US waves white flag in disastrous ‘war on drugs’

After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives Read the full story

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PORT-AU-PRINCE — The United States, France, Canada and governments across Latin America were gearing up to help Haiti, after a massive 7.0 earthquake leveled buildings and caused an unknown number of casualties.

US President Barack Obama said his government stood “ready to assist the people of Haiti,” as the State Department, USAID and United States Southern Command mobilized, the White House said, “to coordinate an assessment and any such assistance.”

In Paris, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France “expresses its complete solidarity” with Haiti, adding that his ministry’s crisis center had begun working “to mobilize and dispatch without delay urgent aid to Port-au-Prince.” Read the full story

2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of the United States drug war. I have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance promoting alternatives to the war on drugs for 10 years, and I can say without a doubt that there was more debate and movement toward sensible drug policies this year than in the last 9 years combined! Here are 10 stories that contributed to the unprecedented momentum to end America’s longest running war.

1) Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February) Read the full story

Rwanda has been declared free of landmines – the first country to achieve this status.

The announcement was made at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Colombia.

Hundreds of people have been killed and horrifically injured by landmines in Rwanda.

Landmines were laid between 1990 and 1994 in Rwanda and over the past three years more than over 9,000 have been destroyed by Rwandan soldiers. Read the full story

Washington (CNN) — The United States won’t join its NATO allies and many other countries in formally banning landmines, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said during his midday briefing Tuesday.

“This administration undertook a policy review and we decided our landmine policy remains in effect,” Kelly said in response to a question. “We made our policy review and we determined that we would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this convention.” Read the full story

Hugo Chavez intensifies conflict threat with Colombia

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CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that U.S. President Barack Obama had done nothing beyond wishful thinking to earn the Nobel Peace Prize.

Chavez, who has mixed praise for Obama personally with criticism of his government’s “imperialist” policies, said he thought it was a mistake when he read the U.S. leader had won. Read the full story

The State Department said it would meet one-to-one with Pyongyang negotiators in an effort to persuade the reclusive Stalinist state to return to multilateral talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons programme.

Washington has also accepted a vague Iranian offer of talks on broad national security issues, even though Tehran refused to discuss its illicit atomic operations.

Read the full story

US Military Base in Colombia? I Don’t Like It, Says Lula of Brazil

US plans to increase the number of troops in Colombia is drawing opposition, not just from left-wing populist leaders in the region but also from moderate governments like Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva prompting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to tour the region to try to ease concerns.