Luminous Animal

Luminous Animal's Journal

July 1, 2012

President Correa on Assange in a recent interview.

(Also a link to my old thread with other updates from Ecuador, etc. because it won't kick to the first page anymore.http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002835642)

In Rio de Janeiro, in exclusive interview to Página/12 (Argentina), Carta Maior (Brazil), and La Jornada de México (México):

"We have not a vassal's soul":

“Assange wants to go to Ecuador to continue fulfilling his mission for freedom of expression without limits, because our country is a peaceful territory committed to justice and truth”

Correa also dismissed today that the Assange asylum-situation would cause tensions with the UK. He added:

"It is the last we would wish, but we are not going to ask permission to no country for us to take our sovereign decisions"
If any in Ecuador “would have done to anyone a hundredth part of what they have done to Assange we would be called despots and oppressors"

And this is the full paragraph with President Rafael Correa's statements in Rio de Janeiro, referred to the asylum requested by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. President Correa explains, "What the analysis of the asylum application consists of":

"Ecuador defends the right to life, one has to see if there is danger of death. Ecuador supports the right to due process, must see if so has been the case. Ecuador rejects the persecution of a political nature attacking the political rights of individuals. Must see if there is any breach or violation in this regard. That is the analysis"

http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.se/2012/06/declarations-made-by-president-rafael.html

June 3, 2012

By the way, that ret. soldier that you are citing was a Bush speechwriter,

cofounder of the vile Red State website, and currently the VP of communications of the right wing think tank, Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is, in part, funded by the Koch Brothers.

June 2, 2012

Hippie Capitalism: How An Impoverished U.S. City Is Building An Economy On Co-ops

http://www.fastcompany.com/1837285/hippie-capitalism-how-richmond-calif-is-building-an-economy-on-co-ops

“There’s not a lot of help coming from the federal government, or the state government,” says the city’s Green Party mayor, Gayle McLaughlin. “So we’re kind of on our own.” Two years ago, she went all the way to Spain in search of another economic model that might reinvigorate her city, once the locus of bustling shipyards that produced hundreds of boats for battle during World War II.

....

“I found that the values of people in Mondragon were very much in line with the values that we were putting forward as part of our political movement in Richmond: standing for equity, standing for justice, standing for community empowerment,” McLaughlin says. And so she brought the idea back to California and hired what is probably the only official municipal worker co-op consultant in the country. As of January, the first co-op born from this campaign, the aptly named Liberty Ship Café, is up and running, with plans for new bike shop, bakery, urban agriculture, and solar installation co-ops on the way.

June 2, 2012

The Mondragon Corporation employing 83,000 people in 256 co-ops

The MONDRAGON Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. Founded in the town of Mondragón in 1956, its origin is linked to the activity of a modest technical college and a small workshop producing paraffin heaters. Currently it is the seventh largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2010 it was providing employment for 83,859 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge. The MONDRAGON Co-operatives operate in accordance with a business model based on People and the Sovereignty of Labour, which has made it possible to develop highly participative companies rooted in solidarity, with a strong social dimension but without neglecting business excellence. The Co-operatives are owned by their worker-members and power is based on the principle of one person, one vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

June 2, 2012

All military-age males in a strike zone are combatants...

On Monday, the New York times reported that "Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=3&_r=2

Glenn Greenwald reports:
"The media now knows that "militant" is a term of official propaganda, yet still use it for America's drone victims"
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton//

Early this morning, the U.S. fired a missile from a drone in northwest Pakistan — its first since the NYT story – and killed two people. Here’s how The Washington Post is now touting the article about this attack on its online front page:

Readers who click on that story are greeted by an Associated Press story bearing this headline:

There is, as usual, no indication that these media outlets have any idea whatsoever about who was killed in these strikes. All they know is that “officials” (whether American or Pakistani) told them that they were “militants,” so they blindly repeat that as fact. They “report” this not only without having the slightest idea whether it’s true, but worse, with the full knowledge that the word “militant” is being aggressively distorted by deceitful U.S. government propaganda that defines the term to mean: any “military-age males” whom we kill (the use of the phrase “suspected militants” in the body of the article suffers the same infirmity).

June 1, 2012

It appears that you are right (link to a much more in depth article)...

Shell is pulling out while BP is committing and it looks like got more favorable treatment. So, Shell stops FOR NOW, keeps its reps in Libya and seeks similar flexibility with the NOC that BP received.

http://www.libyaherald.com/bye-bye-shell-hello-bp/

It was not to be. In 2008, Shell began to shoot 3D seismic in Area 89, the following year drilling six wells with an investment of $95 million, while paying NOC $103 million for permit rights. In December 2010 it was reported that the first gas had been found. At the time, an official with Shell Exploration and Production Libya, Nureffin Wafati said further exploration wells were necessary to establish if the reserves were commercial. Shortly afterwards, Brinded visited NOC in Tripoli for talks, the details of which were never made public.

Later Shell said that the results were disappointing and did not justify further investment. There was speculation that the find was of insufficient magnitude to generate a profitable supply contract to Brega, let alone to underwrite the construction of a state-of-the-art LNG plant.

...

Given that Area 89 was not going to produce the feedstock for the existing Brega facility, rejuvenated or not, the figures for Shell no longer added up. What could have been a multi-billion coup was turning into wormwood. If, as Shell has indicated, the NOC has been less flexible with the Anglo-Dutch major in renegotiating than it appears to have been with BP, then Shell’s departure may be seen as inevitable. BP also has its Ghadames blocks where there is heightened expectation of fresh highly commercial reserves.

However Shell has not apparently abandoned Libya for ever. Dow Jones yesterday reported an internal Shell email as telling employees: “This is not a country exit, and a Shell Representative Office will remain in Libya.”

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