En la Red - In the Net ...

WAR ON TERROR AND THE TERRORS OF WAR

The Terror-Industrial Complex- By Chris Hedges, Posted on Feb 8, 2010 - The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe.

The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle - By Scott Horton, Harpers Magazine, This is the full text of an exclusive advance feature by Scott Horton that will appear in the March 2010 Harper’s Magazine. The issue will be available on newsstands the week of February 15.

1. “Asymmetrical Warfare” - When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.”

Dick Cheney Admits to Torture Conspiracy- By Robert Parry, Consortium News, Posted on February 15, 2010 - On Sunday, Cheney pronounced himself "a big supporter of waterboarding," a near-drowning technique that has been regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War II.

Seven Paragraphs – NYT Editorial, February 15, 2010 - There are times when governments fight to keep documents secret to protect sensitive intelligence or other vital national security interests. And there are times when they are just trying to cover up incompetence, misbehavior or lawbreaking. Last week, when a British court released secret intelligence material relating to the torture allegations of a former Guantánamo prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, it was clear that the second motive had been in play when both the Bush and the Obama administrations and some high-ranking British officials tried to prevent the disclosure.

U.S. soldier 'waterboarded his own daughter, 4, because she couldn't recite alphabet' - By Mail Foreign Service - Last updated at 7:12 AM on 08th February 2010A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet. Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry. As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

Behind Liz Cheney's group, a weird legacy of torture - By Joe Conason - Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010 - Financing Cheney's pro-torture front is Melvin Sembler, who once enabled "enhanced interrogation" of American teens - The arrest of an Army sergeant (and Iraq veteran) who allegedly waterboarded his 4-year-old daughter for failing to recite the alphabet is sickening. Yet it may be the kind of news we must come to expect if, as a society, the United States determines that torture is an acceptable method of securing information and inducing obedience. Physical abuse of children is nothing new, of course, un certain right-wing quarters, as Max Blumenthal reminded us by exposing the pedagogical sadism of Focus on the Family in Republican Gomorrah.

Congress Told That DOD Data on Sexual Assault and Rape in Military Is 'Lacking in Accuracy, Reliability and Validity' - by Ann Wright, Published on Monday, February 15, 2010 by CommonDreams.org - A Department of Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military told a Congressional committee on February 3, 2010 that "DoD's procedures for collecting and documenting data about military sexual assault incidents are lacking in accuracy, reliability, and validity."

2 ex-employees say Blackwater billed government for prostitute - By Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post Staff Writer. Thursday, February 11, 2010- Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years with phony billing, including charging for a prostitute, alcohol and spa trips.
Lawsuit: Blackwater Put Filipino Prostitute On Government Tab - by Zachary Roth - A lawsuit filed by two former employees of Blackwater charges that the controversial security contractor defrauded the U.S. government, including charging it for strippers and prostitutes, the New York Times reports.Perhaps the most explosive charge in the lawsuit -- filed by a married couple, Brad and Melan Davis, is that the company put a Filipino prostitute in Afghanistan on its payroll under the "Morale Welfare Recreation" category, then billed the government for her salary and plane tickets.

KBR Tells Court It Was Following Military Orders When Employees Burned Toxic Waste in Open Pits- By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet, Posted on February 12, 2010 - In October a class action suit combining 22 lawsuits from 43 states was filed in US District Court in Maryland against KBR, Halliburton, and other military contractors for damages to health from open air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to plaintiffs' lawyers the military contracting giant had been paid millions of dollars to safely dispose of waste on bases but negligently burned refuse in open pits, spewing toxins, including known carcinogens, into the air. Last week, KBR sought to dismiss the charges.

NEWS AND ARTICLES

Christian' Manifesto Comparing Liberals to Nazis Gathers Signatures of Religious Right Leaders -- and Catholic Bishops- By Peter Montgomery, AlterNet, Posted on February 10, 2010 - According to the declaration, marriage is, in the final analysis, about creating a "reproductive unit." - Religious right leaders are making a concerted push to gain thousands of new signatures for their "Manhattan Declaration," a manifesto released late last year by about 150 conservative Christian leaders. The document, signed by such religious-right heavy-hitters as Focus on the Family eminence James Dobson and Prison Fellowship Ministries leader Chuck Colson, compares pro-choice advocates to eugenicists (and implicitly to Nazis) and equates same-sex marriage with polygamy and a gateway to legalized incest.

Freedom of choice doesn’t equal modern-day feminism- By Joan Smith, belfasttelegraph.co.uk- , Thursday, 11 February 2010 - Once upon a time, little girls dreamed of marrying a prince and living happily ever. Now it seems they aspire to have breast implants, date a footballer or two, marry an Australian crooner, get divorced and marry a transvestite cage-fighter. Isn't that what social commentators mean when they describe newly married Katie Price as a role model for younger women?

Many Women Don't Have Kids -- Get Over It - Many women are happy without kids. They'd be even happier if they weren’t reminded all the time how unhappy they should be. -RH Reality Check / By Elizabeth Gregory - February 10, 2010 - If you’re a teenager, you’re pushed toward motherhood by “moralizers” bent on denying you information about, and access to, birth control. If you’re a women 35 and older, you’ve been subject to a decade of news stories set to the ominous sound of a ticking clock and bent on creating fertility anxiety—if you wait, you’ll be too late.

The World Capital of Killing - By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, February 7, 2010, NYT - BUKAVU, Congo - It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better. But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.

Costa Rica Elects Its First Woman – Kathy Riordan, February 8, 2010 - As Americans are debating inkscrawls in Sarah Palin's palm and whether or not the 2008 Presidential election was sexist, Costa Ricans have gone to the polls to elect a woman to lead them. Laura Chinchilla, a social conservative who opposes both gay marriage and abortion, has won election as the first woman president of Costa Rica. Her election also brings the first Jewish vice-president of that country, Chinchilla's running-mate Luis Lieberman.

Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand - By FRANK RICH, NYT February 14, 2010 - Liberals had a blast mocking Sarah Palin last weekend when she was caught addressing the Tea Party Convention with a cheat sheet scrawled on her hand. Even the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn’t resist getting into the act and treated a White House briefing to a Palin hand gag of his own. Yet the laughter rang hollow.

Palin Assails Obama at Tea Party Meeting - By KATE ZERNIKE, February 7, 2010, NASHVILLE – As Sarah Palin left the stage at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention here Saturday night, the crowd erupted into chants of “Run Sarah Run!”
“I think you like her!” said Judson Phillips, the chief organizer of the convention, when the ovation finally stopped and people had stepped down from the chairs where they had been standing and waving flags.

Asked about Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama praises 'strong female voices' – The Wahington Post , By Garance Franke-Ruta , February 10, 2010 - The same day White House press secretary Robert Gibbs mocked Sarah Palin from the White House podium, first lady Michelle Obama declined to offer an opinion on the former Alaska governor when queried about her on "Larry King Live." "I think it's wonderful to have strong female voices out there, but I don't know her," said Obama.

Stephen Colbert: 'Sarah Palin Is a F**cking Retard'- By David Edwards, Raw Story- Posted on February 10, 2010 - Stephen Colbert has fine words for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whodefended Rush Limbaugh's use of the word "retard" this weekend after attacking an Obama aide for the same offense. "Sarah Palin knows that it's okay to call someone aretardif like Rush you clearly don't mean it which is why we should all come to her defense and say: Sarah Palin is a fuckingretard," Colbert quipped.

Far-Right Radio Host Savages Palin: It’s ‘Suicide’ For Republicans To Choose Palin As Our 2012 Nominee- by Amanda Terkel , February 13, 2010 . This post originally appeared on Think Progress.- On Thursday, a Washington Post-ABC News poll had some bad news for Sarah Palin: 71 percent of the American public — including 52 percent of Republicans — don’t think the former Alaska governor is qualified to be president. This week, far-right radio host Michael Savage voiced some of these GOP complaints, saying that the Party would essentially be committing “suicide” if it made Palin its 2012 nominee:

Abstinence Education Done Right - NYT Editorial , February 8, 2010, - The ongoing debate over sex education has been rekindled by a provocative new study suggesting that teaching abstinence can delay the start of sexual activity among inner-city youngsters — if it is freed from the moralistic overtones and ideological restrictions that were the hallmark of abstinence-only programs under the Bush administration.

'Reality' Show Lets You Decide If Women Get Abortions? - By Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet Posted on February 4, 2010, - A new web show called "BUMP+" is stirring up controversy and conversation about abortion. It's a "fake" reality show in which three actresses portray women facing unintended pregnancies. These characters, entirely fictional, have agreed to appear on a reality TV show and let the public weigh in on what they should do about their pregnancies: keep it, terminate it, adoption? The creators of the web series say they will pick what happens to "contestants'" pregnancies based on viewer response.

DoD to Make Emergency Contraception Available to Women Soldiers - Posted by Tana Ganeva , Alternet, February 4, 2010 - In a giant win for women’s reproductive rights, the Department of Defense has just announced that women soldiers serving overseas will have access to emergency contraception.

EC, or ‘the morning after pill’ is not stocked in the health facilities of overseas military bases thanks to the efforts of conservative lawmakers in Congress.

Why I Had to Stop Making Hardcore Porn - By Sam Benjamin, SeXis Magazine, Posted on February 7 - When I was in my early 20s, I made my living as a pornographer. For more than five years, my working life revolved around framing acts of public copulation. I’ve pushed cameras and microphones into dwellings no machines should ever go. I’ve been granted a front-row seat to scenes of startling intimacy. I’ve helped pick up thousands of used baby-wipes. Somewhere along the line, I gained a financial stability that, in light of the rather limited artistic scope of the movies I helped produce, I probably didn’t deserve.

Conservative Blogger Thinks Feminists Too Ugly to Get Dates, Will Cut Men’s Penises. Seriously.- Posted by Tana Ganeva, February 8, 2010 - Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger and founder of RedState, finally gets why pro-choice groups blasted CBS for airing Focus on the Family’s anti-choice ad yesterday: it’s because feminists are too ugly to get dates, of course.

Americans talk about love: How we chose an open marriage - Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010 - "Early in our relationship, Cate said, 'If you ever see anybody else, I'll kill you.'" An oral history of polyamory - By John Bowe - Americans Talk About Love" is a series of oral histories that ran on Salon in the spring of 2009. The stories have now been compiled into the book "Us: Americans Talk About Love," an excerpt of which is reprinted below.

As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends - By TARA PARKER-POPE, NYT, February 15, 2010 - Almost four decades after the federal education law called Title IX opened the door for girls to participate in high school and college athletics, a crucial question has remained unanswered: Do sports make a long-term difference in a woman’s life?

Nurse to Stand Trial for Reporting Doctor - By KEVIN SACK, NYT, February 7, 2010- KERMIT, Tex. — It occurred to Anne Mitchell as she was writing the letter that she might lose her job, which is why she chose not to sign it. But it was beyond her conception that she would be indicted and threatened with 10 years in prison for doing what she knew a nurse must: inform state regulators that a doctor at her rural hospital was practicing bad medicine.

GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS

Gay people welcome, homosexuals keep out - Turns out "politically correct" language really does make a difference - By Kate Harding, _ A recent CBS/New York Times poll found that 70 percent of Americans are in favor of gay men and lesbians serving in the military. Hooray for progress! Unfortunately, the same poll found that only 59 percent of Americans are in favor of homosexuals serving in the military. When pollsters were asked specifically about people of all sexual orientations being allowed to serve openly, support dropped to 58 percent for gay men and lesbians, 44 percent for homosexuals.

Does it Matter if the Prop. 8 Judge is Gay? - Gabriela Arana , Tapped, by The American Prospect, The National Organization of Marriage thinks so. In response to a San Francisco Chronicle article "outing" District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, who is presiding over the Prop. 8 federal challenge in California, the organization released a statement cataloging instances of the judge's bias, which include:

Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet - By FRANK RICH - February 7, 2010 – NYT, Op-Ed Columnist - A funny thing happened after Adm. Mike Mullen called for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military: A curious silence befell much of the right. If this were a Sherlock Holmes story, it would be the case of the attack dogs that did not bark. John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington’s attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule.

Vancouver's Games Will Be the Gayest Olympics Ever - By Vanessa Richmond, AlterNet, Posted on February 9, 2010 - The Olympics are coming out of the closet. These Games will have the first-ever Pride House. Two of them, actually: one opened yesterday in Whistler in a cocktail lounge, and the other will open in the heart of Vancouver's West End on Thursday.

IMMIGRATION AND CIVIL RIGHTS

It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist - By Sonia Scherr, SPLC Intelligence Report, Posted on February 9, 2010 - Photography by Hannelie Coetzee and Stefan Hester - Shortly after white supremacist James von Brunn's fatal shooting attack this spring at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., his 32-year-old son issued a statement to ABC News in which he denounced his father's ideology and described the devastating impact it had had on his family.

Fear of a ‘Multicultural’ Nation - By Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Truthdig, Posted on Feb 10, 2010 - Last Thursday night former Congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo made opening-night remarks at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Tancredo fired verbal shots at Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” stating that people who “could not spell the word vote or say it in English” had elected the president. And that Obama’s election reveals the need for us to “have a civics [or] literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Detroit Schools' Offering Classes in How to Work at Walmart Attacked as 'Subservient Worker' Training - By Muriel Kane, Raw Story, Posted on February 12, 2010 - Walmart has been widely condemned for offering its employees only low-paying, dead end jobs. Even President Obama criticized Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign for having served on Walmart's board and stated that the firm ought to pay "a living wage."

Landlord in Bensonhurst Arson That Killed 5 Tenants Cited for Illegally Subdividing Apartments - By Julia, Saturday, Feb. 13 2010 - Vasilios (Bill) Gerazounis, 66, the owner of the Bensonhurst building where 5 tenants were killed and an infant severely injured in a fire allegedly set by another tenant on January 30, has been issued violations by the Department of Buildings for illegal walls and blocked exits on his property which may have contributed to the deaths. According to the News, the Brooklyn DA is considering criminal charges

ECONOMY

Hunger and Obesity: Two Sides of the Same Coin - by Andy Fisher, Published on Friday, February 12, 2010 by The IATP Food and Society Fellows Digest - It’s no secret that the country has been facing hard times; still, the soaring number of people who are food insecure is startling. The number of persons receiving food stamps has reached an all time high of 38 million, a 40% increase from February 2008 to November 2009. A recent report by The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), one of the nation’s primary anti-hunger advocacy organizations, uncovered even more sobering news.

Men Without Work. The future of men's work looks bleak.- By Kevin Drum | Mother Jones, Wed Feb. 10, 2010 - Back in the early 90s Joel Garreau wrote a book called Edge City. Basically, an edge city is a suburb, but it's a suburb that has the usual sprawl of stucco houses plus at least five million square feet of leasable office space. In other words, it's a self-contained community where people can both live and work, and until the mid-70s such places really didn't exist. Today they're ubiquitous. So what happened? Garreau explains:

Wall St. Helped Greece to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis – NYT, February 14, 2010- By LOUISE STORY, LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ- Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

HAITI

English / Español

Haiti: A Creditor, Not a Debtor - by Naomi Klein, Published on Friday, February 12, 2010 by The Nation - If we are to believe the G-7 finance ministers,Haiti is on its way to getting something ithas deserved for a very long time:full [1]"forgiveness" of its foreign debt [1]. In Port-au-Prince, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers has been watching these developments with cautious optimism. Debt cancellation is a good start, he told Al Jazeera English, but "It's time to go much further. We have to talk about reparations and restitution for the devastating consequences of debt." In this telling, the whole idea that Haiti is adebtor needs to be abandoned. Haiti, he argues, is a creditor-and it is we, in the West, who are deeply in arrears.

Bleak Portrait of Haiti Orphanages Raises Fears , By GINGER THOMPSON , NYT, February 7, 2010- PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The floors were concrete and the windows were broken. There was no electricity or running water. Lunch looked like watery grits. Beds were fashioned from sheets of cardboard. And the only toilet did not work. But the Foyer of Patience here is like hundreds of places that pass as orphanages for thousands of children in the poorest country in the hemisphere. Many are barely habitable, much less licensed. They have no means to provide real schooling or basic medical care, so children spend their days engaged in mindless activities, and many die from treatable illnesses.

Kidnapping Is Not Charity - By Eugene Robinson, Truthdigg, Posted on Feb 8, 2010 - Anyone sitting in a dank, fetid Haitian jail for any reason probably deserves at least a measure of sympathy, so in that sense I feel sorry for the Baptist missionaries from Idaho charged with kidnapping 33 “orphans” and trying to take them out of the country. But what the do-gooders allegedly did was not just misguided. It could be criminal, and Haitian authorities are right to hold them accountable.

Missionaries Go to Haiti, Followed by Scrutiny - By MARC LACEY and IAN URBINA- NYT,February 16, 2010- PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Their holy books vary widely and so does their disaster apparel. Devotees of Supreme Master Ching Hai, a Vietnamese spiritual leader, wore fluorescent yellow vests on their way into quake-damaged Haiti. Mormons wore their trademark white shirts and ties. And an array of others — Scientologists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Jews and Muslims — each printed T-shirts of a different hue declaring which faith had inspired them to help save Haiti.

More Pain for Devastated Haiti: Under the Pretense of Disaster Relief, U.S. Running a Military Occupation. The rapid mobilization of U.S troops in Haiti was not primarily done for humanitarian reasons; we're likely to see a neoliberal economic plan imposed, at gunpoint if necessary. - By Arun Gupta, AlterNet, Posted on February 12, 2010 - Official denials aside, the United States has embarked on a new military occupation of Haiti thinly cloaked as disaster relief. While both the Pentagon and the United Nations claimed more troops were needed to provide "security and stability" to bring in aid, according to nearly all independent observers in the field, violence was never an issue. in

Para evitar violaciones, mujeres y niñas utilizan armas; cientos, las vejaciones en Haití, acusan. Delincuentes escapados de cárceles destruidas por el sismo se agrupan para sus fechorías - Las víctimas no tienen ayuda médica con anticonceptivos de emergencia, antibióticos o antivirales - Periódico La Jornada, Afp y The Independent - 7 de febrero de 2010, p. 23 - Puerto Príncipe, 6 de febrero.- Cientos de violaciones de mujeres y niñas se han registrado en Haití desde el devastador terremoto del 12 de enero, a tal grado que muchas han tenido que hacerse de armas improvisadas como cuchillos o machetes, mientras otras más se hallan desesperadas en busca de pantalones de mezclilla como forma de protección o acuden a campamentos exclusivos para mujeres.

Acusan a alcaldesa haitiana de acaparar la ayuda alimentaria. Anuncia fondo de la ONU 5.66 mdd para mejorar la producción agrícola del país caribeño- Reuters y Afp, Periódico La Jornada, Martes 9 de febrero de 2010, p. 23 - Puerto Príncipe, 8 de febrero. Cientos de sobrevivientes del terremoto de Haití protestaron en Petionville, suburbio de esta capital, y acusaron a la alcaldesa Lydie Parent de corrupción y acaparamiento de alimentos provistos por los grupos de ayuda humanitaria.

Políticas sociales para mujeres y niños deben ser prioridad en Haití/ Sólo dos por ciento de la población infantil tiene acceso a la educación prescolar, indica estudio - La Jornada, 16 de febrero de 2010 - Santiago, 15 de febrero. Las políticas sociales orientadas a mejorar las condiciones de vida de mujeres, niñas y niños deben ser el pilar de los programas gubernamentales de la reconstrucción de Haití, recomendó hoy la Comisión Económica para América Latina (Cepal) en un estudio elaborado a raíz del terremoto del 12 de enero que causó la muerte a por lo menos 220 mil personas.

ESPANOL

MEXICO: Desaparece reportera mexicana - Como nunca antes había ocurrido en México, en noviembre pasado se registró la desaparición de una periodista, como consecuencia de su labor informativa. Su nombre es María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, reportera de la fuente policíaca del Diario de Zamora y corresponsal de Cambio de Michoacán. Su caso se suma al de siete comunicadores desaparecidos y al asesinato de 11 periodistas, ocurridos ese año. Así lo dieron a conocer periodistas y representantes de organizaciones defensoras de derechos humanos internacionales y nacionales, durante la presentación del documento "Entre la violencia y la indiferencia: Informe de agresiones contra la libertad de expresión en México", elaborado por el Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social (Cencos) y Article 19. La reportera policíaca María Esther Aguilar, desparecida desde el pasado 11 de noviembre en Zamora, Michoacán, había escrito cinco notas que trataban de temas de narcotráfico y corrupción por parte de funcionarios públicos, según el Informe 2009. La mayoría de los 244 casos de agresiones ocurridas ese año contra las y los periodistas por el ejercicio de su profesión, habría sido cometido por funcionarios públicos y otro porcentaje por criminales. De las agresiones cometidas por funcionarios públicos, 60 por ciento las llevaron a cabo corporaciones militares y policiales, mientras que 40 por ciento corresponden a funcionarios que ocupan cargos de elección popular (CIMAC).

UNESCO: alarman ataques en escuelas y a alumnos de 32 países. La violencia, por motivos políticos e ideológicos, señala en informe - José Antonio Román, La Jornada. Lunes 15 de febrero de 2010 - La Organización de Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO) está alarmada por el aumento en varios países de ataques contra profesores, alumnos y escuelas, a manos de grupos armados y de fuerzas militares por motivos políticos o ideológicos. México, en el contexto de la lucha contra el narcotráfico, forma parte de un grupo de 32 naciones que enfrentan esos ataques.

COLOMBIA: Unos 3 mil menores, asesinados por los grupos paramilitares colombianos: ONG - Dpa y Afp, La Jornada, Sábado 13 de febrero de 2010, p. 18 - Bogotá, 12 de febrero. Cerca de 3 mil menores han sido asesinados por grupos paramilitares en Colombia, donde unos 14 mil niños han sido reclutados por grupos armados ilegales, indicó hoy en un informe la organización no gubernamental (ONG) Tribunal Internacional sobre la Infancia afectada por la Guerra y la Pobreza.

COSTA RICA: Alarma por el combate frontal al narco que anunció Chinchilla. Alertan sobre una mayor presencia de Estados Unidos y la consecuente pérdida de soberanía - Arturo Gudiño, Especial para La Jornada, Martes 9 de febrero de 2010, p. 25 - San José, 8 de febrero. El combate frontal del narcotráfico anunciado por la presidenta electa de Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, encendió las alarmas de los analistas, que advirtieron que ello podría conducir a una mayor presencia de Estados Unidos y la pérdida de soberanía.

HONDURAS: Feministas por la refundación de un Estado con las mujeres - Unos 350.000 hondureños y hondureñas de diversos puntos del país marcharon por las calles de Tegucigalpa para condenar al régimen de facto y despedir al presidente Manuel Zelaya, depuesto por golpe de estado en junio último, mientras en el Estadio Nacional se realizaba la toma de posesión presidencial, producto de elecciones no reconocidas por la comunidad internacional.

GUATEMALA: Hijos del femicidio entre el abandono, el olvido y la vulnerabilidad - Algunos usaban pañales cuando dejaron de escuchar sus voces y sentir sus brazos. Otros iban a la escuela y, al regresar, su presencia se había esfumado de casa, mientras los más grandes entraban a la adolescencia cuando sus ojos vieron cómo la violencia coartaba la vida de su madre.

CUBA: Violencia, adolescentes bajo presión - Considerada por expertos la forma de violencia intrafamiliar más extendida en Cuba, la agresión psicológica alcanza con frecuencia a adolescentes y jóvenes, aunque en muchas ocasiones no puedan identificarla.

CULTURA Y CIENCIA

Frenk: ciencia, antídoto contra el fundamentalismo religioso - conversaciones con el mexicano Julio Frenk Mora, director de la Escuela de Salud Pública de la Universidad Harvard / Dice que los científicos están equivocados; su rol social no termina con publicar artículos- Ángeles Cruz Martínez, La Jornada, Martes 16 de febrero de 2010 - El antídoto contra las fuerzas oscuras que buscan imponer su visión fundamentalista al resto de la sociedad es el conocimiento científico traducido en políticas públicas, las cuales, a su vez, preservan la laicidad del Estado. Así ocurrió en 2004, durante el debate por la inclusión de la anticoncepción de emergencia (AE) en la norma oficial mexicana sobre planificación familiar, señaló Julio Frenk Mora, ex secretario de Salud.

Desarrollo sexual femenino: ¿Terra Incognita? - por Javier Flores , La Jornada - En una revisión reciente sobre los factores determinantes del sexo en mamíferos, Dagmar Wilhem y sus colegas de la Universidad de Queensland, en Australia, dan un título muy sugestivo al capítulo en el que abordan las bases genéticas de la formación del ovario: Terra Incognita. Se trata del reconocimiento de que durante muchos años el desarrollo sexual femenino ha representado un misterio para la ciencia. Pero además, como sucede ya con muchos otros autores en el siglo XXI, en su trabajo se acepta que el desarrollo sexual femenino no es, como se creyó antes, un fenómeno pasivo, condicionado simplemente por la ausencia de factores masculinos.
CINE: Los testigos - Carlos Bonfil- el 5º Festival Internacional de Cine Gay en la UNAM se inaugura el martes próximo con la proyección en 35 mm y versión subtitulada de una cinta francesa inédita en México, Los testigos (Les témoins, 2007), de André Téchiné.