Yahoo! June 15, 2000
Miami Relatives Appeal Elian Case
By Russ Bynum, Associated Press Writer.
ATLANTA. 14 (AP) - Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives asked the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to reverse a decision that would allow the 6-year-old boy to return home to Cuba with his father.
A three-judge panel of the 12-member court ruled two weeks ago that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had the right to deny the boy an asylum hearing requested by his relatives. The ruling blocked Elian from returing to Cuba immediately, giving the relatives two weeks to appeal.
The appeal filed Thursday says the panel's decision conflicts with earlier rulings made by the Supreme Court regarding the power of a government agency to interpret laws. The appeal also claims the panel ignored the federal law that it argues allows any alien - even a child acting against his
parents' wishes - to appeal for asylum.
Lawyers for the family said they hope the full court would agree to hear the appeal and overrule the panel's decison. There was no immediate indication when the court would make the decision on the request for a hearing.
``Based on direction of other courts in this country, we think there's a very compelling case of the entire 11th Circuit to reconsider its past views,'' attorney Kendall Coffey said.
The federal government was ``just simply trying to appease to Fidel Castro and the Cuban government'' in its handling of the Elian case, said Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, another attorney for the family.
In its decision, the appeals panel said no federal law addresses whether a child as young as Elian can seek asylum against the wishes of his parents. Because of that, the court said, INS was required to come up with a policy dealing with ``the extraordinary circumstances'' of the case.
The appeal says the panel used the wrong standard to evaluate the INS decision that Elian was not entitled to an asylum hearing.
The judges cited a 1984 Supreme Court ruling - known as the Chevron case - that set the standard for what deference federal courts must give to decisions made by federal agencies. The justices said courts can't interfere if an agency makes a reasonable interpretation of an ambigous law.
But the appeal says that the panel ignored a Supreme Court ruling last month that says many agency decisions ``including those in opinion letters, ... policy statements, agency manuals and enforcement guidelines'' lack the force of law and aren't entitled to the same deference as decisions made
after a formal rulemaking process.
That May 1 Supreme Court ruling came in a Texas case in which the justices said public employers can force employees to take compensatory time off at specific times.
The appeal says the INS decision was not made after a formal rulemaking process and therefore can be overturned by a court.
If the relatives' strategy fails, it is unclear how soon Elian could return to Cuba. A court order requiring Elian to stay in the United States could be extended if the court decides to rehear the appeal.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, wants to take his son back to Cuba and end the seven-month saga that began Thanksgiving Day.
Elian was rescued off the Florida coast after his mother and 10 other Cubans drowned when their boat sank in an attempt to reach the United States.
The father arrived in the United States with Elian's stepmother and half brother on April 6 in hopes of soon taking Elian home. Miami relatives refused to relinquish the boy, so federal agents seized him April 22 and reunited him with his father in the Washington area.
On the Net:
Appeals Court: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov
Immigration and Naturalization Service: http://www.ins.usdoj.gov
Site of Miami relatives: http://www.libertyforelian.org
Report Details How Lifting US Food and Medical Embargo on Cuba Would Create Jobs, Benefit Depressed Regions of US
SOURCE: World Policy Institute. Company Press Release. Thursday June 15, 9:04 am Eastern Time
Food and Medical Exports Could Reach $1.6 Billion with 20,000 Jobs
WASHINGTON, June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time in the 40-year history of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a report released today measures the economic impact easing the embargo on food and medical products to Cuba would have on the US economy including particular states and jobs. The report
was authored by prominent economist and trade specialist The Honorable Paula Stern, Ph.D., a former Chairwoman of the U.S. International Trade Commission and current President of The Stern Group, Inc., a Washington DC trade and economics consulting firm. The report was released at a daylong
conference in Washington DC sponsored by the World Policy Institute's Cuba Education Project.
``The aggregate of the food and medical exports to Cuba could amount to $444 million and approximately 6,000 associated U.S. jobs under partial liberalization. In a scenario of unrestricted trade, the aggregate of food and medical exports could amount to $1.6 billion with 20,000 associated U.S.
jobs,'' Dr. Stern told a packed audience of Congress members, their staff and corporate and trade association representatives in the Longworth House Office Building. ``Political factors on both sides heavily dictate the speed and amount of any beneficial effect. US regulations are one thing, the
other is Cuba's practical commitment to economic reform.''
Dr. Stern's report, The Impact on the U.S. Economy of Lifting the Food and Medical Embargo on Cuba analyzes the potential beneficial effects on the United States economy of removing unilateral agricultural and medical sanctions on commercial exports to Cuba, as proposed in H.R.4461 and S.2536,
both introduced in Spring 2000, and passed out of committee as part of respective agriculture appropriations bills. The pending legislation exempts commercial sales of agricultural and medical products from current and future U.S. unilateral sanctions.
``The research shows allowing food and medical sales to Cuba is important to select regions, ports, producers, manufacturers, and providers of transportation services of the US. It appears the benefit of such sales would be concentrated in agricultural areas of the U.S. that tend to need new
markets most and for whom Cuba is a natural market, ''Lissa Weinmann, Director of the Cuba Education Project at the World Policy Institute said.
``Even assuming no growth in the size of Cuba's imported food market, the U.S. could sell $420 million worth of agricultural products to Cuba using a conservative market share of 60%,'' Dr. Stern said. The U.S. share of the Cuban market in 1958 was 70%. The report says remittances from Cuban-
Americans to Cuba, between $500 million and $800 million annually, and the growth of the self-employed in Cuba adds to potential US sales.
``U.S. wheat, feed grains, rice, vegetable oil, beans, poultry, pork, beef, and dairy products would be the likely beneficiaries of a liberalized regime by the American and Cuban governments. U.S. products would originate mostly from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas,'' Dr. Stern said. Transportation beneficiaries would include shippers -- steamship firms, railroads, tugboat, barge, longshoremen and trucking companies, as well as ports, including New Orleans, Lake Charles, and Baton Rouge in Louisiana; Corpus Christi,
Houston, and Galveston in Texas; Gulfport and Pascagoula in Mississippi; and Birmingham and Mobile in Alabama.``
The World Policy Institute at the New School University in New York City is a research and education policy center that seeks innovative solutions to critical problems facing the United Sates and the world. Please Call the contact number above to receive Dr. Stern's report or additional
information.
IAPA: Cuba, Others Face Press Woes
By Michael Astor, Associated Press Writer.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil 14 (AP) - The press is seriously restricted in Cuba but it faces problems in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru as well, the president of the Inter American Press Association said Wednesday.
Cuba has had a long history of harassing, intimidating and restricting the press, Tony Pederson told a gathering of 1,400 editors and journalists. But he said the problems have increased since the government began taking a tougher line against independent journalists last year.
In Venezuela, Peru and Colombia, threats to independent press, though much less serious, are still troubling, he told the IAPA members from across the Americas.
``We have long passed the days of governments closing newspapers and jailing editors for no reason. But what we are seeing now are pressures much more subtle,'' Pederson said citing repressive and restrictive press laws, lawsuits and even economic harassment and manipulation of government
advertising.
In Venezuela, measures passed by President Hugo Chavez's government have had negative consequences for the press, he said.
In Peru, Pederson said ``the government of Alberto Fujimori has continued to show lack of regard for press freedom.''
Pederson cited the case of Israeli-born Baruch Ivcher, who lost his Peruvian citizenship and consequentially his TV station after his reporters broadcast reports implicating the government in torture.
Murder also remains a popular means of silencing journalists across much of Latin America, with some 200 killed over the last decade.
More than half of those killings occurred in Colombia, making it the most dangerous country in the world for the press, he said.
Castro Distributes Union Cards
HAVANA, 14 (AP) - President Fidel Castro and other top leaders bestowed identification cards upon new members of Cuba's Union of Young Communists during a ceremony held on the 72nd birthday of Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara, the late revolutionary.
``To be a communist is not just the simple act of having an identification card,'' 9th grade student Dayron Roque said in a speech outside the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here. ``To be a communist is to be combative, solid.''
The identification cards traditionally are given on historic dates important to Cuba's communist government. Leaders distributed 15,000 cards Wednesday.
Born in Argentina on June 14, 1928, Guevara was 39 when he was killed in Bolivia in October 1967. Guevara fought in the Cuban revolution, later obtained Cuban citizenship and became a minister in Castro's new revolutionary government. He remains a revered figure here, especially among young
people.
Membership in the youth organization is seen as an important step toward eventual membership in the Communist Party of Cuba.
``You have to keep fighting,'' Castro told the teen-agers and young adults at the end of the commemoration ceremony attended by several thousand people.
Similar ceremonies were held around the island on Wednesday in honor of Guevara, an avowed Marxist who helped found the Union of Young Communists 38 years ago.
US Urges Zimbabwe on Cuban Doctors
By Harry Dunphy, Associated Press Write.
WASHINGTON, 14 (AP) - The United States is urging Zimbabwe to live up to its international obligations and free two Cuban doctors who have been given U.S. refugee status.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday the government of the southern African nation appears to be violating international law by detaining the doctors.
``We've called for the government of Zimbabwe to meet its obligations under the Geneva Convention,'' Boucher said. ``That would mean immediately releasing these doctors to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.''
If the agency determined the doctors had a legitimate claim to persecution, Boucher said, it could arrange for their resettlement in a third country.
``That's the process that needs to be followed,'' Boucher said. ``The ongoing detention does appear to be against international law.''
He said the United States so far has not received a satisfactory answer from Zimbabwe on the case. He said he did not know if U.S. Ambassador Thomas McDonald discussed the matter in talks Tuesday with Zimbabwe officials.
Officials at Zimbabwe's Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment on Boucher's remarks.
The doctors were interviewed last week by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service official who had flown to Zimbabwe from Kenya.
Earlier, an official from the U.N. agency confirmed that the doctors, Leonel Cordova Rodriguez and Noris Pena Martinez, were entitled to refugee status under international rules.
The doctors were part of a Cuban 152-member Cuban medical mission in Zimbabwe.
Their case gained international attention when they were kidnapped last week by Zimbabwe security officers after their intention to defect became known.
Zimbabwe authorities attempted to have them flown back to Cuba but the doctors foiled the plan with the help of a note alerting an Air France crew member that they were being kidnapped.
Cuba has denounced the two Cubans but denied any involvement in the kidnapping. It has said that Zimbabwe had a right to make such decisions.
SYNGE.com Announces Elian Gonzalez Online Going-Away Party
Company Press Release. SOURCE: SYNGE.com. Wednesday June 14, 2:30 pm Eastern Time
SYNGE.com to Host a Two-Hour, Internet-Only 'Adios, Elian: The Official Going-Away Party' on June 29, 2000
COSTA MESA, Calif., June 14 /PRNewswire/ -- SYNGE.com, a premier pop culture destination, today announced an Internet-only, two-hour going-away party for Elian Gonzalez, the six-year-old Cuban boy who captured the nation's attention when he was rescued from the waters off Miami on Thanksgiving
Day in 1999. The online event, which was planned following the announcement of an estimated end-of-June departure for Gonzalez by the U.S. State Department, will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. PST on June 29 at http://www.synge.com/elian.
``We don't want to take a side on this issue, but do believe it's time for the entire Elian episode to disappear. Since the State Department decided it was judicious for Elian to be returned to his family, we thought it would be nice to throw a going away party for him,'' said event coordinator
Leslie Drechsler. The special event site touches on some of the lesser known stories and facts that have escaped the media -- including an exclusive interview with Swami Moi-Ra Dove, a self-proclaimed telepathist who claims Elian is an alien (of the E.T. kind). The event site also features
inflatable raft product reviews, Cuban recipes, trivia and quizzes, polls, and chats. Visitors to the site can also explore an interactive timeline and family tree, complete with arresting photos, stunning illustrations, and previously unknown facts.
According to some estimates, this tug of war has cost Cuba and the U.S. upwards of US$724 million. That's enough to feed the 2 million people who live in Havana for an entire year. ``A year and a half maybe, if they eat frugally,'' added Drechsler.
About SYNGE.com
SYNGE.com is a premier pop culture destination for young adults and one of the most demographically targeted online communities on the Internet -- young adults aged 18 through 34. Using an edgy, humorous style, SYNGE.com features six channel centers including sex, entertainment, music, money &
career, interviews, and vice. The destination site offers original editorial content, solutions, and entertainment for its demographic group. The Web site can be found on the Internet at http://www.synge.com.
For further information, please contact: Liz Marek of SYNGE.com, 714-429-0838, lizm@hq.synge.com.
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