Jueves 03 de Mayo 2007. Año II, No. SESENTA Y OCHO

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 27 de abril al 03 de mayo 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

COMERCIO
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HAVANA -- Cuba has lifted a ban on imports of U.S. long-grain rice that it put in place last year because of fears about genetic contamination.

Raul Sanchez, director of the U.S. division of the island's food import company Alimport, said Friday the ban was lifted earlier this month and that in recent weeks Cuba has imported 30,000 tons of long-grain U.S. rice and expects to import 10,000 more soon.

A U.S. announcement in August that American long-grain rice samples had tested positive for trace amounts of a genetically modified strain not approved for consumption prompted Japan to suspend its U.S. rice imports. Cuba imposed a ban of its own after conducting independent testing, Sanchez said.

Sanchez, who spoke during a meeting with U.S. medical company representatives, did not provide details about the exact date and why Cuba had lifted the ban, suggesting only that U.S. long-grain rice no longer appeared to be a problem.

Washington's 45-year-old embargo against communist Cuba chokes off most trade between the two countries but U.S. companies can sell medicine and medical supplies directly to the country under the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act. A law approved in 2000 authorized cash-only payments for U.S. food and agricultural products.

MIGRACION
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OK, you anti-immigration isolationist flag-wavers out there, let's assume for a minute that we do things your way and deny 12 million undocumented workers a reasonable path to U.S. citizenship. Let me tell you why that would not only be unfair, but also would affect your own interests.

First, forget the 1968 riots in Los Angeles, or the 1980 violence in Miami's Liberty City. You would be creating an underclass of alienated aliens like the Muslim youths that carried out the ''French Intifada'' in the suburbs of Paris in 2005 -- only much worse. You would have 12 million second-class citizens -- mostly Hispanics -- who would not only be disenfranchised from mainstream society, but who would be legally barred from aspiring to join it. That would be a recipe for frustration, anger and rebellion.

Second, closing the doors to citizenship -- or demanding a typical family of five to pay more than $64,000 and wait 25 years before they could apply for citizenship, as the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform estimates would require under a recently circulated White House immigration proposal -- may discourage future would-be immigrants from moving North, but would not begin to address the problem of those already here. Few of them would voluntarily return to their native countries.

Third, massive deportations of hard-working people would not only be morally questionable, but socially and economically insane.

There are an estimated 3.1 million children born in the United States whose parents do not have legal immigration papers, according to the Pew Research Center. These children are U.S. citizens. Their parents -- who came here in hopes of a better future -- would not take them back to a life of poverty in their home countries. Are you proposing giant government-paid orphanages? Massive and expensive foster care?

SASABE, Mexico -- Mexican druglords are taking over the business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments across the same border.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that drug traffickers, in response to a U.S. border crackdown, have seized control of the routes they once shared with human smugglers and in the process are transforming themselves into more diversified crime syndicates.

The drug gangs get protection money from the migrants and then effectively use them to clear the trail for the flow of drugs.

Undocumented aliens are used "to maneuver where they want us or don't want us to be," said Alonzo Pena, chief of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Tucson, Ariz., said smugglers are carrying drugs along paths once used primarily by migrants. New fences and National Guard troops have helped seal the usual drug routes, and vehicle barriers are forcing traffickers to send more drugs north on the backs of cartel foot soldiers, he said.

"We have been able to seal many of the drug routes by adding technology and more agents," Soto said. "We're seeing a tremendous amount of drugs being seized."

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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CASTRO'S RECOVERY SEEN IN A PULLBACK FROM REFORMS
The Miami herald Apr. 30, 2007

Nine months after falling victim to an illness that many U.S. analysts assumed would prove fatal, Fidel Castro appears to have come back from death's door to resume some leadership responsibilities and rein in Cuba's would-be reformers.

He's receiving visiting dignitaries, not just friends such as Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez but official delegations, including one led last week by a senior figure in the Chinese Communist Party, Wu Guanzheng.

Castro's name is again attached to editorials for Cuba's state-run media, ones in which the U.S. government is lambasted for freeing an accused terrorist and Brazil is criticized for using food crops for ethanol production when they could be feeding Latin America's poor.

And, to the alarm of veteran Cuba-watchers who sensed a new degree of openness to economic change during Castro's absence, the apparently reinvigorated revolutionary is now believed to be blocking moves to let Cubans open small businesses. U.S. analysts of Cuban developments acknowledge that they know little about Castro's illness or the degree of his recuperation. His personal secretary said he was suffering from intestinal bleeding when he handed over power last summer to his brother Raúl. U.S. intelligence sources have speculated he has cancer. But the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported the most detailed and plausible version of his prolonged medical attention, citing unidentified doctors familiar with Castro's case. The newspaper said the Cuban president had undergone three surgeries to remove infected intestinal tissue and became gravely ill when the incisions failed to heal and the infection spread to his stomach.

MEXICO CITY -- A new measure legalizing abortions in Mexico City was published into law on Thursday, allowing doctors to almost immediately begin terminating pregnancies in their first trimester.

City Health Secretary Manuel Mondragon said early term abortions will be legal starting Friday for women who are nearing the 12-week limit and cannot wait. Women whose pregnancies are less advanced must wait until the law's regulations are published. Authorities have 60 days to publish them, but are expected to do it next week.

He also said that except in cases of medical emergency, women will have to prove residency in the capital, a city of 9 million - addressing the widespread belief that the law would make the capital a magnet for women across Mexico seeking abortions. Girls under 18 would need parental consent.

The law also allows gynecologists with moral objections to refuse to perform abortions.

The procedure will be free and available at 14 of the 28 city hospitals. Mondragon said each facility will be able to carry out seven abortions a day. Officials said it was not immediately clear if private hospitals would have to offer the abortions.

PERUVIAN HONORED FOR DEFENDING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
The Washington Post
April 26, 2007

Growing up amid the Peruvian Amazon's raging rivers and rustling foliage, Julio Cusurichi Palacios learned at an early age how to balance nature's vast possibilities with his own limitations. He learned to leap from great heights and run long distances without getting hurt or lost. He dipped in fresh streams and trailed his father in the jungles.

This week, Cusurichi, 36, who came of age in the foothills of the Madre de Dios region at the southeastern tip of his native country, was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. He was celebrated Wednesday night in Washington for his persistence in fighting for the creation of a territorial reserve for indigenous people living in voluntary isolation and for the protection of the unspoiled rain forests of his childhood.

"The government thinks the Amazon is empty, but it is and has been inhabited for thousands of years," Cusurichi said in a telephone interview on the eve of his award ceremony at the National Geographic Society. "This is not about political systems but about our responsibility towards human lives. It is not only affecting our culture, but the whole planet."

ECUADOR PRESIDENT RAILS AGAINST CHEVRON
The Miami Herald
Apr. 27, 2007

LA VICTORIA, Ecuador -- Leftist President Rafael Correa went deep into Ecuador's Amazon jungle to show his disdain for Chevron Corp., which is on trial here for allegedly failing to clean up billions of gallons of toxic wastewater.

"Soil with oil, friends," Correa said Thursday as he lifted a fistful of greasy dirt from a small farm in the rain forest where Texaco Petroleum Co. spent three decades extracting oil before it merged with Chevron in 2001.

Correa, a U.S.-trained economist in power since January, is the first Ecuadorean president to support the estimated 30,000 settlers and Amazon Indians who are suing the U.S. oil giant.

He accused the company of causing 30 times more damage than the 11-million gallon Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaskan coast in 1989. "But it would seem that what happens in the Third World doesn't matter," the president said.

Farmers say the oily muck keeps them from cultivating their land and has caused stomach and skin ailments among the area's residents.

LIMA, Peru -- Congress granted Peru's president the power to rule by decree for 60 days on matters related to drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime, strengthening his hand in the battle against cocaine production and smuggling.

President Alan Garcia thanked lawmakers for the measure and vowed to take "a heavy hand" against drug gangs that have made the South American nation the world's second largest producer of cocaine, after Colombia.

Congress voted late Thursday 49-7 to give the Garcia the power issue and reform anti-drug and crime legislation for a 60-day period without requiring congressional approval. Twenty-two opposition lawmakers left the session before the vote to protest the measure.

"The war against violence involves everyone. A heavy hand is what the people want and we will do it legally," Garcia said Friday. Peru cannot have "legal voids so that drug trafficking, violent terrorism, corruption, money laundering and gang activity advances."

Several recent polls have shown that crime is a leading concern among Peruvians. Previous presidents have also received similar powers to reform certain areas.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez said Friday his government was planning to develop an advanced air-defense system and purchase other arms that would make Venezuela impregnable to attack.

The leftist leader, who has repeatedly accused the United States of planning to invade his oil-rich nation, said Venezuela had test fired missiles on Thursday but it was not clear what kind of projectiles he was referring to.

"We're going to have a tremendous air-defense system, and with missiles capable of reaching 200 kilometers (124 miles)," Chavez said during a televised speech. "(It) will convert Venezuela into a nation truly invulnerable to any external threat, invulnerable to any plan of aggression."

Chavez denied Venezuela was engaged in an arms buildup or posed a threat to regional stability as Washington has suggested, saying Venezuela was simply modernizing its military after years of neglect.

"They are necessary investments. We're not going to attack anybody," he said at the speech at a military academy in Caracas.

Chavez also announced spending of more than US$561 million (euro411 million) for factories to build automatic AK-103 assault rifles, munitions, and detonators; a facility to train pilots to fly Russian M-17, M-26 and M-35 helicopters, and another facility to overhaul F-5 fighter jets.

CALI, Colombia -- Twelve kidnapped lawmakers pleaded with President Alvaro Uribe to jumpstart stalled talks with their leftist rebel captors in a video released Friday by the insurgents.

The legislators are among about 60 politicians, soldiers and police - including three American defense contractors - held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America's oldest and best-armed guerrilla movement.

"We've waited five painful years for the government and the FARC to show their political and historical backbone and reach an agreement to set us free," former state legislator Edinson Perez said in the video. He held up his palm to the camera, scribbled with the words "Until when?"

The video, the first proof of life of the lawmakers in seven months, was viewed Friday by weeping family members in the same state legislature where their loved ones were abducted five years ago by a commando rebel unit disguised as soldiers.

The hostages were shown repeating calls for Uribe to concede to rebel demands for an 310-square-mile safe haven near Cali, Colombia's third largest city, to conduct talks aimed at negotiating the exchange of the hostages for hundreds of jailed rebels.

After the video's release, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos reiterated the government's refusal to grant the request, saying, "the government had explained over and over such a proposal was unacceptable."

VIGILANTES IMPOSE PEACE IN RIO SLUMS
The Miami herald
Apr. 29, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- For as long as anyone can remember, the cracked asphalt soccer field in the Roquete Pinto slum was off-limits to children - "reserved" by gangs selling marijuana and cocaine. Then, a few months ago, a mysterious squad of beefy men with submachine guns started patrolling on foot, and the drug dealers disappeared.

A few days ago, while gunbattles were raging in two other Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods and bystanders were shielding their kids from the bullets, the barefoot teens of Roquete Pinto smiled and shouted as they kicked a ball around their freshly liberated field.

Startling transformations like Roquete Pinto's are increasingly visible across Rio, as for-profit "militias" made up of active and former police officers, private security guards, off-duty prison guards and firefighters evict drug gangs from slums where violence used to be out of control.

Although some worry about the implications of vigilante justice, the militias have powerful sympathizers, among them Mayor Cesar Maia, who calls them "self-defense groups" and says that compared with the drug gangs, the vigilantes are the lesser evil.

The surprise is that the gangs aren't fighting to hold their turf. In the few known cases where they did, militia gunfire turned them back.

CHAVEZ AND BIG OIL GEAR UP FOR STRUGGLE
The Miami Herald
Apr. 29, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Forcing Big Oil to give up control of Venezuela's most promising oil fields this week will be relatively easy for President Hugo Chavez, but he will face a more delicate challenge in getting the world's top oil companies to stay and keep investing.

If Chavez can persuade companies to stick around despite tougher terms, Venezuela will be on track to develop the planet's largest known oil deposit, possibly to surpass Saudi Arabia as the nation with the most reserves.

If he scares them away, the Orinoco River region could end up starved of the investment and know-how needed to transform its vast tar deposits into marketable crude oil.

On Tuesday, BP PLC, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA will turn over their Orinoco operations to Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Chavez, who says he is reclaiming the oil industry after years of private exploitation, is expected to be accompanied by troops and workers clad in revolutionary red amid fly-bys by the military's new Russian-made fighter jets.

"We are going to take over some oil fields that have continued to be in the hands of transnationals," Chavez said in a speech to allied leaders Sunday, calling it "the last step" in recovering state sovereignty over oil.

IN BUENOS AIRES, 'NEIGHBORHOODS OF MISERY'
The Washington Post
April 29, 2007

BUENOS AIRES -- About 1,500 people used to live in Villa Cartón, a slapdash cluster of hundreds of crooked shacks wedged beneath a highway overpass.

Scrap-wood walls were reinforced with cardboard, old bedsheets curtained window frames. Walkways were clogged with pushcarts full of bottles and paper, the recyclable refuse that many of the people who lived there scavenged for a living.

In February, someone set fire to the shantytown, and the pumper trucks that eventually arrived could do little but water its ashes. But the fire -- and the saga that followed as officials tried to relocate the residents -- has laid bare a problem that Buenos Aires and other metropolises face as they grapple with growing slums. The most precarious parts of the city, however undesirable, are among the hardest to replace.

About one-third of the world's urban dwellers live in slums, and the United Nations estimates that the number of people living in such conditions will double by 2030 as a result of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Latin America is already the most urbanized region in the developing world, but even in places where rural migration to urban areas has begun to level off -- such as Argentina -- slums within cities continue to grow at a fast pace, through good economic times and bad.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's navy made the largest drug seizure in the nation's history when it uncovered up to 27 tons of cocaine buried along the Pacific coast, the defense minister said Monday.

The cocaine, with a wholesale value of more than $500 million, was found Sunday buried in 1,000 packages of 55 pounds each near the coastal town of Pizarro, 250 miles west of Bogota, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told a news conference.

Later, Navy Adm. Guillermo Barrera told The Associated Press by telephone that 919 packages of cocaine had been found. The different numbers could not be immediately explained. The figures put the cocaine seizure between 24 tons to 27 tons.

Santos said the seizure was the result of eight months of undercover police work and he called it the "biggest in the history of Colombia."

The cocaine was buried near an estuary accessible only by sea, he said.

There were no arrests in the operation, but the drugs were believed to belong to Colombia's biggest drug trafficking organization, the Norte del Valle cartel, which operates near the area.

The seizure came as President Alvaro Uribe travels to Washington on Tuesday to shore up support on Capitol Hill and the White House for the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has cost American taxpayers more than $5 billion since 2000.

VENEZUELA PULLING OUT OF IMF, WORLD BANK
The Miami Herald
May. 01, 2007
By Alexandra Olson

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

"We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters, recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

Chavez, who says he wants to steer Venezuela toward socialism, made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.

Chavez wants to set up a new lender run by Latin American nations and has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues. The regional lender, which he has called "Bank of the South," would dole out financing for state projects across Latin America.

Chavez has criticized past Venezuelan governments for signing agreements with the IMF to restructure the economy - plans blamed for contributing to racing inflation.

OAXACA, Mexico -- A group of students took over a university radio station in Oaxaca City on Monday and transmitted messages in support of a leftist movement demanding the governor's resignation.

The students forced their way into Radio University, which had served as the nerve center for the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, or APPO. The group led protests last year calling for Gov. Ulises Ruiz to resign, virtually paralyzing the city for months.

"This is a peaceful takeover and we're doing it with the rights that we have as university students," said an improvised radio announcer, according to the government news agency Notimex.

The students called on others to participate in a march Tuesday to demand the release of APPO leaders who were arrested in December, deflating the movement. They said that on Wednesday they would leave the station and block highways throughout the state.

BARCELONA, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez's government took over Venezuela's last privately run oil fields Tuesday, intensifying a power struggle with international companies over the world's largest known single petroleum deposit.

Newly bought Russian-made fighter jets streaked through the sky as Chavez shouted "Down with the U.S. empire!" to thousands of red-clad oil workers in the Orinoco River Basin, calling the state takeover a historic victory for Venezuela after years of U.S.-backed corporate exploitation.

"The nationalization of Venezuela's oil is now for real," said Chavez, who declared that for Venezuela to be a socialist state it must have control over its natural resources.

Chavez accused foreign oil companies of bad drilling practices due to their hunger for quick profits, and said Venezuela could sue them for causing lasting damage to oil fields.

While the state takeover had been planned for some time, BP PLC, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA remain locked in a struggle with the Chavez government over the terms and conditions under which they will be allowed to stay on as minority partners.

All but ConocoPhillips signed agreements last week agreeing in principle to state control, and ConocoPhillips said Tuesday that it too was cooperating.

HAVANA -- There was no sign of a convalescing Fidel Castro as hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Havana's Revolution Plaza to celebrate May Day, casting new doubts on his recovery and whether he will return to power.

Tuesday marked only the third time in nearly five decades that Castro has missed the sweeping International Workers' Day festivities - a major celebration here and around the world.

While recent images of Castro meeting with Chinese leaders indicated he had improved considerably since undergoing emergency surgery nine months ago, his absence at the parade through the Revolution Plaza raised questions about whether he is strong enough to run the country.

The 80-year-old leader has missed two other major events since announcing his illness on July 31 and temporarily ceding power to his 75-year-old brother Raul Castro, the defense minister. Raul presided at the Nonaligned Summit in September and a major military parade in December.

"It now seems more unlikely than before that he will fully resume the presidency," said Wayne Smith, the former head of the American mission in Havana. "And the more time that passes, the more unlikely it seems."

Smith said that with Castro failing to show Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's assertions this week that Castro was back "in charge" appeared to be "a lot of hot air."

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro was absent at Tuesday morning's May Day parade in Havana, despite widespread speculation that he would make a spectacular come-back after nine months on the sidelines.

It was only the third time in 48 years that Castro missed the parade called each year to celebrate International Worker's Day. Castro also was absent in 1959 and 1963 when he was traveling in the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively.

This May Day observance marks nine months since Castro ceded power to his brother Raúl on July 31, four days after undergoing abdominal surgery. Fidel Castro's last public appearance was on July 26.

Tuesday's Communist Party daily Granma featured an op-ed article written by Castro dated Monday night, criticizing Brazil for embracing ethanol, which Castro argues will rip food from the poor.

''Tomorrow the first of May is a good day to carry these reflections to the workers and all of the poor people of the world,'' Castro wrote.

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered Tuesday morning at Revolution Square to celebrate workers day and to denounce the recent release on bail of accused terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Many of those present carried posters that read, ``Assassin Posada: We live in a free country!''

At the head of the podium: Interim President Raúl Castro.

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 30 -- President Hugo Chavez's government will take control Tuesday of what might be the world's richest oil fields, a huge swath known as the Orinoco Belt that Big Oil has spent a decade and nearly $20 billion developing.

In the past two years, Venezuela, like energy-rich countries from Russia to Bolivia, has exerted increasing control over its oil. But now, Chavez's administration will take its biggest leap yet, with the state oil company assuming a 60 percent stake in four projects previously run by multinationals, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.

The shift is being greeted with revolutionary fervor. "For the country's workers, it's a day to celebrate," Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez said recently.

[Ramirez declared that the Orinoco fields had reverted to state control just after midnight, the Associated Press reported. Television showed oil workers in hard hats raising the flags of Venezuela and the national oil company over a refinery and four drilling fields in the Orinoco River basin.]

Despite the pomp of the occasion, many oil analysts question whether the state company, Petroleos de Venezuela, is prepared to oversee the development of projects in the country's north that, if fully exploited, could give Venezuela the largest certified oil deposits in the world.

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 30 -- President Hugo Chavez's government will take control Tuesday of what might be the world's richest oil fields, a huge swath known as the Orinoco Belt that Big Oil has spent a decade and nearly $20 billion developing.

In the past two years, Venezuela, like energy-rich countries from Russia to Bolivia, has exerted increasing control over its oil. But now, Chavez's administration will take its biggest leap yet, with the state oil company assuming a 60 percent stake in four projects previously run by multinationals, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.

The shift is being greeted with revolutionary fervor. "For the country's workers, it's a day to celebrate," Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said recently.

Despite the pomp of the occasion, many oil analysts question whether the state company, Petroleos de Venezuela, is prepared to oversee the development of projects in the country's north that, if fully exploited, could give Venezuela the largest certified oil deposits in the world.

The firm, which previously had a minority stake in each of the projects, will now be better positioned to make key decisions on production and refining, and on how to manage the workforce. It will also assume more responsibility for investments. But the fields contain a heavy, molasses-like oil that is highly expensive and problematic to refine -- and the state company could face severe financial and technical challenges, analysts say.

HAVANA -- Fidel Castro was a no-show on May Day, missing his third straight major public event and disappointing hundreds of thousands of marchers who were forced to settle for an appearance by his stodgy younger brother and a message in the form of a wandering essay about ethanol.

Top officials in Cuba and throughout the region have long insisted that the island's "maximum leader" is recuperating from emergency intestinal surgery, and has even reassumed some of the duties he left when he temporally stepped aside on July 31.

But nine months and counting without a public appearance has some wondering whether repeated assurances that Castro's health is improving are aimed more at reassuring the 80-year-old patient and his supporters than accurately depicting his condition.

And, even if Castro is no longer at death's door, will he ever be well enough to be seen in public again - much less be up to running a country?

"We are still where we were," said Wayne Smith, the former head of the American mission in Havana. "They say his recovery is satisfactory. But all these months later he cannot even make an appearance on May Day."

HAVANA -- Fidel Castro's health and his role in Cuba's future remained a mystery Tuesday after the ailing communist leader failed to appear at a massive parade celebrating International Workers' Day.

Instead, Castro's designated stand-in, his 75-year-old brother, Raúl, joined other key leaders atop a reviewing stand in Havana's Revolution Square, waving occasionally as tens of thousands of Cubans carrying flags and banners marched past.

''A speedy recovery and lots of health, dear Fidel,'' Salvador Valdes, secretary general of Cuba's central workers union, told the crowd, drawing cheers of ``Viva Fidel.''

Castro, 80, has not appeared in public since last July, when he turned over power to his brother and told the Cuban people he was undergoing treatment for a serious health problem.

The exact details of his illness have remained a closely guarded state secret, although speculation centers upon diverticular disease, a weakening of the colon walls in which blood can leak into the body cavity. The condition is often fatal among the elderly.

Cuba has remained calm during Castro's nine-month absence, dashing hopes among many Cuban exiles in the United States that his faltering health might spark a crisis and a sudden change in Cuba.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro, recovering from a serious intestinal ailment, missed Havana's May Day parade for the first time in decades Tuesday but still managed to set the political themes for the workers' march that drew about 500,000 people.

Galvanized by his suggestions for banners and slogans in an editorial carried by all major Cuban media, the marchers denounced the Bush administration for releasing an accused terrorist from a New Mexico jail last month and criticized the United States for using food crops to produce fuel.

The bearded revolutionary's place on the parade reviewing stand in Revolution Plaza was filled by his brother Raúl, Cuba's defense minister who has served as provisional head of state and chief of the Communist Party during the president's intestinal surgeries and convalescence.

But Cuban media described Raúl Castro as the second secretary of the party and made no reference to his temporary role as president, bolstering a message that Cuban and allied officials have been putting out in recent weeks that Fidel Castro is back in power.

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's no-show at the massive May Day march in Cuba indicates that despite recent signs he is recovering from the illness that forced him to delegate powers nine months ago, his health is worse than most of us thought.

This is not based on any medical diagnosis, but on political diagnosis

May Day was a big deal, and not just because it is Castro's favorite holiday. Unlike other major public events he missed in recent months -- including the Non-Aligned summit in September and a postponed 80th birthday official celebration in December -- there were political reasons why Castro wouldn't have skipped Tuesday's event for anything had he been physically able to be there.

With television crews from around the world arriving in Cuba in recent days after growing speculation Castro would make his triumphal reappearance, it would have been a unique opportunity to draw international attention to his crusade to get a United Nations condemnation of the United States for the recent release from jail of accused anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

Castro's presence at the International Workers' Day celebration -- even if he had just stood silently for a few moments -- would not only have marked his victorious return from near-death, it would have reenergized his regime at home and abroad.

WASHINGTON -- Marcel Granier has gone from the hard-hitting world of TV production to the soft-touch arena of advocacy and diplomatic lobbying.

Granier, 65, is the CEO of RCTV, the Venezuelan TV station that President Hugo Chávez has vowed to take over come May 27, sparking an international row that, in the eyes of rights activists and media watchdog groups, has become a marker of sorts of Chávez's true democratic intentions.

Granier, convinced that Chávez must be stopped now or Venezuela will see its democratic space shrink dramatically, has been touring Latin America and Europe attempting to drum up international support.

''I feel Venezuela is on an accelerated road to authoritarianism,'' he told The Miami Herald in an interview. ``This marks him as another Latin American dictator.''

Chávez accuses Granier and RCTV of backing a failed 2002 coup against him.

MEXICO CITY AND HAVANA - Fidel Castro's absence during Cuba's annual May Day parade in Revolution Plaza was a blow to many Cubans – and Castro fans the world over – who expected their leader to make his first public appearance since falling ill and ceding temporary power to his brother Raúl Castro last July.

For nearly nine months, Mr. Castro has only been seen in photos and footage. But despite his absence Tuesday, speculation that once centered on how much longer he had to live has given way to a sense that he will get back to work. Now, Cuban residents and observers are wondering in what capacity he might return.

"Fidel is the revolution and he represents the dreams of many people," says Ernesto, a law student at the University of Havana who declined to give his last name. "I don't think that Fidel is completely out of the decisionmaking process. But I also don't think that he will ever again be the only one to be making decisions."

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Revolution Plaza in the annual International Workers' Day march Tuesday, which Castro has attended for decades. But at press time, he was nowhere to be seen.

Speculation that he might appear was fueled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who said Sunday that Castro was again "in charge." Evo Morales, Bolivia's leftist leader and a Castro ally, also said publicly that the 80-year-old leader could make a May Day appearance.

SAN FELIPE, Venezuela, May 1 — President Hugo Chávez on Tuesday seized control of the last remaining oil projects in Venezuela controlled by large American and European energy companies. The move to take over the projects, announced in January, is the centerpiece of recent actions aimed at consolidating his government’s control over the economy.

Dressed in red fatigues, Mr. Chávez delivered a fiery speech at the coastal oil refining complex of Jose, denouncing America’s economic influence before thousands of supporters also clad in red, the color of his revolution.

“Today is the end of that era when our natural riches ended up the hands of anyone but the Venezuelan people,” Mr. Chávez said during the speech, while speaking glowingly of important allies like Iran, a fellow OPEC member.

Venezuela’s control over the oil-production projects, which are in the Orinoco region in the country’s interior and worth an estimated $30 billion, will weaken companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips in one of the world’s most promising oil exploration regions.

HAVANA, May 1 — The throngs were out in the streets with their red shirts and banners just as they always are on May Day, but Cuba’s holiday honoring workers came and went Tuesday without their longtime leader ever showing his face.

Many of the hundreds of thousands of people who marched through Revolution Square in Havana craned their necks toward the huge podium along the parade route to see if Fidel Castro would make his first public appearance since undergoing emergency surgery nine months ago.

They saw his brother, Raúl, the interim leader, standing stiffly in his army uniform. They saw Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly, who occasionally raised his fist in the air, and other leaders of the Communist Party.

But nobody could find the bearded leader who has always been there in the past, delivering multihour discourses on the evils of capitalism and the vagaries of Washington.

“Is he here?” asked an older woman in the sea of marchers who was hoisting a sign that said, “Bush Is an Assassin.”

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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WASHINGTON -- The invitation to the Latin American diplomatic community began like any other: "The Bolivian Embassy is pleased to invite you." What followed -- "If you employ a worker at home, please encourage her to attend" -- was a bit less predictable, but logical for an event meant to commemorate the International Day of the Domestic Worker.

The response? "Absolute silence," according to Gustavo Guzman, Bolivia's ambassador and host of the March 30 event. A representative of the Cuban Interests Section made an appearance, but no ambassador showed up. That left the organizers, along with local activists, politicians and a few domestic workers, to celebrate without them.

Obviously the invitation was meant to stir things up a bit in the stodgy universe of Washington social life with the polite suggestion that the invitees do something outside the norm -- socialize with the hired help. But it was also indicative of the power shift taking place in Bolivia, where Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president, has been leading the nation in a "displacement of the ruling classes," in the words of Guzman.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Cocaine prices in the United States have dropped and the drug's purity increased, despite years of effort and nearly $5 billion spent by the U.S. government to combat Colombia's drug industry, the White House drug czar acknowledged in a letter to a key senator.

The drug czar, John Walters, wrote Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about $135 per gram of pure cocaine - hovering near the same levels since the early 1990s. In 1981, when the U.S. government began collecting data, a gram of pure cocaine fetched $600.

The purity of this cocaine, meanwhile, has "trended somewhat toward former levels," as well, Walters said in the letter, citing data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Colombia supplies 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States. Declining prices and rising purity could also suggest weakening demand, but several household and school-based surveys show that America's cocaine consumption has barely budged since 2000, and demand in Europe has increased.

Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, is set to meet with President Bush at the White House on Wednesday to discuss U.S. support for Plan Colombia, the anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has cost American taxpayers more than $4 billion since 2000.

Walters' letter to Grassley, the Republican co-chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, was sent in January in response to a request from the senator. It was made available to The Associated Press by the Washington Office on Latin America, a liberal lobby group.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's chief prosecutor stood between the white plastic-sheathed remains of two dismembered teenage sisters. On the rust-colored dirt around him lay remains of nearly 60 newly unearthed victims of paramilitary death squads.

Not just their killers but those who bankrolled them must be brought to justice, Mario Iguaran told reporters last week at the mass grave in the country's eastern plains.

"You can clearly see that they didn't pay for security, but for blood," Iguaran said.

He spoke ahead of a trip to Washington this week to seek aid for his overburdened office and help obtain evidence against U.S.-based multinationals he's investigating for allegedly financing the paramilitaries.

Iguaran meets with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday. With both, he is sure to talk about Chiquita Brands and the Alabama-based coal company Drummond Co. Inc.

Thousands of Colombians disappeared in the past decade, most victims of right-wing militias that emerged in the 1980s to fight leftist rebel groups.

The paramilitaries quickly evolved into mafias, enriching themselves through cocaine trafficking, theft and extortion in large chunks of the country, particularly the Caribbean coast. Large landowners, politicians and corporations bankrolled the militias to expand their holdings, while police and military officers turned a blind eye.

SUPREME COURT TO HEAR APPEAL OF MEXICAN DEATH ROW INMATE
The New York Times
May 1, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 30 — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas whose case has embroiled the World Court, the Bush administration and the State of Texas in a conflict that has only deepened in the two years since the justices last considered how to resolve it.

The inmate, José E. Medellín, is one of 50 Mexicans on death rows in various states who, the World Court found in 2004, had been charged and tried without the assistance from Mexican diplomats to which an international treaty entitled them.

The United States is a signatory to the treaty, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires local authorities to inform foreign nationals being held on criminal charges of the right to consult with their country’s diplomats. The requirement was, until recenty, widely ignored.

BUSH PRAISES COLOMBIA'S URIBE AS `FRIEND'
The Miami Herald
May. 02, 2007

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday endorsed Colombia's embattled President Alvaro Uribe as ''a true democrat, a strong leader and a friend'' as the Colombian leader attempts to convince a skeptical Congress to approve a free-trade pact.

Once widely acclaimed as a strong, pro-U.S. leader who tamed violence in Colombia, Uribe has been dogged by allegations that his government has maintained links with paramilitary groups accused of some of Colombia's bloodiest abuses. Several lawmakers and Uribe supporters are under investigation in Colombia.

Many Democrats, the AFL-CIO and human rights groups want Congress to reject a free-trade agreement over human rights issues.

But while Bush urged Uribe to investigate allegations when he visited Uribe in Bogotá in early March, he had nothing but praise when the two came out to the south lawn of the White House after having breakfast together.

''This agreement has strategic implications,'' Bush said. ``It is very important for this nation to stand with democracies that protect human rights and human dignity.''

Bush said the deal with Colombia, and agreements with Panama and Peru that are also held up over Democratic concerns that labor and environment issues are not adequately addressed, are ``signals to South America that we stand with nations that are willing to make hard decisions on behalf of the people.''

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA - Just six short months ago, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe would have had a relatively easy time convincing the US Congress to approve a free-trade agreement and to continue providing millions of dollars in military aid to the conflict-ridden country.

But that was before the outbreak of a widening scandal linking some of his closest allies to right-wing death squads. And it was before Democrats won control of the House and Senate.

Now Mr. Uribe will face skeptical Democrats in Congress as he embarks Wednesday on one of the most difficult trips to Washington of his six-year presidency.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont, chairman of the subcommittee overseeing foreign funds, recently froze $55 million in military aid to Colombia, and former vice president Al Gore shunned Uribe last month because of the scandal known here as "para-politics."

Yet despite the unease in Washington, Uribe's popularity at home, already high, has risen even as the allegations creep closer to him. The war-weary Colombian public – long aware of politicians' ties to paramilitaries – seems content with Uribe's success in lowering the violent crime rate and his no-nonsense approach to tackling the country's problems.

Uribe will be certain to point this out as US lawmakers decide whether Colombia's egregious human rights record and the scandal surrounding his administration trump fears of alienating a key US ally in a region increasingly hostile to US interests.

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THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
DEMOCRATS PLAY WITH FIRE IN LATIN AMERICA
The Miami Herald
Apr. 26, 2007

Will Congress pass the pending free-trade agreements with Colombia, Peru and Panama? Or will the United States effectively turn its back on some of its few remaining friends in Latin America?

I have to confess that when I asked these questions to some well-placed congressional watchers this week -- as Peruvian President Alán García was lobbying Congress in Washington and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was preparing a similar trip next week -- I was surprised by their pessimism.

I expected many of them to say that Congress may narrowly ratify these trade deals at the last minute, as has often happened in the past. But judging from what I was told, there is a real possibility that it won't happen, and that Congress will in effect tell Latin America, ``Hasta la vista, baby.''

The White House and congressional Democratic leaders are negotiating over labor, environmental and intellectual property rights provisions that Democrats want to see included in the treaties.

• Problem No. 1: Time is running out. President Bush's congressional authority to sign new trade deals expires July 1, and Congress will only have 90 days after the treaties' signatures to approve them.

• Problem No. 2: Even if the White House and Democratic leaders reach a compromise, there is no guarantee that the full Congress will approve it. Most members of the Democratic majority don't want to antagonize anti-free trade labor unions. At the most, they may vote for a free-trade deal with South Korea, citing larger geopolitical reasons.

• Problem No. 3: A growing number of Republicans, brainwashed by protectionist television fear-mongers such as CNN's Lou Dobbs, are turning their backs on free trade. While recent free trade deals were passed with 15 Democratic votes, the pending agreements may require nearly 60 Democratic votes, congressional head counters say.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that Venezuela is ready to become the sole energy supplier to Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti, presenting the countries with his most generous offer yet of oil-funded diplomacy in the region.

Chavez said he hoped to sign a deal with the four countries, his main leftist allies in the region, during the summit of The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas he is hosting this weekend in Caracas.

The bloc, known as ALBA, was formed in 2004 by Chavez and his Cuban mentor Fidel Castro to promote trade and cooperation along socialist lines and to oppose a U.S.-backed free trade area. It has since grown to include Bolivia and Nicaragua. Ecuador has also expressed interest and Haiti was attending the two-day summit that started Saturday as an observer.

"The time has come for this oil, this energy, these resources to in some way serve the development and happiness of our people and the union of our territories," said Chavez, whose nation is a major oil exporter with vast reserves.

"I've come here to propose to the member countries of ALBA - and in that we are already including Haiti - that Venezuela guarantee ... the supply of all your energy needs," said Chavez. "100 percent."

BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Venezuela hopes to gradually sell off its refineries in the United States and build a new network of refineries in Latin America, part of a plan to offer his leftist allies in the region a stable oil supply.

Chavez also raised the idea of issuing a regional bond to raise funds for social spending as he hosted a summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, a leftist bloc and trade group that includes Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

"I proposed that we issue an ALBA bond. I hope that we can do it.... And that we issue it here in Venezuela, like we did with Argentina, and bring in $1 billion," said Chavez, addressing leaders Sunday on final day of their talks. Chavez said the money acquired would be put in a fund to provide credit for ALBA nations.

Chavez and other leaders signed accords for Venezuela to supply fuel under preferential terms and join up with other countries for cooperative projects in education, telecommunications, mining and other areas.

He said Venezuela will guarantee to supply 100 percent of the energy needs for ALBA members as well as Haiti. ALBA was created in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela as a counterproposal to U.S. backed free-trade plans.

Chavez said Venezuela eventually plans to help build a network of refineries in Nicaragua, Haiti, Ecuador, Bolivia and Dominica, as well as refurbishing Cuba's Cienfuegos refinery, to provide a stable supply of oil - and the earnings it generates - to countries in Latin America.

One of the men suspected in last month’s murder and dismemberment of a Staten Island woman in Panama has been returned to his native Colombia by Costa Rica despite being one of Panama’s most wanted men, the authorities in Panama and Costa Rica said yesterday.

The man, Camilo Castro, was arrested in Costa Rica on April 17 for entering that country illegally, the chief of the Costa Rican Special Migration Police, Francisco Castaing, told reporters.

Mr. Castro is one of two suspects sought in the death of Toni Grossi Abrams, 56, a Staten Island businesswoman with real estate in Panama. Her butchered and burned remains were found in Panama City on April 10.

Interpol had been told that Mr. Castro was wanted in Panama, said Rafael Ruiz, a spokesman for the Panamanian Public Ministry. But instead of detaining him, Costa Rican authorities deported him to Colombia on Friday, Mr. Castaing said.

WILTON, Iowa — First came a wave of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Next came tortillas and Spanish-language soap operas, made in the United States, for a growing Hispanic audience in this country.

Now, a Mexican bakery company called Grupo Bimbo is distributing English muffins, white bread and ready-made pizza crust across much of the country.

Mexican executives pitching Italian pizza in cities like Kansas City, Mo., a Brazilian steel company buying up troubled mills in the Midwest, a Peruvian cement maker breaking ground in Arizona; these are all part of a surprising, broadening surge of investment in the United States by an intrepid group of successful and suddenly multinational Latin American companies.

The new “multi-Latinas” are aggressive, resourceful enterprises that are a developing byproduct of the market liberalization that swept Latin American economies in the 1990s. But their broadening reach through the United States and the rest of the world — simmering below the surface for years — is beginning to turn heads.