Saturday, December 22, 2007


By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.

The review was conducted earlier this month after the disclosure that in November 2005, the C.I.A. destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Qaeda operatives.

A seven-page memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel’s former executive director, concluded that “further investigation is needed” to determine whether the C.I.A.’s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law.

In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry.

Mr. Kean said the panel would provide the memorandum to the federal prosecutors and congressional investigators who are trying to determine whether the destruction of the tapes or withholding them from the courts and the commission was improper.

A C.I.A. spokesman said that the agency had been prepared to give the Sept. 11 commission the interrogation videotapes, but that commission staff members never specifically asked for interrogation videos.

The review by Mr. Zelikow does not assert that the commission specifically asked for videotapes, but it quotes from formal requests by the commission to the C.I.A. that sought “documents,” “reports” and “information” related to the interrogations.

Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, said of the agency’s decision not to disclose the existence of the videotapes, “I don’t know whether that’s illegal or not, but it’s certainly wrong.” Mr. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that the C.I.A. “clearly obstructed” the commission’s investigation.

A copy of the memorandum, dated Dec. 13, was obtained by The New York Times.

Among the statements that the memorandum suggests were misleading was an assertion made on June 29, 2004, by John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director of central intelligence, that the C.I.A. “has taken and completed all reasonable steps necessary to find the documents in its possession, custody or control responsive” to formal requests by the commission and “has produced or made available for review” all such documents.

Both Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton expressed anger after it was revealed this month that the tapes had been destroyed. However, the report by Mr. Zelikow gives them new evidence to buttress their views about the C.I.A.’s actions and is likely to put new pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the matter. Mr. Zelikow served as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to the end of 2006.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. McLaughlin said that agency officials had always been candid with the commission, and that information from the C.I.A. proved central to their work.

“We weren’t playing games with them, and we weren’t holding anything back,” he said. The memorandum recounts a December 2003 meeting between Mr. Kean, Mr. Hamilton and George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence. At the meeting, it says, Mr. Hamilton told Mr. Tenet that the C.I.A. should provide all relevant documents “even if the commission had not specifically asked for them.”

According to the memorandum, Mr. Tenet responded by alluding to several documents that he thought would be helpful to the commission, but made no mention of existing videotapes of interrogations.

The memorandum does not draw any conclusions about whether the withholding of the videotapes was unlawful, but it notes that federal law penalizes anyone who “knowingly and willfully” withholds or “covers up” a “material fact” from a federal inquiry or makes “any materially false statement” to investigators.

Mark Mansfield, the C.I.A. spokesman, said that the agency had gone to “great lengths” to meet the commission’s requests, and that commission members had been provided with detailed information obtained from interrogations of agency detainees.

“Because it was thought the commission could ask about the tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active,” Mr. Mansfield said.

Intelligence officials have said the tapes that were destroyed documented hundreds of hours of interrogations during 2002 of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, two Qaeda suspects who were taken into C.I.A. custody that year.

According to the memorandum from Mr. Zelikow, the commission’s interest in obtaining accounts from Qaeda detainees in C.I.A. custody grew out of its attempt to reconstruct the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Its requests for documents from the C.I.A. began in June 2003, when it first sought intelligence reports describing information obtained from prisoner interrogations, the memorandum said. It later made specific requests for documents, reports and information related to the interrogations of specific prisoners, including Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Nashiri.

In December 2003, the commission staff sought permission to interview the prisoners themselves, but was permitted instead to give questions to C.I.A. interrogators, who then posed the questions to the detainees. The commission concluded its work in June 2004, and in its final report, it praised several agencies, including the C.I.A., for their assistance.

Abbe D. Lowell, a veteran Washington lawyer who has defended clients accused of making false statements and of contempt of Congress, said the question of whether the agency had broken the law by omitting mention of the videotapes was “pretty complex,” but said he “wouldn’t rule it out.”

Because the requests were not subpoenas issued by a court or Congress, C.I.A. officials could not be held in contempt for failing to respond fully, Mr. Lowell said. Apart from that, however, it is a crime to make a false statement "in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative or judicial branch."

The Sept. 11 commission received its authority from both the White House and Congress.

On Friday, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, asking them to preserve and produce to the committee all remaining video and audio recordings of “enhanced interrogations” of detainees in American custody.

Signed by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, the letter asked for an extensive search of the White House, C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies to determine whether any other recordings existed of interrogation techniques “including but not limited to waterboarding.”

Government officials have said that the videos destroyed in 2005 were the only recordings of interrogations made by C.I.A. operatives, although in September government lawyers notified a federal judge in Virginia that the agency had recently found three audio and video recordings of detainees.

Intelligence officials have said that those tapes were not made by the C.I.A., but by foreign intelligence services.
Immanuel Wallerstein


El director de Inteligencia Nacional de Estados Unidos publicó el 3 de diciembre una versión desclasificada de un informe conocido como National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), una evaluación nacional de inteligencia sobre Irán y las armas nucleares. El periódico The New York Times la llamó en un titular “reversión importante”. “Revirtió” una NIE realizada en 2005. Y dio la señal de un viraje en la política oficial de Estados Unidos. En 2005, la NIE “evaluó con gran confianza que Irán está decidido a desarrollar armas nucleares”. En 2007, la NIE “juzgó con gran confianza que en el otoño de 2003, Teherán puso un alto a su programa de armas nucleares”.

Casi todos los análisis públicos y de prensa de este informe suponen que la evaluación fue realizada por el director de Inteligencia Nacional y que está siendo leída por el gobierno de Bush y por el Congreso, quienes apenas ahora la toman en cuenta. Algunos incluso la llamaron “golpe de Estado” contra Bush y/o Cheney y los neoconservadores. No creo esta secuencia ni por un momento. Asumo que esta evaluación fue discutida previamente dentro del gobierno de Bush. Después de todo, se dice que el informe fue escrito hace como un año. Creo que este informe es el resultado de una discusión al interior del gobierno, que tomó la decisión con el conocimiento y la aprobación de George W. Bush para que el informe fuera dado a conocer al público. Este informe no conducirá a una reversión. Da señales de que la reversión ya ocurrió.

¿Qué podemos inferir de esto? Podemos inferir que el largo debate en curso entre la facción que favorece la acción militar inmediata contra Irán (Cheney y sus amigos, el gobierno israelí y sus amigos) ha perdido ante la facción, mucho más grande, que por varias razones piensa que esa acción militar no es sabia. No me sorprende el resultado, puesto que he estado argumentando por algún tiempo que la facción contraria a una acción bélica inmediata era mucho más fuerte dentro del gobierno estadunidense que la facción de Cheney, particularmente dado que la facción contraria a la guerra inmediata incluye al Estado Mayor Conjunto.

¿Qué ocurrirá ahora en relación con Irán? Probablemente no mucho. Rusia, China y Alemania ya arrastraban los pies con mucha obviedad en relación a las futuras sanciones contra Irán. Es muy poco probable que haya sanciones ulteriores, Irán ha persistido en su argumento de que tiene el derecho a continuar con el desarrollo de su programa de enriquecimiento de uranio, mientras que al mismo tiempo congela su programa de desarrollo de armas nucleares. Y continuará con esto por ahora.

El hecho básico que debemos siempre tener en cuenta es que el actual gobierno estadunidense tiene lleno su plato —mantiene su presencia en Irak, en Afganistán, y se preocupa acerca de la muy real posibilidad de que haya un quiebre del orden en Pakistán. Aun Bush puede darse cuenta que el posible desarrollo de armas nucleares por parte de Irán de aquí a 10 años no puede desplazar estas otras preocupaciones en el orden de prioridades.

Sin duda Estados Unidos buscará una fachada verbal de crítica contra Irán. Vean los comentarios públicos del presidente hacia el informe. La retórica es muy similar a la fachada verbal de favorecer la creación de un Estado palestino hacia finales de 2008. Pero nadie presta mucha atención –ni siquiera los candidatos presidenciales en Estados Unidos (de alguno de los dos partidos). Esas afirmaciones son sólo eso –fachadas verbales. Bush comienza a caer en una tendencia al fastidio de intentar salvar la cara mientras sobrevive lo que sin duda será su año más infeliz en el puesto.

Entretanto, todo el resto del mundo está pensando en lo que deberá hacer en Medio Oriente después de 2009, con la gran probabilidad de que un presidente demócrata asuma el cargo en Estados Unidos. Debería ser obvio para ellos que, por el momento, el único Estado estable en Medio Oriente es Irán. Por supuesto, Irán tiene sus conflictos internos y la facción de Ahmadinejad bien puede perder las próximas elecciones. Pero Irán –poder petrolero, poder de la Shía, poder militar y demográfico en la región– es un actor importante que debe tomarse en cuenta. Los países preferirán tener a Irán de su lado que en contra suya. Irán no va a desaparecer.

A lo largo de los años, Irán le ha hecho muchas ofertas a Estados Unidos de hacer un trato, proponiéndole trabajar juntos respecto de Irak y otros asuntos. Y el gobierno de Bush ni siquiera reconocía el gesto. Tal vez ahora sea muy tarde para que Estados Unidos haga un trato así –pero no es tarde para China o Rusia o aun Europa occidental. Tampoco es muy tarde para Pakistán o Arabia Saudita, dos países cuyo colapso desestabilizaría la región en modos que harían que el fiasco de Irak pareciera una molestia mediocre.

De hecho, en este punto siento que Condoleezza Rice y Robert Gates entienden mejor que Hillary Clinton o Barack Obama, pero tal vez no. En cualquier caso, tengo la sensación de que la evaluación de la NIE es una forma elegante de decir la doctrina Bush ¡requiescat in pace!

Traducción: Ramón Vera Herrera

© Immanuel Wallerstein



... Intelligence + Republicans = World Disaster.





- El sector de comunicaciones móviles en Oriente Medio: un terreno fértil para las oportunidades de inversión….
- La emiratí Ittissalat rebaja los precios de las llamadas celulares y permite el acceso gratuito al Internet inalámbrico durante las festividades

El mundo está a las puertas de una crisis de recesión

Un grupo de los mayores bancos centrales han acordado bombear unos 110 mil millones de dólares en los mercados debido a un creciente temor occidental de que la economía estadounidense entre en un ciclo de recesión, y ello con el objetivo de impulsar el crecimiento económico. Los analistas atribuyen esta medida al descenso en los créditos entre los mismos bancos luego que algunos de ellos han registrado grandes pérdidas en el mercado hipotecario de EE.UU., lo cual ha mermado la liquidez existente en esos bancos restándole así capacidad a dar créditos. Varios economistas estadounidenses prevén que el año 2007 marque el peor crecimiento en EE.UU. durante los últimos cinco años a causa del desmoronamiento del sector inmobiliario y debido a la crisis crediticia, estimando probable que esta pobre actuación se extienda al año 2008, donde la economía correría el riesgo de desmoronarse. Cabe destacar que han aumentado los temores en el mercado mundial de que la reducción de los créditos en EE.UU. provoque que la economía estadounidense entre en una recesión que se reflejaría también en la economía mundial.
El sector de comunicaciones móviles en Oriente Medio: un terreno fértil para las oportunidades de inversión….

El sector de comunicaciones en la zona de Oriente Medio presencia saltos importantes en períodos de tiempo récord, así los promedios de la diseminación de las comunicaciones móviles han llegado al 100% en varios países, asimismo la compañía Análisis para Investigaciones y Consultas –que tiene por sede al Reino Unido- ha estimado las ganancias del sector de comunicaciones móviles en la zona en unos 22 mil millones de dólares el pasado año, mientras que augura que crezca esta cifra en un 10% durante los próximos cinco años hasta llegar a 40 mil millones de dólares para finales del año 2012
La emiratí Ittissalat rebaja los precios de las llamadas celulares y permite el acceso gratuito al Internet inalámbrico durante las festividades

La institución emiratí de comunicaciones "Ittissalat" ha anunciado varias ofertas promocionales durante la fiesta del Día del Sacrificio, así anunció rebajas a la tarifa de llamadas internacionales hechas mediante teléfonos celulares y fijos a partir de las 9:00 horas de la noche del lunes 17 de diciembre y hasta las 7:00 horas de la mañana del sábado 22 del mismo. Ittissalat ha autorizado a todos sus clientes entrar gratuitamente a la red inalámbrica del Internet de alta velocidad en los sitios públicos a partir de la mañana del miércoles 19 de diciembre y hasta el final del domingo 22 del mismo en más de 250 sitios distribuidos a los lugares públicos. También ha anunciado rebajar las llamadas de celulares hacia Arabia Saudí de 2.12 derhemes a 99 centésimas el minuto.



... ¿Así o todavía más?

Migrant workers chained beaten and forced into debt, exposing the human cost of producing cheap food

By Leonard Doyle in Immokalee, Floride
Published: 19 December 2007

Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.

When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists swollen.

The migrants were not only forced to work in sub-human conditions but mistreated and forced into debt. They were locked up at night and had to pay for sub-standard food. If they took a shower with a garden hose or bucket, it cost them $5.

Their story of slavery and abuse in the fruit fields of sub-tropical Florida threatens to lift the lid on some appalling human rights abuses in America today.

Between December and May, Florida produces virtually the entire US crop of field-grown fresh tomatoes. Fruit picked here in the winter months ends up on the shelves of supermarkets and is also served in the country's top restaurants and in tens of thousands of fast-food outlets.

But conditions in the state's fruit-picking industry range from straightforward exploitation to forced labour. Tens of thousands of men, women and children – excluded from the protection of America's employment laws and banned from unionising – work their fingers to the bone for rates of pay which have hardly budged in 30 years.

Until now, even appeals from the former president Jimmy Carter to help raise the wages of fruit-pickers have gone unheeded. However, with Florida looming as a key battleground during the the next presidential election, there is hope that their cause will be raised by the Democratic candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Fruit-pickers, who typically earn about $200 (£100) a week, are part of an unregulated system designed to keep food prices low and the plates of America's overweight families piled high. The migrants, largely Hispanic and with many of them from Mexico, are the last wretched link in a long chain of exploitation and abuse. They are paid 45 cents (22p) for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes collected. A worker has to pick nearly two-and-a-half tons of tomatoes – a near impossibility – in order to reach minimum wage. So bad are their working and living conditions that the US Department of Labour, which is not known for its sympathy to the underdog, has called it "a labour force in considerable distress".

A week after the escapees managed to emerge from the van in which they had been locked up for the night, police discovered that a forced labour operation was supplying fruit-pickers to local growers. Court papers describe how migrant workers were forced into debt and beaten into going to work on farms in Florida, as well as in North and South Carolina. Detectives found another 11 men who were being kept against their will in the grounds of a Florida house shaded by palm trees. The bungalow stood abandoned this week, a Cadillac in the driveway alongside a black and chrome pick-up truck with a cowboy hat on the dashboard. The entire operation was being run by the Navarettes, a family well known in the area.

Also near by was the removals van from which Mariano Lucas, one of the first to escape, punched his way through a ventilation hatch to freedom in the early hours of 18 November. With him were Jose Velasquez, who had bruises on his face and ribs and a cut forearm, and Jose Hari. The men told police they had to relieve themselves inside the van. Other migrant workers were kept in other vehicles and sheds scattered around the garden.

Enslaved by the Navarettes for more than a year, the men had been working in blisteringly hot conditions, sometimes for seven days a week. Despite their hard work, they were mired in debt because of the punitive charges imposed by their employer, who is being held on minor charges while a grand jury investigates his alleged involvement in human trafficking.

The men had to pay to live in the back of vans and for food. Their entire pay cheques went to the Navarettes and they were still in debt. They slept in decrepit sheds and vehicles in a yard littered with rubbish. When one man did not want to go to work because he was sick, he was allegedly pushed and kicked by the Navarettes. "They physically loaded him in the van and made him go to work that day. Cesar, Geovanni and Martin Navarette beat him up and as a result he was bleeding in his mouth," a grand jury was told.

The complaint reveals that the men were forced to pay rent of $20 (£10) a week to sleep in a locked furniture van where they had no option but to urinate and defecate in a corner. They had to pay $50 a week for meals – mostly rice and beans with meat perhaps twice a week if they were lucky. The fruit-pickers' caravans, which they share with up to 15 other men, rent for $2,400 a month – more per square foot than a New York apartment – and are less than 10 minutes' walk from the hiring fair where the men show up before sunrise. At least half those who come looking for work are not taken on.

Florida has a long history of exploiting migrant workers. Farm labourers have no protection under US law and can be fired at will. Conditions have barely changed since 1960 when the journalist Edward R Murrow shocked Americans with Harvest Of Shame, a television broadcast about the bleak and underpaid lives of the workers who put food on their tables. "We used to own our slaves but now we just rent them," Murrow said, in a phrase that still resonates in Immokalee today.

For several years, a campaign has been under way to improve the workers' conditions. After years of talks, a scheme to pay the tomato pickers a penny extra per pound has been signed off by McDonald's, the world's biggest restaurant chain, and by Yum!, which owns 35,000 restaurants including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. But Burger King, which also buys its tomatoes in Immokalee, has so far refused to participate, threatening the entire scheme.

"We see no legal way of paying these workers," said Steve Grover, the vice-president of Burger King. He complained that a local human rights group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers "has gone after us because we are a known brand". But he added: "At the end of the day, we don't employ the farmworkers so how can we pay them?"

Burger King will not pay the extra penny a pound that the tomato-pickers are demanding he said. "If we agreed to the penny per pound, Burger King would pay about $250,000 annually, or $100 per worker. How does that solve exploitation and poverty?" he asked.

Burger King is not the only buyer digging in its heels. Whole Foods Market, which recently expanded into Britain with a store in London's upmarket suburb of Kensington, has been discovered stocking tomatoes from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop producers. Whole Foods ignored an appeal by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay an extra penny a pound for its tomatoes.

In a statement Whole Foods said it was "committed to supporting and promoting economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable agriculture" and supports "the right of all workers to be treated fairly and humanely."

The Democratic candidates for the presidency do not often talk about exploited migrant workers, but there are hints that Barack Obama will visit the Immokalee fruit pickers sometime before Florida's primary election on 5 February.

Jimmy Carter recently joined the campaign to improve the lot of fruit-pickers, appealing to Burger King and the growers "to restore the dignity of Florida's tomato industry". His appeal fell on deaf ears but 100 church groups, including the Catholic bishop of Miami, joined him.





By Leonard Doyle
Published: 19 December 2007

All her life Francisca Cortes has been on the move.

The daughter of a migrant fruit-picker, and a fruit-picker herself from childhood, she and her family travelled with the seasons from southern Florida to North and South Carolina, following the tomato, watermelon and orange crops ripening in the subtropical climate.

Now, at 25, she works full-time for the small human rights organisation, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). She broadcasts nightly on a community radio show, telling migrants about their rights and news of the CIW's campaign against exploitation.

"There are very few women who work in the fields and the work is extremely hard," she says. "First, you have to get up quite early – 4am, 5am – cook your lunch, go out to try your best to find work. The workday starts at dawn or before, but you don't get to the fields until maybe 7am, and even then you have to wait two hours for the dew to dry on the fruit before you can start picking."

Always fearful of the arrival of La Migra (as the immigration officers are known) and instant deportation, they are compliant and hardworking. There are also hundreds of thousands of migrant children working as hired hands in dangerous conditions on America's farms. They put in 12-hour days for little pay.

The tomato-pickers in Immokalee (it rhymes with broccoli) get a little ticket that has a 45-cent value for every bucket picked, she explains. "You have to run and pick quickly, the most that you possibly can. You must be bent over all day long. It starts to get even more difficult as the heat rises and grows stronger at work.

"You must run to throw each bucket up to the truck. This part is particularly difficult for women, because it all has to be done at top speed because you can't lose any time. You have to suffer thirst and just keep on working, because if you stop to go to the bathroom or drink water every once in a while, that is lost time. You don't leave the fields until 6 or 7 at night.

"You have to walk home to your trailer, and get in line to shower and cook because you have to share a trailer with 11 to 12 people. By then it's 10pm, and you have to sleep a few hours before getting up early again. And that's the way it is, seven days a week, you have to work. And you work a great deal to end up earning hardly anything."




... Canasta de CUENTOS MEXICANOS.

Friday, December 21, 2007


Avanzando por el carril izquierdo.



No seas demasiado justo,

ni seas sabio con exceso;

¿por qué habrás de destruirte?

Eclesiastés 7:16 (Casiodoro de Reina, 1569).







...

This empire “is as ruthless as any in history,” Perkins writes. “It has enslaved more people and its policies and actions have resulted in more deaths than those under the imperial regimes of Rome, Spain, Portugal, France, England and Holland or at the hands of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, and yet its crimes go almost unnoticed, disguised in the robes of eloquent rhetoric.”

“The Secret History of the American Empire” (John Perkins)




Dos semanas de cambiante tiempo en el sudeste Inglés. De temperamento inestable, fluctua entre incontenibles RAFAGAS de viento, lluviosas jornadas, frío insoportable, algunas veces, la neblina INVADE nuestro aliento y oculta los nocturnos ASTROS. Aún nos restan por resistir las próximas nevadas. Es cierto, el ambiente es helado, pero al menos seco; ¿deberíamos conformarnos y esperar tiempos mejores?




Pues bien, hace falta quizás la presentación oficial en sociedá, pero la terca realidad es ya inocultable. Inútiles son los esfuerzos que intentan esconder bajo la alfombra al pandémico desastre financiero. La primera etapa de la ya inminente debacle toca firmemente a la puerta; los más insensatos de nuestra casa se niegan a atender al llamado de aviso. Es demasiado tarde, tanquetas van a faltar para combatir esta TANGIBLE amenaza.




Desastres financieros, chinwentes. Eso me recuerda again que, o le aplico una terapia de choque a mi bolsillo o me lleva la huesuda. Pa’ acabarla de amolar las nenitas de mi pisito andan rete-preocuponas con los preparativos de la cena de nochebuena. Y pus, ahí tienen al m@rco que, como es taaan compartido, anda invitando a medio mundo, hasta parece zapato el bato. Poco importa que sea una celebración originalmente CRISTIANA, la navidá la vamos a festejar un grupito muy sui géneris. A ver cómo sale el experimento de lidiar con tipos de tan diferentes nacionalidades, tú.





Difícil explicarmelo porque suelo mezclar hasta lo más sencillo. Seguramente es que la Coreanita me acaba de platicar que una de sus cuatas planea visitar LA MADRE PATRIA, además de nuestros intentos por conbeber, sorry, convivir en armonía en nuestro pisito, que me llevan a un pasado no muy lejano en que me dió por visitar la región andaluza. En esa época yo me había reventado de cabo a RABO el libro “El Ascenso del Hombre (cuando una maldita salmonelosis casi me lleva al campoSANTO), y por ello decidí visitar en compañía de “la mujer maravilla” la ciudad de Córdoba. Ahí me enteré que de esa región no sólo han partido barbados mercenarios que son confundidos con deidades. Ahí también se dan Pilaricas preciosas, ¡ah, no!, allí también estuvieron a un pelito de lograr el Renacimiento, un crisol de civilizaciones en que judíos, cristianos y moros por igual, compartían e intercambiaban conocimiento; hasta que, gracias a la brillante idea de los de San Pedro, impusieron a Isabel y Fernando, y la travesía naufragó feamente.




¿Deveras tenemos esos problemas de identidad para no vislumbrar lo que nos conviene? ¿Apoco se nos escapa lo que nos jugábamos en la elección de 2006? ¿Neta que todo se reduce a una cuestión de membretes, etiquetas, colguijes, militancias o póngale el nombre que se le hinche asté? ¿Será que fuimos incapaces de entender la coyuntura en que nos jugábamos el país –con democracia de por medio- en una elección presidencial? ¿De verdad desconocíamos todos los “pecadillos” de los gobiernos opcionales, alternativos o emergentes? ¿Ignorábamos por completo los esquemas de re-ordenamiento del centro histórico de la mano del Libanés, o los “pequeños altercados” en Michoacán y Chiapas, o la aplicación de políticas al estilo del “Robocop” Giuliani?




¿Seguimos de obstinados, burros, necios, tercos protestando sin razón? ¿Será que es puro cuento que nos dieron GATO por liebre aquel 2 de Julio de 2006? ¿Apoco la vía electoral está agotada? ¿Y si le vamos dando cuello a la rémora llamada IFE, además de monitorear en forma ciudadana las elecciones? ¿No será que mientras construimos nuestro mundo feliz tenemos que aPECHUGAr manifestarnos dentro de los canales legales establecidos? Ya sabemos que es una necesidad cambiar el regimen, sobre todo después de las últimas rebajas de temporada navideña, que ofrecen PEMEX al que PUJE mejor. ¿Apoco “los cambios” son irreversibles e inmutables o chance y sean transitorios hasta que le encontremos el modito a la prieta?




Esta mañana que la PAM se despidió para gozar de su merecido “Xmas break” me recordaba a nuestro “camarada” Cubanito, porque él era de los que no suelen celebrar estos días. Y es que mención aparte de toda la carga ideológica, la situación está cañona en la isla. Este bato, que es fanático del Fidel a morir, aceptaba que no es de “enchílame otra” eso de resistir durante el período especial con un inhumano bloqueo económico a cuestas. Me comentaba el caribeño que el montón de restricciones tiene a los habitantes cubanos al borde de sus capacidades. Sin mucha de la “mítica” solidaridad Latinoamericana, el comandante tuvo que concentrar sus recursos en las conquistas de la revolución imprescindibles, que se cuentan entre los más avanzados del mundo, a saber: Salud y Educación.




El Caminito ya no lo sabemos de memoria, pero no vayan a resultar como un comp@ que andaba bien brioso después del fraude y resulto puro pájaro nalgón. Yo le comenté un día que teníamos que, por un momento, dejar de lado nuestros rencores para avanzar (de eso ya les escribí), porque nos iba el país de por medio, y el tiempo, que es más sabio que los magistrados que calificaron la elección, me dió la razón. Llegó un momento en que ya todos juntos habíamos construidos una red de estudiantes revoltosos en esta “isla”. Más yo le dije que estábamos incompletos, si no combinábamos lo que dizque hemos aprendido con la acción, con el compromiso social, pues. De hecho encontramos un montón de comp@s muy valiosos, que tenían unas ideotas que hacen PALIdecer a las del marc@, pero parece que LA GASOLINA le duró poco a mi “cuate”. El chiste es que el camarada se derrumbaba justo antes de alcanzar el éxito. Eso no sirve comp@s. Nuestra transformación tiene que llevarse a cabo con lo mejor de nuestros “miembros”, pero por consenso, please; las imposiciones no van a funcionar a LA LARGA.




¿Estoy medio paranoico o es que los “países desarollados” se están cargando a lo diestro y Latinoamérica a la siniestra? En la parte sur de Corea ganó “el Bulldozer”, ex CEO de la Hyundai, y ya habíamos experimentado las victorias de la Merker y el Sarkozi, entre otros; ¿le sacatean a perder sus “privilegios”, mis estimados? Mientras en Latinoamerica, los regimenes izquierdosos tomaron el control del agua, crearon una nueva constitución, ya dijimos que tienen a la vanguardia a la salud y la educación, están creciendo a tasas que sólo superan China y la India. Miren astedes, ya se los dijo uno de mis mayestros (de los wenos, esos no tienen mansiones en las bahías Californianas), con el control de los recursos naturales la hacemos. Ya saben combinar conocimiento y acción. Si nos aplicamos hasta el EXPRESSO POLAR que viene rompiendo caña nos va a hacer los meros mandados. AL TIEMPO.




M@rcaminito;

Norwich, G(ran) B(arril de petróleo);

22/12/07




... LIFE is our most important ASSET.




P.D.PLAN_MERIDA. “…me gusta MARIHUANA, me gustas TU/me gusta COLOMBIANA, me gustas TU…” – Me gustas TU (Manú Chao).




P.D.AMISTOSA. “…Prepare yourself, you know it a must/gotta have a friend named JESUS…” – SPIRIT in the SKY (DOCTOR and the Medics).

.




PREGUNTAS SIN RESPUESTA:

Después de que han colocado al “Comandante” en la lista de Forbes, y que el Vlad tiene su guardadito ahorro. ¿El siguiente de la lista de potentados de clase mundial es Sudamericano?




PILONA ESPERANZADORA:

Levantando la vista Diego Sauri perdió los ojos en la contemplación de su mujer, mientras se dejaba regañar por ella que saltó sin más de la luna a reprocharle su apego a los periódicos. Porque sólo era culpa de los periódicos, la iba oyendo decirle, a los que dedicaba buena parte de su vida, que él llevaba tres días sin escucharla y por la cabeza mareada contra la nueva reelección del presidente de la república. El dictador tenía siete años de mandar cuando Diego empezó a repetir que no podía quedarse ahí mucho tiempo más, y desde entonces otros nueve se habían amontonado sin que Josefa tuviera más aviso de su caída que la ilusión con que su marido se dedicaba a preverla.

“Mal de Amores”. Angeles Mastretta. Editorial Punto de Lectura. México. 1996.




ENCORE BELICO:




Thursday, December 20, 2007

6pm update


* Ashley Seager and Angela Balakrishnan
* Guardian Unlimited,
* Thursday December 20 2007

A gloomy Christmas looked in store for Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling after data today showed Britain suffered a record budget deficit last month and the highest ever balance of payments deficit in the third quarter.

The figures, which came on top of poor retail sales figures and a run of weak data on the housing market, suggested that Britain could be in for a prolonged economic slowdown for the first time in more than a decade.

They also appeared to contradict an upbeat assessment of the economy by the prime minister and his chancellor this week when they said that Britain was well placed to weather the global financial instability, despite the Northern Rock crisis.

The Office for National Statistics reported that the public finances suffered a shortfall of spending over receipts of £9.1bn last month on the current budget measure, which excludes investment spending.

That was nearly £2bn worse than last November's figure in spite of strong economic growth over the past 12 months and means that for the first eight months of the year, the government suffered a deficit of £23.1bn. Both the monthly and cumulative figures were the worst since monthly records began in 1993.

On the wider public borrowing (PSNB) measure, there was a shortfall of £11.2bn in November and £36.2bn in the year to date, also record highs. The figures suggest Darling will overshoot his public borrowing forecast of £38bn by about another £5bn.

There was also grim news for Darling as the country suffered a balance of payments shortfall of £20bn in the third quarter of the year, equivalent to 5.7% of national income. Both were records and largely due to a worsening trade gap and a wider deficit in investment income between Britain and other countries.

The goods trade deficit ballooned to £22.6bn in the July to September period, the highest since quarterly records began in 1955, leading to the biggest drag on economic growth recorded since the second quarter of 1995.

The deepening hole in the public finances was due to central government continuing to spend faster than tax revenues which had been hit by falling profits and bonuses in the City of London, a significant generator of income for the Treasury. Independent experts said the public finances were in a bad state considering how strong the economy has been in recent years.

John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "While there is still time for the Treasury to limit the damage by tightening the spending taps in the last four months of the year, much will depend on the tax take in the key month of January. However, the City bonuses and profits that boosted January tax receipts for the last few years may be less healthy in 2008 as the effects of the credit crunch make themselves felt."

Peter Spencer, economic adviser to Ernst & Young's Item Club consultancy, said years of profligacy from the government were taking their toll. "What is really shocking about these figures is that they reveal that the Exchequer was running a large current deficit before the credit crisis hit home, when the economy was doing very well and it should have been showing a large current surplus. Now, the economy is slowing sharply and the public finances will deteriorate equally rapidly."

Conservative shadow treasury minister Philip Hammond, said: "This is Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's Christmas present to the British economy. They borrowed in a boom, so they've got little room for manoeuvre now things are getting tougher. Borrowing costs money and hard-pressed families will be left to pick up the pieces through more stealth taxes and falling take-home pay."

"This morning's flurry of UK data paints a worrying picture of a dangerously unbalanced economy," said Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics.

"Overall, a pretty ugly picture, supporting our view that the coming economic slowdown will be a prolonged period of adjustment rather than a short pause for breath like that seen in 2005."





2pm



* Patrick Collinson
* Guardian Unlimited,
* Thursday December 20 2007

The global credit crunch claimed another victim today as Friends Provident suspended withdrawals from its £1.2bn property fund, prompting fears that billions of pounds held in unit trusts are now under threat.

The insurance group said that investors in the fund, numbering in total 118,000 people, will not be able to access their money for up to six months. It blamed the suspension on a "general sharp decline" in the commercial property market "brought about by the credit crunch".

The fund invests in office blocks and retail developments and usually holds a cash 'buffer' of around 10-15% of total assets to meet demands for withdrawals. But it said this morning that the cash buffer had fallen to 5% following a wave of redemptions, giving the company little choice but to suspend the fund.

Spokesman Jim Murdoch said the only alternative would have been a "firesale" of the fund's property investments which would be against the interests of policyholders.

Fears are now growing of a domino effect among other property funds as investors seek to withdraw their cash. The UK's biggest property fund, run by Norwich Union, revealed last week that its cash buffer has fallen to 7.5% but said this morning that trading is continuing as normal and that it is meeting requests for redemptions.

Around £15bn is invested in property unit trusts, with much of the money pouring in during 2006. Billions more are invested through pension funds held by millions of company employees.

The credit crunch has raised borrowing costs, making many debt-financed property deals no longer attractive. Fears are also growing that financial institutions hit by the credit crunch will axe employee numbers, reducing tenant demand in the crucial City office market in which most of the UK's property funds are invested. A downturn in consumer spending growth is also making retail shopping developments less attractive to investors.

The Financial Services Authority said today that it is closely monitoring the situation. "We are discussing the issue with the industry as a whole and individual funds are also talking to us," said a spokesman.

Friends Provident added: "No one wants to be the first to do this, but we have a duty to look after all of our policyholders and felt that this was the only way forward.

"We are the first, it happens to be us, but this is a problem across the industry ... we are advising financial advisers and benefit consultants and we will be writing to all customers with investments in the property fund."



... ¡Sálvese quien pueda!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

3.15pm



* Andrew Clark
* Guardian Unlimited,
* Wednesday December 19 2007

The investment bank Morgan Stanley has blamed the errant actions of a single trading team for losses of $9.4bn (£4.68bn) on the global credit crunch – a figure which prompted an apology from its chief executive.

Liabilities on mortgage-related securities pushed the Wall Street firm into the red for the first time in its 72-year history with a fourth-quarter loss of $3.58bn, although a $5bn investment from a Chinese investment firm bolstered its finances today.

The size of the write-off took analysts by surprise. In October, the bank had revealed a mortgage-related deficit of just $3.7bn. It will add to pressure on Morgan Stanley's boss, John Mack, who took responsibility for the debacle and announced that he was giving up his bonus.

"The writedown Morgan Stanley took this quarter is deeply disappointing – to me, to our colleagues, to our board and to our shareholders," said Mr Mack. "Ultimately, accountability for our results rests with me, and I believe in pay for performance, so I've told our compensation committee that I will not accept a bonus for 2007."

For the full year, Morgan Stanley's profits were down by 57% to $3.2bn. Investment banking revenues rose by 31% to $5.5bn and equity sales were up 38% to $8.7bn, although earnings from fixed-income trading were wiped out by mortgage losses.

The outcome is particularly galling for Morgan Stanley because it spotted early signs of the looming sub-prime mortgage crisis and took steps to hedge its trading positions to protect itself against financial damage.

But poor execution allowed these hedges to fall away – a failure which prompted internal soul-searching and the recent departure of the bank's co-president, Zoe Cruz.

In a boost for Morgan Stanley's capital position, the China Investment Corporation is paying $5bn for an estimated stake of 9.9%. The deal is the second large foreign infusion of cash into Wall Street in recent months, coming hot on the heels of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's purchase of a $7.5bn stake in Citigroup.

Morgan Stanley emphasised that it had appointed new leadership for its trading division and that it had stepped up risk monitoring to prevent a repetition of the mortgage-related losses.

"These isolated losses by a small trading team in one part of the firm should not overshadow the momentum we see in virtually all of our other businesses," said Mr Mack.




On Europe


Gordon Brown, at his first EU summit, made much of the radical change of direction Europe was taking: away from institutional navel-gazing, onward and upward to the real environmental, security and economic issues - "the big challenges everyone knows we have to face," as he put it at his post-summit press conference.

But did the 27 leaders discuss the financial turmoil taking place outside - the extraordinary central bank intervention that Brown said pointed the way to greater global co-ordination, the $10bn write-downs at UBS that saw a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund become the Swiss bank's biggest shareholder, the biggest housing market collapse in the US in two decades and fears it would spread here?

"Non," said Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, in an adjoining briefing room. "Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and I took initiatives a few weeks ago to demand greater transparency and we are thinking about other initiatives."

And that, mesdames et messieurs, was that. No reassuring - or warning - words to homeowners, employees, investors, the very citizens with whom the EU, collectively the world's biggest economy, wants to re-connect.

In the final communiqué, towards the end and drafted by senior officials weeks ago, there was, after all, a nodding reference. It spoke of "improving transparency for investors, markets and regulators, improving valuation standards, improving the prudential framework, risk management and supervision in the financial sector as well as reviewing the functioning of financial markets, including the role of credit agencies".

In other words, what we said two months ago.

And, then, the ultimate giveaway of aloofness from the genuine fears and anxieties of the 500 million citizens: the summit "will come back to these issues at its Spring 2008 meeting on the basis of a progress report".

Come back in three months and we may have something to say - or simply call for a further progress report.

Nobody expects definitive conclusions on how to recalibrate and refine financial markets supervision within a few weeks when these have to be debated and agreed with regulators and administrators across the global economy. But these mandarin phrases underline how much the EU's political life is set by a pre-determined agenda drafted within and for the benefit of the institutions that make it up.

The European economy may prove robust enough to withstand the credit crunch in the coming months - though opinions on that differ sharply - but the 27 heads of state and government might have awakened public attention if they had broken out of their institutional cocoon and addressed the most pressing issue for their voters: how real is the threat that the current and burgeoning turmoil poses to people's jobs and prosperity?

Some things don't change - at least on the surface

The Singaporean investment in UBS, accompanied by a smaller participation from an unnamed, probably Gulf-based investor, is not unique in mainland Europe where Kuwait holds 7% of car-maker Daimler and Dubai 2.2% of Deutsche Bank.

Fascinating research this week from Handelsblatt, the German financial daily, shows that overseas investors now own 53% of Germany's top 30 firms listed in the Dax - compared with a third just five years ago.

This, German commentators say, finally nails the myth - or goal - of Deutschland AG (Germany plc): the complex web of cross-holdings by banks and industrial groups in each other, designed to protect the country's corporate base from foreign takeover. It also illustrates how Germany has seized the opportunities of globalisation in a manner unmatched by its eurozone partners.

The research shows that non-Germans own 84% of Deutsche Börse, 79% of Adidas and 78% of Bayer while the Dax companies are achieving 68% of their sales overseas compared with just 30% two decades ago.

Foreign investors, the authors say, are attracted by record corporate earnings - up more than in the rest of Europe and the US - and the export performance of German companies, especially in the capital goods sector.

But some things don't change - at least on the surface. Germany's regional banks, the publicly-owned Landesbanken, are fighting for survival and turning to the shelter of each other's arms. Last week the biggest, LBBW (of Baden-Württemberg), finally agreed the terms of its takeover of SachsenLB, the only east German one, based in Leipzig, and overstretched to the point of near-bankruptcy by the sub-prime crisis. (Its exposure is €43bn).

At the same time, WestLB, suffering from a scandal at its proprietary trading desk, spurned LBBW's advances and instead opened the prospect of a merger with Helaba, the Hessen and Thuringia version. The merger with LBBW would have created Germany's second-biggest bank, by balance sheet, after Deutsche.

The alternative deal not only preserves Düsseldorf as an important banking centre alongside Frankfurt but is seen as opening the way to attracting business from medium-sized firms and to widening the customer base.

It is, of course, an all-German solution but WestLB says that shareholders - government and savings banks - are open to financial investors. But who might be interested given the ferocity with which the so-called Landesfürsten (state princes or premiers) defend the "interests" of their home state from the clutches of foreigners?

New York grill

Peter Löscher, the Austrian brought in to revitalise (and cleanse) Siemens, Europe's biggest technology group, is having a torrid time. This week he, Gerhard von Cromme, supervisory board chairman, and Peter Solmssen, head of compliance, went to New York for a grilling by the market regulator, SEC, over Siemens' corruption scandal.

The scandal, that has cost Siemens €1.5bn so far, according to Der Spiegel, simply won't go away despite Löscher's efforts to make a fresh, clean start. Nigeria, that beacon of anti-corruption, has banned the group from bidding for public contracts because of previous bribes and Norway, a genuine oasis of Nordic uprightness, has reacted similarly because its defence ministry was overcharged in the past. And a report in the Süd-deutsche Zeitung claims that auditors KPMG have told Munich prosecutors investigating the worldwide scandal that dubious payments made via a Swiss subsidiary last year were hushed up by the group.

Löscher must be praying over Christmas and new year that he and his colleagues succeeded in persuading the SEC of their genuine efforts to expurgate the past, renew management, pursue recidivists and be squeaky clean in future. Otherwise, the NYC regulator could impose the heaviest fine in its history - and one that runs into billions of euros, eating into Siemens's record earnings and improved margins. History can be relentlessly unforgiving.




... It's official.





AFP

Su sede principal, reconstruida en el siglo XVII, se encuentra en el Barrio Latino, llamado así desde la Edad Media por la cantidad de estudiantes y clérigos que hablaban latín, lengua oficial hasta 1793.

París. Orgullosa de su sede abierta hace un año en los Emiratos Arabes Unidos, la parisiense Universidad de la Sorbona, fundada como una escuela de teología en la Edad Media, celebra en este diciembre sus 750 años, buscando ser competitiva "en el mercado mundial del saber".

Como un símbolo de los grandes cambios que ha experimentado este claustro, creado en 1257 por Robert de Sorbonne, capellán y confesor del rey San Luis, la Sorbona otorgó el doctorado honoris causa a la escritora estadunidense Toni Morrison, ganadora en 1993 del Premio Nobel por su obra, que describe la miseria de los descendientes de esclavos africanos en Estados Unidos.

Durante sus primeros siglos, el poder de los religiosos de la Sorbona en la formación de la elite del reino fue muy fuerte, y así en 1532 persiguieron al escritor François Rabelais y prohibieron su célebre Pantagruel.
Como lo recordó la ministra de Educación de Francia, Valerie Pécresse, en el álbum publicado para celebrar los 750 años, "la Sorbona asistió sucesivamente, y siempre con retraso, al nacimiento de la ciencia moderna y al fantástico triunfo de la filosofía del siglo de las Luces", burlándose de René Descartes, despreciando al naturalista Georges Buffon y condenando a Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

La escuela de teología sería clausurada durante la Revolución Francesa y en 1808 Napoléon Bonaparte donó sus edificios a la universidad de París.

En 1906 la física francesa de origen polaco Marie Curie se convirtió en la primera mujer en ser profesora en la Sorbona.

Su sede principal, reconstruida en el siglo XVII por orden del cardenal duque de Richelieu, se encuentra en el Barrio Latino, llamado así desde la Edad Media por la gran cantidad de estudiantes y clérigos que hablaban latín, lengua oficial hasta 1793.

La tradición universitaria sigue muy viva en sus alrededores, foco de las célebres revueltas estudiantiles de mayo de 1968.

El nacimiento de la Sorbona contemporánea y pluridisciplinaria, con la separación de la enseñanza de las ciencias y las humanidades, surgió después de esa crisis del 68.

Se crearon entonces nueve universidades, llamándose Panteón-Sorbona-París IV la que funciona en la antigua sede, donde se estudian las llamadas ciencias humanas: letras, idiomas, filosofía, sociología, historia, arqueología, historia del arte, musicología, información y comunicación.

Desde esa época, y en contraste con la Universidad de París III, llamada la Nueva Sorbona, fundada por los literatos y lingüistas de la facultad de letras más comprometida con la rebelión estudiantil, la vieja Alma Mater tiene fama de ser tradicionalista, arcaica y reaccionaria, pero en la actualidad intenta estar más atenta a las nuevas corrientes del pensamiento.

El conjunto de universidades agrupadas bajo la etiqueta "París-Sorbona" cuenta con 23 mil 500 estudiantes (14 mil en licenciatura, 7 mil en maestría y 2 mil 500 en doctorado), de los cuales 4 mil son extranjeros. La ministra de Educación recordó que Francia pretende alcanzar el objetivo que se fijó en 2000: lograr que cada año 50% de sus jóvenes llegue a obtener un diploma en la educación superior "ya que la elevación del nivel global de la cualificación de los franceses es decisiva en la economía mundial del conocimiento".

El año 2006, según Jean-Robert Pitte, presidente de la Sorbona, es una fecha importante en la historia de la universidad gracias a la apertura de una sede en Abu Dhabi, a petición del gobierno de este emirato miembro de la Federación de Emiratos Arabes Unidos.

Estudiantes de una treinta nacionalidades del Cercano y Medio Oriente siguen en francés cursos "rigurosamente idénticos" a los del alma mater parisiense.



... a proxy PhD.



From The Times
December 14, 2007


Bojan Pancevski in Vienna

Aspiring beauty queens and glamour models have been lured into prostitution by an international gang whose clientele included politicians and wealthy businessmen, Austrian police said yesterday.

Call girls, some under the age of 18, allegedly met clients in locations ranging from five-star hotels in New York to yachts on the Côte d’Azur, charging €10,000 (£7,189) a night.

The operation was allegedly managed from a modest home in the Austrian village of Waidhofen an der Thaya by a 44-year-old woman, Cornelia Suess.

She allegedly used a beauty contest booking agency as a cover for her operation, enticing women from Eastern Europe and countries such as Venezuela and Lebanon to Austria with the promise of modelling contracts and pageants in European locations.

Ms Suess and 18 other people were arrested after a year-long covert operation involving police in Austria, France and the Czech Republic. They face charges of people-trafficking and money laundering.

Colonel Gerhard Joszt, of the Austrian Federal Criminal Investigation Bureau, said: “The organisation used an exclusive hotel in New York and a luxury yacht docked near the Côte d’Azur as showrooms where young women would be presented to rich customers, including politicians, top businessmen and members of the international gentry. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were also allegedly one of their best markets.

“All of the customers were very, very rich and influential and we are now gathering evidence to raise charges against some of them.”

The agency would allegedly approach models, who apparently included two former national beauty queens, who were then hired on fake fashion shooting contracts and delivered to yachts, hotels or private villas, where middlemen would take away their passports and force them to have sex with clients.

“Some of the victims, all of whom were handpicked as especially attractive and well educated, would be intimidated into offering their sexual services, and some of them would be forced with violence. We are now questioning them and the evidence they have thus far provided is certain to lead to more arrests,” Colonel Joszt said.

A police spokesperson also said that Arab sheikhs were among the clients and that the former beauty queens were lured to Paris and “beaten into submission and tyrannised” until they agreed to provide sexual services.

The names of the alleged clients cannot be revealed because the investigation is continuing, but Colonel Joszt told The Times that many of them were “very prominent and known to the world public”.

He could not confirm whether any of them were Britons.

The investigating authorities are studying recordings of tapped telephone conversations, as well as bank transactions.

Ms Suess, who denies the accusations, has a string of previous convictions for prostitution-related offences, the police said. She was arrested in the late 1990s in Monaco for delivering young women to a nephew of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and sentenced to three years in prison in 2001.

Ms Suess has been involved in the Queen of the World contest since 2005.

More than 100,000 women in the European Union become victims of human trafficking every year, some of whom are being forced into hard work, crime or prostitution, according to a report by the European Parliament.



From The Times
October 20, 2007


When Sandra was 16 she went to a party near her home in Lithuania, where she was warned her that if she did not go to England she and her family would be hurt.

She was told that she was being sent to work abroad but had no idea that she would be forced into prostitution, entertaining up to 20 men a day in London and Birmingham.

She was put on to a coach with an escort, to make sure that she did not escape, and endured a “fraught” journey to Poland. After a 27-hour trip via Germany, she arrived in Britain, where she was met at a café near Paddington Station by Virginijus Suchodolskis, who was sentenced yesterday. He told her that he owned her and she was forced to work at brothels in West London owned by Edward Hui, a waiter.

At times she was given cocaine to make her more compliant. When she told her “owners” that she wanted to leave she was warned that her legs would be cut off and she was beaten.

On October 28 last year Sandra (not her real name) mustered the courage to escape and went to the police about the organisation that had forced her from her family and into prostitution.




... Bangkok.

Russia’s president beats out Al Gore, J.K. Rowling, other big names for title

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 8:29 a.m. ET Dec. 19, 2007

Eighteen years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev was named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year for leading the political revolution that tore down the Iron Curtain and broke apart the Soviet Union. This year, Vladimir Putin, the man who restored Russia to a leading role on the world stage, has taken that title.

The highly anticipated announcement was made live on Wednesday on TODAY by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel. He said that TIME’s readers had chosen author J.K. Rowling first in an online poll.

But Putin won the title for taking Russia from chaos to a position of importance in the world today. Being TIME’s Person of the Year is not necessarily an honor, in Putin’s case.

Stengel characterized Putin as dynamic but dangerous. “He doesn’t care about civil liberties, he doesn’t care about free speech. He was very bitter about the way Americans look at him and the way Americans’ treat him. He is an angry, angry man,” Stengel said.

Stengel said one thing that makes Putin extraordinary is that he is not interested in making people like him. “He has no charm,” Stengel said. “He is just pure force and pure force of will.”

TIME’s editors chose the controversial Putin over a list of candidates that included former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Prize for his battle against global warming; Rowling, who published the seventh and final chapter of her Harry Potter series; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the confrontational president of Iran; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Apple CEO Steve Jobs; Gen. David Petraeus, leader of the Iraq surge; and Chinese leader Hu Jintao.

Putin is the fourth Russian leader to be chosen Person of the Year. Joseph Stalin was named twice, in 1939 for signing the alliance that opened the doors for Hitler’s war on Europe and in 1942 for joining the Allies in World War II. In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader at the height of the Cold War, won for leading the effort to put the first satellite in space. And in 1989, Gorbachev was on the cover for ending the Cold War.

Putin, who restored Russian pride and made Russia matter again, is the first non-American since Pope John Paul II in 1994 to be on the cover. Last year, the Person of the Year was “You,” the millions of people who have made the Internet a vital force of communication and culture.

Stengel said that Gore finished second in the opinion of the editors, with Rowling third, Hu Jintao fourth and Petraeus fifth. It was the first time the magazine ranked the runners-up.

Voters online chose Rowling first, Gore second, Ahmadinejad third, Rice fourth, Jobs fifth, Petraeus sixth and Putin a distant seventh.

But the Person of the Year isn’t a popularity contest. “We all grew up with Russia as this great superpower and rival to the U.S.,” said Stengel. “But in the ’90s, Russia was a basket case.”

Putin changed that, restoring political order — at the cost of civil liberties, his critics say — and world influence. With vast oil wealth and a 2,000-mile border with China, Stengel said, “Russia is really critical to the future of the 21st century.”


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22322214#22322214

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/18574316#18574316

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/13824570#13824570





Bajo la Lupa

Alfredo Jalife-Rahme


Cuando EU fue derrotado en la guerra de Vietnam pudo reposicionarse mediante dos magistrales jugadas geoestratégicas en la década de los 70 y los 80: uno, la alianza de la dupla de EU en la etapa del dúo Nixon-Kissinger, con la China de Mao-Tse-Tung (que pocos años más tarde abrió la puerta de la globalización económica al mandarín Deng-Xiao-Peng) contra la URSS; y el mayor engaño de la humanidad: la Guerra de las Galaxias, técnicamente conocida como Iniciativa de Defensa Estratégica (SDI, por sus siglas en inglés) del presidente Reagan, que se tragaron en forma cándida los estrategas de la extinta URSS (ver Bajo La Lupa, “Duopolio sino-ruso frente a EU: la sombra de Ogarkov”, 14/8/07; y “Guerra de las galaxias: China desafía a EU”, 28/1/07).

Es nuestra hipótesis que la catastrófica derrota de EU en las arenas movedizas de Mesopotamia lo obligan a elevar la puja en el espacio sideral con medios militares para aplicar su prodigiosa tecnología mediante la cual intentará recuperarse de sus múltiples debacles en la etapa aciaga del régimen torturador bushiano.

Una de sus panoplias principales se formula mediante su provocación universal que pretende colocar su sistema nacional misilístico-antibalístico en suelo europeo como preámbulo para desplegar la captura del espacio sideral en forma unilateral y dejar sembrados en tierra y mares a sus principales rivales geoeconómicos euroasiáticos del RIC (Rusia, India y China).

Si la ex URSS en la etapa absurda de Andropov-Ogarkov, frente al montaje hollywoodense de la Guerra de las Galaxias, será muy difícil que la dupla geoenergética muy exitosa de Putin-Medvedev en la fase de la muy triunfal Gazpromcracia (ver Bajo la Lupa 16/12/07) emule a sus derrotistas antecesores.

Todo lo contrario: el zar geoenergético global Vlady Putin ha recurrido a todos los medios diplomáticos y a una serie de medidas militares geoestratégicas contra-ofensivas para contrarrestar la nueva puja tecnológica unilateral de parte del régimen torturador bushiano, que intenta adueñarse del espacio sideral mediante su nuevo despliegue bélico, la “miniguerra de las galaxias”, es decir, su Sistema Nacional Misilístico Antibalístico que involucra a Polonia y a la República Checa, dizque para defenderse de los lejanos misiles chiítas iraníes: un vulgar cuento texano que no piensa deglutir la dupla geoenergética Putin-Medvedev, lo cual ha reincendiado los rescoldos separatistas desde los Balcanes hasta el Cáucaso.

La realización de las intenciones de EU en el área de la desregulada militarización unilateral en el espacio sideral puede llevar a un cambio radical e irreversible del equilibrio estratégico bélico internacional en la geoestrategia en favor de Washington.

Para conseguir su propósito, el complejo militar industrial estadunidense promueve activamente la colocación de armamentos letales en el espacio sideral.

La desregulada militarización unilateral del régimen torturador bushiano del espacio sideral, cerca de la Tierra, permitirá a EU llevar a cabo la creación del Sistema Nacional Misilístico Antibalístico, con el fin de prevalecer la única potencia en el espacio y garantizar la supremacía estadunidense en el área tecnológica.

El libre acceso al espacio sideral constituye una condición importante para el progreso técnico-científico con la consecuencia de su aplicación comercial que genera importantes dividendos. Así las cosas, es muy probable que la desregulada militarización unilateral del espacio sideral servirá al régimen torturador bushiano como un instrumento importante de la más elevada estrategia para la contención de sus adversarios geoeconómicos actuales (el BRIC: Brasil, Rusia, India y China).

En las condiciones actuales, el régimen torturador bushiano se obstina en impedir la prohibición internacional total sobre sistemas de defensa antimisiles colocados unilateralmente en el espacio sideral.

Una concreción de acuerdos internacionales en la materia por mínimo que fuese desembocaría inevitablemente en una cierta limitación del acceso irrestricto a las actividades estadunidenses en el espacio sideral que colisionaría con sus intereses egoístas.

De ahí se deriva que algunas restricciones de actividades estadunidenses en el espacio sideral, determinadas por los acuerdos internacionales sobre el control de los armamentos, serían “extremadamente peligrosas (¡súper sic!)”, desde el punto de vista de los intereses nacionales de EU.

El Tratado del Espacio Sideral representa el contexto de referencia legal internacional que prohíbe a sus firmantes colocar armas nucleares o cualquier otro tipo de armamento de destrucción masiva en la órbita terrestre, instalarlas en la Luna o en cualquier otro cuerpo celeste, o bien estacionarlas bajo cualquier propósito seudopacifista, así como ejercer maniobras militares o establecer bases y fortificaciones bélicas.

Sin embargo, el tratado no deroga expresamente la colocación de tecnologías de uso dual (tanto civil como militar), tal como los rastreos láser, pero prohíbe explícitamente a cualquier gobierno el reclamo de propiedad de cualquier recurso celeste como la Luna u otros planetas, ya que ambos son patrimonio de la humanidad y no están sujetos a ninguna enajenación catastral ni a ninguna soberanía en particular.

Pese a su hipócrita condena de los ensayos chinos en el espacio sideral, el régimen torturador bushiano prosigue la misma conducta con la instrumentación de sistemas semejantes.

El Pentágono acaba de publicar una considerable cantidad de documentos doctrinarios, donde el foco de atención del espacio sideral se centra en la realización de actividades bélicas. Entre tales documentos doctrinarios destaca el Plan del Pentágono para Controlar el Espacio Sideral (Noah Shachtman.com, 27/1/07), según el cual uno de los caminos principales para la solución del conjunto de tareas consiste en asegurar el funcionamiento perfecto de la infraestructura cósmica estadunidenseal unísono del control total del espacio sideral cerca de la Tierra y de los objetos en órbita, así como la implementación de sistemas militares para poner fuera de funcionamiento total o temporal los aparatos enemigos.

A la fecha, por fortuna todavía no se encuentra ningún tipo de armamento en el espacio sideral. Quedan bien claros los fines aviesos del régimen torturador bushiano y el “peligro” verdadero que provoca su implementación que flagelan los genuinos intereses de la humanidad en la biosfera.

EU se ha caracterizado por votar cada año en contra de las propuestas que restringen la desregulada militarización unilateral del espacio sideral.

El óptimo abordaje para el beneficio del bien común en la biosfera consiste en concretar acuerdos internacionales, donde figuren no solamente las grandes potencias militares (v.gr. aquellas que desean participar en la carrera armamentista del espacio), sino también que incluya la supervisión ciudadana global.



... el COMETA.