country:bolivia

Chinese Surveillance Complex Advancing in Latin America

In February, 2019, in a story that went almost unnoticed in Washington, the small South American nation of #Uruguay began installing the first of 2,100 surveillance cameras, donated by the People’s Republic of China to improve control of its borders with neighboring Argentina and Brazil.

The move highlights the significant deepening of the Uruguay-PRC relationship over the last decade, including their establishment of a “Strategic Partnership” in October 2016, and the signing of a memorandum of understanding in August 2018 for Uruguay to join China’s Belt and Road initiative (despite being about as far from the PRC as is geographically possible).

Beyond Uruguay, the development also highlights a little-discussed but important dimension of China’s advance: its expanding global sales of surveillance and control technologies. Although the press and U.S. political leadership have given significant attention to the risks of employing Chinese telecommunications companies such as Huawei the equally serious but newer issue of expanding sales of Chinese surveillance systems has been less discussed.

The installation of Chinese surveillance systems, acquired through PRC government donations or commercial contracts, is a growing phenomenon in Latin America and elsewhere.

Such systems began to appear in the region more than a decade ago, including in 2007, when then mayor of Mexico City (now Mexican Foreign Minister) Miguel Ebrard returned from a trip to the PRC with a deal to install thousands of Chinese cameras to combat crime in the Mexican capital. More recent examples include ECU-911 in Ecuador, a China-built national system of surveillance and communication initially agreed to by the administration of anti-U.S. populist president Rafael Correa. The system, which has expanded to currently include 4,300 cameras and a command center manned by thousands of Ecuadorans, has been built almost completely from Chinese equipment, designed for a range of otherwise noble purposes from emergency response and combatting crime, to monitoring volcanoes. Bolivia boasts a similar Chinese built system, albeit more limited in scope, BOL-110, in addition to hundreds of surveillance cameras donated by the PRC to at least four of Bolivia’s principal cities.

In Panama, which abandoned Taiwan to establish relations with the PRC in 2017, the government of Juan Carlos Varela has agreed to allow Huawei to install a system of cameras in the crime-ridden city of Colon and the associated free trade zone. Not by coincidence, in July 2019, Hikivision, China’s largest producer of surveillance cameras, announced plans to set up a major distribution center in Colon to support sales of its products throughout the Americas.

In northern Argentina, near where the Chinese are developing a lithium mining operation and constructing the hemisphere’s largest array of photovoltaic cells for electricity generation, the Chinese company ZTE is installing another “911” style emergency response system with 1,200 cameras.

In Venezuela, although not a surveillance system per se, the Chinese company ZTE has helped the regime of Nicholas Maduro implement a “fatherland identity card” linking different kinds of data on individuals through an identity card which allows the state to confer privileges (such as rationing food) as a tool for social control.

As with sectors such as computers and telecommunications, the PRC arguably wishes to support the global export of such systems by its companies to advance technologies it recognizes as strategic for the Chinese nation, per its own official policy documents such as Made In China 2025.

The risks arising from spreading use of Chinese surveillance equipment and architectures are multiple and significant, involving: (1) the sensitivity of the data collected on specific persons and activities, particularly when processed through technologies such as facial recognition, integrated with other data, and analyzed through artificial intelligence (AI) and other sophisticated algorithms, (2) the potential ability to surreptitiously obtain access to that data, not only through the collection devices, but at any number of points as it is communicated, stored, and analyzed, and (3) the long-term potential for such systems to contribute to the sustainment of authoritarian regimes (such as those in Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, and formerly Ecuador) whose corrupt elites provide strategic access and commercial benefits to the Chinese state.

The risk posed by such Chinese architectures is underestimated by simply focusing on the cameras and sensors themselves.

Facial and other recognition technologies, and the ability to integrate data from different sensors and other sources such as smartphones enables those with access to the technology to follow the movement of individual human beings and events, with frightening implications. It includes the ability to potentially track key political and business elites, dissidents, or other persons of interest, flagging possible meetings between two or more, and the associated implications involving political or business meetings and the events that they may produce. Flows of goods or other activities around government buildings, factories, or other sites of interest may provide other types of information for political or commercial advantage, from winning bids to blackmailing compromised persons.

While some may take assurance that the cameras and other components are safely guarded by benevolent governments or companies, the dispersed nature of the architectures, passing information, instructions, and analysis across great distances, means that the greatest risk is not physical access to the cameras, but the diversion of information throughout the process, particularly by those who built the components, databases and communication systems, and by those who wrote the algorithms (increasingly Chinese across the board).

With respect to the political impact of such systems, while democratic governments may install them for noble purposes such as crimefighting and emergency response, and with limitations that respect individual privacy, authoritarian regimes who contract the Chinese for such technologies are not so limited, and have every incentive to use the technology to combat dissent and sustain themselves in power.

The PRC, which continues to perfect it against its own population in places like Xinjiang (against the Uighur Muslims there), not only benefits commercially from selling the technology, but also benefits when allied dictatorships provide a testing ground for product development, and by using it to combat the opposition, keeping friends like Maduro in power, continuing to deliver the goods and access to Beijing.

As with the debate over Huawei, whether or not Chinese companies are currently exploiting the surveillance and control systems they are deploying across Latin America to benefit the Chinese state, Chinese law (under which they operate) requires them to do so, if the PRC government so demands.

The PRC record of systematic espionage, forced technology transfer, and other bad behavior should leave no one in Latin America comfortable that the PRC will not, at some point in the future, exploit such an enormous opportunity.

▻https://www.newsmax.com/evanellis/china-surveillance-latin-america-cameras/2019/04/12/id/911484

#Amérique_latine #Chine #surveillance #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #Argentine #Brésil
ping @reka

Bolivia’s new Mother Earth Law to sideline indigenous rights – Carwil without Borders
▻https://woborders.blog/2012/08/24/new-mother-earth-law-sidelines-indigenous

https://woborders.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/vozdelamadretierra.jpg?w=300

Bolivia, the country that became synonymous with indigenous and environmental rights on the global diplomatic stage, is about to approve a Mother Earth Law that lacks the blessing of the country’s leading indigenous organizations and undermines indigenous communities’ rights to prior consultation. Thursday (August 23), the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qollasuyu (CONAMAQ) publicly walked out of the Chamber of Deputies’ drafting session on the “Framework Law on Mother Earth and Integral Development for Living Well” (Ley Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien). CONAMAQ Spokesman David Crispin explained the walk out: “We in CONAMAQ dave decided to withdraw from the drafting because we do not want to be complicit, alongside the Plurinational Assembly, in building a Law of Integral Development that will damage the Pachamama/Mother Earth. nosotros del CONAMAQ hemos decidido retirarnos del tratamiento porque no queremos ser cómplices, juntamente con la Asamblea Plurinacional, en construir una Ley de Desarrollo Integral que va dañar a la Pachamama” The government had already broken off contact with the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) and the government-backed alternate leadership of the organization does not appear to be involved in the drafting process.

#écologie #bolivie #droits_de_la_nature #peuple_autochtone #contradiction #extractivisme #2012

Welcome to hell: The Peruvian mining city of #La_Rinconada — RT Op-ed
▻https://www.rt.com/op-ed/454486-la-rinconada-hell-mining-peru

https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.03/article/5c94d897dda4c86c318b464a.jpeg

While the West attacks Venezuela, a country that improved the lives of many of its citizens, it overlooks horrors that are taking place in Peru and other ‘pro-market’ countries in Latin America.
La Rinconada, which lies at over 5km above sea level, is the highest settlement in the world; a gold mining town, a concentration of misery, a community of about 50,000 inhabitants, many of whom have been poisoned by mercury. A place where countless women and children get regularly raped, where law and order collapsed quite some time ago, where young girls are sent to garbage dumps in order to ‘recycle’ terribly smelling waste, and where almost all the men work in beastly conditions, trying to save at least some money, but where most of them simply ruin their health, barely managing to stay alive.

I decided to travel to La Rinconada precisely during these days when the socialist Venezuela is fighting for its survival. I drove there as the European elites in Bolivia were trying to smear the enormously popular and successful President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, while the elections were approaching.

As in so many places in the turbo-capitalist and pro-Western Peru, La Rinconada is like a tremendous warning: this is how Venezuela and Bolivia used to be before Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. This is where Washington wants the entire Latin America to return to. Like those monstrous and hopeless slums surrounding Lima, La Rinconada should be a call to arms.

https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.03/original/5c9362f3fc7e9396228b4658.jpeg

https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.03/original/5c9362e6fc7e9396228b4652.jpeg

#extractivisme

New report exposes global reach of powerful governments who equip, finance and train other countries to spy on their populations

Privacy International has today released a report that looks at how powerful governments are financing, training and equipping countries — including authoritarian regimes — with surveillance capabilities. The report warns that rather than increasing security, this is entrenching authoritarianism.

Countries with powerful security agencies are spending literally billions to equip, finance, and train security and surveillance agencies around the world — including authoritarian regimes. This is resulting in entrenched authoritarianism, further facilitation of abuse against people, and diversion of resources from long-term development programmes.

The report, titled ‘Teach ’em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance’ is available to download here.

Examples from the report include:

In 2001, the US spent $5.7 billion in security aid. In 2017 it spent over $20 billion [1]. In 2015, military and non-military security assistance in the US amounted to an estimated 35% of its entire foreign aid expenditure [2]. The report provides examples of how US Departments of State, Defense, and Justice all facilitate foreign countries’ surveillance capabilities, as well as an overview of how large arms companies have embedded themselves into such programmes, including at surveillance training bases in the US. Examples provided include how these agencies have provided communications intercept and other surveillance technology, how they fund wiretapping programmes, and how they train foreign spy agencies in surveillance techniques around the world.

The EU and individual European countries are sponsoring surveillance globally. The EU is already spending billions developing border control and surveillance capabilities in foreign countries to deter migration to Europe. For example, the EU is supporting Sudan’s leader with tens of millions of Euros aimed at capacity building for border management. The EU is now looking to massively increase its expenditure aimed at building border control and surveillance capabilities globally under the forthcoming Multiannual Financial Framework, which will determine its budget for 2021–2027. Other EU projects include developing the surveillance capabilities of security agencies in Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere. European countries such as France, Germany, and the UK are sponsoring surveillance worldwide, for example, providing training and equipment to “Cyber Police Officers” in Ukraine, as well as to agencies in Saudi Arabia, and across Africa.

Surveillance capabilities are also being supported by China’s government under the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and other efforts to expand into international markets. Chinese companies have reportedly supplied surveillance capabilities to Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador [3]. In Ecuador, China Electronics Corporation supplied a network of cameras — including some fitted with facial recognition capabilities — to the country’s 24 provinces, as well as a system to locate and identify mobile phones.

Edin Omanovic, Privacy International’s Surveillance Programme Lead, said

“The global rush to make sure that surveillance is as universal and pervasive as possible is as astonishing as it is disturbing. The breadth of institutions, countries, agencies, and arms companies that are involved shows how there is no real long-term policy or strategic thinking driving any of this. It’s a free-for-all, where capabilities developed by some of the world’s most powerful spy agencies are being thrown at anyone willing to serve their interests, including dictators and killers whose only goal is to cling to power.

“If these ‘benefactor’ countries truly want to assist other countries to be secure and stable, they should build schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, and promote democracy and human rights. This is what communities need for safety, security, and prosperity. What we don’t need is powerful and wealthy countries giving money to arms companies to build border control and surveillance infrastructure. This only serves the interests of those powerful, wealthy countries. As our report shows, instead of putting resources into long-term development solutions, such programmes further entrench authoritarianism and spur abuses around the world — the very things which cause insecurity in the first place.”

https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/flysystem/2018-07/State-Sponsors-cover-image-high%20%28cropped%29_1.png

▻https://privacyinternational.org/press-release/2161/press-release-new-report-exposes-global-reach-powerful-governm

#surveillance #surveillance_de_masse #rapport

Pour télécharger le rapport “Teach ’em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance”:
▻https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/Teach-em-to-Phish-report.pdf

ping @fil

The Rise and Fall of the Latin American Left | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ebb-and-flow-of-latin-americas-pink-tide

Conservatives now control Latin America’s leading economies, but the region’s leftists can still look to Uruguay for direction.
By Omar G. Encarnación, May 9, 2018

Last December’s election of Sebastián Piñera, of the National Renewal party, to the Chilean presidency was doubly significant for Latin American politics. Coming on the heels of the rise of right-wing governments in Argentina in 2015 and Brazil in 2016, Piñera’s victory signaled an unmistakable right-wing turn for the region. For the first time since the 1980s, when much of South America was governed by military dictatorship, the continent’s three leading economies are in the hands of right-wing leaders.

Piñera’s election also dealt a blow to the resurrection of the Latin American left in the post–Cold War era. In the mid-2000s, at the peak of the so-called Pink Tide (a phrase meant to suggest the surge of leftist, noncommunist governments), Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Bolivia, or three-quarters of South America’s population (some 350 million people), were under left-wing rule. By the time the Pink Tide reached the mini-state of Mexico City, in 2006, and Nicaragua, a year later (culminating in the election of Daniel Ortega as president there), it was a region-wide phenomenon.

It’s no mystery why the Pink Tide ran out of steam; even before the Chilean election, Mexican political scientist Jorge Castañeda had already declared it dead in The New York Times. Left-wing fatigue is an obvious factor. It has been two decades since the late Hugo Chávez launched the Pink Tide by toppling the political establishment in the 1998 Venezuelan presidential election. His Bolivarian revolution lives on in the hands of his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, but few Latin American governments regard Venezuela’s ravaged economy and diminished democratic institutions as an inspiring model. In Brazil, the Workers’ Party, or PT, was in power for 14 years, from 2002 through 2016, first under its founder, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, between 2003 and 2011, and then under his successor and protégée, Dilma Rousseff, from 2011 to 2016. The husband-and-wife team of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of the Peronist Party governed Argentina from 2003 to 2015. Socialist Michelle Bachelet had two nonconsecutive terms in office in Chile, from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018.

Economic turmoil and discontent is another culprit. As fate would have it, the Pink Tide coincided with one of the biggest economic expansions in Latin American history. Its engine was one of the largest commodities booms in modern times. Once the boom ended, in 2012—largely a consequence of a slowdown in China’s economy—economic growth in Latin America screeched to a halt. According to the International Monetary Fund, since 2012 every major Latin American economy has underperformed relative to the previous 10 years, with some economies, including that of Brazil, the region’s powerhouse, experiencing their worst recession in decades. The downturn reined in public spending and sent the masses into the streets, making it very difficult for governments to hang on to power.

Meanwhile, as the commodity boom filled states’ coffers, leftist politicians became enmeshed in the same sorts of corrupt practices as their conservative predecessors. In April, Lula began serving a 12-year prison sentence for having accepted bribes in exchange for government contracts while in office. His prosecution, which in principle guarantees that he will not be a candidate in this year’s presidential race, was the high point of Operation Car Wash, the biggest anti-corruption dragnet in Brazilian history. Just after leaving office, in 2015, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was indicted for fraud for conspiring with her former public-works secretary, José López, to steal millions of federal dollars intended for roadwork in Argentina. The “nuns and guns” scandal riveted the country, with the arrest of a gun-toting López as he hurled bags stuffed with millions of dollars over the walls of a Catholic convent in a suburb of Buenos Aires. In Chile, Bachelet left office under a cloud of suspicion. Her family, and by extension Bachelet herself, is accused of illegal real-estate transactions that netted millions of dollars.

All this said, largely overlooked in obituaries of the Pink Tide is the right-wing backlash that it provoked. This backlash aimed to reverse the shift in power brought on by the Pink Tide—a shift away from the power brokers that have historically controlled Latin America, such as the military, the Catholic Church, and the oligarchy, and toward those sectors of society that have been marginalized: women, the poor, sexual minorities, and indigenous peoples. Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 perfectly exemplifies the retaliation organized by the country’s traditional elites. Engineered by members of the Brazilian Congress, a body that is only 11 percent female and has deep ties to industrial barons, rural oligarchs, and powerful evangelical pastors, the impeachment process was nothing short of a patriarchal coup.

In a 2017 interview, Rousseff made note of the “very misogynist element in the coup against me.… They accused me of being overly tough and harsh, while a man would have been considered firm, strong. Or they would say I was too emotional and fragile, when a man would have been considered sensitive.” In support of her case, Rousseff pointed out that previous Brazilian presidents committed the same “crime” she was accused of (fudging the national budget to hide deficits at reelection time), without any political consequence. As if to underscore the misogyny, Rousseff’s successor, Michel Temer, came into office with an all-male cabinet.

In assessing the impact of the Pink Tide, there is a tendency to bemoan its failure to generate an alternative to neoliberalism. After all, the Pink Tide rose out of the discontent generated by the economic policies championed by the United States and international financial institutions during the 1990s, such as privatizations of state enterprises, austerity measures, and ending economic protectionism. Yet capitalism never retreated in most of Latin America, and US economic influence remains for the most part unabated. The only significant dent on the neoliberal international order made by the Pink Tide came in 2005, when a massive wave of political protests derailed the George W. Bush administration’s plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA. If enacted, this new trade pact would have extended the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to all countries in the Americas save for Cuba, or 34 nations in total.

But one shouldn’t look at the legacy of the Pink Tide only through the lens of what might have been with respect to replacing neoliberalism and defeating US imperialism. For one thing, a good share of the Pink Tide was never anti-neoliberal or anti-imperialist. Left-wing rule in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile (what Castañeda called the “good left”) had more in common with the social-democratic governments of Western Europe, with its blend of free-market economics and commitment to the welfare state, than with Cuba’s Communist regime.

Indeed, only in the radical fringe of the Pink Tide, especially the triumvirate of Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador (the “bad left,” according to Castañeda), was the main thrust of governance anti-neoliberal and anti-imperialist. Taking Cuba as a model, these self-termed revolutionaries nationalized large sectors of the economy, reinvigorated the role of the state in redistributing wealth, promoted social services to the poor, and created interstate institutions, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, to promote inter-American collaboration and to challenge US hegemony.

Second, the focus on neoliberalism and US imperialism obscures the Pink Tide’s biggest accomplishments. To be sure, the picture is far from being uniformly pretty, especially when it comes to democracy. The strong strand of populism that runs through the Pink Tide accounts for why some of its leaders have been so willing to break democratic norms. Claiming to be looking after the little guy, the likes of Chávez and Maduro have circumvented term limits and curtailed the independence of the courts and the press. But there is little doubt that the Pink Tide made Latin America more inclusive, equitable, and democratic, by, among other things, ushering in an unprecedented era of social progressivism.

Because of the Pink Tide, women in power are no longer a novelty in Latin American politics; in 2014, female presidents ruled in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Their policies leave little doubt about the transformative nature of their leadership. In 2010, Fernández boldly took on the Argentine Catholic Church (then headed by present-day Pope Francis) to enact Latin America’s first ever same-sex marriage law; this was five years before same-sex marriage became the law of the land in the United States. A gender-identity law, one of the world’s most liberal, followed. It allows individuals to change their sex assigned at birth without permission from either a doctor or a judge. Yet another law banned the use of “conversion therapy” to cure same-sex attraction. Argentina’s gay-rights advances were quickly emulated by neighboring Uruguay and Brazil, kick-starting a “gay-rights revolution” in Latin America.

Rousseff, who famously referred to herself with the gender-specific title of a presidenta, instead of the gender-neutral “president,” did much to advance the status of women in Brazilian society. She appointed women to the three most powerful cabinet positions, including chief of staff, and named the first female head of Petrobras, Brazil’s largest business corporation; during her tenure in office, a woman became chief justice of the Federal Supreme Court. Brutally tortured by the military during the 1970s, as a university student, Rousseff put human rights at the center of Brazilian politics by enacting a law that created Brazil’s first ever truth commission to investigate the abuses by the military between 1964 and 1985. She also signed laws that opened the Brazilian Army to women and that set into motion the corruption campaign that is currently roiling the Brazilian political class. These laws earned Rousseff the enmity of the military and conservatives.

Bachelet, the last woman standing, made news when she entered office, in 2006, by naming the same number of men and women to her cabinet. After being term-limited, she became the first head of the newly established UN Women (formally known as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women), before returning to Chile to win a second term at the presidency in 2014. During her second term, she created the Ministry of Gender Equality to address gender disparities and discrimination, and passed a law that legalized abortion in cases of rape, when there is a threat to the life of the mother, or when the fetus has a terminal condition. Less known is Bachelet’s advocacy for the environment. She weaned Chile off its dependence on hydrocarbons by building a vast network of solar- and wind-powered grids that made electricity cheaper and cleaner. She also created a vast system of national parks to protect much of the country’s forestland and coastline from development.

Latin America’s socioeconomic transformation under the Pink Tide is no less impressive. Just before the economic downturn of 2012, Latin America came tantalizingly close to becoming a middle-class region. According to the World Bank, from 2002 to 2012, the middle class in Latin America grew every year by at least 1 percent to reach 35 percent of the population by 2013. This means that during that time frame, some 10 million Latin Americans joined the middle class every year. A consequence of this dramatic expansion of the middle class is a significant shrinking of the poor. Between 2000 and 2014, the percentage of Latin Americans living in poverty (under $4 per day) shrank from 45 to 25 percent.

Economic growth alone does not explain this extraordinary expansion of the Latin American middle class and the massive reduction in poverty: Deliberate efforts by the government to redistribute wealth were also a key factor. Among these, none has garnered more praise than those implemented by the Lula administration, especially Bolsa Família, or Family Purse. The program channeled direct cash payments to poor families, as long as they agreed to keep their children in school and to attend regular health checkups. By 2013, the program had reached some 12 million households (50 million people), helping cut extreme poverty in Brazil from 9.7 to 4.3 percent of the population.

Last but not least are the political achievements of the Pink Tide. It made Latin America the epicenter of left-wing politics in the Global South; it also did much to normalize democratic politics in the region. With its revolutionary movements crushed by military dictatorship, it is not surprising that the Latin American left was left for dead after the end of the Cold War. But since embracing democracy, the left in Latin America has moderated its tactics and beliefs while remaining committed to the idea that deliberate state action powered by the popular will is critical to correcting injustice and alleviating human suffering. Its achievements are a welcome antidote to the cynicism about democratic politics afflicting the American left.

How the epoch-making legacy of the Pink Tide will fare in the hands of incoming right-wing governments is an open question. Some of the early signs are not encouraging. The Temer administration in Brazil has shown a decidedly retro-macho attitude, as suggested by its abolishment of the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality, and Human Rights (its functions were collapsed into the Ministry of Justice) and its close ties to a politically powerful evangelical movement with a penchant for homophobia. In Argentina, President Mauricio Macri has launched a “Trumpian” assault on undocumented immigrants from Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru, blaming them for bringing crime and drugs into the country. Some political observers expect that Piñera will abridge or overturn Chile’s new abortion law.

But there is reason for optimism. Temer and Macri have been slow to dismantle anti-poverty programs, realizing that doing so would be political suicide. This is hardly surprising, given the success of those programs. Right-wing governments have even seen fit to create anti-poverty programs of their own, such as Mexico’s Prospera. Moreover, unlike with prior ascents by the right in Latin America, the left is not being vanished to the political wilderness. Left-wing parties remain a formidable force in the legislatures of most major Latin American countries. This year alone, voters in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia will have presidential elections, raising the prospect that a new Pink Tide might be rising. Should this new tide come in, the Latin American left would do well to reform its act and show what it has learned from its mistakes.

Latin American leftists need not look far to find a model to emulate: Uruguay. It exemplifies the best of the Pink Tide without its excesses. Frente Amplio, or Broad Front, a coalition of left-wing parties in power since 2005, has put the country at the vanguard of social change by legalizing abortion, same-sex marriage, and, most famously, recreational marijuana. For these reasons alone, in 2013 The Economist chose “liberal and fun-loving” Uruguay for its first ever “country of the year” award.

Less known accomplishments include being one of only two countries in Latin America that enjoy the status of “high income” (alongside Chile), reducing poverty from around 40 percent to less than 12 percent from 2005 to 2014, and steering clear of corruption scandals. According to Transparency International, Uruguay is the least corrupt country in Latin America, and ranks among the world’s 25 least corrupt nations. The country also scored a near perfect 100 in Freedom House’s 2018 ranking of civil and political freedoms, virtually tied with Canada, and far ahead of the United States and neighboring Argentina and Brazil. The payoff for this much virtue is hard to ignore. Among Latin American nations, no other country shows more satisfaction with its democracy.

Omar G. EncarnaciónOmar G. Encarnación is a professor of political studies at Bard College and author of Out in the Periphery: Latin America’s Gay Rights Revolution.

#politique #amérique_latine #impérialisme

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: In the #New_York_Times a democratically elected leader who is a leftist gets worse coverage than the Saudi despot
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2018/01/in-new-york-times-democratically.html

Bolivia Tells President His Time Is Up. He Isn’t Listening.
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/world/americas/bolivia-evo-morales-elections.html

The ecological catastrophe that turned a vast Bolivian lake into a salt desert | World news | The Guardian

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/04/the-ecological-catastrophe-that-turned-a-vast-bolivian-lake-to-a-salt-d

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c4715eee13acc2132a1b911edf81a8f939a3096f/0_203_3088_1853/master/3088.jpg?w=1200&h=630&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Centropy&bm=normal&ba=bottom%2Cleft&blend64=aHR0cHM6Ly91cGxvYWRzLmd1aW0uY28udWsvMjAxNi8wNS8yNS9vdmVybGF5LWxvZ28tMTIwMC05MF9vcHQucG5n&s=67a05450d148df18b0132e7dedbcc0eb

The remainder of an ancient sea at the heart of South America is fast becoming a memory: a white expanse of salt stretches for miles, with just a smear of red, brackish water at its southern edge.

Lake Poopó was once Bolivia’s second largest body of water, but when asked how to get to the lake today, locals correct a visitor.

“You mean the ex-lake; the salt flat,” says Arminda Choque, 23, as she waits outside a mobile dental clinic in Llapallapani, a community of crumbling adobe-and-thatch houses inhabited by the indigenous Urus-Muratos, who have lived off the lake’s abundant fish since time immemorial. “I want my children to leave and go to college. There’s no future for them here.”

#bolivie #eau #écologie #environnement

This New York Activist Wants To Replace A Statue Of Columbus With Toussaint L’Ouverture | HuffPost
▻https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-cantave-christopher-columbus-monument_us_5a2329e7e4b0a02abe919

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5a21bba81900004c040340c9.jpeg?ops=1910_1000

In 2013, when Glenn Cantave was an undergrad student studying abroad in Bolivia, he did as many tourists do in the country and visited the colossal statue of Cristo de la Concordia, one of the largest depictions of Jesus in the world.

For many Bolivians, the statue is a site of national pride. The 133-foot figure towers over visitors clamoring to take his photo, his arms outstretched as if offering a giant hug. But for Cantave, something about it felt wrong. “I have nothing bad to say about Jesus as a guy,” he told HuffPost. “But Bolivia has one of the largest indigenous cultures in South America and the religion of Christianity was imposed on its people. This image of a white man looking down on everyone was very problematic.”

Punish the smuggler or reward the smuggler? Recent refugee arrivals in Greece

Media coverage of the refugee situation in Greece focuses heavily on the Syrians and secondarily on Afghans and Iraqis. While these are indeed the three most highly represented nationalities among asylum seekers in Greece, the past six to twelve months have seen a gradual shift.

Fast forward to 2017, taking the period from 10 May to 27 June 2017, a total of 982 asylum seekers reached the island of Lesvos. The top nationalities were: DRC (202), Syria (160), Iraq (116), Afghanistan (61). The rest were from Iran, Kuwait (Bidoon), Palestine, Guinea, Eritrea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Yemen, Togo, Gambia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Sri Lanka, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Sudan and Nigeria. One person each came from Bolivia, Cuba, South Africa, Haiti and Uganda. Similar trends are noted on the other islands which act as the entry point to Greece.

Those of us acquainted with Moria reception and identification centre in Lesvos have noticed the nationality change among the new arrivals over the last two years: many more Africans and less Arabs. Groups of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans are still coming grouped together, while Africans from different nationalities arrive in different groups with other nationalities. The smuggling fees vary according to nationality.

One may wonder why people from Africa, whether northern or sub-Sahara, take the route to Europe through Greece, rather than the intuitively more direct route to Italy or Spain. A look at flight routes and visa regimes provides the answer. One may reach the Greek islands from as far away as central Africa, using Turkish Airlines, a Turkish visa and a smuggler picked at Istanbul airport or the Aegean coast, for less than 1,500 dollars total.

Turkish Airlines has 200 destinations worldwide and at reasonable prices. For example, one way flight from Kinshasa to Istanbul costs 833 dollars, Abidjan to Istanbul, 709 dollars and Casablanca to Istanbul 458 dollars.

Secondly, visas for Turkey are generally easily obtained. From the nationalities arriving in Lesvos in June, all except Cubans and Palestinians, depending on where they were registered, are exempt from any visa requirement or need only an electronic visa, easily obtained online for the cost of 20 dollars.

Eritreans are often rejected asylum seekers from Israel, deported to Rwanda with cash, which they use to escape again through the Aegean route. Women from the Dominican Republic are usually trafficked to Turkey and once they manage to escape to Greece, seek assistance to return to their country. Citizens of sub-Saharan Africa come from a number of conflicts in the region, both internal and cross-border, including purges in the DRC and the Boko Haram. North Africans face chronic instability in their countries.

▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/fotini-rantsiou/punish-smuggler-or-reward-smuggler-recent-refugee-arrivals-in-greece

#Grèce #mer_Egée #asile #migrations #réfugiés #parcours_migratoires #Turquie #routes_migratoires #Afrique #réfugiés_syriens #Turkish_airlines #visas #réfugiés_érythtréens

The Fight - Documenting Disability Activists Caravan of Courage in Bolivia
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-fight-documenting-disability-activists-caravan-of-courage-in-bol

People with disabilities are among the most discriminated against in Bolivia. Fed up of being ignored, a group of them marched across the Andes to the seat of the Government in La Paz, asking to...

How immigration detention compares around the world

The US has the highest number of incarcerated non-citizens in the world: a population which grew from around 240,000 in 2005 to 400,000 in 2010. Since 2009, there has been a congressional mandate to fill 34,000 immigration detention beds each night. More than half of these beds are placed in privately run detention facilities, run by companies such as CoreCivic (formerly the Corrections Corporation of America), who lobbied for the passing of this mandate.
The number of detainees, according to the latest numbers, has also been growing in many EU countries since the 1990s. The UK held 250 people in detention in 1993 and 32,163 in March 2016. France detained 28,220 in 2003 and 47,565 in 2015. Sweden placed 1,167 immigrants in detention in 2006 and 3,959 in 2015. In the past ten years or so Australia’s detainee population has fluctuated. In 2009, there were 375 detainees, a number that sharply rose to 5,697 in 2013, and then dropped to 1,807 in January 2016.
Statistics for Greece and Italy, the two main first countries of entry for asylum seekers to the EU, are not readily available. In 2015 Italy detained 5,242 people, while Greece had a detention capacity of 6,290 in 2013.

▻https://theconversation.com/how-immigration-detention-compares-around-the-world-76067
#détention_administrative #chiffres #statistiques #rétention #asile #migrations #réfugiés #monde #Europe #USA #Etats-Unis

Burger King animal feed sourced from deforested lands in Brazil and Bolivia | Environment | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/01/burger-king-animal-feed-sourced-from-deforested-lands-in-brazil-and-bol

The hamburger chain #Burger_King has been buying animal feed produced in soy plantations carved out by the burning of tropical forests in Brazil and Bolivia, according to a new report.

Jaguars, giant anteaters and sloths have all been affected by the disappearance of around 700,000 hectares (1,729,738 acres) of forest land between 2011 and 2015.

The campaign group Mighty Earth says that evidence gathered from aerial drones, satellite imaging, supply-chain mapping and field research shows a systematic pattern of forest-burning.
Beauty and destruction: the Amazon rainforest – in pictures
View gallery

Local farmers carried out the forest-burning to grow soybeans for Burger King’s suppliers Cargill and Bunge, the only two agricultural traders known to be operating in the area.

#viande #soja #déforestation #forêt #Brésil #Bolivie

IGU Online – GEOGRAPHIES FOR PEACE / GEOGRAFÍAS PARA LA PAZ IGU-UGI Thematic Conference 23-25 April 2017
▻http://igu-online.org/geographies-for-peace-geografias-para-la-paz-igu-ugi-thematic-conference-23-25-april-2017/?lang=fr

http://igu-online.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/La-Paz-Geopeace.jpg

GEOGRAPHIES FOR PEACE / GEOGRAFÍAS PARA LA PAZ IGU-UGI Thematic Conference 23-25 April 2017

In 2017 the International Geographical Union (IGU-UGI) will organize two Thematic Conferences, instead of a large Regional : one about “Energy, Geography & Balanced Development” in Baku (Azerbaijan), and one about “Geographies for Peace” in La Paz (Bolivia).

The Thematic Conference in La Paz will be focused on peace and the contribution of geography to it. It will be held on 23, 24 and 25 April 2017, in combination with another major international scientific event, “EGAL, XVI ENCUENTRO DE GEÓGRAFOS DE AMÉRICA LATINA” (EGAL The 16th Meeting of Latin American Geographers), which will take place from 26 to 29 April in the same city,

#paix #guerre #conflits #géographie

Bolivia emergency stands out in a region of drought

“This should be tremendous, deep. There should be karachi fish and silverside in here,” says Abdon Choque Flores, pointing to a shoulder-high tide mark on the long road bridge that crosses the #Desaguadero River in Bolivia’s drought-hit #Oruro department.

https://assets.irinnews.org/styles/responsive_large/s3/boliviadrieduplake.jpg?o04uLpm8cveqFY_HeH6QQxUs_1GflymT&itok=tIRurNiL

Mining projects, big plantations mean Bolivia’s drought hurts more - campaigners

Bolivia declared a national state of emergency last week

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CydQqtAW8AMH04n.jpg

#mines #Bolivie #sécheresse
cc @louca

’We are in shock’: historic Bolivia drought hammers homes and crops | Global development | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/nov/25/bolivia-drought-water-rationing-crops

Teodora Cauna de Quispe hasn’t had water at her house in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, for two weeks. “We can’t wash ourselves or our clothes,” she said. “Every so often there is a bit of muddy water that spurts out of the tap on my patio.”

A tanker has delivered water only once, and Teodora – who, like many of her neighbors, works as a maid in a wealthy neighborhood nearby – has been forced to buy expensive bottled water for her family to drink.
Bolivian water rationing – in pictures
View gallery

This week, President Evo Morales declared a national emergency, after the combined impact of the #El_Niño weather cycle, poor water management and climate change helped cause the country’s worst drought in 25 years. Water rationing is in effect for the first time ever in La Paz, where the three main reservoirs that provide the city’s water are almost dry. The semi-arid highlands surrounding the capital rely almost entirely on replenishment by rainfall.

Five other cities face severe water shortages. Bread, a key staple here, is increasingly scarce and many hospitals are working at half capacity, suspending non-emergency surgeries and dialysis. In the poor neighborhoods of southern Sucre, taps have run dry for three weeks.

The drought has hit rural areas hard as reservoirs and lakes dry up, crops wither and animals die. Indigenous rituals beseeching the gods for rain have taken on a particular urgency this year and last, when the drought began.

#Bolivie #sécheresse #climat

Bolivian water crisis as glaciers vanish
▻http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=6e13c74c17ec527c4be72d64f&id=cb97a4524e&e=08052803c8

Bolivian water crisis
as glaciers vanish

Bolivia has declared a state of emergency as climate impacts shrink glaciers and leave cities without water.

By Jan Rocha

SÃO PAOLO, 26 November, 2016 − The government of Bolivia, a landlocked country in the heart of South America, has been forced to declare a state of emergency as it faces its worst drought for at least 25 years.

Much of the water supply to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world, and the neighbouring El Alto, Bolivia’s second largest city, comes from the glaciers in the surrounding Andean mountains.

#bolivie #eau #climat #glaciers

Climate change: Bolivia’s second largest lake dries up, in pictures - Telegraph
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/12058237/Climate-change-Bolivias-second-largest-lake-dries-up-in-pictures.html?f

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03530/FINAL-bolivia-drau_3530574k.jpg

The second largest lake in Bolivia, Lake Poopo, is in the process of desertification due to the effects of climate change, mining pollution and the intensification of #El_Nino and #La_Nina weather cycles.

#climat #désertification #pollution #photographie #Lac_Poopo

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03530/2005-poopo-lake-bo_3530469k.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03529/potd-lake-bed_3529998k.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03530/bolivia-draught-fi_3530503k.jpg

How Hipster #Food Trends Are Ruining the World | Highsnobiety
▻http://www.highsnobiety.com/2016/10/27/hipster-food-trends-ruining-world

http://static.highsnobiety.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/25150920/hipster-food-trends-ruining-world-00.jpg

Take quinoa for example. I was initially introduced to the South American grain through a hippie friend that likes to spend their weekend walking barefoot through the English countryside, and talks about “energy” and “the universe” without any hint of irony. In parts of Peru and Bolivia, where it has been cultivated for several millennia, quinoa is an essential cornerstone of the local #diet in the same way that rice is in Asia and bread is in Europe. But a spike in Western demand for quinoa caused its #price to triple in the years between 2006 and 2013.

By the end of this period, quinoa had become more expensive than chicken in the Peruvian capital of Lima, not to mention that the #lucrative sums that could be earned from exporting it to moneyed overseas markets made supplies scarcer. This has forced the local populace into spending their money on cheaper imported Western junk food because they can afford little else. So much for those hippie ideals of universal love.

Amazon land rights face greatest threat - Climate News NetworkClimate News Network
▻http://climatenewsnetwork.net/amazon-land-rights-threat

http://climatenewsnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CROP-rainforest-land-rights.jpg

Ensuring forest people’s land rights in the Amazon region is a cheap and effective way of cutting both carbon emissions and deforestation, researchers say – but the obstacles are formidable.

A report from the World Resources Institute (WRI) offers new evidence that the modest investments needed to secure these rights will generate billions of dollars in returns – economically, socially and environmentally – for governments, investors and communities.

The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs, quantifies the economic value of securing land rights for the indigenous communities who live in and protect forests, with a focus on Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia in South America, and implications for the rest of the world.

#amazonie #climat #peuples_autochtones #écologie #environnement merci @reka
▻http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/styles/cover_shot/public/Climate_Benefits_Tenure_Costs.jpg?itok=PiMW4ec3
▻http://www.wri.org/publication/climate-benefits-tenure-costs

Rainforest rapidly cleared for sugarcane in Bolivia
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/exclusive-rainforest-rapidly-cleared-for-sugarcane-in-bolivia

https://news.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/10/amazonia-bosques-deforestacion-areas_naturales_protegidas-5.jpg

Satellite data indicate deforestation for sugarcane in the northern portion of the country near Madidi National Park is ramping up as the San Buenaventura sugar mill expands production in the area.
Nearly 2,000 hectares have been cleared for sugarcane so far, with a total of 11,700 hectares planned for cultivation by 2023.
The Tacana Indigenous community alleges it was forced to concede 4,000 hectares of its ancestral territory for the construction of the mill.
Deforestation already affects 20 percent of the Pan Amazon, and scientists warn that if it continues at this pace, it could produce an ecological collapse in less than 40 years.

https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6Zt6VUJd8AI8IT28/giphy.gif

​In Bolivia, “Climate Refugees” Forced Into Urban Shantytowns ​

Climate change is drying up the Earth and making Bolivians search for new livelihoods in Latin America’s poorest country.

http://static1.worldcrunch.com/images/story/image_834341406.jpg

▻http://www.worldcrunch.com/world-affairs/-in-bolivia-climate-refugees-forced-into-urban-shantytowns-/c1s21618
#Bolivie #réfugiés_climatiques #climat #asile #migrations #réfugiés
cc @louca

È la cultura che plasma le nostre preferenze musicali - Galileo
▻http://www.galileonet.it/2016/08/basi-culturali-preferenze-musicali

Uno studio pubblicato su Nature dimostra che la bellezza di una melodia non è intrinseca alla costruzione della musica stessa, ma ha un’origine culturale e dipende dal tipo di armonie cui il nostro orecchio è abituato

Bolivian national park serving up sustainable ingredients for fine dining | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/08/bolivia-madidi-national-park-chefs-sustainable-ingredients

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1d0e288e2a6985c0f8aee650a8db33bfad69de7b/0_163_5616_3370/5616.jpg?w=1200&h=630&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=crop&bm=normal&ba=bottom%2Cleft&blend64=aHR0cHM6Ly91cGxvYWRzLmd1aW0uY28udWsvMjAxNi8wNS8yNS9vdmVybGF5LWxvZ28tMTIwMC05MF9vcHQucG5n&s=caaeb7313f1d559ccfe358c955acf0d4

While the Bolivian government is pushing to open its protected areas to oil and gas firms, the women had come to participate in an initiative to exploit the park’s natural resources in a more sustainable – and appetizing – way.

Chefs from across Latin America, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, and staff from Bolivia’s environment ministry and the Danish International Development Agency had also travelled to the park to discuss sustainable rainforest products.

The meeting was intended to prove that there is demand among leading chefs for forest produce such as wild cacao or oreja de mono mushrooms – but also to help native communities understand just how much commercial potential there is in the flora and fauna they come across on a daily basis.

#parc #biodiversité #alimentation #Bolivie

Research Indicates Argentina has 1,500 Clandestine Airstrips
▻http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/1500-clandestine-landing-strips-in-argentina-research

http://www.insightcrime.org/images/2016/August-2016/16-08-01PistaArgentina.jpg

Argentina hosts at least 1,500 clandestine landing strips for traffickers flying drugs into the country, recent research show, providing further fodder for the government’s reinvigorated campaign against drug trafficking and organized crime. (…)

Argentina is one of the biggest markets for cocaine in South America, as well as one of the departure points for cocaine headed to Europe. Regional neighbors Peru, Colombia and Bolivia are the region’s major coca-producing countries, and Argentina shares a border with Bolivia and Peru, which are also littered with landing strips. (...)

President Mauricio Macri has introduced a number of new measures to strengthen the country’s security policy against organized crime since he assumed office in 2015, on both a national and regional level. One of his most controversial decisions has been a government decree authorizing the shooting down of suspected drug-trafficking flights, effective at least for the remainder of 2016.

#argentine #drogues #transport