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FIDEL CASTRO HONORS LATE SISTER-IN-LAW
The Miami Herald
Jun. 20, 2007
HAVANA --
Fidel Castro paid tribute on Wednesday to his late sister-in-law, leftist guerrilla and women's rights pioneer Vilma Espin Guillois, writing that she "never backed down from any danger" and that her example is "more necessary than ever."
Espin died Monday of an undisclosed illness. The wife of acting Cuban President Raul Castro, she was for decades considered the first lady of the island's revolution.
Fidel has not been seen in public since announcing last July that emergency intestinal surgery was forcing him to temporarily cede power to a government headed by his younger brother Raul, the defense minister.
Fidel did not appear at formal tributes in Espin's honor, but wrote about her in an essay called "Vilma's Battles."
"I have been a witness of Vilma's battles for almost half a century," he wrote, recalling Espin's days as a guerrilla fighter in Cuba's Sierra Maestra and her fight for gender equality once the rebels toppled the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista in January 1959.
The statement was signed Wednesday afternoon, e-mailed to international journalists and was scheduled to appear in official media Thursday morning.
VILMA ESPIN DE CASTRO; POLITICIAN EMPOWERED WOMEN IN CUBA
The Washington Post
June 20, 2007
Vilma Espin de Castro, 77, a daughter of privilege who became one of the most powerful women in Communist Cuba -- as the de facto first lady for her brother-in-law, Fidel Castro, and as a champion of women's rights -- died June 18 in Havana. Her husband, Defense Minister Raul Castro, is acting president of the country.
The cause of death was not disclosed by Cuban state television, but the Associated Press said she had "severe circulatory problems."
In 1986, Ms. Espin became the first woman elected to full membership on the Cuban Communist Party's Politburo, the country's highest policy-making body. Although this elite designation came late in her career, her long-standing authority stemmed from her work in the 1950s as an underground leader fighting with the Castros against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
One of the most feared and ambitious of revolutionary fighters, she also was regarded as a gifted organizer and diplomat. She was an ideal roving ambassador for her country after Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and was reported to have smoothed relations with her country's Soviet sponsors during the Cold War.
STRAY BULLETS RAIN DOWN ON VIOLENT RIO
The Miami Herald
Jun. 20, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil --
The toll from stray bullets that rain down on Rio from the city's steep hillside slums as police and drug gangs battle with automatic weapons has grown sharply, with one innocent bystander killed or wounded every day.
Businesses and schools in the line of fire have been shuttered. Thousands of children are staying home. Even air travel is affected - domestic jet routes were diverted from Rio's downtown airport when shooting flared up in a slum near Copacabana beach that the planes had to fly over. And travelers avoid driving the Red Line highway to the international airport at night because it passes near one of the worst live-fire zones.
In-the-know tourists and business travelers are shelling out extra for beachfront views, as much to be safe from flying bullets from the slums that line the back of the tony beach communities as for the view. And even in the city's best neighborhoods, apartments facing the hillside slums can be worth 60 percent less than units in the same building that are less likely to be hit.
Such concerns have become more urgent as the city of 8 million prepares to welcome thousands of athletes for the Olympic-style Pan American Games in July. While Mayor Cesar Maia stressed this week that Rio traditionally hasn't had major violence at its annual carnival and New Year's celebrations, the city plans to deploy 15,000 police to provide security during the games.
COLOMBIA CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GAY RIGHTS
The Miami Herald
Jun. 20, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
A landmark gay rights bill was derailed at the last minute by a bloc of conservative senators, but supporters vowed Wednesday to revive the legislation.
The bill, which had been endorsed by conservative President Alvaro Uribe, would have made Colombia the first nation in Latin America to grant gay couples in long-term relationships the same rights to health insurance, inheritance and social security as heterosexual couples.
Slightly different versions of the bill had been approved by Colombia's Senate and house of representatives and Tuesday's vote on the final, reconciled version was expected to be routine.
But Sen. Manuel Virguez Piraquive, from a small party closely linked to an evangelical Colombian church, called for an unusual floor vote on the bill.
Other conservative lawmakers then broke ranks with the pro-Uribe faction backing the bill and it was defeated, 34-29, in the 102-member Senate. Many of the bill's supporters were absent.
The call for an individual votes was unusual, and some said unprecedented. Parties usually vote as blocs on the final, reconciled versions of bills in Colombia's legislature.
DOMINICAN TOWN LOOKS TO CLEAN POLLUTION
The Miami Herald
Jun. 20, 2007
HAINA, Dominican Republic --
After a decade of complaints about persistent headaches and sick children, one of the world's most polluted towns met Wednesday for the first time with a company whose former battery recycling plant is blamed for dangerously high lead levels in the townspeople.
The result: a promise of new studies on how to clean up the mess.
"We're beyond bickering, and starting to confront this problem," said Richard Fuller, president of the New York-based Blacksmith Institute, which last year listed Haina on its list of the 10 most polluted places in the world.
Dominican government officials and a company accused of leaving fields strewn with lead powder from the shuttered recycling plant agreed to have a team of experts from the University of Idaho evaluate the site next month to determine what is necessary to remove the pollution. Several months after that, they'll meet again to discuss how to pay for it, participants said.
Government officials in the Caribbean nation have said they do not have the money. The company that ran the battery plant from 1979 to 1997, Metales y Oxido S.A., says it is not entirely to blame.
CASTRO: VILMA ESPÍN'S EXAMPLE MORE NECESSARY THAN EVER
The Miami Herald
Jun. 21, 2007
HAVANA --
Fidel Castro paid tribute on Wednesday to his late sister-in-law, guerrilla warrior and women's rights pioneer Vilma Espín Guillois, writing that she ''never backed down from any danger'' and that her example is ``more necessary than ever.''
Espín died Monday of an undisclosed illness. The wife of acting Cuban President Raúl Castro, she was for decades considered the first lady of the island's revolution.
Fidel has not been seen in public since announcing last July that emergency intestinal surgery was forcing him to temporarily cede power to a government headed by his younger brother, the defense minister.
Fidel did not appear at formal tributes in Espín's honor, but wrote about her in an essay called Vilma's battles.
''I have been a witness of Vilma's battles for almost half a century,'' he wrote, recalling Espín's days as a guerrilla fighter in Cuba's Sierra Maestra and her fight for gender equality once the rebels toppled the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista in January 1959.
MEXICAN JUDGE ORDERS EX-GOV'S RELEASE
The Miami Herald
Jun. 21, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
A Mexican judge has ordered the release of a former state governor wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges, ruling that a money laundering sentence has been satisfied by time already served.
In 2002, a federal court in New York asked Mexico to extradite Mario Villanueva on charges he helped smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors said Villanueva received $500,000 for each of several shipments he aided.
But it was unclear whether Villanueva - who laundered alleged drug money through Swiss banks while serving as governor of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo, where Cancun is located - would actually be set free or held pending extradition.
The Federal Judicial Council announced Wednesday that the judge in the case found Villanueva not guilty of charges of drug trafficking and organized crime.
The judge sentenced Villanueva to six years in prison in the Tuesday ruling, but because Villanueva has been in jail since May, 2001, he ruled the former governor had already served the sentence. Villanueva is being held at the high-security Altiplano prison west of Mexico City.
EX-MEXICO GOVERNOR RE-ARRESTED FOR DRUGS
The Miami Herald
Jun. 21, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
A former Mexican governor freed after six years behind bars was immediately re-arrested Thursday on a U.S. extradition request in which he is accused of helping smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into the United States, federal prosecutors said.
It was the latest chapter in the saga of Mario Villanueva, the former governor of the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo. Villanueva went into hiding in 1999 two weeks before the end of his six-year term and was hunted for two years until he was captured, sporting a beard and ponytail, in Cancun, the state's largest city.
A Mexican judge on Tuesday ordered Villanueva's release after he served six years on charges he laundered alleged drug money through Swiss banks while serving as governor. Villanueva was cleared of drug trafficking and organized crime charges.
But any hopes of liberty that Villanueva had quickly evaporated in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday. Federal police showed up at a prison west of Mexico City, where he was to have been released, and took him to a maximum-security lockup in the capital pending extradition, according to a statement from the attorney general's office.
In 2002, a federal court in New York asked Mexico to extradite Villanueva on charges he helped smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors said Villanueva received $500,000 for each of several shipments he aided.
MEXICO MOVES TO CUT BACK TAX LOOPHOLES FOR BUSINESSES
The New York Times
June 21, 2007
MEXICO CITY, June 20 — Hoping to raise Mexico’s tax collection rate to offset future declines in oil revenue, President Felipe Calderón presented a tax package to Congress Wednesday that seeks to close many of the loopholes that businesses have used to avoid paying taxes.
Mexico collects less than 11 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes, well below the average of about 16 percent for South American countries and 25 percent for developed countries.
The finance minister, Agustín Carstens, estimated that the tax measures, to be phased in through Mr. Calderón’s term, would raise collection by an additional 3 percentage points of G.D.P.
The government has made up for its tax shortfall by heavily taxing the state oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos, which last year financed 40 percent of government spending. Starved for investment money, Pemex, as the company is known, now faces stagnant production and declining oil reserves.
MEXICAN FARMERS REPLACE TEQUILA PLANT WITH CORN
The Christian Science Monitor
June 21, 2007
TEQUILA, MEXICO - – Martha Venegas Trujillo stands in the center of the town square of Tequila, the heart of a plan to connect distilleries, archeological sites, craftsmakers, and restaurants via a route called the "Tequila Trail."
Her eyes shine. A highlight of the project she is coordinating, modeled after similar tourist circuits such as California's Napa Valley, are the miles and miles spent driving past the blue-hued agave fields that blanket the state of Jalisco.
But imagine if those fields, which were named a UNESCO World Heritage site last year, looked more like the American Great Plains, fringed instead by towering stalks of corn.
Far-fetched, Ms. Venegas Trujillo and her colleagues at the Tequila Regulatory Council say. Still, about one-quarter of those who grow agave, which is used in the production of tequila, are expected to burn their fields to make way for corn, as prices have nearly doubled from what they were a year ago, due to US ethanol demand.
SCARCITY OF GOODS SOWS FRUSTRATION AMONG ARGENTINES
The Washington Post
June 22, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- At the height of rush hour, Luis Ibáñez parked his taxi in the middle of the busiest intersection of this city, got out of the car and stood cross-armed in the street as traffic jammed around him.
Dozens of other cabdrivers joined him Friday, protesting a national shortage of compressed natural gas -- the primary fuel for the vast majority of taxis here. As winter approached in the Southern Hemisphere, the Argentine government cut natural gas supplies to service stations and industrial users last week. It was a temporary measure to ensure that there would be sufficient fuel available to heat Argentine homes over the weekend.
Falling temperatures have exposed weak points in an Argentine economy that boasts 9 percent annual growth, lowered unemployment and rising salaries. In addition to the shortage of natural gas, Argentina recently has faced shortages of some agricultural goods, including milk and other dairy products. Now, many economists -- and a growing number of people in the streets -- are questioning the inflation-control policies of President Néstor Kirchner.
MEXICO MOVES TO SEND EX-GOVERNOR TO U.S. ON DRUG CHARGES
The New York Times
June 22, 2007
MEXICO CITY, June 21 — Mexico took the first steps on Thursday toward extraditing the former governor of Quintana Roo to the United States, where he is wanted in New York City on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering.
The extradition would continue a trend under President Felipe Calderón, who has shipped 21 people accused as part of the drug trade, including four high-level cartel leaders, to the United States this year.
If a Mexican judge approves the extradition, the former governor, Mario Villanueva Madrid, would become the highest-ranking former elected official from Mexico to stand trial in the United States on drug-trafficking charges. It would be a major break from the longstanding tradition here of immunity for current and former politicians.
FORMER MEXICAN GOVERNOR COULD FACE U.S. DRUG TRIAL
The Washington Post
June 22, 2007
MEXICO CITY, June 21 -- A former Mexican governor accused of involvement in drug trafficking was arrested Thursday and is awaiting possible extradition to the United States.
A federal court in New York is seeking the extradition of Mario Villanueva Madrid -- onetime governor of Quintana Roo state, which includes Cancun -- for allegedly helping Mexican drug dealers smuggle at least 200 tons of cocaine into the United States while he was in office from 1993 to 1999.
Villanueva would be the latest in a series of high-profile figures extradited to the United States by Mexican authorities, who have vowed to cooperate more with American law enforcement. In January, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, reputed head of the powerful Gulf cartel, was extradited to the United States, a move hailed at the time by U.S. Ambassador Antonio O. Garza Jr. as "a monumental moment in our two nations' battle."
GUATEMALAN TRAFFICKING SUSPECT ARRESTED
The Miami Herald
Jun. 22, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
A man accused of turning Guatemala into a corridor for U.S.-bound cocaine was arrested in Bogota, two years after escaping from a Mexican prison.
Otto Roberto Herrera Garcia, who is wanted for extradition to the United States on drug trafficking charges, offered agents $700,000 each in bribes to let him go when he was seized Wednesday evening, said Andres Penate, director of the DAS state security agency.
Herrera had escaped in May 2005 from a jail in southern Mexico City. The jail's warden, his deputy and 10 others were arrested for allegedly accepting bribes to facilitate Herrera's freedom.
Thirteen months earlier, Herrera was arrested after arriving at the city's airport to meet his girlfriend.
Herrera, who is in his early 40s, ran his criminal organization out of a Guatemalan transportation company, say Guatemalan authorities, who in 2003 seized $14 million in cash during a search of one of his associate's homes in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood.
His organization allegedly moved tons of cocaine each month from Colombia to the United States through El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, according to the U.S. State Department.
BUENOS AIRES MAY GO RIGHT IN MAYOR RACE
The Miami Herald
Jun. 23, 2007
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina --
Perhaps Argentines aren't so leftist after all.
Polls suggest President Nestor Kirchner's conservative, pro-market rivals will take control of Argentina's capital city on Sunday, despite Kirchner's personal intervention in the mayoral race.
That's bad for the ruling center-left coalition, which has framed the city election as a choice between Kirchner's leftist agenda and policies promoted by Washington that it blames for Argentina's deep economic crisis five years ago.
With October's presidential elections looming, the choice of Buenos Aires' 2.5 million registered voters could be deeply influential.
"Kirchner wants to make this race about the option of the center-left versus the center-right," said political analyst Rosendo Fraga. "An important defeat in the capital four months before the presidential election could be a negative factor for Kirchner."
The ruling party's candidate, former Education Minister Daniel Filmus, rose on the coattails of the popular Kirchner, but has trailed by as many as 20 percentage points behind Mauricio Macri, the 48-year-old president of Boca Juniors, the soccer-mad nation's most popular team.
FIGHT OVER GOVERNMENT SEAT ROILS BOLIVIA
The Miami Herald
Jun. 23, 2007
LA PAZ, Bolivia --
National maps give them both a star, but for more than a century, the seat of Bolivia's government has been in high-altitude La Paz. Now Sucre, a provincial lowland city where the highest courts are based, wants the executive and legislative branches as well.
The unlikely proposal plays into a regional rivalry between supporters and opponents of President Evo Morales, with each side accusing the other of trying to carve up the country.
"Listen, the capital is not a piece a bread," Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera scoffed this week. "It's not a roll or a potato to haggle over or sell."
Garcia dismisses the opposition proposal to move the capital as political rhetoric designed to buy favor for the eastern states' autonomy movement. But it has become one of the most hotly contested issues in the constitutional assembly, now largely divided between representatives from Bolivia's poor western highlands and the more prosperous lowland east.
Four opposition-controlled eastern states want greater autonomy from Bolivia's heavily centralized government. Several petroleum-rich states also want a larger share of the gas revenues they now pass on to La Paz.
PERU CONGRESS CUTS AGE OF CONSENT TO 14
The Miami Herald
Jun. 23, 2007
LIMA, Peru --
Peru's Congress has voted overwhelmingly to lower the age to 14 for participating in consensual sex, a move some activists said could expose children to sexual abuse.
Lawmakers voted 70-10 on Thursday to approve the measure lowering the age at which criminal law recognizes the legal capacity of a person to consent to sexual activity. It was previously 17.
The age of consent for sex in many U.S. states is 16 or older.
The Peruvian measure was written by a member of President Alan Garcia's center-left Aprista party and Garcia is expected to sign it into law.
One supporter of the measure, lawmaker Raul Castro, said the law will bring Peru in line with "the progress and development of a modern society."
"There are young people who get pregnant but they don't go to health centers, fearing that their partners will be arrested and charged," he said.
Some organizations cheered the law, saying it would keep young people out of jail on statutory rape charges.
CASTRO: IF YOUTH FAIL, EVERYTHING WILL
The Miami Herald
Jun. 24, 2007
HAVANA --
Fidel Castro reached out to Cuban youth on Sunday, warning that "If the young people fail, everything will fail" in an acknowledgment that motivating Cubans too young to remember his 1959 revolution is often a struggle.
New generations of Cubans, unlike the 80-year-old Castro and his gray-haired contemporaries, have no direct connection to the guerrilla uprising that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista. Officials say their communist system will nonetheless long survive its founders - and little has changed on the island since Castro handed power to a provisional government headed by his brother while he recovers from a serious illness.
But these days, many young Cubans are more interested in access to the Internet, music, television and movies than upholding revolutionary ideals.
"None of you were alive when the Revolution triumphed," Castro wrote in a letter to the Communist Youth Union. "Its roots were sustained in every act of sacrifice and heroism of an admirable people, who knew how to confront all obstacles."
He went on to write: "If the young people fail, everything will fail. It is my profound conviction that the Cuban youth will fight to stop that. I believe in you."
Castro has not appeared in public for almost 11 months, since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to cede power to his 76-year-old brother Raul.
CHINESE PRESENCE, INTERESTS IN CUBA GROWING
The Miami Herald
Jun. 24, 2007
HAVANA --
Yibo Shen came to Cuba five years ago to study Spanish at the University of Havana.
He's still here, working and passing time in Chinese restaurants on the weekends, one of a growing number of Chinese living on the island as Cuban-Chinese trade booms.
China is now Cuba's second-largest trading partner, after Venezuela. Trade between Cuba and China soared last year to $2.4 billion, Ricardo Alarcón, Cuba's national assembly president, said during a recent trip to China.
China's oil company is exploring offshore oil, and Chinese businesses are flourishing. Inexpensive Chinese sneakers and auto parts fill Havana's bare-bones shops. Chinese pharmaceuticals are being developed in ventures with Cuban firms.
''We expect a substantial increase in Chinese visitors to Cuba,'' Alarcón said in China. China's Xinhua news agency reported in March that 10,000 Chinese visit Cuba each year.
BUENOS AIRES VOTES FOR MAYOR
The Miami Herald
Jun. 24, 2007
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina --
Argentines in the nation's capital voted Sunday for a new mayor, with pre-election polls suggesting most would swing right and elect the president of Argentina's most popular soccer team.
President Nestor Kirchner campaigned for the candidate of his center-left coalition, Daniel Filmus, but the former education minister had much less name recognition than Mauricio Macri, a 48-year-old businessman who saluted his team before millions on television this week after Boca Juniors won Latin America's prestigious Copa Libertadores championship.
With October's presidential elections looming, Kirchner cast Macri as the second coming of former President Carlos Menem, whose close alliance with the United States and adherence to Washington's policies are blamed by many Argentines for the 2002 economic crisis that robbed many of two-thirds of their savings overnight.
Macri "represents the interests of the neoliberal model. That's the truth," Kirchner said, alluding to Macri family businesses that flourished in the Menem era, from the soccer franchise to export ventures and a lucrative private postal service contract.
Analysts say a Macri win could position him well for a 2011 presidential run, but Macri focused on crime, traffic, crumbling schools, budget overruns and garbage collection in appeals to the 2.5 million registered voters.
"Tell Kirchner ... I'm not a candidate for president," Macri said. "We aren't going to get into a debate about national political models."
MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS SEEK PEACE PACT
The Miami Herald
Jun. 25, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
Mexico's two main drug cartels are reaching out to each other in an attempt to end a recent round of bloody turf battles, Mexican and U.S. officials confirmed Monday.
The officials told The Associated Press the effort is aimed at stopping battles to control lucrative trafficking routes to the U.S. market.
The circumstances of the negotiations between the Sinaloa and the Gulf cartels - first reported in The Dallas Morning News Monday - were not clear.
The gangs decided that the turf battles were costing them too much money, too much weaponry and too many deaths in their own ranks, leading them to seek a sort of nonaggression pact, according to a top official in the administration of President Felipe Calderon.
"They realized they couldn't fight the government and each other at the same time," said the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name. Since taking office in December, Calderon has sent more than 24,000 troops to areas plagued by drug violence.
A U.S. official in Washington, also speaking on condition he not be quoted by name, confirmed reports that the cartels may be reaching out to each other.
CASTRO TO YOUTH: DON'T ABANDON REVOLUTION
The Miami Herald
Jun. 25, 2007
HAVANA --
Fidel Castro reached out to Cuban youth on Sunday, warning that ''If the young people fail, everything will fail'' in an acknowledgment that motivating Cubans too young to remember his 1959 revolution is often a struggle.
New generations of Cubans, unlike the 80-year-old Castro and his graying contemporaries, have no direct connection to the guerrilla uprising that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista. Officials say their communist system will nonetheless long survive its founders -- and little has changed on the island since Castro handed power to a provisional government headed by his brother while he recovers from a serious illness.
But these days, many young Cubans are more interested in access to the Internet, music, television and movies than upholding revolutionary ideals.
''None of you were alive when the Revolution triumphed,'' Castro wrote in a letter to the Communist Youth Union.
``Its roots were sustained in every act of sacrifice and heroism of an admirable people, who knew how to confront all obstacles.''
MEXICO PUTS TOP COPS TO CORRUPTION TEST
The Miami Herald
Jun. 25, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
Mexico temporarily removed all 284 of its top federal police officers from their jobs and is forcing them to undergo psychological reviews to prove they will not be corrupted in the fight against drug trafficking, the government said Monday.
Mexican authorities have often purged police forces in attempts to eliminate corruption, only to see many of the fired officers go to work full-time for organized crime. This is one of the most extreme measures taken yet in hopes of guaranteeing the honesty of high-ranking officers.
It also comes as Mexico seeks more U.S. aid in a nationwide crackdown on drug gangs. Washington has long complained about corruption hindering anti-smuggling efforts in Mexico.
Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said the move came in response to Mexican frustration over corruption, and has nothing to do with U.S. pressure. In recent years, scores of federal police have been caught working for the drug cartels, tainting what Mexicans once considered their last trustworthy group of officers.
"We are well aware that the Mexican people are demanding police be honest, clean and trustworthy," Garcia Luna said. "It's obvious that there are mafias that don't want the situation to change so they can continue to enrich themselves under the protection of corruption and crime."
MEXICO PURGES 284 POLICE COMMANDERS IN ANTIDRUG EFFORT
The New York Times
June 26, 2007
MEXICO CITY, June 25 — Mexico purged 284 commanders from the top ranks of its federal police forces on Monday as part of the government’s effort to contain corruption and halt an underworld war between drug traffickers.
“We know Mexicans demand an honest, clean and trustworthy police force,” the public security secretary, Genaro García Luna, said at a news conference. “It’s obvious there are mafias that are acting to keep the situation from changing, to continue enriching themselves through corruption and crime.”
Mr. García Luna said the federal police chiefs in all 32 states were among those demoted and sent to be retrained. They will be replaced with officers who are from an elite corps that underwent special training and vetting and who have submitted to drug tests and polygraph tests.
MEXICO DEMOTES SENIOR POLICE OFFICIALS IN GRAFT CRACKDOWN
The Washington Post
June 26, 2007
MEXICO CITY, June 25 -- The heads of federal police agencies in all 32 Mexican states and 250 other high-ranking officers were demoted Monday in one of the broadest corruption crackdowns in this country's recent history.
The demotions are the latest step in President Felipe Calderón's campaign to fight drug cartels, which are blamed for more than 1,000 execution-style killings this year and have been largely undeterred by Mexican military offensives against their strongholds.
The demoted police chiefs and officers will undergo ethics training in hopes of bringing them up to "international standards" for professionalism, Security Minister Genaro García Luna said Monday at a news conference. They will remain on the payroll -- under Mexican law, it is extremely difficult to fire police officers. García Luna gave no details about possible crimes committed by the demoted officials or whether any of them would eventually be removed from office.
CUBA EXAMINES FOOD PRODUCTION PROBLEMS
The Miami Herald
Jun. 26, 2007
HAVANA --
Hundreds of trucks overflowing with plantains, sweet potatoes and onions converge on the Plaza of the Revolution each month as farmers sell produce to tens of thousands of people.
Here's where Cubans come seeking affordable food. While they may not be able to find everything they want, they are increasingly getting what they need, even as the island's communist leaders grow more worried about drops in food production and prices that remain frustratingly high for many Cubans.
One man in his 60s trundled through the plaza with a rusty wheelbarrow loaded with two huge branches of plantains he said he bought to feed his five grandchildren. A middle-aged woman pushed by with more plantains, braided strings of garlic and a huge slab of pink-and-white frosted cake balanced on top of her banged-up supermarket cart.
"Onions! Strings of onions!" a young man cried out, holding six strands of red and white bulbs on each arm as consumers carted away other fresh produce in baby strollers, luggage carts and plastic milk cartons fastened behind bicycle seats.
COLOMBIA VIOLENCE DIMS HOPE FOR HOSTAGES
The Miami Herald
Jun. 26, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
Bogota's mayor joined families of kidnap victims and about 300 school children Tuesday in a demonstration meant to increase pressure on the government to swap imprisoned rebels for guerrilla-held hostages.
The protest is "for the victims to pressure and hassle all they can and make those who have the power finally do something for this prisoner-swap," Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzon said.
The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is holding around 60 prominent hostages, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors. The rebels want all imprisoned rebels freed, including two held in the U.S., one of whom has already been convicted of drug-trafficking.
But with every new bomb, the prospects for a swap seem to fade away.
MEXICAN COPS' HONESTY TO BE TESTED
The Miami Herald
Jun. 27, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
Mexico temporarily removed all 284 of its top federal police officers from their jobs and is forcing them to undergo psychological reviews to prove they will not be corrupted in the fight against drug trafficking, the government said Monday.
Mexican authorities have often purged police forces in attempts to eliminate corruption, only to see many of the fired officers go to work full-time for organized crime. This is one of the most extreme measures taken yet in hopes of guaranteeing the honesty of high-ranking officers.
It also comes as Mexico seeks more U.S. aid in a nationwide crackdown on drug gangs. Washington has long complained about corruption hindering anti-smuggling efforts in Mexico.
Public Safety Secretary Genaro García Luna said the move came in response to Mexican frustration over corruption and has nothing to do with U.S. pressure.
IN MEXICO'S DRUG WARS, POLICE GIVEN 'TRUST TEST'
The Christian Science Monitor
June 27, 2007
MEXICO CITY - In removing nearly 300 top federal police officers, Mexico has taken its boldest stand yet against corruption as it seeks to curtail drug traffickers whose fierce fighting has some calling Mexico the "new" Colombia.
This week, Mexico's public safety secretary, Genaro Garcia Luna, announced that the officers, including all the top regional coordinators from each state, will have to undergo "trust tests." The move targets the bribes, payoffs, and enticements that some officers take from traffickers, allowing the battles for lucrative routes into the US to flourish.
The effort is President Felipe Calderón's latest bid to battle trafficking that has left some 1,300 people dead this year, according to local media tallies. Since taking office in December, the conservative president, who has worked with the US on extraditions of alleged cartel bosses, has sent 24,000 military and police personnel to violent spots in an unprecedented display of power.
FUJIMORI WILL RUN IN JAPANESE PARLIAMENTARY RACE
The Miami Herald
Jun. 27, 2007
LIMA --
(AP) -- Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has accepted an offer to run in Japan's parliamentary elections next month, a member of his political party in Peru confirmed Wednesday.
Congressman Carlos Raffo of Fujimori's Alliance for the Future party said the former president made his decision after ``deep analysis and reflection.''
Fujimori, who is under house arrest in Chile, also has Japanese citizenship. The 68-year-old former leader is currently awaiting a Chilean judge's extradition ruling.
He is wanted in Peru on charges including bribery, misuse of government funds and sanctioning death squad killings during his decade-long rule that ended in 2000.
''It's a surprise,'' Raffo told journalists at Lima's congressional building on Tuesday. ``It's an honor that a world power like Japan extended an invitation to our leader Alberto Fujimori.''
Hours earlier, the Japanese broadcaster NTV reported that Fujimori had accepted a small party's nomination to run for Japan's parliament.
In November 2005, Fujimori flew to Chile from Japan -- where he fled after his regime crumbled in a massive corruption scandal in late 2000 -- as part of a bid to launch a political comeback in neighboring Peru.
13 KILLED BY POLICE IN RIO SLUM
The Miami Herald
Jun. 27, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil --
Police killed at least 13 suspected drug traffickers in a huge operation Wednesday aimed at ending a war between authorities and gangs that has raged for nearly two months in a Rio de Janeiro slum.
Authorities said 1,350 heavily armed officers and elite federal police supported by helicopters and armored cars descended on the sprawling Alemao shantytown and were met by automatic weapon fire and hand grenades.
At least 40 people have been killed and more than 80 injured since May 2, when the conflict in the Alemao was touched off by the killing of two police officers.
Rio de Janeiro state security chief Jose Mariano Beltrame earlier said 18 were killed in Wednesday's operation, then revised the death toll to 13 without giving an explanation. The dead were all suspected members of gangs that control the city's thriving drug trade, he said.
"There were no innocent people killed," Beltrame told a news conference, adding that the operation would continue indefinitely.
Authorities said at least 10 people were wounded, most of them innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire or hit by stray bullets.
GRENADA RELEASES 3 LEADERS OF COUP
The Miami Herald
Jun. 27, 2007
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada --
Three participants in a 1983 palace coup walked out of prison Wednesday after nearly a quarter century behind bars for an attack that led to a U.S. invasion of Grenada.
The 10 other coup leaders still in prison will serve less than two more years under the sentences issued earlier in the day by a judge who said all 13 had demonstrated remorse.
The defendants originally were sentenced to death in 1986 for the killings of former socialist leader Maurice Bishop, four Cabinet members and six supporters.
"I really thank God for this moment," said Christopher Stroude, who hugged his attorneys outside the crumbling 17th-century Richmond Hill Prison. "I'm looking forward to reuniting with my family."
It was a moment of vindication for Stroude and his fellow coup participants, who stayed put when other inmates escaped after Hurricane Ivan punched holes in the prison's walls in 2004. Insisting that their sentences were improperly handed down, the former politicians and soldiers said they preferred to wait out their appeals.
The sentences were thrown out in February by the London-based Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for the former British colony, setting up a weeklong resentencing hearing that attracted hundreds of spectators.
MENCHU TRAILS IN NEW GUATEMALA POLLS
The Miami Herald
Jun. 27, 2007
GUATEMALA CITY --
Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu is garnering only single-digit support ahead of September's presidential election, according a poll published Wednesday.
Menchu was in fifth place with 1.5 percent support, according to the poll conducted by the firm Vox Latina and published in the daily newspapers Prensa Libre and Nuestro Diario. The survey of 1,200 potential voters June 15-23 had a margin of error 4 percentage points.
A separate poll published Tuesday showed the Indian-rights activist in third place with 6.7 percent. That June 6-17 survey by Borge and Associates had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
Menchu, a Guatemalan Quiche Indian, would be the first woman and the first Indian ever to serve as president in this overwhelmingly Indian country. She is running on promises to clean up entrenched corruption in Guatemala and plans to review the new Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
COLOMBIAN REBELS HOPE TO SIGN CEASE-FIRE BY END OF JULY
The Miami Herald
Jun. 27, 2007
HAVANA --
Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group said Wednesday it hopes to sign a cease-fire with its country's government by the end of July, but that both sides are still far from a lasting peace agreement.
The National Liberation Army, or ELN, said it was prepared to lay down its arms for six months, stop all kidnappings and release its prisoners, but was still negotiating what the administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe will offer in return.
At a news conference, Pablo Beltrán, the head of the ELN delegation, declined to say exactly what the rebels want, instead rattling off other lesser demands, such as freedom for the group's jailed fighters and other ``political prisoners.''
Beltrán said rebels also want Colombia to lobby the European Union to take the ELN off its list of international terrorist organizations and to better protect union leaders, thousands of whom have been killed or forced into exile by Colombia's civil war.
He said that a comprehensive peace deal would be far more difficult to reach than a cease-fire.
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