Archive - Apr 29, 2009

• Infant first swine flu casualty in the U.S.
• Supreme Court considers Vote Rights Act
• Border deaths increasing
• Violence in El Salvador fueled by violence
• Japanese-Brazilians caught up in global recession

• US economy contracts again
• Obama calls for end of crack/cocaine sentencing disparity
• Accused Lebanon PM assassins released
• African states give Zimbabwe $400 million lifeline
• Canadian gold mining company raises ire of protesters

A 23 month-old infant is the first known casualty of the swine flu in the United States. The Texas toddler died in Houston Monday night from pneumonia caused by the flu – government officials confirmed Tuesday that at least 91 people around the nation are carrying the virus, also known as A/H1 N1. The infant arrived in the Texas border city of Brownsville after crossing from Matamoros, just over the U.S.-Mexican line. The Health and Human Services Department, along with the Centers for Disease Control, have created a website where you can read more about planning and preparing for the spread of this virus: www.pandmicflu.gov.

The Supreme Court heard a crucial case on the Voting Rights Act today. The high court could decide to roll back the landmark legislation that has improved access to the polls for minority voters. FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell was at today’s oral arguments and files this report

Recent figures indicate at least 128 people died attmpeting to cross the Mexican border with the U.S. during a 6 month period ending in March. Federal officials admit that high counts of deaths year after year, including more than 500 in 2005, don’t correspond to an increase in people attempting to cross the border. As John Han reports, some say statistics are proof the U.S. should reform its border policies.

Increasingly high levels of violence are creating a security crisis in El Salvador. Ricardo Martinez is in San Salvador, where he takes a look at the weak economy, coupled with deportations from the United States -- both are fueling a hub of violence in Central America.

Some one hundred years ago, a wave of poor Japanese migrants resettled in Brazil to work on coffee plantations.  Today, their descendants number around one million, and are one of Brazil’s most successful minority groups. In the 1990s, Japan offered these descendents work visas and close to 300,000 Japanese-Brazilians have since returned to their ancestral homeland.  FSRN’s Jason Strother is in Nagoya where he reports that now, due to the global economic recession, many are heading back to Brazil.