May 18, 2015

Monsanto and the Damage Done

Weekend Edition May 15-17, 2015

Neil Young Targets Monsanto

Monsanto and the Damage Done

by COLIN TODHUNTER


Neil Young is reportedly about to release a new album called, ‘The Monsanto Years’. Don’t expect the lyrics to be music to the ears of the company’s executives over in St Louis, however. With falling profits and glyphosate being reclassified by the WHO as ‘probably’ causing cancer, Monsanto needs Neil Young like it needs a hole in the head.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which was primarily responsible $5.1 billion of Monsanto’s revenues in 2014. But that’s not all. The herbicide is used to support Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops, which comprise a significant proportion of its revenue stream.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, herbicide-tolerant biotech plants were grown on virtually all (94 percent) soybean fields in the US last year and on 89 percent of all cornfields. Food & Water Watch found the volume of glyphosate applied to those crops increased almost 1,000 percent between 1996 and 2012, from 15 million pounds to 159 million pounds.

But perhaps the WHO’s reclassification presents just another hurdle to be pushed aside by this science-denying company that has such immense influence within the US Environmental Protection Agency so as to have its fraudulent science accepted and studies showing the carcinogenic impact of glyphosate sidelined.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/15/monsanto-and-the-damage-done/

May 17, 2015

Immigration reform and the Cuban Adjustment Act

Immigration reform and the Cuban Adjustment Act

Keith Bolender • August 11, 2014

Immigration reform and the Cuban Adjustment Act

While desperate children cross the American border from troubled Central American countries, leaders in the United States continue to demonstrate that no issue, no matter how emotionally charged or morally clear, is beyond politics. And there is one group that is particularly adept at duplicity when determining which immigrants deserve to be treated better than others.

The crisis has brought to the forefront a set of Congressmen who believe that children sent by their parents from Honduras, Guatemala and Salvador to the United States in the hopes of a better life have to be sent back unequivocally, less these unfortunates get away with flaunting the laws and take advantage of American generosity – which they apparently do not deserve.

Politicians, in large part from the Republican Party, have made it clear these children should not receive special consideration, regardless of the physical dangers or economic depravations they left in their home countries. Two from the Grand Old Party have been particularly vociferous in their determination to keep the immigration door closed for certain Latinos. Senators Ted Cruz from Texas and Florida’s Marco Rubio represent the hardest opponents of leniency towards these refugees. Wielding a great deal of influence, despite last year’s confusion when Rubio presented but then rejected his own more moderate legislation on the matter, the pair have been particularly effective in blocking any attempt at resolving the crisis or showing concern for the children crossing the border. Cruz led other Senate conservatives in urging rejection of the recently proposed House border security package based on the irritation that it excluded language prohibiting expansion of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, an administrative change Obama made in 2012 to halt the deportation of some young immigrants.

~ snip ~

The pair consistently speak out against the Castro revolution and remain fully supportive of the special treatment those with the same heritage receive when it comes to immigration. Cubans who make it to the USA are not only welcomed, but accepted with open arms full of economic and political benefits. Regardless of their age, condition or reason for leaving the island. This is made possible under the decades old Cuban Adjustment Act, implemented in 1966 as part of America’s political weaponry against the revolution. The Act was designed to encourage Cubans to leave the island, providing incentives such as permanent residence status after one year. Cubans simply have to show up at any American border, no questions asked, and they are allowed entry after a cursory examination. Immediately they can apply for social assistance programs, claim various financial benefits and be provided with considerations such as free English lessons.

The Act encourages Cubans to claim political refugee status, with the person only having to assert some ill-treatment at the hands of the revolutionary government to ensure there would be no complications upon entry. It helped establish the exile community to set up its base in Miami and become the voice of anti-revolution and the energy behind keeping the American embargo against Cuba unchanged. Critics of the Act state it encourages Cubans to leave the island on flimsy rafts, risking life in order to gain benefits no other immigrant can. Consistently the American government has used the Act to score political points, pointing to the arrivals as proof as how desperate the Cubans are to get out of the country – without mentioning the Act or the immediate advantages it provides them. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the continuing struggles of the Cuban economy, even the U.S. side admits the Act now has little to do with politics, and simply as a way for Cubans to escape their economic difficulties. The same reason most Central America immigrants cite.

More:
http://progresoweekly.us/immigration-reform-cuban-adjustment-act/

May 17, 2015

The embarrassing flight of the three hawks

The embarrassing flight of the three hawks

Jane Franklin • April 28, 2014

All three Cuban-American members of the U.S. Senate – Robert Menéndez, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz – wish they could say truthfully that their parents “fled Castro’s Cuba”. The embarrassing reality is that their parents left Cuba while General Fulgencio Batista was running the country after the 1952 coup that overthrew an elected government and canceled an election in which Fidel Castro was running for office.

All three Cuban-American members of the U.S. Senate – Robert Menéndez, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz – wish they could say truthfully that their parents “fled Castro’s Cuba”. The embarrassing reality is that their parents left Cuba while General Fulgencio Batista was running the country after the 1952 coup that overthrew an elected government and canceled an election in which Fidel Castro was running for office.

•Flees Castro

•Flees Castro’s Cuba

•Escapes the Castros

•Escapes Cuba’s communist government

•Flees communism for freedom on our shores.

His parents become the oppressed victims of “Castro’s Revolution” and Menéndez takes on the mantle of a son of immigrants who found freedom in the United States that he is defending against the villainous Castro his parents fled.

For decades he has profited politically from that identity, raising prodigious campaign funds among wealthy right-wing Cuban-Americans in both New Jersey and Florida. Now this Cuban-American hawk oversees U.S. policy toward Cuba from his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

More:
http://progresoweekly.us/embarrassing-flight-three-hawks/

May 17, 2015

Our man in Havana (back in ’59)

Our man in Havana (back in ’59)
Emilio Paz • May 16, 2015



Many Americans may already be wondering who will be nominated as U.S. ambassador to Cuba once formal relations are reestablished between the two countries.

Will it be a career diplomat with experience in Latin America or some wealthy industrialist (preferably Spanish-speaking) who contributed munificently to political party coffers? Will it be a Mr. Ambassador or a Madame Ambassador?

What will be the criteria for the selection? And are names being vetted now or is there already a short list?

For those few Americans who wonder who was the United States’ envoy to Havana in 1959, when Fulgencio Batista fled the island and Fidel Castro took over, the answer is Earl Edward Tailer Smith, an investment broker and sportsman with no previous diplomatic background who was appointed ambassador to Cuba by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was confirmed by the Senate in May 1957 at the age of 54.



The fact that he was on the board of directors of the United States Sugar Corporation may have had a bearing on his appointment, since the company had a major presence in sugar-producing Cuba at the time.

More:
http://progresoweekly.us/our-man-in-havana-back-in-59/

May 16, 2015

Great information for those of us who wouldn't miss observing Pi Day:

Happy Pi Day 2015

3.14.15 9:26:53... - Today seems perfect for reporting research results related to pi. Yes, I've dug up some pi to report. Well, today is not your usual Pi Day holiday. Some are calling it Super Pi Day, others proclaim the Pi Day of the Century. So, no ordinary discovery of pi in prehistory will do today, great accuracy is a must, at least 3.14159. Of all the times I've uncovered pi as an archaeologist, this one certainly wins one pi contest, accuracy:

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Examine the result in Google Earth:
http://www.jqjacobs.net/kml/pi_pyramids.kml [/font][/center]
Coincidence, when random, can explain pi recurring in research results, in archaeology and elsewhere. Coincidence does not easily explain this finding, with too many coincidences in one relationship set. Three monuments, each a center of a civilization, each the largest center of civilization on a continent (albeit only two of the three at once), and each monument ranking in some largest category for its time and place. This is not a comparison of cities, rather the very centerpoints of their largest monuments present the precise ratio of pi.

Accuracy is one way to assess the probability of coincidence. On the global scale, accuracy is an applicable method. The monument center-on-center arcs precisely express the ratio one to pi. Precise, in this case, means as accurate as the method of determining the coordinates. Using my research application (spherical trigonometry), the shorter arc result is within 4m of precisely equaling the larger arc divided by pi. El Paraiso IV, the largest mound at El Paraiso, is over 400m long and the four meters of inaccuracy is in relation to one-third of earth's diameter, well over 4,000,000 meters. In other words, the prehistoric pi ratio is accurate to one part in one million. My math result using the coordinates listed below is 1.0 : 3.141590. Quite an accurate slice of pi, besting anything in history written with little letters during the same time.

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Piramide del Sol, view is the westward side facing the central avenue.
Teotihuacan, the Largest Prehistoric City in the Americas
http://www.jqjacobs.net/mesoamerica/teotihuacan.html[/font][/center]
Far more valuable information brought together at this link. It's one to keep:
http://www.jqjacobs.net/blog/

May 16, 2015

For first time in years, major US orchestra performs in Cuba

Source: Associated Press

For first time in years, major US orchestra performs in Cuba
By BETH J. HARPAZ, Associated Press | May 14, 2015 | Updated: May 16, 2015 12:49am

HAVANA (AP) — The Minnesota Orchestra played to a sold-out house Friday night in the first performance in Cuba by a full professional U.S. orchestra since 1999, coming just months after the two Cold War rivals announced a thaw in relations.

Few of the visiting Americans speak Spanish, but "the universal language of music" was all they needed, said Mele Willis, the orchestra's artistic operations manager.

The performance at the 2,000-seat National Theater, which was broadcast live in Cuba and on Minnesota Public Radio, included famed Cuban pianist Frank Fernandez and the Cuban National Choir. Fernandez was presented with a bouquet, then pulled some of the flowers loose and handed them to a few of the Americans in the orchestra.

A thrilled crowded gave the concert a standing ovation. Omar Fernandez, a Cuban who works for a Canadian travel agency in Havana, attended with his wife and young son. "We love music. And this is very important," he said when asked why he came.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/For-first-time-in-years-major-US-orchestra-6265065.php

May 16, 2015

Panama gripped by millionaire ex-president's graft scandal

Panama gripped by millionaire ex-president's graft scandal
By Juan José Rodríguez (AFP) 7 hours ago.

When he ran for office, Panama's former president Ricardo Martinelli promised graft-weary voters he would never steal a cent: Why would he need to, since he was already a millionaire?, he asked.

Six years later, he is at the eye of a swirling scandal that has taken down several close allies, including two former ministers jailed for stealing public money.

The mounting accusations of massive corruption during his presidency (2009-2014) are now closing in on Martinelli, a white-haired supermarket magnate who is already under investigation for skimming money off the top of a school lunch contract.

~ snip ~

Prosecution documents seen by AFP say that money was used to buy luxury cars, apartments and a yacht.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/panama-gripped-by-millionaire-ex-president-s-graft-scandal/article/433384#ixzz3aIK7O5so

May 14, 2015

The Ridiculous Cold War against Cuba

The Ridiculous Cold War against Cuba
by Jacob G. Hornberger
May 14, 2015

Yesterday, Cuban President Raul Castro announced that Cuba is ready to name an ambassador to the United States, signifying that the United States and Cuba continue on the road toward reestablishing formal diplomatic ties.

As the governments of the two nations move further toward renewing formal relations, it should become increasingly clear what a horrible fraud the U.S. national-security branch of the federal government perpetrated on the American people after Fidel Castro took power in 1959.

Soon after Castro took power after ousting the U.S.-supported Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, it became clear that Castro was taking Cuba in a communist direction, especially with his nationalization of businesses and industries, including those belonging to influential U.S. corporations.

The CIA and the Pentagon told President Eisenhower, and later President Kennedy, that the “national security” of the United States “threatened” by a communist regime 90 miles away from American shores.

More:
http://fff.org/2015/05/14/ridiculous-cold-war-cuba/

May 14, 2015

Latin America’s Social Policies Have Given Women a Boost

Latin America’s Social Policies Have Given Women a Boost
By Fabiana Frayssinet

BUENOS AIRES, May 8 2015 (IPS) - Although they do not specifically target women, social policies like family allowances and pensions have improved the lives of women in Latin America, the region that has made the biggest strides so far this century in terms of gender equality, although there is still a long way to go.

Luiza Carvalho of Brazil, U.N. Women’s regional director for the Americas and the Caribbean, said that can be seen in each report by her agency. “It’s interesting to note that of all of the world’s regions, Latin America has in fact shown the greatest progress,” Carvalho said in an interview with IPS during the global conference “Women and Social Inclusion: From Beijing to Post-2015”, held in the Argentine capital from Wednesday May 6 to Friday May 8.

The advances made in Latin America, Carvalho said, “were not so much a result of economic policies; on the contrary, they were the result of social policies, which although not necessarily specifically aimed at women, ended up benefiting them a great deal, directly and indirectly.”

Latin America’s successful cash transfer programmes include Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, Argentina’s Universal Child Allowance, Ecuador’s Human Development Bonus and Mexico’s Prospera.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/05/latin-americas-social-policies-have-given-women-a-boost/

(These programmes, we learn day by day, are the forward steps the fascists want to destroy the first opportunity they get.)

May 14, 2015

IACHR Tackles Violence Against Native Peoples in Costa Rica

IACHR Tackles Violence Against Native Peoples in Costa Rica
By Diego Arguedas Ortiz

SAN JOSE, May 11 2015 (IPS) - After years of violence against two indigenous groups in Costa Rica, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanded that the government adopt measures by May 15 to protect the life and physical integrity of the members of the two communities.

The IACHR granted precautionary measures in favour of the Bribri community living in the 11,700-hectare Salitre indigenous territory, who have been fighting for years to reclaim land that has been illegally occupied by landowners. “The law gives us the right to defend our claim to our territory, and one of the things it allows us to do is take back the land that is in the hands of non-indigenous people who are not living on it,” the leader of the community, Roxana Figueroa, told IPS.

Besides seeking to protect the community of Salitre, the resolution is aimed at safeguarding the Teribe or Bröran community in Térraba, also in the southeast. Around 85 percent of the Teribe community’s land is occupied by non-indigenous people, which violates their collective title to their ancestral territory.

Salitre, Térraba and the other 22 indigenous territories established in this Central American nation all share the same problem: the occupation of their land by non-indigenous landowners, in violation of international conventions and local legislation. Costa Rica’s indigenous law, in effect since 1977, declared native territories inalienable, indivisible, non-transferable and exclusive to the indigenous communities living there.

~ snip ~

There are very real reasons to be afraid. The violent incidents documented by the IACHR include a Jan. 5, 2013 machete attack on three unarmed indigenous men. One was also tortured with a hot iron rod; another was shot; and the third man nearly lost two fingers.


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A Costa Rican indigenous family runs to take shelter in the community of Cedror in the indigenous territory of Salitre on
Jul. 6, 2014, fearing an attack by landowners who occupied their land after setting fire to their homes and belongings the
day before. Credit: David Bolaños/IPS
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More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/05/iachr-addresses-violence-against-native-peoples-in-costa-rica/