Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalGrandson lost during Argentina 'dirty war' emerges
Grandson lost during Argentina 'dirty war' emerges
Aug 8, 2:40 PM EDT
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AP Photo
Estela de Carlotto, president of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, right, and her
grandson Ignacio Hurban attend a news conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Friday, Aug. 8, 2014. On Aug. 8, Carlotto located Hurban, the grandson born to
her daughter Laura while in captivity during Argentina's military dictatorship.
Laura was kidnapped and killed by the military in August 1978. Carlotto refers to
him as Guido, the name her slain daughter intended to give him.
(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) [/font]
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- A provincial music teacher in Argentina is making his first public appearance since he was dramatically identified as the long-sought grandson of the country's leading human rights activist.
Ignacio Hurban was identified this week as the grandson of Estela de Carlotto. The activist spent 36 years searching for the child taken from her daughter, who was executed by the military during the country's "dirty war."
Hurban and De Carlotto were speaking to the media Friday at the headquarters of the group she founded, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
De Carlotto led the campaign to find hundreds of children taken from people killed by security forces and given to families who sympathized with the government during the 1976-83 dictatorship.
The circumstances of Hurban's apparently illegal adoption have not been disclosed.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_ARGENTINA_DIRTY_WAR_CHILDREN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-08-08-14-40-37
(Short article, no more at link.)
Lonely Supernovae May Have Been Kicked Out Of Their Galaxies
Tech 8/08/2014 @ 4:38AM 30 views
Lonely Supernovae May Have Been Kicked Out Of Their Galaxies
Space is a pretty vast place and most of it consists of just that – space. Galaxies tend to be in clusters and stars tend to bunch together into galaxies. Which is why the Universe’s loneliest supernovae are interesting to scientists.
So-called calcium-rich transients are luminous explosions that are neither as bright nor as long as traditional supernovae and take place out in the metaphorical middle of nowhere. Previous studies of these mysterious events have also found that calcium makes up as much as half of the material thrown into space by the starbursts, compared to only a fraction in normal supernovae. That makes it likely that these strange stellar explosions are the dominant source of calcium in the Universe.
Dr Joseph Lyman of the University of Warwick and his team got some time on the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope to try to figure out how these events happen so far from their neighbours.
“ These are very much a new class of supernova and so studies remain in their infancy ,” Lyman told Forbes.
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University of Warwick researchers explain mystery of the loneliest supernovas. Compact binary star systems that have been thrown
far from their host galaxy when one star of that pair became a neutron star, go through a second trauma when the remaining
white dwarf star is eventually pulled onto the neutron star. (Credit: Mark A. Garlick / space-art.co.uk / University of Warwick)[/font]
More:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2014/08/08/lonely-supernovae-may-have-been-kicked-out-of-their-galaxies/
Brazilian police dismantle militia group in Rio
Brazilian police dismantle militia group in Rio
| August 7, 2014 | Updated: August 7, 2014 4:58pm
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Police in Brazil say they have arrested more than 20 people as alleged members of a paramilitary militia group operating in Rio de Janeiro.
Inspector Alexandre Capote told reporters Thursday that police have "dismantled Rio's largest militia group."
He says the group forced residents in Rio's lower middle-class district of Campo Grande to pay monthly fees for protection against drug gangs and for services like illegal cable television connections. Police say that people who did not pay up were often tortured and murdered by the group.
Capote says the militia group took in more than $450,000 a month.
Officials say militias operating in many of Rio's slums are made up of active and former police, firefighters, private security and off-duty prison guards.
http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Brazilian-police-dismantle-militia-group-in-Rio-5675127.php
(My emphasis.)
San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
July 18-19, 2014.
Written by James Rodríguez, MiMundo.org
Monday, 04 August 2014 21:30
San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
July 18-19, 2014.
[center]
On July 18, 2014, members of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG)
returned to family members the positively identified remains of ten wartime victims
exhumed from the former Military Garrison in San Juan Comalapa between 2003 and 2005.
All ten victims, Kakchiquel Mayans whose DNA matched that of living family members,
were buried in the municipal cemetery the following day. [/center]
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4975-finally-free-mass-burial-of-wartime-victims-in-guatemala-exhumed-from-former-military-garrison-of-comalapa
Going Back to the Farm in Cuba
Going Back to the Farm in Cuba
By Ivet González
HAVANA, Aug 7 2014 (IPS) - Scattered houses amidst small fields of vegetables and other crops line the road to the La China farm on the outskirts of the Cuban capital. This is where Hortensia Martínez works – a mechanical engineer who has been called crazy by many for deciding to become a small farmer.
“Our story isn’t common,” Martínez, 48, told Tierramérica at the entrance to the six-hectare farm that was granted “in usufruct” to her husband Guillermo García in May 2009 in Punta Brava, in the municipality of La Lisa, a semi-urban suburb west of Havana.
Since Cuba adopted economic reforms in 2008, land has begun to be granted to people “in usufruct”, to stimulate agriculture.
From one edge of La China, scrubland can be seen stretching all the way to the horizon. In 2013, according to official figures, 1,046,100 of the 6,342,400 arable hectares in this Caribbean island nation were idle.
A scarcity of people not only interested in farming but who also have the skills and resources to produce more food is one of the hurdles to making headway towards the goal set as part of the broader economic reforms that put a priority on the agricultural sector in a country in dire need of boosting production and reducing food prices.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08/going-back-to-the-farm-in-cuba/
A Crossroads for Socialism: Cuba in Transition (Introduction)
A Crossroads for Socialism: Cuba in Transition (Introduction)
Nicholas Partyka I Geopolitics I Analysis I April 24th, 2014
The following is Part One of a multi-part project entitled, "A Crossroads for Socialism: Cuba in Transition." This series of analyses, observations, and dispatches of Cuba focuses on the country's unprecedented, post-Fidel transition. With a heavy reliance on macroeconomic, geopolitical, and foreign policy analysis, Hampton contributor Nicholas Partyka seeks to pinpoint the nuanced economic, political, and social changes that are occurring on the island nation, and how these changes are impacting everyday Cubans.
Given the coverage (or maybe, more correctly, the lack thereof) of Cuba in the US media today one might be forgiven for offering the following as mildly shocking news to some readers; the Cuban revolution has not been defeated, and it is not over. Cuba garners little attention in the US media, and has for some time been something of an off-the-radar topic in US foreign policy discussion; save perhaps a few perfunctory lines in a party platform every four years. The times when Cuba does grab attention are either in the role of foil for US espionage, aka "development" efforts (see the recent ZunZuneo case), or as "a rouge state run by a power-mad tyrant" (see the case of the North Korean-owned and bound ship loaded with Cuban ex-Soviet weaponry and sugar). In light of this context, it seems like Cuba today is mainly forgotten by the American public, hostage to a few extremists in congress, and an easy target for politicians scoring political points. The public might have this misconception that the Cuban revolution has failed, and that its transformative project has run its course; and most would likely believe that it has little to show for itself after fifty plus years. However, let me assure you at the outset: The Cuban revolution has neither been defeated, nor is its work over. The series of analyses and dispatches in this forthcoming project will elaborate on what I mean by this.
Along these lines, let me give an important disclaimer before getting into anything substantive. This will not be a travel blog where I present an image of the "stereotypical Cuba" - of the Cuba you think you know, and are comfortable with. I am going to pass over, save these few lines, in silence the tropical splendor of Cuba. I'm not going to spend time talking about how Havana is full of old American cars from the 1950s. First of all, I don't care at all about cars, and as I'm not a baby boomer, I don't get nostalgic about them. Second, there is a very good reason why these cars are still on the road - the Cubans have had little choice but to keep them running. This series will not be about beaches, restaurants, and cool little places to hear and dance to lively Cuban music.
I should add to my disclaimer that I do not know everything about Cuba. I don't even speak Spanish terribly well. What I present here are my impressions, analysis and insight based on my experiences in Cuba and with the Cuban people, as well as my studies of its history, economy, and society. I would not be comfortable calling or presenting myself as a Cuba expert. Nonetheless, the serious attention I've given to the study of Cuba's political and economic history - as well as my personal experiences from within the country - provides a good enough reason to be allowed serious consideration.
At this point, I should say something about who I am so that the reader can have some context for the views and analysis I give, and also to give the reader some insight into the basis of the claims and arguments I will advance. I am a PhD candidate in the Philosophy Department at University at Albany SUNY. I am finishing up my dissertation on the political consequences of capitalist work organization. My specialty in philosophy is political-economy. I have studied (for more than twelve years at the graduate and undergraduate level) economic and political institutions and their interactions, both contemporarily as well as historically, in the US and many other countries. Related to this work, but not officially, I have been a life-long student and avid reader of history, with special interest in geo-politics and US foreign policy.
More:
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/cuba-project-introduction.html#.U-RFrGcg_mI
What is the U.S. Media up to in its Coverage of Ecuador?
What is the U.S. Media up to in its Coverage of Ecuador?
Posted on January 17, 2014 by Devin Smith |
If the Obama administration wanted to improve relations with Latin America the most obvious move would be to seek closer ties with Ecuador. Ecuador has been transformed into a nation with a stable political system, a head of state reelected by enormous margins in free elections, substantial economic progress, and a pragmatic development program. That program embraces policies that even the Washington Consensus praised that focus government expenditures on health, education, and infrastructure. The policies also champion an idea most identified with the conservative economist Hernando de Soto – making it far easier for entrepreneurs to start new businesses. President Correa is the leader who continues to surprise his friends and foes by taking steps that make economic sense even if they are identified with the “right” while keeping a relentless focus on the needs of the poor. That focus on the poor comes from Correa’s Catholic social justice beliefs that the Pope has recently been returning to centrality.
Obama could work with Correa who could in turn play the role of honest broker and help the U.S. reestablish more positive relations with Latin America. Instead, Obama is continuing the Bush policy of hostility to Correa. Correa has often been sharply critical of U.S. policy.
Over time, the public has learned that Obama and Prime Minister Cameron have become the leading enemies of privacy and media freedom. The NSA, the prosecution of whistleblowers, and the many cover ups have, ironically, become public through whistleblowers’ revelations. This has proved embarrassing to the meme that the Obama administration has been using as its central attack on progressive Latin American leaders – the claim that they are engaged in a war against media freedom. (It should also be embarrassing that Latin American nations can impose severe liability on journalists found to have committed libel because their libel laws are so similar to the U.K.’s laws and that the Obama administration is eagerly trying to expand media liability for non-libelous publications that disclose the NSA’s massive spying operations on media throughout the world.) The media are, understandably, useful to Obama and Cameron in leading the attacks on progressive Latin American leaders under this astonishingly hypocritical and facially ridiculous meme that Ecuador, not the U.S. and the U.K., poses the grave threat to global press freedom.
My personal views are that all of these media restraints are unconscionable and should be removed. I support the broad U.S. constitutional protections for criticisms of “public figures” as the best policy.
The latest attack on Correa opened its U.S. front through a January 14, 2014 AP story entitled “Ecuador Politician Complains of Email Hacking.” On my first reading I found the story frustrating because I could not figure out what had happened, and assumed that an editor had chopped paragraphs out of the story that had contained the necessary explanations. On my second reading I realized that the story was actually carefully crafted to obscure and twist the facts necessary to understand the story and to consistently slant the language to convey that whatever was going on there was a clear victim and villain (Correa). So, I did a bit of background research and read the story a third time with the necessary, but contested, factual background.
More:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/01/u-s-media-coverage-ecuador.html
How America Does Latin American Coups in the New Political Era
Le Monde / By Maurice Lemoine
How America Does Latin American Coups in the New Political Era
The days when U.S.-backed armed forces overthrew constitutional, democratically elected governments are long gone.
August 4, 2014 |
On 23 September 2010 the former Ecuadorian president Lucio Gutiérrez (deposed by a popular uprising in 2005) gave a talk to the InterAmerican Institute for Democracy in Miami, criticising his nation’s socialists for their mysticism, incoherent Marxism and dangerous populism. He told his listeners that to end 21st-century socialism in Ecuador (the subject of his talk), it would be necessary to get rid of President Rafael Correa.
His speech is on record; there’s a video that captures the thunderous applause it received. In the audience were Mario Ribadeneira, a minister in the government of Sixto Durán-Ballén (president 1992-96), when Ecuadorian neoliberalism was at its height; Roberto Isaías, wanted for fraud after the collapse of Filanbanco, Ecuador’s largest bank, of which he was part-owner; and Mario Pazmiño, a former head of army intelligence, sacked by Correa in 2008 for having too close a relationship with the CIA.
A week later, on 29 September in Quito, a meeting of members of the opposition continued late into the night. Next morning, the leader of the Patriotic Society Party, Galo Lara, appeared on the Ecuavisa network’s 7amshow Contacto Directo (Direct Contact), talking about the Public Service Law that the national assembly had just passed. This ended certain privileges — bonuses, cash payments with medals and other decorations, Christmas gifts — for some civil servants, including the police. Though it granted other benefits, including overtime pay and access to social housing programmes, Lara claimed that “President Correa has snatched the toys out of the hands of the policemen’s children — that’s why he is afraid of being lynched. That’s why he is packing his bags and getting ready to flee the country.” An apocalyptic article by leading columnist Emilio Palacio was published in the daily El Universo.
At 8am, Correa learned that police officers were protesting against the new law at the Quito barracks. He called it a “misunderstanding,” and said he would negotiate directly with the protestors. With interior minister Gustavo Jalkh, he left the presidential palace for the barracks, where 800 police greeted them with shouts of “The Communists are coming!” and “Out with the Chavistas!”
More:
http://www.alternet.org/world/how-america-does-latin-american-coups-new-political-era
Banana protests in northwest Colombia leave 1 dead and 14 injured
Banana protests in northwest Colombia leave 1 dead and 14 injured
Aug 6, 2014 posted by Larisa Sioneriu
A series of protests by banana workers has left one dead and several injured in Antioquia, local media reported Wednesday. Violent confrontations between banana workers and authorities left a 40 year old man dead, 14 people injured, and 20 farmers detained by police in the rural northwest of the state, El Espectador reported.
Workers were protesting against months of payments owed to them by the government, lack of electricity on their land, and well as the pricing and marketing of bananas.
The most violent confrontations between the workers and authorities took place in the village of Curralao, where gunshots killed one person and injured 14, Caracol Radio reported. Curralao inhabitants are making a call for help, as there are no ambulances to transfer the injured to nearby hospitals.
The Police Chief of Uraba, Raul Antonio Riano, stated that authorities will investigate the circumstances of the death. Riano also stated that there are at least 20 people currently detained for blocking roads, using explosive devices, and assaults on authorities, El Colombiano reported.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/protests-northwest-colombia-leave-1-dead-14-injured/
Cash Transfers Drive Human Development in Brazil
Cash Transfers Drive Human Development in Brazil
By Fabiola Ortiz
The Morro de Vidigal favela in Río de Janeiro. Credit: Agência Brasil/EBC
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 31 2014 (IPS) - Every day, Celina Maria de Souza rises before dawn, and after taking four of her children to the nearby school she climbs down the 180 steps that separate her home on a steep hill from the flat part of this Brazilian city, to go to her job as a domestic. In the evening she makes the long trek back up.
For 25 years, Souza has lived at the top of the Morro Vidigal favela or shantytown, located in the middle of one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro.
In this favela, home to some 10,000 people, the houses, many built by the families themselves, are squashed between the sea and a mountain.
Originally from Ubaitaba, a town in the northeast state of Bahia1,000 km north of Rio de Janeiro, Souza, 44, left her family when she was just 17 to follow her dream of a better life in the big city.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/07/cash-transfers-drive-human-development-in-brazil/
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