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Narco-literature genre emerges from Latin America's culture of drug-fueled violence

By Editor on May 11, 2010 11:12 AM
Thumbnail image for BaladePlata.JPG Thumbnail image for santanas.JPG
By Ela Stapley, 
Change is afoot in Latin America. Drug lords are replacing dictators in modern-day literature. But with social inequality so marked and corruption widespread working out who the new bad guy is proves tricky. 

"Is the modernity of a city measured by the thunder of guns in its streets?" ponders agent Edgar " el Zurdo" Mendieta in the opening paragraph of Balas de Plata (Silver Bullets), a fast-moving detective novel, by Mexican writer Élmer Mendoza. Latin America is no stranger to the sound of gunfire. And violence associated with drug trafficking has marked not only Latin American society but also its literature creating a new type of novel, narco-literature; a genre proving popular with readers.

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Lula mocks Cuban hunger strikers, rejects Iran sanctions

By Quid Nunc on March 10, 2010 10:09 AM
Lula: "I don't think a hunger strike can be used as a pretext for human rights to free people. "
Lula_Cuba.png Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has refused to offer even a word of support for the Cubans who have gone on hunger strike to protest the repressive regime of Raul Castro. 

He compared the protesters to the IRA hunger strikers of the 1980s or Brazilian common criminals who often protest their prison conditions. 

His views came in the course of an extraordinary interview for a man who is held up as an icon around the world for his years of activism on behalf of the downtrodden. (He was after all A founding member of  Brazil's Workers' Party (PT - Partido dos Trabalhadores).  

What the interview reveals is Brazil's emergence as a heavyweight player on the World stage, where it stakes out positions that will earn it political support as a counterweight to the US superpower. Lula matched his cosy words of support for the Castro regime, with equally disinterested remarks about US efforts to impose a UN sanctions on Iran.

 
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Readers in the Americas demand justice for murdered journalists.

By Editor on December 28, 2009 11:37 PM
Newspapers in the region are joining forces to fight impunity.
Newspapers in the region are joining forces to fight impunity.
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Newspaper readers across the Americas have been asked to join the Inter American Press Association (IAPA)'s campaign to demand justice in the cases of murdered journalists. A growing list of newspapers is participating in this online banner campaign to focus attention on killings that go unpunished in the region. Just this past week, several journalists and their families have been fatally targeted in three countries.
Continue reading...   Readers in the Americas demand justice for murdered journalists..
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