#Colombian President Gustavo Petro

[minnesotafollower]

U.S. Senators and Representatives Demand Ending U.S. Designation of Cuba as State Sponsor of Terrorism     

On January 2, the two U.S. Senators from Massachusetts (Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey) and five U.S. Representatives from that state (Jim McGovern, Ayanna Pressley, Lori Trahan, Seth Moulton and Stephen Lynch) released a letter (dated December 14, 2023) they had sent to President Biden demanding the cancellation of the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.[1] That letter…

[thepastisalreadywritten]

14 June 2023

[dailyworldecho]

[sayruq]

Colombia's president Gustavo Petro has signed an order suspending coal exports to Israel

“With Colombian coal they make bombs to kill the children of Palestine,” said Sunday Colombian president Gustavo Petro in his X account, echoing the decree published by the media. Thus, “exports to the State of Israel of thermal coal” are prohibited, according to the decree, which was signed by several ministers, including the chancellor, Luis Gilberto Murillo, on 14 August and will enter into force next week, despite the fact that the ban was already announced by Petro in June. Fuels and products of extractive industries, including coal, are the main export of Colombia, and between January and June they have cost the country 11,689 million dollars, with the United States being the main destination.

[reasonsforhope]

"In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenù farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.

One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.

Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.

To protect their land, the Zenù reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.

...

In the Zenù reserve, issues with the weather, climate or soil are spread by word of mouth between farmers, or on La Positiva 103.0, a community agroecology radio station. And what’s been on every farmer’s mind is last year’s record-breaking heat and droughts. Both of these were charged by the twin impacts of climate change and a newly developing El Niño, a naturally occurring warmer period that last occurred here in 2016, say climate scientists.

Experts from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies say the impacts of El Niño will be felt in Colombia until April 2024, adding to farmers’ concerns. Other scientists forecast June to August may be even hotter than 2023, and the next five years could be the hottest on record. On Jan. 24, President Gustavo Petro said he will declare wildfires a natural disaster, following an increase in forest fires that scientists attribute to the effects of El Niño.

In the face of these changes, Zenù farmers are trying to revive traditional agricultural practices like ancestral seed conservation and a unique agroecology system.

Pictured: Remberto Gil’s house is surrounded by an agroforestry system where turkeys and other animals graze under fruit trees such as maracuyá (Passiflora edulis), papaya (Carica papaya) and banana (Musa acuminata colla). Medicinal herbs like toronjil (Melissa officinalis) and tres bolas (Leonotis nepetifolia), and bushes like ají (Capsicum baccatum), yam and frijol diablito (beans) are part of the undergrowth. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

“Climate change is scary due to the possibility of food scarcity,” says Rodrigo Hernandez, a local authority with the Santa Isabel community. “Our ancestral seeds offer a solution as more resistant to climate change.”

Based on their experience, farmers say their ancestral seed varieties are more resistant to high temperatures compared to the imported varieties and cultivars they currently use. These ancestral varieties have adapted to the region’s ecosystem and require less water, they tell Mongabay. According to a report by local organization Grupo Semillas and development foundation SWISSAID, indigenous corn varieties like blaquito are more resistant to the heat, cariaco tolerates drought easily, and negrito is very resistant to high temperatures.

The Zenù diet still incorporates the traditional diversity of seeds, plant varieties and animals they consume, though they too are threatened by climate change: from fish recipes made from bocachico (Prochilodus magdalenae), and reptiles like the babilla or spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), to different corn varieties to prepare arepas (cornmeal cakes), liquor, cheeses and soups.

“The most important challenge we have now is to save ancient species and involve new generations in ancestral practice,” says Sonia Rocha Marquez, a professor of social sciences at Sinù University in the city of Montería.

...[Despite] land scarcity, Negrete says communities are developing important projects to protect their traditional food systems. Farmers and seed custodians, like Gil, are working with the Association of Organic Agriculture and Livestock Producers (ASPROAL) and their Communitarian Seed House (Casa Comunitaria de Semillas Criollas y Nativas)...

Pictured: Remberto Gil is a seed guardian and farmer who works at the Communitarian Seed House, where the ASPROL association stores 32 seeds of rare or almost extinct species. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

Located near Gil’s house, the seed bank hosts a rainbow of 12 corn varieties, from glistening black to blue to light pink to purple and even white. There are also jars of seeds for local varieties of beans, eggplants, pumpkins and aromatic herbs, some stored in refrigerators. All are ancient varieties shared between local families.

Outside the seed bank is a terrace where chickens and turkeys graze under an agroforestry system for farmers to emulate: local varieties of passion fruit, papaya and banana trees grow above bushes of ají peppers and beans. Traditional medicinal herbs like toronjil or lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) form part of the undergrowth.

Today, 25 families are involved in sharing, storing and commercializing the seeds of 32 rare or almost-extinct varieties.

“When I was a kid, my father brought me to the farm to participate in recovering the land,” says Nilvadys Arrieta, 56, a farmer member of ASPROAL. “Now, I still act with the same collective thinking that moves what we are doing.”

“Working together helps us to save, share more seeds, and sell at fair price [while] avoiding intermediaries and increasing families’ incomes,” Gil says. “Last year, we sold 8 million seeds to organic restaurants in Bogotà and Medellín.”

So far, the 80% of the farmers families living in the Zenù reserve participate in both the agroecology and seed revival projects, he adds."

-via Mongabay, February 6, 2024

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes from renewed airstrikes by the Israeli occupation army targeting the town of Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, where a huge tower of smoke and dust rises over the city. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

209 DAYS OF GENOCIDE IN GAZA AS ISRAELI OCCUPATION CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES TO RAFAH INVASION

On 209th day of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 3 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 28 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 51 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to reach countless hundreds, even thousands of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind while considering the scale of the mass murder.

As a result of the genocide of Palestinians by the Israel occupation army, Colombia's President, Gustavo Petro, has announced his administration will sever diplomatic ties with the Israeli entity.

The Colombian President made the announcement as part of the country's annual Labor Day celebrations, during which President Petro said that the Republic of Colombia would sever all diplomatic ties with the Israeli occupation on Thursday, due to the Netanyahu administration's tendency for genocide. President Petro further called the Israeli Prime Minister himself a "perpetrator of genocide".

In other news, the Israeli occupation's Security Service may be considering alternatives to the Rafah operation, an Israeli plan to invade Gaza's southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinian civilians have taken shelter in tent cities under the direction of the Israeli occupation army, in order to complete the supposed defeat of Hamas.

According to a report in the Palestinian news outlet, SAMA News Agency, the Israeli occupation's Security Services are deliberating on alternatives to a full-scale invasion of Rafah due to intense international pressure and outcry over a potential operation in the last city standing in the Palestinian enclave.

More than 1.4 million Palestinians have gathered in Rafah's tent cities, most having left their homes in northern Gaza following the start of the genocide, under the direction of the Israeli occupation army who told civilians the city was to be a "safe zone".

Since then, the Israeli occupation forces have repeatedly bombed and shelled the city, including, at times, the tents of civilians.

The report states that the Israeli Security Services considers that, "“in all cases, a focused military operation must be carried out on the Philadelphia axis” on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, under the supposed claim of “preventing smuggling routes for Hamas.”

The report added that the Security Services were also monitoring a "completely unusual" deployment of the Egyptian army near the border with Gaza, attributing the deployment to Egyptian fears that large numbers of Palestinians could stream across the border in the case of an Israeli assault on Rafah.

The Israeli Security Services said Egyptian army had deployed to areas where they previously had only Egyptian Police forces, which added army forces widely deployed with armored vehicles near the border.

The Security Services went on to say that Israeli army officers were preparing for a scenario similar to the 2012 operation, in which Palestinian mujahideen left Gaza for the Egyptian Sinai, seizing an armored vehicle before storming the Israeli border.

The report added that Israeli Security Services were considering a complete withdrawal from the Netzarim axis, seperating the northern and southern halves of Gaza, which constitutes a "heavy price" that the Israeli occupation was willing to pay as part of a hostage exchange deal with the Hamas Resistance movement. This despite continued Israeli calls for the "complete destruction" of the Hamas movement.

In further news, a number of American congressional Democrats signed a letter to US President Joe Biden, calling on the President to influence the Israeli occupation into not conducting an operation to invade the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

57 out of 212 Congressional Democrats signed the letter, asking the Biden administration to take all necessary measures to dissuade the Israeli entity's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, from launching a full-scale invasion of Rafah.

"We urge you to invoke existing law and policy to immediately withhold certain offensive military aid to the Israeli government, including aid sourced from legislation already signed into law, in order to preempt a full-scale assault on Rafah," Democrats said in the letter.

The letter continued by saying, "an Israeli offensive in Rafah risks the start of yet another escalatory spiral, immediately putting the region back on the brink of a broader war that neither Israel nor the United States can afford."

"If the Israeli government will not uphold international law and protect civilians, then the United States must act to protect innocent life. We urge you to continue your work toward achieving a lasting ceasefire that will bring hostages home and build a path toward safety and security for all."

Meanwhile, the occupation's slaughter in Gaza slowed during negotiations for a hostage exchange deal, but did not stop, as several bombings targeted various sectors of the Gaza Strip, including the north, south and central axis.

In one example, Israeli occupation warplanes bombed a residential home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening, martyring a civilian and wounding at least 5 others.

Video published by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) showed the recovery of the dead and wounded, including women and children, while massive destruction was evident resulting from the strike.

In the video, PRCS crew members can be seen filling black plastic body bags, including at least one with a very small body, likely a young child.

At the same time, Zionist artillery shelling targeted a residential house in the Al-Fukhari area, killing a woman, while occupation fighter jets bombed a residential building in the "Six-Martyrs" neighborhood of the central Jabalia Refugee Camp, in Gaza's north.

Occupation jets also bombarded the town of Al-Mughraqa, while also shelling the headquarters for an electricity distribution company in Al-Zawaida, both in the central Gaza Strip.

The Barracks at the entrance of Al-Zawaida were also targeted in a bombing, resulting in a number of casualties.

By dawn, the bombing and shelling was renewed when occupation warplanes bombed the city of Al-Zahra'a, north of the Nuseirat Camp, in central Gaza, killing at least 6 civilians, while yet another bombing targeted the northwest of the Nuseirat Camp, after which, paramedic and civil defense crews removed the bodies of three civilians killed in the strike.

IOF warplanes further bombed agricultural lands near the Ard al-Mufti police station in the Nuseirat Camp, wounding 9 civilians and damaging several homes.

Elsewhere, Zionist air forces bombarded the Qaa al-Qurain area, southeast of Khan Yunis, in Gaza's south, murdering yet another civilian and wounding several others.

Occupation aircraft also bombarded the Bani Suhaila, Abasan, and al-Kuzha'a neighborhoods, east of Khan Yunis.

Local civil defense crews in the Khan Yunis Governate announced that they had recovered the bodies of 6 civilians of various ages, killed in bombings targeting the Camp area of Khan Yunis .

In yet another atrocity, occupation warplanes bombed a residential building belonging to the Ishteiwi family, in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of two Palestinians and wounding a number of others, while several other Palestinians remain missing under the rubble.

IOF fighter jets also targeted a residential home in the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, while another bombing of the Wadi Al-Arayes area, east of the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, resulted in the deaths of two civilians who were taken to the Baptist Hospital.

A group of civilians were also targeted in an airstrike in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.

Occupation forces also continued to bomb the Sheikh Ajlin, Tal al-Hawa, and Al-Zaytoun neighborhoods of Gaza City.

The Israeli occupation additionally targeted the tents of displaced civilian families in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, while also bombing the town of Al-Shoka and the Al-Tanour neighborhood, east of Rafah City, resulting in the death of one civilian and the wounding of many others.

As a result of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the local population has risen further still, now exceeding 34'596 Palestinians killed, including over 14'690 children and 9'680 women, while another 77'816 others were wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

May 2nd, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[mimosita]

Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, condemned Isr*el for the genocide they are committing and Isr*el government got angry and stopped "security exports to Colombia" (weapons and what not. mind that Isr*eli soldiers trained far-right paramilitaries here to commit massacres, etc).

I guess they thought they'll make him retract himself but he answered "If foreign relations with Isr*el have to be suspended, we suspend them. We do not support genocide."

[taviamoth]

🚨🇨🇴 Colombian President Gustavo Petro:

—

While asking for food, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Netanyahu. This is called genocide and reminds us of the Holocaust, even if world powers do not like to recognize it.

The world must block Netanyahu.

Colombia suspends all arms purchases from "israel."

[troythecatfish]

Colombia bans the export of coal to Israel

President Gustavo Petro signed a presidential decree prohibiting coal exports to Israel, aiming to pressure the Israeli government to halt its genocide on Gaza.

The decree, dated August 14, will take effect this week, as reported by Bloomberg.

The Colombian president took to X and stated, "Colombian coal is being used to make bombs that kill Palestinian children."

Source: Mintpress

[allthegeopolitics]

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday (May 1) he will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its actions in Gaza. Petro has already heavily criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. "Here in front of you, the government of change, of the president of the republic announces that tomorrow we will break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel … for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal," Petro told cheering crowds in Bogota who marched to mark International Worker's Day and back Petro's social and economic reforms.

Continue Reading

[drsonnet]

"Mr. Netanyahu, you will go down in history as a genocide. Droppig bombs on thousands of innocent children, women and elderly people does not make you a hero. You remain alongside those who killed millions of Jews in Europe. A genocide is a genocide no matter if he has religion or not. Try to at least stop the massacre." Colombian President Gustavo Petro 2022 - 2026.

Gustavo Petro on X: "Señor Netanyahu, pasará usted a la historia como un genocida. Lanzar bombas sobre miles de niños y niñas, mujeres y ancianos inocentes no lo hace a usted un héroe. Queda usted al lado de quienes mataron millones de judíos en Europa. Un genocida es un genocida no importa si tiene…" / X (twitter.com)

Colombia's Petro says Netanyahu will go down in history as 'genocide perpetrator' | America (yenisafak.com)

[azspot]

Much more than domestic political scorecards are at stake. The immigration crisis is global, combining at least three forms of domination: the denial of people’s right to remain in their homes, the denial of their right to move, and the imposition of punitive social and economic discipline, particularly in the workplace. The political crisis over immigration obscures, as it is designed to, the deeper crises pushing people from their homes across the hemisphere and the world; yet it also obscures the causes of intensifying feelings of insecurity within the United States. Nativism’s trick is to cast racialized foreign others as concrete explanations for problems with otherwise abstract causes. At root, it is sheer scapegoating. In December, Colombian President Gustavo Petro connected the dots: “The unleashing of genocide and barbarism on the Palestinian people is what awaits the exodus of the peoples of the South unleashed by the climate crisis. . . . What we are seeing in Gaza is a rehearsal of the future.” We must either embrace radical new forms of solidarity or normalize the mass death of surplus populations.

Do Border

[worsethankonstantinlevin]

Full article under the cut:

President Gustavo Petro is coming good on his election promise to cut tree felling.

Deforestation in Colombia fell by 36% in a year, marking a new record low.

It's especially good news the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, one-third of which is in Colombia. The Amazon is a crucial carbon sink meaning it sucks up carbon emissions that would otherwise contribute to global warming.

The drop happened between 2022 and 2023 and comes off the back of years of campaigning by Indigenous activists who depend on the Amazon for their homes and livelihood.

The decrease “means that 44,262 hectares of forest stopped being cut down,” Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told journalists. “It is very good news, but we definitely cannot say that the battle is won. We continue to confront illicit economies."

The data was released as Colombia ramps up to host the COP16 United Nations biodiversity summit in the southwestern city of Cali in October.

How did Colombia achieve record low deforestation?

When elected in 2022, President Gustavo Petro vowed to halt record high rates of deforestation in the Amazon by limiting agribusiness expansion into the forest and creating reserves where Indigenous communities and others are allowed to harvest rubber, acai and other non-timber forest products.

Advancing peace talks between the government and guerrilla groups in the area, along with financial incentives for farmers in the Amazon to help with conservation, drove the drop. It came after deforestation had fallen about 29% in 2022.

Environmental experts over past years have said the decrease in deforestation was also likely tied to orders from dissident groups of FARC guerrillas forbidding deforestation.

What does Colombia need to do to keep deforestation down?

Minister Muhamad said the strong presence of government armed forces in guerrilla-controlled areas, as well as progress made with peace talks, will be key to maintaining a downward trend.

But next year's figures don't look as promising. A significant rise in deforestation has already been recorded due to the effects of dry weather caused by El Niño, Muhamad said, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific.

Mass cattle ranching, drug crops and illegal mining and logging continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation, Muhamad said.

[sayruq]

After severing ties with Israel, Colombia's president announced it will open an embassy in Ramallah, Palestine.

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro has ordered the opening of an embassy in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, foreign minister Luis Gilberto Murillo told journalists on Wednesday. At the beginning of this month, Petro, who has heavily criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice, said he would cut diplomatic relations with Israel over its actions in Gaza. "President Petro has given the order that we open the Colombian embassy in Ramallah, the representation of Colombia in Ramallah, that is the next step we are going to take," Murillo said. Ramallah serves as the administrative capital of the Palestinian state.

[reasonsforhope]

"After its first-ever left-wing presidential administration took charge of negotiating permanent peace with the socialist FARC rebels, Colombia’s forests are feeling the effects with a 26% reduction in deforestation in the conflict areas.

These dense, biodiverse rainforests that are a part of the Amazon in places, and independent of it in others, have been one of the many victims of the country’s civil war.

However, President Gustavo Petro is conducting peace negotiations that put the environment first with around 20 splinter factions of the FARC guerillas, who have responded positively.

De-facto leadership in the conflict areas in the forested state of Gauviare has instituted its own deforestation moratorium, and an estimated 50,000 hectares of rainforest have been saved as a result.

“This is really dramatic,” conservationist Rodrigo Botero told The Guardian. “It’s the highest reduction in deforestation and forest fires that there has been in two decades.”

The Guardian recently covered these peace negotiations alongside a delegation from Norway which included that country’s environment minister, Espen Barth Eide.

“What I’m hearing, seeing, and feeling in these meetings is that there is an enhanced understanding that you cannot build a new Colombia on the basis of the further deterioration of nature, so you have to find an economic, social, political, inclusive process that is more respectful towards nature than before,” Barth told the English paper.

Often flying under the radar when compared to its neighbor Brazil, Colombia is the second-most biodiverse country on Earth, and the most biodiverse in terms of bird life.

It’s the 25th-highest country in the world for Forest Integrity Index score (8.26) and boasts twice as many square miles of highly-intact forest than of poorly-intact forest, almost all of which resides in the conflicted states of Amazonia, Caquetá, and Putumayo.

If the Petro government can really put the brakes on the conversion of forests into pastureland for cattle, it would be helping to save one of the most valuable tropical forest ecosystems on Earth."

-via Good News Network, 7/14/23

[workersolidarity]

🇨🇴🇮🇱🇵🇸 PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA CALLS OUT ZIONIST VIOLENCE ON PALESTINIANS AS NO DIFFERENT FROM THE NAZIS

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, today on the social media platform X, compared Zionist violence on Palestinians in Gaza to the Nazis, and said the murder of more than 5'300 Palestinian children since October 7th is no different from the Nazis.

"Dicen que esto no es de Nazis. Asi no le guste a la conciencia occidental estos hechos, el exterminio de 5.300 niños y niñas pañestinos es de Nazis, repito de NAZIS."

"They say this is not Nazis. Even if the Western conscience does not like these facts, the extermination of 5,300 Palestinian boys and girls is Nazis, I repeat NAZIS."

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews