Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Colombian Elections 2010
The following verbal public manifestations by Mockus during the first days of May may have led to a change of the electorate from the ‘greens’ to Santos:
- Saying that he would extradite Uribe and then taking it back.
- Admitting that he admires Hugo Chávez, taking it back, and then changing ‘admiration’ for ‘respect.’
- Declaring himself as an atheist and then making a confusing explanation of life after death; the priests forgave him, insinuating that ‘decent atheists go to heaven too.’ Read the rest of this entry »
La muerte anunciada de PEMEX
La semana pasada la revista The Economist publicó un artículo en su edición impresa en el que analizaba la salud de la paraestatal PEMEX. Se preguntaba cuántos mexicanos se necesitaban para perforar un pozo en el Golfo de México. Son 140,000 los empleados que laboran en PEMEX, y se estima que sobran más de 30,000 de ellos. Sin embargo, despedir a tal cantidad de gente en una sentada sería políticamente tóxico para el PRI.
Entre los sindicatos y la “inmunidad” de los empleados de PEMEX es imposible mantener a ese gigante de barro. La inversión es necesaria pero gente, como el PRD, dice que el petróleo es de todos los mexicanos. Totalmente de acuerdo, pero si no permitimos la inversión de al menos 10 mil millones de dólares al año, México será un importador neto de petróleo en 2017.
Entonces, ¿qué vamos a hacer? Esperar a que se nos terminé el petróleo y reducir brutalmente el gasto del gobierno, o peor aún, incrementar los impuestos sustancialmente para sostener el desequilibrio fiscal que se generaría al dejar crecer este problema.
Hace cinco años, Cantarell –nuestro galgo más pesado– solía producir 2.1 millones de barriles al día, ahora sólo produce 600 mil, poco menos de una tercera parte. ¿Cuál sería el escenario más factible en 10 años? ¿Cuáles son las soluciones? ¿Seguir diciendo que el petróleo es de los mexicanos? ¿Cuál petróleo?
Estén preparados para perder al gigante de pies de barro. Parece ser un cáncer irremediablemente fatal. Qué lástima que tuvimos la solución frente a nosotros y nunca se tuvo la voluntad política de hacer lo correcto.
The demise of the dollar
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.
The death of Mr. Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer, was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family, which was already mourning the death of the senator’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks earlier.
President Obama issued a statement acknowledging Mr. Kennedy’s accomplishments. “An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” the statement said. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time.”
(Via New York Times)
Russians launched Twitter attack to hit Georgian blogger Cyxymu
From Times Online
Hackers from Russia may have attacked Google, Twitter and Facebook in an attempt to silence a pro-Georgian blogger, it has emerged.
A year after troops from the two countries became locked in a five-day war, the co-ordinated cyber assaults shut down Twitter for a couple of hours and disrupted access for Facebook users.
LiveJournal, a blogging site, was also hit while Google managed to fend off ‘denial-of-service’ attacks. The hacking technique uses thousands of compromised computers to contact a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through.
A Georgian blogger by the name of Cyxymu has accounts on all the websites and was the target, according to a senior security executive at Facebook.
Gates, Crowley Join Obama for Hotly-Anticipated Happy Hour
Obama sits down for a beer with Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, police Sergeant James Crowley and Vice President Joe Biden.
A President Kicked Out, but Not Alone in Defiance – NYTimes.com
From the New York Times
OCOTAL, Nicaragua — When Ángel Hsiky, a farm worker, heard his ousted president’s call for supporters to help him return to Honduras, he threw a change of clothes in a knapsack, kissed his wife and 9-month-old boy goodbye and headed to the Nicaraguan border.
Defying a military-enforced curfew, Mr. Hsiky and a caravan of about 200 supporters of the deposed Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, crossed precipitous hillsides covered with coffee plantations and dense cloud forest, skirting military roadblocks by taking dirt back roads. When that became impossible, the group abandoned cars and trucks and walked through mud and rain to the mountain-ringed outpost of Las Manos, Nicaragua.
‘We’ve come to bring our president back home,’ said Mr. Hsiky, 23, who is from Mr. Zelaya’s Olancho Province in central Honduras.
Since Mr. Zelaya arrived here on Friday to taunt the de facto government that exiled him a month ago, hundreds of Hondurans have answered his call to join him just across the border in Nicaragua.
Arriving here in mud-caked jeans and ripped shirts, after sleeping on soaked mountaintops and hiding among the coffee plants from patrolling helicopters, they have set up camps in the border towns of Las Manos and Ocotal.
Un vídeo revela que las FARC dieron apoyo al presidente de Ecuador
Un jefe militar de la mayor guerrilla izquierdista de Colombia, las FARC, ha reconocido que ese grupo aportó dinero a la campaña del presidente de Ecuador Rafael Correa, según un vídeo donde aparece el líder rebelde y cuya existencia fue confirmada el viernes por la Fiscalía.
En el vídeo, retransmitido por varios canales de televisión, aparece Jorge Briceño, alias el ‘Mono Jojoy’, en un campamento hablando a un numeroso grupo de guerrilleros de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).
“La Fiscalía tiene un informe de la policía judicial donde da cuenta del contenido y la existencia del vídeo”, dijo un portavoz de la Fiscalía.
La cinta fue obtenida durante el registro al apartamento de una guerrillera detenida hace un par de meses en Bogotá.
En el vídeo sale Briceño diciendo que hubo “ayuda en dólares a la campaña de Correa y posteriores conversaciones con sus emisarios, incluidos algunos acuerdos, según documentos en poder de todos nosotros, los cuales resultan muy comprometedores en nuestros nexos con los amigos”.
El portavoz de la Fiscalía precisó que el vídeo se encuentra en poder de la policía judicial Dijín.
“Lo incautado lo llevó la policía judicial, en este caso la de Dijín, para analizar y evaluar todo y le entregaron un informe al fiscal del caso”, agregó el funcionario.
Yeah, the economy is recovering quite… sorry, what were you saying?
El Partido Social Demócrata Mexicano en Gizmodo
¿El Partido Social Demócrata tiene propaganda en Gizmodo?
Nuevo León: Elizondo admite empate técnico con Medina
El candidato del PAN al gobierno de Nuevo León, Fernando Elizondo Barragán, admitió que predomina un ‘empate técnico’ en las preferencias electorales frente al aspirante de la coalición Juntos por Nuevo León, Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz.
Durante un evento masivo celebrado anoche en el municipio conurbado de Escobedo, el abanderado del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) consideró ‘ridículas’ las encuestas que ubican a Medina de la Cruz con una ventaja de 10 puntos, a sólo 13 días de los comicios.
‘El panorama es de mucha intensidad en la campaña, con gran entusiasmo y con gran energía, mucho trabajo de aquí al miércoles de la semana próxima, que va a terminar la actividad de campaña y esperamos llevarnos el triunfo el 5 de julio’, indicó.
Precisó que ‘las encuestas que nosotros hemos tenido indican un empate técnico, algunas para arriba otras para abajo’.
Va ex-embajador Tony Garza a iniciativa privada
Tony Garza, ex Embajador de Estados Unidos en México y esposo de María Asunción Aramburuzabala, se integró este martes como socio y presidente del consejo de ViaNovo Ventures y como asesor de la firma legal White & Case.
ViaNovo, una empresa consultora, anunció este martes que Garza se unió a la compañía en calidad de socio y como presidente del Consejo de ViaNovo Ventures, una nueva división de la compañía.
James S. Taylor, socio fundador de ViaNovo, dijo mediante un comunicado que el ex Embajador cuenta con la confianza de directores generales y ejecutivos de empresas, inversionistas y líderes de gobierno de Estados Unidos y México, por lo que su conocimiento y experiencia serán invaluables para los clientes y socios estratégicos de negocios.
Además de ofrecer servicios de consejería a sus clientes en materia de comunicaciones estratégicas, asuntos públicos y negocios, Garza tendrá como meta el crecimiento de ViaNovo Ventures, que busca asociarse con compañías, fondos de inversión privada e inversionistas para ayudarles a alcanzar sus metas de negocio.
Obama ‘outraged’ by Iranian violence as street protests are quashed – Times Online
President Obama condemned Iran’s ‘iron fist’ last night after the regime flooded Tehran with armed security to quash street demonstrations.
In his strongest language yet on the post-election crackdown, Mr Obama said that America had been ‘appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments’ of recent days.
He also invoked the death of Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old student shot dead on Saturday, saying: ‘Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.’
His comments came on a day when Tehran tightened its grip on power and the West hardened its position.
— The highest legislative body in Iran, the Guardian Council, ruled out a rerun of the election and parliament set a date for the inauguration of President Ahmadinejad.
— The regime arrested Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, a close aide of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who ran his newspaper and website.
— Britain expelled two Iranian diplomats after Tehran ordered two British diplomats out of Iran on Monday.
— Iranian envoys in at least five European capitals were summoned to be told that the oppression of peaceful demonstrators was unacceptable.
Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can’t Crack
The most celebrated inscription at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, used to be the biblical phrase chiseled into marble in the main lobby: ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ But in recent years, another text has been the subject of intense scrutiny inside the Company and out: 865 characters of seeming gibberish, punched out of half-inch-thick copper in a courtyard.
It’s part of a sculpture called Kryptos, created by DC artist James Sanborn. He got the commission in 1988, when the CIA was constructing a new building behind its original headquarters. The agency wanted an outdoor installation for the area between the two buildings, so a solicitation went out for a piece of public art that the general public would never see. Sanborn named his proposal after the Greek word for hidden. The work is a meditation on the nature of secrecy and the elusiveness of truth, its message written entirely in code.
Almost 20 years after its dedication, the text has yet to be fully deciphered. A bleary-eyed global community of self-styled cryptanalysts—along with some of the agency’s own staffers—has seen three of its four sections solved, revealing evocative prose that only makes the puzzle more confusing. Still uncracked are the 97 characters of the fourth part (known as K4 in Kryptos-speak). And the longer the deadlock continues, the crazier people get.
Whether or not our top spooks intended it, the persistent opaqueness of Kryptos subversively embodies the nature of the CIA itself—and serves as a reminder of why secrecy and subterfuge so fascinate us. ‘The whole thing is about the power of secrecy,’ Sanborn tells me when I visit his studio, a barnlike structure on Jimmy Island in Chesapeake Bay (population: 2). He is 6′7′, bearded, and looks a bit younger than his 63 years. Looming behind him is his latest work in progress, a 28-foot-high re-creation of the world’s first particle accelerator, surrounded by some of the original hardware from the Manhattan Project. The atomic gear fits nicely with the thrust of Sanborn’s oeuvre, which centers on what he calls invisible forces.
With Kryptos, Sanborn has made his strongest statement about what we don’t see and can’t know. ‘He designed a piece that would resonate with this workforce in particular,’ says Toni Hiley, who curates the employees-only CIA museum. Sanborn’s ambitious work includes the 9-foot 11-inch-high main sculpture—an S-shaped wave of copper with cut-out letters, anchored by an 11-foot column of petrified wood—and huge pieces of granite abutting a low fountain. And although most of the installation resides in a space near the CIA cafeteria, where analysts and spies can enjoy it when they eat outside, Kryptos extends beyond the courtyard to the other side of the new building. There, copper plates near the entrance bear snippets of Morse code, and a naturally magnetized lodestone sits by a compass rose etched in granite.
(Via Wired.)
Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine
Recently I was forwarded this YouTube clip in which Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein portray the “shock doctrine”, brought to fame by the latter. This doctrine has become a NYT best-seller, but has been highly criticized. It seems to be contradictive, unfounded, and, sometimes, naïve.
Anyway, what do you think?
President Obama gives iPod to Queen Elizabeth
When President Obama touched down in the UK for the G20 summit this week, there was a lot on his mind. The fate of the American car industry, that pesky stimulus package, impending financial and ecological doom. But most importantly: How much is the Queen gonna love the new iPod I got her?
For this wasn’t just any old MP3 player. The Queen’s official gift from the 44th president and his wife, Michelle, features footage of her 2007 visit to the US, as well as numerous Broadway songs, and comes with a songbook for the King and I signed by composer Richard Rodgers. No word yet as to whether the playlist contained Pass the Duchy or anything by, well, Queen. Her Majesty, however, is said to be “delighted” following their meeting yesterday.
Clearly a lot of thought went into this gift, as President Obama made no secret of his excitement at the prospect of meeting the Queen. Displaying that peculiar fascination Americans have with anything British and regal, the president said yesterday: “I am very much looking forward to meeting her for the first time later this evening … I think in the imagination of people throughout America, what the Queen stands for, her decency and her civility and what she represents is very important.”
There was no word from Obama after their meeting, so we’ve no way of knowing exactly how he felt about the gift the Queen presented to him and his wife: a picture of Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh, in a nice silver frame. Still, it could have been worse. She could have palmed him off with a bunch of DVDs.
[Via The Guardian]
Seeking everyman, Obama does Leno
From the New York Times
President Obama didn’t look burdened by his office on “The Tonight Show” on Thursday; he seemed bemused.
As he described the problems of American International Group and the credit crisis to Jay Leno, Mr. Obama behaved less like a beleaguered president than the head of a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia reporting back to the main office — concerned and engaged, but intent on maintaining his professional distance and neutrality.
At times, he may have seemed a little too removed. When he described the plight of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner ( “He understands that he’s on the hot seat, but I actually think that he is taking the right steps”) Mr. Leno jumped in and said teasingly, “Now, see, I love that it’s all his problem.” Mr. Obama tensed up and tried to correct himself, and it took him several beats to surrender to the joke and laugh along with the audience.
Obama and his teleprompter
From the FT
Barack Obama stepped out from behind his teleprompter on Thursday for an off-the-cuff question-and-answer session with voters in California. But the spontaneity failed to quell growing criticism of his heavy use of the electronic speech aid, after a technical glitch this week highlighted its fallibility.
US presidents have used teleprompters since their invention but Mr Obama relies on them more than his predecessors, reading from the see-through screens for even the briefest statements. Some critics have even labelled him the Teleprompter President.
Perhaps it is not surprising that, at a time of economic crisis, the White House wants to ensure the president is word-perfect, in contrast to the frequent verbal slips made by his predecessor, George W.?Bush.
A camera around the neck makes anyone look like a tourist
Yes, the guy with the camera around the neck is Vladimir Putin.
No, he’s not a tourist.
Yes, he was KGB.
Yes, that’s Ronald Reagan.
The Mujahideen
The BBC just broadcasted a documentary about the mujahideen in Afghanistan and I found it absolutely interesting.
In English, the word mujahideen is recorded since 1958, in a Pakistani context, adopted from Persian and Arabic, as the plural of mujahid, “one who fights in a jihad,” in modern use, for “Muslim guerilla insurgent.”
It all began with the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1978. This was a nine-year conflict involving Soviet Union forces supporting the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan government against the mujahideen resistance. The latter group found support from a variety of sources including the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other Muslim nations in the context of the Cold War.
Some Muslim countries brought contingents of so-called Afghan Arabs, foreign fighters who wished to wage jihad against the atheist communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into al-Qaeda.
The BBC interviewed a couple of former Red Army soldiers. One of them is from the Ukraine and he was held prisoner by the mujahideen during the Soviet war. He was forced upon Islam, and he now lives in Afghanistan with an Afghan family and traditions. They seem to live among very poor conditions and very far from their homeland. However, they still manage to watch satellite Russian TV channels. Their faces were hopeless and sometimes nostalgic.
To see such a beautiful region in that condition is a shame. Amazingly, the people, they all look the same.
Remember this photo from the June 1985 cover of National Geographic?
