Haven’t heard of the National Endowment for Democracy? Not many people have. Yet the NED is taxpayer funded and carries out foreign policy with no meaningful public oversight or transparency. In fact, it does more to undermine democracy than not.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced the creation of a new social program, known as a “mission,” which will provide treatment and rehabilitation to children in situations of drug and alcohol addiction, abandonment, exclusion, or vulnerability.

In Latin America, in the absence of a social revolution at the moment of national independence there were plenty of rebellions and political revolts. Less frequently these were popular rebellions and almost never were they ideological revolutions that shook the traditional structures.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called on the new leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Alfonso Cano, to liberate all of the insurgent group’s hostages and advance toward a peaceful end to the Colombian conflict.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro reiterated Tuesday a call for Colombian guerrillas to free detainees to open possibilities of a peace process in that country.

International Labor Organization Director General Juan Somavia, speaking at the annual conference of ILO in Geneva this week, summoned labor rights advocates to urgently challenge what he called globalization without social justice.

Biofuel is in the dock at the global food summit in Rome this week, with counties divided over whether it is the villain behind food insecurity, or the cheap energy of the future.

The U.S. 4th Fleet was re-established in late April, commanded by Rear Admiral Joseph D. Kernan. The Fleet will be responsible for U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area, which encompasses the Caribbean, and Central and South America and the surrounding waters.

Venezuela’s record clearly shows that it is a country that neither tolerates nor supports terrorism. However, since 2006, the U.S. State Department has certified Venezuela as “not cooperating fully” with anti-terror efforts.

Cluster bombs are one of warfare's most indiscriminate weapons, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recently. "For a number of years, the United Nations has voiced its concern over the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions. Because they are inherently inaccurate and often malfunction, they are particularly indiscriminate and unreliable," Ban said.

Member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) signed a pact on Friday, May 23 in Brasília to establish judicial and political components for the emerging, limited union. On the docket was a plan to create a military coordinating component of UNASUR, the Conselho Sul-Americano de Defesa (CSD).

Investigators and researchers have long shown operational connections between exiled Nazis and US intelligence services who collaborated to target progressive movements in Latin American, reports the Cuban News Agency.

Globalization has created a situation which generated a worldwide phenomenon of migration of millions of workers to other countries. Finance capital’s thrust for cheap labor to bring down the cost of production in an environment of cut throat competition has given a powerful impetus to the phenomenon of migration of labor both within as well as outside the country.

As civil rights activists in the US prepare to defend the recent landmark California State Supreme Court ruling overturning a state ban on gay marriage against a Republican Party-led backlash, Cuba is launching a campaign to combat homophobia in that island country.

Since 2002, the Pentagon has been seeking evidence that intimately relates President Chávez and his government with the FARC. Top secret documents from the Department of Defense (that we have declassified under FOIA) evidence that the Pentagon has been unable to find proof of a clandestine, subversive relationship between the Venezuelan government and the FARC.

Venezuela’s record clearly shows that it is a country that neither tolerates nor supports terrorism. However, since 2006, the U.S. State Department has certified Venezuela as “not cooperating fully” with anti-terror efforts.

San Salvador, May 13 (Prensa Latina) The absence of combined Central American policies to protect forests is alarming some governments there.

Managua, May 1 (Prensa Latina) Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega denounced the war against his government by the United States through its embassy in Managua.

The current 1.1 billion people worldwide without access to potable water only opens one of the smaller windows on the injustices and the multiple casualties being wrought by private water-related industries.

The situation in Bolivia is on the table in this capital Wednesday at a special summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), called by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.