A police squad specialized in cyber crimes –from Mexico’s Federal Preventive Police Department- unplugged 390 Internet sites that used to deal with child pornography, El Universal newspaper informed this week. Over half of those websites (197) were uploaded from Mexico City. In addition, law enforcement officers also confiscated seven sites urging people to commit cyber-related terrorist acts, the daily explained.

Slightly lower economic numbers in the face of an increasing population, coupled with an extremely arbitrary and unfair distribution of wealth, made poverty accrue and living standards fall in almost all Latin American countries during 2003. A report issued today by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) discloses that current living conditions in the region are worse off than in the past six years as an ever-growing population relies now on less assets and services. One of the sectors hit hard by this situation is that of employees and laborers, whose income money has lost considerable purchasing power as a result of plummeting salaries.

The First Course of Travel Guides Specialized in Protected Areas came to a successful close in El Castillo (The Castle) in the southern Nicaraguan province of Rio San Juan.

British Airways has just announced its intention to furlough 5,000 workers anytime soon. The carrier’s CEO Rod Eddington said the 13,000 layoffs British Airways’ front office had originally planned won’t be good enough to jack up benefits and pay off the company’s mounting debt.

Spanish trippers are the big spenders of Peru’s leisure industry, according to a research study conducted by the Peruvian Promotion Commission (PromPeru) revealed by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.

Each Spanish sunbather coming to this Andean nation forks over an average $1,008 in an 18-night stay. In the case of U.S. visitors, that figure hovers around $838 in a 17-night stay. And in keeping with the research, each foreign trekkers coming to Peru averages $781.

The personality of late Cuban musician Compay Segundo will be forever remembered in a bronze-cast sculpture at Havana’s National Hotel, scheduled to be unveiled for the anniversary of the hotel’s grand opening next Dec. 30.

Outstanding fine artist Alberto Lescay is the author of the piece that pays genuine tribute to Francisco Repilado Muñoz, the man born on Nov. 18, 1907 in Santiago de Cuba’s Siboney Beach who took Cuban music under his arm all around the world before passing away last July 14 in Havana.