WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean

Welcome to WTF is Going on in Latin America & The Caribbean, a PopularResistance broadcast featuring hot news out of the region with host Teri Mattson. Each weekly episode features a country and/or issue related to the affects of U.S. foreign, economic and/or military influence and intervention in the hemisphere of The Americas. Our guests include academics, policy-makers, journalists as well as activists recognized for their groundwork within local communities and movements.

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean broadcasts Thursdays at 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET on multiple live platforms including: CODEPINK YouTube Live, TheConvoCouch and Facebook Live via PopularResistance.org You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram and RadIndieMedia.com

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean broadcasts in partnership with CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas. Learn more about how to become a WTF Broadcast Partner here.

Follow host Teri Mattson:

Contact:
Teri Mattson – terimattson2017@gmail.com

CELAC 2023-Latin American Integration Includes The Voices Of The People

Founded in 2011, CELAC, or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, is a multilateral group of 33 countries from across the Western Hemisphere that excludes Canada and the United States It was created to be an alternative forum for Latin American countries. Inaugural leaders, such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, envisioned the group as a counterweight to the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), which they viewed as dominated by the United States. CELAC, unlike the OAS, allows Cuba to be a member. Its stated goals are to promote regional integration and cooperation. CELAC represents 600 million people.

The Seventh Summit of CELAC leaders was held Tuesday, January 24 in Buenos Aires hosted by CELAC President Pro-Tempore Alberto Fernandez, current President of Argentina.

Asylum For Sale, Profit And Protest In The Migration Industry

On the heels of last week’s North America Trilateral Summit, from which not much changed within the migratory system, today’s episode will focus on migration as a for-profit industry which has turned migrating humans into commodities.

Our guest Adrienne Pine is co-editor of the book Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry published by PM Press in November 2020. Here is brief description:

Through essays, artworks, photographs, infographics, and illustrations, Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry regards the global asylum regime as an industry characterized by profit-making activity: brokers who facilitate border crossings for a fee; contractors and firms that erect walls, fences, and watchtowers while lobbying governments for bigger “security” budgets; corporations running private detention centers and “managing” deportations; private lawyers charging exorbitant fees; “expert” witnesses; and NGO staff establishing careers while placing asylum seekers into new regimes of monitored vulnerability. Humanity is not for sale, and no one is illegal.

North America’s Trilateral Summit

The United States, Mexico and Canada on Tuesday, January 10 vowed to tighten economic ties, producing more goods regionally and boosting semiconductor output, even as integration is hampered by an ongoing dispute over Mexico’s energy policies.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Mexico City and pledged to beef up supply chains after weathering serious disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re working to a future to strengthen our cooperation on supply chains and critical minerals so we can continue to accelerate in our efforts to build the technologies of tomorrow – right here in North America,” Biden said in a joint news conference with his fellow leaders after their meeting.

A History Of The First Revolution In The Americas

On January 1, 1804, Haiti became an independent republic, following the revolution which had begun 13 years earlier as a rebellion of enslaved people against slavery and French colonialism.

Previously known as Saint-Domingue, it was the most profitable colony in the world, generating greater revenue than all of the continental North American colonies combined. This immense wealth was generated by the sweat and blood of enslaved Africans who were being worked to death in their tens of thousands on coffee and sugar plantations.

Shortly after the French revolution, which supposedly espoused the ideals of “liberty, equality and fraternity,” on August 22, 1791 enslaved people rose up, demanding those ideals be realized, and slavery and colonialism abolished.

Saab Oral Argument Focuses On Legitimacy Of Maduro Government

On December 20, in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida, Judge Robert N. Scola heard oral arguments on Alex Saab’s motion to dismiss the case against him. The factual issue for the Court to decide was “whether Mr. Saab was a special envoy from Venezuela to Iran traveling on a mission when he was detained in Cape Verde and extradited to the U.S. and, therefore, entitled to diplomatic immunity.” Dan was present for the hearing and will discuss, in detail, the hearing results. WTF has been following The Case of Alex Saab since his detainment on Cape Verde 12 June 2020. Today is our third update.

Deconstructing The Anatomy Of ‘Forgetting’

An encore broadcast with journalist, author, activist and educator Roberto Alvarenga Lovato.

Roberto Lovato is the author of Unforgetting (Harper Collins), a “groundbreaking” memoir the New York Times picked as an “Editor’s Choice.” Newsweek listed Lovato’s memoir as a “must read” 2020 book which the Los Angeles Times listed as one of its 20 Best Books of 2020. Unforgetting was also shortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

Lovato, a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is also a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Guernica, Le Monde Diplomatique, La Opinion, Der Spiegel and other national and international media outlets.

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