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[Translation of an article from the Brazilian newspaper Hora do Povo for June 9. José Serra is the presidential candidate for the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, the Brazilian Social Democrat Party, who will face Dilma Roussef of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers’ Party, in the October 3 vote. Colombian Juan Manuel Santos, former defense minister in the administration of Álvaro Uribe, is the likely winner in the June 29 runoff election to replace Uribe.]

The candidate for the presidency José Serra has again attacked Bolivia and offered effusive praise for the Colombian government, against which several accusations involving drug trafficking have been made. His statements were delivered during a debate in São Paulo on Tuesday. He said that the Uribe government, in contrast with that of Bolivia, “was not soft” in its fight against the supply of drugs to Brazil. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo.com of Honduras for June 11. The Movimiento de Mujeres por la Paz “Visitación Padilla” is named in honor of pioneering Honduran feminist Visitación Padilla and its members call themselves “Las Chonas,” Padilla’s nickname being “Chona.”  Padilla was active in the early 20th century, opposing the US military interventions of 1924 and ’25, among other struggles.]

“If we were already being denied medical attention in state-operated hospitals before the coup d’état, conditions of neglect and irresponsiblity have gotten worse since then,” according to the Movimiento de Mujeres por la Paz “Visitación Padilla” [Visitación Padilla Women’s Movement for Peace], a women’s organization that for years has defended the rights of women in this country.

Tegucigalpa – On the Day of Action for Women’s Health, Las Chonas regret that their continuous demands for the elimination of violence from the lives of women and for better tretment are being ignored by the institutions and individuals required by law to attend to them.

They point out that in questions of health, the problem demands attention not only because the medicines and facilities do exist in the hospitals but because of the lack of quality in the medical treatment offered them, reflected in the increase of preventable diseases like uterine cancer, breast cancer and hypertension, which occupy the three highest positions. (more…)

United Steelworkers charge Calderón brought on “reign of terror”

[Translation of an article from La Jornada for June 8. See also “Mexican authorities retake Cananea mine,” posted here on June 7, and “Pasta de Conchos mine sealed,” posted on June 8.]

by Arturo Cano

Cananea, Sonora, June 7—Manny Armenta saw it with his own eyes: the dislodgement at the Cananea mine was not peaceful, as the secretariat of the interior had claimed. “I was one of those who urged people to retreat to the union hall; there were women, children, many young people. The police went in to fire tear gas and the people had to leave through the windows.”

In the nearby funeral parlor, more testimony is added. The dead man was left alone because his relatives, their eyes full of tears, had to leave because of the tear gas fired by the federal police. Miners, residents of the town and journalists collected the remnants of the unequal battle like souvenirs: spent cartridges of different calibres, tear gas canisters, metal spheres fired who knows how. On the road leading to the main entrance of the Cananea mine the remains of the battle are rocks on the pavement and two broken windows in an abandoned furniture store, said to be the property of relatives of PANista governor Guillermo Padrés, a native of the area. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo.com of Honduras for June 9.]

“We’ve got it all figured out, I know where they are, who they are, I have all the information,” said Lobo Sosa in reference to those behind a plan to depose him from the presidency of the republic.

A few days before the first anniversary of the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya Rosales, rumors of another coup d’état are circulating in Honduras. But this time it is the president himself who has declared that he already has the names of those who want to remove him from office.

“They say the one they want to mess with is the president of the republic,” said Lobo after taking part in a cabinet meeting held in the municipality of Guaimaca, Francisco Morazán province. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Listín Diario of Santo Domingo for June 8. The oldest European gold mine in the Americas, first worked by Spaniards in 1505, in Pueblo Viejo, outside Cotuí, 100 kilometers northeast of Santo Domingo, was reopened in 2007 by the Canadian multinational Barrick Gold, which controls 60 percent of the operation, the other 40 percent being owned by another Canadian company, Goldcorp. The operation has been the target of considerable protest by environmentalists and others, including rice farmers, who charge that pollution of the water supply makes farming in the area impossible. Some 3,000 Dominicans demonstrated against the mining operation in April, including a group of youths who marched 100 kilometers from the capital.]

By Andrés Vásquez

Pueblo Viejo, Cotuí — Hundreds of employees of the Barrick Gold mining company are making several demands, including overtime pay, salary increases and  medical insurance,  among others.

The protests began yesterday afternoon and today, when the company failed to provide the workers with transportation to the work site, the employees arrived on foot and in private vehicles to gather at the entrance, where they also demanded that the company improve food services… (more…)

Two mothers arrested as remains of 63 workers are left underground

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for May 8.  See also  "Mexican authorities retake Cananea mine" posted here on June 7.]

By Patricia Muñoz Ríos and Leopoldo Ramos

The Familia Pasta de Conchos reports that early yesterday morning, after the violent removal of workers from the Cananea mine, managers of Grupo México also took over the facilities of the number eight mine, where 65 miners died more than three years ago, and that “the state police of Coahuila, in 20 patrol cars, escorted luxury automobiles carrying company representatives” as they entered the facility.

The organization declares that the police arrested two women, the mothers of dead miners, who “were forced into a patrol car with blows and shoving,” for which a complaint will be filed with the Ministerio Público. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Nación of Santiago, Chile, for June 6. The Chilean public health-care system, organized as a municipal function, includes the Régimen de Garantías Explícitas en Salud, known as the “Plan AUGE,” which guarantees certain levels of accessibility and quality of health care.]

Workers in the municipal heath-care system have issued a press release calling for pressure against measures aimed at privatizing public health.

The Confederación de Funcionarios de la Salud Municipalizada (CONFUSAM –Confederation of Municipal Healthcare Workers) in a national assembly in Santiago agreed to call on its members to “remain on permanent alert for the purpose of applying pressure to avoid the advancement of the privatization of health care.”

The labor organization stated in a press release that the new government “in its first presidential message announced with great fanfare a set of measures aimed at privatizing public health.” (more…)

[Translations of two articles, the first from El Universal of Mexico City, the second from El Imparcial of Hermosillo, Sonora, for June 7.]

Federal agents eject miners in Cananea

by Marcelo Beyliss

Hermosillo, Sonora, June 7 — Federal agents took control forcefully of the Mexicana de Cananea copper producing facilities after removing workers belonginng to Local 65 of the Sindicato Minero [Miner’s Union], who had held the facility in a strike for almost three years.

First reports indicate that at least two arrest warrants were carried out against union leaders like Sergio Tolano and Juan Gutiérrez.

It was close to 10:00pm (midnight Mexico City time) when agents began forcing the workers out of the mine. (more…)

[Translation of an article from HaitiLibre for June 4.]

The adventure began on April 10, 2010, the day survivors left the Petion Ville camp for the first relocation camp. Camp Corail, a vast empty territory that could accommodate as many as 250,000 inhabitants, the surreal vision of a government (with no money) that envisioned the construction of a new town within the framework of the decentralization of the capital. A model town growing out of the desert, where life would be good… “Streets and infrastructure will be built. A real community,” President René Préval had declared as he welcomed the first “pioneers of the new world” to a desert of sand and thorns. (more…)

[Translation of an article from ContraPuntos of El Salvador for June 1.]

By Edgardo Ayala and Gregorio Morán

San Salvador — Is there change or not?

For a limited number of officials, including the president of the republic, Mauricio Funes, there have indeed been changes in comparison to what previous administrations have done. But for a sea of citizens, including political and economic analysts, not so much – that’s not to say, none.

This past June 1, Funes spoke of his administration’s accomplishments in its first year. It was a classic display of figures and “achievements” by what is said to be the first leftist government of El Salvador.

A display that, as always happens, selected and emphasized figures that present a favorable panorama of the situation, as has always been done. Which is reasonable. Nobody want to talk about how his house is collapsing, even if that seems to be the case. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from La Jornada of Mexico City for June 4 and 5.]

Soldiers kill three minors in Reynosa
Another 29 people killed in ten states

Army personnel killed three students from Reynosa, Tamaulipas, who were driving a pickup truck on the La Ribereña highway near the settlement of Los Cavazos because they failed to obey a signal to stop.

Students Daniel Hernández, who was 13, and César Alejandro Cuéllar, 15, of the Francisco J. Múgica secondary school, and Eduardo Cuéllar, 17, of the Centro de Bachillerato Tecnológico Agropecuario, were driving home to the Estación Anzaldúas, one kilometer from Los Cavazos, when the soldiers signalled for them to stop but, according to witnesses, the youths ignored the signal. (more…)

[Translation of an essay from El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, for June 2. See also “Piñera’s election: The foreign policy that awaits us” posted here on March 12.]

By Boris Yopo H.

Contrary to what certain foreign conservative analysts expected, or some sectors of the hard right in our own country, the foreign policy pursued by the new government headed by Sebastián Piñera has shown so far an orientation that emphasizes continuity, pragmatism and coexistence in the conduct of our relations with Latin America. (more…)