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Leftists Poised to Win Presidency in El Salvador

After 17 years since the end of El Salvador's civil war, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is poised to accomplish what its guerrilla predecessors never did: take over the national government.  Reliable polls unanimously project that FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes will win the March 15 presidential elections.  What all this means for El Salvador -- and Latin America -- is the subject of the new, in-depth report, "The 2009 El Salvador Elections: Between Crisis and Change."

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Obama and the ‘war on terror’

In a speech to military troops at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina on February 27, US President Barack Obama announced that most of the 142,000 US soldiers in Iraq will be withdrawn by August 2010, leaving behind a "residual force" of 50,000 troops. The remaining troops will be withdrawn by the end of 2011, he said. Obama supports continuing, and even intensifying, Bush's phony "war on terror" in Afghanistan, while signalling he wants to wind it back in Iraq.

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Mexico Unconquered: Reviewing a People’s History of Power and Revolt

Carlos Slim, the second richest man in the world, calls Mexico home, as do millions of impoverished citizens. From Spanish colonization to today's state and corporate repression, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, is written from the street barricades, against the Slims of the world, and alongside "the underdogs and rebels" of an unconquered country.

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Tax Solution to Wretched Greed

By now most Americans have experienced extreme disgust upon hearing about the nearly $20 billion in bonuses given to people in New York City's financial sector at the end of 2008.  After sending the nation into the current economic black hole there is no way of comprehending the audacity of financial company executives in giving themselves and their colleagues shameful rewards for abysmal and disgraceful performance.  Other than screaming and moaning about all this dishonorable behavior what should the Obama administration and Congress do?

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Latin America Breaks Free

UNASUR Meeting in Chile (Photo: ABI)
Five years ago, when Evo Morales was a rising political star as a congressman and coca farmer, I met him in his office in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He was drinking orange juice and sifting through the morning newspapers when I asked him about a meeting he just had with Brazilian President Lula. "The main issue that we spoke about was how we can construct a political instrument of liberation and unity for Latin America," Morales told me.