June 3, 2014

Judges in central Colombia ‘giving away state-protected land to unknown 3rd parties’

Judges in central Colombia ‘giving away state-protected land to unknown 3rd parties’
Jun 3, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya

A five-month investigation has revealed around 250,000 acres have been given away under court orders to largely unknown third parties in the central states of Casanare and Meta, according to the Superintendent of Notary and Registration.

According to Superintendent Jorge Enrique Velez, his regional departments are in disarray and don’t know how to address the flood of ownership requests of land they see as state-owned. Despite the notary’s initial rejections of the requests, court orders are forcing them to produce the papers giving ownership of the land to unknown third parties.

In addition to the land being given away in Casanare and Meta, land around the city of Cartagena in the state of Bolivar is also being handed away, which Velez calls “some of the most expensive land in the country,” according to an interview with W Radio.

Velez cites several problems with the land handovers:

• The lands have sparse or no history of ownership which one then assumes the land are ‘baldios,’ or unused land under state protection

• Most of the demands for registration are filed with “unknown third parties” which is improper for an ownership proceeding

• At no time was Colombia’s Institute for Rural Development (INCODER) called upon to defend the state’s right to those ‘baldios.’ The institute is the only agency capable of speaking on the government’s behalf on the issue

•Most of the titles for land given out by judges exceed the amount outlined under the United Family Agriculture law which stands at 7,400 acres in the eastern plains of Colombia.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/judges-central-states-giving-away-land-unknown-third-parties/•

June 3, 2014

NRA calls 'open carry' rallies 'downright weird'

Source: Associated Press

NRA calls 'open carry' rallies 'downright weird'
Posted: Jun 03, 2014 12:26 AM CDT
Updated: Jun 03, 2014 12:49 AM CDT

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) - Companies, customers and others critical of Texas gun rights advocates who have brought military-style assault rifles into businesses as part of demonstrations supporting "open carry" gun rights now have a surprising ally: the National Rifle Association.

The advocates' actions in restaurants and other public places - part of a push for less restrictive gun laws, including legalizing the open carry of handguns - have prompted public criticism.

The NRA has long been a zealous advocate for gun owners' rights. But the group's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, has called the demonstrations counterproductive to promoting gun rights, scary and "downright weird."

The NRA said the demonstrations have "crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness."

"Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That's not the Texas way. And that's certainly not the NRA way," the NRA said in a statement posted on its website Friday.


Read more: http://www.nbc4i.com/story/25675767/nra-calls-open-carry-rallies-downright-weird

June 3, 2014

Panama's president-elect plans price controls on basic foods

Panama's president-elect plans price controls on basic foods
By Christine Murray and Elida Moreno
PANAMA CITY Tue May 6, 2014 1:06pm EDT


(Reuters) - Panama's president-elect will impose price controls on a range of basic foods to dampen rising costs, a step that will hit his bitter rival, outgoing president and supermarket tycoon Ricardo Martinelli.

Juan Carlos Varela, the Panamenista Party (PP) leader and winner of Sunday's election, told Reuters he is clear what his first policy will be when he takes office on July 1.

"Establish emergency price controls on 22 products in the basic basket to lower the cost of living by more than $600 million for the Panamanian people and avoid speculation in products," he said.

The measure would apply to basic foods such as rice, cheese and meat, Varela said, adding that huge profit margins were being put on basic foodstuffs.

"We feel that this is very unfair for the people," Varela, a 50-year-old U.S.-trained engineer whose family owns Panama's largest liquor company, said in an interview.

Martinelli, who Varela helped to win election in 2009 before the two fell out acrimoniously, owns one of Panama's largest supermarket chains. When asked if the controls would apply to Martinelli's stores, Varela said: "Without a doubt."

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/06/us-panama-election-idUSBREA450P820140506?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

June 3, 2014

Failed Venezuelan coup

Failed Venezuelan coup
By Failed Evolution
Blacklisted News
Monday, Jun 2, 2014

The top political leadership in Venezuela, presented on 28/5/2014, evidence for the involvement of the former MP of the Opposition, María Machado, in planning a coup d'état in Venezuela and the assassination of president Nicolas Maduro.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, the member of the political leadership, Jorge Rodríguez, presented the corresponding judicial inquiry in detail, held by the judicial authorities of the country.

This is related to several email messages sent by the former MP which connect her with the violence acts in the country since the beginning of the year. It involves also US officials, like Kevin Whitaker, current US ambassador in Colombia.

~snip~

In another message to the former politician and UN ambassador, Diego Arria, she points the need to eliminate Revolution, stating that "we should take advantage of the situation in Unkraine and now Thailand". She also points that "we should secure funds to eliminate Maduro and the rest will fall by itself".

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_66681.shtml

June 3, 2014

Prosecutor general orders arrest of former governor over forced displacement claims

Prosecutor general orders arrest of former governor over forced displacement claims
Jun 2, 2014 posted by Philip Acuña

Colombia’s Prosecutor General announced on Sunday that it has ordered the arrest of a former governor over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.

A statement released by the Prosecutor General’s Office ordered the arrest of Benito Osorio, the former governor of the northern state of Cordoba.

Osorio, also a former executive of the controversial ranchers federation Fedegan, has been accused of forcibly displacing hundreds of civilians in the region and illegally appropriating privately owned property. The former governor has also been accused of conspiracy and money laundering.

Displace, legalize, sell

According to the prosecution, Osorio used falsified land titles to acquire large tracts of land which eventually came under the Fedegan’s ownership.
His actions allegedly were carried out in collaboration the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), at the time the country’s most powerful paramilitary organization.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/prosecutor-general-calls-arrest-former-governor-implicated-forced-displacement-scandal/

Anyone unaware needs to be made aware these para death squad monsters have always been RIGHT-WING, and nothing other than right-wing.

June 2, 2014

Zapatista teacher dead, 15 seriously wounded in deadly Chiapas ambush

Zapatista teacher dead, 15 seriously wounded in deadly Chiapas ambush

May 7, 2014

Jose Luis Solís López, a teacher in the Zapatista’s “Little School” (La Escuelita) was targeted and murdered, and at least 15 Zapatistas seriously injured, in an ambush in which the leaderships of the paramilitary group called CIOAC-Histórica, the Green Ecological Party, the National Action Party [PAN] and the Revolutionary Institutional Party [PRI] are all implicated in directing on Friday, May 2, 2014. The same attackers damaged or destroyed both the autonomous Mayan school and the local health clinic at the Zapatista caracol of La Realidad.

Four things you can do to respond to this deadly attack on the Zapatistas

1. Get the facts. Almost all of the mainstream media are grossly distorting the facts about this violent ambush; however the Zapatistas have published a detailed description in Spanish of the attack (click here to see the document) and Sub Commander Insurgent Marcos has written en emotionally charged description of the events (click here to read Marcos in English). In addition, mediators from the independent human rights organization Fray Bartolome de las Casas AC have published an eye-witness account (click here to read) which supports the Zapatista version of events. There’s also a detailed Spanish language article in the Mexican daily La Jornada…and here’s an English translation of that same article. We will share additional information as it becomes available.

Some key points to know and remember about the ambush in La Realidad include:

•Unarmed Zapatistas were ambushed on the evening of May 2, 2014 near the caracol of La Realidad. Mainstream media are falsely reporting the incident as a “confrontation” between Zapatistas and others while publishing 20 year old photos of armed Zapatistas. This was not a confrontation; it was a unilateral attack against unarmed bases of support of the EZLN.

•Those directly responsible for the attack are members of the organization CIOAC-H. The most recent Zapatista communication states that “The paramilitaries (…) are paid, organized, directed, and trained by the three levels of bad government in order to divide and provoke us (…).”

•Immediately preceding this ambush, the Zapatistas and local community members began a peaceful mediation process, supervised by the Chiapas-based human rights organization Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, designed to address increasing aggressions against the Zapatistas (including the cutting off of their water supply and the retention of a vehicle delivering medical supplies).

•Zapatista Good Governance Council in La Realidad has turned this issue over to the General Command of the EZLN so that it is “investigated and justice is done.”

More:
http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/2014/05/zapatista-teacher-dead/

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Eternal Revolution: A Slain Zapatista Teacher's Words Live On

Indigenous Rights I Dispatch from Chiapas I May 22nd, 2014



The targeted assassination of a Zapatista teacher known as Galeano in Chiapas, Mexico has shocked and angered people around the world; we at Schools for Chiapas are equally horrified and are seeking to turn our outrage into action by publishing in English an actual educational evaluation made earlier this year by the fallen teacher Jose Luis Solís López (also known simply as Galeano).

Below you will find and English translation of the transcription of a presentation given by Jose Luis Solís López (known as Galeano), the Zapatista promoter/teacher who was killed on May 1, 2014. This document was originally recorded as part of a Zapatista evaluation session of La Escuelita (The Little School) and was published in Feb. 2014 in Spanish in the first volume of the new Mexican journal Rebeldia Zapatista. While defending the local elementary school, Galeano was targeted and assassinated on May 2 in an ambush just outside of the Zapatista Caracol of La Realidad, one of the five seats of the Zapatista Good Government Councils (JBG). The leadership of several anti-Zapatista organizations, including CIOAC-Histórica, the Green Ecological Party, the National Action Party [PAN], and the Revolutionary Institutional Party [PRI] are all implicated in planning the attack. Click here for more detailed information about this attack.

To honor our slain compañero, Galeano, this brave educator who was murdered while trying to defend the community's school, we publish our own English translation of his presentation in full. Click here to read the original Spanish.


Galeano : "We are a team of teachers participating at various levels in The Little School for Freedom according to the Zapatistas, like in the video conferences. We are all affiliated to the "Mother of the Caracols. Sea of our Dreams" caracol, located in the Frontier Jungle region. I come from the village of Nueva Victoria, in the municipality of San Pedro de Michoacán.

Cont'd

This article was originally published at Schools for Chiapas.

More:
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/galeanos-words.html#.U4wFU2cU_mI

June 2, 2014

Parasitic vines may serve as lightning rods

Parasitic vines may serve as lightning rods

Field campaign in Panama will study whether lianas help trees to survive lightning strikes.
Jyoti Madhusoodanan

02 June 2014

Tropical rainforests in Central and South America are being overrun by lianas, parasitic woody vines that clamber up trees and smother the forest canopy as they reach for sunlight. But the vines may be doing more than infiltrating the ecosystem – they may actually be protecting it.

Some researchers suspect that the vines act like lightning rods, saving trees from damage. Understanding this dynamic could help inform how the rainforests will change in the coming years, especially given the predicted effects of climate change on both lightning and lianas.

In July, a group led by Steve Yanoviak, an ecologist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, will head to Barro Colorado Island in Panama to begin a two-year study of lianas’ potentially protective role in the environment.

“Nobody has ever thought of lianas as anything but a structural parasite,” says Yanoviak. “But they might have this unforeseen secondary effect of protecting trees against strikes.”

More:
http://www.nature.com/news/parasitic-vines-may-serve-as-lightning-rods-1.15325

June 1, 2014

Panama's Canal Divides A Country Into Haves And Have Nots

Panama's Canal Divides A Country Into Haves And Have Nots
by Tim Padgett
June 01, 2014 5:06 AM ET

Arnulfo Franco/AP[/font]

Jorge Quijano has one of the coolest office views in the Americas: the Pacific port entrance to the Panama Canal. The panoramic vista seems to help Quijano, who heads the Panama Canal Authority, see the bigger picture.

On the one hand, Quijano understands why Panama has run the canal so effectively since the United States handed it over in 2000.

"When the United States built the canal, it was treated like a non-commercial utility, like a water filtration plant," Quijano told me in an interview at his Panama City headquarters. "We're running it as a business."

One that's expected to rack up revenues of more than $2.5 billion in 2014, and which moves 330 million tons of cargo in and out of the Western Hemisphere each year. But Quijano, while stressing that he's an engineer and not a politician, also concedes that more Panamanians need to see more of that wealth.

For starters, he says, "Panama has to strengthen its education," which is rated among the world's worst. "There's so much investment coming into Panama now, but if we don't have trained people, those investments will go elsewhere."

More:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/05/30/317394468/panamas-canal-divides-a-country-into-haves-and-have-nots?ft=1&f=1001

June 1, 2014

El Salvador: Salvador Sanchez sworn in as president

1 June 2014 Last updated at 16:04 ET
El Salvador: Salvador Sanchez sworn in as president

Mr Sanchez, 69, of the FMLN party, becomes the first former guerrilla to lead the Central American country following his March victory.

In his inauguration speech, he promised to fight corruption and violence, and to govern "for everybody".

~snip~

As a rebel leader, Mr Sanchez fought US-backed government forces during the civil conflict in which tens of thousands of people also disappeared.

His Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front became a political party after the 1992 peace accords.

It first won the presidency in 2009 with the outgoing leader Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), a former journalist who did not fight in the war.

Salvador Sanchez served as vice president in the Funes government.

More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27568032

June 1, 2014

World's highest cable car network opens in Bolivia (Video)

World's highest cable car network opens in Bolivia (Video)
By Anne Sewell
15 hours ago

- click for video -

La Paz - Bolivian President Evo Morales inaugurated the first segment of the world's highest cable car network Friday, which will take passengers from La Paz to nearby El Alto, at a height of up to 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) above sea level.

Built by an Austrian company, Doppelmayr, the cable car line travels through the Andes mountains and offers stunning views of the Illimani, one of Bolivia's highest peaks.

The line, which cost $234 million, allows passengers to travel between La Paz and El Alto in less than 10 minutes, as compared to the road trip time of 30 minutes.

"It is a joy that this cable car line is finished," Morales said at the inauguration ceremony in La Paz.
"It's important work for the residents of La Paz."

The city of La Paz is the highest capital in the world and is located at an altitude of 3,660 meters, making the cable car network a welcome sight indeed for all concerned.

More:
http://digitaljournal.com/news/world/world-s-highest-cable-car-network-opens-in-bolivia-video/article/385176#ixzz33MpNbLgN