Jueves 02 de Agosto 2007. Año III, No. OCHENTA

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 julio al 02 de agosto 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

MIGRACIÓN
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FAMILY DIVIDED AT U.S. BORDER REUNITED IN MIAMI
The Miami Herald
Jul. 28, 2007

Ocdalis Gomez, 22, and her children Abel, 2, and Winnelis, 6, arrive at Miami International Airport.

They were detained in Texas after being stopped at the border coming over from Mexico. Gomez's husband Abel Gomez was allowed in because he is a Cuban refugee. Ocdalis and her children were not because they are Venezuelan.

Immigration authorities Friday abruptly released the Venezuelan-born wife and children of a Cuban refugee who was paroled into the country on the same day his family was put in deportation proceedings at the Texas-Mexico border.

An emotional Ocdalis Gómez, 22, and her children Abel, 2, and Winnelis, 6, immediately boarded a plane in Austin, Texas, bound for Miami, where they rejoined Abel Gómez, 30 -- the Cuban migrant who for weeks desperately tried to gain freedom for his family.

When Abel and Ocdalis reunited at Miami International Airport, the husband and wife held each other tightly for a few seconds while their children stared in awe at the television cameras trained on the family. Then Abel Gómez picked up the children, hugged and kissed them and proudly displayed one on each arm for the cameras.

MEXICO'S OTHER MIGRANT PROBLEM
The Christian Science Monitor
July 31, 2007

CIUDAD HIDALGO, MEXICO - This summer some 200 undocumented immigrants were hidden in a truck compartment when a floor holding more than a ton of bananas collapsed, killing six. The driver reportedly fled the scene.

For many it was a chilling reminder of another smuggling tragedy, when 19 undocumented immigrants suffocated in a trailer abandoned by its driver in Texas in 2003. Yet this time it was not a case of migrants trying to get into the US, but Central Americans trying to sneak into Mexico.

Mexico spends so much time fuming over its border relations with the US that its own southern frontier – where tens of thousands of Central Americans cross each year in hopes of making it to the US – is quite often an afterthought.

The country has traditionally been just a transit point on the immigration route, and has long been under pressure by the US to step up its security. Shortly after taking office in December, President Felipe Calderón responded to the call by setting up a new border police force with 645 officers.

WHEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS FLOOD A CITY
Opinion
The Christian Science Monitor
July 31, 2007
By Clay Bennett

A telling irony shines through last week's ruling by a federal judge that found only Congress can set immigration law. The judge knew full well that half the plaintiffs in the case were in the US illegally. But he let them challenge a city ordinance on immigration anyway – and anonymously.

And so it's been in America for too long: Turn a blind eye to the massive lawbreaking of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Imagine if a scofflaw wanted by the FBI had sued a city for enacting a criminal law tougher than a federal law. Would that person also be given a day in court?

No way. The difference, of course, is that FBI agents are vigilant in catching suspects. But federal immigration agents? Well, they do their best whenever Congress or the White House gives them a clear green light and enough resources. After all, for politicians, those millions of illegal immigrants are potential voters for whichever party gets the credit in winning them amnesty someday.

OLGA SANCHEZ'S REFUGE OF HOPE IN THE SOUTH
The Christian Science Monitor
July 31, 2007

TAPACHULA, MEXICO - Many have lost arms. Others have sacrificed legs and fingers to the "Beast," the infamous northbound train that travels from Arriaga, in Chiapas, northward through Mexico. It's one part of the long and dangerous trip for migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to the US border.

For those who don't make the leap into the train cars or fall, due to the crush of other migrants, the tracks can be merciless, bringing an abrupt end to their journeys.

But while their hope of getting to the US has been lost, many are finding new-kindled inspiration in Olga Sanchez.

Ms. Sanchez started caring for injured Central American migrants in her modest home in the center of Tapachula nearly 20 years ago. But as the swell of migrants continues, her shelter has grown. She opened a new one more than two years ago that continues to expand.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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REBELS IN COLOMBIA LAY MORE MINES, RIGHTS GROUP SAYS
The New York Times
July 26, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela, July 25 — Casualties from land mines used by guerrilla organizations in Colombia have climbed sharply in recent years with civilians suffering increasingly from these inexpensive weapons, a leading human rights group said in a report released Wednesday.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest rebel group, which describes land mines as the "weapon of the poor" and invokes their low cost as a rationale for deploying them, is largely responsible for their increased use, according to Human Rights Watch, the New York-based nongovernmental organization.

REPORT CITES REBELS' WIDE USE OF MINES IN COLOMBIA
The Washington Post
July 26, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia, July 25 -- Colombia's largest rebel group, already accused of executing 11 civilian hostages last month, faced a new allegation Wednesday: A report by Human Rights Watch said the group has dramatically escalated its use of land mines, to the point that more people are killed or maimed by the devices here than in any other country in world.

The report, nearly a year in the making, said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been fighting the state since 1964, has sown antipersonnel mines throughout the country to slow an increasingly offensive-minded army. The impact of FARC mines, as well as those laid by a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, has been devastating: The devices killed or hurt 1,113 people last year, nearly a third of them civilians, according to government tallies based on reported incidents.

Human Rights Watch, which issued the report in Washington, said Colombia bucks a worldwide trend; governments and rebel groups elsewhere have shifted away from using mines.

DEFENSE MINISTER IS REPLACED AS BRAZIL’S AIR CRISIS GROWS
The New York Times
July 26, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 25 — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday replaced the country’s defense minister, whose duties include oversight of civil aviation. The move came eight days after the deadliest air disaster in Brazilian history.

With the fallout spreading from last week’s accident at São Paulo’s Congonhas airport, Mr. da Silva said he was replacing Defense Minister Waldir Pires with Nelson Jobim, a highly respected former Supreme Court president and justice minister. Mr. da Silva said at Mr. Jobim’s swearing-in ceremony that Mr. Pires had resigned voluntarily, but a government news release said he had been asked to do so.

“From this moment on, we are going to do what has to be done,” the president said at the ceremony. He added, “And spend what has to be spent.”

HONDURAS LOSING STEAM ON CORRUPTION FIGHT
The Washington Post
July 27, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Honduras was supposed to have turned the corner on corruption. In 1998, the Central American nation ratified the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and adopted measures to fight such behavior as money laundering, influence-peddling, embezzlement and obstruction of justice. It also became one of the first countries in the region to deny immunity for former public officials, including presidents, in corruption cases.

Two years ago, Honduras got its reward. It became the first country in Latin America -- and second in the world -- to benefit from President Bush's performance-based development aid program, the Millennium Challenge. Before a country can be considered for the program, it must demonstrate success against corruption.

But now those gains are in jeopardy. A proliferation of corruption cases, along with allegations of even more corrupt practices that have gone unchecked, have left Hondurans with a perception that corruption in their country is omnipresent. According to a U.S.-funded public opinion poll, the percentage of Hondurans who believe the government is combating corruption declined from 40 percent in 2004 to 26.6 percent in 2006.

CUBA’S REVOLUTION NOW UNDER TWO MASTERS
The New York Times
July 27, 2007

CAMAGÜEY, Cuba, July 26 — For the first time, Raúl Castro, the acting president, gave the traditional revolutionary speech during Cuba’s most important national holiday on Thursday, deepening the widespread feeling that his brother Fidel has slipped into semi-retirement and is unlikely to return. Yet Cuba continues to live in a kind of limbo, with neither brother fully in control of the one-party Socialist state.

Last year, Fidel Castro, the once all-powerful leader, led thousands of Communist Party faithful in cheers to celebrate the guerrilla attacks on army barracks that set off his revolution a half century ago. It was the last time he was seen in public.

That night, after two long speeches, the gaunt Mr. Castro, now 80, suffered an acute infection and bleeding in his colon from which he has yet to recover. Five days later, he handed over power to his brother Raúl, now 76, and a small group of cabinet officials on a temporary basis.

IN THE AMAZON: CONSERVATION OR COLONIALISM?
The New York Times
July 27, 2007

ANAVILHANAS ECOLOGICAL STATION, Brazil — Depending on one’s point of view, the World Wildlife Fund’s financial support of a nature reserve here on the Rio Negro is either part of a laudable attempt to conserve the Amazon jungle — or the leading edge of a nefarious plot by foreign environmental groups to wrest control of the world’s largest rain forest from Brazil and replace it with international rule.

In 2003, after signing an agreement with the WWF and the World Bank, the Brazilian government created the Amazon Region Protected Areas program. Since then, more than a score of national parks and reserves covering an area larger than New York, New Jersey and Connecticut combined have been brought into that network and provided with an infusion of new funds.

The program’s objective is to set up “a core system to anchor bio-diversity protection for the Amazon,” Matthew Perl, the WWF’s Amazon coordinator, said during a June visit to the area, a sparsely populated archipelago of 400 islands northwest of Manaus. “It’s part of a strategy to buy time, bring each protected area up to certain standards of management and pool resources for monitoring and enforcement.”

FROM JAIL, COLOMBIAN WARLORD PONDERS LONG YEARS OF CONFLICT
The New York Times
July 28, 2007

ITAGÜÍ, Colombia IN his prison cell here on the outskirts of Medellín, Salvatore Mancuso reads Gandhi and self-help books. He taps notes to his lawyers into a BlackBerry. He gazes at photos of his 19-year-old wife and 8-month-old son. He listens to vallenato music on his iPod.

And he meditates on the meaning of war.

“There are no good men or bad men in war,” Mr. Mancuso, 42, Colombia’s paramilitary warlord extraordinaire, said in a long, meandering interview. “There are objectives, and the objective of war is to win by combating the enemy, and the enemy is not fought with flowers or prayer or song. The enemy is fought with weapon in hand, which produces dead men.”

IN TALE OF MILLIONAIRE DRUG SUSPECT, MEXICANS JUDGE GOVERNMENT GUILTY
The Washington Post
July 29, 2007

MEXICO CITY, June 28 -- The newspapers fly off the stands at Juan Pérez's kiosk on bustling Avenida Juarez -- especially those splashed with headlines about the riches of Zhenli Ye Gon, an importer accused of drug trafficking in a case Mexican and U.S. authorities have hailed as a blow to the methamphetamine trade.

But to Perez, who has hawked news on this street for 60 years, the true defendant is the Mexican government.

"Tons! Tons of drugs passed through the ports. Who gave the permits?" asked Perez, a spry 75, jabbing his finger into the warm midafternoon air as taxis whizzed by his stand. "In all this, the government is guilty."

Dubbed "El Chino" -- the Chinaman -- by Mexican media, the man whose arrest at a Wheaton, Md., restaurant last week thrust him into the center of the U.S. drug war has for months been the notorious protagonist of what analysts here call the country's biggest political scandal in recent years.

LOSING FORESTS TO FUEL CARS
The Washington Post
July 31, 2007

Jaguars, blue macaws and giant armadillos roam the fickle landscape of Brazil's Cerrado, a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas.

That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

"Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington. "If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity."

BRAZIL, ALARMED, RECONSIDERS POLICY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The New York Times
July 31, 2007

MANAUS, Brazil — Alarmed at recent indications of climate change here in the Amazon and in other regions of Brazil, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has begun showing signs of new flexibility in the tangled, politically volatile international negotiations to limit human-caused global warming.

The factors behind the re-evaluation range from a drought here in the Amazon rain forest, the world’s largest, and the impact that it could have on agriculture if it recurs, to new phenomena like a hurricane in the south of Brazil. As a result, environmental advocates, scientists and some politicians say, Brazilian policy makers and the public they serve are increasingly seeing climate change not as a distant problem, but as one that could affect them too.

CASTRO MARKS FIRST YEAR ON SIDELINES
The Miami Herald
Jul. 31, 2007

HAVANA -- Cuba passed the one-year anniversary of Fidel Castro's withdrawal from power without official mention of the fact on Tuesday - but Castro published an essay proclaiming Cuba's victories at the Pan American games were a triumph for the revolution.

"On 59 occasions we heard the spirited notes of the Cuban National Anthem playing - in spite of everything!" Castro wrote in the latest of a series of columns, referring to the 59 gold medals the country won during the hemispheric competition in Rio de Janeiro - second only to the United States.

Castro, who turns 81 on Aug. 13, has not been seen in public since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery and withdrew from day-to-day government on July 31, 2006.

But Cuba's communist leadership has defied predictions it would weaken without the man who had led it since 1959, functioning smoothly under his brother Raul, the defense minister.

FIDEL CASTRO'S TOWERING SHADOW ENDURES
The Miami Herald
Jul. 31, 2007

Raúl Castro has lived much of his life just a few steps behind older brother Fidel.

He followed Fidel in the mountain battles against the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s, and for nearly five decades since has been No. 2 in the Cuban Communist Party and in the Cuban government.

But as Raúl Castro marks his first year today out in front of his ailing brother, his reputation as a supremely efficient and organized taskmaster who shuns Fidel's bombastic style of rule appears to be serving him well as he faces a communist nation mired in myriad difficulties.

While cutting back on the long speeches and political rallies, Castro, 76, has launched a rash of new projects and ideas to improve the troubled economy. Above all, he has been credited with keeping Cuba politically stable since Fidel took ill.

RAUL CASTRO'S YEAR: A CHRONOLOGY
The Miami Herald
Jul. 31, 2007

• July 31: Fidel Castro delegates power to his brother Raúl after undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding.

• Aug. 4: Granma newspaper publishes long article describing Raúl's style of command as based on the ''collective elaboration of ideas'' and ``the strategic role of unity.''

• Aug. 18: In his first public statement since July 31, Raúl announces the mobilization of regular troops, defense councils and thousands of reservists and militias for a possible confrontation with the United States. He also offers to negotiate with Washington ``in a spirit of equality.''

• Aug. 31: The Minister of Communications and Computer Sciences is removed and replaced by Ramiro Valdés, long reputed to be a hard-liner and Raúl rival.

CUBA 'MARCHING AHEAD' WITHOUT ME, FIDEL CASTRO SAYS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

HAVANA -- Fidel Castro said Wednesday that Cuba is ''marching ahead'' without him in power, insisting that he is consulted on all important decisions but giving no hint about when -- or if -- he might retake office after stepping down one year ago.

But he was decidedly less optimistic about the island's chances of improving relations with the United States, writing in his latest newspaper essay that ''no one should entertain the slightest illusion'' Washington will negotiate with Cuba.

Castro, who turns 81 this month, has not been seen in public since July 31, 2006, when he stunned Cuba and the world by issuing a proclamation stating that he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was stepping down in favor of his younger brother, Raúl.

''Today, I am bombarded with questions as to when I will take up again what some call power,'' he said in the essay, titled Eternal Flame, published Wednesday in the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

CASTRO PHOTOS BROUGHT FAME, FORCED EXILE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

Ignoring official warnings and counsel from colleagues, Cuban news photographer Cristóbal Herrera Ulashkevich showed the world embarrassing photos of Fidel Castro out of professional pride, he says.

As a freelance photographer for The Associated Press in Havana, Herrera captured two crucial images of Castro's health slide: his fainting spell while making a speech in 2001 and his dramatic fall after another speech in October 2004.

The two sets of photos appeared in media around the world, boosting Herrera's professional standing but also putting him on the road to forced exile in Costa Rica -- because security forces did not like his images.

''I am condemned to forced exile,'' Herrera, 36, told El Nuevo Herald. ``The Cuban government barred me from returning to my country, without explanations.''

TAPES IMPLICATE TIJUANA POLICE IN DRUG TRAFFICKING AND A KILLING
The New York Times
August 1, 2007

TIJUANA, Mexico, July 31 — Just days before a critical governor’s election in Baja California, federal authorities have released tapes to a newspaper suggesting that many members of the Tijuana police force have worked for drug traffickers and helped in the killing of a federal agent, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

Transcripts of recorded conversations over police radios show that the municipal police regularly informed members of the Arellano Félix drug gang about federal raids and helicopter surveillance going back at least three years.

The tapes also suggest that several officers kept drug dealers apprised of the movements of federal agents on May 3, 2006, when an antinarcotics agent, Eduardo Reyes, 27, was gunned down by drug traffickers. Another tape strongly suggested that members of the department offered their services as gunmen for drug runners and indicated that they would transport drugs for the Félix cartel.

VENEZUELAN HIGH COURT BANS VICTIM PHOTOS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

CARACAS -- (AP) -- Venezuela's Supreme Court has prohibited two newspapers from publishing graphic photographs of crime victims, prompting praise from government officials struggling to deal with street violence.

Information Minister Willian Lara on Monday said the recent ruling prohibiting the dailies El Luchador and El Progreso from publishing photographs of violent crime victims was ``a positive event for the country.''

''Of course it's necessary to report the crimes,'' Lara said, ``But it's not necessary to show the cadaver, and much less in such a morbid manner of having the injury, the blood, and the person's open body organs on the front page.''

The July 20 ruling by the Supreme Court, which was selected by the Hugo Chávez-dominated National Assembly, condemned El Luchador and El Progreso for repeatedly publishing lurid photos that it said have a ``degenerating and perturbing effect.''

UN CHIEF VISITS HAITI
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Three years after arriving in Haiti in the wake of a bloody revolt that ousted the nation's president, U.N. peacekeepers have decimated violent gangs, calmed teeming slums and provided breathing room for a fledgling elected government.

When U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon makes his first visit here Wednesday, he'll find a U.N. force already transitioning from a military to a policing role -- one that officials say is vitally important to keeping the peace while this impoverished Caribbean country rebuilds.

The senior U.N. envoy to Haiti says it is way too soon for the U.N. to consider withdrawing its 8,800-strong, Brazil-led peacekeeping force, noting past failed attempts to help the country.

UN PEACEKEEPING ROLE EVOLVING IN HAITI
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Three years after arriving in Haiti in the wake of a bloody revolt that ousted the country's president, U.N. peacekeepers have decimated violent gangs, calmed teeming slums and provided breathing room for a fledgling elected government.

When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon makes his first visit here Wednesday, he'll find a U.N. force evolving from a military to a policing role that officials say is crucial to keeping the peace while this impoverished Caribbean country rebuilds.

The senior U.N. envoy to Haiti says it is too soon for the U.N. to consider withdrawing its 8,800-strong, Brazil-led peacekeeping force, noting past failed attempts to help the country.

BOMB EXPLODES AT SEARS STORE IN MEXICO
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

OAXACA, Mexico -- A small, homemade bomb exploded outside a Sears store in the troubled southern city of Oaxaca early Wednesday, damaging the entrance but causing no injuries, authorities reported.

A similar bomb was found and deactivated outside the entrance of a nearby bank, state Attorney General Evencio Martinez told national radio station W Radio.

"I believe it could be (the work of) local groups, given the type and style of device," Martinez said.

He denied the bombs were related to the People's Revolutionary Army, a small leftist group that bombed gas pipelines in July. Sears in Mexico is operated by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. In 2004, a faction of the rebel group placed small bombs outside banks and an office of Telmex, Slim's telephone company.

ANTI-CHAVEZ CHANNEL FACES DEADLINE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela -- An opposition-aligned television channel, already booted from the airwaves, faced a deadline Wednesday to agree to carry speeches by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez or be yanked from the cable lineup.

The country's telecommunications watchdog has given Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, until midnight Wednesday to register as a national producer, a category that would require it to interrupt its programming at the government's request to transmit Chavez's speeches.

The new cable channel RCTV International says it intends to be an "international channel."

It asked the telecommunications commission to clarify its rules, saying it appears to be enforcing them differently now that RCTV has begun transmitting programming by cable.

REGIONAL
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THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
OBAMA GOOFED BY NOT INCLUDING CAVEAT
The Miami Herald
Jul. 26, 2007

One in an occasional series on presidential candidates' views about Latin America.

I was not terribly surprised when Sen. Barack Obama said in the Democratic presidential debate Monday that he would sit down with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez if elected president. He had told me so a day earlier -- and much more -- although with a very important caveat.

In a wide-ranging interview on foreign affairs, and Latin America in particular, the Democratic presidential hopeful criticized President Bush's foreign policy as excessively ''based on the dislike of Hugo Chávez.'' And he told me that he would not only sit down with the Venezuelan president ''under certain conditions'' but would travel to leftist-ruled Bolivia -- Venezuela's closest ally in South America -- at the start of his presidency.

''We've seen our influence diminished in the world,'' Obama said in the Sunday interview. ``We've seen an inability to recognize constructive opportunities with countries that may be leaning left, but that are trying to do the right thing by their people. That is a fundamental difference that I think will be reflected in an Obama presidency.''

CHÁVEZ VOWS TO CONTINUE CASTRO'S ``STRUGGLE''
The Miami Herald
Jul. 27, 2007

CARACAS -- (AP) -- President Hugo Chávez promised his close friend and ally Fidel Castro on Thursday that he would continue the Cuban leader's decades-long fight against U.S. imperialism once the aging revolutionary icon has passed away.

''Fidel, I assume the commitment of continuing your struggle, your endless battle. I assume it. We, your children, assume it,'' said Chávez, a former paratroop commander who is steering Venezuela toward socialism.

Since taking office in 1999, Chávez has forged strong ties with communist-led Cuba while emerging as one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of Washington's foreign policy in the region.

Castro, who turns 81 next month, has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery almost a year ago forced him to temporarily cede power to a provisional government headed by his younger brother.

LATIN AMERICAN HIRED GUNS SHRUG OFF IRAQ WAR RISKS FOR PAYDAY
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

LIMA -- Tired of subsisting by selling cigarettes on the street, Gregorio Calixto jumped at the chance last fall to earn $1,000 a month working for a U.S.-based security company in Iraq.

The former Peruvian army sergeant is only one of many Latin Americans who have gone to Iraq to work for security firms -- most of them based in the United States -- that now employ 6,000 to 10,000 men from around the world, according to news accounts.

The Latin Americans typically served in the military back home -- many fought leftist guerrillas in places like El Salvador and Colombia -- and were taught by U.S. instructors, making it easier for them to use U.S. weapons and work under American security procedures.

But after leaving their armed forces, these soldiers found themselves in low-paying jobs. So they agreed to risk injury or death in Iraq for $1,000 to $1,500 a month -- $5 to $7 an hour -- a good wage for them, but far below the $10,000 to $15,000 monthly pay for American contract employees.

Peruvians guard the outer perimeter of a U.S. installation in Basra. Chileans protect the governmental Green Zone in Baghdad. Hondurans have provided security within the terminal at Baghdad International Airport. Salvadorans once protected the Green Zone in Baghdad, but they and some Ecuadoreans reportedly have left the jobs after media in their home countries labeled them ``mercenaries.''

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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RAÚL AGAIN OFFERS 'OLIVE BRANCH' TO U.S.
The Miami Herald
Jul. 27, 2007

In Raúl Castro's most important speech since he replaced ailing brother Fidel, the interim Cuban leader Thursday bluntly admitted during the island's July 26 celebrations that Cuba faces myriad problems and little hope of quick fixes.

Castro, 76, told the tens of thousands convened in the eastern city of Camagüey that while salaries and food production are too low, inefficiency and prices are way too high. He added that Cuba's days of inefficiency, graft and dependence on foreign imports must come to an end.

Castro, also for the third time, called for a dialogue with Washington and made only passing mention of Fidel -- whose absence at the ceremony marking the 54th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Revolution reinforced the belief that Fidel will not return to active rule after his emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding last July.

HOUSE REJECTS EASING EXPORTS-TO-CUBA LIMITS
The Miami Herald
Jul. 27, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The House on Friday rejected an initiative to ease restrictions on U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba, virtually burying any chance that U.S. policy toward the island could be relaxed by Congress this year.

By a 245-182 margin, the House voted down an amendnment presented by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., that would have allowed Cuban officials to travel to the United States to inspect U.S. export facilities and products and let Cubans make direct payments to U.S. banks for any purchases.

The initiative would have also allowed the Cubans to pay for the goods after they are shipped from a U.S. port, rather than before as now required.

Rangel's initiative was backed by a coalition of mostly Democratic opponents to U.S. policies toward Cuba and farm-state Republicans, but opposed by Cuban-American lawmakers and others.

PANAMA WEIGHS DEBT AND THREAT OF NORIEGA
The New York Times
July 29, 2007

If Manuel Noriega, the deposed dictator, ever returns to Panama, Winston Spadafora, a justice on the country’s Supreme Court, has a question for him.

“I’d like to ask him,” Justice Spadafora said in a recent interview in his chambers, “what he did with my brother’s head.”

Panama has unfinished business with Mr. Noriega, who was taken from here in January 1990 after the American military invaded.

There are criminal convictions against him, including one for the beheading of Justice Spadafora’s brother, Hugo, a leading opposition figure, in 1985. And there is a sense among the population that despite his years in prison in the United States, he has not fully paid for all the rough years he put everyone here through.

ARGENTINA CRITICIZES U.S. BORDER FENCE
The Miami Herald
Jul. 31, 2007

MEXICO CITY -- A U.S. plan to expand fences along the Mexican border to stem illegal immigration is an insult to all Latin Americans, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner said Tuesday during a visit to Mexico.

"It's not just an insult to our sister nation of Mexico, but to all the nations of Latin America and all the nations of the world," the leftist president said to the applause of Mexican lawmakers.

President Bush and Congress have approved plans for a 700-mile fence along the border. The Department of Homeland Security is committed to completing 370 miles by the end of 2008.

Relations between Argentina and the United States began to cool in 2002, when Argentina defaulted on international loans and its economy collapsed. Kirchner, who became president in 2003, he has been credited for rescuing the country from devastating fiscal crisis.

U.S. PUTS DOMINICAN CLUB OFF LIMITS, ALLEGES RACE BIAS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 01, 2007

The U.S. embassy in the Dominican Republic has barred its employees from a popular Santo Domingo disco, saying the nightclub routinely shuts its doors to blacks.

Roland Bullen, the embassy chargé d'affaires, made the announcement Monday after three black embassy employees were denied entrance to the Loft club July 22. The reason: one of the black women in the group wore braids.

''I make this decision with great reluctance,'' Bullen said in a statement. ``It is rare for an embassy to place a popular entertainment venue off-limits to its employees. But we condemn such discrimination, which violates Dominican law and U.S. norms.''