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Democracy Now! is a daily independent award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.

In Bolivia, at least 23 people have died amid escalating violence since President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, resigned at the demand of the military last week. Growing unrest quickly turned to violent chaos on Friday outside Cochabamba when military forces opened fire on indigenous pro-Morales demonstrators, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 100. The violence began soon after thousands of protesters — many indigenous coca leaf growers — gathered for a peaceful march in the town of Sacaba and then attempted to cross a military checkpoint into Cochabamba. Amid this escalating violence and reports of widespread anti-indigenous racism, protesters are demanding self-declared interim President Jeanine Áñez step down. Áñez is a right-wing Bolivian legislator who named herself president at a legislative session without quorum last week. She said that exiled socialist President Morales, who fled to Mexico after he was deposed by the military on November 10, would not be allowed to compete in a new round of elections and would face prosecution if he returned to Bolivia, which has a majority indigenous population. U.N. special envoy Jean Arnault on Sunday called for talks between Jeanine Áñez and leaders of Morales’s political party Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, though a date has not been set. From Cochabamba, we speak with Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network and a researcher, activist and analyst with over two decades of experience in Bolivia.

The post Massacre in Cochabamba: Anti-Indigenous Violence Escalates as Mass Protests Denounce Coup in Bolivia appeared first on KPFA.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from three lawsuits demanding the Trump administration preserve Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The Obama-era program has granted protection from deportation and a work permit to at least 700,000 undocumented people who were brought to the United States as children. The court’s conservative majority appeared poised to side with President Trump in ending the program, while some of the court’s liberal justices seemed skeptical of Trump’s efforts. In September 2017, the Trump administration announced it planned to terminate DACA, arguing the program was “illegal” and “unconstitutional,” but three lower courts disagreed and have kept the program alive, thanks to lawsuits filed by California, New York and D.C. Immigrant rights activists have been pushing the Supreme Court to save DACA, with dozens of immigrants with DACA recently taking part in a 16-day, 230-mile march from New York to the steps of the Supreme Court. We speak with Martín Batalla Vidal, the lead plaintiff in the New York federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate DACA, and Trudy Rebert, a staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which also filed suit to block the Trump administration’s cancellation of DACA.

The post “This Is My Home”: Meet the Lead Plaintiff in the Supreme Court Case to Save DACA appeared first on KPFA.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.

The first public hearing of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump was held Wednesday. Trump is just the fourth president in U.S. history to face impeachment. Two witnesses testified before the House Intelligence Committee: George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and William Taylor, a former ambassador and the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine. They both said President Trump withheld aid to Ukraine in an attempt to pressure the country to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company. We play highlights from the hearing.

The post In First Public Impeachment Hearing, Trump Implicated in Effort to Pressure Ukraine to Probe Bidens appeared first on KPFA.

Televised impeachment hearings begin today in the inquiry into whether President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rivals. Two witnesses are testifying today before the House Intelligence Committee: George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and William Taylor, a former ambassador and the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine. Both officials have privately told congressional investigators that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine in an attempt to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Donald Trump is just the fourth U.S. president to face an impeachment inquiry. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 prior to an impeachment vote. We speak with the legendary journalist Bill Moyers, who covered the Nixon and Clinton impeachment hearings. In the 1960s, Moyers was a founding organizer of the Peace Corps and served as press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson. In 1971, he began an award-winning career as a television broadcaster that would last for over four decades. During that time, Moyers received over 30 Emmys and countless other prizes. He was elected to the Television Hall of Fame in 1995. Last week Bill Moyers took out a full-page ad in The New York Times urging PBS to broadcast the impeachment hearings live and to rerun them in primetime.

The post Bill Moyers on Impeachment: All Presidents Lie, But Trump Has Created a Culture of Lying appeared first on KPFA.

In Brazil, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was freed from prison Friday after 580 days behind bars. Lula’s surprise release came after the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled to end the mandatory imprisonment of people convicted of crimes who are appealing their cases. He was serving a 12-year sentence over a disputed corruption and money laundering conviction handed down by conservative Judge Sérgio Moro, an ally of current far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and has long maintained his innocence. Lula has vowed to challenge Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections. At the time of his imprisonment in April 2018, Lula was leading the presidential polls. A new documentary, “The Edge of Democracy,” chronicles the imprisonment of Lula and impeachment of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. It also looks at the aftermath of the rise of President Jair Bolsonaro — a former military captain who glorifies Brazil’s past military regime, denies the climate crisis and celebrates misogyny, homophobia and racism. We speak with Petra Costa, a Brazilian filmmaker and the director of “The Edge of Democracy.”

The post The Edge of Democracy: Lula Is Freed in Brazil in Victory for Movement to Resist Bolsonaro appeared first on KPFA.

Bolivia is in a state of political crisis after longtime President Evo Morales resigned Sunday following what he described as a military coup. Weeks of protests have taken place since a disputed election last month. Morales announced his resignation in a televised address Sunday, shortly after the Bolivian military took to the airwaves to call for his resignation. Bolivia’s vice president also resigned Sunday, as did the head of the Bolivian Senate and the lower house. Opposition leader Jeanine Áñez, who is the second vice president of the Bolivian Senate, is claiming she will assume the presidency today. Evo Morales was the longest-serving president in Latin America, as well as Bolivia’s first indigenous leader. He was credited with lifting nearly a fifth of Bolivia’s population out of poverty since he took office in 2006, but he faced mounting criticism from some of his former supporters for running for a third and then a fourth term. For more on the unfolding crisis in Bolivia, we speak with Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His latest piece for The Nation is headlined “The Trump Administration Is Undercutting Democracy in Bolivia.” “This is a military coup — there’s no doubt about it now,” Weisbrot says.

The post “This Is a Military Coup”: Bolivian President Evo Morales Resigns After Army Calls for His Ouster appeared first on KPFA.

We broadcast live from South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, where tonight the first-ever Presidential Forum on Environmental Justice will be held. Six presidential candidates — Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, Tom Steyer, Marianne Williamson, John Delaney and Joe Sestak — are participating. The forum is hosted by the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and leaders from frontline communities. South Carolina is a crucial state for the 2020 presidential race and one of the first that will have a Democratic primary, following New Hampshire and caucuses in Iowa and Nevada. The region has been repeatedly pummeled by climate-fueled hurricanes, including Hurricane Florence, which swept through the South in 2018, causing epic floods. Black residents and communities of color have faced disproportionate air and water pollution and exposure to environmental hazards, but South Carolina is also home to some of the most successful responses to environmental racism. Ahead of Friday’s presidential forum, we speak with Mustafa Ali, the forum’s co-moderator and the former head of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency. “It’s important that we have these conversations about climate change, but those are the symptoms of a disease,” Ali says. “The disease has been the racism, the structural inequality, that continues to happen inside of communities of color.”

The post Warren, Booker & Steyer to Take Part in First-Ever Presidential Forum on Environmental Justice appeared first on KPFA.

In Algeria, protests against corruption, the jailing of opposition leaders and the army’s powerful role in national politics have entered their ninth month. Tens of thousands filled the streets of the capital Algiers last Friday to mark the 65th anniversary of the war of independence from France and to demand a “new revolution” rather than an upcoming election they say will be rigged. Over 100 student protesters were arrested last night as the Algerian government intensified its crackdown on demonstrators ahead of the upcoming polls. Interim President Abdelkader Bensalah announced the country will hold a presidential election on December 12. This comes after longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned in April following weeks of protests. We speak with Mehdi Kaci, an Algerian-American activist who organized a protest last weekend in San Francisco in support of Algerians, and Daikha Dridi, a journalist based in Algiers. “There is a political uprising, but there is also a huge sense of pride, of self-love, that the Algerian people are experiencing,” Dridi says. “The Algerians are wanting a much, much deeper change, and they’re not going back home.”

The post Algerian Protesters Are Still in the Streets, Months After Pushing Out Longtime President Bouteflika appeared first on KPFA.