From Brazil: Images of 'uncontacted' Indians

Dramatic new photos said to depict previously uncontacted Indians in the Amazon are causing a buzz among conservationists and others.

The Brazilian Indian affairs agency, known as FUNAI, published the photos on its website. FUNAI also posted a map showing where uncontacted tribes are said to be living in the Amazon.

The latest group was photographed from an aircraft flying over a reserve near the remote Brazil-Peru border, FUNAI said. The agency says it is dedicated to protecting the groups. Some of the photos show people painted bright red and toting bows and arrows. Here's a story from O Estado de Sao Paulo about the photos.

The subject of uncontacted tribes has become a matter of some controversy. Some doubt their existence.

But organizations such as Survival International say dozens of such groups exist and face threats from logging and other human activities, as well as from disease. Survival International has launched a campaign to win protection for remote Amazonian tribes.

-- Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires.

Photo: Image released by Survival International is said to show uncontacted Amazonian Indians near the Brazil-Peru border, photographed from an aircraft. (AP Photo/FUNAI.)

Narco novels in Mexican drug capital

From Culiacan, Mexico:

The setting is this steamy western city, long known as the narco capital of Mexico. The main character is a drug trafficker with an easy smile who wins his young love's heart by replacing an old tin-roofed church so the two can attend Sunday Mass without rain leaks interrupting the sermon.

But the young man, known as "El Roba Chivas," the Goat Bandit, is soon gunned down inside his gold-plated SUV on the streets of Culiacan.

The scene, drawn from real life, may soon show up in the pages of a novel.

Read on at the Dallas Morning News...

Photo: Shoppers walk past a bullet-shattered window along Boulevard Insurgentes in Tijuana after a drug-related shootout in April.

Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Wildlife coalition to file suit over environmental laws on the border

Disputes over the Department of Homeland Security's border fence project continue. The Dallas Morning News reports that a coalition of wildlife protection groups will file a federal lawsuit next week in El Paso, challenging the department's authority to waive state and federal laws to build a border security fence.

"The lawsuit by the Frontera Audubon Society, the Friends of the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and the Friends of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge claims that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff violated the Constitution's separation of powers when he waived 36 federal environmental laws to speed up construction of the fence."

Read on...

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Tropical Storm Alma pounds Nicaragua

Tropical Storm Alma slammed into northwestern Nicaragua on Thursday, forcing evacuations and causing flooding along the coast, reports the Associated Press.

The Miami Herald called Alma the "first menacing storm of the tropical Pacific season."

"The fast-growing storm took forecasters and much of Central America by surprise. Forecasters warned that Alma could dump as much as 20 inches of rain in some places. The storm was expected to continue on a northern path, bringing its effects to parts of Honduras and El Salvador."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

 

Colombia paramilitary bosses' laptops cause stir about evidence

Revelations that several laptop computers owned by paramilitary bosses extradited to the United States this month were not kept secure by Colombian officials have raised concerns about government carelessness with potential evidence, writes The Times' Chris Kraul from Bogota.

Colombia's Interior Ministry said it was investigating what happened to six of 11 laptops used by militia bosses in prison before they were extradited May 13 to face drug and terrorism charges in the United States. Chief prosecutor Mario Iguaran said an investigation could determine whether anyone tampered with the laptops. Read on...

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Making art out of the U.S.-Mexico border wall

Today's L.A. Times Calendar section reports on a small show of photographs by Maria Teresa Fernandez that focuses on the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that begins a couple of hundred feet out in the Pacific and ends about 60 miles inland, near El Centro, Calif. The exhibition is in an upstairs hallway at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, writes David Pagel.

"That's a lot of territory to cover, and rather than documenting all parts equally or presenting a historical overview of the politically charged barrier, Fernandez zeros in on details: little incidents that might seem insignificant but that accumulate to form a knot of narratives by turns tragic, defiant and touching. Of the 84 color prints that make up the accessible exhibition, all but eight are close-ups -- tightly framed pictures that bring visitors nose to nose with the fence and arm's length from the often poignant mementos left beside it by people whose lives it has affected."

Photo: "Paraiso Fondo": Maria Teresa Fernandez's photo shows an idyllic view through a hole in the border fence at Tijuana along with drawings of skulls representing dead migrants.

Read the review here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

El Che, on display in Argentina

Looks like another banner year for the myth of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentina-born revolutionary whose beret-topped visage stares from countless T-shirts, coffee mugs and bikinis. Che look-backs proliferated last year, marking the 40th anniversary of his execution in rural Bolivia, where his leftist crusade culminated in a bloody debacle.

June 14 marks what would've been Guevara's 80th birthday -- yet another chance to assess this enigmatic figure who rose from a middle-class, rugby-playing upbringing in provincial Argentina to global archetype of the uncompromising rebel.

A four-hour, two-part biopic by Steven Soderbergh debuted at Cannes this month starring Benicio del Toro, the Puerto Rico-born star with an eerily Che-like look.

This week, Argentines got to see a 12-foot bronze likeness of their late compatriot, constructed from tens of thousands of donated keys melted down and molded into form. The monumental statue, paraded through the streets of Buenos Aires on a flatbed truck, is to be placed next month in the Argentine city of Rosario, Guevara's birthplace.

The sculptor, Andres Zerneri, said the work incorporated the ideas of many Che admirers. Here's a link to the project website, including a video clip about the statue's construction.

"This is important for everyone," a bystander at the Che parade in the capital told Pagina 12 newspaper. Why? "Because we all have a Che T-shirt.''

-- Patrick J. McDonnell and Andres D'Alessandro in Buenos Aires.

Photo: Bronze statue of Ernesto "Che" Guevara paraded through downtown Buenos Aires en route to the late rebel's birthplace in Rosario. (Natacha Pisarenko / Associated Press.)

Amnesty International says Latin Amerian countries preach, but don't always practice, human rights

Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico have been strong in promoting human rights internationally and in supporting the U.N. human rights machinery.

But unless the gap between their policies internationally and their performance at home is closed, their credibility as human rights champions will be challenged, according to this week’s report from Amnesty International on human rights around the world.

You can access the report here and click on the links at the top for specific country reports.

U.S. conditions threaten Mexico anti-drug package

Mexico will tell the U.S. to keep its Merida Initiative money if the U.S. Congress insists on linking the proposed anti-drug aid package to a series of human rights and legal conditions, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Both houses of Congress have passed the package but have not agreed on a final version.

The Merida Initiative, which is proving controversial with lobbyists on the left and right, proposes to inject US $1.4 billion worth of aid into Mexico to help President Felipe Calderon fight the country's increasingly violent drug trade and illegal arms smuggling. But opponents to the package argue that it will put more arms into the hands of a corrupt army and law enforcement system in Mexico.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Mexicans fight to save Indian language that only eight people speak

Only eight people in Mexico speak the Xwja, or Ixcateco, language. But a group of investigators are working with the few Oaxacans who do to stop it from dying out.