Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalBolivia: Behind Evo's narrow loss in re-election referendum
Bolivia: Behind Evo's narrow loss in re-election referendum
Saturday, February 27, 2016
By Denis Rogatyuk, La Paz
Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera and President Evo Morales.
The “no” vote narrowly won with 51.3% of the vote in a February 21 referendum in Bolivia held to resolve whether left-wing President Evo Morales could run again in 2019.
The vote, involving an unprecedented participation rate of 90% of registered voters, was over whether to change the constitution to allow a president and vice-president to stand for re-election twice.
The defeat for the “Yes” campaign means Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president who was re-elected with a large majority under the new constitution in 2014 — will be unable to stand in the 2019 elections. The same applies to Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera, the ex-guerilla-turned left-wing academic from Morales' Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party.
The voting process largely proceeded without irregularities or cases of fraud. However, there were incidents of opposition-inspired violence in the department (state) of Santa Cruz, a right-wing stronghold.
More:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/61163
Humpback whale freed from illegal net in Mexico
Humpback whale freed from illegal net in Mexico
By Ben Hooper Contact the Author | Feb. 25, 2016 at 10:06 AM
SEATTLE, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- A marine wildlife conservation group shared video of a boat crew rescuing a humpback whale from an illegal gillnet in Mexico's Gulf of California.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said one of its ships, the R/V Martin Sheen, spotted the humpback whale tangled in the net Feb. 19 and alerted the group's other boat, the M/V Farley Mowat.
The 35-foot-long whale was tangled in a gillnet, a net used to catch totoaba fish. The Mexican government banned the nets in April of last year due to their danger to the totoaba and the vaquita porpoises, which are both endangered species.
The crews of both boats, which have been in the area since receiving permission to remove illegal gillnets in December, worked to free the whale by cutting through the net.
The group posted video of the rescue to YouTube.
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2016/02/25/Humpback-whale-freed-from-illegal-net-in-Mexico/3701456411765/?spt=sec&or=on
The Horizon of Evo Morales’ Long Decade in Power: Implications of Bolivia's Referendum Results
The Horizon of Evo Morales’ Long Decade in Power: Implications of Bolivia's Referendum Results
Written by Benjamin Dangl Published: 25 February 2016
Bolivian President Evo Morales lost the referendum last Sunday that could have given him the ability to run for re-election in 2019. The margin was small, but the implications are huge: Bolivia’s longest standing and most popular president finally has an end date for his time in power, on January 22, 2020.
The lead up to the election was brutal, with an array of corruption scandals and conflicts, the most tragic of which was a protest last Wednesday against the opposition-controlled mayor’s office that resulted in a fire leading to six deaths. This disaster, the key details of which are still unclear, cast a shadow over the referendum. But the corruption scandals, which had besieged pro-Morales indigenous and campesino organizations as well as the presidency, had already made their imprint on national public opinion. Just last March, the Movement Toward Socialism, (MAS, Morales’ political party) lost key regional elections in several departments, in part due to the fallout from the corruption charges.
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who rose to prominence as a union leader among coca farmers and as a dissident congressman, has won three general elections, including a 2014 victory with over 60% of the vote, and is now in his tenth year in power. Over this decade, he has presided over a host of historic policies and measures, including rewriting the constitution in a constituent assembly, extending government control over the country’s lucrative natural gas reserves, and expanding access to education, healthcare, and the political process to previously marginalized sectors of society. Economic growth has remained solid through much of his time in power, thanks to his government’s economic policies and the boom in oil and gas prices. As a result, under Morales, poverty rates have dropped dramatically for citizens in South America’s poorest country.
But this period hasn’t been without its pitfalls, and critics on the left and the right have pointed out a variety of problems surrounding the MAS government. Critics claimed the 2009 constitution, presided over by the MAS government, failed bring forward necessary land reform. Morales touts the rights of nature and Mother Earth, but leads an extractive-based economy that has wreaked havoc in the countryside, extended extractive industries into national parks, and displaced some of the same rural communities his policies aim to support. Denouncements of corruption scandals, co-optation and repression of various social and indigenous movements, authoritarian tendencies against political opponents and critical media have followed his presidency for years. At the same time, the opposition has been fragmented, lacking unity while Morales and the MAS consistently win major elections and reforms supported at the ballot box.
More:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/31-archives/americas/4181-the-horizon-of-evo-morales-long-decade-in-power-implications-of-bolivia-s-referendum-results
As Rivers Run Black in Peru, Indigenous Tribes Left Cleaning Big Oil's Disaster
Published on Tuesday, February 23, 2016
As Rivers Run Black in Peru, Indigenous Tribes Left Cleaning Big Oil's Disaster
"Those responsible, where are they?" Water supply and delicate ecosystem contaminated by spate of oil spills in Amazon
by Nika Knight, staff writer
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Indigenous people are struggling to clean up 3,000 barrels oil that have poured into the Chiriaco and Morona tributaries of the Amazon River. (Photo: Amazon Watch)
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A disastrous spate of oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon have gone from bad to worse in recent days, leaving Indigenous tribes frantically trying to clean up the mess left by the nation's state-owned oil company.
The catastrophic ruptures in Petroperu's Northern Peruvian Pipeline occurred on January 25th and February 3rd and have threatened the water supply of nearly 10,000 indigenous people, says Amazon Watch.
On Monday, Petroperu officials confirmed to Reuters that the oil has poured into two critical Amazon River tributaries that eight Achuar tribes depend on for water. According to the news agency, these two tributaries of the Amazon River, the Chiriaco and Morona rivers, are now filled with 3,000 barrels of oil.
Critics charge that the spills continued to spread and caused far worse damage after the responsible company, Petroperu, failed to act to contain the oil released by the pipeline breakages.
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/23/rivers-run-black-peru-indigenous-tribes-left-cleaning-big-oils-disaster
Argentina: The End of Post Neoliberalism and the Rise of the Hard Right
Argentina: The End of Post Neoliberalism and the Rise of the Hard Right
by James Petras / February 20th, 2016
The class struggle from above found its most intense, comprehensive and retrograde expression in Argentina, with the election of Mauricio Macri (December 2015). During the first two months in office, through the arbitrary assumption of emergency powers, he reversed, by decree, a multitude of progressive socio-economic policies passed over the previous decade and sought to purge public institutions of independent voices.
Facing a hostile majority in Congress, he seized legislative powers and proceeded to name two Supreme Court judges in violation of the Constitution.
President Macri purged all the Ministries and agencies of perceived critics and appointees of the previous government and replaced those officials with loyalist neo-liberal functionaries. Popular movement leaders were jailed, and former Cabinet members were prosecuted.
Parallel to the reconfiguration of the state, President Macri launched a neo-liberal counter-revolution: a 40% devaluation which raised prices of the basic canasta over 30%; the termination of an export tax for all agro-mineral exporters (except soya farmers); a salary and wage cap 20% below the rise in the cost of living; a 400% increase in electrical bills and a 200% increase in transport; large scale firing of public and private employees; strike breaking using rubber bullets; preparations for large scale privatizations of strategic economic sectors; a 6.5 billion dollar payout to vulture-fund debt holders and speculaters-a 1000%return- while contracting new debts.
More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/02/argentina-the-end-of-post-neoliberalism-and-the-rise-of-the-hard-right/
This Mythical River in Peru Is Boiling—and One Young Scientist Is on a Quest to Protect It
This Mythical River in Peru Is Boiling—and One Young Scientist Is on a Quest to Protect It
Posted by Kelley McMillan on February 18, 2016
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The Boiling River is at the center of life of Mayantuyacu—essential as a source of water, cooking, cleaning, making
medicines, even telling time. At the Boiling River, you regularly hear locals refer to “la hora del vapor” (“the vapor
hour”). It refers to the end of the day before nightfall, when cooler air temperatures create great plumes of vapor
rising up from the river. “La hora del vapor” is a time of relaxation, meditation, and even enjoying the natural
sauna; Photograph by Devlin Gandy
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As a boy growing up in Peru, Nicaragua, and Texas, Andrés Ruzo heard a legend about a boiling river deep in the heart of the Amazon. Years later in 2011, Ruzo, by then a geoscientist working on a thermal map of Peru, traveled by car, canoe, and foot to a remote swath of the Amazon populated by white-throated toucans, jaguars, and indigenous tribes with a rich shamanic culture to see if the myth was true.
There amid the dense central Peruvian Amazon, over 400 miles from the nearest volcano, he came upon the Boiling River, a flowing, four-mile-long river as wide as a two-lane road, 16 feet deep in places, and averaging 186ºF—hot enough to cook a small animal in seconds.
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It is the scale of the Boiling River that is truly impressive. It flows hot for just less than four miles, can get up to 80
feet wide at its widest point, and up to 15 feet deep in others. The thermal flow is a result of fault-fed hot springs
super-charging the river with geothermal waters bubbling up from below; Photograph by Devlin Gandy
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Though the local people had long known about the river, it had never been studied by scientists, which meant that in this age of information saturation, Ruzo had stumbled upon a scientific discovery of the highest order: what’s thought to be one of the largest thermal rivers on the planet, made even more unusual by the fact that it’s not heated by volcanic activity.
Since his discovery of the Boiling River, which was aided by National Geographic grants, Ruzo has devoted his life to studying and preserving it, as well as the jungle surrounding it. This week, he debuted his book The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon, as well as the Boiling River Project, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the river; the adjacent jungle, which is threatened by loggers, farmers, and oil companies; and the indigenous people who live there.
More:
http://adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/18/this-mythical-river-in-peru-is-boiling-and-one-young-scientist-is-on-a-quest-to-protect-it/
End to the U.S. embargo on Cuba is coming sooner than you thinkv
End to the U.S. embargo on Cuba is coming sooner than you think
WOLA • February 11, 2016
By Marc Hanson and Sarah Kinosian / Washington Office on Latin America
Over the past year, the relationship between the United States and Cuba has advanced significantly toward normalization. Embassies have been exchanged, agreements on direct mail service and environmental conservancy have been signed, cooperation in law enforcement has deepened, and very soon commercial flights and credit cards may be available. However, after 55 years, the United States still has an embargo on Cuba that restricts trade and heavily regulates travel. This not only hurts Cubans, but cuts against the best interests of the American people.
Only Congress can lift the embargo. Until recently this seemed unlikely, but the tides are changing. Increasingly, the American public is expressing their desire to end trade and travel restrictions on Cuba. The most dramatic shift is evident among Republicans and Cuban-Americans, two groups that conventional wisdom understands to be opposed to normalizing relations. In fact, they are not. Major Cuban-American Republican donors are contributing to the campaign to end the embargo.
Given this new dynamic, it is becoming more difficult for hardline embargo supporters in Congress to ignore their constituencies or the benefits that increased trade and engagement with Cuba would bring to both nations. Here are six signs that momentum is growing in Congress:
1. The American people want this. Polls say most Americans, including the majority of Cuban-Americans, are increasingly in favor of lifting the embargo. Pew’s most recent poll showed 73 percent of Americans, including 59 percent of Republicans, are in favor of ending the trade embargo. Regarding the freedom to travel to Cuba, a CBS News poll found that 81 percent of Americans support ending travel restrictions, including 71 percent of Republicans.
More:
http://progresoweekly.us/end-to-the-u-s-embargo-on-cuba-is-coming-sooner-than-you-think/
Clouds Gather Over Bolivia’s Change Process as US Intervenes
Clouds Gather Over Bolivia’s Change Process as US Intervenes
February 16, 2016
by W. T. Whitney
Progressive political movements in Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil have recently encountered reverses. Bolivian President Evo Morales is his country’s longest serving president and first indigenous one. Now his 10 – year old socialist and anti-imperialist government faces a hurdle.
On February 21, 2016 Bolivians will vote on a referendum aimed at modifying Bolivia’s constitution to allow the president and/or vice president to be reelected twice instead of once. Partisans of Morales and Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linare’s change – oriented government will cast a “yes” vote. But defenders of the old order are rallying, and the United States is at their service.
Under Morales, the Bolivian people have made striking gains. So much so, writes former Cuban National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon, that “Never has so much been done, in such a short time, for the emancipation of a people subjugated for centuries.”
Poverty, for example, is down 25 percent, extreme poverty 50 percent. The minimum salary is up 87.7 percent, and, between 2005 and 2012, the state’s budget for healthcare rose from $195 to $600 million. Rates of infant and maternal mortality have fallen dramatically. Funding for these changes derived from nationalization of hydrocarbon extraction.
The economy has grown at an average annual rate of 5.1 percent, tops in the region. Internal economic demand is up and, “rather than exports, is the principal motor of economic growth.” Inflation in Bolivia is the second lowest in South America.
Argentinian journalist Juan Manuel Karg catalogued other advances. Some 40 percent of the population receives social security benefits including retirees, students – to keep them in school – and expectant mothers. The government has enlarged and improved 700 education centers and enrolled 955,000 people in literacy programs. In 1992 owners of large land holdings controlled almost 40 percent of all land, but in 2015 the state had charge of 24.6 percent of land; indigenous peoples, of 23.9 percent; and owners of small and mid-sized holdings, of 18.2 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/clouds-gather-over-bolivias-change-process-as-us-intervenes/
It’s the Racism, Stupid
It’s the Racism, Stupid
The GOP establishment can’t freak out about Trump now. It’s been playing his game for decades, just more artfully.
By Gary Younge
February 11, 2016
Three years ago, as the Republican-led House of Representatives engineered a brief government shutdown, Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) explained the strategy underpinning the protest. “We have to get something out of this,” he said. “And I don’t know what that even is.” The shutdown wasn’t a tactic so much as a tantrum, an act of collective petulance posing as politics—inexplicable to the outside world, incoherent in its aims, and incandescent in its rage.
The bizarre circus that the GOP presidential primary has become is not a freak occurrence. Regardless of the eventual nominee, the rise of Donald Trump (“I would bomb the shit out of [ISIS]”), the ascent of Ted Cruz (“To God be the glory”), and the endurance of Ben Carson (“Putin is a one-horse country: oil and energy”) do not contradict the general trajectory of the party, but rather confirm it. This fact-free, bigoted populism awash in money and drowning in misanthropy may illustrate the GOP at its most brazen, but it’s hardly in any way aberrant.
In this regard, Trump is the party’s most obvious emissary. His blatant xenophobia emerges from the GOP’s half-century of race-baiting since Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy was first conceived. The initial idea was to woo Southern whites, who were angry about the advances of the civil-rights movement, with coded racial messaging that wouldn’t alienate the party’s Northern supporters. “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks,” Nixon once explained to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. “The key is to devise a system that recognizes that while not appearing to.” This method was once very effective. Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, not far from where three civil-rights activists had been murdered in 1964, by talking about states’ rights. George H.W. Bush had his infamous Willie Horton ad in 1988, while Bush Jr. spoke at Bob Jones University in 2000, where interracial dating was banned at the time.
But with white people heading toward minority status and becoming a lower percentage of the voting public every cycle, the message necessarily gets cruder—particularly with the presence of a black president. In the 2012 GOP primaries, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum told a crowd in Iowa that “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” while Newt Gingrich branded Obama the “food-stamp president.”
More:
http://www.thenation.com/article/its-the-racism-stupid/
Organic honey is a sweet success for Cuba as other bee populations suffer
Organic honey is a sweet success for Cuba as other bee populations suffer
When the Caribbean state was no longer able to afford pesticides – which have been linked with declining bee populations – it made a virtue out of a necessity
Reuters in San Antonio de los Baños
Tuesday 9 February 2016 12.00 EST
Long known for its cigars and rum, Cuba has added organic honey to its list of key agricultural exports, creating a buzz among farmers as pesticide use has been linked to declining bee populations elsewhere.
Organic honey has become Cuba’s fourth most valuable agricultural export behind fish products, tobacco and drinks, but ahead of the Caribbean island’s more famous sugar and coffee, said Theodor Friedrich, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) representative for Cuba.
“All of [Cuba’s] honey can be certified as organic,” Friedrich told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Its honey has a very specific, typical taste; in monetary value, it’s a high-ranking product.“
After the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main trading partner, the island was unable to afford pesticides due to a lack of foreign currency, coupled with the US trade embargo. By necessity, the government embraced organic agriculture, and the policies have largely stuck.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/09/organic-honey-is-a-sweet-success-for-cuba-as-other-bee-populations-suffer
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