Latin America Left

A data ethicist empowered by their organisation would also be able to act as an intermediary across power dynamics within institutions, giving a voice to those who might not have the confidence or conviction of someone higher up the ladder. 

While Obama can claim the US is the world’s leader on climate change – at least until Donald Trump enters the White House – it is also clear that it has become a major funder of fossil fuels that are having a serious impact upon people’s lives. This is the unexpected story of how Obama’s legacy is playing out overseas.

Meanwhile, the Honduran military police are carrying out targeted attacks against protest leaders, journalists and human rights defenders in the wake of the post-electoral crisis, according to a leading Honduran human rights organisation, COFADEH.

These deaths are a stark reminder for Hondurans, who suffered a similar wave of violence against human rights defenders after the illegal coup d’état in 2009, led by Hernandez and backed by the United States.

Honduran military police are notoriously corrupt and overwhelmingly implicated in egregious human rights abuses against indigenous leaders, trade unionists, journalists, land-rights activists and lawyers. The Inter American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) described Honduras as “one of the most hostile and dangerous countries for human rights defenders”.  Hernandez himself has repeatedly and publicly charged human rights defenders with undermining the country. Just last year, his administration revised the penal code to criminalise anti-government protest and anti-government media coverage as acts of terrorism.  

Solón says they will “inundate an area five times larger than the city of La Paz, displace more than five thousand indigenous peoples, deforest more than one hundred thousand hectares and will not be profitable for the country with the current prices of electricity in Brazil.”

Archondo a very well known journalist, served as the interim representative for 14 months, until Sacha Llorenti, who was Minister of Government in September 2011 during the repression of the indigenous peoples’ march in defense of the National Park and Indigenous Territory of TIPNIS, was appointed as the new UN Ambassador. The Vice Ministry of Transparency and Anti-Corruption has now decided to bring criminal charges with jail sentences of up to 4 years against Solón and Archondo, alleging that Solón “illegally appointed” Archondo and that Archondo committed the crime of “prolonging functions.”

The Bolivian government aims to harass, intimidate and criminalize those who dare to challenge the government’s policies and strategies. As Solón has stated: “The news [of the criminal charges] was not a surprise. Following our critical analysis of the mega hydroelectric plants at El Bala and Chepete, several friends had warned me that they would leave no stone unturned to accuse me of something, intimidate me, and silence me.”

Although PepsiCo argues that they are in dire straits financially, they have madeimmense profits year after year.

Argentina — as well as the rest of Latin America — is experiencing an economic downturn, and the government wants to make the workers pay for the crisis. This means austerity measures, layoffs and factory closings. The attempt to close the PepsiCo plant is both an effect of the poor economic situation and a retaliation for organizing a combative workplace.

The food workers union (The Sindicato de la Alimentación / STIA) said that there was nothing they could do — a multinational like Pepsi is too strong to defeat. But the PepsiCo workers understand that the working class is strong, especially when standing in solidarity with other sectors of workers and their community.

The Right in Brazil likes to complain about taxes, but they don’t seem to have any problem with the biggest and most economically destructive tax of all: the exorbitant interest rates that Brazilians pay on their public debt. We can look at these payments as if they were a tax, since they are levied on the public.

Brazil’s interest burden is not due to the size of its debt ― which is not that big relative to the economy ― but rather because of the interest rates that it pays. Why does the government pay so much? About 44 percent of Brazil’s public debt is tied to the Selic rate ― the short-term policy rate that is set by the Brazilian Central Bank. And the Selic rate helps determine the interest paid on other debt as well. This rate ― in real, inflation-adjusted terms ― is one of the highest of all the central bank policy rates in the world; for the years 2003–2015, it was fifth highest among the 68 countries for which there is data.

In other words, Brazil has sky-high interest rates not because of any risk of default, low savings rates, or other market forces, but because its own Central Bank decides to make them this high. On May 31st the Central Bank lowered the Selic rate again by 1 percentage point, to 10.25 percent. But the real Selic rate ― the interest rate minus the rate of inflation, which is what matters most ― remains higher than it has been for most of the last eight years, because Brazil’s inflation fell faster than the Selic rate.