Today's Stories: Sandinistas mark ouster of dictator Bolivian press hails "yes" vote to weekend referendum Mexico congratulates Bolivia on natural gas referendum Chile denies participation in trial against Pinochet in US 3 Children Killed in Brazilian Mudslide

Brazil is a major market for cocaine from Colombia and Bolivia Brazil has passed a controversial law allowing its military to shoot down aircraft it suspects of smuggling drugs in its airspace. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has backed the law, which has waited six years for presidential approval. His government said aircraft would only be fired at if they failed a series of checks - an attempt to ease fears some planes may be mistakenly targeted. The law was passed by Brazilian Congress in 1998 but is only just coming into effect.

Daniel Ortega was installed as president as Somoza was overthrown on July 19, 1979. Guided by Cuban and Eastern European advisers, Nicaragua's guerrilla-controlled armed forces battled U.S.-backed Contra rebels until Ortega lost the presidency in 1990.

Since then, Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front have struggled to adapt to a democratic Nicaragua and post-Cold War realities, losing three consecutive presidential elections.

Sandinista leaders remain openly defiant and critical of the US government, which once had the CIA organize, train and arm Contra guerrillas that battled the Sandinistas throughout most of their government. About 50,000 people died in the war.

On the 25th anniversary of Somoza's departure, the Sandinistas are attempting to mend once-rocky relations with the Roman Catholic Church, asking pardon of the church for "old offences."

Bolivian press hails "yes" vote to weekend referendum
Initial results showed Monday that Bolivians have overwhelmingly approved more state involvement in the country's natural gas industry.

Local press hailed the results as a vote of confidence for President Carlos Mesa, according to reports from La Paz, the administrative capital of Bolivia.

Editorials with headlines, such as "The majority said 'yes' to the five questions and to the president himself," "A strengthened Mesa asks Congress to respect the voice of people," and "The referendum gives a 'yes" to gas exports" appeared in Monday's local newspapers.

Mesa announced the referendum in October after an uprising against government plans to export gas led to the resignation of Mesa's predecessor, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

About 4.5 million of Bolivia's 8 million people voted Sunday. The final results will come out on Aug. 4.

Mesa said late Sunday that the country backed his proposals to allow natural gas exports and increase state control over the nation's huge reserves in a referendum aimed at appeasing an impoverished Indian majority.

"The five questions have been answered, each one, with a yes," Mesa told a news conference.

The National Electoral Court (CEN) supported Mesa's claim, with12 percent of the voting stations counted early Monday.

The "yes" vote will help strengthen Mesa's tenure, with polls showing 60 percent of Bolivians in support of Mesa, according to local press.

Bolivia, one of the South America's poorest country, has been split by the natural gas issue. The low-income Indian majority have called for national control over the resources, while the European-descended elites insisted on more foreign investment and more exports.

At nearly 55 trillion cubic feet, Bolivia has the second largest gas reserves in Latin America after Venezuela.
 

Mexico congratulates Bolivia on natural gas referendum
Mexico on Monday congratulated the people and government of Bolivia for conducting a successful referendum on natural gas policy.

"The celebration of the popular consultation, with a high level of citizen participation in a peaceful environment, constituted a plain expression of democracy and the will of the Bolivian people in favor of the energy reforms promoted by the government of President Carlos Mesa," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Mexico, which is interested in purchasing natural gas from Bolivia, expressed "its confidence that through this referendum Bolivia will advance to the goals of economic and social development," the statement said.

The partial results of the Sunday's referendum show the approval of the five questions proposed by the government in order to define the Bolivian new energy policy.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has also attempted to reform his country's energy policy since he took office in 2000. His proposal to reform the private sectors was nearly rejected at once by legislators when it was presented to the Congress.

Bolivia, which has the second largest gas reserves in South America, was thrown into a political and social crisis in October 2003, when former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada planned to export natural gas through neighboring Chile, a bitter rival which annexed Bolivia's Pacific coastline in a war 125 years ago.

He was forced to resign amid a popular uprising in and around La Paz, in which more than 80 people were killed in street clashes with security forces. His successor Carlos Mesa called the referendum.
 

Chile denies participation in trial against Pinochet in US
The Chilean government has ruled out its participation in a possible trial in the United States against former dictator Augusto Pinochet, government spokesman Francisco Vidal said Monday.

He denied the allegation that Chile will participate in the trial in the United States against the ex-military ruler.

The statement came before the US Department of Justice starts inquires into the secret accounts of the former president deposited in the US Riggs Bank to determine if there was a tax crime.

Vidal said the Chilean Foreign Ministry did not authorize Chilean attorney Claudio Grossman who is living in the United States to take part in the trial proceedings in Washington.

According to a US Senate report, Pinochet has at least six secret accounts worth nearly 8 million US dollars deposited in Riggs Bank, an old-line Washington institution having business relations with the capital's diplomatic community and the bank helped Pinochet hide the accounts between 1994 and 2002.

The Chilean government is waiting for the State Defense Council(CDE)'s decision that will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to bring Pinochet to trial.

The CDE, an autonomous agency in charge of the legal defense ofthe Chilean state's interests, is evaluating whether the collected evidence in the US Senate report deserves an investigation in Chile, said Vidal. He also said the government "places the information in the proper place" in the face of a severe denunciation.

Chile made its position on the issue known before President Ricardo Lagos starts a state visit to the United States on Monday.

Last Friday the Chilean Embassy in Washington, through a letter to the US State Department, requested information of the US government to clear up Pinochet's accounts, which is paving the way for the CDE to start an investigation in Santiago in view of the possibility of new background data on the accounts of the ex-dictator.

Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, has been diagnosed a mild case of dementia, among other conditions that have made the courts to drop scores of charges against him for human rights abuses during his rule.
 

3 Children Killed in Brazilian Mudslide
A mudslide killed three children ages 1 to 4 when it overran their hillside shacks early Monday in a slum near Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city.

"The mudslide came following hours of steady rainfall," said Adriana Sekulic, a spokeswoman for the municipality of Sao Bernardo do Campo, an industrial suburb of Sao Paulo. "Eleven other people were injured but they have all been treated and released."

Municipal officials moved 40 other people away from the area for fear of more mudslides, Sekulic said.

The mudslide destroyed three shacks. It killed sisters Barbara and Leiliane Neves, ages 1 and 2, in one shack and a 4-year-old, Cleberson Santos, in another shack. Residents of the third shack survived with minor injuries.

Deadly mudslides are common in major Brazilian cities, where poor people build shacks and pitch tents on hillsides.

Sekulic said the slum neighborhood, named Oleoduto -- literally oil pipeline, because one runs through it -- was being rebuilt with a grant from Brazil's federal government and the Inter-American Development Bank.

"The rebuilding effort will eventually put 2,700 families in the area into homes that are solid and safe," Sekulic said. "Unfortunately, the effort had not progressed enough as of Monday morning to encompass the shacks inhabited by the three children."