Colombia's Uribe gives Palin a taste of the world

Colombia's President Uribe was one of the heads of state who met with the Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin yesterday.

Palin, a small-town mayor turned Alaska governor turned national candidate, has traveled very little outside of the United States and boasts few foreign-policy credentials.

"Tuesday's tutorials were with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Palin, wearing Alaska-shaped gold earrings, also consulted for almost 90 minutes with former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in his Park Avenue office.

The candidate's staff carefully choreographed her debut onto the international stage, starting each meeting with a brief photo opportunity and allowing no questions. Unscripted moments were kept to a minimum," reports Geraldine Baum.

Click here for the full report of Palin's debut into the world of international affairs.

Nicaraguan priest Miguel d'Escoto taking a top U.N. post

Father Miguel d'Escoto stopped saying Mass 23 years ago when the Vatican suspended his priestly functions for refusing to quit Nicaragua's revolutionary government.

But he never stopped preaching, reports Richard Boudreaux.

From university lecterns, slum soup kitchens and diplomatic forums, he has voiced moral wrath over the plight of the poor and the might of wealthy nations, particularly the United States. Today he is being promoted to a far bigger pulpit: the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly.

Click here to read the full report the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, Father Miguel d'Escoto.

Click here for more on Nicaragua.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Image: Miguel D'Escoto has a benevolent, self-deprecating demeanor that belies his harshest words. He quipped in an interview that he was allowed to win his leadership role because no one thought an elderly priest could do much harm. Eskinder Debebe / Associated Press

Medellin execution draws little public protest in Mexico

The execution of Jose Medellin on Tuesday evening in Texas drew little immediate public protest, despite the Mexican government's attempt to intervene and postpone the execution of the convicted rapist and murderer.

"Mexicans struggling with increasingly gruesome crimes at home gave the most muted reactions in recent memory to the execution of one of their own citizens in Texas."

"With Mexican news dominated by the kidnap-killing of 14-year-old Fernando Marti, the execution of Mexican Jose Medellin for the 1993 rape-murder of two girls in Texas appears to have sparked far less outrage than people here have shown in previous death penalty cases," reports the Dallas Morning News today.

Although Medellin's case had provoked demonstrations in recent days in the border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, the protests that the American Embassy predicted would arise outside their offices on Mexico City's Reforma avenue never materialized. Last week, the Embassy had issued a warning to U.S. citizens to avoid the anticipated demonstrations, saying that Mexican activists could use the occasion "to incite anti-U.S. sentiment in general."

A small group of Medellin's family in Nuevo Laredo did protest his execution Tuesday night.

"A large black bow and a banner that read "No to the death penalty ... may God forgive you," hung from an iron fence in the front of the house where Medellin lived until moving to the United States at the age of 3." Dallas Morning News.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said it sent a note of protest to the U.S. State Department about the case.

-- Deborah Bonello and Reed Johnson in Mexico City

Photo: An empty bench outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. -- the scheduled time of Jose Medellin's execution in Texas. The protests predicted by the Embassy over Medellin's execution never materialized. The execution was postponed a few hours and Medellin was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. local time. Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times

 

Texas executes Mexican killer amid international protests

Jose Ernesto Medellin (pictured), a Mexican national convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of two Texas girls, was executed Tuesday night in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a reprieve, writes Reed Johnson.

"I'm sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek," Medellin, 33, told those gathered to watch him die. He was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. local time.

Medellin had been scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m., but the sentence was delayed for a few hours while the Supreme Court considered his appeal.

The buildup to Tuesday's execution drew worldwide attention and involved a host of players and institutions beyond the United States and Mexico.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague sided in 2004 with the Mexican government's argument that the United States had violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to inform arrested Mexican nationals of their right to seek help from the Mexican Consulate.

Some foreign policy analysts, including former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow, contend that executing foreign citizens could put U.S. citizens abroad at risk of being convicted and even executed for crimes without having access to U.S. consulates or embassies.

Following Medellin's execution, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it sent a note of protest to the State Department about his case, reports the Associated Press.

For more on Medellin's case and execution, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice via Associated Press

L.A.-born Nicaraguan priest will lead U.N. General Assembly

The Associated Press reports:

A Nicaraguan priest who has been a stern critic of the United States won election Wednesday as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly, beginning his post with a "sermon" that touched on love, politics and the Iraq war.

The presidency of the 192-nation assembly rotates by region and lasts for a year. The assembly elected 75-year-old Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a Roman Catholic priest who was born in Los Angeles. He succeeds Macedonian diplomat Srgjan Kerim.

In his acceptance speech, D'Escoto spoke out against what he called "acts of aggression" in Iraq and Afghanistan — without mentioning the U.S. by name. "The behavior of some member states has caused the United Nations to lose credibility as an organization capable of putting an end to war and eradicating extreme poverty from our planet," he said.