Puerto Rico Archives

27Nov

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Puerto Rico, USA

Puerto Rico Religious Leaders Criticize Debt Plans and Negotiations

For Immediate Release Friday, November 16, 2018 Organization Profile: Jubilee USA Network Contact: 202.783.3566 ex. 106 WASHINGTON - Puerto Rico's Catholic Archbishop and an Evangelical leader who heads the island's bible society criticized a debt agreement and ongoing debt negotiations. "We are strongly opposed to the COFINA debt deal," wrote the religious leaders in a statement referencing a recently approved plan on a type of debt backed by sales taxes. The plan was approved by Puerto Rico's government and oversight board and covers about $17 billion of the total $72 billion debt of the US Territory. A year ago, Puerto Rico was decimated by two hurricanes. "Before the hurricanes, we wrestled with the fact that nearly 60% of our children lived in povert...

28Sep

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Puerto Rico, USA

Puerto Rico One Year Later: We’re Fighting for Justice and Prosperity

NOVANEWS It has been a year since the impact of Maria. Here in Puerto Rico, there are still families living in the dark, homes without a roof, people who haven’t been able to find a new job after their businesses were destroyed, and people mourning their lost loved ones. This is climate injustice in action. by: Amira Odeh Day before Hurricane Maria. Taken in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. ( Photo: Amira Odeh) One year ago, I lived the scariest day of my life. As the wind blew I could hear things falling and breaking outside. The walls of my (concrete-built) home were vibrating and water was coming in through every single window and door. At the moment I could only think of how to prepare for the worst and to be ready to seek refuge inside a closet or a bathroom. It has ...

30Aug

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Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Raises Hurricane Maria Death Toll From 64 to 2,975

NOVANEWS By Bill Van Auken World Socialist Web Site Note to readers: please click the share buttons above The government of Puerto Rico Tuesday raised its estimate of the number of Puerto Ricans who lost their lives to 2017’s Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975. This figure makes Maria the worst natural catastrophe on territory claimed by the US since the Galveston, Texas flood of 1900. The near 50-fold increase in the death toll exposed what millions on the island already knew: that the authorities had long deliberately concealed the real human cost of the storm. It is also a searing indictment of the criminal negligence and indifference of both the US ruling establishment and its two major parties, as well as that of the territory’s own governmental authorities. Governor Ric...

14Aug

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Puerto Rico

'Disaster Capitalism Strikes Again!': Puerto Rico's High Court Gives Green Light to Charter Schools, Vouchers

NOVANEWS New ruling overturns finding by lower court that charters and vouchers—part of the island's education overhaul post-hurricane—were unconstitutional. by: Andrea Germanos Education historian Diane Ravtich called the new ruling from Puerto Rico's high court a "victory for rapacious billionaires" and charter proponents like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. (Photo: Lorie Shaull/flickr/cc) Puerto Rico's controversial plan to overhaul the island's education system moved forward after its high court issued a ruling this week overturning a lower court's finding that charter schools and vouchers were unconstitutional. "Disaster capitalism strikes again!" commented education historian Diane Ravitch, who also called it a "victory for rapacious billionaires, [Educat...

21Jul

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Puerto Rico

THE NEWS FROM PUERTO RICO THE BATTLE FOR PARADISE 'Video'

A CORPORATE-GOVERNMENT PROGRAM TO UNDERMINE CIVIL SOCIETY A video version of Naomi Klein’s new book “The Battle for Paradise.” The situation in a nutshell: Grassroots efforts are thriving in the face of extraordinary challenges. Official efforts are failing – deliberately. Why? One reliable place to send help: http://hispanicfederation.org

21Jun

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Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican anger builds as study reveals 4,654 hurricane deaths

NOVANEWS By Graciela Pichardo Translation of the sign: The lack of a prompt response by the government caused the death of thousands, while thousand remain without lights. Photo: Lela Santiago-twitter.com Hundreds of Puerto Ricans placed the shoes of their dead loved ones on the marble plaza of San Juan’s Capitol building on June 1, in remembrance of the thousands that died due to Hurricane Maria and its aftermath. This was the people’s response to a study released two days earlier revealing the death toll from the hurricane to be 70 times the government’s estimate. The action was a moving tribute to the 4,654 who lost their lives. It was also an angry protest against the Puerto Rican government of Governor Ricardo Rosselló for denying the magnitude of the deaths, and against La Junta...

31May

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Puerto Rico, USA

Deadlier Than Katrina and 9/11: Hurricane Maria Killed 4,645 in Puerto Rico, 70 Times Official Toll

NOVANEWS By Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now! A stunning new study by researchers at Harvard has revealed the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria may be 70 times higher than the official count of 64. The new research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says the death toll is at least 4,645 -- and perhaps as many as 5,740. President Trump has so far not responded to the new study. But in October, during a visit to Puerto Rico, Trump boasted about the low official death count. With a death toll of at least 4,645, Hurricane Maria would become the second-deadliest hurricane in US history -- behind only the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 which killed as many as 12,000 people in Texas. The Harvard study found that "interruption of medical care was the...

22Feb

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Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico still in crisis, yet FEMA is ending food and water aid

NOVANEWS By Monica Cruz Photo credit: Joe Plette On Jan. 30, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it would end food and water aid to Puerto Rico. Over four months after Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, the island nation is still facing a massive humanitarian crisis. In another inhumane display of callousness, FEMA announced on Jan. 24 that it was cutting off housing funds for dozens of Boricua families from the island now living in Connecticut hotels. This reversed a announcement just days before that FEMA would extend the program. Families are scrambling to find a place to stay or face homelessness in the middle of one of the coldest Northeast winters. Back in October, Congress passed a disaster relief bill that gave Puerto Rico a $4.9 billion dollar ...

11Feb

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Puerto Rico

Media Ignoring Puerto Rico’s ‘Shock Doctrine’ Makeover

NOVANEWS By Reed Richardson FAIR Nearly five months after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, more than a hundred thousand US citizens there still lack clean drinking water, and almost one-third of the island has no reliable electric power. As initial life-sustaining recovery efforts still grind toward completion, Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rosselló (image below) has wasted no time using his territory’s recovery as an opportunity to push a number of policy proposals right out of the “disaster capitalism” playbook: from privatizing the island’s power utility to converting nearly all of its public schools to charters. And while the mainstream US press has been mainly focused on the Trump administration’s woeful institutional response to the storm, it has barely noticed this much ...

27Oct

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Puerto Rico

A People’s Recovery: Radical Organizing in Post-Maria Puerto Rico

NOVANEWS By Juan Carlos Dávila Residents form a human chain to load supplies to a truck at the Rio Abajo community in Utuado on October 17, 2017. (Photo: Ricardo Arduengo / AFP / Getty Images) After Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, most telecommunications services collapsed, particularly cell phones and internet providers. People struggled for days to contact their loved ones, and although there have been some improvements, making a call, sending a text message, and connecting to the Internet is still a challenge in most areas. Only certain analog and satellite telephones managed to survive the category-four hurricane, and the landline of Cucina 135, a community center located next to San Juan's financial center, was one of them. "Having a phone line was a...