.c The Associated Press, Nov. 18
NEW YORK (AP) -- Anita Snow, news editor for Mexico and Central America for The Associated Press, has been named chief of the AP's new Havana bureau.
Permission to reopen the bureau, closed since the AP was expelled in 1969, was granted last week by the Cuban Foreign Ministry. Her appointment was announced Tuesday by AP President Louis D. Boccardi.
Snow has been among AP reporters making periodic reporting trips to Cuba in the absence of resident status and has made five visits this year alone. She was involved in planning the news cooperative's coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to the island in January and was among AP staffers who covered the papal tour.
Snow, 39, has been based in Mexico City for five years, the last nine months as news editor. In her current job, she has directed AP's coverage of the destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch across Central America. As a reporter, she has covered such major Latin American stories as the return of Haiti's exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide; the papal visit to Central America; the Zapatista rebellion in the Mexican state of Chiapas, and the siege at the Japanese embassy in Peru.
Snow joined the AP in 1988 in Mexico City, where she helped cover the presidential elections that brought Carlos Salinas de Gortari to power.
The following year, she moved to the Los Angeles bureau. Among the stories she covered there was the Loma Prieta earthquake in Northern California.
In 1990 Snow transferred to AP headquarters in New York, where she worked on the General Desk, the AP's national editing desk, and on the International Desk.
Snow has a bachelor's degree in communications from California State University, Fullerton, and a master's degree in Latin American and Caribbean studies from New York University.
Before joining the AP, she worked for seven years as a metro reporter for The Orange County (Calif.) Register and went to Mexico on a fellowship from the Inter-American Press Association.
AP-NY-11-18-98 0156EST
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