Latin America

When I was writing an article about street vendors in Mexico City, I saw firsthand how the country’s ruling party operated. Vendors eke out a living selling trinkets and food on street corners. A group in one part of Mexico City had held a series of militant demonstrations opposing a violent police crackdown aimed at […]

Latin America

Nicaragua’s People Power at the Barricades again, this Time against Ortega

Rebecca Gordon

San Francisco ( Tomdispatch.com) – On April 19th, university students in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, exploded onto the streets. Their initial demand? A more effective government response to wildfires burning out of control in the country’s most precious repository of biodiversity. Soon, a social wildfire took hold in Managua and then spread across the country. Thousands […]

Immigration

Look Deeper: Child Detention and the US’s Paramilitary Politics Abroad

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, ME (Informed Comment) – Attorney General Sessions didn’t lose any sleep over those children forcibly separated from their parents. He maintained most of the asylum seekers will be denied because “many of them . . . like to make more money . . .” Unfortunately, however, when children are used as bargaining chips […]

Israel/ Palestine

Argentinean Soccer Team cancels Israel Match to avoid “Sports-Washing” Apartheid

Middle East Monitor

(London) – Palestinians have thanked the Argentinian football team and star forward Lionel Messi for cancelling their friendly match with Israel scheduled for Saturday, according to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). Football fans and Palestinian human rights supporters had urged the Argentinian team to cancel the match, set […]

Climate Change

Having had Green Electricity for 300 days, Costa Rica Moves to EVs

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Costa Rica, which has among the cleanest electrical grids in the world, has just passed a law promoting electric vehicles. The transportation sector in this Central American country of 5 million is heavily dependent on dirty petroleum and accounts for about half of its emissions of […]

Brazil

Brazil: Huge Solar Plant to help get to 45% Renewables by 2030

Juan Cole

AFP News Agency | (Video News Clip) | – – “Brazil has lagged far behind in the shift to solar power, but the biggest facility on the continent now being built in the south-east aims to give the country its place in the sun.” AFP: “Huge solar plant aims for brighter Brazil energy production”

Books

A Visit to Heaven and Hell: Galeano

contributors

By Eduardo Galeano | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – [The following passages are excerpted from Hunter of Stories, the last book by Eduardo Galeano, who died in 2015. Thanks for its use go to his literary agent, Susan Bergholz, and Nation Books, which is publishing it next week.] [The following passages are excerpted from Hunter […]

CIA

JFK Files Reveal US Mulled Use of Biological Weapons in Cuba

contributors

TeleSur | – – During a top-level meeting, U.S. officials warned against the possibility of it being traced back to the United States. The recently published JFK files have shed further light on U.S. plans to use biological weapons as part of its Cuban Project, an agricultural sabotage plot against the socialist country. During a […]

Caribbean

Much of U.S.’s Puerto Rico “Destroyed” by 138 mi/hr Storm, Pleads with Trump for Aid

contributors

By TeleSUR | – – Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has asked U.S. President Donald Trump to declare the island a “disaster” area. Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico as the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory in almost 90 years, leaving at least nine people dead and causing widespread flooding. The Puerto Rican […]