Today, August 25, three key congresspersons sent a letter to President Obama lauding the rumors (that we believe are substantiated) that his administration is on the brink of an announcement easing the ban on travel to Cuba – which is within the executive purview of the President (both President Clinton and President Bush took advantage of the authority of the executive to revise and reinterpret the regulations governing travel to Cuba by limited categories of U.S. citizens).
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Colombia's Constitutional Court issued an important decision last week
which sent Colombia's new administration back to the drawing board to
secure approval for a U.S.-Colombian military base agreement. The
decision effectively struck down the contentious agreement, chastising
the Colombian executive for having failed to get approval from
Colombia's Congress, and requiring them now to seek congressional
endorsement before moving forward.
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On August 13th, a car bomb was detonated near the Caracol Radio headquarters, one of the largest networks in Colombia. LAWGEF and its partners issued the following statement in response:
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Across the nation, SB 1070 has arguably become one of the most notorious bill numbers in recent history (certainly among state legislation). Mere mention of this bill number has become synonymous with threats of racial profiling, counterproductive “attrition through enforcement” approaches, and criminalization of “driving while Latino” – a sad political commentary for a SW border state with strong historic, cultural and economic ties to neighboring Mexico.
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Run, don’t walk, to your computer to check out Presumed Guilty ( Presunto Culpable
in Spanish), an incredibly powerful and insightful documentary on the
injustices in Mexico’s criminal justice system. You can see the film in
its entirety on the PBS/Point of View website through August 4th. To watch it online, click here.
A big white teddy bear sat on top of one of the little coffin boxes, and red roses on the other three. The remains of the four sisters were finally being returned to their mother, Blanca Nieves Meneses.
“I never thought that this is the way they would be returned to me,” said their surviving sister Nancy. “I always kept hoping that they would be returned alive.”
On Thursday, July 22nd, Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor became
the latest House member and the first from Florida’s congressional
delegation to join the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act (H.R. 874). The
act, introduced in the 111th Congress by Reps. Delahunt (D-MA) and
Flake (R-AZ), aims to restore the right of each and every U.S. citizen
to travel to Cuba, a policy shift endorsed recently by Cuba’s most
prominent opposition figures and 64 percent of Cuban Americans.
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It has now been six months since Haiti’s devastating earthquake. In
this time, international governments, aid organizations and concerned
individuals have donated vast amounts of money and countless hours to
the relief effort. But, there are still real concerns about recovery
efforts. Last week, TransAfrica
Forum hosted a congressional briefing,“Haiti Six Months Later:
Reports from the Ground,” to share the
devastating news: “what has emerged in the six month period since the
quake is a confusing mix of good intentions gone awry.”
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In their work to promote and defend indigenous peoples’ rights in the Costa Chica region of Mexico, a highly militarized zone in the state of Guerrero, members of the Me’phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM) and their partner organizations have had to overcome repeated harassment, threats, and even murders of leading members. Now add imprisonments and baseless prosecutions by the government to that list.
In April 2008, Raúl Hernández and four fellow OPIM members were arbitrarily arrested and charged with the murder of a suspected army informant—a murder which Mr. Hernández did not commit. The other four human rights defenders were released due to lack of evidence. But even though the only witness that directly identified Mr. Hernández as having taken part in the murder was found to have lied, he has remained in prison for over two years.
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This week marked the 10th year since the infamous U.S. aid package known as “Plan Colombia” was signed into law. And while some U.S. and Colombian officials have been celebrating it as a “success” and pushing to use it as a model for other countries like Afghanistan or Mexico, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) chose to commemorate this anniversary by releasing a report that describes exactly why that analysis is not only misguided but also dangerous.
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