NACLA Update 1 April, 2010 – Argentina: Fathers of the Disappeared / Mexico Merida Initiative

Argentina: Fathers of the Disappeared by Joel Richards
Most are in their 80s. They include an optician, a pilot, a teacher, a bank clerk, and a lawyer. Privately, they all suffered the loss of a son, daughter, or, in some cases, two or three children, during the repression of the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. And during this year’s 34th anniversary of the 1976 coup, Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner honored four of them for their human rights work during the past three decades.
http://www.nacla.org/node/6494

Mexico Backslides on the Merida Initiative’s Human Rights Conditions
by Kristin Bricker
Mexico’s Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a legal reform that limits the amount of information the federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) must hand over to the government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). The CNDH argues that the new law impedes its access to evidence with investigations into PGR officials, especially from the Federal Ministerial Police, who have allegedly committed many human rights abuses in the war on drugs. Washington, however, has taken very little notice of this lack of “transparency and accountability,” even though it is one of the human rights conditions included in the Merida Initiative.
https://nacla.org/node/6491

Videos from Left Bloc Climate Conference

31 March, 2010 — Climate & Capitalism

O Clima Farto de Nos? (Is the climate sick of us?) was held in Lisbon, March 26-27. It was organized by Portugal’s Left Bloc and the parties of the European Left.

This important event drew left socialist and green activists from a dozen European countries, to discuss how to build a mass movement for climate change in the wake of the December conference in Copenhagen.

Click here for the text of Ian Angus’s talk.

The short videos below were prepared by members of the Left Bloc. Climate and Capitalism will post more as they become available.

Some photographs of the event are available on Flickr.

Overview of Day One (in Portuguese)

Marisa Matias, Left Bloc member of the European Parliament (in Portuguese)

Lothar Bisky, president of the European Left and member of the European Parliament from the German party Die LInke (in English)