by the University of Michigan

A breast exam

­AN ARBOR, Michigan.— Latina women who prefer speaking Spanish are more likely than other ethnic groups to express regret or dissatisfaction with their breast cancer treatment, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Despite receiving similar treatment, Latina women were 5.6 times more likely than white women to report high levels of dissatisfaction and regret about their breast cancer treatment decision.

The researchers found that Latinas and other ethnic groups had similar levels of involvement with their doctor in deciding the treatment plan. But Latinas were more likely to say they would have preferred to be more involved in the decision making.

Researchers surveyed 925 women with non-advanced breast cancer from the Los Angeles area. Women were asked about the decision making process in choosing their breast cancer treatment. Nearly half of the women surveyed were Latina, with a quarter preferring to speak Spanish. These women were 3.5 times more likely than English-speaking Latinas to have diffi culty understanding written information about breast cancer.

“Even though they received similar amounts of information as whites, Latinas who ­prefer speaking Spanish reported a strong desire for more information. Doctors may need to make additional effort to ensure this information is understandable and culturally appropriate for all ethnic groups to improve the decision making process for breast cancer patients,” says lead study author Sarah T. Hawley, Ph.D., assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School and a research investigator at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

The study appears in the November issue of the journal Patient Education and Counseling.

Breast cancer statistics: 184,450 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 40,930 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

by the El Reportero’s news services

After the Sandinistas in Nicaragua won most municipal elections in Nicaragua amid charges of fraud, The U.S. government is reviewing a $175 million program of aid to Nicaragua.

“A consistent pattern of behavior by the government of (President) Daniel Ortega that calls into question Nicaragua’s respect for the rule of law and good governance,” is part of the irregularities surrounding the Nov. 9 elections in Nicaragua, said Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Berman, a California Democrat, wrote to the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which manages grants to developing countries, urging a suspension of its five-year program aimed at increasing the incomes of rural farmers and entrepreneurs in Nicaragua. The program was begun in 2005.

“We are currently considering the appropriate action to take with respect to MCC’s engagement with Nicaragua,” she said.

Members of Ortega’s leftist Sandinista party won 105 of 146 races in the nationwide municipal elections.

TAMBIÉN EN NICARAGUA, la Comisión Europea estaría dispuesta a apoyar al gobierno de Nicaragua en “un recuento de votos, una revisión o, incluso, una repetición” de los recientes comicios municipales, aseguró la comisaria europea de relaciones exteriores, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, informó el martes la oficina local del organismo.

“Si esto requiriera un recuento de votos, una revisión o, incluso, una repetición del proceso, la Comisión está dispuesta a apoyar al gobierno de Nicaragua con todos los medios a su disposición”, dijo Ferrero-Waldner desde Bruselas, sede del organismo, según una nota de prensa emitida en esta capital.

El comunicado dice que la comisaria ofreció ese apoyo al canciller nicaragüense Samuel Santos en una comunicación telefónica el viernes. “Estoy siguiendo ­con gran preocupación los acontecimientos en Nicaragua” tras las elecciones del nueve de noviembre, manifestó Ferrero-Waldner, según el boletín de prensa.

Venezuela’s Chavez welcomes Russian warships

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships sailed into port in Venezuela on Tuesday in a show of strength as Moscow seeks to counter U.S. influence in Latin America. Russia’s fi rst such deployment in the Caribbean since the Cold War is timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Venezuela, the fi rst ever by a Russian president.

Russian sailors dressed in black-and-white uniforms lined up along the bow of the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko as it docked in La Guaira, near Caracas, and Venezuelan troops greeted them with cannons in a 21-gun salute. Two support vessels also docked, and the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, Russia’s largest navy ship, anchored offshore.

Chavez, basking in the support of a powerfully and traditional U.S. rival, wants Russian help to build a nuclear reactor, invest in oil and natural gas projects and bolster his leftist opposition to U.S. influence in the region.

IN OTHER RELATED VENEZUELAN NEW, President Hugo Chavez said he is proposing that OPEC countries consider setting a price range for oil of $80 to $100 a barrel to stabilize the global market.

Chavez raised his proposal for an oil price band Monday night, along with other proposals Venezuela is promoting among fellow oil exporters.

“Let’s look for a band between $80 and $100; we’re thinking about that,” Chavez said. “We think that price would be a fair price for oil.”

He called it a “stabilization band to avoid those jumps to $150, suddenly to $50 – a terrible uncertainty.”

­

by Jackie Guzman

Barack Obama

WASHINGTON, D.C.— As President-elect Barack Obama assesses the nation’s priorities, assembles his Cabinet, and moves his administrative team into the White House Jan. 20, immigration reform leaders plan to be among the first to sign his guest book.

They’ll be assembling at the White House gateson the day following the presidential inauguration parade, they promise.

­“We are expecting thousands,’ says Lucero Beebe-Giudice, spokesperson for the D.C.-based grassroots organization Tenants & Workers United, which has joined with 29 other area groups as the National Capital Immigration Coalition to pressure Obama to make good on his campaign pledge to give comprehensive immigration reform “top priority” during his first year in office.

Under the banner, “A New Day for America, A New Hope for Our Communities,” the NCIC and 270 more organizations nationwide, united by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, are staging a mobilization in front of the White House Jan. 21.

They represent immigrants from all of the world’s continents.

During a Nov. 12 news conference at the National Press Club, their leaders pointed to Latino and immigrant voters’ overwhelming support for Obama, expressing optimism that the President-elect would not let their trust go unrewarded. Two-thirds of the estimated 10.5 million Latino voters cast their ballots for the Illinois senator.

Referring to the unprecedented national pro-immigrant demonstrations across the nation in 2006 in response to a draconian immigration bill by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Ind.) that passed in the House of Representatives Dec. 16, 2005, by 239-182, FIRM member Angelica Salas, who is executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, declared, “We marched in the millions, we voted in the millions, and immigrants demand real solutions.”

Among its numerous punitive elements, Sensenbrenner’s bill would have made all undocumented residents guilty of felonies just by virtue of their presence in the United States.

Millions of persons in more than 100 cities and towns participated in the peaceful ‘06 protests. In the largest such national demonstration in U.S. history, Chicago’s crowd was estimated at 750,000 while the one in Los Angeles was variously pegged at between 500,000 and a million.

At this month’s capital news conference, Abdul Kamus, executive director of Washington’s African Resource Center, warned, “There are about 5,500 taxicab drivers in the D.C. area. We are working with Maryland and Virginia drivers as well. We expect tens of thousands of immigrants and supporters.”

NCIC president Jessica Álvarez emphasized the immigrant community has fully embraced the spirit of hope and democracy. “We will remain active long after the election Together NCIC, FIRM and other allies pledge to help the new administration institute immigration reform.”

Some press reports already suggest that immigration reform won’t likely be an Obama first-year priority.

Wrote Tom Barry in the political newsletter Counter Punch, “Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff signals that political pragmatism, not campaign promises to Latinos, may determine immigration policy in the new administration.”

Emanuel, whom Obama plucked from 11linoist congressional delegation to run his White House operations, referred to immigration as a “losing issue” for Democrats earlier this year.

If Obama reneges on his pledge to Hispanics, the groups’ ioaders say they will continue to remind him that immigration reform benefits the entire nation.

To advocate effectively for a path to legalization, said Álvarez, “We are as king for families to come out of the shadows (and tell their stories). We need to fix this broken immigration system.’’

In the next two months, both coalitions will conduct a series of events designed to open dialogue between policymakers and the immigration-reform community. Hispanic Link.

­by Jackie Guzman

The Mexican government estimates thousands of its citizens will return by the end of the year. The U.S. economic crisis and raids are pushing migrants back, according to El Diario de Mexico. Authorities in the Mexican state of Puebla say around 20,000 migrants will be returning. Government expects in Querétaro the number around 50,000 for their state and Oaxaca state officials estimate about 25,000 nationals returning.

­In Puebla, Carlos Olamendi Torres, commissioner of Atention Del Migrante Poblano, says the majority of returning migrants are construction workers who have previously contributed close to $600 million in remittances to the state.

Some state governments, admitting they are unprepared to receive thousands of returning nationals, are working with communities to create new jobs and encourage new forms of investment for migrant opportunities.

“We do not have any specifi c support for this,” said Alfredo Botello Mon­tes, secretary of the state government in Querétaro, “however, we are working to generate the specific conditions to keep Querétaro as a state that invests to offer a good quality of life.” Querétaro awaits the federal government to come up with its own program.

In the state of Mexico the legislature approved measures to create a group to provide support to the returning emigrants and a legislative commission to encourage citizenship participation. Hispanic Link.

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Docens of workers sympatizers and advocates march in front of Woofin Hotel

Over 300 protesters, including hotel workers, union organizers, and community leaders, gathered last Monday outside the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville. The rally then marched on to City Hall, where councilmembers held their second hearing on the nearly three-year-old dispute that has pitted immigrant workers against a luxury hotel chain.

The foundations of the battle were laid in 2005 when Emeryville voters approved Measure C, a living wage law for hotel workers. Woodfin argues it has complied with Measure C, although the hotel fought the living wage ordinance before it became law and continues to call it unconstitutional.

For about a year, Woodfin refused to pay housekeepers the wage rates required under the law and eventually fired 12 worker leaders, claiming to have issues with validating their social security numbers. East Bay Alliance for Sustainable Economy (EBASE) has taken on a pivotal role in supporting the workers, calling on employers not to use immigration laws as a pretext to deny workers their right to uphold labor standards.

Housekeeper Maria Martinez said she is angry and fighting for the desperately needed money she says she’s already earned. “I want to see justice,” she said in Spanish. “I want to see us paid what we’re owed.”

Tim Rosales, spokesman for the hotel, said that the Woodfin dispute has more to do with labor leaders trying to unionize the hotel than unjustly treated workers.

“I think that you are seeing some outside pressure groups come in and try to make an example of non-union hotels here in Emeryville,” he said.

City Manager Patrick O’Keefe said Measure C is all about fair wages, not unions, and reaffirmed the city’s position that Woodfin Suites needs to pay the approximately $200,000 in back wages.

Woodfin owner Sam Hardage has reportedly spent about twice the sum they owe on largely unsuccessful litigation ­trying to overturn the city’s living wage ordinance and the 2007 court order to pay the wages. The hotel’s general manager, Hugh MacIntosh, said that Emeryville moved far beyond its regulatory limits in trying to micromanage the hotel’s business.

“This dispute goes way back and is tied to undocumented workers,” MacIntosh said. “EBASE used their vulnerability to encourage them to file complaints, saying we’d treated them unfairly and owed them back wages. All of this is unfounded.”

Last Thursday Judge Steven A. Brick of the Alameda Superior Court denied the Woodfin Hotel’s request for an injunction against the Emeryville City Council. The council voted Monday to continue the hearing on Woodfin’s appeal of the back wage order on December 1 at 7:00 pm.

“With half of the hearing done, workers are one step closer to getting the back wages they deserve… Especially in this time of economic crisis, we call on Sam Hardage to act swiftly and put checks into workers hands in time for the holidays,” said Brooke Anderson, EBASE’s Organizing Director. “Then the hotel will be able to re-join the community.”

by the El Reportero’s news services

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista party claimed victory in nationwide municipal elections, but rival parties say the early returns were misleading, and according to news accounts in Nicaragua, exguerrilla fighters are threatening to take back their arms.

After a caravan of members of the opposition Liberal Constitutionalist Party heading to the City of Leon on Sunday’s rally to protest what they called a shameless electoral fraud, were rejected by forces loyal to President Daniel Ortega.

“In effect, yesterday pro-Ortega forces threw massively their supporters with all sorts of weapons, so that no caravan would go on from Managua to the march in León, and also it prevented with a ring of organized violence, the same march from taking place in Managua,” read an unsigned news published in El Nuevo Diario, the second largest daily in Nicaragua.

According to the daily, while all this was happening and clashes were taking place in Nagarote, Mateare and Ciudad Sandino and the frustrated opposition caravan was returning to Managua, war weapons began to surface on both edicts, and in the pro-government radios, and in the only opposition broadcasting station, there was used language that undoubtedly will bring unsuspected conNOTICEsequences.

The mayoral elections were seen as a referendum on leftist President Daniel Ortega, whose government has come under fire for barring two opposition parties from fielding mayoral candidates and for police raids against non-governmental organizations.

Sandinistas and opposition supporters engaged in scattered rock fights in Managua, the capital, and police spokeswoman Vilma Reyes said four people were injured, including two teenagers hit by bullets.

The country’s Supreme Electoral Council said the Sandinistas were leading in 94 of the 146 mayoral races nationwide with a majority of votes counted. No percentage of votes counted was given, and results from six municipalities had not yet been calculated.

With 69 per cent of votes counted in the race for mayor of Managua, former boxing champion and Sandinista candidate Alexis Arguello led with 51 percent while former Finance Minister Eduardo Montealegre had 47 percent for the Liberal Constitutional Party.

Sandinista congressional leader Edwin Castro said the party’s own quick count showed it had won in Managua and in 95 to 100 other municipalities, though he acknowledged apparent losses in provincial cities such as Jinotega and Granada.

Montealegre, who lost the 2006 presidential election to Ortega, said he was winning in the capital, and his party said it had won about 60 mayoral races. Montealegre said horn-honking Sandinista car caravans that appeared on Managua streets Monday were “celebrating their own defeat.”

The nationwide vote was the first major electoral test for Ortega since he returned to power nearly two decades after leading a Marxist government that fought US-backed Contra rebels.

Ortega has regularly criticized Washington’s foreign policy and built strong ties with Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

Opposition leaders have criticized the government for failing to invite observers from the Organization of American States and refusing to accredit the local group Ethics and Transparency, which has monitored past elections.

Ortega said he rejected the observers “because they are financed by outside powers” and accused local news media of conducting “an open campaign” against Arguello.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said there were reports of “widespread irregularities taking place at voting stations throughout the country” and said the refusal to permit outside observers has made it tough to “properly assess the conduct of the elections.”

“We also note that political conditions that existed during the campaign were not conducive to free and fair elections,” he said.

­(El Nuevo Diario, AP and AFP contributed to this report.)

­by Jose de la Isla

­Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won the presidential election Nov. 4 over Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona with substantial Hispanic voter help from key states. Edison-Mitofsky exit polls estimate that Hispanics supported Obama nationwide by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent.

At least 10 million Latinos voted, estimates Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza NCLR was part of the coalition effort by Hispanic organizations to boost voter registrations. Actual Latino voter turnout is estimated at 9 percent of the national electorate.

The often-mentioned swing-states scenario—involving Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, states with large numbers of Hispanic voters—proved true. The policy analysis group NDN reported the day for lowing the election that Obama’s victory margins in those four states were attributable to the Latino vote.

Obama’s level of support from Hispanics comes as the second major voting-pattern shift in as many elections. In 2004, attention was drawn to the 40%-plus level of support President Bush received during his re-election bid when he faced Democrat John Kerry. The swing back to 2-to-1 in favor of Obama reflects a return to the mostly historical voting pattern.

In key battleground states (see table on p. 2) the results show Latinos made substantial, even unprecedented, contributions in electing the new president. Even in embattled Virginia, for instance, where Hispanics make up only 6 percent of the population (a full third under 16), they provided Obama 28 percent of his victory margin in that state.

In early September, pollster Sergio Bendixen revealed at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute public-policy conference that Hispanic public-opinion surveys already indicated Latinos strongly favoring Obama in these critically important swing states.

Only Florida was stale mated in a virtual tie between the Democratic and Republican candidates. Huge voter-registration and voter-turn out efforts followed, along with unprecedented levels of funding ­for campaign advertising.

On election night, Florida and Virginia were undecided when Ohio swung for Obama. As polls closed in New Mexico and Colorado networks held off calling the race until precincts closed in the West.

Elections analyst and former director of the South-west Voter Registration Education Project Andrew Hernandez had earlier predicted to Weekly Report he envisioned Latinos getting credit for the election only if John McCain were able to win Ohio and Florida, hold on to Virginia, and Obama picked up New Hampshire and lowa.

“Then it’s a Latino narrative,” he said, because the election would hinge on New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada to put him over the top. “That, of course, can’t happen until the sun rises over San Francisco Bay.”

The day following the election, pollsters and analysts were reporting that young voters and “minorities,” alluding to Latinos, had put Obama over the top.

And the sun was reported rising over Golden Gate Bridge. Hispanic Link.