by the El Reportero’s news services

Pictures of the new currency that will supposedly replace the US dollar have appeared on the Russian Internet. The United States is reportedly working on the new currency, the amero, which will be common for the USA, Mexico and Canada.

The unstable financial situation in the world, the collapsing oil prices and the growing foreign debt of the United States may eventually crush the US dollar as the world’s major currency. Needless to say that the US authorities reject the rumors and promise to keep the dollar afloat.

Amero notes have no portraits of US presidents on them and resemble the Belarussian rubles. For example, there is an image of a deer depicted on a 50-amero note, whereas a picture of a pyramid of Mexican Indians can be seen on a 100-amero note.

Chile steps up pressure on Peru

On Dec. 1, Chile’s rightwingers stepped up the pressure on Peru’s president Alan García over his apparent recanting of his promise to sack Peru’s army commander. Chileans, probably accurately, believe that García is wavering over whether to sack General Edwin Donayre Gotzch because he wants to build up his popularity in Peru. In the Chileans’ view García wants to boost his dismal popularity (under 20% in the opinion polls) by tapping into Peruvians’ traditional hostility to Chile.

Chavistas win majority of states, but opposition makes key gains

President Hugo Chávez interpreted the results of Venezuela’s regional elections on Nov. 23 as a victory for his Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) and a message from the electorate to keep travelling down the path of 21st century socialism.

­The opposition, naturally, placed a different interpretation on the results. While PSUV candidates won 17 out of 22 states, the opposition won fi ve, including three of the six key battlegrounds. Perhaps the most eye-catching development, however, was that dissident Chavistas, widely tipped to pose more of a threat to the PSUV than the offi cial opposition, suffered a crushing defeat.

Nicaragua: Venezuela has offered to replace U.S. aid

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — President Daniel Ortega says Venezuela has offered Nicaragua $100 million in aid if Washington and the European Union cut off funding over disputed elections.

Ortega says his leftist ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made the offer last week “without blackmail, without conditions of any sort.’’

The U.S. government said last week it would freeze $64 million in anti-poverty aid to Nicaragua amid accusations that local elections were fraudulent. The EU has withheld $54 million in budget support.

Ortega spoke Monday in a televised address.

Ortega’s leftist Sandinistas won most of the country’s mayorships in the Nov. 9 elections. Counting with a majority of legislators, 47, the opposition proposed legislation to cancel the results, but Ortega issued a decree declaring that effort unconstitutional.

And then, On Dec. 1, three opposition deputies announced they would not support the bill proposed by the Partido Liberal Nacionalista, so giving a blow to the opposition in Nicaragua. (Latin news, Associated Press, and Pravda, contributed to this report. )

by Christina E. Rodríguez

Luis Guitiérrez

CHICAGO — More than 400 people answered the call from U.S. Rep. Luís Gutiérrez (D) to give testimony for someone they know a neighbor, friend, family member or other intimate who is on the verge of deportation.

Their stories gain a voice, but from the lips of others who know them. The intent is to spotlight their suffering, create public awareness, and ultimately to bring reform.

The witnesses came to St. Pius V Church in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Nov. 15 and testified for more than three hours. About 60 volunteers took down names and ages of individuals who depend upon those being deported. Gutiérrez said he is compiling a fact sheet from the information to hand to President-elect Barack Obama and speed up a comprehensive immigration reform effort that leads to the introduction of new legislation in Congress.

“Our government should work to keep our families together, not destroy them,” Gutiérrez said.

Among the testimonies came stories from families with deported members. Ana, speaking for her deported husband, said, “We marched, we voted, we got the president we wanted. Now they have to work for us and he has to keep his promises.”

Julie Savitt, who watched as eight Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded her house to arrest her husband, Adam, talked about losing her companion and family breadwinner.

“Deportation of a loved one is like death without resolution,” said Savitt, who was surrounded by her three children as she spoke.

Volunteers like Myrna García, a doctoral student at the University of California San Diego, now living in Cicero, Ill., identified Gutiérrez’s effort as only one among many that are essential to address the issues.

“I hope something happens but it’s really complicated,” she said. “This has to be one strategy among many.”

Alderman Manny Flores of the First Ward, who has worked with Congressman Gutiérrez, observed, “We’ve been very proactive in providing the type of local policies and legislative initiatives that ensure we protect all members ­of our community.”

He stressed he wanted to join in the effort to engage Barack Obama in the need for immigration reform and family reunification.

“We hope president-elect Barack Obama is very strong in addressing these issues right off the bat. Then in the long term we must come up with some type of comprehensive immigration reform.”

Alderman Billy Ocasio, of the 26th Ward, pushes for an immediate end to the ICE raids and sweeps rounding up undocumented immigrants for deportation.

“This is just the beginning.

We’re just touching the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “There are so many families in the same position where one person is undocumented in a family of citizens and the government is dividing them up.”

Ocasio, who chairs the city council’s human relations committee, said he’s hoping Obama’s words to the immigrant community are genuine.

The city of Chicago, he promised, “will not cooperate with anything that has to do with deportations or raids.”

by the University of Michigan

A breast exam

­AN ARBOR, Michigan.— Latina women who prefer speaking Spanish are more likely than other ethnic groups to express regret or dissatisfaction with their breast cancer treatment, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Despite receiving similar treatment, Latina women were 5.6 times more likely than white women to report high levels of dissatisfaction and regret about their breast cancer treatment decision.

The researchers found that Latinas and other ethnic groups had similar levels of involvement with their doctor in deciding the treatment plan. But Latinas were more likely to say they would have preferred to be more involved in the decision making.

Researchers surveyed 925 women with non-advanced breast cancer from the Los Angeles area. Women were asked about the decision making process in choosing their breast cancer treatment. Nearly half of the women surveyed were Latina, with a quarter preferring to speak Spanish. These women were 3.5 times more likely than English-speaking Latinas to have diffi culty understanding written information about breast cancer.

“Even though they received similar amounts of information as whites, Latinas who ­prefer speaking Spanish reported a strong desire for more information. Doctors may need to make additional effort to ensure this information is understandable and culturally appropriate for all ethnic groups to improve the decision making process for breast cancer patients,” says lead study author Sarah T. Hawley, Ph.D., assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School and a research investigator at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

The study appears in the November issue of the journal Patient Education and Counseling.

Breast cancer statistics: 184,450 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 40,930 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

by the El Reportero’s news services

After the Sandinistas in Nicaragua won most municipal elections in Nicaragua amid charges of fraud, The U.S. government is reviewing a $175 million program of aid to Nicaragua.

“A consistent pattern of behavior by the government of (President) Daniel Ortega that calls into question Nicaragua’s respect for the rule of law and good governance,” is part of the irregularities surrounding the Nov. 9 elections in Nicaragua, said Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Berman, a California Democrat, wrote to the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which manages grants to developing countries, urging a suspension of its five-year program aimed at increasing the incomes of rural farmers and entrepreneurs in Nicaragua. The program was begun in 2005.

“We are currently considering the appropriate action to take with respect to MCC’s engagement with Nicaragua,” she said.

Members of Ortega’s leftist Sandinista party won 105 of 146 races in the nationwide municipal elections.

TAMBIÉN EN NICARAGUA, la Comisión Europea estaría dispuesta a apoyar al gobierno de Nicaragua en “un recuento de votos, una revisión o, incluso, una repetición” de los recientes comicios municipales, aseguró la comisaria europea de relaciones exteriores, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, informó el martes la oficina local del organismo.

“Si esto requiriera un recuento de votos, una revisión o, incluso, una repetición del proceso, la Comisión está dispuesta a apoyar al gobierno de Nicaragua con todos los medios a su disposición”, dijo Ferrero-Waldner desde Bruselas, sede del organismo, según una nota de prensa emitida en esta capital.

El comunicado dice que la comisaria ofreció ese apoyo al canciller nicaragüense Samuel Santos en una comunicación telefónica el viernes. “Estoy siguiendo ­con gran preocupación los acontecimientos en Nicaragua” tras las elecciones del nueve de noviembre, manifestó Ferrero-Waldner, según el boletín de prensa.

Venezuela’s Chavez welcomes Russian warships

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships sailed into port in Venezuela on Tuesday in a show of strength as Moscow seeks to counter U.S. influence in Latin America. Russia’s fi rst such deployment in the Caribbean since the Cold War is timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Venezuela, the fi rst ever by a Russian president.

Russian sailors dressed in black-and-white uniforms lined up along the bow of the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko as it docked in La Guaira, near Caracas, and Venezuelan troops greeted them with cannons in a 21-gun salute. Two support vessels also docked, and the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, Russia’s largest navy ship, anchored offshore.

Chavez, basking in the support of a powerfully and traditional U.S. rival, wants Russian help to build a nuclear reactor, invest in oil and natural gas projects and bolster his leftist opposition to U.S. influence in the region.

IN OTHER RELATED VENEZUELAN NEW, President Hugo Chavez said he is proposing that OPEC countries consider setting a price range for oil of $80 to $100 a barrel to stabilize the global market.

Chavez raised his proposal for an oil price band Monday night, along with other proposals Venezuela is promoting among fellow oil exporters.

“Let’s look for a band between $80 and $100; we’re thinking about that,” Chavez said. “We think that price would be a fair price for oil.”

He called it a “stabilization band to avoid those jumps to $150, suddenly to $50 – a terrible uncertainty.”

­

by Jackie Guzman

Barack Obama

WASHINGTON, D.C.— As President-elect Barack Obama assesses the nation’s priorities, assembles his Cabinet, and moves his administrative team into the White House Jan. 20, immigration reform leaders plan to be among the first to sign his guest book.

They’ll be assembling at the White House gateson the day following the presidential inauguration parade, they promise.

­“We are expecting thousands,’ says Lucero Beebe-Giudice, spokesperson for the D.C.-based grassroots organization Tenants & Workers United, which has joined with 29 other area groups as the National Capital Immigration Coalition to pressure Obama to make good on his campaign pledge to give comprehensive immigration reform “top priority” during his first year in office.

Under the banner, “A New Day for America, A New Hope for Our Communities,” the NCIC and 270 more organizations nationwide, united by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, are staging a mobilization in front of the White House Jan. 21.

They represent immigrants from all of the world’s continents.

During a Nov. 12 news conference at the National Press Club, their leaders pointed to Latino and immigrant voters’ overwhelming support for Obama, expressing optimism that the President-elect would not let their trust go unrewarded. Two-thirds of the estimated 10.5 million Latino voters cast their ballots for the Illinois senator.

Referring to the unprecedented national pro-immigrant demonstrations across the nation in 2006 in response to a draconian immigration bill by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Ind.) that passed in the House of Representatives Dec. 16, 2005, by 239-182, FIRM member Angelica Salas, who is executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, declared, “We marched in the millions, we voted in the millions, and immigrants demand real solutions.”

Among its numerous punitive elements, Sensenbrenner’s bill would have made all undocumented residents guilty of felonies just by virtue of their presence in the United States.

Millions of persons in more than 100 cities and towns participated in the peaceful ‘06 protests. In the largest such national demonstration in U.S. history, Chicago’s crowd was estimated at 750,000 while the one in Los Angeles was variously pegged at between 500,000 and a million.

At this month’s capital news conference, Abdul Kamus, executive director of Washington’s African Resource Center, warned, “There are about 5,500 taxicab drivers in the D.C. area. We are working with Maryland and Virginia drivers as well. We expect tens of thousands of immigrants and supporters.”

NCIC president Jessica Álvarez emphasized the immigrant community has fully embraced the spirit of hope and democracy. “We will remain active long after the election Together NCIC, FIRM and other allies pledge to help the new administration institute immigration reform.”

Some press reports already suggest that immigration reform won’t likely be an Obama first-year priority.

Wrote Tom Barry in the political newsletter Counter Punch, “Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff signals that political pragmatism, not campaign promises to Latinos, may determine immigration policy in the new administration.”

Emanuel, whom Obama plucked from 11linoist congressional delegation to run his White House operations, referred to immigration as a “losing issue” for Democrats earlier this year.

If Obama reneges on his pledge to Hispanics, the groups’ ioaders say they will continue to remind him that immigration reform benefits the entire nation.

To advocate effectively for a path to legalization, said Álvarez, “We are as king for families to come out of the shadows (and tell their stories). We need to fix this broken immigration system.’’

In the next two months, both coalitions will conduct a series of events designed to open dialogue between policymakers and the immigration-reform community. Hispanic Link.