Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalMexico's 'modern slavery' stocks US produce aisles
Mexico's 'modern slavery' stocks US produce aisles
AFP April 29, 2015, 10:22 am
Mexico's 'modern slavery' stocks US produce aisles
San Quintin (Mexico) (AFP) - The farmworkers go at a furious pace, kicking up clouds of dust as they crouch down to grab several tomatoes at a time, put them in plastic buckets and hurry them over to be weighed.
The workers are all identified by numbers on this ranch in a dusty valley of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, where the work day starts at 6:00 am and lasts between nine and 14 hours.
"Number 10!" "Number 24!" "Five!" they call out as they dump their 20-kilogram (45-pound) buckets, racing to reach their daily quota
They have to pick a minimum of 700 kilograms to earn a day's pay of 120 pesos ($7.80).
Each extra bucket earns them a small bonus. The best manage to pick three tonnes, enough to fill one of the trucks that transport the tomatoes to wholesalers in the United States.
More:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/world/a/27451345/
The street art of Buenos Aires gallery
The street art of Buenos Aires gallery
NYREE MCFARLANE
Last updated 11:09, April 28 2015
Walk the streets of Buenos Aires, and on every corner and slab of concrete you'll find evidence of expression - from crude political scribbles to arresting pieces of art.
The city of nearly three million is cosmopolitan, vibrant and yet also still reeling from injustice in its recent history - this plays a large part in it having become one of the world's street art capitals.
From 1976-1983 Argentina was held under a brutal military dictatorship that 'disappeared' over 30,000 citizens. Then, from 1998-2002 a devastating financial crisis saw one in five Argentines out of work (the disappearances this time were of everyday people's money, with the government freezing bank accounts).
~ snip ~
This stencil work hovers across the Navy School of Mechanics in Nuñez, a building that was used as a clandestine detention and torture centre during the period of state terrorism from 1974-1983.
Around 5000 people were sent into the building at the time, only 150 ever emerged.
This work turns the once ill-used building into a memorial - the child is holding a photo of one of the 'desaparecidos' (disappeared), and the logo on her chest is the symbol for the human rights group HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgettings and Silence).
HIJOS was started by the sons and daughters of the disappeared (many of whom were illegally adopted out, and are only just discovering their identity) and much of their work involves highlighting how people who they believe to be war criminals are still roaming the streets today.
More:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/south-america/67631465/the-street-art-of-buenos-aires
Cuba-US relations: House Republicans reveal legislation to continue travel restrictions to Cuba
Source: Independent
Cuba-US relations: House Republicans reveal legislation to continue travel restrictions to Cuba
Payton Guion
New York
Tuesday 28 April 2015
Republicans in the US House of Representatives have introduced legislation aimed at blocking recent efforts by President Barack Obama to ease travel restrictions between the US and Cuba.
The legislation, which was sponsored by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, would block new flights and cruises to Cuba from the US, the Associated Press reported. It has been tacked onto a crucial transportation spending bill that the House will take on next month.
Mr Diaz-Balart, himself a Cuban-American, has introduced the legislation after months of thawing relations between the US and the communist Caribbean country. In January, the Obama administration announced plans to ease travel restrictions to Cuba and to allow regular flights for the first time.
“Under these circumstances, Congress cannot remain idle,” Rep. Diaz-Balart said. “The expansion of regularly scheduled flights to Cuba is an obvious attempt to circumvent the tourism ban. Similarly, allowing cruises to dock in Cuba would violate both the spirit and the letter of US law.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cubaus-relations-house-republicans-reveal-legislation-to-continue-travel-restrictions-to-cuba-10211093.html
Colombia's health ministry seeks to halt coca spraying
Source: Associated Press
Colombia's health ministry seeks to halt coca spraying
Apr 27, 11:00 PM EDT
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombias Health Ministry is recommending the immediate suspension of aerial spraying of a herbicide thats the cornerstone of U.S.-financed efforts to wipe out cocaine crops.
The ministry on Monday based its decision on the reclassification last month of glyphosate as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization's research arm. It said it was acting in accordance with a constitutional court ruling that it take precautions whenever credible health risks are apparent.
President Juan Manuel Santos has yet to respond to the ministry's recommendation.
More than 4 million acres of land in Colombia have been sprayed with the popular weed killer over the past two decades to kill coca plants, whose leaves produce cocaine. The spraying program is partly carried out by U.S. contractors.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_COLOMBIA_COCAINE_SPRAYING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-04-27-23-00-05
(Short article, no more at link.)
Military Personnel Trained by the CIA Used Napalm Against Indigenous People in Brazil
Military Personnel Trained by the CIA Used Napalm Against Indigenous People in Brazil
by Santiago Navarro F., Renata Bessi and Translated by Miriam Taylor, Truthout
November 11, 2014
Indigenous people of ethnic Pataxo struggle to return their lands. In October 2014, they closed
the highway to pressure the government. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)
TRUTHOUT--For the first time in the history of Brazil, the federal government is investigating the deaths and abuses suffered by Indigenous peoples during military dictatorship (1964-1985). The death toll may be twenty times more than previously known.
Just as in World War II and Vietnam, napalm manufactured in the US burned the bodies of hundreds of indigenous individuals in Brazil, people without an army and without weapons. The objective was to take over their lands. Indigenous peoples in this country suffered the most from the atrocities committed during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) - with the support of the United States. For the first time in Brazil's history, the National Truth Commission, created by the federal government in 2012 in order to investigate political crimes committed by the State during the military dictatorship, gives statistics showing that the number of indigenous individuals killed could be 20 times greater than was previously officially registered by leftist militants.
Unlike other crimes committed by the State during that time period, no reparations or indemnification for the acts have been offered to indigenous people; they were not even considered victims of the military regime. "From the north to the south and from the east to the west, accusations of genocide, assassination of leaders and indigenous rights defenders, slavery, massacres, poisonings in small towns, forced displacement, secret prisons for indigenous people, the bombing of towns, torture, and denigrating treatment were registered [with the State Truth Commissions]," Marcelo Zelic, vice president of the anti-torture group Never Again - SP, one of the organizations that makes up the Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission, created in order to provide documents and information to the National Truth Commission - told Truthout during an audience with the Truth Commission of San Pablo open to journalists.
Guaraní leader Timoteo Popyguá is from the El Dorado community in the state of Sao Paulo. He tells of his parents and grandparents, who lived in the municipality of the Manguerinha region in southern Brazil's Paraná state, and who were victims of the military regime. Popyguá explained to Truthout that his relatives were forcibly removed from their lands, and those who managed to stay suffered from a drastic reduction in their territories. Because these indigenous groups require "ample space" for the reproduction of their cultural life, according to him this is another form of violence that they were subjected to. "My parents were victims of abuses, chained to tree trunks. The reason was land," he says. "There must be reparations for the loss of our land and our culture."
The Commission for Amnesty - a different body that the Truth Commission - was put into place in 2001 by the Ministry of Justice with the goal of analyzing the requirements for political amnesty. Currently, their official documents count 457 victims who were either murdered or disappeared by the military. The Truth Commission determined that the total number of registered cases was 8,000 indigenous individuals, and another thousand people who belonged to political organizations who were killed between 1964 and 1985.
More:
https://intercontinentalcry.org/military-personnel-trained-by-the-cia-used-napalm-against-indigenous-people-in-brazil-25998/
After Diplomatic Thaw, Cuban Cancer Vaccine May Start Saving American Lives
After Diplomatic Thaw, Cuban Cancer Vaccine May Start Saving American Lives
© AP Photo/ Mstyslav Chernov
01:17 25.04.2015(updated 08:57 25.04.2015)
Now that Cuba and the United States have warmed diplomatic ties after more than fifty years of tension between the two countries, Havana has decided to begin exporting a breakthrough cancer treatment for testing in America.
This week, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute of Buffalo, New York, signed a partnership with Havana’s Center for Molecular Immunology to import the Cuban lung cancer vaccine CimaVax.
The drug has already undergone rigorous testing in Cuba, where it has shown success in reducing antibody responses in lung cancer patients and reducing future tumor growth.
Dr. Candace Johnson, director of Roswell Park, announced the partnership upon returning from a two-day state foreign trade mission to Havana, which was led by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150425/1021356354.html#ixzz3YX9PCD9m
Virgins recruited as sex slaves for Colombian drug lords - reports
Virgins recruited as sex slaves for Colombian drug lords - reports
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:26 GMT
BOGOTA, April 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Colombian authorities intercepted phone calls between a young woman and a member of Colombia's most powerful drug cartel, the Urabenos, they heard the woman offer merchandise with "zero kilometers". But the 23-year-old human trafficker, known by her alias Paola, was not referring to a car's mileage but to virgin girls she had recruited and groomed to serve as sex slaves for kingpins of the notorious organised crime network.
In excerpts of the taped phone calls published in Colombia's La Semana magazine, Paola is also heard offering up her 11-year-old sister to have sex with a man who is an alleged gang member.
As part of a massive manhunt for Colombia's most wanted drug lord, Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, who authorities say is the leader of the Urabenos, Paola and 71 others have been arrested in recent days.
Paola allegedly recruited girls aged between 11 and 16 into forced prostitution, preying on poor and vulnerable teenagers at the school gates in Colombia's northwestern Uraba region, from which the Urabenos name derives.
More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20150427152649-uaon9/
Cuba’s Coming Out Party
Cuba’s Coming Out Party
The road ahead for U.S.-Cuban relations is rocky, but at least it's new.
By Medea Benjamin, April 15, 2015.
For the small island country of Cuba, the Seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama marked a kind of “coming out” party.
Banned from the for-capitalists-only gatherings from the time they began in 1994, Cuba was not only invited to participate in the summit this year, it was the belle of the ball (albeit the “belle” was a shaky, 83-year-old Raul Castro, who lacks his brother Fidel’s charisma). Cuba’s presence was heralded in the speeches of every nation’s leader, and the handshake between President Obama and Raul Castro was the summit’s Kodak moment.
In Raul Castro’s long. 49-minute speech (in which he joked that because Cuba had been excluded from six prior summits, he deserved six times the recommended eight minutes), he gave a history lesson of past U.S. attacks on Cuba — from the Platt Amendment to supporting the dictator Fulgencio Batista to the Bay of Pigs invasion and the opening of the Guantanamo prison. But he was gracious to President Obama, saying he was not to blame for this legacy and calling him an “honest man” of humble origins.
President Obama certainly won praise throughout the summit for turning this page in the Cold War. Some leaders insisted on clarifying, however, that Cuba was not at the summit because of Obama’s nice gesture: Cuba was there because the leaders of Latin America insisted that there would not be another summit without Cuba. Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, no lefty, recalled his position at the last summit, which he hosted, that Cuba must be invited to the next one. Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and others had threatened to boycott any new gathering without Cuba.
More:
http://fpif.org/cubas-coming-out-party/
Destination Cuba: Ferry operators eye Florida-to-Havana service
Destination Cuba: Ferry operators eye Florida-to-Havana service
Costas Paris • April 25, 2015
Ferry operators are racing to be the first to tie up pier-side in Havana.
At least five shipping companies have applied for special licenses from the U.S. State Department to relaunch overnight ferry service from ports in Florida, according to shipping executives familiar with the matter. The routes were popular with American tourists and weekend revelers before sea links were closed off more than 50 years ago.
The Obama administration has eased sanctions and promises to normalize relations with Havana. As part of that move, Washington has lifted some travel restrictions that have long made Cuba practically off limits for most American visitors.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls now allows visits for a variety of purposes that once required special approval. Those include trips by Americans to see family, professional and educational travel, and travel related to humanitarian projects and sporting events.
Tourism is still prohibited, but shipping executives are betting that those restrictions will fall away soon, too. Since the Obama administration first started easing travel restrictions to Cuba several years ago, approved travelers have been able to use several Washington-sanctioned charter flights to the island. There are some private ferry charters for humanitarian cargo and other approved shipments, too, but passengers aren’t typically allowed aboard.
More:
http://progresoweekly.us/destination-cuba-ferry-operators-eye-florida-to-havana-service/
Ros-Lehtinen’s new reality
Ros-Lehtinen’s new reality
Sarah Stephens • April 25, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Here’s a story about Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s sudden about-face on President Obama’s decision to drop Cuba from the state sponsors of terror list. It’s a little “in the weeds,” but it dramatizes how much the debate on Cuba has changed since we learned that Presidents Obama and Castro agreed to restore diplomatic relations.
We begin on January 8 of this year when Rep. Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27) introduced H.R. 204, the North Korea Sanctions and Diplomatic Non-recognition Act of 2015, to reverse a decision taken by the Bush administration to drop North Korea from the state sponsors list.
To accomplish this result, she wrote legislation which says in part, “Notwithstanding the decision by the Secretary of State on October 11, 2008,” to remove North Korea from the list, Congress was putting them back on the list and re-imposing the sanctions because “the Government of North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism.”
When she introduced the legislation, no one questioned if Rep. Ros-Lehtinen had the authority to propose it. In fact, the Congressional Record published this definitive statement: “Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.”
More:
http://progresoweekly.us/ros-lehtinens-new-reality/
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