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For Immediate Release
September, 21 2010, 02:00pm EDT
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
WASHINGTON
ADRIENNE PINE
Recently back from Honduras, Pine is assistant professor of
anthropology at American University. She said today: "There has been an
escalation in government attacks on free speech following the resistance
movement's announcement of the collection of over 1,300,000 signatures
demanding a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Last week,
on Honduran Independence Day, a peaceful concert attended by 40,000
women, men and children was violently broken up by the military and
police. Soldiers shot tear gas canisters and water cannons directly at
the stage and into the audience, killing at least one person. Over the
weekend, nurse union president and resistance movement leader Juana
Bustillo was assassinated." Pine is author of the book Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras and has been writing about recent events and linking to video at Quotha.net.
Also see story of repression in the Honduran press, translated from Spanish into English via Google Translate
DANA FRANK
Frank is a professor of history at the University of California at
Santa Cruz specializing in Honduras. She recently wrote for the Nation a
piece titled "Crisis of Legitimacy in Honduras?" Her books include Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America.
Frank said today: "De facto President Porfirio Lobo has been
gradually escalating repression against peaceful demonstrations by the
opposition, with tear gas, beatings with batons, and beatings in
detention, as well as violence against opposition radio. Political
assassinations of resistance activists continue, opposition journalists
are still being killed, and death threats are rampant -- with complete
impunity, as levels of repression now match the immediate post-coup
period under Roberto Micheletti. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Clinton
praises Lobo, U.S. military and IMF aid flows freely, and Obama has
invited Lobo to dinner on Thursday. The U.S. is overtly supporting a
repressive, illegitimate regime." Lobo will be at an event with Clinton on Wednesday.
CARLOS ROMAN LAINEZ
Roman is a musician with the group CafA(c) Guancasco; the group's web page links to video of repression.
He was attacked by police and military on Honduran Independence Day, Sept. 15.
GERMAN ZEPEDA, [Spanish only]
Zepeda is president of the Coalition of Honduran Banana and
Agroindustrial Unions (COSIBAH, Coordinadora de Sindicatos Bananeros y
Agroindustriales de Honduras). He lives in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He
was in the demonstration in San Pedro Sula on Sept. 15 that was
repressed by the police/military.
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
LATEST NEWS
JB Pritzker Warns Trump Would ‘Take Us to War With Venezuela’ to Distract From Epstein
"He’s going to do everything in his power to distract,” said the Illinois governor.
Nov 13, 2025
As President Donald Trump escalated tensions in the Caribbean with its deployment of an aircraft carrier and warships, one of his top critics in the Democratic Party warned that Trump could follow through on earlier threats to strike Venezuela as newly released documents shed light on a topic the White House has sought to keep secret: the details of the president's friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“My great fear, of course, is that with the release of that information, which I think will be devastating for Trump, he’s going to do everything in his power to distract,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “What does that mean? I mean, he might take us to war with Venezuela just to get a distraction in the news and take it out of the headlines.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a series of emails in which Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, told a friend he spent Thanksgiving 2017 with Trump, informed a former New York Times journalist he had a "photo of donald and girls in bikinis," and suggested he had briefed Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, on Trump in 2018.
Trump has long claimed he cut ties with Epstein in the mid-2000s after Epstein recruited girls at the president's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
After the Democrats released the emails, the Republican-controlled committee disclosed 20,000 pages of messages from the financier, who was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. Those messages, which were obtained from the Epstein estate in response to a subpoena, included a comment from Epstein that he was “the one able to take [Trump] down" and suggestions that he had knowledge of the president's real estate and business dealings.
Epstein also told journalist Michael Wolff of Trump, "Of course he knew about the girls." He told his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was also convicted of helping Epstein with his sex trafficking operation, that the president was "the dog that hasn't barked" in a 2011 email and said Trump had spent "hours at my house" with one of Epstein's well-known victims, Virginia Giuffre.
Pritzker on Wednesday demanded the full release of the Epstein files, saying Trump was "silent because he knows what's inside."
The release of the documents came after months of demands from Democrats that the US Department of Justice fully disclose files related to the Epstein case, which they believe would implicate Trump.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he plans to hold a vote next week on releasing the files. Johnson finally swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) on Wednesday after a weekslong delay he tried to blame on the government shutdown and Grijalva promptly became the 218th lawmaker to sign a discharge petition forcing the vote.
The president said late Wednesday that "the Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures."
But as Pritzker pointed out, the new developments in the Epstein saga follow the Trump administration's threats against Venezuela and his bombings of boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean—strikes that have killed at least 76 people and have been denounced by legal experts and Democratic lawmakers as extrajudicial killings.
The bombings have been part of what the administration claims is a campaign to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela—a country that, according to the United States' own intelligence and law enforcement agencies, plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the leading cause of overdoses in the US.
Venezuela is a transit hub for—but not a significant producer of—cocaine, which is sometimes transported via the Caribbean to the US.
But while Trump has claimed to Congress that the US is in "armed conflict" with drug cartels, drug trafficking has long been treated as a law enforcement issue—not one to be confronted through military strikes—with those suspected of transporting illicit substances arrested and their products confiscated by the Coast Guard and other agencies.
Trump has also signaled that the US could attack Venezuela directly and has authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations there, prompting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to ready the country's entire military arsenal for a potential response on Tuesday. Maduro has accused Trump of seeking "regime change"—which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long advocated for—and Trump explicitly said in 2023 that he would seek to take control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves if he won the presidency again.
On Wednesday, top military officials reportedly presented Trump options for potential military operations within Venezuela.
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Despite new national policies submitted ahead of the United Nations COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil, the world remains on track for a disastrous 2.6°C of fossil fuel-driven warming, according to an annual analysis released on Thursday.
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"The world is running out of time to avoid a dangerous overshoot of the 1.5°C limit," Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare said in a statement. "Delayed action has already led to higher cumulative emissions, and new evidence suggests the climate system may be more sensitive than previously thought. Without rapid, deep emissions cuts—over 50% by 2030—overshooting 1.5°C becomes ever more likely, with severe consequences for people and ecosystems."
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit nationally determined contributions (NDCs) every five years outlining their plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis. However, CAT found that nearly none of the 40 countries it analyzed had updated their 2030 NDCs or announced sufficiently ambitious 2035 NDCs ahead of COP30, which began on Monday. This means that the projected warming based on 2030 and 2035 targets remained at 2.6°C above preindustrial levels.
"We have said it before, and we will keep saying it: We are running out of time."
“A world at 2.6°C means global disaster,” Hare told The Guardian, adding that it would likely trigger key tipping points such as the death of coral reefs, the transformation of the Amazon rainforest into grassland, the destabilizing of ice sheets, and the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
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CAT also made temperature projections based on existing policies and actions; pledges and targets, including binding long-term targets; and an optimistic scenario including net-zero targets. In 2025, the temperature projection for existing policies dropped from 2.7°C to 2.6°C, mostly due to a change in methodology, and the "optimistic scenario" remained the same at 1.9°C. However, the "pledges and targets" projection increased from 2.1°C to 2.2°C, predominately due to President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.
Other major carbon polluters China and the European Union did not update their plans with the ambition required to meet the Paris goals.
The analysis comes a week after the UN Environment Programme released its Emissions Gap Report, which found that NDCs put the world on track for 2.3-2.5°C of warming, while current policies put it on track for 2.8°C.
Overall, CAT blamed the lack of progress on the continued growth of fossil fuel production and use. It noted that several major countries had continued to expand fossil fuels, from India, China, and Indonesia building more coal plants to Japan and Saudi Arabia championing gas as a "bridge fuel."
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However, despite their grim projections, CAT did see hope in the massive rollout of renewable energy, which generated more power than coal for the first time in 2025.
“While not at the pace needed, our analysis shows that the Paris Agreement works,” said Niklas Höhne, of CAT partner the NewClimate Institute, in a statement.
Höhne continued:
Back in 2015, our current policies scenario led to 3.6°C of warming by 2100. Today, 10 years later, our latest projections show that this has been reduced by roughly 1°C to around 2.6°C. The Paris Agreement has rewritten the rules of global climate action—sparking investment, innovation, and reforms that would simply not have happened without it.
But governments need to speed up the pace now. Although emissions have risen, the exponential pace of the renewable energy expansion allows us to now reduce emissions much faster than previously thought. Governments can strengthen or overachieve 2030 targets, implement robust policies, and ensure transparency and accountability to deliver on the Paris Agreement promise and safeguard a sustainable future.
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CAT said that current research indicates that implementing the most ambitious policies could limit peak warming to 1.7°C. This could be achieved by reaching net-zero carbon dioxide emissions before 2050, reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the 2060s, and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Under this scenario, global temperatures would return to below 1.5°C by the end of the century.
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As the New York Times pointed out Wednesday: "For Mr. Petro, a former rebel during Colombia's long and brutal internal conflict, defiance is nothing new. Those who know him describe a man propelled by his convictions—a lifelong critic of corruption and inequality who became the fiery face of Colombia's left."
The Trump administration has responded forcefully to Petro's critiques. In September, it revoked the Colombian president's visa over his remarks to protesters in New York City, where he was to address the United Nations General Assembly. During the speech, Petro urged the UN to open criminal proceedings over the boat bombings.
In October, Petro accused the administration of murdering a Colombian fisherman in one of the boat strikes. Trump then halted aid to the country. As Bloomberg reported Thursday, "The US has given Colombia about $14 billion this century, the most in the Americas, much of it to help fight guerrillas and traffickers."
The Trump administration last month also sanctioned Petro, his family members, and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti. As Engel noted, the US has also sanctioned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Even though experts have contested Trump's claim that "we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela," the country and its leader are key targets of Trump.
In addition to bombing boats off the Venezuelan coast, Trump has sent a US aircraft carrier to the region, authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations in Venezuela, and is considering strikes within the country. Maduro has ordered the deployment of nearly 200,000 soldiers and accused Trump of pushing for "regime change," with his sights set on "oil, gas, gold, fertile land, and water."
During the NBC interview, Petro was critical of Maduro, saying, "I believe there has been no legitimate leadership in Venezuela for some time."
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