Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalColombia ‘peace talks hacker’ blows whistle, implicates military and Uribe in spy scandal
Colombia ‘peace talks hacker’ blows whistle, implicates military and Uribe in spy scandal
Aug 25, 2014 posted by Adriaan Alsema
Colombia’s military, its intelligence agency under former President Alvaro Uribe, and the family of former presidential candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga were all directly involved with illegal spying on the ongoing peace talks, the alleged spy said in an interview on Sunday.
Computer engineer Andres Sepulveda was arrested in May, weeks before the elections, and accused of illegally spying on the peace talks that are held between the government and rebel group FARC in Cuba.
In an interview with weekly Semana, Sepulveda admitted to the spying and clarified he worked closely with “Andromeda,” a covert spying operation run by members of Military Intelligence that was discovered and apparently shut down by prosecutors in February.
Military commanders sold information
“Andromeda had everything. What we did with Andromeda was buy information favorable to the objectives of the Oscar Ivan Zuluaga campaign and follow up on the instructions” to counter the peace talks.
Uribe, the president of Colombia between 2002 and 2010, “had been leading” this campaign opposing the peace talks “using different pawns,” said Sepulveda.
The former president had been supported by members within the military loyal to the former commander in chief, and who opposed efforts by current President Juan Manuel Santos to negotiate peace with the country’s largest and longest-living rebel group.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombia-peace-talks-hacker-blows-whistle-implicates-military-uribe-spy-scandal/
Ancient handcraft helps preserve culture, lifeline in Colombia
Ancient handcraft helps preserve culture, lifeline in Colombia
August 23, 2014
Wayuu is an indigenous tribe in Colombia. Their handmade bags produced by its female members are the primary source of income for the tribe. They have also become a fashion fad in major cities around the world. while the Wayuu Bags may be “trendy” accessories for upscale shoppers, the life of the Wayuu community is far from glamourous.
CCTV America’s Toby Muse reports.
- video -
La Guajira, or the badlands, are the baking deserts are home to crime, smuggling and poverty. The tiny desert settlement of Atpanasira is in one of the hamlets that produces its most beautiful export: the mochila. Mochilas are handcrafted bags made by wayuu women Indians.
“These are important because it is the cultural legacy we pass on generation to generation,” said Nerita Epinayu, an indigenous woman of Atpanasira. “They teach us this when we become women, just as our mothers and grandmothers and all our ancestors were taught.”
The bright distinctive designs are inspired by the women’s dreams. These dreams have now become fashionable across the world.
Out on the streets of Riohacha, La Guajira’s largest city, wayuu women sell their bags to the trickle of tourists. If the women sell directly to a tourist, they can earn around $30 for each bag.
More:
http://www.cctv-america.com/2014/08/23/ancient-handcraft-helps-preserve-culture-lifeline-in-colombia
Oglala Sioux leader Gerald One Feather dies
Source: Associated Press
Oglala Sioux leader Gerald One Feather dies
7:55 AM Monday Aug 25, 2014
OGLALA, South Dakota (AP) Gerald One Feather, the legendary Oglala Sioux leader, former tribal president and tireless advocate for educational opportunities, has died. He was 76.
Longtime friend Tom Katus told The Associated Press that One Feather died Thursday at a Rapid City hospital. Katus said One Feather had a massive stroke while on dialysis in Pine Ridge before being taken to the hospital.
One Feather was born in 1938 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the poorest places in America, but rose to become a respected tribal leader in and outside of the reservation. He met with U.S. presidents, spoke on behalf of indigenous people before a United Nations group and helped Native Americans enter higher education.
"He was a visionary," Katus said. "But unlike a lot of folks who are visionaries and never accomplish anything, he was very pragmatic and accomplished a great deal."
One Feather was elected Oglala Lakota Tribal President in 1970, making him the youngest to hold that position in tribal history.
Read more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11313813
[center]
Gerald One Feather, Senator George McGovern [/center]
Oglala Sioux leader Gerald One Feather dies
August 23, 2014 6:30 am • Tom Griffith Journal staff
OGLALA | On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the poorest places in America, Gerald One Feather's journey began in a dirt-floored log cabin.
But One Feather started his rise when he went to college and drove a car for a young congressional candidate bound for larger roles, got a boost when he entered tribal politics, gained stature when he met with U.S. presidents and spoke on behalf of indigenous people to a United Nations gathering.
And as a symbol of how far he traveled from that cabin, late in life he received a standing ovation from 40,000 people inspired by his commitment and achievements.
Tributes were pouring into the reservation Friday for One Feather, the legendary Oglala Sioux leader and former tribal president who was revered, respected and sometimes ridiculed for his unyielding stance in support of his people.
One Feather died Thursday evening at a Rapid City hospital. He was 76.
“He’s one of those giant trees, whose falling shakes the entire earth,” said Carrie L. Billy, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which One Feather helped found. “Throughout it all, Mr. One Feather remained focused on his culture, his spirituality, and service to his people.”
More:
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/oglala-sioux-leader-gerald-one-feather-dies/article_cd3721f4-ae31-5bbd-84bf-e304889324ba.html
Beyond the border: Into the wilderness (A partnership between The Texas Observer and the Guardian)
Beyond the border
A partnership between The Texas Observer and the Guardian
Into the wilderness
By Melissa del Bosque, The Texas Observer, and the Guardian US interactive team
Texas has become the deadliest state in the US for undocumented immigrants. In 2012, 271 migrants died while crossing through Texas, surpassing Arizona as the nation's most dangerous entry point. The majority of those deaths didn't occur at the Texas-Mexico border but in rural Brooks County, 70 miles north of the Rio Grande, where the US Border Patrol has a checkpoint. To circumvent the checkpoint, migrants must leave the highway and hike through the rugged ranchlands. Hundreds die each year on the trek, most from heat stroke. This four-part series looks at the lives impacted by the humanitarian crisis.
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
The smugglers dropped them on the side of a desolate highway at dusk. Exelina Hernandez hid in the brush with the others and waited for the guides to signal that it was time to begin their long walk. The sky was streaked orange and red, and darkness was slowly enveloping them.
The 24 men, women and children had formed into smaller groups with family members or others they'd met on the journey north. Indians from the highlands of Guatemala squatted next to mestizos from El Salvador and Honduras. Some were frightened, some hopeful, holding water jugs and backpacks close. After so many weeks of traveling, they had finally reached the United States. Now they only needed to walk a few more miles around an immigration checkpoint.
Exelina was looking forward to reuniting with her two young children, Ana and Javier, and her husband, Gustavo, whom she hadn't seen since her exile to El Salvador months before. She had returned to El Salvador in a desperate attempt to gain legal residency in the United States. But gangs in her San Salvador neighborhood proved too dangerous and Exelina was fleeing back to Texas. It was a seven-hour drive to her home in Irving from the spot where Exelina hunkered down in the South Texas brush. After weeks of traveling, she was on the last leg of her journey, but she was still a long way from home.
She knew the trip was risky; she knew that people sometimes died trying to reach their families in the United States, but death was difficult to comprehend. La muerte was a concern for the old and the infirm. She was just 31-years old, recently married and in love. A journey like this required hope, a positive outlook. It had taken her three weeks to arrive at the Texas border from San Salvador, and she spent another 11 days at a safe house in Brownsville. The privilege of being crammed into a windowless warehouse with several dozen unwashed strangers and being forced to hike for several hours through desolate ranches of thorn scrub and prickly pear would cost her $3,200.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2014/aug/06/-sp-texas-border-deadliest-state-undocumented-migrants
The cave digger: Hewing art from the very landscape
CBS News/August 24, 2014, 9:22 AM
The cave digger: Hewing art from the very landscape
~ Video ~
It seems artistic inspiration can be found throughout the New Mexico landscape -- and maybe even beneath it, as our Lee Cowan has discovered.
This story was originally broadcast on May 18, 2014.
In the high desert of northern New Mexico, if you listen carefully, you might just hear something more than the wind. It's the underground sound of a man obsessed.
~ 17 photos ~
His name is Ra Paulette, who for the past 25 years -- with only his dog for company -- has been scraping and shaping New Mexico's sandstone into man-made caves of art.
"Do you think you're obsessed with cave digging?" asked Cowan.
"Would you call a child being obsessed with play?" replied Paulette. "You wouldn't use that word 'obsessed.' You know, when you're doing something you love and are drawn to it, you want to do it all the time."
He calls them his wilderness shrines -- massive in scale, poetic in their design. If his work takes your breath away, that's just what he hoped it would do.
"I see this as an environmental project; I'm trying to open up people's feelings," he said.
More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cave-digger-hewing-art-from-the-very-landscape-2/
The Carrot, the Stick, and the Seeds: U.S. development policy faces resistance in El Salvador
The Carrot, the Stick, and the Seeds: U.S. development policy faces resistance in El Salvador
By Martha Pskowski | 15 / August / 2014
When I visited the Bajo Lempa region of eastern El Salvador this year, my new acquaintances taught me a joke.
“Why aren’t there coupes de états in the United States?” they asked me. “I don’t know, why?” “Because there isn’t a U.S. Embassy.”
We laughed over it together, and I was reminded that in El Salvador, memories of U.S. intervention leading up to and during the Civil War are still fresh. Today interventionism rears its head in new forms, and in turn, resistance is also changing.
In May of this year, the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador pressured the Salvadoran government to change its procurement process to distribute seeds to family farmers. The government was buying almost exclusively from Salvadoran seed cooperatives. The Embassy complained that favoring local seed, leaving out transnationals, was not “fair or transparent.” Multinational agrobusinesses like Monsanto previously dominated the industry, and the U.S. found the new conditions disagreeable enough to withhold the $277 Millennium Challenge aid package to El Salvador.
The irony of the moment hit home both in the United States and El Salvador, as an unprecedented number of child and adolescent migrants fleeing Central America were arriving at the U.S. border. The Millennium funds, slated to encourage development in El Salvador, hardly seemed like the appropriate way to push the seeds issue.
Salvadoran farmer organizations, unions, and environmental groups and groups in the U.S. protested placing a “Monsanto clause” in the basic needs aids package. On July 3, the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador confirmed the dispute had been “resolved” and they would not withhold the $277 Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) funds.
More:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12762
Peru auctions jailed ex-spy chief's luxury jewels
Peru auctions jailed ex-spy chief's luxury jewels
Sunday, August 24, 2014
LIMA (AFP).- Peru began auctioning off the jewelry collection of jailed ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos on Monday, looking to recoup more than $1 million of the public funds he was convicted of stealing.
Montesinos was the head of the intelligence services under former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who is today serving prison time, as well.
The jewelry collection, which will be auctioned off over the course of two days, includes 39 watches, 76 pairs of cufflinks, 18 rings and a slate of 18-carat gold objects ranging from key chains to tie clips, much of it encrusted with precious gems.
The centerpiece of the auction is a Swiss watch in white gold and platinum, encrusted with 400 diamonds and valued at $161,000, said the head of the government agency conducting the sale, Maria del Pilar Sosa.
"The fact these jewels are in gold and diamonds is a testament to the obscenity of the corruption that reigned under the Fujimori government," the former prosecutor in charge of fighting corruption, Julio Arbizu, told AFP.
More:
http://artdaily.com/news/72330/Peru-auctions-jailed-ex-spy-chief-s-luxury-jewels-#.U_l7v2cg_mI
Citizen scientists saving lives around deadly 'Throat of Fire' volcano
Citizen scientists saving lives around deadly 'Throat of Fire' volcano
Date: August 22, 2014
Source: University of East Anglia
Summary:
Citizen scientists are saving the lives of people living in the shadow of deadly volcanoes according to research. A report reveals the success of a volunteer group set up to safeguard communities around the 'Throat of Fire' Tungurahua volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes. The research shows that living safely in dangerous areas can depend on effective communication and collaboration between volcanologists, risk managers and vulnerable communities.
A new report published reveals the success of a volunteer group set up to safeguard communities around the 'Throat of Fire' Tungurahua volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes.
More than 600 million people live close to active volcanoes worldwide. The research shows that living safely in these dangerous areas can depend on effective communication and collaboration between volcanologists, risk managers and vulnerable communities.
It is hoped that the research will help inform similar community engagement in volcanic and other disaster risk reduction projects around the world.
The report looks at a 35-strong network of volunteers called 'vigías', which was set up 14 years ago in the wake of renewed activity at a historically deadly volcano. The eruptions led to a military evacuation of around 25,000 people from Baños and the surrounding area. But leaving homes, land and livelihoods was hard, and the community rallied together to over-run checkpoints and re-occupy the town.
More:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140822094152.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
The WSJ’s Editorial Posing as “News” about Ecuador
The WSJ’s Editorial Posing as “News” about Ecuador
Posted on August 19, 2014 by William Black
By William K. Black
Greetings from Bogota where I’m participating in an economic conference and teaching two class sessions.
Under the banner “Latin America News” the Wall Street Journal has poured out its pain that the people of Ecuador might reelect President Rafael Correa. The article is actually an editorial attacking Correa and the people of Ecuador for potentially voting to reelect Ecuador’s most successful President in the modern era.
The issue is term limits. I have always opposed term limits as an obstruction to democracy and competence. The U.S. had no presidential term limits for most of its history and the only president the population chose to elect to more than two terms was Franklin Delano Roosevelt – one of our greatest presidents. I am deeply thankful that our Nation had the great good sense to reelect FDR to four terms in office.
Term limits are an issue on which reasonable people should be able to disagree without rancor. Rupert Murdoch and his reporters do not fall within that category and they despise Correa Ecuador’s success and Correa’s popularity falsify their ideological claims that democratic government is the problem and plutocracy is the solution. The WSJ is enraged that that Ecuador’s democratically-elected parliament might remove term limits for public officials. The faux “news” story launches this fact-free smear: “Mr. Correa, whom opponents characterize as a semi-authoritarian leader who controls all levers of power.” Wow, I’m sure I could find “opponents” of every elected leader in the world who would say far worse. I’m also sure that the WSJ never ran a “news” story that read “Mr. Bush, whom opponents characterize as a semi-authoritarian leader who controls all levels of power.” It turns out that the “opponents” that the WSJ tries to dredge up are political opponents who define winning democratic elections as “authoritarian.”
We can test the claim that Correa “controls all levels of power” against the facts. He is the democratically elected president and a majority of the members of the democratically elected Parliament support him. That’s the norm in all parliamentary systems that Murdoch loves when conservatives are elected the PMs in Australia, the UK, and Canada. Correa’s party also lost democratic elections for mayor in Ecuador’s largest cities, so he plainly does not control all levels of power and does not act to prevent his political opponents from winning elections nor does he annul their victories. In Ecuador, the President is not the leader of the party or coalition that controls the parliament and for many years Correa held office with a parliament controlled by the opposition.
The WSJ lets slip the “opposition’s” real concerns – the people of Ecuador strongly support Correa’s policies and oppose the return of the oligarchs to power. The oligarchs are desperate to make it impossible for the people of Ecuador to reelect the leader they support.
More:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/08/wsjs-editorial-posing-news-ecuador.html#more-8494
Colombian army, FARC rebels begin work on ceasefire
Colombian army, FARC rebels begin work on ceasefire
AFP
August 23, 2014, 6:10 am
Havana (AFP) - Talks to end Colombia's five-decade conflict entered what the government called a "decisive phase" Friday as army officers and FARC rebels began work on the terms of an eventual ceasefire.
The creation of the "subcommission" to propose the framework for an eventual ceasefire and disarmament marks the first time active combatants from both sides have come together around the same table during the nearly two-year-old peace negotiations.
"We've entered a decisive moment in the process. There's a real possibility of ending the conflict," said the government's chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle.
The panel's launch came on the heels of two other key developments at the talks in Havana, the launch of a "historical commission" tasked with tracing the origins and impact of the conflict, and the start of testimony from victims, intended to help reach a deal on reparations.
"This week, we have put in march three enormously important mechanisms that are going to strengthen and guide the (government and rebel) delegations' work in this decisive phase," de la Calle said.
"In the past few days, the process has taken on a new dynamic... We are in an advanced phase of the conversations."
More:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/world/a/24790482/
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 160,527