"Aristide seeking return as president"

Surviving Columbus in Puerto Rico: the myth of extinction
The story this week of a new major DNA study showing considerable American Indian ancestry in the population of Puerto Rico is intriguing and revealing. Of course, there has been for over two decades considerable agitation by Taino people of Puerto Rican nationality, on the island and in the diaspora. But now Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado has shown that as high as 61 percent of Puerto Ricans carry American Indian mitochondrial DNA from their maternal lines.

The level of Native genetic ancestry is impressive and once more evidence that the legacy of American indigenous peoples, across the Western Hemisphere, has been all too easily diminished or denied. The claim that all Native Caribbeans succumbed to war, slavery and disease, that they in fact became "extinct" as peoples and cultures by the 1600s, has been asserted as truth by governments and academics for over a hundred years. However, in Puerto Rico, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, actual, surviving Native communities and numerous families and people of Native ancestry have increasingly revealed themselves.

Chavez Closes World Social Forum with Call to Transcend Capitalism
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was warmly received at the 2005 edition of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he held several meetings with local leaders, intellectuals and activists, and gave the closing speech at the Gigantinho Stadium. Chavez generated great interest among Forum participants, many of whom see Chavez and his project of political transformations being implemented in Venezuela, as an inspiration in the struggles for a more better world.

"One day the decay inside U.S. imperialism will end up toppling it, and the great people of Martin Luther King will be set free. The great people of the United States are our brothers, my salute to them.... We must start talking again about equality. The U.S. government talks about freedom and liberty, but never about equality. They are not interested in equality. This is a distorted concept of liberty. The U.S. people, with whom we share dreams and ideals, must free themselves… A country of heroes, dreamers, and fighters, the people of Martin Luther King, and Cesar Chavez."

During the closing speech at the Gigantinho Stadium, the president added that 2005 arrived and the FTAA was not implemented. "The FTAA is death, what they go was mini-FTAA’s because the U.S. imperialism did not have the strength to impose the neocolonial model of the FTAA."

Marine General's Blunt Comments Draw Fire
SAN DIEGO -- At a panel discussion in San Diego Tuesday, a top Marine general tells an audience that, among other things, it is "fun to shoot some people."

Dictatorship era files rankle Brazilians
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- The reappearance of dictatorship-era documents relating to the treatment of political prisoners - papers that a top government official said were destroyed decades ago - has resurrected an issue many Brazilians would prefer to forget.

So-called U.S. hostage appears to be toy
A photograph posted on an Islamist Web site appears to be that of an action figure and not a U.S. soldier being held hostage.

Haiti and Dominican Republic
Let's talk about the strange circumstances of the arrest, or kidnapping, of two pro-democracy leaders, Paul Raymond and René Civil. Tell us a little bit about what's going on here, give us some context.

Churchill Replies
In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

Namibia's Damara want inclusion in 1904 genocide debate
Leaders of Namibia's Damara people are to brainstorm on how they can participate in the 1904 genocide dialogue taking place between the Namibian and German governments. German colonial troops in the Herero war of 1904 principally massacred a large part of the Herero people, but some members of the Damara community say they were also affected by the genocide.

Prime Minister of Georgia found dead
The Prime Minister of Georgia was found dead in a Tbilisi apartment this morning, apparently poisoned accidentally by a gas leak.

Palestine's 'forgotten' refugees
cling to fading hope they can go back home
Abbas accused of being weak as Israel insists right of return for thousands in Lebanese camps is non-negotiable

Iran and US have a nuclear fallout over dinner
Dinner guests at a World Economic Forum event designed to promote dialogue between Iran and the United States last week suffered an evening of excruciating diplomatic and gastronomic blunders – followed by a sharp exchange over nuclear weapons.

France offers Ivorian withdrawal
French President Jacques Chirac has said he would order the withdrawal of his troops from Ivory Coast if African leaders asked him to do so.

Zimbabwe Opposition Party to Field Candidates in March Elections
Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), says it will take part in parliamentary elections scheduled for March 31.

Unemployed And Looking for a Way to Spend the Day?
Jean Martial studied to become an accountant and Olivier trained as a mechanic. Neither ever found a job but neither readily admits to being unemployed. Instead both these Ivorian youths pronounce themselves to be 'Young Patriots'.

Aristide seeking return as president
Though adjusting to exile in South Africa, Jean-Bertrand Aristide said he hopes to return to Haiti as president.

Men of Wood and People of Corn
Eduardo Galeano, quoting the Popul Vuh, writes that when the gods first made humans--before finding corn, which is their true essence--they used wood. These wooden people, although they appeared human, didn’t have feelings and didn't respect the earth. The gods believed they had eliminated the wooden people, but they were wrong. The wooden people still exist, and they are the ones who govern the world. The people made of corn, on the other hand, are alive, and like the flower that pushes through asphalt, they continue to germinate.

The Privatization of God
In the 17th century, the mathematics genius Blaise Pascal wrote that men never do evil with greater pleasure than when they do it with religious conviction. This idea – from a deeply religious man – has taken a variety of different forms since. During the last century, the greatest crimes against humanity were promoted, with pride and passion, in the name of Progress, of Justice and of Freedom. In the name of Love, Puritans and moralists organized hatred, oppression and humiliation; in the name of Life, leaders and prophets spilled death over vast regions of the planet. Presently, God has come to be the main excuse for excercises in hate and death, hiding political ambitions, earthly and infernal interests behind sacred invocations.