Across the Americas

The Bogotá Declaration, September 27 2008

Following a broad debate, peoples and indigenous communities from the Andean and Amazonian region, mining workers, small and medium miners in Colombia, together with social movements and fraternal organizations from Guatemala and the United States, who have coexisted ancestrally with mountains and clear waters according to ways of life founded on a good life for all that is both complementary and values reciprocity and who are today affected by mining and brought together by the Andean Forum in response Large Scale Mining, declare:

by Rick Arnold, Common Frontiers coordinator *

Mexicans vote to continue their public ownership

On July 27th more than one and a half million Mexicans in nine states and the capital city voted on proposed legislation that would see Mexico’s nationalized energy sector opened up to foreign investment. Over 80% voted against President Calderon's privatization plans in the first of three consultations, with the next two scheduled for August 10 and 24. In Mexico City 826,000 people cast their ballots at some 5,600 voting booths. In the nine participating states, with results still trickling in from remote areas, a similar number of voters had turned thumbs down on the government's pending legislation.

PROPUESTA DE LEY DE COMERCIO
(VERSIÓN DE LA CÁMARA DE REPRESENTANTES DE EUA)
Traducción No oficial al español de A. Villamar/ 06-06-2008

110 CONGRESO
2da SESIÓN

Para exigir una revisión de los acuerdos comerciales vigentes y la renegociación de los acuerdos comerciales vigentes sobre la base de la revisión, para fijar los términos de futuros acuerdos comerciales, para expresar el sentido de la Cámara de Representantes sobre el papel del Congreso en las políticas comerciales que deben ser fortalecidas, y para otros fines.

HEMISPHERIC SOCIAL ALLIANCE
ALIANZA SOCIAL CONTINENTAL
http://www.asc-hsa.org

1. Europe Raises Its Wall: Parliament Approved Anti-Immigrant Law
2. CAOI (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas - Coordination of Andean Indigenous Organizations): No to the "Flexibilization" of Decision 486 of the CAN (Andean Community)

by Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Republic of Bolivia

Until the end of the Second World War, Europe was a continent of emigrants. Tens of millions of Europeans came to the Americas to colonize, escape
hunger, financial crisis, wars, European totalitarianisms and the persecutions of ethnic minorities.

Today, I am following with deep concern the approval process of the so-called "Return Directive". The text, validated on June the 5th by the Home Affairs Ministers of the 27 European Union countries, has to be voted on June 18th in the European Parliament. I consider that it drastically hardens the detention and expulsion conditions of undocumented immigrants, regardless of the length of their stay in the European countries, their employment situation, their family ties, their will or their achieved integration.