including Guatemala, Honduras and Jamaica.

El entusiasmo hoy es palpable entre funcionarios y ex funcionarios estadounidenses y latinoamericanos, centros de estudios regionales e instituciones multilaterales alrededor de esta tesis: La búsqueda estadounidense de alternativas al petróleo podría llevar a niveles de cooperación sin precedentes en el Hemisferio Occidental, con los beneficios estratégicos, sociales y ambientales prometidos por tanto tiempo por los promotores de la integración comercial.

Como lo explicó en su discurso sobre el Estado de la Unión el mes pasado, el Presidente Bush quiere reducir el consumo de gasolina en un 20 por ciento en 10 años, lo que requerirá 35 mil millones de galones anuales de combustibles alternativos para el 2017. Expertos en el tema coinciden que para alcanzar esa meta, Estados Unidos necesitará proveedores extranjeros de biocombustibles, particularmente etanol, el biocombustible más usado hoy en día.

América Latina se encuentra en una posición única para ser el principal proveedor de etanol. A pesar de un subsidio estadounidense de 50 centavos por galón a sus productores de etanol y un arancel de 54 centavos por galón al etanol importado, productores latinoamericanos y del Caribe suministraron casi el 10 por ciento del consumo estadounidense el año pasado. De hecho, el 80 por ciento de la producción mundial de biocombustibles en el mundo proviene de las Américas.

CARACAS, Venezuela President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has long pledged to buck Washington-backed economic policies in Latin America. Now, two months after winning reelection and consolidating his hold on the country with new powers to rule by decree, he is strengthening economic ties in the region in a bid to limit U.S. influence.

Chávez recently announced that his government would build housing, a highway and an oil refinery in Nicaragua, part of an aid package that would benefit one of Washington's most tenacious Cold War adversaries, President Daniel Ortega.

Farther south, Venezuela has pledged to provide Ecuador with $1 billion in credit, a gesture that would soften the blow if that country's leftist government follows through on its threat to default on foreign debt payments. And, along with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, a foe of the Bush administration, Chávez has announced a $2 billion international investment fund for Latin America.

Taken together, economists and others who track the country's affairs say, the investments signify an effort by Venezuela to curb the reach of the U.S. government, whose influence has waned in Latin America. For Chávez, the goal is nothing less than to kill the so-called Washington consensus, the economic prescriptions championed by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury, which press governments to limit spending, raise interest rates and open their economies to foreign trade and investment.

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 23 — President Hugo Chávez met here on Friday with President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua to discuss an array of Venezuelan assistance programs, capping an unusually frenetic week for this country’s efforts to enhance its political and economic influence in parts of Latin America.

At the heart of many of the agreements reached this week — with Nicaragua, Ecuador and Argentina — is Venezuela’s use of its windfall from historically high oil prices, and sometimes its own reserves and exports of oil, to lift its regional profile.

Mr. Chávez is using Venezuela’s oil revenues, valued at more than $50 billion a year, to counter the influence of the United States and multilateral lending organizations like the International Monetary Fund.

The Venezuelan aid for Nicaragua has been a godsend for Mr. Ortega, the former Sandinista guerrilla leader who was elected president last year. Venezuela has already agreed to forgive more than $30 million in Nicaraguan debt, provide more than two dozen generating plants to alleviate an electricity shortage and open an office of Venezuela’s development bank in Managua to offer low-interest loans to small businesses.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that he saw President Bush's upcoming tour to Latin America as a diplomatic offensive aimed at isolating his leftist government.

Chavez said that Bush's planned trip was "without a doubt" aimed at dividing the region and containing Venezuela's influence.

"But it's too late. I think the U.S. president now has nothing to find in Latin America. It is an offensive destined to the abyss of failure," Chavez said at a news conference.

Chavez said he respected the decision by other Latin American nations to "receive this little gentleman," but in Venezuela, "we will never receive him. Never. Because we know what he is. This is nothing personal."

Chavez is one of Washington's fiercest critics and regularly blames U.S.-style capitalism for poverty and inequality in Latin America.

While Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are competing over who has the most star power, another Democratic Party presidential hopeful -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- is touring the country around the clock saying he has the best résumé, and the best foreign policy plan.

When I say around the clock, I mean it. When I asked for an interview with him during his visit to Florida this weekend, I was given a slot at 6 a.m. on Saturday. In a preliminary telephone interview Friday, Richardson told me that he wakes up every day at 5 a.m.

Richardson, the only Hispanic among the major Democratic Party contenders, has indeed an impressive résumé: He was recently reelected to a second term as New Mexico governor with 69 percent of the vote, and has served as U.S. secretary of energy, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former U.S. congressman.

When I asked him what makes him think he can compete with political superstars Clinton and Obama, who have far more campaign money than he, he said, ``I have been tested: I have foreign policy experience, I have energy experience. I have been in the arena, and I have been successful.''

Richardson is calling for a ''new realism'' in foreign policy to replace the Bush administration's ''unilateralist illusions.'' He explained, ``This means diplomacy first, before preemption and military action.''

The human rights arm of the Organization of American States Monday opened two weeks of sessions that will total 49 hearings -- including five on Venezuela and one on Cuba that will be held behind closed doors.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) also will hold hearings on complaints brought by individuals and nongovernmental groups against the Colombian, Brazilian, Haitian and U.S. governments.

Canadian indigenous Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier and two environmental groups also will argue that global warming is affecting their human rights.

It is the first time the IACHR takes a look at the issue, said Executive Secretary Santiago Cantón.

IACHR commissioners can either reject a petition or stipulate further action, which could include a recommendation to modify local legislation or pay compensation to victims. If a country refuses, the case can be referred to the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, whose rulings are binding for most of the 34 OAS members.

WASHINGTON - The nation's new spy chief is replacing Norman Bailey as the intelligence community's point man on Cuba and Venezuela just three months after Bailey took the job, The Miami Herald has learned.

Bailey's departure came as Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate panel that Fidel Castro's domination over Cuba would end this year and that his brother Raúl was consolidating his position in power.

There was no immediate word on how Bailey's departure will affect U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis on Cuba at a sensitive time, when the ailing leader Fidel Castro, 80, has been ''temporarily'' replaced by Raúl Castro.

Bailey told friends about the decision in an e-mail Sunday, a copy of which was obtained by The Miami Herald. It said McConnell was overhauling the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and eliminating the three country ''mission managers'' who supervise intelligence gathering in critical countries like North Korea and Iran.

Intelligence officials denied Bailey's version, saying that the Cuba and Venezuela position will be retained and that several candidates already were being considered for the post.