Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalFishing Village Fights Iron Mine in Northern Chile
Fishing Village Fights Iron Mine in Northern Chile
By Orlando Milesi
LA HIGUERA, Chile, Apr 11 2017 (IPS) - In Punta de Choros, a hidden cove on Chile’s Pacific coast, some 900 fishers do not yet dare celebrate the decision by regional authorities to deny the Dominga port mining project a permit due to environmental reasons.
The fishers, from the northern region of Coquimbo, are afraid that the government will unblock the project, in which the Chilean company Andes Iron planned to invest 2.5 billion dollars for the extraction of iron ore, promising 9,800 jobs in the building phase and 1,400 in the production phase.
The project would affect several nature reserves, and the local fishers also question the effects from the traffic of cargo ships and from a desalination plant.
And as they said in interviews with IPS, they also doubt that the cabinet of ministers will uphold the decision by the regional environmental authorities, who rejected the plan for the Dominga mine, controlled by the Délano family.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/04/fishing-village-fights-iron-mine-in-northern-chile/
Environment & Energy:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127109621
Amazonas
Amazonas
written by Adriaan Alsema April 10, 2017
Amazonas is the most southern state of Colombia, bordering Venezuela, Brazil and Peru. Most of the department consists of dense rainforest.
Because of its inaccessible forests and remote location from the country’s main economic hubs, Amazonas is one of the least populated states in Colombia.
Amazonas is arguably the country’s most ecologically diverse states and of major importance for the feeding of the main Amazon river in Brazil.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/amazonas/
The must-see documentary on Colombias paramilitary threat
The must-see documentary on Colombia’s paramilitary threat
written by Adriaan Alsema April 10, 2017
Colombia’s peace process could be the prelude to a bloodbath as new paramilitary groups are forming with the explicit intent to kill any “undesirable,” a newly released documentary shows.
The 20-minute film by British documentary maker Toby Muse was shot in Medellin and includes interviews with paramilitary groups AGC, a.k.a. “Los Urabeños,” and the elusive “Aguilas Negras,” who warned the city of an impending “social cleansing,” jargon for the systematic killing of leftists, human rights defenders and members of the LGBT community.
At the same time, the documentary showed, radical elements within the FARC are ready to rearm if demobilized fighters become assassination targets.
[center]
http://colombiareports.com/must-see-documentary-colombias-paramilitary-threat/
Uribe abandons Colombia war victim memorial service amid victims booing
Uribe abandons Colombia war victim memorial service amid victims’ booing
written by Adriaan Alsema April 10, 2017
Former President Alvaro Uribe walked out of a commemorative service for the 8 million victims of Colombia’s armed conflict on Sunday after victims criticized the politician accused of multiple war crimes.
Uribe, both a victim and accused of multiple war crimes, was initially one of the few congressmen who attended the memorial service.
In spite of the country going through a peace process, more than half of congress simply refused to pay respect to the victims on National Victims Day.
. . .
However, the service went from bad to worse after the intervention of the daughter of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, the Liberal Party leader whose 1948 assassination sparked a decade of extreme partisan violence.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/uribe-abandons-colombia-war-victim-memorial-service-amid-victims-booing/
The golden land that lit the path to ancient empires
The golden land that lit the path to ancient empires
The remains of a monastery in U Thong reveal local links to global empires 9 Apr 2017 at 04:00
A first look around reveals a landscape that is dry and sparsely vegetated, with few houses around. There is little evidence that visibly betrays the fact that where we're standing is on the remains of an ancient trade and culture centre in the upper Gulf of Thailand.
We travel along a dusty path to Ban Sri Sanphet 3, an archaeological site in Suphan Buri's U Thong district where a mysterious vihara -- a Buddhist monastery -- has been the site of an excavation project since 2015.
In the late 1950s, the Ministry of Culture's Fine Arts Department (FAD) placed the site under its archaeological survey plans based on a small sample of findings.
The vihara remained hidden underground until 2008 when construction work arrived to build an irrigation canal nearby the site. When workers uncovered a pile of old bricks, FAD archaeologists were alerted....
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7,000 years ago, on a Swiss Alp
APR 8, 2017 - 16:00
The hunter of Schnidi - a prehistoric model displayed at the Bern Historical Museum three
years ago
(KEYSTONE/Archäologischer Dienst Kanton Bern)
People in Switzerland were running high alpine pastures much earlier than previously assumed, according to a study that combines archeological knowledge with findings from paleoecology.
Scientists from the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at Bern University say there’s a chain of evidence supporting a theory that shepherds living in southwestern Switzerland around 5,000 BC drove their herds to pastures situated at around 2,750 metres above sea level in the Alps.
“We have strong indications that argue that people were on the move in the mountains with their animals much earlier than previously assumed,” study author Albert Hafner is quoted as saying.
He said the combination of two scientific approaches allowed the scientists to collect better data and interpret it with a new perspective, according to a press release by Bern University.
More:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/prehistoric-farming_7-000-years-ago--on-a-swiss-alp/43094518
The Uruguayan jail where inmates set up shop
The Uruguayan jail where inmates set up shop
By Frederick Bernas & Rayan Hindi
Punta de Rieles, Uruguay
3 hours ago
Every weekday morning, Cesar Campo wakes up, eats a quick breakfast and heads to work in a converted warehouse where he builds tables, chairs, bookcases and anything else that clients request.
Close by, his neighbours make bricks, grow vegetables and run shops such as cafes, a bakery, a barber's salon and a tattoo studio.
All the workers are inmates living at Punta de Rieles, a progressive "open" prison just outside the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.
"We never imagined we would have something like this," said Campo, 50, who has spent 23 years behind bars for bank robbery.
More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39145551
New Mexico Law Bans Schools From Lunch Shaming Hungry Kids
Source: Huffington Post
04/08/2017 06:40 pm ET
New Mexico Law Bans Schools From ‘Lunch Shaming’ Hungry Kids
“No child should be forced to wipe down cafeteria tables or throw away a meal because of a debt.”
By Hilary Hanson
New Mexico is the first state in the United States to make it expressly illegal to single out or humiliate a child who cannot pay for his or her lunch at school.
Gov. Susana Martinez (R) signed The Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights into law on Thursday, The New York Times reports. The bill is aimed at ending the practice of “lunch shaming.” It also outlines procedures for schools to collect debts and helps families in signing up for federal free or reduced-price meal assistance.
Advocates for children say tactics that stigmatize students with lunch debts are disturbingly common. This includes throwing kids’ lunches away if they can’t pay; making students clean the cafeteria; or requiring that they wear stickers, stamps or wrist bands that indicate they can’t pay.
“Children whose parents or caregivers owe money for school lunch will no longer have to miss meals or face public embarrassment in front of their peers,” Jennifer Ramo of New Mexico Appleseed, a group that works to fight poverty, said in a March statement supporting the bill. “No child should be forced to wipe down cafeteria tables or throw away a meal because of a debt.”
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-mexico-lunch-shaming-law_us_58e958efe4b00de14103e8db?section=us_politics
Tech companies must do more to avoid using minerals tainted by rights abuses
Report claims smartphones and TVs often contain minerals from Colombia, Peru, Myanmar and elsewhere that may be associated with human rights abuses
Kate Hodal
@katehodal
Friday 7 April 2017 02.00 EDT
Tech firms trying to avoid using “conflict minerals” will need to work harder to keep them out of smartphones and tablets.
Companies are overlooking the risk that mining in countries other than the Democratic Republic of the Congo is linked to abuses and armed groups seeking to fund violence, claims a new report.
While existing laws on conflict minerals have focused on DRC and surrounding territories, where they have fuelled decades of war, new European rules coming into force this week take into account the “extreme risk” that tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold mined in countries like Colombia, Peru and Myanmar is equally tainted.
According to risk analytics group Verisk Maplecroft, tech companies could fall foul of the law.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/apr/07/tech-companies-conflict-minerals-rights-abuses-verisk-maplecroft
Commentary: Post-coup militarization in Honduras
Commentary: Post-coup militarization in Honduras
Published on April 8, 2017
By Alex Rawley
Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
On the morning of June 28, 2009, military officials forced then-president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, into exile on a plane bound for Costa Rica. Shortly after, Robert Micheletti, president of the National Congress, was sworn in as president, stating, “I am not going to step aside, nor am I going to ask permission to step aside temporarily, that is not possible… I will watch the passage of power from the Casa de Gobierno and in the moment in which Porfirio Lobo is imposed as president, I will get up and go to my house with my family.”
This turning point in Honduran politics marked a new era defined by conservative politicians eager to strengthen their own power. In doing so, these politicians, under the banner of the right-wing party, el Partido Nacional, have greatly expanded the role of the Honduran military, which they have justified as an attempt to tackle endemic problems related to crime and corruption. Unfortunately, this recent push toward militarization has deepened Honduras’ cycle of impunity and ratcheted up abuses committed by the military.
Honduran military expansion began with the presidency of Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Under his rule, the Honduran Congress, in November 2011 modified the constitution, allowing the military to fill roles previously reserved for the police. Lobo soon began using the military to patrol cities, airports, tourist locations, and entire neighborhoods.
On February 8, 2013, his administration announced that it would be sending soldiers to patrol Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, two of the largest cities in Honduras. In August of that same year, he proposed a measure that would put soldiers in charge of prisons, stating that this would “end the reign of criminals in our prison system, which has done so much damage to our society.”
More:
http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Commentary%3A-Post-coup-militarization-in-Honduras-34063.html
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