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Call for national dementia database
A senior police officer is calling for a national dementia database to help emergency services assist people who are confused or agitated.
sábado, 2 de novembro de 2013
BHP Billiton scraps plans for new coal port at Abbot Point in Queensland
World news and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com
BHP Billiton scraps plans for new coal port at Abbot Point in Queensland
Company is also abandoning a proposed rail line that would have taken coal from the mines
That Other Big Afghan Crisis, the Growing Army of Addicts
NYT > World
That Other Big Afghan Crisis, the Growing Army of Addicts
A new report underscores a growing crisis in the city of Herat: one in every five households contains at least one drug user.
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Las operaciones inconfesables de la CIA en España
Portada de Internacional | EL PAÍS
Las operaciones inconfesables de la CIA en España
España es una base de operaciones sucias de la CIA hasta ahora sin consecuencias para los espías que operan aquí en secreto, cometiendo delitos y burlando la ley, según aseguran las fuentes consultadas entre la policía y los jueces españoles. Los 13 agentes de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia implicados en el secuestro del ciudadano alemán Jaled el Masri, de origen libanés, pueden respirar tranquilos. Su caso, después de varios años de investigación judicial, está a punto de archivarse.
El fiscal de la Audiencia Nacional Vicente González Mota acaba de solicitar el archivo provisional de la causa al no acreditar la identidad de los agentes secretos. En su escrito afirma que los informes de las fuerzas de seguridad españolas “no aportan ningún dato” sobre quiénes eran los 13 espías que a bordo de un avión de la CIA —en el que permaneció secuestrado El Masri— hicieron escala en enero de 2004 en Palma de Mallorca. Todos exhibieron pasaportes falsos y telefonearon desde el hotel Marriott Son Antem a sus familias a direcciones a tiro de piedra del cuartel general de la CIA en Langley, en el Estado norteamericano de Virginia.
El fiscal había solicitado en 2010 al juez Ismael Moreno el arresto de los 13 espías, pero ahora señala que del resultado de las diligencias practicadas “no puede inferirse con las garantías que exige una resolución judicial de detención la verdadera identidad de los autores de los hechos”. Mota pide el archivo provisional, pero reclama que se ordene a las fuerzas de seguridad que den cuenta al juzgado de la información que llegue a su conocimiento de las personas que utilizaron los pasaportes falsos y acuerde su puesta a disposición de la justicia “en el caso de ser encontrados”.
La petición de Mota es un brindis al sol porque tras años de supuestas pesquisas la Comisaría General de Información contestó así al juzgado: “Las diligencias de verificación de las tripulaciones y habilitación de pilotos han resultado negativas”. La policía no informó al juez sobre qué diligencias han practicado. Fuentes judiciales señalan que el juez Ismael Moreno archivará el caso.
Las operaciones inconfesables de la CIA, con la inestimable ayuda de la Agencia Nacional de Seguridad (NSA) que interviene millones de llamadas telefónicas en Europa, no se limitan a Afganistán, Pakistán, Yemen o Somalia. España es base de operaciones sucias e ilegales en la lucha contra el terrorismo y el narcotráfico.
Agentes de la CIA o la NSA se mueven por todo el territorio con documentación falsa y sin informar al Gobierno desde que, tras los atentados del 11-S, se inició la guerra sucia contra el terrorismo islamista ordenada por la Administración de George W. Bush, según reconocen a EL PAÍS fuentes policiales y judiciales. Alrededor de una docena residen en España con pasaporte diplomático, aunque la mayoría utilizan sus bases aquí para operaciones de tránsito. “Con Obama todo sigue igual. No tienen fronteras. No hay aliados ni amigos que valgan. Hay más casos de los que ustedes conocen. Se tapan para que no lleguen a los juzgados”, reconoce un mando de la lucha antiterrorista.
Los 13 agentes de la CIA que se pasearon por España con total libertad trasladaron a El Masri a una cárcel de Kabul donde sufrió toda clase de torturas. Fue liberado en Albania en mayo de 2004 al comprobar que nada tenía que ver con Al Qaeda. “Mi cliente no puede reconocer el avión ni a la tripulación porque una venda le tapaba los ojos”, dice su abogado.
Las escalas de varios vuelos civiles de la CIA en diferentes aeropuertos españoles coincidieron con el secuestro en Europa de personas inocentes sospechosas de militar en Al Qaeda. El Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) asegura desconocer que estos vuelos civiles los operaba la CIA. ¿Se le escapó al servicio secreto que 13 presuntos agentes extranjeros se paseaban con documentos falsos por aeropuertos españoles?
Los presuntos espías de la CIA que recalaron en Mallorca no comunicaron a ninguna autoridad su presencia en España ni solicitaron autorización para utilizar identidades supuestas. El artículo 282 bis de la Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal ampara la figura del agente encubierto y establece sus obligaciones y límites. Los jueces tienen que dar su consentimiento. El magistrado de la Audiencia Nacional Javier Gómez Bermúdez lo explica así: “En general actúan con autorización aunque estiran el chicle. Les ponemos un policía o un guardia civil para que controle sus actividades, para que fiscalice y evite que hagan nada ilegal. Les explican cómo y hasta dónde pueden actuar aquí”. “La gente de la DEA nos ha dejado con el culo al aire en varias ocasiones y encima nos tratan con cierta displicencia”, se queja el juez Guillermo Ruiz Polanco.
La guerra sucia se libra en el terreno, pero también en las ondas. Y España ocupa un lugar de extraordinario interés para EE UU como puerta de entrada de Europa a África y por la creciente presencia de Al Qaeda en ese continente. Desde los noventa y bajo el paraguas de Echelon (Sistema de Inteligencia de Señales SIGINT) se interceptan millones de llamadas a través de una red de satélites conectados con bases terrestres, ordenadores en red y cables submarinos. La NSA es el principal contribuyente de la red.
¿Dónde están las estaciones de escucha? En la Embajada de EE UU en la calle Serrano de Madrid, en el Consulado de Barcelona y en barcos civiles con bandera USA atracados en varios puertos españoles, según asegura una fuente de la inteligencia española. La base de Rota (Cádiz) cuenta, también, con una estación de escuchas, pero para uso militar. En sus cuarteles acoge a marines de la Flota de Seguridad y Antiterrorismo (FAST, en sus siglas en inglés) que protegen las embajadas de EE UU en todo el mundo. Rota, entre otras misiones, es la base europea de estos hombres con una misión sin fronteras que se resume en su logo: Anytime, Anyplace (en cualquier momento, en cualquier lugar).
Al frente de estas bases secretas con cobertura diplomática trabajan agentes del Servicio Especial de Captación (SCS) que integran agentes de la CIA y la NSA, todos con pasaporte diplomático. Fuentes españolas afirman que el mayor desarrollo de las escuchas y operaciones ilegales en España tuvo lugar durante la etapa en la que Randall Benett, agente especial del FBI experto en Al Qaeda, y William Cachinero, agente secreto, estuvieron al frente de la seguridad de la Embajada en Madrid.
LA airport suspect on murder charge
BBC News - Home
LA airport suspect on murder charge
Prosecutors file murder charges against the man suspected of carrying out Friday's gun attack at Los Angeles Airport, which killed a security agent.
Protest in Russia: an activity only for the brave and foolhardy
World news and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com
Protest in Russia: an activity only for the brave and foolhardy
As anti-corruption protesters look set to join Pussy Riot and Greenpeace activists stuck in cells, Muscovites are growing more fearful
Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in a courthouse nestled amid high-rise apartment blocks in south-west Moscow, nine men are marched into a room in handcuffs and placed in metal cages. They are joined by three others who are also on trial but under house arrest or on bail, two dozen lawyers, several armed policemen with a growling alsatian and an irritable, fatigued judge.
This is the biggest of the "Bolotnaya" trials – court processes against 28 people who were arrested in the aftermath of a rally on Bolotnaya Square on 6 May 2012. It was the day before Vladimir Putin was inaugurated for a new presidential term, and the crowds chanted slogans demanding new elections and a less corrupt government. A year-and- a-half later, the protest movement has been extinguished, though it lingers in the consciousness of Moscow's middle classes, and Putin has embarked on a more socially conservative path to consolidate his support in the heartlands.
The arrests were a warning that Putin would not tolerate the huge protests that preceded his re-election and heralded a crackdown. Among those protesting was charismatic opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was later put on trial in the city of Kirov on embezzlement charges that few found persuasive.
The Bolotnaya arrests were alarming mainly because of their randomness. They were a sign to iPad-toting young Muscovites that protesting was not without consequences. In a way, any of the thousands who protested that day could have ended up in the metal cage. Those on trial are mainly accused of resisting or assaulting police, but although there was isolated violence at the rally there is little to suggest most of those on trial were involved, and police who come to court to testify remember little. At one point on Thursday, one of the defendants asks questions of the policeman on the witness stand, from inside the cage. Vladimir Akimenkov, 26, faces a possible eight-year sentence on charges of throwing a flagpole at a policeman, though the only evidence is oral testimony from one officer. He is losing his sight from a serious eye condition, which is progressing in jail, but the judge refuses to bail him for treatment.
His inquiries on Thursday have little to do with the accusations; instead he asks the police officer on the stand if he has any moral conscience.
"Do you think whatever is good for Gazprom is good for Russia?"
"The question is removed from the record," says the judge.
"Do you follow every single order you are given? If ordered to shoot into a crowd of protesters, would you do so?"
"The question is removed from the record," says the judge.
And so it continues, interminably. The prosecution alone has hundreds of witnesses to call, most of them police. Getting through the first 40 has taken months, partly because there are two dozen lawyers, all asking questions, two-thirds of which are struck off the record. At this pace the case will take two years, says lawyer Sergei Badamshin.
Mikhail Kosenko, another one of those accused, was deemed mentally ill and tried separately. Last month he was confined to indefinite forced psychiatric treatment by a judge, despite never having committed a crime or having violent episodes prior to his arrest. Many of the others are simply sitting in pre-trial detention, for over a year already, with no sign of a trial even starting.
Maria Baronova, 29, is one of the 12 on trial, although she is not kept in jail but is allowed to live at home on the condition she does not leave Moscow. She says the trial – and the lack of interest in it from those who once formed the protest movement – shows that the waves of anti-Putin discontent are over.
"It's finished. We lost. That's it. There is no hope," she says. "You can try to help people get out of jail. You can go back to your jobs and try to forget about it. But the fact remains we lost, and nothing is going to change here."
"The sense that protests are cool and something that is fun to be part of has of course gone," says Maria Lipman, of the Moscow Carnegie Centre. She said the arrest of the Bolotnaya 28 has had a devastating impact on the protest mood.
The memory of the protests still remains, however. In the minds of the urban elite, and in the towers of the Kremlin, there is an understanding that the young, progressive class has deserted Putin, in spirit if not in body. This has led to the third-term Putin promoting a less inclusive political agenda and taking a sharp shift towards social conservatism.
"Putin has abandoned his claim to be the leader of all the Russians; now he is the leader of Putin's Russians," says Lipman. "And there are increasing numbers of people who have become 'bad' and 'unpatriotic' Russians, whether it be liberals, gays or blasphemers."
A new law that criminalises "homosexual propaganda" was passed this summer, while NGOsnon-governmental groups which receive money from abroad must register themselves as "foreign agents". State television whips up hysteria about the nefarious influence of the US state department, and Putin has positioned Russia as the last bastion of traditional values in Europe. The punk band Pussy Riot were thrown into prison for hooliganism, and acts like the Greenpeace protest against Arctic drilling are seen as an assault on Russia's sovereignty.
Despite the crackdown, there have been concessions to Moscow's protest-oriented middle class. Under mayor Sergei Sobyanin, life for professional Muscovites has become more liveable. Parks have been redeveloped, the local equivalent of "Boris bikes" were introduced this year, and pleasant cafes and restaurants are springing up. Nightlife is as vibrant as ever and now caters to a fashion-conscious youth obsessed with western trends. A major repaving programme has turned grimy dead zones into pleasant pedestrianised walkways almost overnight. More and more, Moscow is a nice place to live, not just for the super-rich but for the middle class too.
"The main paradox of living in Moscow today is that you can carve out a very New York or London-like existence here," says Michael Idov, editor of GQ Russia. "If you find these dots on the map and connect them and never stray from these routes, life is very comfortable. As long as you don't interact with the state in any way, shape or form."
What to do with the political aspirations of these young people remains a dilemma. There was outrage when Navalny was tried and sentenced to five years. Next day, when the prosecutor launched an unprecedented appeal for his release on bail, it was clear there had been a phone call from Moscow and that someone wanted him free for Moscow's mayoral elections in September. He gained 27% of the vote and his jail term was amended on appeal to a suspended sentence.
But last week new corruption charges were brought against Navalny and his brother, which could mean 10 years in jail. It seems the debate over whether Navalny is more dangerous in or out of jail is still raging.
"The Kremlin is not a cohesive group of like-minded policy makers," says Lipman. "There is always a debate going on about whether softer or harder approaches are best."
Putin is stuck with the classic dilemma of the soft autocrat. Does he allow a controlled liberalisation, with the possibility that he could lose control of the process, or does he crack down? After all, it was exactly the better-off segment of Muscovites, who had enjoyed increasing salaries and exposure to the west, who formed the core of the protest movement that sprang up so unexpectedly two years ago.
To make sure those demands do not become too loud, the Bolotnaya case rumbles on, with its protagonists trying to engage with the absurdity of proceedings, but being struck down repeatedly by the judge, Natalia Nikishina.
Baronova says that people regularly tell her to flee abroad, but she feels a duty to see through the court case. Nevertheless, the process is so byzantine, and its logic so frustrating, that she feels her grasp of reality slipping away.
"It's like Kafka's Castle," she says. "Engaging with the Castle is pointless. Trying to talk to the Castle is pointless. All it will do is send you mad. The whole process is designed to send you completely insane. That's far scarier than a possible prison sentence."
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Tabloid Hacked Phone of Prince Harry’s Secretary, Jury Is Told
NYT > World
Tabloid Hacked Phone of Prince Harry’s Secretary, Jury Is Told
A message seeking help on a term paper led to an article in The News of the World, with some details left out, the prosecution said.
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In midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue is raised
World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post
In midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue is raised
BEIRUT — In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country’s civil war.
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Pakistani officials rebuke U.S. for drone strike
World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post
Pakistani officials rebuke U.S. for drone strike
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The U.S. drone strike that killed the head of the Pakistani Taliban drew expressions of outrage from political officials here Saturday, capped by a public rebuke of the Obama administration.
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