Honduran President Zelaya earns high marks for governance (tags)
"MCC's eligibility criteria include a commitment to "just and democratic governance." The pattern of actions taken by Honduras beginning on June 28, 2009, is inconsistent with this commitment and MCC's eligibility criteria. For the record, under the Zelaya administration, according to the MCC fiscal year 2010 scorecard, Honduras turned in grades well above passing with respect to “political rights,” “civil liberties” and “voice and accountability” — the latter, described by MCC, as “the ability of institutions to protect civil liberties; the extent to which citizens of a country are able to participate in the selection of governments; and the independence of the media.”
Honduran government hires fiction writer to hawk coup regime (tags)
"On this morning, three months later, it was déjà vu all over again, as those same military troops reenacted the battle of June 28, busting down the doors of both broadcasters and this time removing their transmitters and equipment. And soldiers have surrounded both houses of media to prevent the people from retaking them. The coup regime is now clinging to power illegitimately, threatened on every front by truth and justice, which means it must create an illusion of democratic sanction, and so, it has inked a $292,000 contract with CLSA, calling on the PR firm to “diseñar una campaña de persuasión” [build a campaign of persuasion]."
Announcing 24 Scholarships in Authentic Journalism for February of 2010 (tags)
Today we announce that Narco News will grant 24 scholarships for up-and-coming journalists and communicators to attend a ten-day session of the School of Authentic Journalism on February 3 to 13 of 2010 on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
Money talks in U.S. policy toward Honduran putsch regime (tags)
"So, in effect, since the earliest days of the coup regime in Honduras, the U.S. has done little more than repackage and rebroadcast the same aid cuts to appease the media and to compliment its rhetorical position of being against the coup. But behind the scenes, the economic effect of the aid cuts has been little more than symbolic posturing." "Henry Kissinger was brutally honest about the U.S. diplomatic reality in Latin America, when commenting decades ago on the government of democratically elected President Salvador Allende of Chile — who was overthrown in a 1973 U.S.-backed coup that led to Allende’s assassination and a subsequent reign of terror by the dictator General Augusto Pinochet. I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon Under Secretary of State Clinton, that fundamentally anti-democratic foreign policy appears to continue to be the status quo for Latin America — absent a much more hands-on effort to change that course by the president of the United States.
U.S. Still Supports the Coup! (tags)
"Agency bankrolling “good governance” programs to ensure the “rule of law in the country” The taxpayer-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation has continued to move millions of dollars into Honduras since the June 28 coup d'état, but it is not alone, Narco News has now confirmed. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is slated to provide Honduras with nearly $47 million in funding in fiscal 2009, which ends Sept. 30, 2009. Nearly all of that money (some $43 million) is scheduled to be delivered as previously planned to Honduras — which is now under the leadership of a putsch regime that President Obama has already described as “not legal.”
Cracks in the Honduran Coup Regime Grow Wider (tags)
"Micheletti is in fact declaring the military a scapegoat for doing just once what Micheletti himself has ordered them to do a second and third time. He doesn’t really want Zelaya to stand trial because, first, the so-called evidence against the President is flimsy and falsified, and, second, because the regime fears that the very people of Honduras might assemble to break down any wall that might hold their elected president."
Urgent Plea from Radio Progreso (Honduras) (tags)
"All of the sudden, Gustavo Cardoza said that a policeman was pointing his weapon at him and immediately reported that other police were coming after him. Our reporter tried to run, and told them that he was a reporter for Radio Progreso. It was then that we heard his cries, and the blows that our reporter was receiving."
Urgent Plea from Radio Progreso (Honduras) (tags)
"All of the sudden, Gustavo Cardoza said that a policeman was pointing his weapon at him and immediately reported that other police were coming after him. Our reporter tried to run, and told them that he was a reporter for Radio Progreso. It was then that we heard his cries, and the blows that our reporter was receiving. The transmission from our reporter was abruptly suspended."
Whose the Real Hypocrite Secretary Clinton? (tags)
"In the context of President Obama’s statement last weekend that those who urge the US to take stronger action against the Honduras coup regime “think that it’s appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate,” calling it “hypocrisy.” The revelation that Clinton and MCC have already sanctioned the elected government of Nicaragua and its private sector in ways that it so far refuses to sanction the illegal coup regime of Honduras and its private backers has revealed one important fact: That Washington has already determined that “it’s appropriate” to deny MCC funds to a country for lighter and more transient reasons than those that exist to sanction a coup regime in another. Didn’t a certain US President, last weekend, speak the word “hypocrisy” in the context of the US and the Honduras coup?"
Too Cute by Half on Honduras, Mr. President (tags)
" I don’t worry or weep for Latin America or Honduras. The people united will never be defeated, and our authentic journalists, myself included, will be there alongside them reporting their every step in community organizing and civil resistance to win back what basic democratic principles establish is rightfully theirs. It really doesn't matter how much money or oxygen Washington gives to the Honduras coup regime: that baby is going down, and will go down hard, at the hands of an organized people."
Former U.S. Ambassador Roger Noriega hired to push Honduran putsch agenda (tags)
"On one side are foreign oligarchs seeking to cloak their self-interested pecuniary agenda under the mantle of U.S. national security and from that concealed, disingenuous platform are working to trump even democracy. On the other side, in the streets of Honduras, and from below all across the Americas, are the forces of authentic democracy, fighting back the only way they can — with their hearts, minds and the blood of their convictions. Stay tuned …."
Help Protect Your Journalists at an Hour of Moral Crisis (tags)
"This is an hour of moral crisis from Bolivia to the Border. Our journalists – your journalists – at Narco News are in the line of fire. Yet they are there, at the front, with smiles on their faces and a passion for reporting the truth in their hearts. I know you agree, as we do, with the philosopher Dante Alighieri when he wrote: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.” Today I plead with you to not be neutral at this hour when authentic democracy and Authentic Journalism in Latin America are flexing their muscles at the very moment when the powers long accustomed to imposing their will on our América are losing their grip: No one is more dangerous than a tyrant when he realizes that the jig is up. And that makes this very hopeful moment also a precarious one."
Was Gary Webb 'Suicided' To Kill New Book? (tags)
Before all articles, legitimate questions, and informed speculation critical of Webb's alleged 'confirmed' suicide are automatically tossed in the 'memory hole', or are destined to endlessly travel through the 'conspiracy belt' - I have some new and important revelations that need to be factored into the Gary Webb death equation, including information that he was working on a NEW book that he would soon finish.
Announcing 37 Scholarships in Authentic Journalism (tags)
From July 30th to August 8th, 2004, the Narco News J-School Comes to Cochabamba and the Coca-Growing Chapare Region of Bolivia...
FBI Spy Revelation Could be a Thread That Unravels the Bureau (tags)
Evidence has surfaced recently that the FBI has been spying on foreign nations for years.