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President Bush had many important foreign policy issues to discuss when he went to Lima, Peru, last weekend, but you wouldn't have known it from watching NBC's weekend "Today" show on Sunday. Because while Bush was talking about narcotics trafficking, trade and international terrorism with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, "Today" and other Sunday news shows led with the case of convicted American terrorist Lori Berenson. American media coverage of President Bush's trip to Mexico, Peru and Central America revealed how our media establishment views Latin America. Basically, our journalistic agenda-setters in New York and Washington ignore our neighbors to the...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's president says he will ask Washington to halt deportations of Salvadorans and extend a program that allows those who are in the U.S. illegally to stay.

SAN DIEGO, Texas - A reserve deputy driving home from work swerved violently off the road and overturned his car after his headlights revealed the battered bodies of three men on a dark South Texas road. The incident happened about 1 a.m. Tuesday as Duval County reserve deputy Alonzo Zamora was driving along Farm-to-Market Road 1329. Sheriff's Sgt. David Canales says Zamora suffered only bumps and bruises in the crash. Canales says the men were a 30-year-old from El Salvador, a 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic and a 23-year-old from Mexico. Each suffered head injuries, and the Salvadoran also had...

"Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike" Plato (BC 427 - 374BC). Open rigging and clinging brazenly to power have become common features of emerging democracies in the world today especially in Africa. Many Countries in Africa have become accustomed to "sit-tight dictators" or military style of leadership, with democracy being propelled by the West for their replacement. This is at the centre of the on-going conflict in many emerging democratic nations. Democratization of the world today as being championed by United States of...

Although it is not in the form of binding resolution, the American push for U.N. action has helped win over a handful of new countries to the cause. A resolution could be brought to a vote later this year. The issue of gay rights has polarized nations at the U.N. for years. And despite growing acceptance for homosexuality in Western nations and parts of Latin America, lawyers say there is still a gap in human rights treaties for the protection of gays against discrimination and mistreatment. "We are very concerned that individuals continue to be killed, arrested and harassed around...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- President Barack Obama stood, eyes closed, in a personal moment of silence before the tomb of slain Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, whose fight for the poor during El Salvador's bloody civil war made him a national hero - and an international figure in human rights. The visit Tuesday in the final hours of Obama's five-day swing through Latin America was a symbolic gesture that some called U.S. recognition of Romero's cause. Obama toured the national cathedral with Monsignor Jose Luis Escobar Alas, the current archbishop, and paid respects to a man ordered...

CIUDAD ARCE, El Salvador - El Salvador's Maya Indians on Sunday invoked the forces of nature in an ancient ritual to help US President Barack Obama - set to visit the Central American nation - make wise decisions. The ceremony for Obama was part of an annual equinox ritual held by members of the country's Maya community. "We beg the volcanoes, the mountains, and the grandmothers and grandfathers, to call on the energy of the sun to surround ... Obama as he makes decisions," an indigenous shaman named "Tata" Neto said. Five Maya priests, including Neto - also known as...

The president also sought to reassure El Salvador - which has nearly 2 million of its citizens living in the U.S. - that he's still committed to shepherding comprehensive immigration legislation through Congress, though he acknowledged the politics are tough. "America is a nation of laws, and it is a nation of immigrants. And so our job is to create secure borders, to make sure that we've got a legal immigration system that is effective and is not frustrating for families, doesn't divide families," he said, citing declining Republican support for a bill that would lay out a path to...

Making his first visit to Central America, President Obama brought promises of crime-fighting money and a vow to push the U.S. Congress to pass an immigration bill to aid El Salvador, a once war-torn country that has emerged as a stable democracy and a friendly ally. In keeping with the other stops on his extended Latin American tour, Mr. Obama held up the tiny nation’s recent peaceful transition between political parties as a model for other nations looking to emerge from chaos or dictatorships. “There are few better examples of both the opportunities and challenges facing the Americas today than...

Foreign Policy: President Obama has picked, tourist-like, three random countries for his first showy trip to South America. By contrast, Rep. Michele Bachmann, who just got back, demonstrated what a serious policy visit is. These days it seems like all of Washington wants to visit Latin America, an economically booming region with fiscal policies that have kept it out of recession. But purposes of the trips vary widely. From March 19 to 23, President Obama will pay his first visit to Central and South America, with stops to include Brazil, Chile and El Salvador. He is going late, more than...

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

HOUSTON — A truck driver was resentenced to nearly 34 years in prison on Monday after a federal appeals court last year overturned the multiple life sentences he received for his role in America's deadliest human smuggling attempt, which resulted in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants from Central America. The new sentence of 405 months that Tyrone Williams was given during a court hearing is equal to the longest prison term he previously got in the case, for another count that was upheld on appeal. During the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Daniel Rodriguez made an impassioned plea that despite the...

The United States has signed a deal with Bhutan giving US citizens in the country immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department said Tuesday. The deal with Bhutan brings to 34 the number of countries with which the United States has signed so-called "Article 98" agreements exempting US citizens from the court's jurisdiction, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokesman. Bhutan and Bosnia-Herzegovina both agreed to the pacts on May 16 but the deal with Thimphu was not announced until Tuesday. Washington refuses to support the ICC, arguing that it could become a forum for politically...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities said Wednesday they are investigating the possible kidnapping of 50 illegal migrants in the southern state of Oaxaca, a day after saying there was no evidence of the crime. Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran migrants were being interviewed by officials at the federal Attorney General's Office about an assault last Thursday, the National Migration Institute said in a statement. The migrants — 30 men, 15 women and five children — were held up by gunmen while trying to cross the country by train and are now missing, said the Foreign Ministry of El Salvador, which first...

(English-language translation) An earthquake was felt this Thursday at 11:11 AM in the Pacific Ocean near Escuintla [Guatemala], the Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology & Hydrology Institute ([Spanish acronym] INSIVUMEH) reported. It measured 4.8 on the Richter scale and 1 on the Mercalli scale, although INSIVUMEH only has a report on its strength, none on damage or victims. In El Salvador, the earthquake was measured at 5 degrees Richter, the authorities not reporting on victims or property damage.

(10-25) 17:05 PDT MOUNTAIN VIEW -- A Mountain View woman who fled a violent husband and entered the United States illegally in 1995 faces imminent deportation to El Salvador, where her husband has been looking for her, her lawyer said Monday. Irma Medrano, 44, is being held by immigration authorities at a jail in Yuba City (Sutter County) and could be deported as soon as today, said attorney Aubra Fletcher. She said the government has refused to delay Medrano's case to let her apply for political asylum and has disputed her claim that her life would be in danger in...

"I'm in a gang, and I'm going to kill you if you call the police," Lopez said, according to police.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A survivor has told police that 72 people found dead at a ranch near the Mexican border with Texas were migrants kidnapped by an armed group, a federal official said Wednesday. The bodies of 58 men and 14 women were discovered Tuesday when Marines manning a checkpoint on a highway in the northern state of Tamaulipas were approached by a wounded man who said he had been attacked by gang gunmen at a nearby ranch.

Politics: President Obama hit a new low in using a recess appointment to name Maria del Carmen Aponte as U.S. envoy to El Salvador. The radical has consorted with Cuban spies but will be taking no questions. Dismissing three congressional holds on Aponte's ambassadorial confirmation as "playing politics," Obama used his vacation to slip Aponte through to represent the U.S. to the strategic Central American country, without a vote in Congress. That gives Aponte, a campaign contributor aligned to the immigration lobby, access to top-secret information as a political reward. But Aponte's past is one big red flag. From 1982...

This is huge news coming on the heels of Barack Obama’s support for the Ground Zero Mosque. He has appointed Maria del Carmen Aponte to be Ambassador to El Salvador. Three United States Senators have a hold on her nomination. Why? Because she had a longterm relationship with a top Cuban spy. She withdrew as a Clinton appointee back in the 90’s because of it. Senators questioned whether or not Aponte knew about her lover’s spying on the United States and had other serious concerns related to that relationship. How will the American public react when they learn Barack Obama...

Chandra Ann Levy (April 14, 1977–ca. May 1, 2001) was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001 and is presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002. The investigation led to media allegations of an extramarital affair with then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit,[1] a Democrat representing California's 18th congressional district and a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Condit was never named a suspect by police and was ultimately cleared of involvement, however the cloud of suspicion raised by the...

A Harris County jail inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge allegedly beat a young illegal immigrant accused of robbing and fatally shooting a 14-year-old girl in the back as she was walking home on Aug. 6. Melvin Alvarado, 22, one of two men charged with capital murder in the death of Shatavia Anderson, was beaten Thursday evening, sustaining serious enough injuries to be hospitalized and receive stitches, said Alan Bernstein, of the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Accused in Alvarado's beating is Robert Williams, 38, Bernstein said. A volunteer inmate crew at the county's jail on San Jacinto entered Alvarado's...

NOTE The following text is a quote: August 11, 2010 ICE arrests 14 men in southern Indiana during operation targeting foreign-born gang members INDIANAPOLIS - Agents with the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in close partnership with other federal, state and local law enforcement partners, arrested 14 foreign-born gang members and gang associates during a two-day operation ending Tuesday. This is the latest joint local action of an ongoing national ICE HSI effort to target foreign-born members of violent street gangs. These arrests were made Aug. 9 and 10 in the Indiana...

The suspect in the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old Houston girl was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who previously was deported twice by immigration officials, authorities said. Melvin Alvarado, 22, was convicted of two separate intoxicated driving offenses in Harris County in 2006 and 2007, criminal records show. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail in connection with the last arrest in November 2007. Gregory Palmore, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said immigration officials removed Alvarado from the country in April 2008 and again in May 2009. Palmore said it was unclear from his records whether Alvarado...

LA JOYA — Police found 11 suspected illegal immigrants in an abandoned tool shed Sunday morning. Officers responded to an "old, dilapidated house" at the intersection of 12th Street and Perales Martinez at 10:39 a.m. Sunday after neighbors said they heard people on the property, said Joe Cantu, a La Joya police spokesman. No one was inside the house, but officers found 11 people crowded in a small tool shed littered with soda cans on the property. Two of the immigrants told police they are residents of Nepal, police said. The other nine people, aged between 18 and 44 years...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Fugitive Captured at Border with Counterfeit Document (Wednesday, July 07, 2010) contacts for this news release Blaine, Wash. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers apprehended a Salvadoran man who was wanted in Dallas, Texas, for alleged assault causing bodily injury to a family member on July 3 as he attempted to enter the U.S. at the Pacific Highway port of entry. CBP officers immediately became suspicious of Francisco Oswald Gallardo, 45, when he presented a counterfeit permanent resident card for identification. Often referred to as a green card, a permanent resident card...

SNIPPET: "SAN SALVADOR — Eleven people were killed and eight left wounded after suspected gang members set fire to a public bus on the outskirts of San Salvador, police officials said. Arsonists thought to be members of the Mara 18 gang set fire to the minibus, but "there are no clear motives" for the attack, Roberto Villalobos, a top commissioner with the national civil police, told AFP."

Note: The following text is a quote: May 28, 2010 Charlotte ICE gang operation yields 12 arrests CHARLOTTE, N.C. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents assigned to the Charlotte Gang Unit continue making arrests in North Carolina with its recent weekend effort yielding 12 arrests and the seizure of cocaine, marijuana and brass knuckles. Among the 12 arrests last weekend were four gang members and affiliates: one Asian Boyz gang member, two MS-13 gang members and one MS-13 affiliate. All four are foreign-born nationals from Vietnam, Uruguay and Honduras. One is a naturalized U. S. citizen, one has...

Note: The following text is a quote: North Carolina MS-13 Gang Member Convicted of Racketeering Charges Related to Murder; First MS-13 Member Sentenced to Death Defendant Shot and Killed Two Brothers in December 2007 in Guilford County, N.C. WASHINGTON—A 12-person federal jury in Charlotte, N.C., today voted unanimously to impose the death penalty against Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umana, aka “Wizard,” 25. Umana was convicted by the same jury on April 19, 2010, for the murders of Ruben Garcia Salinas and his brother, Manuel Garcia Salinas, on Dec. 8, 2007, in Guilford County, N.C. The jury also found that Umana was...

El Salvadoran officials are worried that a Mexican drug trafficking organization may be forming an alliance with a feared Central American gang. Mexico’s El Universal newspaper is reporting that members of the Zetas are in El Salvador where they may be working on an alliance with the Mara Salvatrucha gang. El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes told reporters the Zetas are believed to be in his country and working on forming the alliance. El Universal reported that the Zetas and other Mexican drug trafficking organizations are vying for control of cocaine smuggling routes through Central America. Click here to watch the...

One person is murdered every two hours in Venezuela. The murder rate in the South American country has more than quadrupled since Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999. There were 54 homicides per 100,000 people last year, a rate only exceeded on the continent by El Salvador, where there were 70 homicides per 100,000 citizens. "The problem is not so much the criminals, but rather the government's inaction and lack of policies," Briceño blames an ineffective justice system and high rates of corruption. The capital city, Caracas, has the highest murder rate on the continent

LAREDO, TX—Rigoberto Torres-Gomez, a native of El Salvador illegally in the United States, has pleaded guilty to assaulting a Border Patrol (BP) agent, United States Attorney Tim Johnson announced today. Torres-Gomez, 29, entered his guilty plea today before United States District Court Judge Micaela Alvarez. On Feb. 15, 2009, two BP agents were on foot inside the Triple S Ranch near mile-marker 35, north of Laredo searching for illegal aliens. The agents then received information that a group of illegal aliens were heading east toward IH-35. Both agents jumped the fence and began running east toward IH-35 to apprehend the...

President Barack Obama has nominated Mari Carmen Aponte to become the next ambassador of El Salvador, a decade after she was forced to withdrawal her name from consideration for a similar post following concerns about alleged ties to Cuba, Newsmax.com reports. A former FBI official told Fox News that Aponte’s 1998 nomination by president Clinton began receiving attention after the foreign relations panel questioned her about a past relationship with Roberto Tamayo, who was alleged to have "possible ties to the Cuban government" and made "repeated trips there." Current White House spokesman Tommy Vietor responded, "as has been previously reported,...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, December 17, 2009 Guyanese National Charged with Smuggling Indian Nationals to the United States A Guyanese national has been indicted on charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in connection with her role in the smuggling or attempted smuggling of four Indian nationals to the United States. Annita Devi Gerald, aka Annita Rampersad, 52, was charged in a nine-count indictment returned yesterday by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas. Gerald was arrested by ICE special agents in Houston on Nov. 17, 2009, and has been held without...

A leftist La Raza activist previously forced out of a U.S. ambassadorship for her close ties to a terrorist-sponsoring foreign government has been nominated by President Obama to a key administration post. Mari Del Carmen Aponte, a former director at the extremist Mexican group National Council of La Raza (see the press release applauding her nomination) and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, has been handpicked by Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. That means Aponte, an attorney and independent consultant, will represent the State Department in the civil war-ravaged Central American country. In 1998...

President Obama's recent nominee for ambassador to El Salvador was forced to withdraw her nomination to another diplomatic post a decade ago following concerns about ties to Cuba, raising red flags as her name heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee once again for approval. President Obama's recent nominee for ambassador to El Salvador was forced to withdraw her nomination to another diplomatic post a decade ago following concerns about ties to Cuba, raising red flags as her name heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee once again for approval. The White House announced the nomination of Mari Del Carmen...

STERLING, Va. - A close inspection by Customs and Border Protection officers at Dulles International Airport turned up something unexpected. Inside a fully-cooked chicken they found cocaine with an estimated street value of $4,300. The 60.4 grams (2.3 ounces) of coke was found inside two small, clear plastic bags inside the chicken's cavity. Officers discovered the white powdery substance during a secondary inspection after a flight from El Salvador arrived shortly after midnight Saturday. It tested positive for cocaine. "CBP officers have seen many unique narcotics concealment methods, and they all present the same challenges to discover them. Our officers'...

An illegal alien has been sentenced to life in prison for breaking into an 83-year-old woman's home, grabbing her by the throat, smashing her head into furniture, saturating her with gasoline and setting her body on fire while she was still alive – all to cover up his check fraud scam after she hired him to cut her lawn.

New York Daily News SNIPPET: "NEW YORK — El Salvadoran leaders of the MS-13 gang allegedly put out a contract on the federal agent responsible for a crackdown on its New York factions, the Daily News has learned. The brazen plot to assassinate the unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was revealed in an arrest warrant for reputed gang member Walter (Duke) Torres. Torres tipped authorities to the plan after he and four other MS-13 members were stopped by NYPD detectives for hassling passersby on Northern Blvd. in Queens last month."

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S. In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part...

EL SALVADOR (Tier 2) El Salvador is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Salvadorans are trafficked to Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. Salvadoran women and girls are also trafficked internally from rural to urban areas of the country. The majority of foreign victims trafficked to El Salvador are women and children from Nicaragua and Honduras trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. The Government of El Salvador does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The family of a father and two sons who were slain in San Francisco last year can go to state court with a claim that the city is to blame for failing to turn their alleged killer over to immigration authorities when he was arrested earlier as a juvenile, a federal judge has ruled. City Attorney Dennis Herrera had asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to rule on the claim herself after dismissing the rest of the suit last month by Tony Bologna's widow and daughter. But Illston said Friday that the remainder of the family's case...

REYNOSA — Soldiers on Thursday freed more than 100 persons who were being held against their will by a group of alleged kidnappers, authorities said. Military personell discovered the sequestered group's location through an anonymous tip, the Mexican Defense Ministry said in a news release issued Saturday. Soldiers checked out the area at Callejón Golondrinas about 11:30 p.m. and discovered a house with about 123 persons crammed inside. Soldiers interviewed several victims who told officials they had been abducted. The people found inside the house, all Central American, were described as follows: >> 94 Honduras nationals (24 females) >> 15...

It's good, occasionally, to take a trip down memory lane. It helps to put things into perspective. Hugo Chavez ought never to have been elected president. By rights, he ought to be growing old in a jail cell somewhere. Well, it's been seventeen years, maybe he’d be in a half-way house by now. As an army officer in 1992, he led a military revolt against the legal, constitutional government of Venezuela, and attempted to overthrow the democratically elected president of the time, Carlos Andres Perez. He gambled that once the shooting started, the minister of defense and the rest of...

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), then based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, vigorously lobbied for Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, the Cuban-style Marxist regime that shot its way to power in 1979. Today, WOLA pretends it is concerned about the rule of law in Honduras after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court supported removing the leftist president for defying its constitution. WOLA and Jim Wallis' publication Sojourners have teamed up to spin Honduras' defense of its democracy as another example of a U.S.-supported, imperialist military coup. The constitutional coup in Honduras was...

Ousted Zelaya fails to land in Honduras 05 Jul 2009 23:42:51 GMT Source: Reuters CARACAS, July 5 (Reuters) - The Honduran army thwarted an attempt by ousted President Manuel Zelaya to land at Tegucigalpa airport on Sunday by blocking the runway with military vehicles.

In a high-stakes move to reclaim his post, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya tried to fly to this Central American nation on Sunday. The provisional government said it would turn the aircraft away, even as it signaled a new willingness to negotiate a solution to the region's biggest political crisis in years. Honduras' civil aviation director said Mr. Zelaya's plane was being redirected to El Salvador. Mr. Zelaya, a leftist kicked out by Honduras' army last week in his nightshirt, departed from Washington to Tegucigalpa on an aircraft believed to belong to Venezuela's government. He was accompanies by the U.N....

Note: The following text is a quote: June 24, 2009 46 street gang members and associates arrested in New Jersey-wide operation ICE works with local law enforcement agencies to make arrests NEWARK, N.J. - Forty-six gang members and associates were arrested as a result of a statewide public safety initiative in New Jersey led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of Investigation in Newark. The operation ended June 20. Each of those arrested were targeted for their membership, participation or association with violent street gangs. The success of the operation dubbed "Community Shield" was the result of an...

I'll be on hiatus into July after this. So I looked for some waterfall pictures as a send-off. Waterfall in the Caucasus Mountains (Chegem Gorge). Click for full-size. Katibawasan Falls, Phillipines (click for full size) El Chorro waterfalls, El Salvador

Three Mexican men accused of holding 12 undocumented immigrants against their will have been charged with alien smuggling and conspiracy to smuggle aliens into the U.S., according to court documents. U.S. Magistrate Felix Recio on Tuesday ordered that Leonardo Juarez Torres, Abel Martinez-Rendon and Santiago Cisneros Diaz, all Mexican nationals, be held without bond until a detention hearing Friday morning. The immigrants, 10 Mexican men and two Salvadoran women, were being held in a house at 1936 Woodway Drive, said Brownsville police spokesman Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating several leads to identify other individuals possibly...