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~~~Links to News Articles~~~
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070801010.html
Contender Alleges Mexico Vote Was Rigged = Sunday, July 9, 2006
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14276283p-15085678c.html
Medi-Cal spending goes up for illegal immigrants: Sunday, July 9, 2006
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http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/07/08/what-salvadoran-bloggers-are-saying-ues-shooting/
What Salvadoran bloggers are saying — UES shooting = Saturday, July 8th, 2006
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http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=753c94248c37090a6d19246503585779
Asian Americans Strategize Over Immigration Bills: Jul 08, 2006
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http://elpasotimes.com/ci_4025951
Offering high relief: Group that aids migrants in third year: 7/08/2006
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14275642p-15085211c.html
Mexican victor facing anger from the left: Friday, July 7, 2006
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4032637.html
Illegal Immigrant Captures in Ariz. Down”: July 7, 2006
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http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4025155
Illegal immigrants: Workers or thugs? = 07/07/2006
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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14990388.htm
Brazil, Venezuela jockeying for leadership of South America: Fri, Jul. 07, 2006
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http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=8276
Carter calls for “no foreign influence” in Nicaragua: Friday, 07 July
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={0610E642-643B-4262-9D25-23E3A74E502A})&language=EN
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Bolivian Gov Party Wins Elections: Jul 7, 2006
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/julio/vier7/29miami-i.html
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Fourth demonstration in Miami in favor of travel to Cuba: Havana. July 7, 2006
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4029719.html
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Chavez's 'New Socialism' Changes Economy: July 6, 2006
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060704/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/chile_children_s_revolution_lh1;_ylt=AinCZ8JOHaMoStLC965jAq3IxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--
Chile's teenagers make their voices heard: July 4, 2006
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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2002
Barrios Unidos takes its message to Venezuela: Tuesday, Jul 04, 2006
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http://www.gregpalast.com/stealing-it-in-front-of-your-eyes#more-1440
GRAND THEFT MEXICO = Monday, July 3, 2006
Published by Greg Palast July 3rd, 2006 in Articles
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070801010.html
Contender Alleges Mexico Vote Was Rigged = Sunday, July 9, 2006
Populist's Plan for Legal Challenge Ignites Boisterous Crowd at Massive Rally in Capital
By Manuel Roig-Franzia / Washington Post Foreign Service
MEXICO CITY, July 8 -- Downtown Mexico City swelled Saturday with the accumulated frustration and rage of the poor, who were stoked into a sign-waving, fist-pumping frenzy by new fraud allegations that failed populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes will overturn the results of Mexico's presidential election.
López Obrador ignited the smoldering emotions of his followers Saturday morning, alleging for the first time that Mexico's electoral commission had rigged its computers before the July 2 election to ensure the half-percentage-point victory of Felipe Calderón, a champion of free trade. In a news conference before the rally, López Obrador called Calderón "an employee" of Mexico's powerful upper classes and said a victory by his conservative opponent would be "morally impossible."
López Obrador added a new layer of complexity to the crisis by saying he not only would challenge the results in the country's special elections court but also would attempt to have the election declared illegal by Mexico's Supreme Court. That strategy presages a constitutional confrontation because according to many legal experts the special elections court is the only body that can hear election challenges.
Calderón was declared the winner Thursday and has begun publicly presenting his plans for Mexico, even though López Obrador has refused to concede. European Union election observers have said they found no significant irregularities in the vote, and many Mexicans appeared to accept Calderón as their next president.
López Obrador's approach pairs legal maneuvers with mass public pressure. On Saturday, he gave a mega-display of street power, drawing an estimated 280,000 people into the city center on a humid, drizzly afternoon, according to a Mexico City government estimate.
The crowd chanted, "Strong, strong!" when López Obrador stepped to the microphone. The former Mexico City mayor then declared that the electoral commission had "played with the hopes" of millions of Mexicans by allegedly rigging the vote total. Thousands chanted back: "You are not alone!"
López Obrador also told the crowd that he was organizing a march to the capital Wednesday from all over Mexico, including states hundreds of miles distant.
"This is, and will continue to be, a peaceful movement," he said. Seconds later, he announced another mass rally, this one for July 16, at which the crowd raucously yelled back: "What time?"
During his 40-minute address, López Obrador stressed Mexico's class divide, accusing "powerful interests" of trying to deny democratic freedoms to "us, the poor." The crowd, which spilled into side streets off the square and may have been the largest of the presidential campaign, chanted, "Presidente, Presidente!"
Blaring kazoos competed with the thump and boom of massive speakers blasting salsa rhythms and a Spanish-language homage to López Obrador set to the tune of the American pop song, "Love Is in the Air."
López Obrador had called his followers into the large downtown square, the Zocalo, the backdrop for generations of Mexican revolutionary fervor, to lay out his long-shot case for overturning Calderón's apparent presidential victory. But he got more than that: He got a moment of mass catharsis, an outrageously loud, communal venting.
"The Mexican people are awakening," said Martín García Trujillo, a farm laborer from the state of Michoacan who had left at midnight for the six-hour bus ride to the capital. "We know Andrés Manuel won. They just won't let it happen. We can't take this anymore."
López Obrador wants a vote-by-vote count, which would require opening sealed vote packets from more than 130,000 polling stations. Electoral commission officials have sided with Calderón's strategists, who argue that the law does not allow for the packets to be opened unless tally sheets attached to the packets appear to have been altered. López Obrador said that only 2,600 vote packets were opened Tuesday and Wednesday during a marathon official count, which shrank Calderón's lead from 400,000 votes after a preliminary vote to 230,000.
Thousands of López Obrador's supporters, many of whom had marched across the city for hours, chanted "Voto por voto, casilla por casilla" -- vote by vote, polling place by polling place -- as they streamed into the Zocalo on Saturday. Many entered the square waving the yellow flags of López Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD.
Street vendors hawked T-shirts bearing the now-ubiquitous cartoon depiction of López Obrador's face next to the word "Smile." Speakers screamed, "Vote by vote!" as their images flickered across a huge screen suspended above the stage.
"They stole this from us," said Concepción Myen, 68, a lifelong Mexico City resident who is unemployed. "This is the worst thing that can happen to Mexico."
Myen personifies the López Obrador target voter. She is a senior citizen and said she had looked forward to the monthly pensions López Obrador promised. She is also a single mother, who struggled to raise her child alone, and said her life would have been much better if the aid program López Obrador had vowed to give single mothers had existed when she needed it.
The anger on display in the square grows from decades of perceived indignities and a sense of persecution by a succession of ruling parties. García Trujillo, the farm worker from Michoacan, recalled feeling the same anguish in 1988 when the PRD candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, lost a presidential race that many international observers have said was stolen by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He said he felt the same rage two years ago when outgoing President Vicente Fox's administration unsuccessfully attempted to impeach López Obrador, who was then the mayor of Mexico City.
Now García Trujillo's anger is directed at another institutional power, Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, which has a stellar international reputation but is accused by López Obrador of "manipulating" the results.
The electoral institute will cede control of the election to Mexico's special elections court, which has until Sept. 6 to decide whether to certify the results. Calderón has not waited for the elections court, and neither have world leaders. He accepted congratulatory calls on Friday from President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But López Obrador cautioned against such formalities, saying, "Right now, there is no president-elect."
After López Obrador left the stage Saturday, the crowd lingered. Someone started singing the national anthem, and countless voices joined in its rallying cry: "Mexicans, to the shout of war!"
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14276283p-15085678c.html
Medi-Cal spending goes up for illegal immigrants: Sunday, July 9, 2006
By Clea Benson -- Bee Capitol Bureau
The recent state budget debate over whether California should provide health insurance for children who are undocumented immigrants largely overlooked one key fact: The government already spends almost $1 billion a year for some health care services for the undocumented through Medi-Cal.
Amid a renewed national focus on illegal immigration, health services for undocumented immigrants in California returned as a political flash point this year for the first time since debate over Proposition 187 roiled the state in the 1990s.
Republican lawmakers persuaded Democrats and GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to drop $23 million for new insurance coverage for undocumented children.
But almost no one was talking about the programs that Proposition 187 was intended to cut before it was blocked in court in the late 1990s: prenatal care, nursing home care and other services funded by Medi-Cal for undocumented immigrants. Over the past decade, those services have grown by 50 percent into a $1 billion annual program serving hundreds of thousands of people each year. Spending growth has been slower than in the Medi-Cal program overall, which went up more than 100 percent in the past decade, to about $35 billion annually.
Both the number of people receiving services and the cost of those services have risen: The number of undocumented women giving birth covered by Medi-Cal rose almost 25 percent from 85,000 in 1995 to 105,000 in 2004. Meanwhile, the overall costs of those births rose by about 135 percent during that time. State officials say the increases are largely due to inflation in health care costs and to a change in the rules allowing more people to qualify for Medi-Cal.
Republican lawmakers say the fight over Proposition 187 has limited their ability to try to cut existing programs. So they're focusing on trying to stop any efforts to expand services to the undocumented.
"We've realized our hands are pretty much tied by the fact that the Proposition 187 appeal was dropped in court," said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murietta, one of the lawmakers leading this year's budget fight.
Meanwhile, advocates for immigrants and public health activists say there are not enough health care programs for undocumented immigrants. They say it's time to make sure that everyone, especially children, has access to quality preventive health care and won't rely on expensive emergency-room care that is often seen as a last resort. Many were dismayed when the Democrats and the governor removed the health care funds for children to avoid delaying the budget.
"The Republican Party is starting to become a bit boring, and I don't think they represent the sentiment of today's Americans," said Dr. Maximiliano Cuevas, CEO of Clínica de Salud del Valle Salinas, a network of clinics that serves farmworkers in the Salinas Valley.
"Politics aside, you have to plan for a healthy population," Cuevas said. "If there are components of the population who come in with illnesses that are undetected or unknown, the entire population runs that risk."
The Medi-Cal rolls show that, on average, the system has about 780,000 undocumented people enrolled each month for emergency care or other limited benefits. The Insure the Uninsured Project, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit group, reports that the number actually served each month may be closer to 200,000 because some people stay in the state's computer system long after they receive care. Despite the growth in the program, the services available for undocumented immigrants are still limited and do not include the comprehensive primary-care benefits that citizens and some legal residents receive under Medi-Cal.
What the undocumented do get, provided they qualify, is emergency care, which the federal government requires and subsidizes with Medicaid funds. The federal government also helps pay for prenatal care, partly on the theory that it's less expensive to pay for pregnancy care than it is to care for babies born prematurely.
California covers several additional services for the undocumented on its own, including breast and cervical cancer treatment and nursing-home care. A 1981 California Supreme Court ruling also requires the state to cover the cost of abortions for all Medi-Cal recipients, including the undocumented. The abortion costs have held steady at about $3 million a year over the past decade.
To be eligible for any Medi-Cal benefits, the undocumented must meet the same criteria as citizens: The program is usually open only to people who are very low income, and who are minors, parents, pregnant, or in need of long-term care.
The state also spends about $100 million a year for other programs for children who are either very sick or who don't qualify for federal health care, largely because they are undocumented. And there are federal and state subsidies for clinics such as Cuevas' that provide services to the uninsured regardless of their citizenship status.
To Hollingsworth, the health programs are tantamount to an inducement to cross the border illegally. "It's a mistake for state government to provide incentives and encouragement for illegal immigration," he said.
Sonal Ambegaokar, a health policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, calls it a "myth" that people come to the United States illegally to obtain health care. Advocates right now have a hard time persuading people to take advantage of the limited services that are available to them, she said.
"Right now, if you gave them preventive care, it's not like you would see this incredible influx," she said. "They all have their own reasons they don't use the health care system: cultural reasons and an unfamiliarity with the philosophy of Western medicine."
Meanwhile, health care providers are bracing for a change that they fear will force some Medi-Cal recipients who are here legally to use the stripped-down services available to the undocumented: a new federal rule requiring people to prove their citizenship with a birth certificate or passport to be eligible for full benefits.
State officials say they won't implement the plan until August and are working out ways to lessen the impact. But people like George de la Mora, executive director of the Mexican American Alcohol Project, which runs a community clinic in Sacramento, believe it will be impossible for some citizens to come up with the proper documents.
"Most, if not all, medical people came into the business to help people," he said. "So it's a dilemma for them. What do we do? I'm hoping something can be resolved so it doesn't become an issue of citizenry but it becomes an issue of human beings' needs, and the political aspect is put aside for at least a little while."
About the writer:
The Bee's Clea Benson can be reached at (916) 326-5533 or cbenson@sacbee.com
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http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/07/08/what-salvadoran-bloggers-are-saying-ues-shooting/
Note: For ‘hot links’ goto websource!
What Salvadoran bloggers are saying — UES shooting = Saturday, July 8th, 2006
Americas, El Salvador, Weblog, Protest
On Wednesday, July 5, protesters amassed outside of the University of El Salvador (UES) in San Salvador. The demonstrators were voicing opposition to an increase in the cost of bus fares and in electricity, just approved by the government in response to rising world oil prices. Street demonstrations against government policies and rising prices are common in El Salvador, especially around the UES, but this time the events turned deadly violent.
Although the order of events is not clear, some elements of the protesters (referred to by the media as “supposed students”) went beyond marching to vandalism, and tire burning. Riot police approached, and chaos erupted. The extensive media coverage of the chaos caught clear images of a masked man with helpers firing an M-16 at police, and another using a home-made weapon. The police used rubber bullets and tear gas as helicopters flew overhead. A shot went through a university office and struck a university employee in the chest. Two policemen were shot and killed and others wounded. Chuck Stewart has links to some of the media coverage on his blog.
The Salvadoran blogosphere was united in its grave concern over the violence. The events outside the UES left Ligia remembering(es) the events and fears and dangers of the years of the civil war. Soy Salvadoreño laments the deaths(es) of the police officers and laments the actions of president Tony Saca who immediately reacted to the events at the UES as a political partisan, blaming the FMLN for being a “party of assassins and dangerous people.” But Soy Salvadoreño’s strongest words are for the leadership of the FMLN. He lambasts the official press release of the FMLN(es), which denounced the government for repression of a peaceful protest march and never denounced the slaying of two police officers. He asserts that the FMLN’s rhetoric and inability to control its membership adds to the current crisis.
In a post titled “Never a Return to the Past,”(es) JNelsonS at the Hunnapuh blog praises the Salvadoran police as defenders of democratic values, who with great courage protect the population against the forces of disorder. JNelsonS condemns “ideological terrorists” who would use violence against those who do not conform to the proper socialist ideology.
Ixquic decided to go to the National Assembly to hear the arguments about the anti-terrorism law(es) which the Saca administration wanted to push through in the face of the week’s events. She found the arguments partisan and stupid, other than the words of an officer from the National Police who spoke against approving a law in the passion of the moment, and urged instead the creation of a commission to study what had happened.
Jjmar, also writing at Hunnapuh, notes with concern subsequent events(es) in which the police obtained a judicial order allowing them to take control of the grounds of the UES in order to search for evidence relating to the shootings. This police takeover of the grounds has troubling echoes of the period of the Salvadoran civil war when the government shut the UES down as a breeding ground for subversives and guerrillas. Rafael Menjivar Ochoa is prompted to write a long post(es) about his long memories of the UES and the occupation during the war years — his father was the rector of the University when the army closed it down. Rocío wants everyone to know(es) that UES, her alma mater, is not responsible for the violence, instead it is the victim of those who would use “the struggle” as a pretext for violent acts.
The violence at the UES is being viewed in El Salvador in connection with another killing which evokes memories of the civil war years. El Trompudo(es) and Hunnapuh(es) both speak out about the lack of coverage in the mass media of the double-slaying of Don Francisco Antonio Manzanares, age 77, and his wife, Doña Juana Monjarás de Manzanares, age 75. They are the parents of “Mariposa” Manzanares who was an announcer on Radio Venceremos, the covert radio station of the FMLN during the civil war in El Salvador. The double murder was particularly gruesome, and has the hallmarks of a death squad killing. Hunnapuh denounces the slayings and the appearance that “recalcitrant elements of the far right” are returning to the “roots of ARENA” and resuscitating death squads against those who criticize the policies of the government.
Finally, Hunnapuh has a simple post(es) on his blog with pictures of the Manzanares funeral and the funerals of the police officers killed outside the UES. The images of grieving relatives are the same. Hunnapuh reminds us that the victims of this violence are never those in the halls of power, but the humble people who join the lower ranks of the police or who march in protest. The deceased were:
humble souls from the authentic people, who died at the hands of those who say they struggle “in the name of the people”, or at the hands of those who, in the name of “a government with human feeling,” say they work for the people.
Tim Muth
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http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=753c94248c37090a6d19246503585779
Asian Americans Strategize Over Immigration Bills
International Examiner, News Report, Nhien Nguyen, Jul 08, 2006
Though the recently passed Senate’s bill on Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 may provide the basic architecture for comprehensive immigration reform, some national and local Asian Pacific Islander and immigrant rights groups call the bill “seriously flawed.” The bill contains provisions that are important to the API community, according to a press release by The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), which promotes and secures equal rights for APIs and all Americans. CAPAC reports that the bill would eliminate the backlog for family-based immigrants in approximately six years.
The Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), a national organization dedicated to defending and advancing the civil and human rights of APIs, has pushed for this provision for the past decade. The center states that the backlog for some API families is currently more than 20 years.
The bill, through the Akaka-Inouye amendment, would “finally reunite the sons and daughters of the Filipino World War II veterans with their aging parents after years of separation and waiting,” according to a statement by Karen Narasaki, AAJC president and executive director.
Along with a guest worker program, the bill includes the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to legal permanent residence for undocumented immigrant students who currently are unable to obtain higher education. Narasaki says this act is strongly supported by the Korean American community.
CAPAC remains concerned with the bill’s provisions that “violate human rights standards, fairness and due process” including those that would impose new obstacles to naturalization, and those that increase the potential for “indiscriminate detention and deportation of immigrants.”
The bill establishes an earned path to legal status, impacting an estimated 1.5 million undocumented Asian immigrants.
Local activist Tony Lee has “mixed feelings” about the bill. He says that the pathway to citizenship is “not as generous as it appears.” Provisions make some undocumented immigrants ineligible for citizenship, such as if they had previously submitted false documents or committed minor crimes.
Narasaki says that the program may be unworkable because it arbitrarily divides up the undocumented population into three categories. She says, “It would leave almost two million of the 12 million undocumented immigrants out of the legalization program entirely and impose very tough, and in some cases, excessive requirements on another 2.6 million.”
The guest worker program, Narasaki says, provides for a “better flow of workers in both the high- and low-skilled categories.” She says, “[It acknowledges] the contributions of these workers to our economy, as well as the economic realities that bring legal and undocumented immigrants to the United States. Asian immigrants are substantial users of the employment-based immigration system.”
Lee is concerned about the provision that forces undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country less than five years to return to their home country and apply for the guest worker program, a potentially long process. If they are accepted into the program, they may then have a chance at U.S. citizenship. Lee says, “How workable is that?”
The bill not only affects illegal immigrants but legal ones as well. Narasaki says it would impose new barriers to naturalization, including “giving unprecedented power” to low-level agency employees to deny U.S. citizenship to permanent residents for “arbitrary reasons and through the use of secret evidence.”
We shouldn’t just accept any bill with a pathway to citizenship because the cost may be too high, says Lee.
The cost of the 1996 immigration bill, which, among other things, enables the deportation of legal immigrants who have committed minor crimes, has already been witnessed by the Cambodian American community. The current bill not only criminalizes, detains and deports immigrants based on minor documentation and registration issues, but it also expands the list of minor crimes for legal immigrants to be deported.
If the Vietnamese government agrees to accept deportees, the Vietnamese American community would be greatly affected, says Lee.
Advocacy groups say the bill threatens the multilingual and multicultural community. Lee cautions the public about a possible English-only provision, which may affect entitlement to language translations.
Narasaki warns about the bill increasing state and local involvement in the enforcement of complex federal immigration laws, encouraging policies that may lead to profiling of those who do not look or sound “American,” even if they are in fact U.S. citizens. Narasaki says, “This will lead to the erosion of hard-won trust between the police and the diverse communities that they serve, thereby making all Americans less safe.”
As the Senate and House measures must be reconciled in conference in the upcoming weeks, advocacy groups are keeping careful watch on the progress of the immigration reform.
Lee says that with the Senate and House conference, “the compromise will only be worse.”
Pramila Jayapal, executive director of Hate Free Zone of Washington, has been outspoken about opposing the immigration reform bills, including that of the House, which she says is “even worse” than the Senate bill. She says that there is very little prospect that a good bill will emerge from the conference.
During this year and next, Hate Free Zone will increase efforts for voter registration and naturalization. Building on recently formed local and national immigrant rights coalitions, which has been led by Hate Free Zone, Jayapal says they will focus on educating the immigrant community about the bills and where the process is at.
Some undocumented immigrants mistakenly believe the bill has become law; they have approached Hate Free Zone because they say, “I’m ready to apply for citizenship.” Immigration lawyers may try to capitalize on the misinformation as well.
CAPAC says, “Our current immigration system is broken, and in order for our nation to solve this problem, we need measures that will protect the civil and human rights of all Americans.”
“Neither the President nor the Senate should further accommodate the anti-immigrant hardliners in the House,” says Narasaki, who won’t support the final passage of any conference report that does not contain fair and workable comprehensive immigration reform provisions, and that does not eliminate or ameliorate the excessive anti-immigrant measures masquerading as border security initiatives. She says, “The Senate bill already contains too many provisions from the House bill that would indiscriminately harm all Asian Americans.”
Nhien Nguyen is editor with International Examiner
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http://elpasotimes.com/ci_4025951
Offering high relief: Group that aids migrants in third year
Article Launched: 7/08/2006 12:00 AM
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Armando Alarcon scanned the desert floor 300 feet below his Cessna 172 and got excited. He thought he had spotted two figures crawling under a clump of trees northwest of Columbus, N.M. The plane circled around but the possible undocumented immigrants were not seen again. That's not unusual.
"We get the ones left behind. If they are doing OK, they hide," said Alarcon, the founder of Paisanos al Rescate.
But just in case, Alarcon did what he came to do: he dropped a bottle of water out of the plane's side window.
Paisanos, the El Paso-based group of pilots that caused a mild stir when it started helping distressed migrants by parachuting water bottles and rescue instructions, recently started its third year of operation. The volunteers have dropped more than 200 bottles along the border from El Paso to Arizona, including four during the past two weeks.
While there has been a reported decrease in immigrant crossings with a recent increased law enforcement presence along the border -- Alarcon spotted three National Guard Humvees and a New Mexico State Police SUV during his flight Monday -- Border Patrol officials and immigration officials in Mexico reported seeing a shift in smuggling routes toward more remote areas.
There have been about 25 deaths and about 400 rescues of undocumented immigrants by the Border Patrol in the El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico, this year.
Luis Rivas, a medical device engineer and a pilot who lives in San Francisco, has flown for Paisanos almost since its beginnings and is committed to continuing.
"As long as you are still having deaths on the border, it's still an important cause," he said.
The pilots expect to fly several times a week until mid-September.
Alarcon, a trucking company manager who invested about $80,000 of his own money in the project, obtained a 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax designation this year, which will allow him to fund-raise and expand to Phoenix and Calexico, Calif., this year or next year, he said. He is looking for volunteers to help with fund-raising.
So far, financial support for the project has come mostly through the networking efforts of the pilots among their wealthy clients. For instance, a Phoenix veterinarian who flies with one of the Paisanos pilots recently donated two gyro- stabilizing binoculars that allow the passenger in the Cessna to focus on potential migrants with little shaking. Most of the money is needed to buy fuel. Airplane fuel is $5 per gallon and it takes 10 gallons to keep the Cessna in the air for an hour, Alarcon said.
Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.
On the Net: http://www.paisanosalrescate.org/
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14275642p-15085211c.html
Mexican victor facing anger from the left: Friday, July 7, 2006
By Jay Root and Kevin G. Hall -- McClatchy Newspapers
MEXICO CITY -- By the narrowest of margins, conservative Felipe Calderón won the official recount in Mexico's bitterly contested presidential election Thursday. But it may be a little early to break out the champagne.
A court challenge by the fiery leftist who lost the count ensures a nasty battle ahead, and an angry, divided electorate underscores the unprecedented challenge the next president will face in governing this sprawling country.
Volatile street protests, jittery financial markets and political class warfare seem all but certain to test Mexico's young democracy in coming days. And whoever wins the legal fight will walk into office with a split Congress, an urgent backlog of unfinished changes and only a third of the electorate convinced that he was the man for the job.
After a count and recount, Calderón, of the National Action Party, or PAN, won with 35.89 percent of the vote, to 35.31 percent for Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.
Only 243,934 votes separated the two men, out of the 41.8 million ballots cast.
"The time has arrived for unity and agreements," a smiling, but restrained Calderón told dozens of exuberant supporters who gathered at his campaign headquarters Thursday afternoon.
Calderón also called on all parties to put aside politics as usual "and work together as a team." To scattered boos, he reached out to López Obrador, saying, "I not only reiterate my respect but also share his desire for justice."
He also reached out to the López Obrador's supporters, appealing for time to gain their confidence and pledging to "work toward a Mexico without terrible inequalities" -- the central goal of López Obrador's platform.
López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, was in no mood for the olive branch, however.
On Thursday, he said that widespread fraud cost him the election, and he called on his supporters to gather Saturday for an "informational assembly." "We are always going to act in a responsible manner, but at the same time, we have to defend the citizens' will," he said.
The 43-year-old Calderón in many ways represents the new middle class that has burgeoned during the pro-business government of Vicente Fox, who took PAN to the presidency in 2000. But while the balding, bespectacled lawyer and technocrat belongs to what many consider the party of the rich, he drives a 1993 Volkswagen Golf and is one of the country's few prominent politicians who hasn't amassed a personal fortune during a career in government.
Raising his open palms at every rally to show he has "clean hands" and isn't corrupt, Calderón preached free-market values and financial stability, striking a chord with undecided middle-class voters still weary of financial meltdowns that rocked Mexico throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s. A virtual unknown a year ago, he remains stiff on camera and concedes he doesn't cut as romantic a figure as the handsome and folksy Fox.
"I have a character that's a bit dry. But what for others could have been a personality defect, I think has become a virtue," he said. "I think that Mexico, with so many problems, needs a leadership with character -- firm and demanding."
Calderón grew up in the state of Michoacán, the grandson of a cobbler and the son of a schoolteacher who helped found National Action in 1939. His father ran for office at least eight times, but never won. Back then, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had won every presidential election for seven decades until 2000, didn't let other parties win anyway.
"Then why are you doing this?" a young Calderón asked his father, whom he recalls responding: "If we don't do it, no one else will and Mexico will never change."
Despite Calderón's conciliatory rhetoric Thursday, anger was palpable among López Obrador's supporters, who had no problem in believing the election was stolen, even though Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal, known by its Spanish acronym IFE, enjoys a good reputation domestically and internationally.
Ernesto Sanchez, who makes $1.50 a day in a T-shirt design shop, said he planned to attend the López Obrador rally on Saturday to send a message to the "rats" at the top of Mexico's socio-economic ladder. He singled out those living in Mexico City's swankiest neighborhoods and blamed them for his country's deep poverty.
"I think there's going to be social conflict," he said.
The state-by-state election results highlighted Mexico's deep divisions. Those disparate forces had been largely kept together by the PRI -- often through corruption and intimidation. But this year, the PRI's candidate ran over 5 million votes behind the two leaders -- taking just 22 percent of the vote -- and Calderón and López Obrador split the country in half.
Calderón won in 16 of Mexico's 31 states, while López Obrador took the other 15 and the federal district of Mexico City. As expected, Calderón won primarily in the industrial north and conservative west. López Obrador swept Mexico City and dominated the impoverished south.
The official declaration of a president-elect must come from the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which has until Sept. 6 to announce. Meanwhile, any challenges will go before the tribunal court. The next president begins a single, six-year term on Dec. 1.
Calderón, if his victory is upheld, will oversee a sharply divided Congress. PAN will control the largest bloc, but is far short of a majority and will have to form a coalition, most likely with the PRI, which went from being the largest bloc to No. 3.
But that may work out well for Calderón, said Bob Balkin, director of the U.S.-Mexico Center of the State University of New York in Mexico City. The PRI will have every incentive to team up with the PAN in Congress in a bid to become the "responsible left" in Mexico, Balkin said, giving Calderón an opportunity that Fox never had: "He may be able to carve out a working legislative majority."
Note: See Mexico’s Vote State-by-State Graph at websource!
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14275642p-15085211c.html
About the writer:
McClatchy Newspapers' Kevin Hall can be reached at (202) 383-6038 or khall@mcclatchydc.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4032637.html
Illegal Immigrant Captures in Ariz. Down”: July 7, 2006
SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. — Bolstered by National Guard troops, the U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona picked up significantly fewer illegal immigrants in June than it did during the same period last year, according to agency data. However, immigrant rights advocates doubt that lower numbers in Arizona reflect a significant decrease in illegal crossings. The data come nearly two months after President Bush asked states to send soldiers to the Mexican border to help the federal government's effort to curb illegal immigration.
The Border Patrol's Yuma Sector saw the most dramatic decrease in migrant arrests, posting a 48 percent drop _ from 11,522 in June 2005 to 6,030 last month, the agency reported Thursday. The larger Tucson Sector, which covers all but the state's western border areas, reported capturing 25,000 illegal immigrants last month, a 21 percent drop from the more than 31,000 caught in June 2005.
Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network human rights group suggests that the decline doesn't indicate that the nation's borders are more secure. "Migrant movement is shifting, but I don't think it's being deterred," she said. "It's only deterred in that people are not crossing in that particular spot. But people are still crossing, and they're doing it in other more dangerous and more risky areas."
Rescues of migrants and deaths along the Arizona border increased or remained unchanged compared with the same period a year earlier, and immigrant rights groups blamed the increased border security for riskier behavior by migrants.
The Tucson Sector saw migrant deaths rise from 18 in June 2005 to 23 last month, spokesman Gustavo Soto said Thursday. Soto said the agency tries to inform migrants about the dangers of illegally crossing the border, and it is wrong to blame the deaths on the Border Patrol's activities.
"The Border Patrol doesn't push anybody out into these outlying areas and we don't lead anybody to their deaths," Soto said. "It's the smugglers who do it."
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http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4025155
Illegal immigrants: Workers or thugs? = Article Last Updated: 07/07/2006 04:33:49 PM MDT
By Marianne Means / Hearst Newspapers
WASHINGTON- The wheels have come off the national dialogue over illegal immigration. The legislators have lost the instinct to govern.
From San Diego to Philadelphia, dueling Republican congressional hearings this week were aimed at selling the emotional points of view - AFTER both houses of Congress had already approved sharply differing laws. The far-flung hearings symbolize the collapse of the center on this issue. As with Humpty Dumpty, this egg may be scrambled beyond all reasonable repair.
Even though current immigration law is an unenforceable mess, it might be best to muddle along with what we've got now. Better that than fall into an immigrant-bashing abyss that proves to be unworkable.
We have a chaotic system that can't prevent millions from coming here and doesn't give them any timely avenue to citizenship, but isn't serious about treating them as criminals to be jailed or deported either.
How much harm this does depends upon whether you are an employer needing cheap labor, a small-town mayor concerned about crime and overcrowding, a hospital executive concerned about red ink from care for uninsured immigrants, a family desperately seeking a green card for a relative, a Border Patrol agent pleading for more money and assistance or a rural-state governor alarmed about getting the state's crops harvested on time. But the system sort of works.
On this issue, President Bush displays more sense than he does on many other issues - and more than most in his party do. "We're not going to be able to deport people who have been here, working hard and raising their families," he said Thursday, dismissing the harsh enforcement-only House bill.
The House-run hearing in Imperial Beach, Calif., featured border agents and local sheriffs warning about Mexican terrorists who were eager to sneak into our country to blow up things. The participants scorned any plan to grant illegal immigrants citizenship rights as "amnesty."
The Senate-run hearing, held in Philadelphia, featured employers and politicians bemoaning future labor shortages in local businesses. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg predicted his city's economy would collapse without immigrant labor, which is 40 percent of the population there.
The House hearing was billed as an investigation into "Border Vulnerabilities and International Terrorism." Not much left to the imagination there. All the House wants is to build a wall.
When it comes to politics, the terrorist scare trumps the economy. But the Senate bill worries about the economy and the future of the undocumented workers already here. So the Senate will fight back on Monday in Miami with its own patriotic pitch, billing a hearing topic as "Contributions of Immigrants to the U.S. Armed Forces."
So who's right? Both sides, of course. A great deal of anecdotal evidence is bandied about in this argument, and very few hard facts.
The U.S. government is not even certain about the number of illegal aliens in this country. This October the Census Bureau will release its very first preliminary estimate of how many unauthorized immigrants live here. We usually hear a figure of 11 million illegals in a nation about to reach an overall population total of 300 million. But that figure is not universally accepted, in part because illegal residents are difficult to count. There could be more; there could be less.
If the House bill that seeks mass deportation goes into effect, undocumented workers will go further underground and we will never understand the extent of the problem - or even whether it is a problem at all.
A Congressional Budget Office report in May said the proposed Senate immigration bill, with its steps toward alien legitimacy, would reduce the wages of high school dropouts by 4 percent over the next 10 years but increase the living standards of better-educated workers through cheaper products and services.
The CBO report estimates that 4.6 million unauthorized immigrants already here would be eligible for some kinds of federal benefits by 2016 as they gradually meet the criteria for citizenship. The Senate bill would cost $54 billion in federal funds over the next decade but the cost would be more than offset by $66 billion in new tax revenues from immigrant workers, the CBO concluded.
The conservative Heritage Foundation, which favors the punitive House bill, speculates there may be 20 million illegals in the country today, rather than 11 million. In that case, an HF report predicts the annual cost to government would balloon to $65 billion, including support for children and elderly parents. But the HF report's author, Robert Rector, concedes "We really don't know how many illegals are here. . . we don't know what the social implications of that are."
Our population growth has been fueled by a longer life expectancy and the flow of immigrants, legal and illegal. This is, on the whole, a good thing, adding to the national tax base and the available pool of workers and compensating for the strain on pensions, social services and health programs.
Properly measuring the economic and social consequences of immigration may be impossible. But we are an optimistic country and we can cope with changing demographics.
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Marianne Means ~Email: means@hearstdc.com
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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14990388.htm
Brazil, Venezuela jockeying for leadership of South America: Fri, Jul. 07, 2006
By Jack Chang / McClatchy Newspapers
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When the television cameras are on, Brazilian and Venezuelan leaders talk cooperation and Latin American unity, yet tensions are growing between the two countries over who will lead South America.
Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a harsh critic of the United States, has attempted to unite Latin America under his leadership. In the process, he has angered Brazilian officials with what they see as confrontational tactics.
The tensions began in May when Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalized natural gas fields in Bolivia. Most of those fields were run by Brazil's state energy company, Petrobras.
Chavez, a close Morales ally, had encouraged the nationalization prior to Morales' May 1 announcement, a stance that drew howls of protest in Brazil. The country's biggest news magazine, Veja, cried, "Brazil took a kick in the butt given by Hugo Chavez and his Bolivian puppet, Evo Morales."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized Chavez for backing the nationalization. Venezuela's state energy company, PDVSA, later said it would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Bolivian gas production while Petrobras was on its way out.
The hostility deepened this week when Venezuela formally joined the South American trade bloc Mercosur, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazil, the continent's biggest country, has long dominated Mercosur, and Brazilian officials worry that Chavez will use the bloc to expand his power at Brazil's expense.
Chavez did little to dispel those concerns, announcing during Tuesday's induction ceremony that he saw Mercosur as another tool in his fight against U.S. influence.
Seizing the moment, Paraguayan leaders asked for Chavez's help in settling a long-running dispute over $19 billion in debt that the country owes Brazil. Chavez came to Paraguay's rescue, agreeing to buy a $100 million chunk of that debt.
Flush with oil revenue, Chavez has spent an estimated $25 billion on such projects during his seven years in office, selling cheap oil to his neighbors, buying foreign bonds and funding social programs around the region. Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
"From the outset, even before Venezuela had done anything, Chavez was already speaking for Mercosur," said Mario Marconini, Brazil's secretary of trade under former President Fernando Hernrique Cardoso. "There's no doubt that this means less Brazilian prevalence in the bloc."
Faced with a rising Venezuela, some Brazilian diplomats are questioning Chavez's value as an ally and are calling for a tougher approach, said Riordan Roett, director of Western Hemisphere studies at John Hopkins University, who said he has discussed the issue with them. Brazilian diplomats won't discuss the topic on the record.
Roett described a battle between two factions, one that wants Brazil to take a tougher stance against Chavez and Morales, and those who want "to let sleeping dogs lie."
Lula has so far chosen a more conciliatory response.
"There's a rethink about Venezuela in the foreign ministry," Roett said. "There are those who feel Chavez acted irresponsibly in the Bolivian nationalizations."
Chavez also has popped up as a campaign issue during Brazil's presidential race, as he has in recent elections in Mexico and Peru, where candidates won votes by accusing their opponents of being tied to the Venezuelan president.
Lula's main challenger, the conservative former governor of Sao Paulo state, Geraldo Alckmin, criticized the president this week for being too soft on Chavez and predicted that the Venezuelan will violate Mercosur's charter by politicizing the trade bloc.
Despite the growing rift, Chavez and Lula remain political allies, at least publicly, and have met frequently this year to discuss energy cooperation and other matters.
Brazil and Venezuela's state energy companies are building an oil refinery in northern Brazil and have agreed to construct what would be the world's longest gas pipeline, which will deliver Venezuelan gas throughout the continent.
Defying U.S. wishes, Brazil is also supporting Venezuela's bid for a two-year seat on the U.N. Security Council.
How long such ties can last, however, is uncertain, especially if Chavez's ambitions continue growing at Brazil's expense, said Christopher Garman, Latin America director for the Eurasia Group, a U.S. consultancy.
"The ties between Brazil and Venezuela are historical and not to be thrown away easily, but there are these additional tensions," Garman said. "At root, we're seeing a divergence between these countries, and the region drifting more apart rather than coming together."
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http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=8276
Carter calls for “no foreign influence” in Nicaragua: Friday, 07 July
Former United States President Jimmy Carter called for transparency in the coming Nicaraguan November presidential election hopefully “with no foreign influence of any kind”. Speaking in Managua at the end of a four days familiarization visit Mr Carter said that “almost all of the Nicaraguans with whom we spoke expressed concern about foreign governments endorsing, vetoing, or funding specific candidates".
Carter criticized the U.S. government which only considers two of the five Nicaraguan presidential hopefuls as “acceptable”, and also raised the issue of another country, he did not name, which is financially supporting some of the Nicaraguan municipalities ruled by the leftist Sandinista party.
Venezuela recently signed an agreement with Sandinista ruled municipalities to supply oil at preferential prices, as well as delivering fertilizers and offering free of cost eye operations to poor Nicaraguans.
During his four day stay Carter actually met with four of the five presidential candidates, except for Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega who ruled the country from 1979 to 1990 and did not show up at two appointments in different days. The candidates he did meet include Liberal Jose Rizo; Conservative Eduardo Montealegre; Sandinista dissident Edmundo Jarquin and sociologist Mercedes Tenorio.
Carter also met with President Enrique Bolaños, former President Violeta Chamorro, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo and with members of the Supreme Electoral Council.
U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli has insisted that Nicaragua's democratic forces have to unite to prevent a Sandinista victory in the general elections November 5. Ambassador Trivelli and other U.S. officials have made it clear they would prefer to see the Conservative or dissident Sandinista candidate as Nicaragua's next president
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={0610E642-643B-4262-9D25-23E3A74E502A})&language=EN
Bolivian Gov Party Wins Elections
La Paz, Jul 7 (Prensa Latina) Bolivia"s Movement Towards Socialism of President Evo Morales boasts a firm 50.7 percent victory in the Constituency Assembly election, said the National Election Commission.
Bolivia Press US for Tariff-Free Extension
After 99.7 percent votes counted, the MAS won 139 of 255 Assembly seats with support from opposition pillars like Santa Cruz and Tarija provinces. The MAS could run up to 151 seats counting 12 from allied parties like Movimiento Bolivia Libre (MBL), Movimiento Ciudadano San Felipe de Austria (MCSFA) and Movimiento Originario Popular (MOP). Yet the figure will not give the MAS the two thirds it needs to approve a new Constitution.
Nevertheless, it is working on new alliances in Oruro, Cochabamba, Potosi, Pando and Santa Cruz provinces.
The MAS seeks consensus on the measures adopted along five months of government to benefit everyone and secure domestic socio-economic changes.
The Assembly will be set up August 6 in Sucre, the historic capital of Bolivia.
However, not everything is running smoothly, as unrest has been reported in Tarija, Beni, Pando and Santa Cruz, the provinces where vote for an autonomy prevailed.
Mayor Ruben Costas and Civic Committee Leader German Antelo received additional police custody at state-run facilities in Santa Cruz. President Evo Morales said the situation was momentary, due to the occupation of Central Obrera Union offices.
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http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/julio/vier7/29miami-i.html
Fourth demonstration in Miami in favor of travel to Cuba: Havana. July 7, 2006
THE Association of Christian Women in Defense of the Family has called a demonstration – the fourth in the last eight weeks – for tomorrow, Saturday, July 8, from 10:30 am to 12:00, to demand respect for the right to travel to Cuba without restrictions.
Andrés Gómez, editor of Aréito Digital, has informed Granma International that the protest will be outside the Hialeah City Hall on the corner of Palm Avenue and West 5th Street.
In the last protest, close to 100 demonstrators shouted "Ileana, Ileana! We’re going to Havana," outside the offices of Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in condemnation of the ban on travel to Cuba, seen as a violation of citizens’ rights.
María de la Torre, aged 73 and born in Cuba, has a large family on the island, many of them orphans that she raised, and her own sons and daughters, but has been unable to see them for many years due to the inhuman measure pushed for and supported by Congress members Lincoln and Marío Díaz, together with Ros-Lehtinen, who introduced the restrictions on travel and money remittances to Cuba, which came in in 2004.
"They are like my children and grandchildren. I love them and miss them lots. But I can’t visit them," says la Torre, who is a member of the Association of Christian Women in Defense of the Cuban Family. She and other members of the group met up with activists from the Miami-Dade Democracy for America chapter for the June 24 demonstration.
Close to 100 protestors filled the intersection of Drive Street and 92nd Avenue, Southwest under a fierce sun waving placards that read: "Is compassionate conservatism maybe disuniting families?" and "Restrictions on travel do not equal freedom."
Car drivers passing by joined in the chorus of clamors, booing, hooting, and whistles.
Simon Rose, press secretary of Miami-Dade Democracy for America, said that his friend Lourdes Arteaga, who lives in Louisville, Kentucky, was unable to go to Cuba to see her dying father or attend his funeral.
"My wife Nubia, who is Cuban American, used to visit her mother twice a year; my mother-in-law isn’t well, she suffers with her nerves. But now her only daughter has to wait years to see her."
Under the present restrictions, those who have blood relatives can only visit them once every three years for a period of two weeks.
"They have reclassified the family; aunts, uncles and cousins are no longer family if they live in Cuba and you live here. And this comes from a so-called Republican Party with family values."
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4029719.html
Chavez's 'New Socialism' Changes Economy: July 6, 2006
By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON AP Business Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela — A landslide all but wiped out Wilfredo Rodriguez's small shoemaking business last year, entitling him to a loan from President Hugo Chavez's government _ money he says he never could have found elsewhere.
It came with strings attached _ his workers get limited co-ownership and he must make mandatory donations to community projects. But no matter. The factory is thriving. Its 14 workers produce 1,200 pairs of shoes per month, and it has begun selling sandals to Cuba.
Cooperatives and co-managed "social production" companies such as Rodriguez's shoe factory are the backbone of the new "21st century socialism" that Chavez is trying to create.
Venezuela's iconoclastic leader is fond of saying he's inventing a new sort of economy that won't just forever alter Venezuelan society but will also serve as an egalitarian model for the entire world.
Such claims may sound exaggerated for a country buoyed by oil wealth where capitalist businesses continue to drive the economy. But in little more than seven years, Chavez's powerful personality and ample petrodollars have transformed Venezuela's economy into a unique mishmash of public and private enterprise.
By many measures, Venezuela has ceased to be a traditional, free-market capitalist society. Billions of dollars are now diverted annually to state-directed social spending; cooperatives jointly owned and operated by workers are favored for government loans and contracts; and new state-owned companies challenge private sector heavyweights, producing everything from tractors to laptops for the poor.
For one, banking regulations now require a third of all loans be to small businesses, state-favored sectors at below-market rates, and people getting low income mortgages.
Economists say it's uncertain whether Chavez's new model, greatly dependent on high oil prices, is sustainable.
But in the meantime, they say the Chavez experiment _ to subordinate private enterprise to broader social aims _ has become a powerful symbol in Latin America, where U.S.-backed free-market policies of the 1980s and '90s have caused deep disillusionment.
"I think we are seeing something innovative. Venezuela is aspiring to represent an alternative way of organizing society," said Laura Enriquez, a Latin America expert at the University of California-Berkeley. She explained that Chavez has already achieved some success by simply posing a challenge to U.S.-backed economic theories.
Chavez has repeatedly expressed admiration for the communist China of Mao Zedong, the leftist dictatorships of Gen. Juan Velasco in Peru and Gen. Omar Torrijos in Panama, and Libya under Moammar Gadhafi, whose economy was similarly oil-based and marked by state cooperatives.
But he has also emphasized that Venezuela is not modeling itself on failed examples of the past such as the Soviet-style command economy.
"Whether it's going to be successful is the question," says Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela's University of the East.
Under Chavez's so-called people's action plan, the state also helps pay stipends to workers in various farming and industrial cooperatives _ which now total 108,000, up from about 800 when Chavez came to power, and account for about 5 percent of all jobs.
Official statistics reveal some positive signs: 9.4 percent economic growth last year _ South America's highest _ and a poverty level that has declined from 48 percent of the population in 1997 to 37 percent today.
Mark Weisbrot, an economist at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, says that since Chavez took office, Venezuela has recovered from one of the world's worst economic declines when per capita income plummeted 35 percent between 1970 and 1998 _ worse than sub-Saharan Africa's record in the same period. Last year, per capital income was about US$4,900 (euro3,850).
"That is what this government will be remembered for," Weisbrot said.
But others say problems lurk beneath the surface. They don't believe Chavez is creating the conditions for long-term growth. The economy remains dominated by oil; capital flight continues; and nearly half the work force is estimated to remain in the informal economy in dead-end jobs, including street vendors and laborers.
The conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation think tank found Venezuela's business climate inhospitable and "repressed" this year, ranking it 152nd out of 157 countries _ just above Zimbabwe and North Korea.
And Pedro Palma, an economist at Venezuela's IESA business school, believes Chavez's policies are not creating the conditions for new private investment needed to outlast the current oil bonanza. A fall in oil prices _ Venezuela has repeatedly seen oil booms turn bust_ could force a massive devaluation.
Chavez, nevertheless, says he embraces private businesses: central bank statistics show the private sector accounted for more of the economy last year _ 62.5 percent of gross domestic product _ than when he was elected in 1998, when it stood at 59.3 percent.
Last year, foreign direct investment was more than a third below the average for the second half of the 1990s, according the U.N.'s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, private investment is less than 10 percent the total value of gross domestic product _ far less that what's needed to ensure stable growth, central bank director Domingo Maza Zavala said recently.
The United States remains, despite Chavez's hostile rhetoric against its leaders, Venezuela's largest trading partner and by far the largest buyer of its oil. And those revenues are important to Chavez's revolution. Oil sales will fund more than US$4.5 billion (euro3.5 billion) in social programs for the poor this year.
Changes have even filtered into the oil industry; last year, the state oil company replaced its registry of regular contractors with a list of social production companies to "democratize" the bidding process. Traditional contractors can still bid for jobs, but they are being pressed in other ways to take a more socialist bent, including mandatory contributions to a government fund for community projects.
Capitalism, maintains Chavez, is inherently inhumane and Venezuelans must learn to abandon their thirst for wealth _ their vigorous consumerism includes an affinity for American products from Coca-Cola to shampoo to Hollywood movies _ in the new world of 21st century socialism.
"Those who are really with me must be with me in their spirits _ they must be ready to die with me ... they must be able to forget material goods and rid themselves of all," he said recently. "Supreme love is the love for the collective."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060704/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/chile_children_s_revolution_lh1;_ylt=AinCZ8JOHaMoStLUC965jAq3IxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--
Chile's teenagers make their voices heard: July 4, 2006
By LYGIA NAVARRO, Associated Press Writer
SANTIAGO, Chile - They call themselves the "penguins" for their white-on-dark school uniforms, but what 700,000 Chilean high school kids have pulled off in recent days signals the emergence of a new generation in a nation transformed from dictatorship to democracy.
Marching in the streets and occupying schools, the teenagers' three-week revolt against their decrepit education system became known as the "Penguin Revolution," Chile's biggest protest since democracy was restored in 1990.
Chile's teenagers, the first generation born in the twilight of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 17-year military dictatorship, have discovered strength in numbers, winning $200 million in new spending — a 2.78 percent increase in the annual education budget — and representation on a council that will propose sweeping reforms.
"The students have learned the power of having a voice," sociologist Manuel Antonio Garreton said.
It's all the more striking in a nation that had been cowed into silence by a dictatorship during which 3,100 people died or disappeared. The student protests have emboldened other groups — health care workers staging a one-day nationwide strike Tuesday for better working conditions, victims of violence demanding justice, even drivers upset about gasoline prices.
Felipe Anabalon, 18, says his parents were at school during the dictatorship and could not demonstrate "because they could have been killed."
Chile is an economic success story whose free-market foundations were laid during the dictatorship, and fewer than 20 percent live in poverty. But inequalities linger, most noticeably in its education system: schools lack books or winter heating, teachers are underpaid and indifferent, and even the poorest students must pay $40 to take the high school exams that decide whether they will get into college.
The students targeted a particularly unpopular law from the final days of the dictatorship that shifted most responsibility for funding education from government to municipalities, causing wide gaps in quality between rich and poor areas.
During the 15 years of post-dictatorship government, the students say, no one listened to their demands. Then Chile got its first woman president, Michelle Bachelet, and they hoped the mother of three would heed their pleas.
Small-scale student demonstrations became national, drawing in college students, then teachers and even education ministry employees. Ubiquitous cell phones spread the word by text messages.
The protests were peaceful at first, then spun out of control, with sporadic stone-throwing and police in the capital firing water cannons and tear gas. Bachelet initially appeared unresponsive, then went on live television promising more money. Critics accused her of being hesitant and vulnerable to pressure. Her three-month-old government's political honeymoon was over.
The adults may have been conditioned by the years under the disciplinarian Pinochet, but the kids were outspoken.
"Education should be a right," said Luis Quiroz, 18, his plaid tie loosened and blue tongue ring flashing.
"And it should be equal," added his friend, Camila Gordillo, whose parents dropped out of high school, unable to afford the fees.
Studies show that fewer than 10 percent of Chile's poorest students go to college, compared with 65 percent of the richest, and test scores are embarrassingly low — Chile came 35th out of 38 nations in the 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.
Chile has taxpayer-funded public schools, schools subsidized by a voucher-like system, and elite private schools where a month's tuition costs an average month's salary. But even in many private schools, students complain of few books, graffiti-covered desks, filthy bathrooms and peeling paint.
"If Chile continues with a high level of inequality, there will be no social mobility, and there will not be opportunities for 90 percent of our children. That means simply having a pressure cooker without an escape valve, and it will explode," warns Economist Dante Contreras of the University of Chile, who was named to Bachelet's new 73-member education advisory council, which includes 12 students.
And like the penguins that return to nest along Chile's frigid coastline each year, the students say they will be back on the streets to protest if real reforms are not made.
"We are not going to stop just like that," Gordillo said. "This is not a game."
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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2002
Barrios Unidos takes its message to Venezuela: Tuesday, Jul 04, 2006
By: Matt King - Santa Cruz Sentinel
An agreement between a Santa Cruz nonprofit and a bank affiliated with the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a chance to build solidarity between the two countries, Barrios Unidos Executive Director Nane Alejandrez said Monday.
"What we're trying to do is people to people," Alejandrez said. "They're in the process of developing these programs. ... They want to know from us if they're on the right track."
Barrios Unidos, the group Alejandrez founded 30 years ago to combat youth violence and gang activity, will receive $100,000 from the Industrial Bank of Venezuela to promote a yearlong cultural exchange between the two countries.
The grant is about one-tenth of the organization's annual budget.
Delegates from each nation will visit the other to learn what each is doing to keep poverty-stricken young people out of gangs and push them toward higher education.
Barrios Unidos has done similar work in Central America and Africa, but the exchange program is a first for Venezuela.
Venezuela's Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, called the agreement "a bridge between the people with common problems" and a "seed of a much larger project."
Alejandrez credited the arrangement to Harry Belafonte, the singer and civil rights advocate who is a friend of Chavez. Belafonte recommended Barrios Unidos as a group that could help the country deal with gang and violence problems.
"When you look at Venezuela, it's very poor. Neighborhoods are made out of brick and cardboard," Alejandrez said. "When you talk about a poor neighborhood here, people talk about Beach Flats. But Beach Flats in Venezuela would be more than a middle-class neighborhood."
Contact Matt King at mking@santacruzsentinel.com
Originally published at: Santa Cruz Sentinel
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http://www.gregpalast.com/stealing-it-in-front-of-your-eyes#more-1440
GRAND THEFT MEXICO = Monday, July 3, 2006
Published by Greg Palast July 3rd, 2006 in Articles
Matt Pascarella in Mexico City
Greg Palast in London
Dispatch from Mexico City
The election race south of the US border is officially too close to call. Now, where have we heard that before?
As in Florida in 2000, and as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate. The race is “officially” too close to call. But they will call it - after they steal it.
Reuters reports that, as of 8pm eastern time, as voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls showed Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the “leftwing” party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading in exit polls over Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National Action party (PAN).
We’ve said again and again: exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can’t tell pollsters whether their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science - and Calderon’s ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.
Calderon’s election is openly supported by the Bush administration.
On the ground in Mexico city, our news team reports accusations from inside the Obrador campaign that operatives of the PAN had access to voter files that are supposed to be the sole property of the nation’s electoral commission. We are not surprised.
This past Friday, we reported that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had obtained Mexico’s voter files under a secret “counter-terrorism” contract with the database company ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia (See BUSH TEAM HELPS RULING PARTY “FLORIDIZE” MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.)The FBI’s contractor states that following the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican government, the company returned or destroyed its files. The firm claims not to have known that collecting this information violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter’s right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting.
It is, of course, impossible to know whether the FBI destroyed its own copy of the files of Mexico’s voter rolls obtained by ChoicePoint or whether these were then used to illegally assist the Calderon candidacy. But we can see the results: as in the US, first in Florida, then in Ohio, the exit polls are at odds with “official” polls.
In November 2004, the US Republican Senator Richard Lugar, in Kiev, cited the divergence of exit polls and official polls as solid evidence of “blatant fraud” in the vote count in Ukraine. As a result, the Bush administration refused to recognise the Ukraine government’s official vote tally - proving once again that republicans are incapable of irony.
The foreign mainstream press has already announced, despite the polling discrepancies, that Mexico’s elections were fair and clean, which would be a first for that country where Lopez Obrador’s party has seen its candidates defeated by “blatant fraud” before. The change this time is that the fraud is simply less blatant.
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Watch for our video reports from Mexico City at www.GregPalast.com to be carried on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman, this Wednesday, July 5. Rick Rowley, in Mexico City, contributed to this report.
Matt Pascarella is North American producer for GregPalast.com. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “ARMED MADHOUSE: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal ‘08, No Child’s Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.”
For interview requests contact: Fiona McMorrough at FionaM ( at) fmcm.co.uk or interviews (at) gregpalast.com
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Venceremos Unidos! United We Will Win!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta de Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
Sacramento, California, USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Immigrant-Rights-Agenda/
http://detodos-paratodos.blogspot.com/
c/s
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