Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalSHE DEFENDED HER LAND AGAINST A MINE IN GUATEMALA. THEN SHE FLED IN FEAR FOR HER LIFE.
Alleen Brown
June 23 2019, 9:30 a.m.
Video by Martyna Starosta
TERESA MUÑOZ WAS riding her motorbike along her regular delivery route on a winding Guatemala road, carrying the homemade cheese she sold for a living, when she saw in her rearview mirror one of the white sedans that employees of the Escobal silver mine drove. Mining company cars had followed her before, but this time, the vehicle swerved. The driver rammed her motorbike, pitching her into the street, and then sped off. Muñoz was left bruised and scraped, convinced they’d meant to kill her.
For years, she had been a leader in the fight against the silver mine, the project of Tahoe Resources, a U.S.-headquartered Canadian company. Located in the southeastern Guatemala city of San Rafael las Flores, Escobal was on its way to becoming one of the largest silver mines in the world. Muñoz and her family helped organize community votes on the mine, participated in rallies to stop production, and educated people about the mine’s potential harms.
Rainfall in the mountains that contain the Escobal mine feeds the Los Esclavos River and a multitude of natural springs, whose waters fuel the production of coffee and onions in the region, grown for export. For sustenance, families grow beans, corn, and squash in the forested hillsides. More than half the surrounding population lives below the poverty line, making them particularly vulnerable to changes in the local hydrology. Mines like Escobal use massive quantities of water and divert flows in ways that can disrupt communities’ access. Such projects have also been known to leach heavy metals into drinking water sources.
The mountains are part of the territory of the Xinca people, an Indigenous group whose language and culture were nearly wiped out by Spanish colonizers and the Catholic Church. For years, Tahoe Resources argued that there were no Xinca people left in the communities surrounding the mine who would require any consultation. They were wrong. In fact, the mine’s denial of the Xincas’ existence fueled a regional reclamation of the identity. “Soy Xinca” — “I am Xinca” — has become the rallying cry under which Muñoz and others fight.
. . .
In response to the anti-mining movement in San Rafael, Tahoe hired firms run by U.S. and Israeli ex-special forces veterans to protect the project and lobbied the Guatemalan government to quash the resistance. Over the course of the 12-year conflict, mine opponents have been shot, imprisoned, and even killed.
More:
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/23/guatemala-land-defender-san-rafael-mine/
How America overthrew Guatemala's reformist president
In June 1954 President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the first Latin American leader overthrown in a coup organised by the US government.
On taking power, President Arbenz had proposed land reforms that were considered a threat to the interests of the powerful United Fruit Company in Guatemala.
He was labelled a communist by Washington and the US company lobbied for his removal.
Witness History hears from Arbenz's son, who was seven at the time, about the devastating effect of the coup on his family.
Witness: The stories of our times told by the people who were there.
19 Jun 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-48638209/how-america-overthrew-guatemala-s-reformist-president
Video at link, lasting 4 minutes 10 seconds, short comment by the son of the deposed non-Communist, beloved President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz. I learned something I had never heard. Very goddamned sad.
Oldest Known Galactic Get-Together Occurred Shortly After Big Bang
By Mindy Weisberger 9 hours ago
Artist's impression of the merging galaxies, together forming the object B14-65666, located 13 billion light-years away.(Image: © National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)
Signals written in elements from the early universe have revealed the oldest known merger between two galaxies, taking place less than a billion years after the Big Bang.
Researchers recently turned to the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile to look for radio emissions from a distant but very bright star-forming galaxy known as B14-65666, located about 13 billion light-years from Earth. Prior observations in the ultraviolet spectrum by the Hubble Space Telescope hinted that the galaxy contained two "clumps" of stars, the northeastern "Clump A" and the southwestern "Clump B."
New observations using ALMA, a highly sensitive radio telescope, identified three distinctive signatures in each of the two clumps: those from carbon, oxygen and dust. (The three sources all produce distinctive signals in radio waves.) Such signals have never been found in a galaxy this old; variations between those signals told the scientists that B14-65666's dual clusters represented two galaxies that had merged before the universe was even a billion years old, the researchers reported in a new study. [15 Unforgettable Images of Stars]
Located in Chile's Atacama Desert, ALMA uses 66 ground-based antennas to detect some of the universe's coldest and most distant objects, scanning the skies with an "eye" that is 10 times sharper than Hubble's, according to the European Space Agency.
More:
https://www.space.com/oldest-merger-galaxies.html
From coup leaders to con artists: Juan Guaid's gang exposed for massive humanitarian aid fraud
June 17, 2019
From coup leaders to con artists: Juan Guaidó’s gang exposed for massive humanitarian aid fraud
An explosive new report reveals how Guaidó representatives in Colombia embezzled $125,000 meant for humanitarian aid, suckering deserting soldiers and blowing the aid money on luxury goods.
By Dan Cohen
A new investigation has exposed members of Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó’s inner circle for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars designated for humanitarian aid and spending it on luxury goods and lavish accommodations for themselves. Guaidó had been aware of the fraud for weeks and stubbornly defended his cohorts until a leak from Colombian intelligence forced him to acknowledge the scandal.
The scandal unfolded this February, when Venezuelan opposition figures and their supporters descended upon the border town of Cúcuta, Colombia for what was billed as a Live Aid concert to raise millions of dollars for humanitarian aid for Venezuelans suffering the effects of an economic crisis.
The operation was supposed to have climaxed with a Live Aid concert hosted by billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson while trucks full of US aid blasted across the Venezuelan border. Instead, as Branson gathered his performers on stage for a cringeworthy rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” opposition hooligans set fire to the truckloads of aid with molotov cocktails as they failed to reach the border.
Now, a report by the staunchly anti-Maduro PanAm Post editor-in-chief Orlando Avendaño has revealed a shocking scheme of fraud and embezzlement behind the aid imbroglio. According to Avendaño, Guaidó’s lieutenants embezzled huge sums of money that had been promised to Venezuelan soldiers who deserted their positions and snuck across to the Colombian side at Guaidó’s urging.
The cash that was used to entice desperate soldiers and would-be mercenaries to defect became a slush fund for the US-backed coup leader and his gaggle, who spent it lavishly on hotels, expensive dinners, nightclubs and designer clothes. As Guaidó’s gang lived the high life, he covered for their fraud, keeping his lips sealed until it was exposed through a leak by the Colombian intelligence services.
More:
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/17/from-coup-leaders-to-con-artistry-juan-guaidos-gang-exposed-for-massive-humanitarian-aid-fraud/?fbclid=IwAR2Vbn2mNSyeizE20M4HuFU7udM-wx18bv-e2NKAaFD8t6nQyKNQuhNN-UQ
How Police Brutality Can Function as Terrorism
This was posted by two sources on Facebook:8:00 A.M.
By Zak Cheney-Rice
Photo: @megoconnor13/twitter
Video was made public over the weekend showing Phoenix police officers threatening to shoot members of a black family, which included a child and a toddler. The incident occurred on May 27, when the 4-year-old daughter of Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper allegedly stole a doll from a Family Dollar store. (NPR reports that the child’s parents were unaware of the alleged theft.) Officers followed the family — Ames and Harper, who was pregnant, and their two daughters, ages 4 and 1 — to an apartment complex where the family’s babysitter lived. Officers are seen on cell-phone video shouting at the four to exit their vehicle. One is heard yelling, “Get your fucking hands up” and “I’m gonna put a fucking cap in you,” while another voice — perhaps of the same officer — is heard threatening, “You’re gonna get fucking shot.”
The profane tirades turn physical when one officer handcuffs Ames and another tries to yank the toddler from Harper’s arms. The officer with Ames shoves the 22-year-old father against a police vehicle, kicks his legs until Ames falls to one knee, and thrusts his elbow into Ames’s back. The officer with Harper is seen shouting and pointing in her face and pulling on the arm in which she is carrying her 1-year-old baby. He eventually permits the pregnant woman to hand her children to a bystander before arresting her. None of the family members is armed.
The confrontation has prompted a $10 million civil-rights lawsuit and apologies from Phoenix’s mayor and chief of police. According to the suit, the 1-year-old was injured when the officer tried to wrench her from her mother; the 4-year-old has been experiencing nightmares and wetting the bed out of distress ever since. As far as accountability, Mayor Kate Gallego has scheduled a public forum where residents can voice their concerns about the incident and called for quicker implementation of body cameras across the Phoenix Police Department — an odd solution given that visual evidence was not lacking here. Aside from that, it is possible that no further legal or administrative recourse will be forthcoming. Officers routinely skate for killing people. Why would black Phoenicians expect them to be held accountable for merely threatening to kill?
Official accountability aside, the fear and mistrust sown in black communities via such incidents and the resulting mental-health downsides are well documented. The Phoenix debacle is further evidence that many officers’ interactions with black children in particular are rooted in intimidation and violence, with far-reaching side effects. By most definitions, the brutality applied disproportionately against black people by police across the United States is not “terrorism,” in a technical sense, only because it is permitted by law. That said, it serves a similar end: ensuring that its targets and their communities live in a state of constant stress, mistrust, and fear, practically from the cradle to the grave.
More:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/phoenix-police-threatening-family-was-terrorism.html?fbclid=IwAR05fofcJXyXW7ehy5BZck2HbJAgct7Fd7toSi48n3o-Kq_KVqJx9qxSvJs
The Latest Imperial Aberration; Preparing "Guaidos" for Cuba
June 18, 2019
By Oscar Sanchez Serra
Following such a failure in Venezuela you really have to be desperate to insist on creating leaders to oust governments. But the heads of the White House’s aberration team never seem to learn and now is intending to create another Guaido, this time in Cuba.
We heard about this plan thanks to the Twitter page of the Cuban Ambassador to the United States, Jose R. Cabañas. He wrote on the social media that, “while the U.S. Administration is strengthening measures of the blockade against Cuba, the State Department has announced a program to manufacture Cuban ‘Guaidos’. Don’t they read history?”
When it comes to Cuba it is apparent that they have either ignored it or not even looked at it and that is why the Cuban Revolution has seen 11 U.S. presidents pass by—all of them with the same idea and goal of destroying it—and certainly this one, the 45th in the history of U.S. will be number 12.
This new attempt is now public. Anyone interested on knowing the truth just has to enter the following URL on your browser: https://www2.fundsforngos.org/latest-funds-for-ngos/u-s-department-of-state-bureau-of-wha-announces-emerging-cuban-leaders-project/
There you will find, “The United States Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA) has announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to support emerging individual Cuban leaders, particularly within civil society.”
According to the website, the purpose of the WHA-funded emerging Cuban leaders project is to allow the participants to establish themselves in Cuba with professional resources for grassroots efforts in democracy and human rights promotion and to further open communications across the island and internationally as well. The information explains that alumni of the project will have the tools to promote causes by attracting wider audiences, communicating messages effectively to other leaders and partners, and mobilizing independent actors within civil society to promote freedom of expression and assembly.
More:
https://orinocotribune.com/the-latest-imperial-aberration-preparing-guaidos-for-cuba?fbclid=IwAR2fC7VHtSKakyY6e02kbh5vfFoT3Q2ud5JT_BgQzaFFC_nbxc8BzvqaQks
Fossil proves hyenas once roamed Canada's Arctic Plains
Fossil proves hyenas once roamed Canada's Arctic Plains
4 hours ago
A 50-year-old mystery surrounding a pair of fossilised teeth has been put to rest by new research that suggests hyenas once roamed Canada's Arctic.
A team of researchers have identified the teeth, which were found in the Yukon in the 1970s, as belonging to hyenas one million years ago.
Their findings were published on Tuesday in scientific journal Open Quaternary.
The discovery sheds new light on the evolution of the ferocious scavengers.
The two teeth were found during a paleontological expedition in Yukon's Old Crow Basin in 1973.
Indigenous explorers have been working with scientists to plumb the treasures of the region for over a century, says Grant Zazula, a palaeontologist with the Yukon government. But out of more than 50,000 specimen collected, only two that could belong to a hyena have been found.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48682723
A bridge made of grass
2 hours ago
JORDI BUSQUE
Every year the last remaining Inca rope bridge still in use is cast down and a new one erected across the Apurimac river in the Cusco region of Peru.
The Q'eswachaka bridge is woven by hand and has been in place for at least 600 years. Once part of the network that linked the most important cities and towns of the Inca empire, it was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2013.
JORDI BUSQUE
The tradition has been passed on from generation to generation with every adult in the communities on either side gathering to bring new life to the crossing.
JORDI BUSQUE
Tradition dictates that only men are allowed to work on the making of the bridge itself. Women remain in the upper part of the gorge, weaving the smaller ropes.
JORDI BUSQUE
During the first day of the reconstruction, men gather around the old bridge and weave the smaller ropes into bigger ones. The main support of the bridge comes from six large three-ply ropes about one foot thick, each containing about 120 of the original thinner ropes.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-48628325
How Colombia's former army chief is drowning in his own buckets of blood
How Colombia’s former army chief is drowning in his own buckets of blood
by Adriaan Alsema June 14, 2019
General Mario Montoya, who former President Alvaro Uribe considers a national hero, is being exposed by his former subordinates as one of the cruelest and most bloodthirsty war criminals in Colombia’s history.
Former military commanders who are testifying before the country’s war crimes tribunal have been painting a picture of a man who would murder pretty much anyone to advance his career.
One of the latest and most damning testimonies came from former Colonel Gabriel Rincon, the highest-ranking former official who was sentenced to 46 years in prison for his participation in the mass killing of civilians.
Former Colonel Gabriel Rincon
According to Rincon, Montoya told commanders he expected “liters of blood, buckets of blood” after Uribe promoted him commander of the National Army.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/how-colombias-former-army-chief-is-drowning-in-his-own-buckets-of-blood/
Why Hondurans Set Fire to the US Embassy
June 13, 2019 Alexander Rubinstein
Ten years after a US-backed coup handed Honduras over to big business, the country is rising up. A leader of deposed President Manuel Zelaya’s party explains to The Grayzone what’s behind the protest wave.
By Alex Rubinstein
The streets of Honduras were filled with protesters and clouds of tear gas as the month of June began. The national police fanned out through the country to crush the protests with heavy-handed tactics at the direction of President Juan Orlando Hernández, the US-supported neoliberal leader who won power in elections marred by documented fraud.
As the protests peaked, fire was set to the doors of the American embassy in the capital, Tegucigalpa, in an apparent act of retribution against the United States for its role in propping up the widely unpopular president. It was a striking act of symbolic resistance that recalled events in 1988 when Hondurans burned the vehicles of US embassy personnel to protest Washington’s dirty war against Nicaragua. The fortifications installed around the US embassy after that incident may have prevented the latest burning from consuming the rest of the building.
Ten years ago, the democratically elected center-left Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, was whisked away from his residence in a brazen military raid supported by the United States. Zelaya’s removal cleared the path for the interests of big business across the country. As the ten year anniversary of the U.S.-supported coup approaches, Hondurans are rising up against neoliberal austerity measures imposed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that have triggered mass public sector layoffs and raised prices on basic goods.
Following mass demonstrations on Friday, May 31 which were especially sizable in the capital of Tegucigalpa, The Grayzone spoke by phone with Gerardo Torres, Secretary of International Affairs for the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), the new party to which Zelaya now belongs.
More:
https://orinocotribune.com/why-hondurans-set-fire-to-the-us-embassy?fbclid=IwAR3LkUE6NccITJT4VTJ1X9-G5F10yTNGIzLxEhjYWQMxQtPFfNJePdv2KUY
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