Uruguay

For all of the celebration of him as a “grand strategist,” as someone who constantly advises presidents to think of the future, to base their actions today on where they want the country to be in five or 10 years’ time, Kissinger was absolutely blind to the fundamental feebleness and inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union. None of it was necessary; none of the lives Kissinger sacrificed in Cambodia, Laos, Angola, Mozambique, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, East Timor, and Bangladesh made one bit of difference in the outcome of the Cold War.

After months of intense pressure led by unions and other social movements—including a general strike on the issue—the Uruguayan President listened to public opinion and left the US-led trade agreement.
The post Uruguay Shows the Way by Leaving Secret Trade Deal appeared first on BSNEWS.

teleSUR | March 6, 2015 Imprisoned on various occasions and subjected to numerous interrogations, Dr. Jaime Galarza Zavala is one of the estimated 120 direct victims of the CIA’s record in Ecuador. Persecuted by the CIA for his political organizing, Galarza described to teleSUR English that “they told me that I was working as a […]

RT | March 1, 2015 Uruguay’s president, Jose “Pepe” Mujica, a former guerrilla who lives on a farm and gives most of his salary to charity, is stepping down after five years in office, ending his term as one of the world’s most popular leaders ever. Mujica, 79, is leaving office with a 65 percent […]

To be one of the 50 richest Members of Congress last year, you would have had to have a net worth north of $7.47 million. Everyone knows longtime criminal and former car thief Darrell Issa is the richest Member of Congress- worth between $300 and $400 million dollars. Less well-known is that at least a third of Congress are millionaires (including half the senators).

Reprieve | December 7, 2014 Six cleared Guantanamo prisoners – including Reprieve client Abu Wa’el Dhiab – have today been released to Uruguay. Mr Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian who was cleared by the US Government in 2009, had been on a peaceful hunger strike since early 2013 to protest his detention without charge. As a […]

teleSUR | November 28, 2014 UPDATE: Vazquez wins Uruguayan presidential election teleSUR talks to the Broad Front’s Carlos Alejandro, to understand in more depth the elections and their consequences. teleSur: Carlos, what have been the standout points of the Broad Front’s campaign? Carlos Alejandro: There is no political debate in the second round of elections. Really, […]

Twenty-five years ago this week, six Jesuit scholars at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in El Salvador opened the doors of their residence to members of a government death squad, who had been armed and trained by the United States. The soldiers marched the priests to the back garden. They were ordered to lie face down. They were shot and killed like dogs along with their housekeeper and her teenage daughter.

The principal reason why Washington engages in military wars, sanctions and clandestine operations to secure power abroad is because its chosen clients cannot, and do not, win free and open elections.

Mujica has refused to live at the Presidential Palace or have a motorcade. He lives in a one-bedroom house on his wife's farm and drives a 1987 Volkswagen. "There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress," said Mujica, referring to his time in prison. He donates over 90 percent of his $12,000/month salary to charity so he makes the same as the average citizen in Uruguay. When called "the poorest president in the world," Mujica says he is not poor. "A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more.