Brazil joins South Africa’s ‘genocide’ case against Israel at ICJ

Al-Jazeera

Brazil now joins Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Turkiye and others who have signed on to the case. 

Brazil has formally joined the case launched by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that alleges Israel is committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.

The Hague court confirmed in a statement on Friday that Brazil invoked Article 63 of the ICJ statute, filing a declaration of intervention in the case.

The article gives any United Nations member state the right to intervene in a case when the interpretation of a treaty to which it is a party is in question. Brazil used the article to formally recognize that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.

South Africa and Israel are now invited to “furnish written observations on the declaration of intervention”, the World Court said.

The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in July it intended to join the case, citing “impunity” that undermined international law as it denounced Israeli aggression in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Brazil now joins Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Turkiye and others who have intervened in favor of South Africa to join the case against Israel over the genocidal war, which has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.

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Manchurian White Supremacists

Kurt Nimmo

There are disturbing similarities between the shootings in El Paso, Pittsburgh, and San Diego. If news reports can be believed, John Earnest, the synagogue shooter in California, had it out for Jews, as did Robert G. Bowers in Pittsburgh. Both posted so-called manifestos online. So did Patrick Crusius, the alleged El Paso shooter, the difference being his manifesto denounced Mexicans.

The alleged shooter in New Zealand, Brenton Tarrant, posted a manifesto denouncing Muslims. Dylann Roof, who allegedly killed nine people at a black church in South Carolina, also issued what the corporate media described as a manifesto. Tarrant is said to have left behind a 74-page document titled “The Great Replacement.”

All these documents preach a similar form of racism described as white supremacy by the state and its corporate media. This racism is attributed to the so-called Alt-right or the New Right without evidence or even a clear definition of terms. It is also used to describe those of us who are not politically pigeonholed as right or left and yet are suspect for our critique of the financial class and its banking cartels and interlocked corporate structure. This is described by the state and its media as antisemitic, thus a hate crime.

Timing is everything, Several days before the incident in El Paso, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee a “majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

This was followed by Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren who declared white supremacy as a domestic terror threat. “We need to call out white supremacy for what it is: domestic terrorism. And it poses a threat to the United States of America,” she said during the supposed debate in Detroit last week.

Then, on August 1, two days before the El Paso incident, it was reported the FBI “for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document.

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Murderous rampage unfolds at Walmart in El Paso, Texas: Eyewitnesses report multiple gunmen - UPDATE: 20 dead

Sott.net

It looks like another organized mass shooting is taking place in the USA, this time in El Paso on the US-Mexico border - a location obviously ripe for provocation given Trump's border wall mandate and Democrats' 'holy grail' of gun control.

Details are still coming in, but we fully expect the initial reports of multiple gunmen to be whittled down in the official narrative to another 'lone gunman'...

No word yet on the number of dead, but dozens have been injured.

Here's RT:

At least 18 people have been shot at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, local media reports. Police are searching for possibly multiple shooters, while footage of victims and shocking accounts of witnesses have emerged.

One suspect has been placed in custody, El Paso police told local TV, adding that the search of the crime scene and its surroundings continues. Police confirmed "multiple" people have been killed but have so far refused to reveal the exact number or the victims' identities.

Several extremely graphic videos, purportedly taken at the scene, have emerged online. One shows at least three bodies lying outside the Walmart and in its parking lot. In another one, people are seen fleeing the store past a person lying on the floor in a large blood puddle.

Meanwhile a short clip of a man hiding under furniture while multiple shots are heard in the background has been making the rounds in the media.

People are hiding under desk, gunshots can be heard. #Texas #walmart #cielovistamall https://t.co/ZWRUKeH6YI pic.twitter.com/mhFi7QvP4K

— Vikas Tripathi (@vikasjournolko) August 3, 2019

The shooting began to unfold at the Cielos Vista Mall area around 11am local time on Saturday, but more than an hour later, local law enforcement reported the scene was "still active." Police said it received reports of "multiple shooters" and was "conducting search of a very large area."

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Three journalists killed in Mexico in less than a week

Al-Jazeera

Three journalists have been killed in Mexico in less than a week, including two on Friday, bringing to ten the total number of journalists killed in the Central American country this year.

Edgar Alberto Nava, who published news stories about the coastal city of Zihuatanejo on a Facebook page, was shot dead in Guerrero state, officials said on Saturday.

Nava also worked as Zihuatanejo's regulations director. It was not clear if the attack in a local restaurant was related to his journalism work.

Also on Friday, Jorge Ruiz, who worked for the newspaper El Grafico de Xalapa, was killed in the violence-plagued state of Veracruz, the local mayor told AFP news agency.

Ruiz's house and vehicle were previously shot at to "intimidate him", according to officials. He had stopped putting his name to his articles to keep a low profile, the reporter's colleagues said.

Mexico is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 100 media workers have been killed in the country since 2000.

Most of those crimes remain unsolved.

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With election of new president, often-cynical Mexicans opting for hope

Whitney Eulich
The Christian Science Monitor

It’s not every day a nation wakes up after a presidential vote and collectively dons the colors of their national flag.

In Mexico Monday, that national pride had something to do with a World Cup soccer match. But the image of unity in the flag-waving, jersey-clad masses was an apt reflection of the energy and hope here following Sunday’s historic presidential vote.

Three-time candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly referred to by his initials, AMLO, took the presidency with about 53 percent of the ballots. It’s the first absolute majority earned by a president in nearly two decades, and with 30 points between him and his closest competitor, the highest winning margin since 1982.

Mexicans have long been profoundly cynical when it comes to their elected officials. That's been especially true the past six years, under a president who ran on a platform of change, but instead became synonymous with all-too-familiar scourges like corruption and violence.

But Mr. López Obrador’s overwhelming victory represents a new wave of hope for many here. He ran on promises to end corruption and to direct the country toward a fresh path that leaves behind violence and unemployment. There are nevertheless still plenty of Mexicans, many of whom have expressed a desire for change, who are skeptical of what kind of leader he will be, or if he can deliver on his pledges.

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Business Elite, Banks Panic after Presidential Front-Runner Threatens to Scupper Mexico’s Largest Infrastructure Project

Don Quijones
Wolf Street 

A project in "Mind -Watering" magnitude in money and corruption.

The Mexican peso suffered its biggest rout in four months on Thursday, likely due to the realization dawning on market participants that the veteran populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (or AMLO) may  win the presidential elections on July 1. AMLO has led all the polls in Mexico for well over a year and is still 15 points ahead of his closest rival. And now he’s threatening to put an end to the country’s most expensive public infrastructure project, Mexico City’s new airport, which has been plagued by corruption, scandals, and cost overruns since its inception four years ago.

AMLO’s latest pledge has aroused fits of apoplexy among Mexico’s business elite, many of whom stand to rake in large sums of money from the project — no one more so than Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim, who told journalistsin Mexico City this week that suspending the project “would mean suspending the country’s growth.’’ Slim urged AMLO to reconsider his opposition.

Slim’s concern is not wholly altruistic. Grupo Carso, one of his many construction companies, is deeply involved in the building project. Three big contracts allegedly worth 94 billion pesos ($5 billion) are in the hands of consortia led by Grupo Carso or other firms owned by Slim and his family.

The first tender that Slim’s family won was for the airport’s architectural design, which was awarded to a firm run by Fernando Romero, a Mexican architect who is married to one of Carlos Slim’s daughters. British architect Nigel Foster led the design project, for which Fernando Romero Enterprises was reportedly able to bill Mexico’s government a cool $1 billion.

Other large Mexican companies involved in the project include ICA, which almost went under two and a half years ago after overdosing on dollar-denominated debt, Prodemex, GIA, and Grupo Hermes, which is owned by Carlos Hank, a billionaire banker with cozy ties to the current government. Two other major participants are the Spanish infrastructure giants Acciona and FCC, the latter of which is also majority-owned by Carlos Slim.

One of the biggest potential money earners for some of these companies will be the airport’s absurdly high maintenance costs once it’s built. Until recently, the site on which it’s being developed was home to a very large lake, which was drained before work began. But the ground still has extremely high water content and low resistance to stress. As the Mexican newspaper Proceso reported last year, this will inevitably result in very juicy contracts just to keep the land upon which the airport is built fit for purpose.

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Video shows enormous crack in the ground in northern Mexico

The Independent

Incredible footage has emerged showing a 26ft (8m) deep crack in the in the farmland of northwest Mexico, which stretches for over a kilometre. 

The crevice which appeared last week, has disconnected Highway 26 between Hermosillo and the coast, Sky News reported. 

Drivers, including farm workers, have been forced to navigate around the colossal trench.
 
The video showcasing the crack that in some parts is 16ft (5m) wide, was shot using a camera attached to a drone device.

 It shows vehicles stopped beside the crack, while a green tractor drives away from the scene. People below the drone appear to be discussing the situation.

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14 facts that help explain America's child-migrant crisis

Comment: What a mess. Since the US created many of the economic problems over decades of destabilization within these countries in the first place, it's little wonder that these children are ending up searching for the fantasy of the "American Dream." They represent the new wave of immigration from a background of grinding poverty, most of whom are not being deported back to their country of origin. While this is a no-win situation for the migrants and the fact that this experience is something no child should have to undergo, it will be a disaster for the US which is already at breaking point at so many levels. Any huge inflow of immigrants can only mean an exacerbation of socio-econmic woe for all, and precisely what some factions at the top of this Elite pyramid are looking to engineer.

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vox.com

The flow of unaccompanied immigrant children across the US-Mexico border — mostly from Central America — is continuing to gain attention as a humanitarian crisis.

So here are 14 things you need to know to get a handle on what is actually going on along the border right now; what process the US has in place to deal with unaccompanied kids and families; and what the government wants to do now.

(For more on this story, see Vox's cardstack and storystream on the crisis.)

1)  The child-migrant "surge" began in 2011, but hit a crisis point this year

Border Patrol agents began reporting an increase in the number of unaccompanied children from Central America in the fall of 2011. Because fiscal year 2012 started in October 2011, the government's official numbers show an increase starting then — but anecdotal reports demonstrate that the surge began early that fiscal year, i.e. in 2011.

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Undocumented and Underage: The Crisis of Migrant Children

Comment: There is no doubt that the exploitation and chaos inflicted on Latin America by the West is coming home to roost. Similarly, the corruption has been encouraged to breed as a result of this destabilization which can only mean more immigration. There is a policy it seems, to further tip the balance of an already disintegrating society by stimulating massive immigration upon a society in terminal decline. Once again, those that are used as pawns in a wider social experiment are the children, whether from Mexico or Gaza, it is always the same: generations of children used as fodder for the Elite. 

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Between October 2013 and May 2014, authorities at the US-Mexico border began detaining underage migrants at an alarming, never-before-seen rate. During this period, thousands of underage migrants ended up in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facilities along the border.

Capacity at CBP detention facilities was overwhelmed by the influx of migrants, who predominantly came from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. As overcrowding became more severe, conditions for the migrants worsened. Lacking proper installations and sufficient personnel at the facilities, Department of Homeland Security officials began to release underage migrants into the custody of family members in the US, and cited them to attend immigration hearings at a later date.

The situation is similar in Mexico. The flow of underage migrants in the border region has increased rapidly, and shelters for child migrants report that the Central American population they care for now outnumbers the population of Mexican children.

VICE News travelled to the border between Texas and Tamaulipas to speak to people who have been detained on both sides of the border. They told us about their reasons for crossing the border, how they were detained, what their stay was like inside the detention centers, their plans for the future, and their fears.

Now migrants have two options: return to their country, where they could be killed by gang-related violence, or attempt to enter the United States again, hoping that their luck will change, and they will achieve their American dream.

US-Mexico Border Patrol Agents Can Get Away With Pretty Much Anything

Vice News
Alex Speri

A border patrol agent kicked a pregnant, undocumented immigrant he was apprehending, causing her to miscarry.

Another smashed an immigrant’s head against a rock, causing a hematoma. Another stomped on an immigrant’s back, while he was on the ground. Yet another stripped an immigrant and left him naked in a cell, calling him “faggot and homo.”

'Along with immigration reform we would really love to see more accountability.'

These are only some of the allegations of abuse recorded in a report released on Tuesday by the American Immigration Council (AIC), an immigrant advocacy group.

Whatever happened to immigration reform? Read more here.
 
The list of accusations, which were gathered from 809 reports of abuse obtained by researchers through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, included reports of immigrants being pepper-sprayed, kicked while already in handcuffs, and grabbed from the throat.

Read more

 

Monsanto Demands Removal of Mexican Judge over GM Maize Ban

Natural Society

 Want to know Big Ag’s solution if it doesn’t get the unquestioned support they desire? Just throw out the judge. That’s what is happening now as Monsanto asks for the Appeals Court Judge who ruled against them in Mexico to be removed.

Following two separate rulings to ban GMO, Monsanto made an official request for the removal of Judge Jaime Manuel Marroquin Zaleta. The country is currently resisting Monsanto’s attempt to grow GM maize in one of its most important crop zones. If biotech got their way, more than 7000 years of indigenous maize could be ruined. More than 60 varieties would be put in danger through cross-pollination should Monsanto find a way to be above justice.

Monsanto is playing with immoral legal tactics to try to overturn not just the decision of Judge Zaleta, but by attempting to remove him from his chair. The biotech company claims that Zaleta stated his opinion on the case before sentencing.

Last December, Judge Marroqun Zaleta threw out the appeals of Mexico’s SEMARNAT (Environment and Natural Resources Ministry), and Monsanto who were trying to play legal quackery again – by overturning a ruling from September – also disallowing GM maize planting.

The attorney for Acción Colectiva, Rene Sanchez Galindo, states what the rest of the world feels:

 “. . .the accusation against a Federal Judge by a multinational company, which has been questioned for lying to the world’s population with misleading information about the damage their products cause, and whose employees occupy high positions in governments around the globe; is tantamount to granting a merit badge to the Judge.”

Acción Colectiva is a concerned group of 53 scientists and 22 organizations that fruitfully brought the case against GMO and Monsanto to ban genetically modified maize.

Part of the reason Monsanto fights against this particular judge is because this decision cemented a first judgment, sending Monsanto and its government lackeys a message that they couldn’t wrongly influence the Mexican courts.

The Mexican government previously allowed trial crops of GM maize to be planted in 2009 before an earth-shattering decision made in September by the Twelfth Federal District Court for Civil Matters of Mexico City. Judge Jaime Eduardo Verdugo J. cited “the risk of imminent harm to the environment” as the reason behind his decision. Little has even been said about the harm to human health – but it is a start, and at this point any way to get Monsanto out of a country is a good one.

The Mexican government seems to have a stronger backbone to fight Monsanto than even our own. We applaud them.

The ban of GM maize will remain until the appeals court makes a new ruling on Monsanto’s ridiculous claim.

Mexican Marines Kill Leader of Knights Templar Drug Cartel

Gulf News

Mexican marines killed a leader of the Knights Templar drug cartel on Monday, three weeks after the cult-like gang’s top chief was gunned down, officials said.

Enrique “Kike” Plancarte was killed in the state of Queretaro in central Mexico, two government officials said on condition of anonymity.

“It was in a navy operation,” one of the officials told AFP, declining to give more details because the interior ministry will make an official announcement on Tuesday.

Plancarte, 43, was considered one of the top four leaders of the Knights Templar gang, which is based in the western state of Michoacan and has been under pressure from government and vigilante forces for several months.

Mexican media reported that Plancarte was killed by marines after resisting arrest near a football field in the town of Colon following an operation that involved around 150-200 troops.

The interior ministry said on Twitter that authorities were verifying Plancarte’s identity and that more information would be given on Tuesday.

Officials said this was standard procedure. The national daily Reforma said navy sources confirmed Plancarte was killed.

His death comes after Knights Templar founder Nazario Moreno, alias “El Chayo,” was killed by troops in Michoacan on March 9.

Moreno had been mistakenly reported killed in December 2010, leaving fellow leader Servando “La Tuta” Gomez as the public face of the cartel.

Gomez, a former school teacher, remains at large.

Plancarte’s uncle Dionicio, who was also a key leader of the gang, was detained in January.

Vigilante militias that formed a year ago to kick the cartel out of Michoacan towns had named Plancarte as one of the top Knights Templar leaders that they wanted to see taken down.

Mexican authorities had offered a $750,000 (Dh2.7 million) reward for information leading to his capture, with prosecutors accusing him of being one of the main traffickers of drugs to the United States. He was also on a US Treasury list of drug lords under sanctions.

The Knights Templar are considered major smugglers of crystal meth to the United States, but their business has expanded to include illegal mining of iron ore for export to China.

The gang held sway across Michoacan’s agricultural Tierra Caliente (Hot Country) region, but farmers began to take up arms in February 2013, fed up with the police’s inability or unwillingness to curb the cartel.

The vigilantes kicked the cartel out of some 20 towns and allied themselves with federal forces in January, but the so-called “self-defence” militias have faced trouble with the law.

Earlier on Monday, authorities accused a vigilante leader of ordering the murder of a mayor who opposed the self-defence forces.

Enrique Hernandez Salcedo was among 19 people detained in connection with the murder of Tanhuato Mayor Gustavo Garibay Garcia.

It was the second arrest of a vigilante leader in recent weeks.

Earlier in March, authorities arrested one of the most high-profile self-defence leaders, Hipolito Mora, on charges of being behind the March 8 double murder of two fellow vigilantes.

Mora, a lime grower from the town of La Ruana, has declared his innocence.

Border Patrol Agents Train for War on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Todd Miller  RINF Alternative News

In desert camouflage and combat helmets, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents kneel behind a white truck. One agent has his pistol aimed at an unseen enemy. Another has a semi-automatic assault rifle. In the distance stretches the brown desert landscape, the mountains, the expansive sky.

At first glance, the agents are alert and ready as if in combat theater in the Middle-East. At the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and in the context of the persistent 30-year push of Mexico-U.S. border militarization, maybe this isn’t so far off. This CBP special response team—that in its training unleashes “torrents of fire”—is part of the United States’ largest federal law enforcement agency. With more than 60,000 agents, the Department of Homeland Security’s CBP has become a daunting domestic army.

The U.S. government often portrays CBP agents—especially the “men in green” of the Border Patrol—as professional warriors who “protect,” as former CBP chief David Aguilar puts it, “our way of life.” These agents are on the front lines fending off enemies of many shades, faces, and ideologies who are supposedly eager to penetrate the U.S. international boundary with malicious intentions. However, a Los Angeles Times article, which discusses an independent review by law enforcement experts on the U.S. Border Patrol’s use of deadly force, shows an entirely different reality.

The report claims that Border Patrol agents have stepped out in front of vehicles to justify shootings. It says that agents, out of frustration, have fired at people throwing rocks. Indeed, in fiscal year of 2012 alone, the same year that CBP purchased 36,475,000 rounds of ammunition, agents opened fire on rock throwers 22 times.

LA Times reporter Brian Bennett writes, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which had commissioned the review, has tried to prevent the scathing 21-page report,” released in February 2013, from seeing the light of day.

And as if further underscoring the report’s findings, the article came on the heels of another incident in which a Border Patrol agent shot and killed 41-year-old Jesus Flores-Cruz near San Diego on February 19. Again, rock throwing was the justification. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office went as far to claim that the Mexican national heaved a “basketball-sized rock” at the agents.

The report, which reviewed 67 cases that resulted in 19 deaths, recommended that Border Patrol prohibit agents from shooting at people who throw things that can’t cause serious physical injury and not shoot at vehicles unless “its occupants are trying to kill them.”

“It should be recognized that a half-ounce (200-grain) bullet is unlikely to stop a 4,000-pound moving vehicle, and if the driver…is disabled by a bullet, the vehicle will become a totally unguided threat,” Bennett quotes verbatim. “Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle can pose a risk to bystanders including other agents.”

Initially, Border Patrol responded with a “Law Enforcement Sensitive” document by saying that if a drug-trafficking organization knew that Border Patrol couldn’t fire at vehicles, they might be more inclined to run an agent over. And if agents could not fire at rock throwers, it could create an even more “dangerous environment,” since Border Patrol often works in desolate areas.

In other words, Border Patrol argued that they needed to treat the borderlands like a pseudo-war zone, a place rampant with potential enemies.

And why wouldn’t they think this way?

It is an area where Predator B drones—some equipped with “man-hunting” radar systems—hover above like in Afghanistan, and sophisticated armored vehicles such as Strykers rumble at speeds up to 60 miles per hour. Forward operating bases, once reserved for U.S. wars abroad, have now arrived and are“gaining, maintaining and expanding” to isolated locations in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security just awardedIsrael’s Elbit Systems—which prides itself on “10+ years securing the world’s most challenging borders,” or “Israeli pacification of Palestinian resistance” as journalist Jimmy Johnson puts it—a multi-million dollar contract to build high-powered surveillance towers in Arizona.

However, on March 7, when the U.S. federal government released the Border Patrol’s use-of-force policies, along with a directive from Border Patrol chief Mike Fisher, there seemed to be change in the air. Fisher said that the “level of force applied must reflect the totality of the circumstances surrounding each situation.” He encouraged agents to find alternatives to using deadly force unless their lives were in danger or under serious threat of injury.

Although this was widely reported as a significant change, according to both the ACLU and Border Patrol Union it was much ado about nothing. Both organizations stated it was merely a reiteration of the current policy.

And as Homeland Security officials scurried to alleviate the public relations nightmare with such policy remixes, the physical border militarization continued unabated. A March 3 article titled “Arizona soldiers, U.S. CBP unite to secure border hot spot” further underscores this battlefield to the border scenario.
The article opens:

“As overseas contingencies and deployments for U.S. armed forces taper off, Arizona’s citizen soldiers are shifting their focus to domestic missions to gain real-world experience and maintain readiness,” showing the ever-increasing blurriness between “border security” and war. In war soldiers are taught to eliminate the enemy.

It was in 1999 that sociologist Timothy Dunn wrote that the border has served as a “contemporary proving ground” for the militarization of law enforcement. He stated that this militarization happened on a “deeper and broader scale” on the border than anywhere else in the United States.

“These developments justify a close examination of the militarization of border law enforcement and the status of human rights,” Dunn warned long before the significant upsurge, if not epidemic, of Border Patrol shootings we see today.

But a friendly mask disguises this new post-9/11 border war zone. In late January, several photographs surfaced of children learning to shoot paint-ball pistols with Border Patrol agents near the border wall in San Diego.

In one photo an agent leans down with his arm around a young girl, dressed in pink, who is looking at a mannequin, dressed in a baggy shirt and blue jeans propped up in front of the border wall. It is impossible to know exactly what the agent was conveying to the girl while he had the pistol in his hand, but newspaper reports alleged that CBP was teaching the kids how to “attack migrants.”

Maybe it was just meant, as CBP insisted, to “build relationships and increase awareness about law enforcement,” and to teach the children about “gun safety.” However, if the scathing report and the prophesies of Dunn are any indication, such state violence from this Department of Homeland Security agency is the natural outgrowth of a militarized zone which insists that enemies are everywhere. The guns of the increasingly militarized borderlands are indeed often aimed at people dressed like the mannequin on the border wall, no matter the PR spin.

Todd Miller has researched and written about U.S.-Mexican border issues for more than 10 years. He has worked on both sides of the border for BorderLinks in Tucson, Arizona, and Witness for Peace in Oaxaca, Mexico. He now writes on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas and its blog “Border Wars,” among other places. His forthcoming book, Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Homeland Security will be published by City Light’s Open Media Series in the Spring of 2014. Todd’s Twitter address is @memomiller. Visit Todd’s website.

Was Former DEA Agent Jailed for Exposing ATF Arms Trafficking?

Narcosphere

Iran/Contra-Era Whistleblower Cele Castillo Alleged in 2008 That Federal Agents Were Helping to Smuggle Guns into Mexico

Cele Castillo, a former DEA agent who blew the whistle on the CIA-backed arms-for-drugs trade used to prop up the 1980s Contra counter-insurgency in Nicaragua, is now sitting in a federal prison for what may well be another act of whistleblowing in this century.

Before Castillo reported to the federal pen in July 2009, where he is now stuck until April 2012, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records, he shared with this reporter a series of revelations concerning arms trafficking and what he thought were corrupt ATF agents.

Those revelations, now some three years old, dovetail in great detail with the still unfolding ATF Fast and Furious operation, in which federal ATF agents allowed thousands of high-powered weapons purchased by criminal operatives at U.S. gun stores to be smuggled into Mexico unimpeded.

And Fast and Furious, as recent news reports have revealed, was not the first such operation put in play by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies. A similar “gun-walking” tactic was employed by ATF in 2006 and 2007 under the Bush administration through a program known as Operation Wide Receiver.

Castillo’s case, which involved allegations that he purchased and sold firearms illegally, was largely ignored by the mainstream media, though Narco News reported extensively on it and Castillo’s contention that he had been framed and was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct. [Past coverage at this link.]

At the time, as he was going through the buzz-saw line that is the federal judicial system, Castillo told Narco News that he was likely being targeted because of his role in exposing the CIA-backed effort to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua some 25 years earlier, or possibly because he had evidence of corruption within the ATF. But in truth, Castillo really didn’t know what direction the assault was coming from or why he was being targeted.

Now, though, in light of the exposure of ATF’s Fast and Furious, it seems the question needs to be asked:

Did Castillo, well before Fast and Furious came to light this year, rip back the curtain on a long-running U.S.-government sanctioned program to supply illegal arms to paramilitary units supported by the Mexican military — units charged with clandestinely carrying out the dirty work of the drug war in Mexico?

The answer to the question should matter to all of us, because that “war” has cost the lives of more than 50,000 Mexican citizens since it was launched in late 2006 under the reign of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Well, here’s what Castillo told Narco News in late 2008, some three years before news of Fast and Furious and Operation Wide Receiver starting making headlines in the mainstream news:

During the [Mexican] presidential elections, El Chapo [Joaquin Guzman Loera, the leader of the Sinaloa drug organization] supported [Mexican president] Calderon. Calderon then rented the military to El Chapo to take out Osiel [Cardenas Guillen, head of the rival Gulf Cartel]. Keep in the back of your mind: why has Chapo never been arrested? Calderon took back the military and is now working hand-in-hand with El Chapo.
… The majority of the guns that are going into Mexico from the gun shows are going to the The Mexican paramilitary unit out of Monterrey, Mexico. … A Mexican military captain, "El Capi," is doing all the purchases. 
…. These people are part of President Calderon's people who control the drug trade into the U.S. There is an ATF agent … who works with these people.

Castillo, at the time, assumed the ATF agent, actually two of them that he identified, were on the take, not part of an officially sanctioned U.S. operation. But events that have unfolded since 2008 open that assumption up to a possible different interpretation.

Castillo, who never lost his investigative edge, said in 2008 that some of his information was coming from a U.S. government informant, who was later murdered. In addition, he claimed a notorious prison gang, the Texas Syndicate, was working with the supposedly corrupt ATF agents to assure the gun-trafficking into Mexico remained protected from law enforcement intervention.

Read more

U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels

Josue Gonzalez/ReutersA crime scene in Monterrey, Mexico, last week. 

Drug-related violence has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people since 

late 2006, Mexican officials say.

New York Times

WASHINGTON — Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are. 

They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents. 

The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests. 

Read more

The end of the world not happening - for now says expert

Didn't everyone know that?  Well, I suppose it's nice to have it confirmed....

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Last week, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology said a second inscription 
mentioning the 2012date is on the carved or molded face of a brick found at the 
Comalcalco ruin (above), near the Tortuguero site Photo: ALAMY

Telegraph 

The end is not near. At least that's according to a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it. 

The interpretation of the hieroglyphs by Sven Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia was presented for the first time Wednesday at the archaeological site of Palenque in southern Mexico. 

His comments came less than a week after Mexico's archaeology institute acknowledged there was a second reference to the 2012 date in Mayan inscriptions, touching of another round of talk about whether it predicts the end of the world.

Gronemeyer has been studying the stone tablet found years ago at the archeological site of Tortuguero in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

He said the inscription describes the return of mysterious Mayan god Bolon Yokte at the end of a 13th period of 400 years, known as Baktuns, on the equivalent of Dec. 21, 2012. Mayans considered 13 a sacred number. There's nothing apocalyptic in the date, he said. 

The text was carved about 1,300 years ago. The stone has cracked, which has made the end of the passage almost illegible. 

Gronemeyer said the inscription refers to the end of a cycle of 5,125 years since the beginning of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 3113 B.C. 

The fragment was a prophecy of then ruler Bahlam Ajaw, who wanted to plan the passage of the god, Gronemeyer said.

"For the elite of Tortuguero, it was clear they had to prepare the land for the return of the god and for Bahlam Ajaw to be the host of this initiation," he said.

Bolon Yokte, god of creation and war, was to prevail that day in a sanctuary of Tortuguero. 

"The date acquired a symbolic value because it is seen as a reflection of the day of creation," Gronemeyer said. "It is the passage of a god and not necessarily a great leap for humanity." 

Last week, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology said a second inscription mentioning the 2012 date is on the carved or molded face of a brick found at the Comalcalco ruin, near the Tortuguero site. It is being kept at the institute and is not on display. 

Many experts doubt the second inscription is a definite reference to the date cited as the possible end of the world, saying there is no future tense marking like there is in the Tortuguero tablet. 

The institute has tried to dispel talk of a 2012 apocalypse, the subject of numerous postings and stories on the Internet. Its latest step was to arrange a special round table of Mayan experts this week at Palenque, which is where Gronemeyer made his comments.

ATF apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel

New York Post

This just might be the smoking gun we’ve been waiting for to break the festering “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal wide open: the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel.

Let that sink in: After months of pretending that “Fast and Furious” was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys.

Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy four Draco pistols for cash and even got a letter from his supervisor, David Voth, authorizing a federally licensed gun dealer to sell him the guns without bothering about the necessary paperwork.

“Please accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62x39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson,” read the June 1, 2010, letter. “These aforementioned pistols will be used by Special Agent Dodson in furtherance of performance of his official duties.”

On orders, Dodson then sold the guns to known criminals, who first stashed them away and then -- deliberately unhindered by the ATF or any other agency -- whisked them off to Mexico.

People were killed with Fast and Furious weapons, including at least two American agents and hundreds of Mexicans. And the taxpayers picked up the bill.

So where’s the outrage?

Read More

Congress Told of Strategy Behind Fast and Furious Months Before Its Launch

Narco News

The Republican-led Congressional witch-hunt to pin blame for ATF’s failed Fast and Furious operation on high-level Obama administration officials may well come full circle back to Congress itself.

Documents released by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, as part of his probe into Fast and Furious, as well as testimony provided to Congress prior to the launch of the flawed operation, all seem to indicate that the weapons-trafficking investigation was set up under a strategy pushed by former U.S. Attorney General David Ogden — who stepped down from his post in early 2010 after less than a year on the job.

In addition, Ogden actually publicly outlined the strategy that prompted Fast and Furious as part of testimony he provided to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in March 2009 — some six months prior to the launch of Fast and Furious in the fall of that year.

Fast and Furious was, according to a July 11 letter penned by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley and U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, “an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force [OCDETF] prosecutor-led strike force case” operated out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix.

Fast and Furious has come under fire because, as part of a strategy aimed at targeting higher-ups in the weapons- and narco-trafficking business, it allegedly allowed some 2,000 or more firearms illegally purchased in the U.S. to “walk” (or be smuggled under ATF’s watch) across the border, where they helped to fuel the murder rate in Mexico, ATF whistleblowers contend.

Two of the guns linked to the Fast and Furious operation also allegedly were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was shot to death by Mexican border marauders in Arizona late last year. The whistleblower revelations about Fast and Furious have since sparked Congressional inquiries spearheaded by Grassley and Issa.

However, the strategy of using multi-agency OCDETF strike forces to target Mexican narco-kingpins, a plan that encompassed ATF operations like Fast and Furious as well, should have come as no surprise to Congressional leaders such as Grassley and Issa. [...]

"...the root of the problem here can be found in the prohibitionist strategy that propels and encourages the continued insanity of the drug war — a pretense in which law enforcers and official brass are rewarded with larger budgets and promotions for making headline-grabbing “kingpin” cases — even at the expense of lives, it seems, as Fast and Furious seems to bear out."

Gigantic Crack Opens Up In Mexico

Cracks are appearing all over the world along with those sinkholes...


beforeitsnews.com

The crack appeared on 13 July in Santa Maria Huejoculco in Chalco, State Mexico, land has now reached 500 meters long and authorities have not taken preventive measures, warned James Espinoza Hilario, responsible for Social planning on the Sierra Nevada project of the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

In addition, after survey work was detected in Santa Maria Huejoculco yet another gap of about four km which reached La Candelaria Tlapala, in the community of Miraflores, in Chalco, explained Professor Martín Espinosa.

These failures are part of a family of cracks that exist in the region and threaten to spread across the entire east area of the Valley of Mexico.

This event began back 2009 in a small area of this region but since it has grown and is eating up everything around it .

US government openly admits arming Mexican drug gangs with 30,000 firearms - but why?

naturalnews

It is now a widely-reported fact that under the Obama administration, U.S. federal agents actively placed over 30,000 fully-functional weapons into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, then halted all surveillance and tracking activities of where those weapons were going.

This is not a conspiracy theory, nor a piece of fiction. It is now an openly-admitted fact that this was pulled off by the BATFE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, more commonly called "ATF") under orders from Washington. The program was called "Fast and Furious."


Even Reuters is now covering the news and reporting how members of Congress are outraged to learn that this happened (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011...).


Details are also starting to leak about the cover-up inside ATF, which was led by the U.S. Attorney in Arizona, Dennis Burke, an Obama appointee (http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/06/i...). The engineering of the illegal gun running went right up the chain of command to the director of the ATF, Kenneth Melson, who is now expected to resign. The real planning of this event went even higher up the chain of command in Washington, possibly all the way to Attorney General Eric Holder (http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/21/i...).


Among the firearms sold to the Mexican drug gangs were AK-47s, thousands of pistols and, remarkably, .50-caliber rifles which are typically used to disable vehicles or carry out sniper-based assassinations at extremely long ranges (up to two miles). The mainstream media is now reporting that these weapons are turning up in violent crimes being committed in Phoenix, Arizona. As an ABC news affiliate reports:

"According to the testimony of three Phoenix ATF agents, including Dodson, hundreds of weapons are now on the streets in the United States and Mexico, possibly in the hands of criminals. Dodson estimated the number could be as many as 1,800 weapons. He estimated agents in the Phoenix field division facilitated the sale of approximately 2,500 weapons to straw purchasers. A few hundred have been recovered." (http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local...)

How the "Fast and Furious" program put thousands of weapons directly into the hands of Mexican drug gangs

Here's how "Fast and Furious" worked: Under orders from Washington, ATF agents were specifically told to acquire these weapons using "straw" buyers in the USA, find new buyers in Mexican drug gangs, then sell the weapons and "lose track" of them. Although some agents raised concerns about the insanity, they were overruled by the higher-ups in Washington who wanted to pursue this policy for their own reasons. "It made no sense to us either, it was just what we were ordered to do, and every time we questioned that order there was punitive action," said Phoenix Special Agent John Dodson.

But what could be the reasons for Washington initiating such a program in the first place? Why would the Obama administration actively send 30,000 sniper rifles, assault weapons and firearms into Mexico even while claiming to follow an anti-gun stance back in the USA?
 To answer that question, you need to understand P.R.S -- Problem, Reaction, Solution. It is the "playbook" that governments use to get what they want, which usually involves: 1) Disarming their populations, 2) Taking away all their rights and freedoms, and then 3) Ruling over their people as tyrants with complete power.

Precisely such an effort is now underway in the United States, led by the Obama administration which has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be an enemy of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

How Problem, Reaction, Solution really works

 If you're the U.S. government, you can't just announce a new program to disarm the country, end the Bill of Rights and install yourself as the King. People won't go for it if you try to sell it that way. Instead, you need to find a way to get people to BEG you to do all that.
 So you need a way to put people in a state of mind where they are terrified of drugs, terrified of guns and terrified of the border violence -- to the point where they insist that somebody in Washington do something about it.

Therefore, you first need a way to cause the problem that results in all the violence that people react to. You effectively need to create violence and then wait for people to beg you to stop it.

This is where the Obama administration's program to send 30,000 firearms into Mexico comes into play. If you want to cause gun violence and drug war violence, what better way to accomplish it than to just arm all the bad guys?

Think about it: 30,000 weapons in the hands of drug criminals! Then all you have to do is sit back and wait for all the violence to kick in. And it has kicked in -- in huge numbers. Shootings on the border, kidnappings, armed conflict across the border with U.S. border agents, and so on. Violent crimes in Arizona are now being committed with these very same weapons the ATF trafficked into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.

As Judicial Watch president Tim Fitton explains, his belief is that Operation Fast and Furious was purely an anti-gun political ploy from the Obama administration, designed to put more guns into the hands of criminals as a justification for confiscating guns from all citizens. He adds, "I think another major part of this story is that the narrative of the Obama administration and the ATF is that, 'wouldn't it be great if we could tie guns, as part of our anti-gun agenda, to the Mexican civil war, as opposed to, you know, our lack of enforcement of the drug laws or failure to protect the borders.'" (http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/21/i...)
 And here's the real kicker: Of all the weapons now being confiscated by police in Mexico, an astonishing 70 percent came from the United States. So now you have a situation where the USA is actually arming the criminals in Mexico and destabilizing that country's entire system of law and order. The drug gangs are at war with the police there, and thanks to thinks like U.S.-supplies AK-47s and .50-caliber sniper rifles, the drug gangs are winning! [...]