Tens of thousands of fans poured into the streets of Baghdad on Wednesday in celebrations that lasted well after dark -- a novelty in the violent capital. Why? Because Brazilian Jorvan Vieira is coming back to coach Iraq's national soccer team.

Saif Rasheed and Tina Susman on the L.A. Times' Babylon & Beyond blog have the story:

The stale-smelling room where U.S. and Iraqi officials hold most press conferences is not normally stuffed with giddy reporters, but the ones who gathered there Wednesday to hear that Brazilian Jorvan Vieira was coming back to coach Iraq's national soccer team made no attempt to hide their excitement.

Iraq is mad for soccer, especially in light of the country's unexpected victory in July 2007 at the Asian Cup under Vieira's guidance. In the midst of some of their country's most violent days, and as Iraq's political leaders showed no signs of working through the sectarian distrust crippling the country, the ethnically and religiously mixed team beat Saudi Arabia, 1-0, to claim the cup....

Vieira became a hero to Iraqis, but he stepped down after the event. Two subsequent coaches, a Norwegian and an Iraqi, failed to lead the team to success in World Cup qualifying matches. The Iraqi, Adnan Hamad, stepped down in June after a loss to Qatar ended Iraq's hopes of making the World Cup finals in 2010. It would have been the country's first time playing in the World Cup since 1986.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Iraqi police join fans in celebrating the Asian Cup win in 2007. Credit: Saad Khalaf / Los Angeles Times

Following the grisly discovery last month of 12 headless bodies in southern Mexico, two Cubans have been arrested for alleged involvement, according to Times wire reports.

The Cuban man and woman were arrested on a beach in Cancun and investigators say that they are part of a group called the Zetas -- a paramilitary criminal gang that operates as a hired army for the Mexican Gulf cartel. Mexican police also raided a house, seizing an assault rifle, a grenade and ammunition. Police acted after questioning three Mexicans.

Ken Ellingwood of The Times reported in August:

In a sign of the spreading violence in Mexico, 11 decapitated bodies were found late Thursday near the colonial city of Merida on the Yucatan peninsula, officials said.

The bodies bore signs of torture and some were unclothed. Yucatan state officials said a 12th decapitated body was found later about 120 miles south of Merida, a city that is often used as a tourist gateway to the famed Maya ruins at Chichen Itza.

Warring drug gangs have routinely decapitated rivals during the last two years as they battle for coveted routes for smuggling drugs into the United States.

Read here for more on Mexico, and here for more on the drug trade across Latin America.

Go here for our report on Mexico's specific drug problems and violence -- Mexico Under Siege.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Airport officials and federal authorities said Thursday that they have tightened security at Los Angeles International Airport because of the recent arrest of an elevator mechanic suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States, reports Dan Weikel.

Officials for LAX and U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the measures included security adjustments at the federal inspection area inside the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

Authorities declined to describe the changes to protect airport security.

"We have certainly reviewed the situation quite thoroughly and looked for opportunities to tighten security," said Jeff Fitch, deputy executive director of operations, maintenance and security for Los Angeles World Airports, which operates LAX.

Officials said the improvements were made after the arrest of Roberto Amaya Canchola, 53, on Aug. 23 at LAX, where he has worked as an elevator mechanic for more than 20 years.

Read more about LAX security measures here.

For more on immigration, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

A San Diego police officer has been arraigned in federal court on charges of passing information about drug investigations to drug traffickers, reports Tony Perry.

Juan Hurtado Tapia, 38, was arrested Tuesday by agents of the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration and remains in the federal prison in downtown San Diego pending a bail hearing.

While corruption of law enforcement by drug gangs is common in Tijuana, Tapia's arrest represents a rare allegation of corruption against a San Diego officer. Tapia has been a member of the San Diego Police Department for seven years and was most recently a patrol officer assigned to the area that includes the border.

Wiretaps revealed that Tapia was using his authority as a police officer to conduct background checks on drug traffickers and drug investigations and then passing the information to people involved in drug crimes along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Tapia was charged Wednesday with obstructing an official proceeding, computer fraud and making a false statement to law enforcement officials. He was immediately suspended without pay from the San Diego department.

For more on the drug trade across Latin American, click here.

Go here for more on Mexico and here for more on our special report  on Mexico's drug war, Mexico Under Siege.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: The new United States-Mexico border fence, seen through the old border fence from Tijuana. Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times.

The drug violence that continues to sweep across Mexico isn't only damaging citizen confidence in the country's government and public security. It also is taking a toll on Mexico's economy, according to Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens.

The Mexican government estimates that the violence has slowed economic growth by more than 1%.

Increased safety concerns have meant that companies and businesses spend 5% to 10% more on security services. This has hurt domestic competition and sales, according to Carstens, as well as having a negative affect on national development generally.

Last week was another bloody one for Mexico -- on Thursday, 12 headless bodies turned up in the normally quiet southern state of the Yucatan.  Five bodies -- four of them decapitated -- were found earlier in the week in Tijuana. All the deaths are thought to have been drug-war related.

The ongoing drug wars and rising levels of crime and kidnappings in Mexico prompted thousands across the country to march over the weekend, expressing their anger and demanding action.

Carstens also announced that the security budget for 2009 will increase substantially, speaking to the newspaper Reforma.

Click here for more on the drug trade across Latin America.

For our special report on Mexico's drug problems, go to our Mexico Under Siege page.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Latin American could have a lot to learn from Finland, argues Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer.

Here, he details a recent visit to Finland, which "ranks first among 179 countries in Transparency International's index of the least corrupt nations in the world (the United States is No. 20); No. 1 in Freedom House's ranking of the world's most democratic countries (the U.S. ranks No. 15); No. 1 in the world in 15-year-old students' standardized test scores in science (the U.S. ranks No. 29), and is among the 10 most competitive economies in the World Economic Forum's annual competitiveness index (the U.S. topped the list this year)."

Oppenheimer quizzed Finnish President Tarja Halonen on the secret to the country's success in an interview, during which she said: ''I can sum it up in three words: education, education and education.''

Something as simple as having really good teachers has helped the country develop into a manufacturer of high-tech products that sell for high prices around the world, such as mobile phones.

"A small country of 5.3 million, which only two decades ago was by most measures the poorest country in northern Europe, Finland also boasts the headquarters of the world's biggest cellphone maker -- Nokia -- and cutting-edge paper and pulp-technology firms," writes Oppenheimer.

"Finland could be an excellent example for Latin American commodity exporters who want to become high-technology producers. They could help themselves by remembering this country's three little secrets: education, education and education."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Remember the raid on illegal immigrants working in the Agriprocessors meatpacking plants in Postville, Iowa, in May?

Nearly 400 people were arrested that day by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The raid was apparently one of the biggest of its kind and came after months of planning, according to this release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Now, a discussion over the right of illegal immigrants to unionize -- an action that Agriprocessors has tried to block -- raises new worries for people on both sides of the immigration debate, according to this Los Angeles Times editorial.

Three years ago, employees at the meat processing company's Brooklyn distribution center voted to unionize, but Agriprocessors would not honor the vote. The National Labor Relations Board ordered it to do so. Instead, it is petitioning the Supreme Court to hear a case arguing that illegal immigrants do not have the right to join labor unions. If it wins, the company's apparent business model -- using illegal immigrants until caught but denying them union protections -- could usher in a new era of worker serfdom.

This should alarm people on all sides of the immigration debate -- those who favor stepped-up deportations and sanctions against employers of illegal immigrants, as well as those who support increased labor and civil rights for immigrants. Should Agriprocessors prevail, illegal immigrants would be vulnerable to even greater human rights and labor abuses than they are now, and employers would have more incentive not to hire U.S. citizens, who have the right to organize.

Read the rest of the editorial on the rights of illegal immigrants to unionize here.

For more on immigration, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Happy birthday, Los Angeles. El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula would have 227 candles on its birthday cake today, if anyone had thought to bake it a cake. Or even to remember today's anniversary, according to this Los Angeles Times editorial.

According to Wikipedia:

The town was founded on Sept. 4, 1781, by a group of 44 settlers, "los Pobladores." They were escorted by four Spanish colonial soldiers and their families. It was named the Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the Porciúncula River. These pueblo settlers came from the common Hispanic culture that had emerged in northern Mexico among a racially-mixed society. Two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto, and therefore, had Indian and African ancestry. More importantly, they were intermarrying. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street.

Read more of the editorial on Los Angeles birthday here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

"This would be a good time to say goodbye," Kunkel gently told the anxious parents ringing the back of the room.

It's not an unusual scene: Lots of mothers and fathers have a tough time letting go on the first day of school. But it was especially difficult for some Aldama parents who brought equal parts of idealism and economic reality to work with L.A. Unified officials on starting a Spanish-and-English immersion program at their neighborhood campus.

You can read more about the bilingual immersion program here, and for more on education and language issues, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Lured by the promise of wealth in a booming economy, immigrants from North Africa, Latin America and other regions flocked to Spain in the last decade, quickly becoming Exhibit A in the Mediterranean nation's remarkable success story.

But the surging economy -- which relied, to its eventual peril, largely on construction, tourism and service industries -- has crashed, reports Tracy Wilkinson.

In a real estate-fueled boom-and-bust cycle that mirrors remarkably the one in the U.S., Spain today is in the throes of a dramatic downturn. Many of the first to lose their jobs and default on loans are those same immigrants, many of whom eschewed a move to the United States to try their luck in Spain.

"Those with mortgages are the ones who are really hurting," said German Cubas, a Peruvian dentist now working as a waiter in Madrid at the Inti de Oro Peruvian restaurant.

Read more about the problems for Latin American immigrants in Spain here.

For more on immigration, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Fliers advertising property for sale plaster the window of a real estate office in Madrid. Some analysts predict Spain will enter its first recession in 15 years by 2009. Credit: Santi Burgos / Bloomberg News

A longtime elevator mechanic at Los Angeles International Airport has been charged with smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States by leading them out of the terminal before they were inspected by federal authorities, reports Anna Gorman this morning.

Roberto Amaya Canchola, 53, was arrested at the airport Aug. 23 after a sting operation involving federal immigration agents. Authorities believe the North Hills resident smuggled in at least 15 illegal immigrants, including two with criminal records who had previously been deported. They all arrived on Mexicana flights from Guanajuato, Mexico, officials said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. attorney's office are still investigating the allegations. Agents believe that Canchola was only one player in a larger smuggling organization and that he probably was used for his airport access.

To read more about the alleged smuggling ring, click here.

For more on immigration, hit this link.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

As ethnic stereotypes go, it's not such a bad one: More than 50 years later, Anthony Quinn's portrayal of earthy, irrepressible Alexis Zorba, a.k.a. Zorba the Greek, remains a revered embodiment of the Greek lust for life. And each year, the organizers of the L.A. Greek Fest try to bring a touch of that "Zorba spirit" to their celebration, reports Elina Shatkin.

Just as Quinn was a Mexican American actor portraying a Greek character, the once heavily Greek area surrounding the festival's site, St. Sophia’s Cathedral at Pico Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, is nearly 90% Latino. In 1999 the neighborhood was designated by the city as the Byzantine-Latino Quarter. Growing over the last 10 years from a humble church social, the festival is expected to draw 5,000 to 7,000 people each day, [festival co-producer Ted] Pastras says. To create an event that's inclusive of the overall neighborhood, the festival will feature a "Margaritaville" booth as well as evening salsa performances by Pablo Mendez and Charanga Latina. "In the beginning it was viewed as very unorthodox to fuse two cultures like that, but after the first couple years, the concept took hold. People loved the whole idea," Pastras says.

Read more about the Greek celebrations here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Young dancers make like Zorba at an earlier L.A. Greek Fest. Credit: L.A. Greek Fest.

Mexican authorities have arrested eight men after discovering a sophisticated tunnel, believed to be designed to ferry drugs, that nearly reached into U.S. territory, writes the L.A. Times' Richard Marosi.

Baja California state preventive police said Tuesday that they were acting on a tip when they raided a Mexicali home Monday afternoon and found some of the suspects hard at work in the passage, which was longer than a football field.

The tunnel's destination appeared to be a residential neighborhood across the border in Calexico. The tunnel appeared to be well financed and expertly constructed.

It had a rail-and-cart system, ventilation, lighting and an electric lift to transport items up and down the shaft, authorities said.

"What they had constructed was very sophisticated," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose agents inspected the tunnel.

Read more about the tunnel under the U.S border fence here.

For more on drugs across Latin America, click here, and for our special report on Mexico Under Siege, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: The border wall between Tijuana and San Diego

Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times.

Doris Gibson, who 58 years ago founded Peru's leading news magazine Caretas (linked here on La Plaza's side bar), has died at the age of 98.

Her strength of character and determination helped the magazine withstand military dictatorships and repressive governments, writes Dan Collyns for the BBC.

She was born in Lima, by accident, in 1910.

In those days, people traveled by boat between the capital and Arequipa, Peru's upmarket second city nestled in the Andes to the south.

Her mother was aboard ship and about to head home to Arequipa when her waters broke and she had to go ashore to give birth.

She was the daughter of Percy Gibson, a poet who rebelled from his wealthy merchant family of British descent to live a literary life.

Doris' younger sister Charo says he never worked a day in his life and she and her many sisters grew up in genteel poverty.

Click here to read more of the BBC's report on Doris Gibson.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Doris Gibson; credit: caretas.com.pe

Paraguay's president has warned of a possible coup plot against his new government, saying that rival politicians summoned a key military figure to gauge support for their political ambitions, reports the Associated Press.

Two alleged participants responded that the meeting never happened. But President Fernando Lugo said all Paraguayans need to be alert for coup attempts by ''antidemocratic and retrograde'' elements.

''We will not allow attacks on the freedom of our people,'' Lugo told reporters summoned to his offices Monday. "Those who intend to pursue conspiratorial projects will be met with all the tools the constitution gives me.''

Lugo accused retired Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo, a former political rival who placed third in April's presidential election, of holding the meeting in his home on Sunday.

Read more about Lugo's allegations here.

For more about the Paraguayan president and his country, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: President Lugo. Credit: BBC

The biggest repercussions from Hurricane Gustav's brush with the Gulf Coast oil complex played out in energy markets Tuesday instead of at refineries and oil rigs, as reports trickled in that damage to key facilities was mostly minor and oil prices plunged below $110 a barrel in response, report Elizabeth Douglass and Ronald D. White.

Teams of oil industry and government employees fanned out across the region, inspecting shut-down refineries responsible for more than 10% of the nation's gasoline production and boarding helicopters and planes to fly over oil platforms that account for 25% of U.S. oil output.

"The good note is that we have not gotten any reports of major damage at this point," said John Rodi, deputy director of the Gulf of Mexico region of the U.S. Minerals Management Service. He added that more thorough inspections would take several days, "after which we'll have a really definitive idea of what's damaged and what's not damaged."

Click here to read more about dropping oil prices.

Photo: Hurricane Gustav's impact "will be over in a matter of days," an oil industry analyst said. Here, utility workers wade through floodwaters in Slidell, La., left by Gustav. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Colombian authorities, seeking to head off a potential environmental disaster, were still searching Tuesday for two missing cyanide barrels that had been aboard a ferry that capsized in the Magdalena River, reports Chris Kraul from Bogota.

A total of 96 drums of the highly toxic chemical were aboard the vessel when it sank early Saturday in Colombia's longest river. All but two of the canisters, which were loaded on a vehicle that was on the ferry, had been recovered by late Tuesday afternoon.

The urgency of the situation was made clear Sunday and Monday by the fact that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe remained at the site, about 220 miles north of the capital, Bogota, to oversee salvage operations.

Click here to read more about cyanide in Colombia.

Photo: Colombia’s Environment Minister Juan Lozano talks to divers about containers of cyanide recovered from the Magdalena River in Bodega Central. Credit: Miguel Angel Solano / Colombia's Presidency

A bitter political-cultural confrontation that exploded in Nicaragua in late August could mark the final end of the passionate romance between the world's leftist intellectuals and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, writes Stephen Kinzer in this Opinion piece.

Ortega, you may recall, was the leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front when it seized power after overthrowing the 40-year Somoza family dynasty. A dashing young revolutionary who electrified liberals and leftists around the world, Ortega served as Nicaragua's president for most of the 1980s. He lost power in 1990, but after 16 years in opposition, he was elected president again in 2006.

For years -- in and out of government -- the Sandinista Front has been Ortega's private fiefdom. Most of the other Sandinistas who riveted the world's attention in the 1980s have broken with him, but he emerged with control over the party machinery, and he wields power like an old-fashioned Latin American caudillo.

Despite Ortega's recent slide into authoritarian rule, and despite his glaring failure to address the urgent needs of an impoverished nation, the Sandinista cachet continues to give him an air of celebrity in some circles. His denunciations of American imperialism (issued even as he deals easily with the U.S. military and the International Monetary Fund) still warm the cockles of many hearts.

That has changed in recent days. On Aug. 22, in a crude act of political revenge, a Sandinista judge dredged up an old case that had been dismissed three years ago against Ernesto Cardenal, the 83-year-old poet who is one of Nicaragua's most beloved figures. Intellectuals from around the world, including many with pro-Sandinista pedigree, have angrily protested what they see as a transparent effort by Ortega and the Sandinistas to humiliate and punish Cardenal.

Read the rest of this Opinion piece on Nicaragua here.

Stephen Kinzer's latest book is "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It." His 1991 book, "Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua," recounts his experience as the New York Times' bureau chief in Managua.

Here's an L.A. Times profile of Cardenal from 2005.

Click here for more on Nicaragua.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Yes, that was Bolivian President Evo Morales greeting his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Tehran. Morales is seeking investment during a two-day trip to the Islamic Republic. Ahmadinejad visited Bolivia last year, pledging a $1-billion aid package.

The Iranian president praised "the resistance of the  Bolivian people'' against the United States, wire services reported. Morales hailed Iran's "anti-imperialist'' stance.

Tehran has reached out to leftist governments in Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua in a jab at archenemy Washington in its own backyard. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez jump-started the new alliance, which is worrying the Bush administration.

Back in Morales' divided homeland, Bolivia's national electoral court suspended the president's planned  Dec. 7 referendum on a new constitution. Critics call the vote an illegal ploy to consolidate Morales' power. La Razon reports that pro-Morales forces still vowed to stage the December vote, which would be the fourth national election in two years.

Meantime, La Razon reports that Venezuela plans to provide Bolivia with a presidential helicopter to replace the Super Puma that crashed July 20, killing 4 Venezuelan crew members and 1 Bolivian. Morales was not on board at the time, but the crash occurred a few hours after the president had been ferried on the very same helicopter. Afterward, Morales questioned whether sabotage may have been involved. But Bolivian authorities on Tuesday blamed "operational faults'' and bad weather for the fatal crash.

-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires.

Photo: Iran's Ahmadinejad (right) shakes hands with Bolivia's Morales in Tehran on Monday. (AP/ISNA/Amir Khulusi.)

You might have enjoyed our coverage of an amateur bull-fighting festival last week, in which men try their luck against 500-kilogram bulls.

Well, Mexico doesn't have the monopoly on dangerous cultural practices and traditions -- as the video dispatch below from La Prensa Graphico in El Salvador shows.

In the Nejapa municipality of San Salvador, El Salvador's capital, residents celebrate "Bolas de fuego" (Balls of Fire) every August 31st. That involves chucking burning balls at each other in the streets.

According to Wikipedia: "Las Bolas de Fuego has two origins, one is a historical story and the other is a religious tale.

"The historical version of the story is that a volcano erupted and forced the villagers of the old Nejapa village (known as Nixapa) to flee and settle at its current location.

"The religious version is that "San Jeronimo" was fighting the Devil with Balls of fire. No matter what version you believe, the tradition commemorates both stories."

Whether religiously inflamed or not, those who play with fire often end up burned ...

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City