PopDem blog

Boliva and Venezuela kick out US Ambassadors

Published on 2008-09-12 15:37:00

Some interesting articles today..the LA Times article on the kicking out of the US Ambassadors in Venezuela and Bolivia provided little context. So here is more story behind what happened in Bolivia. Also Chavez gave this speech.

One Year Since the Disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

Published on 2008-08-12 01:48:00

I just received this in an email.------Open letter to Haitian authorities, on the occasion of the first anniversarydisappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-AntoineDear Ladies and Gentlemen Officials. A year ago to date, on August 12, 2007, my husband, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine,returning from an out-of-city stay, hurryingly left his place of residence to go to anappointment scheduled by phone by individuals who likely meant to entrap him. It was thelast time, up to now while I am writing to you, that

An Interview with Nader

Published on 2008-06-14 10:24:00

Anti-Hunger Protests Rock Haiti

Published on 2008-04-23 11:37:00

Demonstrations that started in Le Cayes on Thursday, April 3rd, against soaring food prices spread across Haiti to Petit-Goagve, Gonaïves, Aquin and, by April 7, to the capital, Port-au-Prince. Anger over rising prices has been building for many months with basic food stuffs increasingly out of reach for the poor. Tires were set ablaze in the streets and thrown together to form barricades that paralyzed traffic for days.Read the entire article by Nazaire and myself here at Upside Down World.Th

protests going on..

Published on 2008-03-09 19:33:00

Robinson has an excellent new photo piece here from Colombia.I contributed to this recent piece by my friend Nazaire St. Fort at the Inter Press Service (IPS). He documented student led protests to counter the decline of Haiti's rural economy. Also Nazaire has more photos up here on HaitiAnalysis.And lastly Haiti Liberte has an interesting piece here on the march in Port-au-Prince to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2004 coup d'etat in haiti.

Transnational Institute on Bolivia

Published on 2008-02-04 19:16:00

Here is an excellent piece from June 2007 that I just now got around to reading.

Cartogram

Published on 2008-01-10 02:18:00

A cartogram of military spending. The U.S. spent $353 billion on arms in 2002, out of a world total of $789 billion.

Jean-Juste is ½ free

Published on 2007-11-27 18:30:00

Wadner snapped this photo of Father Gerard Jean-Juste at his recent hearing in front of a Haitian court. Jean-Juste was held as a political prisoner by the former interim government in Haiti and has recently been undergoing medical care in south florida. Pooja Bhatia, Esq, a lawyer and Harvard Law School Satter Human Rights Fellow, has an excellent piece here. Liz Pierre Pierre, a close friend of the former Minister of Justice Bernard Gousse under the unelected Boniface / Latorture government,

Who Is The Biggest Vulture In The Room?

Published on 2007-11-19 11:21:00

As investigative reporter Greg Palast (Project Censored #10 for this year) showed in his two-part series for the BBC, vulture funds and the inability of poor governments to properly fund social programs for their citizenry are inextricably linked.Vulture funds, as Meirion Jones observes, are defined by the IMF as companies which buy up the "debt of poor nations cheaply when it is about to be written off and then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest - which might be ten times what the

Fung on Empowered Participation and his Democracy Cube

Published on 2007-11-16 12:08:00

Today I sat through a fascinating talk by Harvard Professor of Public Policy Archon Fung, the author of Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy and co-author of Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. Participatory or popular forms of democracy are normally approached from an ideal conception. Fung argues for a "different conception of democracy" using what he calls a pragmatic approach to look at alternative grassroots forms of demo