News of the Restless

...with a lengthy piece on the parapolitical murders in Colombia.

Too bad I beat him to the punch. More than once, I might add.

And even worse, he still doesn't connect all this to Alvaro Uribe, let alone Washington. The most he'll say is that the paras were "often working closely with army units". Under whose command, Juan? Spit it out. Oh come on, spit it...

Oh, fuck it. He says it's the Colombian government exhuming the bodies. I guess that somehow makes them heroes now. As if all the language about the Uribe administration being "feted from Washington to Paris for its recent success against Marxist guerrillas" weren't enough to give Forero's true sympathies away.

Possums, don't hold your breath waiting for Juan to connect any dots here. You might end up dead for real.

Meanwhile, Hugh Bronstein of Reuters gets a little closer to it, but he too shrinks away from naming Uribe's real, much deeper connections to the drug/parapolitics scandal. At most, all he'll mention is Uribe's creepy-ass cousin. He has yet to peruse Virginia Vallejo's book, I see.

Oh, and Bronstein sticks in a "Bogota-based analyst" taking dig at Venezuela there, too, claiming it has "problems with drug-trafficking and kidnapping". Damn right it does--it sits right next to Colombia. And since the border's not sealed and Chavecito would only take flak from Washington if he tried to control it, well...I think you can connect the dots, yes?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:32 PM | Permalink

You don't say!...Well, actually, Bolivian news agency ABI does say, and so do I, translating:

The prefect of Santa Cruz, Ruben Costas, secretly met on Monday with the US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg. The meeting comes nine days after Costas's radical speech, in which he insulted President Evo Morales and announced a series of measures that skirt the edges of the constitution.

Although there was no official mention of what the two discussed, the meeting occurred amid the beginning of the measures with which Costas and his colleagues of the so-called "Media Luna" region sought to put pressure on the Morales government, which was ratified with two-thirds of the popular vote at the polls (67.4%).

According to a report by the Gigavision network, the encounter took place in the Prefectural Palace, a location where the press was barred from entering.

The TV report informed that the Costas-Goldberg meeting went on for at least an hour and 30 minutes, and proved the encounter had taken place with images taken before and after.

And here is one of those images:

Note the caption: "No details given of the meeting".

Now, would a perfectly above-board meeting be so goshdarn secretive as to lock out the media and give no details of what was said? If you think it could, you must be drinking some bad Kool-Aid. El Duderino has already noted some of Costas's more egregious hijinks leading up to the referendum, and following it too. Now it appears that Goldberg was not only aware of what was going to happen; for all we know, he handed Costas the playbook for the next steps at that hush-hush meeting. Why else the auspicious timing?

And besides, it's not as if they haven't done this sort of thing before.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:48 AM | Permalink

Oh, color me shocked, SHOCKED...at the latest from Aporrea:

On his Sunday program, ex-vice president Jose Vicente Rangel asserted that the general-in-chief, Raul Isaias Baduel, visited Bogota around the end of July, where he "met with Pedro Carmona and the Colombian defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos."

Baduel's agenda, according to Rangel, included "a meeting with an association of retired military leaders, in which former generals Juan Salcedo Yora and Manuel Monnet were present." According to Rangel, these men "have international arrest warrants out against them for crimes against humanity."

Also, Rangel said, Gen. Baduel addressed a conference against the Venezuelan government at Sergio Arboleda University in Bogota, where he met with members of an NGO "which is continually taking shots at Venezuela and its national government."

Here's Rangel on his TV show, discussing that and more:

Baduel's disgraceful conduct is the second item in this clip.

So, the once honorable, oh-so-constitutionalist general has been meeting with wanted criminals--in addition to receiving money from where he shouldn't? His formerly sterling reputation doesn't need any tarnishing from without; he's doing a terrific job of pissing all over it himself.

At this rate, he can stop wondering why he can't siphon off the "Bolivarian, but..." vote. Nobody votes for a traitor--least of all one who consorts with the very business dictator whom he once stood up to!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:40 PM | Permalink

Is this any way to show respect for your president, political opponents, and senior citizens?

"Student" opposition demonstrators in Ecuador shout obscenities and accusations of homosexuality, make rude gestures, and assault anyone unlucky enough to get within striking distance. Fortunately, prominent oligarchic ringleaders are all named and pictured clearly, so if you're ever in Guayaquil, you'll recognize them.

Pay special attention to the stinkfingers, the crotch-grabs, the flying projectiles (they're not eggs, they're rocks), and the various other ways of saying "we don't give a fuck for democracy", in the video above and this one:

One little chica even has the nerve to claim she was demonstrating "peacefully" when she was caught on video doing just the opposite--attacking the police physically.

And if you find them very similar to their Venezuelan counterparts, pat yourself on the back for your perceptiveness: they're following the exact same playbook. They're trying to provoke violence on purpose, so there is a pretext to attempt a violent removal of President Correa. Exactly as the oppos in Venezuela are trying to do with President Chavez. What a coinkydink!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:04 AM | Permalink

Now, who could this be?

Hmmmm...his cap says "Venezuela", so clearly he's from there. And he's wearing a red t-shirt with famous communist faces all in a row. He must be a Chavista, right?

Um, sorry. No.

According to Aporrea, this is Henrique Capriles Radonsky, the treasonous right-wing mayor of the municipality of Baruta, spotted on a recent trip to Beijing. Apparently he thought he was going incognito. But in fact, he's violating the conditions of his release from prison four years ago. And the fact that Capriles Radonsky was jailed for attacking the Cuban embassy in Caracas during the coup of '02 surely makes his t-shirt that much more ironic, no?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:45 AM | Permalink

What century is this again?

Rev. Sergio G. Roman sounded the alarm against miniskirts in an online publication to prepare Catholics for a church family-values forum next year in Mexico City.

"When we show our body without prudence, without modesty, we are prostituting ourselves," wrote Roman, a Mexico City priest.

Continue reading "Yep, that Catholic church is sure progressing..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 06:58 PM | Permalink

Found something interesting and curious at Aporrea and just had to translate:

"For 60 years, we of GMV have been working with Venezuela and its people; it's our fundamental job to think of this organization as a great human team, which has the right to exercise its functions to contribute to the well-being of the country, of business, of its families, and ourselves." (El Nacional, Page 1-21, Sunday, August 17, 2008)

Some older workers will recall that during the first administration of Rafael Caldera, General Motors had an assembly plant in La Yaguara, Caracas--surrounded by high electric fences and watchtowers with reflectors, in order to defend itself against guerrilla attacks.

A rebellious worker, detained by company security and the National Guard, was incarcerated and tortured for several days in a dungeon on the premises, before being handed over to the DIGEPOL, the infamous political police of those days. When he was finally freed, the worker took his case to the Ministry of Labor whose head, Tarre Murzi, ordered an inspection of the GM plant.

The Ministry inspectors weren't allowed to enter, on the grounds that GM was a US business, so the Ministry had no jurisdiction over it. The minister, indignant, called a press conference to which, strangely, no one came. When a second such conference was similarly boycotted by the official and private media, Tarre Murzi took up the embarrassing matter with President Caldera--who, true to his "principles", fired the minister.

Continue reading "What's good for GM ain't so good for Venezuela" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:35 AM | Permalink

Looks like the "new" Conservative federal government up here is getting old awful fast. They're a minority, but they bully like they're the only game in town, and a Globe & Mail editorial calls them on it:

Last year, the governing Conservatives prepared a secret handbook on how to disrupt parliamentary committees and create chaos. No mere pamphlet, the book ran to 200 pages.

It instructed committee chairmen to select blatantly biased witnesses and tutor them in advance. It gave the chairmen pointers on how to obstruct parliamentary business, to storm out of meetings if necessary.

Team Harper never expected its opus to be made public. But the media got hold and the headlines poured forth - "Tories blasted for handbook on paralyzing Parliament" and the like.

Liberal Ralph Goodale noted how it was rather peculiar to see the government getting its knickers in a knot over a dysfunctional, chaotic Parliament when, in fact, "the government's deliberate plan is to cause a dysfunctional, chaotic Parliament."

We thought the Grits were bad, chimed in the New Democrat, Libby Davies. But these guys, she said, were taking the gutter stuff to a new level. "They've codified it."

Continue reading "And this is why I call them SupposiTories" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:58 PM | Permalink

Strange things dead paramilitaries write...and stranger things they reveal. From Aporrea, a little note that will make you believe that there IS life after death, especially for crime and scandal in Colombia:

The ex-colonel of Colombian police, Danilo Gonzalez, who was assassinated in 2004, ordered the murder of former presidential candidaate Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, and the kidnapping of Venezuelan businessman Richard Boulton.

This, according to a letter from the late paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño, which was revealed today.

The letter from Castaño, also killed four years ago, and published by the weekly magazine Semana, also accuses Colonel Gonzalez of planning the kidnap of architect Juan Carlos Gaviria, brother of the former Colombian president and ex-secretary of the Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria.

Continue reading "Letters from the Evil Dead" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:51 AM | Permalink

Poor Yon Goicoechea. Such a cute young guy, such high hopes attached...and what are they coming to? A few months ago, the Cato Institute paid him half a million dollars to spread neoliberal/neocon/neofascist crapaganda and astroturf all over Venezuela. Playboy's Venezuelan edition also obligingly gave him huge fanfare (between pictures of silicone-stuffed bunnies, natch.) Do you think they're getting their money's worth? Aporrea doesn't:

Yon Goicoechea, opposition youth leader and student at Andres Bello Catholic University, said on Wednesday during an opposition demonstration that the movement he heads is disposed toward "setting this city on fire" if the State doesn't backtrack on the decision of the Comptroller General to uphold the disqualifications of some 270 would-be political candidates on the grounds of irregularities in the exercise of their duties.

Draped with a Venezuelan flag like a superhero's cape, Goicoechea declared on Globovision that "this Chavismo, which is filling our city with trash, deaths and blood, is impossible to sustain. People need to solve their problems by way of votes. They want to solve their problems the peaceful way. They want to solve their problems by way of justice.

"What are they looking for? That the people set this city on fire?" he continued. "What are they looking for? They're looking for violence! If they don't catch on and let Venezuelans express themselves freely at the polls...if they don't let us demonstrate our enormous non-conformity with the government by way of regular channels, then they must be looking for us to burn up this city. What's the matter with the government? Don't they care that the disqualified candidates are suffering human rights violations?"

Continue reading "Yon-Yon's big yawn-yawn" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:48 PM | Permalink

Hebert Veloza, formerly known as "HH", in the hands of the Colombian authorities.

From Aporrea, a shocking revelation by a Colombian paramilitary leader, one that will surely put "El Doptor Varito" in an awkward position (as if he could get any more pretzel-like):

Ex-paramilitary chief Hebert Veloza, alias "HH", admitted that he and his men committed more than 3000 killings between 1994 and 2003. Veloza confirmed in an interview given to the daily El Espectador that there were ties between certain politicians, members of the Colombian military, and police with the AUC paramilitaries. He also said that with his extradition to the US, "the victims will go on not knowing the truth."

The man formerly known as "HH" recognized that in the massacres his organization committed, "more innocent than guilty people died, but that's war."

Continue reading "El Narco's gonna want him dead" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:06 AM | Permalink

El Ecuadorable is so not going to like this:

Translation follows:

The Spanish civil guard is investigating a video made on a cellphone in which one can see the beating of an Ecuadorian teenager by a Spanish girl. The hair-raising recording was taken on July 25, in the Colmenarejo neighborhood of Madrid.

In the video, the aggressor's friends can be heard egging her on amid laughter. The phrases "kill her" and "hit her hard" are repeated several times.

According to sources, a group of girls between 14 and 16 years old lured the Ecuadorian victim, Maria Jose, to a vacant lot. Once there, Belen, one of the teens, began to punch and kick her all over her body, up to the head.

"Kick her in the head" can be heard as the aggressor drags the South American victim to the ground by her hair. Also, while the victim lies semiconscious, Belen keeps hitting her.

The video circulated on cellphones throughout the town, until one person recorded it onto a CD and brought it to a police station.

This isn't the first time this sort of thing happened in Spain; in October of last year, a 16-year-old from Ecuador got beaten up on a train in Barcelona by a racist thug, aged 21, who called her a "piece of immigrant shit" and told her to go back where she came from. It comes at around the same time two Gypsy girls in Italy drowned before the indifference of hundreds of beachgoers at Naples, amid a climate of anti-Gypsy sentiment perpetrated by the right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi. Racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment are all on the rise in Europe, and the new anti-immigrant legislation tabled by the EU has only made it worse. Economic migrants will now have to fear that gangs of thugs like these will act with impunity, seeing themselves as doing a job that the police won't or can't.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 06:24 PM | Permalink

This just in, from Aporrea:

Just minutes ago we were informed that Gonzalo Gomez, co-founder of Aporrea and currently a member of the Regional Political Committee of the Capital District of the PSUV, was attacked by followers of Leopoldo Lopez and the opposition party, Un Nuevo Tiempo. The incident occurred in Colombia Street in the populous neighborhood of Catia, Caracas.

Gonzalo Gomez was on his way back from an event in support of the victims of April 11-14, 2002, when he encountered a group of UNT supporters. The member of the Aporrea editorial team said to his companions that they reminded him of those who had been the authors of the coup d'etat and the killers of innocents in April, 2002.

Upon hearing this, an intolerant member of the opposition group recognized him and began to assail him physically, hitting him in the mouth. While trying to defend himself, Gomez was jumped by various others, who also attacked him and threatened him with death.

Fortunately, the PSUV member emerged in good condition from this situation, despite the blows he received. At the moment he is denouncing the perpetrators before the local police.

Translation mine.

The article ends with a call for calm from a source which the media up here would call unlikely:

This is an appeal to those who defend peace and non-violence before the media, and call those who support the revolution "aggressors" and "savages". Stop these fascist actions and this violence. Today, we have seen that the "aggressors" and the "savages" were not the revolutionary people but those who, from day to day, keep trying to impede the advance of the social justice which the less fortunate have been clamoring after for so many years.

No reasonable person could disagree that social justice has been a long time coming to Venezuela, or that anyone who stands in its way is the real savage.

But of course, I fully expect to see the media here, taking their cues from El Nazional and El Luniversal, report this incident only as a case of Chavista provocation and attack, if they report it at all.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:31 PM | Permalink

You get poopy doody crappy assassination attempts everywhere in Venezuela! I hereby translate:

Parliamentary deputy Luis Tascon denounced that the attempt on the life of ex-defence minister Raul Baduel, which happened last week, was perpetrated by radical sectors of the ultra-right, who are looking for a martyr in this political moment.

"They need a martyr right now, and they have chosen the figure of Baduel," Tascon said.

That's true. The figure of Douglas Rojas certainly isn't enough for them. Especially when it turns out (as it surely will, sometime soon or late) that his own right-wing buddies did him in because they needed at least one death to blame on you-know-who.

There's still the lingering mystery of Hector Eduardo Serrano, the man who died in an explosion in front of the Fedecamaras building, too. Notice how all the maggots inside said building didn't hesitate to come out and dine on his corpse? Well, no wonder. As journalist Alberto Nolia has noted on his VTV show "The Devil's Papers", Fedecamaras is an "unburied corpse" itself. Stands to reason that such a cadaver would be crawling with unsavory critters; who else would touch it but the vultures and the flies?

But here's the kicker: No one seems to know who is currently president of that discredited chamber of commerce, and no one seems to give a shit either. Fedecamaras is officially irrelevant. VTV sent out a reporter team, sat them right in front of the Fedecamaras building, and had them ask passersby if they knew who the president of that organization was, and no one knew.

Imagine that; Fedecamaras has gone from being "respected advisors" to every Adeco and Copeyano presidunce of the old Puntofijista days, to coup-mongers against Chavecito in April 2002, to...nothing. The only way they can still survive is the way all right-wingers do these days: by eating the dead.

I hope the former general is watching these events and taking note of the general pattern, but it's hard to say. All that gringo dinero may still be flopping around over his eyes like a pair of smelly green horse blinkers.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:58 AM | Permalink

Ho, ditty, hum, ditty...why am I not surprised at this?

A man who opened fire inside a church, killing two people with a shotgun hidden in a guitar case, was frustrated at being unable to find a job and blamed liberals and gays, police said on Monday.

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen told reporters of Sunday's incident at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Continue reading "No surprises here..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Aporrea has a couple of interesting items. First, the helicopter "accident" of last week:

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said on Friday that it was "surely not coincidental" that the helicopter loaned to him by the government of Venezuela for trips into the countryside crashed, killing five soldiers, four of them Venezuelans.

"Something's going on," Morales added during a speech in Cochabamba, where the Venezuelan Super Puma helicopter exploded last Sunday.

Continue reading "Evo's watching his back, and how!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:58 PM | Permalink

Lately, I've been hit with a spate of petitions to sign and YouTubes to watch, all claiming that a certain bill currently before the House of Commons will make it illegal for you to grow garlic or take Vitamin C. Most of the well-meaning but ill-informed souls who keep sending me this stuff haven't actually troubled to read the bill.

But trust me, folks, it's worth the trouble to read. It will calm your spinning mind and slow your palpitating heart, all naturally. Bill C-51 is not going to send the feds out to confiscate your comfrey or take away your tulsi. It doesn't grant them that power. What it does is require that all patented natural health products sold in stores receive identification numbers, similar to the system already in place for drugs, and health product companies will have to be licensed--i.e. pass muster as safe and reliable--with Health Canada before their products can be placed on store shelves.

Contrary to the C-51 naysayers' hysteria, this does NOT mean that "70% of all natural products could disappear from store shelves"--a nice round figure, which I suspect is vital if you're pulling things out of your ass. What it means is that most existing products which are known to be safe and reliable, will stay right where they are, and instead, anything new and/or potentially risky will be more closely monitored. C-51 will also facilitate the recall of anything found to be dangerous, or just plain not living up to its manufacturer's claims. I can't imagine anyone having a problem with that, can you?

Continue reading "Don't stop Bill C-51, stop the hysterics!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:36 PM | Permalink

Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck doesn't think water is a basic human right (he considers THAT position "extremist"); he thinks it should be owned by corporations and sold to the public for profit. I guess no one ever told him what happened to Bechtel in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for having the same idea.

And if you think Nestle is innocuous, take a look at how much of the world's water supply they're trying to buy the (cheap) rights to so they can sell it back to the people bottled (and expensive). And also, take a look at what they've done to a citizens' group in Switzerland that had the audacity to challenge their squeaky-clean public image.

Does a truly clean corporation need to feel threatened by a small protest group to the extent that it pays 65 million euros to a security firm, in violation of Swiss privacy law, to infiltrate and spy on such groups? Or is this just another case of corporate fascism refusing to brook any challenges to its own undeserved authority--especially in the face of sagging revenues?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 04:06 PM | Permalink

The Venezuelan opposition is so rabid and so bloodthirsty, they'll stop at nothing to get Hugo Chavez out of office. They'll stage violence as a way of "protesting" it. They'll even kill their own. We saw that already on April 11, 2002, when they staged a coup in which rooftop snipers and undercover sharpshooters, in concert with Metropolitan Caracas police officers (controlled by an anti-Chavez mayor, Alfredo Peña) fired on Chavista and anti-Chavista demonstrators alike. In the final death toll, there were more Chavistas than anti-Chavistas killed, but the point of my mentioning it is this: They will even kill their own if it "helps" them politically. They have absolutely no compunctions about it.

Here, however, is one example of such terror tactics backfiring, badly. In recent violence at the University of Los Andes (ULA), a young anti-Chavista demonstrator, Douglas Rojas, was fatally wounded by shrapnel. 48 hours later, he was declared dead. His fellow M-13ers were quick to blame the death on the police, who they say fired on them with shotguns full of the stuff.

But the following video tells a different story:

Continue reading "M-13 terrorists kill their own" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:48 PM | Permalink

Only one paragraph from the head of a news item in Venezuelanalysis, but oh my...

A notoriously violent Venezuelan student organization aligned with the Venezuelan opposition known as the March 13th Movement (M13) fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails at police officers, blockaded streets using seized university buses, and ransacked sections of the Andean town of Mérida on Thursday and Friday, to protest crime and insecurity in the city.

Did you get that? The M-13 "students" are "protesting crime and insecurity"...by resorting to crime and creating insecurity.

And just to compound the irony, there's this: the murder rate is down, and drug interceptions are up. Uh, what's that the M-13 thuggies were saying about crime and insecurity, again?

Meanwhile, in other utterly unironic news, we get this snippet from the BoRev guest blogger, El Catire:

Opposition Just Can't Decide: One day they call Chavez's government corrupt, next day they march to criticize a measure that would stop corrupt people from running for public office. What gives?

Hey Blond Guy, I'll tell you what gives: This is just more made-for-the-media whackjobbery from a faction that is entertaining to watch sometimes, if only for its utter lack of a sense of irony. The fact that nearly half of the "blacklist" consists of crooked, opportunistic and coattail-riding "Chavistas" (in name only, not in spirit) goes forever unmentioned in the lamestream media.

But hey, at least Chavecito's drama-queeny ex is predictably down with all the latest ruckus. So I guess that means they must have a point!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:13 AM | Permalink

Um, no. Just a bunch of oligarchic whiners getting their knicks in a twist again. This time in Quito and Guayaquil.

Ecuador's government has seized two private TV stations in a long-running dispute over debts.

Backed by police, officials raided the TV channels in Quito and Guayaquil, and another 193 companies in the same business group were also seized.

Continue reading "The RCTVs of Ecuador?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:41 PM | Permalink

And boy, am I ever laughing my ass off over this.

The Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Diaz, informed that the Public Ministry has opened an investigation against the mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo Lopez, for allegedly attacking an agent of the National Guard at the International Airport at Maiquetia.

The incident allegedly took place in the early morning hours on last Wednesday, in the hours after Lopez returned to Venezuela from New York.

Translation mine. Link added.

And in other bad news for Pretty Leo, we have this item from Venezuelanalysis, which shows that he's no match for...A BLACK MAN!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's candidate for mayor of Caracas, Aristobulo Isturiz, is the front-runner ahead of the November election, according to the first poll of city voters.

Isturiz, a former education minister who now hosts a show on state television, had the backing of 39 percent in the June 6-19 poll by Caracas-based Hinterlaces. Leopoldo Lopez, a Harvard-educated opposition leader who met with Barack Obama on June 21 in Miami, trailed with 30.1 percent.

The show in question is Dando y Dando, on VTV. Aporrea occasionally shows clips of it, and it's always an enlightening treat for me. Too bad it's not subtitled and more widely distributed on the Internets. Then you'd see why Aristobulo Isturiz is such a terrific candidate, and why Prettyboy has no chance against him...even assuming his disqualification doesn't hold up (which it will).

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:13 PM | Permalink

Once more, a fascist makes all kinds of bogus claims, including that his human rights were violated. Aporrea has the details of the lie--and the video to refute the liar:

On Thursday, Mario Silva, host of the VTV show "La Hojilla", showed some video footage taken at Maiquetia Airport that refutes the accusations made by the mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo Lopez, who recently claimed he had been held illegally and been physically attacked by five or six members of the DISIP (Venezuelan federal police) in the airport.

The events occurred last Wednesday, when Lopez returned from a trip to the United States where he went, among other reasons, to denounce his political disqualification for receiving illicit donations when he worked at the state oil company PDVSA and received money from the company on behalf of the party Primero Justicia, which was then a "civil society" organization. Lopez also claimed he met with presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Continue reading "Prettyboy Leopoldo Lopez is at it again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Oh, surely not because it's only El Narco and not Chavecito calling for this rather unusual measure...

Colombia's president on Thursday called for a referendum to decide if new presidential elections should be held in the wake of a court decision that is questioning the legitimacy of his 2006 re-election.

President Alvaro Uribe said he will ask the country's congress to approve the referendum.

Uribe's demand came after the Supreme Court called Thursday for the re-evaluation of the congressional act that changed the constitution to allow Uribe to run for a second term. The Supreme Court questioned the act after a former representative was found guilty of having changed her vote in 2004 to support the president's bid for re-election.

Yidis Medina, who was sentenced to 47 months, claimed senior members of the government offered her supporters jobs in exchange for her key vote. Uribe's administration has denied the charges.

But of course, he IS looking to change the constitution and run. Even his own defence minister, the most likely successor, is being blocked by El Narco, who wants to hang onto power, it seems, for life.

The ghost of Pablo Escobar must be rolling around the bowels of hell, laughing his ass off.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:00 PM | Permalink

What a shame. Lord Blah-Blah has to serve out his full sentence:

Conrad Black's conviction on fraud and obstruction of justice charges has been upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The court said today that defence lawyers' arguments weren't strong enough to topple Black's conviction.

Black has been at a minimum-security prison in Florida since March serving a 6 1/2-year sentence.

Minimum security, such a light sentence--and he still appealed it? What a self-important wanker.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ha ha, Boris Johnson cracks me up. First that undead haystack cancels the London public transit system's cheap-fuel deal with Venezuela, out of some idiotic desire to punish the poor with fare hikes. Now, get a load of what he keeps on his desk--or used to:

Police have forced London Mayor Boris Johnson to hand over a cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

The ex-MP, who obtained the red leather case from Mr Aziz's bombed-out home while visiting Iraq as a journalist in 2003, said the situation was "stupid".

He said: "The police have no choice but to investigate this ludicrous affair."

Under the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police.

Granted, it's not much of a "cultural property", seeing as it's not exactly a first edition cuneiform scroll of the Code of Hammurabi or anything like that. But it's not rightfully his, either, and keeping such a grotesque trophy on his desk speaks of extremely poor judgment on his part.

Not, I hasten to add, that his sentiments regarding the president of Venezuela say anything better.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Here, let Editor and Publisher clue you in:

In her Sunday column this week, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell responds to charges of improper money-making from special-interest groups against two of the newspaper's stars, David Broder and Bob Woodward. The allegations were carried in the current issue of Harper's by Ken Silverstein, the magazine's Washington editor.

Both Broder and Woodward recently took buyouts from the paper but remain as contract workers.

The Post Stylebook's ethics and standards section says only: "We freelance for no one and accept no speaking engagements without permission from department heads." Howell observes: "Broder and Woodward did not check with editors on the appearances Silverstein mentioned."

Continue reading "Ever wonder why I call them media whores?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:59 PM | Permalink

It must be a slow news day for them. Otherwise, I can't imagine how this passed muster.

Thousands of demonstrators marched on the U.S. Embassy Monday to demand that Washington extradite a former Bolivian defense minister who directed a military crackdown on riots that killed at least 60 people in 2003.

Former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain, now a resident of Key Biscayne, Fla., told La Paz-based Radio Fides last week that the U.S. granted him political asylum more than a year ago.

The revelation sparked outrage in El Alto, a sprawling satellite city outside La Paz where dozens of anti-government rioters were gunned down by soldiers in 2003. On Monday, thousands of residents streamed down the hills into La Paz to demand justice for the killings.

"We've come to the doors of the embassy to say 'Enough with the impunity,'" said Edgar Patana, head of an El Alto labor union leading the protest. "The United States has to prove that they have the justice they're always showing off in their media and movies. Bolivia wants that justice."

Incredibly, it goes on and on practically throughout the piece in this vein--no sympathy for the devil. And they accurately mention that this devil, and the devil who employed him (Goni) sparked the landslide that brought Evo Morales into office. They even give Evo the last word. All that's missing is the part about Bechtel and the privatization of Bolivia's water, right down to rainfall, being part and parcel of what sparked the uprisings. Which is still rather remarkable, considering it's the Dissociated Press we're talking about. Normally, they leave all that out and just throw their sympathy behind the worst of the worst.

This guy must be to Bolivians what Luis Posada Carriles is to Venezuela and Cuba. The difference between him and the CubanaBomber? This guy got legal asylum in the US, whereas BushCo is still trying to pretend they don't know the illicitly sneaked-in CubanaBomber.

One thing where there IS no difference, though: Both are being rewarded with the right to stay. And why not? Both are being repaid for services rendered. Precious few other immigrants and asylum claimants have done so much.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:24 PM | Permalink

This is too juicy to pass up. Aporrea.org, the Venezuelan news/opinion site I enjoy most, has uncovered some skulduggery published at an opposition forum called Noticiero Digital. It's an e-mail from Alfredo Rangel, the director of the "Security and Democracy Foundation" in Colombia. According to Aporrea, "this organism is a facade for the intelligence community of the US in that country." The e-mail is to Juan Manuel Santos, the defence minister of Colombia.

Full text follows, translated by Your Humble One:

Continue reading "Well, well, well. What have we here?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:37 AM | Permalink

...maybe she should clean this plank out of her own eye before criticizing the dustmotes she imagines she sees in his.

New details continue to emerge on the spying scandal that has hit German telecommunication giant Deutsche Telekom. In addition to rifling through telephone records for a year from 2005 to 2006 to determine the extent of contacts between management and journalists, it now looks as though Telekom was also using mobile phone signals to keep track of their locations.

According to information from SPIEGEL, Telekom sought to follow the movements of journalists covering the telecommunications company as well as members of Telekom advisory boards, in an effort to determine how sensitive company information was finding its way into business magazines and newspapers.

Continue reading "While Angela Merkel criticizes Hugo Chavez..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Okay, kiddies...gather round, and be sure to pop your Dramamine before you click Play. Don't be like Auntie Bina, who got vertigo from watching this:

Unka Karl is claiming Richard Armitage was The Leaker? That's bullshit--a convenient version to be fed to the media because it deflects attention from the real culprit. Armitage was a stooge, a flunky, a man who did nothing without authorization and would have been fired if he were really the one who did it off his own bat; no, someone okayed his leaking. Guess who?

Oh, and get this: Valerie Plame was JUST "a CIA employee". Hey Unka Karl! She was a COVERT AGENT, the most secret kind--a NOC. Non-Official Cover, get it? NOC NOC, Unka Karl, it ain't no joke! That's no mere employee (a term that seems to suggest a paper-pusher at a cushy desk in Langley somewhere)--that's someone who can get killed in the line of duty, and not just she but everyone in contact with her as well. And the White House can wash its hands of the whole mess and say, "Well, since she wasn't OFFICIALLY with the embassy, because she was in a private business, we can't protect her if something goes sour. We don't know this person"--even when that person was ferreting out secret info to be fed to them DIRECTLY.

I don't believe his advisorship to John McCain is really "informal", either. "Informal" means nothing; you can be whispering in someone's ear, with nothing down in writing, and still have your commands followed to the letter. A sweeter scheme for plausible deniability would be hard to imagine--especially if, like Unka Karl, you've finally suffered some unpleasant consequences for your power and associations. But not enough. Oh, not nearly enough.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:23 PM | Permalink

The California prosecutor (and author of Helter Skelter) who brought the Manson Family to justice has a new book out:

...in which he makes the case for prosecuting Dubya as a war criminal.

I think it has merit.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:46 AM | Permalink

...just in case you needed one:

Yes, she WOULD bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran. Just like John McInsane.

Clearly, none of them have learned anything since they deposed Mohammed Mossadegh to install that horrid Shah. Hey America, you HAD secular democracy in Iran, and you eated it! Now shut up, stay out, and keep your mitts off their oil!

PS: Need more reasons not to vote for her? How about her boogying with the Religious Reich? Really, there's not a dime's worth of difference between her and Hagee-hugger McCain on this one.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:30 PM | Permalink

Remember all those stories about mysteriously dying honeybee populations? Looks like we've got the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder all figured out, kiddies. Or at least, one very unsurprising chief suspect:

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

Continue reading "Bzzzzzzzzzzzz--STING!!!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:49 PM | Permalink

I mean really. What else is there to say to this?

Laptop computers have become treasure troves of evidence for Colombian investigators probing crimes committed by far-right militias and leftist rebels.

So many Colombians were dismayed to learn that prison authorities didn't immediately secure laptops and cell phones belonging to most of the 14 paramilitary warlords who were yanked from cells on May 12 and extradited to the United States to stand trial for drug trafficking.

The mishandled evidence has become a national scandal, and the prisons director only made matters worse when he told Colombia's leading newspaper that he had no way of preventing the warlords from continuing to lead criminal networks from their cells.

Oh, I know. I know! How about bombing the fuck out of paramilitary encampments on the Venezuelan side of the border, where Manuel Rosales (the imperial stooge with whom Chavecito mopped the floor in the last presidential election) is said to be harboring them? Then, I'm sure, we can put to rest once and for all the question of whether there is actually such a thing as a bomb-proof laptop (which the whore media won't ask).

And of course, we could also clean up a LOT of right-wing paramilitary narcoterrorist scum that way.

Oh, I know. I KNOW. It's a modest proposal, but it will never happen. And we all know why.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:15 PM | Permalink

Anyone who's been keeping an unbiased track of Venezuelan electoral politics already knows why Leopoldo Lopez won't be able to run for office again: He's a plain little plug-ugly thug, with a lengthy history of violence. But trust the lamestream media whores to spin it a full 180 degrees from the truth...

Leopoldo Lopez won his last election as mayor of an affluent Caracas district with 81 percent of the vote. Women supporters mobbed him at a recent Mother's Day appearance, posing for photos while he and his wife handed out roses.

But the popular politician's plan to challenge incumbent Juan Barreto, mayor of Greater Caracas, later this year could be thwarted by 26 criminal charges against him — accusations Lopez says were trumped up by an operative of President Hugo Chavez.

Continue reading "Pretty Boy Lopez is in trouble" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:21 AM | Permalink

Dubya can't hide from THIS shame anymore:

Protesters gathered to call for the extradition of the CubanaBomber, Luis Posada Carriles, to Venezuela to face justice for his crimes. How much longer can BushCo pretend not to know the guy, especially since Bush the Elder was this old fart's CIA director back in the day?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:28 AM | Permalink

One thing about that Old Grey Lady...she's one helluva madam. Yes, folks, the NY Times is pimping for Alvaro Uribe again. And look: there's one of her working girls now, out on the corner...

Tension between Colombia and Venezuela increased Sunday after Colombia's defense minister rejected an accusation by Venezuela's government that 60 Colombian troops had illegally entered a border region of Venezuela known to be a redoubt for Colombian guerrilla groups.

Yes, folks, that's the incomparable Simon Romero again, parading around in his miniskirt and high heels. Give that man a hand for his prowess at handjobbery!

Now, pay close attention, kiddies. Auntie Bina, a true lady despite her natural red hair and her plebeian origins, is about to teach you something about the difference between journalistic credibility and mere prostitution.

Continue reading "Simon Romero besmirches himself again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:17 PM | Permalink

Check out this story: "Rival demands Chavez clarify rebel links".

Then check out the photo they stuck on it:

The story is about pathetic, mush-mouthed Manuel Rosales, the guy who got maybe a third of the vote in the last Venezuelan election despite heavy financial support and cheerleading from Gringolandia. But as you can see, that ain't him. That's another US puppet altogether.

Still, it's not an honest mistake, but a definite Freudian slip. Aporrea reports that Rosales is awfully chummy with El Narco. According to journalist Jose Vicente Rangel, formerly Chavecito's VP, Rosales recently attended the Festival de Vallenato in the paramilitary-controlled region of Valledupar, Colombia, and was seen leaving with El Narco.

What do you suppose they were up to? Just kinky sex, or something much more nefarious?

BTW, very nice of the AP not to report what's really going on in the Venezuelan opposition. They are in fact leaderless and very much at sea. They don't even need Chavecito to make them loco; they just are.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:19 AM | Permalink

Colombian journalist and former TV anchorwoman Virginia Vallejo, now living in Miami, has written an explosive tell-all book about her lengthy affair with drug lord Pablo Escobar, titled Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar. Here, in an interview with a Brazilian TV reporter, she reveals Escobar's corrupting connections with a man you may recognize today. He used to be the mayor of Medellin, the cocaine capital of Colombia and the murder capital of the world. Later, he was the governor of the state of Antioquia. Today, Alvaro Uribe is the president of the land.

Video in Spanish and Portuguese.

Escobar's thugs murdered at least three presidential candidates who refused to take his drug money, including the liberal, Luis Carlos Galan. His saying was "Plata o plomo"--silver or lead. Bucks or bullets--those were your choices if you crossed paths with him. If you didn't take his money and do him favors, you were a dead man. He later crossed over into outright terrorism--exchanging bullets for bombs. Virginia Vallejo, fearing for her life, broke off all relations with Escobar and fled to Miami, where she sought and received federal protection.

And Alvaro Uribe, who is the US's "ally" in the "War on Drugs" today, was far from being the enemy of this feared and powerful drug lord. On the contrary, they were very buddy-buddy--to the point where Escobar lent him a helicopter after the death of his father (at the hands of the FARC, his pet hate today--whom Uribe, ironically, accuses of being "narco-terrorists", with nary a peep about his own considerable past in narco-terrorism.) Uribe, in his gubernatorial capacity of okaying aviation licences in his state, handed them out like Halloween candy to Escobar's lackeys. Guess what use they were put to. And all this while the crack-cocaine epidemic in the US raged at its height, and the War on Drugs made no progress. Gee, is it any wonder?

And Escobar's thugs were not the only ones who enjoyed impunity under Uribe. The right-wing paramilitaries, whom the drug lords and large landowners alike employed to terrorize whole communities and suppress the left, also benefited from Uribe's official string-pulling and lever-pushing.

Isn't Uribe a fine one to call the FARC "narco-terrorists", when some of his closest friends and allies...would fit that description even better?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:51 PM | Permalink

(Translation: "Uribe attempts to deflect attention from himself by attacking Chavez...'And we pulled this red rabbit out of the computer. Chavez sent it to the FARC!' As Anibal Nazoa said, 'In Plan Colombia, you can see from a mile away that the gringos think we're all fools!'" Meanwhile, the computer's mouse wisely decides to skedaddle.)

There's been a lot of fuss in the media lately about some computers which allegedly survived a bombing raid on March 1 in Ecuador. Here is a random sampling of what's been running through my head concerning the kerfuffle:

Continue reading "A few random thoughts about laptops, Interpol and Colombia" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ohmygawds, don't you just love what Dubya said about Barack Obama in the Israeli Knesset today?

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals," said Mr Bush in his speech.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement."

This from a man whose own grandfather banked for Hitler, thus violating federal law. I shit you not.

Worst. Godwin. Violation. EVER.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:55 PM | Permalink

The reason I ask that long-winded question is this "opinion", which is presented as if it were fact, in the National Pest, Canada's would-be paper of record:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been accused of many things: squandering his country's oil income, suppressing opposition media, using his army to intimidate the citizenry. Now, documents recovered from computers belonging to FARC, the drug-funded Leninist insurgency based in Colombia, suggest Mr. Chavez may be actively undermining the sovereign government of its western neighbour. If so, the Western Hemisphere may be about to gain its first internationally designated state sponsor of terrorism.

Continue reading "When they don't sign their names, what does it say about what they have to say?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

...and whatever you do, don't eat the fuckin' burgers. You never know what could be in 'em, especially at the rate inspections are going.

The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.

"They want to create false assurances," Justice Department attorney Eric Flesig-Greene told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Mmmmm, all-American beef. Just watch out for the Mad Cowboy Disease.

A little music with your dinner, monsieur?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:39 PM | Permalink

From the color-me-SO-not-surprised files, a little something on the kind of people who are eligible not only for hiring, but RE-hiring by Kellogg, Brown & Root...

In 2006, while working in Iraq for the U.S. military contractor now known as KBR, Ira L. Waltrip was caught in possession of suspected child pornography and fired, according to a federal court affidavit.

He returned home to Lampasas and by the end of 2006, the affidavit said, was rehired to work for the company, previously a subsidiary of Halliburton known as Kellogg, Brown and Root.

Continue reading "KBR = Kid Buggering Rapists" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:49 PM | Permalink

You did, Tweety...you DID tee a coup d'etat!

Roto-Reuters UK and the Washington Whore Post are both cheerleading quite blatantly for Evo's opponents, undoubtedly to soften up us gullible anglophones for the "inevitable", undemocratic outcome of a deeply antidemocratic, unilateral (not to mention illegal) "referendum". Gee, where have we seen this before?

Too bad for this cutesy little media offensive that some of us can read Spanish, and one of us has seen fit to translate...this:

Continue reading "Santa Cruzin' for a bruisin'" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:39 PM | Permalink

The Venezuelan opposition, stoop to such undiplomatic and undemocratic vulgarities as this? Perish forbid! Everybody knows that they are the paragons of civil society. Right?

Right???

A dissident former general has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for bombing attacks on Spanish and Colombian diplomatic missions in Venezuela's capital.

The state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported Wednesday that former National Guard Gen. Felipe Rodriguez was convicted of conspiracy and aggravated burning of property for the 2003 attacks.

Rodriguez, who was sentenced Tuesday, was accused of planning the explosions at the Spanish Embassy and Colombian Consulate, which injured four people.

Venezuelan officials said at the time that the bombings were meant to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez, who shortly beforehand had warned Spain and Colombia not to interfere in Venezuelan affairs.

Rodriguez, also known by his nickname "The Crow," was among military officers who rose up against President Hugo Chavez in a short-lived 2002 coup.

He later helped lead a series of demonstrations in Caracas along with other military commanders opposed to Chavez's left-leaning government.

Folks, this is what we call a false flag operation. And had it succeeded, it might have become a classic one.

Too bad it backfired. That's what we call being hoisted on one's own petard, if I'm not mistaken.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:53 PM | Permalink

And no, he doesn't have plausible deniability here:

Image taken from the Denver Post.

I thought he was tired of carrying water for the Repugs. When did he switch back, and what put that shit-eating no-dignity grin on his face? Oxy again? Damn. When'd he get back on that? Or (as I suspect) did he simply never get off it?

If he wants a Rocky Mountain High, I wish he'd OD on that. He's clearly not man enough for adrenaline.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Mike Malloy hangs Rush Limbaugh's fat ass out to dry on the air. Courtesy of Malmo Blue's Equal Radio.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:24 PM | Permalink

Auntie Condi's double-talk just jumped up to bite her.

Now, when will it do the same for Dubya and the Big Dick?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:31 AM | Permalink

Yep, Alvaro Uribe really IS a lawless, psychopathic little thug. Get a load of his latest bons mots:

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Wednesday that he doesn't regret ordering a cross-border raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador, despite the death of four Mexican students there.

Uribe told Mexico's Televisa network that the students were seen in a video with the guerrillas, indicating they were in league with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"They were not doing humanitarian work. They were not hostages. So why were they there?" Uribe said. "They were there as accomplices of this activity. They were there as agents of terrorism."

Continue reading "They were accomplices, so they had it coming" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:53 PM | Permalink

I've long wondered what could have induced no less a figure than the former Venezuelan minister of defence, Gen. Raul Baduel (retired), to suddenly abandon both his post and his good friend. Now, it seems, we have an answer. From Aporrea:

The Vice-President of the Interior Politics Commission of the National Assembly, Iris Varela, denounced Gen. Raul Baduel on Thursday for having presumably received $1.277 million dollars from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

[...]

The assemblywoman made the denunciation in the legislative chamber and asked that Assembly President Cilia Flores order an investigation on behalf of the Public Ministry against the ex-minister of defence. She assured that she had the transfer numbers of the accounts in which Baduel received the money.

"From a bank in the United Kingdom, $2.144 million dollars were transferred to Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco, who has been arrested for drug trafficking and is linked to Interpol. The bank transaction number is 0895801004865, dated September 2007. The other transfer, dated November 2007, is for $1.277 million dollars, to Raul Isaias Baduel, and the transaction number is 0895209039485."

Continue reading "The $1.2 million traitor" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:10 PM