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PLANE CRASHES IN BRAZIL; 176 FEARED DEAD
The New York Times
July 18, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Wednesday, July 18 — An Airbus 320 with 176 people on board skidded off a runway while landing Tuesday night at the main airport in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, and crashed into an office building and a gas station across a highway, setting off a conflagration that took firefighters more than six hours to bring under control.
The governor of the state of São Paulo, José Serra, who was at the scene, said that the chances of passengers and the crew having survived the crash and ensuing explosion that broke the airplane into at least two pieces were almost zero, according to the Web site of the local newspaper, Folha de São Paulo.
Brazilian cable television showed firemen carrying body bags away from the site, and Mr. Serra said there were also fatalities on the ground. The flight, number JJ 3054 operated by the privately-owned TAM Airlines, was arriving from the southern city of Porto Alegre when the accident occurred just before 7 p.m.
BRAZIL DEMANDS SOLUTION TO AVIATION CRISIS
The New York Times
July 19, 2007
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, July 18 — With the death toll climbing after the fiery crash of a crowded Airbus here on Tuesday night, Brazilians responded Wednesday with anger and renewed calls for the government to act immediately to end the deepening aviation crisis that has tormented the country for nearly a year.
More than 176 people are confirmed dead in the accident, the worst in Brazil’s history and the second in less than 10 months. But even as Brazilians mourned, the focus of their discussion was shifting to how to prevent yet another disaster.
Since a midair collision over the Amazon on Sept. 29, 2006, in which 154 people were killed, flying in Brazil has become increasingly difficult and fraught with uncertainty. Flight controllers, afraid of being made scapegoats for the chaos, have rebelled against military control, other near-collisions have been recorded, radar and other tracking systems have shown signs of breaking down, and, as a result, hundreds of flights have been delayed or canceled.
URIBE: COLOMBIA OVERCOMES PARAMILITARISM
The Miami Herald
Jul. 20, 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia --
President Alvaro Uribe said Friday that Colombia's institutions are now free of infiltration and corruption by right-wing militias blamed for some of the nation's worst human rights abuses.
In a nationally televised address, Uribe said his government has "overcome paramilitarism."
"Today paramilitarism no longer exists because combat against leftist rebels is now, in practice, the exclusive work of our democratic institutions," Uribe declared in the speech to Congress marking Colombia's independence day.
Paramilitary bands emerged in the 1980s, bankrolled by ranchers to counter leftist rebels. They later became a dominant political force, got rich from drug trafficking and were branded a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department.
Uribe, who has put the hemisphere's most powerful leftist insurgency on the defensive with a military buildup fueled by hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars, also said collusion with the paramilitiares "was never institutional."
NICARAGUA SANDINISTAS RECALL REVOLUTION
The Miami Herald
Jul. 20, 2007
MANAGUA, Nicaragua --
Nicaragua's Sandinistas marked the 28th anniversary of their 1979 revolution on Thursday and this year's celebrations were particularly sweet - the leftist party is back in power and surrounded by allies.
President Daniel Ortega, elected for a second term in November, was joined by the presidents of Panama and Honduras, as well as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who has supplied Nicaragua with oil and other fuels.
"Unity will make us free," Chavez said. "The empire has always maintained its plans to keep us divided, and thus weak and dominated," he added, referring to the United States.
Ortega called the anniversary "a glorious date," saying many still "fight for liberty, justice, sovereignty and against imperial domination."
BID TO MOVE BOLIVIA CAPITAL DRAWS SCORN
The Miami Herald
Jul. 20, 2007
LA PAZ, Bolivia --
Hundreds of thousands of people packed the streets of La Paz on Friday to protest efforts to relocate Bolivia's capital in one of the largest demonstrations in the history of the Andean country.
Aerial television images showed city residents and Aymara Indians bused in from the surrounding countryside standing shoulder to shoulder along miles of city streets, waving both Bolivian and La Paz state flags.
La Paz state Gov. Jose Luis Paredes told The Associated Press that the crowd surpassed a million people.
"The response of the people has been greater than we thought," Paredes said.
La Paz is home to the government's executive and legislative branches, while Sucre, a sleepy colonial city 255 miles to the southeast, houses the country's highest courts.
Sucre's delegates in an assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution are pushing to move the entire government seat to their city, site of Bolivia's founding in 1825 and its sole capital until losing a brief civil war to La Paz in 1899.
The demand has fueled regional rivalry between President Evo Morales' supporters in the Bolivia's poor western highlands and his opponents in the more prosperous lowland east
SILVA PROMISES BRAZIL PLANE CRASH PROBE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 20, 2007
SAO PAULO, Brazil --
Brazil's president promised a thorough investigation Friday into a plane crash that killed 191 people and announced measures to improve air safety, including building a new airport in Sao Paulo.
A disconnected thrust reverser emerged as a possible factor in the Brazilian jetliner overshooting the runway Tuesday, but the political heat intensified after an official expressed relief that blame for the deadly crash might shift away from the government.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a nationally televised speech that his government would take "all measures within our reach to diminish the risk of new tragedies."
It was the first time Silva has spoken publicly on Brazil's worst-ever air disaster, with the exception of a short statement read by a spokesman hours after the crash.
"I want everyone to know that the government is doing the possible and the impossible to investigate the causes of the accident," Silva said. "One cannot condemn or absolve anyone on the basis of rushed opinions."
Critics accuse officials of failing to address long-standing air travel safety problems including deficient radars, underfunded air traffic control systems and the short, slick runway at Congonhas, Brazil's busiest airport.
PERU TEACHERS AGREE TO END 15-DAY STRIKE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 20, 2007
LIMA, Peru --
Peru's public school teachers on Thursday ended a 15-day strike against a new law requiring them to take competency tests after government officials agreed to talks on their demand for better training.
Cabinet chief Jorge del Castillo said the teachers will return to work Friday.
About 15 percent of Peru's 350,000 teachers walked off the job July 5 to protest the reform under which they will be fired if they fail a competency test three times, the Education Ministry said. The teachers' union had said the law will lead to "arbitrary" firings.
February tests showed almost half of the teachers cannot solve basic math problems and one-third are deficient in reading comprehension.
BRAZIL SUFFERS NEW AIR SAFETY PROBLEMS
The Miami Herald
Jul. 21, 2007
SAO PAULO, Brazil --
A radar failure over the Amazon forced Brazil to turn back or ground a string of international flights Saturday, deepening a national aviation crisis just hours after the president unveiled safety measures prompted by the country's deadliest air disaster.
Further shaking Brazilians' confidence, authorities said they had mistaken a piece of the fuselage from Tuesday's accident for the flight recorder and sent it to a laboratory for analysis.
The radar outage from 11:15 p.m. Friday to 2:30 a.m. Saturday, caused by an electrical problem, forced numerous planes heading to Brazil from the U.S. to return to their points of origin and make unscheduled landings at airports from Puerto Rico to Chile.
Eight of the 17 planes flying in the coverage area of the radar system were rerouted, and some airlines canceled flights bound for Brazil.
While the nation has had chronic problems with delays and cancellations on domestic flights over the past 10 months, the radar outage was the first time that international flights have been severely affected.
"This is total chaos here. I have never seen anything like it and it makes me feel very unsafe," said Eli Rocha, 52, of Oklahoma City, who was trying board a flight to Dallas on Saturday at Sao Paulo's international airport. The flight was crowded with weary Americans arriving on other delayed or diverted flights.
3 DAYS AFTER PLANE CRASH, BRAZIL’S PRESIDENT ORDERS CHANGES
The New York Times
July 21, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, July 20 — Breaking three days of silence after the worst airline disaster in Brazilian history, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva went on television on Friday night to assure worried Brazilians that he had ordered immediate changes in the country’s flawed civil aviation system.
The Brazilian government is “taking every step in our power to reduce the risk of new tragedies,” Mr. da Silva said. He also urged Brazilians, who have had to cope with two major disasters in less than 10 months and who are calling for the government to step forward and take responsibility for the crisis, to remain “serene so as not to commit injustices.”
Nearly 200 people died Tuesday night when a TAM Airlines Airbus skidded off a short, slippery runway in São Paulo and exploded after plowing into an office building and gas station. Last September, 154 people were killed in a midair collision between two planes flying over the Amazon.
IN THE EERIE TWILIGHT, FRENETIC HOMAGE TO A POTENT SYMBOL
The Washington Post
July 22, 2007
MEXICO CITY Darkness descends on the street corner in Colonia Doctores, a Mexico City neighborhood named for the lords of its hospitals but known best for its blocks of stolen auto parts dealers.
Pressed against a wall, a woman stokes coals beneath a battered silver pot. A crowd begins to form around her, their hands tucked into pockets, shoulders hunched, eyelashes sweeping away a light drizzle of rain. The air smells of epazote, the pungent Mexican herb that Maria Alicia Pulido stirs rhythmically as her pot of water reaches a pitched boil.
All eyes are fixed hungrily on the roiling pot until a younger woman, dressed in black, flashes out of a doorway. She balances two fake skulls in her right hand and clasps a skull-topped walking stick in her left. It's 7:55 p.m. in Colonia Doctores -- time to pay homage to Jesús Malverde, the patron saint of Mexico's narco-traffickers.
THOUSANDS VISIT BRAZIL PLANE CRASH SITE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 22, 2007
SAO PAULO, Brazil --
Brazilians by the thousands traveled Sunday to the site of the recent plane crash that killed 191 people, staring at the charred remnants of a gutted air cargo building, praying, and protesting the failures of their country's air safety system.
As jetliners roared overhead, some placed flowers on a fence above the highway that TAM airlines flight 3054 sped over Tuesday before hitting the building and a gas station. A shattered concrete curb marked the spot where the Airbus A320 briefly went airborne after landing on a rain-slicked runway widely criticized as too short.
It was the deadliest crash in the nation's history - all 187 people aboard and at least four on the ground died. And it focused anger at the government's inability to fix an aviation system that in the past year has also suffered strikes, radar failures, and delays.
Juan Pedro Medeiros and Leticia Volasco held a sign with just one word: "Basta" - enough. The two did not know anyone on the plane, but decided during breakfast that they had to protest over the air safety problems.
POLITICAL CLASHES SHAKE VENEZUELA’S STRAINED OIL INDUSTRY
The New York Times
July 23, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela, July 22 — Venezuela’s national oil company is being shaken by claims of corruption and by internal dissent, indicating fissures within the institution largely responsible for financing President Hugo Chávez’s widening array of social welfare programs and foreign aid projects.
The problems at the company, Petróleos de Venezuela, have been compounded by a rare acknowledgment by Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister and president of the company, that it cannot hire enough drilling rigs, raising concern over its ability to halt declines in oil production.
“Our sovereignty is at risk if we allow Petróleos de Venezuela to remain in this situation,” Luís Tascón, a pro-Chávez lawmaker, said in a telephone interview. “We cannot allow this company to remain an indecipherable black box.” Mr. Tascón has summoned Mr. Ramírez to the National Assembly to respond to accusations of corruption against senior executives.
GAS PIPELINE IN BRAZIL SEEN AS A MODEL
The Christian Science Monitor
July 23, 2007
MANACAPURU, BRAZIL - Deep in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest, buses whisk men in orange work suits off to help lay down a pipeline that is today one of the region's most remote energy infrastructure projects.
It's enough to make even the most moderate environmentalist blanch.
But after years of opposition, a plan to transport gas 400 miles from its source at a clearing called Urucu, passing 80 species of rare orchids on its way to the Amazonas state capital of Manaus, has been met with reserved praise, even from hard-core activists.
The project by the Brazilian state-controlled company Petrobras is emerging as a model for reducing environmental and social impact, say many observers. And it comes as dozens of other oil companies are looking to explore an expanse that, while among the world's most biologically diverse, also happens to be the largest unexplored region with hydrocarbon potential after Antarctica.
"Prior to the discovery at Urucu, all petroleum produced in South America came from oil fields close to the Andes. But Urucu is situated more than 1,000 miles to the east … and everything in between must now be considered to have hydrocarbon production potential," says Tim Killeen a senior researcher at Conservation International. "If this is not done right, we are going to lose the most important part of the most important forest on the planet."
SAO PAULO'S GROWTH OVERWHELMS AIRPORT
The Miami Herald
Jul. 23, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO --
When Lygia Horta first moved to the city of Sao Paulo more than five decades ago, the roads were still unpaved, water came from local wells, and nearby Congonhas airport served only sporadic flights by a now-defunct airline.
The city has since mushroomed around Horta and become South America's biggest metropolis, while Congonhas has swollen into the continent's busiest airport, with as many as 44 planes taking off or landing every hour.
Aviation experts say that kind of meteoric growth has overwhelmed airports and other infrastructure around Brazil and South America while upping the risk of accidents such as Tuesday's crash of an Airbus 320 at Congonhas, which claimed the lives of at least 191, including two employees of Banco Santander in Miami. It was Brazil's deadliest air accident.
Horta said it was clear before Tuesday's incident that the 71-year-old airport near her house was being used far past capacity. She's president of a residents association that has tried for years to limit the airport's use.
MEXICO GRUPO TELEVISA EYES CABLE SYSTEM
The Miami Herald
Jul. 24, 2007
MEXICO CITY --
Mexico's biggest media company, Grupo Televisa SA, said Tuesday it would like to put together a national cable system to capitalize on the country's burgeoning cable TV, data and voice transmission market.
In a conference call, executives said its expansion of digital cable service has opened more windows to the coveted "triple play" allowing the company to provide voice, data and television content to homes.
"Penetration is still low ... I think that the opportunity is tremendous," said Televisa Executive Vice President Alfonso de Angoitia. He noted that cable subscriptions for Internet data service in some areas had grown 60 percent in the past year.
BRAZILIAN AIRLINE CANCELS FLIGHTS AMID HEAVY RAINS
The Miami Herald
Jul. 24, 2007
SAO PAULO --
Citing safety concerns due to heavy rain, TAM airlines canceled or diverted 90 flights Tuesday at Sao Paolo's main airport, where one of the carrier's planes crashed in the rain last week, killing 199 people.
Other airlines continued to fly in and out of Congonhas -- Brazil's busiest airport -- but it was periodically closed and reopened by authorities to all traffic during the rain. Before last week's crash, Congonhas handled about 600 takeoffs and landings a day.
TAM canceled 68 domestic flights from Congonhas, stranding thousands of passengers and diverted 22 other flights to Sao Paulo's international airport. Brazil's biggest airline said it made the decision for passenger safety because of heavy rains that started Monday and were predicted to last through Wednesday.
MORIBUND, POWERLESS MAN
Opinion
The Miami Herald
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
Jul. 24, 2007
Approximately a year ago, about to die because of a grave intestinal upheaval, Fidel Castro gave up the management of the Cuban madhouse but left the country's helm on automatic pilot.
While he lives, the communist model -- chemically pure in its political and economic strains -- will go on, even if society falls apart in the useless effort, one thousand times failed, to build the paradise dreamed by Marx.
While the ''Maximum Leader'' breathes, the words opening, pluralism, tolerance and initiative will be opposed by fire and sword. In other words -- Stalinism and a presence to the grave.
Will Castro ever retake the functions he held before his three death-defying operations? I don't believe so. My feeling is that, mentally, Fidel has changed his role.
PERU DEMANDS RETURN OF MACHU PICCHU TREASURES
The Miami Herald
Jul. 24, 2007
CUZCO, Peru --
On a scorching afternoon 96 years ago today, Hiram Bingham reluctantly left a cool mountain hut to resume his search for what he called ``the lost city of the Incas.''
Bingham's hopes had been dashed so often while scouring Peru's outback in the preceding weeks that the Yale University professor, then 36, had few expectations as he followed an 8-year-old boy who claimed to know its location.
As Bingham wrote later, he ''suddenly found myself in a maze of beautiful granite houses! . . . Surprise followed surprise in bewildering succession.'' Bingham and Yale were hailed for the discovery of Machu Picchu.
But now Yale has been tainted by a bitter and public two-year-old dispute over about 5,000 artifacts that Bingham removed from Machu Picchu and took to the Yale campus in New Haven, Conn.
University and Peruvian officials hope to settle the spat in the coming weeks, especially now Machu Picchu has been selected as one of the ''new seven wonders of the world'' in a global popularity contest unveiled on July 7.
PEACEFUL COSTA RICA WAGES WAR ON DRUGS
The Miami Herald
Jul. 24, 2007
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica --
Known abroad mostly for its political stability, pristine beaches and eco-tourism, this country without an army has suddenly found itself in the middle of the war on drugs.
During President Oscar Arias' 14 months in office, Costa Rican and U.S. authorities have set seizure records in increasingly spectacular drug busts -- nearly 50 tons of cocaine, compared with 2003, when seizures didn't reach one ton.
In the latest case, scuba divers are still trying to recover a suspected boatload of cocaine that sank to the bottom of the Pacific after its crew set it on fire last week as authorities approached. The four Colombian crewmen were handed to immigration authorities due to a lack of evidence.
''That's the third boat in recent months drug traffickers have burned in attempts to hide proof,'' said Security Minister Fernando Berrocal.
Chief Prosecutor Francisco Dall'Anese says he believes the increase in seizures here may be due to Costa Rica's growing role as an exchange center in the flow of Colombian drugs toward the Mexican traffickers who smuggle the drugs to U.S. cities.
HEAD OF BRAZILIAN AIR SYSTEM REPLACED
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2007
SAO PAULO, Brazil --
The president of Brazil replaced his defense minister Wednesday after a year of chaos in the military-controlled aviation system, including a jetliner crash that killed nearly 200 people last week.
Defense Minister Waldir Pires came under withering criticism for problems ranging from radar outages to work slowdowns that caused dayslong delays and flight cancellations at Brazilian airports. The outrage mounted after a TAM Linhas Aereas SA jet crashed last week at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, killing 199 people. The cause has not yet been determined.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that Pires would be replaced by former Supreme Court president Nelson Jobim. The presidential office did not say when Pires would leave, or whether he was fired or resigned.
MEXICAN BUSINESSMAN IS ARRESTED IN MARYLAND IN A $205 MILLION DRUG CASE
The New York Times
July 25, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 24 — A businessman accused of stashing $205 million in drug money in the walls and closets of his Mexico City mansion will have the chance to explain how it got there. He was arrested this week near Washington on drug smuggling charges.
The suspect, Zhenli Ye Gon, was taken into custody on Monday night as he dined in a popular Chinese restaurant in the Washington suburb of Wheaton, Md.
Lawyers for Mr. Ye Gon, a Chinese-Mexican who was wanted in the United States and Mexico on narcotics charges, said he had traveled here in hopes of being tried in the United States rather than in Mexico, which is expected to seek his extradition.
RAÚL CASTRO TO GIVE REVOLUTION DAY SPEECH
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2007
HAVANA --
Cuba announced Wednesday that interim leader Raúl Castro will give this week's Revolution Day address as the defense minister takes on more of his older brother Fidel's previous roles and consolidates a caretaker rule that increasingly looks permanent.
The announcement on the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma doused the few remaining hopes among Fidel Castro's ardent supporters that he could make a surprise appearance as the nation's leadership prepares to celebrate Revolution Day on Thursday.
Fidel Castro made his last public appearance at last year's July 26 celebration. Five days later, the elder Castro stunned the nation by announcing he had undergone emergency colon surgery and was provisionally ceding power to Raúl, his designated successor since early 1959.
MEXICAN BOMBERS ALSO HIT CRUDE OIL PIPELINE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 25, 2007
WASHINGTON --
Saboteurs who blew up natural gas pipelines that shut down one of Mexico's main industrial regions earlier this month also crippled an important crude oil pipeline in an operation that indicated extensive knowledge of Mexico's energy infrastructure, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Not only were oil and natural gas pipelines targeted, but the bombers also knew enough about energy installations to destroy the shutoff valves along several pipelines that allow for the wide national distribution of oil and natural gas.
''These are massive steel valves -- they're gigantic,'' a U.S. official familiar with the bombing investigation told McClatchy Newspapers. ``These are major, very expensive shutoff valves that control the flow of all this petroleum. This wasn't a round tube in the middle of nowhere.''
OVER A GORGE, A BRIDGE TO THE INCAN PAST
The Christian Science Monitor
July 25, 2007
HUINCHIRI, PERU - Nothing about all this weaving is necessary, strictly speaking.
But every year, hundreds of people gather here for three days of round-the-clock work to weave thousands of pounds of sturdy, stout straw that grows in these Peruvian highlands. They turn the straw into rope, the rope into braids, and the braids into a bridge, just as their Incan ancestors have done for centuries.
Perhaps the last bridge of its kind in the world, it is rebuilt every year as part of an intricate ceremony. It is narrow and, for outsiders, wobbly. Even a light wind along the Apurimac River, 80 feet below, sends the bridge swaying. Braided handrails six inches thick help crossers keep steady as they make their way over what is really a series of thick tightropes strung side by side. It takes a few minutes for a foreigner to crawl his way across, but a local can do it in no time.
Knowing how to cross the bridge, after all, is part and parcel of knowing how to weave it.
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