Latin America

Slinging fish tacos at a stall in Grand Central Market on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles was never Ana Sanchez's idea of heaven. But the job pays enough so that she can wire money to her mother and daughter in Mexico, and last year she sent $1,500. This year Sanchez, 44, reckons they'll be lucky to receive half that. With her wages stagnant and the cost of living climbing, her family in Jalisco state will have to do without. "If it gets bad I won't be able to send any money anymore," Sanchez, a Commerce resident, said Tuesday.

The United States cannot afford to keep putting Latin America on the back burner as it focuses the bulk of its attention on Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The Western Hemisphere holds significant strategic interest for the U.S. - as well as enormous promise. Efforts should be focused in four key areas: building a democratic movement, enhancing trade and economic ties, cooperating on energy issues and building and strengthening security alliances. It's no coincidence that increased prosperity has followed in the wake of stronger democratic institutions in Latin America.

For all its miscues at home, General Motors Corp. has built a powerhouse operation in Latin America, where its fuel-efficient vehicles could play a crucial role in returning the battered company to health. Since it filed for bankruptcy a month ago, the automaker has been striking deals to shed much of its operations, including its Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands and its Opel division in Europe. GM is closing more North American factories, laying off workers and slashing its U.S. dealership ranks.

CARTAGENA, Colombia - President Obama will highlight trade and business opportunities in Latin America at a regional summit in Colombia this weekend, but other leaders may upstage him by pushing to legalize marijuana and other illicit drugs in a bid to stem rampant trafficking. Obama, who opposes decriminalization, is expected to face a rocky reception in this Caribbean resort city, which otherwise forms a friendly backdrop for a U.S. president courting Latino voters in an election year.

Latecomers have to hunt for a seat at the First Baptist Church of Copacabana. By 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the pews are full, the drummers and guitarists warmed up, and the faithful are ready to meet God. "Thanks be to your name," the pastor prays earnestly, his brow furrowed. "Be among us." A chorus of amens bursts from the congregation. Some members have their hands raised.

Expanding its reach from two countries to the entire Western Hemisphere, Netflix Inc. will launch its successful online film and television subscription service across Latin America in a bid to maintain its sky-high subscriber growth and stock price. The Los Gatos, Calif., company, which boasts more than 23.6 million subscribers and has become the nation's No. 1 movie rental provider, announced Tuesday that this year it will expand into 43 countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean but not Cuba.

ONE of the most dazzling tidbits in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's big show "The Arts in Latin America 1492-1820" is enshrined in a gallery devoted to silver. A richly ornamented chalice made in Mexico City around 1575 and given to the museum by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst in 1948, it stands a mere 13 inches tall. But in terms of 16th century Mexican silver, the chalice has everything: silver gilt, rock crystal, boxwood and hummingbird feathers. Hummingbird feathers?

MEDITERRANEAN Sites of holy, secular past Sail away on a weeklong Mediterranean cruise that charts a course to ancient towns, historical ruins and important shrines, including a Turkish site reputed to be the former home of the Virgin Mary. In Istanbul, see the imposing Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace. Accommodations are aboard the 500-cabin Costa Serena, which has five restaurants, 13 bars and four swimming pools. Itinerary: Venice, to Bari, Italy, Olympia, Greece; Izmir and Istanbul in Turkey; Dubrovnik, Croatia; and back to Venice.

Latin America's role Re "Lula takes risk with Ahmadinejad," Nov. 23 Yes, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's taking a risk meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- but Lula's not anybody's proxy, and with Latin America so often ignored, Brazil can decide with whom to meet without asking anyone's permission. Ahmadinejad's plan for a new global order to be formed with Africa and Latin America (Brazil and Venezuela in particular) could be bluster or could be serious.

Esperanza Tello couldn't resist. When a salesman at the International Chevrolet dealership here took $500 off the sticker price, then threw in easy credit, free insurance and the title fee, she took the plunge. Tello recently became the proud owner of a new Chevy Spark GT. It's the first new car that the 41-year-old elementary school teacher has owned. "I've wanted one for a long time, but the down payment was always too high. Here I found the terms were just what I needed," said Tello, as she drove her sporty red $14,000 compact off the lot. "This will help me with my second job, going around to little towns selling perfumes and cosmetics.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - If you plan to fly somewhere in Brazil on a busy weekend, you'd better be prepared to wait. At some airports, up to a third of the flights can be canceled or delayed. If you choose to drive, you'll sit in traffic. The 50-mile trip from Sao Paulo to nearby beaches for the Carnaval holiday this year took as long as five hours. If you're counting on the planned bullet train between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, good luck with that. It won't be ready when Brazil hosts soccer's 2014 World Cup. In fact, the transportation minister said recently that it won't be operating until 2022, at the earliest.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico picks a president in July, and the winner would be smart to study the lessons of a new film depicting public schools in the country as a giant factory of failure. Classrooms that are crumbling. Pupils who don't understand what they read. Parents who aren't involved. Teachers, often inept, who are protected by a powerful union boss and the politicians who fear her. If this were science class, Mexico's education system might be floating in a jar of formaldehyde, a sorry specimen of how not to prepare young people for the 21st century.

Despite intensified counter-narcotics efforts over the last five years, the military's ability to stop drug smuggling into the U.S. from Latin America has declined as planes and ships have been diverted to combat operations around the globe, according to a senior military officer. As a result, the Navy and Coast Guard are stopping one of three suspected seaborne drug shipments headed to American shores, Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters Wednesday.

"I will be the first woman president of Mexico. " Thus declared Josefina Vazquez Mota on the night this month when she was officially crowned the incumbent party's candidate in upcoming national elections. A former congresswoman and education minister, Vazquez Mota, 51, has eagerly embraced her historic position as Mexico's first female presidential candidate for a major political party. In a contest where she trails the leader by a wide margin, she does not hesitate to play the so-called gender card at chosen moments.

  At first, Lima taxi driver Mario Segura was disgusted by the thought of buying a Chinese-made car. He had doubts about the vehicles' durability, service and resale value. But favorable word of mouth, assurances that spare parts are plentiful and, of course, unbelievably low prices won him over. "Little by little, I heard favorable comments," said Segura, speaking in a Chery showroom in the Surquillo district. He had just plunked down $12,000 in cash for a new Fullwin XR sedan, half the cost, he said, of a comparable Fiat or Renault.

Courting two critical constituencies in the days before the Florida primary, Newt Gingrich reached out to Jewish and Latino voters on Friday and pledged to chart a more aggressive course in the Middle East and Latin America. Addressing a mostly white-haired crowd at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Delray Beach, Gingrich said the United States and Israel would not be safe until Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was no longer in power in Iran. "I believe we need a profoundly new approach to the Middle East," he said.

Buoyed by its prudent fiscal policies and growing global demand for its commodities, Latin America will see solid economic growth in 2010 and 2011, according to new reports issued Wednesday by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The region generally has resisted the ripple effects of the global crisis better than more-developed nations, the institutions said at their joint annual meeting in Washington. That's a marked contrast to past global crises that weighed heavily on Latin American economies.

Pounding surf and corrosive sea air have stymied efforts for years to erect a sturdy fence at the westernmost edge of the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, the U.S. Border Patrol is trying again, with a $4.3-million project that would extend a nearly quarter-mile barrier 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean and remake one of the more scenic spots on the border. When completed early next year, a steel fence 18 feet tall will replace a teetering, gap-riddled barrier that did little to discourage people from crossing back and forth on a wide beach linking Tijuana and Imperial Beach.

Guatemalan voters pick a president Sunday at a moment when deepening drug crime threatens the nation's feeble justice system and doubts hang over both candidates. Rampant violence by encroaching Mexican drug traffickers provides an ominous backdrop to the sharp-elbowed runoff between the front-runner, retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, and congressman Manuel Baldizon, who came in a distant second in the initial round of voting in September. Both men vow aggressive action. The rightist Perez Molina promises to use army troops to attack traffickers and says he will cut the murder rate in half, while the populist Baldizon has called for greater use of the death penalty.