by the El Reportero news services
U.S.- Mexico border
Border property owner, Dr. Eloisa Tamez, is suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop irreparable harm to her community and the land on the Texas-Mexico border.
Tamez is a descendent of the Lipan Apache and Basque people who were brought into the region by the Spanish colonizers to work. She accusses DHS of threatening to confiscate her land that has been held by her family and community since the 1700s.
“DHS has not consulted with communities in the region, as proscribed by law, and has failed to provide venues to assess the environmental, cultural and economic damages that are being caused by the militarization of the border,” says a stament.
Daniel Ortega
DHS plans would forcibly displace, says Tamez and other community members, “fatally damaging the heritage of the region.” According to the complainants, the border wall will cause irreparable harm to the eco-systems, wildlife and the economy, including cutting off farmers from the irrigation water for their crops.
The Department of Homeland Security hasfailed to comply with the law and has not consulted key stakeholders on the impacts of its border wall-building and militarization plans. DHS continues to harass community members as it attempts to take over private land to build the controversial border wall along stretches of the Texas-Mexico border, says the statement.
Hugo Chávez
Liberals for amnesty “decree” in Nicaragua
On 7 February liberal deputies announced an initiative to approve a broad amnesty as a legislative decree rather than a law. As legislative decrees cannot be vetoed by President Daniel Ortega the move opens another front in the campaign by members of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista for an amnesty law to pardon all public officials and former public officials of the last three governments (1990 – 2006) who had been convicted of (or suspected of involvement in) acts of corruption.
Antonio Saca
El Salvador investigating whether Venezuela plans funds for leftist
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – El Salvador’s president asked his diplomats Thursday to investigate allegations that Venezuela plans to funnel money to the country’s main leftist party.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said this week in Washington that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez was expected to “provide generous campaign funding” to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front to help the opposition party win the presidency next year.
Sigfirdo Reyes
FMLN spokesman Sigfrido Reyes denied that, saying the accusations were aimed at making Chávez an issue in the upcoming campaign. The Venezuelan government has not yet commented.
President Tony Saca warned Venezuela to stay out of the presidential race, telling CNN en Español in an interview broadcast Thursday from Washington that it would be “a clear intervention in the internal affairs of my country.”
Mike McMonnelll
Kirchner wins Lavagna’s support for united PJ in Argentina
A caricature in Argentina’s national daily, La Nación, this week depicted Roberto Lavagna trying an enormous Penguin costume on for size. Lavagna, a former economy minister under Néstor Kirchner who came third in October’s presidential elections with 17 percent on an anti-Kirchner ticket, had said he would either get into the presidential palace or go home.
He found a third option: he agreed to join Kirchner’s bid to unite the Partido Justicialista (PJ). This amounts to a reconciliation between Kirchner and Eduardo Duhalde, who supported Lavagna and had mooted reshaping the PJ himself. Duhalde said the alliance was “good news” for all members of the PJ.
(Associated Press contributed to this report)
