Friday, February 12, 2010

Cherokee tribe opposes Duke's building near sacred site  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/1238582.html

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is fighting construction of a Duke Energy electrical station next to a mound that marks the tribe's ancestral home."It was a place that was given to us to begin our lives as a people," said Tom Belt, coordinator of the Cherokee language program at Western Carolina University.

Tribal leaders say Duke started clearing a site overlooking Kituwah in December without consulting them. The principal chief has asked Duke to temporarily stop work, and the tribe might file a complaint with the N.C. Utilities Commission."We're continuing to work, as well as continuing to have conversations with the Cherokees to better understand the sensitivities of the site and ways to mitigate the impact," Walls said.

Cherokees say those sensitivities run to their core. "Everything that we know to be Cherokee, our laws, religion, clan system, originated on that spot," Belt said. "There are very few people on Earth who can point to where they began, to the inch, to point to the center of that mound and say, 'This is where our first fire was put down.'"

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USAID behind the "White Hands" http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/contexto/1709/usaid-detras-de-los--manos-blancas/

USAID's investments in the student sector in Venezuela has paid off. Those who participated in training workshops sponsored by USAID, or who received their funds to create new political organizations today are the leaders and opposition political leaders, as Yon Goicoechea, Freddy Guevara and Stalin González.According to the 2009 annual report on the activities of USAID in Venezuela, 32% of its billionaires have been invested in student and youth groups linked to the opposition.

Of the 7.45 million dollars to groups and political projects in Venezuela during 2009, a majority went to''promote the political debate among students to raise the level of discourse about some of the most important issues for the Venezuelan people''and ''reinforce the use of new media technologies (such as Twitter and Facebook) to improve access to information and allow for open and productive debate on the Internet.'' 

In the last year there has been an explosion in Venezuela in the use of Twitter and Facebook as mechanisms to promote campaigns against the Venezuelan government and President Chavez. In September 2009,it launched the campaign''No More''by Facebook against Chavez, seeking to create an exaggerated sense of   global  scale opposition to Venezuelas government. Lately, Twitter has become a medium dominated by young Venezuelans linked to the violent opposition to promote a distorted view of reality in the country. 

In October 2009, they founded the Alliance of Youth Movement, an organization sponsored and created by the US State Department that brought together Washington agencies, the founders of new technologies, and student leaders and young politicians selected by the U.S.. Its purpose was to combine three areas that together created the perfect recipe''''to achieve regime change in countries strategically important to Washington. Attended by three Venezuelans - Yon Goicoechea, Geraldine Alvarez and Rafael Delgado Â-who are founders of the opposition student movement,''White Hands.'' 

USAID is active in Venezuela since August 2002, which when opened an Office for Transition Initiatives towards (OTI) in Caracas. To date, they have funded more than 611 groups and political projects in Venezuela with more than $ 50 million. According to its own reports, funding has been directed at three specific issues: support for campaigns and elections, and promoting the political debate and the promotion of citizen participation and democratic leadership. 

Although since 2002, USAID has been funding political parties and opposition groups in Venezuela in 2005 is beginning to focus on the student sector to be forming new leadership friendly to the interests of Washington. An agreement between USAID and the Foundation for Educating''Country,''dated 2 May 2005, was aimed at''the formation of student and youth leaders.'' The agreement, which gave nearly 40 thousand dollars to a political training workshops for the student sector,''also sought to reinstate the young and college in the political life of the nation.'' 

Other programs funded by USAID in 2005 were devoted to topics like''The role of college students and the university agenda around governance, democracy and tolerance'';''movimiento The role of university students in the reconstruction and Venezuela reconciliation'';''Building a common agenda that reflects the role of students in national politics''and''Strengthening university networks to promote democracy'', among others. 

Five years later, USAID investments in the student sector in Venezuela has paid off. Those who participated in training workshops sponsored by USAID, or who received their funds to create new political organizations today are the leaders and opposition political leaders, as Yon Goicoechea, Freddy Guevara and Stalin González. Some have already won political office, and municipal councilors, and others are candidates for parliamentary elections in September 2010.

And others are directing the political activities of opposition student sector, creating new leadership and action to entice young people and incorporate them into a destabilization plan. By 2010, the budget of USAID in Venezuela has doubled. They are almost $ 15 million to promote the destabilization in the country and trying to provoke a regime change favorable to U.S. interests. The student sector remains the largest recipient of funds and guidelines of the north.

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Foundation for “Political Warfare Takes Cue from U.S. Strategy http://www.webofdemocracy.org/canada-foundation-for-polit.html

"Indicating further integration with its closest neighbour and ally's foreign policy priorities, the Canadian government is in the advanced stages of establishing a foundation to promote liberal democracy, akin to the controversial U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

Last December, the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper quietly tabled in parliament a bipartisan blue panel report titled, "Advisory Panel Report on the Creation of a Canadian Democracy Promotion Agency". The panel is recommending that the government create The Canadian Centre for Advancing Democracy, with a proposed budget of between 28 million and 65 million U.S. dollars per year." 

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