Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalDuty to Warn: Inconvenient Truths About Military Air Shows
Duty to Warn: Inconvenient Truths About Military Air Shows
Thursday, 14 August 2014, 4:46 pm
Article: Gary G. Kohls
Duty to Warn
Inconvenient Truths About Military Air Shows
by Gary G. Kohls, MD
August 12, 2014
The Big Oil cartels have, for decades, been poisoning the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf and many other ocean floors with millions of gallons of toxic crude oil via their risky, and very leaky deep water oil wells. It wasn’t just the crime against the planet that British Petroleum and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton perpetrated in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. There are many other things that have contributed to the mortal wounding of the Gulf. A good example of the damage done to the Gulf by corporate entities includes the Mississippi River delta’s massive dead zone that has been extending rapidly into the Gulf for decades, thanks to the many shoreline polluters that have been dumping toxins into the river all the way back to the headwaters in “environmentally friendly” Minnesota.
There are hundreds of dead zones at the mouths of many of the world’s major rivers, but the pollution that caused the huge dead zone at the Mississippi’s mouth started with the over-fertilization and over-application of highly toxic herbicides and pesticides on Upper Midwest farmlands. (See.www.geoengineeringwatch.com for more details.)
Carcinogenic corporate waste products that are dumped directly into the river or otherwise seep into the ground water are known to sicken and then kill living creatures downstream. As I was growing up, I fished in the Minnesota River and I witnessed the beginnings of the near-fatal wounding of that river because of massive corporate farm chemical runoff. The Minnesota went from swimmable and fishable to muddy, smelly, toxic and relatively fishless during the years in which I was coming of age..
So far the corporate criminals in the Big Oil, Big Chemical and Big Agribusiness industries have been making disastrous economic decisions, but they keep getting off with barely a slap on the wrist for heavily contributing to the slow death of our poisoned planet. And all of a sudden, just like Wall Street’s Big Bank predatory lenders, who had controlling power in the Cheney/Bush administration (and who also got off scot-free with the pre-meditated murder of the economy in 2008), are now back to business as usual in the Obama administration, awarding themselves lavish bonuses and getting everything they want from our bribed legislators and co-opted Supreme Court justices.
More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1408/S00088/duty-to-warn-inconvenient-truths-about-military-air-shows.htm
Will They Ever Leave Cuba Alone? No.
August 13, 2014
The Latest USAID Plot
Will They Ever Leave Cuba Alone? No.
by WILLIAM BLUM
The latest exposed plot to overthrow the Cuban government … Oh, pardon me, I mean the latest exposed plot to bring democracy to Cuba …
Our dear friends at the Agency For International Development (USAID), having done so well with their covert sub-contractor Alan Gross, now in his fifth year in Cuban custody … and their “Cuban Twitter” project, known as ZunZuneo, exposed in 2012, aimed at increasing the flow of information amongst the supposedly information-starved Cubans, which drew in subscribers unaware that the service was paid for by the US government … and now, the latest exposure, a project which sent about a dozen Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of stirring up a rebellion; the travelers worked clandestinely, using the cover of health and civic programs, or posing as tourists, going around the island, on a mission to “identify potential social-change actors” to turn into political activists.
Can you believe that? Can you believe the magnitude of naiveté? Was it a conviction that American exceptionalism would somehow work its magic? Do they think the Cuban people are a bunch of children just waiting for a wise adult to come along and show them what to think and how to behave?
One of these latest USAID contracts was signed only days after Gross was detained, thus indicating little concern for the safety of their employees/agents. As part of the preparation of these individuals, USAID informed them: “Although there is never total certainty, trust that the authorities will not try to harm you physically, only frighten you. Remember that the Cuban government prefers to avoid negative media reports abroad, so a beaten foreigner is not convenient for them.”
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/13/will-they-ever-leave-cuba-alone-no/
Panamax military exercise brings together experts from 17 countries
Panamax military exercise brings together experts from 17 countries
Exercise brings together militaries from Central America, South America, the Caribbean
POSTED YESTERDAY, 4:21 PM
UPDATED YESTERDAY, 4:21 PM
SAN ANTONIO - In the middle of a swelteringly hot and barren field at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, a base camp is set up as part of a simulation exercise where military experts are working to protect the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal is a crucial piece of the world infrastructure, with 6 percent of the world's trade traveling through the canal every year.
It takes a multinational military mission to protect it.
The simulation is part of a nine-day event called the Panamax exercise.
"The Panama Canal is part of our scenario but it's also a larger scenario where we're working against fake violent extremists in countries that are on each side of the canal," said U.S. Army Col. Hans Bush, a spokesman for Army South, Fort Sam Houston, describing the Panamax exercise.
~snip~
The exercise is not only important for strategic purposes. It's also important for international relations, bringing together leaders from 17 different countries: the U.S., Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Peru.
More:
http://www.ksat.com/content/pns/ksat/news/2014/08/12/panamax-military-exercise-brings-together-experts-from-17-countr.html
Why Latin America took a stand
Why Latin America took a stand
Aug 13, 2014
The impunity with which Israel has killed civilians and the support it receives from the US remind many Latin Americans of the atrocities committed by right-wing Latin American military dictatorships with similar US backing
On July 29, Brazil, Chile, Peru, El Salvador and Ecuador recalled their ambassadors from Tel Aviv, whilst denouncing the disproportionate use of Israeli military force in Gaza in which civilians, including women and children, have been killed in bombings on military targets as also schools and hospitals.
Chile has suspended trade talks with Israel. During the Mercosur Summit on July 29, the Presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela issued a joint statement condemning Israel and calling for lifting the siege in Gaza. Venezuela issued an even stronger statement on behalf of the nine-member ALBA (Bolivarian alternative) group. Bolivian President Evo Morales called Israel as a “terrorist state” and appealed to the UNHCR (UN Human Rights Commission) to consider these attacks “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” by Israel. Civil society has jointed in: Latin American Nobel prize winners Pérez Esquivel of Argentina and Rigoberta Menchú of Guatemala have called for a military embargo against Israel as done against South Africa during apartheid.
This is not the first time that Latin Americans have reacted to Israeli offensives in Gaza. In 2009, Venezuela and Bolivia had cut off diplomatic relations and Nicaragua followed suit in 2010 after the last Israeli offensives. Cuba had done it in 1973 as part of its ideological support to the Palestine cause.
The vocal criticism and strong language used by Latin America has a reason: the impunity with which Israel has killed over 1,898 (both Palestinians and Israeli) civilians and the support it receives from the US, remind many Latin Americans of the atrocities committed by Right-wing Latin American military dictatorships with similar US backing.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, a pragmatic and respected Latin American leader, has likened her political exile in Europe during the Pinochet dictatorship to the plight of Palestinian refugees denied the right to return home. This memory has triggered Latin American governments to react strongly, and go beyond the response of many countries around the world.
Latin America is no stranger to Jews and Israel — or to Palestine. Chile has the largest Palestine community of around 400,000, followed by Honduras with 200,000. Mexico has 100,000 and other countries have smaller numbers. But most of these people of Palestine origin are Christians and have not stood up in any significant way for the Palestine cause.
More:
http://www.asianage.com/columnists/why-latin-america-took-stand-897
Colombia journalist gunned down after years of death threats
Colombia journalist gunned down after years of death threats
Aug 13, 2014 posted by Tim Hinchliffe
A local journalist was assassinated in northern Colombia only weeks after the government removed his protective detail, media and the local press freedom watchdog said Tuesday.
Carlos Cervantes had been receiving death threats for years before being gunned down Tuesday on his way to pick up his son from school in the village of Taraza, in the northwestern state of Antioquia, according to Colombia’s Caracol Radio.
Two weeks before the murder, Cervantes had reported to the authorities that his life had been threatened, and that a man who identified himself as alias “Morroco” warned him he had two hours to leave Taraza, reported Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper.
According to Colombia’s Foundation for the Freedom of Press (FLIP), the slain reporter had been receiving death threats as far back as 2010.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombia-journalist-gunned-years-death-threats/
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Still no peace for comedian slain exactly 15 years ago in Colombia
Still no peace for comedian slain exactly 15 years ago in Colombia
Aug 13, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya
The 15th anniversary this Wednesday of the death of beloved Colombian comedian and reporter, Jaime Garzon, comes at a time when a vital suspect in his assassination case has been arrested.
The assassination of Jaime Garzon, which his two siblings and international law consider a human rights crime, occurred on August 13, 1999 when two hit-men on a motorcycle shot him five times as he was driving to work in Bogota.
The nation was shocked, as he was widely considered the leading comedian and social commentator of his day.
The comedian’s favorite targets on his national TV show? Politicians, corruption, the military, the media, paramilitaries, and drug traffickers. No one was immune.
Garzon had a talent for putting Colombia’s most powerful figures in the spotlight and having the nation join him in laughing at them. He had many personalities and skits during his shows, but his most popular was ‘Heriberto de la Calle,’ a simple shoe shiner. As Heriberto, Garzon would interview Colombia’s most powerful politicians and elites while buffing and shining their shoes.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/justice-closer-ever-colombias-popular-comedian-15-year-anniversary-assassination/
Esquipulas II: Looking Back at the Successes of Central America's 1987 Peace Accords
Esquipulas II: Looking Back at the Successes of Central America's 1987 Peace Accords
Norman Stockwell 12 Aug 2014
On August 7th, 1987, the five Central American presidents signed a peace accord known as Esquipulas II named after the city in Guatemala where the first round of meetings had taken place the year before. The accord included a number of provisions for cooperation between the five countries, and most notably called for an end to support for “irregular forces” by all of the signatories. This provision was aimed at ending the Contra war in Nicaragua, and included an offer of amnesty to those Nicaragua contra fighters who chose to lay down their arms and reintegrate into society. This groundbreaking document was later used as a basis for other peace agreements in the region. The process was also important because the U.S. government, the main funder of the Contra forces, was actually pushed out of the negotiations and had little influence over their outcome.
In October of that year, a small group, including me, traveled by panga (small motorized boats) up Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast to interview contras that were surrendering and returning to their communities. We traveled from Bluefields to the coastal towns of Haulover, Pearl Lagoon (Laguna de Perlas), Brown Bank, La Fe, Orinoco, and Tasbapauni. In each location we met with members of local Peace Commissions and Sandinista military and political officials. In some areas we accompanied local residents as they affixed posters to trees in the surrounding bush areas that proclaimed “amnistia” (amnesty) and showed a photo of the five presidents at the signing ceremony of Esquipulas II in Guatemala City.
~snip~
In a novel, and seemingly successful, approach, the local political leadership provided every pair of returning contras (called “desalzados”) with a fishing net (a venture funded by donations from the government of Norway). The idea was to give the returning youth a means of employment and a way to reintegrate into the life of their community. Many, it seemed, had joined the contras because it provided a way out of unemployment, and they were each given a backpack!
The desalzados, mostly young men in their late teens, told of being led into the bush and then mostly abandoned by their commanders. “Sometimes we eat, sometimes we don’t eat,” one young man told me. They had very little direction and often turned to staging raids on their own communities in order to get needed provisions. Many kept secretly in touch with their families when they could, others had no contact and returned to parents who had not known if they were still alive. All of them seemed, at least at this time, glad to have put this portion of their lives behind them. However, none returned with weapons. Many may never have had one. Others, one local resident told me, “probably buried them somewhere, just in case they want to go back.”
More:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/31-archives/americas/3630-esquipulas-ii-looking-back-at-the-successes-of-central-america-s-1987-peace-accords
Panama relaunches national literacy program
Panama relaunches national literacy program
EFE | Panama City 11 Aug 2014
Panama on Monday relaunched its national literacy program, a project in which it has the cooperation of the Cuban government.
The literacy program was initiated in 2007 and will be participated in by officials of several government institutions, as well as a group of Cuban technicians who are already in Panama, Social Development Minister Alcibiades Vasquez told reporters.
http://www.efe.com/efe/noticias/english/life/panama-relaunches-national-literacy-program/4/2062/2389621
(Short article, no more at link.)
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Panama Resumes Literacy Program with Cuban Assistance
Created on Tuesday, 12 August 2014 13:13 |
HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 12 (acn) The Panamanian government has resumed a national literacy program to lower current illiteracy levels estimated at 5.5 percent down to 3.0 percent in five years, an effort that will count on Cuban assistance.
Panamanian Social Development minister Alcibiades Vasquez told reporters in Panama city that the 2007 literacy program was retaken with the participation of Cuban specialists, who are already in the country.
At present there are over 192 thousand illiterate citizens in Panama, particularly in indigenous areas in the provinces of Veraguas and Chiriqui, in central and western Panama, which represents 5.5 percent of the total population, said national literacy director Rufino Huertas.
The Panamanian literacy program known as s "Move Throughout Panama," launched in 2007 as a government-led initiative to fight poverty is similar to the Cuban program "Yes, I Can," which was launched by the Cuban government.
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/world/1273-panama-resumes-literacy-program-with-cuban-assistance
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Freedom Through a Pencil: The 1961 Literacy Campaign in Cuba
by Sujatha Fernandes
The high rate of literacy in Cuba is one of the proud and much touted accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution. Beginning half a century ago, in 1961, the literacy campaign mobilized more than 1 million Cubans as teachers or students. In that same year, 707,000 Cubans learned how to read or write. Maestra tells the story of that inspiring campaign through the memories of the women who served as literacy teachers—the maestras themselves.
The filmmaker, Catherine Murphy, lived in Cuba in the 1990s and earned a master’s degree at the University of Havana. She is the founder and director of a multimedia project known as the Literacy Project, which focuses on gathering oral histories of volunteer teachers from the literacy campaign. For Maestra, the first documentary to arise from the project, she interviewed more than 50 women and 13 men who were involved in the campaign. Many of them are now in their seventies. She also carried out five years of research in the Cuban national film archives.
Documentary footage shows the energy and enthusiasm of the young women who traveled on trains into the small towns and countryside of Cuba to live among the people and teach them how to read and write. But the challenges they faced were extreme. These women often faced opposition from their families, and many left against their parents’ wishes. They lived with poor rural families, sleeping in hammocks at night. During the day they would work in the fields alongside the peasants, and in the few hours they had in the evening, they would prepare lessons and conduct classes.
The hardships and poverty they encountered were not always conducive to learning how to read and write. Literacy teacher Diana Balboa recounts the story of a 47-year-old palm tree cutter: “His hands were swollen and deformed by such a violent job. He was unable to hold a pencil. I helped him hold the pencil but it fell out of his hands.” The man learned to read a bit, but he was never able to write.
In the midst of the literacy campaign, Cuban exiles launched the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion. Although it was discovered and thwarted by the Cuban armed forces, escaped mercenaries combed the countryside, harassing the peasants and their literacy teachers.
In a country where the urban and rural poor had long been denied access to education, literacy was empowerment. For the counter-revolutionaries who wanted to see Cuba return to the status quo, teaching literacy to the poor was an affront to the class order. One teacher recounts the threats to her host family from gunmen who pounded on their door, demanding, “Bring out the literacy teachers!” But this family, like others across the country, put their lives on the line to protect the teachers. Sadly, they were not always able to escape these threats, and one teacher, Manuel Ascunce, was killed by insurgents.
More:
https://nacla.org/article/freedom-through-pencil-1961-literacy-campaign-cuba
Carlos Acosta Announces His Swan Song to Classical Ballet
Carlos Acosta Announces His Swan Song to Classical Ballet
Added by Saki Kahala on June 1, 2014.
Carlos Acosta announced at the Hay Festival in Wales this past week, that he will be retiring from ballet within two years time. His final appearance with the Royal Ballet, based in London, will be in a production of Carmen that he plans to choreograph and star in. At the end of the 2015/2016 season, his reign as the most powerfully stunning, charismatic and accomplished male performer still dancing ballet today, will come to a close.
Known for his incredible soaring leaps and his boundless artistic energy, Carlos’s performances are exceptionally beautiful and breathtaking. His dance is pure and heartfelt. The audience becomes entranced and mesmerized, as they are transported into the story that is being told through the timeless language of Carlos Acosta’s dance.
Coming from an impoverished part of Havana, Cuba, he was born in 1973, and grew up the youngest in a family of eleven children. Carlos has said that his father had fought for every penny that they had. He was quoted as saying that if he really wanted something, he had to beg for it from his father. The mattress he shared with his siblings had springs popping out of it in various spots. They needed to map out where they would sleep each night to keep from hitting themselves on the metal springs in the middle of the night.
His life growing up was that of a rambunctious boy who wanted to play football and baseball. Carlos has been known as a kid who was always jumping around. By the age of nine, his restless spirit would lead him to skip school and spend time break-dancing or getting into trouble on the streets of Havana. In 1982, his father made a decision to send him to ballet camp at the National Ballet School of Cuba.
Read more at http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/carlos-acosta-announces-his-swan-song-to-classical-ballet/#shZt9Ci1sXYZ1ryC.99
More than 400K Colombian refugees live abroad: UN
More than 400K Colombian refugees live abroad: UN
Aug 12, 2014 posted by Christoffer Frendesen
According to recent statements by the UN, there are currently over 400,000 displaced Colombians seeking refuge abroad, local media reported Monday.
~snip~
The migrants face discrimination in addition to lack of guarantees regarding health care, housing, and employment, the UN researchers told forum attendees.
In December 2013, ACNUR released a report stating that 327,000 Colombians had fled across the border in search of international protection, the largest percentage of which escaped to Ecuador.
~snip~
Of the approximately 6.3 million people in Latin America who have been forced to flee their homes due to war or violence, 5.7 million were Colombian. Colombia, still embroiled in a complicated 50-year armed conflict between leftist guerrillas, the state, and right-wing paramilitary groups, was one of the five countries that accounted for 78% of the world’s total living displacement victims as of 2013, according to the IDMC. The IDMC pointed out that its statistics do not take into account the many Colombians killed or “disappeared” during armed conflict.
http://colombiareports.co/400-000-colombian-refugees-live-abroad/
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