Month: March 2019

The Trump administration is spreading its intervention and aggression across Central and Latin America, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE.

PRESIDENT Donald Trump signed into law the “Nica Act” (Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act) on December 20 2018, over two years after the draft legislation was first approved by the US House of Representatives in September 2016.

The Act seeks to use the US’s “voice, vote and influence” within international financial institutions, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank, to stop them providing “any loan or financial or technical assistance” to Nicaragua’s government.
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With Evo Morales campaigning for re-election in Bolivia later this year, the left must raise awareness of the threat of growing US hostility, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE.

The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on Bolivia, where Evo Morales is standing for re-election as president in 2019, along with current Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera as his running mate.

To give just one example, Trump recently called on multilateral development banks and the IMF not to fund loans to Bolivia until it fully complies (in US eyes) with the international Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
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Last week the Conservative party suspended 14 members following accusations that they had posted abusive Islamophobia comments on social media.

None of this came as a surprise to me because I have been aware of the scale of Islamophobia in the Tory party for years. My view is shared by the former Chair of the Conservative Party, Lady Sayeeda Warsi, who has often called for an internal inquiry and urged Prime Minister Theresa May to deal with this problem urgently.
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Although British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt maintains that ties with Saudi Arabia help keep the UK safe, no one can deny the domestic and foreign crimes of the Saudis and no Western government should be supporting them.

On Saturday, as part of his Gulf tour, Hunt was in Riyadh for talks on human rights and the Yemen conflict. This comes after his failure last month to convince Germany to lift its ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which, in Hunt’s words, was damaging for the British and European defense industry.
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