33 Circus lions rescued in South America will be airlifted home to South Africa [pictures]

Source: The South African

33 Circus lions rescued in South America will be airlifted home to South Africa (pictures)


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02 Sep, 2015
by Antoinette Muller in COFFEE BREAK

The circus is no place for these majestic creatures. Luckily they have been rescued and will be sent home to retire under the sunny African skies.
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Thirty-three lions rescued by Animal Defenders International (ADI) from ten circuses in Peru and Colombia are going home to their native Africa in the biggest ever airlift of its kind.

The lions, who endured years of confinement in cages on the backs of trucks and a brutal life being forced to perform in circuses, are heading to huge natural enclosures at Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa.





The airlift in October will be the culmination of ADI’s work with the Governments of Peru and Colombia to eliminate the use of wild animals in circuses. ADI evidence of the abuse of circus animals in Latin America led to legislation banning animal acts and then ADI stepped in to help enforce the laws.

Almost all of the rescued lions have been mutilated to remove their claws, one has lost an eye, another is almost blind, and many have smashed and broken teeth because of their circus life, but they will retire in the African sunshine.

Read more: http://www.thesouthafrican.com/33-circus-lions-rescued-in-south-america-will-be-airlifted-home-to-south-africa-pictures/

Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina Stripped Of Immunity, Paving The Way For Impeachment Proceedin

Source: International Business Times

Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina Stripped Of Immunity, Paving The Way For Impeachment Proceedings

By Sarah Berger @sarahberger0408 s.berger@ibtimes.com on September 01 2015 8:07 PM EDT


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Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina speaks at a press conference at the Culture Palace in Guatemala City March 2, 2015. Getty Images
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The Guatemalan Congress voted on Tuesday to strip President Otto Perez Molina’s immunity from prosecution, the Associated Press reported. Perez Molina’s revoked immunity could trigger a criminal trial in connection to a corruption scandal, which could possibly lead to his impeachment. This is the first time a president has been stripped of immunity in a Central American country.

The vote comes only five days before presidential elections, and despite a corruption scandal, Perez Molina had previously vowed to remain in office until his term ends in January, the Financial Times reported. Molina was not stripped of his immunity during a vote Aug. 13, in which 105 votes were required for the proposal to pass in the 158-member legislature -- but that was before prosecutors accused him of defrauding the national customs service of millions of dollars, Agence France-Presse reported. A congressional investigative committee, though, recommended three days ago that lawmakers strip Perez Molina of immunity.

The second vote was carried out Tuesday by 132-0, with 26 deputies absent. Anti-corruption protesters who had been demonstrating for 19 weeks formed a human cordon to allow deputies to safely enter the chamber.

Perez Molina allegedly ran a system in which businesses paid bribes to clear their imports through customs at a small portion of the actual tax rate. The scandal was dubbed "La Linea" (The Line). Guatemalans have been protesting every week since April. Perez Molina has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/guatemala-president-otto-perez-molina-stripped-immunity-paving-way-impeachment-2078491

Oaxaca, Mexico, Faces Police Militarization as Governor Acts to Preempt Education Protests

Oaxaca, Mexico, Faces Police Militarization as Governor Acts to Preempt Education Protests

Written by Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F.
Thursday, 20 August 2015 14:29

Source: Truthout

Thousands of federal and state police troops were dispatched in mid-July to the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico to guard strategic buildings, patrol the skies and ensure that protesters cannot take over local radio stations.

The aim of this heightened police militarization? To prevent protesting teachers from exerting pressure on the administration of Gabino Cué Monteagudo, the current governor of Oaxaca, in their efforts to resist nationally imposed education reforms.

Protesting teachers have argued that the reforms, which were approved in 2013 by the Federal Congress and are being implemented in every state in Mexico, seek to reframe education as a private service, replacing current teachers with new workers who work on contract and have no labor rights.

"This is not an education reform as much as it is a labor reform; what they want is for the state to stop offering free and public education," said Dolores Villalobos, a teacher and member of the Section 22 teacher's union, which is part of the National Organization of Education Workers (CNTE).

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/5437-oaxaca-mexico-faces-police-militarization-as-governor-acts-to-preempt-education-protests

Brazil's Lula steps back into political fray

Brazil's Lula steps back into political fray

by Agency Staff, August 31 2015, 06:23

SÃO BERNARDO DO CAMPO — Brazil’s popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declared that he is returning to the bruising political frontlines to defend his successor, the embattled Dilma Rousseff.

"Our opponents talk about me from morning until night. Well, it’s harder to kill a bird if he keeps flying. That’s why I started flying again," Mr Lula said at a rally in Sao Paulo state on Saturday, a day after admitting he could even seek the presidency again in 2018.

On Friday he said that he did not want to see his ruling Workers’ Party lose power after 12 years. "I am sure that our rivals are heading out to undo what we achieved in improving people’s lives," he told the rally. "I have broad shoulders and I have been beaten up plenty in my life. Let’s see if our rivals give our beloved Dilma a little break and start being bothered by me again," Mr Lula said, alongside former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica.

Mr Lula was in office from 2003 to 2010 and was the country’s first democratically elected leftist leader. He spent generously on social programmes to reduce the number of Brazilians living in poverty and the economy boomed to the world’s seventh-largest.

More:
http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/americas/2015/08/31/brazil-s-lula-steps-back-into-political-fray

Colombia’s Killing Fields

Colombia’s Killing Fields

Peace is War

by James Petras / August 30th, 2015


Colombia has received more US military aid — over $6 billion dollars in the past decade — than any country in the Western Hemisphere. For its part, Colombia allowed the Pentagon to build seven military bases, more than all the other countries in the region combined. There are over 2,000 US military officers and private US ‘mercenary’ contractors engaged in military activities in Colombia – more than any other country in Latin America.

During the decade-long (2001-2010) regime of President Alvaro Uribe, (a drug trafficker and death squad jefe in his own right), more than one-thousand trade union leaders and activists were murdered — over one hundred a year.

Nevertheless, the ‘Colombian killing field’ regime under Uribe was described in glowing terms by all the major respectable Anglo-American newspapers, including the Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post for having brought “stability and peace” (of the graveyard) to the country and making Colombia “safe for investors”.

Eventually Uribe’s excesses, his policy of ‘peace through terror’ policies frightened and appalled many Colombians and (most important for the oligarchs) he failed to defeat the armed insurgency When the regime’s new extractive export growth strategy called for massive expansion of foreign investment in guerrilla-controlled mineral and oil-rich regions tactics and key political leaders had to change.

More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/08/colombias-killing-fields/

Ex-cop arrested in Mexican journalist's slaying

Source: Agence France-Presse

Ex-cop arrested in Mexican journalist's slaying
2015-08-31 09:34



Mexico City - Mexican authorities on Sunday arrested a former police officer in connection with the brutal slaying of a prominent photojournalist and four others in a case that sparked international outrage.

Police arrested a man "identified as Abraham Torres Tranquilino" for alleged involvement in the killing of Ruben Espinosa, rights activist Nadia Vera and three other female victims, Mexico City prosecutor Rodolfo Rios said in a statement.

Espinosa and the other victims were found dead on July 31 this year in a Mexico City apartment, their hands bound and their bodies bearing signs of torture.

Torres, aged 24, worked as a police officer in the capital until 2011, when he was arrested and convicted of torture in a separate case. He went on to serve about a year in jail.

Read more: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Ex-cop-arrested-in-Mexican-journalists-slaying-20150831

Bid to lift Guatemala president's immunity advances in Congress

Sat Aug 29, 2015 8:37pm EDT

Bid to lift Guatemala president's immunity advances in Congress

GUATEMALA CITY


Aug 29 A Guatemalan congressional committee on Saturday recommended that President Otto Perez be stripped of immunity from prosecution over his suspected involvement in a customs racket, paving the way for a full vote in Congress in the coming days.

The five-member congressional committee told a news conference that Congress could vote on their recommendation as early as Tuesday. Presidential immunity can be lifted with a vote in favor by at least two-thirds of the 158-member Congress.

That vote will be closely watched after the Guatemalan Supreme Court on Tuesday approved a request by Guatemala's attorney general to impeach the president.

If Congress votes to lift his immunity, the Supreme Court then turns the matter to prosecutors, who would then able to bring charges against him in court.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/30/guatemala-corruption-idUSL1N1140IZ20150830?rpc=401

For Inca Road Builders, Extreme Terrain Was No Obstacle

For Inca Road Builders, Extreme Terrain Was No Obstacle

August 29, 2015 6:49 AM ET

Jasmine Garsd.


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The Inca were innovators in agriculture as well as engineering. Terracing like this, on a steep hillside in Peru's Colca Canyon, helped them grow food.

Doug McMains/Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
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One of history's greatest engineering feats is one you rarely hear of. It's the Inca Road, parts of which still exist today across much of South America.

Back in the day — more than 500 years ago — commoners like me wouldn't have been able to walk on the Inca Road, known as Qhapaq Ñan in the Quechua language spoken by the Inca, without official permission.

Fortunately, I have Peruvian archaeologist Ramiro Matos by my side. He is the lead curator of an exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian called "The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire."

That's "Inka" with a K, as it's spelled in Quechua. And today, we're taking a virtual journey down what was once more than 20,000 miles of road traversing some of the world's most challenging terrain — mountains, forests and deserts.

More:
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/08/29/435480149/for-inca-road-builders-extreme-terrain-was-no-obstacle?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=world

Supporters rally to back Venezuela government’s crackdown on migrants

Source: Associated Press

Supporters rally to back Venezuela government’s crackdown on migrants
HANNAH DREIER
CARACAS — The Associated Press

Published Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 6:14PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 28, 2015 6:16PM EDT

A sea of government supporters in red shirts rallied in Caracas on Friday to back a crackdown on migrants, smugglers and paramilitary groups that has triggered an increasingly bitter dispute between Colombia and Venezuela and led the neighbouring countries to recall their ambassadors.

The spat erupted a week ago when Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shut a major border crossing to combat what he says are rampant smuggling and paramilitary activities near Colombia, and declared a state of emergency in six western cities. Venezuelan officials deported more than 1,000 Colombian migrants and another 5,000 have left voluntarily, with some carrying all of their belongings across a muddy river on a frantic moving day.

. . .

On Friday, thousands of government supporters snarled traffic as they marched to the presidential palace in support of the new measures and emphasized that they were gathering to support the security and integrity of Venezuela, not to demonize Colombian immigrants. Some waved signs saying “No to Colombian paramilitarism” as lively merengue music played and a carnival atmosphere reigned.

. . .

With two border crossings closed, the underground economy has come to a halt, satisfying Venezuelan officials who have long blamed transnational mafias for widespread shortages, but also jeopardizing the livelihood of tens of thousands of poor Colombians who depend on the black market.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/supporters-rally-to-back-veneuzela-governments-crackdown-on-migrants/article26153818/

The Cuban Adjustment Act: the Other Immigration Mess

August 28, 2015
The Cuban Adjustment Act: the Other Immigration Mess

by Robert Sandels - Nelson P. Valdés

Not so long ago the fictional Cuba of the US myth-making machine was a Caribbean gulag, a dictatorship that sponsored terrorism and trafficked in human beings – that is when it wasn’t torturing them. Today we are left wondering what that was all about now that Sec. of State John Kerry has gone to Cuba for a flag-raising speech in front of the newly christened US Embassy and a brief walkabout in Old Havana.The gist of Kerry’s remarks is that Cuba should improve its behavior according to Kerry’s prescriptions. Apparently, he hasn’t been listening to the Cubans, who want the United States to get rid of the thick accumulation of obnoxious and warlike behaviors, starting with the blockade (embargo) and not forgetting to abandon the US gulag at Guantánamo.

So far the United States has offered no rational justifications for these behaviors as it seeks “normalization,” but we should at least look at how they originated. As terrifying as history is to leaders in Washington, we will take one of the key bright ideas — the (ongoing) manipulation of Cuban immigration as an example of how far it is from here to “normal.”

Creating the exile pool

Normalization has so far not included an end to the Cuban Adjustment Act, which encourages Cubans to become undocumented aliens. Mexicans are told to stay home or “get in line” for a green card, but Cubans who reach US shores can be fast-tracked to citizenship.

The approach to Cuban immigration after 1959 oscillated between a desire to encourage it for propaganda advantage and a concern that Fidel Castro might oblige by releasing an unmanageable torrent. A manageable number could give propagandists the chance to picture every Cuban who left by whatever means, including rafts, as a political refugee from communist tyranny. Too many could strain public services wherever the Cubans landed, create social friction and cost the taxpayers a lot of money. Jesús Arboleya Cervera has written that

…immigration was intimately related to the policies conducted by the United States against the island, conceived to drain Cuba of its human capital, dismantle the social structure, and create abroad the social bases for a counter-revolutionary movement that had no cohesion inside the island. [1]