Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalKelly says considering separating women, children at Mexico border
Mon Mar 6, 2017 | 5:37pm EST
Kelly says considering separating women, children at Mexico border
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said on Monday he was considering a proposal to separate women and children who cross the U.S. border with Mexico illegally.
"Yes, I am considering -- in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network -- I am considering exactly that," Kelly said in response to a question in a CNN interview concerning media reports about the possible change in U.S. policy.
"They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents," Kelly said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children-idUSKBN16D2OX?rpc=401&
(Short article, no more at link.)
LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141721998
Is Colombia going from war to peace to genocide?
Is Colombia going from war to peace to genocide?
written by Mira Galanova March 6, 2017
With at least 23 social leaders killed in three months of peace with the FARC, community leaders are terrified they are at the dawn of a wave of paramilitary violence not seen in Colombia since the 1990s.
The daughter of survivors of the Patriotic Union genocide that virtually wiped out the socialist Patriotic Union (UP) party in the 1980s and 1990s, did not survive three months of peace with the FARC.
Alicia Lopez, a community leader and farmers’ rights defender, was shot dead in plain daylight in Medellin on Thursday, becoming the 23rd victim of a series of assassinations targeting social and community leaders throughout Colombia.
Last year, 116 of these leaders were assassinated in an ongoing string of assassinations that are terrifying community leaders and their communities alike.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-going-war-peace-genocide/
These 4 US states depend heavily on Mexico
These 4 US states depend heavily on Mexico
Mauldin Economics
6h
Eighty-five percent of goods traded between the US and Mexico are transported by truck or railway, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Two-way trade across the border totals $1.4 billion per day and takes place at 25 major ports of land entry between the US and Mexico.
Among these are 39 crossing points (high-volume locations such as Laredo, Brownsville, and Nogales have multiple crossing points), and 22 of them are open all day, every day.
Border crossing delays can cost billions of dollars in trade. In 2011, Bloomberg estimated that delays at the US-Mexico border cost the US economy up to $7.8 billion annually.
Screen Shot 2017 03 03 at 9.45.19 AM Mauldin Economics
Mexico figures as a prominent destination for US exports and ranks among the top three export destinations for 33 of the 50 US states. But, Mexico ranks as the top export destination for only four states.
It is no coincidence that these four states are along the US-Mexico border. The geographic proximity of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to the Mexican border heavily impacts these states’ economies and demographics, and politicians' stances as they relate to national politics. These four state economies depend on trade with Mexico and account for a quarter of US GDP.
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-shows-how-much-four-us-states-depend-on-mexico-2017-3
(Short article, no more at link.)
The village that's disappearing into the sea
The village that's disappearing into the sea
Paul Melia in Omoa, Honduras
March 4 2017 2:30 AM
A PIPE protrudes from the beach, spurting drinking water into the oncoming surf. It once fed a house, since washed away by the sea, one of 23 lost to rising sea levels in Cuyamel sandbar in Omoa, Honduras.
This community of more than 500 people has existed for more than a century, its inhabitants sustained by agriculture and fishing.
But palm trees buffeted by the Caribbean sea, their roots barely clinging to what remains of the soil below, now mark the spot where homes once stood.
There is no future here -within a year, villagers expect to be forced to flee their houses as the ocean swamps what was once a thriving community.
More:
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/latin-america/the-village-thats-disappearing-into-the-sea-35500951.html
Giant Prehistoric Penguins Evolved During the Dinosaur Age
Giant Prehistoric Penguins Evolved During the Dinosaur Age
By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | February 28, 2017 08:45am ET
The Waipara giant penguin compared to an emperor penguin (the largest living penguin species) and a human.
Credit: copyright Senckenberg Nature Research Society
Penguins that walked the Earth 61 million years ago might have been giants, growing to nearly 5 feet tall, according to the oldest penguin fossils unearthed to date. Perhaps even more impressive, these oversize waddlers might have evolved alongside dinosaurs, the researchers report in a new study.
Penguins are flightless, but they can swim at speeds of up to 22 mph (35 km/h). The biggest living penguin, the emperor penguin, can grow to be about 3.9 feet (1.2 meters) tall, but previously unearthed fossils revealed that extinct penguins could get as large as 5.4 feet (1.65 m) tall.
Although penguins are flightless, their anatomy suggests that their ancestors could fly, just as other modern birds can. For example, some wing bones in living penguins are fused together in the same way as those in flying birds, said study co-author Paul Scofield, a paleontologist at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. In addition,modern penguins have air sacs in their bodies just as flying birds do, although in flying birds, these air sacs help reduce weight for flight, whereas in penguins, they help the birds control their buoyancy, Scofield told Live Science. [Images: The Emperor Penguins of Antarctica]
Ancient penguin bones "are among the oldest fossils of modern birds known from anywhere in the world," said study lead author Gerald Mayr, an ornithologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt in Germany. As such, investigating penguin fossils can help address "ongoing debates on when exactly modern birds appeared," Mayr told Live Science.
More:
http://www.livescience.com/58042-giant-penguins-evolved-alongside-dinosaurs.html?utm_source=notification
What's Happening in Brazil? Exactly What the Coup Leaders Said Would Happen
What's Happening in Brazil? Exactly What the Coup Leaders Said Would Happen
Saturday, March 04, 2017
By Ted Snider, Truthout
President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil during an interview with foreign correspondents at her office in
do Planalto, Brasilia, Brazil on March 24, 2016. (Tomas Munita / The New York Times)
The social democratic, left-wing government of Brazil was removed in a coup.
Though that striking statement could be ripped from the headlines of newspapers today, it also describes the headlines of half a century ago, in April of 1964.
The Brazilian coup gets forgotten in the crowd of Latin American coups. In discussions of Latin American interventions, it often gets lost in the press of the 1954 Guatemalan coup against Jacobo Árbenz or the 1973 Chilean coup against Salvador Allende. But the Brazilian coup that was sandwiched between them was significant and merits more attention.
In Who Rules the World, Noam Chomsky explains that in 1962, President John F. Kennedy made the policy decision to transform the militaries of Latin America from defending against external forces to "internal security" or, as Chomsky puts it, "war against the domestic population, if they raised their heads." The Brazilian coup is significant because it may have been the first major manifestation of this shift in the US's Latin American policy. The Kennedy administration prepared the coup, and it was carried out shortly after Kennedy's assassination. Chomsky says that the "mildly social democratic" government of João Goulart was taken out for a "murderous and brutal" military dictatorship.
The evidence that the US cooperated in the coup that removed Goulart from power is solid. The field report of the CIA station in Brazil shows clear US foreknowledge of the coup: "A revolution by anti-Goulart forces will definitely get under way this week, probably in the next few days." President Lyndon B. Johnson gave Under Secretary of State George Ball and Assistant Secretary for Latin America Thomas Mann the green light to participate in the coup: "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do."
More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39711-what-s-happening-in-brazil-exactly-what-the-coup-leaders-said-would-happen
Did Pinochet-era deregulation cause Chile's worst-ever wildfires?
Did Pinochet-era deregulation cause Chile's worst-ever wildfires?
After the fires killed 11 and devastated vast swaths of land in January many are asking if subsidised timber plantations are to blame
Piotr Kozak in Santiago
Friday 3 March 2017 12.28 EST
The smoke has almost cleared, the blazes that raged over half a million hectares of forests, bush and grassland mostly extinguished, but the air is still thick with recriminations against Chile’s eucalyptus and pine plantation owners who are accused of putting profits before safety.
Following the worst fires in the country’s history, activists are asking whether the unregulated expansion of the forestry industry under the dictator Augusto Pinochet will lead to more problems in a future that is likely to be hotter and drier as a result of climate change.
. . .
Fire chiefs said that multiple factors caused the blazes, but environmentalists say the toll was higher than it should have been because plantations had expanded to the edge of communities and companies had failed to insert firebreaks.
“We’ve been warning the forestry sector for the last eight years about the growing threats; and these plantations are never subjected to environmental risk assessments – they’re completely unregulated,” said Sara Larraín, former presidential candidate and director of the environmental NGO Chile Sustentable.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/chile-wildfires-forestry-industry-plantations
ARGENTINE CLEAN-UP PRESIDENT MACRI FINDS SCANDALS OF HIS OWN
Mar 3, 11:24 PM EST
ARGENTINE CLEAN-UP PRESIDENT MACRI FINDS SCANDALS OF HIS OWN
BY ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Mauricio Macri, who arrived to Argentina's presidency vowing to clean up corruption, now finds himself ensnared in scandals of his own.
Federal prosecutors are investigating at least six cases involving Macri, some of them the outgrowth of his family's extensive business holdings. Allegations range from influence trafficking to money laundering.
So far none of the cases has resulted in charges against the president, and he denies wrongdoing, but they've become a headache for his center-right party heading into legislative elections in October.
To fend off possible damage, Macri on Wednesday announced measures to avoid any conflicts of interest in his administration and urged the country's political class to back his political and economic reforms.
More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_ARGENTINA_MACRIS_SCANDALS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-03-23-24-11
Journalist shot dead by apparent hit squad in Mexico
Source: Associated Press
Journalist shot dead by apparent hit squad in Mexico
Jose Antonio Rivera and Peter Orsi
Associated Press
MARCH 4, 3:15 PM
Acapulco, Mexico
A journalist was murdered in the troubled southern state of Guerrero, Mexican authorities said Friday, adding to a long list of reporter killings in what is considered one of the world's most dangerous countries for media professionals.
The Guerrero state prosecutor's office said in a statement that Cecilio Pineda Birto was shot dead Thursday evening in Ciudad Altamirano while in a hammock at a car wash waiting for his car to be serviced. Prosecutors said two attackers arrived on a motorcycle and one of them fired a handgun, according to eyewitness accounts.
. . .
Pineda was the founder of La Voz de Tierra Caliente, collaborated with various other media outlets and also published reports via Facebook, said Carlos Lauria, senior program coordinator for the Americas at the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists, who has been working to document the case.
Lauria told The Associated Press that according to a witness, Pineda was shot at least 10 times, including once in the neck and four times in the chest.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/ct-mexico-journalist-killed-20170304-story.html
Read more: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/ct-mexico-journalist-killed-20170304-story.html
Investigate Israeli Complicity with Pinochets crimes
Investigate Israeli Complicity with Pinochet’s crimes
Published on March 4th, 2017
Two Israeli women who immigrated from Chile are taking Israel’s attorney general to court, demanding that he open a criminal investigation into Israeli officials who were involved in arms deals with the regime of Augosto Pinochet, for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Lily Traubman and her daughter Tamara Santos Traubman moved to Israel in the 1970s after being persecuted by the Pinochet regime, which also disappeared Lily’s father.
The suit, filed by Attorney Eitay Mack, seeks to compel Attorney General Avichai Mendelbit to open criminal investigations into the involvement of personnel from the Israeli ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, the Israeli army, and civilian arms traders.
Pinochet took over Chile on September 11, 1973, overthrowing its elected government and its Marxist prime minister, Salvador Allende. The next day began purges of anyone suspected of having leftist leanings, throughout Chile but particularly in the school system, which lasted until 1990. During the first years of the new regime, around 3,000 persons were abducted and murdered and over 35,000 people were tortured by DINA, the Chilean secret services. The regime never admitted these crimes. Israel was reportedly involved in training the DINA.
One of the victims was Ernesto Traubman, Lily Traubman’s father and Tamara’s grandfather, who was abducted at the outbreak of the coup, tortured to death in the Chilean Ministry of Defense in Santiago, and went missing for about 20 years, until his remains were located and given to the family.
More:
http://lobelog.com/investigate-israeli-complicity-with-pinochets-crimes/
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