Boxing – The Sport of Gentlemen

July 31, 2007

Sautrday, July 28 – at TBA (HBO) – 12 rounds, junior middleweights:

Vernon Forrest (38-2, 28 KOs) vs. Carlos Baldomir (43-10-6, 13 KOs);

10 rounds, featherweights: Mario Santiago (18-0, 13 KOs) vs. Eric

Aiken (16-5-1, 12 KOs).

Saturday, August 4 – at Chicago (PPV) – 12 rounds, WBC lightweight

title: David Diaz (32-1-1, 17 KOs) vs. Erik Morales

(48-5, 34 KOs); 12 rounds, light welterweights: Ricardo Torres

(31-1, 27 KOs) vs. Kendall Holt (22-1, 12 KOs); 12 rounds, junior

featherweights: Juan Manuel Lopez (17-0, 15 KOs) vs. Ricardo

Castillo (32-4, 22 KOs); 10 rounds, welterweights: Julio Cesar

Chavez Jr. (32-0, 25 KOs) vs. TBA.

Saturday, August 4 – at Hidalgo, Texas (Showtime) – 12 rounds,

WBC super bantamweight title: Rafael Marquez (37-3, 33 KOs) vs.

Israel Vazquez (41-4, 30 KOs); WBA super bantamweight title:

Celestino Caballero (26-2, 18 KOs) vs. Jorge Lacierva

(32-6-6, 22 KOs).

Public service – a career with very special rewards

July 31, 2007

by Bob Menéndez
United States Senator

Many might have said that as a boy who grew up in a tenement building as the son of poor Cuban immigrants, I was foolish to dream of serving my nation in the U.S. Senate. But that is why the United States, which celebrates its 231st birthday this Fourth of July, is the greatest nation in the world.

As I sit here today, a proud senator representing the people of New Jersey, I want the next generation to know that through some hard work and determination, anything is possible.

My journey to a life of public service began in New Jersey’s Union City when as a senior in high school I was accepted into the honors program. At that time students had to pay for their advanced books, but my mother and father – barely making ends meet as a seamstress and a carpenter – didn’t have the funds for this extra expense.

I protested until the school district agreed to pay for my books, but I felt indignant that others faced similar dilemmas. Education shouldn’t have boundaries created by financial disparities, I believed, so I rallied my peers to change what I saw as a broken system.

We spent a long, hot summer gathering signatures for a referendum to change the school board from one that was appointed by a corrupt administration to one that was elected by the public. And we won.

Encouraged by that victory, I sought to be a representative on the school board, and at the age of 20 I was elected as the youngest member in its history.

Since then, I have had the privilege to serve as mayor of Union City, as a member of both chambers of the New Jersey state legislature, as a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, and now as a United States Senator.

Still I can’t forget my roots growing up in that tenement, nor the principles that these ladder-climbing experiences have instilled in me.

These values informed every decision I have made in my public service career. From working to make health care more affordable and accessible, to stopping the privatization of Social Security, to improving our schools and making a college degree more attainable, I have strived to create opportunity and improve the lives of all who live in this great democracy.

While these values inspired me to become a public servant, what continues to motivate me every day are the people who share their challenges and aspirations with me. I have been privileged to touch so many lives.

This is my greatest satisfaction – to know that because of my efforts a family can be reunited, or a group of senior citizens can collect their delayed Social Security benefits, or a veteran can receive the health care that he or she deserves.

Constituents and their experiences have also helped inspire me to create some innovative legislation along the way. When my Patient Navigator Program, inspired by those who were not receiving adequate health care, was signed into law, I heard one of the most tragic yet inspirational stories in my time in Congress.

Hazel Hailey told me of her daughter, Robin Waiters, who suffered severe stomach pain for two years but despite her mother’s urgings, refused to see a doctor. When she finally visited one, she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. She passed away three months later.

Robin’s final request was for her mother to tell everyone she could that they should seek out care. This inspired Hazel to become a patient navigator. The program, which focuses on outreach to target communities to encourage prevention measures and follow-up treatment, has allowed Hazel to fulfill her daughter’s dying wish.

It is stories like Hazel’s – stories of creating positive change – that are the real compensation of being a public servant and are a continuous inspiration for me to strive to do more.

I have been privileged to realize the American Dream, but I recognize that what I have achieved is still a distant aspiration for too many. I hope that my journey will inspire many, many others as they weigh the choices in choosing their careers.

(Bob Menéndez is serving his first full six-year term in the U.S. Senate. E-mail him care of hannah_august@menendez.senate.gov.) c 2007

God saves immigrants from Uncle Sam’s ire

July 31, 2007

by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin Ramirez

The intention is good, but to pass is another matter. Millions of immigrants, but mainly Latin Americans, will have to pay enormous increases in the tariffs when they have to proceed with their applications for citizenship, permanent residence, renew their TPS, etc. It seemed that the end is to make life miserable for Hispanics.

That does not surprise them to all those legislators who keep on passing or blocking laws that affect Hispanics for worse, when the whole Latin America one day turns their back at them and cease being the U.S. eternal allied.

Among the villains there are some good legislators who represent the good legislative side, like Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), who would submit a legislation as a whole, against the new unjust tariffs would be implemented on Tuesday, the July 31.

Called, Just Resolution, this amendment calls to invalidate the law that authorizes the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to increase the tariffs and put them in effect.

Lofgren’s bill would annul this law that increase the fees and would reinstall the structure of previous tariffs.

The Congresswoman claims that the immigration service constantly has failed to reduce the backlog of applications, including the absence of transparency and effective administration.

“Our immigration services have to advance to the 21st century,” Lofgren said. “But, the USCIS has stopped explaining consistently or justifying the quantities and distributions of this new increase of fees.

Meanwhile I agree that the USCIS has to modernize its existing infrastructure and procedures, but they must do it in a transparent and open way,” she said.

After repeated requests for several months, the USCIS has still to provide to the Congress a detailed plan of its efforts of the modernization of its infrastructure. Our immigration. Our system of immigration should be so much effective as just; to sacrifice one to obtain another should not be an option”.

“It is unfortunate that after thousands of calls from legal and advocate groups and components, the USCIS will continue its due increase,” said Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. “The increase creates financial burden for families who want to happen for the legal process of the naturalization.”

It seems, that despite of so many protests, only a miracle will free the immigrants of so heavy financial load that Uncle Sam has imposed on these future children of North America who have already given part of their lives for the well-being of their Uncle Sam. An Uncle who often becomes cruel, up to the point that makes us think that he hates us, although he loves our work.

It is necessary to be a positive so that the Lofgren’s bill has a positive effect in the Congress.

Would-be killer killed by the would be victim

July 31, 2007

by Marvin J. Ramírez

Photo by Marvin J. Ramírez

A man was gun down and died by a local merchant after the shop owner learned that someone was coming to kill him, according to confidential sources.

According to sources, an unidentified man who recently got out of Pelican Bay prison, had a contract to murder Jaime Gutiérrez. But Gutiérrez found out that someone was coming to kill it, so he got prepared and waited for his killer with a shotgun.

When his prospect killer arrived at around 1:40 p.m. on July 26 – wearing latex gloves – to where Gutiérrez was, he received him with a gunshot. Then Gutiérrez carried the man to the wounded man’s own car, and drove around until entering in the Ingleside Police Station parking lot.

Later, at 3:12 p.m. Thursday, officers at the San Francisco Police Department’s Ingleside area station noted a red Saab vehicle entering the police vehicle lot. They saw a driver and a passenger with a fatal gunshot wound, Gittens said.

Gutiérrez, 31, of San Francisco was arrested and is facing one count of homicide and one count of felony possession of a firearm.

President Chavez swears ALBA office in Peru is more symbol than threat

July 30, 2007

by the El Reportero wire services

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has brushed aside the controversy in Peru about the opening of offices of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Alba).

Groups supporting Chavez have opened six offices of the Peruvian daily La Republica reported July 20.

Chavez says the offices are purely symbolic and in no way interferes in the internal affairs of Peru.

* Recently, Peruvian Foreign Minister, José García Belaunde and Prime Minister, Jorge del Castillo launched further attacks against the Venezuelan government.

The President contends that they are trying to accuse Venezuela of interfering in internal affairs just because the state governor of Puno decided to open an Alba office.

“I think that Latin American oligarchies are so frightened that when they see a branch, they jump with fright, thinking it’s a snake.”

Chavez insists that Venezuela will not interfere in the internal process of any country, unless it has alliances with that country such as in Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

Former presidential candidate, Ollanta Humala rejects the Peruvian government’s accusations and defends the office in Puno, which borders on Bolivia and states that the government should study the possibility of entering Alba as a good economic alternative to the Free Trade for the Americas agreement (FTAA).

Despite the government’s concern and denouncement of the presence of ALBA offices, Puno’s Regional President, Hernán Fuentes has announced that another ALBA office will be established in Juliaca.

Fuentes has explained that the presence of the offices will aid in health services, assist in education, and leadership training to start small businesses, and that it does not receive money or have any political affiliation. He has expressed his plans to place more ALBA offices in different parts of the province when possible.

The regional president has denied receiving any type of remuneration from the Venezuelan government to set up ALBA offices in the region.

(VHeadline.com and Livinginperu.com and Stratfor, contributed to the article.)

FSLN names ex Resistence leader as Consul in SF

July 30, 2007

by Marvin J. Ramírez

Denis Galeano Cornejo, new Nicaragua government representative in San Francisco, talks to El Reportero: Photo by Marvin J. Ramírez

Denis Galeano Cornejo is not a career diplomat, but his struggle in the trenches for democracy and free elections in Nicaragua, for those who fought, are his credentials for representing Nicaraguans in various cities and states of the U.S.

It’s not the same being behind a desk as Consul General of Nicaragua as being on the battlefield with a gun, after having led 5,000 of the more than 20,000 Resistance Party fighters camped in the Segovia mountains who battled against the same party that now named him Consul General: the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

The Front returned to power 17 years after having lost the elections under U.S. pressure, and previously defeated dictator Anastacio Somoza Debayle who governed Nicaragua with an iron fist for 45 years.

He said the governments of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Arnoldo Alemán y Enrique Bolaños forgot the combatants who helped them rise to power, leaving behind the members of the Resistance, who were named neither to government nor consular positions.

“We were left behind, not included in the government,” only cronies and family members were named, he said. Now, he added, “we have to unite the country, we are not going to gain anything by fighting our own people. in order to talk of peace and reconciliation, we’ll have to extend our hand to our old enemies. If not, the poor and the 6,000 wounded in the war will suffer most.”

But Galeano Cornejo is already in action, learning the rules of the game of diplomacy, adapting to the chill of San Francisco and to a foreign language he has yet to learn, and working with a budget so tight that he is only allowed one assistant, Gloria Ledezma, a business administrator who started working under the Bolaños government.

A little less than two months since taking his new position, Galeano Cornejo has already been introduced to a countless number of people in the Bay Area community, and has joined with the other Central American consuls in organizing the most significant political and cultural event, the independence celebrations of each of the Central American countries on September 15. This event will be the third to be held separately from the Mexican Grito de Dolores, which had adopted Central Americans for years during its celebration. They celebrate Mexican independence on September 16.

The mobile consulates, started by his predecessor Mayra Centeno-St. Andrews, have become part of his consular agenda, as much as interventions for detained compatriots who need documentation and legal assistance to be able to return to Nicaragua. The consular program will be announced as soon as the sites are found – generally they are offered by volunteers – and the agenda set.

He accepted his new position without reservation from President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, who he said (Ortega) is on the right path for the development of social justice which was denied to the people of the Segovias. His guerrilla battle of six years, he says, was not against specific people, but against a system which denied basic needs to the rural population and the poorest citizens, particularly the democratic vote. Beyond this, he says, “the battle was for farmers who needed land and titles.”

For 43-year-old Galeano-Cornejo, who was born in Quilali, municipality of Nueva Segovia, politics is not part of his agenda, rather he is committed to fulfilling his obligations to attend to the Nicaraguans who need him. His goal is to serve Nicaragua, considered the second poorest country in Latin America, where according to the World Food Program, 82 percent of the population lives on $2 a day.

“Being of service to all, without distinctions of political party, and to help document the eight out of 10 Nicaraguans who are detained” is the most pressing item on his agenda, he told The Reporter. He also hopes that Nicaraguans re-register with the TPS, the temporary permit that some Central Americans enjoy, which will soon be expired. He asked that those who have not handed in their extension do so as soon as possible.

“We’ve only seen (at the consulate) about 15 of the 30 or 40 who applied before,” Galeano Cornejo said, adding that “it’s possible that many may have moved to other areas such as Miami or Los Angeles, where costs of living are lower.

The Citizenship and Immigration Service of the United States (USCIS) would offer a press conference on Friday, July 27 with Francisco Venegas, the Consul General in San Francisco for the Republic of Honduras, driven by Hondurans who reside in the U.S. under the Temporary Protected State (TPS), to submit their extension documents by the deadline of July 30. On this last day, a rise in fees wouls be in effect, bringing the fee for employment authorization from $250 to $420.

There are approximately 78,000 Honduran citizens and 4,000 Nicaraguans who could be eligible for the new registration. Up to now, approximately 45,604 beneficiaries of TPS-43,490 from Honduras and 2,114 from Nicaragua-have registered again, according to USCIS.

Those who do not submit their TPS extension form by July 30 will lose the benefits of TPS, including the employment authorization and protection against deportation from the U.S.

On the issue that remains controversial both within and outside of Nicaragua, the identification of citizens abroad, which is needed to vote abroad, Galeano Cornejo is waiting for it to become a reality so he can start processing them.

Also, he said that he is working on a plan to promote investment in Nicaragua, and that he will organize meetings with businesspeople to entice them to invest in his country.

“Nicaragua is one of the most secure countries in Central America, where one cannot be afraid to be kidnapped,” he said.

While his mind is full of all of the concerns that managing a consulate brings, his greatest happiness lies in the hope of seeing his family, who will arrive in San Francisco on August 1.

Married for 20 years to Elsa Cristina Jirón Martínez, Galeano Cornejo is the father of three sons, Denis, 21; Héctor, 18; Denis Roberto, 17; and one daughter Anahely, 19, of whom he is especially proud. While studying in high school, she also took courses in music and has mastered five instruments.

The race to become president chicken

July 30, 2007

by José de la Isla

José de la Isla

MEXICO CITY – Do you remember the 1992 election when Bill Clinton adjusted his policy thinking to accommodate President H.W. Bush’s big vision of a free-trade zone for all of the Americas?

Clinton’s Fleetwood Mac vision had to turn on a dime, and he did it successfully. Clinton even had his advisor Henry Cisneros come to Mexico City for a private chat about it with President Carlos Salinas.

Eventually, a North American Free Trade Agreement was signed under President Clinton, one that excluded labor issues and had weak national provisions for Mexico’s development.

The treaty was like having cause without anticipating effect.

It was one, but not the only, reason for the rise of immigration to the United States, especially by the most marginal Mexican populations.

Then September 11th closed the border, like damming a stream where a freer flow of back-and-forth movement by job-seeking people had occurred before.

Where Latin American economic development had been a priority, it receded to near zero as “terrorism” and military solutions became the hot buttons.

Unfortunately, the national mentality changed also toward all of our neighbors to the south. Since that time, Democrats have retrenched and Republican interests have narrow-focused on free-trade expansion. Neither is a vision for a new North America, especially one where the old problems have not gone away.

We are back again where we were before the 1992 election.

In the current environment, our presidential candidates show little vision about the geography issue. Do they know we are North Americans? That the Western Hemisphere matters to our future? That Mexico is the gateway?

Will someone, please – for our own sake – ask the top candidates what that vision is.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently issued a seven-point plan of action on the Western Hemisphere. He touched on our vital interests in energy, trade and security. Much of it rehashes, rhetorically, longstanding concerns (Castro, trade, “must rebuild relationships,” etc.)

However, it was refreshing to see the confession, “since the terror of 9/11, America has become so preoccupied with other regions that we have forgotten our friends in our own hemisphere.”

Indeed, the candidates in the presidential campaign of 2008 can serve the nation best when they focus on a national and hemispheric vision. It’s time to sober up the jingoistic attitudes setting in. Illegal immigration, and the pogroms that have been coddled and allowed, are detrimental to our standing in the world and to our own future.

Angry voters with cynical beliefs, increased retrenchment, isolationism and the weird 19th century notions about the Americas – is that the nation the presidential candidates want to lead?

To change that course will take guts.

An addled public waits to see which one is not bidding to become President Chicken.

A phrase went around last July before the Mexican presidential elections here. In private conversations, people said it was not possible to make one good president out of their top three contenders.

The U.S. political scene seems to be going in the same direction. The seven declared Democrats and eight Republicans in the race are watering down, not improving, the public’s understanding about what kind of future we can build with respect to our neighbors.

It’s the vision thing, again.

Unless someone comes along with clear insight, we will be discussing this again, in similar terms, in 2012.

In the 1992 Clinton-Bush campaign, we got to the starting gate. In 2008, it seems we are there again for the long-delayed national debate.

[José de la Isla, author of “The Rise of Hispanic Political Power” (Archer Books, 2003), writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3@yahoo.com.] c 2007

Why beg for the children’s health?

July 25, 2007

by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin Ramirez

Senate Finance Committee approved by a bipartisan vote of 17-4 the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, which would expand coverage to more than three million children and maintain coverage for the 6.6 million children currently in the program. Latino children would especially benefit, since close to 40 percent of all uninsured children in the U.S. are Hispanic. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Thursday on President Bush not to block expanding health care to millions of children.

In a statement to the press, Reid shows his concern that despite of its strong bipartisanship, the bill might not go anywhere if the president doesn’t act on it.

“Today we came one step closer to fulfilling the bipartisan Senate’s promise of improving the lives of millions of American kids,” Reid said. “By overwhelmingly approving a plan to renew and enhance the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee voiced our commitment to ensure low-income, uninsured children have access to health care. This bill does not go as far as some of us would have liked, but it is a strong example of bipartisan compromise.”

According the statement, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) it’s very crucial for Latinos.

It’s very critical to the well-being of Latino children and their families, the most uninsured racial/ethnic group in this country, Reid said.

“There are still 9 million uninsured children in America, 38.8 percent of whom are Latino. Unfortunately, our President has failed to protect Latino families served by SCHIP by submitting a budget request that would not even provide enough to cover those already enrolled.

That is why the Senate will take up legislation investing $35 billion in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, $30 billion more than the administration’s request.

My question is why people have to beg every so often, for funds to cover programs that will keep the future generations healthy to take the country to the future?

Afro-Venezuelan group storms the SF Bay Area

July 25, 2007

by Marvin J. Ramírez

Three generations of African slaves from Venezuela and members of the Group Eleggua, play primitive instruments at the Mission Cultural Center for Latinos Arts on July 19. At center, Belen Maria Palacios, a 72-year-old mother and grandmother, plays the quitipilas. Photo by Marvin J. Ramírez

Belén María Palacios dances with former boxing world champion Mike Galo, well-known in the San Francisco farandula for his dancing and well-dressing, who jumped to the stage where the Afro-Venezuelan group Eleggua performed their show. Photos by Marvin J. Ramírez

“Sold out,” read a sign at the door of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) the night of July 19. Venezuelan’s Eleggua, deep-rooted Afro-Venezuelan female drummers had taken over the place.

The ancient African drums from Venezuela, were busy inside the small, but packed theater at the MCCLA. A ritual seen maybe by only a few in their lives, kept a mostly intellectual and mixed audience almost in trance, hypnotized by the sound power emanated by the original leather drums. Feminine voices in Spanish sang at the beat of strong but smooth percussion sounds that called for justice and equality for women, immigrants rights, and, as a message to President Bush, made sure the audience knew that Boliviarian Republic of Venezuela President Hugo Chávez’ revolution will not be defeated.

Direct from Venezuela, the 10-women percussion and vocal group Eleggua, who are direct descendants of African slaves who cultivated cocoa and coffee in Venezuela’s Barlovento, on the central coast, were giving one of their best shows to the San Francisco audience. These women are dedicated to researching and rescuing the purest African roots in their music. The group fuses African polyrhythmic percussion and all-Spanish vocals.

“All rules were broken,” said Jennie Rodríguez, because no one could stop the flashes from the audience’s small cameras, including that one from El Reportero, clicking and clicking to make sure they kept a piece of remembrance of this grandiose cultural event. Usually the use of a flash camera is not allowed in theaters.

The audience went wild, when ex box champ Mike Galo, from Nicaragua, stole the show – or better said enriched the show – as he jumped into the scenario to dance with Belen Maria Palacios, a 72-year-old mother and grandmother, who plays the quitipilas, a musical instrument that she preserves in her town. She was declared Cultural Alive Patrimony by Miranda State in May 2004.

The MCCLA’S event was the second of three shows presented in the SF Bay Area, and were sponsored but the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Consulate General of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in San Francisco and Chevron Corporation.

The first event took place at the Oakland Museum, which was attended by Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who declared Tuesday July 17th, 2007 African Diaspora Arts and Culture Day. Modesto Cepeda & Familia Cepeda, who were in the Bay Area directly from Puerto Rico were Eleguas’ special guests that evening.

The Cepeda Family is one of the most famous exponents of Puerto Rican folk music, with generations of musicians working to preserve the African heritage in Puerto Rican music. The family is well known for their performances of bomba and plena folkloric music and are considered by many to be the keepers of those traditional genres.

And the third event took place at La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.,

Managua celebrates 28th Anniversary of Sandinista Revolution

July 20, 2007

by the El Reportero news services

MANAGUA – Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans were at Plaza de la Fe in Managua Thursday, to celebrate a new anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, which overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza on July 19, 1979.

The anniversary’s peculiarity this year is that the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) is in power for the first time in 16 years, thus a massive attendance was expected at the, which will be presided over by President Daniel Ortega.

Regardless of political affiliation, the FSLN return to power on January 10 has generated great expectations among Nicaraguans.

Some of the people’s hopes are beginning to become reality already this July 19, but obviously all expectations are impossible to meet in just six months, asserted Commander Tomás Borge in a statement to Prensa Latina.

The president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez Frías, arrived on Thursday at the International Airport Augusto César Sandino in Managua, in a visit of work to evaluate the advance of the agreements signed with this country.

Chávez’s visit to Nicaraguan, his third one in 2007, coincides with the celebration of the 28th anniversary of the victory of the Sandinista Revolution.

Panamanian President Martín Torrijos Espino also arrived in Nicaragua to take part in the celebrations of July 19, invited by his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who also arrived in Managua to celebrate the anniversary, was in Nicaragua in his early years as a student, as part of a solidarity Honduran group in support of the revolution.

Stolen boy returns home in Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY – A two-month-old boy who had been stolen from his home was rescued by Guatemalan police, and four people who were allegedly preparing the baby for illegal adoption were arrested.

The rescue comes amid growing concerns about the Central American country’s export of thousands of babies each year to adoptive parents abroad.

It was unclear where the baby was to have been sent, but police detained four people in the house where the baby was rescued and found a false birth certificate for the boy, said Jesus Esquivel, assistant chief of criminal investigations for the police force, adding that their investigations indicate that they were already at the stage of processing the adoption.

However, it was mentioned by Guatemala’s Attorney General’s office, the institution that oversees adoptions, that so far no application for the baby’s adoption, either under his real or false name, had yet been found. The baby could have had another fake birth certificate or the suspects may have not yet filed the application.

The suspects include the owner of the orphanage where the child was found and three employees. The boy was reportedly stolen from his parents’ home in June.

Panama wants to try Noriega on charges

PANAMA CITY, Panama – Despite efforts to send Manuel Antonio Noriega to France, Panama said on Wednesday that it still wants to try the former dictator on homicide charges.

In Miami, Federal prosecutors filed papers Tuesday to have Noriega extradited to France, where he is wanted for allegedly using drug money in transactions including the purchase of Paris apartments, after released from a U.S. drug trafficking sentence in September.

Samuel Lewis, Panamanian Vice President and Foreign Minister, said to press that his government would respect whatever the U.S. courts decide, but that Panama wants Noriega returned home, and denied accusations that his government had arranged for Noriega to be sent to France so President Martin Torrijos could avoid having to jail a member of his party, the Democratic Revolutionary Party.

“We have maintained our request for extradition and will be keeping abreast of the process. This is a legitimate and sovereign decision of the United States.” said Lewis.

Noriega, 71, convicted of protecting Colombian cocaine shipments through Panama into the United States during the 1980s in Florida in 1992, is scheduled to be released Sept. 9 and had intended to fly immediately to Panama to fight a conviction in the slayings of two political opponents. (Prensa Latina and Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Boxing – The Sport of Gentlemen