People Before Profit blog

Man 'eats finger in wages protest'

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:09:00 +0000

(Reposted from www.digitalspy.com)

A union official in Serbia has cut off his own finger and eaten it as part of an ongoing protest against unpaid wages.

Zoran Bulatovic, who leads the union at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar, told Reuters that he used a hacksaw to chop off most of the little finger on his left hand last Friday.

Bulatovic said: 'We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example. It hurt like hell.

'[My deputy], a single mother of three, was the first to say she would cut off her finger. I could not allow her to do that.'

Some of the 100 workers at the factory have not been paid in years and receive only social benefits such as medical care.

Workers, who went on a 19-day hunger strike last year, are calling for the implementation of a welfare programme for those approaching retirement and for the company's debt to be exchanged for state-held equity.

Swine flus ground zero may be down wind from hog farm

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:11:00 +0000

LA GLORIA, Mexico — Residents in this community of 3,000 believe their town is ground zero for the swine flu epidemic, even if health officials aren't saying so.

More than 450 residents say they're suffering from respiratory problems from contamination spread by pig waste at nearby breeding farms co-owned by U.S. company Smithfield Foods, Inc..

Officials with the company say they've found no sign of swine flu on its farms, and Mexican authorities haven't determined the outbreak's origin.

The swine flu strain is suspected in more than 150 deaths in Mexico and cases have been confirmed in at least four other countries.

As far back as late March, roughly one-sixth of the residents here in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz began complaining of respiratory infections that they say can be traced to a farm that lies upwind five miles (8.5 kilometers) to the north, in the town of Xaltepec.

But Jose Luis Martinez, a 34-year-old resident of La Gloria, said he knew the minute he learned about the outbreak on the news and heard a description of the symptoms: fever, coughing, joint aches, severe headache and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

'When we saw it on the television, we said to ourselves, 'This is what we had,'' he said Monday. 'It all came from here. ... The symptoms they are suffering are the same that we had here.'

On April 6, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada and journalist Andrés Timoteo Morales broke the story on respiratory illnesses in La Gloria.

Martinez and Bertha Crisostomo, a liaison between the villagers and the municipal government of Perote to which La Gloria belongs, say half of the people from the town live and work in Mexico City most of the week, and could easily have spread the swine flu in the capital, where the largest number of cases have been reported.

Granjas Carroll de Mexico, 50 percent owned by Virginia-based Smithfield has eight farms in the area. Smithfield spokeswoman Keira Ullrich said the company has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in its swine herd or its employees working at its joint ventures anywhere in Mexico.

But in the wake of the epidemic, Smithfield stocks plummeted 12 percent on April 27. Smithfield and other pork producers have been lobbying to get the name of swine flu changed.

Residents say they have been bothered for years by the fetid smell of one the farms, which lies upwind of the community, and they suspect their water and air has been contaminated by waste.

Huge, industrial hog farms have been a growing problem for many communities, including in the United States. The smell and pollution from such large-scale operations have laid waste to whole swaths of rural areas.

When Associated Press journalists entered the farm on Monday, the cars were sprayed with water. Manager Victor Ochoa required the visitors to shower and don white overalls, rubber boots and masks before entering any of the 18 warehouses where 15,000 pigs are kept.

Ochoa showed the journalists a black plastic lid that covered a swimming pool-size cement container of pig feces to prevent exposure to the outside air.

'All of our pigs have been adequately vaccinated and they are all taken care of according to current sanitation rules,' Ochoa said. 'What happened in La Gloria was an unfortunate coincidence with a big and serious problem that is happening now with this new flu virus.'

Martinez said residents have been fighting for years to force the company to improve their pig-waste management. Mexican news media reported that a municipal health official traced the source of a disease outbreak in La Gloria to a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste.

Local health officials and Federal Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova downplayed claims that the swine flu epidemic could have started in la Gloria, noting that of 30 mucous samples taken from victims of respiratory diseases there, only one — that of 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez — came back positive. The boy later recovered.

But ABC news Nightline reported the state of Veracruz – and not neighboring Oaxaca – was emerging as the “ground zero” for the epidemic because of the large pig farms in the state.

Mexican Agriculture Department officials said Monday that its inspectors found no sign of swine flu among pigs around the farm in Veracruz, and that no infected pigs have been found yet anywhere in Mexico. But Ochoa, the farm manager, said no one from the government has inspected his farm for swine flu.

Juan Lubroth, an animal health expert at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, supported officials' assessment of the pig situation and said there is no evidence of sick or dying swine in Mexico.

Dr. Alejandro Escobar Mesa, deputy director for the control and prevention of disease for the state of Veracruz, said the epidemic in La Gloria was a combination of viral and bacterial illnesses, caused by an unusually dry climate.

'The dust dries up the mucous membranes and facilitates environmental conditions for the transmission of illnesses,' Escobar said.

But residents here say they are certain that Edgar Hernandez was not the only swine flu victim in their town. Concepcion Llorente, a first-grade teacher in La Gloria, says authorities still owe the town some answers.

'They said that what we had here was an atypical flu, but if the boy tested positive for swine flu, where did he get it from?' she said.

AP Medical Writer Margie Mason and AP writers Mark Stevenson and Lisa J. Adams in Mexico City contributed to this report.

China's earliest carving discovered in Henan

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:48:00 +0000

Reporters learned from Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology that a miniature bird carving that had been carved from a deer antler about 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. Other carvings and semi-finished artworks were also discovered in the 'Xuchangren' ruins in Lingjing Town, Henan Province, in March this year. The bird carving is the earliest one-piece solid carving that has been discovered in China. It embodies a more exquisite craftsmanship compared to other solid sculpture works unearthed in ruins of the late Paleolithic Period in Western countries.

The newly discovered bird carving is 2.1 centimeters long, 1.2 centimeters tall and 0.6 centimeters thick. It has been well preserved, presenting a gray-brown color, smooth surface and parts of it show clear carving marks. The carving had already been fossilized, with a strong hydroscopic property. It is made of evenly-broiled deer antler and was exquisitely carved with a microlith.

Gao Xing, Director of the China Paleoanthropology-Paleolith Committee and research fellow of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the miniature bird carving, which is small but exquisitely vivid in shape, shows the delicate sculpting technique, careful observation of nature, strong imitation ability and creativity of the people during that period.

SW China's Sichuan says 12 of 623 quake orphans adopted

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:44:00 +0000

Only 12 of Sichuan's 623 quake orphans have been legally adopted, with the others in the care of welfare homes, an official of the southwest Chinese province's government said Tuesday.

All the adoptive parents were from the Chinese mainland, said Chen Kefu, vice director of the Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau.

As of last June, about 1,019 children had been classified as orphans, but some were later identified by parents or other relatives and taken home, according to Chen.

'Some children were simply separated from their families and were later reunited,' said the official.

Chen said most adoptive parents wished to remain anonymous.

Starting last December, each quake orphan has been receiving 600 yuan (about 88.23 U.S. dollars) monthly from the government. That stipend will continue to be paid until they are 18 years old.

The magnitude-8.0 quake that hit southwest China last May 12 killed more than 69,000 people. It also left nearly 18,000 missing, more than 374,000 injured and millions homeless.

Source: Xinhua

Haiti Senate election founders, U.S. meddles

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:37:00 +0000

They called an election in Haiti and almost nobody came. Turnout April 19 to vote for 12 open Senate seats was variously estimated at 3 to 10 percent. U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson was not discouraged: “Off-year elections in the United States as well as in other countries tend not be as well-attended as presidential elections.” An AP headline suggested violence kept people away: 'Few Vote in Haiti after Clash in City.' But independent observers say apart from a minor fracas in the Central Plateau city of Mirebalais, all was quiet. That was because the majority party was excluded and for large numbers the voting did not exist. Judge Jean-Claude Douyon ruled in March that Haiti’s Provisional Election Council (CEP) must allow the Fanmi Lavalas party’s Senate candidates to compete. Douyon was subsequently removed without explanation and his opinion disregarded.

Lavalas is the party that twice propelled Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti’s presidency. Aristide was removed by a U.S.-arranged coup in February 2004. Under CEP rules, candidates must be authenticated by a party leader’s signature in order to participate in elections. Divided Lavalas factions came together so that Aristide, in exile in South Africa, could supply a signature for a unity slate of Lavalas candidates. That protracted process fell apart when the CPE refused to accept Aristide’s facsimile signature arriving just prior to the deadline. Operation Open Door, associated with Lavalas, organized an election boycott. On Election Day, five disallowed Senate candidates fasted in the parliament building, provoking an arrest order from President Rene Preval, formerly allied with Lavalas. A day later, thousands of supporters fended off National Police and UN troops, allowing the hunger strikers to escape. Boycott leader Rene Civil extolled “the non-violent resistance of the Haitian people to undemocratic elections. There is no way they will be able to call senators elected in this process legitimate. You cannot hold elections [without] the majority political party.” A group called Popular Initiative protested Washington’s endorsement of the flawed election and called for removal of the U.S. ambassador. A spokesperson rejected her notion of voter fatigue: “Allow Fanmi Lavalas to participate and we'll show you the voters have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for an authentic democratic process.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Port au Prince three days before the voting was seen as highlighting U.S. complicity in the process. Analyst Kevin Pina condemned Ambassador Sanderson, a Bush holdover, “for pressuring the Preval administration to issue arrest warrants for 42 of the organizers of the election boycott.” Over the radio Sanderson had demanded they be investigated. Lavalas leader Ronald Fareau excoriated international donors: “They spent over $17 million on another electoral fraud in Haiti while our people continue to suffer from malnutrition and illiteracy.” In advance of the election the UN reported on the arrival in Haiti of 100 tons of election equipment, divided into 12,000 voting kits.

Popular Initiative and other groups allied to Lavalas announced at a press conference last week they would re-energize the campaign to return President Aristide from exile. They are pointing toward mass rallies in May and June that would also protest “growing misery and poverty.” Rene Civil worried that without Lavalas in the Senate the Preval government would be able to force through privatization of the state-operated national telephone company and the National Port Authority.

Death Row story of resilience, faith, hope, Miren Gutierrez interviews Luis R Albert, filmmaker

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:32:00 +0000

ROME, Apr 28 (IPS) - Puerto Rican Juan Melendez spent more than 17 years on death row in a Florida prison for a 1983 murder to which another man had repeatedly confessed - evidence prosecutors withheld. He was only released in 2002. Now a documentary by Luis Rosario Albert tells Melendez's story, the multifaceted circumstances that surrounded it and the human rights struggle in Puerto Rico that followed.

The modern death penalty was introduced to Puerto Rico in 1898 by the U.S. government established when Spain turned Puerto Rico over following the Spanish American War. Puerto Rico abolished the death penalty in 1929, two years after their last execution. In 1952, when Puerto Rico drafted and ratified its own constitution, the Bill of Rights included the decree 'the death penalty shall not exist.'

However, because of Puerto Rico's status as a Commonwealth of the U.S., it is subject to some federal laws, and the U.S. has sought the death penalty on federal charges in a number of cases, including Melendez's. This has been considered by many to be a betrayal of the island's autonomy.

In an e-mail interview, Albert says the 'reasons for Juan's release do not appear to have been related in any way to Puerto Rican opposition to the death penalty, although groups such as the Puerto Rican Coalition Against the Death Penalty, and the Comision de Derechos Civiles de Puerto Rico helped promote Juan's story since his release. Juan's story has provided a very effective example for educating the people of Puerto Rico about the death penalty system.'

IPS: So far, you have done documentaries illustrating Puerto Rican culture. Why this change in subject?

LUIS ROSARIO ALBERT: This case struck me because after being on death row for almost 18 years for a crime he didn't commit, Juan has become a prominent member of the abolition of the death penalty movement in the U.S. The first reason was that his story needed to be documented. I remember that after watching 'The Exonerated', the film by Bob Balaban, thinking why we cannot do something to help the cause of this fellow Puerto Rican.

Secondly, I have great respect for a person that after all that time in jail - he could have done other things... But he decided to fight back and help transform his reality by fighting the death penalty. He has a unique ability to tell his story in an especially captivating and dynamic way.

The extent of the injustice, and the remarkable way in which everything had to line up all at the same time in order for Juan to be exonerated is also extraordinary. Had everything not lined up perfectly, he would not be alive today.

His appellate attorney quitting and being replaced by a team of exceptional attorneys, and an investigator; his trial defence attorney becoming a judge which created a conflict of interest and required the case to be removed from the county where he was convicted; the fact that the case fell into the hands of a courageous female judge; the fortuitous rediscovery of the taped confession of the real killer 16 years after Juan had been sentenced to death - all of these factors had to come together - it is extraordinary that they did. And it is shocking to think what would have happened if they did not.

IPS: The U.S. has executed 1,158 people since 1976, and has currently more than 3,000 inmates on death row. What makes Juan Melendez's story special?

LRA: I think the length of time Juan was on death row is remarkable in and of itself. Although there have been 131 death row exonerations since 1973, Juan is one of only a few death row exonerees who spent more than 17 years on death row. For a human being to survive for almost 18 years in a 9- by 6-foot prison cell under the psychologically devastating threat of death is extraordinary.

His story shows how a person from a weak socio-economic background can be caught in such a bizarre circumstance. It is not that it can happen to any of us but the fact that it is happening to people with clear economic and social disadvantages. His story is extraordinary among the other over a hundred exonerations already granted. Each of those cases is an exceptional case in itself. If you are an innocent person fighting to be alive and you have spend a big time of your life on death row and one day they tell you that you are free to go, I guess that is shocking.

IPS: Melendez was released in 2002. Why is this documentary still relevant today?

LRA: The documentary is still relevant for several reasons. Firstly, beyond the issue of the death penalty, the documentary tells an inspirational story of human resilience, faith, and hope - this aspect of the documentary renders it relevant, irrespective of the date of Juan's release from death row.

With respect to the death penalty issue, the documentary is relevant in terms of its potential for changing public opinion about the death penalty. Not only does the documentary demonstrate the many problems inherent in the death penalty system, including its high risk and inevitability of being imposed on innocent people, its unfair application on the basis of race, and it's almost exclusive application on the poor, but it also demonstrates the tremendous damage that the death penalty inflicts on those involved in the system: the family of the condemned person, the lawyers, even news reporters to some extent. In that sense, the documentary examines the specific problem of the application of the death penalty in Puerto Rico.

Governor [Bill] Richardson who signed the death penalty repeal bill into law in New Mexico on Mar. 18, 2009, watched the documentary shortly before making his decision. He mentioned to Juan Melendez that he was deeply moved by it and in justifying his decision to repeal the death penalty, he stated that his primary concern was the large number of death row inmates who had been released from death row with evidence of innocence.

He also stated that he was troubled by the racism of the system. Both of these issues were squarely and centrally addressed in the documentary. It is expected that the documentary will serve as a very powerful educational tool that will help change public opinion about the death penalty in the United States and will also change the minds of some important policy-makers.

IPS: Again in 2003, the U.S. justice department sought to execute two Puerto Rican men - Joel Rivera Alejandro and Héctor Oscar Acosta Martínez - accused of kidnapping and murder. Do you think Melendez's case set a precedent at any rate?

LRA: I think Juan's case certainly should stand as a warning signal in death penalty cases involving other Puerto Rican nationals, particularly, where the victim is white, the jurors are predominantly white and the defendant's witnesses are people of colour. One of the arguments of the documentary is that some people may think that Juan's case is just an exception to the rule and that his case shows that the system works - after all, he didn't get executed. This is an argument for the reform of the death penalty. The administration of justice can be an imperfect activity sometimes and some may argue that the system works towards the reduction of the mistakes.

But when we are dealing with a punishment that cannot be reversed, reducing or minimising the risk of mistakes is not good enough. All mistakes must be eliminated and we know that in any human system, it is not possible to eliminate all errors. Aside from religious and moral convictions, I don't think you can reform the death penalty system. You don't reform a procedure that you know will always be imperfect and could allow the death of an innocent person. That's the primary reason why it's a bad public policy.

IPS: What is Melendez doing now?

LRA: Juan lives in New Mexico with his girlfriend who is an attorney and anti-death penalty activist. It is difficult for Juan to hold a regular job because he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and because he travels quite frequently around the U.S. and abroad sharing his story and advocating for abolition of the death penalty. Upon his release, the state of Florida sent Juan on his way with just 100 dollars, a pair of pants and a t-shirt - the same things provided to all released prisoners in Florida. Unlike some other death row exonerees, he received no compensation for the many years he wrongfully spent on Florida's death row. He also received no apology from the prosecutor or the state of Florida.

IPS: What cinematographic language did you choose to tell this difficult story?

LRA: I tried to work around the three main geographies. First, Naguabo, the coastal town in Puerto Rico where Juan lived before migrating to the U.S. Second, the Oso Blanco penitentiary facility, now closed, where we recreated some scenes, the time he spent on death row. Thirdly, the city of Albuquerque where he lives now. The openness of Albuquerque's geography and the happiness and colourful imagery of Naguabo's coast are a contrast to the limited and negatively charged environment of death row. These spaces allowed us to present different psychological moods.

In our conversations before the shooting of the documentary, Juan told me that when he was sad he would try to think about good things such as his mother and his town of Naguabo where his mother still lives in, his friends and family in Puerto Rico. From that remark I started to visualise the story according to the visual imagery of each of those spaces.

IPS: Where do you intend to show the documentary, and what response do you expect from the public?

LRA: We hope to show the documentary as much as possible in the U.S. at middle and high schools, colleges and faith communities and also at small theatres. The documentary's length of just 49 minutes is especially conducive to showings at these venues. Now we are sending the piece to different film festivals in the U.S. and Europe.

From the beginning we had set a specific goal and that is to produce a piece that is educational in a contemporary and cinematic fashion that can dialogue with young and adult audiences. There is already interest in showing the movie in Canada and Germany, so we believe the documentary will be shown outside the United States as well. We know that international opinion against the death penalty is becoming a more significant factor in the death penalty debate in the U.S.

*Miren Gutierrez is IPS Editor in Chief

China's Health Ministry issues notice on swine flu prevention

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:43:00 +0000

In light of an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico, China's Ministry of Health issued a notice Sunday about disease prevention and detection, warning citizens to be careful.

The notice defines the symptoms of the disease and how it can be transmitted to humans.

Although there is no vaccine yet, the disease is preventable, controllable and treatable, it said.

As of Monday morning, no cases of the illness had been reported in China.

The ministry said so far, there is no evidence that this flu could be spread through food.

It also warned those who travel abroad to be alert for any signs of infection.

Swine influenza A/H1N1 is a respiratory disease that infects pigs and does not normally infect humans. But sporadic cases do occur, usually for people who have had close contact with pigs.

It has killed more than 60 people out of about 1,000 suspected cases in Mexico.

China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) issued an emergency notice Saturday requiring people to report flu-like symptoms at the point of entry when returning from affected regions.

According to the Health Ministry, the ministry is working with the Ministry of Agriculture and GAQSIQ to monitor the disease.

The ministry has contacted scientists who have done viral sequencing on swine flu. It has also stepped up cooperation with the World Health Organization and the U.S. and Mexican governments to obtain updated epidemic information and prepare for a possible outbreak.

China should establish an effective disease prevention and control system it it entry-exit inspection and quarantine process, the ministry added.

Ecuador revolution wins with Correa

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:38:00 +0000

Quito, Apr 27 (Prensa Latina) The re-election of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on April 26 signifies that citizens here are ready for the revolution underway. Un-official results grant the statesman between 54 and 57 percent support, with a lead of 20 points over his nearest rival, former Head of State Lucio Gutierrez.

These results motivated Correa, leader of the Country Alliance Movement, to declare himself Sunday the winner in the first round, unprecedented in this country's democratic history.

Official results have so far confirmed Correa's triumph with 49.01 percent of votes, 18 points more than Gutierrez, who is second.

This was an 'overwhelming, immense triumph' for the head of state, which paves the way for his Citizens Revolution in benefit of the poor in Ecuador.

This victory cofirms his opposition to the US Free Trade Agreement, to the presence of soldiers from that northern country on the Manta base and to vulnerable free trade policies, which were top issues in this electoral race.

Correa promised to eliminate increasing inequality between the rich and the poor, generate the development of the popular economy, and give free health and education.

Employees are victims of violence as well

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:07:00 +0000

(l'Humanite) Translated by Laure Tallot

The political right wing and employers are trying to set public opinion against the so-called 'detention' of executives and bosses. The French people decline to follow suit.

“Almost every day now there is a new occurrence of bosses or executives being detained by angry employees…” Last Friday morning (April 10), France Info thus began its news bulletin about the three Faurecia executives held until 11 p.m. the day before by exasperated employees. On that very same day Le Figaro’s leader was up in arms about “the disturbing drift of the protest movements” and “the dangerous tendency of social conflicts to get out of hand”. Then the President of the Republic invoked “the Rule of Law”. “Such furore is quite surprising” François Chérèque remarked, “Hardly a wavelet” Bernard Thibault added : trade-union leaders rightly put the events into perpective ; but the right wing and employers keep on brandishing the spectre of chaos.

When Bernard Thibault, after observing that these events were “union actions that could in no way be likened to hostage-taking”, claims that “he understands them and will defend them as long as employers do not suffer any bodily harm”, there is an outcry. According to Frederic Lefebvre, the UMP spokesman, Bernard Thibault gives “a poor image of trade-unions.” And he contributes “to tarnish the image of France in the world”, prompting “multinationals to decide to close sites in France instead of somewhere else.” Nothing less ! Even more burlesque, Jean-François Roubaud, the president of the CGPME, the union of owners/managers of small and medium-sized businesses, invites the company bosses “to refuse to start negotiating with a gun held to their heads” and asks the government to “start the legal proceedings that are called for by such lawless behaviour”. More prudently, the MEDEF [1], through Benoît-Roger Vasselin’s voice, recommends “not adding fuel to the fire by not focusing on this particular point”.

Surveys show that French public opinion understands the need for discontent to have visible manifestations : witness the leader written by the general secretary of the CFTC Philippe Louis, published in the Confederation paper “In the eyes of the CFTC nothing can justify assaulting people and destroying property. (…) However one can understand that employees, who have been victims of violence for almost thirty years, turn this very same violence against those who, in their opinion, are responsible for it ”. He wonders why those who protest today “were almost never heard condemning other types of violence such as unemployment, erosion in purchasing power and deterioration of working conditions and living standards.” He reminds us that “at the end of 2008 two incumbent ministers went to support bosses who were opening their shops on Sundays in total breach of the law”. He also denounces those who said nothing “against the violence of reneging on an agreement, as in Continental at Clairoix”.

translator’s note :

[1] The MEDEF is the French equivalent of the CBI.

Countries worldwide on guard against swine flu

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Countries around the globe are now struggling to curb the spread of swine flu that has so far killed up to 103 people in Mexico and sickened others in the United States.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday, April 26, declared the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the U.S. a 'public health emergency of international concern' and urged countries to be alert. Based on the advice of a WHO committee, Director-general Margaret Chan 'has determined that the current events constitute a public health emergency of international concern,' the UN agency said in a statement.

Cases of swine flu usually occur only among people who work with swine. And the current swine flu could possibly be turned into a global pandemic after the outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in 1997. To date, death toll has kept rising in both Mexico and the U.S.

The Mexican health secretary Jose Angel Cordova said on Sunday that the death toll of confirmed and suspected swine flu cases rose to 103, with the number of sickened cases reach 1,614.

The Mexican Health Secretary updated the numbers while speaking to Televisa Mexican national television network on Sunday night, adding that around 400 people were hospitalized out of the more than 1,600 suspected cases.

Mexican health official had reported 86 deaths earlier Sunday and nearly 1,400 sickened.

The U.S. declared the public health emergency as confirmed cases spread to five states, and all 20 cases have had mild influenza-like illness with only one of them serious.

The U.S. declared public health emergency with 20 swine flu cases confirmed. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed eight high school students from the city have been infected with swine flu, Bloomberg told a press conference the cases are mild and that many are recovering.

After the onset of swine flu, experts from countries worldwide formed an emergency committee to deal with the influenza. The WHO chief is recommending, on the advance of the committee, that all countries intensify surveillance for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia, the UN agency statement said.

Nevertheless, more information is needed before a decision could be made concerning the appropriateness of the current 'phase 3' alert level of a pandemic risk, according to the advice of the committee, which is composed of international experts in a variety of disciplines.

Swine influenza (or swine flu) is, as a matter of fact, a respiratory disease of pig caused by Type A influenza that regularly cause outbreaks of influenza among pigs. The WHO pandemic alert includes altogether six phrases, 'Phase 3' means 'no or very limited human-to-human transmission.

The Mexican government has so far appropriated a total of 450,000 US dollars for the fight against swine flu. President Felipe Calderon issued an emergency decree giving his government special powers to run tests on sick people and other them to be isolated and giving himself power to order quarantines and suspend public events.

Apart from Mexico and the U.S., quite a few other countries in the American region have worked out plans concerning the public health emergency of 'pandemic potential'.

Argentinean authority declared a health alert, requiring anyone arriving on flights from Mexico to advise if they had flu-like symptoms. Health departments in Costa Rica and Honduras issued an alert against the flu.

The Peruvian Health Ministry monitor travelers arriving from Mexico and the U.S. and people with flu-like symptoms will be evaluated by health teams, and a national precautionary plan be launched to cope with potential threats. And El Salvador also introduces the quarantine border monitory.

Some Asian and European nations, particularly those which often import pork from Mexico and the U.S., keep a close eye on latest developments of swine flu and would resort to even tougher measures.

In France, public health officials have placed on alert four people, including three from the same family, who were checked after arriving from Mexico with suspicious symptoms, the French Health Ministry said.

New Zealand's health minister said on Sunday that 10 students and one teacher who just returned 'likely' have swine flu, whereas the British government urge those who have just returned from the above-mentioned countries with flu-like symptoms to receive prompt treatment.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday signed a decree to set up an anti-swine flu committee, and ordered airports across Russia to adopt special measures as of the last Sunday afternoon for flights arriving from Mexico and the U.S.

The government of the Republic of Korean (ROK) announced to tighten quarantine measures for pork to be imported from the U.S. and Mexico as of April 27 after the outbreak of swine influenza in their countries, local media reported.

The ROK national veterinary Research and Quarantine Service announced earlier on Saturday, or April 25, that the American and Mexican pork to be imported beginning April 27 will be put in quarantine to check if it was infected with the disease.

Japan has tightened precautionary and preventive measures against the threat of swine flu as the deadly outbreaks in Mexico claimed 103 people. It has striven to establish as soon as possible a system to ascertain swine influenza. The Japanese government demands all animal quarantine offices to examine pigs and check up physically all people returning from Mexico, who are also asked to report unusual symptoms.

Hong Kong will step up local surveillance system at boundary control points and the public health laboratory in light of outbreaks of human infection of swine Influenza A/H1N1 in Mexico and the U.S., announced the Center for Health Protection of the HK Health Department.

Travelers from the affected places found to suffer swine influenza symptoms at the Hong Kong's boundary control points will be taken to hospitals for their investigation. Laboratory testing for swine influenza will be conducted for patients with flu-like illness who have traveled to the affected places within seven days before the onset of symptoms.

China, currently on alert to prevent swine flu infection, is organizing experts to study and analyze the virus series. Its General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued an emergency notice last Saturday night requiring people to report flu-like symptoms at the point of entry when coming from the deadly swine flu affected places.

This is China's latest move in response to the onset of human infection of Swine Influenza A/H1N1 in Mexico and the United States. The Chinese Ministry of Public Health said it has organized experts to study prevention measures and would enhance contract with WHO as well as the governments of Mexico and the U.S. to learn about their latest developments.

General speaking, the humankind seldom contracts swine influenza. In recent years, however, some people have been reported to have cases of swine influenza, and they are usually people who work with pigs.

WHO has identified swine influenza as a potential source of human flu pandemic. Cooking to an internal temperature of 71 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Fahrenheit) kills swine virus, as it does other bacteria and viruses. 'It's safe to eat pork as it's commonly heated above 71 degrees Celsius.' A senior health official said.

By People's Daily Online and contributed by PD reporters Cui yin, Liao Zhengjun, Zhang Huijun, Yu Qing and Zuo Ya

New promise of a nuclear-free world

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:12:00 +0000

BERLIN, Apr 24 (IPS) - Leading supporters of disarmament see new hope arising from the announcement by the U.S. and Russian presidents that they are willing to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with a new one.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama made that announcement in London Apr. 1 on the eve of the G20 summit.

'We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world,' the leaders said jointly. Russia and the United States possess about 95 percent of nuclear weapons.

The who's who of the disarmament world agreed to take that impetus forward at a conference held in Rome Apr. 16-17. The Conference on Overcoming Nuclear Dangers was attended by 70 former and current government officials and experts from about 20 countries.

The announcement by Obama and Medvedev 'will give new impetus to disarmament and arms control, and certainly strengthen our common effort for a successful outcome of the 2010 NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference,' said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, which co- sponsored the conference. 'Other nuclear powers should follow the lead of the U.S. and Russia.'

Full compliance with disarmament and non-proliferation treaties, 'first and foremost the NPT, is an essential condition of real progress towards the achievement of our stated goals,' he said.

But the road is littered with multiple obstacles, warned Mikhail Gorbachev, who was president of what was the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991. He had signed START with then U.S. president Ronald Reagan.

Gorbachev, who presides over the World Political Forum (WPF), urged the U.S. and Russia to work towards removing the hurdles. 'Unless we address the need to demilitarise international relations, reduce military budgets, put an end to the creation of new kinds of weapons and prevent weaponisation of outer space, all talk about a nuclear weapon free world will be just inconsequential rhetoric,' he said.

The WPF, an international NGO founded in Piedmont (Italy) by Gorbachev, organised the conference along with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). 'We serve as a meeting point for cultures, religions, political leaders and civil society - an open forum where analysis of the issue of interdependence provides a framework for the building of a new world political architecture,' WPF's director of external relations Roberto Savio told IPS. The U.S.-based NTI is co-chaired by Ted Turner of CNN and former senator Sam Nunn. It seeks to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The conference threw up the idea of 'base camps' leading up to a nuclear- free mountaintop. Such base camps, that would serve as platforms to design the best way up towards a world free of nukes, and supportive measures in other areas of arms control and security cooperation, can help usher in a world free of nuclear weapons, according to a joint statement by Gorbachev, George P. Schultz, the U.S. secretary of state 1982-1989 under Reagan, and Frattini.

The conference statement says there is growing recognition - both inside and outside of governments - of the need to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and the urgent steps necessary to overcome nuclear dangers.

'The current shift towards nuclear abolition in the international political arena, where such a vision has so far been seen as unrealistic, provides a vital opportunity,' Hirotsugu Terasaki, executive director of peace affairs at the Tokyo-based Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International (SGI) told IPS.

SGI launched a 'People's Decade' in September 2007 along with international anti-nuclear movements such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a campaign initiated by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a federation of medical professionals in 60 countries that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1985.

'The aim of the People's Decade is to increase the number of people who reject nuclear weapons. Ordinary citizens and civil society must be the protagonists, creating a groundswell of demand for nuclear abolition that will influence decision makers,' Terasaki said.

SGI was one of three civil society organisations that took part in the Rome conference; the other two being the Italian Peace Roundtable - a network that unites more than 1,500 civil society organisations and local authorities, and the Global Security Institute (GSI), a U.S.-based group that aims to strengthen international cooperation and security based on the rule of law, with a particular focus on nuclear arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament.

'We have a situation where chemical weapons and biological weapons are condemned universally but nuclear weapons, which are even more horrific than biological or chemical, are allegedly acceptable in the hands of nine countries (Britain, France, Russia, China, Canada and the United States as well as India, Pakistan and North Korea). This is incoherent and unsustainable,' GSI president Jonathan Granoff told IPS.

'The only solution is to either allow all countries to use these terrific devices - clearly unacceptable - or to universally ban them,' he said.

'They are not over-ambitious in saying that we are going to achieve this in five years time or so because they know they have to create a climate of opinion and then the principal players - U.S. and Russia - have to be persuaded to act and then gradually we go towards the summit which is ridding the world of nuclear weapons,' India's former foreign secretary and disarmament expert Lalit Mansingh told IPS. (END/2009)

Deadly pig flu virus spreads global fear

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:57:00 +0000

Original source:

Struggle to solve crisis moves to IMF, World Bank

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:06:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 (IPS) - Efforts to pull the global economy out of its nosedive enter a new phase this weekend amid warnings the decline is steeper than previously thought and signs the cockpit crew continue to jostle for the joystick.

Semi-annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) begin here Saturday with a warning from the fund that the world economy will fall this year for the first time since World War II.

'By far the deepest global recession since the Great Depression' will see an economic decline of 1.3 percent worldwide, according to the IMF. In January, it had projected negligible growth of 0.5 percent.

At the weekend talks and in separate sessions of the Group of Seven (G7) dominant countries and the Group of 20 (G20), which includes emerging economic powers, finance ministers and central bank chiefs will have a chance to flesh out a crisis-response agreement issued by G20 leaders three weeks ago - assuming they can reconcile differences glossed over at the Apr. 2 leaders' summit in London.

The atmosphere remains contentious some 18 months after the recession became apparent. Even as officials seek to assure markets and consumers that recovery plans are in hand, Washington confronts resentment over a crisis blamed on U.S. corporate chicanery and regulatory absenteeism.

Timothy Geithner, the treasury secretary, acknowledged this in remarks here Wednesday. 'We bear a substantial share of the responsibility for what has happened,' he said. 'But factors that made the crisis so acute and so difficult to contain lie in a broader set of global forces that built up in the years before the start of our current troubles.'

Washington continues to push for more government spending to stimulate demand in wealthy countries but it does so against stiff resistance from deficit-averse Europeans. France and Germany, in particular, have rebuffed U.S. goading.

Agreement to increase the IMF's finances has run up against competition for voice and voting power among the agency's shareholders. In turn, accord on enlarging the fund's role as a global economic regulator is frayed by disagreement over what specific powers of intrusion and enforcement it should be granted.

Even a G20 oath of loyalty to free trade, taken amid fanfare in November 2008 and reiterated with protestations of unanimity at the London summit earlier this month, has proven something of a joke. Earlier this year, the World Bank said that 17 of these countries had reacted to the downturn by erecting barriers to international commerce.

'Since the G20 meeting less than three weeks ago, nine G20 countries have taken or are considering 23 measures that restrict trade at the expense of other countries,' Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, added Thursday.

Anti-poverty campaigners are joining the fray with demands that poor governments, not only rich ones, be allowed to boost spending and protect vulnerable populations.

'To address the crisis, the IMF has recommended big-spending stimulus programmes - but only for wealthy countries,' said Soren Ambrose, development finance coordinator at charity ActionAid International.

Activists, citing their own experience and a recent review of IMF lending by longtime Washington-based critic the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, add that although the fund is providing no-strings-attached financing for Mexico and other borrowers that have followed its policy advice, it has not eased up on deficit-trimming austerity measures in countries ranging from Latvia to Pakistan.

While questions of conditionality seem likely to dog the IMF for years, strain over the distribution of voting power among shareholders likely will have a more profound impact. Most immediately, it complicates the agency's financial prospects.

At London, G20 leaders pledged 1.1 trillion dollars for international lenders. Five hundred billion dollars is to be handed over to the IMF for its New Arrangements to Borrow programme. In exchange for their contributions governments will receive interest-bearing assets backed in part by the institution's gold reserves.

Major players, including China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, so far have withheld their commitments and are demanding that votes within the fund be redistributed to reflect emerging markets' economic significance. European countries that face a corresponding loss of clout have yet to be won over.

Also at stake is a proposal to sell some of the IMF's gold reserves. While emerging powers demand greater say in the institution, poor countries and aid groups want guarantees that the proceeds will be used to help regions that are reeling from twin economic and food crises and that lack access to other sources of capital.

In any case, aid groups want new money for the poor to be just that: new money, not money diverted from existing aid budgets. And they want the money doled out as grants and not as loans, which they say could pave the way for a fresh debt crisis.

'Everything must be done to ensure that poor countries are not landed with even more debt in their attempts to survive the economic crisis,' said Marita Hutjes, a policy adviser at Oxfam International.

Perceived and real imbalances of power among IMF shareholders also could play out in discussions about whether the agency should serve as a powerful new economic regulator or simply as a more robust monitor of members' economies. Smaller countries will demand equality of treatment while more powerful ones will be reluctant to relinquish what many regard as an instrument of their macroeconomic and financial orthodoxy and interests.

The G20 includes G7 members Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States plus Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the European Union.

Communist Party surges as Japan's economy withers

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Waiting for the persimmon to fall: Japan's top Communist says Marx is coming back to life

TOKYO, Apr. 19, 2009 (AP) Under a big red flag, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Japan are the center of the most vibrant grass-roots movement in the country. The party's ranks are swelling, it has 24,000 branch offices and more than a million people read its newspaper. Only one party -- the one that runs the country -- beats it at fundraising.

As Japan's economy withers, communism is coming to life.

Dormant in the boom years and marginalized even as Japan more recently clawed its way out of recession, the party's litany of capitalist evils is now resonating deeply with many Japanese -- especially the young -- who are feeling the pain of an economic downturn that some say has reached depression dimensions.

While the Communist Party -- which is the fourth-largest party in parliament, but has only 16 of the total 722 seats -- is not likely to take over anytime soon, it is making itself felt.

On college campuses, in particular, Karl Marx is popular again.

'I have never voted before, but I intend to vote communist in the next elections,' said Suguru Yagi, a Tokyo college student.

Yagi, 22, said he had considered joining the party because he agrees with many of its policies and sees it as the defender of the working class. As a student about to graduate, he is concerned about the shrinking work force, and the difficulties he may find in getting a good job.

Leading Japan's communist renaissance is Kazuo Shii, the round-faced party chief, who has become one of Japan's most recognizable politicians and something of a media star, grilling the country's conservative leaders from his perch in parliament and unfailingly appearing before the cameras with what boils down to: 'I told you so.'

Financial meltdowns worldwide. Banks and manufacturers going belly up, or begging for bailouts. Unemployment and unrest on the rise.

Capitalism, Shii concludes, is doomed.

'It is inevitable,' he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. 'When the persimmon is ripe, it will fall from the tree.'

Shii, and the party, believe that time is fast approaching. And, in Asia's most dedicated bastion of capitalism, more people are beginning to agree.

According to the party, about 1,000 new members are joining its ranks every month -- a sharp contrast to the massive exodus that has plagued the ruling Liberal Democrats, who have dropped from about 5 million members in their heyday to about 1 million members now.

The Japan Communist Party was founded as an illegal movement in 1922, but legalized after Japan's World War II defeat in 1945. It then struggled through polarizing splits with the Soviets and Communist Chinese in an effort to maintain its independence. It also has distanced itself from the radical left, which gained popularity in the 1960s and '70s, but has since died down.

Shii attributed the renewed interest in the party to voter disillusionment with future prospects in an increasingly difficult job market. People who have lost their jobs or their pensions are turning to the party. There is increasing distrust of the centrist Liberal Democrats and their main rivals, the Democratic Party of Japan, who are also conservative and are, in fact, led by a former Liberal Democrat.

The communist revival has also been spurred on by the pop media.

Marx's Das Kapital is now available in cartoon form, and a surprise best-seller of the year has been a revival version of 'Kanikosen,' a 1929 novel about exploited workers on a crab boat. That novel, too, is out in manga form, and is being made into a movie.

In Japan, the Communist Party has swelled to about 415,000 members at latest count and boasts a newspaper, Red Flag, with a readership of 1.6 million. It has also started a channel on YouTube featuring video of Shii addressing parliament and other tidbits for those who want to keep up with party goings-on.

Shii said his party is willing to work within Japan's system -- he said it does not advocate immediate or violent revolution.

'We want to fix social inequities within the framework of capitalism,' Shii said. 'It will take time for people to make adjustments and be ready. We aren't advocating a sudden change to communism.'

Outside of parliament is where the Communist Party has been making its biggest strides.

Though weak at the national level, the communists boast more elected officials than any other party because of their strong presence in local and prefectural assemblies, where they have more than 3,000 seats.

Party members are free to devote as much, or little, of their time as they choose -- from simply voting communist when elections come around to helping run social activities and youth programs.

Because of the devotion of its members, the party's campaign machine is formidable.

And, while not expected to win big, the communists are looking at modest gains when the next parliamentary elections are held -- sometime before October -- because of the growing unpopularity of Prime Minister Taro Aso and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is widely seen as being in disarray and unable to lead Japan out of its deepening economic recession.

The Democrats are dogged by scandals of their own. But Shii complained that the focus of the media on the potential emergence of a two-party system has created an even darker shadow from which his party must emerge.

Even so, with younger voters, the communists are doing well.

ANC poised for victory in South Africa elections

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:05:00 +0000

Workers across South Africa are celebrating the ruling African National Congress’ decisive victory in April 22 elections.

With about half the ballots counted, the ANC stands at 66 percent of the vote, sweeping all regions of the country.

The sole exception is the Western Cape, where a white-dominated opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is leading by a small percentage. The DA may end up ruling that renegade province alone or in an alliance with another party.

The rest of the country, stretching from desert areas around the Orange River to subtropical Zululand on the Indian Ocean coast, delivered a solid win to Jacob Zuma, the ANC’s leader and the next President of the Republic of South Africa.

At ANC headquarters in Johannesburg on April 23 night, supporters cheered Zuma as he danced in celebration and then declared, 'We went to the voters of this country, talked to them and put across our polices, and they have understood what we are saying.'

In a blow to allies of former President Thabo Mbeki, the recently-formed party called the Congress of the People (COPE), led by a small group of defectors from the ANC, secured only 8 percent of the vote, according to early results.

Despite the corporate media’s preference for negative reporting on Africa, such as the recent obsession with piracy off the Somali coast and the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, the world’s attention this week was focused on the peaceful and joyous elections in South Africa as millions of men and women stood in long lines waiting to cast their ballot.

Newspapers featured moving photos of blacks and whites, who less than two decades ago were strictly segregated by the violent system known as apartheid, voting together at polling stations. Websites posted video clips of famous anti-apartheid leaders dropping their ballots in election boxes. A frail former President Nelson Mandela, walking slowly with the aid of a cane, was greeting with shouts of “Viva Mandela!” at his polling station while Archbishop Desmond Tutu was visibly giddy after voting.

Voter turnout was high, estimated at 77 percent, in the fourth elections held in South Africa since the end of apartheid and return to majority rule in 1994.

Commentators have described these elections as the nation’s most competitive, mainly because of controversies surrounding Zuma stemming from past rape and corruption allegations.

The ANC leader was acquitted of rape charges in April 2006 and only two weeks ago the corruption case against him was completely dismissed by the nation’s chief prosecutor. The prosecutors’ investigation revealed that Zuma’s political opponents manipulated and interfered with the case hoping to derail his presidential campaign.

While the opposition has threatened to push to reinstate corruption charges against Zuma, the South African people have spoken in a loud and unified voice at the polls in support of their new President.

Most South Africans identify with Zuma, whose life story is similar to their own. Born in 1942, just six years before the formal institution of apartheid, Zuma was raised by his widowed mother who worked as a maid.

Like most South Africans under apartheid, Zuma was unable to attend school but he taught himself how to read and write. When he turned 17, he joined Umkhonto We Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC.

After spending 10 years imprisoned with Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders on the infamous Robben Island, Zuma went into exile in Mozambique and Zambia. He rose to a position in the ANC executive committee and returned to South Africa when the party was un-banned in 1990.

After voting in his hometown Wednesday, Zuma observed 'Never did I think as I was growing up here that one day I would cast my vote here as I am doing. It must be great, feeling the difference from the olden days to where we are today, when we can decide our own fate.'

While Zuma is often described as a “traditionalist” who strongly identifies with his Zulu ethnic background, his revolutionary credentials as a liberation fighter and the early influence of an uncle active in the trade unions place him firmly on the political left.

In fact, beyond his own party base, his strongest support in the campaign came from the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which form the ruling Tripartite Alliance with the ANC.

South Africa continues to face many challenges, most a legacy of the decades of underdevelopment and inequality under apartheid. Unemployment is rampant, many South Africans lack decent housing and access to water, and the AIDs epidemic continues. The Tripartite Alliance has made significant progress tackling these problems over the past 15 years and its accomplishments clearly were endorsed by voters this week.

In a message issued during the final days of the campaign, SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande declared the party “calls upon all our people, especially the workers and the poor, to come out in massive numbers to vote for the ANC and ensure an overwhelming ANC victory in the elections.”

South Africans heeded that call and look forward to continued progressive leadership by the ANC and its communist and trade unionist allies. Official results are not expected until this weekend but Zuma is expected to be sworn in as the new president in early May.

The book Chavez gave Obama

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:44:00 +0000

A few national security partisans realize now there’s more to worry about than guns, bombs and rogue states. That would be ideas, and last week, a book. It’s a “really dangerous one that can put the White House at risk,” warned a not-very-serious David Brooks, the Mexican daily La Jornada’s Washington correspondent. He was referring to the book Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave Barack Obama during the recent Summit of the Americas.

“Open Veins of Latin America,” written by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano in 1971, is a famous, superbly written account of 500 years of Latin American distress under colonialism and imperialism. The notable Chilean author Isabel Allende writes that on going into exile following the 1973 Pinochet coup in her country, she took along clothes, family pictures, “a small bag of dirt from my garden, and two books: an old edition of the ‘Odes’ by Pablo Neruda and the book with the yellow cover, ‘Open Veins of Latin America.’”

“That book has a power that scares many,” Brooks notes. One is Otto Reich, former State Department official under Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush. Quoted on Newsmax.com, Reich opined that the presidential staff “should not have put President Obama in that embarrassing situation because this is very much an anti-U.S. book. Anti-Europe as well.” Galeano is “a far-left Latin American, a very unknown author,” he claimed.

For Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer, the book is “a diatribe whose underlying theme is that Latin America’s poverty is caused by U.S. imperialism.” And Obama showed misplaced appreciation for the gift “considering that Chávez’ gesture was the equivalent of presenting Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ to an Israeli president.”

Meanwhile, an Air France flight was proceeding from Paris to Mexico City. Writer Hernando Calvo Ospina was on board, citizen of Colombia and resident of France. Calvo Ospina was heading for Nicaragua on behalf of Le Monde Diplomatique. His books include “Bacardi: The Hidden War,” “The Cuban Exile Movement: Dissidents or Mercenaries” and most recently, “Colombia: Laboratorio de Embrujos” (Laboratory of Curses), which analyst James Petras sees as “the most important study of Colombian politics in recent decades.”

Over the North Atlantic, passengers heard the captain’s voice announcing their Mexico City arrival would be delayed five hours, because U.S. air space was off limits. One of their fellow passengers, he explained, “was not welcome because of national security reasons.” Calvo Ospina learned later from the co-pilot he was the offending party.

The airliner took on extra fuel in Martinique. Flight crew members said restrictions on over-flying the United States were new for Air France.

The traveler later caught a flight to Managua, after questioning by immigration officials in Mexico City. Asked about experience with weapons, Calvo Ospina, writing on Rebelion.org, indicated his “only weapon was writing, especially in denouncing the U.S. government which I regarded as terrorist.” His interrogator commented, “That weapon is often worse than rifles and bombs.”

As if in confirmation, Amazon sales rankings of “Open Veins of Latin America” vaulted overnight from number 54,295 to second place.

atwhit @ roadrunner.com

Taliban withdraws from Pakistan zone

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:21:00 +0000

Taliban militants began pulling out of a recently seized district of north-western Pakistan on Friday.

The pull-out came after the government had warned that it would remove them by force.

Television pictures showed dozens of militants emerging from a high-walled villa that served as their headquarters in Buner, a rural area 60 miles from the capital Islamabad.

The men, most of them masked with black scarves and carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, clambered into several lorries and minibuses before driving away.

Top regional government administrator Syed Mohammed Javed said that hardline clergyman Sufi Muhammad, who had helped mediate the disputed peace deal, persuaded the Taliban to return to Swat in a meeting on Friday.

'We told them that we have a deal, we have a peace agreement. We told them not to become a tool in the hands of someone aiming at sabotaging the peace in the region,' he said.

Mr Javed said that he and Mr Muhammad were leading the Taliban back to the town of Mingora.

The government agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and the surrounding areas of the north-west in return for a ceasefire that halted nearly two years of bloody fighting between the Taliban militants and Pakistani security forces.

But hardliners have seized on the concession to demand Sharia law across the country and the Swat Taliban have used it to justify a push into Buner, putting them within striking distance of the capital and key roads leading to the main north-western city of Peshawar.

Meanwhile, NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has ruled out using alliance troops in Afghanistan for cross-border raids into Pakistan.

Mr de Hoop Scheffer said on Thursday that the mission of the 47,000-strong NATO force is strictly limited to Afghanistan, but he added that NATO was increasing military co-operation with Pakistan.

'The mandate of our troops ends at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,' he said.

Last year, the US gave its forces greater leeway to cross from outposts in Afghanistan into the area along the Pakistan border.

Anti-Cuban terrorists operate in the US

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Havana, Apr 23 (Prensa Latina) Gerardo Hernandez, one of the five Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned in the US, said many groups plotted and perpetrated terrorist acts against his country from Florida. In a telephone interview with author and filmmaker, Saul Landau, released on www.terroristas.cu, the Cuban fighter said 'We were collecting information on Alpha 66, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue.'

Gerardo, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino and Rene Gonzalez were detained on September 12, 1998 while monitoring Florida-based anti-Cuba terrorist activities.

'The Five', as they are known in international campaigns for their release, are jailed in maximum security prisons in California, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Texas and Colorado.

In a trial that renown lawyers term biased, they were given sentences ranging from 15 years to double life sentences.

In the interview, Gerardo said 'the first thing that struck me was the impunity with which these groups operated, violating the laws of the U.S.: The Neutrality Acts [of the 1790s] that supposedly mean no organization can use American soil to commit terrorism against another country.'

He denounced that 'in the case of Alpha 66, the operatives would take a fast boat and shoot at targets along Cuba's coast. When they would return to Miami, they would hold a press conference and openly say what they had done.'

On Brothers to the Rescue, he said, 'When I mention Brothers to the Rescue, some might think, 'This is a humanitarian organization that rescued balseros [rafters].' On the contrary, while their activities were limited to rescuing balseros, they had no problems with the Cuban authorities.

What people tend to not know is that Jose Basulto, the head of that organization, has a long record. He trained with the CIA, and infiltrated Cuba in the 1960s.

'In 1962, he came to Cuba on a fast boat and fired shells at the Cuban coast, including targeting a hotel. Even Basulto, with all his known history, had no problems while he limited his actions to rescuing balseros. In 1995, however, the United States and Cuba signed migratory agreements specifying that boats intercepted at sea would no longer be brought to the United States; rather they would be returned to Cuba,' he stressed.

So, when Basulto saw his business in danger, he invented this invasion [in 1995] of Cuban airspace as a way to keep people donating money.

'We presented this evidence in our case. If the press hasn't wanted to pay much attention to this â�� well, they don't want to touch such material. It doesn't behoove them. I am referring to the corporate press. The documents are all there showing how Basulto and the Brothers to the Rescue were trying out handmade weapons in order to introduce them in Cuba,' he witnessed.

Senegal: Relief as gay activists are released

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:14:00 +0000

NAIROBI, 23 April 2009 (PlusNews) - International rights groups have welcomed the release of nine AIDS activists in Senegal, who were sentenced in January for their sexual orientation.

On 20 April, an appeals court in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, overturned the convictions of the men, each sentenced to eight years in prison, on charges of 'membership of a criminal organization and engaging in acts against the order of nature'.

Most of the defendants were involved in HIV programmes targeting men who have sex with men; they were arrested at the home of a prominent AIDS activist in December 2008.

'We welcome the release of the men, who may return to their families and continue their invaluable work in the fight against HIV,' said Dr Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, which promotes HIV research and best practice and is the custodian of the International AIDS Conference.

'However, we continue to be dismayed at the upholding of laws which allow the criminalization of homosexuality, and we call on the government of Senegal, and other countries with similar regulations, to overturn these immediately in the interests of public health and human rights,' he said.

Homosexuality is punishable by up to five years in prison in Senegal.

China backs two-state settlement

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:09:00 +0000

Original source:

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited Jerusalem on Wednesday, expressing 'strong support' for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement based on a two-state solution.

After talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Mr Yang said: 'We wish the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the near future because this will consolidate security and stability in the region.' He added that a two-state settlement was 'the only solution possible.'

Mr Yang also met Israeli diplomats, who urged him to press Iran to halt its civilian nuclear programme.

Tel Aviv is increasingly concerned by the growing economic ties between Beijing and Tehran, which Israeli officials claim has provided Gaza's Hamas administration with weaponry.

Trade between China and Iran now stands at around £17 billion a year and China's rapidly expanding economy has been fuelled in part by Iranian oil, which represents about 13 per cent of the country's oil imports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called on Mr Yang to support more aggressive sanctions on Iran, but Israeli analysts said that the pressure is unlikely to change Beijing's stance.

University of Haifa Department of Asian Studies' Professor Yitzhak Shichor argued that China is hesitant to put further pressure on Iran because Tehran is a key piece in the 'global chess game' that Beijing is playing with Washington.