por Luis Carlos López

Children of undocumented ask for amnisty.

PHOENIX, Arizona, 24 April – The impassioned pleas directed at Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer by thousands of students, adults, faith organizers and elders who gathered at the Arizona capitol for a week of round-the-clock protests against a bill they defined as xenophobic, racist and anti-Hispanic, has fallen on deaf ears.

At an afternoon news conference April 23 a few miles away, Brewer signed SB1070, which can require persons to carry proof of legal residency, gives local police officers authority to arrest anyone they suspect might not be here legally, and punish individuals who give aid to an undocumented person.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles likened such police powers to “Nazism.”

Students, Hispanics prominent among them, united their chants, making more than 80,000 texts and phone calls to Brewer’s office in the hope that their voices would be heard.

Maricopa County Su1pervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, the lone Hispanic on the five-member Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, broke the news of Governor Brewer’s decision to the petitioners rallying outside the capitol.

The county is one quarter Hispanic.

“The governor did not listen to our prayers. She did not listen to your cause,” Wilcox told the vast crowd. “Even when President Obama declared ‘this bill needs to be vetoed, these children are correct,’ she signed the bill.”

Defying White House custom by speaking out on a single piece of state legislation, Obama commented during an April 23 citizenship ceremony for immigrant war veterans at the White House, as he once again urged Congress to pass comprehensive immigration legislation this session “to avoid irresponsibility by others,” that the law undermines “basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.”

Wilcox urged the students to keep the faith, reminding them of the theme that had been at the center of their protest — non-violence and the legacy of César Chávez. “We cannot let this stop us from continuing to fight,” she said.

After the Governor’s announcement, national Hispanic and civil rights organizations began preparing court actions challenging the constitutionality of various elements of the law, which takes 90 days to go into effect.

Phoenix attorney Antonio Bustamante told Hispanic Link News Service to expect SB1070 to have repercussions internationally as well as nationally.

“It’s highly likely that there will be massive boycotts of every product produced in the state,” Bustamante said. “There are talks in Mexico of boycotting Arizona and buying and trading products with other states.”

­Mexico’s foreign min1istry quickly expressed its concern about the rights of its citizens and the country’s own relations with Arizona.

Even with the many outcries, the bill apparently has much popularity within the state. A recent poll by Rasmussen Report found 70 percent of Arizonans favored it while only 23 percent opposed it.

Locked in a tight Republican primary re-election battle this year, Sen. John McCain, who once led the bipartisan support for immigration reform in partnership with late Sen. Ted Kennedy, now applauds his state’s effort.

He called the proposal “an important step forward.”

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon had informed the protesters that if Brewer signed the law, he would work to appeal it. “This is clearly unconstitutional. This is clearly immoral,” he said.

After Brewer signed it, Gordon stated in a Washington Post commentary, “I do recognize those responsible for this humiliating moment. They are bitter, small-minded and full of hate, and they in no way speak for Arizona.” Hispanic Link.

(Luis Carlos López, of Washington, D.C., is editor of Hispanic Link Weekly Report. Email him at lclopez@gmail.org)

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Developing countries use proportionally less energy than industrialized nations, but large cities like Madras and Bangkok are helping to fuel global energy demand, according to a University of Michigan study.

Thirty-eight of the world’s 50 largest metropolitan areas are located in countries with emerging economies and most of them are located in warm-to-hot climates.

“Using energy to cool houses and apartments is not yet common in developing countries,” said Michael Sivak of the U-M Transportation Research Institute. “However, as individual income in developing countries increases, it is likely that so will the use of air conditioning in hot climates.”

In a new study published in the journal Energy Policy, Sivak examined the combined energy demand per person for residential heating and cooling in the world’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

His analysis used data on “heating and cooling degree days”—units that relate to the amount of energy needed to heat and cool buildings—to produce a combined index of total energy demand for climate control. One heating (cooling) degree day occurs for each degree the average daily outdoor temperature is below (above) 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sivak says that among the world’s 50 largest cities, the top 13 in terms of cooling degree days are located in developing countries, such as India, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. All but two of the top 30 are in these and other developing nations.

­The warmest metropolitan area in developing countries—Madras—has 1.6 times the cooling degree days of Miami, the warmest city in developed countries. The potential cooling demand for another Indian city—Mumbai—is about 24 percent of the demand of the entire United States.

Currently, nearly 90 percent of housing units in the United States have central or room air conditioning, but only 2 percent in India do.

“Whether the potential cooling demand in developing countries will translate into energy consumption for cooling on the scale of the United States or greater is not clear,” he says. “Differences in energy infrastructure, size and occupancy density of buildings, sustainability concerns, desirable temperature and diurnal use of air conditioning will influence the energy use for cooling in developing countries. Nevertheless, the potential for a huge increase in energy use remains.”

Overall, among the largest cities in the world, four cold-weather metropolitan areas use the most energy (mostly heating, but some cooling, as well): the Russian cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow and the North American cities of Toronto and Chicago (the only two cities in industrialized nations among the top 10).

The rest of the top 10 include warm-weather cities Madras; Bangkok; Karachi, Pakistan; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and the Chinese cities of Beijing and Tianjin, which have more seasonal weather.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Fernando Gómez Mont

Fernando Gómez Mont, the interior minister, came out strongly on April 25 against a proposal floated by the former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) that the U.S. and Mexico should model their anti-drugs strategy on the US ‘Plan Colombia’. Gómez Mont’s unequivocal rejection of Clinton’s tentative suggestion, floated in a speech at a conference at the Universidad del Valle de México on April 24, shows how touchy Mexico is about US policy.

Gómez Mont not only rejected Clinton’s suggestion but also said some harsh things about the US appetite for drugs and its inability to stop Mexican gangs exploiting US gun laws to arm themselves. He said that the US should be “ashamed” of both facts.

­Pulp-mill verdict satisfies honor on both sides of River Uruguay

The International Court of Justice at The Hague finally delivered its verdict on 20 April in the long-running confl ict between Argentina and Uruguay over the construction of a pulp mill on the Uruguayan side of the River Uruguay. Its evenhanded ruling allowed both governments to claim victory, although Uruguay is ultimately the real winner as it will not have to relocate the mill.

The foreign ministries of both countries quickly arranged a meeting between President Cristina Fernández and President José Mujica, for 28 April, to put the confl ict behind them but a defi nitive resolution rests on Fernández showing the political will to take on local protest groups to end the blockade of an international bridge between the two countries. (Latin News contributed to this report).

­

by Rosalba Ruíz

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Latin American migrants sent 10 billion fewer dollars home last year than they did the year before, a drop-off felt greatest in Mexico, economic experts say.

Measuring how that hemisphere weathered the global economic downturn in 2009, they shared their findings and expertise here during an April 12 roundtable discussion at Inter-American Dialogue headquarters. Remittance flows to Latin American nations, which are mostly from the United States, dropped from $69 billion in 2008 to $58.8 billion in 2009, a 15 percent decline, they reported.

“As employment levels declined, so did the capacity to send money home,” said Natasha Bajuk, remittance specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank. Unemployment rates among foreign-born Latinos in the United States rose more sharply than among other foreign-born populations, from 6.9 percent in 2008 to 11.4 percent in 2009, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The crisis in the U.S. affected some countries more than others.

For example, 95 percent of Mexico’s $21 billion remittance inflow in 2009 came from the United States, explained Bajuk, while Ecuador and Bolivia received about 40 percent of their remittance income from Europe.

To adjust for the lack of income, migrants living in the United States made “tremendous sacrifices,” such as seeking extra work, tapping their savings or finding less costly housing, said Bajuk.

Those who lost their jobs weren’t the only ones affected, according to a study by Manuel Orozco, remittance specialist at Inter-American Dialogue’s research center.

The study said, “insecurity about unemployment has proven to be the greatest hardship for migrants in the current environment. Nearly a quarter stated that the fear of losing one’s job represented the worst part of the…crisis.”

Families and other recipients back home have constrained their spending as much as they could, Orozco said.

Although Latin America was severely hit by the global downturn, the region’s economic prospect for 2010 is positive, according to the Organisation (cq) for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), headquartered in Paris.

“There are some positive signs, but definitely 2010 is going to be a tough year. You’ll probably see no growth or very moderate growth, no more than two percent growth in remittances,” said Orozco.

Both Orozco’s study and studies from the OECD indicate that in order to boost the flow of remittances and development of the region, there are some basic actions policymakers in countries of origin and destination must take:

•Gain a better understanding of migration flows and the economic impact migrants have so programs can be initiated that will provide the right incentives and protections and take advantage of the economic contributions they make.

­•Equip migrants and their families with the capacity to make informed financial decisions and manage their resources.

•Help boost competition between money transfer companies to lower remittance costs, which range up to eight percent on a remittance of $200. Hispanic Link