by Maricela Cruz

In troubled Honduras, patience thins end plots thicken by the day.

Ousted President Man-uel Zelaya has announced he will return to his “righfful” place as Honduras’ leader even if he has to sneak back into the country.

“I’m not going to give you the date, hour or place,” he said after initial negotiations in Costa Rica between the interim government and Zelaya collapsed July 19. The political battle began June 28 after a military coup led to Zelaya’s exile five months before his term would end.

Costa Rica President Oscar Arias, known for his political brokering skills, hosted the negotiations and now has presented an 11point proposal that would put Zelaya back to power by July 24 while imposing some limits on his presidency.

Interim President Roberto Micheletti, former president of the country’s national Congress, has remained adamant that he will not accept any decision that reinstates Zelaya. Each has until July 23 to sign the agreement, after which Arias says the pair should seek mediation through the Organization of American States. .

Britain-based journalist Hugh O’Shaughnessy, who has covered Latin America for four decades, wrote July 19 that Enrique Ortez Colindres, “the supremely undiplomatic octogenarian (who was) appointed foreign minister by Mr. Micheletti, has had to resign but not before he called Barack Obama’a negrito who knows nothing about anything’ on Honduran television.”

Reports of violence toward Zelaya supporters in the impoverished country continue to increase. According to Abencio Ferndndez Piñeda of the International Commission for the Defense of Human Rights, anyone against the coup is being threatened and assaulted. News of crowds gathering to block highways, entrances to the capital and vowing to repeat the process untl Zelaya is back in power illustrate the lack of unity in the now-divided country.

O’Shaughnessy noted the growing divide along party lines in the country and abroad. He projected the unrest will lead to the interim government’s ultimate defeat.

The coup government took further political action July 22 by expelling Venezuelan

diplomats from the country. Venezuela has been among the loudest Central American countries to call for Zelaya’s reinstatement.

The Venezuelan government is not alone. The entire membership of the Organization of American States has refused to honor the interim government. Mounting pressure from the international community will further put it to the test as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton placed a call to Micheletti threatening more cuts in aid.

She warned that the long-term relationship between the United States and Honduras would suffer if Zelaya was not restored, highlighting President Obama’s demand that Zelaya be restored as paramount to democracy.

The United States has already cut military aid to the country. Further cuts couId severely weaken Honduras, which has failed to gain support from major world leaders.

The interim government has succeeded in gaining support of Republicans on Capitol Hill. On July 17 Congressman Mike Penceof Indiana, speaking at the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute’s annual conference, condemned Zelaya and the White House policy aligned “with the Castro brothers and Hugo Chávez.”

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida joined him in backing the interim government.

Micheletti supporters say Zelaya’s removal is in line with Honduran law and accuse Zelaya of trying to change its Constitution.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona also supports the interim government. He made arrangements for Micheletti’s July 7 National Press Club news conference.

The Obama Administration still refuses to acknowledge any government that does not have Zelaya at the helm.

Zelaya says he remains open to returning to power with congressional sanctions.

But as the window on negotiations continues to close and with the Micheletti government Unwilling to accept any such proposal, Zelaya forces say they have not ruled out a “peacefuI uprising” by the Honduran people.

­(Erick Galindo and Brittney Cooley contributed to this report.) Hispanic Link

by the El Reportero’s news service

Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro, former Cuban leader, predicted that Latin America would be swept by a wave of military coups if Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was not returned to power after his ouster in a June 28 coup.

Castro, in a column published late on Friday on an Internet site run by Cuba’s communist government, said right-wing military leaders trained by the United States could be encouraged to take up arms against their governments, depending on how the Honduras crisis turned out.

“If President Manuel Zelaya is not returned to his post, a wave of coups threatens to sweep many Latin American governments, or they will be left at the mercy of military men of the extreme right, educated in the security doctrine of the School of the Americas,” he wrote, Reuters informs.

Zelaya’s last gamble

The deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, left Managua, Nicaragua, on July the with a caravan of supporters en route north to Estelí, from where he intends to set up camp before attempting to return to Honduras in the next few days.

Having denounced as a failure the talks led by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias to broker a solution with the de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti, Zelaya will be hoping that this last high stakes gamble – which, like his previous attempt to fl y into Tegucigalpa airport on July 5, will likely be televised live – will push the de facto government into accepting a compromise deal allowing for his reinstatement to serve out the remainder of his term (to January 27, 2010).

­Colombia new regional base for US anti-drug operations?

The US flew its last anti-drugs mission from its base at Manta, on Ecuador’s Pacifi c coast, on July 17. Its ten year lease on the airbase, which expires in November, will not be renewed by Ecuador.

It is natural that the US should look to neighboring Colombia, its most active regional ally and recipient of billions of dollars of US military aid, to fi ll the gap. The government of President Alvaro Uribe confi rmed on July 16 that it is close to reaching a deal to allow the U.S. ‘limited access’ to at least three of its air force bases, including its main airbase in central Colombia. Both countries were quick to state that the U.S. would not be acquiring its own bases but rather would obtain increased access to Colombian facilities. Nevertheless, the deal is controversial, not least because it is likely to ramp up tensions with Colombia’s left-leaning neighbors.

Mexican army convicts soldiers

On 23 July the Mexican army announced that since 2006 it has convicted 12 soldiers and prosecuted a further 52 for a variety of offences.

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— A new study of expectant mothers suggests that a group of common environmental contaminants called phthalates, which are present in many industrial and consumer products including everyday personal care items, may contribute to the country’s alarming rise in premature births.

Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health found that women who deliver prematurely have, on average, up to three times the phthalate level in their urine compared to women who carry to term.

Professors John Meeker, Rita Loch-Caruso and Howard Hu of the SPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences and collaborators from the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data from a larger study directed by Hu, which follows a cohort of Mexican women recruited during pre-natal visits at one of four clinics of the Mexican Institute of Social Security in Mexico City.

Meeker and colleagues looked at data from 60 women: 30 who carried to term and 30 who delivered prematurely (defined as less than 37 weeks gestation).

They analyzed urine samples collected during the third trimester and compared them to the control group who carried to term. They found significantly higher phthalate metabolite levels in the women who delivered prematurely.

Premature birth is a significant risk factor for many health problems in childhood that can persist into adulthood, Meeker says. In the United States, premature births have increased by more than 30 percent since 1981 and by 18 percent since 1990. In 2004, premature births acmúsicacounted for 12.8 percent of live births nationwide.

Premature births, he says, account for one-third of infant deaths in the United States, making it the leading cause of neonatal mortality. Being born too early can also lead to chronic health problems such as blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, low IQ and more.

Phthalates are commonly used compounds in plastics, personal care products, home furnishings (vinyl flooring, carpeting, paints, etc.) and many other consumer and industrial products. The toxicity varies by specific phthalates or their breakdown products, but past studies show that several phthalates cause reproductive and developmental toxicity in animals.

A couple of human studies have reported associations between phthalates and gestational age, but this is the first known study to look at the relationship between phthalates and premature births, Meeker says.

“We looked at these commonly used compounds found in consumer products based on the growing amount of animal toxicity data and since national human data show that a large proportion of the population are unknowingly exposed,” Meeker said.

“One of the problems for consumers is that you don’t know exactly which products contain phthalates because the products do not have to be labeled accordingly.”

Meeker says the U-M study is a stepping stone to larger and more detailed studies examining the role of phthalates and premature births. The researchers hope to examine a larger population of pregnant women to corroborate these initial study findings, and conduct experimental lab studies to further explore the biological mechanisms of how phthalates work in the body.

The study, “Urinary Phthalate Metabolites in Relation to Preterm Birth in Mexico City,” is available online at: http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2009/0800522/abstract.html. It will appear in a later printed issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

by José Armas

The S.F.P.D. parked for two days (Tuesday at Mission and 24th) and Thursday at Mission and 16th) their sophisticated mobile command for a whole day. At press time, El Reportero, could not find out exactly what was this type of surveillance truck doing in the Mission, besides looking for small-time drug pushers and winos. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico is the only Hispanic-majority state in the nation. Latinos make up nearly 57 percent of its students while whites make up 29 percent.

The state’s public schools are failing to educate more than half of those Latino children. Put another way, Latino dropouts number almost exactly the same as all white students in the state.

To confront this looming education tsunami threatening New Mexico’s social and economic future, a number of concerned leaders have formed “The Latino/Hispano Education Improvement Task Force.”

They cite that Latinos make up nearly 70 percent of all of the state’s elementary schools students, foreshadowing the state’s continuing population shift.

Because of this situation, task force members say they’re convinced that the Latino education crisis will grow unless there is intervention to “forge bold and provocative redirection.”

The issue surfaced when the South West Organizing Project (SWOP) pointed out that the recent state legislative session included a bill to create an independent police department within the Albuquerque public school system.

SWOP organizer Emma Sandoval reacted immediately. “We don’t need a police department to be taking money away from educating our kids.’’

With mobilization and organizing by community leaders, the bill was killed in both houses.

Too often the nation’s failure to educate Hispan­ic students is blamed on poverty and their limited English skills. However, Laredo’ Texas—at one time billed as the “Poorest City in the Nation”—has one school district with 96.4 percent Latino enrollment, 71 percent are poor and 48 percent have limited English skills. Yet 87.7 percent of Latinos there receive a high school diploma in four years. In Albuquerque public schools, comprising the largest district in the state, only 37 percent of Latinos graduated in four years.

The Task Force has forged partnerships with statewide grassroots groups, unions, legislators, unions and administrators to sign on to their mission. Recently the group approached Gov.

Bill Richardson asking for endorsement of six initiatives that included declaring a state of crisis, making changes in the Department of Education and funding this community-based task force to train parents and educators throughout the state to redirect schools priorities.

The governor approved all six initiatives, promising stimulus monies to fund the project. Richardson also pledged to make education reform his priority for the remaining 17 months of his tenure as governor.

But, given that New Mexico has risen only from 50th to 48th position among U.S. states in its dropouts rate, there’s still a long ways to go. Task Force member Adrian Pedroza says he hopes that before Richardson’s eight-year term ends, change might finally get started. Hispanic Link.