LA Quick Hits: Hugo Talks (and Talks and Talks), Nutty Correa, Lula's Plan, Evo is Stuck, Monterrey, Cuba Libre! and More

• Hugo's babfest, Alo Presidente, was back on the air. Hugo told US to "go to hell," spoke of Brazilian babes in string bikinis, the hanging of Saddam, a plan to jack up taxes, raise the famously low price of Venezuelan gasoline and his plan to not pay market value for the nationalization of CANTV (en esp.) - the telecom company.
• FT has a round up of LA. Among the issues explored: Hugo's power grab and insane fiscal policy, Correa's even nuttier fiscal plans and the promising start of Calderon.
• Lula is set to unveil a growth package for Brazil. Among the features of Lula's plan: tax breaks, increased public spending on infrastructure along with other cuts in spending.
  
• Mercosur tabled plans of expansion, despite Hugo's enthusiasm for it.
• CSM begins a very promising series on Calderon's crackdown.
• Calderon's people insisted that they will carry on with the drug war and the AG insisted that extradition of drug traffickers had nothing to do with pressure from US.
  
• Bolivia's constitutional assembly is stuck in the mud and the politics of that country are a mess. Divisions abound and Evo has had to adjust.
• 5 killed by FARC bomb.
  
• 11 Iraqis bound for US were arrested in Mexico.
• Residents of Monterrey are accused of being cheap by fellow Mex. Is it an accident that Monterrey is the most business friendly and entrepreneurial major city in Mex?
  
• Monterrey is finishing off its own "River Walk."
• Who wants a free Cuba? No one but US.

LA Quick Hits: Elections Colombian Style, Shut 'em Down Hugo Style, A Bunch of Stuff on Drugs - An Arrest, A Fungus and A Runner & More

• Uribe blew off para leader Mancuso's revelation that the paras pressured voters to support Uribe. (en esp.)
  
• Want to know why Hugo is shutting down RCTV? WaPost has the best story thus far on what it is about RCTV that ticks Hugo off.
• Texan lawmakers are asking for $850 million dollars over five years to fight the drug war in Mexico. Once again we are looking for a proxy to do our fighting for us. Once again we are looking for our southern neighbors to bear the brunt of the drug war. Why don't we spend $850 million to get people off drugs or to get them off of our streets?
• Pedro Diaz Parada, allegedly a drug cartel leader, was arrested in Oaxaca. This is the first major arrest of the Calderon crackdown.
• "Franken-fungus" a powerful herbicide may be to controversial and dangerous to spread here but some in DC don't have a problem in using it in LA to combat drugs.
• Colombian authorities stumbled on $54 million worth of loot while conducting drug raids in four houses.
• Cubans wait and wonder as to the state of Fidel's health. I'll say it again, when he dies there will be wailing in the streets. I'm just preparing myself psychological for the sight and the glowing news reports.
• Cuba is keeping a Colombian drug runner under lock and key, even though they haven't charged him with anything drug related. The insinuation in the piece is that if they let him go he may reveal something to embarass the Cubes. Not that I think the Castro Bros. don't run drugs (I do) but I doubt they would have made a high profile case over a weak link.
• A miner's death has some in Coahuila skittish. 65 miners were buried alive last year and safety remains a concern.
• Former LA prezes are being nailed when they leave office. The Herald explains why...I'll do it quicker most LA gov't's are dirty.
  

Dresser on Calderon's Crackdown

Denise Dresser is a pretty reasonable especially when you consider that she is a professor at UNAM. In an op-ed that appeared in LAT Dresser concedes that Calderon had little choice but to act with force. She also notes the role that corruption and the police play in the drug trade:

The government's drug enforcement efforts are undermined by the corrupting influence of the drug trade, yet the drug trade cannot survive without the protection of compromised elements within the government. Cocaine traffickers spend as much as $500 million on bribery, which is more than double the budget of the Mexican attorney general's office. As a result, it frequently becomes difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Police regularly play dual roles: They act as drug enforcers and as protectors of the smugglers. Violent conflicts routinely erupt between police operating as law enforcers and police acting as lawbreakers. So it's no wonder that as part of Operation Tijuana — the Calderon crackdown that made headlines this month — local police were forced to relinquish their weapons.

This leads to the military's role in all this. Much like me she concerned about the affect this will have long-term, particularly in corrupting the military (further):

In the face of police corruption, Calderon has turned to the military to take on the anti-drug effort — 3,300 army, navy and federal officers took part in Operation Tijuana. But moving soldiers — who are separate from the federal police — around the country at will is a cause for concern, and not just because of potential human rights violations. As a result of its expanded role, the military is becoming the supreme authority — in some cases the only authority — in parts of some states. And greater militarization frequently leads to corruption. When cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from jail several years ago, it is believed that generals helped him do so. So using the military as a roving cleanup force may solve some short-term image problems, but it also creates other, intractable ones.

For the long haul Calderon has a plan but Dresser thinks he needs to do more...and she's right:

Calderon hopes to overcome the corrupting influence of the drug trade by creating a new national police force as well as a special anti-drug division, similar to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He believes that with greater resources and more autonomy, those in charge of combating crime will not end up succumbing to it. But setting up a new agency and extending its reach will not be enough. Calderon needs to deal with Mexico's culture of illegality and pervasive impunity.

Over the last decade, Mexico's transition to democratic rule has cast a glaring light on the country's limited rule of law. Often judges, prosecutors and state officials have been unable to withstand the corrupting influence of the drug trade, a $7-billion-a-year business. And the credibility of public institutions has suffered when those proved guilty have eluded punishment.

So, while Calderon's efforts are to be applauded, they must also be accompanied by comprehensive measures that entail more than soldiers on the streets and photo-ops of the president dressed in olive green. The prospects for a stable, less insecure Mexico will be contingent on Calderon's capacity to enact a major overhaul of the country's judiciary and law enforcement apparatus. In other words, he needs to fight not only drug traffickers but the political networks that protect them.

If Calderon's "surge" is unable to rein in drug-related violence and bring its perpetrators to justice, even after using the army as an instrument of last resort, drug lords and their allies will know that the president's hand is weak — and that his efforts are too little, too late.

LA Quick Hits: Calderon's Crackdown (Again), Hugo Helps, Mex Cartels Spread, Falklands or Malvinas?, Spanish Non-Killers & Some More

• I've been avoiding this one - Cindy Sheehan is in Cuba and in addition to closing up Guantanamo she wants us to lift the embargo. I avoided this because Sheehan is like the Paris Hilton of the loony lefty set - she has no substance and doesn't do anything except show up everywhere.
• The San Antonio Express-News has an op-ed praising Calderon's crackdown.
• Cardinal Rivera from Mex says force will not be enough in the drug war in Mex.
  
• Telenovelas are over the top and melodramatic - much like Mexicans. I say this with affection and because it is the truth. The powerful family that runs the El Norte paper has a fight that pits father against his sons and his own mother.
  
• The Herald has a story on the powerful Araujo clan, its ties ties to Uribe and its ties to the right wing "paras."
• Hugo is setting up to unveil a huge aid package to "help" Nicaragua. Details will be known Thursday. Hugo is waiting till Danny Ortega is officially inaugurated.
  
• There was a time that the Mexican cartels were the week step-sisters of the illicit universe now they are becoming the strongest. An excellent DME relates how Mexican cartels spreading their influence in Peru.
• A police patrol was ambushed in Monterrey leaving one officer dead and another injured.
• 25 years after war the Falklands/Malvinas dispute lingers.
  
• Apparently the long held belief that diseases introduced by Spaniards killed off the indians is being challenged - much to the horror of some Mex historians.