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BETANCOURT'S EX WANTS PROOF SHE'S ALIVE
The Miami Herald
Jun. 14, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
The ex-husband of kidnapped former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt demanded Thursday that Colombia's main rebel group provide proof that she and some 60 other hostages are alive.
Fabrice Delloye, a French diplomat who was married to the politician for a decade, also questioned whether a policeman who escaped more than eight years of captivity by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was ever held with Betancourt.
The dual French-Colombian citizen was campaigning in Colombia's southern rebel stronghold in 2002 when she was kidnapped along with her campaign manager Clara Rojas. The last proof of life their families received was a video handed over by the FARC more than four years ago.
"We have to have faith, but how can we continue doing so if we don't have a proof of life?" said Delloye in a phone interview with Caracol radio.
10 EX-ARGENTINE SECURITY AGENTS DETAINED
The Miami Herald
Jun. 14, 2007
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina --
A federal court in northern Argentina has detained 10 former state security agents - including four army colonels - for prosecution in connection with a 1976 massacre, the government news agency said.
The officials were taken into custody on charges of complicity in the Dec. 13, 1976, killings of 17 political prisoners near the Chaco province capital of Resistencia, the Telam news agency said.
In addition to the colonels, two lieutenant colonels, a major, a first lieutenant and two province officers are being held, it said.
Authorities say the killings of the prisoners - known as the "Massacre of Margarita Belen" for the area where they occurred - was one of the early human rights violations of a bloody seven-year dictatorship.
VENEZUELA MAY BUY RUSSIAN SUBMARINES
The Miami Herald
Jun. 14, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela --
Venezuela is studying buying Russian submarines that would transform the South American country into the top naval force in the region, a military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.
Gen. Alberto Muller, responding to a Russian newspaper report that Chavez plans to sign a deal for five diesel submarines, said the government is "analyzing the possibilities" but that the money has not yet been set aside.
Oil-rich Venezuela has already purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and other weapons.
Washington, which calls Chavez a destabilizing threat to the region, has voiced strong concern about those deals.
THOUSANDS MARCH IN MEXICO CITY OF OAXACA
The Miami Herald
Jun. 14, 2007
OAXACA, Mexico --
Thousands of educators and leftist activists marched through Mexico's southern city of Oaxaca on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of a clash between police and striking teachers that set off months of political unrest.
Carrying photos of their jailed leaders and chanting "June 14 is not forgotten, nor forgiven!" the demonstrators marched to the central square of this colonial city - once the nerve center of their movement - and held a peaceful meeting.
On June 14, 2006, Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz sent police to dislodge striking teachers from the square. Enraged, the strikers retook the square and chased police out of most of the city.
They also set up roadblocks, and forced the cancellation of the state's popular Guelaguetza folk festival, scaring away much of the tourism on which the city depends. Federal police retook the city in late October, and some protest leaders were arrested on charges including property damage for the buildings and vehicles burned during the five months of unrest.
GUATEMALA, NEIGHBORS HIT BY QUAKE
The Washington Post
June 14, 2007
GUATEMALA CITY, June 13 -- A powerful earthquake shook Guatemala and parts of neighboring nations Wednesday, sending some residents of the capital rushing into the streets for safety. Officials said there were no immediate reports of casualties or serious damage.
The 6.8-magnitude quake struck at 1:29 p.m. and was centered 70 miles southwest of Guatemala City off the Pacific coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Officials said the earth shook for 22 seconds.
Benedicto Girón, spokesman for the National Disaster Reduction Center, said there had been some landslides in the southwest province of Escuintla, but they apparently did not cause any serious problems.
He noted that telephone service was down in some areas and information was trickling in slowly from various provinces.
"It rattled a lot of nerves," Girón said.
BOOM TIMES FOR BANKS IN VENEZUELA
The New York Times
June 15, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela — In marathon speeches peppered with quotes from Marx and accolades to Che Guevara, President Hugo Chávez repeatedly vows to do away with capitalism in Venezuela. But it turns out that Mr. Chávez’s economic policies have been generating a boom for those most capitalist of institutions — Venezuela’s banks.
Record public spending, fueled by high oil prices, is flooding this flourishing economy with cash. Government currency controls are trapping much of that money in the country. The extra cash, in turn, is increasing consumer spending. The banks are taking advantage of that by handing out scores of loans, advertising on flashy billboards across Caracas.
And with interest rates lower than the rate of inflation, “you would be stupid not to take out a loan right now,” said Richard Francis, a director of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor’s.
OAXACA STATE GOVERNMENT APOLOGIZES
The Miami Herald
Jun. 15, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
The government of the southern state of Oaxaca apologized for the first time Friday for a police raid on protesters last year that led to the country's worst political unrest in years.
Oaxaca Interior Secretary Manuel Garcia Corpus said he lamented the results of the June 14, 2006 raid aimed at clearing striking teachers from a protest camp they had set up weeks earlier in Oaxaca City's main square.
He said he was speaking on behalf of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whose refusal to negotiate with protesters sparked a five-month takeover of the capital city by teachers and leftist activists angered by what they claimed was police brutality and corruption.
VENEZUELA DENIES PLAN TO BUY RUSSIA SUBS
The Miami Herald
Jun. 15, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela --
The Venezuelan government has no immediate plans to buy Russian submarines, the defense minister told the state news agency Friday, denying a Russian newspaper report.
"The acquisition of those systems is not planned at this moment," Gen. Raul Baduel told the Bolivarian News Agency.
The Russian business daily Kommersant reported this week that Venezuelan President Chavez would sign an initial contract for five Project 636 Kilo-class diesel submarines during a visit to Moscow this month, with the possibility of Russia supplying four state-of-the-art Project 677 Amur submarines later.
Gen. Alberto Muller, a top military adviser to Chavez, said Thursday that the government was studying the possibility but that the money has not yet been set aside.
BUILDING A TV STATION AND A PLATFORM FOR LEFTISTS
The New York Times
June 16, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela
AT the headquarters here of Telesur, the regional Spanish-language network financed largely by Venezuela’s government, an anchor reads a bulletin describing a meeting of landless peasants in Brazil. Producers receive a report from Bolivia on a meeting of Andean leaders. On a talk show, intellectuals discuss trends in Caribbean cinema. An advertisement celebrates the broadcast of a documentary on the life of Che Guevara.
Less than two years old, Telesur is seen as this hemisphere’s answer to Al Jazeera, a Latin American network aimed at fostering integration and countering the influence of news organizations like CNN. The man guiding this experiment is Andrés Izarra, a rising star of President Hugo Chávez’s ambitious project to upend elites in Venezuela and elsewhere in the region.
COLOMBIAN REBEL DEMANDS GUERILLA RELEASE
The Miami Herald
Jun. 16, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
Three kidnapped U.S. defense contractors and dozens of other hostages held by Colombian guerrillas must be swapped for all the guerrillas held in U.S. and Colombian jails, a senior rebel said on Saturday.
Rodrigo Granda, the so called "foreign minister" of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said the rebels will not consider piecemeal negotiations or prisoner swaps for the hostages, including the Americans and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
"If the (Americans) want an agreement, then they must send back those rebels in prison in the U.S.," Granda said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I understand the U.S. government did similar swaps in return for captured Americans during the Cold War, so I don't see why they can't do it in this case."
COLOMBIA TO RECOGNIZE GAY UNIONS WITH EXTENSION OF HEALTH, OTHER BENEFITS
The Washington Post
June 16, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia, June 15 -- Colombia's Congress voted to recognize gay unions, approving a bill to give same-sex couples full rights to health insurance, social security and inheritance benefits. The measure would make Colombia the first country in Latin America to extend such rights to gay couples, a prospect celebrated by gay rights advocates from Buenos Aires to New York.
The lower house of Congress approved the bill 62 to 43 on Thursday night after a long lobbying effort by gay rights activists, who argued that gay couples have a human right to the benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy. In the Americas, only Canada has approved a similar law. In the United States, a handful of states entitle gay couples to health and other benefits. But those rights are not recognized nationally, and several states have approved laws prohibiting gay unions.
"I think this is an incredible victory that should resonate across both continents, north and south," said Scott Long, director of the gay rights program at Human Rights Watch in New York. "It should definitely be an example to the United States. Colombia is a country that's Catholic, with a conservative government, and they still recognize that this is the right thing to do."
THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
A KIRCHNER MAY WIN, BUT GLORY DAYS ARE OVER
The Miami Herald
Jun. 17, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- Argentina's political winds are changing. Unlike the last time I visited here last year, left-of-center President Néstor Kirchner no longer looks like the almighty leader who will head this country -- directly or behind the scenes -- well into the next decade.
Only a few months ago, the conventional wisdom in this capital was that Kirchner's wife, Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner -- helped by four consecutive years of strong economic growth and her husband's high popularity ratings -- would run in the Oct. 28 presidential elections, and win by a landslide.
The idea, people close to Kirchner's inner circle said, was that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner would serve one four-year term, then allow her husband to run for either one or two consecutive terms. This would have allowed the Kirchners to rule until 2015, perhaps even 2019.
VIDEO LINKS COLOMBIA MILITIA BOSS, URIBE
The Miami Herald
Jun. 17, 2007
BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia --
In his five years as president, Alvaro Uribe has repeatedly denied accusations that he's been cozy with Colombia's murderous right-wing militias, whose thousands of victims include suspected rebel sympathizers and union activists.
Yet newly uncovered video of his 2001 campaign shows him shaking hands with a militia leader who was arrested only weeks later on suspicion of involvement in multiple murders, and is now a fugitive with a price on his head. It's the latest headache for the law-and-order president, who has seen one ally after another jailed for allegedly colluding with the outlawed militias.
"I haven't known the paramilitaries, haven't been friends with them, haven't had contact with them," Uribe declared on national television on April 19.
The militia chief in the video, which bears an Oct. 31, 2001, time stamp, was identified by three people familiar with him - including human rights activists - as Fremio Sanchez Carreno. Sanchez, better known as "Comandante Esteban," had just finished spearheading the bloody militia takeover of this steamy oil-refining city on Colombia's main river when Uribe met with him and about a dozen other people.
VENEZUELA WARNS AGAINST PROTESTS DURING COPA AMERICA
The Miami Herald
Jun. 18, 2007
CARACAS --
(AP) -- President Hugo Chávez warned Sunday that government opponents were planning to interrupt the Copa America in Venezuela by staging street protests and possible transportation strikes.
Chávez urged authorities -- including Venezuela's armed forces and state intelligence services -- to neutralize any effort aimed at disrupting the soccer tournament, which is being hosted in Venezuela for the first time from June 26 to July 15.
''This plan continues developing. We are defeating it, but they are not going to give up,'' Chávez said during his weekly radio and television program. ``No more surprises. We won't let them put us on the defensive. We don't lose the offensive impulse.''
Sitting at a desk in front of a crowd gathered at a cattle ranch in Los Llanos -- Venezuela's heartland -- Chávez read a column published in the pro-government VEA newspaper, stating that radical groups ``are looking for the transportation sector to call a national strike . . . and have the protests coincide with the Copa America to create national and international commotion.''
OFFICIALS HOPE COLOMBIAN REBEL AIDS SWAP
The Miami Herald
Jun. 18, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
A recently freed rebel leader traveled to Cuba on Monday, a trip officials hope will advance efforts to release 60 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors.
Rodrigo Granda, who had served as a roving diplomat for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, told The Associated Press earlier that he was going to Cuba for medical exams and rest after more than two years in jail.
A peace facilitator for the Roman Catholic Church, Dario Echeverry, accompanied Granda. He told Caracol Radio on Sunday that he hopes Granda "can construct a space for himself that will allow him to work for peace and reconciliation in Colombia," but did not say how or whether the rebel leader might contact insurgent representatives while on the communist-led island.
President Alvaro Uribe released Granda from prison on June 4 at the request of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hoped the action would encourage the FARC to free former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian citizen.
GRENADA COUP LEADERS ASK FOR LENIENCY
The Miami Herald
Jun. 18, 2007
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada --
Lawyers for 13 leaders of a coup that prompted the U.S. invasion of Grenada pleaded for leniency at a resentencing hearing on Monday, saying their clients have experienced a "spiritual transformation" in prison.
The death sentences imposed in 1986 on former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard and the other prisoners were thrown out in February by the London-based Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for the former British territory.
The prisoners were convicted of killing former socialist leader Maurice Bishop, four Cabinet members and six supporters in a coup that led to the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983.
"The defendants continue to maintain their innocence of these charges, but express their deep sorrow at the events of that day," said lead defense attorney Edward Fitzgerald. "They've also accepted moral responsibility for the tragedy."
BRAZIL'S FBI TAKES ON CORRUPT BIGWIGS
The Christian Science Monitor
June 18, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's Federal Police are not known for having a gentle approach, and the code names given to some of their high-profile operations confirm their hard-core tactics.
Operations Bloodsuckers, Locust, Gladiator, and Razor have all seen agents storm buildings recently and emerge with men in handcuffs.
The anti-graft operations have resulted in dozens of high-profile arrests, marking a potentially new phase in Brazil's seemingly endless fight against graft.
For the first time in recent history the Federal Police and other watchdog bodies like the public prosecutor's office and the federal accounting court are taking serious aim at corruption, civil rights experts say.
The often heavy-handed Federal Police – a body akin to the US's Federal Bureau of Investigation – are a long way from perfect, but they are more diligent and independent
than they once were, experts say. And now they are providing some hope that the corruption that blights Brazilian society is beatable.
"These institutions are the ones that are contributing," says Ricardo Ismael, a lecturer in public policy at the Catholic Pontificate University in Rio de Janeiro. "If it wasn't for them, we would be even further behind in identifying irregularities."
BEHIND THE CHE BANDANNAS, SHADES OF POTENTIAL MILITIAS
The New York Times
June 18, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela, June 17 — Visitors to the Alexis Vive Collective, one of the most radical of the pro-Chávez groups that thrive in the hillside slums of this city’s western fringe, can see the writing on the wall — quite literally — as they approach. The group’s headquarters are just past the murals of Jesus with an assault rifle and Che Guevara puffing on a cigar.
The collective, led mainly by university students in their 20s, leapt into the Venezuelan consciousness in recent weeks after its members were videotaped defacing the headquarters of Globovisión, the country’s only remaining opposition television network, amid an intensifying debate here over freedom of expression.
“We’re Marxist-Leninists,” Robert Longa, 30, the group’s chief spokesman, said nonchalantly in a recent interview, as if the Berlin Wall had never come down. “The counterrevolutionaries at Globovisión sprayed their own graffiti on the consciousness of the Venezuelan people. We felt we had to react to them.”
RAÚL CASTRO'S WIFE IS DEAD
The Miami Herald
Jun. 19, 2007
Vilma Espín, wife of Cuba's interim president Raúl Castro and longtime leader of the Federation of Cuban Women, died Monday after battling a long illness.
Cuba's daily newspaper Granma reported that she died at 4:14 p.m. after a long undisclosed illness, and was cremated. The ashes will be buried during a private military ceremony at the Frank País Mausoleum.
An offical mourning period was declared from 8:00 p.m. Monday night until 10 p.m. tonight.
Espín, 77, had been reported to be seriously ill for a long time, and there were rumors that she had died a year ago, after she failed to appear at the Federation of Cuban Women's annual congress.
Espín was a member of a wealthy Santiago family. Her father worked for the Bacardi rum company and the family owned stock in Bacardi, later seized by Fidel Castro's government.
INDIANS, GOOGLE EARTH TO FIGHT ILLEGAL LOGGING IN BRAZIL
The Miami Herald
Jun. 19, 2007
SAO PAULO --
A Brazilian Indian tribe is linking up with Google Earth to try to capture vivid images that could help stop loggers and miners from deforesting the jungle and digging for gold on its vast Amazon reservation.
Though the project is still in the planning stages for a remote area that doesn't even have Internet access, the tribe's chief and Google hope their unusual alliance will reduce illegal rain-forest destruction where government enforcement is spotty at best.
Google Earth, which enables anyone who downloads its free software to see satellite images and maps of most of the world, is increasingly being called upon for humanitarian purposes by groups that see the technology's potential.
VILMA ESPIN, WIFE OF RAUL CASTRO, DIES
The Miami Herald
Jun. 19, 2007
HAVANA --
His eyes filled with tears, acting President Raul Castro paid his respects Tuesday to his late wife Vilma Espin Guillois, a fellow rebel fighter who served for decades as first lady of the Cuban revolution.
Raul Castro, who has governed Cuba for nearly 11 months during his brother Fidel's convalescence, was among top Cuban leaders who filed past a huge black-and-white photograph of Espin atop a red, white and blue Cuban flag, each placing a single pink or yellow rose in her memory.
Cuban state television showed several leaders embracing Raul or shaking his hand during the ceremony inside Havana's Jose Marti Memorial.
MEXICO CITY FACES THREAT OF FLOODS
The Miami Herald
Jun. 19, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
There is a "high possibility" a huge underground drainage tunnel could soon fail, flooding parts of this mountain-ringed metropolis 15 feet deep in sewage, the national water agency said Tuesday.
Officials have been puzzled for years by the gradual decrease in capacity of the 7-yard-wide tunnel built in the 1970s to drain waste water from the valley, which is home to 20 million people and has no natural outlet. They have speculated that the tunnel may be partially clogged or that its walls could be decaying.
But because it is constantly filled with water, officials have not been able to travel through the structure to inspect it - or perform much-needed maintenance.
"Because of a lack of maintenance in Mexico City's deep drain over the last 15 years, there is a high possibility that it could fail," according to a National Water Commission statement.
CUBA MOURNS REVOLUTION'S FIRST LADY
The Miami Herald
Jun. 19, 2007
HAVANA --
Acting President Raul Castro blinked back tears Tuesday as he placed a red rose before a portrait of his late wife, Vilma Espin Guillois, a guerrilla warrior and women's rights pioneer who was the first lady of the Cuban revolution.
Castro has governed the island for nearly 11 months while his brother Fidel recovers from intestinal surgery, but Espin, who died Monday at 77, was Cuba's most powerful woman for decades, campaigning for equality among the sexes in education, work and other aspects of life.
"She was a tremendous revolutionary, but also a tremendous women," said Sara Hurtado, a 58-year-old retired Havana health worker. "She was a role model for all the women in Cuba."
No cause of death was reported, but Espin was said to suffer from severe circulatory problems.
VILMA ESPÍN, REBEL AND WIFE OF RAÚL CASTRO, DIES AT 77
The New York Times
June 20, 2007
Vilma Espín, an idealistic socialite who fought alongside Fidel and Raúl Castro in the mountains of Cuba and later, as Raúl Castro’s wife, became a prominent advocate of women’s rights and a powerful member of the Cuban Communist Party, died Monday in Havana. She was 77.
Her death was announced on state-run television. No specific cause was given, but Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, said she had succumbed to “the long illness with which she was afflicted.”
As sister-in-law of Fidel Castro, who is divorced, Ms. Espín was Cuba’s unofficial first lady for decades, often appearing with him at official events.
IN THE AMAZON, GIVING BLOOD BUT GETTING NOTHING
The New York Times
June 20, 2007
KYOWÃ, Brazil — As the Karitiana Indians remember it, the first researchers to draw their blood came here in the late 1970s, shortly after the Amazon tribe began sustained contact with the outside world.
In 1996, another team visited, promising medicine if the Karitiana would just give more blood, so they dutifully lined up again.
But that promise was never fulfilled, and since then the world has expanded again for the Karitiana through the arrival of the Internet. Now they have been enraged by a simple discovery: their blood and DNA collected during that first visit are being sold by an American concern to scientists around the world for $85 a sample.
They want the practice stopped, and are demanding compensation for what they describe as the violation of their personal integrity.
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