Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalParaguay’s Ousted Leader to Run in 2018 Presidential Election
Paraguay’s Ousted Leader to Run in 2018 Presidential Election
Published 26 June 2016 (4 hours 43 minutes ago)
The leftist candidate was endorsed by Indigenous and other grassroots organizations, during an event in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion.
The Guasu Front, which is the main leftist electoral alliance in Paraguay, confirmed on Saturday that former president Fernando Lugo will run for the presidency in the 2018 general election. Lugo served as president of Paraguay from 2008 until June 22, 2012, when his tenure was prematurely cut short in what most leaders in the region branded a "parliamentary coup."
During an event in the Paraguayan capital in which Lugo addressed crowds, the leftist candidate was endorsed by social movements, Indigenous and grassroots organizations.
"The Front Guasu entered in the political arena to stay, we did not come to do a fashion show or exhibitionism in Paraguayan politics, we came to stay and transform our history," said Lugo.
When he became president of Paraguay, Lugo broke the six-decade rule of the right-wing Colorado Party and was seen as part of the progressive wave of leaders elected through Latin America, sometimes called the "Pink Tide." But the former Catholic priest was removed from office by Congress in a trial that lasted just 24 hours.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Paraguays-Ousted-Leader-to-Run-in-2018-Presidential-Election-20160626-0016.html
Peruvians Don't Want Fujimori Inside the Congress
Peruvians Don't Want Fujimori Inside the Congress
Published 25 June 2016 (13 hours 58 minutes ago)
A poll showed that 58 percent of citizens believe the next Congress should be chaired by a parliamentarian who does not belong to Fujimori's party.
Keiko Fujimori, who lost the presidential race in Peru early this month, is facing more rejection by Peruvians who don’t want any member of her political party to chair the Congress, where her conservative Fuerza Popular controls 73 of 130 seats.
The daughter of Alberto Fujimori, the imprisoned former dictator, conceded defeat to conservative economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on June 10, ending five days of suspense over Peru's closest presidential election in decades.
A poll revealed on Saturday that 58 percent of citizens believe that the next Congress, to be installed on July 28, should be chaired by a parliamentarian who does not belong to Popular Force.
But the decision now depends on the Congress, which is dominated by the Fujimoris, actually the main concern of people is that lawmakers loyal to former dictator are going to block any move from Kuczynski, who won by a very small margin and with the support of the leftists and the “antifujimoristas” who reject the return to power of the infamous family.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Peruvians-Dont-Want-Fujimori-Inside-the-Congress---20160625-0020.html
How a Guatemalan murder trial could forever change Canadian overseas mining
How a Guatemalan murder trial could forever change Canadian overseas mining
The murder trial at the centre of a legal battle involving Toronto-based HudBay offers a glimpse of why Ontario courts took the landmark step of hearing a Guatemalan dispute in Canada.
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Angelica Choc reflects at the grave of her husband, anti-mining activist Adolfo Ich. On September 27, 2009, Ich was shot and killed. Mynor Padilla, former head of security at the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), is currently on trial in Guatemala for murder. (James Rodriguez / For the Toronto Star) [/font]
By Marina JimenezForeign Affairs Writer
Mon., June 20, 2016
EL ESTOR, GUATEMALA—The murder trial of Mynor Padilla, a former security guard for a mine owned by a then subsidiary of HudBay Minerals Inc., provides a fascinating glimpse into Guatemala’s problematic justice system.
Padilla, 52, is charged with killing Adolfo Ich, a Mayan Q’eqchi’ community leader, and shooting German Chub, a bystander, during a protest on contested land at Fenix nickel mine in El Estor, in eastern Guatemala, on Sept 27, 2009.
These alleged crimes are also at the centre of a series of landmark lawsuits in Ontario Superior Court, where HudBay, a Toronto-based company, faces three negligence claims, launched by Ich, Chub and 12 other Q’eqchi’.
The cases are being watched closely by Canada’s mining companies, as it is the first time lawyers are attempting to hold a Canadian company liable for actions of a subsidiary operating overseas.
More:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/20/how-a-guatemalan-murder-trial-could-forever-change-canadian-overseas-mining.html
How a Guatemalan murder trial could forever change Canadian overseas mining
How a Guatemalan murder trial could forever change Canadian overseas mining
The murder trial at the centre of a legal battle involving Toronto-based HudBay offers a glimpse of why Ontario courts took the landmark step of hearing a Guatemalan dispute in Canada.
By Marina JimenezForeign Affairs Writer
Mon., June 20, 2016
EL ESTOR, GUATEMALA—The murder trial of Mynor Padilla, a former security guard for a mine owned by a then subsidiary of HudBay Minerals Inc., provides a fascinating glimpse into Guatemala’s problematic justice system.
Padilla, 52, is charged with killing Adolfo Ich, a Mayan Q’eqchi’ community leader, and shooting German Chub, a bystander, during a protest on contested land at Fenix nickel mine in El Estor, in eastern Guatemala, on Sept 27, 2009.
These alleged crimes are also at the centre of a series of landmark lawsuits in Ontario Superior Court, where HudBay, a Toronto-based company, faces three negligence claims, launched by Ich, Chub and 12 other Q’eqchi’.
The cases are being watched closely by Canada’s mining companies, as it is the first time lawyers are attempting to hold a Canadian company liable for actions of a subsidiary operating overseas.
More:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/20/how-a-guatemalan-murder-trial-could-forever-change-canadian-overseas-mining.html
Center for Advanced Genocide Research Hosts International Conference to Shed Light on Genocide and R
Center for Advanced Genocide Research Hosts International Conference to Shed Light on Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala
Jun 22, 2016, 07:47 ET from USC Shoah Foundation
LOS ANGELES, June 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Twenty years after a civil war and genocide in Guatemala, USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research will host an international conference that will shed light on this little-known atrocity.
"A Conflict? Genocide and Resistance in Guatemala," will run from Sept. 11-14 and feature 23 scholars from around the world who conduct research in multiple disciplines. They will discuss the history and impact of the systematic mass violence that during the early 1980s left 200,000 mostly Mayan Guatemalans dead and more than 1.5 million displaced without basic resources – a genocide hidden under the cover of a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996 with a peace accord.
The conference is being organized by Wolf Gruner, founding director of the Center for Advanced Genocide Research, and Victoria Sanford, founding director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York.
"The Guatemalan genocide has for too long been overlooked," Gruner said. "By hosting this conference, we hope to spark conversation, gain insight and bring attention to the victims of this terrible piece of history that took place here in the Americas. If we can learn the lessons from genocides and the resistance to them, perhaps we can stop them in the future."
More:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/center-for-advanced-genocide-research-hosts-international-conference-to-shed-light-on-genocide-and-resistance-in-guatemala-300288306.html
Latin America is the World's Deadliest Region for Environmental Activists
Latin America is the World's Deadliest Region for Environmental Activists
More environmentalists were murdered in Latin America in 2015 than anywhere else in the world, according to a report by Global Witness
By Pablo Fonseca Q. on June 24, 2016
On September 18, 2015, Guatemalan professor Rigoberto Lima Choc awaited a judge’s decision on an issue he had been the first to uncover: A company was polluting the waters of La Pasión River near his town and Lima Choc had not only documented and reported the problem but had also taken journalists and photographers to witness the fish slaughter.
That day, as he walked down the steps of the courthouse, two men on a motorcycle approached and fired at him. He died on the spot.
As shocking as Lima Choc’s death is, sadly it is not an exception. Through 2015 a worldwide total of 185 murders of this kind were documented by the nongovernmental organization Global Witness. A detailed report on these deaths is published this week.
As the study points out, 2015 had the highest conservation-related mortality rates since 2010, with 185 confirmed cases (143 were reported for 2012 and 130 for 2011). In a previous study with data from 2014 Global Witness had counted 116 deaths, which implies a significant growth from one year to the next.
More:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/latin-america-is-the-world-s-deadliest-region-for-environmental-activists/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+energy-and-sustainability+%28Topic%3A+Energy+%26+Sustainability%29
Remains of mammoth uncovered in Mexico
Remains of mammoth uncovered in Mexico
June 25, 2016
Mexican experts are carefully digging up fossils of a Pleistocene-era mammoth believed to have been cut to pieces by ancient humans.
Remains of the giant wooly mammal, believed to be some 14,000 years old, were discovered by chance in December near Mexico City while drainage pipes were being installed in the village of Tultepec.
Archaeologists have been working at the site since April, and they hope to complete their work in the next few days.
Luis Cordoba, an archaeologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History, said the remains of more than fifty mammoths have been discovered in the area around the capital, where in pre-historic times there was a shallow saltwater lake where the heavy creatures often got stuck.
The lake was also very good for preserving the remains.
Other mammoth remains have been found in the Tultepec area, "but this is the first time that they can be studied because in general people do not report the finds in time," Cordoba said.
More:
http://phys.org/news/2016-06-mammoth-uncovered-mexico.html#jCp
Here's a List of Every At-Risk Bird Species in North America (All 432 of Them)
Here's a List of Every At-Risk Bird Species in North America (All 432 of Them)
The 2016 State of North America’s Birds report finds that at least 37 percent of species are at risk
By John R. Platt on May 19, 2016
A massive new report published this week finds that 432 of the 1,154 native bird species found in the continental United States, Canada and Mexico are “at a risk of extinction without significant action.”
The State of North America’s Birds 2016 report was published on behalf of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, which represents the three nations. Using data collected by tens of thousands of citizen scientists and dozens of scientific organizations, it ranks each bird species in nine major habitat types for their risks of extinction. Oceanic species and those living in tropical forests were among those found to be at the greatest levels of risk, although steep declines were observed just about everywhere.
The report also gave each species a “concern score” of between 1 and 20 based on issues such as declining populations, habitat loss, oceanic pollution, invasive species and other threats. Any species that ranked 14 or higher were placed on the report’s “watch list” of species in peril, as were the species that ranked 13 but also had rapidly declining populations. The watch list includes 37 percent of the included species.
Of course, that’s far from inclusive. The report excludes the Caribbean and any Central American countries other than Mexico, as well as islands that are part of the United States but aren't in North America such as Hawaii and Guam, both of which face terrible bird extinction problems. It also doesn’t include subspecies, such as the Florida grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum floridanus), which has declined to fewer than 150 birds. If additional areas and subspecies had been included, the percentage of threatened species may have actually been quite a bit higher.
More:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/north-american-birds/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+extinction-countdown%2Ffeed+%28Blog%3A+Extinction+Countdown%29
‘It’s a miracle my Colombia could never have imagined’
‘It’s a miracle my Colombia could never have imagined’
After 60 years of conflict, the truce signed between President Santos and leaders of the Farc rebels has made a nation rejoice
María Jimena Duzán
Saturday 25 June 2016 19.05 EDT
Last Thursday the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and Timoleón Jiménez (Timochenko), the head of Las Farc, the largest guerrilla organisation in this hemisphere, decided to sign a truce to put an end to 60 years of conflict.
It was a bloody war that took the lives of 220,000 Colombians, according to the country’s Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. Those who died were mainly poor people and innocent civilians. More than six million were displaced from their lands and forced to go to the cities, and an authoritative number for those “disappeared” is still unknown. The office of attorney general has said that 45,000 people were disappeared, but according to the International Committee of the Red Cross the toll is higher: 100,000.
For Colombians, the peace accord is not only the best news in years, but a miracle that not even the novelist Gabriel García Márquez could have imagined. After 30 years of unsuccessful negotiations, Colombians became so pessimistic that we took for granted that this war would never end. We thought we were condemned to live with perpetual conflict.
We even drew a red line between cities and the rural territories, as if this country was torn apart. Cities became safe havens when the Colombian army, Latin America’s largest, managed to push the rebels back to their jungle strongholds, and rural Colombia became off-limits for generations of citizens who never dared to go outside the cities. The Farc never was defeated, though, and the war became a way of life.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/25/colombia-truce-farc-maria-jimena-duzan
Farc rebel leader: ‘We repent everything, not just the war’
Farc rebel leader: ‘We repent everything, not just the war’
Carlos Antonio Lozada, supreme urban commander of Colombia’s Farc rebels, is poised to lead his organisation into politics. In this exclusive interview he speaks about war, making peace and meeting victims
Interview by John Mulholland and Ed Vulliamy
Saturday 25 June 2016 19.05 EDT
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) stands apart from other Latin American leftwing guerrilla movements founded since the 1960s because it has outlived them all – well into the 21st century – and remains in control of vast tranches of territory. But it is also from a different mould: almost entirely rural – its leaders have not been intellectuals, such as Che Guevara, but peasants, fighting a peasant war in the countryside. The Farc’s violence has, however, had an impact on the cities, and during the 1990s Colombia even feared that the guerrillas were poised to take the capital, Bogotá.
The group’s presence in urban areas has been led by a man who most observers say will be the new figurehead of Farc in politics, Carlos Antonio Lozada (left). Lozada is from a generation younger than the guerrillas’ supreme commanders, and though he also fought in the jungle with them he is distinct in that he hails from Colombia’s second city of Cali. He spent 19 years in Colombia’s cities as Farc’s supreme urban commander.
During recent months the Observer has interviewed all Farc’s commanders, in depth, for a long-term project, including Lozada, Farc’s coming man, who hopes to take the organisation into its next conflict, a political fight, a “war without weapons, but with words”. Here, in this interview extract, Lozada talks exclusively about the road to the Havana peace deal.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2016/jun/25/farc-rebel-leader-colombia-interview-carlos-antonio-lozada-supreme-urban-commander-peace
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