#Maduro Kidnaps Children

[minipisi-is-dumb]

i haven't been able to share but twittervzla is doing their best to make #MaduroSecuestraNiños and #MaduroKidnapsChildren trending, and they're making it !

8 children of the over 100 teens have been released, testimonies of children as young as 11 have resurfaced that date back to 2019 of the tortured of the regime, and we should all be aware of it

If you care to translate, here are several posts and threads detailing what's been happening, of course starting with María Corina Machado:

Specially jarring recount of an 11 year old explaining how he was tortured by the regime and threatened that they will appear in his nightmares if he ever told his family, denouncing Tentaient Arellano for his torture by electricity and hits

"Young people are the future of our country, their only 'crime' is to wish for justice and desire freedom"

"a total of 86 teenagers incarcerated in Venezuela after the post election crisis detentions"

denounce the regime, denounce the kidnapping of children

[rebellion-of-the-oppressed]

Muy buenas, pequeño recordatorio de que ¡¡MADURO SECUESTRA NIÑOS!!

Desde el fraude electoral del 28 de Julio, el régimen de Nicolás Maduro ha secuestrado, matado y torturado a venezolanos inocentes, acusándolos de "terrorismo", muchos de los cuales son menores de edad.

El foro penal, anuncio que desde el 29 de julio al 28 de Agosto del 2024, 114 adolescentes de entre 14-17 fueron encarcelados por supuesto terrorismo, siendo puestos en cárceles para adultos, en condiciones inhumanas, sin derecho a un abogado y sin poder ver a sus familiares.

HAY NIÑOS QUE NO HAN VISTO A SUS FAMILIARES Y NI SABEN SI LOS VOLVERÁN A VER, NIÑOS QUE NI SIQUIERA SABEN POR QUÉ ESTÁN ALLÍ, NIÑOS QUE NI ESTABAN PROTESTANDO CUANDO LO SECUESTRO ESTA DICTADURA.

Afortunadamente, desde el pasado 29 de Agosto al 1º de septiembre, el foto penal ha verificado 86 excarcelaciones de adolescentes, detenidos el 29 de julio.

Lo cual me alegra, estoy feliz de que ellos hayan podido volver con sus familias, pero no tengo nada que agradecerle a Nicolás Maduro, ellos nunca debieron estar allí en primer lugar, y sin embargo 114 estuvieron detenidos por un mes (y algunos aun siguen allí).

Y aparte ¿necesito recordárles que Maduro dijo que crearía cárceles de máxima seguridad para "reeducar" a los opositores y ponerlos a trabajar de gratis? (básicamente CAMPOS DE CONCENTRACIÓN).

Maduro no solo es un secuestrador, también es un asesino, un dictador, un genocida y un criminal que debe pagar todo lo que le ha hecho a este país

[mosura780]

[milarepas]

Maduro saying he will build two maximum security prisons, to make them “reeducation, farming and work centers”

He's going to build concentration camps for people who oppose him. THEY ARE GOING TO KEEP KIDNAPING PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE HIM AND JUST SEND THEN THERE TO RE-EDUCATE THEM this is insane.

Chavistas are targeting people who were in the pacific protests, they are marking house by house all the people who participated or who think differently. How can people who are outside of Venezuela see this and do nothing, IT'S LITERALLY HITLER IN PERSON, HE'S MARKING HOUSES AND TAKING CHILDREN TO CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

A 13 year old girl was arrested for committing "terrorism" crimes A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL.

Don't fall for the lies of non-Venezuelans trying to explain to you what's happening here, this is not about ideologies, IT'S A DICTATORSHIP THAT NEEDS TO LEAVE NOW.

Our real elected president is EDMUNDO GONZÁLEZ.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Miami faith community strains to help new exiles, migrants (AP) A few days after selling all she had to flee Cuba with her three children on a crowded boat, Daneilis Tamayo raised her hand in praise and sang the rousing opening hymn at Sunday worship in this Miami suburb. “The only thing that gave me strength is the Lord. I’m not going to lose my faith, whatever I might go through,” she said later, sitting on a mattress in one of Iglesia Rescate’s classrooms. She and her children, ages 16, 8 and 3, have been sleeping in the church’s improvised shelter since the promises of help made by her contact in the United States turned out to be “all lies.” In the past 18 months, an estimated 250,000 migrants and asylum-seekers like Tamayo have arrived in the Miami area after being granted only precarious legal status. It often doesn’t include permission to work, which is essential to building new lives in the U.S. The influx is maxing out the migrant social safety net even in Miami’s faith communities. Miami’s faith leaders and their congregations remain steadfast in their mission to help settle new migrants. But they’re sounding the alarm that the need is growing unmanageable—and could get worse without federal reforms providing permanent legal status and work permits.

4 Americans kidnapped in northern Mexico, officials say (AP) Four U.S. citizens have been kidnapped after gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in the northern Mexico border city of Matamoros, the FBI said. The four had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday and were travelling in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. The FBI San Antonio Division office said in a statement Sunday that the vehicle came under fire shortly after it entered Mexico. “All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the office said. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for the return of the victims and the arrest of the culprits.

A generation of Venezuelan children know only struggles (AP) Valerie Torres’ mother has tried to shield her from the worst of Venezuela’s protracted crisis—the deadly protests, the sick people begging for help, the malnourished children with protruding ribs. At school, her teachers don’t even broach the subject. But just shy of her 10th birthday this month, the girl is perceptive beyond her years. She knows her fourth-grade classmate lied to their teacher saying he forgot a book at home when in fact he was still saving up to buy it; that neighbors, friends and even her grandmother have all fled the country in search of a better life; that her mother is bringing home fewer groceries. Valerie is part of a generation of Venezuelan children who know only a country in crisis, whose lives so far have been spent amid hardship and under the government of a single president, Nicolás Maduro, who took the reins a decade ago Sunday when his mentor, Hugo Chávez, died of cancer.

Unions vow to shut France’s economy down amid pension battle (AP) Roads blocked, oil refineries disrupted, planes grounded and trains halted—unions are threatening to shut down France’s economy this week in what they hope is their toughest riposte yet to President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age. The first actions are expected Monday, as truckers are being urged to block major highway arteries and interchanges in go-slow actions dubbed “escargot” operations. Unions plan an open-ended strike on the national rail service starting Monday evening. The government is bracing for the biggest disruptions Tuesday, when strikes are expected across multiple sectors and protests are planned in cities across France against the retirement bill. The reform, which would raise the official pension age from 62 to 64 and require 43 years of work to earn a full pension, is currently under debate in parliament.

Russia’s population nightmare (Economist) A demographic tragedy is unfolding in Russia. Over the past three years the country has lost around 2m more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. And because so many men of fighting age are dead or in exile, women outnumber men by at least 10m. War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded over the past year (Russia’s own figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.

In liberated Ukraine city, civilians still pay price of war (AP) In this war-scarred city in Ukraine’s northeast, residents scrutinize every step for land mines. Behind closed doors, survivors wait in agony for the bodies of loved ones to be identified. The hunt for collaborators of the not-so-long ago Russian occupation poisons tightly-knit communities. This is life in Izium, a city on the Donets River in the Kharkiv region that was retaken by Ukrainian forces in September, but still suffers the legacy of six months of Russian occupation. Ukrainian civilians were tortured, disappeared and were arbitrarily detained. Mass graves with hundreds of bodies have been discovered and entire neighborhoods were destroyed in the fighting. Izium is a gruesome reminder of the human cost of the war. Six months after it was liberated, residents say they continue to pay the price. In this city, everyone has a mine story: Either they stepped on one and lost a limb or know someone who did. The mines are discovered daily, concealed along riverbanks, on roads, in fields, on the tops of roofs, in trees. “We have an average of one person a week with wounds” from mines, Dr. Yurii Kuzentsov said. “I don’t know when I will ever go to the river or the forest again, even if our lives are restored, because, as a medical professional, I have seen the consequences.”

A month after quake, survivors need shelter, sanitation (AP) One month after a powerful quake devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, hundreds of thousands of people still need adequate shelter and sanitation, and an appeal for $1 billion to assist survivors is only 10% funded, hampering efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis, a United Nations official said Monday. The Feb. 6 earthquake and strong aftershocks have killed more than 46,000 people in Turkey, destroyed or damaged around 230,000 buildings and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless—making it the worst disaster in Turkey’s modern history. The U.N. estimates that the earthquake killed around 6,000 people in Syria, mainly in the rebel-held northwest. About 2 million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the earthquake-devastated region, according to Turkish government figures. Around 1.5 million people have been settled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container houses. Others are living in dormitories and guesthouses, the government said.

Bathhouses in Asia are in hot water (Washington Post) For almost 75 years, Tokyo’s Daikokuyu has been a community establishment where locals strip off, wash away the dirt and grime of everyday life, and then have a long soak together in big overflowing tubs. Generations of Japanese frequented their neighborhood bathhouses, sweating shoulder to shoulder in spirit of a tradition called hadaka no tsukiai, or “naked communion.” Now, bathhouses face a new, double existential crisis: Many bathhouses struggled or closed during the covid pandemic only then to be hit with huge heating bills, thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The past few months have really been unbelievable,” said Daikokuyu’s third-generation owner Takuya Shinbo. With record low temperatures hitting Tokyo this past winter, he had to shoulder more than double last year’s cost to keep the water warm through cold nights. Daikokuyu’s monthly gas bill has more than doubled—from just over $5,000 in January last year to more than $12,000 in January this year. Compared to hard-hit European countries, Japan and Korea have seen relatively small hikes in energy prices resulting from the war in Ukraine, but the increased bills remain a daunting obstacle for already struggling bathhouse businesses in both countries.

South Korea Exporting Billions in Arms (NYT) A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war has spurred a global effort to produce more missiles, tanks, artillery shells and other munitions. And few countries have moved as quickly as South Korea to increase output. Last year, South Korea’s arms exports rose 140 percent to a record $17.3 billion, including deals worth $12.4 billion to sell ​tanks, ​howitzers, ​fighter jets and multiple rocket launchers to Poland, one of Ukraine’s closest allies. But as South Korea expands weapons sales globally, it has refused to send lethal assistance to Ukraine itself. Instead, it has focused on filling the world’s rearmament gap while resisting any direct role in arming Ukraine, imposing strict export control rules on all its sales. South Korea’s wariness stems in part from its reluctance to openly antagonize Moscow, from which it hopes for cooperation in imposing new sanctions against an increasingly belligerent North Korea. Countries throughout Latin America, Israel and others have also declined to send weapons directly to Ukraine.

Afghan women, divorced and remarried, now considered outlaws under Taliban rule (Washington Post) After her stepfather sold her into marriage at the age of 13 to support his drug habit, the young Afghan woman fought for years to escape an abusive husband. She eventually fled his home, secured a divorce and remarried, she recalled. Now, under Taliban rule, she’s suddenly on the run again, at risk of imprisonment for adultery. Under the previous government, this woman from western Afghanistan could get a divorce by testifying that her first husband was physically abusive, even though he refused to appear before the judge. But under the Taliban’s draconian interpretation of Islamic law, her divorce is invalid and, as a result, so is her second marriage. Former judges and lawyers estimate that thousands of Afghan women who earlier secured divorces without a husband’s consent are now in danger under Taliban rule, facing potential imprisonment and violent reprisals.

Lebanon adopts ‘dollarization’ as currency, economy crumble (AP) With the Lebanese economy in shambles and its currency in free fall, small businesses spend much of their time trying to keep up with a fluctuating exchange rate. Now they are increasingly leaning on one of the world’s most reliable assets—the U.S. dollar—as a way to cope with the worst financial crisis in its modern history. The Lebanese pound has lost 95% in value since late 2019, and now most restaurants and many stores are demanding to be paid in dollars. The government recently began allowing grocery stores to start doing the same. While this “dollarization” aims to ease inflation and stabilize the economy, it also threatens to push more people into poverty and deepen the crisis. That’s because few in Lebanon have access to dollars to pay for food and other essentials priced that way. But endemic corruption means political and financial leaders are resisting the alternative to dollarization: long-term reforms to banks and government agencies that would end wasteful spending and jump-start the economy.

A new generation of Palestinian fighters is rising up in the West Bank (Washington Post) A Palestinian militant named Mohammad Abu Dhraa strode boldly through this city’s roughest refugee camp last week with an assault rifle on his shoulder, an entourage of young men following in his path. The day before, Abu Dhraa had taken part in an hours-long gun battle with Israeli soldiers who raided Nablus’s city center, one of the deadliest confrontations here in years. Fighters like Abu Dhraa are not tied to a party or a political ideology. But they have easy access to guns and are committed to the fight. In their youth and independence, they represent a new kind of threat—not only to Israel but to an ever-weaker Palestinian Authority, run by unelected men in their 70s and 80s. In earlier generations, Palestinian political factions ran the brigades during street fighting against Israel. Now, cells of teenagers and young men in their early 20s from the neighborhood are calling the shots. It has been nearly 20 years since the last Palestinian intifada, or uprising. And while the dynamics have changed, observers say, the fundamentals are the same—occupation, despair and relentless violence. Across the West Bank, “the widespread public frustration and desperation is there” for another Palestinian uprising, said Tahani Mustafa, an expert with the International Crisis Group. “I think it’s going to be a lot bloodier, far more diffused, far more fragmented.”

[adrl-pt]

Problems of Ukrainian army volunteers from Russia. Restoration of elected institutions in Venezuela.

You are watching news from the weekly rally at the Russian Embassy in Lisbon. Today is October 5, 2:30 PM.

On October 4, the Civic Council, which has been recruiting Russians for the International Legion of the Ukrainian Defense Forces since November 2022, published a report "Volunteers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Russian citizenship: veterans without a homeland." The report provides examples of critical situations in which volunteers who are demobilized at the end of their contract or after being wounded find themselves. They often cannot obtain a residence permit, they are deported to countries that are unsafe due to the activity of Russian special services, and they are forced to wander around refugee camps. The Civic Council calls on EU countries and the UNHCR office to pay attention to this situation and develop measures to ensure the safety and legal status of volunteers. https://www.patreon.com/posts/dobrovoltsy-vsu-113345610

On March 19, at the FSB board, Putin gave the order to punish such people "wherever they are" "so that no one would dare to do the same." https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/03/19/putin-prikazal-fsb-naiti-vseh-predatelei-inedopustit-smuti-a124948

In 2020, the US State Department offered up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro and comparable amounts for 14 other Venezuelan officials accused of narcoterrorism, corruption and other crimes. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros-and-14-current-and-former-venezuelan-officials-charged-narco-terrorism

On September 17, an unknown group calling themself "the same Venezuelans who resisted, endured, and persevered" launched the "Ya Casi Venezuela" campaign. At the time of recording the video, they had raised $1.4 million out of $10 million to restore legitimately elected institutions and representatives. https://yacasivenezuela.com/

On October 4, Erik Prince told Colombia's "W Radio" that although he is not the project's leader, he supports the "good" government of the Venezuelans, who have clearly won the elections. He said that thousands of people from the Venezuelan security forces who oppose the regime have approached him for help. The first stage of the campaign will be to investigate election fraud and find out where the regime is hiding its stolen goods. https://www.wradio.com.co/2024/10/04/israel-detecto-el-lanzamiento-de-222-cohetes-de-hezbola-durante-este-viernes/?rel=buscador_noticias

Erik Prince founded the private military company Blackwater, which was implicated in human rights abuses during the US invasion of Iraq, his name is also linked to arms trafficking violations and numerous legal problems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince

And about "information laundering". Working with disinformation specialists for a year, the BBC discovered a UK-registered company, Yala News, broadcasting Russian propaganda to the Arab world. Its content is copies of messages from sites linked to the Russian state. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-65150030

Since September 24, pro-Russian channels have been spreading a fake video of activists holding posters in front of the UN building that have been replaced with anti-Ukrainian ones. The original video shows Russian anti-war activists of For freedom in Russia with posters in support of Ukraine. https://www.facebook.com/groups/forfreedominrussia/permalink/2429296493944161/

Fundraising continues for portable power stations for hospitals and schools of Ukraine and for the return of Ukrainian children kidnapped by the Russian authorities. https://antiwarcommittee.info/en/energy-for-life/ https://www.every.org/orphans-feeding-foundation/f/help-us-return-the-deported

Proofs and links are in the description. Subscribe and help!

Schedule of our activities, 11 social networks in 3 languages and much more on our website: https://adrl.pt/en

[padsmoony04]

Please, we need this to reach everyone!

Venezuela, a country in South America, has had the same party and political group under power for more than twenty years. In recent years it has encountered one of the greatest crises at an economic, political and social level, causing currently 8 million Venezuelans to have had to emigrate from their country, being one of the countries with the most migrations. Last weekend they underwent elections in which there is video evidence of how the public voted against the dictatorial regime of their current "president" Nicolás Maduro. When the count was carried out, the government in power carried out electoral fraud, causing the discontent of the people, who decided to march peacefully to defend their vote, to which the government of Nicolas Maduro chose to violently repress the Venezuelan people, innocent children, adolescents, elderly people, adults are being murdered, people kidnapped or detained. Please, we need worldwide disclosure so that this does not continue to happen, so that these injustices stop. I know that everyone is going through complicated situations and that everyone has their political beliefs, but we cannot allow injustices like these to continue happening, that innocent people continue to die for demanding their rights!

AYUDA PARA VENEZUELA. Por favor, difundir :(

[minipisi-is-dumb]

Children kidnapped by Maduro's regime are sent to a maximum security prison to be tortured or even killed by the military. This video shows their parents waving and screaming different forms of "I love you" to the kids from afar. Some kids even wave back to their parents. The youngest one is 12 years old.

How is a 12 year old child a CIA terrorist? How is a 12 year old child a coup plotter? How is a 12 year old child deserving of the most horrific things a human being can experience? The regime is already known for abusing little girls they kidnap. The regime is known for taking away the childhoods of Venezuelans for the last 25 years.

But nobody wants to do anything because our situation doesn't fit a left vs right dichotomy.

Nobody does anything because we're not a trend or "important".

Nobody does anything because our freedom doesn't follow your standards.

Nobody does anything because you'd rather send us back to all rot under the regime.

Nobody does anything, and this keeps happening.

source:

[theculturedmarxist]

       28 June 2019  

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the US-backed coup that overthrow the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, who was dragged out of the presidential palace in his pajamas by armed troops, bundled onto an airplane and flown out of the country.

This event ushered in a decade of unending repression by a succession of extreme right-wing and deeply corrupt governments. They have ruled the country with a ruthless determination to defend the interests of the national oligarchy—the so-called “ten families” of multi-millionaires and billionaires—and of foreign finance capital.

For the masses of Honduran workers and rural poor, the policies implemented by the right-wing regimes that followed the ouster of Zelaya have proven disastrous. Honduras is today the most unequal country in Latin America, itself the most unequal region in the world. Nearly 70 percent of the country’s population lives in poverty, while over 60 percent lack formal employment. The murder rate, which soared to the highest in the world, still remains nine times that in the United States.

One result has been a mass exodus. The US government has reported detaining 175,000 Hondurans on the US-Mexican border in the last eight months. The country accounts for by far the largest share of migrants and refugees fleeing to the US border—30 percent of the total. This is nearly double the 16 percent share recorded just three years ago.

These masses of workers and their families fleeing their own country because of intolerable conditions created by imperialism and the native ruling class confront the same horrific circumstances that have shocked the population of the US and the world with the recent publication of the photograph of a Salvadoran father and his daughter who drowned together in the Rio Grande.

Just last April, an adult and three children from Honduras drowned in the same river when their raft capsized. On Thursday, Mexican authorities reported that a young Honduran woman traveling north with her family fell from a train and was crushed beneath its wheels.

Now these refugees are confronting the combined repression, detention and abuse from the governments of the United States, Mexico and Guatemala, which have united in the use of naked force in an attempt to prevent them from escaping poverty, state terror and rampant violence.

Democratic Party candidates and congressional leaders have shed crocodile tears over the deaths in the Rio Grande and postured as defenders of immigrants. These sentiments are belied, however, by the fact that Democratic President Barack Obama, the “deporter-in-chief”, and his then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, presided over the coup that devastated Honduras, driving its people in desperation to flee the country despite the threats of death, persecution and being thrown into a US concentration camp.

After Zelaya’s overthrow, kidnapping and expulsion from the country, the Obama administration sought to preserve a veneer of commitment to “democracy” in Latin America—and deniability for its military, intelligence and diplomatic operatives—by publicly deploring the ouster of Zelaya.

Clinton, however, pointedly refused to describe the military’s seizure and deportation of an elected president as a “coup,” a designation that under the US Foreign Assistance Act, would have required the Obama administration to cut off aid and ties to the coup regime.

The administration likewise failed to demand Zelaya’s reinstatement. Given that the US accounted for 70 percent of Honduran export earnings and provided the guns and aid upon which the country’s military depended, it had unquestioned power to force a reversal of the coup.

Its formal reservations notwithstanding, however, it was soon revealed that top US officials had been in discussions with the military commanders and right-wing politicians who organized the coup shortly before Zelaya’s overthrow.

A conservative and wealthy bourgeois politician of the Honduran Liberal Party, which regularly alternated power with the equally right-wing National Party under US and military-dominated regimes, Zelaya earned Washington’s enmity by becoming swept up by Latin America’s so-called “Pink Tide”. This collection of bourgeois nationalist governments was able, thanks to the commodity boom and the rise of China’s economic influence in the region, to adopt a posture of populism and independence from US imperialism.

For Zelaya, the clear attraction was cheap Venezuelan oil and loans. However, US imperialism, which had sought seven years earlier to overthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a civilian-military coup, was determined to eliminate a government aligned with Venezuela and Cuba in Honduras.

The Central American country has longed served as a staging ground for counterrevolutionary operations in the region, from the 1954 CIA overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala through to the CIA-organized “contra” war against Nicaragua in the 1980s. The civil wars and counter-insurgency campaigns carried out by US imperialism in the region, using Honduras as its base, would claim the lives of hundreds of thousands. It remains the site of the largest US military base in Latin America at Soto Cano.

Much the same US personnel involved in the 2002 coup against Chavez in Venezuela under George W. Bush were involved in the 2009 coup against Zelaya in Honduras under Barack Obama. And the same strategic policy guides the Trump administration’s present regime change operation against the government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

Underlying this clear continuity in Washington’s foreign policy, under both Democratic and Republican administrations alike, is the drive by US imperialism to reverse the decline of its global economic hegemony by military means, particularly in the region that it has so long regarded as its “own backyard.”

The Honduran working class responded to the 2009 coup with immense heroism. It staged continuous demonstrations and strikes in the teeth of savage repression. This included the arbitrary detention of thousands, the shooting of protesters, the gang rape of women detained at protests and the organization of death squads to assassinate journalists and opponents of the coup regime.

Washington ignored this savage brutality, and the US corporate media largely passed over it in silence.

For his part, Zelaya placed his faith in the pseudo-democratic façade of the Obama administration, appealing for its aid and submitting himself—and subordinating the mass movement against the coup—to a series of negotiations aimed at forming a “government of national unity” with those who overthrew him.

In the end, these negotiations led nowhere. The right-wing coup regime led by Zelaya’s former Liberal Party ally Roberto Micheletti was able to drag out the process until rigged elections could be staged in November 2009, installing the right-wing government of Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo and allowing Washington and world imperialism to pretend that the coup had never happened.

Despite the heroism of the Honduran workers, the leadership of the unions and other organizations supporting Zelaya’s reinstatement led the mass movement into a political blind alley, leaving the working class unprepared to confront Zelaya’s capitulation and the consolidation of power by the coup regime under Lobo.

Honduras is today confronting its most severe crisis since the coup of ten years ago. For over a month, mass protests and strikes by teachers and doctors against sweeping IMF-dictated cuts and threats of privatization of education and healthcare have rocked the country. Students have joined these mass protests, occupying their schools and confronting riot police and troops.

Today will see mass demonstrations throughout Honduras marking the coup anniversary. These protests will pay homage to the 136 killed during the repression of the protests against the coup, as well as the 14 murdered by death squads and the 13 disappeared. Since then, many more have been slain, including four killed in just the most recent protests.

They will undoubtedly also advance the demand for the bringing down of the government of Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), the corrupt president and overseer for the International Monetary Fund, who is kept in power by the Honduran military and US Marines.

Zelaya, now the leader of the Partido Libertad y Refundación, is advancing this demand, once again from the standpoint of reaching a deal within the ruling oligarchy and securing support from Washington.

In 2009, the World Socialist Web Site stated that the struggle of the Honduran working class had “helped expose two great political fictions. The first is the pretense that the Obama administration has inaugurated a new era of non-intervention and mutual respect in US-Latin American relations. The second is that the region’s bourgeois regimes of a nationalist or populist stripe—from Venezuela’s Chavez to Zelaya himself—offer any way forward for the working class and oppressed masses.”

It went on to warn that those “calling themselves ‘socialists’ who promote illusions in these figures are disarming the working class and preparing even greater defeats.”

With the resurgence of the class struggle, these lessons are crucial. Workers can defend their rights only through a conscious break with all forms of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalism, which are instruments not for waging the class struggle but for suppressing it.

What is required is a political rearming and international unification of the working class of Honduras with workers throughout Central America, the United States and the entire hemisphere in a common struggle against capitalist exploitation, oppression and war. This means building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International throughout the Americas.

Bill Van Auken

[persephone-is-here-omg]

One of my coworkers had to, basically, go into hiding because they were at a voting center working as an electoral witness (selected by the CNE)

Another one had to wait in line for over 7 hours to be able to vote, even when voting centers in Venezuela are supposed to open at 6am, his voting center ended up opening after 1pm. Voting centers are prepared in advance, so that on election day, people can start voting as soon as possible.

My aunt lives a popular area of Caracas, Colectivos, PNB, GNB and DGCIM were terrorizing people in those areas to keep them from going out to protest (which is a right in the Venezuela's Constitution)

No one is saying that the USA isn't an interventionist state, but acting like that makes the Venezuelan government a victim is just asinine.

People are being killed for voting and trying to defend their vote. Children have been kidnapped and taken to "detention" centers. Maduro has gone on national tv and ordered around the clock work on two max security prisons and re-education centers for those detained.

What do Maduro and the Government have to do for Venezuelans to be taken seriously? How many children have to be kidnapped? How many women have to raped? How many men have to be killed?

Senator Chris Murphy: "We tried to construct a coup in Venezuela in April 2019 and it blew up in our face".

I want you guys to watch this short video with sound.

[doctorrdoctorr]

Two days ago me and my family went protesting against maduro, we marched for hours under the sun and honestly it made me so happy to see the people united against the dictator who took his share and ran my country to ruins, but it hurts so much to see people being naive and ignorant and supporting that coño de su madre maduro just because trump is against him.

I’ve never been a fan of trump, I remember being so mad when he was elected. How could a man so sexist and racist be elected? But as of today I am great full for the actions he has taken against maduro and the government.

For the ignorant people who say that it was “imperialistic, capitalistic American ideals” that drove this once great country to ruins, you are wrong. I have lived my entire life under this regime, but my mother and my family tell of a time where my country was great. She tells of when she could go out to the street and walk, where you could go to a supermarket and find food, where children got the free education they needed and weren’t brainwashed into thinking that the only way is the chavista way. Of a time where you could go out at night, past 7 or 8 and not worry if you might get mugged, kidnapped or even killed that night.

You can judge me for speaking my truth, but What’s occurring here in venezuela is Inhumane and I wouldn’t wish it upon any other fucking country. Maduro and Chavez (and literally all the government) are corrupt bastards who wine about imperialism and say that rich people are evil, when in reality they’ve embezzled all the money the country used to have. Venezuela has one of the biggest oil reserves in the world (plus a shitton of minerals), where do you think that money went?

[sharedarticlesworld-blog]

Maduro unleashes state terrorism to entrench itself in power

Kidnappings of minors, arbitrary detentions, razzias in the neighborhoods and extrajudicial executions are the repressive cocktail with which the police arms that abide by Nicolás Maduro put at bay the popular protest in Venezuela. While the international community seeks political solutions to the Venezuelan drama, the sinister Special Action Forces (FAES) put into practice their own version of the death caravan in the poorest neighborhoods of the country.

While world public opinion has its eye on the geopolitical aspect of the Venezuelan situation, within the country the state security agencies controlled by Nicolás Maduro are escalating repression to a level not seen since 2017.

As happened that year, as well as in 2014, the repression of the political police and the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) took precedence over the students and young people in general who took part in those days of protests. On this occasion he has directed all his rage against the poorest neighborhoods of Caracas and some cities in the interior.

La Vega, Cotiza, Catia, Boquerón, Propatria, El Cuartel, El Valle, Coche, the neighborhoods adjacent to San Martín Avenue (very close to the Presidential Palace of Miraflores), and José Félix Ribas in the populous Petare, once electoral bastions of Chavismo in the metropolitan area of Caracas, were the protagonists of three consecutive nights of pots and pans and riots where the legitimate demonstration was mixed with groups from the common underworld (armed by Chavismo) that blocked streets and avenues while confronting with sticks, stones and high-powered weapons the detachments of the GNB and the Bolivarian National Police (PNB). A reflection of the atmosphere of social violence that has been fostered in Venezuela during the years of chavista hegemony.

Subjected to months of severe reasoning in the supply of drinking water, domestic gas, frequent blackouts, chaos in public transportation and famine (plus repeated breaches of promises made by Maduro) these sectors have exploded.

That is the Venezuela of discontent, made up of many of the former Chavista voters who are now joining the street calls made by Juan Guaidó, who more than the chief executive in charge in his capacity as president of the National Assembly, has become the leader and face of the country's new political process, to the point that the social composition of the recent concentrations has changed in everyone's eyes.

The Venezuelan middle class, which at other times was the backbone of the social opposition to Chavismo, and is now weakened by the massive diaspora, has been largely replaced in the streets by all those whom the "Bolivarian revolution" promised to redeem.

The response of the police apparatus of the Madurist regime to this rebellion was not long in coming. Since the morning of January 23rd, the sinister Special Action Forces (FAES), attached to the PNB, have dedicated themselves to hunting down the actors of the days of protests in the different neighborhoods, often with the collaboration of Chavista political cadres who live in those sectors and play the role of informers for their own neighbors.

The image of a mobile unit with FAES officials and an obviously lifeless body is quite revealing of what happened in the style of the Caravan of Death of the Southern Cone dictatorships.

According to figures from the Criminal Forum (@ForoPenal) Provea (@_Provea) and Redes de Ayuda (@RedesAyuda), the balance of the repression as of January 28, reached at least 35 assassinations, 850 arrests of demonstrators, 77 of whom are adolescents and children.

The police brutality that spread to different areas of the country did not even take into consideration the physical condition or health of the minors. For example, Jackson Rodriguez, 14, was released on January 29 with precautionary measures. Arrested on January 23 in Villa Bahia in the state of Bolivar and of special condition, Jackson suffered convulsions in his confinement because GNB did not allow him to receive the medication. He himself denounced physical and verbal abuse: "I was the one who was hit the hardest because I didn't cry. I was beaten by guards, mostly women.

Arbitrarily arresting minors has been the objective of the repressive bodies, which see in them the most active protagonists of the riots, according to Prodavinci.

For the 29th, in statements to journalist Luis Olavarrieta (@LuisOlavarrieta), the president of the Human Rights Coalition, Ana Leonor Acosta, denounced that the number of minors arbitrarily detained in the jails of police agencies was 84, reports Caraota Digital.

Complaints about serious human rights violations perpetrated by the FAES in these days include extrajudicial executions. Specifically, three boys from the town of El Tocuyo (in the central-western part of the country), according to the version of their humble families.

Unfortunately, none of these practices is new in the country. Operatives for the Liberation of the People (OLP) carried out in the poorest neighborhoods of Venezuela by different police agencies, in 2015 and 2017 alone, left a balance of more than 9,200 extrajudicial executions, according to the denunciation substantiated by prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz, designated as such by the Chavista majority of the National Assembly and then dismissed by the Constituent of Maduro.

If that figure is true, it would be more than three times the number of people disappeared by Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship in Chile in 17 years and would make Maduro's regime one of the bloodiest in Latin American history.

But numbers apart, what is public and notorious in Venezuela is the repressive style of these police forces (created by former president Hugo Chávez) and in particular of those PLOs, oriented evidently to maintain under the control exercised by parapolice terror the most socially disadvantaged sectors of the country.

This reveals what is probably the most sinister aspect of Chavismo, a political movement that 20 years ago reached the government displaying as one of its flags the defense of Human Rights (particularly the humblest) but that in the exercise of absolute power has been degraded to extremes never imagined in the past.

[putinslackey]

Russia & Maduro want Colombia

Juan Manuel Santos gave free seats in the Colombian Congress to Genocide Terrorists without any Election or Democracy

This was completely unnecessary because his predecessor had defeated them and they were hiding in the Jungle almost finished

Besides that this corrupt Tyrant (Odebrecht Cemex and Narcos) packed the Many useless Courts of Colombia with Communist Corrupt "Magistrates" (Judges)

He resurrected FARC = ELN = M-19 founded by Fidel Castro

Juan Manuel Santos threw the Colombian People into a Deep Well of Desperation and Hopelessness

He organized a Constitutional Assembly in Cuba, only with the FARC Murderers, in order to change despotically the Colombian Constitution for the Total Advantage and Supremacy of Terrorists

He gave them their own Judicial Court of Communism (called JEP) to be Scott Free with Total Impunity, Amnesty and Absolution and to persecute the Good People that create Business and Riches = Entrepreneurs

The Judges were selected by the Genocide Terror Murderers that have been accused of kidnapping raping murdering Children (Thousands of accusations) He stole the reelection in 2014 with Gross Vulgar Montages and laughed at the Plebiscite that he lost in 2016

He flushed by the Toilet "The Will of the People". The Tyrant became Rich and enriched his cronies. He sowed 300,000 hectares of COCA

He has killed more USA Americans than Osama Bin Laden, but slowly with Cocaine and other Drugs

He preaches platitudes and banalities (trite clichés) in Harvard and Georgetown and receives Standing Ovations by the Innocent and Gullible there.

[entertainmentsoftgo]

Watch friends season 4 episode 4

The guests who attend the Super Music Friends Show are Chip Dazzler, the Elek alien Kenny, and Sparkles.

The DJ Lance Dance music is different from the others as it is only used for this particular episode.

Super Music Friends Show: "Lovely, Love My Family" by The Roots (from Family).

Super Music Friends Show: "Try Again" by The Shins (from Imagine).

Super Music Friends Show: "Spaceship Adventure" by Brandon, Ronnie, Mark & Dave (AKA The Killers) (from Adventure).

Jingle: Everybody Has A Talent by Metric (Instrumental).

Cool Tricks: Josh plays drums and eats lunch at the same time.

Super Music Friends Show: "Mama Loves Baby" by Solange Knowles (from Baby).

Super Music Friends Show: "Just Because It's Different Doesn't Mean It's Scary" by I'm From Barcelona (from Differences).

Well, unless I had the case kidnapped and brought to my dungeons, but then there would be an "international incident" and the Americans would once again accuse me of "human rights violations," and nobody wants to deal with that around the holidays.DJ Lance and his Gabba friends go to the Super Music Friends Show to watch music videos from other episodes and visit the Swami. This sort of lovey-dovey hippie crap is not why I watch reality television, comrades! I want drama! I want fighting! I want Gus to contract multiple sexually transmitted diseases! I want somebody to get arrested! But alas, comrades, I cannot force any of those things to happen. With no drama to speak of and no future drama on the horizon, the rest of this season could end up being a total waste! Heck, even Jeremiah began to soften his stance on Gus this episode, admitting that there could be a chance they could rekindle their bromance. Now that they were finally in the same place at the same time, los producers made their best effort to make it seem like a physical altercation was imminent as the show ended on a cliffhanger, but you could tell by the way Gus's sister was acting that she planned to apologize to Candace as soon as next episode begins. Last half-season, when Gus ran away from the Montanna vacation rental after an argument with Candace, his sister threatened to fight Candace. Floribama Shore screencapĮverything was quickly heading down the tubes when, in a last-minute hail mary, Gus's sister arrived on the scene. Nothing is more wholesome than a visit from Codi's parents, the Buttses… except for a simultaneous visit from Candace's parents, with Candace's mom's thirst for Jeremiah and the dads' hope that their children will finally get married to each other. Haw haw haw haw! Crap, I should not have revealed that publicly.Īs if Gus refusing to behave like the scumbag we all know and love (to hate) wasn't bad enough, comrades, the rest of the episode saw the pregnant Nilsa return and the roommates' families come for a visit. I can't tell you how many times the American CIA has attempted to kidnap my protege, Maduro, and replace him with a robot imposter designed to spy on me, but I can always tell the difference, comrades, because Maduro has a cute little birthmark in the shape of Stalin's head on his left buttcheek. Who are you, and what have you done with the real Gus?! No, that's a serious question. But Gus still would not relent, and both Toris were sent home with a major case of blue balls! Er… blue ovaries. Spending time outside with Brunette Tori caused Blond Tori to become extremely jealous, so she pulled Gus into a bedroom and threw herself at him, brushing off his attempts to stay faithful by literally jumping on top of him. First, Brunette Tori pulled Gus outside for an attempted makeout session, but Gus explained he had a girlfriend and let her down gently. But Gus was struggling with his desire not to cheat on his girlfriend back home as he launched in the hot tub with both Toris by his side.Įveryone expected Gus to have sex with one or both Toris this episode, but in a shocking twist, Gus remained faithful. As you know, Kirk's friends were visiting from Atlanta, including two women (both named Tori) with the hots for Gus. Things started to go wrong as the roommates continued their Yardi Gras celebration from last week's episode.

[newstfionline]

Monday, October 18, 2021

Unhappy with prices, ranchers look to build own meat plant (AP) Like other ranchers across the country, Rusty Kemp for years grumbled about rock-bottom prices paid for the cattle he raised in central Nebraska, even as the cost of beef at grocery stores kept climbing. He and his neighbors blamed it on consolidation in the beef industry stretching back to the 1970s that resulted in four companies slaughtering over 80% of the nation’s cattle, giving the processors more power to set prices while ranchers struggled to make a living. Federal data show that for every dollar spent on food, the share that went to ranchers and farmers dropped from 35 cents in the 1970s to 14 cents recently. It led Kemp to launch an audacious plan: Raise more than $300 million from ranchers to build a plant themselves, putting their future in their own hands. Crews will start work this fall building the Sustainable Beef plant on nearly 400 acres near North Platte, Nebraska, and other groups are making similar surprising moves in Iowa, Idaho and Wisconsin. The enterprises will test whether it’s really possible to compete financially against an industry trend that has swept through American agriculture.

US religious group says 17 missionaries kidnapped in Haiti (AP) A group of 17 U.S. missionaries including children was kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident. The missionaries were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a message from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries. Haiti is struggling with a spike in gang-related kidnapping. At least 328 kidnapping victims were reported to Haiti’s National Police in the first eight months of 2021, compared with a total of 234 for all of 2020. Gangs have demanded ransoms ranging from a couple hundred dollars to more than $1 million, according to authorities. Gangs have been accused of kidnapping schoolchildren, doctors, police officers, busloads of passengers and others as they grow more powerful. In April, one gang kidnapped five priests and two nuns.

Venezuela halts talks after Maduro ally’s extradition to US (AP) Venezuela’s government said Saturday it would halt negotiations with its opponents in retaliation for the extradition to the U.S. of a close ally of President Nicolás Maduro who prosecutors believe could be the most significant witness ever about corruption in the South American country. The announcement capped a tumultuous day that saw businessman Alex Saab placed on a U.S.-bound plane in Cape Verde after a 16-month fight by Maduro and his allies. A few hours after news of Saab’s extradition blew up Venezuelan social media, six American oil executives held on house arrest were taken back to jail by security forces--a sign that relations between Washington and Caracas could be upended after months of quiet diplomacy since Joe Biden entered the White House. Families of the men known as the Citgo 6--for the Houston subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company where they worked--expressed frustration with both governments.

Celebrity chef’s group feeds the hungry on Spain’s eruption-hit La Palma (Reuters) Working in close proximity to the red-hot lava flowing from a volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma, emergency workers anxiously await their lunch break--and while any food would do, it tastes better when it comes from a celebrity chef’s kitchen. Chef Jose Andres’ non-profit World Central Kitchen (WCK) has been delivering hot food, sandwiches and water to thousands of evacuees as well as the emergency workers overseeing residents’ removal from harm’s way. “Although there are so many of us, it seems like there’s a lack of personnel ... including those who come down to give us a sandwich! It seems silly but after eight hours on the ground it’s fundamental,” said Captain Diego Ortiz of the Guardia Civil police force. The non-profit started cooking 200 meals a day early in the eruption--which began on Sept. 19--and is now making 1,400, with the amount growing daily, said Olivier de Belleroche, a 45-year-old chef from Madrid who works for WCK.

Heavy rains, floods leave 8 dead, 12 missing in south India (AP) At least eight people have died and a dozen are feared missing after a day of torrential rains in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Rescue operations were underway on Sunday after heavy rains lashed the state the day before, triggering flash floods and landslides, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported. The National Disaster Response Force and the Indian Army deployed teams to help with rescue efforts in two of the worst-hit districts, Kottayam and Idukki, where a dozen people are still feared missing.

New crew docks at China’s first permanent space station (AP) Chinese astronauts began Saturday their six-month mission on China’s first permanent space station, after successfully docking aboard their spacecraft. The astronauts, two men and a woman, were seen floating around the module before speaking via a live-streamed video. The new crew includes Wang Yaping, 41, who is the first Chinese woman to board the Tiangong space station, and is expected to become China’s first female spacewalker. The crew will do three spacewalks to install equipment in preparation for expanding the station, assess living conditions in the Tianhe module, and conduct experiments in space medicine and other fields. China’s military-run space program plans to send multiple crews to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional.

Melbourne to ease world’s longest COVID-19 lockdowns as vaccinations rise (Reuters) Melbourne, which has spent more time under COVID-19 lockdowns than any other city in the world, is set to lift its stay-at-home orders this week, officials said on Sunday. By Friday, when some curbs will be lifted, the Australian city of 5 million people will have been under six lockdowns totalling 262 days, or nearly nine months, since March 2020. Australian and other media say this is the longest in the world, exceeding a 234-day lockdown in Buenos Aires.

Shooting in Syria could mark new phase in Israeli campaign (AP) The death of a former Syrian Druse lawmaker, allegedly by Israeli sniper fire, could mark a new phase in Israel’s war against Iranian entrenchment in neighboring Syria. Syria’s state-run news agency said that Midhat Saleh was fatally shot Saturday in Ein el-Tinneh, a village along the Israeli frontier in the Golan Heights where he ran a Syrian government office. Israeli media said Saleh had been assisting the Iranian military against Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment, but if the Syrian claim is true, it would mark the first time that Israeli snipers are known to have killed an Iranian-linked target across the border. Israel has said it will not tolerate a permanent Iranian military presence in Syria and has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes on alleged Iranian arms shipments and military targets in Syria in recent years. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the strategic territory. Most of the world does not recognize the annexation, though the Trump administration declared the territory to be part of Israel.

Pope pledges to continue being a ‘pest’ in defence of the poor (Reuters) Pope Francis said on Saturday he realises some people, including within the Church, consider him to be “a pest” for defending the poor and most vulnerable, but that it won’t stop him as it is part of Christianity. “Thinking about these situations (of exclusion and inequality), I make a pest of myself with my questions. And I go on asking. And I ask everyone in the name of God,” said Francis, Latin America’s first pope. Francis, 84, was speaking by video link to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, a grouping of grassroots organisations and social movements which bring attention to inequality in labour, land ownership, health care and other social issues in the developing world. Francis said rich countries and financial institutions should cancel the debts of the poorest nations. Weapons manufacturers and dealers should to stop contributing “to those awful geopolitical games which cost millions of displaced lives and millions of dead.” Technology giants should stop allowing hate speech, fake news, conspiracy theories, and political manipulation, he said, and called for a universal basic income and for countries to consider shortening the work day so more people could have jobs. “This system, with its relentless logic of profit, is escaping all human control. It is time to slow the locomotive down, an out-of-control locomotive hurtling towards the abyss. There is still time,” he said. “And so, I persist in my pestering.”

[tombeane-blog]

Today's Press Conference

Thank you for coming. I'll read a brief statement and then take some questions.

First, according to our experts in D.C., 100% of the past year's increase in the cost of gas was caused by the current 12 day war in Ukraine.

We are going to stop buying oil from Russia.

Questions?

"But don't we get 4-5% of our oil from Russia? And won't that 4-5% loss skyrocket our cost at the pump by a dollar or two or five dollars per gallon."

Well, yes. According to our experts in D.C., all future gas price increases will be a direct result of this and not at all for any other reason.

Butt experts have a plan. (misspelling intentional, tee hee.)

"How about buying more oil from our neighbors? Like Canada? Or Mexico?"

Sorry, Canada is flat out because as soon as we buy more from them some of those people might start asking "Shouldn't we open up the Keystone XL Pipeline to transport it?".

"And Mexico?"

Well we all know that drilling for oil anywhere in North America will cause more climate change and we can't have that. Drilling on the other side of the planet is much less harmful to Mother Earth. Simple common sense. So... No Mexican oil.

"Well from whom do we get the oil we so desperately need to produce our electric vehicles?"

Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia. There ya go.

"But isn't Venezuelan President Maduro a Socialist/Communist? And aren't they a Russian Ally? And doesn't the U.S. not even recognized the Venezuelan Government? And doesn't the U.S. currently impose sanctions on Venezuelan oil? And aren't they on this side of the planet so pumping more oil will affect the climate?"

Running short of time here. Next question.

"Why Iran for a whole bunch of obvious reasons?"

Well, if we buy Iranian oil, they will have more money and will be able to speed up their nuclear program for energy and not for anything to do with nuclear weapons. We will make them promise not to make nuclear weapons. And they said they won't use any of the money to sponsor terrorism around the world. And they hinted they won't kidnap 52 Americans and hold them captive for 444 days like they did in 1979 if we buy their oil.

"But why would the want to have nuclear power plants to get off of oil when oil for them is cheap and the main source of income for their country?"

Clock people! Watch the Clock! Next question.

"Didn't Saudi Arabia form OPEC, the original oil cartel and monopolize the global oil supply for decades? And didn't they control oil prices and cause inflation and oil shortages and long gas lines in the U.S. back in the 70's? And don't they kill gays and subjugate women. And didn't they support the 911 hijackers? Should we let them have control over oil in the U.S. all over again?"

"And shouldn't we just drill our own oil which is 20% cleaner than pretty much any that is produced anywhere else and be energy independent of these dictators and thugs?"

There's a good explanation for that. As Vice President Harris has said numerous times, "Let me be clear, obviously, (cackle) undeniably, children, racism, wherewithal, (cackle) continue doing, save the whales, equity, Trump, masks!"

Couldn't be any simpler than that.