­WASHINGTON, DC – The Hispanic College Fund today announced a partnership with AGUILA Youth Leadership Institute to give two hundred Phoenix high school students the opportunity to participate in the HCF Youth Institute.

The HCF Youth Institute begins with the four-day, three-night Hispanic Youth Symposium (HYS), a nationally recognized program that develops Hispanic youths’ understanding of the connection between college achievement and professional success. Additionally, students are prepared with the necessary tools to navigate the college-to-career pathway. Another vital outcome is the establishment of a long-lasting support network for continued professional development and community involvement. After attending the HYS, students are provided with monthly workshops, academic and cultural mentoring, and volunteer opportunities coordinated by AGUILA staff.

“We are very excited to partner with the AGUILA Youth Leadership Institute. Our message to Hispanic youth is to complete high school and pursue college degrees in order to obtain meaningful careers,” said George Cushman, Vice President of Programs for the Hispanic College Fund. “The Hispanic Youth Symposium provides students with a clear career vision, but it is the partnership with AGUILA that will sustain that vision until the students reach college.” CEO and Founder of AGUILA, Rosemary Ybarra-Hernan-dez stated, “This partnership is critical to our youth, to our communities and to our country. Our collective efforts contribute to our goal of increasing Hispanic college graduates, but more importantly, this partnership serves as an example to our youth that success can be realized by people who come together with a common goal of service.”

Additional HCF Youth Institute program locations: The following regions will each host an HCF Youth Institute in 2008: California Bay Area; Fresno, CA; Albuquerque, NM; Northern Virginia; Richmond, VA; Washington, DC; and Baltimore, MD. For more information on the HCF Youth Institute, please visit http://www.hispanicyouth.org.

The Hispanic Youth Symposium is a program of the Hispanic College Fund. The Hispanic College Fund (HCF) is a private non-profit organization dedicated to developing the next generation of Hispanic professionals in America. The HCF mission is to provide Hispanic students with the vision, resources and mentorship needed to attain successful careers and become community leaders. Since its founding in 1993, HCF has supported the education of over 4,000 financially disadvantaged Hispanic students seeking careers in business, science, engineering and technology with over $9 million in grants.

Through programs like the HCF Scholarship Program, Hispanic Youth Symposium, Latinos on the Fast Track (LOFT), HCF Connections and the HYP Leadership & Development Program, HCF is enriching lives and building bridges for our future Hispanic leaders. For more information about the Hispanic College Fund, please visit our website at: http://www.HispanicFund.org.

AGUILA Youth Leadership Institute’s (AGUILA) is a unique college access program for Latino/a youth that helps to build a web of support through sustained support and culturally-relevant, college-preparatory curriculum. AGUILA’s mission is to empower and prepare Latino/Latina youth for college admissions and graduation through a unique approach based upon a greater cultural understanding as a guide to personal, academic and professional excellence as future Latino/a Leaders. Youth attend monthly seminars that focus on meeting required timelines in the college application process, including scholarships and financial aid.

Additionally, AGUILA encourages personal development through participation in: career exploration, leadership development, cultural competence, communication skills, interpersonal relationships, conflict resolution, Chicano/a studies, decision making, and civic WEEKengagement. Referred to as the “Fast Moving Train” in Arizona, AGUILA recognizes the importance of developing strong leaders for the future of our communities and our country through Serving Latino Youth and Building Latino Leadership. For more information on the AGUILA Youth Leadership Institute, please contact Ms. Rosemary Ybarra-Hernandez, CEO & Founder, at (602) 518-0612 or ­rhernandez81@cox.net.
(HISPANIC PR WIRE).

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Salvadorian Assemblymember Blanca Flor A. Bonilla (in white) after meeting with El Salvador’s vice consul in SF. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

A four-month long resistance by residents of Cutumay Camones, El Salvador to the illegal construction of a dump that could poison the community’s water supply has been met with increasingly violent attacks by military and police. On Nov. 22, more than 300 riot police were sent and helicopters sprayed tear gas on protesters, likely contributing to the death of 14-year-old William Alfredo Ventura, who died of respiratory complications. The use of force against demonstrators has escalated significantly since the opening of the U.S.-sponsored ILEA (International Law Enforcement Academy) in El Salvador in 2005.

Blanca Flor Bonilla, a deputy to the Legislative Assembly in El Salvador, joined activists from CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, to condemn the escalating violence. A small group gathered outside the Salvadoran consulate in San Francisco on Nov. 29 for a press conference to denounce the repression of community protest by the Salvadoran National Police under the administration of President Antonio Saca.

The conference was timed to coincide with Saca’s visit to Washington DC on the same day, where he met with President Bush and received ­a medal of honor from the International Republican Institute for “promoting freedom and democracy” in Latin America. According to White House Spokesperson Dana Perino, the leaders met to discuss “the recent initiative to enhance security cooperation with Central America.”

Assemblywoman Bonilla claimed that the medal was a reward for Saca’s policy of selling off most of El Salvador’s government-run utilities to transnational corporations.

“Thirty-nine people, including children under the age of 18, have been arrested and are under police custody,” CISPES’ statement claimed. “We stand with the people of Cutumay Camones in demanding the immediate release of all community members captured last week. We demand the end to the construction of the garbage dump. Further, we implicate the United States government for condoning, if not directly instructing, these actions by training police at the ILEA.”

The attacks in Cutumay Camones follow similar clashes in Suchitoto, where mass arrests took place against people protesting water privatization. The “Suchitoto 13” face charges of terrorism for organizing a protest and blockading a road last July to stop the president’s announcement of his plan to privatize El Salvador’s water.

“President Saca has agreed that police used excessive force, and some cops were suspended,” Bonilla said. She went on to say that the removal of single officers is insuffficient, as the military and police continue to defend private interests by repressing the community, and the construction of the garbage dump has gone forward.

Bonilla also drew attention to the plight of undocumented workers from El Salvador, who are being deported at a rate of 120 to 180 daily.

“In April we visited the detention centers in San Antonio and Nuevo Laredo – on both sides of the border – and verified that there isn’t enough consulate presence. They make them sign deportation forms in English, and then they deport them, without giving them a chance to consult with an attorney.”

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by the El Reportero news services

Evo Morales

LA PAZ – President Evo Morales fired water minister Abel Mamani after compromising photographs of Mamani were shown on national television.

Mamani is one of Morales’s most radical supporters. His forced departure weakens the radical wing of the government, just as it is squaring up to the rightwing secessionists in the east of the country.

The photos showed Mamani partially unclothed, embracing an alleged prostitute. The pictures followed allegations of corruption against the former minister.

Mamani maintained that he had been the victim of a smear campaign. He said that the photos had been faked and that on 9 November he had made a formal complaint to the special anti-crime squad (FELCC) claiming that he had been approached by four individuals seeking to extort money from him in exchange for not publishing the photos.

Volcano erupts on island in Lake Nicaragua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – The Concepcion  volcano in Nicaragua sent huge columns of ash into the sky in eruptions that prompted a ripple of small earthquakes, local seismologists said Sunday.

The volcano, one of two on an island in the region’s largest lake, erupted Saturday night and related earthquakes continued to rattle the area on Sunday. No one was injured by the blast, Nicaragua’s Institute of Territorial Studies said in a statement.

The 1,610-meter (5,282-foot) volcano is located 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of the capital, Managua, on an island popular with adventure tourists in Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s largest lake.

Ash rained down on local communities on Sunday, as strong winds carried it to toward the capital, the institute said.

The Concepcion volcano, which shares its lake island with the dormant Maderas volcano, last erupted in 2005.

In Mexico, official says Colombian ring laundered euro45 million in drug money from Spain

­MEXICO CITY – Authorities have uncovered a large criminal ring in Colombia that has laundered euro45 million (US$67 million) in cocaine profits from Spain over the past four months, a top Colombian official said.

The network’s success relied on 16,000 “ordinary” Colombians who were willing to receive and then turn over amounts of up to euro5,000 to euro10,000 euros (US$7,430 to US$14,860) apiece, said Mario Alejandro Aranguren, an intelligence official with Colombia’s Treasury Ministry.

The participants agreed to receive the cash in Colombian pesos at currency exchange houses and then turn it over to members of the ring in exchange for a small commission, Aranguren said during a symposium on money-laundering and drug trafficking in Mexico City.

Aranguren also noted that Spain has become a major market for Colombian cocaine.

The drug is not just sold there, “it also is distributed to Spain’s interior and from there, to other European countries,” Aranguren said.

by Adolfo Flores

Anthony Miranda

Hate crimes against Hispanics reached an all-time high in 2006, according to an annual survey released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Such crimes against Latinos spiked by 10.3 percent over 2005, with Latino victims increasing by 12 percent, the FBI reported.

Latino law enforcement and civil rights authorities attribute the trend to constant and strong anti-immigrant messages promoted by the media.

Last year Latinos comprised 62.8 percent of victims of crimes motivated 5by ethnic and national origin bias.

“Two factors contribute to this’” Anthony Miranda, executive chairman of the National  Latino Officers Association, told Weekly Report. “The first is that Latinos are becoming more visible.” The second, he said, is that “people are equating anti-terrorism with anti-immigration,” and those who question the notion are viewed as anti-American or anti-establishment.

John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, stated, “Anti-immigrant hatred heard on the radio and cable shows reaches America’s neighborhoods with real consequences.”

Blurring the line between undocumented immigrants and terrorists, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.), a candidate in the GOP presidential primary, released a campaign ad depicting a hooded individual blowing up a shopping mall.

“There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs,” a narrator says.

In total, there were 7,722 hate-related crimes based on bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/ national origin, or physical or mental disability reported nationally in 2006 Of those, 51.8 percent were racially motivated, 18.9 percent were motivated by religion, 15.5 percent by sexual orientation and 12.7 percent were motivated by an ethnic/ national origin bias.

There was a 7.3 percent increase in hate crimes in 2006 over 2005.

Of the 7~330 known offenders, 53.6 percent were white and 20.6 percent were black. Race was unknown for 12.9 percent and other races accounted for the rest of the known offenders.

“Heightened anti-immigrant sentiment has blocked immigration reform and seeks to turn local police into immigration law enforcers thus making it more difficult for victims to report crimes’” Trasviña pointed out. “The FBI report should serve as a wakeup call to our nation’s leaders to take  action on comprehensive immigration reform, reduce tensions and safeguard the basic civil rights and liber- ties of all Americans.”

Additional findings of racial-bias crimes, 66.4 percent of victims were blacks’21.0 percent whites’ 4.8 percent Asians and 1.5 percent American Indian/ Alaskan Natives.

Of sexual-orientationbias crimes~ 62.0 percent were against male homosexuals’20.9 percent general anti-homosexual bias, and 13.7 percent anti-female homosexual bias.

Of religious bias crimes, 65.4 percent were anti Jewish bias victims’ 11.9 percent  anti-Islamic’ 4.9 percen­tanti-Catholic’3.7 percent anti-Protestant’ 0.5 percent anti-Atheist Agnostic’8.4 percent other’ 5.3 percent anti-multiple religions.

The Hate Crime Statistics Act, passed by Congress on April 23,1990, requires the Attorney General to compile data about crimes born from prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and more recently, people with disabilities.

A total of 12~620 agencies participated in reporting hate crimes in 2006. They covered more than 255 million people, accounting for 85.2 percent of the country’s population.

The report is at ­www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm. Hispanic Link.­