By Edgardo Aya

>Residents of the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores maintain a permanent sit-down in front of the Constitutional Court, in the centre of Guatemala’s capital, to demand that the country's highest court rule on the demand for a suspension of the San Rafael mining company's permit to operate a mine in that municipality. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

GUATEMALA CITY, May 4 2018 (IPS) - Rosa Dávila is busy cooking ears of corn, to be eaten by the men and women who have set up a checkpoint on the side of the road to block the passage of supplies sent to a mining company that operates in the area.

The San Rafael mining company, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Tahoe Resources, is located on the outskirts of San Rafael Las Flores, a town 96 km southeast of Guatemala City, in the department of Santa Rosa.

The roadblock has been mounted by the inhabitants of Casillas, a neighbouring rural municipality, located a few kilometres down the road, and which cannot be avoided on the way to the mine. Other transit points have also been blocked by the “resistance”, as the anti-mining protesters refer to themselves.

 Joan Russow PhD

Global Compliance Reseach Project

"The reduction of the military budget and disarmament are necessary conditions of security and development" (Anatole Rapapport, presentation at the World Order Conference, 2001)

Throughout the years, through international agreements, member states of the United Nations have recognized that the military budget has been a waste and misuse of resources. Unfortunately, institutional memory is either short or member states ignore precedents.

In 1976 at Habitat 1, member states of the United Nations affirmed the following in relation to the military budget:

"The waste and misuse of resources in war and armaments should end. All countries should make a firm commitment to promote general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, in particular in the field of nuclear disarmament. Part of the resources thus released should be utilized so as to achieve a better quality of life for humanity and particularly the peoples of developing countries" (II, 12 Habitat 1).

The Dolls of Militarism From War Hawks to Chickenhawks  By Danny Sjursen

I get sick of saying it, but just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

Donald Trump’s continual cabinet reshuffling -- otherwise the stuff of reality-TV drama -- has become genuinely frightening. Like so many Russian matryoshki or nesting dolls, the president has been removing one war hawk after another, only to reveal yet more extreme versions of the same creature. And rumor has it that such personnel moves have yet to reach their end point.

In just the last few weeks, President Trump has fired his secretary of state and national security adviser, while nominating two fanatical replacements: CIA Director Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. The “old” team, Rex Tillerson and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, were flawed choices from the start, but Pompeo and Bolton seem like an instant formula for a war -- or two or three of them. (And keep in mind that we’re already actively fighting at least seven wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa.)

Tillerson gutted the State Department and, had he stuck around, might have gone down as one of the worst secretaries of state ever to walk the halls of Foggy Bottom. Still, the former ExxonMobil CEO does seem to have tried to restrain Trump’s more extreme positions on the Paris climate accords and the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal. In addition, as his infamous “moron” commentsuggests, he evidently wasn’t cowed by our bully-in-chief.

Gaza's Land Day Massacre

The Land Day Massacre

by C. L. Cook - Pacific Free Press

March 31, 2018

Israeli military officials promised to expand its killing of Palestinians in Gaza if the planned six-week Great March of Return protest campaign continues.

Friday, during 'Land Day' commemorations of the beginning of the Nakba, or "catastrophe" as Palestinians refer to the establishment of Israel on their lands, the Israeli Defense Force, (IDF) met unarmed demonstrators with troops, tanks, drones, and the "100 snipers" promised earlier in the week.

The snipers, from perches behind earthen berms overlooking the estimated 30,000 strong demonstration, opened fire. IDF regulars sent hails of rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas projectiles into the throng, as drones rained gas canisters on the men, women, and children from above. Tank fire too added to the chaos and destruction, and casualty count. 

The United Nations Human Rights Council resolution argues "such measures prevent the full realization of economic and social development of nations."The United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR ) has adopted a resolution proposed by the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (NAM) condemning economic sanctions against Venezuela by the United States, Canada, the European Union and their allies. The document, put forward at the OHCHR meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, urged "states to refrain from imposing unilateral coercive measures (and) condemn(s) the continued unilateral application and enforcement by certain powers of such measures as tools of political or economic pressure," reminding all states that "such measures prevent the full realization of economic and social development of nations."

OBLIGATIONS AND COMMITMENTS UNDERLYING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

In the following, the SDGs are placed in the context of years of international obligation derived from a selection of Conventions, treaties, and Covenants  and of commitments from UNGA  Conference Action Plans, Declarations and and Resolutions.

See article on original site 

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has stepped up its efforts at “regime change” in Venezuela. In the past, Trump himself has even mentioned military action as a possible option, but the most recent moves appear more likely to be implemented, and some are already operational. According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the leading opposition contender for Venezuela’s upcoming presidential election, Henri Falcón, was told by US officials that the Trump administration would consider financial sanctions against him if he entered the presidential race. (The US State Department did not return requests for comment.) The US has backed the main opposition coalition decision to boycott the election.

1999 request for provisional measures by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the International Court of Justice Monday May 10, 1999 to Wednesday May 13, 1999

By Joan Russow PhD

Global  Compliance Research Project

ay 13, 1999• 

From the archives 

I attended the oral presentation in the ICJ in the cases concerning Legality of Use of Force brought by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia against 10 NATO states.

• I was impressed with the meticulous effort of the court to remove any perception of bias. The president of the Court was from the US and was required to step down specifically when the US case was being heard. He decided to step down for the whole hearings. [I note with dismay the lack of this principle within the International Criminal Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia]

OBSERVATIONS:

- the merit of the questions of law surrounding the “Legality of the Use of Force” and in particular the violation of existing international law by the NATO intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is sufficiently evident as to require respect for the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

- the oral presentation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia included presentations by two highly respected specialists in International law including Ian Brownlie Chichele Professor of Public International Law who had previously argued successfully the case of Nicaragua vs the United States,  in1989 and Professor Eric Suy, the former Under-secretary-General and legal Counsel of the United Nations.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia asked the court for provisional measures to stop NATO bombing of its territory, on the grounds that NATO was engaging in the "illegal use of force". Yugoslavia argued that the NATO countries had violated their international obligations to do the following: not to resort to force against another state; not to intervene in the internal affairs of another state; to protect civilians and civil objects in time of war; to protect the environment; and to follow the ban on the use of prohibited weapons, such as those containing depleted uranium.

US President Donald Trump at the Davos Forum

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2018 (IPS) - When the World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded in Davos, Switzerland last week, the outcome of the annual talk-fest was seemingly predictable—plenty of unrestrained platitudes but, surprisingly, less of the American populist, protectionist rhetoric.