April 28, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: Comments Off
Earlier this month, Cuban president Raúl Castro made the stunning announcement that Cuba was “ready to discuss everything” with the Obama administration, including political prisoners, economic policy, and democratic electoral processes. Pres. Obama has been firm but cautious in his declarations of a willingness to open a new era of engagement with the Cold War enemy just 90 miles from the Florida coast.
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April 27, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
As the US State Dept. has issued a travel advisory warning Americans to avoid unnecessary travel to Mexico, and the two countries are screening all travelers coming from the other nation, Canada, Spain and New Zealand have reportedly confirmed at least one case each of swine flu. The multi-strain flu virus is expected to meet little immunity in the human population, which it has not previously affected in large numbers.
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April 26, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Secretary of Homeland Security for Barack Obama’s US administration, Janet Napolitano, today announced that the new strain of influenza commonly called Mexican Swine Flu constitutes an “incident of national interest” to US security. The new strain of flu has been found in at least 20 cases so far in the US, across 5 states, with all known patients so far recovering.
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April 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Pentagon is releasing today as many as 2,000 photos never before seen, some showing prisoner abuse at Guantánamo Bay. The photos were tied up in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, calling for evidence of Defense Department actions at the prison camp to be made public. According to The Washington Post, the release will contain “21 images depicting detainee abuse in facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan other than the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, as well as 23 other detainee abuse photos”.
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April 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
En la Cumbre de las Américas, el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, ha proclamado su intención de llevar a cabo un nuevo programa diplomático en las Américas, buscando colaboración y apertura. Había establecido esta semana en México su apoyo al tratado interamericano contra el tráfico de armas, prometiendo impulsar al Senado a actuar para ratificarlo.
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April 17, 2009 :: Severino Villalonso :: One Comment
Cuban pres. Raúl Castro has said he is willing to engage the US in talks on any subject, including human rights and democratization, so long as there are no preconditions. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton today said that 50 years of US policy toward Cuba have “failed” to bring about the changes sought, and hinted the Obama administration would be looking to a new era of engagement and negotiation.
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March 3, 2009 :: Severino Villalonso :: Comments Off
Raúl Castro, brother and replacement of Fidel Castro, who headed Cuba’s revolutionary government for nearly 50 years, has replaced two top officials who were long-time aides to his brother and potential successors. The move is being called a clear indication that Raúl Castro is now the true leader of the Cuban state, not just a place-holder for his ailing brother.
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March 3, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Zimbabwe has released a top human rights activist whose detention was illegal, according to activists, the opposition and foreign governments. Zimbabwe power-sharing arrangement still under strain as Mugabe regime seeks to guard against prosecution for past crimes. After a sustained series of bombings across Pakistan, an attack by gunmen in Lahore, this time targeting a [...]
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February 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
50 years ago today, Fidel Castro was sworn in as president of Cuba, after his rebel militia overthrew the authoritarian Batista regime. Castro’s revolutionary government is still in command, under Fidel’s brother Raúl, whom many are calling on to institute substantial reforms and democratize Cuba and its one-party system. Xinhua reports that “Sri Lankan President [...]
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February 9, 2009 :: Severino Villalonso :: Comments Off
Cuando accedió al poder, el presidente boliviano, Evo Morales, consiguió una meta antes inalcanzable, convirtiéndose en el primer indígena elegido presidente de un país en las Américas. Morales prometió cambios radicales a las leyes bolivianas, para refortalecer su planeada revolución socialista-laborista y para dar mas derechos a las poblaciones indígenas, sobretodo los Aymara, etnicidad que incluye al presidente entre los suyos.
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December 17, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
A long-running bellwether legal case in Canada’s farming industry, which has left at least one farmer unable to farm any crop variety of rapeseed (canola) —for fear of having to pay accidental royalties to bio-chemical giant Monsanto—, highlights the need for comprehensive reform of international seed regulation standards. The Canadian courts ruled that the individual farmer had to shoulder the burden of ferreting out any instance of “contamination” of his crop by pollen from nearby genetically-modified (GM) planting, as Monsanto held a patent on the seeds. The farmer, and those who support his claims, argue that there is no means by which anyone can prevent cross-pollination from GM plants.
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November 18, 2008 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: Comments Off
A federal judge in Miami has ordered the Curação Drydock Company to pay $80 million in damages and fines for enslaving workers shipped to Curação from Cuba. The workers were reportedly forced to work up to 112 hours per week at just 3 cents (US$0.03) per hour. As CSM reports: “Their passports were seized at the airport and they were rarely allowed to leave the shipyard complex…”
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November 17, 2008 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: Comments Off
Socio-economic issues linked to the disparate treatment of racial groups still plagues much of Brazil’s population and impedes the modernization of its economy. Though the Amazon nation is booming, and has become a world leader among developing market economies, the current president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, took office promising to finally rid the dense, remote rainforest of de facto slavery.
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June 23, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply.
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March 13, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
13 March :: The Environmental Protection Agency plans to tighten standards for ground-level ozone pollution, reducing the maximum allowable from 84 parts-per-billion to 75 ppb over an 8-hour period; critics say “implementation could be decades away”, depending on regulatory procedure and court review; last year, an official review suggested maximum allowable ozone levels of 60 [...]
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February 20, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Fidel Castro has announced he will retire from leadership of the Cuban government; in a letter published by the official state newspaper, Granma, he wrote that he “will not accept, I repeat, I neither want nor will accept, the position of president of the Council of State and commander in chief”; the move comes after [...]
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February 14, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
14 February :: Record-high grain prices will cause an untenable 35% minimum increase in poor nations’ expenditures for cereals imports through July 2008, reports UN Food and Agriculture Organization; prices have increased rapidly due to record oil prices, dramatic deterioration of arable land in China — turning world’s most populous nation into net importer of [...]
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October 15, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Emily Arnold & Janet Larsen, EPI :: The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast [...]
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August 14, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Water is one of the “fundamental building-blocks of life”, as is often said in science, in biology classrooms, in medicine, theology, environmental policy debates, and in cosmology and space exploration. It is also a commodity whose economic reality is increasingly defined by chronic scarcity and often intensely uneven distribution.
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August 2, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
A new study has shown that the most serious risk rural Mexican women face of contracting HIV is by sexual intercourse with their own husbands, in cases where the husband is a migrant worker traveling to and from the US. The result of the irregular migration policy regarding the US-Mexico border is that men who migrate without papers to work in factories or on farms often spend large amounts of time alone, with no contact with their wives or families.
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May 29, 2007 :: staff :: Comments Off
In what are often desperate attempts to reach the northern Mexico border, where they can cross into the US and escape endemic poverty, thousands of central American workers risk life and limb to reach better life. Lack of adequate policy for arranging, organizing transport for guest workers leaves disturbing tragedy in place of road to prosperity.
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May 25, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Is the United States an “English-speaking nation”, or a place where all cultures are welcome to converge, mix and evolve? To answer this question, we must consider that there is a natural human tendency to fear what is perceived as the definite and invasive “other”, that which is different and which we feel can be categorized in a way that fits our worries.
The push to establish a single national language can only be sustained on the basis of a number of false premises. We will explore seven such lies and misperceptions here, all of a particular sort, having to do with a way of rationalizing one’s aversion to difference or to change. And, in each case, it is fairly easy to illustrate how the lie works against the interests of both a democratic society and American tradition itself.
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May 16, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Anoche, George W. Bush presentó desde su despacho en la Casa Blanca, un plan de cinco puntos claves para una “reforma comprensiva” de la política migratoria de Estados Unidos. Ha llamado mucho la atención la propuesta de despachar 6 mil soldados de la Guardia Nacional a la frontera con México.
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May 1, 2006 :: staff :: Comments Off
Hace 230 años, los colonos revolucionarios de la costa atlántica de Norteamérica exigieron a la corona británica que no hubiera “ningún impuesto sin representación” en el parlamento de Londres. El movimiento a favor de una política migratoria más humana, sensata y democrática, evoca esa ideología: la persona tiene derecho a una representación en una economía que incluye su mano de obra.
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April 21, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
La democracia de Estados Unidos obliga a que se tolere y se acepte la inmigración. Es una verdad irrefutable e irrefrenable que ha sido y sigue siendo una nación de inmigrantes, una nación imaginada, alcanzada y construida por inmigrantes. Es una sociedad fundada en el trabajo y gracias a los esfuerzos, a veces extraordinarios, los ideales y la paciencia de ola tras ola de inmigrantes de todo el mundo, en colaboración más o menos explícita con los habitantes ya oriundos del país.
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