Americas

President Obama vowed Wednesday to use his second term to push forward a “positive agenda” with Latin America, a region that often gets short shrift compared to fast-growing Asia or the turbulent Middle East.

Obama made the remarks on Telemundo just as the White House announced that the president would be making the second trip of his second term to Mexico and Costa Rica after visiting Israel, Jordan and the West Bank earlier this month. The May 2 – 4 trip will be a chance to meet with all the leaders of Central America at the invitation of Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla. Read more...

The trip comes as the U.S. is working on an immigration reform plan that could benefit Mexicans living here illegally.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding that the Organization of American States launch an investigation into the death of Cuban activist Oswaldo Payá last year.

The call follows accusations that the car Payá was riding in was forced off the road by a car with government license plates. His daughter urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to open an investigation earlier this month. 

“Oswaldo Payá was a brave man trying to peacefully advocate for greater political freedom for his fellow Cuban brothers and sisters,” the senators wrote in a letter to Emilio Álvarez Icaza, the executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. “It increasingly looks like he paid for that effort with his life. His memory and his family deserve an honest and independent accounting of what happened.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks represented the United States at Hugo Chavez's funeral and was the only U.S. lawmaker to attend.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) called on the United Nations to launch an official investigation into the death of a prominent Cuban dissident amid new evidence that the Castro regime might have been involved.

Nelson made the request after meeting with Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, a friend of Oswaldo Payá's who is on a three-month world tour and met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Nelson said he was inspired by her testimony as well as recent comments by Payá's driver that the car he was in may have been run off the road by a vehicle with government plates.

“Given this recent account,” Nelson wrote in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, “it is time for the international community to insist that a thorough investigation occur.”

The Obama administration's delay in finalizing an offshore drilling deal with Mexico risks derailing U.S. access to that country's vast natural resources, Republican lawmakers and energy experts charge.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed an agreement with then-President Felipe Calderon last April to allow for joint oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The deal zipped through the Mexican Senate but has languished on this side of the border, leading Republicans to accuse the Obama administration of stalling just as Mexico is considering opening up its creaky energy sector to foreign investment.

“It's time for the administration to act. All they have to do is send the enacting legislation over here and let us act on it, because we're sitting on 'go, ' ” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) told The Hill after a House Foreign Relations committee hearing on energy partnerships with Canada and Mexico.

“Maybe under a new administration, a new secretary over there [at the Department of the Interior], they'll get off their rear-ends and get to work,” he added.

Rep. Ed Royce said the "only rational move" left for the administration is to approve the oil sands pipeline.

The Obama administration is refusing to take sides in the dispute over the Falkland Islands despite a referendum Tuesday where residents voted to remain a British territory.

An overwhelming 99.8 percent of Falkand Island voters cast their ballots in favor of staying British amid renewed sovereignty claims by Argentina. The vote aimed to make the will of the residents clear to Argentina and the rest of the world, but failed to change the position of the United States.

“We've been very clear about what we see in this referendum and the will that's been expressed by the people of the island,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “But that doesn't change the fact that there are competing claims. Our own legal position has not changed.”

Famed Cuban dissident blogger and human-rights activist Yoani Sanchez will make a stop on Capitol Hill as part of her world tour, her representative told lawmakers on Monday.

Sanchez, who is famous for her writings about the realities of life under communism on her blog Generacion Y, was recently granted a passport and the right to leave the island for a three-month international tour. The Castro regime last month eliminated the exit permits that have restricted Cubans' travel abroad for the past five decades.

“Due to the fact that Ms. Sánchez received a number of other invitations from various members of Congress following yours, rather than setting up a series of individual office visits, Ms. Sánchez’s preference is for a single, inclusive, and bi-partisan meeting with interested members of Congress,” Ted Henken, the president of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy at Baruch College, wrote to lawmakers. “She also requests that the meeting be open to members of the press.”

The Obama administration has expelled two junior Venezuelan diplomats in direct response to last week's expulsion of two Americans, the State Department said Monday.

The diplomats are Orlando Jose Montanez Olivares, a second secretary based in Washington, and Victor Camacaro Mata, a consular officer in New York. They were declared personae non gratae on Saturday and have left the country.

“Sometimes it takes us a while to evaluate what has gone down with our personnel and to decide on a response,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “It was a matter of working out who were appropriate people to ask to leave.”