Mexico celebrates 200 years with huge fiesta,Viva Mexico!

MEXICO CITY  Mexico looked beyond its drug war to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional independence cry: “Viva Mexico!”Across the capital, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets despite their fears, blowing horns and dancing alongside a parade of serpent floats, marching cacti and 13-foot-tall warrior marionettes and staying late into the night at open-air concerts.President Felipe Calderon capped the evening by ringing the original independence bell from a balcony in the Zocalo square and delivering “El Grito,” patterned on founding father Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 call to arms against Spain: “Long live independence. Love live the bicentennial … Long live Mexico!”Roaring thousands echoed his cry as fireworks exploded in the square and at the iconic Angel of Independence about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) down the city’s crowded main promenade.

“I love being Mexican!” said Michel Dosal, wearing a green, white and red Mohawk wig. “The 15th of September is better than Christmas. It’s better than my birthday!”In cities where drug violence is heaviest, festivities were more subdued. The grito was canceled in Ciudad Juarez for the first time in its history. People still showed their patriotism in the border city – Mexico’s most violent – by hanging Mexican flags from their roofs and hosting family dinners.

In the western city of Morelia, the scene of a cartel-related grenade attack that killed eight during the 2008 independence celebration, barely 2,000 showed up at the main plaza for a “grito” that once drew tens of thousands.”My son asked me to take him to see the grito, so I brought him despite my fears,” said Silvia Godinez Perez, a secretary. “We can’t easily forget what happened two years ago.”

But in Mexico City, a $40 million fiesta, two years in the making, drew people from across the country to the main Reforma Avenue and Zocalo. Moments before Calderon emerged on the balcony of the National Palace, a voice boomed from loudspeakers: “Let’s show the world that Mexico is strong and standing.””This one is special,” said Iris Mari Rodriguez Montiel, a small business owner who had traveled from the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz and waited since morning for the festivities to start. “It gives me chills just to think about it.”

Little girls wearing ribbons of the Mexican flag watched the 1.7-mile (2.7-kilometer) parade down Reforma from the shoulders of their fathers. Other children blew trumpets as the air filled with confetti.”It’s like a Carnival of Rio, plus an Olympic ceremony, plus Woodstock all put together in the same day,” said artistic director Marco Balich, who produced the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. “For the cost of a warplane, you can celebrate the birthday of a country.”

Several neighboring heads of state and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis attended.Still, anxiety hovered over the festivities in a country that most recently has seen car bombs, the assassination of a gubernatorial candidate, and the massacre of 72 migrants who refused to smuggle drugs for a brutal gang.Military helicopters buzzed overhead in the capital, heavily armed federal agents and metal detectors greeted revelers.

The Interior Department said there were no attacks against the celebrations. Prosecutors in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun said they were investigating whether six men detained with assault rifles and hand grenades had planned an assault on bicentennial festivities. In northern Nuevo Leon state, eight gunmen were killed in a shootout with soldiers, authorities said.”In Mexico, we all live in fear. And the worst part is that we are starting to get used to it,” said Eric Limon, 33, a professional dancer who volunteered to wear a jaguar mask and swing a colorful Aztec club and spear for the parade.

“I want to be part of something important,” he said. “I know this won’t solve our problems, but this is my grain of sand to create a sense of unity. This is what Mexico needs.”Those who stayed away from the city center celebrated from their rooftops and staged their own neighborhood fireworks displays. All night long, rockets whistled and boomed skyward, blanketing the yards and streets with smoke.(AP)

Fidel Castro speaks to avoid a nuclear war

Former President Fidel Castro addressed Cuba’s parliament in his first public government act in four years Saturday, and appealed to world leaders, including President Barack Obama, to avoid a nuclear war.The return of the veteran 83-year-old Cuban revolutionary to the National Assembly, transmitted live by Cuban state television, crowned a spate of recent public appearances after a long period of seclusion due to illness.

It was his first participation in a public government meeting since 2006, when intestinal surgery forced a lengthy absence. It was bound to revive speculation he might be seeking a more active role again in communist-ruled Cuba’s leadership.In 2008, he formally handed over the presidency of the Caribbean country to his younger brother Raul Castro.

The bearded leader of Cuba’s revolution, who retains his parliament seat and the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party, dressed in long-sleeved green military fatigues, but without rank insignias, for the session.After being helped to walk in and being greeted by a standing ovation and shouts of “Viva Fidel,” he used the meeting to expound again his recent warnings that U.S. pressure against Iran could push the world to a nuclear conflagration.

In a 12-minute prepared speech delivered in a firm but sometimes halting voice, he urged world leaders to persuade Obama not to unleash a nuclear strike against Iran.Castro said such an attack could occur if Iran resisted U.S. and Israeli efforts to enforce international sanctions against it for its nuclear activities.

“Obama wouldn’t give the order if we persuade him … we’re making a contribution to this positive effort,” he told the special assembly session, which had been requested by him.He said he was sure that China and “the Soviets” — an apparent reference to Russia, the former Soviet Union — did not want a world nuclear war and would work to avoid it.

Castro also referred to the case of one of five convicted Cuban spies jailed in the United States, Gerardo Hernandez, saying he hoped his wife would be allowed to visit him or that he could even be released.President Raul Castro also attended the assembly session, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt. Deputies made observations on Castro’s speech, congratulating him and agreeing with him.

But Fidel Castro later appeared to tire after exchanging views with the deputies, and Cuban parliament head Ricardo Alarcon suggested ending the session after 1-1/2 hours.”That’s what I have to say, comrades, nothing more, I hope we can meet again at another time,” Castro said in brief closing remarks in which he asked whether the parliamentarians had obtained copies of his new book, “The Strategic Victory,” on the guerrilla war that brought him to power in 1959.The session finished with applause.

“BACK IN ACTION”

“I’ve been watching Fidel, he looks the same as ever, looks well,” said Graciela Hernandez, a 67-year-old Cuban pensioner who saw Castro on television. “He’s got better and he’s back in action. Fidel’s a real (Don) Quixote,” she said.”It’s a rebirth. It’ll give us strength to continue the struggle,” Graciela Biscet, 43, an assembly deputy from Santiago de Cuba, told reporters.Following his 2006 illness, Fidel Castro disappeared from public view and was only seen occasionally in photographs and videos. But since July 7, he has emerged from four years of seclusion and has made several public appearances.

Analysts and Cuba-watchers have given varied interpretations of what the recent spate of Fidel Castro appearances might mean.Some say the legendary comandante’s influence has remained strong on the Cuban leadership, and that this has put a brake on more liberalizing reforms of Cuba’s socialist system, or on any attempts to improve relations with the United States, which maintains a trade embargo against the island.

But others argue his appearances are intended to show support for his younger brother Raul as the latter tries to revive the stagnated economy with cautious reforms and steer Cuba out of a severe economic crisis.

Others say the veteran statesman may just want to get back into the limelight.Fidel Castro, who has also predicted a U.S. clash with North Korea, urged Obama Wednesday to avoid a nuclear war, which he had described as “now virtually inevitable.”

The former president has met Cuban diplomats, economists and intellectuals over the last month, as well as visiting the national aquarium and launching his new book.

But Fidel Castro has remained mute, at least in public, on the cautious domestic reform policies of his younger brother, which included a recent announcement that more self-employed workers would be allowed in the state-dominated economy.He has, however, kept up regular commentaries since 2007 on international affairs, published by state media. These focus especially on his favorite subjects, such as his views on the threat to humanity posed by U.S.-led capitalism and by global warming.(Reuters)

Mexico The death toll from last month's devastating earthquake in Haiti could jump to 300,000 people

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico The death toll from last month’s devastating earthquake in Haiti could jump to 300,000 people, including the bodies buried under collapsed buildings in the capital, Haitian President Rene Preval said on Sunday.”You have seen the images you are familiar with the pictures. More than 200,000 bodies were collected on the streets without counting those that are still under the rubble,” Preval told a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Mexico. “We might reach 300,000 people.”

That would make Haiti’s earthquake one of the most lethal natural disasters in modern history, more than the 200,000 people killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.The cost of rebuilding the impoverished country after the 7.0-magnitude quake could be as high as $14 billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.Preval’s plea for aid will be at the top of the agenda at the regional summit being held near the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen.

With 250,000 houses destroyed and 1.5 million people living in tent camps made with bed sheets and plastic scraps in nearly every open space in the collapsed capital of Port-au-Prince, Preval said the most urgent need is for emergency shelter.Aid workers worry that squalid conditions in the camps, many which have no latrines or source of clean water, could lead to disease outbreaks when the rainy season begins in earnest in March.”The first rainy days that have started falling in Port-au-Prince have made it impossible to enjoy a dignified life and this is the reason for the request for shelters,” Preval said.

Looking ahead to a meeting with international donors to determine the overall shape of rebuilding plans, Preval suggested Haiti should decentralize away from Port-au-Prince, which suffered the heaviest damages.”We will not try to reconstruct but rather to refound the country, where we don’t concentrate ourselves in one capital,” Preval said. He encouraged Latin American countries to step up investments in industry to help Haiti free itself from dependence on international aid.(Reuters)