Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalArgentina: Firearms Resolution Opens Door to Abuse
March 25, 2024 11:00AM EDT
Milei Administration Should Strengthen Investigative Capacity, Fight Corruption
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich shakes hands with security forces deployed to Rosario, Argentina, on Monday, March 11, 2024. The Argentine government sent federal security forces to the city following a wave of killings in public areas. © 2024 AP Photo/Celina Mutti Lovera
(Washington, DC) - A new executive branch resolution broadening the scope for security agents’ use of firearms in Argentina runs counter to basic human rights standards and opens the door to abuse, Human Rights Watch said today.
On March 14, 2024, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich approved the resolution citing increased gang violence in the city of Rosario, Santa Fe province, which Human Rights Watch visited in late February. The resolution contains loopholes and ambiguities that could allow security officers to employ firearms in an unacceptably broad set of circumstances. It applies to all national security forces, including the national police and the national penitentiary service.
“People in Rosario and elsewhere in Argentina should be able to go about their daily lives without fear due to insecurity,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “To achieve that, the government should be strengthening judicial capacity and preventing gang recruitment, not opening the door to excessive use of force.”
The resolution is an extended version of another resolution that Bullrich passed in 2018, when she was also Security Minister. Human Rights Watch had called for its modification as it ran counter to international human rights standards.
More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/25/argentina-firearms-resolution-opens-door-abuse
Papers Show U.S. Role in Guatemalan Abuses
By Douglas Farah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 11, 1999; Page A26
During the 1960s, the United States was intimately involved in equipping and training Guatemalan security forces that murdered thousands of civilians in the nation's civil war, according to newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents.
The documents show, moreover, that the CIA retained close ties to the Guatemalan army in the 1980s, when the army and its paramilitary allies were massacring Indian villagers, and that U.S. officials were aware of the killings at the time. The documents were obtained by the National Security Archive, a private nonprofit group in Washington.
Some of the documents were made available to an independent commission formed to investigate human rights abuses during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which killed an estimated 200,000 people. The report by the Historical Clarification Commission, which grew out of the U.N.-brokered peace agreement that ended the conflict in 1996, was released last month in Guatemala and blamed government forces for the overwhelming majority of human rights violations during the conflict.
But some of the documents were not released until yesterday. One was a Jan. 4, 1966 memo from a U.S. State Department security official describing how he set up a "safe house" in the presidential palace for use by Guatemalan security agents and their U.S. contacts. The safe house became the headquarters for Guatemala's "dirty war" against leftist insurgents and suspected allies.
"I have never seen anything like it," said Kate Doyle, Guatemala project director at the archives, expressing amazement at "the description of our intimacy with the Guatemalan security forces."
Three months after the cable about the safe house, on March 6, 1966, security forces arrested 32 people suspected of aiding Marxist guerrillas; those arrested subsequently disappeared. While the Guatemalan government denied any involvement in the case, a CIA cable sent later that year identifies three of those missing, saying, "The following Guatemalan Communists and terrorists were executed secretly by Guatemalan authorities on the night of March 6."
The CIA has a long history of involvement in Guatemala, having helped to orchestrate the army's overthrow of a democratically elected government in 1954. Nevertheless, largely because of human rights concerns, the United States never provided Guatemalan security forces with the same level of support it gave anti-communist forces in neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador during fighting in the 1980s.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/march99/guatemala11.htm
So much is available on the InternetS which was ommitted by the public "educators". So much to learn for those who want to do the homework!
You may have noticed after Reagan triumphed by conquering Communism, without missing a beat, the US started going after all the new Narco Traffickers, and Heumann Trafickers! They're all the same people: people who don't put US interests before the interests of the impoverished, brown masses of the Americas.
50 Interesting Facts About Ancient Aztec Culture
(Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)
The Aztec Culture has a deep and rich history that not many people know about. The people of this vast empire were very intellectual and developed deep political and social organizations, as well as commercial and religious influences throughout their rule. They conquered many parts of Mesoamerica, what we know today as Mexico and some parts of Central America. They came into power around 1345 and were mercilessly taken out of power by the Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes in 1521.
This great empire would go on to create a deeply rich culture as well as much innovation for the world today. The Aztecs had many gods that were associated with everything in life. They had deeply religious values that affected everything around them. Aztecs were very innovative with architecture and agriculture. They were very clean and smart people who went to school every day and even bathed multiple times a day. The Aztec Empire reached a great height in its time but many things lead to the downfall of this great ancient civilization.
Ancient Aztec Calendars
(Photo by: Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The Aztecs had a very intricate calendar system it actually consisted of two different calendars. One was called Tonalpohualli also known as "The Counting Of The Days", which consisted of a 265-day cycle. The other calendar was called Xiuhpohualli or "Counting Of The Years", which consisted of a 365-day cycle.
Both calendars held important meaning within each day and thus had a different symbol and meaning to that day. Every 52 years each calendar would align its first days and was a celebration day for the Aztecs called 'The Binding of The Years' ceremony which they would make religious sacrifices on that day.
Montezuma II
More:
https://explore.reference.com/50-interesting-facts-about-ancient-aztec-culture-copy/51
Book Banning Attempts Are at Record Highs
A new report from the American Library Association found that the number of challenged titles increased by 65 percent in 2023
Ella Feldman
Daily Correspondent
March 18, 2024
Book-banning efforts reached the highest level ever documented by the American Library Association (ALA) last year, according to a new report.
In 2023, 4,240 unique titles were targeted for censorship in schools and libraries across the country—a 65 percent increase from 2022.
Book challenges are also becoming increasingly common in public libraries. The number of titles targeted at public libraries rose by 92 percent last year, while school libraries saw an 11 percent increase.
“I wake up every morning hoping this is over,” Emily Drabinski, president of ALA, tells the New York Times’ Alexandra Alter. “What I find striking is that this is still happening, and it’s happening with more intensity.”
The reported numbers represent “only a snapshot” of censorship attempts throughout the year, says the association. The ALA calculates its totals using reports filed by library professionals and book challenges covered in the media. Censorship attempts that don’t fall into these categories are not included.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/book-banning-attempts-are-at-record-highs-180983964/
Suriname cancels controversial Mennonite pilot program, but bigger problems loom
by Maxwell Radwin on 20 March 2024
The government in Suriname said it cancelled a controversial pilot program that would have brought hundreds of Mennonites to the country to carry out agricultural activity, likely in forested areas.
Suriname President Chan Santokhi confirmed to local media this week that he shuttered a pilot program setting aside 30,000 hectares (74,131 acres) for 50 Mennonite families, easing some fears that the country was on the verge of destroying large parts of the Amazon Rainforest.
“We in the international conservation movement congratulate President Santokhi and the people of Suriname for taking a thoughtful and considered move in deciding how best to manage the country’s resources for the benefit of all the country’s citizens,” said President of Amazon Conservation Team Mark Plotkin.
More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/03/suriname-cancels-controversial-mennonite-pilot-program-but-bigger-problems-loom/
Truth and reconciliation: New study finds people less likely to acknowledge war crimes on social media
MARCH 20, 2024
Editors' notes
by University of Exeter
Social media could prove to be as much a barrier to post-conflict reconciliation as it is a way of helping communities move forward, new research has claimed.
A study has found that there are clear differences between how people discuss the legacy of war in face-to-face situations compared to those interactions on platforms such as Facebook and X.
Fear of being stereotyped and judged by foreign nationals or a concern of being viewed as a 'bad ambassador' by compatriots, can lead to people becoming defensive and closed-off about issues such as war crimes committed by their own ethnic group.
The study, which examined attitudes to the Yugoslav war, and in particular the killing of 8,000 men and boys by the Bosnian Serb army at Srebrenica, could have important lessons with regard to the work of human rights activists who use social media to raise awareness of genocide and other atrocities.
More:
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-truth-reconciliation-people-acknowledge-war.html
Scientists find galaxy supercluster as massive as 26 quadrillion suns
By Robert Lea published 4 hours ago
The Einasto Supercluster is so vast that it would take a light signal 360 million years to get from one end to the other.
A black screen with lots of golden speckled dots. One area of the scene is zoomed-in with a box to the right.
The Einasto supercluster located 3 billion light-years away and containing a mass equivelent to 26 quadrillion suns (Image credit: Shishir Sankhyayan)
Astronomers have discovered a cavalcade of monster galaxy superclusters, incredibly massive collections of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the universe.
The most striking example of these 662 new superclusters is located around 3 billion light-years away from Earth and has been named the "Einasto Supercluster." This particular supercluster is named in honor of Estonian astrophysicist Jaan Einasto, one of the discoverers of the large-scale structure of the universe.
The Einasto Supercluster is staggering in terms of its sheer size and mass. It contains the same mass as around 26 quadrillion suns (26 followed by 15 zeroes). This supercluster is so vast, in fact, that it would take a light signal 360 million years to travel from one side of it to the other.
The findings could help scientists better understand how these vast collections of galaxies come together. Down the line, it could also help answer questions about dark matter and dark energy.
More:
https://www.space.com/einasto-supercluster-galaxy-26-quadrillion-suns
Losing the Connection Between the Andes and the Amazon: A Price of Peace in Colombia
The South American country, where the biodiversity of the Andes meets that of the Amazon, is losing the great natural wealth of some 1,500 square kilometers of forest each year, mainly in areas formerly under guerrilla control
March 19, 2024 by Knowable Magazine
By Pablo Correa
In 2016, the same year the Colombian government and guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed to end a war that had lasted almost half a century, the forests that make northwestern South America one of the most biodiverse places on the planet began to vanish. The demise of a conflict that had claimed the lives of at least 450,664 people marked the beginning of an environmental tragedy: In 2016 alone, deforestation increased 44 percent over the previous year.
“Colombia is now experiencing the consequences of the power vacuum left by the FARC over large parts of its territory,” warned ecologist Nicola Clerici of the University of Rosario in Bogota and colleagues in 2018. For decades, the war had slowed colonization in the south of the country and impeded deforestation — a phenomenon termed “gunpoint conservation.” After the peace agreement, the dynamics changed.
Colombia is now losing an average of 1,500 square kilometers of forest each year, an area 25 times the size of the island of Manhattan. About 65 percent of this is Amazonian forest. The forests are replaced by land for cattle ranching and agriculture, or they are simply set on fire so that the land can be fenced and sold. In 2018 alone, fires in biodiversity hotspots increased sixfold over the previous year.
Most of this deforestation is concentrated in the areas formerly controlled by the FARC, which include a 500-kilometer-long strip of land where the foothills of the Andes Mountains and the Amazon lowlands meet — a place that is a passageway for thousands of species, an area for genetic exchange between different populations of the same species, and a region supporting an extensive network of rivers that flow down from the mountains to feed the Amazon basin.
More:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/losing-the-connection-between-the-andes-and-the-amazon-a-price-of-peace-in-colombia/
The howling ghosts of colonialism haunt Haiti as violent anarchy and gang rule escalate
By Bryan Rostron
Bryan Rostron has lived and worked as a journalist in South Africa, Italy, New York and London. He has written for The New York Times, the London Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Spectator and was a correspondent for New Statesman. He is the author of the recently published ‘Lost on the Map: a memoir of colonial illusions’ (Bookstorm) and six previous books, including ‘Robert McBride: The Struggle Continues’ and the novels ‘My Shadow’ and ‘Black Petals’. He lives in Cape Town.
18 Mar 2024
There’s no more shocking proof of the lingering consequences of colonialism than the violent anarchy devastating Haiti. Brutal gangs now control most of the country.
This is the end result of European powers ruthlessly squeezing the tiny Caribbean republic dry — and the subsequent amnesia about a systematic crime against humanity, especially among the Western nations most implicated in that mobster-style extortion of a poor country: France and the United States.
What was once called Saint-Domingue was so profitable, producing 60% of the world’s coffee and 50% of its sugar, that it is estimated one in eight people in France depended on trade with that distant Caribbean colony.
But in 1804, after an astonishingly successful slave revolt, the world’s first black republic, Haiti, was declared. Clearly colonial powers felt that the shock of such a massive loss of revenue and the scandalous example of an independent black republic could not be tolerated. So they set in motion measures, right up to the 21st century, to crush such a show of independence.
The initial strike was the arrival in 1825 of a squadron of 15 French warships in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Faced with the bargaining power of 500 cannons, Haiti was forced to agree to pay 150 million francs in compensation for the loss of France’s profitable plantations and all their human chattels.
This debt, though later reduced to 90 million francs, was not paid off until 1947. In fact, it was a “double debt”, as to pay it off Haiti was compelled to take loans, at interest, from French banks — which also helped to finance the construction of the Eiffel Tower. By 1914, 80% of the Haitian government’s budget went to pay off this debt at the expense of an increasingly impoverished population.
In that same year, a United States warship anchored at Port-au-Prince, and a team of marines marched to the so-called Haitian National Bank, from where they removed gold reserves worth $500,000 (approximately $15-million today). This was taken back to New York “for safe-keeping”.
The following year the Americans invaded with the standard justification of “restoring order and maintaining stability”. That occupation lasted until 1934, and during some of those 19 years, more was spent from the national budget to pay the US officials enforcing the occupation than on the then two million population.
More:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2024-03-18-the-howling-ghosts-of-colonialism-haunt-haiti-as-violent-anarchy-and-gang-rule-escalate/
Milei invited to Miami to receive accolade from Jewish Community
Monday, March 18th 2024 - 10:17 UTC
Argentine President Javier Milei will travel to Miami during the second week of April to receive the “Ambassadors of Light” distinction from the local Jewish community, it was announced during the weekend. TTraveling with the head of state will be his sister and Presidential Secretary Karina Milei.
Milei will be bestowed with the decoration on April 10 during the opening of the “Menachem Mendel Schneerson” Center for “his tireless efforts for Israel and the global community” and “honoring his unwavering dedication to spreading freedom, hope, and positivity in the face of darkness.” The Argentine President is scheduled to give a speech calling for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to release all the hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7.
Also scheduled to attend the ceremony are Argentina's Ambassador to Washington DC Gerardo Werthein, and Rabbi Axel Wahnish, Buenos Aires' next Ambassador to Israel.
The presidential trip is planned for between April 8 and 11, according to Casa Rosada sources. While in the United States, Milei is also expected to hold a series of meetings with businessmen from the United States and Latin America who support his economic program and intend to invest in Argentina. However, the same sources ruled out a possible encounter with former US President Donald J. Trump despite the short distance between Miami and the latter's Mar o Lago residence. Trump will take on the incumbent Joseph Biden later this year in a bid to return to the White House.
After winning the Nov. 19 runoff and before his inauguration, Milei traveled to New York to visit the Ohel, the tomb of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), recognized as the Lubavitch Rebbe. Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the seventh leader of the Chabad Lubavitch dynasty and is defined as “the greatest Jewish personality” because he took a small Hasidic group that almost disappeared with the Holocaust and transformed it into one of the most influential movements of religious Judaism.
More:
https://en.mercopress.com/2024/03/18/milei-invited-to-miami-to-receive-accolade-from-jewish-community
He should leave his chainsaw at home.
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