Café Mundo has grown slowly since we started the site in 1999. We have been lucky to find thoughtful travelers and essayists who are helping us achieve our vision of a “virtual coffee shop” where visitors from the Western Hemisphere can share essays, research and opinions. Our thanks to Juan Carlos Morales of Ecuador, Dr. Raul Robles of Guatemala, Ben Gilbert of England, Peter Lippman, Julian Quibell and Dana Platin of the United States for their contributions, photos, and support. We also want to welcome our new translator, Rocio Quiroa of Guatemala, to the team.

In 2008 Sean Barry joined our admin team; helped us re-design the website; and made connections with other adventurers whose stories appear in our "Stories and Articles" section.

A special thanks to Aimee Aguilar for her management of our photo gallery, and her invaluable assistance with translations and website design.

A posthumous acknowledgment to Hamilton the hamster, our night editor, who never learned to type. I will miss our 3:00 a.m. conversations.

If you would like to contribute an essay or research paper please send it to us via the "Submit Your Work" icon on the menu bar at the left of your screen, or e-mail us at rob@cafemundo.net.

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 From time to time we will post links to interesting articles on the web that compliment the themes of this website. Follow the hyperlinks below:

Articles of interest on the web:

 Wave of protests follow Mexico’s crime spike: Activists plan marches in every state, testing Calderon’s presidency

14 Colombian paramilitary warlords extradited to U.S.

Jay Weaver and Tyler Bridges of the Miami Herald

"Colombian President Alvaro Uribe decided to send 14 paramilitary leaders to the U.S. to face drug-trafficking charges... In a nationwide television address, Uribe said that he agreed to the extradition because the paramilitary leaders had been continuing their criminal activities behind bars and had failed to make restitution."

"A second benefit for Uribe, Bagley said, will be showing Democrats in Washington that he means business when he says he wants to break the right-wing paramilitary groups that have been murdering leftist labor leaders. Democratic congressional leaders and their allies in organized labor have cited those murders as a reason for not approving the Free Trade Agreement sought by Uribe and President Bush."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/532200.html

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13 die in Mexico drug battles near U.S. border

msnbc News Service

"President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to Tijuana and Baja California state since taking office in December 2006. Some 25,000 soldiers and federal police are deployed to fight cartels in drug hot spots across Mexico."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24328980/

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Freed American felt like pawn in political game

By Mike Celizic

“Prison is deadly,” he said. “It’s very dangerous ... It just chips away at you a little bit at a time. I saw people die in prison for lack of medical attention or simple neglect.”

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22589336?GT1=10755

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“There Goes the Neighborhood: American clout with its neighbors has hit a new low, warns Mexico’s ex-foreign minister”

Jorge Castañeda

“July 16, 2007 issue – the last week of June was probably the Bush administration’s worst period ever in temrs of Latin America policy. Its nemeses in the hemisphere – Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and perhaps soon Guatemala’s Alvaro Colón and even Argentina’s Néstor Kirchner – form an increasingly cohesive coalition and are reaching out to rogues on other continents….

Most worrying, Chávez also closed a number of arms deals in Russia, including the purchase of five or six submarines, one of which is top-of-the-line; a large number of multipurpose helicopters; more fighter planes, and the construction of a Kalashnikov plant in Maracay… (which) will only supplement the 100,000 AK-47s he purchased from Vladimir Putin last year, many of which have now arrived in Venezuela.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19650866/site/newsweek/

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"A Question of Graft: As gushing petrodollars stick to the wrong hands, corruption threatens the regime of Hugo Chavez"

Phil Gunson

Excerpt: "As part of his commitment to end poverty within 20 years, Chávez has lavished government largess on a plethora of welfare programs mostly devoid of parliamentary oversight or any other supervision. Not surprisingly, vast sums of money have stuck to the wrong hands, and most polls show that corruption now ranks among the top three concerns of ordinary citizens....

In its 2005 survey of perceptions about corruption, the Berlin-based watchdog group Transparency International ranked Venezuela 130th out of 159 countries...."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13989898/site/newsweek/

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“Mexico Goes to War: Calderon's drug crusade is winning fans, but can he win the fight?”

Jorge Castañeda

Excerpt: "There's no question Mexico's drug problem is bad and getting worse. Last year about 2,000 drug-related murders took place, and there have already been over 1,000 so far this year. But Ricardo Clemente Vega, the Defense secretary of Calderón's predecessor, Vicente Fox, refused to throw his troops into the fray..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18753701/site/newsweek/

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“La Violencia en América Latina”

Reuters

Excerpt: "La delincuencia ha elevado los costos de hacer negocios en la región y ha creado temor entre los ejecutivos de trabajar en los países latinoamericanos. La inversión en la región es cada vez más especulativa, y América Latina está perdiendo terreno rápidamente a manos de Asia en cuanto a atraer capital extranjero, dijo el Consejo de las Américas."

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2004/nov04/041127/021n1eco.php?

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“La Máquina de Matar: El Che Guevara, de Agitador Comunista a Marca Capitalista”

Alvaro Vargas Llosa, The New Republic

Excerpt: "Considérese a algunos de los individuos que recientemente han blandido o invocado el retrato de Guevara como un emblema de justicia y rebelión contra el abuso de poder. En el Líbano, unos manifestantes que protestaban en contra de Siria ante la tumba del ex primer ministro Rafiq Hariri portaban la imagen del Che. Thierry Henry, un jugador de fútbol francés que juega para el Arsenal, en Inglaterra, se apareció en una importante velada de gala organizada por la FIFA, el organismo del fútbol mundial, vistiendo una remera roja y negra del Che. En una reciente reseña publicada en The New York Times sobre Land of the Dead de George A. Romero, Manohla Dargis destacaba que "el mayor impacto aquí puede ser el de la transformación de un zombi negro en un virtuoso líder revolucionario," y agregó: "Creo que el Che en verdad vive, después de todo."

www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1535