Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalInside ‘the Bloodhound’: Why Mexico’s fact-checking experiment should scare politicians everywhere
Inside ‘the Bloodhound’: Why Mexico’s fact-checking experiment should scare politicians everywhere
James Fredrick
on Sep 3, 2015 @ 3:45 PM
MEXICO CITY — Mexico is finally at peace, if you ask the president.
“Today, it is a fact that violence is decreasing in Mexico,” President Enrique Peña Nieto said Wednesday, in a section of his state of the nation address titled “Mexico in Peace.”
Then he claimed that last year’s homicide numbers had dropped 24 percent since 2012.
Cue the fact-checkers.
Gathered around a table watching the live feed in another part of the capital, a group of skeptics are shaking their heads, and get to work crunching numbers. It’s their job to sniff out true and false from the president’s speech.
Meet El Sabueso — Spanish for “The Bloodhound.” Organized by influential news website Animal Politico and public policy center Mexico Evalua, they’ve brought together 60 journalists, researchers, students, statisticians and Mexicans from various backgrounds for the massive task of fact-checking this two-hour speech.
Animal Politico launched El Sabueso as an online column at the beginning of 2015 in the spirit of fact-checkers like Politifact. Every couple weeks, it takes a statement from a Mexican politician and ranks it on a scale from “True” to “Deceptive” all the way down to “Ridiculous.”
More:
http://www.globalpost.com/article/6642189/2015/09/03/mexico-fact-check-president
Brazilian Army Called to Keep the Peace After Death of Indian Leader
Brazilian Army Called to Keep the Peace After Death of Indian Leader
Member of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe was killed amid a land dispute near the border with Paraguay
By John Lyons
Sept. 3, 2015 4:25 p.m. ET
SÃO PAULO—Brazil has ordered its Army to keep order in a town on the nation’s western soy-growing frontier after a land dispute turned deadly, the latest clash between farmers and indigenous people in the South American nation.
Authorities said Semião Vilhalva, a leader of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe, was killed on Saturday during a conflict with men who sought to remove him and hundreds of other tribe members from two of several farms that the tribe occupied earlier last week near Brazil’s border with Paraguay in Mato Grosso do Sul state. Mr. Vilhalva was shot dead, activists said. The Federal Police are investigating the case.
The owner of the farm where Mr. Vilhalva was found dead told local reporters that the men who sought to expel the Indians weren’t armed. The owner wasn’t immediately reachable for further comment.
. . .
Brazil has one of the world’s largest populations of indigenous peoples, and conflicts between settlers and tribes are an undercurrent in its history. As recently as the 1970s and 1980s, government efforts to develop the vast and sparsely populated Amazon region put settlers and isolated tribes in contact with each other.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/brazilian-army-called-to-keep-the-peace-after-death-of-indian-leader-1441311906
Here's hoping the murderers, all of them, including the one who hired the assassins, will be brought to justice this time.
Jeb Bush Says He Helped Save Thousands of Ethiopian Jews. Here's What Really Happened
Jeb Bush Says He Helped Save Thousands of Ethiopian Jews. Here's What Really Happened
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His campaign claims he convinced the Reagan administration to join a major airlift operation called Operation Moses. Not exactly.
—By Stephanie Mencimer
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| Wed Sep. 2, 2015 6:00 AM EDT
Did Jeb Bush help launch a covert mission to airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the 1980s, saving them from starvation?
He says he did. Twice in the past week his campaign has posted blog posts on its website making this claim in order to tout Bush's record on Israel and to show his foreign policy chops. One reads:
In the 1980's thousands of members of the Jewish community had fled their homeland due to famine for a refugee camp in Sudan. Jeb, hearing of the conditions in the camp and the persecution these Jews were suffering, suggested to Reagan-Bush officials that the United States had a duty to support a massive airlift. The resulting effort, Operation Moses, made history when Israeli planes, with American support, brought these Jews to the homeland of the Jewish people, the State of Israel.
But Bush's campaign boast is false. Bush, then 31 years old and a fledgling developer in Miami, had nothing to do with with Operation Moses, the secret operation that rescued nearly 8,000 Jews in Africa. And he played no role in triggering the rescue effort by prodding the Reagan-Bush administration to take action. However, he—and several other Americans—did play a bit part in a subsequent effort to rescue about 900 Ethiopian Jews left behind when Operation Moses was halted abruptly in early 1985.
More:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/jeb-bush-ethiopian-jews-israel-operation-moses
Obama visits Arctic community to discuss Native issues
Source: Reuters
Obama visits Arctic community to discuss Native issues
Source: Reuters - Wed, 2 Sep 2015 09:52 GMT
ANCHORAGE/JUNEAU Alaska, Sept 2 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit a community north of the Arctic Circle, a trek the White House hopes will bring into focus how climate change is affecting Americans.
After meeting tribal leaders and fishermen in Dillingham, home to the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, Obama will fly into Kotzebue, an Arctic town of about 3,000 that is battling coastal erosion caused by rising seas.
The stops, at the end of a three-day tour of Alaska, are also aimed at cementing Obama's legacy on improving ties with Native Americans. He has also traveled by foot and boat to see glaciers that are receding quickly due to climate change.
Obama will say in Kotzebue that his administration has found dozens of new ways to work better with Native Americans - program fixes with small price tags but rich potential, a White House official told reporters.
Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20150902095340-9v7b9/
33 Circus lions rescued in South America will be airlifted home to South Africa [pictures]
Source: The South African
33 Circus lions rescued in South America will be airlifted home to South Africa (pictures)
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02 Sep, 2015
by Antoinette Muller in COFFEE BREAK
The circus is no place for these majestic creatures. Luckily they have been rescued and will be sent home to retire under the sunny African skies.
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Thirty-three lions rescued by Animal Defenders International (ADI) from ten circuses in Peru and Colombia are going home to their native Africa in the biggest ever airlift of its kind.
The lions, who endured years of confinement in cages on the backs of trucks and a brutal life being forced to perform in circuses, are heading to huge natural enclosures at Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa.
The airlift in October will be the culmination of ADI’s work with the Governments of Peru and Colombia to eliminate the use of wild animals in circuses. ADI evidence of the abuse of circus animals in Latin America led to legislation banning animal acts and then ADI stepped in to help enforce the laws.
Almost all of the rescued lions have been mutilated to remove their claws, one has lost an eye, another is almost blind, and many have smashed and broken teeth because of their circus life, but they will retire in the African sunshine.
Read more: http://www.thesouthafrican.com/33-circus-lions-rescued-in-south-america-will-be-airlifted-home-to-south-africa-pictures/
Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina Stripped Of Immunity, Paving The Way For Impeachment Proceedin
Source: International Business Times
Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina Stripped Of Immunity, Paving The Way For Impeachment Proceedings
By Sarah Berger @sarahberger0408 [email protected] on September 01 2015 8:07 PM EDT
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Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina speaks at a press conference at the Culture Palace in Guatemala City March 2, 2015. Getty Images
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The Guatemalan Congress voted on Tuesday to strip President Otto Perez Molina’s immunity from prosecution, the Associated Press reported. Perez Molina’s revoked immunity could trigger a criminal trial in connection to a corruption scandal, which could possibly lead to his impeachment. This is the first time a president has been stripped of immunity in a Central American country.
The vote comes only five days before presidential elections, and despite a corruption scandal, Perez Molina had previously vowed to remain in office until his term ends in January, the Financial Times reported. Molina was not stripped of his immunity during a vote Aug. 13, in which 105 votes were required for the proposal to pass in the 158-member legislature -- but that was before prosecutors accused him of defrauding the national customs service of millions of dollars, Agence France-Presse reported. A congressional investigative committee, though, recommended three days ago that lawmakers strip Perez Molina of immunity.
The second vote was carried out Tuesday by 132-0, with 26 deputies absent. Anti-corruption protesters who had been demonstrating for 19 weeks formed a human cordon to allow deputies to safely enter the chamber.
Perez Molina allegedly ran a system in which businesses paid bribes to clear their imports through customs at a small portion of the actual tax rate. The scandal was dubbed "La Linea" (The Line). Guatemalans have been protesting every week since April. Perez Molina has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/guatemala-president-otto-perez-molina-stripped-immunity-paving-way-impeachment-2078491
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