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Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's Journal
Judi Lynn's Journal
October 31, 2017
October 31, 2017
The new round of documents on the Kennedy assassination shed light on the long-running U.S. government effort to overthrow Fidel Castro -- including discussions to stage attacks on U.S. soil and blame Cuba
AARON MATÉ: It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Maté. A new round of documents on the Kennedy assassination has been released. The docs don't shed new light on how Kennedy was killed, but they do shed light on the long-running US effort to overthrow the Castro government in Cuba. Joining me now is Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. He is co-author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana.
Welcome, Peter. What to you is significant about these now JFK documents and what they contain about Cuba?
PETER KORNBLUH: What's significant is that almost none of them are new. There's only actually 52 new documents that we haven't seen before that have been released out of these 2,800 documents. All the other ones have been released as part of the JFK Act before and now are being released with less or no redactions. Many of the documents that you've looked at are actually ones that have been out and around for a while. Many of them do address the issue of US covert interventions, efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro and roll back the Cuban revolution.
That's because the original JFK commission that was in charge of identifying relevant documents made a very appropriate and broad definition of what a JFK-related document was. Because of the whole issue of Kennedy trying to kill Castro, and rumors that Castro might have retaliated by killing Kennedy, because this became a conspiracy theory in the folklore of the Kennedy assassination, all the documents related to US covert operations, assassination plots, and the violent terrorist activities of Cuban exiles who once worked for the CIA, all of those documents have been released over the years. There's still some more to be released, but in this last release of documents, we did find those Cuba documents.
More:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=20337
Homegrown Terror: JFK Docs Show US Considered Attacks at Home to Blame on Cuba
October 31, 2017
The new round of documents on the Kennedy assassination shed light on the long-running U.S. government effort to overthrow Fidel Castro -- including discussions to stage attacks on U.S. soil and blame Cuba
AARON MATÉ: It's The Real News. I'm Aaron Maté. A new round of documents on the Kennedy assassination has been released. The docs don't shed new light on how Kennedy was killed, but they do shed light on the long-running US effort to overthrow the Castro government in Cuba. Joining me now is Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. He is co-author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana.
Welcome, Peter. What to you is significant about these now JFK documents and what they contain about Cuba?
PETER KORNBLUH: What's significant is that almost none of them are new. There's only actually 52 new documents that we haven't seen before that have been released out of these 2,800 documents. All the other ones have been released as part of the JFK Act before and now are being released with less or no redactions. Many of the documents that you've looked at are actually ones that have been out and around for a while. Many of them do address the issue of US covert interventions, efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro and roll back the Cuban revolution.
That's because the original JFK commission that was in charge of identifying relevant documents made a very appropriate and broad definition of what a JFK-related document was. Because of the whole issue of Kennedy trying to kill Castro, and rumors that Castro might have retaliated by killing Kennedy, because this became a conspiracy theory in the folklore of the Kennedy assassination, all the documents related to US covert operations, assassination plots, and the violent terrorist activities of Cuban exiles who once worked for the CIA, all of those documents have been released over the years. There's still some more to be released, but in this last release of documents, we did find those Cuba documents.
More:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=20337
October 31, 2017
written by Stephen Gill October 30, 2017
Former Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler survived World War II and resided in Colombia for several months in 1954, according to a recently declassified CIA document.
The declassified United States intelligence memo, released as part of a series of files on the murder of former President John F. Kennedy had a photograph attached showing an “Adolf Schrittelmayor” in Tunja in the Boyaca province of the South American country.
The memo, which was marked “secret”, was wired from the head of CIA’s bureau in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 3, 1955 and claimed that Hitler was alive and well.
. . .
One of the documents in the file is a letter sent to Washington by CIA agent David Brixnor in which he writes that Hitler is alive and was seen talking to a former German SS trooper named Phillip Citroen who was believed to be in contact with the former dictator once a month in Colombia.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/declassified-cia-document-claims-hitler-colombia-world-war-ii/
Declassified CIA document claims Hitler was in Colombia after World War II
written by Stephen Gill October 30, 2017
Former Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler survived World War II and resided in Colombia for several months in 1954, according to a recently declassified CIA document.
The declassified United States intelligence memo, released as part of a series of files on the murder of former President John F. Kennedy had a photograph attached showing an “Adolf Schrittelmayor” in Tunja in the Boyaca province of the South American country.
The memo, which was marked “secret”, was wired from the head of CIA’s bureau in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 3, 1955 and claimed that Hitler was alive and well.
. . .
One of the documents in the file is a letter sent to Washington by CIA agent David Brixnor in which he writes that Hitler is alive and was seen talking to a former German SS trooper named Phillip Citroen who was believed to be in contact with the former dictator once a month in Colombia.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/declassified-cia-document-claims-hitler-colombia-world-war-ii/
October 29, 2017
The 50-year civil war is over but, in the Cauca Valley, indigenous communities are on frontline of fight against drug gangs, riot police and deforestation
Jonathan Watts
Saturday 28 October 2017 19.05 EDT
A green-and-red flag flies over a cluster of bamboo and tarpaulin tents on the frontline of an increasingly deadly struggle for land and the environment in Colombia’s Cauca Valley.
It is the banner for what indigenous activists are calling the “liberation of Mother Earth”, a movement to reclaim ancestral land from sugar plantations, farms and tourist resorts that has gained momentum in the vacuum left by last year’s peace accord between the government and the paramilitaries who once dominated the region – ending, in turn, the world’s longest-running civil war.
The ragtag outpost in Corinto has been hacked out of a sugar plantation, destroyed by riot police, then reoccupied by the activists, who want to stop supplying coca (the main ingredient for cocaine) to drug traffickers in the mountains by cultivating vegetables on the plains instead.
Despite two deaths in the past year, the Nasa Indians – the biggest, most organised and most militant of the 20 indigenous groups in the valley – have staged waves of monoculture clearance and occupation operations. Almost every other week hundreds, sometimes thousands, of machete-bearing activists join these communal actions, known as minga, which involve burning and hacking down swaths of sugar cane, then erecting camps and planting traditional crops including maize and cassava.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/28/nasa-colombia-cauca-valley-battle-mother-land
Battle for the mother land: indigenous people of Colombia fighting for their lands
The 50-year civil war is over but, in the Cauca Valley, indigenous communities are on frontline of fight against drug gangs, riot police and deforestation
Jonathan Watts
Saturday 28 October 2017 19.05 EDT
A green-and-red flag flies over a cluster of bamboo and tarpaulin tents on the frontline of an increasingly deadly struggle for land and the environment in Colombia’s Cauca Valley.
It is the banner for what indigenous activists are calling the “liberation of Mother Earth”, a movement to reclaim ancestral land from sugar plantations, farms and tourist resorts that has gained momentum in the vacuum left by last year’s peace accord between the government and the paramilitaries who once dominated the region – ending, in turn, the world’s longest-running civil war.
The ragtag outpost in Corinto has been hacked out of a sugar plantation, destroyed by riot police, then reoccupied by the activists, who want to stop supplying coca (the main ingredient for cocaine) to drug traffickers in the mountains by cultivating vegetables on the plains instead.
Despite two deaths in the past year, the Nasa Indians – the biggest, most organised and most militant of the 20 indigenous groups in the valley – have staged waves of monoculture clearance and occupation operations. Almost every other week hundreds, sometimes thousands, of machete-bearing activists join these communal actions, known as minga, which involve burning and hacking down swaths of sugar cane, then erecting camps and planting traditional crops including maize and cassava.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/28/nasa-colombia-cauca-valley-battle-mother-land
October 24, 2017
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | October 23, 2017 03:52pm ET
Earth's first trees had hundreds of tree-like structures within them, making them exceedingly more intricate than the insides of modern trees, a new study finds.
Researchers made the discovery after studying the fossils of 374-million-year-old trees found in northwest China. The fossils showed that these ancient trees had an interconnected mesh of woody strands, the researchers found.
"It's just bizarre," said study co-researcher Christopher Berry, a senior lecturer of paleobotany at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. [Nature's Giants: Photos of the Tallest Trees on Earth]
The two specimens were found in 2012 and 2015 in Xinjiang, China, by study lead researcher Hong-He Xu, of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The specimens belong to a group of trees known as cladoxylopsids, which are known to have existed from the Middle Devonian to the Early Carboniferous periods, from about 393 million to 320 million years ago, long before dinosaurs walked the Earth.
- click for image -
https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA5Ni8zMjAvb3JpZ2luYWwvQ2FsYW1vcGh5dG9uX0ZvcmVzdC5qcGc/MTUwODc4NzY2OQ==
More:
https://www.livescience.com/60746-earth-oldest-trees-had-complex-structure.html?utm_source=notification
Primordial Fossils of Earth's 1st Trees Reveal Their Bizarre Structure
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | October 23, 2017 03:52pm ET
Earth's first trees had hundreds of tree-like structures within them, making them exceedingly more intricate than the insides of modern trees, a new study finds.
Researchers made the discovery after studying the fossils of 374-million-year-old trees found in northwest China. The fossils showed that these ancient trees had an interconnected mesh of woody strands, the researchers found.
"It's just bizarre," said study co-researcher Christopher Berry, a senior lecturer of paleobotany at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. [Nature's Giants: Photos of the Tallest Trees on Earth]
The two specimens were found in 2012 and 2015 in Xinjiang, China, by study lead researcher Hong-He Xu, of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The specimens belong to a group of trees known as cladoxylopsids, which are known to have existed from the Middle Devonian to the Early Carboniferous periods, from about 393 million to 320 million years ago, long before dinosaurs walked the Earth.
- click for image -
https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA5Ni8zMjAvb3JpZ2luYWwvQ2FsYW1vcGh5dG9uX0ZvcmVzdC5qcGc/MTUwODc4NzY2OQ==
More:
https://www.livescience.com/60746-earth-oldest-trees-had-complex-structure.html?utm_source=notification
October 24, 2017
written by Adriaan Alsema October 23, 2017
More:
https://colombiareports.com/sad-see-foreigners-know-colombians-countrys-reality/
Its sad to see foreigners know more than Colombians about the countrys reality
written by Adriaan Alsema October 23, 2017
The coordinator of a major study on the killing of Colombia’s social leaders has decried public disinterest over these attacks on human rights that terrorize entire communities.
In an interview with newspaper El Espectador, human rights investigator Camilo Bonilla said “it is very said to see” how indifferent the urban population has become over fate of their fellow countrymen in rural areas.
The Colombian armed conflict began in the 1960s and was at its most intense around the turn of the century. Two of the main human rights violators during the conflict, the AUC and the FARC, have demobilized since 2003.
Millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands and been murdered. Tens of thousands of Colombians are still missing.
In an interview with newspaper El Espectador, human rights investigator Camilo Bonilla said “it is very said to see” how indifferent the urban population has become over fate of their fellow countrymen in rural areas.
The Colombian armed conflict began in the 1960s and was at its most intense around the turn of the century. Two of the main human rights violators during the conflict, the AUC and the FARC, have demobilized since 2003.
Millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands and been murdered. Tens of thousands of Colombians are still missing.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/sad-see-foreigners-know-colombians-countrys-reality/
October 24, 2017
Nicaragua has agreed to join the Paris climate agreement, leaving only the US and Syria outside the global pact. As the world gears up for the next climate talks in Bonn, questions surround Washington's plans.
24.10.2017
Nicaragua has already presented the relevant documents to join the global agreement at the United Nations, Vice President Rosario Murillo said on Monday.
"It is the only instrument we have in the world that allows the unity of intentions and efforts to face up to climate change and natural disasters," Murillo said. The move will leave only two countries outside the global pact: war-torn Syria and the US.
In September, President Daniel Ortega announced during a private meeting with World Bank directors that his country would join the agreement, although this information was later removed from the official government website.
Nicaragua was the only nation to reject the agreement in 2015 and has argued for far more drastic action to limit rising temperatures.
More:
http://www.dw.com/en/nicaragua-moves-to-join-paris-climate-accord-isolating-us-syria/a-41082833
Nicaragua moves to join Paris climate accord, isolating US, Syria
Nicaragua has agreed to join the Paris climate agreement, leaving only the US and Syria outside the global pact. As the world gears up for the next climate talks in Bonn, questions surround Washington's plans.
24.10.2017
Nicaragua has already presented the relevant documents to join the global agreement at the United Nations, Vice President Rosario Murillo said on Monday.
"It is the only instrument we have in the world that allows the unity of intentions and efforts to face up to climate change and natural disasters," Murillo said. The move will leave only two countries outside the global pact: war-torn Syria and the US.
In September, President Daniel Ortega announced during a private meeting with World Bank directors that his country would join the agreement, although this information was later removed from the official government website.
Nicaragua was the only nation to reject the agreement in 2015 and has argued for far more drastic action to limit rising temperatures.
More:
http://www.dw.com/en/nicaragua-moves-to-join-paris-climate-accord-isolating-us-syria/a-41082833
October 21, 2017
written by Adriaan Alsema October 20, 2017
Ten people were arrested after authorities found out that mentally challenged children were tied down and drugged in a government-contracted private clinic, authorities said Thursday.
The ten worked in a mental healthcare center that had been contracted by the Colombian Institute for Child Welfare (ICBF) in the central city of Ibague, Tolima.
According to the prosecution, the suspects were charged with torture after finding out they had tied down and drugged children.
The caretakers additionally imposed “military doctrine” on the children for punishment.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/10-arrested-central-colombia-torturing-disabled-children/
10 arrested in central Colombia for torturing disabled children
written by Adriaan Alsema October 20, 2017
Ten people were arrested after authorities found out that mentally challenged children were tied down and drugged in a government-contracted private clinic, authorities said Thursday.
The ten worked in a mental healthcare center that had been contracted by the Colombian Institute for Child Welfare (ICBF) in the central city of Ibague, Tolima.
According to the prosecution, the suspects were charged with torture after finding out they had tied down and drugged children.
The caretakers additionally imposed “military doctrine” on the children for punishment.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/10-arrested-central-colombia-torturing-disabled-children/
October 19, 2017
Unearthing a Massacre in Peru
By David Gonzalez Oct. 19, 2017
Silent clues to a violent past are buried among the scores of mass graves that dot Chungui district in the mountainous Ayacucho region of Peru. There, above layers of earth that mark geological time, lie relatively new remnants attesting to the massacres carried out by both the Shining Path guerrillas and the military and police forces that hunted them.
A soggy, wrinkled skirt. A skull. Fragments of a spinal column. All that remains of the many men, women and children caught in the crossfire of a war they never wanted. When these remains are lifted from their unmarked graves, they bring with them the chance to be identified, to give their survivors an idea of what happened. To give them something they can bury, and mourn.
Max Cabello Orcasitas, a Peruvian photojournalist, had been intrigued by the exhumations taking place in the region, which was among the hardest-hit by the political violence 30 years ago. He had read about it in a report by the country’s truth commission that offered an accounting of the crimes and killings that were carried out during these dirty wars.
“It struck me as a little-known tragedy,” Mr. Cabello Orcasitas said. “It was like that place in Yugoslavia where there were massacres, Srebrenica. This was like a Peruvian Srebrenica.”
More:
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/unearthing-a-massacre-in-peru/
October 19, 2017
Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say
Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Wednesday 18 October 2017 14.00 EDT
The abundance of flying insects has plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years, according to a new study that has shocked scientists.
Insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife and it was known that some species such as butterflies were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is “on course for ecological Armageddon”, with profound impacts on human society.
The new data was gathered in nature reserves across Germany but has implications for all landscapes dominated by agriculture, the researchers said.
The cause of the huge decline is as yet unclear, although the destruction of wild areas and widespread use of pesticides are the most likely factors and climate change may play a role. The scientists were able to rule out weather and changes to landscape in the reserves as causes, but data on pesticide levels has not been collected.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/18/warning-of-ecological-armageddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers
Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers
Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say
Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Wednesday 18 October 2017 14.00 EDT
The abundance of flying insects has plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years, according to a new study that has shocked scientists.
Insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife and it was known that some species such as butterflies were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is “on course for ecological Armageddon”, with profound impacts on human society.
The new data was gathered in nature reserves across Germany but has implications for all landscapes dominated by agriculture, the researchers said.
The cause of the huge decline is as yet unclear, although the destruction of wild areas and widespread use of pesticides are the most likely factors and climate change may play a role. The scientists were able to rule out weather and changes to landscape in the reserves as causes, but data on pesticide levels has not been collected.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/18/warning-of-ecological-armageddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers
October 16, 2017
by Ricardo Vaz / October 15th, 2017
Cuba is the model of what can be achieved. Imagine how much more it could do without the economical and media blockade!”. These are the words of Claudia Camba, president of the UMMEP Foundation (“Un Mundo Mejor Es Posible”, “A better world is possible”) and coordinator of the Cuban missions in Argentina. In this exclusive Investig’Action interview, she tells us about Cuban solidarity in Argentina and Latin America, and specially about Operación Milagro (“Operation Miracle”) and the Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara ophthalmologic centre in Córdoba
*****
Ricardo Vaz: Can you tell us a bit of the history of Operación Milagro (“Operation Miracle”)?
Claudia Camba: Operación Milagro was borne out of another great Cuban internationalist mission, which was the literacy program “Yo Sí Puedo” (“Yes I can”), and more concretely in Venezuela, where this literacy program was called “Misión Robinson”. The Venezuelans, through this program, had the goal of teaching 1 million people how to read and write in six months. Throughout this time they had some major successes as well as big difficulties, and one of them was the participants’ vision. Almost all the illiterate taking part in this program were adults with vision problems.
To overcome this Cuba sent 1500 optometrists, to test the peoples’ vision and give them glasses. But even with glasses some people could not see, and after an examination it turned out that they had cataracts. That is how “Misión Milagro”, which initially was just between Venezuela and Cuba, was born. With this mission over 300.000 Venezuelans travelled to Cuba to have surgery, not only for cataracts but also for other eye problems.
RV: And this mission is later extended to Argentina?
CC: Later on, in 2005, Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro begin to wonder: why not extend this mission to the whole of Latin America? Our organisation, UMMEP (“Un Mundo Mejor Es Posible”, “A better world is possible”), had been conducting the “Yo Sí Puedo” literacy program in Argentina, and we were approached by Cuba about the possibility of articulating ourselves with “Operación Milagro”. For us it was an honour to accept this cooperation.
More:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/10/breaking-the-blockade-against-cuba-interview-with-claudia-camba/
Breaking the Blockade against Cuba: Interview with Claudia Camba
by Ricardo Vaz / October 15th, 2017
Cuba is the model of what can be achieved. Imagine how much more it could do without the economical and media blockade!”. These are the words of Claudia Camba, president of the UMMEP Foundation (“Un Mundo Mejor Es Posible”, “A better world is possible”) and coordinator of the Cuban missions in Argentina. In this exclusive Investig’Action interview, she tells us about Cuban solidarity in Argentina and Latin America, and specially about Operación Milagro (“Operation Miracle”) and the Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara ophthalmologic centre in Córdoba
*****
Ricardo Vaz: Can you tell us a bit of the history of Operación Milagro (“Operation Miracle”)?
Claudia Camba: Operación Milagro was borne out of another great Cuban internationalist mission, which was the literacy program “Yo Sí Puedo” (“Yes I can”), and more concretely in Venezuela, where this literacy program was called “Misión Robinson”. The Venezuelans, through this program, had the goal of teaching 1 million people how to read and write in six months. Throughout this time they had some major successes as well as big difficulties, and one of them was the participants’ vision. Almost all the illiterate taking part in this program were adults with vision problems.
To overcome this Cuba sent 1500 optometrists, to test the peoples’ vision and give them glasses. But even with glasses some people could not see, and after an examination it turned out that they had cataracts. That is how “Misión Milagro”, which initially was just between Venezuela and Cuba, was born. With this mission over 300.000 Venezuelans travelled to Cuba to have surgery, not only for cataracts but also for other eye problems.
RV: And this mission is later extended to Argentina?
CC: Later on, in 2005, Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro begin to wonder: why not extend this mission to the whole of Latin America? Our organisation, UMMEP (“Un Mundo Mejor Es Posible”, “A better world is possible”), had been conducting the “Yo Sí Puedo” literacy program in Argentina, and we were approached by Cuba about the possibility of articulating ourselves with “Operación Milagro”. For us it was an honour to accept this cooperation.
More:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/10/breaking-the-blockade-against-cuba-interview-with-claudia-camba/
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