Since Ecuador's president Lucio Gutierrez was ousted from power in 2005, relations between Ecuador and the United States have deteriorated with the Andean nation’s increasing rejection of US hegemony.
The government of Rafael Correa, first elected president in 2006, has embraced regional integration, moving closer to its neighbours ― in particular Venezuela and Bolivia ― and further away from the US.
Economically, the Correa administration has pursued policies that break with the neoliberal doctrines Washington had imposed on Latin America.
National liberation
El Salvador approves progressive tax reforms
El Salvador’s National Legislative Assembly passed a package of tax reforms on July 31, CISPES.org said on August 13. The laws aim to shifting the fiscal burden from the nation’s poor majority to the wealthy elite and ease the country’s dependence on international loans to finance important social investment.
The bill was approved despite a fierce campaign against it in the nation’s conservative media.
The morning after Lailat al-Qadr, the death toll in Gaza was approaching its first 1000.
Al-Qadr ― the night before the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan ― is believed to be the night when the Quran was revealed to the prophet Muhammad.
I spent this special night with friends in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah after taking part in the “48K March” for Gaza. The march began in Ramallah and went to Qalandiya checkpoint.
As a Palestinian political activist living in present-day Israel, Tareq Yassin, 23, has grown accustomed to racist intimidation and threats of violence.
Yassin, secretary of the left-wing Hadash political party’s student wing at the University of Haifa, has been repeatedly targeted for his activism. Yet last month was the first time he was subjected to vigilante violence by right-wing Israelis.
Venezuelan ambassador to Egypt, Juan Antonio Hernandez, said on August 20 that an Israeli aircraft attacked the Venezuelan humanitarian delegation in Rafah along the border post between Egypt and Palestine, Venezuela Analysis said the next day.
The delegation was delivering 12 tons of aid to the Palestinian people. No one was injured during the attack.
The Venezuelan government has released images of the “Hugo Chavez” shelter, where incoming Palestinian child refugees of the Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip will be housed, Venezuela Analysis said on August 16.
President Nicolas Maduro made the pledge last month to shelter Palestinian children who were orphaned and wounded as a result of the conflict, Venezuela Analysis said on August 16. Israel's ongoing assault has killed more than 2000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
The US has been carrying out air-strikes in Iraq since August 8 for the first time since officially ending their occupation at the end of 2011.
The strikes were aimed at the extremely violent multinational terrorist group previously known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but which recently renamed itself Islamic State (IS) to reflect its global ambitions.
In an action that has reverberated around the world and inspired pro-Palestinian activists, five days of pickets by activists prevented a ship from the Israeli shipping company Zim Integrated Shipping Services from unloading almost any of its cargo at the port of Oakland.
The blockade was organised as part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign targetting Israel called for by dozens of Palestinian civil society groups. It was the longest blockade yet of an Israeli ship anywhere in the world.
San Francisco Bay Area activists have not allowed a vessel from Israel’s largest shipping company to unload in the Oakland Port for four consecutive mornings.
On August 19, at 6:45am, activists declared yet another victory against the Zim Line, which has been trying to make its way into Oakland since August 16.
Lara Kiswani, the executive director of the local Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), told The Electronic Intifada that they are now waiting to hear if the Zim Line will leave the Port of Oakland today with the cargo it brought.
Argentina came out swinging on August 13 against the US judge overseeing its debt default case.
The Argentine government said it would not agree to restart discussions with the vulture funds anytime soon as the stalemate over Argentina's debt continues.
Argentina also slammed the US District Court Judge Thomas Griesa, who said on August 8 he would fine Argentina in contempt of court unless Argentina stopped claiming it had met its obligations and was not in default.
Argentine Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said: “The proper conditions do not exist to negotiate.”
Israel uses cinema to shore up its carefully manufactured international image as an enlightened “beacon of democracy in the Middle East” – a world away from the fanaticism of the settlements, the separation wall, the checkpoints, and the siege and butchery of Gaza.
Film festivals like the Israeli Film Festival are an attempt to culture-wash Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. The goal is for the international public to see Israel as a civilised country committed to peaceful, artistic pursuits – not as the warmongering power oppressing an entire people, that it really is.
Hideous. Sadistic. Vicious. Murderous. That is how veteran academic and author Noam Chomsky describes Israel’s month-long offensive in Gaza that killed at least 2000 people and left almost 10,000 injured.
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