By Raiesa Frazer, Research Associate at COHA
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The history of sexism within the United States runs deep. While the United States seems to be ranked as one of the top nations in terms of its military, technology, and GDP, it still struggles with its social issues in terms of race, economic disparity, and gender inequality. |
Hillary Clinton. (photo: AP)
By Jonathan Marshall, Consortium News
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As Secretary of State in 2009, Hillary Clinton helped a right-wing coup in Honduras remove an elected left-of-center president, setting back the cause of democracy and enabling corrupt and drug-tainted forces to tighten their grip on the poverty-stricken country, as Jonathan Marshall explains.
Imelda Marcos will forever be remembered for her hoard of 3,000 pairs of shoes, an ostentatious symbol of the billions of dollars in spoils she amassed as First Lady of the Philippines. Now shoes are again emerging as a symbol of corruption, this time in Honduras, where prosecutors are investigating allegations that a former first lady improperly purchased, or never distributed, 42,100 pairs of shoes for the poor, at a cost to the state of $348,000. |
Raúl Castro meets with President Obama on the sidelines of the 7th Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama in April, 2015. Estudio Revolucion/Xinhua/ZUMA
By Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande,
Mother Jonas
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How wild did things get? Secret missives, the pope, and artificial insemination wild.
On a rainy day last December, President Barack Obama gathered a small group of senior officials in the Oval Office and placed a telephone call [1] to Raúl Castro. Sitting on a couch to Obama's left were National Security Council aides Benjamin Rhodes and Ricardo Zuniga, personal emissaries whose 18 months of secret negotiations [2] were about to culminate in the first [3] substantive conversation between the presidents of the United States and Cuba in more than half a century. |
Marine Corps Training. From: Petty Officer 2nd Class Ricardo J. Reyes, U.S. Navy
By Laura V. Natera, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
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On June 2, the United States announced that 180 Marines would be deployed to Honduras as a preventative measure primarily concerning the upcoming hurricane season. Both the U.S. Marines and the White House affirmed that the military mobilization will be temporary and that its functions will only be used to protect the local populace in the case of a natural disaster.[1]
Regional specialists, however, fear that the presence of sophisticated U.S. military and surveillance equipment, as well as the sheer number of Marines that the United States brought to the Soto Cano Base Area in Palmerola, signal that this mobilization is the beginning of a new round of expansion of the United States’ presence in Central America reminiscent of Washington’s practices during the 1980s. These assumptions are based on how the United States has favorably supported the new Honduran government, despite it being established by the illegitimate removal of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from office by military troops on June 28, 2009. |
Honduran women protest violence and human rights abuses. (photo: Reuters)
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Six years ago Sunday, a U.S.-backed military coup ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, flying him to exile in Costa Rica in the early hours of the morning on June 28. Zelaya had planned to hold a non-binding poll on whether to hold a referendum in the upcoming election on convening a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduran constitution.
Zelaya, of the Liberal Party, showed a progressive turn during his presidency by raising the minimum wage, negotiating land deals with campesino movements, and joining the Venezuelan-led regional energy alternative ALBA, in addition to opening the conversation on a constituent assembly.
Coup-backers accused Zelaya of attempting to manipulate the Honduran constitution to extend his presidency, which was limited to one term in Honduras before the recent Supreme Court ruling to change the wording in the constitution. The non-binding poll under Zelaya would not have changed the fact that he could not run for re-election in the November 2013 general election.
The coup against Zelaya was widely condemned by governments across Latin America, the European Union, the Organization of American States and other regional blocs.
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