Ecuador proposes creating human rights commission as alternative to IACHR Quito, November 19 (EFE) – Ecuador proposed the creation of a human rights commission for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as an alternative to the IACHR, which it has criticised for the supposed influence of the United States, according to its vice-chancellor Kintto Lucas (pictured). Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa sees CELAC, from which the USA and Canada are excluded, as a substitute for the Organisation of American States (OAS), in which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is incorporated as an autonomous body. “In some ways CELAC is assuming some responsibilities that the OAS has been unable to … precisely because for a long time it was managed under the tutelage of the United States”, Lucas said in an interview with EFE. “It is difficult to ditch this ballast”, he added. In recent weeks Correa has accused the IACHR, which analysed the position of freed...

TENERIFE, Thursday November 17 -- DOCTORS in the Canary Islands will strike today over the regional government's planned cuts to the healthcare budget and on-call duty pay. by James Tweedie Emergency services will continue to be provided, as stipulated in the medics' contracts, throughout the strike by the 2,600-strong Doctors' Union of the Canaries (SMC). Canarian autonomous government president Paulino Rivero of the Canarian Coalition -- whose wife Ángela Mena is under investigation for corruption -- inflamed tensions over the dispute last month when he claimed that his presidential salary was less than that of a junior doctor. SMC president Isidro Rexachs pointed out that the comparison was "not the most appropriate", since doctor's salaries specified their allowances while Rivero's did not -- adding to earlier criticism of the remarks by the conservative Peoples Party regional president José Manuel Soria.

Picture courtesy of San Borondon Saturday November 12 2011 By James Tweedie Some ten thousand people protested against plans to build a new industrial port in southern Tenerife on Saturday. Marches in the southern municipality of Granadilla and the island's capital Santa Cruz demanded a moratorium on works on the controversial project. The Santa Cruz march terminated at a rally in the seafront Candelaria Square, opposite the Tenerife Cabildo (island council) building. One small child, who rode on his father's shoulders, waved a handwritten placard reading: “Less ports, more playgrounds”. The latest of many protests against the scheme was organised by Assembly For Tenerife (AXT), a coalition of residents' associations, environmental groups, left-wing political parties, trade unions and solidarity groups. A delegation of biology students from the University of La Laguna were also present. Academics and environmentalists object to the proposed new port on the grou...

43,000 youths march in Colombia; Santos seeks to negotiate El Universal, Friday November 11. BOGOTÁ (agencies) – One person was injured and 34 were arrested during yesterday's march of more than 43,000 public university students. They were protesting for the fourth time in one month against an education reform project put before Congress and which the government has offered to withdraw if the students lifted their indefinite strike. The most massive demonstrations were held in Bogotá, where students rallied in the central Bolívar Square in front of the Congress and a few metres from the government palace despite a heavy downpour which drenched the capital. According to the authorities, 23 students were arrested in the capital for acts of vandalism against banking and commercial facilities, in addition to the detonation of three home-made explosive devices which caused no material damage. Despite this, the mayoress of Bogotá, Clara López, stressed that “the acts of indiscipl...

President-elect calls for unity and proposes alliances Guatemala City, November 7,  ec/mb/jm (AFP) : Right-wing general Otto Pérez, elected president of Guatemala on the promise of a 'firm hand' against the crime which is overwhelming the country, called this Monday for the forging of agreements in a congress fragmented into different factions and in which his Patriotic Party holds a third of the seats. Pérez, a military counterinsurgency specialist during the years of the civil war that left 200,000 dead, won the second electoral round with 53.7 per cent of the vote against right-wing businessman Manuel Baldizón, who promised to impose the death penalty and who received 46.3 per cent of the ballots. The president-elect, who inherits a country heading for bankruptcy, said that he would ask the legislature for fiscal reform that could raise tax revenue from 10 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 14 per cent, an increase that opposition parties, including his, deni...

Resounding triumph for Daniel Ortega and the FSLN in Nicaragua Managua, November 7, mem/mjm (PL): Nicaragua's Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) had won 62.65 per cent of the valid votes in the national presidential and vice-presidential elections, with the count in from 85.8 percent of polling stations. “With this percentage, victory for the FSLN's is irreversible: Assuming that all the uncounted votes were for the coalition running in second place, in no case could they manage to catch up with the FSLN,” said the head of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), Roberto Rivas. In the presidential poll, the coalition headed by the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) gained 30.96 per cent of votes and the group led by the Constitutionalist Liberals achieved 6.02 per cent, he specified. Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance got 0.26 per cent and the coalition around the Alliance for the Republic was left with barely 0.11 percentage points. The success of the united allianc...

Humala agrees with UNDP report that basic problem is inequality Lima, November 3 2011 (EFE). – Peruvian president Ollanta Humala declared today that the fundamental problem in his country is inequality rather than poverty, as per the findings of report by the United Nations Development Programme presented in Lima. “There are poorer regions in the world [than Latin America], but we take first place in inequality,” said Humala (pictured, centre) during the regional launch of the Human Development 2011 report 'Sustainability and Equity: A better future for all'. If, on the one hand, Peru is considered a country of high human development, the inequality and deficiencies observed in education and income show the behaviour of a medium- or low-human development country, the UNDP report pointed out. Peru is in 80 th place in a ranking of 187 countries, with a human development index of 0.725, and is considered one of the high-human development countries (on a scale divided into ver...

Chile: Thousands of students march again for quality education rto-msa/pa/jlv/dg, Univision (via AFP), Monday August 8 2011: Tens of thousands of people protested for the fifth time in less than two months in [the Chilean capital] Santiago to demand better public education, in a demonstration which this time was authorised by the government and which once again resulted in incidents with the police. The multitudinous march – 60,000 people according to the police, 100,000 according to the organisers – brought together students, teachers, parents and workers of other professions, such as those of the copper industry, and public servants in Santiago. Other cities like Valparaíso and Concepción joined the protest. Dressed in their uniforms, carrying placards which read “education is dying of hunger”, in fancy dress or dancing, the demonstrators walked several kilometres through the central Alameda Avenue and neighbouring streets to finish up in the central Almagro Square. “I'm ...

Historic sentence against ex-soldiers tears veil of impunity in Guatemala By Agencia Efe http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5gzRIR-duHwBogw8u4xImPg5ZNcMw?docId=1580945 Carlos Carías, Daniel Martínez, Reyes Collín y Manuel Pop, accused of the massacre in Dos Erres, Petén, in 1982, during the hearing held yesterday in the First High Risk Tribunal A. Guatemala, August 2 (Efe). The historic 6,060-year prison sentence passed today against four former soldiers for the killing of 201 peasants in 1982 has meant the tearing of the veil of impunity in Guatemala, said spokespeople for humanitarian organisations in this Central American country. “Today that wall of impunity has been broken and by good fortune we begin to savour the nectar of justice,” Aura Elena Farfán, of the Foundation of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala (Famdegua), told Efe , after learning of the sentence, passed unanimously, by the three judges who made up the High Risk Tribunal. Farfán, who act...

Shots at Vive TV office leave two injured Political official injured by bullet at TV studio El Universal, Venezuela, Monday August 1 2011 http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/08/01/disparos-a-sede-de-vive-tv-en-zulia-dejan-dos-heridos.shtml   Maracaibo: One political and another internal security official were left injured after two gunmen fired shots at the [regional] headquarters of the informative, cultural and educational television station Vive TV in the Zapara neighbourhood to the north of the capital of Zulia state [Maracaibo]. The incident occurred at 10am yesterday, Sunday, just before a press team who were on duty left the office to start their working day. The criminals departed in a white Cherokee 4x4 without number plates. One of the projectiles hit political official Gustavo Ceballos, who for days had been lending his support to the television station due to the robberies and thefts reported in the last few months. Investigating teams from the Regional Police, ...

10,000 doctors from 60 countries trained in Cuba lac/ydg, Havana, Thursday July 28 2011 (Prensa Latina) http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=310386&Itemid=1   The Latin American Scool of Medicine (ELAM) has trained some 10,000 health professionales from around 60 nations from the first graduation in 2005 to today, comfirmed the rector of that institution, Juan Carrizo (pictured). According to the doctor's declarations, issued by the National Information Agency, during the 2010-2011 course, more than 1,300 physicians from 48 nations graduated from the faculties of Medical Sciences in Cuba, including 20 young North Americans. ELAM is a university which trains Basic General Doctors, oriented towards primary health care as the basic aim of their professional training. They finish their studies with advanced scientific, humanist, ethical and philanthropical training and the capacity to work in their agreed setting, tending to the need...

pgh/dfm, United Nations, Wednesday July 27 2011, (Prensa Latina) http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=310276&Itemid=1 The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, today called on the United Nations assume the responsibility of implementing international policies so that water would be a real public service and not a private business. During a press conference at the UN headquarters, Morales, who participated this Wednesday in a session of the General Assembly on access to water, indicated that climate change and global warming are the principle enemies of this vital liquid. Morales attended the commemoration of the first anniversary of the recognition of water has a human right at the [UN] headquarters. The leader insisted before journalists that “Water is as important as any other right”. He also reiterated accusations concerning attempts by the United States to destabilise and discredit his government. On that tack he remembered that i...

By the EFE Agency http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5je730Lif8wFIa2WJNjuRMcOCPOEA?docId=1577059 Havana, Wednesday July 27 2011 (EFE) – The First Vice-President of Cuba, José Ramón Machado Ventura, will attend the inauguration of Ollanta Humala as president of Peru which will take place tomorrow, July 28, official media reported today. Machado Ventura will preside over the Cuban delegation which will travel to Lima, composed of the Exterior Relations Minister Bruno Rodríguez along with other chancery staff. On Tuesday July 26, during the central celebration of the 58 th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks, the event that Cuba commemorates as the start of its revolution, Machado Ventura wished success to Ollanta Humala and said that his investiture is an example that “the advance of progressive forces” continues in the region. On July 19 the Peruvian nationalist leader paid a visit to Cuba, with which he closed a tour of various countries of the re...

Madrid, Wednesday July 27 2011 (ABC) http://www.abc.es/videos-espana/20110727/indignados-acceden-congreso-1081469213001.htm l The National Police have proceeded this morning to evict the indignados [indignant ones, marchers of the 15M protest movement] camped for three days between P laza de Neptuno and Paseo del Prado [Neptune Square and Prado Avenue in Madrid], very close to the Congress of Deputies. The eviction started at 7:30am and there have been many who, through social networking sites, have complained of the violent attitude of the officers. The indignados came to Congress to deliver a ducument with the problems that they have found in many towns of Spain during their journey on foot to the capital. Finally, after several attempts, a reduced group of indignados managed to enter the chamber and present the document, but for that they had to dress in different clothes and say that they were staying at the Palace Hotel, according to an indignado on the way out. Tran...

Quito, Ecuador, July 26 2011 (Prensa Latina) http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=309781&Itemid=1 The Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, affirmed that the judicial sentence against the ex-boss of the newspaper Opinión and three directors of the daily El Universo is an historic milestone, which penalises the freedom of extortion, not the freedom of expression. “ It sets a precedent against a common practice which is to insult and defame in the name of the freedom of expression,” underlined Correa after stressing that it forms part of one of the hardest battles against one of the greatest powers of Ecuador and all Latin America. “ Until not long ago,” he added in reference to the power of the private press, “they thought themselves all-embracing, they had no scruples, nor do they have, but from now on they are going to have to think twice about their excesses.” The 15 th Criminal Court Judge of Guayas province, Juan Paredes, sent...