Central America. El País reports on the situation in Guatemala saying that around 100 persons have been blocked from leaving Guatemala because investigators believe many could be connected to or have information about the assassination of Rodrigo Rosenberg.
EFE writes that recently elected Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes traveled to Venezuela this week, just days before he takes office. Funes and Hugo Chávez were said to be discussing trade, oil, and health issues. The AP also reported this week that U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton will travel to El Salvador for the inauguration of Funes before going on to Honduras for the OAS General Assembly.
The Nation has a piece on the opening of once-secret military and police archives in Guatemala. The magazine writes that “these documents are now being used in Guatemalan courts in cases against two police officials, Hector Rios and Abraham Gomez, for the disappearance of a student leader in 1984.”
The Moscow Times reports that Russia donated 130 buses to Nicaragua this week. Last September, Nicaragua was the only country, outside of Russia, that recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
And, Samuel Logan blogs at Security in Latin America about an editorial in Honduran daily “El Heraldo” entitled “En route to a failed state.” The piece looks at the effect of spillover violence from Mexico and continued problems with common gang violence.
Argentina. El País writes that the Argentine government has reformed legislation that will now allow information collected by military radars to pass immediately to the Secretary of Internal Security. The paper says changes were made out of fears about drug trafficking.
The AP writes that ex-President Nestor Kirchner’s decision to run for Congress “has transformed what was once a sleepy midterm election into a referendum on [Cristina] Fernandez's left-leaning government and its struggling efforts to exert more control over the economy.”
Bolivia. The BBC writes that a trial in the Bolivian Supreme Court against former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada opened Monday. “Goni” and 16 ministers are accused of being responsible for the death of over 60 protestors in El Alto in 2003, but Goni was granted political asylum in the U.S.
Last week, according to the AP, the chamber of deputies suspended the president of the Supreme Court, Eddy Fernandez for denying and delaying the judicial process.
Also from the AP, a report that outgoing U.S. Asst. Sec. of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Tom Shannon, will travel to Bolivia today to discuss restoring diplomatic relations.
And at Upside Down World, Jeremy Bigwood writes about the new documents he recently obtained from USAID through FOIA requests. He writes: “While USAID has done some excellent work in developing Bolivia’s roads and other worthy projects, it clearly also promotes some lesser-known political agendas. One of the more novel of these, according to the documents, is to "counter attacks on the USG (including USAID) from senior levels of the GOB (Government of Bolivia)." This is hardly the work of a development agency.”
Brazil. David Rothkopf writes on his blog at Foreign Policy about an interesting prospect: making Lula da Silva the first World Bank president to not be from the U.S. Rothkopf writes: “According to those close to him, he would like something on the international stage…Given the former labor leader's interest in social issues, particularly the plight of the world's poorest, those close to Lula say his ideal job would be doing something that can meaningfully help the disadvantaged in Africa and other hard-hit regions.”
Meanwhile, Lula this week traveled first to Saudi Arabia, praising his country's growing relations with Saudi Arabia and the Middle East on Sunday, while pushing for more trade and investment in the region. He then traveled to China, where the Financial Times reports that Lula and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, agreed to work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar. The two discussed replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month. China and Brazil also signed a major oil deal.
Meanwhile, however, the Brazilian Congress announced this week that they would be investigating state oil giant, Petrobras for apparent irregularities and accusations of corruption.
According to EFE, a supporter of Lula da Silva in the Brazilian Congress, announced he would present a constitutional amendment for Brazilians to decide about the possibility of re-electing the current Brazilian president. Lula has said many times he is not interested in being reelected.
And, finally, in a busy week, Lula found time to also launch a website on Wednesday containing information from the 1964 to 1985 military dictatorship. The portal is part of the national archives, but many military archives still remain sealed say human rights groups.
Chile. Inter Press Service reports that anti-mining activists in Chile are attempting to block approval of a new mine on the Argentine border to be opened by Canadian mining company, Barrick Gold. Activists say there have been numerous irregularities in the approval process.
Colombia. The Guardian reports that Great Britain is targeting one of the most notorious of Colombian drug cartels, the Cali cartel, by demanding the extradition of its key members to face trial in the UK. This follows the first extradition to the UK from Colombia since the countries signed a treaty in 1889.
Cuba. The Miami Herald reports on Raúl Castro’s daughter leading a gay rights advocacy day in Havana this week. The report says tolerance for gays on the island has improved. Parliament speaker President Ricardo Alarcón even opened the festivities saying that Cuba has advanced in recent years in the area of gay rights.
Dominican Republic. EFE reports that Dominican President Leonel Fernandez said an agreement was reached with an ex-presidential candidate that which might allow the current head of state to seek another term in 2016. Fernandez is still barred from running again in 2012 as restrictions against consecutive re-election remain.
Also, the Huffington Post has an opinion piece on a new law restricting abortion in the DR. “Under Dominican law, doctors who perform abortions -- and women who obtain them -- face harsh penalties, including prison sentences,” says writer Sharon Camp.
Ecuador. In the Columbia Journalism Review, a very interesting piece about “cronica roja” in Ecuador. Writer Daniel Denvir examines Ecuador’s most popular paper, Extra, a tabloid which, unlike U.S. tabloids focuses on violence, blood, and gore and is known for its often shocking photos from morgues and crime scenes (which the government has tried to restrict). To its readers, “Extra communicates reality, or versions thereof, in a broadly drawn and thus legible way. Stories are dramatic, casting real-life characters as archetypal heroes and villains, narrating a popular moral order,” writes Denvir.
And, at Bloggings by Boz, a note on an event on the Andean region yesterday at the Inter-American Dialogue. Boz picks out three illuminating quotes from speakers on Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia. Of Ecuador, María Paula Romo, recently elected to the Ecuadorian assembly, says “It's absurd to criticize us for harming democratic institutionality. There were no democratic institutions for the past decade.... We're building things from scratch.”
Mexico. The weekly round-up of stories from Mexico this week:
· First, an excellent piece in Time this week about the memoirs of former drug lord, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. The Mexican magazine “Gatopardo” will be publishing the words of Gallardo, written from prison (where he has been since 1989). He retells his capture, the double life of Mexican police officers, as well as offering his solution to the drug problem: fighting poverty.
· On the issue of corruption in the drug fight, the Houston Chronicle writes about Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, former Mexican drug czar, who is accused in a new U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report of taking bribes from one of Mexico’s oldest narcotics trafficking cartels.
· On drug violence, a report in El País on the murder of police officer and his family by a group of sicarios in Tabasco state.
· On the militarization of the drug war in Mexico, Felipe Calderon said this week that Ciudad Juarez was the epicenter of the battle against cartels and therefore would remain until corruption is rooted out of the police force there.
· More on President Felipe Calderon. In Guerrero, a guerrilla group in the heart of the drug war zone accused the Mexican president this week of supporting the Sinaloa Cartel and the interests of notorious trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
· At Nacla, more news on the struggle of anti-mining activists and indigenous groups to keep Canadian mining company Fortuna Silver out of Oaxaca. According to author Todd Miller as “Mexican security budgets inflate with U.S. aid – to combat the rising power of drug trafficking and organized crime – rights groups say these funds are increasingly being used to protect the interests of multinational corporations.”
· And Adam Isacson at Plan Colombia and Beyond has a detailed breakdown of the money that would go to Mexico under war funding bills coming out of the House and Senate.
Peru. The AP and The Guardian both have pieces about the struggle between indigenous groups and Peruvian state that has escalated in the last week. The AP says “Indigenous groups protesting laws opening Peru's Amazon to oil and natural resource development said Saturday they would withdraw a call for an insurgency against the government, but vowed to press ahead with their protests.” While The Guardian says “the government has authorized the military to move into remote provinces where a state of emergency has been declared in the wake of a month-long stand-off between indigenous people and police.”
Venezuela. The AP writes that China and Venezuelan state oil giant PDVSA created this week a joint company for oil exploration and crude development. PetroChina Ltd. and PDVSA also will cooperate to form a company that will create two refineries and transport petroleum. The joint operation will make it the largest oil producer in China.
According to Bloomberg, Venezuela’s economy continues to grow, although at the slowest pace in six years. The country registered growth of 0.3% from one year earlier.
Two pieces on crime and violence from IPS. The news service says incidents of violence against trade unionists appear to be rising. Two unionists were killed recently, one a construction worker and another a Toyota plant worker in the last two weeks. Also, a story on underreported “express kidnappings” in Venezuela whereby “kidnappers hold their victims for a short time, usually just a few hours, forcing them to get ransom money from their families or their bank accounts or credit cards.”
The AP reports that the Venezuelan government temporally occupied a pasta factory owned by Cargill this week for not complying with price control regulations.
The AP also reported this week that Hugo Chávez’s popularity still remains very high. A recent poll put support for the president at 59%, only two points down from February.
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