4 Puerto Rico policemen sentenced in federal corruption case
New Zealand Herald SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) " Four Puerto Rico police officers have been sentenced after pleading guilty to robbery, selling drugs and manipulating court records. The U.S. Justice Department said in a statement Thursday that three of the officers were ... |
Cuban President Raul Castro in CELAC Summit
Escambray Ever since the inception of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Our America has entered a new stage and advanced toward independence; sovereignty over our natural resources; integration and construction of a new world order; and ... and more » |
US seeks 29 drug suspects in Puerto Rico, Florida, Colombia
Daytona Beach News-Journal SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — U.S. authorities have issued arrest warrants for 29 suspects inPuerto Rico, Florida and Colombia who are accused of running a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking ring. The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday the ... and more » |
United States and Colombian Law Enforcement Authorities Execute ...
eNews Park Forest This morning, U.S. federal agents in coordination with Colombian law enforcement authorities simultaneously executed arrest warrants in Puerto Rico, Florida and Colombia, dismantling an international drug trafficking and money laundering organization ... |
 CBS Local |
US Seeks Drug Suspects In Florida
CBS Local The suspects allegedly smuggled drugs from Colombia to Puerto Rico via Venezuela using go-fast vessels between November 2010 and September 2012. They said a portion of the cocaine was sold in Puerto Rico and the remainder transported to New York. and more » |
Russia, Cuba Consolidate Strategic Association
Prensa Latina 29 de enero de 2015, 13:16Moscow, Jan 29 (Prensa Latina) Cuban ambassador in Russia, Emilio Lozada, assured today that the 56 Anniversary of the Triumph of the Caribbean country'' Revolution matches with a stronger consolidation of the strategic ... |
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US Seeks 29 Drug Suspects in Puerto Rico, Florida, Colombia
NBC 6 South Florida U.S. authorities on Thursday issued arrest warrants for 29 suspects in Puerto Rico, Florida and Colombia who are accused of running a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking ring. The U.S. Justice Department said the suspects were charged with importing ... and more » |
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. However, a 2012 referendum shows that 54 percent of the population wants independence.
The leader of the Puerto Rican independence movement has called on the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States to help regain sovereignty for the island.
In spite of strong opposition, Puerto Rico remains a U.S. territory; a 2012 referendum revealed that 54 percent of the population preferred statehood.
“The persistence of colonialism in my mother land Puerto Rico constitutes an affront to the dignity of Our America,” said Ruben Berrios Martinez, president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party. “Colonialism is a violation to the most elemental human rights: the inalienable right to free determination and independence is an absolute rule of international law.”
Berrios Martinez asked CELAC, currently meeting in Costa Rica, to introduce a plan to make the general assembly take a stance on the case of Puerto Rico and also to demand that the U.S. government liberate Oscar Lopez, “the longest serving political prisoner in the world having been in prison nearly 34 years.”
The Puerto Rican independence activist recently turned 70 years old. He was convicted in 1981 of seditious conspiracy due to his participation in the Puerto Rican independence movement and sentenced to 55 years behind bars.
In his petition to CELAC, Berrios Martinez pointed out the new relationship between Washington and Cuba means that “it would be inconceivable to maintain a colonial status in Puerto Rico.”
CELAC is a coalition of the 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations, and represents around 600 million people. It was launched in 2010 at the Rio Group Unity Summit in Mexico and officially launched with the signing of the Declaration of Caracas Dec. 3, 2011, in Venezuela.
 teleSUR English |
Puerto Rican Independence Leader Asks CELAC for Help
teleSUR English “The persistence of colonialism in my mother land Puerto Rico constitutes an affront to the dignity of Our America,” said Ruben Berrios Martinez, president of the Puerto RicanIndependence Party. “Colonialism is a violation to the most elemental human ... |
 The Tico Times |
Puerto Rican independence front and center at CELAC
The Tico Times More than 61 percent supported statehood and 33.3 percent free association. Puerto Rico has been under U.S. rule since 1898 following the Spanish American War. Puerto Ricans hold U.S. passports and have limited self-rule. There have been no major ... |
Castro Is Now Issuing Demands On U.S. -- Well Done, Mr. Obama
Investor's Business Daily In a speech at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit in Costa Rica on Wednesday, he said there'd be no normalization of relations unless the U.S. ends the trade embargo, closes the naval base at Guantanamo Bay and takes Cuba off ... |
It is a mistake to belittle Vladimir Putin. Dislike and distrust him, fine. Believe he is a monomaniacal empire-builder determined to restore Russia’s former colonies and holdings, OK. To snicker at his bare-chested antics, particularly with animals, is probably unavoidable. But for all that, Putin is a man with a plan that should be understood by the American government, and in particular by Victoria Neuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Instead, Ms. Neuland gliblypoked at RT (Russia Today) while assuring Putin of the peaceful intentions of the U.S. and the West.
The U.S. and West are not challenging Russia; Russia chose aggression toward its neighbors and brought on sanctions.
All you have to do is look at RT’s tiny, tiny audience in the United States to understand what happens when you broadcast untruths in a media space that is full of dynamic truthful opinion. State-owned Russian media spews lies about who’s responsible for the violence [in Ukraine]. We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of media in this country. The question we ask Russians is why are you so afraid of diversity of opinion in your own space?
RT’s tiny audience in the United States is irrelevant. Putin is pitching not to Americans, but rather to the only audience that matters to him – Slavic Russians in Russia. Since Putin is enormously popular with them in part because of his nationalistic aggressiveness toward the United States and NATO, Slavs help balance the growing and discontented Muslim population in southern Russia. Putin needs their continuing goodwill.
After years of 80-plus-percent popularity, Putin has two clouds on his horizon:
First, Russian casualties in Ukraine. The Russian public is no more accepting of casualties there than it was in Afghanistan. Putin told them Russia would be protecting ethnic Russians; he didn’t say anything about “boots on the ground.” He said the same about Georgia and Crimea, but those were accomplished with relatively little bloodshed. Ukraine is becoming a drawn out process, and Russian troops are directly involved. In September 2014, thousands of Russians marched in an almost unheard of protest against the war. "Our country is acting as an aggressor, like Germany in the war," said demonstrator Konstantin Alexeyev, 35.
Putin, naturally, shifted the blame, first to NATO. “There are official divisions of the (Ukrainian) armed forces but to a great extent there are so-called voluntary nationalist battalions. This is not even an army; it's a foreign legion. In this case it's a foreign NATO legion," he said.
When the U.N. declared the shelling of the Ukrainian town of Mariupol, in which at least 30 people died, to be a war crime, Putin said Kiev was responsible because it refused to withdraw its forces and open negotiations with the rebels. "Unfortunately, Ukrainian authorities are refusing a peaceful solution. They don't want political efforts," he told a group of Russian students.
For Putin, Russian casualties are result of the duplicity of the U.S. and the West.
Second, a collapsing economy. Western sanctions plus the collapse in the price of oil have crashed the ruble and ensured difficult times ahead for the Russian economy. There’s no real way out of that, so for Putin, economic troubles are the result of the duplicity of the U.S. and the West.
He reads his public well. People generally see Western sanctions and the poor economy not as a response to Russian aggression, but as an unwarranted attack on Russia. This has led Russians to break out their famous (infamous?) political humor. The U.S. is referred to as Pindostan, a derogatory name for a backward place, and Americans as Pindos, equally derogatory. President Obama is referred to as Maximka, the black child of a 1952 movie, rescued by Russian sailors – and in this case, Maximka grows up to be ungrateful.
Not content to feather his nest at home, Putin has frontally addressed sanctions, and the proposed additional sanctions, by telling the Obama administration what’s good for it. “Sanctions usually have a boomerang effect, and without a doubt will force U.S.-Russian relations into a corner. This is aserious blow to our relationship. And it undermines the long-term security interests of the U.S. State and its people.”
What is our “relationship”? What are the long-term interests of the U.S. and its people? One would be to respond to Russian aggression – at a minimum – by calling it what it is.
On Ukraine, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg was admirably firm. “There is no NATO legion… The foreign forces in Ukraine are Russian.” But U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power hedged. “This offensive is made in Moscow. It is waged by Russian-trained and Russian-funded separatists, who use Russian missiles and Russian tanks, who are backed up by Russian troops, and whose operations receive direct Russian assistance.”
No. It is being conducted by Russian troops.
This hedging is the norm for the administration, which appears to think it impolite to address the aggressive behavior of Russia, or Iran for that matter. Early in his first term, the president canceled plans for radar interceptors in Europe on the grounds that we wanted Putin’s cooperation on Iran (and later Syria). The Russians responded with increasing support for Iran, and then Syria, including selling Syria weapons, protecting Assad from the U.S. red lines on chemical weapons, and publicizing plans to sell Iran the S-300 missile system and new nuclear reactors.
The U.S. abandone d plans for nuclear modernization and began cuts to the defense budget that threaten American military superiority worldwide. The Russians did not reciprocate. The Jewish Policy Center wrote recently:
Russian cybercrimes have become ubiquitous, and Russia has invested heavily in a military buildup that includes modernization of its nuclear arsenal. Challenging the U.S. directly, Russian bombers entered American airspace 16 times in August and 6 times in September. In October, Russian bombers circled Europe in an unusual pattern, although the planes remained in international airspace. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu… announced plans for long-range bomber flights near U.S. shores in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Blaming us, threatening us, and lecturing us while building his forces and attacking his neighbors, Vladimir Putin is proving to be a master at the West’s game – a good offense being the best defense. We’re not even in the game.
It is a mistake to belittle Vladimir Putin. Dislike and distrust him, fine. Believe he is a monomaniacal empire-builder determined to restore Russia’s former colonies and holdings, OK. To snicker at his bare-chested antics, particularly with animals, is probably unavoidable. But for all that, Putin is a man with a plan that should be understood by the American government, and in particular by Victoria Neuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Instead, Ms. Neuland gliblypoked at RT (Russia Today) while assuring Putin of the peaceful intentions of the U.S. and the West.
The U.S. and West are not challenging Russia; Russia chose aggression toward its neighbors and brought on sanctions.All you have to do is look at RT’s tiny, tiny audience in the United States to understand what happens when you broadcast untruths in a media space that is full of dynamic truthful opinion. State-owned Russian media spews lies about who’s responsible for the violence [in Ukraine]. We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of media in this country. The question we ask Russians is why are you so afraid of diversity of opinion in your own space?
RT’s tiny audience in the United States is irrelevant. Putin is pitching not to Americans, but rather to the only audience that matters to him – Slavic Russians in Russia. Since Putin is enormously popular with them in part because of his nationalistic aggressiveness toward the United States and NATO, Slavs help balance the growing and discontented Muslim population in southern Russia. Putin needs their continuing goodwill.
After years of 80-plus-percent popularity, Putin has two clouds on his horizon:
First, Russian casualties in Ukraine. The Russian public is no more accepting of casualties there than it was in Afghanistan. Putin told them Russia would be protecting ethnic Russians; he didn’t say anything about “boots on the ground.” He said the same about Georgia and Crimea, but those were accomplished with relatively little bloodshed. Ukraine is becoming a drawn out process, and Russian troops are directly involved. In September 2014, thousands of Russians marched in an almost unheard of protest against the war. "Our country is acting as an aggressor, like Germany in the war," said demonstrator Konstantin Alexeyev, 35.
Putin, naturally, shifted the blame, first to NATO. “There are official divisions of the (Ukrainian) armed forces but to a great extent there are so-called voluntary nationalist battalions. This is not even an army; it's a foreign legion. In this case it's a foreign NATO legion," he said.
When the U.N. declared the shelling of the Ukrainian town of Mariupol, in which at least 30 people died, to be a war crime, Putin said Kiev was responsible because it refused to withdraw its forces and open negotiations with the rebels. "Unfortunately, Ukrainian authorities are refusing a peaceful solution. They don't want political efforts," he told a group of Russian students.
For Putin, Russian casualties are result of the duplicity of the U.S. and the West.
Second, a collapsing economy. Western sanctions plus the collapse in the price of oil have crashed the ruble and ensured difficult times ahead for the Russian economy. There’s no real way out of that, so for Putin, economic troubles are the result of the duplicity of the U.S. and the West.
He reads his public well. People generally see Western sanctions and the poor economy not as a response to Russian aggression, but as an unwarranted attack on Russia. This has led Russians to break out their famous (infamous?) political humor. The U.S. is referred to as Pindostan, a derogatory name for a backward place, and Americans as Pindos, equally derogatory. President Obama is referred to as Maximka, the black child of a 1952 movie, rescued by Russian sailors – and in this case, Maximka grows up to be ungrateful.
Not content to feather his nest at home, Putin has frontally addressed sanctions, and the proposed additional sanctions, by telling the Obama administration what’s good for it. “Sanctions usually have a boomerang effect, and without a doubt will force U.S.-Russian relations into a corner. This is aserious blow to our relationship. And it undermines the long-term security interests of the U.S. State and its people.”
What is our “relationship”? What are the long-term interests of the U.S. and its people? One would be to respond to Russian aggression – at a minimum – by calling it what it is.
On Ukraine, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg was admirably firm. “There is no NATO legion… The foreign forces in Ukraine are Russian.” But U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power hedged. “This offensive is made in Moscow. It is waged by Russian-trained and Russian-funded separatists, who use Russian missiles and Russian tanks, who are backed up by Russian troops, and whose operations receive direct Russian assistance.”
</script><script type="text/javascript"src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>' campaignid="85" apd-id="apdel9933601" appendedad="true">No. It is being conducted by Russian troops.
This hedging is the norm for the administration, which appears to think it impolite to address the aggressive behavior of Russia, or Iran for that matter. Early in his first term, the president canceled plans for radar interceptors in Europe on the grounds that we wanted Putin’s cooperation on Iran (and later Syria). The Russians responded with increasing support for Iran, and then Syria, including selling Syria weapons, protecting Assad from the U.S. red lines on chemical weapons, and publicizing plans to sell Iran the S-300 missile system and new nuclear reactors.
The U.S. abandone d plans for nuclear modernization and began cuts to the defense budget that threaten American military superiority worldwide. The Russians did not reciprocate. The Jewish Policy Center wrote recently:
Russian cybercrimes have become ubiquitous, and Russia has invested heavily in a military buildup that includes modernization of its nuclear arsenal. Challenging the U.S. directly, Russian bombers entered American airspace 16 times in August and 6 times in September. In October, Russian bombers circled Europe in an unusual pattern, although the planes remained in international airspace. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu… announced plans for long-range bomber flights near U.S. shores in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Blaming us, threatening us, and lecturing us while building his forces and attacking his neighbors, Vladimir Putin is proving to be a master at the West’s game – a good offense being the best defense. We’re not even in the game.
Read the whole story
· · · · · · · · ·
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If you talk to a Russian about the international political situation, sooner or later you will be informed that there is a country in North America that you’ve never heard of. Its name is ‘Pindosia,’ ‘Pindostan’ or, more officially, ‘United States of Pindostan,’ and you will be told that one part of it, called Alaska, used to belong to Russia. Part of the word—‘stan’—stands for underdeveloped state, as in ‘ Pakistan,’ ‘Kazakhstan,’ or ‘Uzbekistan.’ The citizens of this country in plural form are called ‘pindoses,’ in singular—‘pindos.’
There are more than 316 million ‘pindoses’ in ‘Pindostan.’
Today, this country has a black President, and the Russians have a nickname for him too. He is called Maximka—after a character from a popular Soviet movie, made in 1952, which told the story of a black boy saved by the Russian sailors from the cruelty of the vicious American slave-traders who were terribly abusing him and calling him just that—“Boy.” In the film, the saved boy was fed well by the Russian crew, given the name Maximka, and became one of their own in the end.
But by the modern-day Russian legend, Maximka, unfortunately, has grown up into an ungrateful Russophobe.
One can assume that the reader by now has a clue what this country is.
The word ‘pindos’ in Russian is highly offensive, and defines a helpless creature that is a product of a very bad educational system, one who can survive in this world only with the help of various gadgets. The origin of the word is unknown, and the philologists are fighting to establish it. The most popular explanation states that this word was invented by Russian peacekeepers in Serbia with the purpose of describing a NATO soldier, who was seen by them as a strange, clumsy figure with his 90 lbs. of bulletproof vest, weapons, radios, flashlights and so on.
From afar, he looked very strange to the Russian eye—like a penguin.
The Russians have had their favorite, most-hated pindoses. One of them, the constant laughingstock in the media, used to be the US Ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul. He was a huge fan ofTwitter and if judged by the number of his tweets, spent more time on his gadget than actually doing his job. After more than two years of service there, upon his departure, he received only two words in Russian—via Twitter—from the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs: “Goodbye Mikhail.”
Today his place has been taken by the spokesperson for the US Department of State, Jen Psaki. She has an anti-fan club of haters who consider her not to be very bright—they even invented their own anti-IQ unit called 1 Psaki. One who has 3 Psakis has a brain of a clam. The term ‘psaking’ in Russian political newspeak means to know nothing about the subject while saying something banal and politically correct. She is so popular that when she injured her foot and came in front of the cameras with the cast on, all major Russian TV channels and newspapers reported the event.
Another hated ‘pindos’ is Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), famous in Russia for his periodic tweets to ‘Dear Vlad.’ In 2011, for example, Mr. McCain tweeted Putin, “Dear Vlad, The #ArabSpring is coming to a neighborhood near you.” Usually reserved and purposefully polite while talking about his ‘partners from over the Big Pool’ (Big Pool being the Atlantic Ocean ), this time Mr. Putin shot back, saying that Mr. McCain “has a lot of blood of peaceful civilians on his hands. He must relish and can’t live without the disgusting, repulsive scenes of the killing of Gadhafi.” “Mr. McCain was captured in Vietnam and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years,” Mr. Putin added. “Anyone [in his place] would have had his roof moved over.” The last three words in Russian slang mean “suddenly to become insane.”
Today, according to the respected Moscow ‘Levada Center,’ which measures political sentiment in Russian society, 74% of Russians have negative feelings towards the USA. It hasn’t always been like this; in the 1990s, 80% had positive attitude toward America.
Currently, 76% of Russians hate Obama personally and only a meager 2% like him. In 2009 only 12% of Russians had extremely negative feelings towards Obama.
These are the maximum peaks of anti-American feelings in Russia in years but the sociologists believe they could go even higher in the near future.
Anti-American sentiment has been growing slowly in Russia since the war in former Yugoslavia. But the sharp recent increase happened as a result of the US-led sanctions that were imposed on Russia after the ‘Russian annexation of Crimea.’ For example, just last week Visa and MasterCard completely stopped their operations in Crimea, leaving more than 2 million people there without access to their money. 75% of Russians do not believe that their country is responsible for the events in Ukraine. On the contrary, they blame the US.
When the sanctions began, many Russian businesses responded by putting up ‘Obama Is Sanctioned Here’ signs on their doors and windows.
However today they went much farther.
The owners of the Moscow supermarket “Electronics on Presnya” are using American flag doormats so the customers could wipe their dirty feet off, according to the British tabloid Daily Mail. “Customers have been filmed wiping their feet on the fabled stars and stripes as they enter and exit stores across Moscow, as struggling retailers take a hopeless swipe at their Cold War adversaries,” reports the newspaper. According to the Moskovky Komsomolets Moscow newspaper, the nation’s business owners decided to put the US flag under the Russians’ feet because of the strained relations between the two countries. “New doormats with the American flag were put at every exit so that America would not think that she is allowed to everything,” they say. “From one perspective, of course it is a flag, but from the other, because of this entire situation in the world, regular folks are suffering. All the electronics we import, mostly from China and buy for dollars. We have to work directly so the US would have no chance to manipulate the prices.” (The Russian ruble lost about 50% of its value because of the economic sanctions by the western countries and a fall in the oil price.)
By the words of the shopping center’s attorney Konstantin Trapaidze, the doormats with the American flag do not break any Russian law. “It is very probable that the doormats have a decorative character. Yes, people are walking on them but nobody prohibited this. They produce not only doormats with the flag on them but also furniture upholstery. The breaking of the law would be when someone would start burning such a doormat or real flag demonstratively, or tear it up.”
Major Russian TV channel Vesti eagerly reported that fact. They also added that some Moscow stores were selling the toilet paper with American flag imprinted on it. The pricetag was $1 per roll.
A number of Russian politicians have been working very hard to keep the flames of rage burning. Last week, the Speaker of the Russian Parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, raised the issue of starting an international investigation of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings by the US in 1945, as a ‘crime against humanity’ has no time limit. He wanted nothing less than a new Nuremberg trial with the US at the criminal’s bench.
Vladimir Putin, from his side, during his most recent press conference, used the occasion to show his negative attitude toward one of America ’s most popular products. Answering a question about Russian drink Kvass, he said, “I don’t know how harmful Coca-Cola is, but a lot of specialists say that it is, especially for children. I don’t want to offend Coca-Cola, but we have our own national non-alcoholic beverages, and we shall help them to win our stores’ shelves.”
He could have chosen another brand as an example of an unhealthy soda, since there is no shortage of different drinks in Russia’s stores. But to no one’s surprise, the Russian President chose for his attack the very symbol of Pindostan.
Read the whole story
· · · · ·
The US as 'Pindostan'
American Thinker Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu… announced plans for long-range bomber flights near U.S. shores in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Blaming us, threatening us, and lecturing us while building his forces and attacking his neighbors ... and more » |
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Prime Minister Christie addresses CELAC Summit in Costa Rica
Bahama Islands Info (blog) I extend sincere greetings to all the Heads of State and Government of Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean here today as we meet together as one to address matters of current concern in a manner that will cause us to unite truly in a ... Speech of the HR/VP Federica Mogherini at the CELAC SummitEU News President Correa Outlines Vision for New Latin AmericateleSUR English 2015, a momentous year for EU-Caribbean relationsTrinidad Guardian Havana Times -Escambray -thebahamasweekly.com all 98 news articles » |
 Dominican Today |
US policy, energy and a new approach
Dominican Today This is a very different approach to US policies of the past which, when set side by side with the other principal planks of US policy towards the region, the US Caribbean Basin Security Initiativeand detente with Cuba, makes clear how far US thinking ... and more » |
 Breitbart News |
Venezuelan Security Head: Chávez Died Months Before Official Announcement
Breitbart News The former head of security for Venezuela's Second in Command has defected to the United States, accused his old boss of running an international drug cartel, and now claims that deceased dictator Hugo Chávez Frías died months before the official ... Ex Venezuelan security chief says Chávez died on December 2012Buenos Aires Herald all 15 news articles » |
