Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalHow the Memory of a Song Reunited Two Women Separated by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
FEBRUARY 29, 2024 7:15 A.M.
In 1990, scholars found a Sierra Leonean woman who remembered a nearly identical version of a tune passed down by a Georgia woman’s enslaved ancestors
Two unidentified Gullah Geechee women photographed by Lorenzo Dow Turner in the early 1930s Anacostia Community Museum
In 1933, the pioneering Black linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner met an elderly Gullah Geechee woman named Amelia Dawley in a remote coastal village south of Savannah, Georgia. While Turner recorded, Dawley sang a song of unknown origin, passed down through the generations by her ancestors. Dawley didn’t know the song’s meaning, but a Sierra Leonean student who heard the recording recognized its lyrics as Mende, a major language in his home country. Turner published an English translation of the song in his 1949 book, Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect.
Decades later, anthropologist Joseph Opala came across Turner’s work. He eventually decided to travel through Sierra Leone with ethnomusicologist Cynthia Schmidt and native linguist Tazieff Koroma in an attempt to trace the provenance of the mysterious lyrics. After a long, fruitless search through humid country, Schmidt ended up in the isolated village of Senehun Ngola, where she met a local woman who had preserved a shockingly similar song that traced back hundreds of years.
“[Her] grandmother had taught her the song, and she had kept it alive by changing the words for other occasions,” says Schmidt.
Located on the Windward Coast of West Africa, the region now known as Sierra Leone was a key player in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Westerners also referred to the area as the Rice Coast; as English abolitionist Thomas Clarkson wrote in 1788, the red rice found there was “finer in flavor, of a greater substance, more wholesome and capable of preservation, than the rice of any other country.”
When slave traders arrived in Sierra Leone, they found a lush country of verdant forests, knobby mountains and waters thick with aquatic life. Cultivated rice fields and wild indigo sprawled across the landscape. Massive mangrove trees crowded the riverbanks, rendering certain villages “scarcely perceptible” and protecting their inhabitants from potential enslavers, who could pass “within a few yards of a town” and not suspect anything, wrote English physician Thomas Masterman Winterbottom in 1803.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-memory-of-a-song-reunited-two-women-separated-by-the-trans-atlantic-slave-trade-180983864/
Mexico's Sheinbaum keeps wide lead in run for presidency - poll
Reuters
February 26, 202410:29 AM CSTUpdated 4 days ago
MEXICO CITY, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Former Mexico City mayor and ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum holds a comfortable lead in the race for Mexico's presidency, an opinion poll showed on Monday, days before campaigns for the June 2 vote officially kick off.
A Feb. 15-21 survey of 1,000 Mexicans by pollster Buendia & Marquez for newspaper El Universal gave Sheinbaum, who represents the ruling leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), 59% support of support in a three-way race with her closest rivals.
Sheinbaum, 61, is a close ally of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose approval ratings remain strong. Under Mexican law, presidents may only serve a single six-year term.
Opposition coalition candidate Xochitl Galvez trailed with 36%, while Jorge Alvarez, a little-known congressman representing the center-left Citizens Movement (MC) party, earned 5% support. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
More:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexicos-sheinbaum-keeps-wide-lead-run-presidency-poll-2024-02-26/
New York Attorney General Sues Meat Processor JBS Over Climate Claims
Story by Heidi Crnkovic ?? 13h
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit today against the American subsidiary of JBS, the world's largest producer of beef products, alleging it misled the public about its environmental impact.
James’ suit centers around claims that JBS USA has promised it will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 despite documented plans to increase production and, therefore, increase its carbon footprint.
In 2021, the JBS Group, JBS USA's global parent company, reported total global greenhouse gas emissions of over 71 million tons, more than the total emissions of some countries. James says her office seeks to stop JBS USA from continuing what she calls false and misleading marketing practices, pay disgorgement of all ill-gotten profits, and penalties.
"As families continue to face the daily impacts of the climate crisis, they are willing to spend more of their hard-earned money on products from brands that are better for the environment," said James. "When companies falsely advertise their commitment to sustainability, they are misleading consumers and endangering our planet. JBS USA's greenwashing exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations. My office will always ensure that companies do not abuse the environment and the trust of hardworking consumers for profit."
James also accuses JBS USA of making several misleading claims about its environmental impact, including pledges to curb deforestation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
. . .
Ban the Batistas, a campaign that’s already made some unlikely bedfellows in its fight against JBS, has voiced its support of the lawsuit. The coalition says it includes American farmers, ranchers, consumers, and investors concerned about the risks and "power grab" by JBS' majority shareholders, brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista from Brazil.[/b
More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/new-york-attorney-general-sues-meat-processor-jbs-over-climate-claims/ar-BB1j4b3f
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You may recall JBS taking a big cash handout from Trump during his "Presidency." He treated the criminal Batista Brothers very well. They're his kind of people, clearly:
Brazil's JBS praises Trump order to keep meat plants open
By Nayara Figueiredo
April 28, 20202:50 PM CDT Updated 4 years ago
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's planned executive order to keep that country's meat plants open will bring certainty to the sector, an executive for Brazilian meatpacker JBS SA said on Tuesday.
JBS Chief Financial Officer Guilherme Cavalcanti praised Trump's decision in a live webcast, after saying the United States only has about 15 days of meat inventory.
Trump plans to issue the executive order on Tuesday, a senior administration official said. The five-page order is designed to give companies more liability protection in case employees catch the virus as a result of having to go to work.
JBS had already closed two U.S. beef plants after workers tested positive, but later reopened them, Cavalcanti said. The company still has one beef plant and one pork factory that remain closed, the CFO said.
More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jbs-outlook/brazils-jbs-praises-trump-order-to-keep-meat-plants-open-idUKKCN22A337/
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This foreign meat company got U.S. tax money. Now it wants to conquer America.
By Kimberly Kindy
November 7, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. EST
President Trump delivers remarks in support of farmers and ranchers at the White House in May. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
This story has been updated.Two men in cowboy hats stood behind President Trump in May as he announced a $16 billion agricultural bailout. Trump said the financial relief from his trade war with China would help American farmers, reinforcing an earlier tweet when the president said the funds would help “great Patriot Farmers.”
But not all beneficiaries of the taxpayer-funded program are American farmers or patriots. JBS, a Brazilian company that is the largest meat producer in the world, has received $78 million in government pork contracts funded with the bailout funds — more than any other U.S. pork producer.
JBS’s winning hand in securing a quarter of all of the pork bailout contracts is one example of the power a small number of multinational meat companies now hold in the United States. JBS has become a major player in the United States even as it faces price-fixing and other investigations from the federal government.
. . .
A dozen years ago, JBS did not own a single U.S. meat plant. Today, JBS and three other food companies control about 85 percent of beef production. JBS and Tyson Foods control about 40 percent of the poultry market. And JBS and three other companies control nearly 70 percent of the pork market.
. . .
[Trump farm bailout money will go to Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm, USDA says]
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-foreign-meat-company-got-us-tax-money-now-it-wants-to-conquer-america/2019/11/04/854836ae-eae5-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html
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JBS among meat firms linked to slavery-tainted ranches in Brazil
By Fabio Teixeira
January 5, 20211:48 PM CSTUpdated 3 years ago
RIO DE JANEIRO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Brazilian meatpackers must clean up their supply chains, labor experts said on Tuesday, after an investigation showed six firms bought cattle from ranches that used slave labor.
Brazil's JBS, one of the world's largest meat processing firms, bought cattle from two ranches that later ended up on Brazil's "dirty list" of companies that employed slave labor, the anti-slavery rights group Reporter Brasil said this week.
JBS said it banned the two firms once they were on the dirty list, but it was unfair to expect JBS to stop working with any ranches facing allegations of slave labor from inspectors as those companies also had the right to defend their actions.
"Reporter Brasil is demanding JBS ... block producers based only on inspections (which) ... would be a disregard for that producer's right of defense before public authorities", JBS told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a statement.
More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN29A2EV/
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Meat giant JBS linked to illegal deforestation and theft of indigenous land in Brazil
World Animal Protection (PRNewsFoto/World Animal Protection)
NEWS PROVIDED BY
World Animal Protection
03 Oct, 2023, 08:00 ET
New report unveils ongoing evasion of regulations and destructive practices connected to the world's largest meat supplier
NEW YORK, Oct. 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A new investigation conducted by Repórter Brasil in coordination with World Animal Protection reveals that JBS recently bought corn and soy crops from a farming operation that illegally exploits indigenous land, clearing and planting it in violation of Brazilian law.
Investigators visited the farm operation in question, met with neighboring communities, and spoke to workers, including employees in soy crushing plants and transportation, who confirmed the crops were destined for JBS as animal feed. The indigenous communities residing in these regions have voiced distressing concerns pertaining to persistent harassment and intimidation, including confrontations with armed security personnel retained by the grain farmers supplying JBS.
Annette Manusevich, Farming Campaign Manager at World Animal Protection, US said: "The ongoing land-grabbing activities that support JBS's profits and expansion are a deeply troubling testament to its disregard for local communities, the environment, and animals. These illegal practices not only strip indigenous people of their ancestral lands but also contribute to environmental degradation and pose a severe threat to wildlife habitats. It is imperative that we confront these unethical practices, demand accountability, and work towards a more sustainable and equitable future for all."
This investigation is a stark reminder of JBSrepeatedly failing to exercise due diligence over its grain supply chain. Instead, the corporate giant operates as a global "meat machine" with a long history of covering up and greenwashing its harmful practices. In fact, this report is further proof that JBS continues to obscure its role in the ongoing relentless deforestation of biodiverse ecosystems in Brazil driven by increasing feed grain production. The company must be held accountable for this ecological disaster, the profound loss of wild animals, and the illegal exploitation of indigenous land and its people.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/meat-giant-jbs-linked-to-illegal-deforestation-and-theft-of-indigenous-land-in-brazil-301944986.html
Ancient 4,750-Year-Old Megalith Discovered On Peruvian Mountain
PUBLISHED
2 days ago
The unique circular plaza is one of the earliest ever found in the Americas.
author
MADDY CHAPMAN
Edited by Francesca Benson
What remains of the ancient plaza today.
Image credit: Toohey et al., Science Advances, 2024 (CC BY-NC 4.0)
An ancient ceremonial megalith dated to 4,750 years ago has been discovered in the Peruvian Andes. The find is older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt and represents one of the oldest circular plazas in the region.
Unearthed at an archaeological site called Callacpuma in northern Peru’s Cajamarca valley, the plaza measures around 18 meters (60 feet) across and features concentric walls of large, free-standing, vertically placed megalithic stones, the likes of which have never been seen before in the Andes.
Having been the subject of archaeological interest for nearly 60 years, the site has now been excavated and subjected to radiocarbon dating, placing its construction between 2632 and 2884 BCE, during the Late Preceramic period. This dating makes the plaza one of the earliest examples of monumental, megalithic architecture in the Americas.
“This structure was built approximately 100 years before the Great Pyramids of Egypt and around the same time as Stonehenge,” Associate Professor Jason Toohey, who led the project, said in a statement.
More:
https://www.iflscience.com/ancient-4750-year-old-megalith-discovered-on-peruvian-mountain-73114
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Archaeologists Discover Mysterious Stone Circle Built Before Great Pyramids
Published Feb 28, 2024 at 3:55 PM EST
By Aristos Georgiou
Science and Health Reporter
Archaeologists have discovered a mysterious stone circle in the Andes Mountains that they say was constructed before the great pyramids of Egypt.
The circular stone plaza, which measures around 60 feet in diameter, consists of two concentric walls made from unshaped stones set vertically in the ground, according to a study reporting the find in the journal Science Advances.
The monument is at the Callacpuma archaeological site in northern Peru's Cajamarca Basin, which lies around 10,000 feet above sea level near the summit of a peak in the Andes. Stretching for more than 5,000 miles along the western edge of South America, the Andes range is the longest in the world.
Using radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers determined that initial construction of the circular plaza took place around 4,750 years ago, corresponding to the "Late Precaremic" period of Andean archaeology.
More:
https://www.newsweek.com/archaeologists-discover-mysterious-stone-circle-built-before-great-pyramids-1874439?piano_t=1
El Salvador's Bukele tells US conservatives to 'put up a fight'
His popularity soared after he cracked down on crime and gangs.
In Summary
•Mr Bukele - who calls himself the world's coolest dictator - was re-elected for a second term this month.
•Following his election in 2019, he turned El Salvador from the murder capital of the world into one of the region's safest countries.
Image: EPA
The president of El Salvador told American conservatives to "put up a fight" against the "global elites" in order to get their country back.
"The people of El Salvador have woken up, and so can you," Nayib Bukele said in a speech at the biggest annual gathering of conservatives in the US.
. . .
His government carried out sweeping arrests of anyone suspected of being involved in gang activity during his first term in office.
An estimated 75,000 people have been arrested under emergency measures that have been repeatedly extended, alarming human rights groups.
Amnesty International recently criticised the "gradual replacement of gang violence with state violence" in the country.
More:
https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/world/2024-02-23-el-salvadors-bukele-tells-us-conservatives-to-put-up-a-fight/
Peru's Supreme Court of Justice annuls the judicial process for forced sterilizations committed during the Fujimori gove
Peru's Supreme Court of Justice annuls the judicial process for forced sterilizations committed during the Fujimori governmentThe Prosecutor's Office will file a criminal complaint again
Written by
Salud con Lupa
Translated by
Gabriela Mesones Rojo
More than 200,000 women were sterilized in the 90s in Peru as part of a state policy of Alberto Fujimori's government. Photos by Liz Tasa and Tadeo Bourbón. Used with permission.
This article was published by Salud con Lupa on December 23, 2023. An edited version is republished on Global Voices under a media partnership.
On December 7, 2024 — the same day that the Constitutional Court released former President Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity — the Supreme Court of Justice of Peru stopped the judicial process for hundreds of thousands of forced sterilizations committed during the Fujimori dictatorship, and ordered that the case return to the point where it was in October 2018, in the Supraprovincial Prosecutor's Office for Cases of Human Rights Violation, so that a new criminal complaint can be formulated and a judge can decide whether the process is to be opened or archived.
The decision of the Supreme Court comes as a result of the lawsuit filed by the former minister of health of the Fujimori government, Alejandro Aguinaga, to avoid being judicially investigated in this case. Among the arguments he presented, Aguinaga maintains that his constitutional rights are being violated and that the investigation lacks cause because in the two decades since the case has been filed eight times due to lack of evidence.
Marino Costa Bauer, Eduardo Yong Motta, Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Aguinaga. Image by Salud con Lupa. Fair use.
During the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori, more than 272,000 women and 22,000 men were sterilized in regions with high levels of poverty and a majority Indigenous population, as part of the National Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program. Although the exact number of operations without consent that were carried out is unknown, there are more than 8,000 people registered in the official Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilizations of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. The victims suffered discrimination from their family and community, and were left with physical and psychological consequences that they suffer to this day.
In December 2021, Judge Rafael Martínez ordered the beginning of a preliminary investigation against former president Alberto Fujimori and senior officials of his government, such as former health ministers Alejandro Aguinaga, Marino Costa Bauer, Eduardo Yong Motta and advisor Ulises Jorge Aguilar. For this case, the Prosecutor's Office presented its evidence gathered in 16 years of investigation, during two months of hearings.
They are accused of being responsible for the deaths of five women: Mamérita Mestanza, Alejandra Aguirre, Reynalda Betalleluz, Marpia Espinola, and Celia Ramos, who had complications after operations carried out under terrible health conditions and without monitoring by medical personnel. They are also sought to be held responsible for the injuries committed against another 1,315 victims in a context of serious human rights violations.
More:
https://globalvoices.org/2024/02/23/perus-supreme-court-of-justice-annuls-the-judicial-process-for-forced-sterilizations-committed-during-the-fujimori-government/
Ronald Reagan Made Central America a Killing Field (History refresher for the forgetful while it's still possible.)
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration used Central America as a testing ground to rehabilitate US imperial "hard power" after defeat in Vietnam. The results were predictable: death squads, massacres, and murderous repression of left-wing movements.ti
Latin America has played a crucial role in the history of US empire — and not simply because of its proximity to the US. As historian Greg Grandin argues in the recently reissued Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the Making of an Imperial Republic (reviewed by Hilary Goodfriend for Jacobin here), countries south of the border have been used as a crucible in the formation of US policy, a testing ground for its imperial theories, and a touchstone for domestic movements.
One critical moment was the rise of Reaganism, when neoconservatives like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Elliott Abrams steered the US’s foreign policy and rank-and-file members of the New Right took a keen interest in fighting left-wing movements in Central America. Right-wing leaders later used the lessons they gleaned from brutal counterinsurgency programmes in El Salvador in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
. . .
How important has Latin America been for the United States as an imperial power?
It’s been critically important. It’s easy to talk about Latin America as a site in which the US imposes its imperial will, carries out coups and regime changes, and pays no attention to the consequences and disastrous results. But there’s another story to tell. Latin America was a challenge to the founders of the United States. They immediately had to deal with the fact that the Western Hemisphere had multiple republics, and that they shared with the founders of the United States a sense of American exceptionalism.
. . .
Empire’s Workshop looks at the New Deal and the New Right as the quintessential twentieth century political coalitions. Reagan is elected in 1980 running on a programme of restoring US power and moral authority in the world. A lot of neoconservative analysts like Jeane Kirkpatrick saw the crisis not just as a crisis of power but a crisis of confidence. Vietnam scrambled the establishment’s ability to act in the world with an assuredness that it was doing good. Reagan’s task, and Reaganism’s task, wasn’t just to reassert power, but to re-moralise power, re-moralise militarism, and re-moralise markets.
When Reagan comes to power in 1981, there’s not a lot of places in the world where the US can actually act. The Soviet Union is still in existence, they still have nuclear weapons. The Middle East is split between allegiances to the Soviet Union and to United States. Africa’s allegiances are split. Most of South America is under anti-communist dictatorships, following coups that the US had supported: Chile in 1973, Uruguay in 1973, Bolivia in 1971, Paraguay and Argentina in 1976. So South America was secure — it was like a garrison continent.
. . .
John Negroponte was the ambassador in Honduras, where he basically ran death squads. Then he becomes very prominent in the war in Iraq.
My argument is that Latin America allows retrenchment, and then once that retrenchment takes place, the US goes global. Then once going global hits a wall or collapses, the US turns back to Latin America.
More:
https://thewire.in/world/ronald-reagan-made-central-america-a-killing-field
Inquiry into Pablo Neruda's 1973 death reopened by Chile appeals court
February 20, 2024 / 11:25 PM EST / AP
WORLD
Inquiry into Pablo Neruda's 1973 death reopened by Chile appeals court
February 20, 2024 / 11:25 PM EST / AP
An appeals court in Chile's capital on Tuesday ruled that the case of Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda's death be reopened, saying the investigation has not been exhausted and new steps could help clarify the cause of his death.
Last December, a judge rejected a request by Neruda's nephew to reopen the case to look for other causes of death than cancer, which is what is listed on the poet's death certificate.
In February 2023, the nephew, Rodolfo Reyes, said forensic experts from Canada, Denmark and Chile had found evidence pointing to Neruda having died of poisoning more than 50 years ago.
Reyes said forensic tests carried out in Danish and Canadian labs indicated a presence in Neruda of "a great quantity of Cloristridium botulinum, which is incompatible with human life." The powerful toxin can cause paralysis in the nervous system and death.
. . .
Neruda, a Communist Party member, died 12 days after the 1973 military coup that toppled the government of President Salvador Allende and hours before he was to leave Chile for exile in Mexico. The coup put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power.
More:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/appeals-court-in-chile-has-ruled-that-the-case-of-chilean-poet-pablo-nerudas-death-be-reopened/
Paraguayan policeman on trial for torture meted out decades ago
February 17, 2024
MNA International
By AFP
Five decades ago, he was a feared policeman nicknamed “the Whip,” an enforcer of Paraguay’s military dictatorship. Today, aged 87, Eusebio Torres is finally standing trial on torture allegations dating to 1976.
Some 20 witnesses testified against Torres in a court in Asuncion this past week, detailing his alleged cruelty and opening a rare window onto crimes committed under the 1954-1989 rule of strongman Alfredo Stroessner — South America’s longest-serving dictatorship.
Torres, under house arrest, attended the hearings online, listening stoically as witnesses detailed allegations of extreme brutality committed against dissidents — real and suspected — of the Stroessner regime.
“He (Torres) ordered me to undress and, with his leather-braided whip, he began to hit me hard, with rage… One of the impacts burst my eye,” one of them, Carlos Arestivo, told the court of an incident 47 years ago.
. . .
This was a year of mass arrests at the height of “Operation Condor” that saw South America’s military dictatorships club together to hunt down and eliminate left-wing dissidents across national borders.
The right-wing Colorado Party that was in power in Paraguay at the time continues to dominate politics today, and Torres was honored by the state in 2014 for a half-century career — an event that sparked much anger.
More:
https://www.macaubusiness.com/paraguayan-policeman-on-trial-for-torture-meted-out-decades-ago/
(By the way, Washington has always been just fine with Paraguay's Colordo Party, and totally accepted the 35 year presidency of right-wing genocidal torturer, murderer, racist fascist President Stroessner.)
Below, image of Eusebio Torres' boss, genocidal, homocidal racist fascist General Alfredo Stroessner
The "Spanish-American War" Was Based on a Bloody Lie
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
BY HARVEY WASSERMAN
USS Maine: Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
This week in 1898, the United States screamed for what became one of the most consequential imperial wars in world history—based on a lie. On February 15, the Battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor. According to the US Navy, 267 sailors were killed.
Led by the new-born mass circulation “yellow press,” and by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, the “dastardly Spanish” were at fault.
Imperial Spain was at the time brutally suppressing a popular rebellion in Cuba. The sickening slaughter was picked up by the American press, which ignited a popular uproar. Among other things, its front pages featured line drawings of naked white women being assaulted by swarthy Spaniards, evoking the same kinds of racist shrieks spread by the Ku Klux Klan in the unreconstructed post-Confederate South.
Never mind that the US had just brutally suppressed a similar resistance in Hawaii. There pineapple and sugar plantation owners, led by the Dole family, crushed a long-standing constitutional monarchy presided over by the legendary songwriter (“Aloha Oe”) and globally recognized Queen Liliuokalani.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/16/the-spanish-american-war-was-based-on-a-lie/
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