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Mark Anderson

World Bank Lending for Population - Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) - The World Bank... - 0 views

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    This page demonstrates a World Bank policy to keep the fertility rate down in developing countries. Surprisingly, there is little attention given to specific countries, rather the policy prescribed here is uniform and enforced equally.
Libba Farrar

Center for Immigration Studies - 0 views

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    Illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico has increasing become a topic for debate. The Mexican government seeks Illegal-Alien Amnesty; however, the United States, under the Bush Administration, believed in building a 'guestworker' program, which in theory would address the educational deficits amongst the incoming immigrant workers. Immigrant workers who enter the United States are coming from areas of poverty which lack adequate educational facilities and due to the lack of financial prosperity young adults are frequently withdrawing from school to try and turn a profit for the family. The cheap labor that comes into the United States comes at a high cost to the natives as it increases the poor population and the amount of people relying on welfare programs. Analysis of the statistics show that the amount of households headed by immigrants make up the majority of the poor population on welfare and without health care insurance; therefore, the United States is seeking to establish policies that address both issues in the welfare system as well as the policies regarding hiring unskilled immigrant workers.
claude adjil

Brazil Takes Off - 0 views

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    In 2003 when Goldman Sachs economists linked Brazil with Russia, India and China as the economies that would come to dominate the world, much contest aroused over the inclusion of Brazil. Many economists questioned how Brazil could participate amongst the ensemble since the country features a declining growth rate, victim to any outside financial crisis, and constant political instability does not make Brazil an appealing candidate as an arising force. China leads the world economy out of recession while Brazil was not far from behind. Brazil was unable to avoid the downturn, but was among the last to fall and among the first to recover with a growing economy again at an annual rate of 5%. With the development of new deep-sea oilfields over the next few years, Brazil's growth will rapidly escalate also a result of Asian countries heightened appetite for food and minerals from Brazil's ample land. Forecasts alternate but in the decades proceeding 2014 Brazil will emerge as the world's fifth largest-economy, excelling Britain and France, and in 2025 it is also speculated that Sao Paulo will be the fifth-wealthiest city. Brazil perhaps surpasses its competing members because unlike China, it is a democracy, unlike India; the country is not plagued with insurgents, or ethnic and religious conflicts, or hostile relationships with its neighbors like India has with Pakistan and Kashmir. In contrast to Russia, Brazil exports more than oil and arms, and has established more cordial relationships with foreign investors. Brazil's emergence has not been hasty but instead steady. Initiatives began in the 1990s when they established a coherent set of economic policies, and the Central Bank was granted autonomy, which stimulated development of new multinationals that may have previously been state-owned companies that are now prospering as a result of operating from a distance from the government. Weaknesses, however, still permeate throughout Brazil, so it is necessary to
Atsuyoshi Ishizumi

Yale Daily News - Catch them in the wild - 0 views

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    This article, in a way, connects to Escobar's text, as it talks about the negative externalities of shrimp farming in Ecuador, Brazil, and other countries. The argument this article is making, as apparent in the title, is that well-managed fisheries should catch wild shrimp and fish, in stead of cultivating them in the form of aquaculture.
Arabica Robusta

Adrienne Pine and David Vivar: Saving Honduras? - 0 views

  • They say that following the coup, Cáceres, working with the pro-coup Marrder family that controlled the HTW website, deceitfully wrested control from the Gutierrez family which had founded the paper and until then had maintained editorial control.
  • The Marrders eventually decided to found Honduras weekly as a competing newspaper, with Cáceres as editor. Stanley Marrder, listed on its website as "Owner and publisher of Honduras Weekly," is a Texan businessman and large Republican donor who grew up in Honduras. As they watched their own paper go under, the staff and owners of HTW darkly joked that they too had been victims of a coup.
  • HTW had been a printed and online English-language newspaper aimed at tourists and investors, employing journalists. Honduras Weekly, by contrast, is a blog that does not employ any trained journalists or paid staff, although you would not know that from its "about" page. In a tally last week, of forty-one "guest contributors," fourteen were evangelical missionaries who had each written one travelogue in classic "Heart of Darkness" style. Here is an example: After months of prayerful, "Jonah and the whale" thoughts, I booked my ticket to La Ceiba, Honduras this past weekend and no longer retain a wussy status. This gives my 'I don't leave home well' feelings a whole new slant. I'm flying out with the Vision Honduras team from Dassel, Minnesota on March 3 for a volunteer eye care mission that will last 19 days, carrying only what I can fit into a backpack.
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  • Cáceres uses deceptive tactics like these specifically to prop up an illusion of balance in a blog masquerading as a newspaper, but which is really Cáceres' personal soapbox. In a similar vein, Cáceres recently quoted me out of context in a way that made the quote appear to support his work in a press release promoting his book, written for the 700 club.
  • One of the articles recently republished to appear to look like it was written for HW was titled "US, Honduran Soldiers Partner on Medical Mission to Colón," describing a "humanitarian" mission to the community Guadalupe Carney, written by Alex Licea .Two important facts are left out in the article: first, that SOUTHCOM specifically targets communities like Guadalupe Carney, named for the revolutionary priest and martyr, that are united in their resistance to the coup and U.S. imperialist policy for its "aid" efforts, and secondly, the full attribution of the article, reprinted from SOUTHCOM's website and written by Sgt. 1st Class Alex Licea, SOCSOUTH PAO [Public Affairs Officer].
  • Cáceres has been an enthusiastic supporter of SOUTHCOM's operations in Honduras, and Joint Task Force Bravo, and Bravo has returned that enthusiasm, even sponsoring his annual conference in 2008, themed "Building Global Partnerships: Implementing MDG 8 in Honduras." According to a participant at the conference, Cáceres proudly described to his audience the process that led up to the partnership, explaining that a director at DARPA who had been on a mission trip to Honduras with his church and "fell in love" with the country arranged for SOUTHCOM to allocate a substantial sum of money for the conference.
  • a woman from Task Force Bravo spoke. She proceeded to describe what they did as well as how they help humanitarian efforts. But she also gave a short history of the base. She stated that the base was there in the 1980s to combat aggression. That deeply affected me because I know the role of the US government at that time and have seen the effects of US support of Central American regimes like Honduras and El Salvador in that time.
  • As described on an earlier version of its website, the goal of Cáceres's conference is "to inform, inspire and to generate creative thinking about ways to help Honduras through grassroots projects aimed at providing the Honduran people with some basic abilities to live, learn, and grow... so that eventually they are in a better position to solve the problems of their society." The Social Darwinist assumption implicit in this description (as in the missionary travelogues posted on Honduras Weekly) is that Hondurans have not been able to solve the positions of their society for cultural and developmental reasons-rather than military and economic imperialism. Cáceres insists in his writings and in official conference propaganda that the work is apolitical, but this is of course an impossibility in today's Honduras.
  • While these and other individuals representing the U.S. State will be presenting, the vast majority of individuals attending come from reactionary evangelical groups, promoting charity work based on a premise of "apolitical" salvation that stand in direct opposition to the vibrant Honduran resistant movement's goals of justice and self-determination.
  • Why is USAID ("From the American People") officially sponsoring the Conference on Honduras this year? It's not because the NGOs involved are doing any good; they aren't. In their acceptance of a Social Darwinist model that identifies poverty as the result of a lack of "empowerment" and human capital, they can't.
  • In ignoring those voices, they refuse to address the roots of the problem. Instead, they provide ideological cover for a neoliberal agenda, promoting a Protestant ethic of individual responsibility that eschews notions of social justice, participatory democracy and the public good.
  • why, then, does the U.S. State support Cáceres? It is because he, like the NGOs he promotes, has been a truly effective tool in whitewashing the neoliberal undermining of democracy in Honduras, and the role of U.S. policy and military in it. Cáceres' advocacy is Clinton's Smart Power, combining institutions of military force and media and Non-Profit Industrial Complex coercion to undermine democratic processes in the interest of supporting the corporations that funded and have benefited from the coup. And indeed, as long as we don't focus on the pro-corporate, anti-democratic golpista praxis in our own government, as the State Department employee I met on the train said, our fingerprints are all over that.
Arabica Robusta

Ecuador's Digital Agenda: Bridging the Digital Divide and Laying the Foundations for a ... - 0 views

  • Since becoming elected president, Rafael Correa has made higher education (particularly in the field of technology) a key aspect of domestic policy. In 2013, 1.83 percent of public spending as a percentage of total GDP went toward higher education (one of the highest in all of South America).
  • It is worth noting that the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector has become an increasingly important source of growth for many Latin American countries.
  • Another important goal in Ecuador's digital agenda is to achieve digital sovereignty to overcome technological dependence on developed countries. In its effort to achieve this goal, in 2010, the Ecuadorian government passed a higher education reform bill, which requires universities to use open-source software as a way to protect intellectual sovereignty.
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  • Finally, late in March, the government inaugurated Yachay, the country's first planned city of nearly 17 square miles designed to become a hub for technological research and scientific infrastructure. Located inside the city is Yachay University, which is now Ecuador's first research technology institute. The university will offer degrees in the following areas: life sciences, information and communications technology, nanoscience, renewable energy and petro chemistry.  The university hopes to attract professionals and researchers, both foreign and domestic, to ensure technological innovation.
Jennifer Salazar

BBC NEWS | Americas | Could war erupt in arms-spree LatAm? - 0 views

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    After a weapons-buying splurge, is South America gearing up for conflict? Robert Munks, Americas analyst for IHS Jane's, investigates.
Aria Auerbach

LATIN AMERICA: "The More Guns, the More Violence" - 0 views

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    Several countries throughout Latin America have been fighting to end the continual violent attacks. "The More Guns, the more Violence" is one of the measures which will be discussed at the upcoming conference for NGO's. Over seven million rifles are produced each year and many of them are sent to Latin American countries.
Aria Auerbach

Mexico Violence May Sap 3% of GDP as Gangs Flourish - 0 views

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    Mexico has always been recognized for its high crime and this article emphasizes the notion that despite increased security measures throughout the country, crime rates continue to flourish. In 2006, after numerous attacks of violence and gang crime, security measures were advanced. However, despite Felipe Calderon's fight to end the attacks, it is noted that currently, organized crime violence in Mexico is accountable for approximately 20 deaths per day.
Arabica Robusta

The U.S. Roots of the Central American Immigrant Influx | North American Congress on La... - 0 views

  • The tragic journey of Vásquez Chaj and Tucux Chiché is one story among many of how harmful U.S. political and economic policies in Latin America violently intersect with a hardening and brutal system of U.S. immigration control.
  • It is indisputable that the United States shares significant responsibility for the genocide of tens of thousands of Guatemalans—mainly indigenous Mayans, including members of Gustavo and Maximiliano’s community, who comprised a majority of the (at least) 150,000 killed in the 1980s alone. A 1999 UN Truth Commission blamed Guatemalan state forces for 93 percent of the atrocities. That same year, former President Bill Clinton admitted the wrongness of U.S. support for Guatemalan state violence.
  • The day of his remorseful words in Guatemala City, he looked genocide survivors in the face, acknowledged that Washington enabled their suffering, and then rejected their impassioned pleas for U.S. immigration reform because, he said, “we must enforce our laws.”
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  • Instead, Washington offers programs such as the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), a $496 million endeavor since 2008 to train and assist local security forces to counter, among other perceived threats, “border security deficiencies.”
  • The U.S. formally cut off military aid to Guatemala in 1977, though U.S. funding flowed at normal levels through the early 1980s and Guatemala enjoyed enormous military support, by proxy, through U.S. client states such as Israel, Taiwan, and South Africa.
  • “Psychologists would say that a guilt complex can lead to two reactions. One is acceptance and the desire to change. The other reaction is to indulge in more of the very thing that you have the sense of guilt about.”
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