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Para ver esta página en español, oprima aquí. Gutierrez Says NPP Necessary For Status ConsensusProfessor Resigns From Cancer StudyCalderon Nixes Culebra SubstituteBush Submits Plan For Vieques' $40 MillionMisla Aldarondo Denounces CutsCalderon Appoints New Drug Director***** Gutierrez Supports Unity And Consensus Commission April 9, 2001 SAN JUAN - Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill) supported Gov. Sila Calderon's initiative to establish a Unity and Consensus Commission to deal with the status issue. Nevertheless, he was very straightforward in adding that without the participation of statehooders the commission won't have any results. "I cannot visualize a process for self-determination without the participation of New Progressive Party (NPP) representatives," Gutierrez added. NPP President Leonides Diaz Urbina has said on behalf of the NPP members that they will not participate in any kind of effort that does not have guaranties from the U.S. Congress. Guttierrez argued that the only thing that will move the Congress to resolve the status issue in the island would be a consensus movement. The congressman urged Calderon to insist in integrating the NPP to the commission because this mechanism could define the political relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. At the same time, Gutierrez supported the Constituent Assembly as a mechanism to solve the status adding that this assembly should demand Congress that once a majority of the Puerto Rican people reaches a decision, it should be final. ***** UPR Professor Resigns From Cancer Study Group April 9, 2001 SAN JUAN - Cruz Manzano Nazario, associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico Public Health Graduated School dropped out of the group in charge of the studies on the incidence of cancer in Vieques due to a disagreement with the way the government wants the study to be done. The professor said government officials have been pressuring the group of researchers to have the results as soon as possible. Manzano Nazario decided not to participate in the research claiming no one can responsibly design a study with the sole purpose of ousting the U.S. Navy from Vieques. "The study has to tell us what is causing the cancer in Vieques," the professor said. ***** Calderon Nixes Plan For Culebra Substitute April 7, 2001 SAN JUAN -- Puerto Rico 's governor on Saturday said she disapproved of a plan to evacuate the tiny island of Culebra and offer it as an alternative site for the controversial U.S. Navy bombing range on Vieques Island. Gov. Sila Calderon said the proposal by a member of her Popular Democratic Party was not being considered by her administration. William Miranda Marin - who is Caguas mayor and a leader of the Popular Democratic Party - on Friday proposed evacuating the approximately 1,500 year-round residents on Culebra and renting the island to the U.S. Navy for its bombing exercises. In exchange, Puerto Rico - a U.S. territory - could demand greater political autonomy from the U.S. and billions of dollars in annual federal payments for upcoming years to be paid in advance, he said. ***** Bush Submits Plan For Vieques' $40 Million April 7, 2001 SAN JUAN (AP) - The plans for the use of $40 million of federal funds to Vieques legislated by the Clinton administration was sent to Congress by the Bush administration. The proposal was sent by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget director through a letter dated March 29 to U.S. Senate Resources Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, according to published reports. At least $1.6 million will be set aside for Vieques health studies and the preparation of a Cancer Registry by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. ***** Misla Aldarondo Denounces Million-Dollar Cut To Priority Areas By Proviana Colon Diaz April 7, 2001 NPP Minority Leader Edison Misla Aldarondo said Gov. Sila M. Calderon uses a campaign of "fear" regarding the alleged financial crisis faced by her administration to cut $800 million from at least nine important areas of the central government budget. "There is no strategy and no imagination, only pessimism, which is creating chaos and fear in the financial sector," Misla Aldarondo said. The veteran legislator specified the areas that were cut as the Health Department, from which $300 million was taken off the Health Reform card program; the Commonwealth Comptroller's Office, which was assigned $3 million less than last year's budget; and the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, which faces a cut of $187.9 million. In addition, Misla Aldarondo denounced that the areas used by Calderon for her political campaign, such as the island's natural resources and the education of the youth, are also being affected by the budget cuts. "The council for scholarships and educational help, which had an assigned budget of $54 million, is reduced to only $14 million, a $40 million deduction. The person who promised to strengthen the educational development of our children and the youth now forgets her words and cuts their funds," Misla Aldarondo added. ***** Calderon Appoints New Drug Control Office Director By Proviana Colon Diaz April 6, 2001 Gov. Sila Calderon appointed Carolina Superior Court Judge Osvaldo Rivera Cianchini as director for the Drug Control Office on Friday. Rivera Cianchini fills the controversial post that became available after Calderon's first choice, Col. Jorge Collazo, asked that his nomination be withdrawn. Collazo made his decision amidst complaints from all pro-independence groups and the members of the New Progressive Party over his confessed practice of keeping intelligence dossiers against people based solely on their political beliefs. For the past six years, Rivera Cianchini has been running the Carolina Judicial Center's drug court program. The program, created by the original U.S. drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, seeks to rehabilitate drug addicts rather than sentence them to prison.
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