­by Alex Meneses Miyashita

A lawsuit against a federal rule that would hold employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers will be on hold until March 2008 following a request from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The DHS made the request in order to revise its “No Match” regulation, that has been challenged by labor’ immigrant and civil rights groups and blocked from being implemented through a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in October.

The proposal would have required employers receiving No Match letters about employees whose Social Security numbers did not match those of the Social.­

by María Siraguen Martínez

A concert with Latino blood and spirit ­Coro Hispano of San Francisco playing at Mission Basilica Dolores, will offer a series of performances around the Bay Area in January. (photo by Mark Kitaoka)

When we say chorus, we hardly think that this word would be part of the Latino world. But think again.

­A group of very professional singers and musicians, some of them voice and music professors, continuously have kept Coro Hispano and Grupo Nuevo Mundo resounding like a heaven’s fell celestial musical ensemble.

Founded in 1975, under the direction of Juan Pedro Gaffney, the Coro Hispano de San Francisco is a chorus of the Spanish-speaking communities of the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to exploring and performing the choral literature of the peoples of Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Ranging from the 12th through the 20th century, this repertory embraces both classical and folk music from all parts of the Hispanic world, as well as ethnic music in Amerindian tongues.

Conjunto Nuevo Mundo is an ensemble of professional vocalists and instrumentalists dedicated to the parallel repertory of vocal chamber music and solo literature of Iberian and Latin American composers.

Medieval chants, Renaissance motets, Baroque villancicos, and lively aguinaldos from Latin American folk traditions is part of the Coro Hispano.

This Spanish speaking chorus fi lls the hearts and souls of whoever presences it’s lively music. With the New Year hitting in the corner, this upcoming year won’t be the exception, as the Coro Hispano prepares it’s 21st annual concert celebration of Día de los Reyes.

Every January since 1987, Coro Hispano has brought the Bay Area spectacular concerts from the children’s concert at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco’s Mission District to its mass concerts at the Basilica of Mission Dolores. Coro transports its listeners a magical sound and love through their music, an instrument that is universal around the world. If your interested in joining the celebration of Día de los Reyes, please visit ­http://corohispano.org/tickets.

Cds of their music will be sold and signed onsite. Don’t miss it! (For more schedule details, read our calendar of event on page 4.) ­

by the El Reportero news services

César Chávez

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez claimed this week that the US is plotting to destabilise his government and ostracise it within Latin America. It is not the first time that Chávez has made such claims but both of the alleged plots this time involve firm developments rather than idle speculation. The first involves a case being heard by the US judiciary against four men arrested in Miami last week accused of involvement in a conspiracy to conceal an illegal campaign payment meant for Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández. The second was a long investigative report by the Spanish daily El País portraying Venezuela as a narcosanctuary for the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).

Hugo Chávez in Havana Petrocaribe Summit: “Free Trade Doesn’t exist”

Raúl Castro: “At a time when the oil prices have broken every record, creating an extremely complex situation to most of the oil importing third world nations, the member countries of Petrocaribe are in a privileged position,” he said.

Hugo Chavez said Petrocaribe members’ collective debt for Venezuelan crude is currently near $1.2 billion and is expected to grow to $4.5 billion by 2010. He is promoting Petrocaribe as part of a larger  effort to create a regional confederation from Argentina to Cuba that will help the region counter U.S. influence.

Presidents Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Rene Preval of Haiti and Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, Belize’s Prime Minister Said Musa, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Guyana’s Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding and St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, were attending the summit.

Other Leaders attending, Honduras’ Defense Minister Aristides Mejia, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Energy Minister Earl Asim Martin, Grenada’s Energy Minister Gregory Bowen, St. Lucia’s Industry Minister Guy Mayers, Suriname’s Oil Companies Managing Director Mark Waaldijk, Len Ishmael, Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean, and representative from Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.

CIENFUEGOS, Cuba – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presided Friday at a regional petroleum summit in Cuba, pressing his efforts to counter U.S. infl uence in Latin America and the Caribbean by suggesting more of his neighbors could pay for cheap oil with goods or services in lieu of cash.

In his opening speech to the Petrocaribe summit in Cienfuegos, a southern coastal city about 155 miles from Havana, Chavez said his plan to provide low-cost oil to the region should go beyond financing mechanisms. He offered other countries the option of following the model of Cuba, which repays by sending doctors who offer free services to the poor in Venezuela.

Providing fuel in return for locally produced goods or services has been an option for some time under Venezuela’s current Petrocaribe pact, which supplies oil to the region through long-term, low interest financing. But it is unclear how many countries other than Cuba have taken up the offer.

Chavez also called for creating an international fund to promote solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources.­