Terrace Farming – an Ancient Indigenous Model for Food Security

Terrace Farming – an Ancient Indigenous Model for Food Security
By Marianela Jarroud


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Terraces built by Atacameño Indians in the village of Caspana in Alto Loa, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta.
This ageold farming technique represents an adaptation to the climate, and ensures the right to food of these Andes
highlands people. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPSTerraces built by Atacameño Indians in the village of Caspana in Alto Loa,
in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. This ageold farming technique represents an adaptation to the climate, and
ensures the right to food of these Andes highlands people. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS
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CASPANA, Chile, Oct 21 2015 (IPS) - Terrace farming as practiced from time immemorial by native peoples in the Andes mountains contributes to food security as a strategy of adaptation in an environment where the geography and other conditions make the production of nutritional foods a complex undertaking.

This ancient prehispanic technique, still practiced in vast areas of the Andes highlands, including Chile, “is very important from the point of view of adaptation to the climate and the ecosystem,” said Fabiola Aránguiz.

“By using terraces, water, which is increasingly scarce in the northern part of the country, is utilised in a more efficient manner,” Aránguiz, a junior professional officer on family farming with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS from the agency’s regional headquarters in Santiago, some 1,400 km south of the town of Caspana in Chile’s Atacama desert.

In this country’s Andes highands, terrace farming has mainly been practiced by the Atacameño and Quechua indigenous peoples, who have inhabited the Atacama desert in the north for around 9,000 years. Principally living in oases, gorges and valleys of Alto Loa, in the region of Antofagasta, these peoples learned about terrace farming from the Inca, who taught them how to make the best use of scant water resources to grow food on the limited fertile land at such high altitudes.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/10/terrace-farming-an-ancient-indigenous-model-for-food-security/

Venezuela: Programme sees 100,000 houses built in 10 months

Venezuela: Programme sees 100,000 houses built in 10 months

Oct Thursday 22nd 2015
posted by Morning Star in World
by Our Foreign Desk

VENEZUELA’S housing programme has built 100,000 homes in the last 10 months, according to figures released on Tuesday.

The Mision Vivienda (Housing Mission) initiative begun under late president Hugo Chavez is now putting up low-cost housing at a staggering rate of 200 new homes a day.

Housing Minister Manuel Quevedo said the scheme had constructed a total 752,585 housing units nationwide since 2010, up from 676,000 in January. “At this rate, one million people will be provided with homes by the end of 2015,” Mr Quevedo said.

One of many such “missions” or social programmes in fields such as health and education, Mision Vivienda was launched to provide shelter for people made homeless by the devastating floods that inundated the country in 2010.

More:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-d4fb-Venezuela-Programme-sees-100,000-houses-built-in-10-months#.VihmyOSFPDc

Massachusetts considers registry for animal cruelty convicts

Source: Associated Press

Massachusetts considers registry for animal cruelty convicts
Bob Salsberg, Associated Press
Updated 4:19 pm, Wednesday, October 21, 2015

BOSTON (AP) — Lawmakers in Massachusetts and several other states are weighing proposals to create registries of animal abusers as a means for ensuring that pets wind up in the care of responsible and humane owners.

A bill, heard Wednesday by a Massachusetts legislative panel, would require anyone convicted of an animal cruelty crime provide their name, address and a photograph to an animal abuser registry that would be maintained by the state Department of Criminal Justice Information Services. The agency would generate a computerized list that can be consulted by pet shops, breeders and shelters who in turn would be asked to check the list before allowing a pet to be sold or adopted.

Analogous in some respects to sex offender registries, animal protection groups say the idea is beginning to gain some traction in the U.S.

New York City created an animal abuse registry in 2014, and Tennessee gave approval this year to the first statewide registry. Bills were also being considered in Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, according to the website of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Massachusetts-considers-registry-for-animal-6581308.php

Uruguay’s Jose Mujica vows to take part in Colombia’s peace talks

Uruguay’s Jose Mujica vows to take part in Colombia’s peace talks
Posted by Emma Rosser on Oct 21, 2015

Uruguay’s much-respected former president, Jose Mujica, said Tuesday he will join Colombia’s ongoing peace talks after he was asked to by FARC rebels.

The insurgent group reportedly requested the involvement of the left-leaning Uruguayan politician in a commission supporting the endeavor for peace in Colombia.

Mujica in response expressed his support for the negotiations, “I pledged to collaborate, because I understand this is a progressive cause.”

“Achieving peace where for fifty years rifles have spoken, it is not only in favor of Colombia; it is for our Americas,” said the former president.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/uruguays-jose-mujica-vows-to-take-part-in-colombias-peace-talks/

These Fairytale Trees Only Grow at Incredible Altitudes

These Fairytale Trees Only Grow at Incredible Altitudes

by Karen Catchpole / 15 Oct 2015


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Polylepis tree limbs intertwine overhead in the forest around Polylepis Lodge in Ecuador.
(All photos: Eric Mohl)
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What has red, peeling skin and is found only in the Andes? Polylepis trees, some of the oddest and rarest trees on the planet. This genus thrives only in the cold mist and thin air of the Andes Mountains, and one of the rarest types of Polylepis can be seen only in northern Ecuador.

The name Polylepis (which is pronounced pah-lee-LEH-piss) comes from the Greek words for many (poly) and layers (letis). It’s a fitting moniker, since the bark of the Polylepis is composed of thin, deep red layer that collectively make up a skin hearty enough to stand up to a cold, wet, and windy environment. These layers peel naturally in paper-like sheets, inspiring the easier-to-pronounce nickname “paper tree.”


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There are more than 20 different types of Polylepis trees and shrubs and all of them have a gnarled, wind-swept, otherworldly look.
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There are more than 20 species of shrubs and trees in the Polylepis genus, which is part of the rose family, and all of them are exclusively found in the Andes from northern Venezuela to Northern Chile and Argentina. They grow at elevations up to 16,400 feet, which makes Polylepis one of the highest naturally occurring genuses of tree in the world.

They’re also one of the slowest-growing trees in the world; some take more than 100 years to growing half an inch in diameter. They grow faster at milder, lower elevations, where the trees can reach heights approaching 150 feet. Scientists speculate that vast areas of the Andes were once covered in Polylepis trees, but over time they were cut to clear the way for grazing animals and to provide firewood and building materials for the area’s indigenous populations, including the Incas.

More:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/these-fairytale-trees-only-grow-at-incredible-altitudes

Guatemalan General Accused Of War Crimes Dies

Guatemalan General Accused Of War Crimes Dies


GUATEMALA CITY, Oct 20 (BERNAMA-NNN-EFE)--Retired Gen. Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, who was charged with genocide for his actions during Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, died of natural causes. He was 85. Lopez Fuentes, who was army chief of staff during the 1982-1983 rule of Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, died Sunday at the Military Medical Center, prisons service spokesman Rudy Esquivel said.

The general was detained June 17, 2011, and charged with genocide for actions during his time in the high command, but he never stood trial due to poor health. After spending 16 days in detention at an army barracks north of Guatemala City, Lopez Fuentes was transferred to the Military Medical Center, where he remained until his death, Esquivel told reporters.

On July 6, 2012, the medical examiner's office declared Lopez Fuentes mentally and physically unfit to stand trial.

Prosecutors had accused Lopez Fuentes of masterminding massacres of Ixil Indians in the northwestern province of Quiche during the early 1980s.

More:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/wn/newsworld.php?id=1181206

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Older article:

Former General Hector Lopez Fuentes: First Arrest in Connection to Genocide in Guatemala PDF Print E-mai
Written by James Rodríguez, MiMundo.org
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 15:11

. . .

Lopez Fuentes, 81 years old, is accused by the Public Prosecutor’s bureau for human rights “for over ten thousand murders, nine thousand forcibly displaced persons, and numerous rapes against women in the Maya Ixil region - all crimes took place between March 1982 and October 1983. According to Manuel Vasquez, attorney in charge of the case, the crimes occurred through the implementation of the Sofia, Victoria 82 and Firmeza 83 military campaigns. All three strategic operations were created and carried out while Lopez Fuentes acted as the Armed Forces’ Chief of Staff.” (2)



“One of the cases on which Lopez Fuentes is charged on details the murder of at least 53 people in the villages of Chel, Xesayi and Xaxmoxan, all in Chajul, Quiche, from April to October, 1983.” (4)

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3090-former-general-hector-lopez-fuentes-first-arrest-in-connection-to-genocide-in-guatemala-

Legacy of a ‘Disappeared’ Family in Argentina

October 19, 2015
Legacy of a ‘Disappeared’ Family in Argentina

by Cesar Chelala

Politics can have a devastating effect on a country and its people, as I saw during a recent trip to Argentina.

I stayed at the Buenos Aires apartment of a relative by marriage, university professor Felix Eduardo Herrera, who died there in 2007; the apartment had been empty since then. He had been a noted mathematician in Tucuman, a city in northern Argentina. Much respected by his students, to whom he dedicated his life and work, he was married to Leonor Herrera and raised two boys, Abel and Claudio, and a girl, Leonor Ines.

I met the Herreras in Tucuman in the 1960s when my wife, their niece, studied at the university where Professor Herrera taught. When I met them, they had an active social life managed by Leonor. Their house was a place of lively intellectual gatherings, frequently visited by out-of-town scientists and researchers.

The Herrera children inherited their father’s intellectual drive and their mother’s concern for the poor and dispossessed. Those characteristics led to their downfall. Realizing the tremendous damage the military was doing to democracy and to the rule of law in the country, the children joined the violent opposition to the military’s rule.

During the 1970s the brutal dictatorship of Argentina’s military left the country in disarray, and the Herrera family decimated. In the end, the couple’s two sons and the wife of one of them, Georgina, as well as the couple’s daughter and her husband, Juan Mangini, a guerrilla leader opposing the military rule, were among the more than 30,000 estimated “disappeared.” Both Abel and his younger brother, Claudio, died under torture in 1975.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/19/legacy-of-a-disappeared-family-in-argentina/

Good reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016134853

Chilean former spy and German 'cult' members sentenced over kidnappings

Source: Agence France-Presse

Chilean former spy and German 'cult' members sentenced over kidnappings

Cuba–US Relations: Is Resistance to the Media War No Longer Valid?

October 16, 2015
Cuba–US Relations: Is Resistance to the Media War No Longer Valid?

by Arnold August

One of the most positively commented on articles I have written recently was the piece on freedom of the press and Cuba–US relations, published on September 9, 2015. The emails coming from the US, Canada, Europe and Cuba reflected a pent-up frustration – and even a barely veiled anger – at how some of the US press deals with Cuba. Readers of the article seemed to breathe a sigh of relief that writers are not getting caught up in illusions, in the wake of the new Cuba–US relations, about the traditional media war waged against Cuba since the 1959 Revolution. Another writer, Iroel Sánchez from Cuba, took on The Washington Post for its misinformation and bias regarding Cuba. My piece did not target CNN USA, but challenged one high-ranking CNN anchor, Jake Tapper. Furthermore, it dealt initially only with his reporting from Havana of the August 14, 2015 reopening of the US Embassy and the flag-raising ceremony conducted by John Kerry.

As we follow the chronological exchanges between Tapper and me and others, what conclusion do we reach? One can only deduce that resistance to the media war and misinformation is more necessary than ever under these complicated conditions in which the Cuban Revolution finds itself. In order to be fair and get Tapper’s side of the story, I tweeted him on September 10: “What do you think of my piece on you and CNN? ‘Cuba–US Relations and Freedom of the Press’” with a link to the article. In his response, Tapper did not even come close to exhausting Twitter’s 140 character limit: “Not much.” I persisted: “Well, how about dealing with the points that I make?” He responded: “I would hardly know where to begin.” My rebuttal offered him a chance out: “Well, as an experienced journalist you should be able to deal with at least a few points.” Tapper’s answer: “Ask me in a couple of weeks and I will try to come up with more constructive criticism as I am busy with debate prep right now [the Republican presidential candidates’ debate in September that he hosted for CNN].” “OK, agreed,” I tweeted back. I also sent him my email address in case he would find this more convenient than Twitter.

In order to deepen the debate, I tweeted him on September 22 with regard to a partial insert of a Reuters interview with me regarding the Pope’s visit to Cuba. The Reuters report reads as follows:

“‘Dissidents in Cuba may be seen abroad by some as brave freedom fighters because much of the mainstream media describe them in this way. It is part of what I call continuous disinformation with regard to Cuba,’ said Arnold August, a Montreal-based author who sees Cuba as more democratic than most analysts.”

The migrants who fled violence for the US only to be sent back to their deaths

America's refugee crisis: death, danger and the border crackdown

The migrants who fled violence for the US only to be sent back to their deaths

Every year thousands of Hondurans come to the US in search of a better life and safety – yet for a growing number of young men, the return home makes them prime targets for gang retaliations as murder rate surges

Sibylla Brodzinsky in San Pedro Sula
Monday 12 October 2015 08.34 EDT

When Antonio Díaz’s 26-year-old son Oscar was kidnapped, beaten and left for dead by gang members, the Honduran father decided to send Oscar and his three brothers to the United States, fearing that any one of them could be the next victim of the country’s swelling wave of violence.

“I sent them away for their safety,” says Díaz, sitting in a comfortable and well-furnished three-bedroom home in a town outside San Pedro Sula, where he owns a fleet of minibuses. “We’re not bad off here, economically, but I couldn’t bear the thought of my sons getting killed,” he says.

A year and a half after Antonio paid the $6,000 coyote fee for each of his sons to make the perilous overland journey to the United States as undocumented migrants, one of the young men – Ángel – was deported back to Honduras.

A month later he was dead, gunned down on one of his father’s buses by suspected gang members.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/deportation-migrants-flee-honduras-guatemala-salvador