Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #965, October 26, 2008
1. Dominican Republic: Two Killed in Civic Strike
2. Puerto Rico: Teachers Back Independent Union
3. Argentina: Police Fight Teachers
4. Mexico: PEMEX "Reform" Rules
5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, US policy
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Dominican Republic: Two Killed in Civic Strike
On Oct. 21 residents of San Francisco de Macorís in the northeastern Dominican province of Duarte started what was planned as a two-day civic strike for improvements in health and education services; in street and road maintenance; and in infrastructure work. The area has been the scene of numerous protests for years over these and similar demands [see Updates #484, 485, 592, 720, 731, 798, 821]
The current strike--led by the Broad Front of Popular Struggle (FALPO), which was involved many of the earlier protests--started to heat up around midday on Oct. 22 when the majority of store owners closed down their businesses and confrontations broke out between protesters and police agents. Protesters started fires while heavily armed agents, including SWAT anti-riot units, patrolled the streets and set up checkpoints. Two youths not connected to the protests were killed during the confrontations on Oct. 22, according to FALPO spokesperson Eddy Muñoz. Israel Polanco, 17, was shot while playing sports; Luis Gómez, 15, was shot while riding either a bicycle or a motorcycle in an area where police agents were firing at strikers. Some 20 other people were injured during the day, and dozens were reportedly detained.
FALPO responded to the police operation by extending the strike another day. On Oct. 23 hundreds of protesters marched through the downtown area and the Pueblo Nuevo, San Pedro, San Vicente, Hermanas Mirabal, San Martín, Alto de la Javiela and El Capacito neighborhoods. Despite a heavy police presence, there were no incidents. The strike officially ended at 6 am on Oct. 24. FALPO representatives were scheduled to meet that morning with a commission of officials, including Public Works Secretary Víctor Díaz Rúa; National Police chief Maj. Gen. Rafael Guillermo Guzmán Fermín; and National Drinking Water and Sewage Institute (INAPA) director Mariano Germán. Duarte governor Luz Selene Plata, who said the strikers' demands were just, was backing the meeting. (Prensa Latina 10/23/08, 10/24/08; Listín Diario 10/23/08, 10/24/08)
*2. Puerto Rico: Teachers Back Independent Union
Voting results released on Oct. 23 showed Puerto Rico's teachers rejecting by a 18,123-14,675 margin a bid by the Puerto Rican Teachers Union (SPM) to represent them. The "no" vote was vigorously promoted by the teachers' current union, the militant Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), which the Labor Relations Commission excluded from running in the new election [see Update #963]. The Puerto Rican government decertified the FMPR after it defied a law against strikes by public employees in late February with a militant 10-day job action over wages, classroom size and health issues.
With an exceptionally high turnout--33,818 out of a reported 36,000 eligible voters participated--the results were a blow to the SPM and the affiliated Teachers' Association (AM), which represents school principals and administrators. The two unions are affiliated with the US-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU). With both the Puerto Rican government and a US union backing the SPM, the FMPR was at a tremendous disadvantage. FMPR leaders claimed that the SEIU and the SMP spent $20 million on the campaign and contracted 500 campaign workers from affiliated unions, while an FMPR activist estimated that the independent union spent a total of $50,000. The FMPR was even barred from having observers at the polling places. (FMPR press release 10/23/08; CounterPunch 10/24/08)
*3. Argentina: Police Fight Teachers
Two leaders of Argentine teachers' unions--Stella Maldonado, general secretary of the Federation of Education Workers of the Argentine Republic, and Alejandro de Michelis, press secretary for the Union of Education Workers--were among those injured on Oct. 20 when Buenos Aires city police agents tried to keep protesting teachers from installing a tent in front of the municipal building. The teachers had planned to start a 100-hour vigil at the site. After the confrontation, the teachers' unions and the Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) declared a 24-hour national strike starting at noon on Oct. 21. Teachers in the capital have been pushing since August for a 20% pay raise, the return of scholarships to students and improvements in school cafeterias. Mauricio Macri, the center-right head of the city's government, is facing a number of conflicts as students and cultural and healthcare workers press their own demands.
In other news, Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was reportedly planning to announce the elimination of the system of private pensions set up by former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999). For the past two years many workers have been able to switch over to government-managed pensions. Fernández apparently wants to speed up the process because of the effect the world financial crisis is having on the private pensions. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/21/08 from correspondent)
*4. Mexico: PEMEX "Reform" Rules
On Oct. 23 Mexico's 128-member Senate voted almost unanimously to pass legislation that opponents say will open the way to the partial privatization of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the giant state-owned oil monopoly. The 500-member Chamber of Deputies approved the Senate's version without debate on Oct. 25. The Senate session was held in a downtown skyscraper to avoid protesters at the Senate building; some 1,200 agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) guarded the session, with federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro García Luna leading the force himself. Police forcibly removed deputies from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) who tried to enter the room where the Senate was meeting. Deputy Aleida Alavez, who is two months pregnant, said someone from García Luna's staff pulled her by the hair and threw her on the floor.
The vote was lopsided in both chambers. Four PRD senators and two from the small leftist Workers Party (PT) voted against all seven sections of the bill, while three from the Convergence party voted against two of the sections. The majority of PRD senators supported the measure, even though the party's 2006 presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been leading the movement in opposition to it [see Updates #956, 957]. Most PRD legislators, members of the party's New Left (NI) faction, supported the bill in the Chamber of Deputies as well, but some PRD deputies joined PT and Convergence deputies when they walked out over a procedural dispute.
Even the opposition movement backed most of the legislation, which was greatly modified from the proposal that center-right president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa made earlier in the year. The opposition asked for 12 words to be added to bar contracts that might allow "the granting of exclusive blocks or areas" to private companies; the majority rejected the amendment. (La Jornada 10/24/08, __, 10/26/08; Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News and Analysis, 10/20/08-10/26/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, US policy
Pentecostalism and South America's Social Movements
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5590
Brazilian military exercises heighten tensions with Paraguay
http://ww4report.com/node/6208
Bolivia Reaches Agreement on Constitution Vote
http://nacla.org/node/5124
Bolivia: Congress Approves Referendum on Constitution
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1538/1/
Refugees in Ecuador: Organizing for Human Rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1539/1/
Colombia: An Historic Day for Indigenous Peoples
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1533/68/
Another Front in the Conflict: Colombian Government's Propaganda vs. Indigenous Media Perspectives http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1532/1/
Colombia: indigenous protesters march on Cali
http://ww4report.com/node/6209
Colombia: Hezbollah tie to drug gang claimed
http://ww4report.com/node/6206
Colombia: secret police chief resigns in spy scandal
http://ww4report.com/node/6199
Smoke and Mirrors: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch's Report on Venezuela
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1537/68/
Mexican Government Ignores Overwhelming Evidence, Charges Oaxacan Activists with Brad Will's Murder http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1535/68/
Mexico: Sinaloa kingpin busted as Rice schmoozes top cops
http://ww4report.com/node/6207
Mexico: 20 dead in Reynosa prison riot; more violence in Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6195
The Reggaetón Factor in the U.S. Elections
http://nacla.org/node/5118
Obama on Latin America
http://nacla.org/node/5115
A Quick, Easy Way to Lower World Food Prices
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5599
The World Food Crisis: What's Behind it and What We Can Do About it
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5611
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 27 October 2008
Monday, 20 October 2008
WNU #964: Mexican Activists Charged in Reporter's Death
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #964, October 19, 2008
1. Mexico: Activists Charged in Reporter's Death
2. Haiti: UN Sends Tanks, Not Tractors
3. In Other News: Chile, Argentina, Cuba
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, US policy
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Mexico: Activists Charged in Reporter's Death
On Oct. 16 Mexico's federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested activist Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno for the shooting death of New York-based independent journalist Brad Will during a protest in the southern state of Oaxaca on Oct. 27, 2006. Octavio Pérez Pérez was also arrested and charged with concealing the crime; Hugo Jafit Colmenares Leyva was arrested on the same charge on Oct. 17. Pérez and Colmenares were released on Oct. 18 on bail of 25,000 pesos (about $1,925) apiece. All three of the arrested men are activists in the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), which along with the state local of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) spearheaded protests that shut down much of Oaxaca state for five months in 2006.
Will, a member of the New York Indymedia collective, was hit while he was standing with the demonstrators and videotaping apparent supporters of the state government as they fired at protesters and reporters. A Mexican journalist was also hit but suffered minor injuries [see Updates #872, 873]. Adrián Ramírez, president of the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights (LIMEDDH), said videos and photographs from the scene show that Will could not have been shot by the nearby protesters. The federal government's own National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) found that the shots came from a distance of 30m. "We've spent two years on this, and the PGR's investigation is an insult," Kathy Will, the journalist's mother, told the daily Milenio. In Mexico, she added, "the impunity is amazing." (Milenio (Mexico) 10/17/08, 10/19/08; El Informador (Guadalajara) 10/19/08 from EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/19/08)
The activists' arrests came as the Mexican government was cracking down on a teachers' strike in neighboring Morelos similar to the strike that set off the Oaxaca uprising two years before [see Update #962]. Residents of the Morelos indigenous communities of Amayuca and Xoxocotla have charged that they were tortured and subjected to sexual aggression when agents and soldiers raided the villages on Oct. 8 and 9 to stop protests in support of the teachers. Demonstrations have continued around the state despite the repression at various communities. Some 40,000 people marched through the state capital, Cuernavaca, on Oct. 14 to reject the national government's Alliance for Quality Education (ACE); Morelos teachers were joined by local supporters and teachers from other states. On Oct. 15 some 10,000 residents, teachers and supporters marched in Xoxocotla to demand that the PFP and the military withdraw from the community.
Teachers are resisting the ACE in other states as well. On Oct. 14 some 3,000 teachers blocked the state legislature building in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, forcing the legislature to suspend its session. On Oct. 17, more than 15,000 teachers from Morelos, Michoacán, Oaxaca, México state, the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), Guerrero, Zacatecas, Tlaxcala and Puebla marched in Mexico City from the Zócalo plaza to the president's residence, Los Pinos, calling for a national strike. Teachers have maintained an encampment in front of the Public Education Secretariat (SEP) since Oct. 8. (Viento de Libertad 10/11/08, 10/14/08; LJ 10/14/08, 10/15/08, 10/16/08, 10/18/08)
*2. Haiti: UN Sends Tanks, Not Tractors
On Oct. 14 the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1840 authorizing the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to remain for another year, until Oct. 15, 2009. The international force, which began its occupation of Haiti in June 2004, has a maximum of 7,060 soldiers and 2,091 police agents. Its annual cost is now more than $500 million.
For more than two years Haitian President René Préval has called on the force to provide long-term assistance with "fewer tanks and more tractors." However, UN Special Representative Hedi Annabi, who heads the mission, said development work wasn't the Security Council's priority. The Security Council is instead calling for an international donors conference to provide funds for development. On Oct. 15 UN coordinator in Haiti Joel Boutroue said Haiti has been set back three or four years in economic growth by four major tropical storms that hit it this summer; he estimated that 50% of the current season's crops were destroyed. On Oct. 3 Haitian Civil Protection announced that 793 people were killed in the storms. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 10/3/08 from AFP, 10/9/08 from AP; Reuters 10/14/07; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/14/08; AlterPresse 10/16/08)
MINUSTAH is led by Brazil, and many of the troops come from Latin America. On Oct. 16 five Haitian groups published an open letter to the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala saying the mission's "real purpose is to defend the rich's interests, as well as those of US imperialism"; they demanded "that the governments of all Latin American and Caribbean countries sending troops to Haiti pull out immediately." The groups were Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle), Haitian Women's Solidarity (SOFA), Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) and Dessalines University Students' Association (ASID). (10/16/08)
*3. In Other News...
On Oct. 15 the Chilean Supreme Court sentenced the 88-year-old retired general Sergio Arellano Stark to six years in prison for the killing of four people shortly after a Sept. 11, 1973 coup that brought the late dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. Another retired officer, Carlos Romero Muñoz, also received a six-year sentence in the same case; three others were sentenced to four years. The victims--Teófilo Segundo Arce Toloza, José Esteban Sepúlveda Baeza, Segundo Abelardo Sandoval Gómez and Leopoldo Mauricio González Norambuena--were killed at the San Javier military facility on Oct. 2, 1973. (La Jornada 10/16/08 from correspondent)... The public trial for the Argentine government's clandestine sale of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995 in violation of international agreements began in Buenos Aires on Oct. 16. There are 18 defendants; the best known, former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), now a senator from La Rioja province, failed to attend, claiming health problems. Much of the evidence disappeared in the 1995 explosion of an arms factory; at least six potential witnesses had died by 1998, two in a helicopter crash, three from heart attacks and one in what was ruled a suicide [see Updates #449, 451, 452, 454, 458]. (LJ 10/17/08 from correspondent)... The main route for people trying to leave Cuba for the US is now through Mexico. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, 11,126 Cubans entered the US this way in 2007, while just 1,055 went directly to Florida. The immigrants usually pay $5,000-$10,000 for a trip in a high-speed fishing boat to Quintana Roo, Mexico, and then travel by land to the Texas border. The operations are generally run by Cuban Americans who have rented or stolen the boats from Florida. (El Nuevo Herald 10/19/08 from AP) [Mexican police arrested two Cuban American smugglers in June; they reportedly said they were members of the Miami-based rightwing Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)--see Updates #951, 952.]
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, US policy
Financial Crisis Jumpstarts Integration
http://www.nacla.org/node/5097
Pentecostalism and South America's Social Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1529/68/
Dark Side of Brazil's Agribusiness Boom: Violence, Mutiny and Environmental Pillage in the Amazon http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1526/68/
Evo: Bolivia won't "kneel down" to US on drug war
http://ww4report.com/node/6175
Bolivia: Evo leads march for new constitution
http://ww4report.com/node/6174
Iran to open clinics in Bolivia
http://ww4report.com/node/6154
New Discoveries Reveal US Intervention in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1522/1/
Ecuador Leads the Way; Now it's Pennsylvania's Turn to Protect the Environment
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1525/68/
Refugees in Ecuador: Putting Post-Neoliberalism to the Test http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1530/1/
History Repeats Itself For Indigenous Communities in Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1527/1/
Colombia: police attack indigenous protesters
http://ww4report.com/node/6179
Colombia: paramilitaries stage "armed strike" in Urabá
http://ww4report.com/node/6180
Colombian government hampers justice efforts: HRW
http://ww4report.com/node/6178
Venezuela: army intelligence officials held in student's death
http://ww4report.com/node/6177
Venezuela: nationwide protests at prisons
http://ww4report.com/node/6176
El Salvador: US Government's Role in Human Rights Abuses and Political Intervention http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1523/68/
Guatemala: Americas Social Forum Rejects Neoliberalism, Celebrates Resistance http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1524/1/
Toll of unknown victims on Mexico-Arizona border rises
http://ww4report.com/node/6156
Mexico: narco-killing spree in Ciudad Juárez--and throughout country
http://ww4report.com/node/6155
The Monroe Doctrine Revisited: China's Increased Role in Latin America http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1528/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #964, October 19, 2008
1. Mexico: Activists Charged in Reporter's Death
2. Haiti: UN Sends Tanks, Not Tractors
3. In Other News: Chile, Argentina, Cuba
4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, US policy
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Mexico: Activists Charged in Reporter's Death
On Oct. 16 Mexico's federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) arrested activist Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno for the shooting death of New York-based independent journalist Brad Will during a protest in the southern state of Oaxaca on Oct. 27, 2006. Octavio Pérez Pérez was also arrested and charged with concealing the crime; Hugo Jafit Colmenares Leyva was arrested on the same charge on Oct. 17. Pérez and Colmenares were released on Oct. 18 on bail of 25,000 pesos (about $1,925) apiece. All three of the arrested men are activists in the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), which along with the state local of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) spearheaded protests that shut down much of Oaxaca state for five months in 2006.
Will, a member of the New York Indymedia collective, was hit while he was standing with the demonstrators and videotaping apparent supporters of the state government as they fired at protesters and reporters. A Mexican journalist was also hit but suffered minor injuries [see Updates #872, 873]. Adrián Ramírez, president of the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights (LIMEDDH), said videos and photographs from the scene show that Will could not have been shot by the nearby protesters. The federal government's own National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) found that the shots came from a distance of 30m. "We've spent two years on this, and the PGR's investigation is an insult," Kathy Will, the journalist's mother, told the daily Milenio. In Mexico, she added, "the impunity is amazing." (Milenio (Mexico) 10/17/08, 10/19/08; El Informador (Guadalajara) 10/19/08 from EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/19/08)
The activists' arrests came as the Mexican government was cracking down on a teachers' strike in neighboring Morelos similar to the strike that set off the Oaxaca uprising two years before [see Update #962]. Residents of the Morelos indigenous communities of Amayuca and Xoxocotla have charged that they were tortured and subjected to sexual aggression when agents and soldiers raided the villages on Oct. 8 and 9 to stop protests in support of the teachers. Demonstrations have continued around the state despite the repression at various communities. Some 40,000 people marched through the state capital, Cuernavaca, on Oct. 14 to reject the national government's Alliance for Quality Education (ACE); Morelos teachers were joined by local supporters and teachers from other states. On Oct. 15 some 10,000 residents, teachers and supporters marched in Xoxocotla to demand that the PFP and the military withdraw from the community.
Teachers are resisting the ACE in other states as well. On Oct. 14 some 3,000 teachers blocked the state legislature building in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, forcing the legislature to suspend its session. On Oct. 17, more than 15,000 teachers from Morelos, Michoacán, Oaxaca, México state, the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), Guerrero, Zacatecas, Tlaxcala and Puebla marched in Mexico City from the Zócalo plaza to the president's residence, Los Pinos, calling for a national strike. Teachers have maintained an encampment in front of the Public Education Secretariat (SEP) since Oct. 8. (Viento de Libertad 10/11/08, 10/14/08; LJ 10/14/08, 10/15/08, 10/16/08, 10/18/08)
*2. Haiti: UN Sends Tanks, Not Tractors
On Oct. 14 the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1840 authorizing the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to remain for another year, until Oct. 15, 2009. The international force, which began its occupation of Haiti in June 2004, has a maximum of 7,060 soldiers and 2,091 police agents. Its annual cost is now more than $500 million.
For more than two years Haitian President René Préval has called on the force to provide long-term assistance with "fewer tanks and more tractors." However, UN Special Representative Hedi Annabi, who heads the mission, said development work wasn't the Security Council's priority. The Security Council is instead calling for an international donors conference to provide funds for development. On Oct. 15 UN coordinator in Haiti Joel Boutroue said Haiti has been set back three or four years in economic growth by four major tropical storms that hit it this summer; he estimated that 50% of the current season's crops were destroyed. On Oct. 3 Haitian Civil Protection announced that 793 people were killed in the storms. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs 10/3/08 from AFP, 10/9/08 from AP; Reuters 10/14/07; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/14/08; AlterPresse 10/16/08)
MINUSTAH is led by Brazil, and many of the troops come from Latin America. On Oct. 16 five Haitian groups published an open letter to the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala saying the mission's "real purpose is to defend the rich's interests, as well as those of US imperialism"; they demanded "that the governments of all Latin American and Caribbean countries sending troops to Haiti pull out immediately." The groups were Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle), Haitian Women's Solidarity (SOFA), Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) and Dessalines University Students' Association (ASID). (10/16/08)
*3. In Other News...
On Oct. 15 the Chilean Supreme Court sentenced the 88-year-old retired general Sergio Arellano Stark to six years in prison for the killing of four people shortly after a Sept. 11, 1973 coup that brought the late dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. Another retired officer, Carlos Romero Muñoz, also received a six-year sentence in the same case; three others were sentenced to four years. The victims--Teófilo Segundo Arce Toloza, José Esteban Sepúlveda Baeza, Segundo Abelardo Sandoval Gómez and Leopoldo Mauricio González Norambuena--were killed at the San Javier military facility on Oct. 2, 1973. (La Jornada 10/16/08 from correspondent)... The public trial for the Argentine government's clandestine sale of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995 in violation of international agreements began in Buenos Aires on Oct. 16. There are 18 defendants; the best known, former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), now a senator from La Rioja province, failed to attend, claiming health problems. Much of the evidence disappeared in the 1995 explosion of an arms factory; at least six potential witnesses had died by 1998, two in a helicopter crash, three from heart attacks and one in what was ruled a suicide [see Updates #449, 451, 452, 454, 458]. (LJ 10/17/08 from correspondent)... The main route for people trying to leave Cuba for the US is now through Mexico. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, 11,126 Cubans entered the US this way in 2007, while just 1,055 went directly to Florida. The immigrants usually pay $5,000-$10,000 for a trip in a high-speed fishing boat to Quintana Roo, Mexico, and then travel by land to the Texas border. The operations are generally run by Cuban Americans who have rented or stolen the boats from Florida. (El Nuevo Herald 10/19/08 from AP) [Mexican police arrested two Cuban American smugglers in June; they reportedly said they were members of the Miami-based rightwing Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)--see Updates #951, 952.]
*4. Links to alternative sources on: Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, US policy
Financial Crisis Jumpstarts Integration
http://www.nacla.org/node/5097
Pentecostalism and South America's Social Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1529/68/
Dark Side of Brazil's Agribusiness Boom: Violence, Mutiny and Environmental Pillage in the Amazon http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1526/68/
Evo: Bolivia won't "kneel down" to US on drug war
http://ww4report.com/node/6175
Bolivia: Evo leads march for new constitution
http://ww4report.com/node/6174
Iran to open clinics in Bolivia
http://ww4report.com/node/6154
New Discoveries Reveal US Intervention in Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1522/1/
Ecuador Leads the Way; Now it's Pennsylvania's Turn to Protect the Environment
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1525/68/
Refugees in Ecuador: Putting Post-Neoliberalism to the Test http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1530/1/
History Repeats Itself For Indigenous Communities in Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1527/1/
Colombia: police attack indigenous protesters
http://ww4report.com/node/6179
Colombia: paramilitaries stage "armed strike" in Urabá
http://ww4report.com/node/6180
Colombian government hampers justice efforts: HRW
http://ww4report.com/node/6178
Venezuela: army intelligence officials held in student's death
http://ww4report.com/node/6177
Venezuela: nationwide protests at prisons
http://ww4report.com/node/6176
El Salvador: US Government's Role in Human Rights Abuses and Political Intervention http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1523/68/
Guatemala: Americas Social Forum Rejects Neoliberalism, Celebrates Resistance http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1524/1/
Toll of unknown victims on Mexico-Arizona border rises
http://ww4report.com/node/6156
Mexico: narco-killing spree in Ciudad Juárez--and throughout country
http://ww4report.com/node/6155
The Monroe Doctrine Revisited: China's Increased Role in Latin America http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1528/1/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
WNU #963: Teacher Struggles in Puerto Rico, Mexico
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #963, October 12, 2008
1. Puerto Rico: Teachers Vote on Union
2. Mexico: Cops Repress Teacher Demos
3. Haiti: DR Sends Aid, Deports Workers
4. Latin America: More Shocks From Global Crisis
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US policy
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Puerto Rico: Teachers Vote on Union
As of Oct. 7 Puerto Rico's teachers had been voting for a week on whether the Puerto Rican Teachers Union (SPM) should represent them. The island's 40,000 teachers were previously represented by the 42-year-old Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), but the Labor Relations Commission excluded the FMPR from running in the new election, even though 12,000 teachers had already endorsed the union as their bargaining agent. Earlier this year Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá's administration withdrew the union's certification because of its refusal to accept a ban on strikes by public employees in Law 45. The FMPR mounted a militant 10-day strike in late February and early March over wages, classroom size and health issues, winning several key demands [see Updates #932, 936, 937, 938].
The FMPR called on its supporters to vote against SPM representation. FMPR president Rafael Feliciano said on Oct. 7 that the union's polls showed the "no" vote winning broadly in the Morovis, Manatí, Juana Díaz, Florida, Santa Isabel, Villalba and Jayuya school districts; he said the "no" was narrowly ahead in Coamo, Ciales, Barceloneta and Orocovis districts and tied in Adjuntas. SPM director Aida Díaz called Feliciano a "Pinocchio." The voting is to continue until Oct. 16; 34,285 teachers are eligible to cast their ballots in 89 voting places.
The SPM is affiliated with the Teachers' Association (AM) and the US-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In an Oct. 6 press conference in New York, activists from the local FMPR Support Committee charged that the SEIU and its vice president, Dennis Rivera, had made an alliance with Gov. Acevedo Vilá and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) to raid the FMPR. According to the Puerto Rican daily Primera Hora, SEIU leaders have said winning over the Puerto Rican teachers is part of a strategy to expand the SEIU into the rest of Latin America. (Primera Hora 10/6/08, 10/8/08, 10/9/08)
*2. Mexico: Cops Repress Teacher Demos
Several large operations by federal and local Mexican police from Oct. 7 to Oct. 9 broke up protests by striking teachers and their supporters in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, leaving dozens of people detained or injured. Morelos teachers have been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan promoted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and national teachers union head Elba Esther Gordillo Morales [see Updates #959, 960, 962].
On Oct. 7 about 70 Morelos police agents used tear gas and nightsticks to break up a protest by some 200 teachers and residents of the Tres Marías community who were blocking a highway as part of a statewide day of actions. About 20 people were injured, and several were detained. Meanwhile, about 700 protesters blocked the nearby Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway for seven hours. Although the state police were reinforced with 400 agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), officials decided to end the blockade through negotiations: the protesters finally left when officials agreed to release the detained activists. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/8/08)
On Oct. 8 some 1,000 PFP agents and state police broke up a roadblock that residents and parents had maintained since Oct. 13 on the Cuautla-Puebla highway at the community of Amayuca near the border with Puebla state; the protesters were members of a local group called the Union of Towns in the Eastern Zone. The police operation included six helicopters, from which agents launched tear gas grenades at the crowd. The protesters held out for one hour, sometimes attacking the agents with rocks, clubs, fireworks and molotov cocktails. A total of 49 people were arrested and 20 were injured; cars were damaged and a tractor trailer was set on fire. The agents pursued the protesters into Amayuca, where they carried out house-to-house searches, beating protesters as they arrested them. (LJ 10/9/08)
Also on Oct. 8, police tried to end a road blockade on the Cuautla-Jojutla highway at Xoxocotla, Puente de Ixtla municipality, in the south of the state; residents had been blocking the road since Sept. 29. The operation failed to dislodge the protesters, who captured four agents but released them later. The police returned in the early morning of Oct. 9, but left when they didn't find any protesters; in this operation the PFP agents and state police were backed up by hundreds of soldiers in armored vehicles and Hummer trucks. The protesters resumed the blockade later in the morning. In the afternoon an operation of some 2,000 security forces finally broke up the protest after a two-hour battle which left 10 people injured, 16 protesters arrested and several cars damaged. (LJ 10/10/08)
Negotiations were continuing between the teachers and officials as of Oct. 10, but the state had suspended payment to the striking teachers and started hiring replacement workers. Officials said they were "working every day" so that the situation wouldn't escalate to the sort of uprising sparked by a teachers strike in neighboring Oaxaca in 2006. (LJ 10/11/08)
*3. Haiti: DR Sends Aid, Deports Workers
The Dominican Republic deported 691 people into Haiti at the border town of Belladère in the Central Plateau department from Sept. 4 to Sept. 30, according to the local Human Rights Committee, which is part of the Jeannot Succès Border Network. Witnesses say the deportees were imprisoned for two to five days before their repatriation.
Although figures were not yet available for other border areas, the Belladère report indicates that the Dominican Republic hasn't let up on its policy of removing Haitian immigrants; it deported 65,000 people to Haiti between September 2004 and June 2008. At the end of September Major Gen. José Aníbal Sanz Jiminian, head of the Dominican migration bureau, announced plans to deport Haitian street vendors, especially the ones selling telephone cards. "We will take action against these foreigners who live here illegally, and the products in their possession will be confiscated," he said.
The new deportations came as Haiti was struggling to recover after being hit by four major tropical storms in one month [see Updates #961, 962]. As of Sept. 11 the Dominican government had sent food, medicine, a medical team and three helicopters; the emergency assistance was valued at $565,000. The Dominican ambassador to Haiti said the aid was "testimony to the Dominican Republic's recognition of the courageous people of Haiti, who should always maintain their pride." (AlterPresse 10/7/08)
*4. Latin America: More Shocks From Global Crisis
Latin American markets continued to be shaken by a global financial crisis set off in September by bad mortgages in the US [see Updates #961, 962]. On Oct. 7 the stock exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, fell 4.66%, the Mexican market was down 3.97%, stocks in Santiago, Chile, fell 4.29%, and the market in Buenos Aires, Argentina, lost 2.72%. Latin American losses that day were smaller those in New York, where the Dow Jones lost 5.11%. (La Jornada 10/8/08 from Reuters, AFP, DPA and Notimex) But fallout from the global crisis is likely to get worse. Speaking in Durango on Oct. 6, Mexican Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón said his department expected some 200,000 Mexicans now working in the US to come home during the next year; he denied the number would be in the millions. (LJ 10/7/08)
Despite the problems in Latin America, the US government's dramatic interventions to unfreeze its own credit markets have amused Latin American critics of US neoliberal economic policies. "How many times have [US officials] criticized me for nationalizing the phone company?" Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez asked during his weekly television program. "They say, 'The state shouldn't get involved in that.' But now they don't criticize [US president George W.] Bush for having nationalized...the biggest banks in the world. Comrade Bush, how are you?" (McClatchy Newspapers 10/7/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US policy
Political and Social Crisis in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1521/1/
Bolivia: Back to the Trenches
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1519/68/
Bolivia: Water, Energy Everywhere - But Not for Locals
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1513/68/
Peru: cabinet shake-up in "Petrogate" scandal
http://ww4report.com/node/6152
Peru: Sendero resurgent in Apurimac Valley
http://ww4report.com/node/6153
Peru: disappearances in Ayacucho
http://ww4report.com/node/6131
Refugees in Ecuador: Plan Colombia and the Asylum Lottery
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1511/1/
Change Triumphs in Ecuador's Constitutional Referendum
http://nacla.org/node/5071
Colombia: Uribe decrees emergency powers in judicial strike http://ww4report.com/node/6151
Colombian guerillas linked to Mexican cartels?
http://ww4report.com/node/6150
Nicaragua: McCain served on board of terrorist-linked organization
http://ww4report.com/node/6116#comment-314052
Memories of the Meltdown: The Sky Is Falling on Mexico Too
http://nacla.org/node/5078
Study Makes Case for Legalizing Abortion in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1518/68/
Armoring NAFTA: The Battleground for Mexico's Future
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5544
Haiti's New PM and the Power of NGO's
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1517/68/
Bush Seen as Out of Touch on Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1512/68/
Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives to Transnational Mining
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1515/1/
Latin America: The War on Democracy - Documentary Online
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1514/1/
Bush Foreign Policy: From Dynasty to Legacy
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5577
The Biosafety Protocol and the Future of Biosafety
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5559
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com
Issue #963, October 12, 2008
1. Puerto Rico: Teachers Vote on Union
2. Mexico: Cops Repress Teacher Demos
3. Haiti: DR Sends Aid, Deports Workers
4. Latin America: More Shocks From Global Crisis
5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US policy
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Puerto Rico: Teachers Vote on Union
As of Oct. 7 Puerto Rico's teachers had been voting for a week on whether the Puerto Rican Teachers Union (SPM) should represent them. The island's 40,000 teachers were previously represented by the 42-year-old Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), but the Labor Relations Commission excluded the FMPR from running in the new election, even though 12,000 teachers had already endorsed the union as their bargaining agent. Earlier this year Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá's administration withdrew the union's certification because of its refusal to accept a ban on strikes by public employees in Law 45. The FMPR mounted a militant 10-day strike in late February and early March over wages, classroom size and health issues, winning several key demands [see Updates #932, 936, 937, 938].
The FMPR called on its supporters to vote against SPM representation. FMPR president Rafael Feliciano said on Oct. 7 that the union's polls showed the "no" vote winning broadly in the Morovis, Manatí, Juana Díaz, Florida, Santa Isabel, Villalba and Jayuya school districts; he said the "no" was narrowly ahead in Coamo, Ciales, Barceloneta and Orocovis districts and tied in Adjuntas. SPM director Aida Díaz called Feliciano a "Pinocchio." The voting is to continue until Oct. 16; 34,285 teachers are eligible to cast their ballots in 89 voting places.
The SPM is affiliated with the Teachers' Association (AM) and the US-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In an Oct. 6 press conference in New York, activists from the local FMPR Support Committee charged that the SEIU and its vice president, Dennis Rivera, had made an alliance with Gov. Acevedo Vilá and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) to raid the FMPR. According to the Puerto Rican daily Primera Hora, SEIU leaders have said winning over the Puerto Rican teachers is part of a strategy to expand the SEIU into the rest of Latin America. (Primera Hora 10/6/08, 10/8/08, 10/9/08)
*2. Mexico: Cops Repress Teacher Demos
Several large operations by federal and local Mexican police from Oct. 7 to Oct. 9 broke up protests by striking teachers and their supporters in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, leaving dozens of people detained or injured. Morelos teachers have been on strike since Aug. 13 to protest the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan promoted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and national teachers union head Elba Esther Gordillo Morales [see Updates #959, 960, 962].
On Oct. 7 about 70 Morelos police agents used tear gas and nightsticks to break up a protest by some 200 teachers and residents of the Tres Marías community who were blocking a highway as part of a statewide day of actions. About 20 people were injured, and several were detained. Meanwhile, about 700 protesters blocked the nearby Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway for seven hours. Although the state police were reinforced with 400 agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), officials decided to end the blockade through negotiations: the protesters finally left when officials agreed to release the detained activists. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/8/08)
On Oct. 8 some 1,000 PFP agents and state police broke up a roadblock that residents and parents had maintained since Oct. 13 on the Cuautla-Puebla highway at the community of Amayuca near the border with Puebla state; the protesters were members of a local group called the Union of Towns in the Eastern Zone. The police operation included six helicopters, from which agents launched tear gas grenades at the crowd. The protesters held out for one hour, sometimes attacking the agents with rocks, clubs, fireworks and molotov cocktails. A total of 49 people were arrested and 20 were injured; cars were damaged and a tractor trailer was set on fire. The agents pursued the protesters into Amayuca, where they carried out house-to-house searches, beating protesters as they arrested them. (LJ 10/9/08)
Also on Oct. 8, police tried to end a road blockade on the Cuautla-Jojutla highway at Xoxocotla, Puente de Ixtla municipality, in the south of the state; residents had been blocking the road since Sept. 29. The operation failed to dislodge the protesters, who captured four agents but released them later. The police returned in the early morning of Oct. 9, but left when they didn't find any protesters; in this operation the PFP agents and state police were backed up by hundreds of soldiers in armored vehicles and Hummer trucks. The protesters resumed the blockade later in the morning. In the afternoon an operation of some 2,000 security forces finally broke up the protest after a two-hour battle which left 10 people injured, 16 protesters arrested and several cars damaged. (LJ 10/10/08)
Negotiations were continuing between the teachers and officials as of Oct. 10, but the state had suspended payment to the striking teachers and started hiring replacement workers. Officials said they were "working every day" so that the situation wouldn't escalate to the sort of uprising sparked by a teachers strike in neighboring Oaxaca in 2006. (LJ 10/11/08)
*3. Haiti: DR Sends Aid, Deports Workers
The Dominican Republic deported 691 people into Haiti at the border town of Belladère in the Central Plateau department from Sept. 4 to Sept. 30, according to the local Human Rights Committee, which is part of the Jeannot Succès Border Network. Witnesses say the deportees were imprisoned for two to five days before their repatriation.
Although figures were not yet available for other border areas, the Belladère report indicates that the Dominican Republic hasn't let up on its policy of removing Haitian immigrants; it deported 65,000 people to Haiti between September 2004 and June 2008. At the end of September Major Gen. José Aníbal Sanz Jiminian, head of the Dominican migration bureau, announced plans to deport Haitian street vendors, especially the ones selling telephone cards. "We will take action against these foreigners who live here illegally, and the products in their possession will be confiscated," he said.
The new deportations came as Haiti was struggling to recover after being hit by four major tropical storms in one month [see Updates #961, 962]. As of Sept. 11 the Dominican government had sent food, medicine, a medical team and three helicopters; the emergency assistance was valued at $565,000. The Dominican ambassador to Haiti said the aid was "testimony to the Dominican Republic's recognition of the courageous people of Haiti, who should always maintain their pride." (AlterPresse 10/7/08)
*4. Latin America: More Shocks From Global Crisis
Latin American markets continued to be shaken by a global financial crisis set off in September by bad mortgages in the US [see Updates #961, 962]. On Oct. 7 the stock exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, fell 4.66%, the Mexican market was down 3.97%, stocks in Santiago, Chile, fell 4.29%, and the market in Buenos Aires, Argentina, lost 2.72%. Latin American losses that day were smaller those in New York, where the Dow Jones lost 5.11%. (La Jornada 10/8/08 from Reuters, AFP, DPA and Notimex) But fallout from the global crisis is likely to get worse. Speaking in Durango on Oct. 6, Mexican Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón said his department expected some 200,000 Mexicans now working in the US to come home during the next year; he denied the number would be in the millions. (LJ 10/7/08)
Despite the problems in Latin America, the US government's dramatic interventions to unfreeze its own credit markets have amused Latin American critics of US neoliberal economic policies. "How many times have [US officials] criticized me for nationalizing the phone company?" Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez asked during his weekly television program. "They say, 'The state shouldn't get involved in that.' But now they don't criticize [US president George W.] Bush for having nationalized...the biggest banks in the world. Comrade Bush, how are you?" (McClatchy Newspapers 10/7/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US policy
Political and Social Crisis in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1521/1/
Bolivia: Back to the Trenches
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1519/68/
Bolivia: Water, Energy Everywhere - But Not for Locals
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1513/68/
Peru: cabinet shake-up in "Petrogate" scandal
http://ww4report.com/node/6152
Peru: Sendero resurgent in Apurimac Valley
http://ww4report.com/node/6153
Peru: disappearances in Ayacucho
http://ww4report.com/node/6131
Refugees in Ecuador: Plan Colombia and the Asylum Lottery
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1511/1/
Change Triumphs in Ecuador's Constitutional Referendum
http://nacla.org/node/5071
Colombia: Uribe decrees emergency powers in judicial strike http://ww4report.com/node/6151
Colombian guerillas linked to Mexican cartels?
http://ww4report.com/node/6150
Nicaragua: McCain served on board of terrorist-linked organization
http://ww4report.com/node/6116#comment-314052
Memories of the Meltdown: The Sky Is Falling on Mexico Too
http://nacla.org/node/5078
Study Makes Case for Legalizing Abortion in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1518/68/
Armoring NAFTA: The Battleground for Mexico's Future
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5544
Haiti's New PM and the Power of NGO's
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1517/68/
Bush Seen as Out of Touch on Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1512/68/
Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives to Transnational Mining
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1515/1/
Latin America: The War on Democracy - Documentary Online
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1514/1/
Bush Foreign Policy: From Dynasty to Legacy
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5577
The Biosafety Protocol and the Future of Biosafety
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5559
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and
alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly
Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com
Monday, 6 October 2008
Links but no Update for October 5, 2008
[Due to other commitments, we are unable to send out an Update this week. We'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
Argentina: farmers strike again
http://ww4report.com/node/6112
Argentina: The Crisis That Isn't
http://nacla.org/node/5068
President of Paraguay Turns Down Meeting with Sarah Palin
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1500/68/
Cooperation as Rebellion: Creating Sustainable Agriculture in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1505/1/
Brazil: rate of Amazon destruction increases
http://ww4report.com/node/6113
Bolivia: Evo bars DEA overflights
http://ww4report.com/node/6111
Bolivia in Dialogue: Between Hope and Civil War http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1507/1/
New Ecuadorian Constitution Approved by Strong Majority, President Correa
Claims "Historic Victory"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1499/1/
Colombian army chief accused of arming paramilitaries
http://ww4report.com/node/6107
Colombia: wave of violence and threats against popular leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/6108
Colombia: war refugees reach two-decade peak
http://ww4report.com/node/6110
Another Indigenous Leader Assassinated in Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1501/68/
Violence Against Activists in Colombia Grows
http://nacla.org/node/5072
Venezuelan State Oil Company's Growing Presence in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1504/68/
Venezuela: The New York Times' Real Feelings on Term Limits
http://nacla.org/node/5067
Photo Essay: Water Tribunal in Guatemala Condemns Goldcorp... Again http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1502/1/
Mexico: campesino self-immolation in Veracruz
http://ww4report.com/node/6114
Mexico: narco-killing spree shakes Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6115
Chomsky: Latin American Unity
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1503/68/
Argentina: farmers strike again
http://ww4report.com/node/6112
Argentina: The Crisis That Isn't
http://nacla.org/node/5068
President of Paraguay Turns Down Meeting with Sarah Palin
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1500/68/
Cooperation as Rebellion: Creating Sustainable Agriculture in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1505/1/
Brazil: rate of Amazon destruction increases
http://ww4report.com/node/6113
Bolivia: Evo bars DEA overflights
http://ww4report.com/node/6111
Bolivia in Dialogue: Between Hope and Civil War http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1507/1/
New Ecuadorian Constitution Approved by Strong Majority, President Correa
Claims "Historic Victory"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1499/1/
Colombian army chief accused of arming paramilitaries
http://ww4report.com/node/6107
Colombia: wave of violence and threats against popular leaders
http://ww4report.com/node/6108
Colombia: war refugees reach two-decade peak
http://ww4report.com/node/6110
Another Indigenous Leader Assassinated in Colombia http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1501/68/
Violence Against Activists in Colombia Grows
http://nacla.org/node/5072
Venezuelan State Oil Company's Growing Presence in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1504/68/
Venezuela: The New York Times' Real Feelings on Term Limits
http://nacla.org/node/5067
Photo Essay: Water Tribunal in Guatemala Condemns Goldcorp... Again http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1502/1/
Mexico: campesino self-immolation in Veracruz
http://ww4report.com/node/6114
Mexico: narco-killing spree shakes Tijuana
http://ww4report.com/node/6115
Chomsky: Latin American Unity
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1503/68/
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
WNU #962: Latin American Leaders React to "Giant's Toppling"
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #962, September 28, 2008
1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
According to exit polls, Ecuadoran voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal for a new Constitution in a referendum held Sept. 28. The Santiago Pérez Investigación y Estudios polling firm showed 66.4% of voters supporting the measure, while Cedatos-Gallup put the proportion at 70%. President Rafael Correa, who had called for the new charter, said the vote was a "new historic triumph" and led supporters in chanting: "The people united will never be defeated." The center-left president got the results while visiting his hometown, Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most prosperous city. Santiago Pérez's exit poll showed Guayaquil voters backing the new Constitution, despite fears by Correa's supporters that the city might become an opposition center in the same way that Santa Cruz has become a focus of opposition to Bolivian president Evo Morales, a Correa ally.
The new Constitution, Ecuador's 20th, allows presidents to run for two consecutive four-year terms, opening the possibility that Correa could govern until 2017; promotes a "social and solidarity-based" economic model to replace the current neoliberal policies; forbids the installation of foreign military bases like the US base at Manta; and grants soldiers the right to vote. (San Jose (California) Mercury News 9/28/08 from AP; El Universal (Caracas) 9/28/08 from AP)
*2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
Latin American leaders who came to New York the week of Sept. 22 for the annual opening session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that the US and European countries should use economic models from the South to resolve the growing financial crisis in the North.
On Sept. 23 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled the arguments US advisers had used to promote neoliberal policies during the 1990s: "that the market solved everything, that the state wasn't necessary, that support for state intervention was nostalgia from groups that hadn't understood how the economy had evolved." But now "the most formidable state intervention in memory was produced precisely in the place when they told us that the state wasn't necessary," she said, referring to a series of government bailouts of financial institutions in the US.
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva emphasized the need for changes in the way multilateral organizations work so that they can confront the dangers of financial speculation and lack of equality among nations. He offered examples from Latin America, such as the current efforts of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to support the government of elected Bolivian president Evo Morales. He noted that Brazil will be the site of the "first Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean." He said no countries would be treated like protectorates at the summit, which would be "based on [the different countries'] own perspectives." (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/24/08 from correspondent)
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías skipped the General Assembly, instead going to China on Sept. 23 for a three-day visit. "It's more important to be in Beijing than in New York," he remarked. In this visit to China--his fifth--Chávez met with Chinese president Hu Jintao, signed 12 economic agreements, including accords on the construction of refineries, and discussed the possible purchase of military aircraft. Venezuela now plans to increase its exports of crude oil to China from 364,000 barrels a day to 500,000 barrels a day in 2009; it currently exports 1.1 million barrels a day to the US. (LJ 9/24/08 from AFP, DPA, Xinhua, 9/25/08 from AFP, DPA, Reuters, Xinhua) Chávez had remarked on Sept. 21 that the "financial collapse of global capitalism" was affecting those countries "that are strongly hitched up to the US economy. We've started to unhitch ourselves." He added: "This doesn't mean we're invulnerable, because this is about the toppling of a giant." (LJ 9/22/08)
During the opening of the General Assembly, US president George W. Bush announced a new US economic plan for the hemisphere, the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative. The US launched it with a meeting of leaders from the Americas on Sept. 24 in New York. The invitees were presidents Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Alvaro Uribe (Colombia), Oscar Arias (Costa Rica), Leonel Fernández (Dominican Republic), Antonio Saca (El Salvador), Alvaro Colom (Guatemala), Felipe Calderón (Mexico) and Martín Torrijos (Panama), along with Peruvian vice president Luis Giampietri and Canadian ambassador Michelle Wilson. In an opinion column, former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz compared the new project to President John Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress and President Bill Clinton's 1994 Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), which "received its coup de grâce in Mar del Plata [Argentina] in the year 2005" [see Update #823]. (LJ 9/27/08 from AFP, DPA; Prensa Latina (English) 9/27/08)
*3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
Teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos, on strike since Aug. 13 [see Updates #959, 960], escalated their tactics on Sept. 22 by blocking access to state government offices in Cuernavaca, the state capital. Gov. Marco Antonio Adame Castillo, of the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN), responded by asking the federal government for 400 anti-riot agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP). Some 20,000 Morelos teachers have been trying to force Adame Castillo to cancel the state's participation in the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan supported by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo. The teachers are members of Section 19 of the SNTE.
On Sept. 23, about 6,000 Morelos strikers joined thousands of teachers from other states for a march in the nearby Federal District (DF, Mexico City); the protest was sponsored by the Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a rank-and-file caucus in the SNTE. Some 200 teachers from the DF, members of SNTE Section 9, caught the authorities off guard by occupying the headquarters of the federal government's Public Education Secretariat (SEP); they succeeded in blocking access for eight hours before being removed. On Sept. 24 Morelos teachers blocked four lanes of the Autopista del Sol turnpike and two lanes of the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, along with Cuernavaca's three main avenues: Morelos, Plan de Ayala and Emiliano Zapata. The blockades ended under pressure from motorists.
Also on Sept. 24, the Morelos Democratic Teachers Movement, which represents the strikers, began talks with state and federal officials. But negotiations remained at an impasse as of Sept. 27. The state government claimed 6,000 of the strikers were planning to return to the classroom on Sept. 29, while anger against the strike appeared to be growing among parents.
Teachers have also protested the ACE in other states. Some 13,000 teachers held escalating strikes for a month in Quintana Roo; on Sept. 22 they suspended their strike for 90 days, returning to work in exchange for some concessions from the state government.
In Puebla at least 5,000 teachers from SNTE Sections 23 and 51 protested for three hours on Sept. 23, calling the ACE a plan to privatize education. About 3,000 teachers marched in Guanajuato on the same day; their chants included: "She's not Mickey Mouse, she's not Topo Gigio [an Italian puppet mouse], she's that rat Gordillo." Some 900 teachers and parents marched in Tijuana, Baja California Norte; 500 teachers held a brief strike in Durango; Guerrero teachers walked out of the classroom and blocked state offices in Chilpancingo, the state capital.
Protests continued on Sept. 25 with a march by 15,000 Guerrero teachers and a four-hour occupation of SNTE Section 4's offices in Campeche by 300 dissident teachers. In Oaxaca, where a strike by SNTE Section 22 set off a popular uprising in 2006, some 70,000 teachers marched, declaring support for the Morelos teachers and rejecting President Calderón's economic program and any privatization of Mexico's oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). (La Jornada 9/23/08, 9/24/08, 9/25/08, 9/27/08, 9/28/08)
*4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
The US government is not currently scheduling any deportations to Haiti, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said on Sept. 19. According to Gonzales, federal officials are evaluating conditions in the country, which was hit by four tropical storms in less than a month [see Update #961]. Some Congress members from south Florida, which has a large population of Haitian origin, said they were disappointed Haitians have not been granted temporary protected status (TPS), which allows immigrants to stay in the US for a limited time because of wars or environmental disasters in their home countries. But Gonzalez made it clear that the deportation of Haitians would continue: "When we feel it's appropriate to resume, we'll notify members of Congress." (AP 9/19/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
Brazil: high court puts off key ruling on Amazon land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/6081
An Open Letter to the U.S. State Department Regarding Recent Violence in Bolivia http://nacla.org/node/5031
Information on Washington's Interference in Bolivian Affairs http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1488/1/
Peru: Interview with Political Prisoner Lori Berenson
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1497/1/
Uncontacted tribes flee Peruvian Amazon: evidence
http://ww4report.com/node/6088
Ecuador's Constitution Gives Rights to Nature
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1494/1/
Mexican diaspora gets bigger
http://ww4report.com/node/6080
Mexico: arrests in Independence Day massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6079
Mexican Activists Turn Over Mexico City Man to Police in Sally Grace Eiler Murder Case http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/mexican-activists-turn-over-mexico-city-man-police-sally-grace-eile
Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1490/1/
McCain-Palin and Latin America
http://nacla.org/node/5035
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #962, September 28, 2008
1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Ecuador: Easy Win for New Constitution
According to exit polls, Ecuadoran voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal for a new Constitution in a referendum held Sept. 28. The Santiago Pérez Investigación y Estudios polling firm showed 66.4% of voters supporting the measure, while Cedatos-Gallup put the proportion at 70%. President Rafael Correa, who had called for the new charter, said the vote was a "new historic triumph" and led supporters in chanting: "The people united will never be defeated." The center-left president got the results while visiting his hometown, Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most prosperous city. Santiago Pérez's exit poll showed Guayaquil voters backing the new Constitution, despite fears by Correa's supporters that the city might become an opposition center in the same way that Santa Cruz has become a focus of opposition to Bolivian president Evo Morales, a Correa ally.
The new Constitution, Ecuador's 20th, allows presidents to run for two consecutive four-year terms, opening the possibility that Correa could govern until 2017; promotes a "social and solidarity-based" economic model to replace the current neoliberal policies; forbids the installation of foreign military bases like the US base at Manta; and grants soldiers the right to vote. (San Jose (California) Mercury News 9/28/08 from AP; El Universal (Caracas) 9/28/08 from AP)
*2. Latin America: Reactions to "Giant's Toppling"
Latin American leaders who came to New York the week of Sept. 22 for the annual opening session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that the US and European countries should use economic models from the South to resolve the growing financial crisis in the North.
On Sept. 23 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled the arguments US advisers had used to promote neoliberal policies during the 1990s: "that the market solved everything, that the state wasn't necessary, that support for state intervention was nostalgia from groups that hadn't understood how the economy had evolved." But now "the most formidable state intervention in memory was produced precisely in the place when they told us that the state wasn't necessary," she said, referring to a series of government bailouts of financial institutions in the US.
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva emphasized the need for changes in the way multilateral organizations work so that they can confront the dangers of financial speculation and lack of equality among nations. He offered examples from Latin America, such as the current efforts of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to support the government of elected Bolivian president Evo Morales. He noted that Brazil will be the site of the "first Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean." He said no countries would be treated like protectorates at the summit, which would be "based on [the different countries'] own perspectives." (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/24/08 from correspondent)
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías skipped the General Assembly, instead going to China on Sept. 23 for a three-day visit. "It's more important to be in Beijing than in New York," he remarked. In this visit to China--his fifth--Chávez met with Chinese president Hu Jintao, signed 12 economic agreements, including accords on the construction of refineries, and discussed the possible purchase of military aircraft. Venezuela now plans to increase its exports of crude oil to China from 364,000 barrels a day to 500,000 barrels a day in 2009; it currently exports 1.1 million barrels a day to the US. (LJ 9/24/08 from AFP, DPA, Xinhua, 9/25/08 from AFP, DPA, Reuters, Xinhua) Chávez had remarked on Sept. 21 that the "financial collapse of global capitalism" was affecting those countries "that are strongly hitched up to the US economy. We've started to unhitch ourselves." He added: "This doesn't mean we're invulnerable, because this is about the toppling of a giant." (LJ 9/22/08)
During the opening of the General Assembly, US president George W. Bush announced a new US economic plan for the hemisphere, the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative. The US launched it with a meeting of leaders from the Americas on Sept. 24 in New York. The invitees were presidents Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Alvaro Uribe (Colombia), Oscar Arias (Costa Rica), Leonel Fernández (Dominican Republic), Antonio Saca (El Salvador), Alvaro Colom (Guatemala), Felipe Calderón (Mexico) and Martín Torrijos (Panama), along with Peruvian vice president Luis Giampietri and Canadian ambassador Michelle Wilson. In an opinion column, former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz compared the new project to President John Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress and President Bill Clinton's 1994 Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), which "received its coup de grâce in Mar del Plata [Argentina] in the year 2005" [see Update #823]. (LJ 9/27/08 from AFP, DPA; Prensa Latina (English) 9/27/08)
*3. Mexico: Teacher Strikes Continue
Teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos, on strike since Aug. 13 [see Updates #959, 960], escalated their tactics on Sept. 22 by blocking access to state government offices in Cuernavaca, the state capital. Gov. Marco Antonio Adame Castillo, of the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN), responded by asking the federal government for 400 anti-riot agents from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP). Some 20,000 Morelos teachers have been trying to force Adame Castillo to cancel the state's participation in the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), a national plan supported by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) head Elba Esther Gordillo. The teachers are members of Section 19 of the SNTE.
On Sept. 23, about 6,000 Morelos strikers joined thousands of teachers from other states for a march in the nearby Federal District (DF, Mexico City); the protest was sponsored by the Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a rank-and-file caucus in the SNTE. Some 200 teachers from the DF, members of SNTE Section 9, caught the authorities off guard by occupying the headquarters of the federal government's Public Education Secretariat (SEP); they succeeded in blocking access for eight hours before being removed. On Sept. 24 Morelos teachers blocked four lanes of the Autopista del Sol turnpike and two lanes of the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, along with Cuernavaca's three main avenues: Morelos, Plan de Ayala and Emiliano Zapata. The blockades ended under pressure from motorists.
Also on Sept. 24, the Morelos Democratic Teachers Movement, which represents the strikers, began talks with state and federal officials. But negotiations remained at an impasse as of Sept. 27. The state government claimed 6,000 of the strikers were planning to return to the classroom on Sept. 29, while anger against the strike appeared to be growing among parents.
Teachers have also protested the ACE in other states. Some 13,000 teachers held escalating strikes for a month in Quintana Roo; on Sept. 22 they suspended their strike for 90 days, returning to work in exchange for some concessions from the state government.
In Puebla at least 5,000 teachers from SNTE Sections 23 and 51 protested for three hours on Sept. 23, calling the ACE a plan to privatize education. About 3,000 teachers marched in Guanajuato on the same day; their chants included: "She's not Mickey Mouse, she's not Topo Gigio [an Italian puppet mouse], she's that rat Gordillo." Some 900 teachers and parents marched in Tijuana, Baja California Norte; 500 teachers held a brief strike in Durango; Guerrero teachers walked out of the classroom and blocked state offices in Chilpancingo, the state capital.
Protests continued on Sept. 25 with a march by 15,000 Guerrero teachers and a four-hour occupation of SNTE Section 4's offices in Campeche by 300 dissident teachers. In Oaxaca, where a strike by SNTE Section 22 set off a popular uprising in 2006, some 70,000 teachers marched, declaring support for the Morelos teachers and rejecting President Calderón's economic program and any privatization of Mexico's oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). (La Jornada 9/23/08, 9/24/08, 9/25/08, 9/27/08, 9/28/08)
*4. Haiti: US Holds Up Deportations
The US government is not currently scheduling any deportations to Haiti, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said on Sept. 19. According to Gonzales, federal officials are evaluating conditions in the country, which was hit by four tropical storms in less than a month [see Update #961]. Some Congress members from south Florida, which has a large population of Haitian origin, said they were disappointed Haitians have not been granted temporary protected status (TPS), which allows immigrants to stay in the US for a limited time because of wars or environmental disasters in their home countries. But Gonzalez made it clear that the deportation of Haitians would continue: "When we feel it's appropriate to resume, we'll notify members of Congress." (AP 9/19/08)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Bolivia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Haiti
Brazil: high court puts off key ruling on Amazon land rights
http://ww4report.com/node/6081
An Open Letter to the U.S. State Department Regarding Recent Violence in Bolivia http://nacla.org/node/5031
Information on Washington's Interference in Bolivian Affairs http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1488/1/
Peru: Interview with Political Prisoner Lori Berenson
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1497/1/
Uncontacted tribes flee Peruvian Amazon: evidence
http://ww4report.com/node/6088
Ecuador's Constitution Gives Rights to Nature
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1494/1/
Mexican diaspora gets bigger
http://ww4report.com/node/6080
Mexico: arrests in Independence Day massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/6079
Mexican Activists Turn Over Mexico City Man to Police in Sally Grace Eiler Murder Case http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/mexican-activists-turn-over-mexico-city-man-police-sally-grace-eile
Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1490/1/
McCain-Palin and Latin America
http://nacla.org/node/5035
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://nacla.org/articles
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
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