Today's Stories: European Nations To Fund Central American/Caribbean Tax Study, by Amanda Banks Hundreds of thousands turn out for gay pride parade Chavez says Bush is his real adversary in August 15 recall referendum Latin America's First Anti-Kidnap School in Bogota

Sound trucks blasted techno-pop and disco music for the huge party as thousands turn out for gay pride parade in Brazil.

According to an IDB announcement last week, Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) will contribute a total of $900,000 in grants to finance a series of studies and activities, designed to build social consensus on deepening fiscal reforms in Central American and Caribbean countries.

The Bank's statement observed that the tax revenues of certain countries in the region have often been “notoriously low”, a fact it attributed to public mistrust of the way in which governments conduct their fiscal affairs, which has in turn led to a lack of general compliance.

The IDB expects that the studies will offer countries different policy options to deepen tax reforms, improve their budgetary management, target spending on the most needy and vulnerable groups of their population, and strengthen transparency and accountability in the public sector.

“It is important to begin to change Central American perceptions about the futility of paying taxes to governments that spend inefficiently and without due accountability. This can be done by building trust in how public resources are invested, as well as by strengthening each country’s social contract to address shared problems,” noted IDB Regional Economic Advisor Manuel Agosin, who will coordinate the studies.
 

Hundreds of thousands turn out for gay pride parade
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Go-go boys and drag queens waved rainbow-colored flags as hundreds of thousands of dancing revelers clogged a downtown avenue to celebrate gay pride on Sunday.

Organizers said they expected 1.5 million people to attend the Eighth Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans-gender Pride Parade, which would make it the world's biggest gay event.

Police said they would provide a crowd estimate later Sunday.

Sao Paulo is South America's largest city and the center of gay activism and visibility in Brazil, with about 85 bars, restaurants and clubs catering to the gay clientele.

"This event helps a lot. People need to get used to us (gays)," said Edilson Gomes, a 24-year-old law student who came to the parade with his partner. "This helps to promote gay marriage, we -- as a couple -- would need it."

Civil unions between same-sex couples are permitted only in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. While the practice has not spread to other states, the unions have stirred surprisingly little controversy in this predominantly Roman Catholic country.

A bill that would allow civil unions throughout the country has been held up in Congress for years by a group of Evangelical Protestant lawmakers.

Still, homosexuality is widely tolerated in Brazil. The parade had an ample share of heterosexual supporters, such as Rosangela Rocha, a 50-year-old housewife, who came with two female friends.

"We are here to honor the gay community. We didn't succeed in getting our husbands to come along, though, they're very macho," said Rocha, who wore a heavy jacket but looked on approvingly at the young men parading shirtless in the 50-degree Fahrenheit (10-degree Celsius) weather.

Sao Paulo Mayor Marta Suplicy gave a speech to open the parade, as she did last year, proclaiming her pride in the city's diversity.

The parade, which began in 1997, attracted about 1 million people last year.

At Sunday's parade, 24 sound trucks blasted techno-pop and disco, to the delight of the crowd.

Revelers unfurled a 50-meter-long (55-yard) rainbow flag, and health ministry workers distributed 50,000 free condoms.

Gay pride also is being celebrated in 22 other Brazilian cities in June and July, including Rio de Janeiro next Sunday.
 

Chavez says Bush is his real adversary in August 15 recall referendum
Long-standing tension between Caracas and Washington flared anew when President Hugo Chavez, fighting for his job in a recall vote, said US President George W. Bush -- not the Venezuelan opposition -- was his true political foe.

Chavez faces a recall election August 15 that could unseat him.

"Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush will face off in the August 15 referendum," Chavez told supporters. "That is the real confrontation."

He said Venezuela's political battle would play out between the US president, "who wants to take over this country, and myself, who is prepared to do whatever is necessary to defend the country.

"The fight is not between Chavez and" the opposition," he said. "It's between Chavez and Bush. That's the choice."

If 3.75 million voters -- the number who voted for Chavez in 2000 -- vote against him August 15, he will have to step down and a new presidential election will be held.

Chavez, a leftist-populist ex-paratrooper, was ousted in April 2002 in a short-lived military coup that visibly pleased the United States, which quickly moved to recognize and deal with the new transitional government of opposition business and political leaders.

But the coup fell apart within 48 hours and Chavez was returned to power after his old army unit rallied other military companies to his defense.

Though Washington insisted it had no part in or advance knowledge of the coup, Chavez' government has repeatedly accused the United States of meddling in its politics and instigating the rebellion, as well as a lengthy general strike in late 2002 and early 2003 that shut down the country's oil industry.

Venezuela is a key US oil supplier.

"The Bush administration was alone in the world when it endorsed the overthrow of my government in 2002," Chavez said recently. "It is my hope that this time the Bush administration will respect our republican democracy."
 

Latin America's First Anti-Kidnap School in Bogota
Colombia, the world's kidnapping capital, inaugurated the first school in Latin America dedicated solely to teaching security forces how to rescue hostages and neutralize hostage-takers.

More than 2,200 people were kidnapped in Colombia last year, including three Defense Department contractors who are still being held hostage by Marxist rebels.

"The school wants the training conducted (by instructors) with a real understanding of territory where these criminal gangs keep hostages," said Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Uribe's father was killed during a botched rebel kidnapping in the 1980s.

The anti-kidnapping training center, located on the outskirts of Bogota, was partly funded by the United States under a $25 million anti-kidnapping aid package.

Washington is currently searching for Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell, who were taken hostage last year by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a 17,000-member guerrilla group known by the Spanish initials FARC.

Other FARC hostages include presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, soldiers and politicians the rebels want to swap for jailed comrades.

Most FARC hostages, however, are kidnapped for ransom, which along with so-called taxes on Colombia's enormous cocaine industry funds their 40-year-old war against the state.

Thousands of people are killed in the conflict every year.

Uribe's aggressive crackdown on outlaws has been credited for a reduction in violence from the guerrilla war. Kidnappings in Colombia tumbled by almost half in the first three months of the year, according to government data.