A delegation of students from the College of New Jersey travels to Nicaragua to understand the effects of U.S. foreign policy on the region.

Anne Holzman of St. Paul, who worked with WFP in Nicaragua in the 1980s, writes a rebuttal to an editorial calling for passage of the US-Colombia free trade deal. She reminds the editorial board that "we don't do business with assassins, or with the states that protect them."

A delegation of 15 Long Islanders - which included educators, university students, and government appointees from both Nassau and Suffolk counties - traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico and made a surprising discovery. They learned that Mexican migration patterns are inextricably linked to the global price of corn.

The Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op welcomed a Witness for Peace visitor from Nicaragua to its Grandin Village store earlier this week, who spoke about fair trade practices when it comes to coffee and other food products.

Rafael Coicue from the Association of Indigenous Councils speaks about Plan Colombia and the Colombia Free Trade Agreement on a WFP-sponsored speaker tour.

San Caralampio is a poor Mexican farming community along the Guatemalan border where hundreds of families have been torn apart — not by war, but by economic policies such as NAFTA, which have destroyed their families' ability to live off of their farms. Unable to find work in their small farming community in southern Mexico, Candido's three sons made the agonizing decision to leave their family and began the long and harrowing journey through the hostile desert to find work in the USA.

WFP Southeast Regional Organizer Gail Phares advocates immigration and trade reform based on her experience leading a delegation to Mexico.

What do immigration, border security, swine flu and environmental concerns have in common? If you answer NAFTA, you would be so right. Glaringly absent from the agenda of the most recent meeting of President Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was any talk about problems with this trade agreement that binds our countries so tightly together. With NAFTA commemorating its 15th year as a poster-child for the failed free trade model, our leaders should have been talking about renegotiation.

President Barack Obama discussed a free-trade agreement with his Colombian counterpart Monday, while scores of protesters clogged streets near the White House to demonstrate against the pact.

This article challenges the use of foreign aid as a political tool, shares the stories of farmers that will suffer if the programs are terminated, and critiques a model which is being hailed as the "new face" of U.S. aid.

El Espectador, a Colombian newspaper, reports on the protest in Washington calling for a shift from military aid for Colombia to humanitarian assistance for the displaced and a continued hold on the U.S.-Colombia FTA.

Colombia's largest daily, El Tiempo, reports on the U.S. activities for the National Day of Action for Peace in Colombia.

Letter to the editor on Colombia Free Trade Agreement by WFP supporter Avi Chomsky.

by Hope Bastian NACLA Report on the Americas, May/June 2006

Tom Ricker and Burke Stansbury U.S. Newswire, 27 July 2005

Tom Ricker and Burke Stansbury U.S. Newswire, 28 July 2005