Haiti Senate Election Remains in Limbo; Mexico Court Releases Killer of DEA Agent; Bolivia Striking Miners Return to Work

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Articles in SourceMex, NotiCen and NotiSur for August14-16

Mystery Chinese Firm To Tackle Nicaragua’s "Great Canal" Project

Sticking to his grandiose promise of building an ocean-to-ocean canal through Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega has decided to place his faith--and a huge swath of national territory--in the hands of an untested Chinese firm whose mysterious owner, telecom tycoon Wang Jing, promises nothing less than to "change the world." This past June--much to the chagrin of opposition leaders, environmental groups, and other government critics--Ortega used his vast support in the Asamblea Nacional (AN) to quickly approve a concession deal that gives Wang’s HKND Group exclusive rights to "design, develop, engineer, finance, construct, possess, operate, maintain, and administer" the proposed canal. HKND, which is based in Hong Kong but registered in the Cayman Islands, has no major infrastructure-construction experience. -Benjamin Witte-Lebhar   Read More

Mexican Court Orders Release of Notorious Drug Trafficker Convicted of Killing U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent in 1995

Just weeks after the Mexican government arrested notorious drug kingpin Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the top leader of the Zetas cartel, another infamous Mexican drug trafficker has been set free. On Aug. 9, a panel of judges from a federal court (Primer Tribunal Colegiado en Materia Penal) in Guadalajara ordered the early release of Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the founders of the Guadalajara cartel, on a technicality. Caro Quintero, who had already served 28 years of a 40-year sentence, was charged in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent Enrique Camarena in Guadalajara in 1985. -Carlos Navarro Read More

Ecuadoran Government Seeks to Control Civil-Society Organizations

As if managing to take political control of all state institutions were not enough, the Ecuadoran government is now attempting to control all organizations created at the initiative of civil society. To do so, it has implemented a series of legal, political, and financial controls requiring each organization to submit periodic reports that allow the government to know its activities and, if it considers them detrimental to the government, to close it down on the grounds that it has violated a regulation. On June 4, President Rafael Correa signed an executive order (Decreto Ejecutivo 16), creating the Sistema Unificado de Información de Organizaciones Sociales (SUIOS), under the direction of the Secretaría Nacional de Gestión de la Política, which, in turn, is under the Ministerio Coordinador de la Política. -Luis Ángel Saavedra   Read More

Haitian President Michel Martelly Says He Wants Senatorial Election; Opposition and Civil-Society Leaders Doubt It

One-third of the seats in Haiti’s 30-member Senate expired on May 8, 2012, and those legislators’ replacements had to be elected no later than five months before. The country’s legislature consists of a 30-member Sénat and a 99-strong Chambre des Députés, respectively elected for six-year and four-year terms. In the Senate, one-third of its members are elected every two years, the reason for the vote that has been delayed for some nineteen months. Government-opposition clashes, presidential dismissal of several Conseil Electoral Permanent (CEP) members, and difficulties in appointing a provisional authority--Collège Transitopire de Gestion--to run the CEP are among the factors of an election crisis that has kept the vote on hold. -George Rodríguez  Read More

Bolivia's Striking Miners, COB Return to Work

During the first three weeks of May, the administration of Bolivian President Evo Morales had to confront a difficult situation when the labor federation Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and workers--especially miners, the country's key labor sector--declared an indefinite strike. The country was paralyzed and a spiral of violence began. In their daily demonstrations, the miners resorted to the sector's long-standing practice of setting off dynamite sticks in the streets of the cities. The strike had one demand, something still not achieved by workers in any country in the world: when they retire, salaried employees would receive a pension equal to 100% of their pre-retirement salary -Andrés Gaudín    Read More

Popocatépetl Volcano Creates Constant Anxiety, Economic Opportunity for Nearby Residents

Every three or four months, dozens of communities in Puebla, Tlaxcala, and México states receive alerts from the federal disaster center Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres (CENAPRED) to watch for possible eruptions from the Popocatépetl volcano, also known as Popo. These alerts, which apply to about 60,000 residents in 42 communities bordering the volcano, are issued every time the volcano starts to rumble and/or exhale smoke. The volcano, which has kept area residents on edge for generations, is now also a source of economic development. Area researchers have discovered that ash from Popo is a good source of material to treat the denim cloth used for blue jeans, which could provide a new source of income for residents of nearby communities. -Carlos Navarro  Read More