tagged w/ Latin America
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From Chile to Colombia to Mexico, Latin America has been battered recently by wildfires, floods and droughts.
For many witnessing the extreme weather in the region and around the world, the question that comes up again and again is whether climate change is playing a role. The response from experts: Probably.
While leading climate scientists are unable to pin any single flood or heat wave solely on climate change, experts say the number of extreme weather events is increasing worldwide and the evidence suggests global warming is having an impact.
Wildfires are raging in Chile during an atypical heat wave, and northern Mexico is suffering from its worst drought in 70 years of record-keeping. A second straight season of heavy rains in Colombia killed at least 182 people, destroyed more than 1,200 homes and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage in the past four months.
Researchers predict more wild, unusual weather in the coming years, and they say Latin America is especially vulnerable because deforestation and sprawling construction have made the region more susceptible to flooding and landslides.
At a rose farm in the Colombian town of Chia, workers say floodwaters covered fields of roses last month for the second time in less than a year, leaving damaged greenhouses and a wasteland of shriveled flowers.
"Never in the history of this farm — and it's a business with 30 years in the market — have we ever had any such problem," said Javier Castellanos, the farm's manager, who estimates the damage at more than $6 million after floods in April and December.
He suspects climate change has been intensifying the rainstorms.
While experts say the cyclical cooling of the Pacific Ocean known as La Nina is a big factor in the weather, some also say climate change is likely making some of the severe weather more pronounced than it otherwise would be.
"We're seeing an increase in extremes of high temperatures, an increase in extremes of heavy precipitation, an increase in the length and severity of droughts," said Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University.
more at the linkFrom Chile to Colombia to Mexico, Latin America has been battered recently by... more
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Latin America forms bloc excluding U.S., Canada
By Daniel Cancel and Charlie Devereux
(Corrects to include full name, title of Chavez in third paragraph.)
Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Latin American and Caribbean countries signed the “declaration of Caracas” today in Venezuela to formalize the creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, an economic and political bloc that excludes the U.S. and Canada.
Leaders and officials from 33 countries approved the declaration that pledges to improve ties in the region.
The Celac, as it is known, which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says fulfills the dreams of Simon Bolivar and other liberators in the hemisphere, will seek to boost regional trade and integration and may create an international reserve fund to protect its members against the global economic crisis.
“We’re laying the foundation stone for integration,” said Chavez, who postponed the same summit in Venezuela by five months after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. “Only unity will make us free.”
While leaders from countries critical of the U.S.’s foreign policy, including Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, have said they expect the Celac to replace the Washington-based Organization of American States, other members from Mexico to Chile see it as a complementary organization.
Caribbean, Latin America
“This is in our interest, not against the OAS or Iberoamerican Summit, this is integration between Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia. “I laud the meeting as a step in the right direction for Latin America.”
While the U.S. refrained from commenting, Chinese President Hu Jintao sent Chavez a letter congratulating the region for the creation of the group.
“I’d like to send my warmest congratulations,” the letter said, according to an e-mail from Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry. “China is always looking to approach its ties with Latin America and the Caribbean from a strategic perspective and is willing to deepen dialogue, exchanges and cooperation.”
Chile will assume the presidency of the group during its first year and the next summit will be held in Santiago at the end of 2012.
Presidents from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guayana and Peru were unable to attend the Celac meetings.
--Editors: Mike Millard, Keith Gosman.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Cancel in Caracas at dcancel@bloomberg.net Charlie Devereux in Caracas at cdevereux3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at jgoodman19@bloomberg.netLatin America forms bloc excluding U.S., Canada
By Daniel Cancel and Charlie... more
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Humanity faces a daunting battle against corporate forces that have historically proved willing to employ any means necessary to preserve an evil system. The police brutality and corporate funding aimed at crushing Occupy Wall Street hint of the savagery unleashed by corporations in countries around the world over the past 150 years. Yet the recent crackdown has provided our rebellion with an extraordinary public relations weapon by demonstrating the veracity of our charges against a ruthless system that despises democracy and justice.
The movement sweeping America is our link to a world-wide chain of rebellion. The majority of the world’s population, which for half a century has borne the brunt of neoliberal policies, is finally determined to stop the onslaught of global capitalism, which is the force sustaining most brutal systems on the planet, from the military dictatorships in the Middle East to the neo-feudalist societies now permeating industrial nations.
Since World War II the United States has expanded its ever-present imperial quest to entail global domination. Our government has used nearly every method imaginable to ensure a world order that benefits big multi-national corporations. It dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though officials such as General Eisenhower knew Japan was about to surrender, to send a message. That message was the same as the one sent in Vietnam—do as we say or suffer a holocaust... Continue reading: http://thebloodycrossroads.com/464/occupy-wall-street-and-the-history-of-corporate-fascism/Humanity faces a daunting battle against corporate forces that have historically... more
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Zoe Saldana is the epitome of a working actor. Just as her blockbuster action flick Colombiana opens in theaters this weekend, details emerge about her new supernatural thriller Dominion.
STORY: Critics Slam Zoe Saldana’s Physical Appearance, Performance in ‘Colombiana’
In the film, Saldana’s character will be half-human, half-angel. No details have been given about the plot, but we’re told it’s going to be intense.
VIDEO: Zoe Saldana Kicks Ass in ‘Colombiana’ Trailer
Saldana will also co-produce alongside Robbie Brenner, the man behind Machine Gun Preacher. You know, the new flick with all the poor little black kids running around. Hopefully, with Zoe’s producerial input, the film will turn out better than what Preacher is expected to be.
http://blackactors.net/2011/08/zoe-saldana-to-produce-star-in-dominion/Zoe Saldana is the epitome of a working actor. Just as her blockbuster action flick... more
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Hello all you capoeiristas out there. We are trying to generate buzz across North Carolina about the growing capoeira crowd in Fayetteville North Carolina. Come visit this page and leave a comment, recommend it to a friend, like it, or leave some insight.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bring-Capoeira-to-Fayetteville-NC/173916112664204Hello all you capoeiristas out there. We are trying to generate buzz across North... more
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MrRah
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CNN...
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August 9th, 2011
08:00 AM ET
Should bullfighting be banned?
By Stephanie Garlow, GlobalPost
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First Catalonia outlawed bullfighting, which the Economist likened it to a German state banning wurst or a French region condemning berets.
Now Peru's minister of culture has said the sport is "terrible" and that it causes excessive suffering for the animals.
So is bullfighting on the way out? Is it a "tradition of tragedy," as PETA claims, that kills 250,000 bulls annually?
Activists who gathered in Lima last week to protest the mistreatment of bulls would seem to agree. "Bullfighting promotes violence, torture and cruelty to animals for no reason," William Soberon, of the Anti-Bullfighting Front of Peru, told La Republica. "We're not in the colonial era."
Peru's newly appointed minister of culture, Susana Baca, said she felt sorry for the animals and that she cried when she once attended a cockfight. "I've never been to a bullfight but from the little I've seen in the media, I know it's terrible and I had to close my eyes," she said on the program "Buenos Dias, Peru."
But protests against bullfighting are nothing new in Peru. And comments by Baca that she would analyze the practice during her tenure quickly sparked controversy.
Bullfighter Fernando Roca Rey told La Republica that bullfighting should be seen as a cultural event and that "the minister can give her opinion, but that cannot be applied to the whole country." Bullfighting celebrations have been held in Peru since 1766 and the Plaza de Toros de Acho bullring is the oldest in the Americas and second-oldest in the world, reports AFP.
And the Spanish government recently dealt a blow to efforts to outlaw the sport when it ruled that bullfighting is an "artistic discipline and cultural product." The country's Ministry of Culture will now be responsible for the "development and protection" of bullfighting, a move that supporters hope is a step toward protecting the tradition from further regional bans.
Bullfighting is also practiced in Portugal and the south of France and is widespread in Latin America. Mexico City's Plaza Mexico arena is the biggest in the world with seats for up to 55,000.
And while public opinion might be swinging away from bullfighting — a poll last year for El Pais found 60 percent of Spaniards did not enjoy bullfighting — the sport still has big-name supporters. Peruvian novelist and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa campaigned to convince UNESCO to classify bullfighting as part of Spain's national heritage.
And in novelist Ernest Hemingway, the sport found one of its most enduring voices of support. The art of the bullfighting, Hemingway wrote in "Death in the Afternoon," "is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor."
.CNN...
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August 9th, 2011
08:00 AM ET
Should bullfighting be banned?... more
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Mexico, and by extension, all things and places Hispanic have always held an affinity for me. The only explanation I can rationalize is that since as humans, we possess a collective memory, then something in that memory draws me to the culture. I have been to Mexico nearly a dozen times, - not always the same state, but always with a sense of great anticipation. I have also been to other Spanish speaking countries, and it seems natural that so many of our Egyptian Jews found a natural refuge there. I exclude Spain, since the 1492 inquisition was not an exercise of profound love for their Jews. In my studies of the Jewish people and conversos, it has occurred to me more than once that many Spanish Catholics were once Jews: some rediscovered their roots, and embraced their religion, while others didn't.Mexico, and by extension, all things and places Hispanic have always held an affinity... more
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Kat Deluna performing at Latin Fest 2011 and NBucketTV was right on stage capturing it all for you guys to watch.
Follow me on Twitter @NBucketTVKat Deluna performing at Latin Fest 2011 and NBucketTV was right on stage capturing it... more
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When your wrong, your just plain wrong!
The U.S. government’s half-century campaign to discredit and destroy Cuba’s experiment with socialism has had many ruthless aspects, but perhaps none more so than efforts to disparage and damage the Caribbean island’s widely admired health-care system
by William Blum
In January, the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged.
The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries. [Prensa Latina (Cuba), March 12, 2011]
“This mean-spirited policy,” the Cuban government said, “aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to obstruct the provision of medical assistance in over 100 countries by 40,000 Cuban health workers.”
Most of the funds are used to import expensive AIDS medication to Cuba, where antiretroviral treatment is provided free of charge to some 5,000 HIV patients. [The Militant (US, Socialist Workers Party), April 4, 2011]
The United States sees the Cuban health system and Havana’s sharing of such as a means of Cuba winning friends and allies in the Third World, particularly Latin America; a situation sharply in conflict with long-standing US policy to isolate Cuba.
The United States in recent years has attempted to counter the Cuban international success by dispatching the U.S. Naval Ship “Comfort” to the region.
With 12 operating rooms and a 1,000-bed hospital, the converted oil tanker has performed hundreds of thousands of free surgeries in places such as Belize, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Haiti.
However, the Comfort’s port calls likely will not substantially enhance America’s influence in the hemisphere.
“It’s hard for the U.S. to compete with Cuba and Venezuela in this way,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a pro-U.S. policy-research group in Washington. “It makes us look like we’re trying to imitate them. Cuba’s doctors aren’t docked at port for a couple days, but are in the country for years.” [Bloomberg News, Sept. 19, 2007]
The recent disclosure by WikiLeaks of U.S. State Department documents included this little item: A cable was sent by Michael Parmly from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the run-up to the Non-Aligned Movement conference.
Parmly notes that he is actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess.”
Michael Moore refers to another WikiLeaks State Department cable: “On Jan. 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made-up story and sent it back to his headquarters in Washington. Here’s what they came up with: [The official] stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore’s documentary, ‘Sicko,’ as being subversive.
“Although the film’s intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, the official said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”
Moore points out an Associated Press story of June 16, 2007 (seven months prior to the cable) with the headline: “Cuban health minister says Moore’s ‘Sicko’ shows ‘human values’ of communist system.”
Moore adds that the people of Cuba were shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008. “The Cubans embraced the film so much it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of Sicko were set up in towns all across the country.” [Huffington Post, Dec. 18, 2010]
The United States also bans the sale to Cuba of vital medical drugs and devices, such as the inhalant agent Sevoflurane which has become the pharmaceutical of excellence for applying general anesthesia to children; and the pharmaceutical Dexmetomidine, of particular usefulness in elderly patients who often must be subjected to extended surgical procedures.
Both of these are produced by the U.S. firm Abbot Laboratories.
Cuban children suffering from lymphoblastic leukemia cannot use Erwinia L-asparaginasa, a medicine commercially known as Elspar, since the U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck and Co. refuses to sell this product to Cuba. Washington has also prohibited the U.S.-based Pastors for Peace Caravan from donating three Ford ambulances to Cuba.
For the rest of the story go to the link provided:When your wrong, your just plain wrong!
The U.S. government’s half-century... more
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Candid interviews on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The first in the web-documentary series 'Negro' exploring race, and race-relations among people of the African Diaspora (people of African descent and lineage) in Latin America.Candid interviews on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The first in the... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Nearly a decade ago, America’s War on Terror began as a manhunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But over the next nine years, that anti-terrorism effort evolved into a multi-faceted crusade: birthing a new national security agency, blossoming into two bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, institutionalizing the racial profiling and surveillance of Muslim Americans and even redefining unauthorized Latin American immigration as—of all things—a national security issue. Now, in the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s death, which elements of that crusade will persist or expand and which—if any—will dissolve?
Muslim Americans celebrate bin Laden’s death…
Following the announcement of bin Laden’s death last Sunday, Americans feverishly rejoiced at the news that a mission actually was accomplished in the War on Terror. Profoundly, the celebrants included scores of individuals who had unwittingly become targets of that crusade—Pakistani immigrants and American Muslims.
Mohsin Zaheer of Feet in Two Worlds reports that Islamic groups in the United States wasted no time applauding President Barack Obama for Bin Laden’s death, taking the opportunity to distance themselves and Islam from the legacy of the slain terrorist. And while many Americans forget that the 9/11 terror attacks killed nationals from 70 different countries, Zaheer notes that the many immigrants who lost loved ones that day took some comfort in knowing that justice has been done.
But Muslims in the U.S. also had another cause for celebration. Bin Laden’s death coincided with the termination of a grossly discriminatory federal program that has targeted, tracked and deported thousands of immigrants from predominately Muslim countries since 2002. ColorLines.com’s Channing Kennedy describes the program (called NSEERS or the National Security Entry/Exit Registration System) as “one of the most explicitly racist, underreported initiatives in post-9/11 America” which “functioned like Arizona’s SB 1070, with working-class Muslims as the target.” The Department of Homeland Security has been vague about its reasons for ending the program, but the decision amounts to a victory for immigrant rights groups that have been protesting the effort since its launch nine years ago.
…but still face an uncertain fate
That said, the fate of Muslims in America is far from rosy. As Seth Freed Wessler notes at ColorLines.com, the Department of Homeland Security continues to target, detain and deport Muslims “in equally insidious, but less formal ways” than the NSEERS program.
Pointing to investigations by “Democracy Now!” and the Washington Monthly, Wessler explains that the Department of Justice “has repeatedly used secret informant-instigators to manufacture terrorist plots” and advocated religious intolerance, racial profiling and harassment in its search for homegrown terrorists. Through these means, the quest for security has degenerated into the systemic persecution of American Muslims and countless other immigrants deemed threats to national security becaue their race, religion or nationality. And that didn’t die with bin Laden.
As recently as last March, in fact, Republican Rep. Peter T. King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, held a hearing on the radicalization of Muslim Americans—during which numerous witnesses repeatedly reiterated the dire threat posed by radical Muslims in the U.S. At the time, Behrouz Saba of New America Media noted that the hearing lacked any discussion of U.S. military presence in the Middle East and its impact on radicalization. Rather than critically examine the many ways in which U.S. foreign policy and military conflict breeds the monster it aims to destroy, the hearing instead served to demonize a growing, well-educated and largely law-abiding population of the United States.
The Latin American link
But the War on Terror has deeply impacted other marginalized communities as well. Even the circumstances of bin Laden’s death bears an alleged connection to the frought issue of Latin American immigration to the U.S.—an issue that has, itself, undergone massive scrutiny and regulation following 9/11.
ThinkProgress reports that one of the Navy Seals involved in Bin Laden’s extermination is, purportedly, the son of Mexican migrants. While the veracity of that claim has been contested by some, Colorlines.com’s Jamilah King argues that the rumor nevertheless “raises serious questions around the military’s recruitment of Latino youth, the staggering numbers of Latino war causalities, and the Obama administration’s often contradictory messages on immigration reform.” She continues:
Casualties among Latino soldiers in Iraq rank highest compared to other groups of soldiers of color. Yet while the military actively courts Latino youth and immigrants with one hand, it’s aggressively deporting them and their families with the other.
It’s worth noting that, within the government, the most vocal proponents of the DREAM Act supported the legislation because they expected it to dramatically increase Latino enrollment in the military. While the DREAM Act ultimately died in the Senate, proponents of its military provision are perpetuating a troubling and persistent dichotomy that is only reinforced in the wake of bin Laden’s demise: immigrants are welcome on our battlefields, but not in our neighborhoods.
It’s comforting, albeit naïve, to believe that Osama bin Laden’s death will cap a decade of military conflict and draw a torturously long anti-terrorism crusade to a close. More likely, our multiple wars will persist longer than they should, and our domestic security apparatus will continue targeting the most vulnerable members of our society under the misguided notion that such enforcement strengthens rather than divides us.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Nearly a decade ago,... more
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Blacks in Cuba: A look at being black in Cuba and issues of race, racism, and their reflection in society and everyday life in the island nation.
In Cuba Professor Gates finds out how the culture, religion, politics and music of this island are inextricably linked to the huge amount of slave labor imported to produce its enormously profitable 19th century sugar industry, and how race and racism have fared since Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in 1959Blacks in Cuba: A look at being black in Cuba and issues of race, racism, and their... more
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She has a five-bedroom house that is falling to pieces. She got it in the seventies when the family for whom she worked as a maid went into exile. At first she went through all the rooms each day, the interior patio, caressed the marble banister of the stairs to the second floor, played at filling the basins of the three bathrooms just to be reminded that this neoclassical mansion was now hers. The joy lasted for a while, until the first bulbs burned out, the paint started to peel, and weeds grew in the garden. She got a job cleaning a school, but not even six salaries for such a job would have been enough to maintain the ancient splendor of this house that seemed increasingly larger and more inhospitable.
Thousands of times, the woman in this story thought of selling the house inherited from her former employers, but she would not do anything outside the law. For decades in Cuba a market in housing was prohibited and it was only possible to exchange properties through a concept popularly known as a “swap.” Dozens of decrees, restrictions and limitations also arose, to regulate and control this activity, making moving an ordeal. An all-powerful Housing Institute oversaw the completion of a string of absurd conditions. With so many requirements, the procedures were strung out over more than a year, such that before families could go live in their new homes they were exhausted from filling out forms, hiring lawyers and bribing inspectors.
Such anxieties raised hopes that the Sixth Communist Party Congress would raise the flag for real estate. When, in the final report, it said that the purchase and sale of homes would be accepted and all that remained was to legally implement it, hundreds of thousands of Cubans breathed a sigh of relief. The lady with the mansion, at the moment it was announced, was sitting in front of her television avoiding a drip falling from the ceiling right in the middle of the living room. She looked around at the columns with decorated capitals, the huge mahogany doors, and the marble staircase from which the banister had been torn out and sold. Finally she could hang a sign on the fence, “For Sale: Five-bedroom house in urgent need of repairs. Wish to buy a one-bedroom apartment in some other neighborhood.”She has a five-bedroom house that is falling to pieces. She got it in the seventies... more
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HAVANA, Cuba, April 18: By Miguel Iturria Savón - Two extraordinary and conflicting events pepper the history of Cuba in the second half of the twentieth century. The first occurred between 17 and 19 April 1961 in the Bay of Pigs, in the south of the island. The second, from April 22 to the 16th of September between the northern port of Mariel and Florida. They were both led by Cubans, but both the 1961 invasion brigade and the mass exodus of 1980, dot the island's bilateral relations with the United States - the refuge used by many in Cuban history as a supply center for our independence of the nineteenth century, and by opponents of the dictatorships of Geraldo Machado, Fulgencio Batista and Castro in the twentieth.
Much has been written about these events to the north and south of Florida. Hundreds of articles, interviews, testimonies, books, documentaries and other media support the communist government's version, the victors of the battle at Playa Giron over the brigade of compatriot exiles trained abroad. The version of the vanquished was, of course, suffocated by the revolutionary fetishism, and is hardly known.
Official propaganda reiterates that Giron (as it is known in Cuba), "was the first defeat of imperialism in Latin America ", which is a distortion, because although the Cuban expedition had the support of the United States government, no American troops took part in the naval operation. The fighters of Brigade 2506, like the guerrillas they were trying to link up with in the Escambray mountains, were fighting against the dictatorship that had taken control of the island after the revolutionary chaos.
The Cubans were less free after the Bay of Pigs. A day earlier, on April 16, 1961 - Fidel Castro declared the socialist character of the revolution. The island was subsequently occupied by thousands of Russian soldiers whose bases were maintained until the mid-eighties. The rest of the story goes through half a century of dictatorship, populist clamor, corruption and the legacy of silence.
The flip side to this was the mass exodus from Mariel and Florida, a popular referendum against authoritarianism. Twenty years of repression, rhetorical contortions, shortages filled with boredom and disappointment to thousands of youths who dreamed of living without instructions.
After the bus that forced the gates of the Embassy of Peru in La Habana, into the embassy entered the flood of the unhappy. To withdraw security to the embassy, the government created the chaos and encouraged the arrival of American vessels to pick up relatives and other "scum." In less than five months left 125,000 people fled to the United States.
Faced with this surge, the leader ordered rallies of repudiation, the throwing of eggs and stones against dissidents, and the introduction of more than three thousand madmen and criminals into the boats of hope in an attempt to destroy the reputation of those who left. Three decades later, the horror and defamation against those who choose another destination remains an official practice.
Accustomed to reliving the past - evoking attacks, revolutionary symbols and involving third parties in the national struggle, the Cuban regime celebrated its victory with another celebration of the Bay of Pigs and the socialist character of the revolution, while its strategists shuffle policies to prevent another mass exodus like the one that created the sea-bridge between Mariel and Florida in the spring of 1980; where bridging the gap between Mariel and Florida represented a leap to freedom.HAVANA, Cuba, April 18: By Miguel Iturria Savón - Two extraordinary and... more
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HAVANA (AP) -- Raul Castro proposed term limits Saturday for Cuban politicians - including himself - a remarkable gesture on an island ruled for 52 years by him and his brother. The 79-year-old president lamented the lack of young leaders in government, saying the country was paying the price for errors made in the past.
Castro told delegates to a crucial Communist Party summit that he would launch a "systematic rejuvenation" of the government. He said politicians and other important officials should be restricted to two consecutive five-year terms, including "the current president of the Council of State and his ministers" - a reference to himself.
Castro officially took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, meaning he would be at least 86 at the end of a second term, depending on how the law is written.
The proposal was made toward the end of a 2 1/2 hour speech in which the Cuban leader forcefully backed a laundry list of changes to the country's socialist economic system, including the eventual elimination of ration books and other subsidies, the decentralization of the island nation's economy and a new reliance on supply and demand in some sectors.
Still, he drew a line in the Caribbean sand as to which reforms should remain, telling party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested reforms that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands.
Castro said the country had ignored its problems for too long, and made clear Cuba had to make tough decisions if it wanted to survive.
"No country or person can spend more than they have," he said. "Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven - as we have sometimes pretended."
Dressed in a white guayabera shirt, the Cuban leader alternated between reassurances that the economic changes were compatible with socialism, and a brutal assessment of the mistakes the country had made. Fidel Castro was not present for the speech.
Raul Castro said the monthly ration book of basic foods, perhaps the most cherished of subsidies, represented an "unbearable burden ... and a disincentive for work."
He said the changes he is proposing will come "without hurry, but without pause."
Still, he added that "there will never be room for shock therapy" in Cuba.
Of term limits, Castro said he and his brother had made various attempts to promote young leaders, but that they had not worked out well - perhaps a reference to the 2009 firing of Cuba's photogenic foreign minister and vice president, who were later accused of lusting too obviously for power.
"Today we face the consequences of not having a reserve of substitutes ready," Castro said.
Like the proposals on economic changes, the term-limit idea does not yet carry the force of law since the party gathering lacks the powers of parliament. But it's all but certain to be acted on quickly by the National Assembly.
The Communist Party is the only political organization recognized on the island, and most politicians are members. Cubans vote for municipal and national assemblies, which in turn elect senior leaders including the president. Currently there is no set limit on their terms.
Since taking office, Raul Castro has leased tens of thousands of hectares of fallow government land to small farmers, and enacted reforms that allow Cubans to go into business for themselves, rent out homes and hire employees.
Cubans are watching to see whether other changes emerge from the Congress - such as the end of a near-total ban on buying and selling private property, or details on promises to extend bank credits.
Raul Castro has also pledged to end Cuba's unusual two-tiered currency system, where wages are paid in pesos, while many imported goods are available only in a dollar-linked economy beyond most people's reach. The president, however, has said little about how or when he will accomplish that.
The other major prong of the modernization drive - a goal of laying off half a million state workers in jobs that are unproductive and redundant - has been delayed indefinitely.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Florida-based Cuba economics expert, said the changes so far have not been sufficient to revive the island's sputtering economy, and more must be done.
Authorities need to expand private business licenses to the professional class to stop the brain drain, reduce taxes on earnings and deliver badly needed credit and training, among other measures, Mesa-Lago said.
"If you want to get rid of all this dead wood which costs a lot of money, and have money to be able to pay better wages, then you have to give priority to job creation," Mesa-Lago said. "You shouldn't be punishing these people who are trying to expand these jobs."
Also key is the question of the Communist Party's top leadership, which will be decided at the close of the Congress. Raul Castro presumably will be named to succeed older brother Fidel as first secretary, but it is unknown who may be tapped to be No. 2.
Castro's speech about rejuvenating the political system added to hopes that a younger politician might take up that mantle, perhaps signaling a preferred successor.
Castro himself has said the party gathering will likely be the last of its kind under the generation that launched the 1959 revolution, many of whom are already in their graves. Since the last party Congress in 1997, Cuba has lost such giants as Vilma Espin, Raul's wife and a major revolutionary figure in her own right; and Juan Almeida, a vice president and commander of the revolution who died last year.
Earlier Saturday, Cuba put on a rousing military and civilian parade to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs attack of 1961, when Fidel Castro's 2-year-old government routed an invasion force of some 1,200 Cuban exiles supported by the CIA.
Thousands of soldiers high-stepped through sprawling Revolution Plaza as a military band played martial music beneath the gaze of an iconic image of Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Helicopters whirred and jet fighters in combat formation roared overhead while freshly painted amphibious assault vehicles and rocket launchers rumbled past a saluting Raul Castro up on the dais. Before becoming president, Castro was head of the armed forces.
Behind the troops marched hundreds of thousands of Cubans who waved to Castro. "Long live Cuba! Long live Fidel! Long live Raul!" they shouted.
"It is a really good party," said Anaibis Fernandez, a 54-year-old employee at a Havana sports facility who was among the marchers. "There are a lot of people here, and it's very well organized."HAVANA (AP) -- Raul Castro proposed term limits Saturday for Cuban politicians -... more
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Washington, DC – The International Republican Institute (IRI) today released its survey and analysis of Cuban public opinion. The survey was fielded on the island January 28 – February 10, 2011
A total of 463 Cuban adults were asked questions ranging from perspectives on the economy, to the performance of the current Castro government.
Results include:
_ 78% of Cubans would be willing to vote for fundamental political change.
_ 77% are not confident in the ability of Raul Castro's government to solve their problems.
_ 93% of those aged 18-29 want fundamental political change.
_ 90.7% of Cubans want a transition to a market economy.
_ Only 5% have access to Internet.
_ Only 23% have access to E-mail services.Washington, DC – The International Republican Institute (IRI) today released its... more
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President Obama’s trip to Latin America this week is prompting long-time critics of the United States to renew their complaints about their northern neighbor.
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Bolivian President Evo Morales used the visit to say Obama should be forced to give up his Nobel Prize for Peace.
Cuba’s Fidel Castro said Obama should ask the forgiveness of the Chilean people for the 1973 coup against former Chilean President Salvador Allende that was aided by the U.S. government. It was followed by a military crackdown.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Obama will not be able to gain control of Venezuelan oil with a strategy he claims the United States is pursuing in military attacks in the past week against Libya.
Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/briefs/articles/90041578?Obama%20criticized%20while%20seeking%20Latin%20American%20economic%20cooperation#ixzz1HQnsmeWnPresident Obama’s trip to Latin America this week is prompting long-time critics... more
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March 22, 2011, President Barack Obama visits San Salvador, the capital city of this Central American country. President Obama hopes to forge new alliances within the Americas and begin to, "stand with those who take responsibility — helping farmers grow more food, supporting doctors who care for the sick, and combating the corruption that can rot a society and rob people of opportunity". Return to El Salvador, a feature length documentary film narrated by Martin Sheen and directed by Jamie Moffett, will premiere on television stations throughout the country on March 26. Learn more about the feud and struggle of the Salvadorian people at www.returntoelsalvador.comMarch 22, 2011, President Barack Obama visits San Salvador, the capital city of this... more
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Lina Ron died on 5th March 2011 due to a heart attack. She died in the Clinique La Arboleda of Caracas. Her ending ceremony will be in La Plaza Andres Eloy Blanco which is next to Vice President and General buried in South Graveyard.
Lina Ron was born in September 1959 in Anaco and her full name was Ninette Lina Ron Pereira. She was a political leader in Venezuelan and was a founder and president on a political party known as Unidad Popular Venezolana similar to President Hugo Chavez.Lina Ron died on 5th March 2011 due to a heart attack. She died in the Clinique La... more
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