10 former Chilean soldiers charged in Victor Jara killing

Source: Associated Press

Jul 23, 4:39 PM EDT

10 former Chilean soldiers charged in Victor Jara killing

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO
Associated Press



SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A judge has charged 10 former soldiers in the killing of internationally renowned Chilean folk singer and political activist Victor Jara, who was tortured and shot to death just days after the country's 1973 coup.

The charges announced late Wednesday by Judge Miguel Vazquez include homicide and kidnapping in the slaying of Jara and former military police head Littre Quiroga Carvajal.

Jara was a popular songwriter, theater director and university professor at the time of the coup on Sept. 11, 1973. He also was a member of the Communist Party, and many believe he could have served as a powerful voice against the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

A key leader of the New Chilean Song movement, Jara was familiar to young people worldwide in the late 1960s and early 1970s for songs including "Te Recuerdo Amanda," or "I'll Remember You Amanda," and "Manifiesto."

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_CHILE_VICTOR_JARA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-07-23-16-39-54

Young Hondurans Lead Unprecedented Anti-Corruption Movement

Young Hondurans Lead Unprecedented Anti-Corruption Movement
By Thelma Mejía

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The rain has not stopped the ever-growing weekly torch marches organised by the Outraged in the capital of Honduras and
50 other cities around the country. The peaceful protests are demanding the creation of an International Commission
Against Impunity, to combat corruption and strengthen democracy. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS
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TEGUCIGALPA, Jul 21 2015 (IPS) - A Honduran spring is happening, led by young people mobilising over the social networks, who are flooding the streets with weekly torch marches against corruption and impunity.

Since late May, the peaceful movement of young people who declare themselves “indignados” or outraged has broken down the media’s resistance to cover what is happening, and has brought hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets in Tegucigalpa and 50 other cities around the country.

The torch marches are demanding the creation of an international commission to fight corruption and impunity, purge this Central American country’s institutions, and strengthen democracy. The Oposición Indignada or Outraged Opposition citizen movement is largely made up of middle-class young people upset over the embezzlement of 200 to 300 million dollars in the country’s social security institute (IHSS).

According to the investigations, some of the money was used to finance the right-wing National Party (PN), which has governed the country since 2010. The scandal also involved the purchase of equipment at marked-up prices, and of expired medications.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/07/young-hondurans-head-unprecedented-anti-corruption-movement/

Officers Arrested in 1986 Burning Death of U.S. Student in Chile

Source: New York Times

Officers Arrested in 1986 Burning Death of U.S. Student in Chile
By PASCALE BONNEFOY
JULY 21, 2015


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Photographers raised their cameras in honor of Rodrigo Rojas during a 2003 ceremony in Santiago for victims of the Chilean
dictatorship. Mr. Rojas was set on fire during a protest in 1986. Credit Victor Rojas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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SANTIAGO, Chile — A judge on Tuesday ordered the arrest of two former army officers and five former noncommissioned officers accused in the 1986 killing of Rodrigo Rojas, a United States resident, and the serious injury of a young woman. The two were set on fire by members of three military patrols during a protest in Santiago.

The warrants are part of a continuing investigation by Judge Mario Carroza into the burning, one of the heinous crimes committed during the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The case was reopened in 2013 when a human rights organization filed a criminal complaint in Chile on behalf of Mr. Rojas’s family. By Tuesday evening, all seven of the accused had been taken into custody.

Last year, a former soldier testified and identified an official who he said had set the two on fire. The former officers were the commanders of two military patrols involved: Lt. Julio Castañer and Iván Figueroa. The commander of the third patrol, Lt. Pedro Fernández, was exempted because he had already been sentenced by a military court in 1991. The judge did not issue arrest warrants for the 17 soldiers said to have obeyed their orders.

Mr. Rojas, a 19-year-old photographer and student at Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, had returned to Chile in May 1986 to rediscover his birth country and take photographs along the way. He grew up in the Chilean exile community in Washington, the son of Verónica De Negri, a political exile and supporter of Salvador Allende, the socialist president.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/world/americas/officers-ordered-arrested-in-1986-burning-death-of-us-student-in-chile.html?_r=0

Visitors to Havana can find US-Cuban connections everywhere

Visitors to Havana can find US-Cuban connections everywhere

Beth J. Harpaz, Ap Travel Editor

Updated 11:09 pm, Monday, July 20, 2015

HAVANA (AP) — This week's reopening of embassies and resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba opens a new chapter in the countries' complicated relationship.

But any visitor to the Cuban capital can see that connections between the two nations run long and deep just by taking stock of all the attractions showcasing American culture and history. Despite decades of hostility, some of these sites even seem to celebrate Americans, while others reflect an anti-U.S. point of view.

Here's a look:

HEMINGWAY

American writer Ernest Hemingway lived in Cuba on and off for years and worked on some of his most famous books here, including "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea." One of Havana's biggest tourist attractions is his estate at Finca Vigia, visited by literary pilgrims from around the world and Cubans alike. You can't enter the home, but large open windows provide a good look inside. Liquor bottles and magazines artfully placed amid sofas and tables suggest Hemingway will be back at any moment. Also onsite is Hemingway's boat, the Pilar.

Photos of Hemingway posing with trophy fish and with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro decorate many bars and hotels, including the Ambos Mundos hotel in Old Havana, where you can tour a room Hemingway lived in. And two Havana bars attract a steady stream of tourists in part thanks to Hemingway's famed drinking declaration: "My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita." The handwritten quote, allegedly scribbled by Hemingway himself, is framed over the bar at La Bodeguita del Medio. The Floridita features a Hemingway statue.

Colombia Arrests Social Activists for Bogotá Bombing Despite Lack of Evidence

Colombia Arrests Social Activists for Bogotá Bombing Despite Lack of Evidence
Monday, 20 July 2015 00:00
By Kate Aronoff, Waging Nonviolence | News Analysis


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In a sign that reads “No legal false positives,” activists in Popayán show solidarity
with the 16 jailed activists (Photo: WNV / Irene Arenas)
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On the morning of July 8, the district attorney of Colombia, in coordination with the National Police, rounded up and arrested 16 people for their alleged connection to a bombing in the capital city of Bogotá a few days earlier. Today, those arrested sit in their cells awaiting indictment. The question being asked by the country's activists, progressive media and a growing base of skeptics outside of the cellblock is whether they've done anything wrong.

Despite a marked lack of evidence, Colombian President Manuel Santos has pinned the attack on the National Liberation Army - the country's second largest terrorist group next to the FARC. Following the raids, Santos' Defense Ministry further claimed that the suspects were "acting in the name of the ELN," the Spanish abbreviation of the rebel group.

But are those arrested the hardened guerrillas the government claims? Among the jailed are Jhon Fernando Acosta, a 19-year-old performing arts student active around issues of gender equality, and Heilar Lampara, a 25-year-old representative to the Superior University Council from the National Teacher's University and an advocate for free higher education. Writer Sergio Esteban Segura Guiza, who has covered the country's armed conflict and peace process as a correspondent for the independent news outlet Colombia Informa, had his journalistic archive seized at the time of his arrest. Women's rights lawyer Paola Andrea Salgado Piedrahita, also arrested, could face as many as 30 years in prison if the case goes to trial.

Many are organizers within Colombia's student movement through the National Student Roundtable, or MANU, and seven are affiliated with Congreso de los Pueblos, a social and political movement fighting, amongst other issues, against displacement by the country's extractive industry. Two are contractors with the city government. While Fernando Acosta is the youngest of those arrested, none are over the age of 34.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31964-colombia-arrests-social-activists-for-bogota-bombing-despite-lack-of-evidence

US / Cuba Relations: What Would Constitute Normal?

US / Cuba Relations: What Would Constitute Normal?
July 15, 2015

by José Pertierra

President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 3, 1961. Fifty-four years later, on Monday the 20th of July, the United States and Cuba will advance toward normalization of diplomatic relations. Presumably, the US will no longer treat Cuba as its enemy and treat the island simply as its next-door neighbor. Maybe …

The raising of the flags at the embassies on the 20th of July is much anticipated. But what does this all really mean? After more than 56 years of trying to destroy the Cuban Revolution through US sponsored terrorism, an invasion organized and launched by the CIA, biological warfare, an economic and commercial blockade, clandestine infiltrations and a permanent propaganda campaign against Cuba, what would constitute “normal” relations between Washington and La Habana?

The word normal derives from the Latin normalis. In the context of US-Cuba relations it refers to civilized diplomatic behavior, according to historically established philosophical precepts: norms or rules of peaceful conduct between nations.

What rules of peaceful conduct by the United States towards Cuba may we expect from now on? Which normative rules could be considered normal and which abnormal?

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/15/us-cuba-relations-what-would-constitute-normal/

Pro-Normalization PAC Raising Funds to Back Obama’s Cuba Initiative

7:35 am ET
Jul 14, 2015

Campaign Finance

Pro-Normalization PAC Raising Funds to Back Obama’s Cuba Initiative

A political action committee launched in May to support normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba raised more than $178,000 in the past two months, a sign of public support for closer ties between the two countries, the group’s director said.

The group, New Cuba PAC, views itself as a counterweight to the pro-embargo U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, which launched in 2004. The director of that group, Mauricio Claver-Carone, said Monday the group had raised more than $200,000 this year. In 2014, it raised more than $300,000 and since its founding has raised over $4 million, according to the groups filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The sums announced this week aren’t that big in the world of political fundraising – the largest PACs raise tens of millions of dollars each year – but are an indication of the surge of interest in Cuba since President Barack Obama’s announcement last December that he would move to normalize relations with the former Cold War foe.

“This is something that’s been missing for a long time,” James Williams, director of the pro-normalization New Cuba PAC said. “When we approached it the hard liner, pro-embargo side was incredibly skeptical and with this filing it shows they were wrong. People who care about this issue put their money where their mouth is.”

More:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/14/pro-normalization-pac-raising-funds-to-back-obamas-cuba-initiative/?mod=WSJBlog

Colombian City’s New Face and Violent Underbelly Collide

Colombian City’s New Face and Violent Underbelly Collide

By WILLIAM NEUMANJULY 13, 2015

BUENAVENTURA, Colombia — This has been called one of South America’s most violent cities, infamous for its “chop-up houses,” where victims are murdered and dismembered, their bodies later found on the streets or washed up in the stilt-house slums that line the shores of the polluted bay.And yet, in recent weeks, workers were busily laying pink and gray flagstones for a pedestrian mall in front of a newly built hotel and condominium complex meant to attract the international executives who are investing billions of dollars to expand this city’s busy port.

People here often talk of the two Colombias. One is the country of a sophisticated elite, growing rich off international trade and jetting between Bogotá and other world capitals. The other is a country of crushing poverty and violence where lawlessness reigns.In this Pacific port city, these two Colombias come face to face with raw impact.

Buenaventura is the country’s main Pacific port and the centerpiece of a government strategy to focus on increasing trade with Asia and Western Hemisphere countries on the Pacific, including Chile, Mexico, Peru and the United States. At the same time, it is plagued by intractable poverty and violence, a place where vicious gangs hold sway, long isolated from the central government in Bogotá.

The violence here, with its visceral cruelty, has gotten much attention. Prosecutors said at least two of the chopped up corpses found last year showed signs that they had been dismembered while the victims were still alive. Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York, has published two recent reports denouncing conditions here.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/world/americas/colombian-citys-new-face-and-violent-underbelly-collide.html?_r=0

Whataburger takes stand against Texas' new open carry law

Source: Associated Press

Whataburger takes stand against Texas' new open carry law

Seth Robbins, Associated Press
Updated 11:07 am, Sunday, July 12, 2015



Photo: Eric Gay, AP

This Thursday, July 9, 2015 photo shows a Whataburger restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. The iconic Texas restaurant chain will not allow the open carrying of guns on its properties, taking a stand against a new law legalizing the practice.


SAN ANTONIO (AP) — An iconic Texas restaurant chain will not allow the open carrying of guns on its properties, and industry experts say other restaurants will likely take the same stand against a new state law legalizing the practice in many public places.

Whataburger — with some 780 locations in 10 states — has drawn a mix of praise and rebuke since making the announcement this month, including a prediction of boycotts from one of the state's leading advocates for gun rights.

In an open letter on the company's website, Whataburger president and CEO Preston Atkinson said many employees and customers are "uncomfortable being around someone with a visible firearm." He described himself as an avid hunter with a concealed-carry license and noted that patrons licensed to carry concealed handguns will still be able to do so in Whataburger.

Atkinson's letter comes one month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that made it legal to carry handguns openly on the streets of the nation's second most-populous state, ending a prohibition dating back to the post-Civil War era that disarmed former Confederate soldiers and freed slaves.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Whataburger-takes-stand-against-Texas-new-open-6380200.php

Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

European Southern Observatory Press Release

Posted on 11 July 2015 by Astronomy Now



The first results have been released from a major new dark matter survey of the southern skies using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST KiDS survey will allow astronomers to make precise measurements of dark matter, the structure of galaxy halos, and the evolution of galaxies and clusters. The first KiDS results show how the characteristics of the observed galaxies are determined by the invisible vast clumps of dark matter surrounding them.

Around 85% of the matter in the Universe is dark, and of a type not understood by physicists. Although it doesn’t shine or absorb light, astronomers can detect this dark matter through its effect on stars and galaxies, specifically from its gravitational pull. A major project using ESO’s powerful survey telescopes is now showing more clearly than ever before the relationships between this mysterious dark matter and the shining galaxies that we can observe directly.

The project, known as the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), uses imaging from the VLT Survey Telescope and its huge camera, OmegaCAM. Sited at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, this telescope is dedicated to surveying the night sky in visible light — and it is complemented by the infrared survey telescope VISTA. One of the major goals of the VST is to map out dark matter and to use these maps to understand the mysterious dark energy that is causing our Universe’s expansion to accelerate.

The best way to work out where the dark matter lies is through gravitational lensing — the distortion of the Universe’s fabric by gravity, which deflects the light coming from distant galaxies far beyond the dark matter. By studying this effect it is possible to map out the places where gravity is strongest, and hence where the matter, including dark matter, resides.

More:
http://astronomynow.com/2015/07/11/huge-new-survey-to-shine-light-on-dark-matter/