Los datos del 1%: Firma por firma en cada estado que oposición sumó para inicio del referendo

El gobernador del estado Miranda, Henrique Capriles Radonski, informó que la Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) obtuvo 1.102.236 firmas para activar el proceso del Referendo Revocatorio contra el presidente Nicolás Maduro.

En la rueda de prensa el dirigente detalló estado por estado las rúbricas obtenidas que en los próximos días consignarán ante del Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE).

A continuación el balance de recolección de firmas del 28/04/2016 para el Referendo Revocatorio extraoficial por Estados:

AMAZONAS Más de 2.500 firmas (CNE solicitó: 1.026).
ANZOÁTEGUI 43 mil firmas recolectadas (CNE solicitó: 10.501).
ARAGUA 30 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 12.025).
BOLÍVAR 50 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 5.532).
CARABOBO 55 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 15.479).
COJEDES 14.325 firmas (CNE solicitó: 2.361).
DISTRITO CAPITAL 30 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 2.361).
FALCÓN 26.388 firmas (CNE solicitó: 6.626).
GUÁRICO 21 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 16.343).
LARA 32 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 12.494).
MÉRIDA 72.048 firmas (CNE solicitó: 5.946).
MIRANDA 48 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 20.399).
MONAGAS 40 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 6.205).
NUEVA Esparta: 20 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 3.448).
PORTUGUESA: 8.000 firmas (CNE solicitó: 6.008).
SUCRE 20 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 6.436).
TÁCHIRA 102.320 firmas (CNE solicitó: 8.292).
TRUJILLO 20 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 5.249).
VARGAS 22 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 2.745).
YARACUY 23 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 4.249).
ZULIA 105 mil firmas (CNE solicitó: 23.991).

(LaIguana.TV)

“Nestlé is Trying to Break Us” Town Fights to Stop Bottled Water Megacorp from Stealing Their Water

By Claire Bernish A small town in Pennsylvania is the latest to be targeted by Nestlé Waters North America, which, in typical fashion, is seeking to extract millions of gallons of freshwater to bottle and sell for an obscene profit — whether or not local residents approve.
Nestlé sneakily began testing waters in the Kunkeltown area as far back as 2012; but residents wouldn’t have discovered the desire for its water at all had the mega-corporation not rented an office in the community center, as Truthout reported. In fact, Nestlé’s plans comprise no small operation, as Truthout explained:

In the permit application that Nestlé Waters filed with the Township, it states the company is proposing to drill two large wells, pump 200,000 gallons of water per day from the aquifer, put it in trucks and transfer it to an existing bottling facility near Allentown, about 20 miles away. It expects 60 truck trips through the town per day. And Nestlé isn’t going away anytime soon: It plans to pump for 10 years with an option to continue pumping for an additional 15 years, leading to the removal of 73 million gallons of water from the aquifer over the life of the wells.

True to form of its insidious and often covert business methods concerning bottled water operations, Nestlé was able to submit a permit application for bulk water extraction after Eldred Township changed an ordinance in May 2014. Though it’s unclear whether Nestlé had a hand in the switch, with the company already testing waters at the time and the fact the Township failed to inform residents certainly lends credence to the theory.
Prior to the ordinance change, as Truthout noted, “bulk water extraction … was explicitly illegal in places zoned for commercial use.”
At an Eldred Township Planning Commission meeting on January 21, it became clear that had strict standards been required specifically addressing water extraction, the ordinance might not have allowed Nestlé to proceed in its goals. According to an ongoing, detailed blog about the mess by a Kunkeltown resident, due to little other recourse at this point, “the main objective is to undo the error in passing the 2014 amendment.”
Truthout identified the blogger as engineer Don Moore, who said, “One of the things that opened my eyes was the amount of profit for Nestlé. To take all this water and hardly any cost. It’s unreal.”
Residents of Kunkeltown discovered the permissive zoning change only upon digging through township files and launched a coordinated, concerted effort — that appears to be working — to head off Nestlé’s designs on their water supply. Throngs often appear at township meetings to voice opposition and frustration to what seems to be the surreptitious attempt at usurpation of their water — as well as quality of life.
During a more recent public meeting of the Planning Commission on February 18, which advises the Zoning Board, Nestlé officials became the target as residents took turns expressing outrage for over four hours.
“I go door-to-door in this community, 98 percent of the people are against it. Most of the people in this community are dead set against it,” Desiree Jaeckle demanded. “Why didn’t you find that out before you decided to extract your water?”
Apparently, the meeting and the mobilization by residents fighting Nestlé’s plans may have had an impact — in March, the Planning Commission unanimously voted to recommend the Zoning Board deny the mega-corporation’s application, outright. According to the Commission, which penned a 24-page letter to the Zoning Board, the ordinance redesign was a result of “poor planning,” and had been created by “the efforts of a few, limited interested parties.”
Also noted in the Commission’s letter were “numerous deficiencies and omissions in Nestlé’s application and supporting plans,” as found by the Township Engineer in a review.
Of particular concern, among many listed, is the volume of heavy truck traffic through town — each truck would weigh around 80,000 pounds, and throughout the course of Nestlé’s stated goals, “truck traffic could increase to in excess of 162 vehicle trips a day.”
Perhaps most telling — and what has concerned residents across the country dealing with Nestlé’s various water extraction locations — were indications from testing, the water supply would be compromised. According to the Commission letter:

Under test conditions, the proposed Nestlé water withdrawal diminished flow in [an] unnamed stream by 12%, and also resulted in a drop of two wells monitored on adjacent property.

Whether or not Kunkeltown residents will be forced to endure Nestlé’s nefarious business practices remains an open question. Though the Zoning Board has yet to make a decision, residents have vowed to continue the fight.
“We have wonderful water here and we will protect it. Nestlé is trying to break us,” Diehl told Truthout. “But I’m absolutely optimistic that we’ll win.”

Court Decides CIA Officials Accused Of Torture, Experimentation Case Will Proceed

 

By Brianna Blaschke
For the first time in U.S. history, the CIA and U.S. government will not exercise immunity for war crimes and other atrocities.
Numerous CIA officials are being charged with war crimes against humanity and human experimentation in a court case lawyers are calling “literally unprecedented.”
The case was filed last October by four former detainees, all of whom claimed to be subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA. The prisoners were captured and held in the days following the September 11th terrorist attacks. Conditions at the CIA black sites were so dismal that one plaintiff and Afghan refugee, Gul Rahman, froze to death while detained and interrogated in CIA custody.

So what makes this case so obscure? For the first time ever, the United States government is not blocking all legal action against the agency, which has been the case in previous instances. Namely, the U.S. Senate granted the CIA total immunity for the sake of national security. This immunity, however, ended in December 2014 following the release of the 6,700-page Senate Torture Report, in which specific details of methods used to interrogate persons of interest were revealed. Since then, the concept of enhanced interrogation has arrived at the forefront of many political minds, with both support and rejection expressed by prominent leaders.
The American Civil Liberties Union is bringing the case forward, adamant that “neither the United States government nor the CIA is a defendant in this case.” Rather, it explains that the plaintiffs are seeking action against “two individual psychologists, whom Plaintiffs allege worked as contractors for the CIA and, in that capacity, designed, implemented, and participated in the detention and interrogation program.” The nature of this action is likely due to the virtually unlimited access to funding and power of both the government and the CIA; and it is more tactful to target individual people.
Plaintiffs Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed, Ben Soud, and Gul Rahman all allege to have been subjected to a host of abuses, including extreme darkness, cold and noise; solitary confinement; starvation; repeated beatings; sleep deprivation and water torture, among several other methods. The suit explains the plaintiffs have “multiple claims for violations of international law under the Allen Tort Statute” against psychologists James Mitchell and John Jessen “for their commission of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; nonconsensual human experimentation; and war crimes, all of which violate well-established norms of customary international law.”
Unsurprisingly, the two are denying all personal responsibilities, claiming actions they performed were sanctioned by the U.S. government; and their lack of physical participation of interrogation pardons them against all charges. According to their lawyer, Christopher W. Tompkins, the pair “did not create or establish the CIA enhanced interrogation program” and had absolutely no part in decisions made about the plaintiffs’ “capture, treatment, confinement conditions, and interrogations.” Essentially, the stance the defendants will take is that if anyone should be held accountable it should be the United States government, not the individuals hired to proceed in the direction sought.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages and the monumental case is set to move forward as planned. As Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer representing the case stated, “For the first time people who were involved in implementing and designing the CIA’s torture program will be compelled to answer for their conduct in federal court.”
Perhaps this is a step in the right direction for finally holding the government and its agencies accountable for their crimes.

What are your thoughts? Please comment, like, and share!
This article (Court Decides CIA Officials Accused Of Torture, Experimentation Case Will Proceed) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com

Dollar's Retreat Spurs Biggest Commodity Gains Since 2010: Chart

James Regan

April 29, 2016 — 12:43 AM VET

The Bloomberg Commodity Index is poised for its biggest monthly jump since 2010 as fading prospects for a U.S. interest-rate increase this year weigh on the greenback. A gauge of dollar strength is the lowest it’s been in 11 months, helping support raw materials that are priced in the U.S. currency. Crude oil has jumped 20 percent in New York since the end of March, while gold and silver are at 15-month highs.

Exxon Posts Smallest Profit Since 1999 Amid Global Oil Slump

• Chemical earnings rise 38 percent as drilling posts a loss
• Profit of $1.8 billion is lowest in more than decade

Exxon Mobil Corp. beat analyst estimates as a jump in earnings from its chemicals segment cushioned the blow from tumbling prices for oil and natural gas.
First-quarter net income fell to $1.81 billion, or 43 cents a share, from $4.94 billion, or $1.17, a year earlier, Exxon said in a statement on Friday. The quarterly profit was the lowest since March of 1999, before Exxon merged with Mobil Corp. Still, the per-share result was 15 cents above the 28-cent average of 19 analyst estimates tracked by Bloomberg.
The company was boosted by a 38 percent increase in its petrochemicals division, to $1.4 billion, as well as a 33 percent cut in capital expenditures as it pulled back on drilling and exploration amid weak commodity prices. The world’s biggest non-state oil explorer joined energy giants BP Plc, Statoil ASA and Total SA this week in beating analyst expectations on the back of massive cost cuts and strong refining and chemical results even as oil profits vanished.
“I look at this and say is this an oil company?" Pavel Molchanov, a Raymond James Financial Inc. analyst, said of Exxon’s results. “All of its earnings came from refining and chemicals. It did not make any money, for the first time in modern history, on exploration and production."
The quarter showed the strength of Exxon’s diversification, a factor that would limit the company’s appeal to investors as oil prices recover, Molchanov said.
“This company is very refining- and chemicals-centric and those sectors do not benefit from an oil price recovery," he said in a telephone interview.

Rating Cut

Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday stripped Exxon of its the AAA credit rating the company had held since the Great Depression, citing a swelling debt level. The company was cut to AA+, the same as the U.S. government.
The chemicals division benefited from stronger margins and higher sales volumes, as the price of raw materials -- oil and gas -- plunged compared to last year’s first quarter. The downstream segment earned $906 million as global gasoline demand remained strong, according to the statement.
“It’s the value of the integrated model," Roger Read, a Wells Fargo Securities LLC analyst in Houston, said in a phone interview. “You buy Exxon for its ability to take advantage in all sorts of commodity environments."

Quarterly Payout

Exxon rose 1 percent to $88.91 at 9:32 a.m. in New York. Shares are up 14 percent this year. Among analysts who follow the company, Exxon has eight buy rating, 13 holds and six sells.
The 2016 capital budget has been cut by about 33 percent from last year, a bigger decline than earlier estimated. Despite those measures, full-year profit is expected to dip below $10 billion in 2016 for the first time since the company’s historic acquisition of Mobil Corp. in 1999.

Brent crude, the benchmark for international oil sales, fell 36 percent to an average of $35.21 a barrel during the quarter from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. U.S. gas averaged $1.982 per million British thermal units, down 29 percent from the first quarter of 2015.
Despite the rout in crude markets, Exxon earlier this week raised its quarterly payout to stockholders by almost 3 percent to 75 cents a share. The pledge will cost the company $3.1 billion when the dividend is paid in June.
“The organization continues to respond effectively to challenging industry conditions, capturing enhancements to operational performance and creating margin uplift despite low prices,” Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer said in the statement. “The scale and integrated nature of our cash flow provide competitive advantage and support consistent strategy execution.”

Guerrillas and Rebels Do for Oil Market What Producers Couldn't

• Short-term disruptions take out 800,000 barrels/day of supply
• Outages have driven rally in crude prices since February

Leftist guerrillas in Colombia, rebels in Libya and militants in Nigeria are succeeding where the world’s biggest oil producers failed, helping keep a 1.5 million-barrel crude surplus from expanding.
While Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major producers couldn’t agree on a production freeze earlier this month, disruptions ranging from pipeline attacks to field shutdowns have taken 800,000 barrels a day of crude supply offline this year, according to energy-industry consultant FGE. As the collapse in oil prices cuts their revenue, producers in some parts of the world are finding it harder to keep supplies flowing, according to Citigroup Inc.

QuickTake Oil Prices
“The fact of the matter is that the oversupply in the market is very narrow,” said Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Citigroup. “The world has become highly prone to disruptions of supply in vulnerable petro states.”
An effort by the largest oil-producing countries to seal a deal to freeze production failed after an April 17 meeting among OPEC members and nations outside the group in Doha, Qatar, ended without producing an agreement. “The focus on Doha did miss the biggest elephants not in the room,” said Morse, referring to the supply disruptions, which have helped drive a surge in prices since February.

External Force

Nigeria offers a clear window into the effects of the outages. Africa’s largest crude-producing nation is pumping about 1.7 million barrels a day, according to the Paris-based IEA. That’s the country’s lowest production level since 2009.
The decline comes as an export terminal for the nation’s Forcados crude is expected to remain shut until June because of a leak that the facility’s operator, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, says was caused by damage “consistent with the application of external force.” Shipments of another grade, Brass River, were disrupted because of a pipeline fire.
Brass River shipments averaged 128,000 barrels a day last year, amounting to about 6 percent of Nigeria’s total cargoes, while the nation supplied about 200,000 barrels from Forcados daily in 2015, according to loading programs compiled by Bloomberg.
There’s mounting concern that the country’s oil-rich Niger River delta may return to the sort of violence seen in the last decade, before a peace deal was struck in 2009. A campaign by the recently elected government to end corruption in an amnesty program for former rebels has caused grievances, and attacks on energy facilities in the region have been gathering pace.

Armed Militias

Similar issues have erupted in Libya, the holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, since the rebellion that ended Moammar Al Qaddafi’s rule in 2011. The country has been remade into separately-run regions, and various armed militias compete for control of its oil fields and related facilities. Three crude ports in the nation have been closed for more than a year.
Libya pumped about 1.6 million barrels a day of crude before the 2011 rebellion. It’s now the smallest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplying 330,000 barrels a day in March, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Arabian Gulf Oil Co., a unit of the country’s National Oil Corp. known as Agoco, has reduced output to 130,000 barrels a day from 230,000 barrels due to a lack of storage capacity at Hariga port, a company official said April 27.
“Libya, Nigeria are wildcards, and they’re ongoing and will always be unpredictable,” said John Driscoll, chief strategist at JTD Energy Services Pte, who has spent more than 30 years trading crude and petroleum in Singapore. “We can’t ignore them from a fundamental perspective, as these disruptions, strikes, sabotages and explosions add to outages. They have to be factored into the market.”

The price of Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half the world’s oil, also illustrates the impact of the outages. Cargoes for prompt delivery have become 24 cents a barrel costlier than later shipments in a market structure called backwardation that typically indicates a supply squeeze. Short-term contracts were at a discount, or contango, earlier this year.
Africa isn’t alone in facing disruptions.
Attacks by Marxist guerrillas also disrupted supplies from Colombia, where production has dropped to 916,000 barrels a day in March, a decline of 8 percent from December levels. The country’s daily crude exports slid 14 percent from a month earlier to about 622,000 barrels in March, according to a shipping report, U.S. Customs and ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
The Latin American nation’s government has held peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, since 2012, and last month said it would also begin talks with the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN. Both groups have been fighting the state since the 1960s.

Soft Target

“Above-land pipelines and facilities in remote areas make some of this infrastructure hard to secure and guard against attacks, considering the ongoing history of civil unrest in some of these countries,” said Tushar Tarun Bansal, a senior consultant in Singapore at FGE. “If a pipeline is passing nearby, then that’s a soft target.”
Meanwhile, supplies from Iraq have also been affected, Europe’s North Sea fields are preparing to shut for maintenance and the downturn in the energy industry has taken a toll on drilling in nations including the U.S. and Venezuela. The International Energy Agency estimates the crude glut will reduce 87 percent to 200,000 barrels a day in the second half of 2016 as output from non-OPEC nations slides the most in 25 years.
“What the unplanned outages have done is to create the supply curtailments that were needed to erode the overhang,” said Peter Lee, an analyst with Fitch Group’s BMI Research. Freezing output may “have some impact on market sentiment in the short-term, but what drives prices in the long term will be what happens to actual supply.”

Asesinada periodista que siguió caso de mineros en Tumeremo

Por: Aporrea-Agencias | Jueves, 28/04/2016 12:21 PM | Versión para imprimir

la periodista asesinada, Lucia Suanez

Credito: Twitter

28-04-16.-El diputado a la Asamblea Nacional, Américo De Grazia, informó sobre el asesinato de la comunicadora del estado Bolívar, Lucía Suánez, en la localidad de Tumeremo tras recibir un impacto de bala en la cabeza.

La víctima fue ultimada cuando se encontraba en la habitación alquilada donde vivía, ubicada en el sector Frontera de Tumeremo. Luego del hecho, sus victimarios intentaron quemar la pieza.

Suanez era hija de la directora de la emisora Radio Minera 97.7 FM, en el cual tenía un programa de opinión, y además fue una de las periodistas que realizó seguimiento al caso de los mineros en Tumeremo.

To Protect Marijuana from Monsanto Patenting, Company Begins Mapping Cannabis Genome

By Jay Syrmopoulos A pioneering biotechnology startup has launched an online interactive guide that maps the genetic evolution of the cannabis genome, allowing for specific strains of marijuana that are already in the public domain a form of protection from patenting by large biotech firms such as Monsanto.
After two years of collecting samples, sequencing the plant’s DNA and developing the software to allow for a 3-D visualization of the collected data, the company was ready to unveil their long-awaited project.
“Sample collection was a huge part of this process,” Carolyn White, Sales and Marketing Manager at Phylos Bioscience told Willamette Week. “One side was a collaboration with growers, dispensaries and labs to collect modern samples, and the other a process of hunting down ancient landrace strains from all over the world.”

The Portland company, fittingly on 4/20, went online with its interactive guide, which the company calls Galaxy.
According to a report in The New York Times:

The resulting visualization will offer anyone the ability to easily travel in cyberspace through a three-dimensional projection of the genetic information drawn from sequencing samples of the plant, which is increasingly being legalized for medical and recreational use in states throughout the country…
Phylos has created a colorful 3-D map that visually represents the statistical relationships between different breeds of the plant. The company hopes that having genetic information easily available will help bring order to a business that began underground and is now making a commercial transition.
Over time, the scientists believe, this sort of visual map can be applied to other types of plants, or even to animals.

While there are a number of other companies that offer various services in identification and cataloging, none offer actual DNA sequencing, which provides an unparalleled level of accuracy.
According to a report in Willamette Week:

With the Galaxy, users can view the hereditary sequence of each plant by following lines that connect strains to their genetic parent or offspring. Similar plants are located close to each other, while color groups the plants into “tribes” based on their region.

“We’ve collected samples from all over the world, and cataloged the genetic information encoded in their DNA,” Dr. Holmes, Phylos’s chief science officer and molecular and evolutionary biologist, in addition to being a co-founder of Phylos Bioscience, told the NY Times, relating the DNA sequencing to an actual bar code in terms of identification and evolutionary relationship relative to other samples.
The data could theoretically help protect the intellectual property rights of growers from potential big business interests, such as Monsanto, from gaining a patent foothold in the growing industry.
Due to the social media attention given to the subject, Monsanto has attempted to refute any interest in producing GMO cannabis, posting on their website that the companies reported interest in GMO marijuana is nothing more than “an Internet rumor.”
Additionally, on April 25, Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord told Willamette Week that the company will not be getting involved in the marijuana business.
“Monsanto has not, is not and has no plans for working on cultivating cannabis,” Lord told WW.
Contrary to the public statements by Lord, White says that he expects companies like Monsanto will attempt to eventually patent cannabis.

 

“We think Big Pharma and Big Ag will be the primary audience after patents, and it will likely require writing new DNA in to the plant,” White told WW. “None of the folks at Phylos really see patenting as a viable tool for the average breeder.”
Phylos looks to assist in pushing more data into the public domain as a hedge against patenting by large bio-agribusiness as information in the public domain can’t be patented after one year.
“You can’t patent anything that’s been in the public domain longer than a year,” White told WW. “We set out to bring more knowledge and transparency to the industry and that’s still what we’re doing.”
The next step for the innovative company is the launch of a commercial sequencing product to allow for anyone to send in a sample to Phylos and have it sequenced. The sample would be placed into the Galaxy, with the customer being given a detailed analysis of the strains sequenced data.
Jay Syrmopoulos writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

Values Change For Survival; Growing a Better Way of Living

By Neenah Payne
“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. ​​Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.“​ Margaret Mead​​​
We are at a pivotal moment in history – one that dramatically affects our health, freedom, economy, and survival as we are headed now toward the Sixth Extinction Level Event. The outcome will be determined by the choices of each person makes now.
My new Urban Gardens Revolution website shows that an increasing number of people are choosing to be the change they want to see in the world simply by growing their own food! Dr. Vandana Shiva says that the “Urban garden is the greatest revolution!” Jules Dervaes, founder of the Urban Homestead, calls his 1/5 acre city garden on which he grows 6,000 lbs of food each year “The Path to Freedom”.

The Urban Gardens Revolution site links to the free online Food Revolution Summit which takes place April 30-May 8. Dr. Joseph Mercola, who has one of the most popular health sites, says in his article “Reinventing Our Food System, One Small Farm At A Time”:

I cannot encourage you strongly enough to take control of the food that you’re eating. A great way to get started on your own is by sprouting. They may be small, but sprouts are packed with nutrition and best of all, they’re easy and inexpensive to grow.

Dr. Mercola points out the major health risks of GMO foods and asks:

The question is, what kind of food system do YOU want? If every American decided to not eat at a fast food restaurant tomorrow, the entire system would collapse overnight. It doesn’t take an act of Congress to change the food system. All that is required is for each and every person to change their shopping habits to support the system they prefer.

Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation says:

A meaningful change is going to start at the bottom and make its way to the top. It isn’t because there’s a president who has a new point of view, but because there’s a movement that represents that point of view and demands that change come.

GMO Foods / Disease Link

The 2014 research paper by Dr. Nancy Swanson “Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States of America” shows the correlation between the escalation of 21 diseases and the use of glyphosate in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide beginning in 1974.
In a video linked to in the article “Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide – The Ultimate Killing Machine,” author and filmmaker Jeffrey Smith interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at MIT. Dr. Seneff says glyphosate is possibly “the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies.”
Dr. Seneff has documented the connection between GMO foods and diseases that include but are not limited to autism, obesity, allergies, ALS, cardiovascular disease, depression, cancer, infertility, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis, as well as gastrointestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis, and Crohn’s disease.
Dr. Seneff points out that America is the only country that spends just 7% of its GDP on food. We spend twice as much on healthcare as the next highest nation – yet we rank low in terms of health. She says we are poisoning ourselves and expecting drugs and surgeries to heal us although Hippocrates, the founder of Western medicine, said: “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food”. Wendell Berry, an American novelist, environmental activist, and farmer points out that we have a food system that pays no attention to health and a healthcare system that ignores food.
Monsanto’s herbicides have contributed to the death of 90% of our bees which provide 30% of our foods. Einstein warned, “If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

2016 Sea Change

On March 16, Congress voted against the DARK Act (Deny Americans the Right to Know). It was an attempt by Big Agra to defeat state mandatory labeling of foods that have genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). The goal was to avoid the mandatory GMO labels required by the Vermont law which goes into effect on July 1.
With the defeat of the DARK Act, there has been a sea change! General Mills, Mars, Kellogg, and ConAgra announced in March that they will label GMO foods nationwide since they cannot create labels for just one state. This powerful shift is a grassroots movement led by tiny Vermont that has the power to re-structure the national food system and cure the epidemic of disease.
Jeffrey Smith, author of Genetic Roulette says that doctors report to his Institute For Responsible Technology that thousands of patients have recovered quickly from serious illnesses when they switch to organic foods. Dr. Terry Wahls was wheelchair bound and hopeless with “incurable” Multiple Sclerosis in 2007. When she switched to organic foods, she was able to take an 18-mile bike ride in 2008 and go horseback riding in the Canadian Rockies in 2009. Her TEDx Talk in 2011 went viral and Dr. Wahls has documented her new organic paleo diet in two books.

Urgent Action Needed Now

Where are the FDA and the AMA on this critical health issue? Shouldn’t the media be telling Americans about the connection between GMO foods and the epidemic of diseases? Shouldn’t doctors be required to advise patients to switch to organic foods? Conventional medicine continues to claim that the cause of many of these diseases is “unknown” and often prescribes toxic drugs. Isn’t it malpractice not to tell patients the links between these diseases and the standard American Diet? Med schools need courses in nutrition on the dangers of genetically-modified foods and the importance of organic foods.
In his Seeds of Deception video, Jeffrey Smith, author of the DVD Genetic Roulette says that the American Academic of Environmental (AAEM) recommends that ALL doctors prescribe non-GMO diets for EVERYONE. The position paper of the AAEM on GMOs is here.
Garth Davis, M.D., renowned bariatric surgeon and advocate of plant-based eating, has partnered with Memorial Hermann Medical Center and the Rawfully Organic Co-Op to open Houston’s first hospital-based organic produce stand. The project is an extension of Dr. Davis’ “Farmacy” program launched in 2012. “Along with a recommendation for regular exercise, I write all of my patients a prescription for more fruits and vegetables,” said Dr. Davis, who created “Farmacy” prescription pads for this purpose.
However, millions of Americans have been and continue to be made sick and are killed each year by this toxin in our food. If another country were responsible for this assault on our health, our lives, and our nation, we would be at war to defend ourselves. As a first step in that defense, Monsanto’s GMO foods should be banned – as they are in 38 countries. That would help heal not only millions of Americans, but the bees, the land, and the rivers made toxic by Monsanto’s GMOs. The need for action is urgent because if Monsanto’s genetically-engineered crops are not banned soon, the destruction of life on Earth may soon be irreversible.

Values Change For Survival

Every dollar spent on food is a vote for health or illness that sends a message all the way up the food chain. If enough Americans stop buying GMO foods, companies will stop producing them.
Fortunately, the tide is rapidly turning toward organic foods around the world now. The Urban Gardens Revolution site documents this growing shift and shows how you can help. The site shows that we have the technologies to solve the problems. We have just been using the wrong map of reality. The site shows the pivotal shift in the role of Native America on the world stage in helping us revise our map. Increasingly ecologists, ethnobotanists, doctors, and Westerners seeking physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing are recognizing that we must all adopt the indigenous worldview now to survive.
The following Issues and Solutions Map on my Urban Gardens Revolution site shows the pivotal role that healthy foods play in solving a variety of issues crucial to our survival. Check the Updates page in the Contacts+ section for new and updated pages in this fast-evolving story.

Free Food Revolution Summit

From April 30- May 8, our friends, John and Ocean Robbins, are interviewing 25 of the top doctors, activists, and scientists in the food world — including speakers like Christiane Northrup, MD; Mark Hyman, MD; Joel Fuhrman, MD; Jane Goodall Ph.D; David Perlmutter, MD; and Vani Hari.
You can get it all online, from anywhere on earth — for no cost. You’ll discover tips and tools to keep you and your loved ones healthy for life. So if you want to feel good about your food, enjoy more energy, vitality and increased immunity, this is the place to be!
When it comes to your health and the lives of those you love, the time to get informed and take action is NOW. And this is the place to do it.

The Future Of America? More Than Half Of All U.S. Adults Under Age 30 Now Reject Capitalism

Op-Ed by Michael Snyder A shocking new survey has found that support for capitalism is dying in America.  In fact, more than half of all adults in the United States under the age of 30 say that they do not support capitalism at this point.  You might be tempted to dismiss them as “foolish young people”, but the truth is that they are the future of America.  As older generations die off, they will eventually become the leaders of this country.  And of course our nation has not resembled anything close to a capitalist society for quite some time now.  In a recent article, I listed 97 different taxes that Americans pay each year, and some Americans actually end up returning more than half of what they earn to the government by the time it is all said and done.  So at best it could be said that we are running some sort of hybrid system that isn’t as far down the road toward full-blown socialism as most European nations are.  But without a doubt we are moving in that direction, and our young people are going to be cheering every step of the way.

When I first heard of this new survey from Harvard University, I was absolutely stunned.  The following is from what the Washington Post had to say about it…

The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it.
It isn’t clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

Could it be possible that young adults were confused by the wording of the survey?
Well, other polls have come up with similar results…

The university’s results echo recent findings from Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who surveyed 1,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 and found that 58% of respondents believed socialism to be the “more compassionate” political system when compared to capitalism. And when participants were asked to sum up the root of America’s problem in one word, 29% said “greed.”

This trend among our young people is very real, and you can see it in their support of Bernie Sanders.  For millions upon millions of young adults in America today, Hillary Clinton is not nearly liberal enough for them.  So they have flocked to Sanders, and if they had been the only ones voting in this election season, he would have won the Democratic nomination by a landslide.
Sadly, most of our young people don’t seem to understand how socialism slowly but surely destroys a nation.  If you want to see the end result of socialism, just look at the economic collapse that is going on in Venezuela right now.  The following comes from  a Bloomberg article entitled “Venezuela Doesn’t Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money”…

Venezuela’s epic shortages are nothing new at this point. No diapers or car parts or aspirin — it’s all been well documented. But now the country is at risk of running out of money itself.
In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business.
Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.

We are losing an entire generation of young people.  These days, there is quite a lot of talk about how we need to get America back to the principles that it was founded upon; but the cold, hard reality of the matter is that most of our young people are running in the opposite direction as fast as they can.
And Americans under the age of 30 are not just becoming more liberal when it comes to economics.  Surveys have found that they are more than twice as likely to support gay rights and less than half as likely to regularly attend church as the oldest Americans are.
So why is this happening?
Well, the truth is that our colleges and universities have become indoctrination centers for the progressive movement.  I know, because I spent eight years at public universities in this country.  The quality of the education that our young people are receiving is abysmal, but the values that are being imparted to them will last a lifetime.
And of course the same things could be said about our system of education all the way down to the kindergarten level.  There are still some good people in the system, but overall it is overwhelmingly dominated by the progressives.
Meanwhile, the major entertainment providers in the United States are also promoting the same values.  In a recent article entitled “Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become”, I discussed a Nielsen report which detailed how much time the average American spends consuming media on various electronic devices each day…

• Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes
• Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes
• Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes
• Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes
• Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes

Overall, the average American spends about 10 hours a day consuming one form of entertainment or another.
When you allow that much “programming” into your mind, it is inevitable that it is going to shape your values, and our young people are more “plugged in” than any of the rest of us.
So, yes, I believe that it is exceedingly clear why we should be deeply concerned about the future of America.  The values that are being relentlessly pounded into the heads of our young people are directly opposed to the values that this nation was founded upon, and it is these young people that will determine the path that this country ultimately takes.
*About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

Putin's Decade-Old Dream Realized as Russia to Price Its Own Oil

• Russia hopes to end dependence on Western agencies' assessment
• Foreign traders will be granted direct access to oil exchange

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is on the verge of realizing a decade-old dream: Russian oil priced in Russia.
The nation’s largest commodity exchange, whose chairman is Putin ally Igor Sechin, is courting international oil traders to join its emerging futures market. The goal is to increase revenue from Urals crude by disconnecting the price-setting mechanism from the world’s most-used Brent oil benchmark. Another aim is to move away from quoting petroleum in U.S. dollars.
If Russia is going to attract international participation in Russian-based pricing, the Kremlin will need to persuade traders it’s not simply trying to push prices up, some energy analysts said. The government is dependent on oil revenue to fund its budgets.
“The goal is to create a system where Russian oil is priced and traded in a fair and straightforward way,” said Alexei Rybnikov, president of the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange, or Spimex, in a phone interview.
Russia, which exports about half its crude, has long complained about the size of the discounts for lower quality Urals oil compared to North Sea Brent prices, which are assessed by the Platts agency. With world oil prices down by half in the past two years and Russia facing the prospect of its worst budget deficit as a percentage of its economic output since 2010, it needs every dollar of petroleum revenue it can get. Having its own futures market would improve Russian oil price discovery as well as help domestic companies generate extra revenue from trading, said Rybnikov.
Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Platts and other companies in providing energy-market news and information.

Kremlin Involvement

“The reality is that the Kremlin is always likely to be heavily involved in the Russian oil industry,” said Richard Mallinson, an analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. “That creates the concern that the proposals might be structured to try to achieve higher prices, which is not consistent with efficient price discovery.”
The Russian government’s system of approvals for shipping crude from different ports and pipelines could also mean subdued interest from western refiners, because some export volume adjustments could be politically motivated, said Ehsan Ul-Haq, senior oil market analyst at KBC Energy Economics. The volatility of the Russian ruble, which will be used for futures margins, also causes concern among companies.

To attract traders, the Bank of Russia is preparing legislative amendments to grant non-Russian firms access to exchange-traded commodities and their derivatives, the financial industry regulator said in an e-mail. The bank will assist Spimex in starting futures to price oil for exports.

Western Agencies

Russia’s largest oil companies, including Rosneft OJSC, Lukoil PJSC, and Gazprom Neft PJSC support the new futures and may become market makers, Spimex President Rybnikov said. He declined to name any trading firms outside of Russia, saying that the exchange has been in a dialogue with many market participants.
Gazprom Neft has been involved in futures development since 2015, it said in an e-mail. Lukoil will be willing to participate in the futures market if it makes economic sense, the company said in an e-mail. A Rosneft spokesman declined to comment.
Spimex has been Russia’s largest oil product platform since trading started in 2008 after the government obliged companies to sell between 5 and 10 percent of their domestic transport fuel supplies there. Producers sold about 533 billion rubles ($7.8 billion) of products, or more than 15 percent of all fuel delivered to the local market, at the bourse last year.
The initial futures contract will be worth 1,000 barrels traded in U.S. dollars with a minimum delivery of 720,000 barrels to the Russian ports on the Baltic Seas, according to its specifications. Russia planned to export about 1.5 million barrels of crude a day from its Baltic oil terminals in March.

Previous Efforts

Moscow is not alone in its push to change global oil pricing. China, which vies with the U.S. as the world’s biggest crude importer, has spent two decades trying to introduce its own oil futures contact, now expected this year. Iran and Venezuela, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, have called for trading oil in other currencies than U.S. dollars.
The Kremlin plan echoes the New York Mercantile Exchange’s efforts to offer Russian export oil futures in late 2006. Nymex, now part of CME Group Inc., discontinued the contract six years later because it wasn’t popular among traders, JBC Energy GmbH said.
“Some market participants might be wary of embracing the new futures contracts as a benchmark due to concerns about the Russian government’s high degree of involvement in the oil sector,” said Eugene Lindell an analyst at Vienna-based JBC. “It remains questionable as to what extent Spimex can provide a better overall trading framework.”

Acusan al Mayor General Hebert García Plaza como planificador de golpe de Estado en Venezuela

Diosdado Cabello asegura que la información está confirmada

“Garcia Plaza entregó al gobierno norteamericano, a la DEA, a la CIA información precisa de la ubicación del armamento venezolano (…) ha puesto como fecha 15 de mayo para que se inice un golpe de Estado aquí en Venezuela”, afirmó el parlamentario
 


Un golpe de Estado que se ejecutaría en Venezuela el próximo 15 de mayo estaría planificado por el mayor general Hebert García Plaza, así lo denunció este miércoles el diputado Diosdado Cabello, quien asegura que la información está confirmada por varias fuentes.
“García Plaza entregó al gobierno norteamericano, a la DEA, a la CIA información precisa de la ubicación del armamento venezolano (…) ha puesto como fecha 15 de mayo para que se inicie un golpe de Estado aquí en Venezuela”, afirmó el parlamentario.
Durante la transmisión del programa Con el Mazo Dando, Cabello detalló que el golpe se iniciaría con disturbios en todo el territorio nacional, lo que generaría la aplicación de la Carta Democrática Interamericana contra Venezuela. Al respecto, señaló que basarán su estrategia en la escasez, la sequía, el hampa, la lucha de poderes, la electricidad, el agua para forzar la renuncia del presidente Nicolás Maduro, situación que descartó.
“Por eso la esposa del monstruo de Ramo Verde se reunió hace 10 días con Almagro (secretario General de la OEA) en Estados Unidos, reunión que le consiguió García Plaza directamente y García Plaza con los reales que se robó aquí está financiando un golpe de Estado contra la Patria”, aseveró.
Acotó que hay  miembros del Partido Voluntad Popular, quienes sirven de enganche a García Plaza, que están activados en el plan de golpe de Estado.
Cabello destacó que el delito de traición a la patria cometido por García Plaza, quien ocupó el cargo de ministro de Transporte Acuático, está incluido dentro de la Ley de Amnistía y Reconciliación Nacional creada por la Asamblea Nacional.
“Por eso incluyen a los traidores a la patria en la ley de Amnistía, ¿Cómo usted venezolano va entregar información y  por qué él tiene esa información? Porque fue viceministro del Ministerio de la Defensa y sabe de la ubicación” del armamento que tiene la Nación, afirmó.

TRATA DE CONTACTAR A FUNCIONARIOS DE LA FANB

Dijo que el exministro hace contacto con amigos que tiene dentro de la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana y “la gran mayoría lo han mandado lejos”.  Al respecto, agregó que en EEUU García Plaza asegura que cuenta con funcionarios dentro de la institución militar para ejecutar sus planes.
“Ahí esá metido un señor que es el que monta la oficina y se llama Moris Beracha, es el que monta la oficina donde se reúnen ellos, con sus amigos traidores a la patria venezolana, pues vénganse que aquí los esperamos y vente tu adelante García Plaza, cuando vengan los marines vente tú ahí”, exhortó.
Comentó que García Plaza coordina un grupo de periodistas, conformado por Rafael Poleo, Emili Di Biasco y Antonio de la Cruz, encargado de generar matrices de opinión en contra de Venezuela.

INICIARÁN INVESTIGACIÓN

Mencionó que ya se han aportado los elementos a las autoridades competentes para que se inicie una investigación por traición a  la patria contra quienes estén inmersos en los planes desestablizadores en Venezuela. “Alerto desde aquí al pueblo de Venezuela para que nos preparemos con todo, que nos preparemos con lo que tengamos que prepararnos”, concluyó.
El pasado 21 de abril de 2015, el Tribunal 10º de Control del Área Metropolitana de Caracas, imputó al Mayor General Herbert García Plaza, por el delito de peculado doloso en la compra de tres ferrys, reseñó en su momento el portal La Iguana.
El militar salió del país y la jueza Nahilu Sánchez pidió difundir una alerta roja a través de Interpol para su detención en cualquier parte del mundo.

Texto/Sandra Izarra
Foto/Archivo

China Just Took a Giant Step in Its Takeover of Global Oil Markets

By Dr. Kent Moors, Global Energy Strategist, Oil & Energy Investor • @KentMoors_OEI • April 28, 2016

Dr. Kent Moors

The energy news headlines these days are all about the failure of the Doha summit and the upcoming June OPEC meeting in the face of a historic, intractable global supply glut.
But there's a takeover underway that's flying totally beneath the radar…
In fact, the early stages are already complete – it started right in the United States' geopolitical "backyard," in the OPEC member-state of Ecuador.
The power player moving in is of course none other than China. But it's certainly not going to limit itself to Ecuador.
Here's what you need to know about this development…

We've Been Preparing for This Outcome for a While Now

Back in late 2013, while I was advising on a refinery project in Ecuador, I explained how China's oil policy was evolving.
Now, the country's objective used to be controlling oil production abroad, with the aim of transporting that oil back home.
But in 2013, Ecuador, the smallest of the OPEC producers, learned the hard way that this objective had changed. After running out of money, both Ecuador and its national oil company, EP Petroecuador, had to rely on loans from China to stay afloat.
In return, Beijing gained control over the revenue flow from Ecuadorian oil exports. The oil was allowed to flow anywhere, as long as the proceeds went back to China (as loan repayments).
But now, several of my sources are telling me that China is about to take (or perhaps unleash) the next step in its plan to control the world's oil markets…
And this time, it's not in the U.S.'s sleepy backyard, but in a major geopolitical "pain point"…

Iran and Iraq Have a Free Pass from OPEC… but China Will Swoop In

Before we get to China's endgame here, I'll show you where it's going to play out and why.It's no secret that low oil prices are hitting hard at two of oil's central players, both of which are expecting to ramp up production: Iraq and Iran.
While both Iraq and Iran are members of OPEC, neither one has had a monthly OPEC production quota for some time. Those quotas are supposed to determine how much oil each member exports to world markets.
It used to be that OPEC calculated expected global demand and then deducted non-OPEC production. What's left was called the "call on OPEC," and was divided among members as a monthly quota.
Of course, there is no way to prevent countries from exceeding those quotas. And the current environment of "every country for itself" has effectively rendered the quotas moot.
Iraq continues to suffer from internal political discord, as well as the threat of Daesh (that's the more pejorative way of referring to the aberration that likes to call itself the "Islamic State" – and I refuse to even tacitly imply that these monsters and killers have sovereignty. Besides, they hate being called Daesh).
Meanwhile, Iran was until recently under Western sanctions and is intent on returning to its pre-sanction production and export levels, as you've seen here before.
But Iran's desired volume – in excess of 4 million barrels a day – will probably be reached as early as June, just in time for the next meeting on capping global production, this one to be held in Moscow.
But those levels cannot be sustained, because of Iran's significant internal problems in both fields and infrastructure.
Both Baghdad and Tehran require large amounts of investment to overcome growing production crises that will test their ability to obtain the export revenue they both need. But this investment is slow in coming. For Iraq, the upfront problems remain security and political instability – companies are worried that the production goals will be undermined by political discord and even violence.
This latter point deserves more emphasis than it has received in the West.
Daesh can never control – or even attack – the primary oil fields in Iraq's Shiite-dominated south. But by putting pressure on a beleaguered government in Baghdad, they nonetheless accomplish the same objective: Paralyzing the central government, thereby halting attempts to ramp up oil production.
OPEC has given both Iraq and Iran a multiyear delay in the enforcement of oil export quotas. In the current climate of excessive production, the quotas have not been applied.
But they will return in short order, especially if a production freeze is reached at the June meeting in Moscow.
However, the problem for both Iraq and Iran is arising from within…

Both Countries Are in Desperate Need of Western Oil Expertise

Low oil prices have produced long delays in payments to providers of oil field services. In the case of Iraq, that problem is now also affecting the international oil companies (IOCs) – the majors running the oil fields.
In the case of Iran, sanctions have prevented foreign involvement – banning the Western technology and expertise Iran needs to keep its oil infrastructure from collapsing. Replacing Western companies with Chinese and even Russian field operators has been a disaster. Virtually all production in Iran is now done using domestic field services. That results in inferior, and sometimes nonexistent, work.
A deeper issue is the way both countries give out contracts. In Iraq, outside companies are provided a fixed payment per barrel extracted above a contracted target amount. The result is more properly to be regarded as a field service contract.
Meanwhile, in Iran the constitution and the law prohibit outsiders from owning either land or raw materials inside the country. This means that foreign companies must operate under very bulky and time-consuming buy-back contracts – in which a company is paid in produced oil according to fixed costs and prices negotiated at the beginning.
In neither case does the resulting contract approach anything resembling a joint venture. That means that the fields remain under the respective ownership of the National Iranian Oil Company and the Iraq National Oil Company; the international majors cannot place any portion of these oil reserves on their own books.
Both countries have been searching for ways to make the investment more attractive. As you've read here before, Tehran has scheduled London meetings with financial sources on three recent occasions, only to have to cancel each time because there was no political consensus back home.
All of this has led to a significant new development – and a new opportunity for China…

Financing Is Opening the Door for China

Baghdad has proposed paying its past-due bills with currency bonds rather than cash. The Iraqi Ministry of Finance has already begun deploying the paper in the face of a budget deficit that tops 8% and climbing. These bonds can be traded on the local market and be either cashed in at a discount or used at face value as collateral on loans.
Another approach now under development will apply these bonds to arrearages owed to IOCs. One idea is to use the value of oil reserves in the ground as collateral for these bonds.
It is a move that the IOCs might actually prefer, since it would give them at least some ability to "book" reserve values, albeit indirectly (through the face value of the bonds).
Iran already plays the game of "you pretend to work and we pretend to pay you" with its all-domestic service providers. But Tehran is now considering this bond approach as a possible way of bringing in foreign providers while at the same time avoiding any violations of local "ownership" restrictions.
What would really jumpstart this payment-in-bonds approach would be the ability to utilize the paper in broader local markets, both attracting some value in secondary trading and allowing the face value to work in broader collateral and trading situations. For that to happen, international banks must act as either guarantors of the paper or, in the case of additional issuances, as book runners for the placements.
Here is where the terrain may shift in a seismic way.
Word from several of my sources indicate that Chinese banks (with, of course, the official backing of the government in Beijing) may step in to provide these services.
The move would increase China's presence in the oil sector on both sides of the Shatt al-Arab (the river separating Iraq and Iran at the Persian Gulf), fund additional Chinese oil imports without actually shelling out hard currency, and take the next step in China's increasingly sophisticated approach to other people's oil: gain control over the financing of oil production in both Iran and Iraq.
Chinese national oil companies are already working on entering both the Iraqi and Iranian markets. But the Iraqi-Iranian bond approach will allow China to move ahead one more step in its plan.
China's efforts to control the financing of oil production in Iraq and Iran are a step beyond taking control of Ecuador's oil revenue, and it looks for all the world like they're going to succeed with flying colors in this innovative new approach.
And that is likely to take geopolitics in the oil sector – already an outsized factor – to a whole new level.
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Noticias Nacional: Conozca a una de las empresas detrás del colapso eléctrico en Venezuela

Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López, Francisco Convit Guruceaga, y Pedro José Trebbau López, son los nombres detrás de Derwick Associates, la empresa que le vendió 209.000.000 de dólares en equipos a Bariven, la filial de PDVSA encargada en realizar las compras nacionales e internacionales para actividades petroleras. A Derwick le fueron asignados doce proyectos con sobreprecio para solventar la crisis eléctrica venezolana, que sigue padeciendo el país.

El periodista César Batiz, miembro del equipo de Últimas Noticias, se ha dedicado a investigar profundamente sobre Derwick Associates y los proyectos que les asignó el Estado venezolano: en la siguiente entrevista nos revela más detalles sobre el caso de los “bolichicos”.

— ¿Qué lo motivó a llevar a cabo esta investigación?

— La investigación comenzó en diciembre de 2010 cuando el Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) organizó en Lima un curso avanzado de Periodismo del Investigación, como parte de un Programa de Formación de Periodistas. Allí, tuve la posibilidad de postular un tema cuyo objetivo era develar que las empresas españolas  Iberdrola, Durofelguera y Elecnor fueron contratadas por el Estado y los contratos habían sido firmados con sobreprecio porque funcionarios de PDVSA y Corpoelec estaban recibiendo comisiones. Sin embargo, nunca tuve acceso a estos contratos porque dos de estas empresas me lo negaron, alegando que la parte venezolana, es decir, Corpoelec y PDVSA le habían prohibido a ellos revelar el contrato, incluso era una cláusula que tenían firmada. En ese momento pensé que estaba cerrado el caso, pero paralelamente yo estaba investigando el caso de Francisco Illarramendi, el “esquema ponzi” que aplicó este señor. Entonces, en aquél momento estaba vinculado a muchos jubilados de la industria petrolera en Estados Unidos y en Venezuela, por lo que aproveché de preguntarle a una de mis fuentes si sabía algo del tema eléctrico y un buen día, me mandó un correo que le hizo llegar una persona, donde decía que Bariven había comprado plantas eléctricas a tres empresas sin ninguna trayectoria, sin ninguna fortaleza financiera comprobada y que además, habían sido creadas recientemente inscritas en los registros públicos empresariales e inscritas en Bariven. Es decir, violaba todas las normas.

— ¿Es allí cuando descubre a Derwick Associates?

— Sí. Inmediatamente comencé a investigar las empresas que ahí mencionaban. Las tres empresas eran Ovarb Industrial LLC, KCT Cumaná II Internacional y Derwick Associates S.A. y de la primera que encontré mucha información en la web fue de Derwick. Encontré que tenían una página web formal, bien estructurada y me di cuenta que ahí tenía un nuevo caso. Pregunté a gente del sector eléctrico si conocían esa empresa y no la conocían, pregunté dentro y fuera del país y nadie la conocía, así que inicié mi investigación. Me di cuenta que habían entregado doce proyectos para la fecha, la revisé por el Registro Nacional de Contratistas y me di cuenta que estaban inscritas en noviembre, pero en octubre ya le habían dado una obra. También conseguí información en el Registro de Empresas de Barbados, les pedí información y pude conocer que la empresa había sido registrada en 2009. De esta forma, seguí buscando información hasta que constituí mi primer trabajo, con la hipótesis de que una empresa sin ninguna experiencia en el sector eléctrico había recibido 12 contratos en 14 meses de creada, gracias a la influencia o la cercanía de los dueños de Derwick, Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López y Pedro Trebbau López, con Javier Andrés Alvarado Pardi, el hijo de quien era el Viceministro de Energía Eléctrica y Presidente de la Electricidad de Caracas al momento de la firma de los contratos, que luego fue Presidente de Bariven.

— ¿Cómo pudo comprobar toda esa información?

— Una serie de documentos me llevaron a demostrar que Javier Andrés Alvarado Pardi, era amigo de Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López y Pedro Trebbau López, porque vivían en La Lagunita, estaban en la misma zona. Además, en Import Genius, una página web que registra las importaciones y exportaciones navieras, obtuve un dato importante: Javier Andrés Alvarado Pardi había exportado un vehículo Porsche año 1959 desde República Dominicana hasta New York, y la dirección que había dado de su oficina en Caracas era la misma que la oficina de Derwick: piso 2, oficina 202, del edificio La Pirámide. En ese primer reportaje fue donde demostré que esa empresa, (respaldada por una contratista llamada ProEnergy) con 14 meses de creada había logrado 12 contratos, a pesar de no tener experiencia, porque tenía una relación muy estrecha con el hijo del viceministro. Allí comienza la historia.

— ¿En algún momento pudo comunicarse con los dueños de Derwick?

— Sí. El día antes de la publicación del reportaje recibí una llamada de una persona que me dijo ser sobrino del Miguel Ángel Capriles (quien entonces era el presidente de la Cadena Capriles) ésta se identificó como Álvaro Lusinchi Capriles y me dijo que qué podíamos hacer para detener ese reportaje porque ellos eran amigos de él y se sentían muy afectados, pero la investigación no se podía parar, ya el reportaje estaba en rotativa y además, ya había sido aprobado no sólo por mi jefa, también por los directivos. A la semana siguiente, mi jefa recibió una llamada de Nelson Rivera, el director de Papel Literario, quien le habló del caso y le preguntó qué si yo iba a seguir con la investigación (porque ésta ya había sido publicada) e igualmente, que qué se podía hacer… Pero ella le dijo que no se podía parar porque además, ese proyecto era financiado por Instituto Prensa y Sociedad de Venezuela y yo iba a continuar. Después, él se comunicó directamente conmigo y me dijo que estos eran muy buenos muchachos, que son de muy buena familia, muy religiosos, que ellos organizan las ferias de la Virgen del Socorro. Argumentaba que actualmente no se necesita tener experiencia para dirigir una empresa, que se podía a través de alianzas, y que él me iba a poner en contacto con Alejandro Betancourt López. Efectivamente, Alejandro Betancourt López habló conmigo y me pidió que no publicara nada porque temía las represalias que podían tener, tanto la gente de PDVSA, como otras empresas. Yo le planteé hacer una entrevista para que él demostrara que lo que yo estaba publicando no era así. Es decir, le estaba dando la oportunidad de que me desmintiera si yo había publicado una información falsa.

— ¿Y accedió?

— No. Pero en esa reunión, de alguna manera u otra, él me dio material para yo elaborar mi segundo reportaje. Por ejemplo, me afirmó que le habían vendido plantas a Bariven, porque había una emergencia y las empresas no querían venderles directamente a ellos por lo que Derwick las compró. 2009 sabían que venía esta situación, a pesar de que fue en febrero de 2010 cuando se decretó la emergencia. Luego de confirmar toda la información, elaboré mi segundo reportaje.

— Y después de ello, ¿no tuvo más acercamientos con los empresarios?

— Luego de publicar el segundo reportaje el tema de Derwick siguió sonando porque yo seguí investigando, publicando algunas cosas que alguna gente tomó, y otra gente publicó cosas sobre el tema. Yo me enteré que ellos trataron de hacer una prensa para suavizar la situación a través de Miguel Salazar en “Las verdades de Miguel”, diciendo que yo estaba haciendo esos reportajes porque Miguel Ángel Capriles me había mandado, que él me había traído de la Electricidad de Caracas (donde yo trabajé). Es decir, inventaron todo un expediente sobre mí. Yo seguí trabajando y en diciembre de 2012 publiqué un reportaje llamado “El FBI mete el ojo a empresa venezolana”, porque en el blog de dos personas que también han investigado sobre el caso, que son el periodista canadiense y excorresponsal de Bloomberg en Venezuela, Steven Bodzin; y el bloguero venezolano radicado en Londres, Alek Boyd, habían ingresado tanto gente del departamento del Tesoro, como gente del departamento de Seguridad de Estados Unidos, del FBI y otras instituciones. Ellos se percataron de eso y yo lo puse, incluso publiqué una captura de pantalla donde se ve que el FBI ingresó  a esas páginas. Ese último reportaje generó en ellos un descontento y el 18 de diciembre, publicaron un aviso a página completa en el diario El Nacional en el prácticamente me acusan de llevar a cabo una campaña de difamación contra ellos.

— ¿Ha recibido algún tipo de amenazas?

— En una oportunidad, mi mamá recibió una llamada de un comisario del Sebin que le dijo que me estaba buscando. Cuando me comunico con el comisario éste se disculpa por haber llamado a mi mamá y me comenta que quiere saber cuáles son mis fuentes. Sin intención de revelarlas, porque no le iba a dar mis fuentes, le propuse reunirnos en la Cadena Capriles. Sin embargo, el comisario no asistió a la reunión planteada, porque no le habían dado permiso. Luego de publicar el reportaje sobre el FBI, me llama nuevamente y amenaza con meterme preso. Y antes de diciembre, ellos demandaron a Oscar García Mendoza y a Rafael Alfonzo Hernández, directivos del Banco Venezolano de Crédito, porque un año antes había sido creada una página que se llamaba Wikianticorrupción, que desde septiembre estaba publicando los artículos que yo había sacado de Derwick y algunas otras cosas. La demanda se presentó en Florida por 200.000.000 de dólares, alegando que ellos estaban detrás de Wikianticorrupción y por otro lado, decían que yo también lo estaba. Pero en 2013 tuvieron que levantar esa demanda, que le costó a García Mendoza irse del país y no poder cobrar los dividendos del BVC. Porque el abogado Jacinto Castillejo asumió la autoría y dirección de Wikianticorrupcion, demostrando que él había ido a la Fiscalía a poner una denuncia en contra de Derwick en diciembre de 2012.

— Hasta el momento, ¿no hay ningún representante del gobierno se ha manifestado ante este caso?

— Freddy Bernal es el único representante del partido de gobierno que se ha pronunciado públicamente sobre ese caso y lo hizo en una entrevista que le hizo Vladimir Villegas. En ésta, Bernal mencionó que Derwick debía ser investigada porque compró el apartamento de Aristóteles Onassis en New York. Por su parte, cuando ocurrió el accidente del ferrocarril de los Valles del Tuy, ministro de Energía y Petróleo y presidente de Pdvsa, Rafael Ramírez se reunió con los conductores. Y luego de ello, aproveché para preguntarle sobre el tema del sobreprecio en las compras de equipos eléctricos realizadas por Bariven, afirmó: “No te voy a decir nada”. Es decir, el Presidente de Pdvsa, empresa estatal a la cual está suscrita Bariven, se negó a suministrar cualquier reacción sobre la solicitud de investigación. También expresó que nunca leyó la correspondencia que entregamos en la oficina de la estatal petrolera solicitando información sobre la compra de equipos eléctricos. “Pueden ir a dónde quieran”, espetó. Luego se dio la vuelta y siguió caminando sobre los rieles de la estación.

Fuente: sienteamerica.com