|  | |  | | |  | |  | | | |
|  |  |
|
This analysis was prepared by Research Associate Brandon Bloch
June 23rd, 2009
The most outspoken Democratic proponent of an ill-deserved Free Trade Agreement with Bogotá has not only reversed his own position on the deal, but has defended and legitimized a corrupt, venal government, heavily tied to political scandals and human rights violations, whose legislative backers are being indicted in droves. Only Colombia’s elite will be the major beneficiaries of an FTA and not the average American or Colombian. Is the Majority Leader sufficiently resolved in his convictions to debate the issue?
|
|
Written by Maria Hoisington
Friday, 19 June 2009
Police in El Salvador
As a result of ever-increasing rates of violence, number of gang members, and citizen insecurity, the government of El Salvador implemented a series of ‘zero tolerance’ policies in 2004, known as Mano Dura, or the Iron Fist. Estimates put the number of youth gang members in El Salvador between 15,000-30,000. The dramatic increase in their numbers can be attributed to mass deportations of Central Americans from the United States. The youth gang has been sensationalized as the primary threat to public security in El Salvador and in the region as a whole. The gang is not understood as the product of social and economic factors that leave youth with little opportunity for alternatives to crime, but rather as a manifestation of organized crime and terrorism. Because these issues were seen as transnational, the solution was constructed through coordination between the governments of the United States and El Salvador. The Mano Dura approach focuses on exerting massive police force, extended prison sentences, and criminalization of illicit activities to eradicate the problem of gangs. As a result, the number of police arrests, arbitrary detentions, and jail populations skyrocketed.
|
|
Posted by Kristin Bricker - June 20, 2009 at 5:57 am
US Government Trained the Police Department that Participated in the Operation and Invested "Heavily" in the Killer Helicopters
|
|
Written by Michael Fox
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
MST March in BrazilMichael Fox is a Brazil-based independent journalist and co-producer of the new documentary Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas (PM Press). He is also the co-author of an upcoming book called Venezuela Speaks: Voices From the Grassroots, also available through PM Press and set to be released this fall. Throughout his research for this film and book, and as a radio and print reporter who has covered political and social issues across Latin America, Fox has come to know to hopes and struggles of the region’s social movements, and what US activists might learn from the experiences of these movements.
|
|
By Stephen Lemons in Feathered Bastard
Friday, Jun. 19 2009 @ 9:38PM
Today the Reverend Al Sharpton achieved what no one else has achieved before in Arizona's civil rights struggle for the undocumented: the bringing together of African Americans and Latinos on the issues of racial profiling, immigration reform and the 287(g) program.
|
|
Saturday 20 June 2009
by: David Bacon, t r u t h o u t | Report
Vernon, California - The production lines at Overhill Farms move very quickly. Every day, for 18 years, Bohemia Agustiano stood in front of the "banda" for eight or nine hours, putting pieces of frozen chicken, rice and vegetables onto plates as they passed in a blur before her. Making the same motions over and over for such a long time, her feet in one place on the concrete floor, had its price. Pains began shooting through her hands and wrists, up her arms to her shoulders.
|
|
Karol Collymore
[Editor's note: Last night, the City Council was expected to vote on the renaming of 39th Avenue. That decision has been delayed until July 8. More news here.]
|
|
Fri Jun 12, 2009 1:40pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is eager to discuss a long-delayed free trade agreement with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe when the two leaders meet on June 29, the White House said on Friday.
|
|
Written by Lainie Cassel
Thursday, 11 June 2009
In Venezuela they are a key force in the country’s ongoing media-war. Armed with video cameras, they are a team of some 380 young people working for Caracas television station, Avila TV. Started as an experiment just three years ago, according to one study it is now the third most watched station in the city. Funded completely by the government, they consider themselves a voice of President Hugo Chavez’s “socialist revolution.”
|
|
By Franz Chávez*
LA PAZ, Jun 12 (IPS) - Social organisations in South America are backing the struggle against opening up Peru’s Amazon jungle to mining and oil companies, which resulted in clashes in which at least nine indigenous people and 25 police officers died.
|
|
LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra
Peru's Ministry of Transports and Communication has officially closed the local Radio Station La Voz de Utcubamba (in the Amazonian Region).
|
|
Written by Catapa
Monday, 08 June 2009
The enduring conflict in Bagua (North Peru) between the Peruvian government and indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon have led to violent confrontations on Friday, June 5. According to different sources, between 30 and 84 deaths are reported, and more than 100 were wounded when the security forces tried to stop a roadblock by using violent force. According to the police, the indigenous people fired at the policemen first. This is contested by the representatives of the different indigenous groups: they say that they were only armed with their traditional spears. Most sources affirm that shots were released from police helicopters. Thomas and Marijke also saw how the police took along corpses. "A way to decrease the official death count", says Marijke Deleu of Catapa.
|
|
Sheriff Joe Called Upon to Renounce Neo-Nazi Followers
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon came out swinging at Sheriff Joe last week, demanding that he renounce his neo-Nazi fan base in light of the Holocaust Museum shooting.
|
|
June 14, 2009 by Jill Garvey
On May 30 three members of the Minutemen American Defense (an anti-immigrant group) broke into the home of the Flores family and killed them. They murdered Raul Junior Flores, his 9 year old daughter, Brisenia, and injured her mother. Jason Bush, Shawna Forde, and Albert Gaxiola have been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and other charges. The suspects believed that there would be large amounts of cash and possibly drugs in the home. They shot the family because they did not want to leave witnesses. The suspects allegedly believed that two little girls would be at the home and looked for the second girl so they could also kill her. The other daughter was not at home.
|
|
04:49 PM PDT on Friday, June 12, 2009
By DAVID KROUGH, kgw.com Staff
PORTLAND, Ore. – Activists marked two years since an immigration raid on a North Portland produce plant Friday, demanding an end to what they called unjust immigration laws.
|
|
by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Friday June 12, 2009, 8:31 PM
A group of women caught in an immigration raid two years ago said Friday that they are still in legal limbo, unable to work or leave the country, with no financial means for their traumatized families to survive.
|
|
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, April 22 (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales on Wednesday accused the World Bank of trying to "blackmail" his country several years ago by demanding free-market reforms in exchange for aid loans.
|
|
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Source: International Cry
Thousands of indigenous people are mobilizing across the Peruvian Amazon in continued protest over a set of legislative decrees that undermine indigenous land rights and violate Peru’s constitution as well as international law.
|
|
From Democracy Now, April 27, 2009.
A major protest is planned against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who’s been accused of practicing discriminatory enforcement of federal immigration laws. Last month, the Justice Department opened a civil rights probe into Arpaio’s immigration enforcement policies. We speak with an Arizona reporter who just won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the controversial sheriff, as well as a public defender who has been at the forefront of immigrant rights for over thirty years.
Listen to to entire interview here
|
|
| | | | | | |
| |
|
