U.S. military provides clean water for Honduras storm victims.

The U.S. military has sent a task force to Honduras to help with one of the problems created by the recent disastrous flooding and landslides: a lack of drinkable water.

Joint Task Force Bravo, with troops dispatched from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, put together an emergency filtration system for a community near La Paz. For every three gallons of dirty water, the reverse osmosis system creates a gallon of drinkable water.

"You see them come with just about everything imaginable to fill up with water to take back to their homes," Tech. Sgt. Romano Cedillos from the Phoenix Air National Guard told the American Forces Press Service.

Honduran officials say dozens of residents are dead or missing after the worst flooding in a decade. Thousands of acres of farmland are under water.

-- Tony Perry, in San Diego

Photo: A man in Honduras tries to sweep away flood water from his house. Credit: U.S. Air Force.

Brazil's Lula takes center stage in Latin America

Chris Kraul and Patrick J. Mcdonnell report from São Paulo on the growing popularity of Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

"Buoyed by a robust economy and his ability to work with leaders across the ideological spectrum, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has emerged as the chief power broker and mediator in South America.

"Lula's rise has paralleled the decline of U.S. influence in its 'backyard,' analysts say, a result in part of Washington's plummeting global prestige and the Bush administration's unremitting focus on the Middle East.

"A moderate with an unassailable leftist background, Lula has become the point man for healing regional crises such as the current turmoil in Bolivia and the recent escalation of tensions among Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador."

Click here for more about Brazil.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, second from the right, with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa at the meeting in which they talked about regional integration in Manaus, Brazil. Credit: Antonio Lacerda / European Pressphoto Agency

Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticizes U.S. over financial crisis

As his popularity has surged and his nation's booming economy has lifted thousands from poverty, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has largely refrained from the angry criticism of the United States that can be heard nearly any day from other South American leaders.

Not this time, reports Joshua Partlow for the Washington Post.

Last week, Lula told the U.N. General Assembly that the "boundless greed" of a few should not be shouldered by all, and on Monday, he said emerging economies had done their best to have "good fiscal policy" and "can't be turned into victims of the casino erected by the American economy."

"This crisis belongs to the American bankers, to the European bankers. It doesn't belong to the Brazilian bankers," Lula said Monday. "It's not fair for Latin American, African and Asian countries to pay for the irresponsibility of sectors of the American financial system."

Earlier this week, Chris Kraul reported from Ecuador on why Latin America should worry about the economic crisis in the United States.

Read the rest of the report from the Washington Post here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Latin America has reasons to worry about U.S. financial crisis

After being lectured for 20 years about the superiority of the free market, officials in Latin America see no small irony in the effort to bail out the U.S. banking system, writes Chris Kraul from Ecuador.

Latin America has several reasons to worry about the U.S. economic meltdown. Ecuador, for instance, fears the possible loss of duty-free export markets for its coffee, fish and flowers.

People here are also worried the crisis will cut into the $2 billion in annual remittances sent home by Ecuadoreans living in the U.S., and wonder whether the nation's use of the dollar as the national currency, a move made in 2000 to curb inflation, still makes sense.

But there is an undercurrent of schadenfreude when it comes to America's pain. Commentator Boaventura de Sousa Santos scolded the United States for its "ironhanded evangelizing" that free markets, privatization and deregulation were innately more virtuous than "corrupt and efficient" state-run economies.

"Millions were thrown into unemployment, lost their land and labor rights and had to emigrate," the Portuguese-born Santos wrote in an article widely distributed over the Internet.

Read more about how the United States woes are also Latin America's problems.

Click here for more on business.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Stock traders negotiate at the Mercantile & Futures Exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, last week. Credit: Mauricio Lima / AFP / Getty Images

Southern California's dual citizens see little conflict

Salvador Gomez Gochez was 25 when he first came to Los Angeles with $3 in his pocket and painful memories of his Salvadoran homeland torn apart by repression and war, reports Teresa Watanabe.

Working his way up from a parking lot attendant to a manager, he learned English, bought a home, volunteered for a Salvadoran community organization and became a U.S. citizen, grateful to the country he says saved his life.

But Gomez Gochez, now 54, also retained his Salvadoran citizenship. Now, as a dual citizen, he has made the dramatic decision to return to his impoverished hometown in El Salvador and run for mayor after nearly three decades away. His hope: to revive his town's agricultural base with his U.S. contacts and empower the villagers with U.S. practices of participatory democracy.

As international business, travel and communications explode, a growing number of nations are allowing dual citizenship, and more immigrants are claiming it. Some, like Gomez Gochez, aim to use their bilingual and bicultural experiences to infuse their homelands with U.S. values and strengthen bonds between both countries.

But the trend is also stirring some unease.

Read more about Americans with dual citizenship here.

Image: Mario Fuentes poses at outside of Trinity Episcopal Church that hosts his L.A.-based community organization. Fuentes, an immigrant from El Salvador, is a middle-class homeowner, fluent English speaker and labor and community organizer. Credit: Los Angeles Times

51 undocumented immigrants nabbed in Palm Springs work-site raid

A work-site raid at a Palm Springs bakery Wednesday resulted in the arrests of 51 illegal immigrant workers from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala and their current and former supervisors, who allegedly hired the employees in exchange for money, reports Anna Gorman.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the agency had opened an investigation into Palm Springs Baking Co. based on a tip in 2006 that the business was hiring unauthorized workers.

During the investigation, officials said, they discovered that more than 100 of 130 Social Security numbers were invalid or didn't match the names of employees. Many of the Social Security numbers belonged to U.S. citizens or legal workers from California and several other states, as well as to people who had died, according to court papers. About 25 people were using fake numbers, court papers said.

Both the current supervisor, 52-year-old Margarita Avilez Hernandez, and the former manager, 36-year-old Alicia Ramirez, face criminal charges and could get six months in federal prison if convicted.

The arrests were the latest in a string of immigration enforcement actions at work sites nationwide during the past year. Between Sept. 30 and Aug. 30, the agency arrested about 4,700 illegal workers on suspicion of administrative immigration law violations and 1,070 others on criminal charges.

One of the biggest of those raids was on a meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa, in May, in which nearly 400 people were arrested.

Read more about the ICE raid in Palm Springs here.

For more on immigration, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello

 

Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival to begin Sept. 12

In the film "Paraíso Travel,” a young immigrant named Marlon finds himself lost and broke shortly after arriving in New York and being separated from his girlfriend, the cunning and sexy Reina, played by Angélica Blandón. He meets an older man, a fixer for new arrivals, who helps him find shelter and asks the naive illegal what else he might need, writes Agustin Gurza.

"How do I get rid of this fear?" asks Marlon, somewhat overplayed by Aldemar Correa.

Of course, the old man can't help him with the dread that haunts strangers in a strange land, except to say that in time it goes away. That small, intimate moment in this occasionally overwrought drama offers a glimpse into the emotional and mental toll of the immigrant experience, which is often seen through ideological eyes.

"Paraíso," the year's biggest box office hit in Colombia, will have its West Coast premiere during the 12th annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, which begins Friday. It's one of 132 films that will screen at the festival, co-founded by Edward James Olmos, Marlene Dermer and the late George Hernández to spotlight Latino films. Ironically, the festival has suffered from the very success it has sought as top Latino filmmakers now find themselves courted by other festivals. Still, many consider the festival (which counts The Times as a sponsor) as a special opportunity to show their work in the U.S.

Read more about the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival here.

For more on film on La Plaza, click here.

Image: The film, featuring Aldemar Correa and Angélica Blandón, middle, is one of seven from Colombia that is screening at the festival. Camilo George Jimeno / Grand Illusions Entertainment

U.S., Mexico earn victories in World Cup qualifiers

The United States and Mexico made hard going of it against Central American opposition Wednesday night but came away with World Cup qualifying victories over Guatemala and Honduras, respectively, writes Grahame L. Jones.

A 69th-minute headed goal by Carlos Bocanegra off a DaMarcus Beasley corner kick earned the U.S. a 1-0 win, its first in Guatemala in more than 20 years and only its second ever. It was Bocanegra's 10th goal for the national team.

Mexico, meanwhile, gave former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson a 2-1 victory in his first game in charge, but it was anything but easy and only because of the skill and finishing ability of veteran Pavel Pardo.

In front of a packed Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, with the crowd including the presidents of both countries, Honduras took the lead in the 35th minute, very much against the run of play, when Julio Cesar Leon struck a free kick off the underside of the crossbar and into the net.

Read about both matches in full here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City