from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

El Salvador: Water "Reform" Protested

About 50 Salvadoran union members, campesinos and environmental activists blocked the Juan Pablo II avenue near the Legislative Assembly in San Salvador for about two hours to protest a proposed new General Water Law that they say will in effect privatize the country's water supply. Protesters held large banners across six lanes and handed out fliers to passersby. Police agents eventually removed the protesters from the street with no serious incidents; the activists continued to hold banners on the sidewalk afterwards. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters shut down bridges and highways in coordinated actions at seven points across the country, including Santa Ana, Ahuachapan, Chalatenango and the Puente de Oro.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

Nicaragua: Ortega wins

Boy, does this ever give us deja vu. Back in the '80s, the State Department played an anti-Semitism card against Sandinista Nicaragua, just as as the right does today against Bolivarian Venezuela. Daniel Ortega hasn't even taken office yet, and already the propaganda vultures are circling in. From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov. 9 (our commentary to follow):

Central America's Last Stand Against CAFTA

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Oct. 23 and 24, an estimated 75,000 Costa Ricans from all sectors of society took part in a mobilization against the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), commonly referred to throughout the region as the Free Trade Treaty (TLC in Spanish). The two-day protest, called by the National Coordinating Committee of Struggle Against the TLC and numerous grassroots and labor organizations, included peaceful marches, road blockades, distribution of informational leaflets and other decentralized actions in all of the country's provinces. Some public services—including schools and some non-emergency medical appointments—were shut down with strikes as part of the mobilization.

Tens of thousands of indigenous people and their allies focused on neoliberal economic programs, US foreign policies and local issues in protests throughout the Americas on Oct. 12, the 514th anniversary of the arrival of European colonizer Christopher Columbus in the hemisphere.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HONDURAS: GARIFUNA WOMAN MURDERED

On the evening of Aug. 6, a group of masked men armed with AK-47 assault rifles forced 19-year-old Mirna Isabel Santos Thomas from her home in the Honduran Garifuna community of San Juan Tela, in the Caribbean coastal department of Atlantida. Santos' body was found the next morning along the road leading to Triunfo de la Cruz and La Ensenada, several kilometers away on the other side of the town of Tela. The latest killing comes amid a wave of repression directed against the Garifuna community of San Juan Tela, which is resisting plans to build tourism projects on Garifuna ancestral lands in the Tela Bay area.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

GUATEMALA: TRADE PROTESTERS SEIZE ESTATES

The Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) went into effect in Guatemala on July 1 amid protests against the US-sponsored pact, which seeks to bring Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US together in a trade bloc. The agreement took effect in El Salvador on March 1, and in Honduras and Nicaragua on May 1. Costa Rica's legislature has not yet approved the pact. (Yahoo en Espanol, July 1 from AFP)

DR-CAFTA was scheduled to go into effect in the Dominican Republic on July 1, but the implementation was delayed by a disagreement over US demands for legislation protecting industrial secrets for pharmaceutical companies. "We're not giving in," Marcelo Puello, Dominican assistant secretary for foreign trade, said on June 30. "The negotiating team closed this chapter, and the people in charge of implementation agree that we won't give in on something that would be outside the text of the treaty." (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, July 1)

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 3:

Nicaraguan presidential candidate Herty Lewites died late Sunday of an apparent heart attack. The son of a Jewish migrant, Lewites, 66, was the country's best-known citizen of Jewish descent.