by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Dozens march against China during the stop of the Olympic Torch in SF before heading for Argentina. (photo by Jose Corado)

Amid thousands of protestors against Chinese policy, the Olympic torch procession through San Francisco last Wednesday descended into a farce. The city was chosen as the only U.S. stop for the ceremonial display, called, ironically, the “Journey of Harmony,” partly because it is home to the largest Chinese population in an urban area outside of China.

Through rerouting suggested by Chinese officials and approved by Mayor Newsom, they managed to run the torch through some of San Francisco’s streets, if not the streets along the Embarcadero as originally planned. The torch was lit at a park outside at AT&T Park at 1:17, briefly held aloft by Chinese Olympic offi cials and run into a large waterfront warehouse.

Around 2 p.m., the torch resurfaced about two miles away from the stadium along Van Ness Avenue, where it had been smuggled by bus. Television reports, which through helicopters and various feeds were able to keep track of the fl ame, showed runners surrounded by motorcycles and uniformed police offi cers as surprised people along the improvised route took photos. From there it was bused to SFO where a closing ceremony was held on the tarmac, rather than as planned at Justin Herman Plaza, and the fl ame was fl own to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The protestors took advantage of the Olympic spotlight to rally against various aspects of Chinese policy: its human rights abuses and colonial rule in Tibet, its support of brutal regimes in Darfur and Burma-Myanmar, as well as its record on environmental, labor, and animal rights issues.

One of the most unique moments of the bizarre event arrived when one of the torchbearers, environmental activist Majora Carter, pulled a Tibetan fl ag from her sleeve and waved it for about fi ve seconds until she was tackled by security.

“I really felt a total, complete sense of oneness with the people of Tibet,” she told the New York Times. She added that as “a civil rights activist in this country,” she could not stand in support of China.

INDIAN ISLAND, Maine – Members of the Penobscot Indian Nation are spearheading opposition to a congressional resolution that would designate Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism.

James Sappier, former Penobscot Indian Nation chief, and Erlene Paul, the head of Penobscot’s Human Services Department, said House Resolution 1049 threatens not only a program in which the South American country has provided free heating oil to hundreds of American Indian and low-income communities for the past three winters, but would also jeopardize the good relationships tribal members have developed with Venezuelans and could impact oil imports for the entire U.S. Sappier said he has alerted the tribes involved to contact their congressional representatives to vote against the resolution.

‘’It’s the least we can do. Why would Congress do this? The program has provided a donation to the U.S. low-income and poor people of almost a billion dollars over the years when domestic oil companies did nothing.

‘’We’re worried sick that we’re going to lose the program because of this kind of frivolous attitude of some congressmen. But it wouldn’t be just the tribes that would be affected; it would be everyone. If you think your oil prices are high now, imagine what they’d be if we stopped getting oil from Venezuela – that’s 14 to 16 percent of our imports,’’ Sappier said.

Venezuela provides the U.S. with about 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day. Indian Country Today.

International mediation arrives in Bolivia

by the El Reportero news services

On 3 April Argentina, Brazil and Colombia agreed to mediate in Bolivia’s political crisis.

The announcement follows the admission by the Roman Catholic Church that its mediation effort had failed, because dialogue between the government and
opposition was “impossible” given the current climate of “mutual distrust, pressure and violence”.

The three new mediators are likely to back the central government of President Evo Morales, as the Organization of American States and the European Union, are doing.

The danger of this is that Santa Cruz which wants more autonomy, will be increasingly isolated. The choice the autonomists have is either to back down or to secede.

Argentine agricultural protest exposes political difficulties for Fernández

The agricultural protest in Argentina is providing President Cristina Fernández with a serious test, although her government gained some breathing space on 2 April when the country’s four farming unions announced a 30-day truce.

The problem for Fernández is that the protests go beyond criticism of her government’s economic policy, and raise pressing questions about her style of governance and the political alliances forged by her husband and predecessor Néstor Kirchner.

The protest action is also inspiring similar shows of force by farmers in other countries across the region: Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Paraguay.

Court expert smacks Chevron with up to $16 billion in damages

LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador– In a long-awaited court report submitted as part of the final phase of a trial, an independent expert has proposed that Chevron pay a minimum of $7 billion and up to $16 billion to compensate for environmental contamination caused to Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest during a 26-year period when the oil giant operated a large concession in the country.

If the assessment is accepted by the court, the subsequent judgment likely would be the largest civil damages awards in an environmental case. The higher $16 billion figure could result if the court accepts an “unjust enrichment” penalty tied to Chevron’s actual cost savings over several decades for failing to use appropriate operational practices.

­The lower figure represents actual costs to remediate soils around all 378 of Chevron’s former Ecuador production facilities, plus compensation for health care costs, a water system, loss of indigenous land, ecosystem impacts, infrastructure improvements, and other categories of damages.

by Angelo Falcón

NEWS ANALYSIS – The increasing interest in the role of the Latino vote in the Democratic primaries for United States president has opened up an important opportunity to educate resolutionthe U.S. public about the Latino community.

We have, hopefully, dispelled the myth that Latinos will not vote for a black for president. We have, in the process, also demonstrated that the Latino vote should not be taken for granted by the Democratic Party establishment, as the Clinton campaign now apparently view Latinos as her last best hope to revive her failing campaign.

When talking about the Latino vote, reference is made to the fact that the Latino population in the United States now stands at 44 million. This figure is incorrect. There are actually 48 million Latinos in this country, if you include the 4 million living in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and others.

These are all U.S. citizens, mostly Puerto Ricans, with a significant number of Dominicans.

One could argue that they should not be included in the Latino population count when discussing the presidential election because, although U.S. citizens, these 4 million do not have the right to vote for president.

But, it turns out, they do vote in the nominations process of the two major parties, so they are relevant to a discussion of the role of the Latino vote in selecting the next President of the United States.

Take the case of Puerto Rico:

Island Puerto Ricans will be holding their caucus and convention on June 7, making it the very last race for the nomination before the party conventions this summer. In the Democratic Party, Puerto Rico has a delegation of 63, which is larger than that of 24 states. If the party upholds its sanctions against Florida and Michigan for violating party rules in the scheduling of their primaries, Puerto Rico’s delegation to convention will be larger than that of the 26 states.

In the past, Puerto Rico’s was a winnertake-all system, but party rules have changed so that it is now supposed to be proportional.

While the smart money had been that Clinton could count on all of these delegates, recent events are reflecting the Obama tsunami, and the presumed solidity of the Puerto Rican delegation in this regard is crumbling.

Most recently, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, has endorsed Barack Obama, and it appears that Obama has raised more contributions than Clinton in Puerto Rico. The notion, advanced by Michael Barone and other analysts, that Puerto Rico would deliver all of as I like to call it, colony) like Puerto Rico even has the possibility of determining who would be the candidate for president of a major U.S. political for failing to use appropriate operational practices.

The lower figure represents actual costs to remediate soils around all 378 of Chevron’s former Ecuador production facilities, plus compensation for health care costs, a water system, loss of indigenous land, ecosystem impacts, infrastructure improvements, and other categories of damages.its delegates to one candidate and could be decisive being that it would be the last contest in a long nominations battle, is not panning out.

Despite this, the very idea that a territory (or, party is deliciously ironic, given that its residents, all U.S. citizens, do not have the right to vote for U.S. president.

In this inequity, they are joined by another million U.S. citizens in the territories of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and other smaller islands, as well as the District of Columbia.

Some will note that it is perhaps no coincidence that these are areas populated overwhelmingly by people of color.

So in this very exciting presidential election where it is important that we also understand there are over 5 million U.S. citizens in the territories (colonies) and the District of Columbia who continue to be disenfranchised by not having the right to vote for President or for voting members of Congress. The so-called “Latino vote” is dilute by this inequality, as is its potential impact. Of course, none of the presidential candidates are raising this issue. Hispanic Link.

(Angelo Falcón is founder and president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, based in New York City. E-mail him at afalcon@latinopolicy.org).

­

by Christopher “Montigua” Storke

Unwelcome President Saca A group critical of the Salvadorian goverment of Antonio Saca protest his visit with the Mayor of SF Gavin Newsom. They accuse the president of selling the country to transnational corporations. (Photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

Mexico ranked next to the top and the United States slightly above the middle in a worldwide poll asking residents of 16 countries whether they felt their government should involve itself in preventing discrimination based on race or ethnicity.

On average, nearly eight out of 10 (79 percent) favored the concept. At 96 percent, residents of South Korean endorsed it most strongly, followed closely by Mexicans (94 percent) and Chinese and Nigerians, both at 90 percent. U.S. respondents agreed at 83 percent; Iranians at 76 percent.

Least receptive, at 46 percent, were those polled in India.

Nearly 15,000 people in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa were surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org. Residents’ views in no countries in the Western Hemisphere other than the United States and Mexico were measured.

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed on March 21 around the world, the report noted, pointing out that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the U. N. General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The report did not indicate how many nations have any anti-discrimination regulations in place at present.

Manuel Reyes: Photo Courtesy UCLA

When questioned as to whether an employer should be allowed to refuse to hire a qualifi ed person because of that person’s race or ethnicity, a number of respondents defended their right to do so; among them, 24 percent in Mexico and 13 percent in the United States. The collaborative research project was managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. More information at www.WorldPublicOpinion.org.

Infamous Sleepy Lagoon trial victim dies at age 82 Manuel Reyes, one of the 12 young Mexican Americans unjustly convicted of murder in the infamous Sleepy Lagoon trial of 1942, has died in Los Angeles. He was 82.

Reyes and the others served two years in San Quentin State Prison until an appellate court over turned the convictions. The court found there was insuffi cient evidence to show they had beaten and stabbed a young farm worker who was found near a reservoir known as the Sleepy Lagoon. The 22 defendants were tried in one of the largest mass trials in U.S. history and for a month were denied haircuts or a change of clothes.

It was a racist trial,” Alice Greenfi eld McGrath, a member of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, told the Los Angeles Times after Reyes’ death. Reyes, who was 17 when arrested, was among nine defendants convicted of second-degree murder by the all-white jury. The jury convicted three of first-degree murder and five of assault. Five were acquitted.

McGrath recalled Reyes as “one of the quieter ones,adding that he ‘was never in any kind of trouble before or after” the trial. The former owner of a taco stand, Reyes died of cancer Feb. 5. Another defendant in the case, Henry Ynostroza, died in Pasadena in 2006. He also was 82.

­Hispanic Link.

­

by the El Reportero’s news services

The financial crisis in the US and the rescue of a US investment bank, Bear Stearns, has prompted a raft of commentary about a crisis in international capitalism. This sits oddly with what is happening in Latin America, the scene of so many financial and economic crises, where financial markets, entrepreneurship and market solutions to economic problems, are all in rude health. The most telling symptom of this glowing health is the first ever public debt issue on the domestic Bolivian capital market.

Colombia offers to free guerrillas

On 27 March the peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, announced that the government will suspend the sentences of all imprisoned members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) if the Farc frees its hostages. The proposal will delight the international community, in particular Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Nicolas Sarkozy of France. Sarkozy will be especially pleased by Restrepo’s repeated assertion that the government’s top priority is to ‘save the life’ of Ingrid Betancourt, whose health is thought to have deteriorated rapidly.

Bush uses Andean dispute as springboard for fierce attack on Chávez

US President George W Bush has launched two strongly worded attacks on his Venezuelan peer Hugo Chávez, or rather his “regime”, in recent weeks. Both were designed to persuade the US Congress that Venezuela is a genuine threat to stability in Latin America and to exert pressure on congressmen to approve an FTA with Colombia as a matter of national security. This, Bush argues, would be a just reward for an ally which serves as a geopolitical counterweight to Venezuela in the Andean region. Quite apart from the fact that the FTA should be judged on its own merits, there is a very real concern that the conflation of trade and national security issues could set a dangerous precedent.

Education is the key in Latin America

by Marifeli Perez-Stablemps_opinion@comcast.net

Latin America is doing better but still not good enough. One reason lies in the quality of its labor force and its schools.

A good education lies at the heart of a virtuous circle: rising skills, promoting growth and reducing poverty. Governments, the private sector and civil society need to act faster than has been the case to bolster the region’s educational systems.

• Latin America no longer offers low-cost labor to attract investors. Elsewhere, middle-income countries — the range where most in the region fall — provide other incentives such as a growing pool of highly skilled workers, which Latin America lacks.
• Without quality improvements, the region’s expanding school enrollments won’t attract the investments to grow faster and compete. Studies show that quality — especially in student achievements in math and science — is at least as important, if not more, than enrolling and keeping children in school.
• Inferior educational systems aggravate Latin America’s income inequality, already the worst in the world. For the most part, only the children of the rich and the middle class complete secondary and higher education, which reinforces inequality while keeping most workers from living up to their potential. No wonder growth and social stability suffer.

Between 1960 and 2000, the average schooling of Latin America’s labor force doubled, albeit from the low base of three years. In a world rapidly moving to technologically advanced production and higher valued-added products, Latin America is still producing workers best suited for labor-intensive and raw-materials industries.

Inadequate systems Secondary education presents the toughest climb. Latin America lags 19 percentage points behind the expected secondary-education performance for its income levels, while East Asian countries register almost 18 percentage points above theirs. (The Miami Herald).