New Years Resolution for America: Stop Fighting the Bankers' Warshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwr-y6OxGqk&feature=related

COLOMBIA: Farm Subsidy Scandal Exposes Corrupt Policieshttp://www.insidecostarica.com/special_reports/2009/2009-12/colombia_farm_subsidy.htm

Robledo told IPS in this interview that explores the background to this ongoing scandal.

Q: How would you describe Colombia’s agricultural policy during Uribe's seven years in office? A: I would say that it has never been so reactionary. In the Fifth Senate Committee’s debates, we have determined that the current policy is at the service of transnational corporations. When Uribe took office as president (in 2002), Colombia was importing six million tons of food annually. Today it imports 10 million tons, when the free trade agreement with the United States has yet to enter into force, or the agreement with Europe, and there is talk of an agreement with Australia, a major agricultural power. Domestically, policy is geared to a plutocratic model; in other words, resources have become increasingly concentrated in a very few, very powerful hands. Q: The government alleges that these accusations have been made up by the opposition, and especially by you. A: Corruption scandals involving the agricultural sector under this government are very well known. The claims of a major presence of powerful interests, paramilitary groups and drug traffickers in rural areas of Colombia are in no way exaggerated. It is all part of a process of land hoarding, investing money in land in order to use it later for speculative purposes. Under a corrupt government like this one, it comes as no surprise that all of the scandals that involve the Ministry of Agriculture also end up involving, or referring in one way or another, to drug traffickers and paramilitary groups.

comment-i just posted a few paragraphs due to limited space required for more posts,this is a must read.

Supreme Court: the best of 2009http://colombiareports.com/opinion/117-cantonese-arepas/7500-supreme-court-the-best-of-2009.html

The Supreme Court, its magistrates and their decisions (or lack thereof) have elicited more public debate than ever before. In most part the debate was the result of the head-on collision with the Executive. Nevertheless, the following episodes speak volumes of the excellent job carried out by the Court despite the obvious inconveniences and dangers of imparting justice in Colombia; especially when people in the receiving end are connected to the highest spheres of power.

In February, when the DAS's (Colombia's security apparatus) illegal wiretapping scandal exploded, the Supreme Court's 23 magistrates officially revealed the intimidation that for more than a year they had been subject to. The intimidation began when they were investigating the para-politics scandal

In April, the Court elected a new president, Augusto José Ibáñez Guzmán, after months of deadlock. Ibáñez was considered a conciliatory figure, yet a defender of the Court's independence. Just days after assuming the presidency, Ibáñez sent a letter to the President demanding explanations for the DAS’ illegal interceptions to Supreme Court magistrates - the DAS follows orders directly from the presidency. Yet, Uribe never responded and relations only worsen.

After these episodes and new threats, the Supreme Court became more assertive. On September 15, the Court decided that congressmen who renounce to congress could still be investigated by the Court. By renouncing to Congress 30 politicians sought to be investigated by the PG and thus avoid the Court’s implacability. Among the politicians affected by the decision is Mario Uribe, President Uribe's cousin.

One of the most important decisions by the Court came in early December when a former Governor of a northern state, Salvador Arana, was sentenced to 40 years in jail for masterminding the assassination of Eudaldo León Díaz, a small town's ex-mayor. Díaz, from the Democratic Pole political party, foretold his assassination in front of Uribe, who chaired a communitarian council with Arana on his right. Díaz spoke out against corruption at the departmental level. Two months later, with no security from the state whatsoever, Díaz was tortured and killed. Months later Uribe sent Arana to Chile as ambassador.

Statement Oundaruni Hemenigui Hiñariñun Garinagu(Organization The Garifuna Women's Esperanza Honduras, OLAMUGAH)http://www.oilwatchmesoamerica.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2978&Itemid=69

THEREFORE DECLARE: What about the situation of iniquity we suffer, the many problems affecting our people, the role we play as women in reproduction and transmission of the identity of the Garifuna people, we agreed to create the Oundaruni, Hemenigui Hiñariñu Garinagu (Organizational Garifuna Women's Hope), as a space for articulation of grassroots women of the Garifuna people. 

 That before the demolition of democracy enabled by imperial interests associated with the small elite of power, we declare Garifuna women on full alert, because we see the same names and surnames of those who have tried to snatch our communities, such as perpetrators of the coup carried out on 28 June, which has generated enormous human rights violations Honduran people.

Starvation Predicted in Hondurashttp://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/starvation-predicted-in-honduras/

Some programs initiated by the Zelaya administration to support small and medium producers were cancelled after the coup d’état along with several projects supported by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA) in sectors such as healthcare, education, energy and agriculture that have been cancelled or severely affected.

ALBA donated a hundred modern trucks, plows, seeders and other implements to improve agriculture production in Honduras. In the energy sector, the country’s incorporation to PETROCARIBE assured a stable supply of 20,000 barrels of oil a day at preferential prices and low interest rates. After the coup, the head of the de facto regime, Roberto Micheletti, asked the National Council to put to vote the virtual removal of this mechanism, which was supported by Porfirio Lobo, the Honduran president-elect during the recently held illegal elections on November 29.

2009 wrap up: economy, swine flu, bank bail-outs and false flagshttp://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009-wrap-up-economy-swine-flu-bank.html

2009 in review: A year of FDA censorship, Big Pharma crimes and celebrity drug deathshttp://www.naturalnews.com/027851_health_news_Big_Pharma.html

GOLINGER: CIA Agents Assassinated in Afghanistan Worked for Contractor Active in Venezuela, Cubahttp://www.chavezcode.com/2009/12/cia-agents-assassinated-in-afghanistan.html

Venezuela's institutions proved efficacy and transparency before banking irregularitieshttp://www.abn.info.ve/go_news5.php?articulo=213565&lee=17\

“Eight banks intervened, two of them liquidated; six of them in rehabilitation, three out of which were merged in order to create the Banco Bicentenario; 10 bankers arrested and a group of them count with application for extradition” are the result of the prompt proceeding of the national authorities.

Similarly, he stressed that result of these actions, 34 companies have been secured by the State and these are in process of becoming companies of socialist production, some of them in order to strengthen Venezuela's food sovereignty.

“There are not alarms now, not even the situation of 1994, when many people committed suicide because that government attended the interests of the bourgeoisie, the bankers who took people's money and the financial aid of the State,” Chavez recalled.

However, he reaffirmed that such scenario is not possible in Revolution because “this Government is here to attend and defend the interests of workers, of the people, the majorities instead of the interests of the rich and the privileged minorities. It will be always this way.”  Also, he expressed that the irregularities committed by the bankers of those eight institutions “is the result of the corrupted values of a group of people and those are the values of capitalism. They made a swindle and a group of them is in jail. We have not and we will not give them a cent, but jail. We will take all they have in order to indemnify the damages.”

Welcome to Orwell’s World, courtesy Barack Obamahttp://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/01/afghanistan-war-pilger-obama

carlos_da_mackeral1_9: A new Executive order. Does this make you more or less afraid? http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/a-new-executive-order-does-this-make-you-more-or-less-afraid/question-794609/answers/ ...posted by zz_ed

                                                                                                                                                                          

The Incessant Search for the Disappeared: Exhumation in Villaloboshttp://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2285/1/

Twenty-some years later, the question remains the same: where are the disappeared? Based on a witness testimony, the Association of Family Members of the Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA in Spanish), along with the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG in Spanish), began a process of exhumation in a possible clandestine mass grave on December 10, 2009

The mentioned testimony was provided by a former member of the Estado Mayor Presidencial -an infamous military hit squad and presidential guard (1) - during the military government of Oscar Humberto Mejía Víctores (1983-1986). The witness declared an empty lot along a highway in the southern end of Guatemala City served as a mass grave for several detained-disappeared victims of the dirty war, particularly those who appear in the document known as the Death Squad Dossier (referred to in Spanish as the Diario Militar, or Military Diary).

“The so-called Death Squad Dossier was declassified by the National Security Archives (NSA),” an independent and non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, in Washington D.C. “The document, made public by NSA analyst Kate Doyle in 1999, consists of 54 pages with notes and photographs of 183 victims from the armed conflict (1960-1996) [who were forcibly detained by the State’s security forces and] whose final whereabouts still remain unknown.”

comment-several governments in central and south america are beggining to exhume mass graves of victims of the military dictatorships that were supported by the us government during operation condor.i have posted a bit down on blog ,brazils reopening an investigation into theirs,when lbj aided the golpistas,this is another one, except this one is in guatemala.here's some backround on guatemalas..see just below...

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squad#Guatemala

In Guatemala, one such secret war in 1954 resulted in the overthrow of progressive Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz,' bringing the Cold War to Latin America. U.S. covert operations made use of local paramilitary fighters and guerrillas, including socalled "stay-behind armies

Guatemala has had death squads active since the 1960s up through the 1990s. Historian Greg Grandin remarks that "Washington, of course, publicly denied its support for paramilitarism, but the practice of political disappearances took a great leap forward in Guatemala in 1966 with the birth of a death squad created, and directly supervised, by U.S. security advisors. Throughout the first two months of 1966, a combined black-ops unit made up of police and military officers working under the name "Operation Clean-Up"-a term US counterinsurgents would recycle elsewhere in Latin America—carried out a number of extrajudicial executions... Over the next two and a half decades, U.S.-funded and -trained Central American security forces would disappear tens of thousands of citizens and execute hundreds of thousands more."

comment-also see..

The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Powerhttp://www.questia.com/library/book/the_battle_for_guatemala_rebels_death_squads_and_us_power_by_susanne_jonas_edelberto_rivas_torres.jsp

European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandalhttp://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16667

The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.

COMMENT-DONT EXPECT ANY REAL INVESTIGATION...THE EU's INVESTIGATIONS ARE A FARCE.ALSO AS WE WILL SHOW THE EU ITSELF IS IN BED WITH PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY,MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND REPRESENTS THE INTERESTS OF ITS MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS,SEE BELOW...

UNDER THE INFLUENCE Exposing undue corporate influence over policy-making at the World Trade Organizationhttp://www.actionaid.org/micrositeAssets/eu/assets/06.01_aai_under_the_influence.pdf

The EU and US’s corporate trade agenda The EU and the US are home to 80% of the world’s biggest multinational corporations. They are also the world’s dominant trade powers, and have a publicly stated commitment to promote their commercial interests by opening up markets in developing countries through the WTO.

The EU and US continue to claim they are acting in the interests of poor countries in the current ‘development’ round of trade negotiations, due to conclude this year. But the outcome of last December's WTO summit in Hong Kong shows the reality is very different.By offering small cuts in agricultural export subsidies in return for greatly increased access to the developing countries’ markets for services and manufactured goods, the EU and US are aggressively pursuing a self-interested agenda on behalf of their multinational companies. This threatens to undermine poor people’s rights and outlaw the trade policies that developing countries need to build thriving economies

This report exposes how multinational companies are: 1) given privileged access to WTO policy-makers that is denied to poor people and public interest groups: in the EU The European Services Forum (ESF) – a corporate lobby group set up by former EU trade commissioner Leon Brittan when he was still in office – represents services multinationals such as British Telecom, Lloyds, Suez and Vodafone. Despite denials from top EC officials, new evidence confirms ESF enjoys privileged access to senior policy-makers in EU commissioner Peter Mandelson’s trade department. ESF also has easy access to the ‘133 Committee’, a powerful but secretive body made up of EC officials and trade experts from the EU’s member states, which formulates important EU policies for WTO negotiations. In contrast to ESF’s easy access, details of 133 Committee meetings are kept secret from the public and parliaments in the EU.

comment-we do not endorse nor support actionaid.that being said,this report is well referenced by official  accounts,ngo's,and public interest groups,reports,of the undue influence ,and close ties,between us-eu and the pharmaceutical industries,multi national coprorate lobbying firms wich work to serve corporate interests even thougth they conflict with the EU'S charter on transparency,and full public disclosure of information on its dealings.its an excellent read and we here advise everyone read this.we also urge people to judge the content of this report,based on the content only.

The Bilderburg Group: 120 People Rule The World and They Want You Dead!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qD4182_AY4

COVER-UP??? Flight 253 Eyewitness: Authorities Are Lying About Terror Attack... YOU MUST READ THIS!!http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/cover-up-flight-253-eyewitness-authorities-are-lying-about-terror-attack/