New Mideast Bush Initiative Met with Scepticism
JIM.LOBE Pro-Israel lobby dictates U.S. policy, study charges (FCN, 04-05-2006) WASHINGTON, Jul 16 (IPS) - A major policy address Monday by U.S. President George W. Bush promoting a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine has been greeted with considerable skepticism by Middle East specialists here. Most analysts said Bush's speech -- including his pledge to provide some 190 million dollars to...
Afro-Colombian politician tapped as ambassador to Washington
WASHINGTON—A veteran Afro-Colombian politician who studied in the Soviet Union and fled his homeland after being kidnapped by a paramilitary group has been tapped to become Colombia’s first Black ambassador to the United States. In a brief message posted on Twitter on July 12, leftist president-elect Gustavo Petro wrote that Luis Gilberto Murillo would take Colombia’s most important diplomatic post...
Deadly politics: Cuba’s Covid-19 treatment and U.S. refusal to save lives
During a phone interview with Africa Watch, Dr. Melissa Barber, the program coordinator of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine program and IFCO Passage for Peace, said of the island nation’s 11 million inhabitants it has registered only 88 Covid-19 deaths and 3,482 confirmed cases since the March outbreak of the pandemic. Compare this with the United States. With a...
How Costa Rica drafted Latin America’s first-ever anti-hate strategy
For Faustina Torres, from the Bribri indigenous community in Costa Rica, feeling invisible to others is a stinging form of discrimination she has fought against since childhood. “Costa Rican society does not teach us that there are indigenous people in this country,” she said. “It is a form of discrimination, making the existence of indigenous peoples invisible.” Amid an alarming trend...
Fans jeer as players take a knee in English soccer match
LONDON—Fans attending an English second-tier match between host Millwall and Derby jeered as players took a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In video footage published on social media, booing was clearly heard from some fans in the stands containing Millwall supporters as both sets of players made the symbolic gesture after the referee blew the whistle...
Secretary General of League of Arab States charges: ‘Israel has become above the law’
CHICAGO (FinalCall.com)–The Secretary General of the League of Arab States told an audience of about 500 people here that the United States must become an "honest broker" in Middle East conflicts, particularly the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the current dispute over allowing UN weapons inspectors into Iraq. "When we talk about freedom, we cannot forget about our brothers...
Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi gets jail term for corruption
A court in Myanmar has reportedly sentenced former elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a five-year prison term after finding her guilty of the first of 11 corruption charges filed against her by the country’s military junta. Citing sources with knowledge of the matter, media outlets reported on April 27 that the ruling was announced in Myanmar’s capital of...
Save lives, UN agencies appeal, after yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean
Three UN agencies on August 10 appealed for greater access to safe and regular pathways for migration and asylum in the European Union after another deadly shipwreck claimed dozens of lives in the Mediterranean. The International Organization for Migration (IOM); the UN refugee agency, UNCHR; and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also called for coordinated search and rescue mechanisms. The tragedy occurred between...
U.S. military flexes on Iran in waning days of Trump administration
American geopolitical friction against the Islamic Republic of Iran worsens, even as the U.S. has come under heavy domestic strain with open insurrection at the U.S. Capitol around election disputes from outgoing President Donald J. Trump. The U.S. Capitol was breached by supporters of Mr. Trump as lawmakers were deliberating on the certification of election results to confirm President-elect Joseph...
Police brutality in the U.S., its roots and some views from the Motherland
In Senegalese scholar Mahamadou Lamine Sagna's 2019 book, “Cornel West Matters: Politics, Violence, Racism and Religion in America,” he helps explain the building pressure in America and the world that reached a boiling point with the death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police. Dr. Sagna, who currently teaches at the American University of Nigeria and...