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Jamaicans woke up Friday to news that was both startling and routine: Two policemen, including the No. 3 officer in the Jamaican National Constabulary, had been gunned down on the streets of Kingston suburbs.
Murder is a grisly reality on the Caribbean island, which suffers the most killings per capita of any nation on the planet. Much of the slaughter goes on at gang level, among neighborhood political dons and drug runners, leaving many in the island's small middle and upper classes indifferent to the dangers of daily life in the shantytowns of cinder-block hovels.
But gun violence has begun creeping into the more comfortable suburbs of walled ranch houses and tourist venues like Montego Bay, threatening the lives and livelihoods of the more privileged population.
The island of 2.7 million suffered 12 killings Thursday, pushing this year's murder toll past 1,400, already a 15% jump over 2006 with the violent Christmas season yet to go.
The shooting deaths of the two policemen, Assistant Commissioner Gilbert Kameka and Constable Valentino Chambers, also brought to 18 the number of police killed this year, setting another distressing record.
Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami
The First World must pony up if the planet’s tropical forests are to be saved, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva warns before next week’s United Nations conference in Bali on climate change.
"It’s necessary that rich countries know that … we are going to discuss seriously the price that rich countries have to pay so that poorer countries can preserve their forests," Lula said this week in a major speech on the incendiary topic. "You’re not going to convince a poor person from any country in the world that he cannot cut down a tree without having in exchange the right to work, the right to eat."
Under Lula’s guidance, Brazil has sought to position itself as a trailblazer on environmental issues, despite continued criticism of rampant tree-slashing for agriculture and other development in the Amazon and elsewhere. South America's largest and most industrialized nation has pioneered the utilization of renewable energy sources and the use of low-emission ethanol from sugar cane.
Brazil has championed the case for First World funding to help shield tropical forests, asserting that rich nations must do their part. Lula has been outspoken and somewhat defensive on the issue, declaring that Brazilians will not accept being treated "like second-class citizens."
Lula, a close U.S. ally who signed biofuels pacts with Washington this year and met with President Bush in Brazil and at Camp David, also took the opportunity to renew criticism of the United States for its import duties on biofuels from Brazil. The Bush administration has been keen to protect the domestic ethanol industry, which uses less-efficient corn.
"Where is the trade equality?" Lula asked. "Where is the will to clean the planet?
Where is the will to diminish greenhouse gases? They could start taxing oil."
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell in Lima and Marcelo Soares in São Paulo.
If you like to ice skate but don't much like freezing temperatures, Mexico City may be the Christmas holiday destination for you. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, in another of his measures to encourage the natives to walk about and enjoy their city, has installed an ice rink in the city's central square, the Zocalo. (Previously, Ebrard opened up the capital's main street, Avenida Reforma, to bicyclists.) The rink opens this Saturday.
Not everyone is pleased with the cost, about $1.5 million for installation and to keep the rink up and running until January. Some 66% of respondents in an El Universal poll thought the money would be better used on other things. Few people in this city ice skate, and one expects to see many pratfalls under the sunny, 70-degree skies of a typical Mexico City winter day.
Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
As former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori awaits trial, his former aides also face a legal reckoning.
A court this week sentenced 10 ministers from Fujimori’s government for their roles in helping Fujimori shut down Congress and suspend the constitution in their boss' 1992 autogolpe, or self-coup.
The severest penalty was meted upon former Interior Minister Juan Briones Davila, who received a 10-year prison term. Nine other ex-Cabinet members each received suspended sentences of four years, Peruvian media reported.
Fujimori’s most notorious collaborator, ex-intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, has long been imprisoned on a wide range of graft and other accusations.
Fujimori, who was extradited back to Peru from neighboring Chile in September, is to stand trial later this month on human rights and corruption charges. His tumultuous, 10-year rule ended when he fled the country in 2000 and went into exile in Japan, his parents’ homeland.
Fujimori said he shut down Congress and ditched the constitution in a bid to restore order amid a violent leftist insurgency. Peruvians initially backed Fujimori’s hard-line response. But support eventually waned for Fujimori’s authoritarian ways.
Human rights advocates and others have applauded the prosecutions of Fujimori and his former aides as blows against impunity. But Fujimori supporters, including his daughter Keiko, a popular congresswoman here, have deplored the cases as mean-spirited outbursts of revenge.
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell in Lima
December will soon be upon us, which in Mexico means it's time for three things: tamales, las posadas and year-end lists. The magazine Poder y Negocios (Power and Business) already has weighed in with its rundown of los movers and shakers in various fields, including business, politics, journalism, culture and religion.
The list contains few big surprises. Among this year's usual suspects are the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, who sometimes seems to have a connection of one sort or another with every business in Mexico (including the magazine, which fails to acknowledge that Slim sits on the board of the all-powerful Televisa entertainment group, which has an editorial agreement with Poder y Negocios). Mexican President Felipe Calderon also gets major props from the magazine for "having recuperated for the presidency the image of real power" by cracking down on narcotics mafias, although some Mexicans think the jury is still out on whether Calderon's efforts are bearing fruit.
Also cited are Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera and entertainment impresario Salma Hayek, who somehow found time between acting jobs and producing the hit TV show "Ugly Betty" to pose in today's Mexico City newspapers with her new baby.
La Plaza did notice one somewhat unexpected name on the magazine's list: Denise Dresser, a political analyst who regularly contributes opinion pieces to the newspaper you are now reading. Poder y Negocios praises Dresser as "the moral conscience for thousands of Mexicans" and opines that Dresser's "frank and direct manner" has made her "one of the journalists with the most credibility and respect in the country."
Anyone want to offer some other nominees? What about Cuauhtemoc Blanco?
Posted by Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani thinks trade with South and Latin America could improve foreign relations. At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, he urged Congress to pass trade deals with Peru, Colombia and Panama. "The more America trades with a country, the less chance there is for hostilities, the less chance there is for war, the less chance there is for hostility that can't get resolved in a rational, businesslike way," Giuliani said. He said trade should be considered part of U.S. foreign policy and added that, for other countries, it is "how they get to know the genius of our economic system."
Posted by Nicole Gaouette in Washington
The governor of Puebla state in Mexico, Mario Marin, violated the rights of investigative journalist Lydia Cacho, according to an investigation conducted on behalf of Mexico's Supreme Court. Cacho is the author of an expose that alleged a prominent Mexican businessman, Jean Succar Kuri, was involved in a child sexual exploitation ring. Succar Kuri was arrested in the U.S. and extradited to Mexico in 2006.
In her book, Cacho accused another businessman, Kamel Nacif Borge, of protecting Succar Kuri. Nacif Borge then sued Cacho for defamation in Puebla state, and police officers from that state traveled to the Yucatan peninsula to arrest her. The case burst into the limelight when the newspaper La Jornada released tapes in which Nacif Borge and Gov. Marin purportedly discussed having Cacho arrested and "silenced." In the tapes, Nacif Borge calls Marin "my precious governor," and Marin calls the businessman "my hero" as the two celebrate Cacho's arrest. Cacho was quickly released and has since been honored by several journalist and human rights organizations. The Supreme Court report, released today, said Marin and several Puebla state functionaries conspired to deny the writer her rights.
Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
One of the most tragic events in recent Ecuadorean history was the drowning of 98 emigrants in August 2005 when the fishing boat they were crammed into below decks foundered 100 miles off the Pacific coast of Colombia. Most were from southern Azuay province, which has sent a high proportion of the 2 million Ecuadoreans (15% of the population) thought to have left the country over the last half century. Most emigrants end up in the United States, and that was the final destination, via Guatemala, of those lost in the 2005 shipwreck.
Largely as a result of pressure from victims' families, the government subsequently took a harder line in prosecuting coyotes and the tightly knit mafias that control the illicit emigration industry in Ecuador.
Last week, the families finally got some measure of justice when a national court in the Azuay capital Cuenca handed down convictions of the two ringleaders, sentencing each to 12 years in jail. That was the maximum term a convicted coyote with blood on his or her hands could serve at the time of the tragedy. Maximum sentences have since been extended to 25 years. According to prosecutor Paul Vasquez Illescas, 10 of the 14 members of the coyote ring are still at large.
Posted by Chris Kraul in Bogotá
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced in late August that he would try to broker the release of hostages held by Colombian rebels, expectations rose sky-high. With a green light from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Chavez met in Caracas this month with two emissaries from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which holds most of Colombia's estimated 3,000 kidnap hostages.
Then news of Chavez's arrival this week in France for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy spurred speculation that Chavez would announce a bombshell: the freeing, perhaps, of hostage and French citizen Ingrid Betancourt, or at least videos showing a sign of life. Sarkozy, after all, had persuaded Uribe to release FARC commander Rodrigo Granda from jail in June, the assumption being that Sarkozy had some direct connection to the FARC and a promise of a quid pro quo. But Chavez left Paris without even a video to prove that Ingrid and other political hostages, including three U.S. contractors, were alive.
Five months after Sarkozy lobbied for Granda's release, he has produced no reciprocal gesture from the FARC. Sarkozy on Tuesday told reporters that a videotaped sign of life was "indispensable" in verifying the sincerity of the FARC.
Sensing a fiasco in the making and possibly the FARC's desire to draw the process out for maximum publicity leverage, Uribe on Tuesday set an end-of-the-year limit on any more negotiations Chavez might hold with the rebels, at least with his consent. Responding to Chavez's statement that Uribe approved of and might even attend a meeting in the Colombian jungle of Chavez and FARC leaders, Uribe said he might approve such a meeting only if the FARC released hostages beforehand.
Posted by Chris Kraul in Bogotá
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators will use the second half of their two-week Thanksgiving recess to go on a Latin American road trip. The team, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), will visit Guatemala, Paraguay, Mexico, Colombia and the Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina “Tri Border” area from Nov. 25 through Dec. 2. The senators want to show their commitment to ties between the region and the U.S. Along the way, they'll sit down with the presidents of Gautemala, Colombia, Paraguay and Mexico and meet with labor, counter-narcotics, civic and trade officials. The group also includes Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).
Posted by Nicole Gaouette in Washington
Karl Marx once wrote, famously, that history repeats itself, "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." So it is in Mexican politics. The disputed 2006 presidential election was for many Mexicans a "tragedy": Millions of Mexicans lost faith in their democracy, believing the election was stolen from the charismatic leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. And the anger over that result continues to produce the occasional farcical incident, like the bust-up this past Sunday over the ringing of the church bells in Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo. The controversy, which began with ringing bells and ended with an angry crowd rushing into the church, has caused the Zocalo's Metropolitan Cathedral to be closed for the first time in 81 years.
It all started peacefully enough, with Lopez Obrador (who calls himself "the legitimate president of Mexico") and his leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) holding another mass rally in the square. Then the church bells started to ring in the cathedral, a 17th century structure built in part from the stones of Aztec pyramids. The bells were announcing the midday Mass, but they interrupted a speech by Lopez Obrador supporter Sen. Rosario Ibarra de Piedra. No one was bothered at first, until the bells kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing. And ringing some more. For nine to 12 minutes in all, according to the PRD and some news reports. About 100 PRD activists blamed the "boss" of the cathedral, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, a prelate known for his conservative sympathies, and rushed into the church, bumping into some of the faithful and knocking over furniture and calling the cardinal "the devil."
Church leaders called the incident an "act of terror." It was, by any measure, an embarrassment for the PRD, which Monday issued a press release condemning the acts of violence perpetrated by a small group of people. Still, the PRD said, the anger could be understood as a natural reaction to what many present saw as "the deliberate interruption of their political rally." The church may reopen this weekend.
Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
The weeks leading up to the April vote in Mexico City's legislature to legalize abortion were filled with heated rhetoric. Several lawmakers and activists supporting the legalization law cited a 2005 study by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM in Spanish) that estimated there were close to 1 million abortions performed in the country each year. Almost all of those abortions were illegal, and many were performed in underground clinics, causing untold women to lose their lives in botched surgeries. That study was often quoted (here, by Human Rights Watch) and I mentioned it in my story earlier this month on how 3,400 women had received legal abortions in Mexico City since the law took effect in May.
But blogger Dave Pierre has pointed out the obvious inconsistency between the actual number of legal abortions performed at Mexico City hospitals and that 1 million figure. If 3,400 women received legal abortions at Mexico City hospitals in six months, that adds up to only 6,800 per year. Mexico City is the only place where abortion on demand is legal in Mexico. But you could use that 6,800 figure to extrapolate the number of illegal abortions taking place in the rest of the country. If you consider that the Mexico City metropolitan region is home to almost 1 in 6 Mexicans (1 in 10 if you look at only the city proper) you could guess that there were about 40,000 to 68,000 abortions, legal and illegal, taking place in the entire country each year -- far less than 1 million.
There are, however, several problems with such an extrapolation. To begin with, Mexico City officials say there are several hundred women on the waiting list to receive abortions at public hospitals at any given time. But more important, the 3,400 figure is only for the public hospitals in Mexico -- and there are no figures I know of for abortions taking place in the city's private hospitals and clinics. But even if there was a very long waiting list at the public hospitals, and even if there were two abortions taking place in private clinics for every one abortion in the public hospitals, and even if many women were still using herbs and store-bought pills to induce their own at-home abortions, that would still add up to only 25,000 or so abortions in Mexico City each year. And by extrapolation, not more than 250,000 in the entire country, legal and illegal in a year.
The exact number of abortions in a country where abortions remains largely illegal can probably never be known. But in light of Mexico City's experience with legalized abortion, the 1-million figure appears too high.
Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
Protests by Dutch citizens demanding autonomy for the Caribbean island of Curacao have taken a surprising turn toward violence, with riot police dispelling demonstrators with tear gas and reportedly beating instigators.
The rallies that began over the weekend and culminated with an angry confrontation Monday are aimed at pressuring the Dutch government to deliver the autonomous status within the kingdom that islanders voted for two years ago.
The largest of the Dutch Antilles, Curacao voted in April 2005 for status aparte, which would make the self-governing island independent of the other four Dutch Antilles but in a loose confederation with other Dutch entities. Nearly 3,000 people have been demonstrating peacefully in Willemstad in a bid to pressure the island government to break off so-far fruitless negotiations with the Dutch government. The protesters became angry, however, when local authorities deployed riot police, who lobbed tear gas grenades and beat some women and elderly, including the wife of the island’s main opposition politician.
Netherlands and the Dutch Antilles have yet to approve the status change.
Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami
The outburst at last week's Ibero-American summit in Chile between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Spain's King Juan Carlos had all the hallmarks of a family feud. When Chavez accused the former Spanish prime minister José MarÃa Aznar of being a fascist, Spain's current prime minister, José LuÃs RodrÃguez Zapatero insisted that respect be shown to his predecessor â even though, the leftist Zapatero stated, he had little political affinity with the right-wing Aznar. When Chavez continued speaking, the king wagged a finger and demanded, "Why don't you shut up?"
To the contrary, in the days since the incident, Chavez has been speaking out even more, suggesting that the king's rebuke echoed the former Spanish empire's haughtiness and abuse of its onetime Latin American colonies and comparing Latin America's people to the persecuted Christ. It was as if George W. Bush had reproached Queen Elizabeth II for the British army's torching of the White House in the War of 1812.
But Latin America's relationship with the Spanish motherland is considerably more complex and conflicted than the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States. Relations between Spain and its progeny have improved greatly in recent decades, as Spain's governments, banks and businesses have invested heavily, from Cuba to Patagonia. But even after 500 years, resentments remain toward the former colonizer.
It's also worth remembering that during the Spanish Civil War, droves of Republican exiles took refuge in Latin America from Gen. Franco â a man entirely deserving of the "fascist" label. What's more, just imagine the uproar if Britain's opinionated Prince Charles were to tell George Bush (or Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani, for that matter) to shut his yap.
Still, historical aggrievement might not be the only explanation for Chavez's righteous indignation and nationalistic rhetoric about Venezuelan sovereignty. Chavez has been facing mounting opposition at home over his plans to make changes to Venezuela's constitution, including ending presidential term limits, which could extend his reign for years to come. The country's pro-Chavez National Assembly already has approved the proposed changes, and student demonstrators have taken to the streets.
So should President Chavez heed the King's advice? La Plaza reports, you decide.
Posted by Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Photo: Spain's King Juan Carlos, left, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez engage in a verbal sparring match at the Ibero-American summit in Chile. Credit: HO/AFP/Getty Images
Disasters have a way of making or breaking the reputations of public officials. The recent devastating flooding in the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas will prove a crucial test for Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
 Mexico's commander in chief has seen his popularity slide this year over his handling of the economy, according to a recent poll by the national daily El Universal. Some cartoonists have lampooned him for offering flood victims more time to file their income taxes when many of them have lost their homes and their livelihoods.
Yet others say Calderon has shown savvy political instincts. Unlike President Bush, who waited nearly a week to visit New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Calderon has visited Tabasco four times already and canceled a trip abroad. Images of Calderon filling sandbags and hugging bedraggled flood victims have filled television screens. He has promised millions in federal aid and has urged Mexicans to dig deep with private donations. Meanwhile, his popular and photogenic wife, Margarita Zavala, has been shown cradling babies and comforting seniors in shelters.
Calderon "has been Johnny-on-the-spot and doing all the right things," said Mexico expert George Grayson, a professor of comparative politics at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
Grayson also gave high marks to Tabasco's governor, Andres Granier, in contrast to some of his corrupt predecessors. Granier has allowed the manicured grounds of the governor's mansion in Tabasco's capital, Villahermosa, to be turned into a round-the-clock relief center where thousands queue up daily for food and medical aid. Pavilions that once hosted parties for dignitaries now shelter hundreds of homeless.
"He's not a miracle worker, and the problems are enormous," Grayson said of Granier, "but I think you have a governor who has a social commitment ... and that's rare in Tabasco."
Disasters have a history of precipitating political crises in Latin American countries. Evidence that the ruling Somoza dynasty pilfered rebuilding funds after Nicaragua’s devastating 1972 earthquake fueled the unrest that sparked the Sandinista revolution.
The 1985 earthquake that flattened parts of Mexico City and killed 10,000 people exposed the ineptitude both of local authorities and the one-party-dominated federal government and led to the rise of a multiparty political system in Mexico.
Only time will tell whether the 2007 floods prove to be a high-water mark or a quagmire for the Calderon administration.
Posted by Marla Dickerson and Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Photo: Mexican President Felipe Calderon helps residents in Villahermosa.
Credit: Alfredo Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images
Just why is the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Philip S. Goldberg, pictured in a photo with an alleged armed thief from Colombia?
The ongoing U.S.-Bolivian cold war is getting personal between Bolivia's president and Washington's man in La Paz.
Last month, Morales demanded an apology when Goldberg seemed to make light of Morales' suggestion that the United Nations be yanked from New York as a gesture against imperialism. Would the Bolivian president like Disneyland moved as well? the ambassador mused.
Then the leftist Morales charged on a stop in the Dominican Republic that the ambassador was in cahoots with "Colombian paramilitaries'' — a right-wing faction — in a plot to topple Bolivia’s government, reports the Bolivian daily La Razón. Morales warned that the United States faced "a new Vietnam" if it intervened in Latin America, notes the Argentine daily Clarin.
Washington has denied any plot to oust Morales, a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Both Bolivia and Venezuela have forged new alliances with Iran, a development Washington views as troubling.
On a visit to Rome, Morales declared that Bolivia had acquired photos of Goldberg in the company of a Colombian paramilitary operative, reported the daily El Mundo.
Now Bolivian officials have publicly presented a recent photo showing Goldberg with an alleged criminal from Colombia. Morales is demanding to know why Goldberg mugged for the camera with a smiling John Jairo Venegas, a Colombian held in a Bolivian jail in connection with an alleged armed robbery ring. Also in the photo is Gabriel Dabdoub, a business leader in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, bastion of the anti-Morales opposition. The embassy says it was just one of many casual photos snapped at a trade fair.
U.S. officials say they can't vet every single person who approaches the ambassador in public spaces seeking a photo-op. According to the embassy, the ambassador doesn’t know the Colombian, who was arrested in Bolivia some days after the photo was taken.
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires
"Drinking blood?" Valdeir "Vlad" Maximo da Silva told police. "I prefer grape juice and wine."
Silva, 27, denied charges that he coaxed teenagers into a vampire-style cult, allegedly biting their necks and sucking their blood as an initiation rite. "The kids already had marks," O Globo reported him as saying, "and if I had bitten I'd have chopped off someone's neck."
Silva said he took part in role-playing games with the youths. The chief investigator says that drinking one-third of a glass of blood may turn someone into a blood addict. O Globo says that even though Silva told the teenagers he had "wings on his back," he was actually a hunchback. Police are asking for a dental exam to gather more evidence.
Posted by Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo
The House passed legislation today to implement a free-trade agreement with Peru, even though fewer than half of Democrats voted for the measure. The pact would make 80% of U.S. exports to Peru duty-free, including wheat, cotton, soybeans and beef. Many House Democrats had wanted environmental and labor protections written into the deal, but felt that the way the Bush administration negotiated those protections made them virtually unenforceable. The measure now goes to the Senate, which is required by special "fast track" rules to vote on the agreement within 15 days. President Bush hailed the accord and urged Congress to "move promptly to consideration of our free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea." That's not likely to happen this year.
Posted by Nicole Gaouette in Washington
He allegedly promised immortality, via the vampire route.
Valdeir "Vlad" Máximo da Silva, 27, turned himself in this week to police in the city of Presidente Prudente.
The problem? Something to do with reported vampirism.
In recent months, Silva allegedly attracted at least 15 teenagers to his sect, the Legion of World Saviors, reports O Estado de S. Paulo.
The newspaper reported that initiation rites involved prospective members being bitten on the neck and having their blood sucked by Silva, who boasts sharp canines. He reportedly promised the youths that they'd become vampires, with the benefit of immortality. Parents became alarmed and informed police.
According to O Globo, Silva was planning an outing this Sunday with his followers to a "castle." Police didn't yet know if the suspect would be charged, since the teenage recruits were apparently volunteers. Authorities see the influence of horror flicks.
"I was convinced I'd become a vampire," said one of the youths. But the ex-initiate added that he lost faith in the self-styled vampire, even though he thinks Vlad meant no real harm.
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D’Alessandro in Buenos Aires
The entertainment giant took the unusual step of placing a paid advertisement Tuesday in Argentine newspapers to deny reports that a new Disney facility was to be built here. The ad said Walt Disney Co. "is not considering at the moment the implementation of any theme park project in the Argentine Republic or in any other country in Latin America," noted a story about the flap on the website of the newspaper Infobae.
Last month, La Nación wrote about the swirling rumors in an account under the headline "Disney, an ephemeral Argentine dream."
Disney said in its ad that it was initiating "legal actions" against Emile Maxim St. Patrick Higgins, who it said was responsible for spreading reports about a prospective new "Walt Disney Mundo." La Nación identified Higgins as an "eccentric Jamaican impresario" who heads a firm called Higgins Warner Corp. The newspaper quoted a local official as saying that three helicopters recently transported Higgins and apparent associates from the United States and the United Arab Emirates to meet with the mayor of San Pedro, where the park was supposedly to be built at a cost of $1 billion.
On Tuesday, Disney declared that Higgins had no "no relation" to it. It also expressed regrets that the actions could "damage the good faith of public opinion, generating false expectations." An e-mail sent to the Argentine firm associated with Higgins elicited a response that "Walt Disney Mundo ... has nothing to do with Walt Disney World of the U.S."
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D’Alessandro in Buenos Aires
Covering an election in Latin America is almost always an encounter with the unexpected, and Guatemala's presidential vote this past Sunday was no exception. Most of the pundits in Guatemala and abroad expected the rightist Otto Perez Molina to win, given his lead in preelection polls. When I visited polling places Sunday morning in Guatemala City, it was hard to find voters supporting Perez Molina's opponent, the center-left Alvaro Colom. Guatemala City and its million or so residents are suffering through a horrible crime wave — and Perez Molina, a former army general, was promising a "firm hand" against criminals.
So when I sauntered over to watch the results come in at the Tikal Futura Hotel, where Guatemala's election authorities had set up a counting center, I was a bit surprised to look up and see this partial result flashing on one of the big screens: Colom 59.4%, Perez Molina 40.5%, with 14% of the votes counted. Well, every election veteran knows that certain regions are counted first, and that a big lead at 8 p.m. can turn into a decisive defeat at 11 p.m. But we expected Perez Molina to be leading early, since Guatemala City was his stronghold, and everywhere in the world the urban vote is counted before the rural vote. In search of some clarification, I approached one of the electoral officials, and found a very nice woman who spoke impeccable English. (she had lived in Glendale, Calif., for several years.)
"No, sir," she said. "Those numbers are not complete. They are only for the rest of the country, excluding Guatemala City. The numbers for Guatemala City are on that other screen," she added, pointing to the far side of the room. The technicians of Guatemala's Supreme Electoral Tribunal hadn't figured out how to get the results from the capital city merged with the results from the provinces, she explained. I quickly wandered over to that other big screen, and saw this result for Guatemala City and its suburbs: Perez Molina 59.7%, Colom 40.3%, with 90% of the vote counted.
I shared what I had learned with my colleagues from the Washington Post and New York Times. Together we got out our pencils and did the math, adding the numbers from the two screens. We quickly realized that the rightist Perez Molina was almost certain to lose the election. Why? Because if you added the votes from Guatemala City to the votes from the rest of the country, the center-left Colom was slightly ahead. And the votes from Guatemala City, Perez Molina's stronghold, were almost completely tallied, while hundreds of thousands of rural votes were still out there. Very few of the reporters and election observers around us seemed to realize this, except for one young man in a dark suit who was laughing and yelling, "We won! We won!" into his cellphone. He was one of Colom's nephews.
About three hours later, long after the election technicians had figured out how to get the nationwide count unified and up on one of the big screens, the Guatemalan news media proclaimed Colom the winner. I rushed back to my hotel to write my story. On the way, my driver and I hit an unexpected Sunday night traffic jam. “What’s this?” I asked. A few seconds later, we encountered a policeman standing over a bundle. Closer inspection showed the bundle to be a human body, tied up in white tape and wrapped in clear plastic.
“They threw the body from the overpass,” my driver said, pointing to the bridge we had just passed under. More than likely, it was another drug-related execution — and a reminder of the challenges Colom faces as Guatemala’s president-elect.
Less than 24 hours later, I was back in the Tikal Futura Hotel, waiting in the lobby. A rattletrap white van pulled up to the front entrance. A very nice woman with no direct connection to the Colom campaign had somehow arranged for a colleague and me to interview the president-elect. Guatemala is a small country; she had friends who had friends who knew the man who will be the next president.
Posted by Héctor Tobar in Guatemala City
The signature Argentine rock group Soda Stereo is back, playing to sold-out stadiums in Latin America through December.
Parts of its first comeback concert, on Oct. 19, were posted on YouTube.
Soda Stereo, with a fanatical following throughout the region and among Latinos in the United States, is scheduling a record sixth concert in Buenos Aires’ Monumental Stadium, breaking the Rolling Stones' record at the so-called River Plate venue, notes the Pagina/12 newspaper.
Since launching its comeback after a decade-long absence, the group has also played to packed stadiums in Santiago, Chile, and Guayaquil, Ecuador. Next up: four dates in Mexico starting Friday in Monterrey’s University Stadium, before a gig Nov. 21 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.
News broke earlier this year that the acclaimed trio was patching up differences and performing anew.
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires
 The Argentine tennis star, who stunned the world as a young Wimbledon finalist in 2002, had fallen precipitously out of tennis' top 20 this year, complaining of injuries. The press was full of speculation that he was out of shape and less interested in practicing his volley than racing cars and enjoying the global cool circuit, in the company of escorts such as Sofia Zamolo, the sultry Argentine model. Then something happened.
Nalbandian has scored consecutive Masters victories in Madrid and Paris, on both occasions defeating tennis' top two players, Roger Federer of Switzerland and Rafael Nadal of Spain. In Madrid he also vanquished the world No. 3, the Serb Novak Djokovic, becoming a rare player to beat the world's top three in consecutive rounds.
On Sunday, Nalbandian dismantled Nadal in straight sets in Paris, finishing the match in slightly more than an hour. The muscle-bound Spanish idol had no clue.
"Since the U.S. Open I feel my tennis is coming back," Nalbandian said in Clarin. But, he added, "I never imagined this."
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires
Photo: David Nalbandian after beating Spain's Rafael Nadal in Paris.
Credit: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images
Francis Ford Coppola, in Buenos Aires for his next film project, has some advice for young Latin American cineastes.
"Have faith in life, don’t be frightened, something will turn up," the acclaimed director told students in a lengthy chat and Q&A at the Argentine national film school, reports the daily Clarin. The headline: "Coppola gave a class on life and cine."
Though best known for blockbusters such as "Apocalypse Now" and "The Godfather," Coppola talked up smaller-scale, more personal projects. "You have more control, it’s cheaper and you eat a better lunch."
His dream, he told the students, was to be a poet, working on projects more artsy than commercial in nature.
He says he chose to film in Argentina for "the climate, the food, the wine." A laptop was stolen in a break-in this year at his Buenos Aires production house, but he seemed to harbor no ill will toward the capital.
"They can rob you anywhere," Coppola noted, adding that he had made extra copies of the script for his new film, "Tetro," the saga of an artistic clan of Italian descent living in Argentina, where much of the population has bloodlines to Italy.
For now, Coppola is a man about town, notes Clarin, "Francis Ford Coppola makes the rounds in the city of Buenos Aires as if he were just another Argentine."
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires
Mexican President Felipe Calderon is finding out what President Bush learned the hard way: People don’t like new taxes.
Calderon’s approval rating sank to 57% in an October poll taken by the national daily El Universal. That’s down from 64% in August and 68% in the first quarter of the year.
Mexicans tell pollsters they don’t like the way their self-proclaimed "jobs president" is handling the economy. Employment growth is sluggish while prices for staples like tortillas, milk and eggs have soared.
But what really chaps their hides is a new 5.5% tax on gasoline that will be imposed next year. Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said they didn’t agree with the new levy, which will go to Mexico’s states, most of whose governors belong to the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years.
The poll was taken before the recent devastating floods hit the state of Tabasco, where an estimated 1 million people –- half the state’s population –- have been affected by the deluge. Calderon has been criticized heavily in the media for waiting nearly a week to accept offers from foreign countries to help Mexico deal with one of the worst natural disasters in its history.
Desperation is rising quickly in that southern state, where television and newspapers have shown images of citizens fighting over scarce food and water. Health authorities warn of the potential for outbreaks of cholera and other infectious diseases.
Calderon had better hope that pollsters skip Tabasco when they conduct their next survey of his popularity.
Posted by Marla Dickerson in Mexico City
They came, they saw, they stripped. Then Spencer Tunick took their picture.
 Now the results of the disrobing of several thousand people in Mexico City's Zòcalo, orchestrated by Tunick in May, are going on display. "Tunick antes del Zòcalo," an exhibition of 27 photographs as well as some video, opened Oct. 30 at the Museum of Mexico City, just a few blocks south of where the photos were taken. The images chronicle Tunick's ongoing project (or "obsession," as he calls it) with photographing massive throngs of nude people in major world cities.
Depending on your point of view, Tunick is either a bold visionary who creates spectacular art out of the fusion of man-made landscapes with the architecture of the human body, or a one-trick pony whose creations smack more of Roger Corman than Michelangelo.
Newspapers have reported that Tunick now is thinking of returning to Mexico for an encore, to shoot some group nudes at the massive pre-Columbian pyramids of Teotihuacàn, about a 50-minute drive north of the capital.
 "I feel like Bob Dylan, Nirvana or Radiohead; I feel that this is the moment in which I am making good work and acquiring respect for it," Tunick was quoted as saying in the Mexico City daily newspaper Reforma. In a brief accompanying interview in Reforma, Tunick was dismissive of well-documented reports of how some male participants in the Mexican shoot, after getting dressed, stood around heckling their still-naked female counterparts. "There was never a situation of real threat," Tunick was quoted as saying.
Ah, spoken like a true humanist.
Posted by Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Photo: Spencer Tunick and one of his photographs on display at the Museum of Mexico City. Credit: Marco Ugarte/AP
Photo: In May, Tunick filled Mexico City's Zòcalo with nude bodies. Credit: David de la Paz/EPA
Peruvian authorities are worried about remnants of the violent group Shining Path both in the country’s jungles and on the Web, reports the Peruvian daily Correo.
The newspaper cites recent postings on YouTube of a pair of provocative videos proselytizing for the group, with the title "Luchar hasta el final," or "Fight until the finish."
The Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) terrorized Peru during the 1980s and early 1990s through a campaign of bombings, assassinations, massacres and sabotage.
The Maoist-style movement waned after its leader, Abimael Guzmán, a former university professor known as Presidente Gonzalo, was captured in 1992. Clips of Guzmán, now serving a life term in Lima for terrorism-related charges, are interspersed in the video Web postings.
Peru has advanced well beyond the civil violence of the 1980s and '90s. But scattered cadres of Shining Path are believed to have retreated to little-policed subtropical areas, where they are said to protect cocaine traffickers and occasionally clash with authorities.
Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D’Alessandro in Buenos Aires
Nov. 2 is the Day of the Dead in Mexico, a holiday in Mexico City and other regions of the country. According to the newspaper La Jornada, 800,000 people were expected to visit the 117 cemeteries in Mexico City today, carrying out the traditional laying of flowers and food at grave sites. El Universal has a nice multimedia spread on how the holiday is celebrated in Mexico and the United States.
In some neighborhoods, a much smaller group of people celebrated Halloween on Oct. 31. At my home in the ritzy Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City, we gave out about 5 pounds of candy to dozens of kids (and grownups).
Our Halloween was a kind of metaphor of everyday life in this overcrowded but colorful and young city. We taped a cheap felt figurine of "La Catrina" to our door. (The elegantly dressed female skeleton is a symbol of Day of the Dead, but here in Mexico City the symbols of the two holidays are increasingly mixed up.) Within minutes, people were driving up to our door and dropping off groups of boys and girls dressed as vampires and witches. "Queremos Halloween!" they would call out.
Some people came in groups of 20, forming a line in front of our door, with a the occasional bit of pushing and shoving from the over-eager little ghost or mummy. My 3-year-old insisted on wading into the crowds of trick-or-treaters to dispense candies, and at one point she called out, "Someone stepped on my toe!"
In Mexico City, people aren't afraid to ask for things, and occasionally an adult would hold out their hand and say, "I want a Halloween too." Even a local construction worker got into the act, holding out his lunch bag.
Finally, my 8-year-old son got a little freaked out and begged to "take down La Catrina." We did, but still got a few more knocks at the door. I didn't mind at all. It was a Halloween my kids won't soon forget.
Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
With nearly three years left in his second term, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is already stirring speculation he will seek a third term. Asked by party supporters at a meeting this week at the presidential palace in Bogota whether he'd consider running again, Uribe answered cryptically, "Only in the event of a disaster." Later, when asked what sort of a disaster Uribe was referring to, presidential advisor Jose Obdulio Gaviria responded it could be a disaster if the coalition of parties that currently support Uribe couldn't settle on a successor candidate in 2010. Observers see Uribe's comments as a strong signal he'll run, since the only glue keeping the coalition of parties supporting him together is Uribe and the power of his presidency. Uribe supporters this week fell over themselves to insist that the president may be the only alternative to a candidate put forth by parties to the left of the political spectrum
Posted by Chris Kraul in Bogota
The failure of Brazil to hold errant politicians and other power brokers accountable for alleged wrongdoing is a source of constant exasperation.
"Who, in this country, having money, a good lawyer and some political power, goes to jail?" asks commentator Ricardo Noblat on his O Globo blog. "Pure cynicism."
The strange case of veteran lawmaker Ronaldo Cunha Lima underscores the problem, say critics.
Congressman Cunha Lima resigned his post Wednesday, days before his scheduled trial in the Supreme Court for the shooting of a political rival 14 years ago, reports Folha de S. Paulo. In his resignation letter, he spoke high-mindedly of his desire to “strip myself of my privileges to claim, simply as a citizen, responsibility for episodes that were particularly painful in a past that's already remote in time, but still too present in my life and my conscience, " reports O Globo.
So was this a case of justice triumphant, albeit delayed? No way, say skeptics, who doubt the ex-lawmaker will ever face trial.
“This man maneuvered and used all possible procedural tricks for 14 years to evade trial," said Supreme Court Justice Joaquim Barbosa. "His act mocks Brazilian justice in general and the Supreme Court in particular."
The case now reverts to courts in the northeastern state of Paraíba, where Cunha Lima, now 71 and in ailing health, was governor when he shot his opponent. He has denied wrongdoing, saying he fired in self-defense. The current governor? Cunha Lima's son.
Posted by Marcelo Soares in São Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
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Chris Kraul
Buenos Aires:
Patrick McDonnell
Caribbean:
Carol Williams
Mexico City:
Hector Tobar
Deborah Bonello
Marla Dickerson
Ken Ellingwood
Reed Johnson
San Diego:
Richard Marosi
Washington:
Nicole Gaouette