World briefs 5/7/06

Not just Mexico's poor seek U.S. jobs

MEXICO CITY -- While many Americans associate Mexican immigration with poor, rural laborers, a large number of those seeking work in the United States these days are better-educated and hail from relatively well-to-do, middle-class backgrounds in the city. Many set aside years of training and education to illegally clean houses, take seasonal landscaping jobs or accept positions at meatpacking plants -- all of which pay better than most white-collar work in their homeland. Many obtain visas to work, study or join family members already there. Hundreds of thousands do not. Life for many Mexican professionals changes drastically when they cross the border. Some of the doctors, dentists and nurses who migrate see patients in their apartments because they don't have the necessary certification or visa to work in hospitals or clinics.

Singapore ruling party wins by a landslide

SINGAPORE -- Singapore's ruling party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections Saturday, signaling continuity in the city-state's trademark mix of economic success, social stability and tight political controls. Final results showed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's People's Action Party winning 82 of 84 seats in Parliament, including 37 seats it captured automatically before the election because the opposition did not contest them. The ruling party has won every general election since Singapore became independent in 1965, bolstered by its transformation of the resource-scarce former British colony into one of Asia's richest, most stable societies.

Dick Cheney meets with Croatian leaders

DUBROVNIK, Croatia -- Vice President Dick Cheney met with Croatian leaders on Saturday and went sightseeing with his wife in a picturesque city by the Adriatic Sea on the final stop of a three-nation trip overseas. Standing next to Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Cheney said the United States is "strongly supportive of Croatia becoming a full member of the trans-Atlantic community, in terms of working with NATO and the E.U." Cheney said the Bush administration is "deeply appreciative" of Croatia's help in Afghanistan, and he said that "all Americans are tremendously impressed with how far Croatia has come" in a short period.

Puerto Ricans demand end of shutdown

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Thousands protested outside the Puerto Rico's governor's house on Friday, demanding resolution to a budget impasse that has shuttered nearly 1,600 schools. Roughly 5,000 educators, public school workers and union leaders took part in the peaceful protest, which included a march from the capitol to the nearby cobblestone streets of the U.S. territory's colonial-era district. Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila closed 43 government agencies -- sending home a total of more than 95,000 workers -- and all public schools on Monday, when the government ran out of money to pay salaries. Puerto Rico is grappling with a $740 million shortfall because Acevedo and the opposition-dominated legislature haven't agreed on a budget for the past two years.

-- From wire reports