31 Friday Mar 2017
Posted in Asia-Corruption, Capitalism, South Korea, world
In the latest chapter of an ongoing corruption scandal that’s gripped the Republic of Korea for several months — leading to political paralysis and ultimately an executive power vacuum in Seoul — ousted President Park Geun-Hye was arrested Friday on charges of extortion and abuse of power.
31 Friday Mar 2017
Posted in Capitalism, LATIN AMERICA, Trump, world
Simón Bolívar Hall which, in an affront to the Liberator, is occupied by the decadent and shameful Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), this March 28, was witness to the battle of his descendents -children of the Bolivarian Hugo Chávez – in defense of Venezuela and Our America’s sovereignty, independence, self-determination, and dignity.
The battle unleashed was one of principles, against imperial and oligarchic pretensions to abridge the right of peoples and states to free themselves, exercise their sovereignty, and create the political, economic, social and cultural system they freely choose.
31 Friday Mar 2017
Posted in CUBA, Foreing Policy, Military expenditure
During an official state visit to Beijing this week, senior military officials from Cuba and China agreed to deepen military cooperation.
31 Friday Mar 2017
Posted in Cuba- Science & Health, LATIN AMERICA
HAVANA.–The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) deputy director general and head of its Department of Technical Cooperation, Dazhu Yang, recognized Cuba’s work with nuclear technology, during a recent visit.
In a meeting with specialists from around the country, at the Cuban Nuclear Energy and Advanced Technology Agency (Aenta), he commented that the nation has established nuclear security measures and a related legal framework, to comply with international treaties.
30 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted in Paris, Police brutality
Tags
Riots swelled in Paris for a third night, with hundreds of people protesting against police brutality and the recent killing of a Chinese man, Shaoyo Liu, on March 23 by police.
30 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted in ITALY, Refugee-Immigrant rights
A rubber boat packed with refugees sank in the Mediterranean and the presumed sole survivor, a 16-year-old Gambian boy, told rescuers he believed all other passengers drowned, the International Migration Organization said Wednesday.
30 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted in Zuma
Tags
Zuma has the authority to hire and fire ministers such as Gordhan, but if senior party figures openly criticize him it would weaken his position.
30 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted in ASIA, IMMIGRANT, Violation of human rights
Galleon’s day began just like any other: A seven-year undocumented resident from the Philippines residing in Southern California, the former crewman had just dropped off his 9-year-old child at school before returning to his apartment complex.
However, when he arrived at the complex, unknown people were asking his neighbors about the location of he and his wife. Curious, Galleon spoke to them – but little did he know that he was speaking to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers assigned to arrest the couple. While Galleon was arrested and taken to a Department of Homeland Security office in Long Beach, his wife and child managed to escape through a back door.
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Swept off to Los Angeles International, he was presented with two options: leave the country or face indefinite detention. Unaware of his legal right to retain a lawyer, Galleon – who had a spotless criminal record – chose the former. Within a week, his wife and children also returned to the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.
Galleon’s case has confirmed many of the worst fears within the Filipino community, as well as the broader Asian immigrant community, that they, too, could find themselves in the cross-hairs of the brutal immigration enforcement regime taking shape under the right-wing administration of President Donald Trump.
While deportations were not uncommon during the Obama era, Trump’s immigrant scapegoating and dog-whistle racism has clearly resulted in an amped-up approach to detention and removal operations toward undocumented residents.
“Before, we were helping with only two to three applications (for legal assistance) per week. Now we’re handling 30-40 per day,” Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, told Nikkei Asian Review. While most of the applicants have been Latino immigrants, the coalition is also seeing swelling interest from the large Asian immigrant community, where the fear is palpable.
While Mexicans and Central Americans account for almost three-fourths of the U.S.’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, Asians have accounted for the fastest growing unauthorized population in the U.S. from 2000-2013, according to a Migration Policy Institute report.
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Wei Lee, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant born to Chinese parents in Brazil, is the program coordinator for the group Aspire, or Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education, a pan-Asian group led by undocumented youth. Lee, speaking to Nikkei, noted the growing difficulties among his undocumented peers since the election of Trump: “Parents cannot drop off their kids without worrying about being picked up by (ICE),” a fate that befell Los Angeles father Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez as his weeping 13-year-old daughter filmed the ordeal.
Civil rights lawyer Karin Wang, the vice president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, feels that the increasingly aggressive anti-immigrant stance of the administration should be a source of concern for legalized non-citizens, as well, noting that Trump officials such as Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, and other white nationalists in the Trump cabinet are not “just against undocumented or ‘illegal’ immigration. Legal immigrants are also included in the targets. The administration wants to go back to a time before 1965, when the U.S. eliminated quotas against Latin Americans, Asians and Africans, triggering the explosion of immigration from those regions.”
Speaking to teleSUR, Los Angeles artist and Filipino-American social movement organizer Manila Ryce notes that he’s seen divisions crumble within Asian communities as increasing amounts of people wake up to the ugly reality being imposed by the current administration: “I think the model minority myth has created a false reality in Asian immigrant communities where some people still like to think of themselves as the good immigrants, which makes other communities the bad immigrants. I have seen that starting to change and solidarity between different immigrant communities being formed.”
Responding to the threats from the White House, immigrants are uniting to actively build common fronts for defense in regions like the San Francisco Bay Area, where diverse communities have fought side-by-side to enact sanctuary legislation while volunteers have staffed emergency rapid response hotlines capable of offering services in multiple languages such as Chinese, Spanish and Arabic.
“I think our role in an increasingly authoritarian society will be to take more direct approaches in disrupting deportations,” Ryce explained, noting that further deportations like Galleon’s can be prevented by “educating communities who are at risk, and challenging the respectability politics in our communities which keep us from truly defending ourselves.”
29 Wednesday Mar 2017
Posted in Australasia, Capitalism, New Guinea., world
Human rights advocates in Papua New Guinea raised alarm following shocking accusations of violence leveled at police by villagers residing near the Porgera Joint Venture Gold Mine owned by Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold mining company. The police stand accused of taking part in a pre-dawn operation Saturday where villagers said 150 houses were torched.
29 Wednesday Mar 2017
Posted in Israel-Palestina., North Africa, U.S., War - Conflict, world
The majority of Israelis are against ending the 50-year occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, a poll released Tuesday showed, which also found that most Israelis want full control over the city of Jerusalem, while Palestinians want its east side as their capital.
