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The cold war between Washington and Buenos Aires seems to be thawing.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner met today with U.S. Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne, reported Clarin. Washington's envoy had been in diplomatic limbo since the "Suitcase-gate'' scandal re-erupted here late last year. That's the curious case of an alleged bagman for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who in August was found carrying $800,000 in his luggage on arrival in Buenos Aires from Caracas. In December, testimony in a criminal case in Miami suggested the money was intended for the presidential campaign of Fernandez. The outraged president dismissed the matter as a "garbage operation'' meant to discredit her and Chavez, a close ally.
The scandal has resonated throughout the region. Many seem willing to believe that Washington aggressively pursued the case to sully the image of archfoe Chavez. For years, allegations have swirled that the Venezuelan leader was secretly dispensing petro-dollars to bankroll allies in Latin America.
But fewer seem inclined to buy the Argentine government's official, and some critics say paranoiac, conspiracy theory: that the entire affair was a kind of CIA "black op." The embattled government here basically turned to a familiar trope, that suitcases of cash equal the CIA. It's true enough that Fernandez hardly needed the bucks for her campaign for the presidency, which she won handily last October. She was the sitting first lady and enjoyed a seemingly limitless war chest. To this day, the source and destination of the $800,000 remain murky. Some speculate the cash could have been destined for sundry Chavez cronies in Argentina.
Opposition leaders in Argentina now fear the truth will never emerge. Their take: The traditional allies in Washington and Buenos Aires have decided to make nice about the whole messy affair and get back to business as usual.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
Subcommander Marcos, the charismatic leader of the Chiapas rebels in Mexico, is the subject of an extensive profile (the link only gives you a teaser) in the Mexico City-based magazine Gatopardo, which circulates widely in Latin America. A few things make this different from your average profile of the subcommander, an iconic figure invariably photographed in a ski mask.
For starters, the rebel leader posed in Mexico City for a studio photo shoot -- the first time he's ever done so, the magazine says. The cover shot is a remarkable profile, an image that would lend itself to an extensive analysis of the symbolism of the objects on Marcos' person. He stands with his hands in the pockets of black denim pants, only his expressive eyes showing through his black ski mask, the pipe in his mouth emitting a tiny cloud of smoke. He wears a battered field cap (is it the same one he first went to war with, in 1994?) with three red stars, symbols of the militant Marxism of Che Guevara and Mao (who also wore caps with stars). His brown shirt is freshly pressed: He wears a Mexican flag pin, a necklace made of some sort of jungle reed and another that contains two simple stones. He sports a digital watch on each wrist, and two bead bracelets. And finally, he wears a military-style utility belt -- but with no guns, and only the antenna of a two-way radio visible.
The article itself, by author Laura Castellanos, recounts the history of the Zapatista movement that Marcos leads. Castellanos describes the paltry media coverage of Marcos' nationwide tour of the country in 2006 and the distancing of some key European supporters. Marcos says the movement has detected signs that the new government of President Felipe Calderon is planning an offensive this year.
-- Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, the candidate of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in the controversial July 2006 presidential election, has gotten into a verbal spat with his party's most prominent woman. And he's come out of it looking quite bad.
Lopez Obrador, you may remember, proclaimed himself Mexico's "legitimate president" after claiming conservative Felipe Calderon stole the election from him (a charge believed by not a few members of Mexico's intellectual elite). Ever since, Lopez Obrador has urged his followers not to cooperate with Calderon's government. Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, for example, has refused to meet Calderon publicly, though in practice the city and federal governments cooperate daily.
PRD legislator Ruth Zavaleta was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, last year. Like Nancy Pelosi in the U.S., the congressional leader routinely meets representatives of the executive branch. On Monday, she talked with Calderon's new interior minister, Juan Camilo Mouriño, the subject of a recent profile in The Times.
Lopez Obrador's reaction to Zavaleta's meeting with the "enemy" was, depending on your point of view, colorful or crude. Interior Minister Mouriño, Lopez Obrador said, "likes to grab the leg of anyone who will let him, politically speaking."
Zavaleta took umbrage at Lopez Obrador's thinly veiled machista remarks: "I'm perplexed by these comments from a politician who I thought could one day make the leap to become a statesman: He's lowering himself to the level of a man looking for a fight in a bar."
-- Hector Tobar in Mexico City
 Mexico shows no signs of ending its recent sudden infatuation with its Mennonite community. Members of the Christian Anabaptist denomination have lived in the country for decades, concentrated mainly in the northern state of Chihuahua, keeping to their simple, materially spartan lives and attracting little notice from outsiders.
That seems to have changed with last year's release of the film "Luz Silenciosa" (Silent Light) by the prodigiously gifted Mexican director Carlos Reygadas (pictured). The movie, which won the jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and is to open in the U.S. this year, is an intricate moral fable about a Mennonite married man who is having an affair with a Mennonite woman. Since the film's debut, parts of the Mexican media have been reporting on Mennonites as if they were a strange new discovery rather than a long-standing thread in the country's multiethnic social fabric.
— Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Photo by Sarah Meghan Lee
The press in Brazil is abuzz about supposed new revelations surrounding the death 32 years ago of former President Joao Goulart. Goulart was ousted by a military coup in 1964. Democracy didn't return to Brazil until 1985. Goulart, meantime, died in exile in Argentina in 1976, supposedly of a heart attack. But an ex-Uruguayan intelligence officer told Folha de Sao Paulo that Goulart was poisoned, and pointed to the involvement of the CIA. Brazil's military leaders wanted Goulart dead, the ex-spy told the newspaper.
Back in 1964, U.S. officials welcomed the ousting of Goulart, who was regarded in Washington as a dangerous leftist, despite his democratic pedigree. In the midst of the Cold War, the White House feared a new Cuba in the largest nation in Latin America. Documents unearthed by the independent National Security Archive show the personal interest of President Johnson in the case. But there is no evidence of direct U.S. involvement in the coup, nor of any subsequent plot to poison the ex-president.
U.S. and Brazilian officials had no comment for the Sao Paulo newspaper on the latest reports on Goulart, known as Jango. And the source is suspect: The ex-Uruguayan spook who says Goulart was poisoned was interviewed in a Brazilian prison, where he is serving time for arms trafficking and using false identities.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Rio de Janeiro
If you scan the websites of the biggest Latin American papers, you'll find that the U.S. election (and especially the Democratic primary) are daily fodder: The Mexican newspaper Milenio reports on the Kennedy endorsement of Obama today, and the Cuban Prensa Latina reports that Clinton remains the favorite despite Obama's victory in South Carolina. During a visit this weekend to the remote Morazan region of El Salvador, more than one person asked me about the campaign, with a woman doctor who once worked for the FMLN guerrillas commenting on the New York senator's attacks on Obama during a recent debate she had seen (dubbed in Spanish) on Salvadoran television: "That Hillary is really fierce," she said.
-- Hector Tobar in Perquin, El Salvador
Those looking for more evidence that the U.S. economy might be tipping toward recession should check the latest remittance figures from the Bank of Mexico.
In November, remittances sent to Mexico totaled just under $1.8 billion. That's down 1.6% from November 2006. On the year, growth in remittances is virtually stagnant, up just 1% to $22.2 billion in the first 11 months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006. Most of those funds come from Mexican-born workers living in the United States who wire money to family members south of the border.
The slowdown is stunning considering that remittances had been growing by more than 20% annually in recent years. It underscores the deep slump in the U.S. construction sector, which employs one in five Latino immigrants.
-- Marla Dickerson in Mexico City
Israeli authorities contacted Brazilian officials last month seeking help in the manhunt for Aribert Heim, one of the last major Nazi war criminals still at large, reports Folha de Sao Paulo. Heim, a physician who would be in his early 90s, was known as "Dr. Death'' because of his experiments with prisoners at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Heim has reportedly lived in South America and Spain in recent decades.
Some reports indicate the former SS doctor is now dead. But Folha says new leads indicate Heim could be lying low in Brazil or neighboring Uruguay. South America was, of course, a favored destination for Nazi fugitives. Adolf Eichmann, efficient bureaucrat of the "Final Solution,'' was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Buenos Aires in 1960 and later executed in Israel. Former SS man Erich Priebke lived quietly in an Argentine ski resort town for years before being sent to Italy in 1995 to face trial for a massacre of civilians. But one of the most notorious of all, Josef Mengele, the infamous "Angel of Death'' of Auschwitz, cheated justice: Mengele died in the surf in Brazil in 1979, apparently having suffered a stroke while wading.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Rio de Janeiro
Two days after a freak windstorm snapped power lines and plunged much of Mexico City into darkness, thousands of homes in the capital are still without electricity.
Sparks are flying over who is to blame for the massive outage. But forget Mother Nature. At the center of the debate is the state-owned power company Luz y Fuerza del Centro.
Continue reading We've got the power - NOT »
Brazil is bracing for Carnival week. Local authorities are making preparations for the sybaritic rites of February. Each year, the Brazilian government hands out millions of free condoms to fight sexually transmitted disease. But officials in the northeastern city of Recife, home to one of the most storied Carnival bashes, have come up with a a new twist: free distribution of so-called "morning after'' contraceptive pills for Carnival revelers. The plan didn't please the Catholic Church, reports O Globo. Recife Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said those taking the pill could risk excommunication. This in a country that is home to more Catholics than any other nation in the world. Though marketed as a contraceptive, some argue that the morning-after pill, which is sold legally in Brazil, amounts to abortion.
-- Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires.
Caribbean coral reefs suffered tremendous damage during record-high water temperatures two years ago and are at risk of extinction if global warming continues, the World Conservation Union warned Friday.
The world's largest environmental group issued its gloomy assessment on its website, noting that more than half the corals in the U.S. Virgin Islands were killed by the warm-water surges of 2005 and that Trinidad and Tobago lost 73% of its reefs.
Coral reefs are vital to tourism, fisheries and coastal protection, the Swiss-based union noted, estimating their value to the Caribbean economy at $4.6 billion a year.
-- Carol J. Williams in Miami
Acclaimed film director Francis Ford Coppola has been spotted a lot in South America lately -- sharing insights with film students in Buenos Aires, looking at real estate in Brazil, and now visiting the Chilean capital, Santiago. The Chilean press reports he stopped by the National Congress and had lunch with a pair of lawmakers. Coppola, a noted winemaker, was said to be the guest of a Chilean vintner.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Santiago
Retired soccer legend Diego Maradona stands accused of playing footsie with Iran. The episode has sparked outrage in Argentina, home to Latin America's largest Jewish community.
Maradona is apparently an admirer of the Iranian regime, a trait he shares with his good friend Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The daily Clarin reports that Maradona recently provided Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a soccer jersey stamped with his trademark No. 10. The Iranian press agency reported that Maradona lauded the Iranian president as "brave.''
Argentine authorities allege that Iran was behind the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that left 85 dead. Iran has denied any involvement and called the charges a U.S.-inspired frame job. But Jewish leaders in Argentina have pressed for the arrest of the alleged Iranian ringleaders.
Sergio Burstein, a Jewish community representative, said of the soccer jersey affair: "The hands that receive Maradona's shirt are stained with blood.''
-- Patrick J. McDonnell and Andres D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires.
Hugo Chavez shouldn't look to Joaquin Villalobos for support in his drive to legitimize Colombia's largest rebel group, which is known by its Spanish initials FARC. Villalobos, the former El Salvador guerrilla leader-turned-Oxford intellectual, issued a scathing attack on the Venezuelan president for trying to persuade countries to regard the FARC not as terrorists but as "belligerents," which could lead to diplomatic recognition.
Writing in the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Villalobos charged that the FARC's main objective is to maintain its status as the world's No. 1 cocaine trafficker, contrasting it with other Latin American rebel movements, including Colombia's urban guerrilla group M-19, which accepted political settlements with their governments to achieve political goals.
Former M-19 leaders have gone mainstream as members of Polo Democratico, Colombia's rising leftist party, he noted. Villalobos, 56, who helped found the FMNL rebel alliance during the Salvadoran civil war, noted that 2,400 FARC members, or 15% of the ranks, left the group last year, and that the FARC failed to take a single town or village controlled by the state.
"The FARC have no future as guerrillas, only as narco-traffickers.... They are the best kidnappers in the world.... To demand political legitimacy in exchange for mistreated hostages who are threatened with death is equivalent to demanding respect for being evil."
-- Chris Kraul and Alex Renderos in Bogota
The mainstream Guatemalan newspaper La Prensa Libre dropped a bombshell over the weekend that was picked up by many Mexican newspapers today. The paper reported that Guatemala's top organized crime families routinely hire top Mexican grupera and norteño music groups to play at private events such as birthday parties, paying $100,000 to $200,000 per "concert." Two huge names in Mexican norteño music are mentioned, including one group now based in California.
But none of the reports today contained responses from the artists mentioned in the stories. The Prensa Libre story is also remarkable in that it gives the names of the three top alleged crime "cartel" families in Guatemala, "the Lorenzanas, the Mendozas and the Berganzas," something the Guatemalan media has done only rarely in the past.
-- Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
Perhaps anticipating a break in commercial relations with Colombia that might make a bad situation worse, Venezuela is finally moving to alleviate the food shortages that were a major factor in the electoral defeat in December of President Hugo Chavez's bid to change the constitution. If he had won, Chavez would have been eligible to run for reelection indefinitely. But polls indicated voters turned on him because of increasing dissatisfaction over issues such as food scarcities.
On Sunday, during his "Alo Presidente" television program, Chavez said he was raising the controlled price of milk to 70 cents a liter from 55 cents, while reducing or eliminating import duties on a range of basic food items. Chavez is shown at left at the reopening of a milk processing plant in Machiques in western Venezuela. The move should stimulate domestic milk production and imports.
Years ago, in an effort to give a break to the poor, Chavez set prices on two dozen basic food and household items, including milk, at a level 35% below the market. But the move damaged domestic agriculture and created an enormous black market fed by producers and farmers who say they cannot make enough selling at the government-set prices. Hopes that thousands of government-funded cooperatives would pick up the production slack did not materialize.
While the output of Venezuelan farmers and ranchers has shrunk, producers in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia are making out well: The Chavez administration buys their products at market rates and then uses its plentiful oil revenue to subsidize their sale at lower prices through the government-run Mercal discount grocery chain. To supply those products, Venezuela has relied heavily on neighboring Colombia, from which it bought $4 billion worth of goods and services last year. But amid deteriorating relations with Colombia, Chavez could face further supply problems -- heightening scarcities and increasing the expense of his subsidies. All of which, perhaps, explains the timing.
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota
Brazilian authorities say it's not an epidemic, but folks are worried about an outbreak of yellow fever. The government has confirmed 11 cases, including seven fatalities, reports Folha de Sao Paulo. Long lines have formed at vaccination posts. Argentines and others headed to Brazil for vacation have also been queuing up for shots.
Some have even been too hasty in seeking out a new dose of the vaccine, which lasts 10 years. Brazilian authorities have reported 31 overdose cases — probably previously vaccinated people who received new shots before the 10 years ran out. A vaccine overdose can cause fever, headaches and other symptoms, officials say.
Only those visiting affected areas in the nation's interior need the vaccine, according to authorities. Officials have stressed that there is no danger of an outbreak in the heavily urbanized coastal areas, including the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where most Brazilians live and where tourists will arrive en masse for next month's epic Carnival celebrations. But many urban dwellers are also seeking vaccinations as a precaution.
— Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
Federal police descended upon the Fashion Week festivities in Sao Paulo last weekend. They weren't checking out the latest styles. The surprise backstage visit, reports O Globo, was because of the reported presence of a 14-year-old model. Brazilian authorities, worried about cases of anorexia, have declared that only models 16 and older can strut their stuff on the catwalk during Sao Paulo's fashion extravaganza.
— Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
Life has been rocky lately for Maurizio Remmert, Italian expat, bon vivant, businessman and resident of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for more than three decades.
"I never wanted notoriety,'' he told the Brazilian daily O Estado do Sao Paulo this month. "My daughter is an artist, a public person. I am not.... I cultivated 61 years of a discreet life, and now everything has been transformed into a hell.''
His biological daughter, he says, is none other than Carla Bruni, supermodel-turned-pop-star and prospective first lady of France, constant companion of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Remmert told the Brazilian newspaper that Bruni is the love child (born 40 years ago) of his relationship back in Turin, Italy, with Bruni's mother. She was married at the time to Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, the late Italian tire tycoon who reared the femme fatale-to-be as his own.
Bruni has been aware of her biological dad for some time and the two are in touch, Remmert said. Remmert, reportedly a millionaire in the food import-export business, says Bruni's recent notoriety avec Sarkozy has prompted the press to besiege him at home and on his cellphone, while publicizing sundry lies. He says he decided to set the record straight with the respected Brazilian newspaper. The story has circulated on the Web and in press accounts (here's a piece from London's Daily Mail). But there is no word yet from Bruni.
-- Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
Seismic activity seems to be migrating up the Andean spine of South America. On Thursday night, the Galeras volcano near Colombia's southwestern city of Pasto erupted spectacularly, prompting authorities to evacuate 8,000 residents.  This is the same volcano that in 1993 exploded as a team of scientists were studying gases inside the crater, killing nine.
The image at right was released Thursday by Colombia's geologic agency and shows the enormous flames that shot up from the cone. The explosion comes days after Tungurahua, a volcano near the resort town of Banos in Ecuador, also rumbled, forcing officials to evacuate 800 residents. On Jan. 1, the Chilean volcano Llaima, located 420 miles south of the capital, Santiago, also erupted. On Thursday, residents of Pasto were quoted by the Bogota paper El Tiempo as saying they heard an explosion that lasted 20 seconds, followed by a reddening of the sky. The odor of sulfur has been present most of this week, they said. Nevado del Huila volcano, 200 miles north of Pasto, is also acting up. According to the Smithsonian Institution's volcano report, some 18 volcanoes have been active so far this month.
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota
Juan Camilo Mouriño was named Mexico's interior secretary this week, a position that is the second-most powerful in the country. In his first press conference Wednesday afternoon, he was forced to address the most uncomfortably personal question now facing Mexico's political class: Is Mouriño really Mexican?
The constitution requires that all Cabinet officers and all legislators be Mexicans by birth. Both Mouriño's parents were born in Spain, as was he. But Mouriño says his mother is a Mexican citizen, and he was thus a Mexican citizen at birth.
On Wednesday he released two documents that back up his claim: a citizenship certificate issued by Mexico's Foreign Ministry and a birth certificate issued by Mexican consular officials in 1979 (eight years after Mouriño was born in Madrid).
The issue remains unsettled and is likely to resurface if, as many observers here suspect, President Felipe Calderon is grooming Mouriño as a possible successor. Reforma columnist Miguel Angel Granados Chapa in a column today (subscription required) called Mouriño an "illegal secretary" and says it's possible that his mother wasn't a Mexican citizen when her son was born.
-- Hector Tobar in Mexico City
Peru's decision this week to contest its maritime limits with Chile also dealt a blow to the territorial aspirations of the two nations' impoverished neighbor, Bolivia. Like Peru, Bolivia lost coastal territory to Chile in a 19th century war. But the conflict also left Bolivia landlocked, throttling its export potential. Bolivia and Chile have since endured a kind of Cold War and still don't have full diplomatic relations.
But the current presidents, Chile's Michelle Bachelet and Bolivia's Evo Morales, seem to get along well and have both spoken of reconciliation. The two Andean republics have even had preliminary talks about creating a potential Bolivian corridor through Chilean territory. One possible scenario: sales of Bolivian natural gas to energy-starved Chile in exchange for a Bolivian sea outlet. But Peru's suit against Chile before the International Court of Justice in The Hague challenging the current maritime limits complicates matters. A prospective Bolivian Pacific port would be close to waters disputed by Peru, providing another hurdle to any deal, as the Bolivian daily La Razon reports today. Bolivians' hope for a coastal outlet seems an ever more distant dream.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
On Friday night, former Pittsburgh Pirates baseball star and Panamanian native son Omar Moreno will hold his annual gala event in Panama City to raise funds for his baseball academy. Last year, his school gave free training, equipment and lunches to 400 youths aged 6 to 16 , mostly street kids, on loaned facilities inside what was once the Panama Canal Zone. Among his supporters are Major League Baseball, the U.S. Embassy in Panama and 16 corporate sponsors. His goal this year is to raise $100,000, enough for a permanent home on land donated by the Lions Club of Panama.
His country produces its per-capita share of big leaguers -- about 1 per 500,000 population. That's roughly equivalent to Venezuela, the No. 2 offshore provider of major leaguers after the Dominican Republic. But Moreno believes Panama could generate many more if the academy system -- which has proved successful in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic -- took hold in Panama.
So far, the major leagues, whose teams operate 29 academies in the Dominican Republic and nine in Venezuela, have not invested in brick and mortar here, partly because of the unfriendly political climate. The national sports ministry is pro-Cuba and does little to encourage its native stars to come home from the United States and promote the sport.
So Moreno and his wife, Sandra, have taken it upon themselves to build an academy to serve as a template for pro baseball, while continuing their work with free youth leagues in the capital and in Puerto Armuelles, Moreno's home town. Among those expected to attend Friday are his 1979 World Series champion teammates Dave Parker and Manny Sanguillen.
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota
A new survey of Venezuelans by Latinobarometro, a nonprofit organization in Chile, shows that 59% of respondents are satisfied with the way democracy is working in their country. That figure is far above the 37% norm for all of Latin America and second only to Uruguay among individual countries polled. 
Venezuela ranked even higher when respondents were asked whether they approved of their government. Sixty-six percent responded yes, the highest ratio on the continent, which averaged 39%. Asked whether their country's economic situation was good, 52% of Venezuelans responded positively, more than twice the 21% average among Latin Americans.
The poll results might come as a surprise, even to Venezuelans, who are fed up with rising scarcities of basic food items, as reported in Caracas' El Nacional newspaper.
Those scarcities have led to hoarding by black marketeers, many of them functionaries of the government-run Mercal retail chain, who sell them in the growing contraband market or export to Colombia. Government officials in western Zulia state on Wednesday seized tons of rice, sugar, toothpaste, toilet paper and other basics that police said were to be sold into the cross-border black market. Shown in the picture is the van of a seized tractor trailer carrying 60 tons of sugar.
The poll results would seem to show that despite hardships, Venezuelans by and large see their lives as having improved under the leadership of fiery President Hugo Chavez, who early next month begins his 10th year in office.
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota
Mexico’s secretary of tourism, Rodolfo Elizondo, told reporters this week that Mexico’s spasm of narcotics-related violence isn’t affecting the tourism trade.
He should check the numbers. Through the first 11 months of 2007, the number of international visitors to Mexico’s border cities was down nearly 8% to 65.7 million, according to data from Mexico’s central bank.
Most of those tourists are American day trippers crossing the border to buy low-cost prescriptions, visit relatives or enjoy a spicy meal. But the rising body count is making many enchilada lovers lose their appetites.
As reported by Times colleague Richard Marosi today, nine people were shot to death in Tijuana on Tuesday alone in apparent retaliation for a recent crackdown on organized crime. Among the dead were Tijuana police commander Margarito Pérez Saldaña, his wife and two daughters, the youngest aged 12. The assassins had earlier killed three of the policeman’s neighbors — a young couple and their 3-year-old son — in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
Though Mexicans have borne the brunt of the drug violence and mayhem, Americans aren’t exempt. A string of recent attacks on U.S. tourists in northern Baja has shocked longtime visitors to the area. Some are vowing never to return.
Tourism chief Elizondo might want to give them a call and get up to date on the situation.
— Marla Dickerson in Mexico City
More than half a millenium after the first Catholic missionaries landed in the New World, a group of Indians from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul are asking federal authorities to ban churches from their reserves, reports O Globo. The indigenous representatives fear further dilution of cultural identity, especially from evangelical sects with galloping membership in Brazil.
Federal officials signaled their intention to comply with the Indians' request, despite likely opposition from organized religious groups. A spokesman for one sect said the church had brought only "joy and peace of heart'' to indigenous communities.
Indian groups throughout Latin America were outraged last year when Pope Benedict XVI, during a visit to Brazil, gave a rosy assessment of the colonial conversion in the Americas, saying the Indian masses had been "secretly longing'' for Christ. The pope later acknowledged that "unjustifiable crimes" took place during the colonial-era evangelization.
— Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's suggestion that the Colombian rebel group known by its initials FARC be stricken from the rolls of global terrorist organizations hasn't gone over well with his Latin American neighbors. Even friendly governments in Ecuador and Argentina dismissed the idea. Chavez's cause wasn't helped by Sunday's kidnapping, apparently by the FARC's 57th Front, of six tourists in Choco state on the Pacific Coast, just three days after the rebels released Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, who had been held captive more than five years.
Further hardening public opinion, it seems, was the release of the contents of eight "proof of life" letters that Gonzalez brought to kidnap victims' families. In heartbreaking detail, police Col. Luis Mendieta described in one of them the boredom and stress experienced by captives perpetually on the run from the Colombian military.
On Sunday, Rojas was reunited with her 3-year-old son, Emmanuel, from whom she was separated by rebels eight months after giving birth.  Apparently in good health, the boy will remain in state custody until paperwork and medical tests are completed. Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of Ingrid Betancourt, the presidential candidate who was kidnapped along with Rojas in 2002, said Chavez's continued mediation with the FARC is her "only hope" of seeing her daughter released.
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota
One sure way to start a heated conversation or clear a barroom north or south of the Rio Grande these days is to utter the phrase "illegal immigrants." But you'd probably get a similar reaction on either side of the Salinas River, which partially separates Mexico from its southern neighbor, Guatemala. According to a May 2004 story in Business Mexico magazine, in 2003 nearly 86,000 of the roughly 190,000 illegal migrants detained after crossing into Mexico were Guatemalans, many en route to U.S. border states. Those numbers have held steady in succeeding years.
As with Mexican illegals entering the U.S., many Guatemalan immigrants are driven by poverty, plus the ripple effects of the country's 40-year civil war. The immigration issue is as touchy for Mexicans and Guatemalans as it is for Californians, Texans and Arizonans, and political rhetoric in the two nations' capitals frequently only fans the flames of mutual hostility.
But at his official inauguration on Monday, new Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom and Mexican president Felipe Calderon pledged greater cooperation "to assure that the flow of persons between both countries occurs in a documented, secure, orderly manner and with open respect for the the human rights of the persons," as the Mexico City newspaper Reforma reported. The two leaders also pledged to step up patroling of their countries' porous frontier, where drug-trafficking and rampant femicide occur with impunity. (Hundreds of Guatemalan women have been murdered along the border region in recent years.) Time will tell whether the agreement amounts to anything more than token diplomacy.
— Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Naomi Campbell, fashion goddess-turned-journalist, fresh from her interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has chatted up another South American leader: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Campbell and Fernandez had a conversation last week, the Argentine media reported. The state news agency quoted Campbell lauding Fernandez as "a very warm woman who speaks from her heart.'' Fernandez, like her husband, ex-President Nestor Kirchner, has a combative relationship with journalists and seldom grants interviews. But the press says she is keen to meet world leaders and celebrities.
Campbell recently debriefed Chavez for the British edition of GQ. The fashionable Fernandez surely appreciated Campbell's effusive praise after their meeting, which comes at a difficult juncture: The nasty scandal of an intercepted suitcase from Venezuela with $800,000 in alleged campaign contributions marred Fernandez's first days in office. Argentina's first woman elected president calls the affair a "garbage'' operation dreamed up in Washington to discredit her and Chavez, her close ally. While in the neighborhood, Campbell is said to have crashed at the mansion of Colombian pop star Shakira, near the hyper-chic Uruguayan beach resort of Punta del Este.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell and Andres D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires
Jenna Bush has become the latest celebrity to make the pilgrimage to Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel in the Andes. The Peruvian press said that Ms. Bush, reportedly in Peru working on United Nations programs to aid children, toured the site Sunday with a friend and a 10-person security entourage, which warded off inquiring journalists. Assorted movie stars, captains of industry and other notables have visited the site in recent months, generating an international buzz about the place. Some fear the onslaught of visitors is threatening the site's survival. The First Daughter, who seems to have an interest in Latin America, is said to be visiting other sites in Peru's Sacred Valley as well. In 2006, her twin sister, Barbara, had her purse snatched at a Buenos Aires restaurant despite the presence of her Secret Service entourage, an embarrassing security lapse.
— Patrick J. McDonnell and Andres D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires
The Mexico City newspaper El Universal today begins a three-part interview with the so-called Queen of the Pacific, alleged drug doyenne Sandra Avila Beltran. In the first part, Avila Beltran says the attorney general's office is responsible for crafting and spreading the "queen" legend. "They created me so they could look good in the eyes of the Americans." She adds: "If I was really a queen, they would have never caught me." Once on the FBI's most-wanted list, Avila Beltran was allegedly a key link between Colombian drug traffickers and the mobsters of the so-called Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.
-- Hector Tobar in Mexico City
First it was snow last year in Buenos Aires, the first frozen flakes seen in the Argentine capital in 89 years. Now, as folks flee to the coast and mountains seeking respite from the relentless Southern Hemisphere summer, some have bumped into another meteorological oddity: snow in the Andean resorts during these normally balmy months, as the newspaper Clarín reported.
Television here carried scenes of visitors romping in light snowfall last week in and around the high-altitude tourist retreats of Bariloche and San Martín de los Andes, both bustling ski towns between June and August. While not nearly as unusual as last July’s much-celebrated capital snowfall — which drew thousands of cheering porteños (as Buenos Aires residents are known) into the streets — the Andean flurries were another instance of peculiar weather happenings during this era of global climate change.
-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has proclaimed February Reggae Month and urged fellow islanders from the music genre’s birthplace to steer their songs toward the healing themes of unity, joy and justice that its founders embraced.
Opposition to oppression and suffering, the voicing of hope, with love as the underlying constant –- these are the elements that propelled reggae into hearts worldwide, Golding said of the music that some artists have lately employed to denounce homosexuals and degrade women. To guard against such distortions, Jamaica must "guide the future development of the music and ensure that it can remain powerful even a hundred years from now," Golding said.
The month of celebrations kicks off with a Feb. 6 birthday bash for the late Bob Marley, to be followed by a Reggae Academy Awards festival, a Global Reggae Conference at the University of the West Indies and a concert called "Africa Unite –- Smile Jamaica" hosted by Marley’s widow, Rita, and the Bob Marley Foundation.
-- Carol J. Williams in Miami
A plan to replace worn-out 1-real bills in Brazil has hit an accelerated schedule in the northern state of Amapa, to the chagrin of bill holders. O Globo reports that businesses there apparently are no longer accepting the bills, worth about 57 U.S. cents each. Merchants are said to be taking only 1-real coins. A rumor that the bills were now void swept through the state, resulting in their virtual banishment. In fact, 1-real bills are being replaced by coins throughout Brazil, but tens of millions remain in circulation, and the notes are still legal tender -- at least in the other 26 Brazilian states.
-- Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is a committed soccer fan and dedicated follower of Corinthians, the Sao Paulo-based team. Now the president's youngest son, Luis Cláudio Lula da Silva, 22, has become an assistant coach at Palmeiras, a Corinthians rival. Team executives say politics don't enter into discussions with the assistant coach. “For us, he is just another worker. We don’t even think of those things in our routine,” Toninho Cecilio, the team’s soccer manager, told O Globo.
— Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires
Our recent story on Mexican farmers' protests over the end to protective trade tariffs for imported U.S. corn and other products received much e-mail. (The North American Free Trade Agreement came into full effect on Jan. 1, eliminating the final barriers to U.S. corn, beans and milk entering Mexico.) Many agreed with those who argue that free trade feeds immigration to the United States.
"Bankrupt Mexican farmers unemployed and desperate to get work ... come to the country that put them out of business: the USA," one reader wrote to me. "But when they get here they are assailed as 'illegal.' Why is it perfectly legal for subsidized U.S. corn to go south and bankrupt Mexican farmers, but illegal for Mexican farmers to come north to find work? Where is the justice there? How many will die at our border fence while the country that invented corn can no longer afford to grow it?"
Facing much criticism at home, Mexican President Felipe Calderon defended NAFTA on Monday, saying it has helped create new markets for Mexican products.
— Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
 Something magical happens in Mexico every 5th and 6th of January. On Jan. 5, children across the country send their wishes for presents to the Three Wise Men, Los Reyes Magos in Spanish. It's the local equivalent of writing a Christmas letter to Santa and addressing it to him at the North Pole. Here, children tie their notes to the Wise Men to balloons and send them aloft, in a bid to reach the three stars in the sky over Bethlehem that represent the Wise Men. On the morning of Jan. 6, the gifts appear in living rooms across the country. Of course, the balloons eventually fall to the ground. On Sunday, one green balloon with the note still attached (pictured) fell outside the front door to our house in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood. "Dear Wise Men," the note begins. "I please ask that you bring me the things we picked at the Soriana [a department store], and if you'd like to bring me something more, I will be grateful for the rest of my life."
— Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
Environmental scourge has succeeded where animal rights activism has long failed: Cockfighting has been temporarily banned in Puerto Rico because of an outbreak of avian flu in the Caribbean.
Cockfighting is illegal in all U.S. states except Louisiana, and even there the practice will be outlawed come August. But the bloody contests have remained a lucrative tourist draw in Puerto Rico, where more than 100 pits attract fighting cock owners and breeders from throughout the Americas.
An outbreak of avian flu in the Dominican Republic — another popular cockfighting venue — prompted authorities to kill scores of chickens and roosters that tested positive for the H5N2 strain of the virus. All live-bird imports were suspended in Puerto Rico last week and cockfights, which earn the island as much as $12 million a year, were canceled.
Agriculture Minister Gabriel Figueroa told journalists on the island, though, that the ban could be lifted this month if no further cases of avian flu are detected in the region.
— Carol J. Williams in Miami
Mexico's Foreign Ministry issued a press release saying its consulates in Arizona (in Phoenix, Nogales, Douglas, Tucson and Yuma) will help Mexican nationals affected by that state's new law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of all employees: "The Foreign Ministry reiterates that through its consulates it will intervene in all situations where the rights of Mexican workers are violated, independent of their immigration status."
The statement did not specify what kind of assistance Mexican diplomats could or would provide. "Measures such as those approved in Arizona do not contribute to resolving the issue of workers migrating between the two countries and fail to recognize the contributions made by immigrants to the society and economy of the United States," the statement said.
— Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
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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