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Para ver esta página en español, oprima aquí. HUD: Anti-Corruption Plan InadequateDTPW Wants $350M For Urban TrainHillary To Ask Bill To Put Bombing On HoldLeaders Hail Clinton DecisionU.S. To Study Vieques Health ProblemsDeath Penalty Applicable To P.R.Calderon Meets With GreenGordon Alleges Misinformation CampaignLeaders Again Ask Clinton For ActionAcevedo Vila Takes Second OathRumsfeld Highlights Vieques' ImportanceAponte New PRFAA HeadVieques In EU Uranium Review***** HUD Inspector General: P.R. Anti-Corruption Plan Inadequate January 18, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Inspector General Susan Gaffney told the U.S. Congress that the anti-corruption plan established for the Puerto Rico Public Housing Administration (PHA) is inadequate. "That is not the type of immediate and decisive action that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) had expected given the flagrant fraud, waste, and abuse that victimized residents of the PHA, as well as taxpayers," said Gaffney in her semi-annual report on HUD sent to the Congress this week. ***** DTPW Asks Federal Government For $350 Million For Urban Train January 18, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - Department of Transportation and Public Works Secretary-designate Jose Izquierdo asked the federal government for an allocation of $350 million for the Minillas extension of the Urban Train. The Minillas extension will run from Sagrado Corazon to Minillas in Santurce. The total cost is $500 million. ***** Hillary Clinton To Ask President To Put Vieques Bombing On Hold January 17, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday promised Puerto Rico's governor she would ask President Bill Clinton to halt U.S. Navy bombing on Vieques island until a health study is completed. "Today, I am asking the president to order a cessation of all bombing and shelling until the Department of Health and Human Services submits the report of its findings," Sen. Clinton said in the letter to Gov. Sila Calderon. President Clinton leaves office Saturday. Sen. Clinton said she also would ask the incoming administration of George W. Bush to halt the exercises. The Navy does not have any exercises planned on the island in the immediate future. ***** Leaders Hail Clinton Decision On Vieques Health Study January 17, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) — Political and religious leaders on Wednesday agreed that President Bill Clinton's order for a study on the health effects of the U.S. Navy's military practices on Vieques residents is "a step in the right direction." Clinton's action effectively postponed military practices until March, when President-elect George W. Bush will be in power. "I think it's magnificent that President Clinton ordered this study to delve into the findings of our study and the concerns of Puerto Ricans. This shows the seriousness of this issue, and I think it's very good that we've found a response from the U.S. president," said Gov. Sila M. Calderon. ***** U.S. To Study Vieques Health Problems Blamed On Bombings January 16, 2001 Washington - The White House announced Tuesday that the Health Department will investigate reports on health problems of residents on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques to determine if Navy exercises were to blame. The Health Department must present, by the end of February, a preliminary report on claims stating that Vieques residents suffer from vibroacoustic disease and a high rate of cancer, according to Jeffrey Farrow, President Clinton's advisor on Puerto Rico. ***** U.S. Justice Dept.: Death Penalty Applicable To The Island January 16, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - The U.S. Department of Justice said the death penalty is applicable to federal crimes on the island because it has been established that the local government cannot circumvent federal laws. In a 57-page document filed in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, the department rebutted the arguments of U.S. District Court Judge Salvador Casellas ruling on a case against two defendants accused of kidnapping and murdering a businessman in Trujillo Alto, according to published reports. Casellas had stated that the federal government cannot impose the death penalty in Puerto Rico because Puerto Ricans had no say in the drafting of the law. He also said that it violated the Law of Federal Relations and the Commonwealth Constitution, both approved by the U.S. Congress. ***** Calderon And U.S. Navy Chief Meet To Discuss Vieques January 16, 2001 San Juan -Puerto Rican Gov. Sila Calderon met with Adm. Kevin Green, chief of U.S. naval operations in Puerto Rico, to discuss an end to U.S. military maneuvers at the naval bombing range on the island municipality of Vieques. At their meeting Monday at La Fortaleza Calderon shared with Green the results of a study that appeared to indicate that Vieques Island residents suffer from "rare" cardiovascular anomalies resulting from their exposure to military live-fire exercises. ***** Gordon Says Study Part Of Misinformation Campaign Against Navy BY JOHN McPHAUL January 15, 2001 Special to The Herald SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Gov. Sila María Calderón on Monday revealed the results of a study that found heart damage among residents of Vieques due to the U.S. Navy's bombardment of the tiny island. According to the study, the damage is caused by sonic booms from ship-to-shore shelling that lands on the island's target range. Saying he had not yet read it, Navy spokesman Lt. Jeff Gordon said the study sounded like part of what he called ``a misinformation campaign against the Navy presence in Vieques.'' ``We have seen a barrage of apparently politically motivated, intellectually dishonest or flatly wrong anti-Navy studies over the last two years, [and] none have survived scientific peer reviews or held up in court,'' Gordon said. Gordon said noise levels at population areas on the island of 9,000 residents fall within federal standards. ***** Three Political Leaders Again Ask Clinton For Action On Vieques By Proviana Colon Diaz of PuertoRicoWOW News Service January 15, 2001 SAN JUAN — In response to a study showing dire health problems among Vieques residents, all three island party presidents issued a second letter to President Bill Clinton on Monday asking him to order the halt of military practices in that island municipality. "The alarming scientific results, whose pathology is known as vibroacoustic disease, warrant, at a minimum, an order from you as Commander in Chief of the Navy calling for the immediate cessation of all U.S. Navy military maneuvers in Vieques," said the letter signed by Gov. Sila Calderon, New Progressive Party (NPP) Interim President Norma Burgos, and Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) President Ruben Berrios. ***** Acevedo Vila Takes Second Oath Of Office By Proviana Colon Diaz of PuertoRicoWOW News Service January 15, 2001 In an unprecedented ceremony, Resident Commissioner Anibal Acevedo Vila took a second oath of office in Puerto Rico on Monday. During the event, Acevedo Vila received the ring of San Juan Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez, who repeated the actions of the only Puerto Rican archbishop under Spanish rule, who in 1809 gave his ring to the first island delegate to the Spanish Courts. ***** Rumsfeld Highlights Vieques' Importance To Navy January 12, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - U.S. Secretary of Defense-designate Donald Rumsfeld believes Vieques "is a very important place" and the only one in the eastern coast where key military practices with live fire can be held, according to published reports. Rumsfeld said inert ammunition exercises, as those being performed in Vieques now, "are not an adequate substitute for live fire training." He added that it's possible they won't be able to find an adequate substitute for Vieques. ***** Calderon Appoints New PRFAA Head By Proviana Colon Diaz of PuertoRicoWOW News Service January 11, 2001 SAN JUAN — 01/11/00 - Gov. Sila Calderon on Thursday appointed attorney Mari Carmen Aponte to head the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA). Calderon praised Aponte's qualifications to head PRFAA, since she has some 20 years as a litigating attorney in Washington, D.C. Aponte said her first priorities at PRFAA would be to educate the incoming administration of President George W. Bush on matters pertaining to Puerto Rico and inform them that the issues affecting Puerto Ricans are the same affecting any minority in the States. Although she acknowledged that working with a Republican administration will be difficult, she said she is confident that she will be able to obtain benefits for Puerto Rico. ***** P.R. Asks EU To Include Vieques In Uranium Review BY LILLIAM IRIZARRY January 11, 2001 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Puerto Rico's government plans to ask the European Union to include the U.S. Navy bombing range on Vieques island in its investigation of the effects of depleted uranium, a senator announced Thursday. The Navy has acknowledged that during training in 1999 for the Kosovo assault it fired 263 depleted uranium-tipped bullets, of which it recovered 57, on the training range on Vieques, an island of 9,400 residents. The Navy said it was an accident. It's against federal law to use the armor-piercing ammunition, which contains slightly radioactive depleted uranium, on such exercises. U.S. Navy spokesman Jeff Gordon said he resented the comparison of the use of the ammunition in the Balkans to the incident on Vieques. "In Kosovo, NATO shot 31,000 bullets only meters from people, and here in Vieques there were only 263 that were more than 9 miles away from the population," Gordon said.
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