Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalArgentines Rejects Blockade Against Cuba Outside US Embassy (+Photos)
Buenos Aires, July 5 (Prensa Latina) Hundreds of Argentines marched along a central Buenos Aires street on Friday before gathering outside the US embassy in support of Cuba, and demanded the lifting of the US blockade against the Caribbean country.
From the central Italia Square the mobilization led by the Argentine Movement of Solidarity with Cuba (MasCuba) started, which was joined by several organizations such as CTA Autonomous, with its secretary-general, Ricardo Peidro, Quebracho, Territorial Movement for Liberation, the Communist Party, among others.
Speaking to Prensa Latina, Peidro highlighted the historical ties with the Cuban Revolution and stressed that at this time it is essential to support Cuba, a country in solidarity with all peoples of the world and described this US policy as genocide.
The Cuban Revolution is a beacon for the world and the Argentine people, the working class, Ricardo Peidro stated.
More:
https://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=44081&SEO=argentines-rejects-blockade-against-cuba-outside-us-embassy-photos
Argentine Presidential Candidate Meets Lula at Brazilian Prison
Supporters of former President Lula da Silva outside the Federal Police headquarters
in Curitiba, Brazil June 25, 2019. | Photo: Reuters
Published 4 July 2019
Denisse Herrera
Based on his expertice as lawyer, Alberto Fernandez holds that Lula da Silva is unduly imprisoned.
The favorite candidate to win the next presidential elections in Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, is visiting Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva this Thursday, Lula who is now a political prisoner at a federal detention center in Curitiba, state of Parana.
"I come to visit a man who is unduly imprisoned," Fernandez said and recalled that he spoke with Pope Francis about judicial persecution suffered by several Latin American leftist leaders.
"What has been violated in Brazil is the rule of law. I am a lawyer, I teach at the Buenos Aires University, I have written books on this subject," the Argentinean candidate stressed.
Lula da Silva has been deprived of his freedom since April 7, 2018, following a ruling issued by then-judge Sergio Moro, who is now President Jair Bolsonaro's Justice Minister.
More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Argentine-Presidential-Candidate-Meets-Lula-at-Brazilian-Prison-20190704-0010.html
Are we living in a simulated universe? Here's what scientists say.
“If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence."
July 6, 2019, 3:34 AM CDT
By Dan Falk
What if everything around us — the people, the stars overhead, the ground beneath our feet, even our bodies and minds — were an elaborate illusion? What if our world were simply a hyper-realistic simulation, with all of us merely characters in some kind of sophisticated video game?
This, of course, is a familiar concept from science fiction books and films, including the 1999 blockbuster movie "The Matrix." But some physicists and philosophers say it’s possible that we really do live in a simulation — even if that means casting aside what we know (or think we know) about the universe and our place in it.
“If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence,” Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom said in a 2003 paper that jump-started the conversation about what has come to be known as the simulation hypothesis. “While the world we see is in some sense ‘real,’ it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.”
Simulating worlds and beings
Rizwan Virk, founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s PlayLabs program and author of "The Simulation Hypothesis," is among those who take the simulation hypothesis seriously. He recalls playing a virtual reality game so realistic that he forgot that he was in an empty room with a headset on. That led him to wonder: Are we sure we aren’t embedded within a world created by beings more technologically savvy than ourselves?
More:
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/are-we-living-simulated-universe-here-s-what-scientists-say-ncna1026916
Rio police find clandestine grave with at least 12 bodies
ByMARCELO DE SOUSA, ASSOCIATED PRESS RIO DE JANEIRO — Jul 5, 2019, 8:30 PM ET
Police in Rio de Janeiro on Friday found a clandestine grave with at least 12 bodies in a metropolitan part of the city where a militia group operates.
The grave was discovered in Itaboraí about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Rio and authorities believe the cemetery could be used by a paramilitary group that was targeted this week in a raid that led to 43 detentions.
. . .
Police say the militia operating in the area is believed to have carried out torture, extortion and some 50 murders since the beginning of last year, with many of the victims listed as missing.
. . .
Beginning in earnest in the 1990s, the militias were mainly made up of former police officers, firefighters and military men who wanted to combat lawlessness in their neighborhoods. For years, they were even lauded by politicians, including now-President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who as a congressman called for their legalization in 2008.
More:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/rio-police-find-clandestine-grave-12-bodies-64158739
Brazil: calls grow for Bolsonaro ally to quit after 'devastating' report on leaks
In new disclosures, conservative magazine Veja says Sergio Moro, who led Operation Car Wash, guilty of serious ‘irregularities’
Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
Fri 5 Jul 2019 11.41 EDT
Brazil’s justice minister Sérgio Moro is facing renewed pressure to resign after the country’s leading conservative magazine waded into a snowballing scandal over his role in a mammoth anti-corruption investigation that helped reshape South America’s political landscape.
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, and his supporters have tried to portray the slew of revelations about Moro’s conduct in ‘Operation Car Wash’ as part of a leftwing assault being spearheaded by the investigative website the Intercept and its co-founder Glenn Greenwald.
In early June, the Intercept began publishing a series of exposés based on what it called “a vast trove” of leaked messages between Brazilian law enforcement officials.
But efforts to disqualify the revelations were undermined on Friday when Brazil’s most influential conservative magazine, Veja, published a front-page report featuring damaging new disclosures about Bolsonaro’s most famous minister.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/05/brazil-sergio-moro-jair-bolsonaro-justice-minister
Imminent Threat to Guatemala's Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN)
Published: May 30, 2019
Update for Guatemala Police Archive under Threat posting
Edited by Kate Doyle
Morales Government Tightens Grip on Massive Human Rights Records Trove
Washington, D.C., May 30, 2019 – The National Security Archive joins our international and Guatemalan colleagues in calling for the protection of the Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) of Guatemala, which faces new threats to its independence and to public access to its holdings.
In a press conference on Monday, May 27, Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart signaled his intent to assert his agency’s control of the AHPN including the prospect of new restrictions on access to the archived police records and possible legal action against “foreign institutions” holding digitized copies of the documents. Degenhart made his statements as a crucial deadline approached to renew an agreement that for a decade has kept the archive under the authority of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. The agreement now appears to be in jeopardy.
The hollowing out of the AHPN is taking place at a time when justice and human rights initiatives are broadly under siege in Guatemala and follows months of uncertainty for the celebrated human rights archive, which has been institutionally adrift since its long-time director, Gustavo Meoño Brenner, was abruptly dismissed in August 2018.
Since its discovery in 2005, the AHPN has played a central role in Guatemala’s attempts to reckon with its bloody past. Its records of more than a century of the history of the former National Police have been relied upon by families of the disappeared, scholars, and prosecutors. The institution has become a model across Latin America and around the world for the rescue and preservation of vital historical records.
More:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/guatemala/2019-05-30/imminent-threat-guatemalas-historical-archive-national-police-ahpn
Facebook ads funded by 'dark money' are the right's weapon for 2020
The right and conservative media are using the untraceable ads to push a rightwing agenda and get Donald Trump re-elected
Tom Perkins
Fri 5 Jul 2019 02.01 EDT Last modified on Fri 5 Jul 2019 02.02 EDT
In the weeks leading up to a tightly contested 2018 midterm election in Virginia, a Facebook page called “Wacky Wexton Not” ran an ad that pictured Democratic congressional candidate Jennifer Wexton next to Nazi troops. Another labeled her an “evil socialist”. Yet another referenced Nazi uniforms, stating, “Wexton and her modern day brown shirts. They Are Evil. They Hate America. They Hate You.”
Who spent $211 launching 24 anti-Wexton ads? It’s unclear. The ads state they were “Paid for by a freedom loving American Citizen exercising my natural law right, protected by the 1st Amendment and protected by the 2nd Amendment.” But there’s nothing in them – or in Facebook’s new ad library that’s designed to shine light on who’s funding political adss – that provides personal information about the person or group behind the attack on Wexton (who won her race).
This small incident highlights a bigger problem as the 2020 election looms. How so-called untraceable “dark money” Facebook ads persist via easily exploitable loopholes in the ad archive, a database created in response to foreign interference and disinformation campaigns during the 2016 election. Now heading into the 2020 election, dark money ads remain a potent political weapon that the Republican party and conservative media in particular are using to push a rightwing agenda and get Donald Trump re-elected.
“You can still have a huge impact by spending very little,” said Anna Massoglia, a researcher with the Center For Responsive Politics (CPR) who tracks dark money spending on Facebook ads. Over $600m has been spent on political Facebook ads since the platform made data public in May 2018. It’s unclear how much was spent on dark money ads, though CPR and other groups are in the process of tallying it up.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/05/facebook-ads-2020-dark-money-funding-republican-trump-weapon
The Colombian state's 'murder quotas'
In its decades-long war against communist rebels, the government turned incentivised murder into an industry of its own, reports NICK MACWILLIAM
THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2019
EVEN among the atrocities of Colombia’s armed conflict, the False Positives programme stands out for its cruelty.
Thousands of civilians — mainly young, entirely poor — were lured to designated locations with fake job offers.
Once there, the army murdered them and dressed them in guerilla uniforms. The victims were presented as enemy kills, demonstrating the state’s effectiveness in combatting the guerilla insurgency.
Soldiers were incentivised through financial rewards for kills.
. . .
The JEP has logged 2,248 cases of extrajudicial killings, 97 per cent of which took place during the 2002-10 presidency of ultra-conservative demagogue Alvaro Uribe.
Despite his administration’s abysmal human rights record and links to paramilitary groups, Uribe remains extremely influential.
His hand-picked candidate, the relative unknown Ivan Duque, won last year’s presidential election, two years after Uribe had orchestrated the shock No vote in Colombia’s peace plebiscite.
. . .
Today, however, the peace process is faltering amid escalating violence across rural regions. Around 700 social activists and Farc former guerillas have been murdered since the agreement was signed.
. . .
Community leaders, trade unionists and people working to implement the peace agreement at grassroots level are being systematically targeted.
Recent revelations have raised fears the worst state-backed atrocities of the armed conflict are resurfacing.
On May 18 the New York Times exposed shocking new directives emanating from military top brass.
. . .
In 2018, almost two-thirds of global trade unionist murders were committed in Colombia (34 of 53 cases).
More:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/colombian-states-murder-quotas
Colombia's centrist opposition leader recovers senate seat
by Adriaan Alsema July 3, 2019
Colombia’s State Council overruled the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE) on Tuesday and returned the leader of the centrist Green Alliance party his seat in the senate.
The CNE controversially removed popular anti-corruption Senator Antanas Mockus in April at the request of a mafia lawyer with alleged ties to minority coalition parties Democratic Center and Citizens Option.
Mockus successfully challenged the decision at the State Council, which ruled the CNE had violated Mockus’ right to due process by removing the senator while his case was still with the high court.
The Green Alliance leader, one of Colombia’s few popular politicians, had already been absolved of the charge he was not allowed to take part in the elections because one of foundations was employed by the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-centrist-opposition-leader-recovers-senate-seat/
~ ~ ~
Antanis Mockus is an amazingly bright, engaging, enlightened politician, which is why he is despised by the Colombian oligarchy.
Wikipedia:
Aurelijus Rūtenis Antanas Mockus Šivickas (born 25 March 1952) is a Colombian mathematician, philosopher, and politician. He has a master's degree in philosophy from the Colombian University, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and a Honoris Causa PhD from L’université de Paris.
He is the son of Lithuanian immigrants. He left office as the president of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá in 1993, and later that year ran a successful campaign for mayor. He proceeded to preside over Bogotá as mayor for two (non-consecutive) terms, during which he became known for springing surprising and humorous initiatives upon the city's inhabitants. These tended to involve grand gestures, including local artists or personal appearances by the mayor himself—taking a shower in a commercial about conserving water, or walking the streets dressed in spandex and a cape as Supercitizen. On 4 March 2010, he was elected in a public consultation as the Colombian Green Party candidate for the presidential election in 2010.
On 4 April 2010, Antanas Mockus chose Sergio Fajardo, former mayor of Medellín, as his vice-presidential running mate. On 9 April 2010 he announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.[1] He told La W radio: "The prediction is that this will not affect my mental activities. I think it is absolutely fitting to tell the people about the diagnosis and about the prognosis—which is 12 years or more of normal life thanks to medication."[2] Mockus finished second in the polling, leading to a runoff election with Juan Manuel Santos, which Santos won. Mockus resigned from the Green Party in June 2011 because he opposed its Bogotá mayoral candidate being supported by former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe.[3]
He became Senator of the Republic of Colombia in July 2018, after being the second candidate with the most votes in the legislative elections held on March 11, 2018. He is also the president of the Corporación Visionarios por Colombia (Corpovisionarios), center of thought and non-profit action that investigates, advises, designs and implements actions to achieve voluntary changes in collective behavior.
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antanas_Mockus
The Diaries Left Behind by Confederate Soldiers Reveal the True Role of Enslaved Labor at Gettysburg
Even as some enslaved men escaped North, the retreat by the Army of Northern Virginia would have been disastrous without the support of its camp servants
By Kevin M. Levin
smithsonian.com
July 2, 2019
Walking the Gettysburg battlefield today, it’s easy to imagine the Union and Confederate armies dueling for control of the Pennsylvania town and its surrounding picturesque fields and rocky hills for three days in July 1863. For many tourists, no visit to Gettysburg is complete without retracing the steps General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, those Confederates who crossed the open fields toward the Union line on Cemetery Ridge on July 3 in what is still popularly remembered as “Pickett’s Charge.” Once safe behind where the Union lines held strong, however, few turn around and acknowledge the hundreds of enslaved people who emerged from the woods to render assistance to the tattered remnants of the retreating men.
Enslaved workers constituted the backbone of the Confederate war effort. Although stories of these impressed workers and camp slaves have been erased from our popular memory of the war in favor of mythical accounts of black Confederate soldiers, their presence in the Confederate army constituted a visual reminder to every soldier —slaveowner and non-slaveowner alike—that their ultimate success in battle depended on the ownership of other human beings.
Anywhere between 6,000 and 10,000 enslaved people supported in various capacities Lee’s army in the summer of 1863. Many of them labored as cooks, butchers, blacksmiths and hospital attendants, and thousands of enslaved men accompanied Confederate officers as their camp slaves, or body servants. These men performed a wide range of roles for their owners, including cooking, cleaning, foraging and sending messages to families back home. Slave owners remained convinced that these men would remain fiercely loyal even in the face of opportunities to escape, but this conviction would be tested throughout the Gettysburg campaign.
On the first of the new year, Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which emancipated enslaved people in the states that seceded from the United States. The news quickly filtered through Confederate ranks and was certainly discussed among the army’s enslaved servants. The Proclamation, in effect, turned Union armies into armies of liberation, functioning as a funnel through which newly freed men could enlist in one of the black regiments that were filling up quickly throughout the North as well as in occupied parts of the Confederacy. Conversely, the Proclamation highlighted even further the degree to which the Confederate Army represented a force of enslavement. Lee’s decision to bring his army north into free states in early May, following his victory at Chancellorsville, was fraught with danger given the dramatic shift in Union policy; his soldiers’ rear guard, the support staff of enslaved labor, were at risk of emancipation.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/diaries-left-behind-confederate-soldiers-reveals-role-enslaved-labor-gettysburg-180972538/#ld8OZ3r1J46CiFvI.99
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