by the El Reportero’s news services

Sebastián Piñera

Sebastián Piñera won election in Chile on 17 January, becoming the first right-wing presidential candidate since 1958 to come to power by the ballot box. Piñera defeated Eduardo Frei, of the ruling Concertación, which will see its 20-year stranglehold on power since the return to democracy come to an end when Piñera dons the presidential sash on 11 March. Chile was the only Latin American country not to have experienced a post-dictatorship alternation of government. Piñera’s big challenge will be preserving cohesion in his Coalición por el Cambio. He borrowed a lot of social-democratic rhetoric during his campaign and presented himself as a pragmatic centrist, but the ultra-conservative Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) is the senior partner in his coalition.

Bolivia’s Morales sworn in for second term

Today (22 January) Evo Morales will be sworn for a second term as president.

Morales begins his second term with a massive mandate leaving him well placed to achieve his main priority – the implementation of the new constitution which strengthens state control of the economy; enshrines indigenous rights and provides for greater decentralisation.

U.S. accused of ‘occupying’ Haiti as troops flood in

HAVANA: Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro today called on the United Nations to assume a monitoring role in Haiti, and he decried the US military “occupation” of the quakeravaged Caribbean country.

Castro, in an opinion article published in the local newspapers, said that neither the United Nations nor Washington have given a proper explanation of the US military role in the wretchedly poor nation.

“Amid the Haitian tragedy, with no one knowing how or why, thousands of (US Marines) and paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division and other military forces have occupied Haitian territory. Even worse, neither the United Nations nor the (US government) has offered an explanation… of this movement of forces,” Castro wrote.

Castro, 83, said that the announcement of other countries to send more troops to Haiti will contribute to chaos “and complicate the international cooperation, already a complicated task.”

­In other related news: France accused the US of “occupying” Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security.

The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to “clarify” the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts.

Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport’s control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight.

“This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti,” Mr Joyandet said.

Geneva-based charity Medecins Sans Frontieres backed his calls saying hundreds of lives were being put at risk as planes carrying vital medical supplies were being turned away by American air traffic controllers.

But US commanders insisted their forces’ focus was on humanitarian work and last night agreed to prioritise aid arrivals to the airport over military flights, after the intervention of the UN.

by Erick Galindo

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Iraqi government will pursue civil charges following U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina’s decision to throw out manslaughter charges against five former Blackwater security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqis on Sept. 16, 2007.

The decision was announced New Year’s Eve here (with time zone difference, New Year’s day in Iraq). In all, 17 Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded in the Baghdad incident.

The decision by Urbina, who sits as the first Hispanic to serve on the District of Colombia Superior Court, was met with disdain and jeers by Iraqis, many of whom view the shootings as a symbol of U.S. disregard for their lives.

Iraq called the decision “unacceptable and unjust.” It said it will ask the U.S. Justice Department to review the criminal case.

Family members of the dead and survivors called the decision a mockery of the justice that the United States was supposed to bring to their country. Officials there say the government will help victims file a lawsuit against the United States “What happened yesterday confirms that the trial was biased,” said Ali Adeeb, a top adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

Adeeb promised the Iraqi government will put diplomatic pressure on the United States to ensure that the victims “get justice.”

The 28-year veteran of the court said prosecutors had acted inappropriately in using the guards’ statements, acquired under the auspices of immunity, as evidence.

Judge Urbana also criticized prosecutors for withholding “substantial exculpatory evidence” from the grand jury that indicted the defendants, as well as for presenting distorted versions of witnesses’ testimony and improperly telling the grand jury that some incriminating statements had been made by the defendants were being withheld.

“The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants’ compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility,” Urbina wrote.

Prosecutors contended the guards indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked assault near a crowded traffic circle.

One of the survivors, Mahdi Abdul Khudor, who lost an eye in the shooting, said the guards burned people inside their cars. The guards claimed they had been am bushed by insurgents and they fired in self-defense.

During the investigation into the incident, the guards, State Department contract employees at the time, were told by State Department investigators that they could be fired if they did not talk to investigators about the case and that whatever they said would not be used against them in any criminal proceeding.

In his 90-page opinion, Urbina found that in a “reckless violation of the defendants’ A panel with perspectives from across the political spectrum will address this report and other studies on the economic effects of immigration reform at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. that morning.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez constitutional rights,” investigators and prosecutors had extensively used those statements and disregarded “the warning of experienced senior prosecutors” that “the course of action threatened the viability of prosecution.”

­The decision is considered a major blow to the Justice Department, which has struggled to distance itself from the stigma left by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzáles. It also brings to a halt one of the highest profile prosecutions to arise from the Iraq war.

The shooting had strained relations between the Iraqi government and the Bush Administration at the time and called into question United States’ growing reliance on private security contractors in war zones.

Blackwater, the much-publicized government contractor, has since been expelled from Iraq and changed its name to Xe Services.

Many of the company’s former guards have switched to other security firms and have stayed in Iraq.

by Jon Rodney

Protest and demand for back wages.­(PHOTO COURTESY BY JON RODNEY, WITH EAST BAY ALLIANCE)

No sooner had the sun risen over the Oakland hills on Jan. 16 when protestors started gathering outside of Emeryville’s boycotted Woodfin Suites Hotel. And by about 8:00 a.m. the crowd had swelled to over 60 workers, residents, and community members.

­A court ordered Woodfin to pay up some $200,000 in back wages, owed to dozens of working immigrant mothers since approximately three years ago, and still it hasn’t paid the workers.

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por Alejandra Matos

EL PASO, Texas – With the constant violence in Mexico has come an increase in reporting about the ongoing drug war in Ciudad Juárez, the neighboring metropolis across the border, In 2009, more than 2,600 people were killed there. El Paso Times editor Chris López has dedicated himself to covering the turmoil ever since he joined the paper in 2009.

“This is one of the most dynamic stories on the border — and in the country,” he insists.

El Diario de El Paso, the sole Spanish-language newspaper here, also sees the importance of reporting on it because readers often have direct ties to Juárez.

“We try to cover the violence binationally. We talk to North American agencies and scholars to give their opinions on the phenomenon,” El Diario de El Paso editor Armando Vélez says.

His newspaper’s audience is comprised mainly of Mexican immigrants. For this reason, Vélez asks his reporters to cover other aspects of daily life, but incorporating how the violence is affecting them, he added.

“Anybody who says that the backdrop of the drug cartel war doesn’t impact every segment of society in Juárez is not over there talking to people,” López says. “You cannot tell a story in Juárez right now without giving it that context.”

KINT Channel 26, El Paso’s Univisión station, also showcases other elements of ­life in Juárez. Reports such as one Ariadna López did on an orphanage remind people that life still continues there, she says.

A lot of times people in El Paso would rather not watch the news or read the newspaper because they are tired of so much violence, and at the end of the day it’s the exact same story,” López says.

In 2009, 11 journalists were killed in Mexico, making it the second most dangerous country for journalists, according to the International News Safety Institute.

El Diario de Juárez lost its police reporter, Armando Rodríguez, in November 2008. Rodriguez was warming up his car, about to take his daughter to school, when he was shot.

Rather than back away, the newspaper is taking precautionary measures.

“The best homage we could give Armando was to continue with our work,” editor Rocío Gallegos says. “We’ve just been more careful. We don’t publish reporters names with articles that we feel may be threatening, or include the names of photographers.”

Karla Mariscal, a news anchor at Channel 26, lost her brother last November when he was ambushed and killed in Juárez.

Channel 26 no longer sends any of its staff to report on the crime across the border. Instead, it uses someone who lives and works out of the city. “We cannot put our people at risk. Our station has already suffered enough,” she says.

KVIA Channel 7, El Paso’s ABC station, sends its news teams into Juárez, depending on the type of story they choose to cover. They also have a reporter from the BELO Corporation based out of KVIA who reports on border issues.

“That is a great asset for us because she is also able to go back and forth and tell the border stories that we show to our viewers,” KVIA news director Brenda De Anda Swann says.

The El Paso Times consistently sends reporters into Juárez. Although safety is a concern, López says it will not stop him from sending reporters to the city.

In contrast, Vélez sends his reporters if need be but they work mainly with reporters from Juárez.

“We get the hard facts from the 20 or so reporters from El Diario de Juárez, and then we will modify the information to reflect how it affects our readers here in El Paso,” he says.

At the end of the day when the paper hits the press or the lights of the studio turn off, journalists are human beings. Although their work is important, the line has to be drawn at some point, Univisión’s Ariadna López says.

“For CNN reporters it is easy to go into Juárez, do their reports and leave to their homes in the U.S,” she says. “We on the other hand live in this community. We cross over daily and have family in Juárez. If we expose ourselves more than necessary we are going to get killed and our voice is going to be turned off.”

(Alejandra Matos is a journalism student at the University of Texas-El Paso. Contact her at amatos@miners.utep.edu)©2010

by the El Reportero’s news services

Sebastián Piñera

On Jan. 17 Sebastián Piñera, the candidate of the rightwing Coalición por el Cambio, comfortably won the presidential election run-off. Piñera’s win is historic. Not only is he the first rightwing candidate to win the presidency since the restoration of democracy in 1990 (after the Pinochet regime quit power), but he is also the first rightwinger to win the presidency since Jorge Alessandri in 1958.

Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle, the defeated candidate (and former president, 1994-2000) of the ruling centre-left Concertación, swiftly conceded defeat. President Michelle Bachelet, a socialist, also congratulated Piñera, who will formally take office on March 11 and hold the presidency until 2014.

Mujica wins Uruguay’s election to retain power for Frente Amplio José Mujica swept to power in the second round of Uru­guay’s elections, securing ­a second consecutive term for the left-wing Frente Amplio coalition. Mujica defeated Luis Alberto Lacalle of the main opposition Partido Nacional (Blancos) by more than ten percentage points. The FA also won a majority in both the lower chamber and the senate, repeating the feat it achieved in 2004 when it became the fi rst governing party in over 50 years to enjoy an absolute majority in both chambers.

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by Luis Carlos López

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A major immigrationstudy released here this month by political economist Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda is helping trigger new efforts to move a comprehensive immigration bill onto Congress’s front burner.

The national policy review states that implementing a program to bring the nation’s estimated 11.9 million undocumented residents onto a path to legalization would create $1.5 trillion in U.S. economic growth over the next ten years.

Hinojosa-Ojeda’s research is receiving worldwide attention, with positive reaction and recognition among several influential U.S. policymakers, plus a few brickbats from anti-immigration forces, he told Hispanic Link News Service. It is stirring thousands of blogosphere debates Following a well-attended news conference here, the University of California at Los Angeles professor met with interested Administration and World Bank officials, hosted a briefing for 50 congressional staffers, shared findings from his multi-year project in detail with D.C. think tank brain trusts, and held additional one-on-ones with international and domestic media.

The assessment, “Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefit of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” compressed to 25 pages for mass distribution, projects that legalizing undocumented immigrants, in combination with a program that allows for a future immigration flow based on labor market needs, is far more pragmatic and profitable than any alternative deportationonly scheme being promoted by some members of Congress.

“If we pursue a deportation-only policy, it will drain our already anemic economy by $2.6 trillion over the next ten years and cost billions to implement,” Hinojosa-Ojeda, who serves as executive director of the North American Integration and Development Center, affirmed.

He called undocumented immigrants “a hidden economic engine” that is constantly being repressed, maintaining, “Legalization empowers workers immediately to become much more committed and integrated in the economy.”

The report was released Jan. 6 to the press by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center, and discussed with a panel of economic and social strategy experts.

LOW-WAGE WORKERS BENEFIT

Hinojosa-Ojeda told Hispanic Link his organization will continue encouraging and producing community impact studies, suggesting that any on the effect of workplace raids on the welfare of communities where they were conducted could prove of particular value.

He said he anticipates communities nationwide to use the report’s data to construct actions that will benefit them.

Among the report’s other findings:

• Contrary to public perception, low wage workers will benefit from legalization of undocumented workers.
• The number of unauthorized immigrants residing in the United States has increased dramatically since the 1990s from an estimated 3.5 million to its present total, estimated at nearly 12 million.
• Despite the huge increase in federal funding for border security — a 714 percent growth since 1992 — the apprehension rate for undocumented immigrants has declined since 2001.
• Increased border enforcement does not effectively deter undocumented immigrants from entering the United States.
• A massive deportation strategy creates other negative consequences. With tougher enforcement, fatalities along deserts and other dangerous crossing areas increase; the underground market for smugglers places further stress on the immigrants, and unfair labor practices continue to exploit undocumented workers.

These issues, Hinojosa-Ojeda said, would be mitigated with legalization reform.

At the study’s release, Daniel Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, echoed Hinojosa-Ojeda’s conclusions by presenting the institute’s recent finding on the economic benefits of legalization.

Both studies concluded that increased enforcement and reduced low-skill immigration will have a negative impact on the income of all households.

“I think it is very signifiescant that two independent studies came to the same conclusion,” Griswold said. “The common feature is that legalization provides better jobs for middleclass Americans.”

Hinojosa-Ojeda confirmed that sparked a lot of negative commentary along the right-wing media, particularly criticism from blogs.

“It’s creating a massive buzz on the right wing but they haven’t been able to negate the fundamentals,” he said.

FULL REPORT AVAILABLE

Immigration Council.In addition to Hinojosa-Ojeda and Griswold, other experts weighed in on the benefits of legalization were Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, and Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American

The panel was moderated by Vice President for Immigration Policy and Advocacy at the Center of American Progress Angela Kelley.

For the complete report visit: ­http//immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/raising-floor-american-workers.

­­by the El Reportero’s news services

Raul Castro

Economists had long expected a fresh devaluation; it was inevitable given the country’s excessive reliance on oil revenues, which under President Chávez has risen to account for 93 percent of total export revenues and about half of fiscal revenues.

Despite his stated antipathy to conventional economic measures, the self-proclaimed socialist Chávez never hesitates to implement them when the need arises. And under the Bolivarian Revolution, economic and monetary policy in Venezuela hasn’t shifted a jot away from the typical petro-state merry-go-round of his rightwing predecessors.

The opposition reacted with scorn to the president’s justification of the move as a way to boost the productive economy, saying it was a kick in the stomach for consumers this election year.

Cuba’s economic woes and slow reform could trigger social unrest

Cuba enters 2010 facing a “difficult” year from the economic perspective, President Raúl Castro maintained while closing the biannual session of parliament on Dec. 20.

Castro added that he would not be rushed into introducing improvised and pressured changes. His message last year was almost identical. There are only so many times his government can get away with it before an outbreak of social unrest.

But, with depleting foreign exchange as a result of a slump in nickel exports and tourism earnings, and pressing debt payments, the government has restricted rations and energy consumption and called for yet more belt-tightening, while postponing meaningful reform. Despite tight controls on Internet usage, a burgeoning blogosphere is emerging, and pushing for change.

Ecuador boosts decent salaries

The Ecuadorian government People’’s Revolution will be this week three years, with a salary policy that promotes decent salaries as the foundation to resolve the existing social inequality in the country.

That was an assertion by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in a radio and television program, referring to the salary increase, from $218 to $240 a month, decreed as one of the fi rst measures to achieve what they call a “decent salary.”

Correa said sought-after equality would be reached with fairer taxes to the people with higher income, and workers should be better paid.

He said no company in Ecuador will be able to declare profits until the last worker has earned $320, an amount that multiplied by 1.6 employees per household would allow acquiring almost all the basic products, estimated at $517 a month.

Labor Relation Minister Richard Espinosa explained that the unified basic salary can be calculated considering three factors: inflation, productivity rate, and increase due to equality.

The recent $22 increase of the basic salary is for all sectors, equivalent to 10 percent, but for artisans, workers of the small-industry, agriculture sector and assembly plants is 30 percent, and 20 percent for household services.

­“The objective is to give the capital-work relation an approach aimed at workers’ development and labor justice, based on an integral sustainable structure, with proper legal foundations,” Minister Espinosa said. (Latin News and Prensa Latina contributed to this report).

by Hispanic Link Wire services

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will hear the case of José Angel Carachuri-Rosendo, a lawful permanent resident who faces deportation for possession of an anti-anxiety drug.

His appeal is based on the claim that he was denied an opportunity to make a case in lower court as to why he should be allowed to remain in the United States.

The case could affect hundreds of immigrants who face deportation each year, according to a post on the Immigration Policy Center’s Immigration Impact blog Carachuri-Rosendo has lived in the United States since he was four years old and his four children and fiancé are U.S. citizens. In 2004, he was convicted of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana and sentenced to 20 days of confinement.

The following year, he was convicted of possessing a tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, for which he did not have prescription, and served another ten days in jail.

Even though his second conviction did not come under recidivism provisions, the court considered it a “drug trafficking crime,” a deportable offense, and the government initiated deportation proceedings.

In addition, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that his Xanax possession conviction renders him deportable without the opportunity for him to make a case to stay and without any consideration of the effect his deportation will have on his U.S. citizen children and fiancé.

The Supreme Court will have the opportunity to clarify whether a second possession conviction can be considered a “drug trafficking crime” without any recidivism findings present.

The action by the Supreme Court will also bring attention to immigration laws passed by Congress in 1996 which eliminated the discretion of immigration judges to make individualized decisions about whether a person should be deported.

According to Immigration Impact, “Such a result unfairly and unnecessarily disrupts the lives of not only those who are deported, but also their U.S. citizen families and friends who rely on them for support.”

The Immigration Policy Center is the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council. IPC’s mission is to shape a rational national conversation on immigration and immigrant integration.

Two students win immigrant rights battle

By Erin Rosa

Two students who were set to be deported by federal authorities will get to stay in the United States, thanks to community organizing in Florida.

Jesús and Guillermo Reyes, two youths of Venezuelan descent, had deportation orders deferred for at least another year. Before the decision, the brothers were detained at an immigration lockup, but have since been released. Jesüs, 21, is a student at Miami Dade College and Guillermo, 25, is a graduate of the school. The victory is another notch in the belt for an organic movement that has been successful in halting deportations of young people who came into the country as undocumented immigrants with their parents when they were children.

In response to such cases, lawmakers have proposed the DREAM Act, federal legislation that offers a pathway to citizenship for undocumented kids who entered the United States.­