Mexico's Federal Police Chief Slain
Cable News Network - Date: 05/08/2008
Mexico City, Mexico -- Mexico's federal police chief was shot to death early Thursday in a northwestern Mexico City neighborhood, the country's public safety department said.
Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez was shot nine times, including in the throat, a statement from the department said.
The murder of Millan, who played an active role in the Mexican government's fight against drug cartels and organized crime, is the latest in a string of killings of police and military personnel.
Since taking office in 2006, President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 24,000 troops to fight the drug cartels, and many see the slayings as retaliation against the president's actions.
To read more click here.
Bush Dismisses Changes in Cuba
Associated Press - Date: 05/07/2008
Washington, D.C. -- President Bush said Wednesday that Cuba's post-Fidel Castro leadership has made only "empty gestures at reform" and rejected calls for easing of U.S. restrictions on the communist island.
"Until there is a change of heart and a change of compassion and a change of how the Cuban government treats its people, there's no change at all," Bush said at the U.S. State Department to the Council of Americas, a business group that advocates for democracy and open markets in the Western Hemisphere.
"Cuba will not be a land of liberty so long as free expression is punished and free speech can take place only in hushed whispers and silent prayers. And Cuba will not become a place of prosperity just by easing restrictions on the sale of products that the average Cuban cannot afford."
The White House also said Wednesday that the president spoke by video-conference this week with democratic activists in Cuba, an unprecedented move that may enrage the government in Havana.
To read more click here.
Border-Fence Disput Snares Rare Jaguars
Rusty Domin, CNN - Date: 05/05/2008
Douglas, Ariz. -- It's a tale of homeland security concerns blocking wildlife management, and the hue and cry that ensues.
When most people think of jaguars, they think of the jungles of Central and South America, not the remote desert ranges between the United States and Mexico.
That region is known as mountain lion country, and that's what rancher Warner Glenn thought he was tracking when he saddled up his mules on a summer day 12 years ago near Douglas, Arizona.
Glenn has hunted mountain lions for 60 years, since he was eight years old. But Glenn was stunned when he saw what his hunting dogs had chased up to a high mountain perch.
To read more click here.
Exit Polls: Bolivia State Backs Autonomy
Cable News Network - Date: 05/05/2008
Santa Cruz, Bolivia -- Thousands of people in Bolivia's largest state celebrated what they saw as the success of a referendum on autonomy Sunday night, but the country's president said the measure had failed.
Voters in the state of Santa Cruz went to the polls amid sporadic violence Sunday to vote on declaring autonomy from the central government.
Supporters filled the streets of the state's capital city on Sunday night to wave flags and cheer local news reports on exit polls showing that 86 percent of voters approved the referendum.
In a televised address, however, President Evo Morales said the referendum "failed completely."
To read more click here.
Immigrant Worker: No More Money to Mexico
Paul Vercammen and Harris Whitbeck, CNN - Date: 05/01/2008
Anaheim, Calif. -- As he fixes a broken sliding glass door at an apartment in Anaheim, California, Eduardo Gutierrez worries about his parents in Mexico.
He can no longer afford to send the $200 to $300 a month he had been sending back home to support his ailing father.
"I kind of feel bad that I can't help my parents," said Gutierrez, a legal immigrant who has worked in the United States for 20 years. "I try. But I can't these days, and it's a tough situation."
Gutierrez said he earns $18.50 an hour as a glazier, installer and fixer of glass in all shapes and sizes.
To read more click here.
Vigil Planned to Highlight Plight of Immigrants
Janell Ross, The Tennessean - Date: 04/28/2008
Nashville, Tenn. -- As immigrants caught up in an employment raid on a Chattanooga poultry plant face deportation, local advocates are planning a Nashville vigil to bring attention to what they consider injustices in the situation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced April 16 that agents detained 280 suspected illegal immigrants at Pilgrim's Pride processing plants in five states. Davidson County jails, which have a contract with ICE, ultimately housed 10 of the reported 100 detained in Chattanooga.
Some of those arrested were suspected of criminal identity theft and others of the civil charge of entering the country without inspection, commonly known as crossing the border illegally.
About 34 women and two men were released with ankle monitors on humanitarian grounds, said Gail Montenegro, an ICE spokeswoman.
To read more click here.
Gang Activity in Nashville Suburbs Acknowledged
Christina E. Sanchez and Maria Giordano, The Tennessean - Date: 04/28/2008
Nashville, Tenn. -- Two weeks before the fatal shooting of a Franklin teenager in what appears to be a gang-related fight, Nashville police gave gang awareness training to Williamson County school faculty.
The school officials' request in March for the training suggests a willingness to acknowledge, although not yet publicly, what they and local law enforcement had long been reluctant to admit: Gangs exist in suburbia.
"Gangs have always been here, probably much longer than the Police Department was aware or recognized," said Sgt. Charles Warner, a detective with the Franklin Police Department. "We've started to see a slow increase. By no means is there an epidemic."
Several smaller communities outside of Nashville have seen an increase over the past few years in gang presence and gang-related crime. Local police departments attribute gangs' migration to growth — and to Metro's aggressive police crackdown on street gangs in Nashville, which pushes criminal activity to outlying cities.
To read more click here.
Northern Virginia Hit With Cost Of School Migration
Amy Gardner, Washington Post - Date: 04/28/2008
Alexandria, Va. -- Hundreds of foreign-born families have pulled their children from Prince William County public schools and enrolled them in nearby Fairfax County, Arlington County and Alexandria since the start of the school year, imposing a new financial burden on those inner suburbs in a time of lean budgets.
The school-to-school migration within Northern Virginia started just as Prince William began implementing rules to deny some services to illegal immigrants and require police to check the immigration status of crime suspects thought to be in the country illegally.
Opponents of the rules say they have had a chilling effect on Prince William's once-thriving Latino community, prompting even legal immigrants to flee a hostile environment. Supporters say the rules have done what they were supposed to by primarily pushing illegal immigrants out.
"The resolution is clearly working," said Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large), chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. "It is driving down the non-English-speaking portion of the schools and saving us millions of dollars. They're going to other jurisdictions and costing them money."
To read more click here.
Venezuela's Chavez Threatens to Expropriate Sidor
Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press - Date: 04/28/2008
Caracas, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to expropriate Venezuela's largest steel maker unless the soon-to-be-nationalized company revises what he called excessive compensation demands.
Chavez dismissed a request made by Sidor's parent company, Luxembourg-based Ternium SA, for US$4 billion (euro2.6 billion) in exchange for its 60 percent stake in the steel maker.
"I'm not going to pay $4 billion for that company," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program. "If they don't want to reach an agreement with us, I'll sign an expropriation decree. I'll take immediate control."
Company officials could not be reached for comment.
To read more click here.
$20 Million Fence Scrapped for Not Catching Enough Illegals
Associated Press - Date: 04/23/2008
Tucson, Ariz. -- The government is scrapping a $20 million prototype of its highly touted "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is failing to adequately alert border patrol agents to illegal crossings, officials said.
The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co. The fence consists of nine electronic surveillance towers along a 28-mile section of border southwest of Tucson.
Boeing is to replace the so-called Project 28 prototype with a series of towers equipped with communications systems, cameras and radar capability, officials said.
Less than a week after Chertoff accepted Project 28 on February 22, the Government Accountability Office told Congress it "did not fully meet user needs and the project's design will not be used as the basis for future" developments.
To read more click here.
| 
