Latin America

Latin Americans, Recognition and Inclusion in the UK
Wednesday, 12 September 2012 at 6 pm
House of Commons. London SW1A 0AA

The Latin American Recognition Campaign is pleased to invite you to its 3rd Annual General Conference for the Official Recognition of Latin Americans in the UK.

LARC is an association which has been campaigning since its creation in 2010, for the official recognition of the Latin American community as an ethnic minority in the UK. To learn more about LARC, please visit our website www.larcuk.org.

Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Cuba are organising a free programme of music, dance, art and gastronomic events in London this summer, to tie in with the Olympics. 

The venue for most of them is: Bolívar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL

For dates and details: http://www.cultura.embavenez-uk.org/ or see attached flyer

PARAGUAY: EMERGENCY PUBLIC MEETING!

Behind the “Express Coup D’Etat” - What Does it Mean for Paraguay & the Region?
 
Thursday July 12, 6.30-8.30pm

At the ‘Discus’ Room, Unite House, 128 Theobalds Road, London, WC1X 8TN  

Please circulate widely – come & show your support for democracy & social progress in Latin America!

Speakers to include:
•         Ricardo Medina, member of the Front for the Defence of Democracy in Paraguay (GB), radio journalist, correspondent of Radio Fe y Alegria (Paraguay), researcher of the National Archives of Political History of Richmond & collaborator of the academic journal Latin American Research Review.
•         Richard Gott, writer
•         Jeremy Corbyn MP
•         Tony Burke, Assistant General Secretary, Unite the Union

The Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) has reportedly called for the immediate withdrawal of USAID (the US agency for international development) from member countries of the alliance, "due to the fact that we consider their presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the sovereignty and stability of our nations".

As justification, a statement signed by the Nicaraguan, Bolivian, Venezuelan and Cuban governments, among others, cited: "the evidence brought to light by the declassified documents of the North American State Department in which the financing of organisations and political parties in opposition to ALBA countries is made evident,  in a clear and shameless interference in the internal political processes of each nation".

For the full story: http://wrongkindofgreen.org/2012/06/22/breaking-news-alba-expels-usaid-f...

23 June: Day of solidarity with Nicaragua and NSC AGM

10.00 - 4.30pm at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R

See NSC website: http://nicaraguasc.org.uk/

29 June: Celebrate culture and sport of Latin America and the Caribbean

Launch event of ‘ALBA house’ organised by the embassies of the ALBA countries: Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The 'Alba House' will be a space for celebration during the Olympics. 

7:30pm - Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL  [underground Warren St] http://cultura.embavenez-uk.org

The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign is running four-week Spanish courses this August at its Durham Rd office in London.

* Peruvian teacher, Claudio Chipana, will be taking the classes.
* Each session will be 1.5 hours making 6 hours over the 4 weeks.
* The sessions will have a greater emphasis on speaking than NSC's usual classes.
* The cost will be £50 or £37.50 (concessions) payable on the 1st evening of the course.   

Monday evenings:
AUG 6TH
AUG 13TH
AUG 20TH
Not 27th as it is a bank holiday
SEPT 3RD

There will be two levels:
6.30 - 8    ELEMENTARY
8 - 9.30    INTERMEDIATE

Contact: nsc@nicaraguasc.org.uk

"The sixth summit was something else. First, the region is not divided - it is united. It is united against the discrimination against Cuba, against the drug war, and in favor the decolonization of the Malivinas Islands. Second, the region showed that it is now mature enough to walk on its own, without the “interference” of the United States and Canada. Third, the United States is isolated and very few countries continue to follow it: only Mexico and Chile, but each with very low profiles."

To read the full analysis by Raul Zibechi, visit the website of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy: http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6811

A woman union leader has won a prestigious award for her struggle to support workers in Honduras supplying bananas to British stores for as little as £5 a day.

Supermarkets are the most powerful actors along tropical fruit supply chains. They can make enormous profits by abusing this power and paying unsustainably low prices to their fruit suppliers.

For hundreds of thousands of workers in Latin America and Africa this can mean that their basic human rights are undermined and that they live in poverty. It also leads to poor working conditions, and inadequate health and safety standards, including exposure to toxic agrochemicals.

Sign the BananaLink petition now and stand in solidarity with workers, small farmers and their communities in the South. And please pass this on to your friends and networks.

Link to Make Fruit Fair! petition:

http://stopsupermarkets.makefruitfair.org.uk/

Monday 20 February, 10:00 - 18:00

Learning from Latin America: Debt crises, debt rescues and when and why they work

Enrique García (CAF), Rosario Green (Mexican Senate), Alessandro Leipold (Lisbon Council), Ugo Panizza (UNCTAD), Carlos Eduardo Freitas (OF Consultoria Econômica), Roberto Frenkel (CEDES), Stephany Griffith-Jones (Columbia University), Jose Antonio Ocampo (Columbia University), Rosemary Thorp (Oxford), Jorge Gallardo (Director of the Center of Economic and Financial Studies at the Universidad Espíritu Santo, Guayaquil campus)