more on the honduran coup

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Honduran resistance goes it alone

60 days of anti-coup protests show persistence in civil disobedience and little faith in int'l community

Military Coup Reverses Honduran Women’s Gains in Human Rights

In Honduras, the first military coup of the 21st Century is having a devastating effect on human rights, according to the author, a producer at FIRE (Feminist International Radio Endeavour), which was represented in an international delegation visiting the country this month.
August 28, 2009
The military coup d’état in Honduras on June 28 has seriously eroded democratic institutions and hard-fought gains in women’s human rights and human rights in general. That was the finding of Feminist Transgressional Watch, a group of 22 journalists, human rights legal experts and activists from North and Central America and Spain. The group visited Honduras in mid-August during Women’s Human Rights Week to assess reported violations of human rights and observe feminist strategies to resist the military coup.

Protesting the coup Photo by Margaret Thompson

In one gathering, the delegation met with 18 women who were fired recently from the National Institute for Women (INAM) because they are feminists and opposed the coup. According to Gilda Rivera, director of CEM-H (Women’s Studies Center of Honduras), the coup resulted in the devastation and militarization of such democratic institutions as INAM, which was established in 1998 based on international agreements coming out of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women.

( soldiers beating women protestors )

Water Woes

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Israelis restrict Palestinians' water supply

World bank report: Israelis have access to four times as much water as Palestinians due to restrictions

Labor unions and big corporations

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Vale-Inco (Huge subsidiary of global mining company mining Nickel in Canada) strike heats up

The strike against Vale-Inco in Sudbury heats up as company threatens to use non-union labor

El Salvador and Canadian mining company Pacific Rim

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Gold, impunity and violence in El Salvador

Assassination of anti-mining resistance leader, Marcelo Rivera, sparks campaign of terror against activists

Trade Deals leave poor Guatemalans at the mercy of American Big PHarma

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The War over Drugs in Central America and Washington

And now we learn that drug manufacturers are exporting this lust for profits to our ‘trading partners’ abroad. While poor Americans are crippled by high drug costs, folks in Guatemala don’t get a public option, a town hall, or even a vote. Thanks to U.S. trade policies, they just get a bill for brand-name drugs that could cost as much as 850 percent more than a local generic version.
According to a study on the Central American Free Trade Agreement and Guatemala’s prescription drug market, intellectual property regulations have drastically limited access to critical drugs like insulin and HIV/AIDS treatments. Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH) analyzed Guatemala’s pharmaceuticals market under CAFTA and found that drug companies have capitalized heavily on “data exclusivity” and patent rules that restrict the availability of generic medicines.
Authors Ellen Shaffer and Joseph Brenner warn:

Particularly alarming is that the rules not only keep affordable new generics from entering the market; they also function retroactively to remove existing medicines from the shelves. While patents already allow brand name drug manufacturers like Novartis and Merck to suppress competition from generic drug makers in the U.S. and abroad, data exclusivity is an additional bonus for this multi-billion dollar industry. Securing data exclusivity is a simple process for these companies, but it places insurmountable bureaucratic burdens on generics manufacturers.

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