News in English

30.04.2004 A small gesture of national dignity set off a raging scandal early this year. Throughout the world the press gave the story top billing as if it were a freak event, like, 'Man bites dog.' So what was the cause? Brazil had required of US visitors what the US required of Brazilian visitors: to obtain a visa and have their picture and fingerprints taken at the border. By Eduardo Galeano.

29.04.2004 On February 29, 2004, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time in 13 years. The opposition gangs that placed millions of Haitians under siege are armed with sophisticated weapons, including US-made M-16s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. This was no popular insurgency from Haiti’s grassroots, but a military operation funded and orchestrated by the US.

28.04.2004 Few would argue that sports are not a reflection of the larger society in which they exist: from the grueling ball games of ancient Mesoamerican warrior societies to the conspicuous consumption of land and equipment by country club golfers. What we posit in this NACLA Report is the idea of sports as an insightful social barometer.

27.04.2004 Three alleged IRA members who have spent more than 2 years in prison were cleared yesterday of charges that they had trained leftist Colombian guerrillas.
But James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly were convicted on the lesser charge of travelling with false passports.

27.04.2004 After its defeat in the March 21 presidential elections, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is in turmoil over demands that the leadership resign after its poor performance in the elections.

25.04.2004 By recognizing the state’s role in the 1990 murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack, Guatemalan President Oscar Berger today took an important step in promoting accountability for past human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said.

22.04.2004 The London-based Haiti Support Group, a solidarity organisation working alongside Haiti's popular, democratic movement since 1992, continues to be very concerned by moves by armed irregular forces to establish themselves as de facto administrative authorities.

21.04.2004 A Nicaraguan court in early March ordered Shell Chemical, Dole Food and Standard Fruit companies to pay a group of women US$82.9 million in fines in a lawsuit brought by campesinas made chronically ill by the use of the pesticide Nemagon on banana plantations in the 1970s.

20.04.2004 According to Haitian Press Agency reports, on the afternoon of 16 April, Jeanty André Omilert, the Radio Solidarité correspondent in Mirebalais was taken prisoner by a group of ex-soldiers based in the town. Without giving any reason, the ex-soldiers seized Omilert in front of the premises of Radio Excellesior, the local station where he hosts a discussion programme, and then detained him in the town police station.

20.04.2004 The former members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR), charged with clarifying the occurrences of political violence in Peru between 1980 and 2000, on March 2 denounced the passivity of government authorities to act on the recommendations in their final report presented six months ago.