jueves, 26 de marzo de 2009

En la red..In the net..

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DESDE ALIANZA POR TUS DERECHOS

AMERICA LATINA: Cinco millones de mujeres son víctimas de trata de personas Más de cinco millones de niñas y mujeres han caído en redes de tráfico de personas en América Latina y diez millones más se encuentra en riesgo de hacerlo, dijo hoy a Efe en México la directora regional de la coalición regional contra ese delito, Teresa Ulloa...más

GUATEMALA: Niños fueron vendidos durante guerra interna Marco Tulio Álvarez, director de los Archivos de la Paz, informó que por medio de los documentos de la Secretaría de Bienestar Social se han establecido los procedimientos en las adopciones ilegales efectuadas de 1976 a 1986. ..más..

Más notas en: http://www.alianzaportusderechos.org/

DESDE SEMLAC:

Fin de fiesta: las voces de rebeldía - Sara Lovera - México, marzo (SEMlac).- La resignificación de la democracia exige transgredir los límites de los derechos políticos supuestamente conquistados por las mujeres de la región latinoamericana y caribeña, dijo desde el estrado Axela Romero, una de las mexicanas anfitrionas y organizadoras del XI Encuentro Feminista, efectuado en la capital mexicana del 16 al 20 de marzo. Más..

Feministas tomaron las calles - Julia Vicuña Yacarine - México, marzo (SEMlac).- “Porque somos la mitad del mundo, merecemos la mitad del cielo”, “Mujeres feministas exigimos nuestros derechos”, “Alerta, alerta, que camina la lucha feminista por América Latina”, “No más violencia contra las mujeres”, fueron algunos de los lemas que rompieron la monotonía de la tarde del viernes, en la ciudad de México...Más..

República Dominicana  Reivindicación de las brujas, primeras feministas

Florence Thomas El feminismo es particularmente vigente en Colombia
Paraguay Los derechos de la mujer siguen siendo avasallados
Guatemala La Cuerda, en defensa de la palabra
Argentina Adversidades y desafíos
Bolivia Feminismo escaso y urbano
Bolivia Enfoques desde la diversidad cultural
Cuba Feminismo, desentrañando madejas

MEXICO: Factible, recurrir a jueces si leyes impiden aborto por violación: Ssa

por Carlos García para La Jornada, 22 de marzo, 2009. En los próximos días, cuando entre en vigor la norma oficial mexicana (NOM) 046, las mujeres avecindadas en estados donde la Constitución local garantiza la vida desde la concepción podrán recurrir al Poder Judicial de la Federación para promover un amparo que les permita obtener un aborto en caso de embarazo por violación, señaló el titular de la Secretaría de Salud (Ssa), José Ángel Córdova Villalobos.
Puebla, Baja California, Nuevo León, Chihuahua y Morelos tienen legislaciones que protegen la vida desde la concepción.
El 6 de marzo se publicaron en el Diario Oficial de la Federación las observaciones del proyecto de la NOM 046 sobre violencia familiar, sexual y contra las mujeres... más ⇉

Piden a jueces impartir justicia desde la perspectiva de derechos de la mujer
Por Jesús Aranda para La Jornada, 25 de marzo 2009
Ante la discriminación contra las mujeres y la violación de los derechos de las minorías –particularmente por sus preferencias sexuales–, se deben adoptar medidas para que los jueces transformen la situación difícil que atraviesan los sectores más desprotegidos.
Señaló lo anterior José Ramón Cossío, ministro de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN), al encabezar la presentación del libro La mirada de los jueces, en el que se recopilan sentencias y criterios jurisprudenciales de Argentina, Colombia, Perú, El Salvador, Panamá y Costa Rica, entre otros, que tienen que ver con los derechos de las mujeres y de las minorías.
Por su parte, Macarena Sáez, profesora en derecho comparado en la American University Washington College of Law, y una de las compiladoras del texto, sostuvo que el tema ha dejado de ser un asunto marginal para los gobiernos latinoamericanos, que en los pasados 20 años han reaccionado para equiparar su legislación a los estándares internacionales que protegen más ampliamente dichas garantías...
más..

ENGLISH

FROM SALON.COM

All God's children

The Quiverfull movement saddles women with a life of submission and near-constant pregnancies. One mother explains how she embraced the extreme Christian lifestyle -- and why she left.

By Kathryn Joyce, for Salon.com, March 14, 2009 - Vyckie Garrison wasn't sure she wanted to use her real name in this article. Until last year, Garrison (then Vyckie Bennett), a 43-year-old single mother of seven living in Norfolk, Neb., followed a fundamentalist pronatalist theology known as Quiverfull. Shunning all forms of birth control, Quiverfull women accept as many children as God gives them as a demonstration of their radical faith and obedience as well as a means to advance his kingdom: winning the country for Christ by having more children than their adversaries. This self-proclaimed "patriarchy" movement, which likely numbers in the tens of thousands but which is growing exponentially, bases its arguments on Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They shall not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Quiverfull women commonly give birth to families of eight, 10 and 12 children, or more...more ⇉

"Curing" lesbians through rape

by Tracy Clark-Flory, for Salon.com, March 14, 2009 - A rainbow's array of attempts have been made at straightening out homosexuals' kinks -- for example, through "gender affirmation," "reparative" therapy, hypnotism and preaching. But, possibly the most disturbing form is on the rise in South Africa: so-called corrective rape. The Guardian reports that lesbians are routinely being violently attacked by men; worse yet, the state has failed to officially recognize the attacks as hate crimes, and they often go unpunished...more ⇉

Raped and killed for being a lesbian: South Africa ignores 'corrective' attacks

• Women living in fear of brutal assaults by male gangs
• Country's 'macho politics' lead to lack of action

by Annie Kelly for guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 March
Interviews with South African victims of 'corrective rape' Link to this video
The partially clothed body of Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's acclaimed Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found in a creek in a park in Kwa Thema, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Simelane had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.
Her brutal murder took place last April, and since then a tide of violence against lesbians in South Africa has continued to rise. Human rights campaigners say it is characterised by what they call "corrective rape" committed by men behind the guise of trying to "cure" lesbians of their sexual orientation.....more ⇉

From The Independent:
Lesbian Vampire Killers, Posted by Larry Ryan , Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Their sketch show has been roundly trashed but will James Corden and Mathew Horne score a hit with their big screen efforts? The next film up for discussion in The Independent Film Forum is Lesbian Vampire Killers.
A cult classic in the mould of Shaun of the Dead or a lifeless misogynistic vehicle for the two stars? Add your comments below and we'll print the best in the newspaper next week.
Here's a trailer...http://community.livejournal.com/indyfilmclub

Pregnant with controversy, by Rebecca treister for Salon.com, March 23, 2009

Two years ago, I interviewed Rikki Lake and her producer Abby Epstein about "The Business of Being Born," their documentary about midwifery and home birth that had recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. A year later, Andrew O'Hehir wrote about the same film, just as it was about to become available to a Netflix audience. These days, according to a New York Magazine profile of the movie's featured midwife, Cara Muhlhahn, the film is referred to in baby-birthing circles simply as BOBB, and its presence and impact on the decisions of expectant women is ubiquitous. Clearly, this was a movie with legs (and arms and crowning heads and swollen breasts and a lot of vagina)...more

FROM COMMONDREAMS.ORG

Plans to Kill Plants Along US/Mexico Border Reminiscent of Agent Orange Use
by Dane Schiller, Published on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 by the Houston Chronicle
The U.S. Border Patrol plans to poison the plant life along a 1.1-mile stretch of the Rio Grande riverbank as soon as Wednesday to get rid of the hiding places used by smugglers, robbers and illegal immigrants.
If successful, the $2.1 million pilot project could later be duplicated along as many as 130 miles of river in the patrol's Laredo Sector, as well as other parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Although Border Patrol and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials say the chemical is safe for animals, detractors say the experiment is reminiscent of the Vietnam War-era Agent Orange chemical program and raises questions about long-term effects.
"We don't believe that is even moral," said Jay Johnson-Castro Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, located at Laredo Community College, adjacent to the planned test area.
"It is unprecedented that they'd do it in a populated area," he said of spraying the edge of the Rio Grande as it weaves between the cities of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico....more

Guardian Investigation Uncovers Evidence of Alleged Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
Palestinians claim children were used as human shields and hospitals targeted during 23-day conflict

by Clancy Chassay and Julian Borger for The Guardian/UK March 23, 2009 , posted at Commondreams.org
Watch all three documentaries
The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive against Gaza earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields, the targeting of medics and hospitals, and drone aircraft firing on civilians.

Three Guardian films based on a month-long investigation, add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas but left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including up to 300 children...more ⇉

Same-Sex Marriage Bills Gain in N.E.
Vt. Senate passes plan; votes set in N.H., Maine
by David Abel, Published on March 24, 2009 by The Boston Globe
In a special session, the Vermont Senate yesterday voted to legalize same-sex marriage. Later this week, a similar bill is scheduled for a vote in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Next month a legislative panel in Maine will hold a hearing on a bill to allow gay couples to marry, just as lawmakers did last month in Rhode Island.
Little more than five years after the Supreme Judicial Court legalized marriage for same-sex couples in Massachusetts, gay advocates say they're coming closer to their goal of extending gay marriage to all New England states by 2012...more

The Morning After Pill Conspiracy
by Cristina Page, Published on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 by Huffington Post
If Bush waged a war on science then yesterday the war crime tribunal spoke. The U.S. District court of the Eastern District of New York ruled that the Bush administration had politicized a once respected regulatory agency, the FDA, for bending the law to its right wing purposes. The court's condemnation was comprehensive and brutal, all but labeling the Bushies political criminals. At issue was the FDA's decision to overrule its staff recommendation and restrict access for adolescents to one of the most effective methods of preventing unwanted pregnancy, emergency contraception. The Court, in one excoriating stroke, reversed the first (and let's hope last) ideological decision the FDA ever made.
The decision could not have been more dismissive of the Bush administration's maneuverings. Mincing no words, the Court concluded that the FDA "acted in bad faith and in response to political pressure," "departed in significant ways from the agency's normal procedures," and engaged in "repeated and unreasonable delays." The court also found that the FDA's justification for denying over-the-counter access to minors "lacks all credibility," and was based on "fanciful and wholly unsubstantiated 'enforcement' concerns." The Court ordered the FDA to reconsider it's decision based on scientific evidence alone. In the meantime, it ordered the agency to make the contraceptive available over-the-counter to 17-year-olds within 30 days as it now does for adults...more

Economy -- Palin rejects recovery funding for Alaska schools: Following the lead of the other 2012 GOP presidential contenders, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) announced yesterday that she would reject nearly half the $930 million Alaska was set to receive from the economic recovery package, saying she disagrees with the "'strings' attached to federal stimulus funding." The rejected funds were originally allocated for programs in education, health care, and labor, the largest being$160 million to Alaska schools "for programs to help economically disadvantaged and special needs students." During the press conference announcing her decision, Palin asked, "Will we chart our own course, or will Washington (D.C.) engineer it for us?" "We are not requesting funds intended to just grow government. ... In essence we say no to operating funds for more positions in government," she added. Palin said that she would "work with the [Alaskan] Legislature if it decides that it wants to go ahead and accept the money," but "she didn't rule out vetoes" if the legislature attempted to bypass her with a resolution nullifying the her decision.

Anniversary of My Dissent.
From Three Decades as a Colonel and Diplomat to Six Years as a Peace Activist,

by Ann Wright * , March 19, 2009 posted at CommonDreams.org - It was six years ago today that I resigned from the Bush administration and the U.S. diplomatic corps in opposition to the war on Iraq. I remember the day so well. I woke up about 2 in the morning.
Like so many mornings in the past months, I could not sleep through the night. I was very worried and upset hearing the comments out of Washington, that we, the U.S. government, were being forced into taking military action against Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi government... more ⇉
(*Ann Wright is a Retired US Army & Army Reserves Colonel and former US diplomat who resigned in opposition to the Iraq war. She served in as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience” www.voicesofconscience.com. Her March 19, 2003 letter of resignation can be read at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/032103wright.htm)

Forget AIG Bonuses - The Next Bailout is Here
by Ruth Conniff, Published on March 19, 2009 by The Progressive, posted on CommonDreams - Democrats from Andrew Cuomo to Barney Frank to Barack Obama are demanding that the 418 AIG employees who received bonuses give them back. Sure, it's outrageous that the very people who drove AIG off the cliff, along with a whole lot of other financial firms, walked away with million-dollar bonuses paid with taxpayer bailout money. But as the Wall Street Journal opinion page [1] points out, "Taxpayers have already put up $173 billion, or more than a thousand times the amount of those bonuses, to fund the government's AIG 'rescue.'"
And there is more to come. The Obama Administration is putting the finishing touches on another big bank bailout. Called the Public Private Investor Partnership (PPIP), it is the brainchild of the Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Tim Geithner. Under the plan, the government will give our money to hedge fund managers to buy "toxic" assets for more than they are worth. The banks that created these toxic turkeys will use the money from the sales to recapitalize themselves. Everyone comes out ahead except, of course, the taxpayers, who are essentially funneling money to hedge funds to buy bad assets for more than they are worth. The other bonus for the banks in this plan, as Yves Smith points out [2], is that they get to avoid giving the toxic assets any real market value. Less transparency and more transfers of wealth from taxpayers to hedge fund managers...more ⇉

Wall Street's Economic Crimes Against Humanity

By Shoshana Zuboff for BussinesWeek , March 20, 2009

By refusing to consider the consequences of their actions, those who created the financial crisis exemplify the banality of evil, writes Shoshana Zuboff

By Shoshana Zuboff - The financiers at AIG were awarded millions in bonuses because their contracts were based on the transactions they completed, not the consequences of those transactions. A 32-year-old mortgage broker told me: "I figured my job was to get the transaction done…Whatever came after the transaction—that was on him, not me." A long list of business executives have reaped sumptuous rewards even though they fractured the world's economy, destroyed trillions of dollars in value, and disfigured millions of lives.

Most experts now blame a lack of regulation and oversight for this madness. Or they point to misguided incentive programs associated with the push for shareholder value that tied executive rewards to a firm's share price. These factors are surely important, but they ignore the terrifying human breakdown at the heart of this crisis.

Each day's economic news leaves me haunted by Hannah Arendt's ruminations on Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann as she reported on his trial in Jerusalem for The New Yorker 45 years ago. Arendt pondered "the strange interdependence of thoughtlessness and evil" and sought to capture it with her famous formulation "the banality of evil." Arendt found Eichmann neither "perverted nor sadistic," but "terribly and terrifyingly normal." more ⇉

FROM MOTHER JONES

A Year Without a Mexican

Undocumented workers were the economic lifeblood of small towns like Postville, Iowa—until the immigration cops showed up.

by Marcelo Ballvé for Mother Jones, March 20, 2009 - It all began with the whir and flicker of helicopters on May 12, 2008, an incongruous sound in a tiny Iowa town tucked amid cornfields. All over Postville, people craned their necks from orderly lawns, phones rang, and gossip flew. Reverend Stephen Brackett, the town's Lutheran pastor, was on his day off and didn't hear the helicopters at first, but when his church secretary called to tell him something unusual was happening, he at once suspected what it was. For years, there were rumors that the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant at the edge of town was under scrutiny by immigration authorities. Later that morning, Brackett's wife called with confirmation: She'd spotted two helicopters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in jackets and flak vests down by the slaughterhouse...more ⇉

Dam Politics: India's Leading Activist Medha Patkar Takes on Corporate Control of Water
We speak with Medha Patkar, one of India's best-known and best-loved social activists. She is the iconic founder of the Save the Narmada Movement and the National Alliance of People's Movements. She led the nonviolent struggle against the Sardar Sarovar dam project over the Narmada River for more than two decades and continues to fight for the rights of some 300,000 people, those already made homeless and those facing displacement by the dam. Patkar has organized several mass rallies, demonstrations and hunger strikes, survived numerous jail terms and police violence, and won many important victories. Listen/Watch/Read:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/23/dam_politics_indias_leading_activist

FROM ALTERNET

A Nation of Widows: Why Any Honest Discussion About Iraq Must Include the Plight of Women

By Rose Aguilar, for AlterNet Posted on March 6, 2009
In the run-up to the March 20, 2003 invasion of Iraq, then President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Condoleeza Rice took to the airwaves to assure the world that their main goal was “liberation,” especially for women. Almost six years after the first bombs dropped, the women of Iraq have all but been forgotten.
Last month, Nawal al-Samarrai, Iraq’s State Minister for Women’s Affairs, quit her job to protest a lack of resources and government support. She faced the daunting task of helping women with a budget that had been slashed from $7,500 to $1,500 per month.
“I think it is wrong to stay as a minister without doing anything for my people, especially in this time and in this situation of Iraqi women -- we have an army of widows, violated women, detainees, illiteracy and unemployment -- many, many problems. I had to resign," she said in an interview with National Public Radio. ..more ⇉

FROM THE PROGRESS REPORT

Women's rights -- Federal judge rules that FDA must expand access to 'plan B': A federal judge on Monday ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make the "Plan B morning-after birth control pill available without prescription to women as young as 17," saying "the agency had improperly bowed to political pressure from the Bush administration in 2006 when it set 18 as the age limit." President Bush originally restricted Plan B's availability by instructing the FDA that high-level management would be "more involved in the review of Plan B" than in those of other over-the-counter medications. The Bush administration attempted to "influence [the] decision by appointing people with anti-abortion views to an independent panel of experts reviewing Plan B for the agency," and the result was that the FDA "ignored favorable conclusions...that the drug could be safely used by women as young as 17." Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, applauded the decision, stating, "The judge's opinion makes clear that the FDA should have put medical science first and left politics at the lab door." Former FDA director of women's health Susan Wood -- who resigned in protest to the FDA's original decision -- said the judge's ruling "signaled hope [for] the agency's ability to act independently under a new administration."

FROM DEMOCRACY NOW!

Jailed Without Justice: New Report on US Immigration Detention Blasts System as Broken and Costly
We take a look at a new report from Amnesty International USA lambasting the state of the immigrant detention system in this country. 400,000 people are arrested by immigration officials each year, some of them US citizens. The report, “Jailed Without Justice,” says that tens of thousands languish in immigration prisons in deplorable conditions without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted.
We take a look at a new report from Amnesty International lambasting the state of the immigrant detention system in this country.
400,000 people are arrested by immigration officials each year, some of them US citizens. On an average day, over 30,000 people are in immigrant detention facilities. That’s three times the number of immigrants who were in custody a decade ago.
The report “Jailed Without Justice” says that tens of thousands languish in immigration prisons in deplorable conditions without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted. Those detained include lawful permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and survivors of torture and human trafficking. At least 74 people have died in immigration custody in the past five years, the report estimates.

The report “Jailed Without Justice”* says that tens of thousands languish in immigration prisons in deplorable conditions without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted. Those detained include lawful permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and survivors of torture and human trafficking. At least 74 people have died in immigration custody in the past five years, the report estimates.
We speak with Rosa Clemente, the Immigrant Rights Campaign Director for Amnesty International USA...video...

* Realated link : "Jailed Without Justice" - Amnesty International USA report

Obama Sending More Federal Agents, Money to Mexico Border for Drug War

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Mexico today, a day after the Obama administration announced it would send more money, technology and manpower to secure the United States-Mexico border and bolster the Mexican government’s anti-narcotics operation. We go to the US-Mexico border to speak with independent journalist John Gibler...video...

FROM Z MAGAZINE

A Disquieting Silence.

New study ignored that reveals big increase in sexual violence

By Dominique Bressi , Bressi's ZSpace page , March 2009 - On December 19, 2008, one week after a photograph went public of Obama's chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, groping the breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reported an increase of incidents of sexual violence by 25 percent from 2005 and an increase in incidents of domestic violence by 45 percent. Sarah Tofte, researcher for the United States Program with Human Rights Watch, writes in her article, "Violence Against Women: These Numbers Require Action" on huffingtonpost.com: "The release of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) this week showing huge increases in the incidence of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault barely made the news...[these numbers] demonstrate that the problem of sexual violence is serious and widespread in the US and will require immediate attention from lawmakers and the Obama administration.... Prevention of and protection against all forms of domestic and sexual violence must be a top priority for policymakers. The lack of news coverage this week of the rise in sexual and domestic violence is of a piece with the dynamics of sexual violence in this country." President Obama remains silent on both counts so far...more...

BOOKS: Sisters in the Brotherhoods. Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City, By Jane LaTour; Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, 304 pp.

By Andy Piascik , Piascik's ZSpace page - If we're lucky, the next upsurge of the working class will be led by women. If we're really lucky, some of those leading that upsurge will be the women in Jane LaTour's new book Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City. LaTour is an award-winning labor journalist with a long history as a rank and file union activist. That last is significant, for Sisters reads like it was written by someone who's spent a long time in the trenches.

Sisters is the story of two dozen or so women who were the first to work as firefighters, carpenters, pipe fitters, telephone technicians, and other such jobs in New York City...more..

FROM Ms. MAGAZINE

Ana’s Choice
Can Congress reform immigration law to make it more humane?

By Patricia Zavella , for Ms. Magazine, winter 2009 - When Ana and José García (all names used are pseudonyms) were 18, they could no longer cope with the lack of jobs and crushing poverty in their rural Mexican town, so they decided to migrate with their toddler son to the United States, where jobs were more plentiful, if low-paying. Since the waiting list in Mexico for family immigrant visas could be as long as 20 years, the couple couldn’t wait for authorization—nor could they soothe the fears of Ana’s mother.
“She was afraid that I was going to die on the road,” says Ana, growing teary as she remembers her mother’s prediction: “These eyes that see you now will not see you return.”..more..

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