Paraguay

Paraguay couldn't score against New Zealand. Then again, it didn't need to. Despite being held to a 0-0 draw by the All Whites on Thursday in Polokwane, South Africa, Paraguay won its World Cup group and moved into the round of 16. Neither team created much in the way of scoring chances — the Kiwis had zero shots on goal. New Zealand now heads home unbeaten, and winless, after 1-1 draws with Slovakia and Italy. In Group E, Japan advanced to the next round along with the Netherlands.

This was a tough week on "The Amazing Race. " The challenges were actually challenging, and the Express Pass didn't solve anything. We also got some foreshadowing that wasn't, some arguing, some crying and, well, the unquittable pyramid of watermelons. Oh, and I ogle! Let's go! This episode gave us two firsts - the first time the show has gone to Paraguay, and the first time that a team has not completed a challenge on a leg and still stayed in the "Race. " That's what Phil said, although I wonder about that awful meat-eating challenge several years back when Boston Rob got everyone to quit and take a 4-hour penalty.

This was a tough week on "The Amazing Race. " The challenges were actually challenging, and the Express Pass didn't solve anything. We also got some foreshadowing that wasn't, some arguing, some crying and, well, the unquittable pyramid of watermelons. Oh, and I ogle! Let's go! This episode gave us two firsts - the first time the show has gone to Paraguay, and the first time that a team has not completed a challenge on a leg and still stayed in the "Race. " That's what Phil said, although I wonder about that awful meat-eating challenge several years back when Boston Rob got everyone to quit and take a 4-hour penalty.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw letters from apparently well-fed individuals complaining about paying unemployment insurance. For all those beleaguered employers who don't want to pay unemployment benefits I've got a solution: Hire illegal immigrants. They are non-persons, so an employer does not have to pay unemployment insurance and really shouldn't bother about niceties like Workers' Compensation, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, unions, OSHA or any other oppressive, socialistic safety net provisions.

Asuncion, Paraguay.-- A mix of anticipation and concern swept through the press room at the Guarani Hotel in Asuncion last Sunday. After a full day of relatively calm and orderly balloting in Paraguay's first, fully democratic elections, it appeared someone was trying to sabotage the process.The phone lines to the only independent source of poll results had been cut at noon. Despite a request from election observer and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, they still were not working four hours after the polls had closed.

When Andres Rodriguez hands the sash of office to Juan Carlos Wasmosy on Aug. 15, it will be the first time in Paraguay's 182 years of independence that an elected president succeeded an elected president.The winner of a more-or-less fair, three-way election with nearly 40 percent of the vote, Mr. Wasmosy was indistinguishable from his opponents as a free-market conservative. The real distinction is that he and not they carried the banner of the Colorado Party. This was the vehicle through which the dictator Alfredo Stroessner ruled from 1954 to 1989.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw letters from apparently well-fed individuals complaining about paying unemployment insurance. For all those beleaguered employers who don't want to pay unemployment benefits I've got a solution: Hire illegal immigrants. They are non-persons, so an employer does not have to pay unemployment insurance and really shouldn't bother about niceties like Workers' Compensation, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, unions, OSHA or any other oppressive, socialistic safety net provisions.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Shouting, singing and waving bright-red banners, stalwarts of the long-ruling Colorado Party celebrated what appeared to be the sweeping victory of Raul Cubas Grau, hailed yesterday as Paraguay's "virtual president- elect."Democratic Alliance candidate Domingo Laino, defeated in his third bid to be president, had claimed victory Sunday evening, but a spokesman said yesterday that Laino would concede when the official vote count was announced, probably by today.Three exit polls and partial results yesterday indicated an unexpectedly large win for the Colorados, in power for 51 years.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- A former Roman Catholic Church bishop won a historic victory yesterday in this impoverished country's presidential election, ending the 61-year reign of the world's longest ruling party. With 83 percent of polling stations reporting, Fernando Lugo received 40.7 percent of 1.57 million ballots cast. Running a distant second was former Education Minister Blanca Ovelar, the candidate of the long-ruling Colorado Party, who got 30.8 percent. Former general and ex-Colorado Lino Oviedo garnered 22 percent.

MBARACAYU, Paraguay -- Since 1989, when a military coup && ended the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, there has been a democratic awakening in Paraguay, and interest in safeguarding the country's natural resources has blossomed.A major focus of this attention is Mbaracayu, a 225-square-mile extension of Brazil's Atlantic Forest system. It is one of the last great tracts of privately owned subtropical forest in South America."Mbaracayu is unique because physically there is no larger piece of land that is virtually undisturbed," said Alan Randall, Paraguayan program director for the Nature Conservancy, one participant in a coalition of governmental and private entities seeking to protect the larger of Mbaracayu's two parcels on Paraguay's eastern border with Brazil.

JOHANNESBURG — For decades Spain has approached the World Cup the way most high school freshmen approach algebra: They'll try, but they don't expect great results. Spain has qualified for the tournament 10 times in the last 60 years. Seven times it came home after the first or second round. Once it entered as the reigning European champion yet won only one game. But all that history is, well, history now. Because after its hard-fought 1-0 victory Saturday over stubborn Paraguay, Spain has advanced to the World Cup semifinals for the first time since 1950.

Paraguay kept its cool through a shootout and advanced to the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time, beating Japan 5-3 on penalties Tuesday after a 0-0 draw. Yuichi Komano hit the crossbar on the third penalty, while Paraguay substitute Oscar Cardozo walked up casually and scored the winning kick, faking out the goalkeeper. Paraguay coach Gerardo Martino said the team only practiced taking penalty kicks once. "Nobody could say we weren't prepared," Martino said.

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Paraguay couldn't score against New Zealand. Then again, it didn't need to. Despite being held to a 0-0 draw by the All Whites on Thursday in Polokwane, South Africa, Paraguay won its World Cup group and moved into the round of 16. Neither team created much in the way of scoring chances — the Kiwis had zero shots on goal. New Zealand now heads home unbeaten, and winless, after 1-1 draws with Slovakia and Italy. In Group E, Japan advanced to the next round along with the Netherlands.

There are five of them in all, five coaches from South America who have been at the World Cup for two weeks now and have yet to taste defeat. Nine games and no losses suggests that this might be the continent's turn to take home the trophy. But which coach will be carrying it? There is Diego Maradona, who, with his shiny gray suit, silver tie, diamond-stud earrings and pinky ring, not to mention his black beard with the white frosting, looks less like a former great athlete than like a used-car salesman from Buenos Aires.

Ana Maria R. Codas, author, activist and former Spanish professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia. She was 86. Born Ana Maria Recalde, in Asuncion, Paraguay, she was an only child raised by her mother after her father died when she was 7 months old. Those difficult early days helped shape her lifelong commitment to people of modest means and a belief in the power of education, said her husband, Enrique Codas. After attending the National University in Paraguay, one of her first jobs was as a teacher and principal in a small school in Villarrica, Paraguay, made out of adobe and wood.

PHILADELPHIA -- He did the discus dance -- a frenzied, arm-propelling windup, a violent two-revolution pirouette across a concrete circle, an explosive uncoiling, a primal scream, and then the platter was a hissing arc, climbing into dishwater sky.It fluttered there, a silver bird struggling into a gusting head wind, and then it sliced toward earth and even as it was gouging out a chunk of sod, Ramon Jimenez was thrusting both arms to heaven.He knew.He knew it was enough to take the lead.

IT IS a poor little country far away, but the political convulsions in Paraguay are bad news for the hemisphere. Sympathetic help is needed from Paraguay's neighbors -- Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay -- to nurture the fragile democracy and prevent its failure from undermining theirs.The four countries are linked in a customs union -- Mercosur -- that has jump-started their economies. South America has made a wonderful transition from military dictatorship to democracy in recent decades. Paraguay, a land-locked country of some 5 million people kept backward by the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, didn't get the hang of the new system.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- A former Roman Catholic Church bishop won a historic victory yesterday in this impoverished country's presidential election, ending the 61-year reign of the world's longest ruling party. With 83 percent of polling stations reporting, Fernando Lugo received 40.7 percent of 1.57 million ballots cast. Running a distant second was former Education Minister Blanca Ovelar, the candidate of the long-ruling Colorado Party, who got 30.8 percent. Former general and ex-Colorado Lino Oviedo garnered 22 percent.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Paraguay's long-dominant ruling party confirmed yesterday that a former Cabinet minister would be its candidate in the coming presidential election, although her nomination faces a court challenge. If elected in the April 20 balloting, Blanca Ovelar would become the country's first female head of state and the third woman elected president in South America in recent years. Women now lead Argentina and Chile. However, her chief rival for the nomination, former Vice President Luis Castiglione, vowed to pursue his legal challenge.