The week in Latin America: Cattle vs. soybeans

Here are stories that made headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Suit dismissed in Border Patrol shooting

A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking damages for the family of a 15-year-old Ciudad Juarez boy who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent last year, the El Paso Times reports. The death of Sergio Hernandez Guereca occurred on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, and thus out of U.S. jurisdiction, the judge overseeing the suit ruled.

Here's our La Plaza report on the June 2010 incident, in which border agent Jesus Mesa Jr. shot at a group of teens who were allegedly throwing rocks at him. Hernandez's family plans to appeal the dismissal of the case.

Trading cattle for soybeans in Argentina

Special correspondent Chris Kraul tells us about a cattle rancher in Argentina -- a nation synonymous with delicious beef -- and found that the global commodities boom is making soybean production far more lucrative for Argentina's famed gauchos.

The shift is challenging traditions in the Pampas, the wide plains that have inspired Argentine artists and writers for generations. "The Pampas are no longer the open plains with a gaucho sipping mate in the shade," one analyst told Kraul. "Now it's a green industry, motorizing the entire economy."

Peru suspends coca eradiction program

The government of Peru's recently sworn-in President Ollanta Humala has suspended a coca eradiction program, surprising U.S. envoys who seek to help countries in the region scale back the production of cocaine.

Peru says the program, which the U.S. has backed with $10 million this year, is under evaluation as the new president reviews its eradication efforts overall. The Andean nation is the second-largest producer of coca, the base material for cocaine, after Colombia.

Dominican hotel owner suspected in journalist slaying

Authorities in the Dominican Republic are searching for a hotel owner suspected of ordering the killing of a muckracking journalist who published alleged links between organized crime and anti-trafficking prosecutors. Read more in La Plaza.

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Cattle rancher Mario Caceres with his soybean crops in Argentina. Credit: Andres D'Alessandro / For The Times

Hotel owner sought in Dominican journalist killing

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have alleged that a hotel owner is a key conspirator behind a plan to kidnap and assassinate a prominent muckraking journalist who made allegations of links among drug traffickers, antidrug prosecutors and business leaders in the small Caribbean nation.

Jose Silvestre, publisher of the Voice of Truth weekly newspaper and host of a radio program of the same name (link in Spanish), was shot to death while four suspects attempted to kidnap him on Aug. 2 in the city of La Romana. His body was found later on a roadside east of Santo Domingo. 

Authorities suspect businessman and resort owner Matias Avelino Castro ordered Silvestre's murder and remained at large. Avelino wanted Silvestre dead after a July report in the Voice of Truth referred to the alleged criminal links of several of the businessman's associates, Dominican prosecutors said in a statement (link in Spanish). Four arrests have been made in the case, Dominican Today reported.

The Dominican Republic is becoming a key drug-trafficking route from South and Central America into the United States.

Avelino uses several aliases including Joaquin Almeida, Franklin Linaira and "Daniel." News outlets in the Dominican Republic identify him as a leader in a group known as the Samana cartel, named for the Samana peninsula where his Las Galeras resort is located (link in Spanish). That hotel's website presents it as a luxurious tropical getaway and has information in five European languages.

Silvestre was jailed for six days this year on libel charges after he published allegations linking a local antidrug prosecutor to narcotics trafficking. The journalist sometimes made criminal allegations against officials and others without sourcing the claims, the Associated Press said. Prosecutors also said they have testimony from three people who claim Silvestre was paid to publish some of his allegations.

Nonetheless, the journalist's killing has received attention from Amnesty International and other rights groups. According to a sibling, shots were fired at Silvestre's house in May, Amnesty International reported, and because of the threats against the journalist, the Dominican Republic's national press workers union had requested police protection for Silvestre, which was never granted.

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic hold a news conference on Aug. 9 detailing updates in their investigation into the death of journalist Jose Silvestre in Santo Domingo. Credit: Procuraduria General de la Republica Dominicana

La Plaza comments switching to Facebook

La Plaza today is switching to a new commenting system.

The system requires commenters to sign in through their Facebook accounts. People without Facebook accounts will not be able to leave comments.

Readers will have the option of posting their La Plaza comments on their Facebook walls, but that's not required.

Readers are welcome to express their opinions about the news -- and about how the new Facebook comments system is working.

Jimmy Orr, the Los Angeles Times managing editor in charge of latimes.com, discussed our online comments and the Facebook system in greater depth in a March entry to the Readers' Representative Journal.

We hope to see your comments on Facebook.

-- The Foreign Staff of the Los Angeles Times

Officials retake prison from rioting inmates in the Dominican Republic

Prison guards using rubber bullets and other means fought back rioting inmates Wednesday to regain  control of a lockup in the Dominican Republic, an official said.

The guards managed to keep the prisoners from controlling a cellblock at San Felipe prison in the northern province of Puerto Plata, the Associated Press reported. Dozens of inmates had reportedly electrified their cell doors with wires.

The melee left sixteen inmates belonging to the Nacion Los 42 gang wounded, said Ismael Paniagua, penitentiary security director. No fatalities were reported.

— Emal Haidary

WikiLeaks on Latin America: Honduras coup 'illegal'

The June 2009 coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was rooted in an "illegal and unconstitutional" military and civilian plan, says one of the secret U.S. diplomatic cables published online by WikiLeaks.

The cable, dated July 24, 2009, and signed by the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, is directed to the White House and senior State Department officials. It says the Honduran legislative and judicial branches "conspired" with the military to remove Zelaya from power. Zelaya was yanked from bed on the night of June 28 and put on a plane to Costa Rica. His foes alleged he was planning an illegal referendum to help him keep in power, a goal the cable labeled a "supposition."

From the cable:

The analysis of the Constitution sheds some interesting light on the events of June 28. The Honduran establishment confronted a dilemma: near unanimity among the institutions of the state and the political class that Zelaya had abused his powers in violation of the Constitution, but with some ambiguity what to do about it. Faced with that lack of clarity, the military and/or whoever ordered the coup fell back on what they knew -- the way Honduran presidents were removed in the past: a bogus resignation letter and a one-way ticket to a neighboring country. No matter what the merits of the case against Zelaya, his forced removal by the military was clearly illegal, and Micheletti's ascendance as "interim president" was totally illegitimate.

The United States temporarily blocked aid to Honduras after Zelaya's coup, and President Obama called it "not legal" in the days that followed Zelaya's ouster. Yet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton eventually agreed to recognize the results of elections in November won by Porfirio Lobo, who assumed office in January.

On Monday, the outspoken Zelaya, who is still in exile in the Dominican Republic, said the leaked cable demonstrated "complicity" in the coup on the part of the U.S. government (link in Spanish).

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Manuel Zelaya, former president of Honduras. Credit: EFE

Cholera detected in the Dominican Republic

A case of cholera has been detected in the Dominican Republic, the first sign that the worsening epidemic in neighboring Haiti could be crossing the border shared by the island nations. The cholera case was diagnosed in a 32-year-old Haitian man who works in the Dominican Republic and visited Haiti between Oct. 31 and Nov. 12, reports said.

A cholera case has also been detected in Florida, involving a woman who recently returned from Haiti.

The man's diagnosis in the Dominican Republic sent authorities scrambling to identify any other possible cholera cases; several suspected cases have turned out negative. The Dominican Republic has tightened control of its border with Haiti, including temporarily shutting down a traditional cross-border market in the Dominican border town of Dajabon.

At least 1,100 people in Haiti have succumbed to cholera since the outbreak began last month.

The Dominican government said Wednesday that it would ask employers in the tourism and construction sectors to temporarily stop hiring Haitian workers. Carpets doused with chlorine were being placed on border bridges to disinfect tires and shoes, reported Dominican Today. The man with cholera is in stable condition in a hospital in eastern Dominican Republic, the Miami Herald reported.

Times staff writer Joe Mozingo recently reported on a woman who attempted to save her 2-year-old son from the disease. The mother, Rosemane Saintelone, was unsuccessful, and then was turned away from public transit trucks when drivers saw her carrying her child's corpse. Mozingo and staff photographer Rick Loomis observed dozens of bodies piling up in pits.

Haiti has a presidential election scheduled for Nov. 28, but the campaigns are being hampered by the cholera outbreak, deadly anti-U.N. riots, and continued recovery efforts after the devastating January earthquake.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A cholera victim in Port-au-Prince. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Dominican Republic closes border with Haiti over cholera scare; nearly 300 are dead

The Dominican Republic sealed its border with Haiti this week to ward off a cholera outbreak that is spreading inside the Carribean nation, which is still struggling to recover from January's devastating earthquake. The Dominican government closed the border to most Haitians and stepped up patrols along the 130-mile-long boundary after U.N. peacekeeping troops Monday fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of Haitians seeking to cross.

As of early Wednesday, nearly 300 Haitians have died in the cholera outrbreak, in what The Times reported as the worst cholera outbreak in Haiti in more than a century. The World Health Organization said the death rate was slowing, though the outbreak had not yet "peaked," meaning more deaths are likely. About 4,000 are reportedly sick.

The outbreak in St. Marc — which was not severely hit by the January quake — is blamed at least partly on contaminated water from the Artibonite River.

On Wednesday, the Dominican Republican reopened its border with Haiti under tight controls, reported Dominican Today. Health authorites ordered doctors to be on alert for patients with acute vomiting or diarrhea, symptoms related to the cholera infection.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A man who doctors say died of cholera is carried to a morgue in St. Marc, Haiti. Credit: Ramon Espinosa / Associated Press

Jailed drug lord's sex tape sells in Caribbean

It's selling like "hot bread" on the streets of Santo Domingo and it's the item "mas caliente" in San Juan. A DVD of a leaked sex tape belonging to a jailed Puerto Rican drug boss has become a sensation in the neighboring Caribbean capitals of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, even as authorities seek to suppress its sale  and arrest pirating vendors.

Jose Figueroa Agosto spent more than a decade on the run while dominating narcotics trafficking routes to the United States through Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. He was finally arrested July 17 by U.S. and Puerto Rican authorities after a chase in San Juan. Figueroa reportedly was wearing a wig and responded to a request for his name with, "You know who I am."

He faces multiple drug-related charges in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

A book recently published by a government official in the Dominican Republic, "Figueroa Agosto: The Power of Narco," details Figueroa's exploits and knack with sea drop-off operations of illicit drugs. But many questions remain about the drug lord's reach inside governments and why he evaded capture for so long.

Figueroa's home video, reportedly showing him engaging in sex with several women, has only heightened his status, Time magazine notes. It is not clear how the video was obtained from the hands of police after it turned up in a raid last year at one of Figueroa's homes in Santo Domingo.

"The truth is these sort of videos aren't well-made, they're amateur," one porn producer told a Puerto RIcan news site. "The pornography is incidental. People buy it and see it because it's about Junior Capsula. He's an anti-hero, a big shot."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Jose Figueroa Agosto after his arrest in Puerto Rico. Credit: Dominican Today

Haiti earthquake news: live Twitter updates from Port-au-Prince and beyond

Click the link to follow our Twitter List of sources who are sharing news and updates about Haiti -- please let us know if there is someone we've missed that we should add. Also, feel free to use the comments section to share news of loved ones: lost, missing and found.

See our Haiti: Around the Web page for a curated list of the latest news sources, photos and videos, and our La Plaza blog for frequent dispatches from our Latin America correspondents.

Los Angeles Times staffers filing reports and photographs on the earthquake devastation in Haiti

Los Angeles Times journalists Tina Susman, Joe Mozingo, Rick Loomis and Carolyn Cole are on the ground in Haiti filing reports and photographs from the scene. More Times staffers are making their way to the island nation, where thousands are believed dead after a 7.0 earthquake, centered about 10 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, struck Tuesday afternoon. Other staffers developing details on the loss of life, damages and relief and rescue efforts include Tracy Wilkinson in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Ken Ellingwood in Mexico City; Paul Richter in Washington; Matea Gold in New York; and Mitchell Landsberg, Cara Mia DiMassa and Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles.

Photo gallery: Earthquake hits Haiti | Twitter: Reports from Haiti | Resources: How to help