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: Cochabamba Clash, MAS Scrap, Correa/Uribe Talk, Peron Lives, Hugo Helps Danny, Human Rights Watch Wakes Up & More

• Violence broke out again in Cochabamba yesterday leaving two dead.
  
• Evo's MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) is threatening to scrap the Constitutional Assembly. Evo had previously threatened to impose his reforms by edict if this happened.
  
• Correa is touting the successful dialogue that he had with Uribe (en esp.) concerning the spraying on the border.
  
• Isabel Peron, the former president and the strongman's widow, has an arrest order for her from an Argentine judge. This stems from accusations made about her role of the disappearance of a leftist during the "Dirty War." Peron lives in Spain.
• Nicaragua has signed a couple of pacts with Venezuela to take advantage of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). (en esp.) This is Hugo's version of what we call the FTAA but that our Spanish speaking neighbors refer to as ALCA. Danny's deal gets him a refinery and housing.
• FT has an incredibly tepid op-ed on Hugo's "Left Turn."
• Oppo leader Manuel Rosales said that Hugo wants to perpetuate his reign - I'm glad he told me because I never would have guessed. (en esp.)
• Human Rights Watch rips Hugo for stacking courts and destroying the independent judiciary.
• Human Rights Watch also expressed disappointment over the new and improved UN Commission on Human Rights. I can't believe that it took them this long to realize that the reformed commission is barely an improvement over its previous incarnation. The whole thing should be scrapped - obviously the UN is beyond being an effective defender of Human Rights.
• Cubans paid homage to deceased dissident Miguel Valdes Tamayo. Tamayo died at 50 of a heart attack.
• Posada Carriles has been indicted for lying...that's like saying he has been indicted for breathing. I've said before and I'll say it again - if Posada would have kept his mouth shut and laid low no one would have bothered him. Unfortunately ego, delusions of his supporters and the cloistered hardline Cuban exile community allowed the genius to stage a grand press conference drawing attention to him and his cronies. The US gov't had to act then. The man got what he deserved.
• The UN is looking to help Monterrey Mex with its drug war.
  

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.