Month: April 2011

Source: Al Jazeera

The Arab revolutions are not only shaking the structure of tyranny to the core – they are shattering many of the myths about the Arab region that have been accumulating for decades. Topping the list of dominant myths are those of Arab women as caged in, silenced, and invisible. Yet these are not the types of women that have emerged out of Tunisia, Egypt, or even ultra-conservative Yemen in the last few weeks and months.

Not only did women actively participate in the protest movements raging in those countries, they have assumed leadership roles as well. They organised demonstrations and pickets, mobilised fellow citizens, and eloquently expressed their demands and aspirations for democratic change. read more

Source: Truthout

Dispelling Donald Trump’s birther charges that Barack Obama is foreign-born, the president released his long-form birth certificate Wednesday. Politifact, the fact-checking site for politics, says its article about the issue (with a link to the certification of live birth) is the most popular item that it has ever published. The certificate and its release prove two things most people should already know: Obama is an American. And, as PBS host Tavis Smiley put it to MSNBC, the 2012 presidential race is shaping up to be “the ugliest, the nastiest, the most divisive, and the most racist in the history of this Republic.” read more

Source: Americas Program

Mexico’s House of Deputies has brought the country to the cusp of a police state. The reform to the National Security Law now before the lower house would grant sweeping military powers to the executive and limit congressional oversight of domestic military activity. It would grant President Felipe Calderón the ability to effectively declare states of exception without congressional approval and unilaterally use the military against any group he deems to be a “threat to internal security.” Also expanded would be the surveillance powers of the army, marines and Cisen, the Center for National Security and Investigation, which would be allowed to “use any method of information collection, without in any case affecting human rights and guarantees for their protection.” read more