Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalMexico: Arrest Warrant Issued for Former Governor, Other Officials for Torture of Journalist
Mexico: Arrest Warrant Issued for Former Governor, Other Officials for Torture of Journalist
Lydia Cacho and Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. | Photo: Twitter @lydiacachosi
Published 18 April 2019
Officials in Mexico are accusing four men of kidnapping and torturing journalist Lydia Cacho after she revealed a pedophile pornography network in 2005.
A federal court issued an arrest warrant against four men, including a former governor of the Mexican state of Puebla, for the kidnap and torture of journalist Lydia Cacho after she exposed a human trafficking network all over Mexico.
Federal government sources confirmed that on April 11 judge Maria Elena Suarez Prestamo, head of the First Circuit Court of Quintana Roo, revoked a previous ruling by a Second District state judge who had refused to issue an arrest warrant against Mario Plutarco Marin Torres, former governor of Puebla; Hugo Adolfo Karam Beltran, former head of the state police; Juan Sanchez Moreno, former director of the now-defunct Judicial Order group, and businessman Jose Kamel Nacif Borge, for the crime of torture of journalist Lydia Cacho.
"The appeal has been revoked ... arrest warrants has been issued against Juan Sanchez Moreno, Hugo Adolfo Karam Beltran, Mario Plutarco Marin Torres and Jose Kamel Nacif Borge, for being suspected of acts of torture," read the resolution.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office has been ordered to arrest the accused while ordering the judge to carry out all necessary procedures to comply with the resolution.
Mexican journalist and human rights defender Lydia Cacho was harrassed after the publication of 'The Demons of Eden,' an investigative report into a human trafficking and child exploitation ring in the state of Quintana Roo. Her book targeted different officials who were part of the network.
More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Mexico-Arrest-Warrant-Issued-for-Former-Governor-Other-Officials-for-Torture-of-Journalist-20190418-0022.html
Mario Plutarco Marin Torres
AMLO celebrates arrest warrant against Mario Marín
17 / Apr / 2019 By Writing . The president said he was not consulted to release the arrest warrant, but that it was an autonomous decision of the Judiciary.
President Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, celebrated the arrest warrant against the former governor of Puebla, Mario Marín Torres, and the businessman Kamel Nacif for the Lydia Cacho case.
"I celebrate that it is legal, this is also a sign of the new times," the president said at a press conference from the National Palace .
More:
https://www.elpopular.mx/2019/04/17/nacional/celebra-amlo-orden-de-aprehension-contra-mario-marin-202927
Hugo Adolfo Karam Beltran, former head of the state police
Clothing mogul Kamel NAcif Borge, named in
Cacho’s book as a friend of Jean Succar Kuir,
is mobbed by journalists as he leaves Mexico’s
newly-appointed special prosecutor in
Mexico City in May 2006
Jean Succar Kuri is escorted by federal
police at the airport in Mexico City in
June 2006, after U.S. authorities
extradited Kuri to face charges of child
pornography, statutory rape, Internet
abuse and corruption of minors.
© AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo
Lydia Cacho after being arrested
in Cancun, driven 1,000 miles to
jail in Puebla and charged with
libel and defamation.
© AP Photo/Joel Merino
Battling the Demons of Eden
Posted on August 12, 2011 by northernbarbarians
By Monica Campbell
Mexican investigative journalist Lydia Cacho exposed the web of business and political elites behind a child pornography ring. Since then, the list of her enemies has grown to include some of the most powerful men in Mexico.
Lighting a small candle in her office on a balmy morning in Cancún, Lydia Cacho Ribeiro is the picture of calm as she recounts the day nearly a decade ago when her work as an investigative journalist almost killed her. In 1999, soon after she’d begun to report and publish articles about violence against women, a thin blond man assaulted Cacho in a Cancún bus station, raped her and left her crumpled on the floor with broken bones. The man was never caught, but Cacho believes the crime was retaliation for her work.
Far from cowing her into silence, however, the assault only spurred Cacho— today perhaps Mexico’s most famous investigative journalist and women’s rights advocate—to intensify her fight against gender-based violence. The year after the rape, she founded a shelter for battered women. She then began a series of ever-deepening investigations into child pornography and sex-trafficking rings in Cancún that culminated in the 2005 publication of The Demons of Eden. The book propelled her onto the front pages of the nation’s newspapers and eventually into the halls of Mexico’s Supreme Court. It also put her on a collision course with some of the most powerful men in the country. As her investigations cut to the heart of what she calls the “culture of impunity” at the highest reaches of Mexican politics and business, retaliations became increasingly elaborate.
“You are under arrest,” police told Cacho on December 16, 2005, as they cornered her outside her office. They were from the state of Puebla, more than 900 miles away, and lacked jurisdiction in Cancún, a fact that alerted Cacho to the likelihood that her arrest was a power play by Puebla textile baron Kamel Nacif Borge, one of Mexico’s wealthiest men. The Demons of Eden had named Nacif, who is known as the King of Blue Jeans, as a crony of Jean Succar Kuri, a 63-year-old Lebanese hotel and retail mogul currently on trial for child pornography in Mexico.
After the cops muscled her into their car, her ordeal began. The officers, she says, forced a gun barrel in her mouth and threatened to rape her. They drove to a beachfront pier and said they would make her jump. Cacho faced the ocean, shaking with fear, when one received a call on his cell phone. “Yes sir, yes sir, okay sir,” he said. He hung up, turned to Cacho and said, “Change of plans. You’re famous, you’re on TV.”
More:
https://northernbarbarians.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/battling-the-demons-of-eden/
Cave Paintings Suggest Ancient Humans Understood the Stars Much Better Than We Thought
Ancient humans appear to have understood far more than typically given credit for.
By David Grossman
Nov 29, 2018
MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE/CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA PRÉHISTOIRE/NORBERT AUJOULAT
Studying cave paintings from Turkey, Spain, France, and Germany, researchers have come to the conclusion that humanity's ancient ancestors were smarter than previously given credit for. These famed paintings were not simply decorative, a new study says—they represent a complex understanding of astronomy predating Greek civilization.
Going back 40,000 years, scientists now believe that ancient humans had the knowledge to keep track of time based on the movement of stars in the sky. They understood a concept called "precession of the equinoxes"—the idea that the Earth's movement was causing the changes of star location, not the stars themselves.
History generally credits this idea to Hipparchus of Nicea, a famed Greek astronomer who is "regarded by many historians as a scientist of the highest quality and possibly the greatest astronomical genius among the ancient Greeks," according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia. Several cultures, from China to Babylonia, discovered the idea independently.
Now it appears that Hipparchus was late to the idea as well, thanks to a new understanding of the cave paintings.
More:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a25350475/cave-paintings-suggest-ancient-humans-undersood-the-stars-much-better-than-we-thought/
Water Pipeline Workers Stumble Across Dozens of Iron Age Skeletons
Dating back over 2,000 years, the remains, some possibly victims of human sacrifice, could offer a vital look into the country's ancient past.
image
By David Grossman
Apr 15, 2019
Historic finds are common on construction projects in older cities like London or Rome, and the same applies for their smaller neighbors. Oxfordshire is a county in southern England dating back to the 10th century, but a stunning discovery there of 26 human skeletons, some believed to have been part of "human sacrifice," offers a visceral reminder of how closely modern cities overlap on top of history.
The project is meant to protect one of southern England's cherished natural ecosystems, a chalk stream. But digging crews didn't expect to find so many bodies, as well as evidence of dwellings, including animal carcasses, pottery, cutting implements, and a decorative comb.
“The new Thames Water pipeline provided us with an opportunity to examine a number of previously unknown archaeological sites" says Neil Holbrook, chief executive of Cotswold Archaeology, which consulted with Thames Water during the project, in a press statement.
“The Iron Age site at Childrey Warren was particularly fascinating as it provided a glimpse into the beliefs and superstitions of people living in Oxfordshire before the Roman conquest. Evidence elsewhere suggests that burials in pits might have involved human sacrifice. The discovery challenges our perceptions about the past, and invites us to try to understand the beliefs of people who lived and died more than 2,000 years ago.”
More:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a27154940/iron-age-skeleton-discovery-oxfordshire/
White Supremacists Embrace "Accelerationism"
April 16, 2019
Accelerationism is a term white supremacists have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it. The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms. We have also recently seen tragic instances of its manifestation in the real world.
The concept of acceleration has existed for years as a fringe philosophy. Some of the earliest examples are rooted in a Marxist notion that the intensification of an unhinged force, such as capitalism, for example, will inevitably result in that force’s own self-destruction. However, some white supremacists have adopted the terminology and determined that a societal collapse is both imminent and necessary. On March 21, 2019, one anonymous 8chan user, who promoted white supremacist views, wrote, “I used to think acceleration was a marxist [sic] trick…Now, however, I see its value.”
Brenton Tarrant, the alleged perpetrator of the mosque massacres in New Zealand, subscribed to accelerationism -- the concept was specifically articulated in his manifesto, which he posted moments before his shooting spree. Tarrant dedicates an entire section of his manifesto to this concept under the heading “Destabilization and Accelerationism: Tactics for Victory.”
Tarrant’s actions seemed to breathe new life into the discussion of accelerationism and spurred a resurgence of references, paired with praise for his actions, on platforms including Gab, YouTube, Reddit, 8chan and others.
More:
https://www.adl.org/blog/white-supremacists-embrace-accelerationism-0
President of Honduras Wants His Cabinet to Show Same 'Values' and 'Spiritual Maturity' as Trump's
President of Honduras Wants His Cabinet to Show Same ‘Values’ and ‘Spiritual Maturity’ as Trump’s
By Peter Montgomery | April 16, 2019 3:28 pm
Capitol Ministries’ Ralph Drollinger, who teaches several members of President Trump’s Cabinet that the Bible mandates conservative public policies, has been invited by right-wing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández to create a Bible study for his cabinet.
According to Drollinger, the request came after Hernández visited the White House and “was so impressed with the spiritual maturity of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet Members and how their biblical principles and values are strengthened and fortified through the Capitol Ministries’ Cabinet Bible study, that he asked to have an identical study for his cabinet.”
The New York Times has described Hernández as “a highly polarizing figure” who “amassed power over many of the country’s weak institutions during his first four-year term.” His brother was charged by U.S. prosecutors last year with conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.The government’s arrest last month of a journalist who had written critically about Hernández and his family led the Committee to Protect Journalists to ask the government to suspend his sentence and “repeal laws that restrict press freedom.”
Hernandez’s government declared him the victor in his hotly contested 2017 re-election bid after the count was halted for a day and a half with his opponent leading. The announcement was followed by protests that were violently shut down by security forces. The Organization of American States said the result could not be trusted and called for a new election, but the Trump administration recognized Hernández’s victory. In a letter to Capitol Ministries supporters this week, Drollinger calls Hernandez “a believer” and said that “what is happening right now in the Central American nation of Honduras” is one of the “best examples” of the “incredible effect” that Capitol Ministries is having on world leaders.
More:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/president-of-honduras-wants-his-cabinet-to-show-same-values-and-spiritual-maturity-as-trumps/
Why Venezuela Has Not Been Defeated - OpEd
Why Venezuela Has Not Been Defeated – OpEd
April 15, 2019 James Petras
Over the past half decade, a small army of US analysts, politicians, academics and media pundits have been predicting the imminent fall, overthrow, defeat and replacement of the Venezuelan government. They have been wrong on all counts, in each and every attempt to foist a US client regime.
In fact, most of the US induced ‘regime changes’ has strengthened the support for the Chavez – Maduro government.
When the US promoted a military-business coup in 2002, a million poor people surrounded the presidential palace, allied with the military loyalists, defeated the coup. The US lost their assets among their business and military clients, strengthened President Chavez, and radicalized his social program. Likewise, in 2002-03 when state oil company executives launched a lock-out.They were defeated, and hundreds of hardcore US supporters were fired and Washington lost a strategic ally.
A more recent example is the overbearing role of President Trump’s bellicose proclamation that the US is prepared to invade Venezuela. His threat aroused massive popular resistance in defense of national independence ,even among discontented sectors of the population.
More:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/15042019-why-venezuela-has-not-been-defeated-oped/?fbclid=IwAR3aJ9AjFJofY4pEuQ9xvjSvISuAfu547caUlS44vWWtOH9PZR-qS7aMmbY
Researchers interpret Cherokee inscriptions in Alabama cave
10-APR-2019
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE
For the first time, a team of scholars and archaeologists has recorded and interpreted Cherokee inscriptions in Manitou Cave, Alabama. These inscriptions reveal evidence of secluded ceremonial activities at a time of crisis for the Cherokee, who were displaced from their ancestral lands and sent westward on the Trail of Tears in the 1830s.
"These are the first Cherokee inscriptions ever found in a cave context, and the first from a cave to be translated," said Jan Simek, president emeritus of the University of Tennessee System and Distinguished Professor of Science in UT's Department of Anthropology. Simek is a co-author of the study "Talking Stones: Cherokee Syllabary in Manitou Cave, Alabama," published recently in Antiquity. "They tell us about what the people who wrote on the walls were doing in the cave and provide a direct link to how some Native Americans viewed caves as sacred places."
The research team that worked to understand the nature and meaning of these historic inscriptions included scholars from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma as well as Euro-American archaeologists.
The researchers concentrated on two main groups of Cherokee inscriptions found in Manitou Cave, a popular tourist site near Fort Payne, Alabama. Until now, indigenous uses of the cave had been unrecorded, as typical archaeological evidence like artifacts or deposits have been removed during its time as a tourist attraction.
More:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uota-ric041019.php
Colombia's favourite opposition politician removed from Congress after mafia lawyer's petition
by Emily Hart April 12, 2019
One of Colombia’s most popular opposition politicians has lost his seat in Congress, due to an allegedly clashing contract as legal representative of a State entity called Corpovisionarios.
Antanus Mockus, Senator for the Green Alliance party, gained more than 537,000 votes in the 2017 elections, making him the second most voted senator in Colombia’s history. The first is Alvaro Uribe, former President and controversial founder of the Democratic Centre party.
. . .
The move was initiated by lawyer José Manuel Abushaibe, who has a questionable reputation, and nebulous political affiliation. He claims that he is acting on behalf of the Citizen’s Option party, and as a candidate for the Democratic Centre Party.
In Abushaibe’s local La Guajira, he is known for representing politicians like Oneida Pinto, who was imprisoned for embezzlement and falsehood in public and private documents. He has also been close to the family of Samuel Santander Lopesierra, extradited in 2003 in for drug trafficking. On social media, Abuchaibe has posted about his admiration and friendship with Gomez, who was convicted of three murders.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-favourite-opposition-politician-loses-seat-in-congress-after-questionable-lawyers-petition/
. . .
U.S. citizens may have found out about this wonderful man when he was the Mayor Bogota. What a fantastic public servant. Only congenital criminals would dream of trying to cause trouble for him. Here's his Wikipedia:
Aurelijus Rūtenis Antanas Mockus Šivickas (born 25 March 1952) is a Colombian mathematician, philosopher, and politician. He has a master's degree in philosophy from the Colombian University, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and a Honoris Causa PhD from L’université de Paris.
He is the son of Lithuanian immigrants. He left office as the president of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá in 1993, and later that year ran a successful campaign for mayor. He proceeded to preside over Bogotá as mayor for two (non-consecutive) terms, during which he became known for springing surprising and humorous initiatives upon the city's inhabitants. These tended to involve grand gestures, including local artists or personal appearances by the mayor himself—taking a shower in a commercial about conserving water, or walking the streets dressed in spandex and a cape as Supercitizen. On 4 March 2010, he was elected in a public consultation as the Colombian Green Party candidate for the presidential election in 2010.
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antanas_Mockus
Young Antanas Mockus
Contemporary Antanas Mockus
Senator moons congress, says he is following a long Colombian tradition of ‘showing your ass’
Jul 21, 2018 | CuencaHighLife |
The former mayor of Bogotá and newly-elected Colombian senator Antanas Mockus claims he was simply following a time-honored Colombian tradition when he mooned the National Congress Friday afternoon.
Mockus dropped his pants during the installation ceremony of the new Congress because members showed a “lack of respect” for the outgoing congressional president.
According to Mockus, congressmen and congresswomen were intentionally disrupting the farewell speech of Efraín Cepeda, a political colleague of Mockus.
“I thought their behavior was outrageous and deserved an in-kind response,” Mockus said. “My act of disrespect is nothing compared to the disrespect shown by Congress toward Mr. Cepeda. Given the treatment he was receiving I could think of nothing more appropriate to do than to drop my pants.”honored Colombian tradition when he mooned the National Congress Friday afternoon.
More:
https://cuencahighlife.com/senator-moons-congress-for-lack-of-respect/
MYSTERY 8,000-YEAR-OLD ABANDONED STRUCTURE DISCOVERED WITH DECLASSIFIED IMAGES FROM COLD WAR SPY PLA
MYSTERY 8,000-YEAR-OLD ABANDONED STRUCTURE DISCOVERED WITH DECLASSIFIED IMAGES FROM COLD WAR SPY PLANE
BY CALLUM PATON ON 4/9/19 AT 5:24 AM EDT
Archaeologists from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania have used an unlikely source to give fresh perspective on the ancient mysteries of the Middle East: declassified spy plane images from the Cold War.
Emily Hammer and Jason Ur from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, respectively, have scoured through extensive archives of high- and low-resolution images taken by U2 spy planes from across Europe, the Middle East and central eastern Asia, uncovering a “gold mine” of archaeological evidence.
According to a press release from the University of Pennsylvania, the experts have uncovered stone wall structures that date back 5,000 to 8,000 years. They were used to trap gazelles and other animals.
In the declassified images, the pair spotted many historical and archeological features, including prehistoric hunting traps, 3,000-year-old irrigation canals and 60-year-old marsh villages no longer visible today.
More:
https://www.newsweek.com/mystery-8000-year-old-abandoned-structure-discovered-declassified-images-cold-1390064?piano_t=1
We're just about to get our first glimpse of a black hole
written by Nicole Karlis April 10, 2019
At last, April 10 could mark the day scientists have been anticipating for more than a century as the first image of a black hole is expected to finally be revealed. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration will “present its first results in multiple simultaneous press conferences around the world,” according to a media release. While the EHT team did not specify that an image will be released, scientists around the world are expecting it.
“My guess is EHT will produce an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and also an image of one at the center of the nearby galaxy M87,” Dong Lai is a professor of astronomy at Cornell University and an expert on black holes said in a statement. “More precisely, these are images of radiating hot gas orbiting very close to the black hole. The strong gravity — the ‘event horizon’ — of black holes create a dark shadow with a distinct shape where no light can be seen.”
The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, is 26,000 light-years away and has four million times the sun’s mass. Most galaxies are believed to have a supermassive black hole at their center upon which they pivot. As Salon has previously explained, imaging a black hole directly is impossible, given that they do not emit light; rather, astronomers aim to capture the matter that swirls around them at incredible speed due to their immense gravity, and which often radiates light.
“Nevertheless, it will be very nice and gratifying to see the black hole shadows directly,” Lai said. “This is very challenging because the images are heavily blurred by the interstellar gas. The EHT team is to be congratulated for overcoming many technical challenges to achieve the goal of imaging black holes.”
More:
https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/were-just-about-to-get-our-first-glimpse-of-a-black-hole/?utm_source=push_notifications
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 160,516
