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U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recently returned from a three nation trip to Latin America. In Uruguay he announced 1.5 billion dollar increase in loans from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. In Brazil the secretary hinted that the U.S. was ready to bolster the continents largest economy. The secretary ended his trip in Argentina, which is still suffering economically after defaulting on its foreign debt. Secretary O'Neill's focus on economic aid for Latin America seems to indicate an almost about face for the Bush administration, which has previously not been willing to increase economic aid to the region. Joining us now to talk about the state of Latin America, economic policy, and the U.S. role is Doctor Luis Rubio, President of Centro de Investigation para el Desarrollo, the Center of Research for Development, a political economic think tank based Mexico City.

Since the mid-1990s students in the U.S. have targeted Nike, Reebok, and other manufactures for making clothing in sweatshops where workers face substandard conditions and low pay. Such student pressure, combined with a strong union organizing drive, has now resulted in Mexico's first contract between a maquiladora and an independent union, but after months of doing battle with each other the antagonist have made an unusual alliance. Inpendent producer Reese Erlich reports from Atlixco, Puebla a town seventy miles southeast of Mexico City.

Census figures confirm that one in every four Chicago residents is a Latino. The Latino population can be seen everywhere, from politics, to business, to the city streets, where paleteros, or ice cream vendors, pound the pavement with their white carts, walking the streets from mid-March to late'September. The paletero business is booming in Chicago, giving the traditional ice cream truck vendors a run for their money and as Yolanda Perdomo reports they're continuing a Mexican tradition.

Do you remember Conjunto La Perfecta' If you do remember and if you were extra ordinarily fortunate you heard La Perfecta in the early 1960s in New York's vibrant dance halls like the palladium ballroom. La Perfectas band leader was young pianist and composer the great Eddie Palmieri. Now, after two decades of mastering and revolutionizing Latin jazz Eddie Palmieri has returned to his original La Perfecta compositions with his new release 'La Perfecta II'. And were honored to have el maestro Eddie Palmieri.