By Polly Mosendz | The Atlantic Wire
Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently on a grand tour of Latin America. His first stop is in Havana, Cuba. Ahead of arriving in Cuba, Putin decided to bestow a gift upon the Cuban government. With one swift signature, he eliminated $32 billion of Cuba’s debt, left over from the Soviet era.
Read more » Yahoo News
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/putin-writes-off-32-billion-cubas-debts-russia-150048853.html
The full text of the new Seattle city council member’s inauguration speech.
Editor’s note: At a ceremonial swearing-in on Monday, Kshama Sawant became Seattle’s first socialist city council member in almost a century. The full text of her inauguration speech is below.
My brothers and sisters,
Thank you for your presence here today.
This city has made glittering fortunes for the super wealthy and for the major corporations that dominate Seattle’s landscape. At the same time, the lives of working people, the unemployed and the poor grow more difficult by the day. The cost of housing skyrockets, and education and healthcare become inaccessible.
This is not unique to Seattle. Shamefully, in this, the richest country in human history, fifty million of our people—one in six—live in poverty. Around the world, billions do not have access to clean water and basic sanitation and children die every day from malnutrition.
This is the reality of international capitalism. This is the product of the gigantic casino of speculation created by the highway robbers on Wall Street. In this system the market is God, and everything is sacrificed on the altar of profit. Capitalism has failed the 99%.
Despite recent talk of economic growth, it has only been a recovery for the richest 1%, while the rest of us are falling ever farther behind.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina elected pope
VATICAN CITY: (Reuters) – Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope on Wednesday to lead the Roman Catholic Church, a prelate announced to huge crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
He took the name Pope Francis, the cardinal said.
Cardinals elected Bergoglio on just the second day of a secret conclave to find a successor to Pope Benedict, who abdicated unexpectedly last month.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer)
Courtesy: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-pope-succession-idUSBRE92808520130313
Canada’s Goldcorp operations in Guatemala under the microscope
By Cecilia Jamasmie
Canadian giant Goldcorp (TSX:G) (NYSE:GG) has been repeatedly accused of damaging the environment and violating human rights in countries where it operates, particularly Guatemala. …
Read more » Mining
http://www.mining.com/canadas-goldcorp-operations-in-guatemala-under-the-microscope-10946/
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More details » Is Canada’s Gold Corp. Good for Guatemala? Pt2
Lyuba Zarsky: Environmental and health effects are a violation of human rights Watch full multipart Gold and Latin America
By Alain Gresh + By Omer Khalid
Courtesy: Liberation, Jun 2nd, 2009
For two decades, from the sierras of Latin America to the paddy fields of Asia and the mountains of North Africa, a single hurricane seemed to be sweeping away the old colonial order and the economic dominance of the North. As the title of a 1977 documentary by Chris Marker depicting revolutionary struggles from Paris to La Paz put it: “Deep down the air is red” (Le fond de l’air est rouge).
By John Cherian
Courtesy: Frontline, Rodrigo Buendia/AFP
Rafael Correa’s emphatic victory makes him the first Ecuadorian President since 1972 to win a re-election.
THE leftward swing in Latin America is being further consolidated. The avowedly socialist President Rafael Correa of Ecuador again won an emphatic victory at the polls in the last week of April. The other Latin American countries to have elected leftist governments are El Salvador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala and Brazil. It is the first time in many decades that a President has been re-elected for a second consecutive term in office in Ecuador.
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