Jueves 26 de Abril 2007. Año II, No. SESENTA Y SIETE

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 13 de abril al 26 de Abril 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

MIGRACION
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PHOENIX - Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik expressed his frustration and made a plea for help after a fatal ambush of undocumented immigrants 25 miles south of Tucson last month.

Two illegal immigrants had just been killed and another injured during what was apparently a botched heist of a drug shipment. It turned out that the pickup truck attacked was transporting 23 illegal immigrants, not drugs, into the US.

"The violence associated with the problem of migration and narcotics ... has reached epidemic proportions," Mr. Dupnik told reporters on March 30. "If we had the money for the kinds of resources that we need, we could make a huge impact on border violence and crime."

As Congress debates a comprehensive immigration program that many say is the only way to deal with the smuggling problems and the violence that it entails, Dupnik's remarks show that those law-enforcement officers and agencies on the front lines are beginning to speak out, unite, and search for their own solutions.

Two important words to remember in the immigration debate in Congress are “triggers” and “touchback.” During last year’s ill-fated wrangling, the terms made the supporters of comprehensive reform bristle. The first refers to tough border-security benchmarks that the nation would have to meet before other parts of reform would kick in. The second refers to the requirement that illegal immigrants leave the country — even if only touching down briefly over the border — before re-entering on a legal footing.

Opponents of both concepts saw them as ways to sabotage a good bill. Triggers were seen as a way to start right away on the popular fence-building and other border-sealing measures sought by Republicans while delaying, possibly forever, the more humane elements of reform: a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and temporary visas for new workers. The touchback provision was seen as just another unnecessary hurdle for immigrants, proposed to satisfy hard-liners.

PHOENIX - The harder it gets to sneak illicit cargo – immigrants or drugs or other contraband – into the US, the more violence-prone the border has become, not only for border-crossers but also for law officers trying to halt the smuggling.

The escalation in violent crime is most pronounced here in Arizona, where border-tightening measures have put a clamp on the preferred route of "coyotes" and smuggling rings. During the first three months of the year, roaming bandits, heavily armed and looking to hijack valuable payloads, waged at least eight attacks on illicit shipments of people or drugs traversing Arizona. Though no US border patrol agents have been killed, they've been assaulted more often by illegal immigrants this year – 112 attacks, an 18 percent jump – in the state, compared with the same three-month period a year ago. Along the entire US-Mexico border, there's been a 3 percent increase in such attacks.

Recent federal raids at drop houses in metropolitan Phoenix, say officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have also turned up bigger and more sophisticated weapons caches, along with people suspected of illegal entry.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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CORREA CONSOLIDATES POWER
The Miami Herald
Apr. 25, 2007

QUITO -- Ecuador's popular president tightened his hold over all branches of government Tuesday, sending police to prevent the return of opposition lawmakers as his tentative majority in Congress dismissed all nine members of the nation's highest court.

The Constitutional Tribunal on Monday had ordered the reinstatement of opposition lawmakers who had tried to block a constitutional referendum.

Eighty-two percent of voters last week approved the election of a special assembly to write a new constitution that leftist President Rafael Correa hopes will reduce the power of political parties.

Correa scorned the tribunal's authority, surrounding Congress with police officers Tuesday to prevent the ousted lawmakers from returning, and some of their replacements were among the 52 members of the 100-member body who voted to fire the judges, arguing that their terms had expired in January.

SEEKING FORMER STATURE, FIDEL CASTRO STRIKES OUT – WITH HIS PEN
The Christian Science Monitor
April 13, 2007

MEXICO CITY - Suddenly, three appeared in a row – missives signed by Fidel Castro and laced with the bombastic rhetoric that has long defined the Cuban leader's opinion of US foreign policy.

But Mr. Castro's first publicly written statements, eight months after surgery prompted him to temporarily cede power to his brother Raul Castro, analysts say, is a struggle for significance on – not a retaking of – the world stage.

"He is trying to show that he is relevant, he is alive. That he is writing, he is thinking, he hasn't disappeared from the picture," says Jaime Suchlicki, the director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami and author of "Cuba: From Columbus to Castro."

Lashing out at a biofuel proposal by the US and Brazil to use crops to produce ethanol, Castro penned columns in the March 29 and April 4 issues of Granma, the Communist Party daily. Claiming the plan would hurt the hungry, he titled one article, "The Internationalization of Genocide."

This week he railed against the recent US court decision allowing Luis Posada Carriles, the jailed Cuban militant wanted in Cuba for the jetliner bombing of 1976, to post bail. It is, he opined in a letter circulated by Cuba's Foreign Ministry, tantamount to setting free "a monster."

ECUADOR BACKS LEFTIST CHANGES
The Christian Science Monitor
April 17, 2007

MEXICO CITY AND QUITO, ECUADOR - President Rafael Correa secured a massive victory toward rewriting Ecuador's Constitution and weakening the country's unpopular Congress when Ecuadoreans lined up in Sunday's nationwide referendum on whether to back the election of a constituent assembly. In doing so, Mr. Correa joins a growing number of leftist leaders throughout Latin America who are using the popular vote to forge new political paths.

"The future was at stake, the country was at stake, and Ecuadoreans have said 'yes' to that future," said Correa after exit polls showed 78 percent support.

The win was fueled by a frustration with Ecuador's political elite – the same frustration that helped usher Correa, a professor and political outsider, into the presidency in November.

The wide margin will certainly consolidate more power for Correa, a political neophyte viewed by many as an idealist who has successfully wooed the poor. But critics warn that he'll follow in the footsteps of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez by using his mandate to stifle opposition.

"It's another in the steps toward attempting to create an alternative model of development to the neo-liberal consensus that has dominated [Latin America] in the past couple decades," says Ernesto Capello, an assistant professor of Latin American history at the University of Vermont. "As in Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil, and so on, Ecuador is going through a period of intense repudiation of the policies of this era."

BOGOTA, Colombia, April 17 -- An opposition lawmaker on Tuesday alleged that paramilitary death squads met at the ranch of President Álvaro Uribe in the late 1980s and plotted to murder opponents, an explosive charge in a growing scandal that has unearthed ties between the illegal militias and two dozen congressmen.

Basing his accusations on government documents and depositions by former paramilitary members and military officers, Sen. Gustavo Petro said the militiamen met at Uribe's Guacharacas farm as well as ranches owned by his brother, Santiago Uribe, and a close associate, Luis Alberto Villegas.

"From there, at night, they would go out and kill people," Petro said, referring to the sprawling ranch owned by Álvaro Uribe, who served as a senator from 1986 to 1994.

The allegations, made at a congressional hearing on the "para-politics" scandal, were vigorously denied by the government. In a rebuttal, Interior Minister Carlos Holguín said that all manner of rumors have arisen about Uribe's farm.

Holguín said Petro had "abused" his position by using court documents selectively to make his points and was trying to portray Colombia "as a country of assassins, a country of paramilitaries." And he wondered aloud why Petro was not so aggressive about unearthing links between politicians and leftist guerrillas, noting that Petro had been a member of the M-19 rebel movement until his election to Congress in 1991.

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian troops re-took control of a natural gas pumping station that had been occupied by protesters demanding more fuel taxes for their region, and exports to Brazil and Argentina will normalize by noon on Saturday, a government official said.

A week of protests at plants and pipelines in the southeastern Tarija department forced Bolivia to cut natural gas exports on Friday by 75 percent to Argentina and by 10 percent to Brazil.

"Exports of natural gas to Argentina will be re-established by midday tomorrow (Saturday)... (all) exports of this important natural resource will be normalized," Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana told reporters in La Paz.

Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said the take-over by security forces was peaceful.

The army dislodged dozens of protesters from the plant run by Royal Dutch Shell Plc Bolivian subsidiary Transredes.

The photos of a stronger and healthier Fidel Castro meeting with a high-level Chinese delegation published in Cuba's principal newspaper Saturday are perhaps the most significant sign so far that the ailing leader is not just getting better, but getting back to business too.

Castro and top members of his cabinet met Friday with Wu Guanzheng, a member of China's Communist Party Politburo who headed a delegation of visiting Chinese officials, the Granma daily reported.

''Compañero Fidel exchanged ideas with the Politburo member for an hour,'' the paper said. ``The encounter was very profound and fruitful.''

Two pictures showed the 80-year-old Castro in a black and red jogging suit and looking generally healthy. They were a far cry from photos taken early into Castro's illness, which showed him severely underweight and laying in bed.

''I am impressed and surprised,'' said University of Miami Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies research associate Jorge Piñón. ``I think it's a sign he's getting better.''

COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT HITS BACK
The Washington Post
April 21, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia, April 20 -- Facing allegations that his family had ties to illegal paramilitary groups, President Álvaro Uribe issued fervent denials at a news conference here Thursday and in Miami on Friday as he tried quell a scandal that he said "puts at risk the greater interests of the country."

"Why condemn me without listening to me?" the president said in the nationally televised news conference in Bogota late Thursday. "I have to apologize for mistakes, but not for crimes."

The allegations prompted former vice president Al Gore to cancel his appearance Friday at an international environmental conference in Miami because Uribe was to attend. In a statement, a spokeswoman for Gore called the allegations against Uribe "deeply troubling."

"He believes that President Uribe should have every opportunity to address these unsettled allegations in Colombia, but until this very serious chapter in history is brought to a close, Mr. Gore did not feel it was appropriate to appear at the event," Kalee Kreider said.

The photos of a stronger and healthier Fidel Castro meeting with a high-level Chinese delegation published in Cuba's principal newspaper Saturday are perhaps the most significant sign so far that the ailing leader is not just getting better, but getting back to business too.

Castro and top members of his cabinet met Friday with Wu Guanzheng, a member of China's Communist Party Politburo who headed a delegation of visiting Chinese officials, the Granma daily reported.

''Compañero Fidel exchanged ideas with the Politburo member for an hour,'' the paper said. ``The encounter was very profound and fruitful.''

Two pictures showed the 80-year-old Castro in a black and red jogging suit and looking generally healthy. They were a far cry from photos taken early into Castro's illness, which showed him severely underweight and lying in bed.

CERTIFYING COFFEE AIDS FARMERS AND FORESTS IN CHIAPAS
The New York Times
April 22, 2007

NUEVO PARAÍSO, Mexico — Miguel Moshán Méndez’s troubles have piled up over the past two years.

Like other coffee growers here in the impoverished state of Chiapas, he suffered devastating losses when Hurricane Stan passed through 18 months ago, tearing coffee trees from hillsides. He lost half his trees, then borrowed money to get by. Now, he must find extra work as a laborer to pay his debt, which will make it harder to maintain his tiny farm.

“I have always fallen to the moneylender, God yes,” he said, sitting in the office of his coffee-growing cooperative.

One source of hope: the increasing number of programs that help growers get higher prices for their beans if they show that they are protecting the environment, investing in community projects and treating workers well.

POLITICAL SHOWDOWN IN ECUADOR
The Miami Herald
Apr. 24, 2007

QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuador's popular president tightened his hold over all branches of government Tuesday, sending police to prevent the return of opposition lawmakers as his tentative majority in Congress dismissed all nine members of the nation's highest court.

The Constitutional Tribunal on Monday ordered the reinstatement of opposition lawmakers who had tried to block a constitutional referendum.

An overwhelming 82 percent of voters last week approved the election of a special assembly to write a new constitution that leftist President Rafael Correa hopes will reduce the power of political parties.

Correa scorned the tribunal's authority, surrounding Congress with police officers Tuesday to prevent the ousted lawmakers from returning, and some of their replacements were among the 52 sitting members of the 100-member body who voted to fire the judges, arguing that their terms had expired in January.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- Ecuador's highest court on Monday reinstated 51 lawmakers ousted last month for allegedly interfering with a referendum on the South American nation's need for a new constitution.

The Electoral Tribunal's dismissal of the congressmen last month had plunged all three branches of government into legal chaos and it didn't appear that this latest development would quicly restore stability.

The president of the Constitutional Court, Santiago Velasquez, told reporters the chamber granted the lawmakers' request to block the Electoral Tribunal's firing of more than half of the 100-member legislature.

The Constitutional Court is the country's highest court and its rulings cannot be appealed, but President Rafael Correa said Monday's decision was a ''flagrant'' violation of the country's legal procedures.

SECRET TRIALS IN CUBA ARE CRITICIZED
The Miami Herald
Apr. 24, 2007

Lawyer Rolando Jiménez Posada's 12-year sentence came as one of the island's longest-serving political prisoners, Jorge Luís García Pérez, known as Antúnez, was released after serving a sentence marked by hunger strikes, allegations of beatings and a bold escape.

Last week, independent journalist Oscar Sánchez Madan was sentenced to four years in prison, after being arrested, tried and convicted all in the same day -- and also without a defense lawyer present.

''Those kinds of things only happen with an order from up top,'' said Manuel Vázquez Portal, a former political prisoner who now lives in South Florida. ``What I think is that after Fidel Castro's apparent recovery [from intestinal surgery] the government feels reborn and is taking measures in the name of that recovery.

''There's quite a contrast in having two secret trials in one week, which show a tightening of political repressiveness, and this good news about Antúnez,'' said Elizardo Sánchez, who heads the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

MEXICO CITY, April 24 -- After months of furious debate and threats of excommunication by the Catholic Church, Mexico City's legislative assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to legalize abortion for the first time in the capital's history.

Riot police held back thousands of protesters, some hoisting coffins and others waving plastic fetuses, as lawmakers wrangled over a measure that would allow abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and abolish a seven-decade-old law that levied criminal penalties against women who have abortions.

The bill, which was approved 46 to 19 and which Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has promised to sign into law, would make Mexico City the largest city in Latin America to legalize abortion and could give momentum to efforts to legalize the procedure nationwide in this predominantly Catholic country. Currently, abortion is allowed in limited cases, including rape and when the mother's life is in danger.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico City lawmakers voted to legalize abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, a landmark decision likely to heighten church-state tensions in the Roman Catholic nation and lead to a bitter court battle.

Abortion-rights advocates said they hoped the vote would be the start of a new trend across Mexico and other parts of Latin America, where only Cuba and Guyana permit women to have abortions on demand in the first trimester. Most other Latin American countries allow it only in cases of rape or when the woman's life is at risk. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile ban it completely.

But the debate in Mexico appeared far from over. Opponents vowed to challenge the law before the Supreme Court, saying it violates individual rights.

'"This is a step backward for democracy," said Armando Martinez, the leader of a Catholic lawyers' group that has petitioned the leftist-dominated legislature for a referendum on the issue. The church has played a vocal role in opposing the measure, a position shared by President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party. Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera led a protest march through the capital last month, pushing the limits of Mexico's constitutional ban on political activity by religious groups.

MEXICO CITY, April 24 — The Mexico City legislature approved a bill Tuesday to make abortion legal during the first three months of pregnancy, a watershed vote that set the stage for court battles and social clashes between religious conservatives and liberals.

Feminists hailed the vote as a clear victory. For decades, poor women here have resorted to clandestine clinics, traditional midwives and herbal potions to end unwanted pregnancies. Scores die every year in botched abortions. “It’s a triumph for women’s rights,” said María Consuelo Mejía, the director of Catholics for the Right to Decide.

Abortion opponents condemned the measure. “This is a tragic day for the democracy,” said Armando Martínez, the leader of Catholic Lawyers.

The fight has driven a wedge into this deeply Catholic society and shed light on the waning influence of the church in the wake of sexual abuse scandals involving priests. In January, church leaders could not stop the city assembly from passing a law allowing civil unions among homosexuals.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A leading opposition senator went public with an alleged assassination plot on Tuesday, accusing a former army colonel who has provided security for the U.S. coal company Drummond of conspiring to kill him.

Sen. Gustavo Petro told The Associated Press that the public prosecutor's office learned of the plot from one of the would-be assassins, who testified he met with retired army Col. Julian Villate and others in January in the coastal city of Santa Marta to plan the killing.

The assassination was not carried out, and Petro said he had no more details about the plot. A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office would not confirm it had the testimony, but said it was looking into Petro's allegations.

Petro has taken the lead among Colombian lawmakers in unmasking ties between President Alvaro Uribe's allies and illegal right-wing militias.

He and his relatives have received a series of death threats since November, when his denunciations of paramilitary infiltration in Colombian politics spurred probes that have landed eight Uribe-allied members of Congress in jail on charges ranging from conspiracy to murder.

BOGOTA -- (AP) -- A leading opposition senator went public Tuesday with an alleged assassination plot, accusing a former army colonel who has provided security for the U.S. coal company Drummond of conspiring to kill him.

Sen. Gustavo Petro told The Associated Press that the public prosecutor's office learned of the plot from one of the would-be assassins, who testified he met with retired army Col. Julian Villate and others in January in the coastal city of Santa Marta to plan the killing.

'The assassination was not carried out, and Petro said he had no more details about the plot. A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office would not confirm it had the testimony, but said it was looking into Petro's allegations.

Petro has taken the lead among Colombian lawmakers in unmasking ties between President Alvaro Uribe's allies and illegal right-wing militias.

He and his relatives have received a series of death threats since November, when his denunciations of paramilitary infiltration in Colombian politics spurred probes that have landed eight Uribe-allied members of Congress in jail on charges ranging from conspiracy to murder.

HAVANA -- ''Fidel: 80 More Years,'' proclaim the good wishes still hanging on storefront and balcony banners months after Cubans celebrated their leader's 80th birthday.

Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he's a living example of something Cubans take pride in -- an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of the United States.

They ascribe it to free medical care, mild climate, and a low-stress Caribbean lifestyle, which they believe make up for the hardships and shortages they suffer.

''Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don't,'' said Raquel Naring, a 70-year-old retired gas station attendant. ``But there aren't elderly people sleeping on the street like other places.''

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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WASHINGTON -- Fidel Castro's health is improving and he is increasingly involved in Cuba's foreign affairs, but he is unlikely to ever retake full command again, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.

The comments come after the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported that the 80-year-old Castro was in ''a hospital'' when he met with a top Beijing delegation on Friday.

Havana released photos of Castro at the meeting, looking healthier than in previous appearances and wearing a track suit. But Xinhua's mention of the hospital suggested that his health remains precarious almost nine months after he underwent surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment.

The U.S. intelligence official said the Cuban photos themselves suggested that while Castro may indeed be recuperating, he's not out of the woods.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A leading U.S. senator has frozen $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia over concerns about human rights and accusations that Colombia's army chief colluded with illegal paramilitaries.

The move by Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, came as some members of his party push for a tougher line with Colombia, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid to fight left-wing rebels and the illicit drugs trade.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is under scrutiny as he fends off a scandal linking several of his lawmaker supporters to the militias, who are accused of drug-trafficking and massacres during their dirty war with left-wing guerrillas.

Leahy froze the aid in his role as chairman of the Senate's state and foreign operations subcommittee, which oversees foreign programs and assistance. Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress since January.

"He has put a hold on the release of the final component from fiscal 2006 to facilitate further discussion with the State Department," said David Carle, a Leahy spokesman.

The frozen aid is part of assistance to the armed forces that needs approval by Congress, which monitors improvement of Colombia's human rights situation. The Bush administration recently certified that Colombia had made progress on rights.

A 79-year-old anti-Castro Cuban exile and former C.I.A. operative linked to the bombing of a Cuban airliner was released on bail yesterday and immediately returned to Miami to await trial on immigration fraud charges.

The man, Luis Posada Carriles, was released from the Otero County Prison in Chaparral, N.M., after posting a $350,000 bond on the immigration charges.

His release infuriated the authorities in Cuba and Venezuela, who have been trying to extradite him to stand trial over the 1976 airliner bombing, which killed 73 people, including several teenage members of Cuba’s national fencing team.

The United States Justice Department had tried unsuccessfully to prevent his release, arguing that his escape from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 increased the risk that he might flee before the scheduled start of his trial on immigration charges on May 11.

COLOMBIA'S URIBE SLAMS GORE'S SNUB OVER SCANDAL
The Washington Post
April 20, 2007

MIAMI (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, denying allegations that he supported right-wing death squads, condemned former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Friday for pulling out of a conference where the two were scheduled to speak.

"I deplore the cancellation of the presence of Vice President Al Gore at this meeting," said Uribe, whose standing as a close U.S. ally has been undermined by the allegations.

Gore decided not to attend because of "deeply troubling" allegations that Uribe needed to address before a "very serious chapter" in Colombia's history could be brought to a close, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said in a statement.

She did not elaborate, but eight members of Uribe's congressional coalition are in jail awaiting trial for backing right-wing paramilitary groups.

More politicians, both in and out of Uribe's coalition, are being questioned as part of a widening probe into the cocaine-funded militias that have massacred thousands of Colombians in the name of fighting Marxist-led rebels.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Al Gore withdrew from an environmental conference in Miami on Friday to avoid appearing with the Colombian president, who is facing the most serious accusations yet that he aided far-right death squads.

Gore's office said the former vice president did not want to appear at an event with President Alvaro Uribe until "this very serious chapter in history is brought to a close."

Uribe said late Thursday that Gore's decision was a sign of the damage caused by a growing scandal linking his political allies to Colombia's illegal right-wing militias.

An opposition lawmaker in Colombia has alleged that Uribe let paramilitaries use his own property for meetings and killings while governor in a northern state in the mid-1990s.

Considered terrorist groups by the U.S. government, the paramilitaries are responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's long-running civil conflict. Many of the group's commanders are wanted in the U.S. on charges of exporting hundreds of tons of cocaine.

CONGRESS SHOULD OK AID TO COLOMBIA
Our opinion: But clear conditions must be attached, as well
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Apr. 24, 2007

There are plenty of reasons for members of Congress to be leery about giving more money to Colombia. A major political scandal surrounding President Alvaro Uribe and his party is growing, and getting closer to the president himself. An amnesty with paramilitary forces has been far too generous to these criminals. Human rights protections need to be strengthened, and too much of Colombia's territory remains beyond the reach of the government. And yet, Congress should approve more aid to Colombia -- with strings.

In a way, Colombia has become the Pakistan of Latin America -- a strategic U.S. ally in a troubled part of the world, with a government that leaves a lot to be desired. But even this comparison falls short, principally because President Uribe, unlike Pakistan's Musharraf, is a popular -- and popularly elected -- democratic leader.

POSADA BENEFITS FROM U.S. RULE OF LAW
Our opinion: Suspicions alone can't justify indefinite detention
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Apr. 25, 2007

The release of Luis Posada Carriles, after nearly two years of detention, is affirmation that under U.S. democracy, the law is supreme. Mr. Posada is no saint. He has been accused, but not convicted, of terrorism. The United States doesn't -- and shouldn't -- convict people on suspicion alone. Mr. Posada, 79, has never been convicted of a terrorist charge, here or abroad. Thus, a federal judge in El Paso ordered him released and set a very high bond. That was the right call.

The U.S. Justice Department called him ''an admitted mastermind of terrorist plots.'' But the actual charges against Mr. Posada are for fraud. He is accused of lying in an attempt to gain U.S. citizenship. The Justice Department argued that he was a flight risk and should be imprisoned pending his criminal trial on May 11. But U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone didn't buy it.

REGIONAL
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ETHANOL POLICY DIVIDES LATIN AMERICA
The Christian Science Monitor
April 20, 2007

MEXICO CITY AND CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez calls the boom in ethanol the equivalent of starving the poor "to feed automobiles."

Ethanol, which is derived from crops such as corn or sugar, is seen by some as a green alternative, a rising star on the path toward reducing independence on foreign petroleum. But it's not just Mr. Chávez who is questioning whether the benefits outweigh the unintended consequences.

Now poultry industry executives, who have seen the price of feedstock has gone up; Mexican consumers, facing a 60 percent jump in the cost of tortillas; and even environmentalists, who look at the amount of fertilizer that will be needed to grow extra crops, are wondering aloud whether ethanol will help or hurt Latin American economies.

The South American energy summit that concluded in Venezeula this week provided the latest platform for critics. Even though the debate has been cast as another issue in the long line of ideological battles aligning Chávez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro against the US, some analysts say that their point is larger than political: If the price for staple food items rises across the globe because of demand, Latin America will be one of the hardest hit regions.

"I think people worry that rich Americans are trying to fuel cars at the expense of hungry people in poorer countries," says Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. "This increased push for ethanol production could be an incredible foreign policy blunder."

Por más de dos años, autoridades estadounidenses han contado con un arma poderosa para perseguir violadores de derechos humanos de otros países, que se hayan establecido en Estados Unidos. Y ello empieza finalmente a surtir efecto.

Los recientes arrestos en la Florida, Maryland y Virginia de tres ex militares latinoamericanos -- acusados en Estados Unidos por violaciones a las leyes migratorias pero buscados en sus países de origen en conexión con torturas y masacres -- simbolizan el impacto de la nueva ley. También, gracias a las crecientes facultades procesales contenidas en la ley, Chuckie Taylor, el hijo de ex presidente liberiano Charles Taylor, se convertirá este otoño en la primera persona en ser juzgada bajo un estatuto federal, con13 años de vigencia, destinado a personas sospechosas de haber cometido torturas.

Asombrosamente, cientos de presuntos violadores de derechos humanos de todo el mundo viven en Estados Unidos hoy en día. Son por lo menos 800 de 26 países distintos, según el más reciente conteo del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, sucesor del Servicio de Inmigración y Naturalización) . Muchos entraron con visas obtenidas ilegalmente al mentir acerca de su pasado ante autoridades consulares estadounidenses.

PATZCUARO, MEXICO - Mexican bishops have threatened legislators, doctors, and women with excommunication. But on Tuesday, the Mexico City assembly is expected to pass a new law legalizing abortions.

If it does, it would put the capital of the world's second largest Catholic nation in the same league with Cuba and Guyana – the only countries in conservative Latin America that allow abortions in the first trimester, as the US does.

A similar bill has been introduced in Mexico's national legislature. If the relaxed abortion laws pass, they would mirror a similar move by Colombia toward partial legalization. Only in increasingly evangelical Christian Nicaragua has the abortion law become stricter. [Editor's note: The original version incorrectly stated which countries have moved toward partial legalization of abortion.]

"We think it's possible this initiative [in Mexico City] could be replicated across the country," says Fernanda Diazdeleon, a lawyer with the nonprofit Information Group on Reproductive Choice in Mexico City.

Yet where Ms. Diazdeleon sees a new panorama for women's rights, Jorge Serrano Limon, the head of the antiabortion group Provida, sees the potential for a country he hardly recognizes. "Today it's abortion; tomorrow it's euthanasia," he says. "It will be a chain that denigrates Mexican society."