[A Senate report released in October 2011 urging the US government to expand the use of social media as a foreign policy tool in Latin America offers another warning for activists seduced by the idea of technology and social media as an indispensable tool for social change.]

Alborada e-news: January 2012

http://www.alborada.net

Amig@s,

Firstly, Happy New Year to all; welcome to the first Alborada e-news of 2012. Our e-news will inform you about our activities, as well as the latest information related to Latin America.

[We appeal to Brazil and all other governments that do not want this US war with Iran to help us stop it. When Brazil, together with Turkey, proposed a nuclear fuel swap arrangement for Iran in May of 2010, it temporarily put a dent in the armor of the war machine. We need more of this kind of diplomatic help.]

[the first NACLA Radio Podcast featuring content on the U.S.-Mexico Border, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela, and much more.]

[Fourteen years after the killing of 45 villagers in Mexico, victims' relatives are pursuing Mexico's ex-president through US courts.]

[Ollanta Humala’s first hundred and fifty day sin office as President of Peru have produced a “political massacre,” leaving those who built him as a candidate, wrote his speeches, and paid for his electoral campaign in the streets.]

[Cuba, for many on the left the most enduring socialist experiment in the history of the western world, has once again embarked upon a process of wide-ranging transformation.]

['One of the most visible, vocal and controversial leaders in Latin America' (according to the BBC), Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez receives much attention from the British media. Limited to knowledge about Venezuela and Hugo Chávez provided by mainstream news, one might develop an impression of a previously stable society which has been turned upside down by this new leader.]

[Chile's National Education Council has declared that Pinochet’s time in power between 1973-1990 - during which human right abuses were widespread and more than 3,000 Chileans are believed to have disappeared or been killed by the armed forces - should be described as a “military regime”.]

[Fault Lines follows Chile's student protest movement and examines the underlying issues driving their demands. Click here to view the documentary with Spanish subtitles.]