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For Immediate Release
May, 07 2009, 03:35pm EDT
Contact:
Joao Da Silva, Outreach Coordinator
(646) 613 1440 ext. 203
joao@nacla.org
New NACLA Report Examines the Causes and Consequences of the Food Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean
In response to the mainstream media's short-lived and sometimes superficial coverage of rising food prices, the May/June 2009 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas aims to reconsider the ongoing food crisis within its long-term context, focusing on the corporate monopoly on food production.
Key pieces in this Report, which can be accessed both in the print edition as well as at http://nacla.org, include:
NEW YORK
In response to the mainstream media's short-lived and sometimes superficial coverage of rising food prices, the May/June 2009 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas aims to reconsider the ongoing food crisis within its long-term context, focusing on the corporate monopoly on food production.
Key pieces in this Report, which can be accessed both in the print edition as well as at https://nacla.org, include:
"Food Sovereignty in Latin America: Confronting the 'New' Crisis" by Peter Rosset
The sudden crisis of high food prices in 2008 was the latest manifestation of a long-standing rural crisis that stems from the corporate takeover of agriculture. As we enter a new era of increasingly volatile commodity prices, food sovereignty offers the only comprehensive solution.
"Voices From Maputo: La Via Campesina's Fifth International Conference" by Annette Aurelie Desmarais and Luis Hernandez Navarro
More than 500 delegates attended the fifth conference of La Via Campesina, the transnational peasant movement, in October. High on the agenda was analyzing the food crisis, as well as codifying a statement on women's participation in the movement and denouncing sexist violence.
"Is Biotechnology the Answer? The Evidence From NAFTA" by Gerardo Otero and Gabriela Pechlaner
While biotechnology industry boosters would have us believe that more transgenic crops are what we need to solve the food crisis, the evidence of their effects on food consumption in North America offers little hope.
"Eating to Dream: A Tortilleria in Oaxaca" by Deborah Poole and Benjamin Alonso Rascon
Ramirez Leyva, a Mixtec restaurant owner in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca, calls for a profound rethinking of the market-based models of profit and trade that lie at the heart of capitalist understandings of food policy.
"Soy: A Hunger for Land" by Evan Abramson
In this photo essay, small-scale farmers in the Paraguayan departments of Alto Parana and San Pedro face off with industrial soy over access to land. Large-scale Paraguayan landowners have, with government collusion, displaced thousands of families in the last decade for their sprawling soy plantations.
In addition, this issue includes pieces on the Venezuelan opposition, the World Social Forum, the strike in Guadeloupe, the mainstream media's coverage of Bolivia.
NACLA Report on the Americas has been published for the last 42 years by the North American Congress on Latin America, an independent nonprofit institution dedicated to analyzing political, social, and economic trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as U.S. policy in the region.
Editor Pablo Morales and Report authors available for media interviews.
Contact Joao Da Silva, Outreach Coordinator, at (646) 613 1440 ext. 203 or joao@nacla.org.
For more information about NACLA, visit https://nacla.org
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Kansas City Councilmember Heather Hall cast the only no vote against the measure, the passage of which local trans rights advocates celebrated as "an important first step."
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\u201cIncredible!\n\nKansas city, Missouri votes 11-1 to make the city a sanctuary city for gender affirming care.\n\nIt has looked at the anti-trans laws passed in the legislature, and said, "enforce it yourself."\n\nThese are some of the best protections of any city out there.\u201d— Erin Reed (@Erin Reed) 1683857819
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In the coming days, Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is expected to sign into law the newly passed legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors, making the state one of more than a dozen that have approved laws or policies prohibiting the lifesaving healthcare.
The Associated Pressnoted Thursday that the Kansas City sanctuary resolution passed as a judge is considering "a proposed emergency rule from Republican state Attorney General Andrew Bailey that would require adults and children to undergo more than a year of therapy—and fulfill other requirements before they could receive gender-affirming treatment."
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"Both bans attempt to erase transness from Missouri," the group warned, referring to the state GOP's attempt to ban gender-affirming care and prevent trans girls and women from playing on female sports teams.
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Biden insists the debt limit and budget talks are separate, but as Vox's Andrew Prokop noted Wednesday, the president is "negotiating before the GOP has released" the debt ceiling hostage.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday after meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Biden said that "he made clear... that default is not an option."
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While Biden has publicly rejected that GOP demand, Reutersreported Thursday that "White House officials acknowledge that they must accept some spending cuts or strict caps on future spending if they are to strike a deal."
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, wrote Thursday that Biden's remarks this week and growing talk of a deal on spending caps are "pretty troubling."
Owens suggested the current negotiations are beginning to look like "2011-light," a reference to the last time the GOP used the debt ceiling as leverage to enact painful spending cuts. Biden, who was then serving as vice president, was the White House's chief negotiator during that standoff, which culminated in austerity legislation that badly hampered the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession.
In a statement to The Washington Post on Thursday, Owens said that Biden "should not give in to hostage-taking."
Instead, Owens added, he should "follow the lead of the majority of Americans who vastly prefer bringing in revenue through tax increases on the rich rather than making harmful spending cuts."
\u201cHere\u2019s the full quote\n\nPossible it\u2019s a purely rhetorical shift and signals no change in policy, but as the WH pushes for a spending deal with Republicans demanding budget cuts it\u2019s worth keeping a close eye on\u201d— Jeff Stein (@Jeff Stein) 1683834247
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The Treasury Department recently warned that the debt ceiling could be breached as soon as June 1.
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U.S. Sen. John Fetterman on Thursday demanded accountability for Norfolk Southern and other railroad companies following Wednesday night's freight train derailment in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania.
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"This has got to end."
Fire officials said that salt, soybeans, and paraffin wax—used to make candles—spilled from the derailed cars, none of which were carrying hazardous materials. A statement from Norfolk Southern said no one was injured in the accident.
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"It's the same shit, different day from Norfolk Southern," Fetterman (D-Pa.) said in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
\u201chttps://t.co/lliFDm9xzI\nAnother Norfolk Southern train has derailed, this one in New Castle Pennsylvania. This derailment is 30 minutes away from East Palestine. When is Norfolk Southern going to be held accountable for endangering public safety? #publicownership #norfolksouthern\u201d— Northeast PA DSA (@Northeast PA DSA) 1683826695
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