NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs articles from January 2005

NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs archives from January 2005

GUATEMALAN ACTIVISTS TRACK DOWN DONALDO ALVAREZ RUIZ BUT MEXICO LETS HIM SLIP AWAY.
January 6, 2005... On Dec. 10, the Spanish government issued an international arrest warrant for Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz, Guatemala's interior minister during the government of Gen. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia (1978-1982). The former minister is wanted in Spain for...

EL SALVADOR FIRST TO RATIFY CAFTA, BUT FOLLOWERS MAY BE FEW.
January 6, 2005... Under cover of darkness in the dead of night, the legislature of El Salvador debated, and at 11:03 on the morning of Dec. 18 approved, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). It thereby became the first country to do so. Passage...

UNCERTAIN FUTURE FOR CENTRAL AMERICAN TEXTILES AS QUOTAS EXPIRE.
January 13, 2005... New year in, Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA) out. On Jan. 1, the MFA, a system of quotas that protected textile production in Central America and in other poor countries around the world, expired. Among the first effects of the expiration, Korean...

CUBA NEWS IN BRIEF.
January 13, 2005... Under pressure from the publishing industry and academic presses, the Treasury Department has dropped rules prohibiting the editing and publication of academic and literary work from Cuba and two other sanctioned countries. The top US diplomat...

NICARAQUA'S LEGISLATURE LOOKS TO LIMIT PRESIDENTIAL POWERS; ALEMAN COULD RESCUE BOLANOS.
January 13, 2005... The Nicaraguan Asamblea Nacional (AN) passed in November a series of constitutional reforms severely limiting presidential powers, arrogating, say critics, to itself prerogatives usually associated with the executive. The package of...

WEALTH, WASTE, AND VIOLENCE: MINING IN GUATEMALA.
January 20, 2005... During the past year, the environmental and social consequences of mining have pitted indigenous communities and ecologists against national and international parties eager to exploit Guatemala for its mineral wealth. After a year of massive...

AFRICAN UNION TO HAITI: ARISTIDE'S INFLUENCE AND DIFFERING IDEAS ON RESURRECTION OF THE COUNTRY.
January 20, 2005... Calling Haiti "an African country outside Africa," African Union (AU) commission chairman Alpha Qumar Konare said the AU is ready to restore stability and pave the way to elections. The AU entry into the international dilemma posed by the...

CRISIS AVERTED AND POLEMICS PERSIST AS BALANCE OF POWER SHIFTS IN NICARAGUA.
January 20, 2005... Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos has dropped his objections to the recent constitutional reforms a hostile Asamblea Nacional adopted to limit his powers and expand their own (see NotiCen, 05-01-13). On Jan. 12, Bolanos held a joint news...

INVESTIGATION OF UNIONIST'S MURDER DENOUNCED AS A RETURN TO EL SALVADOR'S REPRESSIVE PAST.
January 27, 2005... On Nov. 5, a US union organizer of El Salvadoran origin, Gilberto Soto, was murdered in Usulutan while visiting family. He was about to meet with port workers to document abuses of their labor rights by a Danish shipping company. He was...

PANAMA PRESIDENT MARTIN TORRIJOS'POPULARITY PITTED AGAINST POPULAR PROTEST ON TAX REFORMS.
January 27, 2005... Panama's President Martin Torrijos has introduced profound fiscal reforms aimed at boosting tax collection and reducing poverty, and he has called a special legislative session to deal with them. The measures, say economists, change the...