Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for category Haiti

the Bangkok of Latin America

Feb 18

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, Brazil, CIA, Canada, Corruption & Crime, Drug Trafficking, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Israel, Paraguay, TBA, Terrorism, The West | No Comments

A lot of human trafficking passes through Texas on it’s way into the United States and onward. Some statistics:

  • 18,000 foreign nationals trafficked into the US each year
  • plus an estimated 200,000 American children at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year
  • major ports of entry are southern and central Texas, Southern California, parts of Arizona and New Mexico
  • emerging ports include Atlanta, Houston, Orlando and Washington DC
  • the I-10 corridor is a main route for human traffickers in the US
  • after drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with illegal arms as the second largest criminal industry in the world
  • human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry

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On February 2, Penny brought to our attention Dave McGowan’s latest, Sleazefest in Seattle. (Penny has an extensive Dave McGowan collection at her place, please avail thyself.) Since Dave’s site may be experiencing some sort of technical difficulty at the moment, you can also read Sleazefest in Seattle over at SOTT.

In completely unrelated news, various concerned parties have recently reported that Vancouver is a major hub for trafficking in a most unsavory type of freight: humans. And much of that freight is said to come from the same place those alleged cherries were supposed to be shipped out to; as University of British Columbia law professor Benjamin Perrin recently noted, “Vancouver is considered to be a hub for Pacific human trafficking.” The British Columbia Human Rights Coalition concurred, reporting that, “Canada has been identified as both a transit and a destination point for human trafficking, and Vancouver has been singled out by the US state department as a port of major concern.”

Nice.

And it gets better. According to far more shocking allegations (http://www.galacticfriends.com/updates/galactic-friends/1784-galactic-federation.html), there is no shortage of other unsavory freight being shipped through Vancouver, including illegal drugs and weapons, and, perhaps inevitably, child pornography. According to witness statements taken from social workers, tribal elders and self-described victims, Vancouver is home to a protected network of pedophiles engaged in such pursuits as rape, torture, murder, child pornography, production of snuff films, and ethnic cleansing. Other then all that though, it seems like a great place to hold the Olympic games, especially since, as Perrin noted, “Traffickers will view the 2010 Olympics as the biggest business opportunity for them in decades.”

The network is said to be protected by virtually all levels of law enforcement and the judiciary, as well as by well-placed confederates in the church, the media, and other institutions of the state. If all of that sounds all too familiar, it is probably because you’ve spent time swimming in the sewers of the Franklin case in Omaha, Nebraska (http://franklinscandal.com/), or possibly the Marc Dutroux case in Belgium (http://www.illuminati-news.com/0/snuff2.htm).

Are you with me so far?

^^^^^^

Now we have Haiti, and Puello, and El Salvador to sort through. I was just following that line of thought back down into South America. There’s a place in South America called the Tri-Border Area (TBA), where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet.

Back in 2002, CNN reported, from various unspecified “intelligence sources,” that al Qaeda terrorists were meeting in this area and plotting to attack US and Israeli interests, in conjunction with Hezbollah.

CNN has learned from coalition intelligence sources that several top terrorist operatives met recently in the area — where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay intersect — to plan attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in the Western hemisphere. Sources said the meetings, which took place in and around Ciudad del Este, were attended by representatives of Hezbollah and other groups sympathetic to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network….Other indications of the threat came from intelligence sources in the Middle East, who told CNN of a new terrorist effort aimed at U.S. and Israeli interests and coordinated by a man named Imad Mugniyeh.

Argentine officials point to more evidence they say indicates terrorist activity in the tri-border area — thousands of U.S. dollars bearing stamps from Lebanese currency exchange banks, tens of thousands of dollars in phony bills, and receipts from wire transfers made between the tri-border area and the Middle East.

Oh dear.

In 2003, a paper titled Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America (pdf) described in detail the many criminal and Islamist elements from around the world operating in the TBA, an organized crime paradise. Chinese, Russian, Lebanese, etc. Eventually, the TBA came to the attention of the appropriate authorities.

The bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires on March 17, 1992, followed by the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (Asociación Mutual Israeli-Argentina —AMIA), a Jewish community center, in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, focused the attention of the TBA countries, Israel, and the United States on the TBA because the investigation into both attacks led back to Hizballah operatives in the TBA.

There’s actually a very well-developed narrative about this area being connected to Hezbollah, Hamas, Lebanon, Iran and al Qaeda, among others. (Terrorist threat in the Tri-Border Area: myth or reality? 2004; Organized Crime: From Trafficking to Terrorism, Volume 2, pp. 159-161)

The narrative does not mention human trafficking, however. And the other thing conspicuously missing: Jews in any context other than victim of the organized criminals in the TBA.

The criminals from the TBA used some US banks to launder their money.

One of the most well known money laundering scandals involved Banestado, the bank of Brazil’s Parana state. In 1995, five banks in the tri-border region, including Banestado, were authorized to open currency exchange accounts, known as CC-5 accounts. CC-5 accounts quickly became popular in money laundering, and brokers opened hundreds of fake CC-5 accounts, into which criminals deposited millions of reals. The money was then wired in dollars to the Banestado branch in New York City and from there to other banks, usually in countries considered to be tax havens. Money changers and complicit Banestado officials took cuts from each transaction. More than 250 phony CC-5 accounts have since been identified, and it is suspected that as much as $30 billion passed through Banestado accounts in the U.S. between 1996 and 1999, a portion of which was likely laundered. The case is still being investigated. (6/10/08)

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But human trafficking does, of course, take place, and it is a huge and fast-growing organized crime industry. And it takes place in the TBA.

Sit by the swimming pool of the exclusive Iguazú Jungle hotel and you can watch the “contrabandistas” emerging from the undergrowth. All day, an army of smugglers can be seen passing along the mountainous path that separates Argentina from Brazil. … Everything from fake branded clothing to Class A drugs are ferried back and forth along these clandestine routes. The list of contraband goods now also extends to human beings.

…Many of those trafficked through the triple frontier are destined for the illegal labour market in Brazil or Argentina. The trade in babies for adoption is also widely reported. But a large proportion end up as sex workers. Many end up in brothels across the region, although a high number are destined for the triple frontier’s own thriving sex industry.

Children are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers. Charities working with at-risk children in the border region estimate that as many as 3,500 young people could be involved. “Many girls are trafficked via the pique. It’s all highly organised”, explains Marcelina Antunez, director of Luz de Infancia, a children’s care centre in the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazú.

Driving the trade is the flood of foreign tourists who come to visit the world famous Iguazú waterfalls. Much of the demand for prostitution is casual. Yet the region also attracts a hardened group of sex tourists.

…”The triple frontera is the Bangkok of Latin America…after the tsunami, many sex tourists started coming here instead of Asia,” notes Cynthia Bendlin, director of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for the triple frontier area. IOM runs a number of awareness programmes to highlight the dangers of the trafficking trade. But it is an uphill struggle. Many of the children most at risk either live on the street or come from very impoverished families, Ms Bendlin explains. (2007)

A tourist destination, with beautiful hotels. Many tourists come to see the Igauzu falls. But hey, there’s really nothing to worry about because the place is crawling with feds and agency people, including CIA, on account of all the Arab terrorists there, so relax! Who would dare do any illegal trafficking with all these law enforcement people around?

Immigration officer Emilio Osses, who oversees one of the Argentine checkpoints in the area, said that contrary to popular belief, this is not the worst trafficking hotspot on Argentina’s border. He says that this tri-border area is heavily controlled — saturated with officers from at least eight local, federal and international agencies, including lots of CIA agents.
And it’s largely because of the intelligence community that there’s a lot of hype around the tri-border, he said. There is a large and important Arab population here, and it’s believed that the terrorist cells that bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires had support in this area.

“That’s why it has this stigma of terrorism, corruption, and illegal trafficking,” Osses said. “In reality, the tri-border area suffers from propaganda.” But Osses goes on to admit that there’s a lot of room for illegal trafficking here. In the high season, 30,000 people per day cross the triple border — and that’s just at the official checkpoints. Like any border, much more of it is uncontrolled.

Jesus God, Mr. Osses. Do you think there’s a connection between all those agency people and the trafficking?

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete
when everything the American public believes is false.
– William Casey, CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

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So, anyway, it must be time to change the subject. New York Times, July 17, 2009: Inquiry on 1994 Blast at Argentina Jewish Center Gets New Life. Oh PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!

Despite all the international attention, despite investigative help from Israel and the United States, no one has been convicted for the July 18, 1994, bombing of the community center, in which 85 people died and more than 300 were injured….But suddenly, an investigation that former President Néstor Kirchner called a national disgrace has received new urgency and is again raising hopes among Jewish groups, though significant concerns about the inquiry remain.

…last month, a federal judge here, Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, ordered the international capture of Samuel Salman El Reda, a 43-year-old Colombian citizen whom prosecutors here had accused of helping coordinate the local Hezbollah cell that Argentine investigators said had carried out the bombing.

Investigators here believe that they have solved the case in principle, having accused the Iranian government of planning and financing the attack, and Hezbollah of executing those plans.

But some experts, including a former American F.B.I. agent who assisted the Argentines in their investigation, are skeptical about the claims of direct Iranian involvement. “The guilt field was painted with a bit too broad a brush,” said the former agent, James Bernazzani, who led the F.B.I.’s Hezbollah operations unit in the late 1990s.

…Previous inquiries were riddled with incompetence, witnesses who were threatened and bribed, stolen evidence and accusations of a cover-up involving the former Argentine president Carlos Menem. The Argentines, nevertheless, maintain that Iran was behind the attack, and have had limited relations with Tehran partly because of the investigation’s importance to the nation’s 230,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Latin America. The 1994 bombing came two years after the Israeli Embassy here was bombed, killing 29 people, a case that also remains unsolved.

…Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who took over the investigation in 2005, has intensified a line of inquiry that Mr. Galeano had played down: the involvement of Iran.

In 2006, Mr. Nisman formally accused several members of Iran’s government of planning and financing the bombing, including former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Central to the indictments was an Iranian defector, Abdolghassem Meshabi, who said that the plot had been hatched in Tehran and that Iranian officials had paid Mr. Menem about $10 million to help cover up Iran’s involvement.

And guess what? Yes, it all comes back to the TBA. Mr. Nisman has it all figured out. I mean, just look what he says.

Mr. Nisman, meanwhile, is pressing on with his investigation of Mr. El Reda. In the weeks before the bombing, Mr. El Reda shuttled between “safe houses” in Buenos Aires and a red brick house in Foz do Iguaçu, a Brazilian town in the Triple Frontier area where Argentina meets Brazil and Paraguay, investigators said.

From millions of phone call records and the help of an unidentified Hezbollah operative, investigators say they were able to piece together evidence of a terrorist cell involving Mr. El Reda that kept in close contact with Beirut leading up to the bombing.

On the morning of July 1, 1994, Mr. Nisman said, Mr. El Reda made a call from the international airport here to a cellphone registered in Foz do Iguaçu, a call that may have set off the final phase of the attack.

Other calls to the cellphone were made from public phone centers near the Jewish community center and near a mosque in Buenos Aires where the cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy, one of the people charged in 2006, spent a great deal of time, Mr. Nisman wrote in court papers. Mr. El Reda had forged close ties with the Iranian attaché, Mr. Nisman said.

Calls were often made from those same locations to the communications center of Hezbollah in Beirut and to known militants in the Triple Frontier, Mr. Nisman said.

Mr. Bernazzani warned that that “doesn’t prove anything,” because what had been said on the calls was not known. “Telephones don’t get indicted, people do,” he said.

Mr. Nisman, nevertheless, said that at 7:41 a.m. on the day of the bombing a final call was made from Aeroparque airport in Buenos Aires. Forty minutes later, a flight bound for Puerto Iguazú in the Triple Frontier took off. Mr. Nisman said he believed that Mr. El Reda made the call before boarding the plane.

Then, at 9:53 a.m., a van loaded with about 600 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil exploded in front of the community center. A few days later Mr. El Reda left South America for Lebanon, where he still lives with his family, Mr. Nisman said.

Boy it makes a person wonder if Alberto NISMAN belongs to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, given the alacrity of his beliefs.

Not that it matters. Perish the thought.

^^^^^^^

In closing, I would just like to remind you that the 2016 Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro.

So happy.
“Traffickers will view the 2010 2016 Olympics as the biggest business opportunity for them in decades.”

sickening

Feb 18

Posted by A. Peasant in Haiti, Human Trafficking, Israel, Mossad, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, Organ Trafficking, UK | No Comments

1. Dubai 99% sure Mossad killed Mabhouh — Israeli response… SO?

Dubai police chief said he was 99 percent certain that the Mossad was responsible for the assassination of top Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh , Gulf News reported on Thursday. “Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder,” police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim told The National newspaper.

Earlier, a confidant of Mossad chief Meir Dagan told the Reuters News Agency that there was no reason to resign over the scandal-fraught assassination in Dubai, adding that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is unlikely to ask him to. Resignation would be tantamount to taking responsibility, the confidant said. Dagan’s success in other and ongoing operations against Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran would outweigh any desire by Netanyahu to have him fall on his sword, said the confidant, who also hails from Israel’s intelligence community. “There are national priorities here,” the confidant added.

Dubai police this week released names, photos and passport numbers of 11 members of an alleged hit squad that killed Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month in Dubai. Dubai police said that all 11 carried European passports. But most of the identities appeared to be stolen, and a number matched up with real people in Israel who have claimed they were victims of identity theft. Only the British passports, however, were believed to have involved stolen identities.

The confidant anticipated that Mossad would quietly lobby counterpart agencies of the countries whose passports were used for the Dubai mission to mellow their governments’ scrutiny on Israel.

“This may not work, given the anger that some of these foreign ministries are signaling,” the confidant said. “But even if there’s only a process of internal deliberation, that might be enough to take the sting out of the recrimination,” said the confidant. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said there was no reason to assume the Mossad was behind the operation simply because Dubai had released the information about the passports. “I don’t know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports,” Lieberman told Army Radio in Israel’s first official comments on the affair. But Lieberman did not deny involvement outright, saying Israel rightly maintained a policy of ambiguity where security operations were concerned.

“Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies,” he said. “There is no reason for Israel to change this policy.”

jpost: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=169012

maybe israel can fuck off.

2. Milliband: israel must cooperate fully. !!!. i’m *serious* this time. we’ll see.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday demanded Israel’s full cooperation in investigating of the fraudulent use of U.K. passport by the killers of a Hamas official in Dubai.

Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, met with Sir Peter Ricketts, head of the British diplomatic sevice, on Thursday after London asked him to clarify what it called an “identity theft” in which the passports of six British Israelis were used by assassins.

“The permanent secretary (Ricketts) said we wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident,” Miliband told British television. “We hope and expect they will cooperate fully with the investigation that has been launched by the prime minister [Gordon Brown],” he said.

He said he hoped to discuss the issue further with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman when both men were in Brussels on Monday.

…Although Jerusalem has not taken responsibility for the January 20 hit on Mabhouh, the incident seems to have spawned a serious diplomatic rift between Israel and the United Kingdom.

more @ haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150675.html

authentic-drama-queen13. let’s see if Livni does her arrest experiment

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni reportedly indicated on Sunday that she would be willing to travel to the U.K. in order to provoke her own arrest, hoping thus to move London into changing a controversial law enabling the arrest of visiting politicians, the London Times reported on Monday.

“Britain has obligated itself to me personally that this subject will be taken care of and fixed,” she said. “Now is the time.”

Livni reportedly added that getting herself arrested was the only way to “shame” the British government into changing the law giving judges the power to arrest visiting Israeli politicians and generals.

Israel’s government confirmed late last year that Livni canceled a planned London trip after her office received news of a secretly issued arrest warrant awaiting her arrival.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband later announced that Britain would no longer tolerate legal harassment of Israeli officials in this fashion.

more @ haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149895.html

MEANWHILE:

4. focus on Israel: harvesting Haitian organs

By Stephen Lendman


On January 15, Haaretz reported that:

“The Israel Defense Forces’ aid mission to Haiti left Israel overnight (January 14) with equipment for setting up an emergency field hospital. Around 220 soldiers and officers (were) in the delegation, including 120 medical staff (to) operate the hospital in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.”

According to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it includes “40 doctors, 25 nurses, paramedics, a pharmacy, a children’s ward, a radiology department, an intensive care unit, an internal department and a maternity ward (able to) treat approximately 500 patients each day,” including in two surgery rooms.

On January 20, Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV reported on the mission, citing a damning You Tube video posted by an American named T. West from a group called AfriSynergy Productions.

“The video presents something to think about while exploiting the horrible tragedy that has befallen Haiti where Israeli occupation soldiers are engaged in organ trafficking.”

Israel faced these charges before. In November 2009, Alison Weir’s article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs headlined, “Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From Moldova to Palestine.” She cited an August Donald Bostrom article in Sweden’s Aftonbladet suggesting that Israel illicitly removes body parts, including from Palestinians.

She stated:

“….Israeli organ harvesting - sometimes with Israeli governmental funding and the participation of high Israeli officials, prominent Israeli physicians, and Israeli ministries - have been documented for many years. Among the victims have been Palestinians.”

“Israel is at the top,” she states. “It has tentacles reaching out worldwide. (It has) a pyramid system at work that’s awesome….they have brokers everywhere, bank accounts everywhere; they’ve got recruiters, they’ve got translators, they’ve got travel agents who set up the visas.”

They pay “the poor and the hungry to slowly dismantle their bodies” or simply take what they want from fresh corpses. Body parts are commodities, to be harvested and sold to the rich, even though organ sales are prohibited in most countries, but not in international law.

read more @ after downing street


5. aangirfan: Israelis in Haiti for organ trafficking and child sex trafficking?

Jorge Puello, who has recently been in Haiti, is the Jewish gentleman who allegedly leads a child sex abuse network that recruited children for prostitution in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. (Jorge Anibal Torres Puello) ‘He served in the U.S. Army in a military intelligence unit. He worked undercover with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.’ (Legal adviser for Americans in Haiti facing his own charges)

How did the Israelis get to Haiti so quickly?

In the days befor the Haiti quake, the Israelis, in Tel Aviv, were carrying out a conference and drill about ‘emergencies and disasters’

(First Emergency Response Conference opens in Israel 11-Jan-2010 / Drill Draws International Crowd / Twelfth Bough: the annals of logistical achievements)

Are the Israelis in Haiti to harvest the organs of children?

In November 2009, Alison Weir had an article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs headlined, “Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From Moldova to Palestine.”

She stated: “….Israeli organ harvesting - sometimes with Israeli governmental funding and the participation of high Israeli officials, prominent Israeli physicians, and Israeli ministries - have been documented for many years.” (Focus on Israel: Harvesting Haitian Organs AfterDowningStreet.org)

The UK’s Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, has sacked Jenny Tonge, his health spokeswoman in the House of Lords, after comments she made about alleged organ trafficking in Haiti.

Jenny Tonge told the Jewish Chronicle there should be an inquiry into claims that Israeli troops sent there after the earthquake were trafficking organs.

read more @ aangirfan

fewer Haitians

Feb 17

Posted by A. Peasant in Canada, Haiti, Military, Minerals, Oil, Terrorism, Vaccines | No Comments

As reported here, back around 2003 a group of high level North American and Latin American diplomats were holding secret meetings to discuss Haiti — the “Ottowa Initiative.” Members of the group included: Canada’s Secretary of State for Latin America, Africa, and the French-speaking World, Denis Paradis; the U.S. State Department’s “Continental Initiatives” representative Otto Reich; and Organization of American States (OAS) assistant secretary general Luigi Einaudi. The goal, ostensibly, was to protect Haitians from the consequences of failed statehood, for which, naturally, the international community is to be held totally blameless (wink wink).

A group of high-level North American and Latin American diplomats has been secretly meeting in Canada to plan President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s removal from power and an ensuing foreign military occupation, according to an article by Michel Vastel in the Mar. 15 edition of the Canadian magazine “L’Actualité.”

The group of officials, code named the “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti,” wants regime change in Haiti this year before the Jan. 1, 2004 bicentennial of Haiti’s independence, the article says.

Denis Paradis

…The article indicates that in some way Paradis sees Haiti’s internal problems as a “threat” to North American countries because Haiti might have, by some estimates, a population of 20 million by 2019. The correlation is unclear, but it is enough to excite Paradis. “It is a time bomb,” he said, “which must be defused immediately.”

Aha, so… too many Haitians?

No Haitians attended the meeting, and the Canadian government has kept the documents secret. (wikipedia)

“Michel Vastel wrote that the possibility of Aristide’s departure, the need for a potential trusteeship over Haiti, and the return of Haiti’s dreaded military were discussed by Paradis and the French Minister for La Francophonie, Pierre-Andre Wiltzer.” Paradis later denied this, and as such, the allegations can never be proven, but neither Vastel nor L’Actualite retracted the story.

Just over a year later, U.S. marines removed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from the country and flew him to the Central African Republic. Critics, such as authors Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton, suspect that the secret meetings in Ottawa were the first step that led to the coup and the 2004 Haitian rebellion.

This article describes in more detail how The West treated Haiti after Aristide’s election: pressure, accusations, sanctions, economic strangulation. This behavior JUSTIFIED the decision to overthrow Aristide. We see this over and over again. They (our “leaders”) decide what they want, and then they “fit the facts around the policy.” Since they wanted to get rid of Aristide (and a lot of Haitians), they needed to make him look bad and create a lot of suffering that would JUSTIFY a military intervention.

Enthusiastically and publicly leading the overthrow of a democratically elected government was a bit much for the Liberal government. Consequently, the overzealous Paradis soon faded into the background. After his interview with Vastel was published, he was quickly removed from the ‘Haiti file,’ while the plans to overthrow Aristide proceeded, albeit a couple of months behind schedule.

…According to Paul Martin, Canada’s involvement in Haiti was the “morally responsible” thing to do. He has also said that Haiti was a “failed state,” that Canada and other “friends of Haiti” intervened at just the right time to restore peace and stability to Haiti. In July, Martin addressed what the Globe and Mail referred to as an “exclusive gathering” of “media moguls” in Idaho. The gathering was closed to the press and the public.

Idaho? Seems like an unlikely place for an “exclusive gathering” of “media moguls”…… or maybe not… ???

…On July 29th, Lt. Colonel Jim Davis, Commander of the Canadian Forces contingent in Haiti, acknowledged that at least 1000 bodies had been buried in a mass grave in Port au Prince, within one month of “restoring stability.” Davis also would not deny the eyewitnesss testimony that spoke of a massacre of Aristide supporters committed by occupying forces on March 12. According to the eyewitnesses, international forces staged an attack in a Port-au-Prince slum, killing dozens of people. These international forces reportedly took all but two bodies away in ambulances. At the time, US, French and Canadian forces were stationed in Haiti. French troops had explicit rules of engagement: they were not to shoot unless they were attacked. Canadian and American occupying forces had no such limitation. Said Davis: “I do not deny that these things have happened.”

Regrettable.

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In 2004, US Special Forces violently arrested eleven people, including four children, in Haiti.

At 12:30 a.m. on the morning of May 10, a Special Forces squad of approximately 20 U.S. Marines executed a military assault on the home of 69-year-old Annette Auguste, a.k.a. So Anne. Auguste’s residence is part of a compound that includes four other apartments that were also invaded by the U.S. military forces. The troops forcefully covered the heads of eleven Haitians with black hoods and then forced them to the lay face down on the ground while binding their wrists with plastic manacles behind their backs. The victims of this terrifying U.S. military invasion included five-year-old Chamyr Samedi, 10-year-old Kerlande Philippe, 12-year-old Loubahida Auguste, 14-year-old Luckmar Auguste and seven adults.

…In the past, critics such as Yves A. Isidor, professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Executive Editor of wehaitians.com, and Raymond Joseph of the Haiti Observateur, now the Chief Diplomatic Representative to America for Haiti, have accused Ms. Auguste of things as outrageous as human sacrifice.

Typical.

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As in Africa and all over the world, poor people sometimes live on top of or near valuable natural resources. Their presence, in their own countries, on their own lands, interferes with the efficient extraction of said valuable resources. (See here for the Nigerian version of oil companies executing amazing feats of engineering to get oil from a swamp but inexplicably failing at providing clean water to the locals.)

It’s a critical part of the business model to make the land inhospitable so that the people die or leave. The People Are In The Way. OK? That’s what’s going on. And everybody involved knows it.

Same in Haiti.

There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.

There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti’s deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.

…The mainstream media, owned by the multinational companies fleecing Haiti, certainly won’t lay out for public consumption that the UN/US invasion and occupation of Haiti is to secure Haiti’s oil, strategic position, cheap labor, deep water ports, mineral resources (iridium, gold, copper, uranium, diamond, gas reserves, zyconium deposits), lands, waterfronts, offshore resources for privatization or the exclusive use of the world’s wealthy oligarchs and US big oil monopolies.

That’s an amazing website and I hope you go over and look around.

^^^^^^^

But still, the people. What to do with all the Haitians? Well I think we’re seeing what the plan is. Kill some.

Inject some. Trade some. Harvest some. Rape some.

That’s the devastating truth.

bootstrapping and extortion — not the same

Feb 17

Posted by A. Peasant in Haiti, Hasbara, Human Trafficking, Identities, Israel | No Comments

Bootstrapping: a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help.

^^^^^^^

Extortion:

Extortion, outwresting, or exaction is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force, but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.

…The term extortion is often used metaphorically to refer to usury or to price-gouging, though neither is legally considered extortion. It is also often used loosely to refer to everyday situations where one person feels indebted against their will, to another, in order to receive an essential service or avoid legal consequences.

It’s one of those things… you’d know it if it happened to you. If you really needed help, and someone helped you, and then you felt like you owed them, and instead of saying to you no no, you don’t owe me a thing because I wanted to help you, the person says or does things to confirm that you do, in fact, owe them.

And eventually, you knew they would come to extract payment from you. And you don’t know what it might be because you have nothing to pay them with.

Or if, you just had to do things that you didn’t want to do, or else it’s curtains for you. Like the deli guy who has to saw up and dispose of the mob’s dead bodies in Staten Island.

You know, in these mob movies, the mobsters can be very charming. They’re businesspeople. I mean, you wouldn’t necessarily know what’s going on they could be talking to someone right in front of you, ordering a sandwich, and you might not even realize that a transaction is taking place, because it’s not between equals and the weak person has no moves. So they have to just take it. And so the transaction happens very quietly and efficiently. It can be done in the open. That’s how some people exercise power.

^^^^^^^

Israel has a big PR problem. http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=168506

For the past two-and-a-half years, Aharoni has had the Herculean task of re-branding Israel. His goal: to change outsiders’ perception of Israel as a militaristic and conservative country into something closer to how Israelis see themselves – “largely sababa (cool).”


…Israel’s brand troubles grew from the gap between the high quality product that it offers and the low image it has, he said. “That gap not only carries an economic burden, but also weighs Israel down in its marketing efforts and in the effectiveness of its foreign policy.”

Putting up a photo of an Israeli tank confronting a Palestinian youth throwing a stone, Aharoni said that hasbara’s job is to convince people that the tank is the victim.

“Given enough time I can make a good argument that that is actually the case, but in today’s media environment, we don’t have the time. We have about three seconds to grasp a viewer’s attention and that, unfortunately, doesn’t allow enough time for presenting the facts. When we continue to try, it inevitably fails and that’s bad because it leaves the picture of the tank and the child in sight and harms the Israeli brand.”

Aharoni said that even if hasbara is successful at changing people’s minds about the conflict, it doesn’t help with tourism. “Political support doesn’t translate into consumer affinity. There is a disconnect between the emotional and the rational. In the modern age it is no less important to be attractive than it is to be in the right.”

Allrighty then. Thanks for clarifying.

^^^^^^^

According to Gal Lusky, Israeli Flying Aid has a dual mission: to provide aid, and to improve Israel’s image.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130029

Israel Flying Aid was created to (1) provide assistance to disaster struck regions in countries without diplomatic ties to Israel, Lusky explained. The non-governmental aid group aims to help victims of humanitarian disasters and (2) to improve Israel’s image at the same time.

The organization sometimes flies under the Israeli flag and sometimes conceals its origins until immediately prior to leaving the area, Lusky said, depending on the country in question. “Wherever we go, even when we go below the radar, it’s well known where we come from,” she added.

IFA activists have taken part in complex missions in areas such as Darfur, Indonesia and the Kashmir region of Pakistan. Even the United Nations and Red Cross had trouble providing aid in Kashmir after the latest earthquake in the area, Lusky noted, but IFA succeeded in reaching the region and assisting victims. “It was a very complicated mission, but it happened,” she said.After reaching a disaster-struck region, the group begins providing food and necessary supplies to victims.

…The volunteers often encounter hostility, Lusky said. “We meet people that are very surprised to discover we come from Israel, and [hear] some shocking stories, even from the children, about how the mullah describes us, or the mosque… it’s sad. It’s sad, but that’s why we continue running.”

Lusky described her group’s experiences in Indonesia to illustrate her point. In Indonesia Israeli volunteers posed as Europeans due to the presence of Al-Qaeda terrorists and Muslim fundamentalists in the area.

…On the final day of the mission, Lusky told the local children and adults who had frequented the mobile aid center that her group was actually from Israel.

Everyone went quiet. “It was embarrassing, because we had 120 adults cooking for us, 10,000 meals every day, and we had 220 orphans that came every day for post-trauma treatment… Everybody was silent,” she recalled.

Lusky then asked her hundreds of listeners if, knowing who had helped them, they would come to help Israeli civilians in case of a similar disaster in Israel. None of the 120 Indonesian adults present raised their hands, she said, but every single one of the 220 children said they would help Israel.

So everyone went all quiet because…. they felt guilty for accepting all those hot meals in their time of need?

^^^^^^^

There remain a few questions about how this operation actually works.

Gal told Diva International that they fly undercover on regular civilian flights and buy all their supplies on the ground, and that she has to travel around to raise money, and since IFA’s work remains low-key, it’s hard to get people to sign on to help.

Or do they “find themselves” on unmarked airplanes heading into enemy territory? You know civilians do that sort of thing all the time, right?

And do they arrive empty handed, like Gal told Diva International, or do they come in with their tents beds and electric generators, on cargo planes?

And does Gal really have trouble getting funding, or is Flying Aid in a position to line up entertainers and sponsor other projects?

http://www.israelnewsagency.com/israeliflyingaidhumanitarianchinareliefemergencyeffortsmyanmarindonesiahiasiransyrialousky48052808.html

Sometimes with not more than just a few hours notice, the volunteer members of Israel Flying Aid find themselves on unmarked airplanes heading out from Israel for disaster stricken nations. Many of these countries have no political relations with Israel. Some declare themselves as enemies.

Israel Flying Aid members sit cramped for hours on cargo planes, with their heads resting on food, water, medicine, tents, beds and emergency electric generators for those who would starve if not for their brave and humanitarian efforts.

I suppose Gal’s surgeons would have trouble purchasing their medical supplies at the local village mart.

Israeli Flying Aid recently held a fundraiser in Herzliya Pituach, Israel to raise funds to support a medical clinic in one of Ethiopia poorest districts. Several of Israel’s well known entertainers, including Berry Sacharof, Dudu Tasa, Ras Daniel and others, supported this effort by performing at the event.

Israel physicians Idit and Amit Dotan are the initiators of this medical program. Both have visited Ethiopia 5 times and volunteered for over a year in the Mother Teresa clinic for HIV/AIDS orphans in Addis Ababa as well as in a clinic in the south, dedicating their time and effort to help some of the poorest people in the country. The clinic, which is located in the South – west of the country in the Gorga district, was renovated by the doctors and equipped with some basic medical items which enable them to treat almost 100 patients a day. The project, though initially a private venture, now needs additional funds. The couple turned to Israeli Flying Aid. Israel Flying Aid has already helped send more medical items to the clinic and is sponsoring the fundraiser, in the hopes that those in attendance will show their support for the project.

…One can only wonder where the members of Israel Flying Aid would be if the people of Syria, Iran, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia were hit by an earthquake or other natural disaster. We would never know it. But the children of those nations would. And that is exactly what makes Israel a nation which shines her light upon the nations.

^^^^^^^

I guess the most important question is WHY are there so many inconsistencies?

After all, it’s not as though Gal has to do everything herself. That news story carries a little tag at the bottom, which says:

The above news content was edited and SEO optimized in New York for the Internet by Leyden Communications.

Professionals. IFA benefits from the services of a professional NY marketing firm: www.israelpr.com.

Leyden Communications Inc. was established in New York City by Joel Leyden in 1982, with PR and advertising offices at the World Trade Center. The public relations organization was responsible for providing a variety of international marketing, PR, media, branding and business development services for some of the world’s largest commercial, governmental, political and non-profit organizations. In 1987, Joel Leyden relocated to Israel and established Leyden Communications (Israel).

…Joel Leyden’s professional marketing performance and success has been documented by dozens of Israel’s leading governmental and commercial Hi-Tech and security organizations. In addition to his Israel PR, journalism and Israel Internet marketing, SEO commercial life, Leyden has run the New York City marathon, has served in the IDF Combat Engineers, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, Israel Border Police (MAGAV), engages in several Jewish and Israel charities, is an outspoken father’s and children’s rights activist for equal access and shared parenting and is a loving, responsible dad of three children.

That’s all great. Whatever. Knock yourself out.

But let’s — us, all of us — quit pretending that IFA is some little bootstrapping outfit, shall we?

what a gal

Feb 16

Posted by A. Peasant in Haiti, Human Trafficking, Identities, Israel, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, Organ Trafficking | No Comments

Here are some of the people who assisted Haiti relief efforts on behalf of Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu - Prime Minister

Yossi Levy - Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Daniel Saban - Head of Ministry’s Latin America Department
Yitzhak Aharonovitch - Public Security Minister
Dr. Eitan Hai-Am - Health Ministry Director-General
Dr. Danny Laor - Director of the Ministry’s Emergency Division

Amos Radian (Radyan) - Israel’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada

Maj. Gen Yair Golan - OC Home Front Command
Brig. Gen. Shalom Ben Aryeh - IDF Commander of the Home Front Command’s Search and Rescue teams
Brig. Gen. Nachman Esh (Ash) - IDF Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Ariel Bar - Officer of the IDF Home Front Command

Rabbi Shimon Pelman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic

Magen David Adam (Israel’s Red Cross) teams
IsraAID search and rescue teams and medical staff
Gal Lusky - Israeli Flying Aid

^^^^^^^^

Gal Lusky with Ehud Olmert
date unknown, perhaps 2007
http://www.ifaid.org.il/mainNews.asp?contentId=3666

Due to IFA`s extensive activities during the war in the north, Prime Minister Ehud Ulmart invited Gal Lusky to a private meeting. In the meeting, Lusky presented IFA`s International disaster response activities and specified IFA`s activities during the war in the north. Lusky reviewed in details the two aspects the organization was focusing on – civilian and military. In addition, Lusky pointed the Prime Minister to five significant issues regarding necessary follow ups and lessons for the future.

Following the experience in the north, IFA sensed the need for a better preparation of the civilian rear area to the next war. IFA called for establishment of a civil humanitarian coordination center that will allow maximum utilization of donations such as: food, equipment, human resources etc. The coordination center will prevent duplicity, improve the supervision on the equipment installations and minimize corruptions. The Prime Minister praised the activity and its extent and encouraged the organization volunteers.

^^^^^^^

Lusky started the Flying Aid organization after her brother was seriously wounded fighting Lebanon in 1992. http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3554523,00.html

“We mainly supply aid to places which Israel is unable to send assistance to due to a lack of diplomatic ties,” she explained. “As a civilian, independent group we are bound only by our conscience, we don’t ask for governmental permission in order to act and it is technically difficult to prevent us from entering.”

…The organization’s volunteers come from all walks of Israeli life including trauma therapists, logisticians, doctors, Jews, Christians, Druze and Bedouins. The hardcore participants entail about 100 people who are alerted and act immediately in the case of an emergency. They leave their homes, families and work, at their own expense and completely voluntarily go out to the field.

The IFA is subsidized by contributions from an array of organizations including the American-Jewish Committee (AJC) the Israeli companies Suny and Lotus, the Joint and worldwide Jewish federations.

In order to prevent delay of assistance during real time, Lusky works to secure funds for the organization before a disaster occurs. “There is no time during an emergency, people die. In the business world time is money, but in our world time is life and you can’t gain or fix life when it’s gone,” she said.

Lusky and the IFA are in need of additional volunteers, especially in Israel. “Secretarial abilities can greatly ease our work here,” she explained. “In addition, I need writers with outstanding English, almost diplomatic, who can connect the organization with donors worldwide, and who know what titles to give to each leader.”

In this interview with Diva International, Gal explains how Israeli Flying Aid works.
http://www.divainternational.ch/spip.php?article429

Some of the points made:

  • After a year, my brother came out of hospital. It was August 1993. When the next war began I went on my first mission as a private person, not as an organization. I then continued going on these missions.
  • I understood that if I wanted to work according to my conscience and for the victims, I needed to set up my own organization.
  • As an Israeli, I was unable to go to half of the countries in the world, because we do not have diplomatic relations with them.
  • We work mostly below the radar. This is not only because we are Israelis. We do not want to embarrass those who accept our help. They might risk their own lives if it became known that we had come from Israel to help them. We also need to protect our own lives, because after all we are all Israeli citizens carrying that passport.
  • Do you work with other NGOs? No, we work alone. Most of the time, we are the first ones to arrive. We get in first because we try to be there early. Our mission is to save lives.
  • We do not fly in, since we work undercover! We mostly fly in on regular civil flights. We do not take supplies with us –– for two reasons. The first reason is so as not to be conspicuous, and second reason is so as not to be controlled by the local government and the regimes. When you know that all ports, airports, etc., are controlled by the government, the authorities may then do whatever they want with the supplies. Everybody knows it, although it’s not politically correct to say so. We do not go along with that approach.
  • Nothing is missing in the local economy. Nothing! There is not one country where I could not buy what I needed to help the victims. The only thing that is missing is the capability of the victims to pay for aid and to transport it to the location where it is needed. We come with donation money and our intention is to empower the local society to buy everything it needs. Although I can buy, for instance, 100 tons of materials in one place, I will always divide the purchase among several sources in order to help the locals.
  • We do not need anything. We can survive in a foreign area for about a month without the help of anybody. We have our own electricity; we have our own network; we have our own intelligence and maps before we arrive.
  • The problem is donations for the missions. Most donors want credit for their donation. But because our working method is so special and since we are working under the radar, I cannot give them credit. It’s a real difficulty. We tend to keep a low profile, and this makes it really difficult to find funding for the work we do.
  • The American-Jewish committees support us, and some other donors. To raise money, I have to travel abroad. Some donors tell me that I might get killed, and I ask them why is this bothering you? I’m an adult and I know what the risks are. Every single person that is working for us knows what he/she needs to do. It is our choice
  • My dream is that Muslim money will arrive on the table to support this organization. Although I have difficulties because most Muslims will not talk to me, we do not mind working under any flag or any logo in order to save other people’s lives.
  • We do everything in one location. We are able to provide 10,000 hot meals every day (the photos are on the Internet). If I say it, there really are hot meals every day cooked by widows or single women. We have field clinics where we can treat 500 people every day. We have all kinds of doctors, surgeons and specialists –– burns, gynecologists, post-trauma experts, orthopedics, etc.

Make of all that what you will. Most private people I know struggle to pay their bills and can’t fly off to help disaster-struck peoples at a moment’s notice and survive for a month without help while simultaneously providing 10,000 hot meals a day plus surgeons to the local communities….but maybe we’re just doing something wrong here. Not that we wouldn’t like to be more helpful.

^^^^^^^

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav also invited Gal Lusky to a closed-door meeting at his residence in Jerusalem in December 2005, to thank her for her work in the Republic of Georgia, in Southeast Asia after the tsunami, in northern Pakistan and India after an earthquake, and in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. http://www.israel21c.org/opinion/israel-s-superwoman-takes-flight-to-help-others

Moshe Katsav came under a cloud of scandal in the summer of 2006 for rape and sexual harassment charges. Eventually ten women had made charges against him. He did not go gracefully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Katsav

A senior police official told Haaretz that “the material that has been compiled thus far in the affair is more significant and dramatic than that which has been made public in the media.”

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/753547.html

Just last month (1/10/10), he began testifying in the case. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1141541.html

Former President Moshe Katsav began testifying Sunday in a Tel Aviv court on accusations of rape and sexual harassment that were brought against him. The charges in this closed door trial were brought by three former employees of Katsav.

Katsav faces two counts of rape against A., who worked at the Tourism Ministry from March 1998 to January 1999, when Katsav served as tourism minister. One rape allegedly took place in the minister’s office in Tel Aviv and the other at a hotel in Jerusalem. Katsav will also be charged with forcible indecent assault against A. and abusing the employer-employee relationship. In addition, Katsav will be charged with lesser offenses against two employees of the President’s Residence - H., whom he allegedly hugged repeatedly against her will, and L., whom he allegedly hugged and kissed on the neck against her will.

^^^^^^^

Katsav and Lusky have also been linked in another scandal that has been, so far, impossible to verify. Some information appears to have been scrubbed from the web. Make of that what you will. The allegation goes like this, which you can google yourself: that certain parties, including Moshe Katsav, used Lusky’s organization to promote a penny stock fraud called UCSY or Universal Communications Systems. There’s a lot of information on this floating around, mostly indymedia, but the links either don’t work or are circular. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, at least in part, just that I haven’t had any luck verifying it. But it’s really interesting stuff.

I can only verify that Lusky met Katsav, and Olmert, and Katsav is on trial for corruption and rape, and Lusky is sort of famous among Israelis for her work with IFA.

So, for all the talk about working alone and underneath the radar, Lusky has many connections.

And she is on the front lines in Haiti.

That’s the point.

the annals of logistical achievements

Feb 16

Posted by A. Peasant in Children, Corruption & Crime, Experts, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Israel, Mexico, NWO, Organ Trafficking | No Comments

The Haiti earthquake happened on Tuesday, 1/12/10.
Benjamin Netanyahu immediately sprang to action.

Statement of Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1/13/10, 1/14/10
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Israeli_rescue_delegation_Haiti_13-Jan-2010.htm

(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Following the tragic earthquake in Haiti, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, ordered Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Public Security Ministry officials to quickly consider how to render humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean nation. To this end, an advance IDF Home Front Command, IDF Medical Corps and Foreign Ministry delegation has already departed for Haiti.

Israeli Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Amos Radian has been instructed to proceed to Haiti in order to report on the situation there. The Israeli Embassy in the US has been instructed to be in contact with American aid officials in order to coordinate humanitarian assistance and rescue activities and adapt them to the needs of the affected area.

14 January 2010
…Prime Minister Netanyahu added, “Our decision to immediately dispatch a large Israeli team of doctors, nurses, medics, search and rescue personnel, medicines and equipment for a field hospital and operating room to Haiti expresses the deep values that have characterized the Jewish people and the State of Israel all throughout our history. Given Israel’s security needs, we have accumulated much search and rescue experience over the years.  We have applied this experience previously in disaster scenes throughout the world - in Mexico, Argentina, Armenia, Kenya, Turkey and elsewhere. I hope and wish that the Israeli mission will succeed, this time as well, in saving as many lives - children, parents and families - in Haiti as possible.”

IDF Spokesperson:

An Israeli delegation including Ministry of Foreign Affairs, IDF Home Front Command and IDF Medical Corp Personnel has departed (13 January) to the Republic of Haiti in order to examine the possibilities of offering aid following the recent earthquake.

The delegation includes engineering, medical, logistics and rescue experts from the IDF Home Front Command.

The IDF Home Front Command is sending search and rescue forces to Haiti, in order to aid with the rescue of the victims of the earthquake in the Caribbean country. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Hispaniola island near Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. The Medical Officer of the IDF Home Front Command, Dr. Ariel Bar, informed Israel Army Radio that measures have already been taken in order to minimize the preparation period of the operation.

The Home Front Command constantly trains its search and rescue forces to respond accurately to emergencies. It frequently holds search in rescue exercises in cooperation with civilian Israeli bodies and international organizations, such as the Reliant Mermaid X exercise in August 2009, in which Turkish, US and Israeli naval and aerial forces cooperated. The Home Front Command and the Israeli Ministry of Health are also currently holding an international conference for emergency preparedness and response to share it’s experience with hundreds of international officials.

ZAKA International rescue unit en route to Haiti

A four man ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation left Mexico City this morning (January 14) on a flight for Haiti to offer immediate and urgent assistance at the earthquake disaster in Port au Prince.

ZAKA, recognized by the United Nations-as a volunteer humanitarian organization, will be the first Israeli team to arrive in the disaster area and will immediately begin its assessment and work in cooperation with the local and international emergency authorities.

The Israel-based volunteers were in the region having just completed their work in the recovery operation following the helicopter crash that killed Mexican businessman Moses Saba and three family members earlier this week.

^^^^^^^

Luckily, the Israelis were just running an internationally recognized conference on this very thing, to discuss best practices with experts from around the world.

First Emergency Response Conference Opens in Israel
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/First_Emergency_Response_Conference_11-Jan-2010.htm

Israel’s first international conference on preparedness and response of health care systems to disasters and emergencies will convene in Tel-Aviv on 11-14 January 2010.

The IPRED conference, the first international conference for emergency preparedness and response, opens today, Monday, January 11, 2010, at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv. Opening speeches will include the head of the Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the Director General, Ministry of Health, Dr. Eitan Chai-Am and the Mayor of the city of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, Mr. Ron Huldai.

The conference is a joint initiative of the Israeli Ministry of Health and the IDF Home Front Command. These organizations work in close collaboration to assure effective preparedness and response of the health care system to mass casualty events and all other events that may impact the public health.

The IPRED conference will provide the participants with a unique opportunity for sharing knowledge, skills and experiences in emergency management, while networking with leaders of emergency preparedness from many parts of the world. It will enable the world’s disaster and emergency experts and researchers together to review and assess best practices and state of the art preparedness to emergencies.

The first two days of the conference will be devoted to the presentation of the various aspects of handling emergency scenarios and will include workshops, presentations, round-table discussions and hands-on experiences based on advanced training tools. Hundreds of senior officials from Israel and abroad will take part in the conference, including leading guest speakers in the field such as:

* Mr. Arjun Katoch, India - Chief, Field Coordination Support Section of OCHA Emergency Services Branch and responsible for managing the United Nations Disaster Assesment and Coordination team (UNDAC). Mr. Katoch, charged with coordinating initial aid to disaster struck areas, participated and aided over 140 emergency and disaster events worldwide.
* Dr. Kristi Koenig, USA - An internationally recognized expert in the fields of homeland security, emergency management and emergency medical support.

The highlight of the conference will be a regional comprehensive biological exercise that will be conducted in Tel Aviv on the last two days of the conference, based on lessons learned from previous large-scale biological exercises during the past four years. The exercise will include hospitals, health maintenance organizations, emergency medical services, public health district office and interface agencies. The conference participants are invited to participate in the exercise (as viewers or as “mock casualties”) in order to get a first hand impression.

The IPRED conference was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), and as a regional conference of the World Association for Disaster Medicine (WADEM). Abstracts accepted for presentation at IPRED will be published in the Journal of Prehospital and Disaster.

^^^^^^^

Also, luckily, the ZAKA Unit was in nearby Mexico due to the Moshe Saba helicopter crash which happened earlier in the same week. You may recall that crash. Here’s some information I posted on it:

Mexican Jewish billionaire Moises (Moshe) Saba, 46, along with members of his family, have died in a crash of a helicopter outside Mexico City,. Six people were killed altogether, including the pilot. The Saba family is one of Mexico’s wealthiest families. The family’s pharmaceuticals firm, Grupo Casa Saba SA de CV (NYSE; Mexico: SAB) is one of the family’s business interests, which also include real estate, communications, and media. Moshe Saba was one of the investors whom Joseph Maiman approached to participate in the investment in Channel 10 in 2004, but he declined. Eyewitness accounts said that the helicopter burst into flames while still in the air. The helicopter hit a billboard before hitting the ground. Rescue services found no survivors. Although the accident occurred in a built-up area, there were no casualties on the ground.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard went to the site of the crash. He said that Mexico’s civil aviation authorities had opened an investigation. The accident was believed to have been caused by the stormy and foggy weather conditions at the time in the area on Sunday night. Moshe Saba was close to Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and was a donor to many haredi (ultra-orthodox) institutions. He also a donor to Zaka - Identification, Extraction and Rescue, which today announced that a delegation would go to Mexico City to identify the dead. Ovadia Yosef’s son, Rabbi David Yosef, will accompany the delegation.

It burst into flames mid-air in the foggy weather, and then hit a billboard before hitting the ground in a built-up area. And you can see here, http://matzav.com/first-photographs-of-zaka-volunteers-at-mexico-helicopter-crash-site, photos of the Zaka team at the crash site, and it looks totally different than the description in the article — it looks like they’re in the middle of a jungle.

The following are photos from the helicopter crash scene in Mexico following the tragic death of Moshe Saba, his wife, son and daughter-in-law. ZAKA volunteers arrived from Israel in the morning, local time, and went straight to the crash scene to carry out their sacred work of collecting all human remains for burial. The four-man delegation from Israel is working with other ZAKA volunteers from the US and Mexico.

They conveyed their Haiti experiences to INN: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135547

Volunteers from ZAKA, the religious emergency rescue group, said that they experienced a “hellish” Sabbath in Haiti but also experienced stirring moments during the Sabbath prayer. The ZAKA delegation arrived in Haiti on Thursday after taking part in rescue operations, collection of bodies and identification at another disaster scene – the site of the helicopter crash in Mexico in which Jewish financier and philanthropist Moshe Saba was killed.

The ZAKA delegation decided to take charge of rescue operations at the ruins of the Haiti university building, an eight story structure that collapsed. They worked around the clock, assisted by members of the Jewish emergency rescue team of Mexico, which had accompanied them from their previous mission, and using equipment from the Mexican army. They succeeded in extricating eight Haitian students who were still alive and suffering from various degrees of injury, after spending 38 hours trapped under the wreckage. News of this success circulated among other rescue crews and added to their motivation, encouraging them not to give up on the possibility of finding survivors under the ruins.

The delegation members described their Sabbath experience as “hell,” with hundreds of bodies strewn all about with nobody there to bury them, and the stench of rotting flesh in the air. The group held the Sabbath prayers amidst the ruins, and later described “a surrealistic sight of Jews wrapped in tallitot [prayer shawls] atop fallen buildings.” Many of the local people believed that the Jews were praying for the well-being of the injured and to the memory of the dead, and gathered around them to watch the prayers. Dozens of the onlookers approached the Jewish delegation when the prayer was over and kissed their tallitot.

That’s so nice.

^^^^^^^

Meanwhile, not to get off on a tangent, but in Haiti, IsraAID, with generous support from North American Jewish organizations, set up aid stations in a stadium and triaged the serious cases to the Israeli Field Hospital.

http://www.israaid.org.il/story_page.asp?id=1259

IsraAID expands its relief operations, as a second medical team departs for Haiti

Just days after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, IsraAID/FIRST headed by Dr. Laor relief team was among the first to arrive, immediately providing urgently needed medical care to victims of the disaster. As the tragedy continues to unfold, it will be expanding its relief operations, with a second team that leaves Israel tonight to join the relief efforts already on the ground. The 14 member team headed by Danny Maor includes volunteer doctors, nurses, post-trauma and logistics experts from all across Israel.

IsraAID/FIRST emergency response was able to take place thanks to the generous support of American Jewish Committee, The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, B’nai B’rith International, The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago in addition to other federations in North America.

Amidst the chaos of the international humanitarian response, word has spread about the successes of the IsraAID medical team operating in partnership with Operation Blessing out of the Sylvio Cator National Soccer Stadium in Port au-Prince. Following rapid assessments, the team decided to position itself in an open-aired stadium where thousands of victims of the earthquake had sought refuge.

While IsraAID/FIRST teams worked around the clock to provide life-saving treatment, several NGOs and medical teams from France and the US joined the relief efforts, bringing the number of medical stations operating simultaneously in the stadium to a total of 14.

The partnerships and pooled resources, orchestrated by IsraAID/FIRST in partnership wiht Operation Blessing, have meant that more locals have access to urgently needed medical care. To date, well over 1,300 people have been treated and several serious cases were transferred to the IDF Field Hospital. Each day over 100 people were treated.

^^^^^^^

Anyway, just to get back to the IPRED conference for a sec… because the press release also mentioned that the IPRED conference is part of the regional conference of WADEM, the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, which recently convened a world congress in Canada.

Welcome to the website of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM). Our association was originally founded 33 years ago as the Club of Mainz on 2 October 1976. This explains why our logo still contains the logo of the city of Mainz, Germany. Following the constant development of its scope and extension worldwide, and to better reflect its global mission, the name was changed to the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine.

….We recently convened the 16th World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WCDEM) in Victoria, Canada. The WCDEM is our association’s biannual event. Currently, we are planning for the 17th WCDEM in Beijing, China in June 2011.

^^^^^^^
Also, this Kristi Koenig. She is really quite the expert. Homeland Security interviewed her way back in December 2001, when she was serving as Director of the Emergency Management Strategic Healthcare Group (EMSHG), Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs. She is obviously an expert in moving people around during emergencies.
http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Default.aspx?oid=5&ocat=4

It is true that we are very active at the state and local level. For example, EMSHG has 37 emergency managers geographically dispersed throughout the country. In addition to assisting with preparations of the local VA medical centers (VAMCs) in their regions, they assist with community and interagency planning….If local government becomes overwhelmed, officials know how to access state resources, and if the state is overwhelmed, it can access federal resources. In my experience, where I’ve seen things go wrong, is where people do not use the existing standard operating procedures and processes. Well-meaning people try to go outside the system, and that creates a problem in managing resources and accessing expertise. The disaster literature shows that in most incidents there is not a lack or resources per se, but a problem with coordination of the existing resources.

^^^^^^^

Between all the excitement with Jorge Puello and Russ Williams and the terrorist mayhem in India, it seems like this Israeli field hospital story has really faded into the background. And before we even understood just how exactly they managed to accomplish everything that they managed to accomplish. It just doesn’t seem right.
I mean, what a logistical achievement. That takes coordination, and organization, and knowing people.
You know what I’m saying?

Puello’s amazing but unconfirmed history

Feb 15

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, Canada, Children, Corruption & Crime, Diplomats, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Identities, Israel, Military | No Comments

Jorge Puello is in trouble. He now admits certain things to CNN — this is all from CNN:

  • international arrest warrant issues on Saturday against him for sex trafficking
  • Salvadoran police raided his home in May and turned up multiple IDs and passports using the names Jorge Torres Puello and an alias, Jorge Torres Orellana — with photos of him
  • they arrested his wife in that raid and her trial is pending
  • in a phone interview with CNN, he acknowledged he is the man wanted by Salvadoran police
  • he denies the charges against him

According to the warrant, Torres Puello is accused of running an international sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with offers of modeling jobs. A wanted poster released by Interpol, the international police organization, includes crimes against children as one of the offenses that Torres Puello is being sought for.

“I never did anything,” Torres Puello said Sunday. “I started helping a Dominican pastor helping a lot of people who were stranded to get back to their home countries. We once gave some Nicaraguan and Costa Rican women some money to return home and instead they went to the authorities and put in a complaint against us. I never had anybody against their will.”

Torres Puello also denied Salvadoran allegations that he ran a brothel out of his home with wife Ana Josefa Ramirez Orellana, who remains jailed pending trial, according to Salvadoran police.

“I want to clear the Salvador matter up and I am hiring a lawyer to do that,” he said. “I know I am innocent and I want to clear my past.”

His mother, Soledad Puello, told CNN Sunday that she first heard of the Salvadoran accusations when her son called to tell her of his wife’s arrest. She said her son told her he had known about the sex ring, but wasn’t involved in it.

Soledad Puello led CNN to believe that her son remained in the Dominican Republic, but she would not say where.

So he knew about the sex ring, but he wasn’t involved. Got it.

Much more:

  • he’s wanted in the US for smuggling people between Canada and the US, which he denies
  • he has spent 18 months in Canadian jail pending an extradition request by US authorities
  • he served a year in jail in 1998 for handling drug trafficking money
  • he was jailed again in 2001/2 for violating parole
  • he denies the drug charge

Both his mother and Torres Puello say he served briefly in the U.S. Army in a military intelligence unit, and Torres Puello said he also worked undercover with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

A family photo shows Torres Puello in a military uniform alongside a truck with the words “U.S. Military” printed across the bumper.

CNN was unable to reach government officials to confirm his claims of working with the military, the DEA and Homeland Security.

Wow, he sounds a lot like David Coleman Headley.

Oh so CNN was unable to reach government officials to confirm his claims? Hahahahahah, good one. Yes we all know how hard it must be for CNN to reach government officials. Maybe they should check in CNN’s corporate offices for some government officials.

This whole thing is one big show, for what purpose I’m not sure yet though I have my suspicions.

Torres Puello’s statements regarding the charges against him could not be immediately verified. But on Sunday, four men showed up at his mother’s home while CNN reporters were present. [what a coincidence! - ed.]

The men said they were from the U.S. Embassy and looking for Torres Puello. One of the men told Soledad Puello that her son has three outstanding arrest warrants — two in the United States and one in El Salvador. He did not specify the charges. One of the men was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “U.S. Marshals Service, Fugitive Task Force.”

Yes, it’s all very dramatic. The… um…. the embassy employees from the “fugitive task force” — well one made sure that the camera got his t-shirt badge on camera before he skulked off with brooding drama, waiting to capture Puello.

But if they didn’t want to talk to CNN, did they not notice the CNN truck surely parked outside the house? Or is it even a house? It doesn’t look like a house inside.

One of the ten Americans held, Jim Allen, is distancing himself from Puello.

Hiram Sasser, attorney with Liberty Legal of Plano, Texas, sought to distance his client, Jim Allen, from Torres Puello. He stated in an e-mail to CNN: “No attorney has ever been authorized to represent Jim Allen other than our team, which includes Mr. Lissade. The only spokesperson for the Allen family has been me and our team.”

This legal team, for Jim Allen, has even written to Hillary Clinton:

Another of Allen’s U.S. defense team, Reginald Brown, said he, Sasser and other U.S. attorneys were only hired to represent Allen on Super Bowl Sunday — nine days after the Americans were arrested.

In a February 9 letter from Brown to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brown stated: “It’s our understanding from press reports … that all 10 Americans were represented by a single Haitian attorney. … We’re not able to confirm if that counsel was independently chosen by Jim [Allen].”

Until February 7, Torres Puello said he had been appointed legal adviser to all 10 Americans and Haitian attorney Edwin Coq said he was handling the case in Port-au-Prince on behalf of all 10. Coq, who was the attorney Brown referred to in his letter to Clinton, says he resigned on February 6 over a dispute about payments. Torres Puello said he had fired Coq.

Torres Puello turned up at court Monday, February 8, saying he was there to organize legal representation for all 10 Americans after Coq left the case.

That’s a bit confusing. Quick timeline based on this info:

  • 1/29 - Americans arrested
  • 2/1 - Puello is quoted in news reports as their attorney
  • 2/6 - Coq resigns or is fired
  • 2/7 - Puello is representing all 10 Americans
  • 2/7 - Allen hires his own lawyers
  • 2/8 - Puello appears in court representing all 10 Americans
  • 2/9 - Allen’s attorney writes to Hillary Clinton

Now this is very interesting. Who sent the $40,000? Puello’s stepfather has the receipt, which is a hand written note on what appears to be an Abraham Lincoln hotel memo pad, and he says the families wired the money, but the families say they did not pay money to Puello. CNN doesn’t tell us who they paid the money to, however.

Torres Puello said he read about the case and decided to offer his services for free. However, Torres Puello’s stepfather, Franco Ceminara, said the arrested Americans’ families had already wired more than $40,000 to his stepson. A receipt provided by Torres Puello’s family to CNN showed the Haitian lawyers are charging $40,000 to represent the Americans. The receipt, for an advance payment of $10,000, was signed by Aviol Fleurant, one of the Americans’ Port-au-Prince-based defense team that also includes Lissade.

Family and church representatives in Idaho, where most of the 10 Americans are from, told CNN earlier in the week that they had not paid money to the man they know as Jorge Puello.

Regarding the American missionaries, Torres Puello said: “Prior to this earthquake I never knew those people [the Americans]. When I read about their case I just decided to help them. I’m in the real estate business and was working with a team of lawyers.”

Hoo boy what a mess. We don’t know who Jorge Puello is, but he is known to the authorities. He may be well-known to the authorities.

^^^^^^^

Some other details have also turned up, including a possible explanation for how Puello came to “offer his services.”

From the WSJ, on Puello’s connection to Jewish concerns:

Isaac Rudman, the president of the Israelite Center of the Dominican Republic, said he once met Mr. Puello two or three years back. At the time, Mr. Puello introduced himself as Jorge Torres, and had a letter of introduction from a synagogue in Canada, Mr. Rudman said. Mr. Rudman said he heard over the years that Mr. Puello had grandiose plans to build a hospital and a Jewish city close to Santo Domingo’s airport, but nothing came from these plans. Mr. Rudman’s impression from his one meeting with Mr. Puello was that he was very “conflictive,” he said. “His attitude was ‘the Messiah has arrived’” said Mr. Rudman.

Meanwhile, the other families continue to back away from Puello just as fast as they can:

Lawyers for five of the jailed Americans say their clients were never represented by Mr. Puello. Jim Allen, a construction worker from Amarillo, Texas, only heard of the “aid trip” 48 hours before departure, according to one of his attorneys in the United States. That attorney, Reginald Brown of the law firm WilmerHale, said that Mr. Allen “was never represented by or associated with” Mr. Puello.

Caleb Stegall, a Kansas-based attorney for another four of the detained Americans, said that Mr. Puello “does not represent them, never has, and is no longer part of the case, if he ever was.” Mr. Stegall said he represents Paul Thompson, his son Silas Thompson, Steve McMullin, and Drew Culberth. The elder Mr. Thompson is a brother-in-law of Mr. Culberth and a cousin of Mr. Allen.

And there are some other connections between Silsby and people in the Dominican Republic:

Ms. Silsby hoped to build an orphanage for as many as 200 children in Magante, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. To that end, she incorporated New Life in the Dominican Republic in January through Jose Altagracia Ovando.

New Life Children’s Refuge began the process of buying land in Magante. One of Ms. Silsby’s colleagues in the venture – former dentist Rob Chenvert, now a realtor in the Dominican Republic who worked with Ms. Silsby to find land and buildings for the planned orphanage – said on Friday that the group had no contact with Mr. Puello until after the arrest.

It was unclear who originally hired Mr. Puello. Shortly after the group’s arrest, Drew Ham, one of the pastors at Central Valley Baptist Church, said that Mr. Puello had contacted the group’s families after the arrest and offered his services. Mr. Ham said he did a search for Mr. Puello on Google, and that Mr. Puello was later hired.

Let’s review the last paragraph of the CNN story:

Regarding the American missionaries, Torres Puello said: “Prior to this earthquake I never knew those people [the Americans]. When I read about their case I just decided to help them. I’m in the real estate business and was working with a team of lawyers.”

So Silsby’s partner, Rob Chenvert, is in real estate in the Dominican Republic, and Puello is in real estate in the Dominican Republic (we think, but who knows…), and somehow they hooked up.

That seems very plausible actually.

^^^^^^^

Bonus interesting background info on CNN at this old post. The link to the source is defunct, but I had captured the relevant bits of people discussing obviously doctored pictures from the Georgian conflict. The pictures showed various people posing as dead and/or mourning. The trouble was the dead guy kept moving around to different spots, which someone noticed. You know, it’s rude to notice stuff like that….

From the comment thread (of the broken link which had the doctored pics, sorry this is back in September 2008 so it’s long gone):

These are typical US infowar or psyop war techniques. It is important to remember that US Army Psyops Specialists worked for CNN during the Kosovo conflict. CNN is nothing but Government-controlled media. Invariably, CNN parrots the Pentagon, CIA, and US State Department. CNN is actually just an arm of the US government and military.

That’s a little frame for you.

perfectly harmless

Feb 14

Posted by A. Peasant in Central America, Children, Corruption & Crime, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Identities, India, Israel, Mumbai, Sabbateans | No Comments

Regarding Mr. Puello and child trafficking in Haiti and the possible connection to Chabad. Why bring it up?

Brian Akira (What Do You Believe?) has posted an exhaustive rundown of Jewish history in the Dominican Republic, beginning with the observation:

As soon as these “Christians” were arrested, bigoted, small-minded “antisemites” began predicting that some Jew would turn out to be behind the whole racket. However, if you had made on that prospect, you’d now be collecting some winnings.

Yes, because when you start to look into certain things, you discover a pattern.

And that’s why we might ask about Chabad.

There are about 300 Jews in the Dominican Republic, with about 270 living in the capital. There are three synagogues; two in the capital and one in Sosua. The most influential religious authority is the Chabad Lubavitch synagogue in Santo Domingo.

…Judge Saint-Vil said he will begin his own investigation into whether the trafficking suspect had been working with the Americans detained in Haiti, and has requested assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to look into Puello.

Oh hey look here’s some Lubavitchers with former head of Homeland Security Talmudic Jew Michael Chertoff. But he’s not in charge of DHS anymore so I’m sure we have nothing to worry about. Right? Yeaah. Probably not.

My education about Chabad began around the time of the Mumbai attacks.

These rabbis have had their pictures taken with many famous people. Go ahead and look it up. Look up what they stand for. Have you ever heard of them? Do you think they are some obscure, harmless rabbis? Think again. These are powerful people who throw their weight around at the highest levels.

Isn’t it strange that their Indian headquarters would be involved in this terrorist attack? What are the odds of that happening? Why does the Chabad Lubavitch even have Indian headquarters?

I soon learned that Israelis are all over India, and young Israelis go to India to decompress on drugs after their IOF stints, and the Chabad houses serve as chaperones to deal with the ensuing messes. There used to be a series of videos about it, all of which I watched at the time, but they’ve since been removed.

Having watched them, however, it didn’t surprise me to read about Israeli’s in Goa being disastrous for tourism. (JPost, cached)

A book published by the Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP), an arm of the Roman Catholic Church in Goa, presents Israeli tourists as a “burden” to those who live in the area. Claiming the right to say no: a study of Israeli tourist behavior and patterns in Goa was authored by 11 seminarians in 14 sections and totals 96-pages in length. The study was based on an undercover survey and personal experiences of the members of the seminary as they traveled around Goa finding Israelis in the many tourist spots.

…“One can also notice many unbecoming activities like flesh trade, drug abuse, rave parties and crimes like rapes, murder etc., making hay as the sun of tourism refuses to set on our land,” Ferrao wrote…. The second section of the report, called “Is Goa The Rome of the East or Israel in the East?” points out the military training of Israelis and its effect on how they act once they get to Goa.”The disciplined and strict environment, the encounters, the shoot-outs somehow distorts their psyche and thus becomes a burden to treat,” the report stated. “So these people are sent on holidays to different destinations in order to recover themselves and Goa is one of the destinations.”

In Myron Jeson Barretto’s article “My Experience/ Understanding of Israeli Tourists and Other Tourists at Vagator and Arambol Beach,” he walked around Goa’s beaches and spoke to non-Israeli tourists on how they viewed the Israelis. In one section he quotes a tourist from the UK who gave his opinion on Israelis in Goa as saying that Israelis come to the area and bring with them drugs from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmire, then use Goans and Indians to sell it. “The Israelis who sell drugs have control over the Ministers from Goa to Delhi,” the tourist said. “They pay them a large amount of money. They also bribe the police.”

The videos (again, which were removed for “violating terms of service” haha) showed this sort of behavior in India and how the Chabad houses handle these problems by providing refuge to the Israelis engaged in the criminal behavior.



^^^^^^^

The Chabad has houses all over the world — 950 cities in 75 countries.

From Divining the News:

There is a history of Chabad Houses not only being used as safehouses and logistics centers for Israeli intelligence but as storefronts for criminal activity. In March 1989, U.S. law enfocement rounded up a criminal network in Seattle, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Colombia, and Israel that involved a Chabad House that was involved in money laundering and currency violations.





Are you starting to get the picture? These people are all over the place, and they have connections. Connections are very useful for running rings. From the same post at DTN, a story about Chabad in Bolivia.

Bolivian police forces raided a Chabad center in the northeastern town of Rurrenabaque a number of times in recent days, ordered its closure and arrested a number of Israeli tourists who were staying there. Rabbi Aharon Fraiman, who heads the center, told Ynet the police refused to give him a reason for the raid, but rumors throughout the town have linked the police activity to an assassination attempt on the Bolivian president last week. On Wednesday, after the center temporarily resumed activity, Fraiman, who was almost arrested himself, said this was nothing more than a local dispute: “An anti-Semitic restaurateur who thinks we are hurting his livelihood is doing everything to get us out of here,” the rabbi said. On Thursday, however, the multiple arrests, closure of the center and the local media’s coverage of police activity in the area, led the rabbi to believe it was something more: “Apparently it’s not him, but something bigger. He doesn’t have this much power”.


Humanitarians.


This is rich, from Wikipedia, under the category Influence (links removed):

Chabad pioneered the post-World War II outreach movement, which spread Judaism to many assimilated Jews worldwide, leading to a substantial number of baalei teshuva (”returnees” to Judaism). The very first Yeshiva/Rabbinical College for such “baalei teshuva”, Hadar Hatorah was established by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Chabad followers have had a notable influence on Jewish entertainment. Composer and rabbi Shlomo Carlebach began his outreach work as a representative of Chabad (he later moved away from the movement), Avraham Fried is also an adherent.

According to Steven I. Weiss, Chabad’s ideology has dramatically influenced non-Hasidic Jews’ practice with regard to Jewish outreach issues.

That’s it! Perfectly harmless, see?

Foreigners killed in Indian restaurant blast

An Italian and an Iranian were among the nine people killed in a bomb attack on a restaurant in the western Indian city of Pune, police said. Pune police commissioner Satyapal Singh told a news conference that 12 foreigners were also among the 60 people injured, while the rest of the victims were Indian, he said. The bomb, hidden in a backpack under a table, exploded at about 7.30pm Saturday (local time) at the German Bakery restaurant, which is a magnet for young Indians and foreign tourists.

The eatery is near an ashram, or religious retreat, popular with overseas visitors, and a Jewish cultural and religious centre run by the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

No arrests have yet been made, Singh told reporters, and India’s government said it had little idea who was behind the bombing. Sources said they were looking at the possible involvement of Islamist militants in the country’s first big attack since the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

Senior internal security sources, who declined to be named, said the focus had fallen on Pakistan-based separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has been blamed for the Mumbai attacks, and a local militant group called Indian Mujahideen, because both had in the past been behind bombings in India. “As of now our line of investigation is towards the possible involvement of LeT in the attack … a sleeper module of the Indian Mujahideen could also be involved,” a senior interior security official overseeing the probe said. Both groups have ties and are fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region. “Nothing is ruled out, nothing is ruled in. The investigation is in progress,” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.

UPDATE 2: Daily Bastardette is all over the Puello case and has confirmed many details about Puello’s connections or lack thereof:

When the Miami Herald asked Dominican Jewish leaders about Torres Puello they claimed ignorance:

While Torres Puello has been telling reporters during recent interviews that he is convert to Judaism and is president of the Sephardic Jewish Community in the Dominican Republic, several Jewish leaders say they have never heard of him. {SNIP}

…But, there are other references to Torres Puello showing he may not be as invisible as the DR Jewish community would like him to be.

Click over to read it.

one ring to rule them all

Feb 12

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, Children, Corruption & Crime, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Identities, Israel | No Comments

Well, a curious turn of events in the corporate news world…this is from the New York Times, and it also made it right up to teevee news, straight away. I’m not sure what that means, but it might mean that some big things are getting exposed and somebody needs to fall on a sword and make a big bloody mess to distract people. Quickly.

^^^^^^^

El Salvador police suspect Jorge Puello (also Jorge Aaron Bentath Puello) of leading a trafficking ring in the Caribbean and Central America. Interpol has an arrest warrant out for a Jorge Anibal Torres Puello.

The head of the Salvadoran border police, Commissioner Jorge Callejas, said in a telephone interview that he was investigating accusations that a man with a Dominican passport that identified him as Jorge Anibal Torres Puello led a human trafficking ring that recruited Dominican women and under-age Nicaraguan girls by offering them jobs and then putting them to work as prostitutes in El Salvador.

Same guy? He says no, natch. But the head of the Salvadoran police says it’s the same guy, based on a photo. The judge agreed. Plus, the judge thought strange that Puello arrived with four bodyguards. The judge has turned to DHS for support. (sigh)

The Central Valley Baptist Church in Idaho hired Puello as a legal adviser for their detained colleagues in Haiti. The group had another lawyer, but Puello fired him — after he hired him in the first place to represent the Americans at Haitian legal proceedings. Puello accused Coq of bribing officials. He sort of threw him right under the bus, but it appears that Coq was putting in a lot of hours on the case.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Haitian lawyer for 10 U.S. Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries’ way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him said Saturday night.

The Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans’ families was his fee. Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings. Coq orchestrated “some kind of extortion with government officials” that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.

…”I have worked for 10 people for four days working all hours,” he said. “Look at what hour I’m working now, responding to these calls. I have the right to this money.” On Friday, Coq had told the AP that he was working for no fee. Puello said Coq initially requested $10,000 but kept asking for bigger and bigger amounts. He said that when Coq reached $60,000, he said he could guarantee it would lead to the Americans’ release.

Puello’s accusations against Coq were a little bit vague. “Some kind of scheme…” … essentially waving it off, just like that.

Coq orchestrated “some kind of extortion with government officials” that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged. “He had some people inside the court that asked him for money, and he was part of this scheme,” Puello said.

I noticed reading the stories that this connection between Puello and Coq is not immediately clear. Puello hired Coq, and then he fired him and accused him, after Coq had done a bunch of work. According to Coq, one of the ten people being held knows more than the others… hold that thought.

^^^^^^^

Meanwhile, it’s not clear that Puello is even licensed to practice law in the Dominican Republic. Basically, he seems to have a credibility deficit. He claimed to work for a 45-person law firm, but that could not be confirmed. He claimed to provide his services pro bono, but that is not exactly true either. He claims to be president of the Sephardic Jewish community in the Dominican Republic. That may or may not be true. Certainly, the pictures of him floating around show him in a yarmulke. (NYT story, top link)

Mr. Puello said that he had been born in Yonkers, N.Y., and that his mother was Dominican. He said that his full name was Jorge Puello and that he had no other names. But then in a subsequent interview he said his name was Jorge Aaron Bentath Puello. He said he was born in October 1976, and not in October 1977, which the police report indicates is the birth date of the suspect in the Salvadoran case. The report said the police had found documents connected to the Sephardic Jewish community in a house in San Salvador where the traffickers had held women.

^^^^^^^

A case of mistaken identity? All a big misunderstanding? Everyone had the best intentions? Well, it may be that we have another bad apple here.

Coq said Thursday that the group’s leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, deceived the others by telling them she had the proper documents to remove the children from Haiti. The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, has said he warned Silsby on Jan. 29, the day the group was detained at the border, that she lacked the required papers and risked being arrested for child trafficking. Asked if Silsby had deceived the other nine Baptists by assuring them she had the proper papers, Puello said Saturday, “I believe that is true.”

…NBC News reported Saturday that there are divisions within the jailed group. It said some of the missionaries handed an NBC producer a note through bars of their holding cell earlier in the day that listed the names of all of them but Silsby and her former nanny and partner in the orphanage, Charisa Coulter.

OK, here’s a mighty blogger, The Daily Bastardette, and she’s going to blow a few cannonballs through this thing right now.

I’ve been curious about Jorge Puello since his name appeared about 10 days ago as the legal adviser for the New Lifers. Puello made a big splat on CNN when he complained about the severe conditions under which his clients were jailed: “No air conditioning! No Electricity! Very disturbing!”

According to news reports Puello was hired by Laura Silby’s church, Central Valley Baptist, after either the church or Laura Silsby and her gang rejected the attorney (or attorneys) recommended by American Consular Services. Puello, in turn, hired Haitian attorney Edwin Coq to represent the detainees, even though Coq speaks Creole and no English. What to make of that nonsense?

Last week, according to whose story you believe, Puello fired Coq, claiming that the Haitian had demanded a $60,000 fee and attempted to bribe the prisoners back to the US. Coq denied the accusation, and said he quit because the families back in Idaho never sent him the $60,000 he needed to take the case. Sources inside of Haiti who know Coq claim that he is an “honest young lawyer” and refused to believe Puello’s claim. Coq has complained to the press that Puello has ruined his reputation.

…Over the weekend I spent quite a bit of time looking for information on Jorge Puello. I could find no listing for him as a Dominican attorney. What I did find was Puello Consulting/Abogados Consultores, operated by Jorge Puello and his brother Alejandro, located at Avenida Duarte 359, in Santo Domingo….This intro is followed by a long laundry list of legal services: including acquisitions, mergers and alliances, banking and finance, consumer protection and antitrust, corporate services, collections, family law, immigration and naturalization, intellectual property, trade, investment, taxes, public and private contracting, real estate, and trust.

Not a word about criminal law–domestic or international. And no word anywhere of how CVBC hooked up with Puello, and why it would hire what appears to be a civil law outsourcer with no criminal law section to take on a high profile international incident. It only got curiouser and curiouser with the hiring of Coq and the dust-up that followed.

…Even if Puello is found to be the wrong man in the Salvadoran investigation, there are still questions:

  • Is Jorge Puello a lawyer?
  • Why did Central Valley Baptist Church reject consular recommendations and hire what appears to be a outsourcer with seeingly no criminal expertise to defend its members?
  • Why did Puello hire a Haitian lawyer who couldn’t communicate in any meaningful way with his clients and then accuse the lawyer of attempting to bribe the court,
  • Did Puello and Laura Silsby have a legal or personal pre-earthquake relationship, which led CVBC to hire him as legal adviser; possibly a relationship regarding the leasing of the Puerto Plata Diocese-owned Education and Training Center in Cabarete that was to be converted into the temporary New Life Children’s Refuge?
  • Was Puello involved in the attempt to move the “orphans” across the border?
  • Why is Puello lying about being paid by the New Lifers? (And I believe he is lying)
  • Who is paying Puello and who is funding the defense?

And, if Puello is the right man:

  • Did he plan to traffick the children?

Or…

  • is this a simple matter of scavengers scavenging scavengers?

Great questions.

^^^^^^^

So, might Chabad have anything to do with all this? Chabad has centers in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and Chabad has been very helpful in Haitian relief efforts, because Chabad has all these networks already in place. A “web of contacts” can give a person a “unique ability to push shipments through.” People tend to be very proud of who they know, of their ability to make things happen. Cause it’s all good, see? Sunshine and flowers and puppies, and drugs and weapons and kidneys and human slaves….

http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/1096220/jewish/Agencies-Work-to-Strengthen-Supply-Lines.htm (January 17, 2010)

In the wake of anarchy, violence and looting taking rein in isolated pockets across the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, calls poured in from all corners for a Dominican Republic rabbi, whose web of contacts among local governments, foreign missions and American suppliers gave him a unique ability to push shipments through.
From S. Domingo, just hours, and a world away, from the destruction on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shimon Pelman said that troops, doctors and diplomats from Israel, Mexico, South Africa and France, had all requested help in obtaining food and medical supplies. …Pelman, the Israeli-born director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic, spent Friday in Port-au-Prince, compiling requests from United Nations personnel and members of the Israel Defense Force’s Home Front Command that had arrived that morning at the capital’s small airport.

…After consulting with members of his 300 family-strong Jewish community in S. Domingo, and Rabbi Mendel Zarchi, the Puerto Rico-based director of Chabad of the Caribbean, Pelman said that he will be dispatching a truck of supplies for the Haitian people each day. He said that a U.N. convoy would provide the necessary protection.

Interesting.

^^^^^^^

It takes networks. That’s the thing about rings — they’re networks. They include people from all points in the supply chain, lowest to highest. Here’s another one, uncovered by News of the World:

Admin boss Yis Jean Guerson is responsible for providing medical aid to victims of the January 12 disaster with respected local aid group AST (Association de la Santé Pour Tous - “health for all”). But, unknown to dedicated colleagues, Guerson secretly heads a child trafficking ring and exploits his position of trust scouring camps for a stock of orphaned, lost and homeless youngsters.

…On Wednesday he lined up eight youngsters ranging from a three-month-old baby to a 13-year old girl for our reporters to choose from. Not once in all our dealings did Guerson ask WHO we were or WHERE the children would end up. In fact he was eager to boost the price to £5,000 EACH by offering his gang’s services in SMUGGLING the kids out of the country. Warning of the danger of trying to do it without his help, Guerson said: “The big problem is you need papers.“Some American people have been caught because they tried to take the children out without having proper contacts. “But if you pay me I can get the children delivered across the border into the Dominican Republic by my man who will hand them over there WITH proper papers.“Only I have the contacts to do this for you because I was a candidate for magistrate in this area. I have lots of power.”

Networking for fun and profit.

latin america news

Feb 11

Posted by A. Peasant in Big Pharma, Brazil, CIA, Central America, Children, Colombia, Corruption & Crime, Diplomats, Drug Trafficking, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Identities, Military, NWO, Oil, Psychopaths | No Comments

1. charity vaccine clinic chief bagged in trafficking Haitian children — not many degrees of separation between “legitimate” and “criminal”

Admin boss Yis Jean Guerson is responsible for providing medical aid to victims of the January 12 disaster with respected local aid group AST (Association de la Santé Pour Tous - “health for all”).

But, unknown to dedicated colleagues, Guerson secretly heads a child trafficking ring and exploits his position of trust scouring camps for a stock of orphaned, lost and homeless youngsters.

Shockingly Guerson, 31, is also a TEACHER at a local school responsible for guiding and protecting children from the age of three.

But last week - as he gave our undercover reporters a tour of the devastated captal Port-au-Prince with the stench of decaying bodies still hanging in the air - Guerson told us: “Just tell me how many kids you need and what ages you want, boys or girls, and I’ll get them for you no problem.

…

On Wednesday he lined up eight youngsters ranging from a three-month-old baby to a 13-year old girl for our reporters to choose from. Not once in all our dealings did Guerson ask WHO we were or WHERE the children would end up. In fact he was eager to boost the price to £5,000 EACH by offering his gang’s services in SMUGGLING the kids out of the country. Warning of the danger of trying to do it without his help, Guerson said: “The big problem is you need papers.

…

We were given Guerson’s name by a guard at a legitimate orphanage called Foundation Blessing Hands in the village of Cotart, 11 miles outside Port-au-Prince. The security man told us: “This place has strict rules for adoption, but there is a man locally who has children that you can take.

…

After being told we were interested in getting five children and taking them abroad, grasping Guerson quickly abandoned the £65-a-head price tag and demanded $40,000 (£26,000) all in.

When we said that was too much he immediately replied: “I can give you a discount, make it $30,000.” Balding Guerson explained that would include the cost of smuggling them across the border and paperwork appearing to show we had legitimately adopted the children.

...Guerson apologised that he had only managed to find three children to inspect because the rest were at a clinic being immunised. It was then he revealed his job with the AST charity which runs a vaccination programme for youngsters.

more @ news of the world

2. Spain, US want Latin America to assume ‘global role’

MADRID – Spain and the United States agreed Monday on the need for Latin America to assume a role of “global interlocutor” to participate in overcoming problems like the economic crisis and confronting challenges like climate change.

The Spanish secretary of state for Ibero-America, Juan Pablo de Laiglesia and Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela met in Madrid.

The two officials particularly discussed issues like the humanitarian situation in earthquake-stricken Haiti and the political crisis in Honduras, as well as cooperation between the United States and the European Union on Latin America.

more @ latin american herald tribune

3. four human heads found in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – The heads of four people were found in Mexico, but the bodies have not been recovered yet, state officials said.

Three of the heads were found in the northwestern state of Sinaloa and the fourth turned up in the southern state of Guerrero.

Three of the heads were discovered Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. in front of a restaurant and a school in Palmillas, a town in Sinaloa, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office told Efe.

Initial indications are that the victims were three unidentified young men, the AG’s office spokesman said.

The killers only left behind the heads, shocking the town, a Palmillas police department spokesman told Efe.

…The head belonged to “a person of the masculine gender, with a dark complexion, whose hair was shaved off and his facial skin removed, and a piece of cardboard with a message was left,” the Guerrero Public Safety Secretariat said. The body has not yet been recovered and authorities have not released the contents of the message.

…Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence blamed on powerful cartels that are battling for turf and control of the smuggling routes into the United States. Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, according to experts, are the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Gulf, Juarez and Beltran Leyva cartels, and La Familia Michoacana. Los Zetas, a group of army special forces veterans and deserters who initially worked as hitmen for the Gulf cartel, may now be operating as a cartel, some experts say.

…
The state is currently the scene of a bloody turf war between Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman and the Beltran Leyva cartel, whose leaders broke off from his Sinaloa cartel.

The Sinaloa organization, sometimes referred to by officials as the Pacific cartel, is the oldest drug cartel in Mexico and Guzman, considered extremely violent, is one of the most-wanted criminals in Mexico and the United States, where the Drug Enforcement Administration has offered a reward of $5 million for him. President Felipe Calderon, who took office in December 2006, has deployed 50,000 soldiers and 20,000 federal police nationwide to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations. The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels’ ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking officials. EFE

source: latin american herald tribune

Mumbai terrorists: unrecognizable faces

also see my post: unclaimed property for additional context

also see this long post by C. Story, which contains information allegedly given to Bob Chapman by a former, high-ranking member of the CIA, retired, which describes, among many other things, that peeling faces off of people is a calling card of certain intelligence operatives. scroll down to: THE CATASTROPHE, COURTESY OF THE CORRUPTION OF TENET, CHENEY AND BUSH

4. Colombian authorities nab 10 FARC rebels near Venezuelan border

BOGOTA – Colombian authorities captured 10 FARC guerrillas in several operations in Norte de Santander province, which borders on Venezuela, the Colombian government said Tuesday….All the people captured are accused of belonging to the financial and military network of the FARC and they will be turned over to the appropriate authorities to define their legal situation with an eye toward future prosecution or adjudication.

more @ latin american herald tribune

5. date unknown, maybe 2007: the mystery of Eugene Island 330  and self-renewing oil supplies

Look what i found on the Net about Self Renewing Oil Supplies Field. Quite an interesting articles and please share your thought.

Eugene Island is an oil field in the gulf of Mexico, 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It was discovered in 1973 and began producing 15,000 barrels of oil a day which then slowed to about 4,000 barrels in 1989.

But then for no logical reason whatsoever, production spiked back up to 13,000 barrels a day.

What the researchers found when they analyzed the oil field with time lapse 3-D seismic imaging is that there was an unexplained deep fault in the bottom corner of the computer scan, which showed oil gushing in from a previously unknown deep source and migrating up through the rock to replenish the existing supply.

Furthermore, the analysis of the oil now being produced at Eugene Island shows that its age is geologically different from the oil produced there after the refinery first opened. Suggesting strongly that it is now emerging from a different, unexplained source.

The last estimates of probable reserves shot up from 60 million barrels to 400 million barrels.

Both the scientists and geologists from the big oil companies have seen the evidence and admitted that the Eugene Island oil field is refilling itself.

Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

This completely contradicts peak oil theory and with technology improving at an accelerating pace it seems obvious that there are more Eugene Islands out there waiting to be discovered. So the scientific community needs to embrace these possibilities and lobby for funding into finding more of these deep source replenishing oilfields.

The existence of self-renewing oil fields shatters the peak oil myth. If oil is a naturally replenishing inorganic substance then how can it possibly run out?

source: offshoreman