Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalCuba gave information to US about four held in Florida for planning attacks
Source: Associated Press
Cuba gave information to US about four held in Florida for planning attacks
• US confirms 8 May meeting in Havana
• Cuba says four men were planning 'terrorist actions'
Associated Press in Havana
theguardian.com, Saturday 10 May 2014 14.36 EDT
US diplomats confirmed on Saturday that Cuban officials have given them some information about four Florida residents who were arrested on suspicion of preparing attacks against military installations on the island.
The US Interests Section in Havana issued a statement confirming the 8 May meeting with representatives of the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs. It said: "The Cubans provided some information about the allegations which we are now reviewing."
Cuba's interior ministry said the men – identified as José Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodríguez Gonzalez, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Félix Monzón Álvarez – were detained on 26 April for planning "terrorist actions" against military installations, masterminded from Florida.
None of the four are well-known within the exile community in South Florida, but Cuba claimed they were acting on orders from others with a history of militancy, singling out Santiago Álvarez Fernández Magriñá, Osvaldo Mitat and Manuel Alzugaray in Miami.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/10/cuba-information-us-four-planning-attacks
AP EXCLUSIVE: USAID's days counted in Ecuador
Source: Associated Press
AP EXCLUSIVE: USAID's days counted in Ecuador
By GONZALO SOLANO, Associated Press | May 9, 2014 | Updated: May 9, 2014 6:35pm
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador's government has told the U.S. Agency for International Development that it will not renew its agreements with the South American country, according a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The Nov. 26 letter sent to the U.S. Embassy in the Ecuadorean capital of Quito says, the "USAID must not execute any new activity," nor widen any existing projects in Ecuador.
Gabriela Rosero of Ecuador's international cooperation agency, who signed the letter addressed to USAID program officer Christopher M. Cushing, said in a subsequent interview with the AP that the U.S. government aid organization must leave by Sept. 30. "The decision has been made," she said.
President Rafael Correa suggested in December that the USAID's programs were no longer welcome in Ecuador, saying on one of his regular Saturday programs on television and radio that "we don't need charity."
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/AP-EXCLUSIVE-USAID-s-days-counted-in-Ecuador-5466609.php
Major Report Urges Reform of U.S. Capital Punishment System
Major Report Urges Reform of U.S. Capital Punishment System
By Michelle Tullo
WASHINGTON, May 7 2014 (IPS) - Innocent people will be executed in the United States if the country’s capital punishment system is not reformed, warns a new report.
These reforms include improving the use of forensic science, taping confessions, and providing better trained counsel to defendants. These suggestions were among 39 recommendations released Wednesday in a report by the Constitution Project, a nonpartisan group working to improve the U.S. criminal justice system.
The report’s authors, collectively known as the Death Penalty Committee, include both supporters and opponents of the death penalty. The publication comes as the United States, one of just 43 countries that haven’t outlawed capital punishment, is in the midst of one of its largest national discussions on the issue in years.
More than 30 states in the United States continue to allow the death penalty, despite findings that the capital punishment system appears to be biased against minorities – and despite dozens of known cases of innocent people being sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 140 people have been exonerated from “death row”, but critics say it is impossible to tell how many of the 1400 who have been executed may have been innocent.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/05/major-report-urges-reform-u-s-capital-punishment-system/
Colombia trains troops Washington is ‘restricted from working with’: US general
Source: Colombia Reports
Colombia trains troops Washington is ‘restricted from working with’: US general
May 8, 2014 posted by Philip Acuña
A top US general has caused controversy after commending the Colombian military for training personnel that Washington is “restricted from working with” due to human rights laws.
General John Kelly, Commander of the US Southern Command, praised Colombia for its military partnership with the US at a House hearing on April 29, and expressed the advantages of having Colombia as a proxy for US military training of foreign troops.
“The beauty of having Colombia — they’re such good partners, particularly in the military realm…when we ask them to go somewhere else and train the Mexicans, the Hondurans…they will do it almost without asking,” said Kelly.
The general’s most controversial comments however were in regards to Colombia’s new role as the region’s top exporter of military training and security services.
“But that’s why it’s important for them to go, because I’m—at least on the military side—restricted from working with some of these countries because of limitations that are, that are really based on past sins. And I’ll let it go at that,” Kelly added.
Read more: http://colombiareports.co/colombian-military-allows-us-skirt-human-rights-laws-us-general/
Guatemala sees opium poppies as potential revenue-spinners
Guatemala sees opium poppies as potential revenue-spinners
William Schomberg
Reuters
4:50 p.m. EDT, May 7, 2014
LONDON (Reuters) - Guatemala is considering the possibility of earning taxes from the sale of opium poppies to help fund drug prevention programmes and other social spending, the country's interior minister said on Wednesday.
The Central American state is looking at ways to legalize poppy and marijuana production, part of a broader shift in attitudes across Latin America away from the huge financial and social costs of the U.S.-backed war on drugs.
"That is one idea that has been raised," said Mauricio Lopez Bonilla, a retired lieutenant colonel who served with Guatemala's special forces, when asked if the government would tax the sale of poppies if it opted to allow their cultivation for medical purposes.
"That option would mean raising taxes, fundamental resources for prevention, resources that could be used by the Guatemalan state for social development," he told Reuters in an interview.
More:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-guatemala-drugs-20140507,0,1500582.story
Panama's president-elect plans price controls on basic foods
Panama's president-elect plans price controls on basic foods
By Christine Murray and Elida Moreno
PANAMA CITY Tue May 6, 2014 1:06pm EDT
(Reuters) - Panama's president-elect will impose price controls on a range of basic foods to dampen rising costs, a step that will hit his bitter rival, outgoing president and supermarket tycoon Ricardo Martinelli.
Juan Carlos Varela, the Panamenista Party (PP) leader and winner of Sunday's election, told Reuters he is clear what his first policy will be when he takes office on July 1.
"Establish emergency price controls on 22 products in the basic basket to lower the cost of living by more than $600 million for the Panamanian people and avoid speculation in products," he said.
The measure would apply to basic foods such as rice, cheese and meat, Varela said, adding that huge profit margins were being put on basic foodstuffs.
"We feel that this is very unfair for the people," Varela, a 50-year-old U.S.-trained engineer whose family owns Panama's largest liquor company, said in an interview.
More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/06/us-panama-election-idUSBREA450P820140506?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401
The Case of the Dead Brazilian Torturer Gets Murkier
May 06, 2014
Cover-Up in Progress?
The Case of the Dead Brazilian Torturer Gets Murkier
by MICHAEL UHL
They haven’t killed him yet.
Paulo Malhaes, the confessed Brazilian torturer whose death I recently reported on this site may not have been murdered after all. At least that’s what police investigating the case have been loudly proclaiming for the past week.
The former Army officer who had been an active agent of repression during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the nineteen seventies was found dead in his home on April 25th. It was immediately and widely assumed that Malhaes had been assassinated by former comrades disturbed by his recent testimony before the Brazilian Truth Commission. But the police in Nova Iguacu, a commuter city on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, are saying that Malhaes died of a heart attack while being restrained during a routine house robbery gone wrong.
Based on what’s being reported in Brazil and via international wire services, however, the line of inquiry being pursued by the police is so rife with contradictory evidence and unanswered questions that the case is already showing all the earmarks of a cover up, if not a full blown conspiracy. At this point it’s still impossible to distinguish hearsay from fact, but the story goes something like this, beginning with a few scant details on the victim’s background:
While on active duty in an intelligence unit more than three decades ago, Paulo Malhaes was in command of what the Brazilian Army dubbed its House of Death located in a mountain town near Rio. It was where high profile militants involved in armed resistance were taken to be interrogated. Most never left alive, Malhaes has testified, and their bodies were partially dismembered, then dumped in a local river. “They paid a high price for playing cops and robbers with the Army,” Malhaes once gloated to reporters of the Brazilian daily, O Globo. During his testimony Malhaes said he did not repent his acts, and would do it all over again. The former colonel did refuse, however, to provide the names of those with whom he served, which may have not been enough to save him.
More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1108
Another clandestine wiretapping operation discovered in Bogota
Another clandestine wiretapping operation discovered in Bogota
May 6, 2014 posted by Philip Acuña
A new illegal wiretapping operation, the second in a year, has been discovered in Colombia’s capital Bogota, local media reported Tuesday.
One man has been arrested after the Prosecutor General’s technical investigation team (CTI) raided an apartment in northern Bogota where surveillance equipment used to intercept electronic communications was discovered, Radio Caracol reported.
Peace talks again target of wiretapping operation
Eduardo Montealegre, Colombia’s prosecutor general, has claimed that the room — like one that was dismantled months ago — was used to surveil officials involved in the ongoing peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the rebel group, FARC.
~snip~
Not the first wiretapping scandal
Tuesday’s discovery is concerning, given Colombia’s troubled history with government surveillance operations.
In February, based on 15-months of reporting and testimony from an unnamed inside source, Semana Magazine concluded that a Colombian military intelligence unit funded and coordinated by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used advanced online technology and hacking techniques to monitor the text messages and emails of opposition politicians and representatives of both the government and the FARC involved in the Havana peace negotiations.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/new-spy-center-discovered-bogota/
Santos’ spin doctor resigns after allegation he received drug money
Santos’ spin doctor resigns after allegation he received drug money
May 6, 2014 posted by Philip Acuña
[font size=1]
J.J. Rendon (C) with Juan Manuel Santos (R) and First Lady Maria Clemencia Rodriguez
(Photo: Diario Primicia)[/font]
J.J. Rendon has resigned from the reelection campaign of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, following allegations that he received $12 million from drug traffickers to negotiate “favorable” terms for their surrender, local media reported.
The controversial Venezuelan political strategist announced Monday that he was leaving the Santos reelection campaign, stating, “The last thing I want to do is harm the campaign of Dr. Juan Manuel Santos,” newspaper El Heraldo quotes Rendon as saying.
Javier Antonio Calle, an incarcerated Colombian drug lord and the former leader of the “Rastrojos” gang, accused Rendon of accepting $12 million from various drug-traffickers to help negotiate the terms of their surrender.
The drug barons were seeking to prevent their extradition to the United States, and in exchange submitted a proposal in which they offered to disarm and shut down a large portion of the country’s drug trafficking operations.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/controversial-spin-doctor-resigns-santos-campaign/
Ancient Desert Glyphs Pointed Way to Fairgrounds
Ancient Desert Glyphs Pointed Way to Fairgrounds
5 May 2014 4:00 pm
Seen from above, the jagged rocks strewn about the Chincha Valley desert in Peru seem inconspicuous. But stand in the desert itself and these rocks form lines that stretch toward the horizon. Researchers have found that these lines were probably ancient signposts for the Paracas culture more than 2000 years ago, guiding people across the desert to gathering places for the winter solstice.
The Paracas people lived in what is now southern Peru from 800 to 100 B.C.E. They immediately preceded another culture called the Nazca, which is famous for making massive line drawings out of earth and stone, including enormous works of art depicting everything from birds to monkeys. Archaeologists call such lines “geoglyphs,” whether they are meant to be artistic or serve a practical purpose.
The Paracas also made geoglyphs, and the Chincha Valley contains two kinds, explains Charles Stanish, an archaeologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. By sweeping the darker desert soil off the bright limestone underneath, ancient peoples created white lines that are easily visible at great distances. “They would be unmistakable” to people traveling down to the desert from the surrounding hills, Stanish explains. Then, as these travelers arrived at certain spots on the desert floor, the second type of geoglyph would become obvious. What previously looked like nothing more than scattered rocks would suddenly take on a definite shape and appear to form new lines stretching off into the horizon.
To understand the purpose of the geoglyphs, Stanish and his team first had to confirm that the lines were made by the Paracas people. Scientists have a horribly difficult time pinning down when any geoglyphs were made because they include no remains from dead plants for carbon dating. However, the Chincha Valley also contains ruins of five settlements with small pyramids built by the Paracas that contain artifacts from daily life, such as pots and baskets. There are also three large mounds in the desert that contain the remains of maize and sugarcane that definitely came from 400 to 100 B.C.E., when the Paracas people dominated the region.
More:
http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/05/ancient-desert-glyphs-pointed-way-fairgrounds
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