Tag: Honduras

Criminalization of peasant seed systems threatens global food supply

cornThe global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of traditional peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts warned. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas indicated that almost all of the world's food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries. According to the report, peasants' rights and the food supply as a whole have come under threat from the commercialization of seed systems and implementation of plant variety protection laws (PVPs), which punish farmers who trade seeds of a company's protected variety. These laws may additionally prohibit the sale or exchange of any seed that is not catalogued, targeting the diverse peasant variety seed that does not meet industrial standards. (Photo of indigenous Mexican corn varities: Feria de Productores via Earth@Home)

Honduras: halt evictions of indigenous communities

HondurasA group of UN experts called on Honduras to halt evictions of campesino, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities taking place under Decree No. 107-2026, also known as the Law for the Strengthening & Protection of the Agro-Industrial Sector. The experts wrote: "We cannot stand by and watch the deliberate closing of every legal door through which a peasant, Indigenous or Afro-descendant family in Honduras can challenge dispossession." They especially condemned evictions at the Garífuna community of San Juan in Tela municipality on the Caribbean coast. Five members of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) were arrested in the operation, and now face charges of "aggravated usurpation" related to their defense of the community’s ancestral territory. (Map: Wikitravel)

UN warns of global spike in food prices

climate disasterThe United Nations reported that the cost of key foods increased in July as a result of searing heatwaves and ongoing geopolitical instability, which have affected crop yields and global energy prices amid persistent hunger risks in multiple countries. This situation is attributed to recurrent heatwaves, predicted effects of El Niño on this year's harvests, and growing uncertainty resulting from geopolitical tensions that have impacted the price of oil and disrupted global supply chains. (Photo: officials inspect dry rice fields in Philippines. Credit: Sen. Kiko Pangilinan via Wikimedia Commons)

Demand justice in massacre of Honduran peasants

HondurasUN Special Rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz condemned the killing of 20 Honduran peasants in the Bajo Aguán region of Colón department, and called for those responsible to be brought to justice. Heavily armed men, some reportedly dressed in police uniforms, opened fire on oil palm plantation workers praying before starting work in the village of Rigores. The victims, who included women and children, are said to have belonged a local collective, the Rigores Peasant Movement, made up of local residents seeking lands of their own to work in the area. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

‘Hondurasgate’ leaks reveal Israeli destabilization scheme

Honduras"Hondurasgate"—an apparent plot involving Israel, the United States, and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández to destabilize Latin America's progressive governments through disinformation—has thrust Israel's ties to the region back into the spotlight. The scandal emerged ahead of a diplomatic visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Central America as part of a push to consolidate alliances with the region's newly ascendant right-wing leaders. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Trump admin has transferred 17,400 to ‘third countries’

deporteesThe Trump administration has built a network of third-country transfer agreements with more than 30 governments and used them to remove over 17,400 people, in some cases in defiance of federal court orders and after individuals had won their release through habeas corpus, according to data released by Human Rights First and Refugees International. The organizations report that the administration in April re-arrested and forcibly transferred to third countries people who had previously been granted withholding of removal by US immigration judges and had prevailed on habeas petitions challenging the legality of their detention. The report documents an attempted transfer of individuals to Libya last year in violation of a court order then in effect. (Photo: Venezuelan deportees in Honduras. Credit: ICE via Wikimedia Commons)

Post-electoral tension in Honduras

HondurasHonduras is on tenterhooks as the results of its presidential election have not yet been finalized, and Trump has threatened reprisals if his favored candidate fails to win. Since the voting, ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández—convicted in the US last year of drug trafficking and bribery—was pardoned by Trump and released from prison. Adding to the unease is the country's deeply flawed vote-transmission system, which has crashed twice during the count. This has enabled politicians from across the spectrum—as well as Trump—to fuel the tension by raising allegations of fraud. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

MAGA-fascism, Orwell and the cannabis stigma

KilmarTrump is pointing to Kilmar Abrego Garcia's tattoos to justify his indefinite detention without charge in the ultra-oppressive Salvadoran prison gulag. These notoriously include a cannabis leaf, demonstrating the continued propaganda utility of the "Reefer Madness" stigma, even as a multi-million dollar legal industry emerges. But the White House actually added the characters "MS13" (name of the notorious Salvadoran gang) to the shot of Abrego Garcia's knuckles in a crude photoshop job—despite transparent denials from Trump. Lubricating the emerging transnational mass detention program with this Orwellian post-truth stratagem, the Trump regime meanwhile moves toward actual deportation of US citizens. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 277 of the CounterVortex podcast. (Photo: Donald Trump/Truth Social as seen, e.g., on CNN)