Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalColombia: outrage as warlord's son picked to lead victim support project
Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá
@joeparkdan
Thu 21 May 2020 06.15 EDT
The son of a notorious death squad leader has been appointed to run the Colombian government’s programmes for victims of the country’s long civil war, prompting fury among survivors.
Jorge Rodrigo Tovar was this week put in charge of a scheme for compensating victims of the conflict – many of whom were terrorised by his father, Rodrigo Tovar, better known in Colombia as “Jorge 40”.
During the late 90s and early 2000s, the elder Tovar led the Northern Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (or AUC) – which was responsible for a string of massacres and the murder of hundreds of civilians along Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
In February 2000, militiamen under his command tortured and dismembered over 60 peasant farmers in the isolated village of El Salado, in one of the worst single acts of violence in the five-decade war. Victims – including a six-year old girl and an elderly woman – were stabbed, beaten and strangled to death.
. . .
The conflict between the Colombian state and leftist rebel groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc) left 260,000 dead and displaced over 7 million. State-aligned paramilitary groups, like the one led by Jorge 40, committed some of the bloodiest atrocities of the 52-year civil war.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/colombia-civil-war-jorge-40-son
Hawaii just got a new 'largest volcano on Earth.' (Condolences to Mauna Loa.)
By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 6 hours ago
The Gardner Pinnacles are all that's visible of what is now considered the world's largest, and hottest, volcano. It's called Pūhāhonu, and it lies northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.
(Image: © Google Maps)
Poking out of the sea 590 miles (952 kilometers) northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, two barren peaks rear their heads. The little pinnacles, which stand about 170 feet (52 meters) above sea level at their highest point, bely a monstrous mountain of ancient magma beneath them. Turns out, these two unassuming nubbins are actually the tips of Pūhāhonu — the single largest volcano on Earth, scientists have found.
Pūhāhonu — meaning "turtle rising for breath" in Hawaiian — is part of the long chain of undersea mountains and volcanoes that stretch from the Hawaiian Islands to the eastern edge of Russia. Many of the chain's 120-or-so volcanoes are long dead and buried beneath the waves, though the relatively young peaks that make up the Hawaiian Islands still tower over the land (and, occasionally, blow their tops).
Mauna Loa, the gently-sloping behemoth that bulges out of Hawaii's Big Island, has long been designated the world's largest volcano. From its base on the seafloor to its summit thousands of feet over the island, Mauna Loa rises more than 30,000 feet (9,170 m) — making it technically taller than Mount Everest — and encompasses more than 19,200 cubic miles (80,000 cubic km) in volume. There's no question it's gargantuan; however, researchers now claim that Pūhāhonu actually has Mauna Loa beat — thanks largely to tens of thousands of cubic miles of volcanic rock buried beneath the ocean floor.
In the new study, these researchers used sonar and gravity detectors to measure Pūhāhonu's entire topographic footprint, from the wee peaks standing over the sea to the deep rocks sinking hundreds of feet below the Earth's crust. The team found that Pūhāhonu contains approximately 36,000 cubic miles (150,000 cubic km) of rock — giving it a volume more than twice that of Mauna Loa.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/puhahonu-largest-and-hottest-volcano-on-earth.html?utm_source=notification
Opinion: Latin America's Next Generation of Authoritarians is Using COVID-19 to Consolidate Power
13 MAY 2020 | COMMENTARY
by Geoff Thale
In a new opinion piece for El Faro, WOLA President Geoff Thale calls on the governments of the Americas to save lives, but to also respect human rights and democracy when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, following nearly thirty years of unstable, imperfect but still measurable democratic progress in Latin America, the hard lessons from the past are more important than ever before. That’s because the last decade has brought about significant democratic backsliding and rising authoritarianism in the region.
More:
https://www.wola.org/analysis/latin-americas-next-generation-of-authoritarians/
Federal Court Rejects Odebrecht 'Allowance' Complaint against Lula and Brother
Judges did not have enough evidence to justify criminal proceedings
May.19.2020 2:15PM
The Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region rejected this Monday (18), in a unanimous decision, the complaint against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and his brother, Frei Chico, accused by the São Paulo Car Wash task force of receiving a package of bribes from Odebrecht.
The first judge, Ali Mazloum, had already determined that there was not enough evidence to justify opening a criminal action - and this Monday, the federal judges of the 5th Panel of the court rejected the appeal presented by the task force.
In a note, Lula's lawyer, Cristiano Zanin, classified the decision as "pedagogical." "It is another victory for Lula in Justice that shows the need to be tried on habeas corpus that points to the suspicion of ex-judge Sergio Moro and declaration of nullity of all the processes that he has acted against Lula ".
The complaint states that the brother, known as Frei Chico, received an allowance from Odebrecht from 2003 to 2015 within a package of undue advantages offered to the Worker's Party. According to the prosecution, the total amount reached R$ 1.1 million, divided into transfers from R$ 3,000 to R$ 5,000 over the period.
More:
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2020/05/federal-court-rejects-odebrecht-allowance-complaint-against-lula-and-brother.shtml
People always knew this has been a sham to prevent Lula's re-election as Brazil's President. Everyone has known from the first.
Colombia's crumbling drug policy: farmers thwart attempt to resume aerial spraying of coca
by Adriaan Alsema May 19, 2020
The Colombian government thought it could outsmart farmers by taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to resume the aerial spraying of coca. Turns out farmers aren’t stupid.
In the latest attempt to resume areal fumigation, the National Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA) tried to obtain the compulsory approval of farming communities through online consultations in areas on lockdown and without internet.
A group of farmers from the southwestern Nariño province successfully sued the ANLA, which was ordered to suspend the consultations while the judge considers their legality.
The decision is the latest blow for President Ivan Duque, who said last year he would resume the controversial practice that was banned in 2015 in a matter of weeks.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-crumbling-drug-policy-farmers-thwart-attempt-to-resume-aerial-spraying-of-coca/
~ ~ ~
From March:
Colombia coca crop: Trump tells Duque to resume spraying
3 March 2020
Colombia will have to resume aerial spraying to destroy coca crops, US President Donald Trump has said.
Mr Trump made the remarks at a joint press conference with Colombian President Ivan Duque in Washington.
Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine, while the US is the world's largest consumer.
Aerial spraying of crops was suspended in 2015 after a court ruled that the herbicide used - glyphosate - could cause cancer and pollute land.
"Well, you're going to have to spray. If you don't spray, you're not going to get rid of them. So you have to spray, with regard to the drugs in Colombia," the US president told Mr Duque.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51722456
Please take a moment to see the pictures in this post from an earlier thread. Teachers asked their students in Colombia to try to illustrate the effect of the aerial spraying on the land where they lived. It's too telling:
https://upload.democraticunderground.com/110861516#post1
Colombia's antilogy: 'The Messiah' cornered by a libertine punk
by Adriaan Alsema May 19, 2020
Of all Colombia’s 50 million inhabitants, it had to be a libertine punk who is threatening to “morally do away with” former President Alvaro Uribe, a.k.a. “The Messiah,” and able to do so.
So many people who said that Uribe’s self-proclaimed moral rectitude is the work of a criminal mastermind have died, there’s even a term for it: “Suicide by Uribe.”
The rules
More important than the rule of law is that Colombia has rules; you do not mention Uribe and his father were intimate with Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel, that his late older brother had two children with an extradited drug trafficker, that his family estate allegedly has its own mass grave and that his sons allegedly were in business with one of Colombia’s most notorious child rapists.
If you do, you deal with the consequences on your own because nobody will help you. Uribe has a Medal of Honor” and goes to church every Sunday, for crying out loud.
Instead, you repeat that “had it not been for Uribe we couldn’t go to our holiday homes because of the guerrillas,” “Uribe saved Colombia, “Uribe is the greatest Colombian ever” or you call him “the eternal president.”
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-antilogy-the-messiah-cornered-by-libertine-punk/
Also posted in Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016255945
2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom
- click for image below -
https://citizen.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452507269e2010536cdacd0970c-pi
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, being schooled in how to comb that hair.
2nd Circuit Helps White House Hide Visitor Logs
Published: May 18, 2020
Edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper
Ruling in Doyle v. DHS never mentions Obama published 6 million visitor records
Archive, CREW, Knight Institute lawsuit exposes weak federal records laws
Washington, D.C., May 18, 2020 – The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled against the National Security Archive’s lawsuit to restore the routine disclosure, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), of the White House visitor logs that were taken down by the Trump administration in early 2017.
The 2nd Circuit’s 22-page ruling concentrates on the ostensible intrusion on a president’s ability to receive confidential advice, and the supposed burden of using FOIA’s regular exemptions to process the logs for release, while never acknowledging that the Obama White House routinely published its visitor logs some 90 days after the visit – some six million such records in all – with no apparent hindrance on presidential activity.
The ruling highlights severe weaknesses in the Federal Records Act – which apparently does not preclude a president from converting agency records into presidential ones not covered by FOIA through the simple expedient of a memo of understanding – and in the Presidential Records Act – which provides extremely limited forms of external review for White House record-keeping and the lack thereof.
Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle filed FOIA requests for White House visitor logs beginning with the Trump inauguration in January 2017, as part of her work tracking U.S.-Mexico relations from her office in New York. The requests went to the Secret Service, which checks incoming visitors against various criminal databases, as part of its statutory duties within the Department of Homeland Security to protect the president.
More:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/foia/2020-05-18/second-circuit-helps-white-house-hide-visitor-logs?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=bc6f4fec-2ab2-48ad-9563-a521cb9e66b7
Economists put a price tag on living whales in Brazil: $82 billion
by Elizabeth Claire Alberts on 18 May 2020
Each winter, southern right whales and humpback whales migrate to the waters off Brazil to feed on krill and phytoplankton, and to give birth to their young among the country’s rich coral reefs. These whales attract thousands of tourists, and their money, to Brazil.
A whale’s capacity to bring tourist dollars into Brazil, in addition to its ability to regulate the environment and enhance fisheries, is worth a lot, according to a group of economists. Now, they’ve put a figure on it: $82 billion.
A breaching humpback whale in front of Salvador de BahiaImage in Brazil.
Image by Enrico Marcovaldi / Projeto Baleia Jubarte
This calculation comes from a model developed by four economists: Ralph Chami and Sena Oztosun of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); Connel Fullenkamp of Duke University’s Economics Center for Teaching; and Thomas Cosimano of the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. In December 2019, they published a report in IMF’s Finance & Development stating that living whales have a high monetary value for the tourism dollars they bring into a country, as well as their ability to sequester carbon, and to give a boost to local fisheries by contributing to the food web chain.
When it comes to regulating the environment, whales act as giant “pumps” that suck in carbon, mainly from the phytoplankton they eat, and release fecal plumes rich in nutrients that help more phytoplankton grow, which, in turn, produce more oxygen. Over its lifetime, a large whale can sequester about 33 tons of CO2 on average, while a tree only stores about 48 pounds (22 kilograms) of CO2 each year, according to the report. When a whale dies, its body will sink to the bottom of the ocean, storing away carbon for centuries, which plays a central role in mitigating climate change. Since carbon has a value in today’s market, the economists were able to put a price tag on a whale’s carbon service.
More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/economists-put-a-price-tag-on-living-whales-in-brazil-82-billion/
Colombia's most infamous far-right group 'founded by important personalities'
by Adriaan Alsema May 18, 2020
Presumed members of Colombia’s far-right group “Aguilas Negras” said on Saturday they were founded by “important national personalities” in a death threat sent to politicians, a unionist and a journalist.
In the death threat, the “reorganized” group clarified their elusive origins in a letter mailed to the men and woman they believed to be preparing peace talks with the country’s last-standing guerrilla group, the ELN.
. . .
The Aguilas Negras long consisted of extremist groups within the security forces, specifically the 4th Brigade in Medellin, presumably tied with members of regional elites.
The group or collective have made it no secret they are admirers of President Ivan Duque‘s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-most-infamous-far-right-group-founded-by-important-personalities/
Further arrests made over botched Venezuelan coup attempt
STEVE SWEENEY SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2020
nother member of a gang involved in a failed coup plot in Venezuela was detained on Saturday by the country’s armed forces, as police confirmed that search and capture operations are still ongoing for the remainder.
The latest arrest, made in the northern state of Aragua, brings the total number of mercenaries held to 90.
Former US Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry appeared in court on Friday over their part in Operation Gideon, a plan to kidnap President Nicolas Maduro and replace him with opposition politician Juan Guaido.
The pair were remanded in custody pending trial to prevent them from fleeing the country.
They have admitted being hired by US-based private security company Silvercorp, whose head Jordan Goudreau signed a $212 million (£172m) contract with Mr Guaido last October.
More:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/further-arrests-made-over-botched-veenzuelan-coup-attempt
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 160,527