Published on 08 January 2015 by TeleSUR English

China Celac

Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a historic meeting between his nation and the countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Thursday.

“During the meeting, China and the CELAC member states will have an in-depth discussion on collective cooperation,” Xi said in his opening address to the forum.

The two-day meeting is the first of its kind between CELAC and Beijing. The Chinese leader said the talks mark a “new beginning and new opportunity” for both Beijing and CELAC.

“China is willing to work with the Latin American and Caribbean states with a long-term and strategic perspective, to build the new platform of collective cooperation between the two sides. Let's take the meeting as a new starting point, seize the new opportunity of collective cooperation, and work for a new phase of the China-CELAC comprehensive partnership of cooperation and promote new development of bilateral ties based on a higher level,” he said.

The summit is expected to lead to close to US$50 billion in new investment between China and CELAC nations, in areas ranging from energy to scientific research.

Representatives will also agree on a four-year plan to deepen trade and other political and economic ties. CELAC, which unites all 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, launched in Venezuela in 2011 when representatives of each country signed the Declaration of Caracas.

The declaration seeks to consolidate regional integration and reduce the influence of the United States in the Americas.

Published on 26 November by TeleSUR English

Plan Colombia

A tragic milestone went virtually unreported in the English-speaking press in November, as Colombia's Victims Unit released its report indicating that the number of victims of Colombia's civil war has now surpassed 7 million. This number includes those who have been killed, disappeared or displaced since 1956. For a country of under 50 million citizens, these numbers are staggering, and certainly newsworthy, but apparently not for our mainstream media.

Of course, the violence and human rights abuses in Colombia have constituted inconvenient truths for the Western media as the U.S. has been a major sponsor of the violence and abuses in that country.

Indeed, a notable fact in the Victims Unit report is that "that the majority of victimization occurred after 2000, peaking in 2002 at 744,799 victims." It is not coincidental that "Plan Colombia," or "Plan Washington" as many Colombians have called it, was inaugurated by President Bill Clinton in 2000, thus escalating the conflict to new heights and new levels of barbarity. Plan Colombia is the plan pursuant to which the U.S. has given Colombia over $8 billion of mostly military and police assistance.

As Amnesty International has explained, these monies have only fueled the human rights crisis in Colombia:

Published 11 December 2014 by TeleSUR English

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British army officers trained Brazilian police in torture methods, perfected in Northern Ireland against people opposing British rule there, a report into human rights abuses during the dictatorship revealed.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was tortured herself by the regime in the 1970s, wept as she presented the 2,000 page Truth Commission documentWednesday, which confirmed that 191 were killed and 243 disappeared.

Not only did Brazilian officials travel to the UK to learn the “English System,” but the study also shows that British officers returned the visit, teaching extreme interrogation at Brazilian police headquarters.

“At the end of 1970 we sent a group of army officers to England to learn the English system of interrogation. This consists of putting the prisoner in a cell incommunicado, a method known as the ‘refrigerator’,” the report quotes former general Hugo de Andrade Abreu.

Psychological torture techniques were adopted that the British mastered in Northern Ireland, designed to destabilize the suspect to the point of admitting to a crime.

Published on 1 December 2014 by TeleSur English

vazquez uruguay

The election of Vazquez closes the electoral cycle in Latin America for 2014, where progressive governments were returned to power.

Latin American leaders have sent celebratory messages to Tabare Vazquez,winner of Sunday's presidential elections in Uruguay.

Vazquez, candidate for the left-wing Broad Front coalition, won with 53.6 percent support and is the first person in Uruguay to win two presidential terms. He also received the greatest amount of support for a presidential candidate in 70 years.

Outgoing Uruguayan president, Jose Mujica, was the first to congratulate Vazquez, meeting face to face shortly after the results were known.  

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also sent his greetings of support via Twitter, saying, “Congratulations Comrade Tabare Vazquez, president-elect of Uruguay, for this victory of the Broad Front, our brothers from the south...”

Cristina Kirchner said via Twitter, “Congratulations to the president-elect Tabare Vazquez, with whom I spoke with a moment ago to send him greetings from the Argentine people.”

Ernesto Samper, Secretary General of UNASUR, stated on his Twitter account, “The election results in Uruguay confirm the maturity of Uruguyan democracy. Congratulations to the President.”

Published on 30 November 2014 by the Peace-Delegation of the FARC-EP

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General Rubén Darío Alzate, Lance Corporal José Rodríguez and lawyer Gloria Urrego, have been released by the block Iván Ríos of the FARC in the village of Vegaez, on the banks of the Arquía River in the north of Quibdó.

Surrounded by the humble people of the area, the general and his companions were handed over personally by Comandante Pastor Alape to a humanitarian mission, composed of representatives of Cuba and Norway - guarantor countries of the peace process, and the ICRC. The insurgent leader traveled from Havana to the jungles of Chocó, mandated by Timoleón Jiménez, comandante of the FARC, to ensure a prompt and smooth prisoner release, mission which was successfully accomplished.

Likewise, we inform the Colombians that in the performance of the Special Humanitarian Agreement, which led to the successful release of the professional soldiers Paulo Cesar Rivera and Jonathan Andrés Diaz in the savannas of Arauca on the 25th of November, directly and actively participated Comandante Carlos Antonio Losada.

Gratitude to the governments of Cuba and Norway and the International Committee of the Red Cross, for their humanitarian dedication and because their participation in the releases somehow saves a peace process that was progressing amid hope.

Now we have to redesign the game, for a peace process that has reached the level where it is right now, and which is preparing to discuss the most critical issues of peace, can not be subject to any hasty and thoughtless attitudes that postpone the advent of our reconciliation.

We invite President Santos, with our heart in our hands and our minds full of common sense, to consider that we can no longer permit the absurd situation of carrying out dialogues of peace in the midst of war. It's time for a bilateral ceasefire, an armistice, so that no military event can serve to justify the interruption of such a beautiful and historic task of making peace for a nation that longs for it. Let’s shake off the incoherence to speak of reconciliation and recognition of victims, without silencing the fire of the rifles and without stopping the neoliberal economic policies of misery, that fuel the war and the victimization of a people that deserve justice.

Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP

Published on 2 December 2014 by TeleSUR English
 
mexico students
 

Calls for the president to resign were heard throughout Mexico Monday, as people took to the streets in huge numbers to express discontent with the current administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Published on 28 November 2014 by Cuba News Agency

CIGB

Representatives of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) of Argentina and Havana's Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) signed on Thursday 17 scientific cooperation agreements for the next few years.

Among the projects signed in the First Integration Workshop we find the creation of a laboratory for the research, development and assessment of medicaments produced by the two institutions and jointly, which will be named Ernesto Che Guevara.

In addition, other areas of common interest that could constitute future projects in the use of biotechnology in humans and in agriculture were identified.

The expert showed his satisfaction for working with persons linked to the highest level of scientific research in the field of biological system studies, which will make it possible to generate modern alternatives created in the context of South-South cooperation.

Roberto Carlos Salvarezza, president of Conicet, told ACN that the first agreements were signed in 2009, of which there are currently four projects in execution, one of them related to therapy against cancer.

We can learn a lot from Cuba and strengthen the links of solidarity existing between the Argentinean and Cuban scientific communities, specified the head of Conicet.

Published on 17 November 2014  by Granma Internacional

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Latin America is today experiencing new times which, after 10 years of work resulting in undeniable achievements, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) is facing the challenge of consolidating itself, stated the organization’s Executive Secretary Bernardo Ál­varez.

The ALBA-TCP has the unique feature of brining together political forces which involved in a common project based on diversity, noted Ál­varez in statements to Prensa Latina. “In addition it understands that there are other mechanisms of integration in the hemisphere which play an equally important role, such as the Union of Southern Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,” he commented.

“We aspire to be a political consciousness for the left, for the world, for progress within new Latin American integration, with respect, but doing everything necessary so that the transformation and social agendas are part of debates in Latin American. This is where the challenge lies,” stated Ál­varez, adding that, the challenge also consists of continuing to promote and support integration and, to be an expression of this transformative political vision in the heart of Latin America.

Published on 14 November by TeleSUR English

malvinas

According to the Foreign Ministry, 136 projectiles were fired during the drills.

The Argentinian government issued Thursday a statement rejecting military exercises conducted by the United Kingdom (UK) in the Malvinas islands.

The HMS Iron Duke warship conducted a series of maneuvers which included shooting 136 projectiles.

The Argentinian government denounced the exercise as a violation of United Nations General Assembly resolution 31/49 which calls upon both Argentina and the UK to abstain from any actions that would alter the status-quo whilst still in negotiations.

The statement also considers the exercises a provocation against the South American country. 

The Malvinas islands were occupied by the UK in 1833, and since are disputed with Argentina. The issue led to a war between both countries in 1982.

The UK responded later on Friday to Argentina's complaint, claiming the exercises are routine and should not be considered a provocation.