El Salvador's Funes is Sworn in as President

Mauricio Funes, a journalist from the FMLN party, was sworn in today as El Salvador's first leftist president. He replaces conservative president Tony Saca as head of the country.

Funes has promised to maintain El Salvador's good relations with the United States while also restoring ties with Cuba. As the Associated Press points out, Funes has his work cut out for him domestically and will inherit, "an economic recession, widespread gang violence, and a population bitterly polarized over his party's rise to power."

In an opinion piece in today's Miami Herald, United States Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote, "The inauguration of a new president in El Salvador today is a testament to the strength and durability of democracy throughout the Americas." Clinton traveled to El Salvador to attend the ceremony.


Online sources: Associated Press, Miami Herald
Image: Associated Press

Hillary May Thank Puerto Rico, But Is Puerto Rico Thanking Her?

Last night I counted Hillary Clinton mention Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican vote a few times. She wants votes to count, including the primary voters on the isla del encanto who chose her over Barack Obama 2-1. Thanking Puerto Rican primary voters is one thing, acknowledging their tough political situation is another. After all, Puerto Ricans voted in the primary last weekend(even though record low turnout was reported), they cannot legally have any say (vote) as to who will be the president of the U.S. in November.
Not reported widely in the aftermath of the Clinton Puerto Rico win was the thousands of people who marched in Old San Juan against, not one candidate or another, but rather, against a system, that uses Puerto Rican votes when it is convenient, dismisses them the rest of the time.

Thousands of Puerto Ricans flooded the streets of San
Juan to demand their right to independence, repudiating the US Democratic
Party primary elections held in this “freely associated state” won on Sunday
by Hillary Clinton. Her rival, Barack Obama, still remains posed to win the
party’s nomination for the November general elections.
“We tell Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama that the poverty here is due to the
exploitation of our country, where more than 50 percent of the population
lives in poverty” after more than a century of US occupation. “This is a
colony and where there is a colony there is no democracy. Until we obtain
our national independence there won’t be democracy in Puerto Rico,” said
Edwin Irizarry, a leader in Puerto Rico's pro-independence party (PIP)

Source : Granma
Image Source : Reuters

Daily Headlines: May 27, 2008

* Venezuela: Newly-elected London mayor Boris Johnson will not renew an energy deal with Venezuelan oil firm PDVSA which was used to lower fuel costs for London buses and pay for a discount-fare program.

* Honduras: The office of controversial Arizonan Sheriff Joe Arpaio denied allegations that it misused tens of thousands of dollars to pay for a program with Honduran law enforcement officials.

* Puerto Rico: Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton spent their weekend in Puerto Rico courting support in anticipation for this Sunday’s Democratic presidential primary on the island.

* Peru: Despite an admitted lack of direct proof a former general testified that he had “absolute conviction” that ex-president Alberto Fujimori masterminded a pair of massacres in the 1990s.

Sources- Bloomberg, International Herald Tribune, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC

Image- BBC News (Former London mayor Ken Livingstone and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez meeting in 2006.)