From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 3: Nicaraguan presidential candidate Herty Lewites died late Sunday of an apparent heart attack. The son of a Jewish migrant, Lewites, 66, was the country’s best-known citizen of Jewish descent. A dissident from the… Read moreNicaragua: left-dissident candidate dies
from Weekly News Update on the Americas Thousands of workers from Costa Rica’s Social Security Institute, Electricity Institute, National Insurance Institute and other companies marched in San Jose on June 7 to oppose the US-sponsored Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: TICOS PROTEST CAFTA
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: TICOS PROTEST CAFTAfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas MAYDAY ANTI-CAFTA MOBILIZATION As they did last year, many Central American workers marked May 1 with demonstrations protesting the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a US-sponsored trade bloc composed of Costa… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: ANTI-CAFTA MOBILIZATION
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: ANTI-CAFTA MOBILIZATIONWhen Slobodan Milosevic died, he was in a prison cell at The Hague facing war crimes charges, and it made world headlines. The May 27 passing of Guatemala’s equally genocidal dictator of the late ’70s and early ’80s, Romeo Lucas… Read moreGuatemalan war criminal dies a free man
No Business as Usual as CAFTA Takes Effect by Paul Pollack SAN SALVADOR, March 1 — There was little fanfare and much protest today as the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) went into effect in El Salvador. The country… Read moreEL SALVADOR:
Continue ReadingEL SALVADOR:The New Corporate Agenda for Central America by Tom Ricker and Burke Stansbury What does tightening intellectual property laws have to do with “free” trade? That’s the question many people in Central American and the Dominican Republic are asking as… Read moreCAFTA’S ASSUALT ON DEMOCRACY
Continue ReadingCAFTA’S ASSUALT ON DEMOCRACYfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas U.S. DELAYS CAFTA On Dec. 30 Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) spokesperson Stephen Norton announced that the US was postponing implementation of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), which… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA DELAYED; REPRESSION CONTINUES
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA DELAYED; REPRESSION CONTINUESfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas EL SALVADOR: FMLN BACKS ANTI-CAFTA PROTESTS Thousands of Salvadorans participated in a nationwide day of protest on Nov. 30 against the neoliberal economic policies of President Antonio Saca. The demonstrations, organized by the… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS BLOCK HIGHWAYS
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS BLOCK HIGHWAYSThis Dec.1 report (condensed here) from the Tico Times, Costa Rica’s English-language newspaper, notes a World Court case between the Central American country and its northern neighbor Nicaragua over the strategic San Juan River that forms the border: With historical… Read moreNicaragua-Costa Rica tensions over strategic canal route
On Nov. 19 and 20, some 19,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to demand a dramatic shift in US foreign policy and the closure of the US Defense Department’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC),… Read more20,000 protest School of the Americas
Guatemala's anti-drug chief and two of his senior officials were arrested Nov. 16 on charges of conspiring to import and distribute cocaine in the United States. The Guatemalan government assisted in the investigation but the arrests were an embarrassment for… Read moreGuatemalan drug czar busted
from Weekly News Update on the Americas DEADLY HURRICANE HITS More than a thousand people are feared dead in flooding and mudslides in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas as a result… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: HURRICANE HITS; CAFTA ADVANCES
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: HURRICANE HITS; CAFTA ADVANCES
