by the El Reportero’s news services

The financial crisis in the US and the rescue of a US investment bank, Bear Stearns, has prompted a raft of commentary about a crisis in international capitalism. This sits oddly with what is happening in Latin America, the scene of so many financial and economic crises, where financial markets, entrepreneurship and market solutions to economic problems, are all in rude health. The most telling symptom of this glowing health is the first ever public debt issue on the domestic Bolivian capital market.

Colombia offers to free guerrillas

On 27 March the peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, announced that the government will suspend the sentences of all imprisoned members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) if the Farc frees its hostages. The proposal will delight the international community, in particular Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Nicolas Sarkozy of France. Sarkozy will be especially pleased by Restrepo’s repeated assertion that the government’s top priority is to ‘save the life’ of Ingrid Betancourt, whose health is thought to have deteriorated rapidly.

Bush uses Andean dispute as springboard for fierce attack on Chávez

US President George W Bush has launched two strongly worded attacks on his Venezuelan peer Hugo Chávez, or rather his “regime”, in recent weeks. Both were designed to persuade the US Congress that Venezuela is a genuine threat to stability in Latin America and to exert pressure on congressmen to approve an FTA with Colombia as a matter of national security. This, Bush argues, would be a just reward for an ally which serves as a geopolitical counterweight to Venezuela in the Andean region. Quite apart from the fact that the FTA should be judged on its own merits, there is a very real concern that the conflation of trade and national security issues could set a dangerous precedent.

Education is the key in Latin America

by Marifeli Perez-Stablemps_opinion@comcast.net

Latin America is doing better but still not good enough. One reason lies in the quality of its labor force and its schools.

A good education lies at the heart of a virtuous circle: rising skills, promoting growth and reducing poverty. Governments, the private sector and civil society need to act faster than has been the case to bolster the region’s educational systems.

• Latin America no longer offers low-cost labor to attract investors. Elsewhere, middle-income countries — the range where most in the region fall — provide other incentives such as a growing pool of highly skilled workers, which Latin America lacks.
• Without quality improvements, the region’s expanding school enrollments won’t attract the investments to grow faster and compete. Studies show that quality — especially in student achievements in math and science — is at least as important, if not more, than enrolling and keeping children in school.
• Inferior educational systems aggravate Latin America’s income inequality, already the worst in the world. For the most part, only the children of the rich and the middle class complete secondary and higher education, which reinforces inequality while keeping most workers from living up to their potential. No wonder growth and social stability suffer.

Between 1960 and 2000, the average schooling of Latin America’s labor force doubled, albeit from the low base of three years. In a world rapidly moving to technologically advanced production and higher valued-added products, Latin America is still producing workers best suited for labor-intensive and raw-materials industries.

Inadequate systems Secondary education presents the toughest climb. Latin America lags 19 percentage points behind the expected secondary-education performance for its income levels, while East Asian countries register almost 18 percentage points above theirs. (The Miami Herald).

by Emily C. Ruíz

Jess Quintero

As eventually happened with Vietnam, U.S. military involvement in Iraq is pulling Hispanics in two directions. Maybe three.

Numbers tell some of the story. The latest Pew BoliviaHispanic Center poll found less than a quarter of Latinos (24 percent) support U.S. troop participation. That’s down from 31 percent in 2006 and 39 percent in 2004.

U.S. Department of Defense figures show that Hispanics comprise 10.9 percent enlisted in the armed forces, well below their percentage in the eligible age group in the three decades of the volunteer army.

There are those like Jess Quintero, who served two tours—one in the U.S. Army and one in the Air Force—toward the end of the Korean War and leading up to Vietnam.

Quintero, president of the Hispanic War Veterans of America, talks proudly of the Hispanic contributions in defending the world’s democratic ideals from the Revolutionary War forward.

He recites the names of family members, from generations past to grandchildren, who with no hesitation answered the call.

Then there is Pablo Paredes, more recently a Petty Officer third class and weapon-control technician in the U.S. Navy. Declaring his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, he refused to board the USS Bonhomme Richard as it deployed to the Persian Gulf, in December 2004 as part of the Operation Iraqi Freedom. He received an administrative discharge after serving three months at hard labor without confinement and a demotion in rank. He now works as a peace educator with the American Friends Service Committee.

Then there’s the third and largest element, reflective perhaps of the broader community’s attitude. This group is neither rallying friends or families to ‘save democracy, nor actively protesting the U.S. commitment.

Few Hispanics were visible in the basically white anti-war protests across the country this month. Nor have they formed visible anti-war groups of their own, such as those which sprouted up in the Vietnam era.

Most memorable was the 1970 national Chicano Moratorium march in East Los Angeles, in which a county sheriff’s deputy killed KMEX-TV news director Rub´En Salazar with an armor-piercing tear-gas missile. On the East Coast, the mostly Puerto Rican Young Lords staged similar demonstrations.

Today’s older anti-war Latinos often have a background in Vietnam-era activism, while a smaller number are parents of soldiers who’ve died in more recent Middle East conflicts, says Jorge Mariscal, professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

“Younger Latinos are involved because they see the impact of the war on their friends and the militarism in their schools with recruitment,” he said, adding that the reason more aren’t involved is because of the lack of outreach from mainstream anti-war groups to attract members of color.
­Hispanic Link.

­by Esther J. Cepeda

Behold the spectacle of the incredible invisible Hispanic woman. She and her sisters walk among us, over 20 million strong, young and old, U.S.-born and immigrant, legal and illegal, yet undetectable to the mainstream eye.

This month we heard about the “Hidden Epidemic” – a major public health crisis affecting one in every four teenage girls – when the Centers for Disease Control released a study estimating 3.2 million young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States are infected with the Human Papilloma Virus, Chlamydia, Herpes Simplex Virus, and/or Trichomoniasis.

All media accounts made it clear these shocking numbers, gleaned from 838 randomly chosen study participants, were even worse for African-American women. A stunning 48 percent of those in that age range were infected with oneor more of these STDs, compared to 20 percent of white women.

And the 20 million Latinas – just those counted by the U.S. Census’ last tally in July of 2006, that is – well, they just don’t exist. Not in this “nationally representative study, at least.

Apparently there were “insufficient numbers” of Hispanic women served in the high school-based health clinics in California and the New York city clinics the CDC studied to make any estimates about STD rates among Latinas.

Really? The CDC and most media outlets covering the report’s release went to the great pains to point out the study didn’t include any STD prevalence data on teenage boys, but no one blinked at the glaring omission of the country’s fastest growing ethnic group.

It’s true, the big four STDs are a drop in the bucket compared to the major chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and asthma decimating Hispanics. To its credit, in recent years the CDC has painstakingly researched, reported on and reached out even in Spanish – to tell Hispanics how to prevent these illnesses.

But leaving Latinas out of this highly-publicized report – “the clearest picture to date of the overall STD burden in adolescent women” – undermines the CDC’s well intentioned efforts to make us aware these STDs are everywhere, often go unnoticed and undiagnosed, and cut across racial and ethnic lines.

According to the CDC’s Office of Minority Health, obtaining data for Hispanics is too hard because of “their relatively small numbers in the population and geographic dispersion,” and the lack of “culturally and linguistically appropriate data collection materials and bilingual interviewers.

They should check out the latest statistics.

A Pew Research Center report, ~Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2006,- found that of the 45 million Hispanics counted, 61 percent were native-born. Of those under 18, 75 percent reported themselves predominantly English-speaking.

We could argue about perceived barriers all day. Instead let me tell you why anyone who isn’t a Gómez, Hernández, or Rodríguez should even care about STD rates in Hispanic women.

How about this? After 14 years of declining teen pregnancy rates, between 2005 and 2006 the birth rate for all girls between ages 15 and 19 rose 3 percent. The CDC estimated the rate for Hispanic girls was 2 percent.

Or let’s talk about the biggest biggie: HIV/ AIDS which is staging a comeback as a result of the misguided belief it is now curable with drug cocktails. I n 2006, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found new AIDS cases worsening only among Latinos – compared to all other racial/ethnic groups. Their cases doubled from 2001 to 2004, with Latinas’new infections jumping from 23 percent to 51 percent in that time period.

The bottom line is 20 million Juanas, Rosas and Marías are not invisible and neither the CDC nor anyone else can afford to ignore the sexual health of 20 million Hispamc women.

In fact, lots of them will have sex with Toms, Dicks and Harrys. Or as I like to think of them: your sons, brothers and fathers. Heck, some of the 20 million might even hook up with your moms, sisters and daughters. Hispanic Link.

And the STDs that’ll cross cultural barriers just happen to be colorblind.

(Esther J. Cepeda is a director at the United Neighborhood Organization, a Chicago based non-profit dedicated to ensuring Hispanics’ success in the United States. She may be reached at ecepeda~unoonilne.org).

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Nurses make demands St. Luke’s Hospital, other Sutter’s hospitals and supported by the Nurses Union, hold a labor strike at the corner of César Chávez and Valencia streets. (photos by Marvin J. Ramirez)

About 4,000 nurses at eight Sutte­r Health hospitals in the Bay area, including St. Luke’s in the Mission District of San Francisco, started striking March 21 over a dispute about health standards at the hospitals, pension benefits, and the closing of hospitals in poor areas.

Planned to last 10 days, the action affects hospitals in Antioch, Berkeley, Burlingame, Castro Valley, Oakland, San Francisco, San Mateo and Vallejo. The California Nurses Association states that the walkout is due to ongoing contract negotiations and Sutter practices that it says puts patients at risk.

“Sutter cannot expect RNs to sit idly by and watch the ongoing problems with patient care and patient safety at our hospitals,” reads the Nurses Association statement. “ When there are not enough nurses, patients are put at risk, period. We don’t want to strike, but our ethical oblication as patient advocates demands it.”

Nurse Francisca Laurel, on strike, don’t want St. Luke’s to be close

Hospital. “They say they“We are fighting for better retirement,” said Francisca Laurel, a medical surgical nurse since 1979 and one of many other nurses protesting an eventual closure of St. Luke’s want to close the hospital…we want to save it.”

Sutter Health said it hasmet the levels of staffing, health care and retirement benefi ts the union has demanded from other hospitals. It said the union’s “real goal is more members and more dues money.”

St. Luke’s Hospital’s status has been in question over the past year and among the plans to reduce costs there are calls for fewer nurses in the neonatal unit, as well as for nurses to be crosstrained outside their areas of specialty.

“This is a change in service … this is a very solid way to do it.” Dr. Martin Brotman, president and CEO of CPMC, the more profitable of the Sutter hospitals in the city, told the SF Chronicle last December. He said a decision on whether to close the hospital would not be made for two years.

All hospitals remain open currently, and hospital officials have said that patient care won’t be disrupted.

­

by the El Reportero’s news services

Juan Manuel Santos

Peru’s anti-terrorist police announced On 19 March the arrest of a senior official from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) in Iquitos.

The arrest suggests that the Colombian military has changed tack after its controversial raid on Ecuador on March 1, and will now work with neighbouring police forces against the Farc rather than take action itself.

The arrests are another blow to the Farc. The man arrested is Johnny Cárdenas Pasaján, a drug trafficking and explosives expert, and a key lieutenant to Joaquín Gómez – who replaced Raúl Reyes on the Farc’s ruling council after Reyes was killed in the March 1 raid.

OAS resolution stops short of condemning Colombia

The Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution in the early hours of March 18 issuing Colombia with a mild rebuke for its bombing of a Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) camp on Ecuadorean soil on March 1.

It differed very little in substance from the Rio Group resolution released 10 days earlier. Ecuador had wanted Colombia explicitly condemned for the action.

It had to settle for an article which used the word “reject” in relation to the military incursion. While the Colombian government managed to save face, however, it suffered a setback in its efforts to link Ecuadorian authorities to the Farc.

Colombia confirms it killed Ecuadorian

BOGOTÁ, Colombia – Colombia’s defense minister announced Sunday that an Ecuadorean was killed during Colombia’s controversial March 1 raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador’s jungle.

Ecuador and Venezuela briefly mobilized troops to their borders with Colombia in the wake of the attack that killed top Colombian rebel commander Raúl Reyes and 25 others, and confirmation of the Ecuadorian death threatened to revive tensions

between the Andean neighbors.

Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said one of two bodies brought to Colombia after the attack belonged to the Ecuadorian he identified only by the nom de guerre “Lucho.”

The Ecuadorian’s body was initially identified as that of a Colombian rebel troubadour, alias Julian Conrado, and brought back to the Colombian capital of Bogotá with Reyes’ body.

Cuba condemns criticism of China

HAVANA – Cuba on Saturday rejected criticism of China for its crackdown on recent riots in Tibet, which has led to calls for a possible boycott of this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

In an e-mail statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, Havana also accused U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia of being the principal voice behind talk of a boycott.

“The government of Cuba condemns with all of its energy attempts to organize a crusade aimed at undermining this noble undertaking,” the government said.

Protests against Chinese rule in Tibet have drawn a harsh response from Beijing, and Chinese authorities say 16 people have died and 325 were injured. The Dalai Lama’s exiled government says 99 Tibetans have been killed.

Havana — one of five current communist governments including Beijing — also is quick to reject international complaints about its own human rights record.

The government added that it believes the Tibet riots were “promoted from Juan Manuel Santosoutside the country,” and expressed opposition to “any attempt to meddle in the internal affairs of China.”

President Bush has long planned to attend the Beijing Olympics, and the White House said this week that the crackdown in Tibet is not cause for him to cancel.