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...