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October 26, 2011
On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly again voted overwhelming to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba. As international relations scholar Arturo López-Levy points out in the latest NACLA Report, the embargo itself violates basic principles of the human rights model established by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Border Wars
October 26, 2011
At an event at the Homeland Security Policy Institute called “The Hybrid Threat: Crime, Terrorism and Insurgency in Mexico,” Daniel Brito, of the Drug Policy Alliance, asked keynote speaker General Barry McCaffrey if there was complicity between the Mexican government and the drug trafficking Sinaloa Cartel. McCaffrey's answer offered a powerful glimpse into the drug war.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
October 25, 2011
Just a few days after President Felipe Calderón excoriated the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party for wanting to dialogue with Mexico’s drug traffickers (a charge PRIistas vigorously deny), his position was undermined by a proposal of a prominent member of his own party and by comments made by U.S. officials.
Cuadernos Colombianos
October 24, 2011
In just 48 hours, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia delivered two strong blows against the Colombian military, killing 20 soldiers and wounding many others. The timing of the attacks is significant, occurring less than 10 days before the October 30 Colombian local and legislative elections.
Rebel Currents
October 20, 2011
This week, two historic events took place in Bolivia: the arrival in La Paz of indigenous marchers protesting the TIPNIS highway, and the country's first-ever popular judicial elections. Both sent a wake-up call to President Evo Morales.
October 20, 2011
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is poised to cruise to victory in the country’s presidential elections this Sunday. Although Fernández may now be riding a wave of success, she’s come a long way from the problematic first few years of her administration.
Border Wars
October 19, 2011
The human right to work is increasingly under attack in the United States, especially for unauthorized immigrants. The recent case of The French Gourmet restaurant in San Diego shows how bad things have become. It also highlights the need for human rights and migrant rights activists to directly challenge a system that criminalizes non-citizens for laboring without official sanction.
Mexico, Bewildered and Contested
October 18, 2011
Javier Sicilia, the poet, speaking to cabinet members of the Calderón government on behalf of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity: "Your decisions [to use the military to fight drug trafficking], in addition to generating more violence and terror, are provoking the rise of paramilitary groups who, in this rarified and atrocious atmosphere, feel authorized to practice, killing more Mexicans with impunity."
Cuadernos Colombianos
October 17, 2011
Among the wide spectrum of U.S. international conflicts is the U.S. war in Colombia. This war has been often understated and almost forgotten, but thanks to recently-released WikiLeaks documents the U.S. involvement in Colombia is increasingly coming to light.
Traffick Jam
October 14, 2011
In the 1980s Ronald Reagan’s administration illegally defied Congress. What came to be called the “Iran-Contra Scandal,” a nexus of drugs, terror, Latin American proxy conflict, and covert operations involving the United States and Iran, seems this week to have been sampled and remixed for the twenty-first century.