» 2009 » April News of the Restless

Is Alan Garcia off his meds?

April 30, 2009 — Sabina Becker

“Coooomrades, in this historic and revolutionary moment, we call on you to take up the anti-imperialist fight…”

“No, no! You already gave that speech. Now you have to say: Gentlemen, we call on you to take up investment in privatizations and concessions…”

“Mr. García, you’re on!”

There has long been some speculation that a certain large Peruvian leader is…um, how to put this delicately?…not a well man upstairs. Today, I found a news story on Aporrea that seems to confirm a certain degree of schizophrenia:

Alan García, the president of Peru, said on Tuesday that he did not want to affect relations between his country and Venezuela, but he approved the asylum request of opposition leader Manuel Rosales because he considered him to be “menaced” by the Venezuelan authorities.
However, he said in a press conference that “we have a friendly position toward the government of Venezuela, which is a democratic government whose character is undeniably popular, and for that reason, we do not want any circumstance to alter our good relations with Venezuela, and we will go on seeking that objective.”

Translation mine.

Yep…it’s just as I suspected. The man not only eats two breakfasts (as Otto has it), he has two personalities. And they’re at odds with each other. How else to explain his characterizing Venezuela on the one hand as a popular democracy, and on the other as a place where the opposition is “menaced” (by criminal charges, not political ones)? And how else to explain his strange willingness to shelter corruptos and crooks?

UPDATE: Peruvians have turned out in force to protest this crazy-ass decision. Too bad these sane folks don’t form the government.

Posted in Huguito Chavecito, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Isn't That Illegal?, The WTF? Files. 2 Comments »

The video the Cruceñistas don’t want you to see

April 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker

Thanks to commenter Boris, from Bolivia (yes, I checked–his IP is definitely from there!), I’ve been alerted to this video:

It was posted to YouTube two days ago. It’s got news footage of Evo’s floating parliament on Lake Titicaca, intercut with the grainy, choppy video from the terrorists’ cellphone camera. The perps are clearly identified on the video, and it’s subtitled (in Spanish only) to indicate what they were saying. It’s quite clear that they were hoping to blow up the vessel on which the parliament was held, by swimming underneath it in “frogman” (scuba) gear and planting plastic explosives on its bottom. Eduardo Rózsa Flores, the Bolivian-Hungarian veteran of Croatia’s separatist war, appears to be the ringleader, or at least the guy with the biggest mouth, because he seems to be doing most of the talking. Mike Dwyer was definitely present at the planning meeting (he’s identified in the clip), so one can’t say that he had no idea what was going on. And neither can one say it about the other guys, including Elöd Tóasó, whom the Hungarian ambassador seems to have mistaken for an innocent adventurer in over his head. Sorry, guys, they all knew what they were doing, and the proof is in the pictures.

Thanks again to Boris for letting me know about this–it’s highly incriminating, wouldn’t you say?

UPDATE: Bolivian police have released the names of two people who were, apparently, bagmen for the financiers of the terror cell. Their names are Hugo Achá and Alejandro Melgar, alias “Superman” and “El Lucas”, respectively.

UPDATE #2: El Gaviero notes that “El Lucas” may refer to Luke Skywalker, from the Star Wars franchise. I think this one should have called himself “Darth” instead, and maybe “Superman” should change his moniker to “Lex Luthor” while they’re at it. In any case, though, the excellent Bolivian federales are their kryptonite!

Posted in All About Evo, Fascism Without Swastikas, Fine Young Cannibals, Isn't That Illegal?. 6 Comments »

Swine flu: How profitable at such an opportune time…

April 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker

Maybe Tamiflu should be called RummyFlu?

How profitable? Very, according to YVKE Mundial and Telesur:

The transnational drug companies Roche and GlaxoSmithKline are the only two laboratories that produce oseltamivir and zanamivir, used to treat patients with swine flu. Oseltamivir, produced by Roche under the name Tamiflu, is the same drug used to treat avian flu; zanamivir, sold under the name Relenza, is produced by GlaxoSmithKline.
What is not so well known is that Roche and Glaxo were both close to bankruptcy just before the outbreak. The latest indicators from the Zurich stock exchange show that Roche lost 8.47% of its share value, while Glaxo, in just the first quarter of 2009, lost 1.5%. According to analysts, this is evidence of a steep drop for the companies.
As the number of persons ill with influenza climbs, however, Roche has announced that only 3 million doses of Tamiflu, recommended by the World Health Organization, are available. The Swiss pharmaceutical firm said that it would be prepared to send the WHO that number of doses, which, along with the 2 million it already has, would be enough for 5 million affected people.
The possibility that these two multinationals required a production boost to reduce their losses and increase their profits cannot be ruled out, and at this time, there could not be a more opportune moment for it.

Translation mine.

Just another of the many things that make you go hmmmm…

And here are some more:

The Australian province of Queensland reports “massive demand” for Tamiflu, even though so far, no cases have been reported in Australia. The reason for the panic? New Zealand’s flu count is 11 probable cases, all of them students who recently travelled to Mexico, with another 56 suspected. That was enough for the NZ government to make Tamiflu available over the counter. NZ has 1.2 million doses on hand, going for NZ $75 per course. Cha-ching!

Meanwhile, in the US, major pharmacy chain CVS is also stocking up. Its share price is on the rise, compared to rival Walgreens, which isn’t reporting increased sales and IS reporting a 29% share price drop. Hmmmm.

And looky here! Bloomberg reports that Roche has boosted Tamiflu production and is “in touch” with governments. How very opportune.

But ooooo, spoiler alert #1: India is making a generic version of the drug. Spoiler #2: The Toronto Star reports that Tamiflu is no guarantee that you won’t get sick, that you will have a shorter recovery, or even that the flu won’t kill you. What is it a guarantee of? More profits for its manufacturers, Roche and Gilead. Cha-ching!

Meanwhile, Singapore reports that it has “enough” (one million doses, or a quarter of the population of Singapore) in stock, while Trindad and Tobago, much closer to the disease’s epicentre, don’t have any. Cha-ching!

Nasty story of the day: A Mexican student in New Zealand was refused Tamiflu. Now is that any way to treat a visitor?

But the clincher headline of the day has got to be this one from the UK Telegraph: “Pharmacies cashing in on swine flu fears”. Cha-ching!

Posted in Filthy Stinking Rich, Mexican Standoffs, Oceania, She Blinded Me With Science. Comments Off »

Bolivia terror plot: The UJC connection

April 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker

Just a bunch of fine young Cruceñista boyz, out cruising for chicks in a majorly pimped ride. Think these punks got lucky?

Well, kiddies, we knew THIS was coming, did we not? Now ABI confirms it: the Santa Cruz chapter of the Hitlerjugend was also involved in the plot to try to kill Evo, Alvaro and several other leading Bolivian politicians.

On Tuesday, police apprehended an advisor to the ultra-right-wing Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), Juan Carlos Gueber Bruno, suspected of having ties to the foreign mercenary cell broken up last month in the City of Santa Cruz.
Gueber Bruno, also known as “Comandante Bruno” in UJC circles, was arrested near his home in Villa Cotoca on suspicions of having supplied weapons to the group led by Eduardo Rózsa Flores.
[...]
Gueber Bruno, 49, acted in 2008 as an activist of the Comité Pro Santa Cruz.

Translation mine.

Well, well. Not only does he have ties to the UJC, but to Branko Marinkovic’s band of not-so-young hooligans, too. This just keeps getting more and more interesting, no? It just keeps circling around and around Branko. Do you suppose this is who the “wealthy financier” of the group was, the one that was alluded to in the previous post?

Posted in All About Evo, Filthy Stinking Rich, Fine Young Cannibals, Isn't That Illegal?. 4 Comments »

Portrait of the Terrorist as a Young Gun Nut

April 28, 2009 — Sabina Becker

Elöd Tóasó, Hungarian/Romanian would-be assassin, posing with a sniper rifle last December at the Hotel Buganvillas, Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Too bad it didn’t have a magnifying mirror instead of a high-res telescopic sight, so he could take a peek in and realize how stupid he looked.

Strap yourselves in and fold up your tray tables, folks. It’s time for another bumpy ride on Air Terrorcell!

Elöd Tóasó, the 29-year-old Hungarian-Romanian apprehended in an antiterror operation on April 16 in Santa Cruz, was the “communications link” of the international mercenary terror cell dismantled by the police, and was tasked with spying and telephone tapping.
In reality, far from being a “young adventurer” in search of a daily living, as described with paternal innocence by the Hungarian ambassador in La Paz, Matyas Józsa, Tóasó received military training in Bucharest, along with the Irishman, Michael Dwyer, who was killed in a hotel in Santa Cruz in a firefight with Bolivian police two weeks ago.
Tóasó, who appears in a photo published by the independent Cochabamba newspaper Opinión holding a sniper rifle with a high-precision telescopic sight, became a mercenary under the influence of Michael Dwyer and also that of the Hungaro-Croatian Bolivian Eduardo Rózsa Flores, leader of the mercenary cell.
The picture was taken in the middle of last December in the Hotel Buganvillas, one of the most exclusive in Santa Cruz, where the armed group stayed for more than two months at cost to a third party, currently unknown, whom Rózsa Flores described in an interview in Budapest last September as “the Bolivian financiers” and providers of the weapons.
According to the management of the five-star hotel, the terrorist group booked in the Buganvillas under false identities.
Tóasó, who was taken captive in the raid two weeks ago along with Jorge Tadik, a Bolivian ex-military man trained in Bolivia but with Hungarian roots, even convinced the ambassador of his own country that he was just an innocent adventurer, in spite of the evidence shown by a video of the conspirators making assassination plans.
“This man, to me, is far from being a terrorist. Young, 29 years old, who made mistakes, and I believe they invited him to come here offering to pay him this and that, but he didn’t know what lay in store…I believe that this man had no money, because the financial crisis has hit Hungary hard too. We’re very badly off, so this stems from the fact that our people have no money. He was young, and looking for adventure, and accepted something I don’t think he thought through,” said the Hungarian diplomat, trying to intervene on behalf of his countryman.
In Hungary, Tóasó was known to have belonged to the so-called “Szeklers”, who consider themselves to be direct descendants of pure Hungarians, according to Opinión.
Along with Arpad Magyarosi, Tóasó joined the far-right paramilitary “Szekler Legion”, which went to war in Croatia for separatist causes in the 1990s.

Translation mine. Linkage added.

Yeah, just another cute young dreamer, like that Irish dude, who supposedly got in over his head and couldn’t possibly have been a baddie. Looks to me like he damn well knew what he was doing, and didn’t care as long as the rich “Bolivian financier” supplied plenty of money, guns and ammo. (And BMWs, as Mike Dwyer bragged to his friends back home. Which, incidentally, do NOT come cheap in Bolivia, even if you’re only renting. Sorry, Mike’s friends, your ol’ buddy was definitely mobbed up.)

The open question remains as to who that “financier” was, but my spidey-sense tells me Branko Marinkovic has got to be feeling the noose closing in on him by now. The government of Bolivia has sent troops to guard the Brazilian and Paraguayan borders of Santa Cruz, since it’s known that the weaponry and Jorge Rózsa Flores both got in through Puerto Suárez, on the border with Brazil. If I were in that gummint, I’d make sure that Branko had no means of leaving the country, lest he pull a Burusas and seek “political asylum” in Peru, too.

PS: For another portrait of a deranged Hungarian from the inside of his cracked skull, I recommend this piece in the Irish Times. Fancy a racist fascist calling Evo, who has never said one prejudiced word against whites, a Nazi! Pot, say hi to kettle over there in the funhouse mirror…

PPS: Andras Kepes, look for a subpoena from the Bolivian government in your mail this week. They’re not impressed with you for interviewing that Flores crackpot and then sitting on it instead of informing the authorities of a terror plan. That makes you look kind of complicit in it, dude.

PPPS: A German-language blogger in Ireland is asking the same questions in his blog as Otto, BoRev and I are tackling, respectively, in ours. He’s also found the “actual” website of the Szekler Legion to be “under construction”, although it wasn’t last week. Go to his link if you wanna see screenshots of the icky place before it was taken down for “construction”.

PPPPS: And finally, don’t worry–these Szekler whackjobs aren’t the scariest Hungarians out there by a long shot. Click here to see who is.

Posted in All About Evo, Brazil is the Bomb!, Filthy Stinking Rich, Fine Young Cannibals, Guns, Guns, Guns, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Isn't That Illegal?, Paraguay, Uruguay. 3 Comments »

Actions have consequences, gordito!

April 28, 2009 — Sabina Becker

All right, so the government of Peru granted political asylum to an obvious crook on the flimsiest grounds ever. Now, they’re about to reap the consequences of their incredibly ill-considered actions:

The Venezuelan government, in an official communiqué, rejected the asylum granted by the Peruvian government to the fugitive from Venezuelan justice, Manuel Rosales. According to the communiqué, “the Government of Peru decided to grant political asylum to Manuel Rosales, in a decision which constitutes a mockery of international law, a severe blow to the fight against corruption, and an attack against the people of Venezuela.”
Previously, the Chancellor of Peru, José Antonio García Belaunde, informed that his government had decided to grant political asylum to Rosales, in spite of the latter having been accused of corruption, and who fled the country without facing the charges against him. “The Peruvian government, true to its historical tradition and in co-operation with international law, has decided to grant asylum to the citizen Manuel Rosales,” said the chancellor during a meeting with the exterior-relations commission of the Peruvian congress.
Rosales met with other Venezuelan fugitives who fled the country over non-political offences and who received asylum in Peru, among them the leader of the illegal oil lockout of 2002-3 Carlos Ortega, and the ex-governor of Yaracuy, Eduardo Lapi. Lima also granted asylum in 2003 to two retired military leaders who participated in opposition protests in the Plaza Francia in Altamira, Caracas. Some press accounts claim that Nixon Moreno, ex-student leader accused of sexually assaulting a police officer and attempted murder of another officer, may also be in Peru.
The communiqué released today by the Venezuelan government states:
“As is well known to public opinion, the judicial authorities of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sought, via regular channels, an international order for the capture of the Venezuelan fugitive from justice, Manuel Rosales, accused of corruption and illicit self-enrichment, which led to an immediate ‘code red’ alert from Interpol.
“Interpol Peru asked Venezuelan authorities for the necessary documentation to detain Manuel Rosales; the documentation was handed over last Sunday, April 26.
“In spite of the weight of evidence [against Rosales], the Government of Peru decided to grant political asylum to Rosales, in a decision which constitutes a mockery of international law, a severe blow to the fight against corruption, and an attack against the people of Venezuela.
“In light of these facts, the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has decided, in protest, to immediately return to Caracas its ambassador in Lima, to suspend of all diplomatic proceedings of the ambassador to Peru, and to re-evaluate its relations with the government of that country.”

Translation mine.

Translated from the officialese, that’s a major bitch-slap to El Gordo. Which should come as no surprise, given that he’s been a major bitch. While unpopular even with his own people, though, he’s still in office, and still thumbing his nose at international law on numerous fronts. Sheltering Venezuelan corruptos, as we can see, is something of a hobby for him.

But at least now, he knows his chronic nose-thumbing isn’t going to get him any sympathy in Caracas. Most likely, not in the rest of the Unasur countries, either.

Posted in Huguito Chavecito, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land. Comments Off »

Another Bolivia bombshell about to break?

April 27, 2009 — Sabina Becker

Sure smells that way. From ABI, two items: First, there’s a video out there showing the international terrorist cell in Santa Cruz making its vile plans; now, there’s this:

Prosecutor Marcelo Sosa, head of the investigation of the irregular ultra-right group recently dismantled in Santa Cruz, affirmed on Monday that the Public Ministry has in custody a “key witness” who presented the video which showed evidence of the assassination plans made by the Bolivian-Hungarian-Croat Eduardo Rózsa Flores and his international mercenary cell.
“Up to now, this person is in police custody because he could be at risk,” Sosa said.
A judicial source says that the witness could appear before the Attorney General in the next few hours.
[...]
Last Saturday, Sosa screened a video in which Rózsa Flores, in his own voice, lamented not having had an opportunity to know the time and place of a meeting in early April between President Evo Morales, Vice-President Alvaro García Linera, and a large portion of the Bolivian parliament in a military vessel on Lake Titicaca, in order to blow them sky-high.
Rózsa also raved about the destructive power of the explosive known as ANFO.
In another videotape made by Hungarian journalist Andras Kepes, the same Rózsa Flores admitted that he had been contracted to provoke the secession of Santa Cruz from the rest of Bolivia.
Sosa announced that he had not yet confirmed the day and hour for the key witness, who had submitted the video of the conspiratorial plans to the authorities, to make his declaration.
The prosecutor also announced that the video made public last Saturday would be subjected to a technical examination by a group specializing in audio. The audio and video recording, made on a cellphone, dispels all doubts over the actions of the terrorist cell and the identities of the two fugitive cell members still being sought by the investigators.

Translation mine. Linkage added.

I haven’t seen the video yet; apparently it hasn’t been posted to the Internet. I would love to see it when it’s finally made public, and will be keeping a weather eye out for it. If you know where it is, drop a line in the comments below. Muchas gracias.

Meanwhile, I’m glad to add that this whole nasty business has had one good result (besides the timely deaths of three of the perps, and the arrests of two): namely, that Evo, Alvaro, members of the National Assembly, and the key investigators of the case have all beefed up their police security. A wise move, considering that a key Cruceñista secret society (I hesitate to call it a masonic lodge, because the real, respectable, and far more open freemasons of Bolivia shun it like the fascistic Typhoid Mary it is) happens to take its name from a very lovely flowering tree native to Santa Cruz, and which just happens to blossom in May. Given that secret societies are just mad about symbolism, it would be more than prudent for the heads of state and investigators to make sure their backs are doubly watched during that merry month of the flowering tree, which is now just four days away.

Posted in All About Evo, Fascism Without Swastikas, Guns, Guns, Guns, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land. 2 Comments »

Why they hate the US, part umpteen hundred and umpty-ump

April 27, 2009 — Sabina Becker

When life is discovered on other planets, we already know how it’s gonna react to its first Earthling visitors…

If you ever wanna know why Latin Americans keep yelling “Yankee Go Home” or “Gringo maldito”, I think I’ve just found another clue, this time on Gadling:

An Air France flight from Paris to Mexico had to make an unscheduled stop in Martinique when US air traffic controllers notified the jet that it would not be receiving permission to fly over US airspace.
That’s right – the plane was not en route to the US, just passing over some of it, on its way to Mexico.
On board the plane was Colombian Journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina, who works for Le Monde Diplomatique.
What makes the whole incident even more interesting is that Air France had only sent its passenger manifest to the Mexicans, but now it is clear that Mexico shares this information with the United States.
Hernando Calvo Ospina has written articles about the United States involvement in Latin America, and is currently writing a book about he CIA. The exact reason for him being on the terrorist watch list is unknown, and we’ll probably never know what criteria are used for adding people to it.

I’ll bet the “exact reason” has something to do with him writing (a) for Le Monde Diplomatique, which is not only factually accurate but has all the goods on US interference in LatAm, and (b) a critical word about the CIA in anything, anywhere. They’re kind of itchy that way.

Posted in Fascism Without Swastikas, Good to Know, Mexican Standoffs, The War on Terra. Comments Off »

Quotable: Steve Benen on Karl Rove

April 26, 2009 — Sabina Becker

“You see, in Rove World, the way to avoid becoming a banana republic is to have a chief executive who ignores the rule of law. Then, the chief executive is replaced, and his/her successor must ensure there are no consequences for those who ignored the rule of law in the recent past. No matter how serious alleged crimes, no matter how compelling the evidence, no matter the consequences, if a president believes those who came before him/her broke the law, he/she must not prosecute, or even investigate. If he/she disagrees, the president would be acting like a Latin American colonel in mirrored sunglasses.”

–Steve Benen, in the Washington Monthly

‘Bina notes: Latin American colonels in mirrored sunglasses were all put there by Karl Rove’s predecessors, most notably Henry Kissinger. And of course, they got immunity for their crimes, too. Guess how.

Posted in Fascism Without Swastikas, Quotable Notables. Comments Off »

Music for a Sunday: Two by Yaz

April 26, 2009 — Sabina Becker

Midnight. It’s raining outside. What’s Bina listening to at this hour? This:

An awesome remix of the ’80s classic; the incredibly soulful voice of Alison Moyet and the purest synth-pop backdrop make perfect foils for each other.