Minorities Expected to be Majority in 2050
Cable News Network - Date: 08/13/2008
Washington, D.C. -- By 2050, minorities will be the majority in America, and the number of residents older than 65 will more than double, according to projections released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Minorities, classified as those of any race other than non-Hispanic, single-race whites, currently constitute about a third of the U.S. population, according to Census figures. But by 2042, they are projected to become the majority, making up more than half the population. By 2050, 54 percent of the population will be minorities.
Minority children are projected to reach that milestone even sooner. By 2023, the bureau said, more than half of all children will be minorities.
"Part of it is a higher fertility rate for some of the minority groups, Hispanics in particular," said Dave Waddington, chief of the Census Bureau's population projection branch, which issued the report. "Those groups also tend to be more of the childbearing age. Non-Hispanic white people tend to be a little bit older."
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Rights Group See "Minimal" Drop in Cuba Prisoners
Associated Press - Date: 08/12/2008
Havana, Cuba -- The number of political prisoners held in Cuba has dropped slightly, but the overall rights situation remains "unfavorable" under President Raúl Castro's government with more brief detentions of dissidents, the island's leading independent human rights group said Tuesday.
The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said in its twice-yearly report that it documented 219 political prisoners held on the island as of July 20, down from 234 in early 2008.
The drop is "minimal," commission head Elizardo Sanchez wrote in the report. "Two years after certain adjustments in the top levels of government, the situation for civil, political and economic rights continues to be very unfavorable."
Raúl Castro took power from his ailing elder brother Fidel in July 2006, when the commission counted 316 prisoners. The younger Castro permanently assumed the presidency in February.
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Bolivians Support Morales in Recall, Easy Results Show
Associated Press - Date: 08/11/2008
La Paz, Bolivia -- A bold gamble by President Evo Morales to break a political deadlock and re-energize his leftist revolution paid off as Bolivia's voters resoundingly endorsed him in a recall referendum.
More than 63 percent of voters in this bitterly divided Andean nation ratified the mandate of Bolivia's first indigenous leader and his vice president, Alvaro Garcia, in Sunday's vote, according to partial unofficial results.
Eight of the country's nine governors were also subject to recall -- and two Morales foes were among the three ousted, according to a private tally of votes from 1,000 of the country's 22,700 polling stations.
Morales had sought the referendum to try to topple governors who have frustrated his bid to improve the plight of Bolivia's long-suppressed indigenous majority, which is concentrated in the country's barren western highlands.
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38 Dead After Being Bitten by Vampire Bats
Associated Press - Date: 08/08/2008
Aracas, Venezuela -- At least 38 Warao Indians have died in remote villages in Venezuela, and medical experts suspect an outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats.
Laboratory investigations have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms point to rabies, according to two researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and other medical experts.
The two UC Berkeley researchers -- the husband-and-wife team of anthropologist Charles Briggs and public health specialist Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs -- said the symptoms include fever, body pains, tingling in the feet followed by progressive paralysis, and an extreme fear of water. Victims tend to have convulsions and grow rigid before death.
Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, agreed with their preliminary diagnosis.
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Tear Gas Used to Break Up Caracas Protests
Associated Press - Date: 08/07/2008
Caracas, Venezuela -- Riot police used tear gas Wednesday as they blocked hundreds of Venezuelans protesting what they call new moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power.
The demonstrators said a blacklist barring key opposition candidates from elections and a series of socialist decrees are destroying what's left of their democracy.
Though the protest of about 1,000 people chanting "freedom!" was small compared to past marches, there is a growing public outcry over the sidelining of key government opponents ahead of state and local elections in November.
Chavez opponents also are outraged by 26 laws the president just decreed, some of them mirroring the socialist measures voters rejected in a December referendum.
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Mexican Government Protests Texas Execution
Cable News Network - Date: 08/07/2008
Mexico City, Mexico -- The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday.
Protesters for and against Jose Ernesto Medellin's execution gathered before he was put to death Tuesday night in Huntsville, Texas, for raping and murdering two teens in 1993.
His death ended 15 years of legal disputes on a sour note.
"The government of Mexico sent the U. S. Department of State a diplomatic note of protest for this violation of international law, expressing its concern for the precedent that it may create for the rights of Mexican nationals who may be detained in that country," the Mexican government said in a written statement.
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Red Cross Concerned Over Use of Emblem in Colombian Rescue
Cable News Network - Date: 08/06/2008
Geneva, Switzerland -- The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed its concern Wednesday over what may have been the improper use of its emblem in the daring rescue last month of 15 hostages in Colombia.
"We are in contact with the Colombian authorities to ask for further clarifications as to exactly what happened," ICRC Deputy Director of Operations Dominik Stillhart said in a written statement.
Video and photographs originally shown to CNN appeared to show one of the hostage rescuers wearing a bib with a red cross on it, and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe admitted July 16 that Colombian military intelligence used a single Red Cross symbol in the rescue mission.
The ICRC statement said video aired on Colombian television earlier this week "reveals that a member of the army team involved was wearing a tabard marked with the Red Cross emblem before the operation had even begun, suggesting intentional misuse."
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Putin Eyes Renewed Russian Ties with Cuba
Associated Press - Date: 08/04/2008
Moscow, Russia -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is calling for Russia to regain its influential position in former Cold War ally Cuba, Russian news reports said Monday.
The statement comes amid persistent speculation about whether Russia is seeking a military presence in a country just 90 miles (150 kilometers) from the United States in response to U.S. plans to place missile-defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic.
"We should restore our position in Cuba and other countries," Putin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Putin spoke Monday while hearing a report on a recent Russian delegation's trip to Cuba. Vice Premier Igor Sechin and others met with the Cuban leadership and discussed an array of cooperation projects.
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Argentine President Calls for Decriminalization of Drug Use
Cable News Network - Date: 08/01/2008
Buenos Aires, Argentina -- President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner repeated her call this week to decriminalize personal drug use and crack down on traffickers and dealers.
"I don't like it when people easily condemn someone who has an addiction as if he were a criminal, as if he were a person who should be persecuted," she told a meeting of the National Investigation into the Consumption of Alcohol, Tobacco, Psychopharmaceuticals and Illegal Drugs.
"Those who should be persecuted are those who sell the substances, those who give it away, those who traffic in it."
A poll shows 2 percent of Argentines have tried cocaine, but some people believe decriminalization of drugs could result in wider drug use.
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U.S. to Urge "Fugitive Aliens" to Surrender
Cable News Network - Date: 07/30/2008
Washington, D.C. -- U.S. immigration officials, taking a new tack to solve an old, intractable problem, say they will give "fugitive aliens" in certain cities incentives to surrender during a three-week period in August.
Officials will offer fugitive aliens incentives to surrender for three weeks in August.
Officials will offer fugitive aliens incentives to surrender for three weeks in August.
The program will give fugitive aliens -- people who have been ordered by immigration courts to leave the United States -- up to 90 days after surrendering to get their affairs in order before departing the country.
For those without sufficient financial means, the program also will make arrangements for them to leave the United States. And the program will allow fugitive aliens to avoid detention pending their removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Wednesday.
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Salmonella Found in Irrigation Water at Mexican Farm, FDA says
Cable News Network - Date: 07/30/2008
Washington, D.C. -- A salmonella outbreak in the United States and Canada has been linked to irrigation water and serrano peppers at a Mexican farm, the federal Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's food safety chief, said the farm is in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and called the discovery "a key breakthrough."
Acheson was speaking at a congressional hearing.
Serrano peppers are a variety of chili pepper similar to jalapeños but hotter.
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Ecuador to Shut Down U.S. Anti-drug Operation
Cable News Network - Date: 07/30/2008
Washington, D.C. -- The United States is losing access to one of its three counternarcotics bases in Latin America, U.S. military officials said Wednesday.
The Ecuadorian government has told the Bush administration it will not renew a 10-year agreement letting U.S. troops conduct anti-drug operations from Manta Air Base, an Ecuadorian Air Force installation, military officials said.
The United States has used Manta Air Base since 1999 to run aerial surveillance of the eastern Pacific Ocean, looking for drug runners on the high seas as well as illicit flights.
Ecuador notified the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday that it will not renew the agreement after it expires in November 2009, the U.S. military officials said.
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