Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalColombia's war crimes tribunal pulling corpses out of Medellin's closet
Extradited crime lord Don Berna (L) and Governor Luis Perez.
by Stephen Gill July 19, 2019
Colombia’s war crimes tribunal has given Medellin authorities until Friday to surrender information about the location of mass graves the city hall was trying to keep secret.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) ordered the Medellin Mayor’s office to surrendered the university study with alleged details about 174 people who where disappeared by paramilitary forces from the western Comuna 13 at a hearing on Wednesday.
Victims asked the court to also impose a work ban on two sand dumps just outside the city limits where as many as 300 people could be buried based on multiple testimonies by neighbors, victims and demobilized paramilitaries.
A city built on mass graves?
Testimonies given before the court made it painfully evident how the city’s subsequent administrations categorically ignored victims, particularly those of “Operation Orion,” a 2002 military operation carried out with extradited crime lord “Don Berna.”
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-war-crimes-tribunal-pulling-corpses-out-of-medellins-closet/
Appeals court upholds Trump move to drop mine pollution rule
Source: Associated Press
Matthew Brown, Associated Press Updated 7:16 pm CDT, Friday, July 19, 2019
Photo: Adella Harding, AP
IMAGE 1 OF 4
FILE - This undated file photo shows Barrick Goldstrike Mines' Betze-Post open pit near Carlin, Nev. A three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Friday, July 19, 2019, that state and federal programs ensure mining companies take financial responsibility for their pollution. (Adella Harding/The Daily Free Press via AP, File)
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A U.S. appeals court panel sided with the Trump administration Friday in a mining pollution dispute, ruling that state and federal programs already in place ensure that companies take financial responsibility for future cleanups.
The ruling came after the administration was sued by environmental groups for dropping an Obama-era proposal that would have forced companies to put up money to show they have resources to clean up pollution.
The mining industry has a legacy of bankrupt companies abandoning polluted sites and leaving taxpayers to cover cleanup costs.
But the three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said it was "unpersuaded" by the environmentalists' arguments that the Trump administration relied on a faulty economic analysis in making its decision.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Appeals-court-upholds-Trump-move-to-drop-mine-14108534.php
Gorgeous, Freaky Sunset Photo Looks Split Down the Middle
By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | July 18, 2019 11:37am ET
The spectacular colors of this sunset cover only half the sky. A large, distant cloud below the horizon shadows the other half.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Uma Gopalakrishnan
A recent sunset photo stunned viewers on social media. An unusual optical effect made the sunset resemble a split-screen image showing two very different skies side by side.
On the photo's right side is a horizon saturated with hues of red and yellow. But on the left side, the sky is darker and drabber. Uma Gopalakrishnan captured the photo in Charlotte, North Carolina, on July 13 at 8:55 p.m. local time, sharing the unaltered pictures and video on Instagram and Twitter.
Though it looks unnatural, the so-called split sunset wasn't created with filters or Photoshop. Rather, it was caused by the shadow of a large cloud below the horizon that prevented sunlight from striking the clouds that were closer to viewers on the ground. [Image Gallery: Sunrise and Sunsets]
"I had never seen something like this before. And I couldn't believe it when I did see it that night!" Gopalakrishnan told Live Science in an email.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/65971-split-sunset-photo.html
Telescope In Chile's Mountains Looks For Signals To Explain How The Universe Began
July 17, 20194:32 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
There's a telescope high up in the mountains of Chile that's looking for signals from the earliest moments of the universe. Finding these signals would be key to explaining how the universe began.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There's a telescope high up in the mountains of Chile that's looking for signals from the earliest moments of the universe. Finding these signals would be key to explaining how the universe began. NPR's Joe Palca has just returned from a visit to the telescope, and he has this report on a remarkable facility in a remarkable location.
JOE PALCA, BYLINE: The telescope is called CLASS. It's located on top of Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. And at 17,000 feet, it's one of the highest telescopes in the world.
Ready?
JULIANA COUTO: I'm ready.
PALCA: OK. Shall we start outside?
COUTO: Yeah, let's go outside.
PALCA: Juliana Couto is the site manager for the telescope. We've emerged from a warm control room into the chilly, thin air outside. It's winter in the Southern Hemisphere, but today is a balmy 40 degrees.
But you don't come up here every day.
COUTO: We come here usually from Monday through Saturday.
PALCA: The Atacama Desert is covered with red soil and rocks stretching far into the distance.
COUTO: We could be on Mars. It's definitely an unique place on Earth (laughter).
More:
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742819020/telescope-in-chiles-mountains-looks-for-signals-to-explain-how-the-universe-bega?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science
Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor
CLASS Telescope
Mountain - Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert
The 'Royal Road' to Guane, a beautiful trek with an insane history
by Adriaan Alsema July 10, 2019
The road between Barrichara and Guane in the Santander province may be a gorgeous trek, but has a controversial history of imperialism and exploitation.
The Royal Road, or “Camino Real” has nothing to do with royalty; it was constructed almost 50 years after Colombia became a republic by Geo von Lengerke, a controversial German who allegedly fled his home country after killing a man in a duel who ended up creating a neo-feudal system on his estate near Barichara.
Von Lengerke built the road over an ancient path between Barichara and Guane, an ancient settlement of the extinct Guane people that was originally called Moncora.
Little is known about the original inhabitants of the town other than they sustained themselves by trading with the neighboring Muisca people who inhabited the high plains around Bogota.
The Guanes allegedly worshiped the Muisca god Ochica, who they believed to have founded their civilization and taught the locals agriculture and craftsmanship.
Archaeologists later found that the Guanes were surprisingly tall compared to other peoples in the region and deliberately deformed children’s skulls.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/the-royal-road-to-guane-a-beautiful-trek-with-an-insane-history/
Colombia's war crimes tribunal begins investigation into Medellin military attack
by Kristin Rounds July 17, 2019
Colombia’s war crimes tribunal has begun investigating “Operation Orion,” a 2002 attack on the west of Medellin carried out by the security forces allegedly in collusion with local crime lord “Don Berna.”
In a ceremony commemorating the 16th anniversary of the war crimes-ridden operation, magistrates of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) received a report from the community of the Comuna 13, Medellin’s most western district.
. . .
During the JEP’s investigation, victims will have the opportunity to testify, and advocate for precautionary measures to prevent the disappearance of human remains believed to be buried in a quarry just outside the district.
Among the documentation received by the JEP are the locations where paramilitaries and locals have said victims of the paramilitary terror that followed the operation are buried.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-war-crimes-tribunal-begins-investigation-into-medellin-military-attack/
'Colombia's former army chief continued to promote murder after his resignation'
Retired General Mario Montoya (R) and former President Alvaro Uribe. (Image: President's Office)
by Brenden Paulsen July 17, 2019
Colombia’s former army commander is facing more than 100 testimonies that would prove how his orders set in motion a bloodbath unseen in the country’s armed conflict even after his resignation.
Newspaper El Espectador obtained the 2008 military order by Montoya’s successor, general Freddy Padilla, that sought to stop the mass killing allegedly instigated by General Mario Montoya after he demanded his subordinated “buckets of blood.”
According to the newspaper, a prosecution report sent to the war crimes tribunal demonstrated that Padilla’s order to prioritize “the collective and individual demobilization over captures, and these over combat kills” was ignored by soldiers who, apparently loyal to Montoya, assassinated another 100 civilians.
The prosecution reportedly informed the court that Montoya allegedly challenged his successor’s order and continued to promote combat kills over arrests or the surrender of enemy combatants from guerrilla group like the FARC and ELN.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-former-army-chief-continued-to-promote-murder-after-his-resignation/
US drug trafficking claim against missing FARC leader increasingly confusing
by Adriaan Alsema July 16, 2019
Colombia’s Supreme Court is at a stand still in the drug trafficking case against FARC leader Jesus Santrich as authorities and a DEA informant left the court with contradictory claims.
The US Department of Justice has so far refused to either surrender evidence or allow the court to interrogate “Marlon Marin,” the DEA informant who accused Santrich of conspiring to traffic drugs.
Conflicting statements made by Marlon Marin, DEA agent Brian Witek, and Colombia’s prosecution are currently the only evidence available to the Colombian Supreme Court.
Confusion and contradictions
Marin, a nephew of former guerrilla leader “Ivan Marquez” and the main witness in the case, claimed in May that an associate of Santrich supplied five kilograms of cocaine that was allegedly given to Cali businessman Armando Gomez as a sample on November 1, 2017.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/us-drug-trafficking-claim-against-missing-farc-leader-increasingly-confusing/
Conjoined twin girls separated in London after 50 hours of surgery
Craniopagus twins Safa and Marwa Ullah born with skulls and blood vessels fused together
Press Association
Mon 15 Jul 2019 14.33 EDT Last modified on Mon 15 Jul 2019 19.11 EDT
Rare conjoined twins have been separated at a world-leading children’s hospital in London, surgeons have announced.
Two-year-old sisters Safa and Marwa Ullah, from Charsadda in Pakistan, underwent three major operations to separate their heads at Great Ormond Street hospital (GOSH).
The first operation took place in October 2018, when the girls were 19 months old. The last operation, during which they were finally separated, was carried out on 11 February.
The girls, who were born by caesarean section, were craniopagus twins, with their skulls and blood vessels fused together. GOSH has previously successfully separated craniopagus twins in 2006 and 2011.
In order to ensure the operations went smoothly, experts used virtual reality to create an exact replica of the girls’ anatomies. This enabled surgeons to visualise the complex structure of their skulls as well as the positioning of their brains and blood vessels.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/15/conjoined-twins-separated-great-ormond-street-safa-marwa
Colombia's VIP treatment of the presidential ally who embezzled $25M
by Adriaan Alsema July 15, 2019
After having been extradited from the US in a chartered jet, Colombia’s former agriculture minister was not sent to prison to serve his 17-year corruption sentence, but to a luxurious detention facility of the military.
The decision of INPEC not to send Arias to La Picota prison as ordered by the judge is the latest in a series of exceptional incidents that followed the decision of US State Department to extradite the former minister who was sentenced to prison for embezzling $25 million in 2014.
Arias was extradited by US authorities on Friday in a chartered jet in an operation that disallowed press to take images of his arrival in Colombia, the country he fled to evade his prison sentence five years ago.
Usually, extradited citizens are put on a normal flight and press is allowed to register their return.
The judge who formalized Arias’ arrival in Colombia ordered he be transferred to La Picota, Bogota‘s largest prison, but prison authority INPEC used its faculty to change the facility and sent him to the military’s headquarters in Bogota whose detention facility is considerably more luxurious.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-vip-treatment-of-the-presidential-ally-who-embezzled-25m/
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