Jueves 16 de Agosto 2007. Año III, No. OCHENTA Y DOS

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 10 al 16 de agosto 2007 han sido clasificadas bajo las categorías de:

COMERCIO
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BUSH FIGHTING CONGRESS' PROTECTIONIST SENTIMENT
The Miami Herald
Aug. 13, 2007

President Bush sent the Democrats an important signal last week when he reminded reporters that Congress will have to decide this fall whether to sign off on trade deals with two more Latin American countries, Peru and Panama.

Back in May, the administration accepted the demand of congressional Democratic leaders to enforce labor and environmental standards as integral parts of those free trade agreements -- ending a long stalemate on those questions.

But some liberal and labor Democrats are still voicing objections to the deals, and Rep. Sandy Levin, the chairman of the House trade subcommittee and one of the architects of the trade agreements, has just come back from a visit to Peru to assure that its terms are being carried out.

The president was very clear about his views, saying that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab ``will continue to work with the (Democratic) leadership and remind them of the importance of these trade bills. And they're now in charge of the Congress, and they'll have a chance to prove whether or not they believe in opening these markets. . . . It would be a huge mistake for the country if they don't.''

MIGRACIÓN
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BORDER CRACKDOWN WORKING, NUMBERS SHOW
The Miami Herald
Aug. 11, 2007

TECATE, Mexico -- Mexican shelters, usually the last stop for northbound migrants, are filling with southbound deportees. Fewer migrants are crossing in the wind-swept deserts along an increasingly fortified border. Far to the north, fields are empty at harvest time as workplace raids become more common.

Mexicans are increasingly giving up on the American dream and staying home, and the federal crackdown on undocumented workers announced Friday should discourage even potential migrants from taking the risks as the United States purges itself of its illegal population.

U.S. border agents detained 55,545 illegal migrants jumping over border walls, walking through the desert and swimming across the Rio Grande River between October and June. That's down 38 percent for the entire border compared to the same period a year before.

U.S. and Mexican officials say increased border security, including 6,000 National Guard troops, remote surveillance technology and drone planes, have thwarted smugglers who had succeeded for years at beating the system.

Migrants also say they feel Americans are increasingly hostile toward immigrants.

BLAME CONGRESS' IMMIGRATION FAILURE
OUR OPINION: CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL WORKERS WILL HURT US ALL
Opinion
The Miami Herald
Aug. 12, 2007

For years, it's been no secret that millions of workers in the U.S. labor force have been using Social Security cards that don't match their names, and the federal government has done little more than send tsk-tsk letters to employers, with no penalty attached.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security is shifting from this lax enforcement posture into Draconian overdrive. Giving employers a choice of firing employees with mismatched numbers or paying stiff fines is only one many new measures in a sweeping crackdown that will bring painful consequences. Agriculture, construction, service and other industries are girding for labor shortages.

In the post-9/11 era, neither the extent of the problem nor its seriousness should be underestimated. DHS estimates that of the 250 million wage reports the government receives each year, some 10 percent belong to employees whose numbers do not match their names. DHS is targeting more than seven million illegal workers, many of whom use fake and stolen Social Security cards.

But here's the rub: The rule will impact millions of legal workers, too. Last year, an estimated 18 million Social Security records had inconsistencies, such as a name not matching a card number or birth date. Yet more than 70 percent of those discrepancies appeared on records of U.S.-born citizens.

POLÍTICA INTERNA
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ECUADOR EYES U.S. DRUG SURVEILLANCE MOVE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 11, 2007

QUITO, Ecuador -- President Rafael Correa said Saturday that the U.S. should move its anti-drug surveillance flights to Colombia after its lease runs out on an Ecuadorean air base in 2009.

Correa, who took office in January, has repeatedly said he will not extend the agreement letting the U.S. military use the Manta base for the air operations. In his weekly radio address he denied that the decision would result in increased drug trafficking.

"Put the base in Colombia," said Correa, a leftist and close ally of Venezuelan leader and Washington foe Hugo Chavez. "Colombia produces drugs, Ecuador doesn't."

Ecuador produces virtually no coca, the key ingredient in cocaine, but is often used as a transit country for drugs traveling from neighboring Colombia and Peru to the United States via the Pacific Ocean.

Authorities have discovered several drug labs in the country in the past year, including one in February near the Colombian border that was capable of producing 20 tons of cocaine a month.

CUBAN PRISONER RELEASED AFTER 13 YEARS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 11, 2007

HAVANA -- A prominent Cuban government opponent imprisoned for allegedly revealing state secrets was suddenly freed Friday, two years shy of completing his 15-year sentence, a fellow human rights activist said.

Francisco Chaviano, now 54, was released on parole after serving 13 years, three months and three days, said Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

"He was among the longest-held prisoners of conscience in the world," Sanchez wrote in a statement.

Chaviano was president of the Cuban National Council for Civil Rights when he was arrested in May 1994. He was sentenced behind closed doors by a military court about a year later for allegedly revealing state secrets while documenting the cases of rafters who disappeared or died trying to leave Cuba. Chaviano denied revealing state secrets, and his supporters said no defense evidence was presented during the trial.

FREED DISSIDENT TELLS OF ABUSES, TORMENT OF 13 YEARS IN `HELL'
The Miami Herald
Aug. 11, 2007

One of Cuba's longest-serving political prisoners, Francisco Chaviano, was released Friday on ''conditional freedom'' after serving 13 years in prison -- and immediately blasted prison conditions on the island.

''I am back from hell,'' Chaviano, 54, told El Nuevo Herald from his home in Jaimanitas, west of Havana. ``If Dante had known the Combinado del Este [prison], he would not have needed his imagination to write The Inferno. He simply would have told what he saw there.''

''I spent five years stuck in a cell without seeing the sun, two years without receiving visitors and four years without conjugal visits,'' he added. ``It was a cruel, merciless treatment that was also extended to my family, my wife and my children.''

Chaviano, a mathematics professor at Havana's Institute of Chemistry, was arrested on May 7, 1994, and sentenced by a military tribunal to 15 years in prison on charges that he ''disclosed secrets concerning the state security'' and falsified documents.

GUATEMALAN KIDS SET FOR ADOPTION RESCUED
The Miami Herald
Aug. 12, 2007

GUATEMALA CITY -- Forty-six children believed abducted or coerced from their parents were rescued from an adoption home catering to foreigners that is run by an American man and his Guatemalan wife, police said Sunday.

Guatemalan National Police spokesman Carlos Calju said the children, ranging in age from a few days to 3 years old, were found Saturday at the Casa Quivira children's home in Antigua, a colonial city popular among foreign tourists near Guatemala City.

"We searched the house after we got a tip from neighbors telling us that every day they would see foreigners pick up children there," Calju said.

Guatemala has been a popular source for adoption among Americans - U.S. parents adopted more than 4,000 babies from the country last year, second only to China. But the State Department said in March it no longer recommends adopting from Guatemala because women are frequently pressured to sell their babies and adoptive parents are often targeted by extortionists.

NORIEGA RETURN? PANAMANIANS ARE RATTLED
The Miami Herald
Aug. 12, 2007

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- The 1989 U.S. invasion that ousted dictator Manuel Noriega opened this small nation's road to greater democracy and prosperity.

Now Panama is bracing for his possible return, and the likelihood that he will spend little time behind bars.

Noriega, who has spent 18 years in a U.S. prison, is up for release Sept. 9 and wants to come home. The United States wants him extradited to France to face further charges. A Miami judge will hear arguments Monday.

For most Panamanians, Noriega is the ghost of a dark past in a country that has moved on through three peaceful democratic elections, gained sovereignty over the Panama Canal and is earning $1.5 billion dollars a year from it - more than the 104-year-old waterway ever yielded in American hands.

Attention here is focused much less on Noriega's fate than, for instance, on plans for a $5.25 billion expansion of the canal to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers that are too large for its current 108-foot-wide locks.

That's why most people in this nation of 3 million want to see Noriega stay in the past - and in prison. The question is, where?

MUD VOLCANO FORMS OFF TRINIDAD COAST
The Miami Herald
Aug. 12, 2007

MAYARO, Trinidad -- It is growing under the sea off Trinidad - a mud volcano that fills people who live nearby with foreboding and may soon emerge as the world's newest island.

Since it was discovered in May by a pair of spearfishermen 5 miles off Trinidad's eastern shore, the mud volcano has attracted hordes of sightseers who trek to a bluff to watch waves crash over its summit, which measures 160 feet across.

If it does become an island, don't plan on ever spending your holiday on it: It would be a muddy, wave-lashed piece of ground that could slip back underneath the sea at any moment.

Graham Scott, 37, was spearfishing in May in a favored spot with a friend when he discovered the mud volcano, then only 5 feet high.

"It was strange," Scott recalled in a telephone interview. "The mud was soft. Soft like clay."

Since then, it has ballooned to a height of some 40 feet, reaching to just below the ocean's surface, with a base 490 feet across.

The waters around it are so turbulent that Trinidad's Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management has warned boaters to stay away. Rugged fishermen, some of whom seem a bit spooked, need no prompting. Few tourists venture out in boats, preferring to gaze at the waters over the mud volcano from the safety of shore.

GUATEMALAN KIDS TO BE SENT TO SHELTERS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 13, 2007

ANTIGUA, Guatemala -- A judge on Monday ordered 46 Guatemalan children sent to shelters while authorities investigate whether the American and Guatemalan owners of their group home were stealing children or forcing parents to give them up for foreign adoptions.

The owners of Casa Quivira, Clifford Phillips of Deland, Fla., and his Guatemalan wife, Sandra Gonzalez, were out of the country but were expected to return in a few days, the home's lawyer, Sandra Leonardo Lopez, told The Associated Press from a hospital room where she was being detained.

National Police spokesman Carlos Calju did not say whether Phillips faced legal action.

U.S. parents adopted more than 4,000 babies from the Guatemala last year, second only to China. But the State Department said in March it no longer recommends adopting from Guatemala because women are frequently pressured to sell their babies and adoptive parents are often targeted by extortionists.

Police searched Casa Quivira on Saturday after receiving a tip from neighbors that foreigners were picking up children there every day, Calju said.

FIREWORKS MARK CASTRO'S 81ST BIRTHDAY
The Miami Herald
Aug. 13, 2007

HAVANA -- Fireworks exploded over Havana Bay and five Cuban agents imprisoned in the United States sent greetings as ailing leader Fidel Castro turned 81 on Monday, spending his second consecutive birthday convalescing at an unknown location.

"Today we celebrate one more anniversary of the birthday of our commander in chief Fidel Castro, who turned 81 and who will continue celebrating many more birthdays with Cuba and the world," Havana resident Rosa Maria Suarez said in the early hours of Monday.

She and hundreds of others stood on the Malecon sea front just after midnight to watch the fireworks marking Castro's birthday and the end of Havana's annual summer carnival.

"He's celebrating with his family at home, but it's as if he were with us here," said student Irane Neskaye, also watching the colorful pyrotechnics show popping over the bay with the skyline of Havana's iconic Cabana Fortress in the background.

Shouts of "Long live Fidel!" and "We shall overcome!" resounded from the open windows of an apartment in Old Havana.

FREED CUBAN DISSIDENT SEEKS SURGERY IN U.S.
The Miami Herald
Aug. 13, 2007

HAVANA -- A prominent Cuban dissident who was released last week after 13 years behind bars said Sunday he hopes to go to the United States for surgery, then return to Cuba to resume his human rights activism.

''My future is in the struggle'' for improved rights on the island, Francisco Chaviano said in an interview at the western Havana home he shares with his wife.

The 54-year-old mathematician said, however, he first wants to see about his health.

Chaviano said a small tumor was recently discovered in one of his lungs, and that he developed heart problems while behind bars. Although he could have the tumor removed in Cuba, Chaviano said he would feel more comfortable undergoing major surgery in a country where the government doesn't consider him an enemy.

Chaviano would need an American visa and an exit permit from the Cuban government to make the trip. He said he will not know until he meets with a judge later in the week whether the conditions of his parole would affect an attempt to leave the island.

CHÁVEZ'S '21ST-CENTURY SOCIALISM' BAFFLES EXPERTS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 13, 2007

CARACAS -- At a sleek, airy factory built by Venezuela's populist government, 80 workers churn out shoes -- basic and black and all of them to be shipped to Fidel Castro's Cuba, a leading economic partner.

With no manager or owner, the workers have an equal stake in a business celebrated as a shining alternative to the ''savage capitalism'' President Hugo Chávez disparages.

''Here there are no chiefs, no managers,'' said Gustavo Zuniga, one of the workers, explaining that a workers' assembly makes the big decisions.

Like the Venezuelan economy itself, the assembly line here is designed to put workers ahead of the bottom line and, in the process, serve as a building block in Chávez's dream of constructing what he calls 21st-century socialism. According to a 59-page economic blueprint for the next six years, free-market capitalism's influence will wane with the proliferation of state enterprises and mixed public-private firms called social production companies, the objective being to generate funding for community programs.

`HUMAN NECESSITIES'

''The productive model will principally respond to human necessities and be less subordinate to the production of capital,'' the report says. ``The creation of wealth will be destined to satisfy the basic necessities of all the population.''

AT 81 OR 80, CASTRO STILL A NO-SHOW FOR HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY
The Miami Herald
Aug. 14, 2007

Fidel Castro spent his birthday Monday very much as he did last year's: fighting illness amid rumors that he is at death's door.

According to official accounts, he just turned 81. But a leading Cuba expert says anecdotal evidence shows Castro actually was born a year later, in 1927, and has lived a lie most of his life. Castro, according to former CIA analyst Brian Latell, just now became an octogenarian.

But whatever Castro's age, rumors began circulating last week that his health had taken a turn for the worse. And unlike Aug. 13, 2006, which was marked by the first photos of an ailing Castro, this year's birthday took place without a word or snapshot from the sickly leader. Celebratory fireworks lit the Havana sky as the clock ticked midnight early Monday, but no photos graced its newspapers.

Even the ubiquitous Reflections by the Commander in Chief -- the opinion columns Castro started in March -- have ground to a halt. After churning out 37 articles -- sometimes several a week -- Castro has not penned a new one since last Tuesday.

SECOND CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER RELEASED
The Miami Herald
Aug. 15, 2007

HAVANA -- Cuban authorities have released a dissident who was jailed three years ago on vague political charges, as the list of the country's political prisoners gradually grows shorter, a veteran rights activist said Wednesday.

Lazaro Gonzalez Adan, 37, who belonged to an independent labor movement, was freed Tuesday from the prison in the eastern province of Camaguey, where he lives, said Elizardo Sanchez of the National Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

Police visited Gonzalez in October 2004 after he painted a Cuban flag and two quotes about liberty by independence hero Jose Marti on his house. Sanchez said he could not recall the exact quotes, which apparently were chosen to criticize the government.

When Gonzalez refused police demands to erase the paintings, he was arrested on charges of disrespect, disobedience to authorities and resisting arrest. He later received a three-year prison sentence.

AMBASSADOR: NO REPRISALS FOR CUBAN BOXERS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 15, 2007

BRASILIA, Brazil -- (AP) -- The two Cuban boxers who abandoned their national team at the Pan American Games are not being subjected to reprisals from their government, according to the Cuban ambassador in Brazil.

Pedro Nunez Mosquera told Brazilian Bar Association president Cezar Britto on Tuesday that the boxers and their families are living free in Cuba, without any restrictions on what they can do.

Britto said the association wanted to make sure the boxers were not at risk.

''I asked how [the boxers] were and he guaranteed to me that they were free, with their families, and that there were no threats to arrest them,'' Britto said, adding that the bar association received a request from Cuban dissidents to check on their countrymen.

Two-time Olympic bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux and 2005 welterweight world champion Erislandy Lara left the athletes' village on July 22 and failed to appear for their weigh-ins. They were arrested 11 days later for overstaying their visas and sent back to Cuba.

CHÁVEZ TO PROPOSE REMOVING HIS TERM LIMITS
The New York Times
August 15, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 14 — President Hugo Chávez will unveil a project to change the Constitution on Wednesday that is expected to allow him to be re-elected indefinitely, a move that would enhance his authority to accelerate a socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society.

The removal of term limits for Mr. Chávez, which is at the heart of the proposal, is expected to be accompanied by measures circumscribing the authority of elected governors and mayors, who would be prevented from staying in power indefinitely, according to versions of the project leaked in recent weeks.

Willian Lara, the communications minister, said Mr. Chávez would announce the project before the National Assembly, where all 167 lawmakers support the president. Supporters of Mr. Chávez, who was re-elected last year with some 60 percent of the vote, also control the Supreme Court, the entire federal bureaucracy, public oil and infrastructure companies and every state government but two.

REGIONAL
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THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
AS FOR WOMEN IN POLITICS, U.S. FAR BEHIND
The Miami Herald
Aug. 09, 2007

A recent Newsweek poll says -- without mentioning Sen. Hillary Clinton's name -- that 86 percent of Americans would be prepared to elect a woman to the White House. Well, I'm not so sure.

To my big surprise, in telephone conversations with officials participating in a United Nations-sponsored conference on women this week in Ecuador, I found that the United States is far from an avant-garde country when it comes to electing women to public jobs.

According to the latest figures from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, based on data from 133 countries' congresses, the United States ranks 67th in the percentage of women in its lower house of congress -- below the world average, and right behind Zimbabwe, Panama and El Salvador, which are tied for 66th place.

The list of countries with the highest percentages of women in their lower house of congress is topped by Rwanda, Sweden, Finland, Costa Rica, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Cuba, Spain and Argentina.

Women make up 49 percent of the lower house in Rwanda, 47 percent in Sweden, 42 percent in Finland, 39 percent in Costa Rica, 38 percent in Norway, 37 percent in Denmark and the Netherlands, 36 percent in Spain and Cuba and 35 percent in Argentina. By comparison, women make up 16 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives.

BRAZIL, VENEZUELA VIE FOR ENERGY CLOUT
The Christian Science Monitor
August 10, 2007

MEXICO CITY - Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva goes north; Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez heads south.

Both have energy at the top of their agendas. President Lula da Silva, on a five-country tour of Mexico and Central America, is promoting alternative fuels, particularly ethanol. President Chávez, on a four-nation tour of South America, pledges new deals for gas plants and bonds purchases, all paid for with petrodollars.

A coincidence? Perhaps. But their trips this week underscore, at least symbolically, aspirations to lead Latin America, with energy driving their politics.

"There is a lot of jockeying, a lot of dancing going on these days, on both Chávez's and Lula's part," says Michael Shifter, the vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "There is this subtext of oil versus biofuels, what Chávez has and Lula is trying to promote."

THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
MEDICAL TOURISM WILL BE NEXT BIG LATIN AMERICA BOOM
The Miami Herald
Aug. 12, 2007

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- I have long been convinced that medical tourism will be one of Latin America's biggest industries in the 21st century. On a visit here last week, I got a glimpse of the coming boom.

It's not just that 100 million Americans will reach retirement age over the next 30 years, and growing numbers of them won't be able to afford ever-rising U.S. healthcare costs. Americans already are traveling to Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina and Chile, among other countries, for heart operations, cosmetic surgery or dental work at half price, and with more personalized attention.

Before I tell you what I saw here, let me share with you some figures from a new book by Milica and Karla Bookman.

It quotes United Nations figures as saying that the $4.4 trillion-a-year travel and tourism industry has in recent years become the world's largest industry, bigger than the defense, manufacturing, oil and agriculture sectors. And in many countries, medical tourism is becoming an increasingly growing slice of the travel and tourism sector.

''Several decades ago, when exotic-locale tourism first took off, the attraction was the three S's: sun, sand and sex,'' the authors write. ``The three S's of developing countries have now been replaced by four S's: sun, sea, sand and surgery.''

CHAVEZ DEEPENS PETROCARIBE OIL PLEDGES
The Miami Herald
Aug. 12, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged on Saturday to meet Caribbean nations' oil needs for years to come, and urged the region to unite and seek greater independence from the United States.

Chavez deepened past pledges to share his country's oil wealth as he addressed a summit of nations taking part in Venezuela's Petrocaribe oil initiative, which supplies fuel under preferential terms.

"If we truly unite ... the grandchildren of our grandchildren will have no energy problems," Chavez said. He predicted oil prices will soon hit $100 a barrel but said "the Caribbean shouldn't have problems this century and beyond."

"Venezuela puts this oil wealth at the disposition of our peoples of the Caribbean," Chavez said. "It belongs to all of us. We're going to share it like Christ. ... It will be enough for everyone."

Venezuela still counts the United States as its top oil buyer, although Chavez has sought to diversify his clientele amid tensions with Washington by selling more to Latin America, the Caribbean and as far away as China.

Since 2005, when Chavez created Petrocaribe, 14 countries have joined Venezuela's pact, which lets them finance up to half their oil bills over 25 years at low interest. That number expanded to 15 on Saturday with the addition of Nicaragua, whose president Daniel Ortega attended the talks.

RELACIONES BILATERALES
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POLICE FIND 2 MISSING CUBAN BOXERS
The Miami Herald
Aug. 03, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Two Cuban boxers who disappeared during last month's Pan American Games were found at a resort near Rio, and a police inspector says they want to go back to Cuba.

Two-time Olympic boxing champion Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara were found Thursday at an inn in the coastal resort city Cabo Frio.

"We still have to clear up the reason why they abandoned their delegation and now want to return," federal police inspector Felicio Laterca said.

"Right now, they are only saying they are very dear athletes in their country and that's why they want to return."

Laterca said the two boxers were staying at a hotel and remained free, but were being monitored by police. Police have contacted the Cuban embassy to secure passports for the two men.

No one at the Cuban embassy was immediately available to comment. A Federal Police spokeswoman said the two Cubans most likely will be deported by the end of next week.

SMUGGLING OF CUBANS SURGES IN MEXICO
The Washington Post
August 4, 2007

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 3 -- The bodies of three people suspected of smuggling Cubans to the United States through Mexico were found gagged and blindfolded Friday in a natural sinkhole near Cancun.

The killings were the latest in a series of incidents related to the smuggling of Cubans into Mexico, where authorities have observed a marked increase in such attempts in recent months. At least four people linked to smuggling allegations have been killed this week in Cancun, which is 150 miles from Cuba and a popular landing spot for boats sneaking Cubans into the country.

Police were led to the three most recent victims -- Jesús Aguilar, Edwin Park and a woman whose name was not given, all of whom were Mexican -- by red arrows painted on a highway leading to the sinkhole, known as a "cenote." Three days earlier, police had found the bullet-riddled body of Luis Lázaro Lara Morejon, a Cuban American suspected of smuggling, on a roadside near Cancun. The woman found Friday was Lázaro Lara's girlfriend.

"We believe these people were executed by those who are part of a Cuban American mafia," Bello Melchor Rodríguez, attorney general of Quintana Roo state, told the Associated Press. "They probably hired people to execute them. We don't know if the Cuban Americans themselves killed them."

FATE OF 5 IN U.S. PRISONS WEIGHS ON CUBANS’ MINDS
The New York Times
August 5, 2007

HAVANA, July 29 — In Cuba, they call them “the five.” Their faces are plastered on walls and billboards everywhere. Merely being a relative of the five grants celebrity status. Even children know them by their first names — Gerardo, René, Ramón, Fernando and Antonio. They are not a boy band.

They are middle-aged men who have been sentenced to long prison terms for spying, Cuban officials maintain, not on the United States government, but on right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami who are considered terrorists by the government here.

“The whole country knows their story by heart,” said Elena Portala, a 50-year-old bookbinder, as she walked by a blocklong wall with the men’s names and inspirational quotations from each of them. “The radio and the press talk constantly about them. They should be let out of prison. They haven’t done anything wrong.”

ECUADOR FREES ACTIVIST, HALTS EXPULSION
The Miami Herald
Aug. 05, 2007

QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuador's new leftist president has decided not to renew a bilateral investment treaty with the United States, the country's foreign minister said Monday, just days before a senior U.S. official is due to visit.

QUITO, Ecuador -- A deportation order against a U.S. environmental activist was revoked late Saturday, hours after Ecuador's president ordered him expelled for his role in a police raid to seize shark fins that were apparently illegally fished.

"I thought I would have to leave the country and leave my Ecuadorean wife and daughter here," Sean O'Hearn told The Associated Press by phone after being freed from the immigration center in Quito, where he was taken before dawn. "Now I am happy."

O'Hearn said he was visited during the day by Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea and a police commander who, at President Rafael Correa's request, listened to his story and announced the expulsion order would be reversed.

"The was no justification for revoking my visa," said O'Hearn, 33, a representative of the environmental group Sea Shepherd, based in Friday Harbor, Wash.

CUBAN BOXERS HEAD HOME, DENY DEFECTING
The Miami Herald
Aug. 05, 2007

NITEROI, Brazil -- Two Cuban boxers who had abandoned their delegation to the Pan American Games last month were headed back to Cuba on Saturday night, leaving behind a mystery as to whether they had intended to defect to Germany to become professional boxers or were drugged, kidnapped and held in Brazil against their will, a story they told police.

Two-time Olympic gold medal winner Guillermo Rigondeaux, 25, and Erislandy Lara, 24, were arrested Thursday by Brazilian police as they were walking along a resort beach, police said. They departed a federal police station in Niteroi on Saturday night accompanied by heavily armed police and what appeared to be Cuban consular officials.

They were heading to Rio's international airport, where they would board a charter flight home, said federal police investigator Felicio Laterca.

CUBAN BOXERS DEPORTED FROM BRAZIL
The Miami Herald
Aug. 05, 2007

HAVANA -- Two boxers deported by Brazil were back in Cuba Sunday after they disappeared during the Pan American Games last month and were arrested at a resort where officials said they partied and ran up an exorbitant bill.

Convalescing leader Fidel Castro said in comments published Sunday that the boxers would be confined to guest houses upon their return, although he promised not to harshly punish them.

Guillermo Rigondeaux, Cuba's top boxer and a two-time Olympic bantamweight champion, and Erislandy Lara, an amateur welterweight world champion, arrived in Cuba early Sunday after being deported from Brazil, Cuban state radio and TV reported without offering any specifics.

The boxers had failed to show up for their scheduled bouts during the Pan American Games last month, prompting their disqualifications. Brazilian police arrested them Thursday for overstaying their visas in the coastal resort city of Cabo Frio, near Rio de Janeiro, where authorities said they had been partying and had run up an exorbitant tab at a hotel.

FORMER CRIME LORD BATTLE DIES
The Miami Herald
Aug. 06, 2007

Jose Miguel Battle Sr., former godfather of the Cuban mob, died in federal custody at a dialysis facility in South Carolina, his attorney confirmed to The Miami Herald late Sunday. He was 77.

Battle, who had been suffering from liver failure, diabetes and cardiac problems, was awaiting a spot in federal prison to serve out his 20-year sentence on racketeering charges, attorney Jack Blumenfeld said. He died Friday morning.

''He was in a private place, an assisted-living facility,'' said Blumenfeld, Battle's attorney since 1978. ``He was sick for a long time.''

Battle was the reputed leader of ''The Corporation,'' a Cuban organized-crime group that made millions from decades of illegal bookmaking, bolita lotteries and drug trafficking. Known as ''El Padrino,'' or Godfather, Battle directed the large organization with ties from New York to Latin America.

DCF WILL STRESS CUBAN FATHER'S CONSENT IN CUSTODY CASE
The Miami Herald
Aug. 06, 2007

When his girlfriend won the right to move to the United States more than two years ago, a Cuban farmer signed the required form giving permission for their toddler daughter to leave with her.

Now, Florida child-welfare administrators, who are embroiled in a bitter custody dispute over the 4-year-old girl, believe they have a powerful weapon against the Cuban national, who is fighting to take her back to Cuba: his own consent.

Lawyers with the Department of Children & Families want the little girl, whose mother gave up custody last year, to remain permanently in the home of a wealthy Coral Gables foster family. They are arguing that her birth father essentially abandoned the little girl when he signed the consentimiento in December 2004 allowing her to travel with her mother to the United States.

BOXERS WHO DISAPPEARED ARE TAKEN BACK TO CUBA
The New York Times
August 6, 2007

HAVANA, Aug. 5 — The two Cuban boxers who disappeared during the Pan American Games last month and were found last week at a Brazilian resort were back in Cuba on Sunday.

Guillermo Rigondeaux, Cuba’s top boxer and a two-time Olympic bantamweight champion, and Erislandy Lara, an amateur welterweight world champion, arrived in Cuba early Sunday after being deported from Brazil, Cuban state radio and television reported.

The two had failed to show up last month for their scheduled bouts during the Pan Am Games, prompting their disqualifications. The Brazilian police arrested them Thursday for overstaying their visas in the coastal resort city of Cabo Frio, near Rio de Janeiro, where authorities said they had been carousing and running up an exorbitant tab at a hotel.

EXTRADITION ORDERED FOR THREE ACCUSED IN AIRPORT BOMB PLOT
The New York Times
August 7, 2007

A judge in Trinidad ordered yesterday that three men be extradited to the United States to face charges that they conspired with a former airport cargo worker to attack jet fuel storage tanks and fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport, officials said.

The latest news and reader discussions from around the five boroughs and the region.

The ruling, by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls, brings the three men one step closer to Brooklyn and the bombing conspiracy charges against them, which were announced by federal and local authorities in New York City on June 2.

The three men being held without bail in Port of Spain, Trinidad — Abdul Kadir, 55; Kareem Ibrahim, 62; and Abdel Nur, 57 — have until Aug. 20 to appeal the decision, according to William J. Muller, the executive assistant United States attorney in Brooklyn, where all four men face trial in United States District Court.

JEWS IN ARGENTINA WARY OF NATION’S TIES TO CHÁVEZ
The New York Times
August 7, 2007

BUENOS AIRES, Aug. 6 — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said Monday that his country would help the government of President Néstor Kirchner refinance more of Argentina’s debt and increase its energy supplies.

The agreements help solidify the relationship between the countries; Venezuela has played an important role in helping Mr. Kirchner revive Argentina’s still-recovering economy.

But they are also causing potential political problems. In recent days, Jewish leaders here — part of Latin America’s largest Jewish community — have been expressing growing concern about Mr. Chávez’s close ties to Iran.

On Monday, Mr. Chávez and Mr. Kirchner agreed that Venezuela would purchase $1 billion of Argentine bonds to help refinance Argentina’s debt, according to an Argentine government Web site. A purchase would bring to nearly $5 billion the total debt that Venezuela has helped Argentina refinance in the past four years.

COLD SNAP PROMPTS CHILE TO SEEK GAS DEAL WITH OLD FOE BOLIVIA
The Christian Science Monitor
August 8, 2007

SANTIAGO, CHILE - A South American cold snap is causing Chileans to pay up to four times more for heat and electricity, and could spur the government to speed reconciliation with its bitter – but gas-rich – foe, Bolivia, observers say.

As temperatures dropped to near-record lows in recent weeks, neighboring Argentina has had to cut off some gas shipments to Chile in order to meet its own domestic demand.

Now, an increasingly disgruntled Chilean public is pressing the government to seek gas deals with other countries, including Bolivia.

"I believe that we need to leave behind these historic feuds once and for all and start an open and frank dialogue with Bolivia," said Chilean senator Nelson Ávila after the latest round of gas cuts last month. "Bolivia has some of the largest natural-gas reserves on the planet, and we could easily benefit from them."

In 1995, Argentina promised a cheap, steady supply of natural gas to satisfy Chile's residential, industrial, and electricity-generating needs.

Still, what was then perceived to be the cure-all to Chile's energy woes has since morphed into one of the country's biggest problems. Today, Chile imports nearly 100 percent of the commodity from its Andean neighbor. This winter's cold temperatures have exposed this dependency.

MEXICO WELCOMES VENEZUELAN ENVOY NAMING
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2007

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico on Wednesday welcomed Venezuela's decision to reinstate an ambassador after two years of strained relations over free trade and the U.S. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the appointment on Tuesday during a visit to Argentina, saying it was time for the countries to put their conflicts behind them.

In a statement released late Tuesday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it received the announcement "with the greatest interest" and was reviewing the possibility of reinstating its own ambassador to Venezuela.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office on Dec. 1, "both governments have had a series of meetings ... with an eye toward normalizing bilateral relations," the department said.

Chavez said his decision to appoint an ambassador was a consequence of Mexico's outreach.

"We have heard the messages from Mexico, from President Calderon, from his Foreign Relations Department ... There is nothing left for us to do but to respond in kind," he said.

DRUG KINGPIN LIVED LARGE BEFORE ARREST
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2007

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A leader of Colombia's biggest drug cartel lived in a luxurious home with a gym, sauna, plasma TVs, a swimming pool and nearly $1 million in stashed cash before his capture by police in Brazil, authorities said Wednesday.

Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, 44, allegedly used profits from cocaine shipments by his Norte del Valle cartel to buy legitimate businesses in Brazil, including cattle ranches, industrial property, mansions and hotels.

But now Ramirez Abadia, who is accused of shipping tons of cocaine to the United States and Europe and of ordering the killings of police and informants, could become the subject of competing extradition efforts following his arrest Tuesday in Sao Paulo.

On Wednesday, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Mei said U.S. authorities plan to file a request with Brazil's Supreme Court soon to extradite Ramirez Abadia.

BUSH TO PROPOSE MILLIONS IN ANTI-DRUG AID FOR MEXICO
The Miami Herald
Aug. 08, 2007

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will propose tens of millions of dollars in assistance to Mexico to fight drug trafficking and violence that has ravaged the country and threatens to spill over into the U.S., a Texas congressman said Wednesday.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said Congress will come up with the final sum to assist Mexico.

''We ultimately are going to come in and do the final package,'' Cuellar said of Congress. ``He's going to make the proposal, but the president is going to have to work with us to do this.''

The State Department declined to discuss the proposals publicly because they are still being negotiated with Mexican authorities and lawmakers have not yet been fully briefed on the package. But U.S. officials said they began to talk with Mexico's President Felipe Calderón about new and substantial counter-narcotics aid shortly after he took office in December.

One counter-narcotics official who requested anonymity because the package has not been finalized said negotiations are in an advanced stage and it is hoped that at least parts of the program can be announced when presidents Bush and Calderón meet in Canada on Aug. 20 and 21.

U.S. anti-drug officials have been impressed with Calderón's crackdown on drug traffickers since he took office. From December through June, Calderón sent more than 24,000 troops to areas plagued by drug violence.

DEPORTED IN ERROR, MISSING AND MONTHS LATER HOME
The New York Times
August 8, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 — An American missing in Mexico for nearly three months after being wrongfully deported has been found and reunited with his family here.

The man, Pedro Guzman, 29, was taken into custody on Sunday at the border crossing in Calexico, Calif., as he tried to enter the United States, said Mark D. Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which has represented the family.

Mr. Guzman, appearing exhausted and confused, did not offer much information on where he had been, Mr. Rosenbaum said. Relatives have said he is mildly developmentally disabled. State Department officials said the family had told them that he had no mental incapacity.

U.S. ANTI-DRUG AID WOULD TARGET MEXICAN CARTELS
The Washington Post
August 8, 2007

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 7 -- The Bush administration is close to sealing a major, multiyear aid deal to combat drug cartels in Mexico that would be the biggest U.S. anti-narcotics effort abroad since a seven-year, $5 billion program in Colombia, according to U.S. lawmakers, congressional aides and Mexican authorities.

Negotiators for Mexico and the United States have made significant progress toward agreement on an aid plan that would include telephone tapping equipment, radar to track traffickers' shipments by air, aircraft to transport Mexican anti-drug teams and assorted training, sources said. Delicate questions remain -- primarily regarding Mexican sensitivities about the level of U.S. activity on Mexican soil -- but confidence is running high that a deal will be struck soon.

"I'm sure that it's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars," Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) said in an interview. "If we're going to be successful in cutting out this cancer over there, we're going to have to invest a large amount."

Cuellar, who has already proposed legislation to increase aid to Mexico, predicted that an announcement could be made as soon as Aug. 20, when President Bush is scheduled to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Quebec. A Mexican government source cautioned against projecting an exact timetable despite "advances" in the talks.