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Death toll rises to 15 in Mexico shootout near U.S. border
Mexico's military posted soldiers around a major hospital Monday to guard suspects wounded during weekend gun battles that raged across Tijuana yesterday. Two more deaths raised the toll to 15 from the pre-dawn Saturday shootouts in the violence-plagued Mexican city across the U.S. border from San Diego, local news media reported. The Associated Press has the story.
Meanwhile, soldiers and police are sent in the wake of a weekend gang battle. Weapons seized after the fighting have been linked to several high-profile killings and assassination attempts. Read the report here.
Photo: Shoppers pass a bullet-shattered window along Boulevard Insurgentes in Tijuana. Although President Felipe Calderon's efforts have reduced drug-related slayings in central Mexico, violence is up in border areas. Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times
Continue reading Latin America Roundup -- April 30 »
Weapons seized after one of the bloodiest gang shootouts in Baja California history have been linked to several high-profile murders and assassination attempts in recent years, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.
Authorities found 60 weapons in the aftermath of Saturday’s gun battles that left at least 13 gunmen dead in Tijuana. Ballistics tests determined that some had been used in the killings of two immigrant safety officers earlier this year in Tijuana and last year’s assassination attempt on the police chief of Rosarito Beach.
The arms were also linked to a shootout at a Tijuana restaurant that claimed the lives of two agents and two bystanders, and to a bizarre November incident in which gunmen raided the Ensenada morgue to steal the corpse of a suspected cartel leader who died in the Baja 1000 off-road race.
In all, the weapons were linked to at least 9 slayings, officials said.
Authorities still haven’t determined a motive for the weekend attack, though they suspect it stemmed from a dispute between rival cells of the Arellano-Felix drug cartel, which has long controlled drug trafficking in Baja California.
—Richard Marosi in Tijuana
Cuba walks tightrope of reforms
In a campaign that bears much similarity to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's 1980s appeal for glasnost, Cuba's President Raul Castro has been urging the public to investigate social shortcomings, denounce them and propose improvements, writes Carol J. Williams from Havana.
Duroville trailer park allowed to stay open
After months of deliberation, a federal judge ruled Monday that the Duroville mobile home park could stay open if it made 20 critical changes, including hiring contractors to upgrade its decrepit water, sewage and electrical systems. About half the park's residents are Purépechas, Indians from Michoacan in Mexico, most of whom speak neither Spanish nor English, writes David Kelly.
Number of California's potential immigrant voters to swell
In the first detailed analysis of potential immigrant voters and their children in California legislative districts, a study to be released today shows they could constitute nearly one-third of state voters by 2012, reports Teresa Watanabe.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 The last time the USS Boxer deployed, it was to take 2,200 Marines to the Persian Gulf to be ready for combat in Iraq in the fall of 2006.
On Monday, the amphibious assault ship set sail again, with a different crew and different purpose: taking Navy doctors, nurses, dentists, medical technicians, veterinarians and Seabee construction sailors to Guatemala, El Salvador and Peru for a mission called Continuing Promise 2008.
Though such missions — to Latin America and elsewhere — are not new to the Navy, the top brass has promised an increased emphasis on humanitarian efforts under an updated global strategy approved last fall.
The Boxer and its crew of 1,500 will be gone for two months. Navy personnel will work with their counterparts in the three countries to deliver medical care, improve the health of farm animals and build schools and roads.
The medical facilities aboard the Boxer are second only to those on the Navy's hospital ships. Several nongovernmental agencies are also part of the project to deliver services and supplies to remote areas.
From the U.S. perspective, the mission is an attempt to improve the country's image and strengthen alliances.
"It's amazing sometimes the misperceptions that people have of America and the American people," said the Boxer's skipper, Capt. Matt McCloskey. "They think of America as 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' or 'Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.'
"This is a chance to show them the real America and the real Americans, trying to be good neighbors."
Once the Boxer returns, it will begin training and maintenance for deployment early next year to the western Pacific, taking Marines for possible deployment to Iraq, Afghanistan or another hot spot.
— Tony Perry in San Diego
Photo: U.S. Navy
 Mystery surrounds Tijuana drug shootings
On Sunday, following one of the bloodiest days in Tijuana's history, authorities held no news conferences. The death toll in the gangland-style shootings early Saturday between rival drug traffickers increased to 15 from 13, after two men died of their injuries. But not even the names of the dead were released, writes Héctor Tobar from Mexico City.
Photo: Shoppers pass a bullet-shattered window along Boulevard Insurgentes in Tijuana. Although President Calderon's efforts have reduced drug-related slayings in central Mexico, violence is up in border areas. Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times
Truck carrying migrants crashes in Arizona; 4 dead
A truck jammed with as many as 60 illegal immigrants crashed and rolled in a remote part of central Arizona this morning, killing four and injuring many, authorities said.
The truck was carrying possibly 50 to 60 people, many of whom ran into the desert, said Vanessa White, spokeswoman for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office. The driver is believed to be among them. Read the Associated Press story here.
Draining the basin that's Mexico City
The enormous expanse of concrete and asphalt known as Mexico City was once a lake. And each year, starting about this time, it seems hellbent on becoming one again, writes Ken Ellingwood. The rainy season, which begins in earnest soon, offers an annual reminder to the 20 million residents of the metropolitan area that they inhabit a big tub with no natural drain.
 Whale sightings off Chile raise hope
In Chile, whales appear to be making a comeback in the waters where they were once hunted to near-extinction, writes Patrick McDonnell.
Photo: A humpback whale shows its tail in the Strait of Magellan, where biologists have identified a group of about 100 to 150 seasonally resident animals. Conservationists say it's too early to celebrate a comeback by whales; they could be remnants of older populations. Liliana Nieto del Rio / For the Los Angeles Times
Indian enclave at risk if Duroville closes
 The desert trailer park Duroville, in Mecca, Calif., a few miles from the Salton Sea, is an outpost of the Purépechas, indigenous people from Mexico, writes David Kelly. "They are the poorest of the poor," says a nun who works with them.
Photo: Araceli Jimenez, 8, kisses her brother Esteban at home with their mother, Elvia, in Duroville, a mobile home park in Thermal. In the Coachella Valley, where the chasm between rich and poor is wide and stark, the Jimenez family occupies the lowest rung of the economic ladder. They are Purépecha, an indigenous people from the Mexican state of Michoacan. Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Gang shootout in Tijuana leaves 13 dead
In one of the most violent eruptions in the ongoing border drug war, suspected traffickers clashed on the streets of Tijuana early Saturday morning in a wild and bloody shootout that left 13 people dead and eight others injured in a series of moving gun battles. Marla Dickerson and Richard Marosi report.
 Protest in Mexico's Congress over Pemex oil bill ends
Héctor Tobar in Mexico City wrote Saturday that the blockade of Congress by the leftist PRD party has ended, paving the way for a discussion of President Felipe Calderon's energy proposal that would give the state company more freedom to enter into contracts with foreign investors. Calderon's proposal to overhaul Mexico's oil industry has revealed a rift in the rival Democratic Revolution Party, with leaders arguing over how to respond to the initiative.
Photo: Mexican legislators, some wearing helmets of the state-run oil company, Pemex, carry a political banner from the assembly hall of the lower house of Congress in Mexico City.Gregory Bull / Associated Press
U.S. soldier held in Mexico faces trial
A U.S. soldier has been arrested in Mexico and ordered to stand trial after he was caught entering the country with a pistol, a rifle and ammunition. Spc. Richard R. Medina Torres, 25, was arrested Monday. On Saturday, a judge ordered him held for trial on charges equivalent to smuggling and weapons possession, reports the Associated Press.
Colombia says FARC rebels struck from Ecuador
Colombia said Saturday that leftist FARC guerrillas had fired five makeshift mortar rounds at army units from inside Ecuador, and it said it would file a formal note of protest demanding better border security, reports Chris Kraul. One Colombian soldier was injured in the attack Friday near the border town of Teteye. The mortar rounds were converted propane gas cylinders filled with explosives, a common weapon of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to a Colombian Defense Ministry spokesman.
A new Ecuador
This Los Angeles Times editorial argued on Saturday that the U.S. should be patient as Ecuador redefines its relationship with Washington. Ecuador has long been overshadowed by its bigger neighbors, dwarfed on the international stage by oil-rich Venezuela and the battle royal in Colombia between the government and leftist rebels. Not anymore. Colombia's raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador last month galvanized President Rafael Correa. Suddenly, Ecuador matters.
New Mexico governor looks to Venezuela's Chavez for help on American hostages
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson turned to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez today for help in pressing for the release of three Americans held hostage by Colombian rebels, reports the Associated Press. Chavez said ahead of a meeting with the Democratic governor that he hopes to be able to help but is not sure what he can do.
 Popular with tourists in Brazil, Recife is deadly for residents
The soaring homicide rate among the Brazilian city's poor gets little notice. But a team of crime reporters is trying to work out the human cost of the death toll, writes the Associated Press. This seaside city, a favorite with European tourists, gets much more attention for the shark attacks that have killed 18 people since 1992 than for its homicides -- at least 2,617 in the metropolitan area last year.
Photo: A view of a poor neighborhood on the banks of Capibaribe river, in Recife, Brazil. Eraldo Peres / Associated Press
L.A. civil rights attorney files claims over federal immigration raid
A longtime Los Angeles civil rights attorney is trying a new strategy to push federal immigration authorities to change the way they conduct workplace raids.
Peter Schey filed 114 federal claims for damages late Thursday on behalf of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who were temporarily detained during a recent raid at Micro Solutions Enterprises in Van Nuys, writes Anna Gorman.
Congress sees eye to eye on helping one immigrant group –- entertainers
Twice in the last two years, Congress tried to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and failed, leaving the explosive issue for dead. But during an election year in which no action was expected, the House and Senate now are quietly helping certain groups of immigrants favored by both ends of the political spectrum. Nicole Gaouette reports.
New study builds on old one to track Mexican American progress
After finding questionnaires from a 1965 survey in a UCLA basement, two professors followed up with about 700 of the participants and their children. The news is good and bad. Anna Gorman reports.
 A rediscovering of East L.A.'s core
Agustin Gurza on how Latino artists help revamp a place where the community (and freeways) intersects. “People often refer to the heart of East Los Angeles, but it never seems to be in the same place. In newspapers, the term turns up all over the map. That's because the area is more identified by its busy arteries -- Whittier, Atlantic or Cesar Chavez -- than by any essential center,” he writes.
Drug policy, from scratch
After Friday’s discussion between Charles "Cully" Stimson and Jacob Sullum on whether softening drug laws alleviate or worsen drug violence in the U.S. and Mexico, on Saturday they discussed what the ideal U.S. drug policy would be. What would you keep and reject from current laws? -- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Two years after the last Colombian paramilitary soldier laid down his rifle, capping a controversial demobilization process, not a single square foot of the millions of acres the right wing militias stole has been returned to the poor farmers and ranchers they displaced.  Nor have any of the thousands of families of slain victims received a peso in compensation from the billions in ill-gotten gains the armed militia leaders were supposed to disgorge.
The Colombians frankly admit the reparation process is tied up in judicial proceedings against paramilitary leaders and that cases could drag on for years. So the government of President Alvaro Uribe this week unveiled an initiative to address victims' demands: a $4-billion reparations fund to be paid out over the next 10 years by the Social Action branch of the presidency.
Vice President Francisco Santos, who came up with the idea, said money would begin to go out "immediately" to some of the 170,000 who have filed court claims for loss of property or loved ones. "We understand the judicial process will take years," Santos said, adding that it will not preclude victims from receiving court-ordered restitution. "This money will strengthen the way to reconciliation."
He insisted in an interview that the unveiling had nothing to do with recent political events in Colombia, including a widening "parapolitical" scandal in which more than 60 lawmakers, most of them close Uribe associates, are being investigated or have been arrested for alleged dealings with paramilitary groups.  There is also a rising chorus of complaints from the displaced, many of them former farmers now huddled in the city slums. Nor was it prompted by successful court action recently by victims' families to block extradition of paramilitary leaders to the United States until they first give up their assets. "We've been working on this for six or eight months," Santos said.
But others see the initiative as playing to a foreign audience: the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress, which is closely watching the peace process in its capacity as steward of hundreds of millions of dollars Colombia receives from the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia aid package. Democratic leaders have become increasingly dissatisfied with Uribe's human rights record, a displeasure they expressed this month when they shelved the U.S. Colombia Free Trade Agreement, an accord President Bush described as a reward to Colombia for being a staunch ally in a region turning increasingly leftward.
Gimena Sanchez of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights watchdog group in D.C., said the Uribe administration should work harder to return the displaced to the land they've lost. "Given the international outrage on the lack of truth, justice and reparations, [Colombia] is trying to show that it is taking steps to address the concerns of the victims.," Sanchez said. But "in order to resolve Colombia’s woes and enable the internally displaced to return to their places of origin and become self-sustainable again, it is important to resolve the land issue."
-- Chris Kraul in Bogota
Photo, top right: Colombian paramilitary fighters; Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Photo, left: Vice President Francisco Santos; Credit: Center for International Policy
The new Latin American Cold War smolders in Bolivia. President Evo Morales says the yanquis are out to get him. The "chief of the conspiracy,'' the leftist leader told the Argentine daily Critica, is Philip S. Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador in La Paz. The State Department denies any such plots, but it brings to mind an old Latin American adage: Why has there never been a coup in the United States? Because there's no U.S. embassy in Washington....
Morales' government has lunged from crisis to crisis, skirting implosions. But Bolivia now faces a crucial juncture: The relatively wealthy eastern province of Santa Cruz, a hotbed of anti-Morales sentiment, votes for autonomy May 4. Morales labels the vote illegal, treasonous -- a U.S.-backed conspiracy by the "oligarchs'' to undermine his democratically elected government. Morales' major ally and benefactor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calls the vote "Operation Kosovo'' -- a plot to split up Bolivia and create a pro-Washington rump state in the east.
But Morales vows he will be on the winning side -- the "Axis of Humanity,'' as he calls the Chavez-led alliance of the left, in a riposte to the Bush administration's "Axis of Evil.'' The "next step'' in building up the Axis of Humanity, Morales said, is change in Peru and Colombia -- South America's last two major center-right governments. Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde called Morales' comments "a lamentable impertinence.''
-- Patrick J. McDonnell and Andres D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires.
Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, right, and Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales in Caracas this month. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images).
 Guatemala accused in CAFTA labor complaint
Guatemalan and U.S. labor groups filed a complaint Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Labor alleging that Guatemala had failed to uphold its own labor laws as required under the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The complaint alleges that, despite provisions in the pact requiring workers' rights to be protected, Guatemalan trade unionists have been threatened, fired and even assassinated -- including a union official who was shot dead in front of his young children last year, Marla Dickerson writes.
Photo: Farm workers march in Guatemala City last week. Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press
Hopes of finding ballooning Brazilian priest fade
Rescue workers were losing hope Thursday of finding a priest who disappeared off the southern coast of Brazil after drifting out to sea four days ago suspended from hundreds of helium-filled party balloons. Father Adelir Antonio de Carli went missing Sunday night after he called friends from his mobile phone to say his contraption made of some thousand balloons would soon crash into the Atlantic Ocean. Here's the story.
Hundreds riot at L.A. detention center for illegal immigrants
L.A. County sheriff's officials are looking into a gang-related "melee" that broke out Tuesday at the Lancaster Mira Loma Detention Center. Two detainees were badly injured, Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Anna Gorman write. The riot involved hundreds of immigration detainees at a county-run facility that houses more than 900 people in Lancaster. Guards had to use tear gas grenades to restore order, authorities said Thursday.
Illegal immigration issues roil Iowa town
 Marshalltown, where a quarter of residents are Latino, is seeing rising anti-immigrant sentiments, especially after a deadly car crash involving a woman in the country illegally, P.J. Huffstutter writes.
"Every day, I struggle not to be angry," says Ramona Kilborn, 59, who suffered a broken rib and other injuries in the accident. "All I can think is that my mother would likely still be alive if the immigration laws would have been enforced."
Photo: Ramona Kilborn and husband Merrell were injured and her mother was killed in the accident. Matthew Putney / For The Times.
Blood Weed
Would softening drug laws alleviate or worsen drug violence in the U.S. and Mexico? Charles "Cully" Stimson and Jacob Sullum debate.
Charles "Cully" Stimson argues that legalizing all drugs would not "alleviate" drug violence. But it may change the nature of the violence -- likely for the worse. Jacob Sullum, on the other hand, argues that violent disputes simply aren’t common in industries that sell legal substances such as alcohol.
Want to have your say? Click here.
 Guillermo del Toro to direct 'The Hobbit' and sequel
It's been rumored for ages, but now it's official. Peter Jackson and the production team behind "The Lord of the Rings" legacy have tapped Mexican director Guillermo del Toro to direct "The Hobbit" and its sequel, "The Hobbit 2." Deborah Netburn reports.
Photo: Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro.
Sports
Pachuca nears another CONCACAF Champions Cup
The Mexican team gets a tie in Costa Rica against Saprissa and needs only a win at home next week to advance to the FIFA World Club Cup. Pachuca of Mexico is one victory shy of successfully defending the CONCACAF Champions Cup it won last year and thereby making a return trip to the FIFA World Club Cup in Japan in December, Grahame L. Jones writes.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
A Mexican official allegedly swiped half a dozen or more BlackBerrys belonging to his White House counterparts during a U.S.-Mexico summit this week, according to news reports. The theft is said to have taken place during the North American Leaders' Summit in New Orleans between President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Rafael Quintero Curiel, a member of Calderon's press office, allegedly took six or seven BlackBerrys belonging to White House staff from a table outside a room in the hotel where Mexican officials were meeting with Bush, according to a report in Fox News. The U.S. officials had been required to leave the devices before entering the high-level meeting, and discovered them missing when the meeting concluded.
The U.S. Secret Service is said to have caught Quintero Curiel pocketing the devices on a surveillance video. Mexican media confirmed the story and Mexican officials told The Times today that Quintero Curiel was fired after he returned to Mexico. According to Fox News, the Secret Service caught up with him at the airport, where he "said it was purely accidental, gave [the BlackBerrys] back, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Orleans with the Mexican delegation." Mexican officials who asked not to be named told The Times that Quintero Curiel said he had picked up the BlackBerrys because he believed they belonged to the Mexican delegation. The matter is being investigated, the official said.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a news conference today that she didn't know whether the BlackBerrys contained any sensitive material. Quintero Curiel was the vice director of Calderon's advance team. He earned the equivalent of about $48,000 a year, according to public records.
Friday morning update:
Mr. Quintero Curiel called The Times in Mexico City this morning to draw our attention to his statement attempting to clarify the affair. In essence, he calls the whole thing a misunderstanding. He says he left the meeting (which officials say involved Presidents Bush and Calderon) and found two BlackBerrys that had been left behind by their owners. Unable to determine who they belonged to, he took them with him and gave them to another Mexican official at the New Orleans airport, asking the official to return them to their owners. When confronted by U.S. agents at the airport, he explained everthing to them, and they confirmed his story, he says, and thanked him. "I hope that this matter will be clarified quickly so that I can continue with my daily duties," he said.
-- Héctor Tobar in Mexico City
Search for missing priest in Brazil continues
 Rescuers are continuing to search for a missing priest in Brazil who disappeared after drifting out to sea suspended from hundreds of helium-filled party balloons. Rescue workers said they had not given up hope of finding Father Adelir Antonio de Carli even though bunches of the multicolored balloons had been found floating on the sea. Read the report and watch the video here.
At El Salvador mall, shopping and salvation all under one roof
Each day, the San Jose Chapel in the Galerias Escalon, San Salvador, offers a Catholic mass and even the sacrament of reconciliation. For a few moments, dozens of shoppers and mall employees exchange Armani and Adidas for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The unlikely pairing between faith and commerce makes perfect sense in El Salvador, where they love their malls. Although poverty persists, the high-rise malls draw well-to-do residents who seek air conditioning and a taste of the U.S. in a secure environment. This is the story, from the Chicago Tribune.
Immigrant students log improvement in English fluency
California nonnative students showed improving English proficiency this school year, with more than one-third demonstrating a level of fluency that could allow them to take higher-level course work, according to data released today by the state Department of Education, writes Seema Mehta.
Photo: Roman Catholic priest Adelir Antonio de Carli gives an interview before floating off using party balloons filled with helium in Brazil on Sunday. Carli was reported missing off the coast of Santa Catarina state hours after taking off on an attempt to break the 19-hour record for the longest flight with balloons. (Renita Pelissari / Agencia O Globo)
In an extraordinary public airing of alleged police corruption, a Mexican general has identified several law enforcement officers whose criminal activities include kidnapping, drug smuggling and operating protection rackets.
Corruption accusations are nothing new in Mexico, but Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito offered details of specific cases and named more than one dozen officers, some of them high-ranking officials.
Aponte, who heads the anti-drug offensive in Baja California, made the revelations in a letter published Wednesday in the Tijuana newspaper Frontera.
The accusations, which cover two pages in the paper, touched off a firestorm of controversy. Legislators demanded the firing of every named officer, a business leader called for the resignation of the state attorney general, and Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos appealed for calm.
Among Aponte's charges: Baja California's anti-kidnapping squad is actually a kidnapping team working in league with organized crime; police double as bodyguards for drug cartel leaders; and former federal agents have coordinated the landing of airplane drug shipments outside Mexicali.
The general lists several recent incidents, including some high-profile kidnapping cases and the attempted murder in December of Rosarito Beach's new police chief. Aponte says the attempt was carried out by an assassination squad of more than one dozen officers from Rosarito Beach and Tijuana.
Aponte said corruption existed in every major Baja California city and extended from municipal departments to federal agencies. There were many more corruption examples, Aponte wrote, but he couldn't fit them all in the newspaper.
"What a shame for the society of Baja California," Aponte wrote.
-- Richard Marosi in San Diego
Latin America's economic growth will slow this year, weighed down by a struggling U.S. economy and rising food prices, according to figures released Tuesday by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, writes Marla Dickerson from Mexico City.
Mexico is projected to be Latin America's laggard, with expected GDP growth of 2.7% in 2008, down from 3.3% in 2007. Mexico is highly dependent on the U.S., which buys 80% of its exports.
Authorities in Colombia yesterday ordered the arrest of President Alvaro Uribe's cousin and confidant Mario Uribe, charging him with criminal conspiracy in alleged dealings with outlawed paramilitary groups. The arrest warrant for Uribe, a former senator, brings a burgeoning "para-political" scandal involving the right-wing militias and Uribe-supporting members of Congress closer to the president's office. Until now, the controversy has done little damage to President Uribe, who remains immensely popular, writes Chris Kraul from Bogota.
 Bush and the leaders of Mexico and Canada delivered a forceful message yesterday to the next president of the United States: Don't mess with NAFTA. James Gerstenzang writes that Mexican President Felipe Calderon was particularly blunt, warning that weakening the 14-year-old pact would damage the Mexican economy and could create "even greater migratory pressure" on Mexicans to cross the border to look for work in the U.S.
Photo: President Bush shakes hands with Mexican President Felipe Calderon during a meeting of North America’s leaders in New Orleans, Apr. 21, 2008. Bush used the opportunity to reaffirm his support for NAFTA. Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
 A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing yesterday off the southern coast of Brazil, according to the Associated Press. Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.
Photo: Roman Catholic priest Adelir Antonio de Carli gives an interview before floating off using party balloons filled with helium in Brazil on Sunday. Carli was reported missing off the coast of Santa Catarina state hours after taking off on an attempt to break the 19-hour record for the longest flight with balloons. (Renita Pelissari / Agencia O Globo)
Writing in Opinion, Tim Rutten says it's hard not to be taken aback by some of the last few days' reaction to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States. Comments to President Bush asking that U.S immigration policy take account of basic human rights and that the historical contribution of immigrants be recognized and “the most rabid anti-immigrant demagogues instantly began ranting about Benedict's ‘intrusion’ into American politics.”
Also in Opinion, responding to an article last week about Special Order 40, Rodger Pardee, an associate professor at Loyola Marymount University, writes that feelings should not trump facts. “I've read this section of his piece over and over, and I can't make it add up to anything other than something like this: When people have strong feelings about a subject, it doesn't matter what the facts are. You must respond to those feelings.”
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 The election of Fernando Lugo as president of Paraguay signals the latest advance of the left in Latin America and the end of more than six decades of rule by a political party best known for a longtime anti-communist dictatorship, write Patrick J. McDonnell and Paul Richter after Sunday’s elections in the country. Lugo, a bespectacled former Roman Catholic bishop, appears to be among the more moderate left-leaning leaders of South America, where only two major nations, Colombia and Peru, continue to be run by conservatives.
Photo: Former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, candidate of the Patriotic Alliance for Change party, reacts during a news conference at a hotel in Asuncion. The Court of Justice Superior Electoral confirmed Lugo's triumph with an advantage of 10 points over former Minister of Education Blanca Ovelar. Credit: Martin Crespo / EPA
In a meeting with President Bush on Monday, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico said the North American Free Trade Agreement “has come under criticism.” During a photo session with Bush at an annual trade summit in New Orleans of the United States, Canada and Mexico, Calderon noted that although the United States was “going through an electoral process,” the two countries needed to solve immigration issues “with respect and responsibility,” James Gerstenzang reports.
After a generation of electoral reform and economic liberalization, Mexicans finally are able to access important public records, courtesy of the landmark 2002 Federal Transparency and Access to Public Government Information Law. But just as the country starts to enjoy a culture of transparency, vested interests are looking to defang the right to know. Zachary Bookman, a lawyer and a Fulbright Fellow studying transparency in Mexico City, writes in Opinion.
The U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp today honoring former Los Angeles Times newsman Ruben Salazar, who, through his reporting and opinion columns during the 1960s, became a provocative voice for a Mexican American community searching for its political and social identity. Louis Sahagun has the story.
"It is not every day that we have the opportunity to celebrate a colleague whose work for this newspaper withstands the scrutiny of history," says this Los Angeles Times editorial. To many, Salazar is recalled largely for his death. He was killed at age 42 by a tear-gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy during a Chicano antiwar protest in East Los Angeles in 1970.
 Paraguay has a new president. Fernando Lugo, 56, (pictured) dubbed "the bishop of the poor," is a former Roman Catholic bishop who championed the downtrodden and challenged the long-entrenched political elite. He was elected Paraguay's president Sunday, ending six decades of one-party rule in this South American nation, writes Patrick J. McDonnell from Asuncion. Picture: Jorge Saenz, Associated Press
Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers in Los Angeles from initiating contact with individuals for the sole purpose of determining whether they are illegal immigrants, gets the treatment in The Times. We speak to immigrants, activists, the police and a pastor on the controversial rules which look set to change. And 40 prominent Angelenos and Southern Californians give their views on Special Order 40.
Los Angeles Times writer Ari B. Bloomekatz went down to a stretch of Oxnard Street in Van Nuys to ask immigrant laborers waiting for work what they think of plans to change the rules. Guatemalan immigrant Diego Cap said the proposed changes to Special Order 40 would only make people even more afraid to talk to police.
At Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles, Bloomekatz interviews Father Richard Estrada, an associate pastor. "I have a real, real, real problem" with the proposed changes "because it's going to increase racial profiling," Estrada said. For the last few decades, Estrada has intermittently helped illegal immigrants facing deportation orders and Latin American refugees seeking sanctuary in Southern California churches.
But for Sterling "Ernie" Norris, an attorney for Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Watch, a nonprofit government watchdog group, Special Order 40 is a barrier to effective policing in Los Angeles. Modifying the rules is not enough, he argues. Special Order 40 must be killed. His organization is seeking to give street cops "the total freedom" to contact federal immigration agents when they come across illegal immigrants.
Special Order 40 is hobbling police, according to an LAPD officer who writes about the department for National Review Online and other publications under the pseudonym "Jack Dunphy." Although the order states only that officers can't stop people solely to inquire about their immigration status, "the policy and the reality are quite different," he said in an interview with The Times. The officer asked that his real name not be used.
Finally, 40 prominent Angelenos and Southern Californians sound off about policing, illegal immigrants and the LAPD.
Still in Los Angeles, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a splash when he announced plans last week for ending L.A. Bridges, an anti-gang initiative under fire since the Riordan administration for failing to demonstrate clear results. But in dropping the L.A. Bridges programs and shifting the money to his appointed "gang czar," Villaraigosa put off yet again answering one key question: Are these programs, which last year received $13.2 million, successful in quelling violence and keeping young people out of gangs? David Zahniser reports.
C. Thi Nguyen defends Los Angeles’s taco trucks in Opinion following reports in recent weeks on new restrictions for vendors . ‘All my best L.A. memories are about girls or taco trucks,’ he writes.
"People are pretty cheerful around a taco truck; they smile, they talk. On a good night, the crowd around a taco truck is the closest thing we have to a unified Los Angeles soul."
 Demographers, economists and employers are advocating more investment in training and education for the immigrants needed to replace the huge outgoing crop of baby boomers. Teresa Watanabe writes how with baby boomers preparing to retire as the best educated and most skilled workforce in U.S. history, a growing chorus of demographers and labor experts is raising concerns that workers in California and the nation lack the critical skills needed to replace them.
Picture: Wendy Estrada, right, a 30-year-old Honduran immigrant who is training to be a certified nursing assistant, enjoys a joke with resident Edna Berry and employee Beatrice Bustamante at the Center at Park West in Reseda. Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
Carol J. Williams reports from Cuba on how for lawyers and others involved in the war crimes tribunal in Guantanamo, getting there and back is increasingly difficult.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Foreign-born talent in Major League Baseball fell on Opening Day this year to 239 players or 28%, compared with 246 players or 29% in 2007, when figured as the percentage of total players on the rosters and disabled lists. But Venezuela — whose growing contribution to the Major Leagues, de spite political problems with Hugo Chavez and rising crime, was highlighted in a Times story in January — raised its representation to 52 players from 50 last year. The country continued to gain ground on the leading contributor of players — the Dominican Republic, whose homegrown sons in uniform fell to 88 from 99 last year.
The Detroit Tigers have three of the six Venezuelans who made the All Star team last year: Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen, who were picked to contend for the American League championship this year. But the team has started slowly this year with a record of 6-13 through Sunday.
Baseball with a Latin flavor
The U.S. Armed Forces' Southern Command based in Miami is sending a team of enlisted Military All-Stars on a goodwill tour from April 27 to May 7 to Panama, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. They will be managed by former L.A. Dodgers star Pedro Guerrero. The tour is sponsored by the U.S. State Department and Major League Baseball and will include free clinics for local youths. It's designed to win hearts and minds, much like Southcom's annual delegation of doctors, nurses and dentists, which visited Panama, Colombia and other countries last year.
By Chris Kraul, Bogota Bureau
Photo of Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera by Associated Press
 The U.S. economic downturn and beefed-up border control have meant hard times for many Mexicans who depend on remittances from the north, reports Ken Ellingwood. The developments have produced worry and deep uncertainty in towns such as Tejaro, a farming community of 4,200 where pickup trucks bear license plates from Nevada and Minnesota. Virtually every family here has sent relatives across the border, usually illegally and often to the same few U.S. destinations.
Picture: Lilia Acevedo works at a hardware store in Tejaro, Mexico, whose business has been hurting. Sarah Meghan Lee / For The Times
Fred Garza has been patrolling a piece of the Rio Grande for 16 years, usually riding solo on horseback, sometimes venturing to areas where his radio and cellular phone have limited range. But Garza isn't looking for drug smugglers, human traffickers or illegal immigrants. He's looking for stray livestock that might be carrying a tick with a deadly disease into the United States, reports the Associated Press.
Five high-ranking retired navy officers were indicted in Chile on Friday for the abduction, torture and killing a British-Chilean priest and other dissidents in the days after Chile's 1973 military coup. The priest, Michael Woodward, was taken into custody by security forces in the port city of Valparaiso on Sept. 16, 1973, five days after the coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power, says the Associated Press.
 The leading presidential candidate in Paraguay, Fernando Lugo (pictured) is seen as an agent of change by supporters and as a leftist fanatic by critics, writes Patrick J. McDonnell.
Tiny, landlocked Paraguay, still recovering from the stultifying legacy of the 35-year dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, will cast ballots Sunday to elect a new president. The stunning emergence of Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, as the leading presidential candidate has turned the place upside down. Picture: Jorge Saenz, Associated Press
 Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff (pictured) is the point man for White House efforts to stop illegal immigration. He has an ambitious agenda -- and a stubborn streak to match. Nicole Gaouette spent some time with the man in Tuscon. Picture: Ken Cedeno / Bloomberg News
At the heart of the debate over whether the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Order 40 should be revised is a call for closer cooperation between cops on the street and federal immigration authorities, writes Monica Varsanyi in Opinion.
Since 1979, when the policy went into effect, L.A. police officers have purposely stayed clear of enforcing immigration law. The reason seems obvious: In a city with growing immigrant populations, especially Latino, noncitizens must feel confident that they can come forward and inform cops when a crime is committed, or act as witnesses, without fear of deportation.
Immigrant rights activist Angelica Salas was one of more than 80 people at the "Nation of Immigrants" Passover Seder held this month by the local Anti-Defamation League at Wilshire Boulevard Temple.
"The singing, the poems and the prayers by others were really welcoming, and even if you weren't Jewish, you really felt welcome. And even if this isn't your faith and your tradition, there was a message," said Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. Ari B. Bloomekatz reports on how the Passover meal is helping to build bonds between communities.
Agustin Gurza tells us how to enjoy Cinco de Mayo, or May 5, an annual Mexican holiday, in style in East Los Angeles. "To avoid the Cinco syndrome, here are a few offbeat alternatives offering more refined aspects of Mexican culture in more intimate settings. What better way to celebrate the defeat of the French than with good food, fine wine and sophisticated music, all with a Mexican twist?" he writes.
Talk about an attack ad. Does it get worse than being compared to Hitler and Mussolini?
Supporters of Mexican leftist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador are crying foul over a television spot that compares him to the infamous leaders, and to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Victoriano Huerta, an iron-fisted Mexican general who seized power through a coup during the country’s bloody revolution in the early 20th century.
The link? All those men shut down congresses, according to the Mexican TV spot, which aired Thursday night and today. Left-leaning lawmakers allied with López Obrador have effectively closed the Mexican Congress for more than a week to protest President Felipe Calderón’s proposal to revamp the state-owned oil monopoly, Pemex.
“Who closed the congresses?” begins the commercial, sponsored by a group calling itself “Better Society, Better Government.” The spot shows images of Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet and Huerta, who it says was last to close Mexico’s Congress, in 1913.
It then shows López Obrador, the former Mexico City mayor, and his followers in Congress who barricaded the speaker’s podium in the lower Chamber of Deputies and covered it with a giant sign that read, “Closed.” You can view the ad on the website of the Mexican newspaper El Universal.
The 9-day-old blockade has forced remaining lawmakers to meet elsewhere and delayed the start of debate over Calderón’s proposal to reform Pemex by allowing alliances with private companies in oil exploration and refining.
López Obrador’s backers claim the TV ad was part of a “dirty war” by Calderón’s conservative National Action Party. They made similar charges after López Obrador lost the 2006 presidential race to Calderón by a paper-thin margin.
By Ken Ellingwood in Mexico City
Latin American countries have lost ground in a global measure of how countries are faring in Internet development and access, according to the Global Information Technology Report by the World Economic Forum, which you can download and read here.
Mexico fell from 49th place last year to 58th. Brazil went from 53rd to 59th, while Argentina dropped from 63rd to 77th place.
Chile, the top-ranked country in the region, fell from 31st spot last year to 34th this year. Colombia went from 64th to 69th and Peru dropped from 78th to 84th. Venezuela fell too, from 83rd to 86th.
Meantime, countries in the Middle East showed noteworthy advancements, with Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan at the forefront.
The report measures how well countries are equipped to use information and communication technology. The research also measures the quality of that infrastructure and current usage and includes advances in telecommunications, such as mobile phones and networks.
The study is based on the theory that things like Internet access and infrastructure and other communication technologies play a fundamental role in assisting the overall growth and development of countries.
“Not only can it drive sustainable growth, but it can also help in poverty alleviation by giving people access to knowledge, as well as better opportunities and life conditions,” writes Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum in the preface of the report.
Report co-author Soumitra Dutta says in this interview with the Miami Herald that Latin America isn’t failing to invest in these areas, but rather that other regions in the world are doing it faster.
But she did warn that “Latin American countries may pay a high cost if they don’t modernize their information technology sector.”
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
The Spanish daily El Pais has given credence to rumors that have been sweeping Havana for days that Cuban authorities are about to lift requirements for their citizens to get exit visas to leave the Communist-ruled island. The newspaper quotes an unidentified senior Cuban official as saying Cubans soon will be free to travel without government permission.
In light of U.S. policy that allows most Cubans who reach dry land to stay in the country, revocation of Cuba's self-imposed barriers to travel could unleash a massive wave of immigrants headed for southern Florida if young workers eager for more opportunity decide to abandon their homeland.
Cuban President Raul Castro has invoked a number of popular moves in recent weeks making cellphones, computers, microwaves and seaside resorts available to Cubans who can afford them.
But in the absence of any structural change to the economy to allow more income-enhancing private enterprise, discontent with the status quo of poverty and pitiful wages could fuel a fresh migration wave -- and possibly inspire rethinking of U.S. policy on the island.
-- Carol J. Williams in Bridgetown, Barbados
 From our colleagues on the L.A. Now blog...
The cash and stories of a better life that many Mexican migrant workers send back home often entice many of their relatives and friends to join the northward migration. But, Centelia Maldonado, an activist from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, wants to explore the other side of that story: the one about the dangerous border crossings, back -breaking work and, recently, the shrinking number of jobs.
That is why earlier this week she and a group of other activists arrived in San Diego to speak to Oaxacan laborers about their day-to-day struggle north of the border, said the North County Times. The goal is to spread the other side of the migrant story as part of an effort to expand jobs and businesses in culturally-rich but impoverished Oaxaca. "We want to let people know the suffering people go through and to look for alternatives" to migration, Maldonado said.
Read the rest of the post at L.A. Now.
-- Jesus Sanchez
Photo: Los Angeles Times
Rural fires choked Buenos Aires with smoke yesterday, delaying flights, shutting roads and leaving residents coughing. The smoke originated from hundreds of fires consuming more than 150,000 acres of grassland about 120 miles northwest of the city, officials said, and reignited hard feelings between the government and the nation's powerful farming industry, which recently suspended a three-week strike against new taxes on grain exports. Andrés D'Alessandro and Patrick J. McDonnell report, and here is the Associated Press dispatch.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Wednesday that he does not regret ordering a cross-border raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador, despite the deaths of four Mexican students there. Uribe, who was in Mexico at the time at an economic forum in Cancun, told Mexico's Televisa network that the students were seen in a video with the guerrillas, indicating they were in league with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon asked Uribe not to jump to conclusions as to why the students were at the FARC's camp until a thorough investigation is conducted, according to the Associated Press.
Federal agents in the United States arrested hundreds of people Wednesday in raids at Pilgrim's Pride chicken plants in five states, the latest crackdown on illegal-immigrant labor at the nation's poultry producers. In separate sweeps, authorities also arrested dozens of workers at a doughnut factory in Houston and the operators of a chain of Mexican restaurants in upstate New York. The company worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ahead of the raids, said Ray Atkinson, a company spokesman. Read the report here.
An Orange County man posing as a travel agent has been arrested on suspicion of selling more than $160,000 worth of bogus trips to Cuba, authorities said this morning. Ralph Adam Rendon, 31, faces 78 felony charges, including grand theft and embezzlement, in connection with advertising religious excursions for Jewish and Greek Orthodox people to meet members of their faith in Cuba. Susannah Rosenblatt reports.
 Veteran driver Adrian Fernandez (pictured) is racing in a doubleheader this weekend that will take him from the streets of Long Beach to the streets of Mexico City. Jim Peltz has the details.
Picture: (Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images)
An agency that supplies water to 2 million residents of southeast Los Angeles County has filed suit to overturn a new Southern California drought plan, saying it inequitably allocates water and "robs from the poor to pay the cost of new development in more affluent areas." The Central Basin Municipal Water District says the new system will slight its mostly lower-income Latino clients and favor the affluent. Deborah Schoch reports.
U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) responds to a previous Los Angeles Times story "Guantanamo closure no simple prospect" in Opinion. The decision to close Guantanamo Bay's detention facilities should depend on whether we can improve conditions for detainees, improve America's image and improve American security, writes the senator.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Mexicans are spending more on bribes than they were a couple of years ago.
Mexicans paid the equivalent of about $2.6 billion in bribes last year, according to the nonprofit group Transparency Mexico. That’s 42% higher than two years earlier and an average of more than $24 for each of Mexico’s 105 million people.
Much of the money went to fix parking tickets, get garbage collected or secure parking spots from the legions of informal attendants who block off spaces and charge for them.
Corruption in Mexico is rife and the informal economy huge. If you’re stopped for a traffic infraction, it’s often cheaper and easier to pull out your wallet than to go to the station to face all the paperwork.
Bribes are paid for a wide range of activities, Transparency Mexico found. People pay them to get telephone service installed, loans approved, to prevent illegally parked cars from getting clamped or to sell things on the street without authorization.
The survey showed that 197 million bribes were paid nationwide last year, a big jump from the 115 million in 2005. But while people here are paying more bribes than they did two years ago, they are spending less on each. The average bribe was about $13, compared with $17 in 2005.
The poll was based on interviews with 16,000 people around the country in December. It has a margin of error of less than 1 percentage point.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
A morning breakfast briefing for a delegation of Southern California business and government officials in Washington to lobby Congress turned nasty yesterday morning, writes James Hohmann. A bitter war of words erupted over the proposed Colombian free trade agreement, and some 200 guests, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, found themselves caught in the middle of the high-level trade dispute that has exposed a deep rift between the administration and the Democratic congressional leadership.
Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton said Wednesday that the department's controversial policy on dealing with illegal immigrants was widely misunderstood by the public and some of his own officers, and promised to clarify the rule in the next couple of weeks. Bratton strongly defended the basic intent of the policy, known as Special Order 40, which prohibits officers from initiating contact with individuals for the sole purpose of determining whether they are illegal immigrants, Richard Winton writes.
We asked La Plaza readers to vote on Special Order 40 here.
 Things are looking up for Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes, who have managed to land a new stadium and a proven goal scorer all in the space of a few days. San Jose has dipped into the past and brought Haitian striker Jean Philippe Peguero back into MLS, finishing the deal just before the league's international transfer deadline at midnight Tuesday, writes Grahame L. Jones.
Picture: Colorado's Jean Philippe Peguero, left, gets blocked off the ball by Chivas USA's Douglas Sequeira in a 2005 game at the Home Depot Center. Peguero, a Haitian who has been playing for Bondby of the Danish league, has been obtained on loan by San Jose, which hopes the striker can regain the form he showed in MLS from 2004-06. (Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times)
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
A gunman robbed a family of American tourists of their small plane in Los Cabos, Mexico, yesterday, reports the Associated Press. The robbers struck as the American couple and their two daughters, ages 6 and 8, were about to take off from a hotel airstrip in the Baja California beach town of Mulege. Small aircraft are commonly used by Mexican drug cartels to smuggle narcotics.
Meanwhile, U.S. State Department officials issued a travel alert prompted by drug violence in the north of Mexico, warning that victims have included foreign visitors and residents. American visitors are advised to be especially alert about their safety in the border region, and to avoid areas where there are high levels of drug dealing and prostitution. Read the story here.
 Some immigration offices in Southern California are working weekends to deal with the number of naturalization applications coming in. There is a backlog of more than 180,000 people hoping to become American citizens, and the seven-county L.A. district receives more such requests than any other in the nation. H.G. Reza reports.
Picture: Nearing the last step before naturalization, prospective citizens waiting for their private interviews at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Santa Ana are reflected in the glass covering a giant flag in the waiting room. Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
Following our report earlier this week that Los Angeles County supervisors were considering new restrictions for taco vendors in East Los Angeles, vendors are vowing to stay put. Jean-Paul Renaud reports today on how taco truck owners vowed to ignore a law passed by supervisors Tuesday making it a misdemeanor -- punishable by fines and jail -- to stay parked in one place for more than an hour.
 The abandoned Reseda Theatre in the San Fernando Valley suburb is to be renovated after an agreement between the CIM Group, a firm that operates the Hollywood & Highland complex in Hollywood and the Community Redevelopment Agency. It’s hoped the renovation of the 60-year-old structure will serve the area's growing Latino population and return to being one of the centerpieces of the neighborhood. Amanda Covarrubias reports.
Picture: CIM Group, a firm that operates the Hollywood & Highland complex in Hollywood, has entered into an agreement with the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles to renovate the 60-year-old Reseda Theater. The $8.7-million project should be completed this fall. Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
While Los Angeles County celebrates Chicano art with the “fabulous” “Phantom Sightings” exhibition at LACMA, writes Gustavo Arellano in an op-ed piece today, Orange County “deals with its own brown Botticellis the way it always has: “with dismissals, ignorance and a can of paint thinner.” Last week, Fullerton City Councilman Shawn Nelson stated during a council meeting that the city should remove a set of 1970s-era murals, claiming that the depictions -- classic lowriders, sultry girls in sombreros and fedoras, stylish pachucos and the Virgin of Guadalupe -- might make people think Fullerton sanctions gang activity.
Lisa Richardson writes in Opinion about the face-off in a San Francisco hotel between oil behemoth Chevron and a pair of Ecuadorean environmental activists. The occasion for the showdown was the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. Chevron, hearing that Ecuadorean activists Pablo Fajardo Mendoza and Luis Yanza were going to hold a news conference, decided to do the same -- in the same hotel, on the same day, only an hour earlier.
And the head of the Smithsonian Latino Center resigned after an investigation found she had abused her expense account to fund her extravagant use of spas, luxury hotels and frequent limousine rides, according to a report released by the institution. Pilar O'Leary, 39, billed the nonprofit museum complex for "extravagant" and "lavish travel expenses," the Smithsonian Institution inspector general found. The center is devoted to research advancing knowledge and understanding of Latino contributions to U.S. history, culture, and society. Read the Associated Press report here – scroll down.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Octavio Paz, the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet, writer and diplomat.
 It would be difficult to overstate Paz's impact on Mexican culture, politics and thought in the second half of the 20th century. His landmark work, "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a lyrical, book-length reflection on Mexican identity, remains a classic. His resignation of his ambassadorship to India, to protest the Tlatelolco massacre of Mexican protesters by government troops before the start of the 1968 Olympics, and his subsequent public denunciations of the government, helped to open a crack in the Institutional Revolutionary Party's power monopoly, which eventually would lead to a more democratic, pluralistic Mexico.
The anniversary is being marked here in Mexico City with a variety of activities, including conferences, radio programs and a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra. In tribute, La Plaza offers one of Paz's poems, characteristically marked by its elegant simplicity, depth of feeling and quiet, hopeful aspiration for the individual, and for all mankind.
Hermandad Brotherhood
Homenaje a Claudio Ptolomeo Homage to Claudius Ptolemy
Soy hombre: duro poco I am a man: little do I last
y es enorme la noche. and the night is enormous.
Pero miro hacia arriba: But I look up:
las estrellas escriben. the stars write.
Sin entender comprendo: Unknowing I understand:
tambien soy escritura I too am written,
y en este mismo instante and at this very moment
alguien me deletrea. someone spells me out.
Translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger. Octavio Paz: Collected Poems, copyright 1987, 1988, by Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger.
-- Reed Johnson in Mexico City
A continuing blockade by leftist Mexican lawmakers today forced their colleagues to move to other quarters to get business done. Senators shifted to a nearby government building, while legislators in the lower house met in a substitute auditorium in the Chamber of Deputies complex.
Legislators opposing an energy-reform proposal have holed up since Thursday in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, where they stacked heavy chairs to form a barricade around the speaker’s platform. The actions have delayed the start of debate on conservative President Felipe Calderón’s proposal to revamp the state-owned Pemex oil monopoly.
Calderón argues Pemex reform is needed to keep reserves from falling further, but critics charge it’s a veiled attempt to privatize Mexican oil. The leftists, led by former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, demand a debate that would last through summer. Calderón’s conservative party wants a shorter debate, and the sides are stuck for now.
Meantime, congressional leaders tried to figure out how to tend to their routine duties. On the agenda was a pro forma vote whether to authorize Calderón to travel to New Orleans next week to meet with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the North American Leaders’ Summit.
--Ken Ellingwood in Mexico City
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Death toll rises to 15 in Mexico shootout near U.S. border
