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http://kononozyzaope.blogspot.com

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1st det 10ruls

2008-05-23T00:14:00.001-07:00

Men often complain that women are mysterious, complicated creatures who are difficult to please. In truth, most women are quite easily pleased from a date one once you know how to make them feel desired, safe, and inspired. These 10 tips will ensure you put your best foot where it belongs... forward!

#1: A first date should be light, fun and romantic. A real first date is when you've both decided that you'd like to get together for more than a quick beverage. The female definition of a first date is this: You pick her up and make reservations. Any deviance from this time-tested formula is usually a red flag, and not what most females consider a proper first date.

Romantic Rule: Starbucks doesn't count!

#2: A long lead time.

Considerate and smart men make plans well in advance.

Considerate and smart men make plans well in advance. They know that women like to be treated like they're too in demand to have huge holes in their social calendars, (even if you have intel that would suggest otherwise!) You'll create romantic tension by giving her several days to look forward to seeing you. Besides, this creates the secret ingredient of seductive success... anticipation.

Romantic Rule: Create romance by planning in advance for it.

#3: Actions speak louder than words. Women know that men invest in the things that they value with whatever resources they have at their disposal, be it cash, creativity, energy, or enthusiasm. If you make plans that are insultingly casual, it's a clear sign that you're withholding your approval from her. Women will take this lackluster performance seriously, and often shoo you away without further ado. You don't have to spend big bucks, but if you like her, why not come up with something that will delight her?

Romantic Rule: The plans you make for her, tell her the plans that you have for her!

#4: A confirming call. Being vague about your plans will only cause most women needlessly anxiety. If you men had any idea about the pre-date regime that women go through to get ready for a high priority date, you'd all be much more on top of this one. When you call to confirm your first date late, she'll be irritated and stressed-out even if she doesn't show it.

Romantic Rule: Having good manners will make her feel like you're a great bet, and not a deranged stranger.

#5: A lovebird lands on her doorstop at the appointed time. It's bad form for a man to keep a woman waiting in general, but especially so on a first date. This often puts women into a state of "dressing disorder." When men are late, most women will just keep changing outfits until the doorbell rings and then be forced to greet you mid-outfit. She'll then blame this on you, the tardy man, who should've arrived on time to avert this crisis!

Romantic Rule: If you'll be delayed longer than 10 minutes, inform her of your new ETA as soon as you can. Most women l appreciate extra time to fluff-up before you ring their bell.

#6: Signal your attraction and approval immediately.

Men earn a woman's affection by consistent care and positive attention.

Men earn a woman's affection by consistent care and positive attention. On a first date, and every date, women will look for little clues that signal your desire. No matter how hot or how homely, she'll want to know that you find her fetching if she's agreed to spend quality time with you. To do this, quickly toss her a compliment. Try the old standby "You look great" or the new metrosexual classic, "Love your shoes" immediately upon your arrival. You'll have set a warm and positive tone and scored an easy point.

Romantic Rule: Quickly inspire romance and put her at ease by paying her a compliment.

#7: Woman are suckers for a man with a plan. Women love men who have the ability to care for them and about them. It's always a good sign when a man has made reservations because it's proof that you're not winging it. When you take control, it's a signal that she can relax and enjoy herself. The typical woman will also be wary of the man who asks in a whiny voice what she'd like to do.

Romantic Rule: Women assume that men who don't make reservations for them, have reservations about them!

#8: Pick up the check. If you're wondering who should pick up the first check. Please consider that women spend wads of money on first dates: there's the bikini waxing (painful), manicures, blow drys (time-consuming), lingerie (expensive), and Pilates (ridiculously over-priced). It's an investment for women to just show up.

Romantic Rule: The very least you can do is to pick her up and feed her. She's exhausted!

#9: Be a class act. If the date was a dud, don't weenie out and say "I'll call you." Just cut her loose by giving her a quick peck on the cheek and say, "Thanks for coming out tonight. It was great meeting you." That'll signal it's a wrap.

#10: Seal the deal. But if she knocked your socks off, walk her to her door, look her in the eyes, say "I had an amazing time tonight" and move in for the perfect nightcap... a goodnight kiss. If she turns her cheek, don't despair! She may not be ready for a liplock just yet. Tell her you want to see her again and set up your next date right then and there.

Doctor: To be or Not to be

2008-05-05T17:03:00.001-07:00

No one ever said being a doctor was easy. School and training go on seemingly forever; once graduation arrives, doctors work long hours and are faced with life-and-death decisions daily.

But there were rewards. For decades, doctors earned hefty paychecks, had autonomy and respect. But those benefits are fading, and as a result, so is the number of doctors. Within the next 15 years, the United States will experience a shortage of between 90,000 to 200,000 physicians, according to the recently published Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn Off the Lights: A Look at America's Looming Doctor Shortage.

The American Medical Association recognizes there are shortages in certain geographic areas and in certain specialties. Part of that is due to the aging population and a stagnant number of medical-school applicants.

But there are other significant reasons. They include the increasing costs of medical malpractice coverage, higher practice costs, lower insurance reimbursement rates and insurance-company restrictions resulting in less autonomy over how patients are cared for.

In Pictures: Reasons Not To Be A Doctor

This is not just a question of career choice--consumers will be affected greatly by this shortage. If you think there's a long wait for an appointment now, it could be nothing compared with 15 years down the road. The three co-authors of Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn Off the Lights, all from the physician-staffing firm Merritt, Hawkins and Associates, say the wait will jump to three to four months or more to see a doctor for a non-emergency, and a routine doctor's visit will cost two to three times what it does now--whether you are insured or not, they say.

Insurance has become a loaded word. One-third of the country is insured by Medicare, and over the next nine years, the government program plans to cut payments to physicians by about 40%, while practice costs are projected to increase 20%, according to the American Medical Association. The first of those cuts will take place in July, when the reimbursement rate to doctors will drop by 10.6%. The next cut, of 5%, will occur in January.

It's expected to have a trickle-down effect. "If Medicare makes a change to their reimbursement, other insurance companies follow their lead, since Medicare drives the marketplace," says Lawrence Smarr, president of the Physician Insurers Association of America, a trade association for medical malpractice insurance companies.

But as costs continue to rise, many doctors say they need to see more patients in order to maintain their salaries and cover basic practice costs.

Are you a practicing physician? What's your experience of the workplace today? Would you encourage your children to follow in your footsteps? Let us know in the comments section below.

"We used to have a lot of respect for doctors, but now they seem like easy targets," says Phillip Miller, an author of Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn off the Lights. "There's a perception among patients that, 'I went to a doctor's appointment and he was 45 minutes late. He's probably on the golf course or driving his Mercedes.' The truth is, they're probably busy with patients."

The Association of American Medical Colleges projects that America needs a 30% annual increase in medical-school enrollment in order to keep up with need for doctors. In 2012, compared with 2002, medical-school enrollment will be up 21%.

But for potential physicians, there is a future of looming medical-school debt, which is higher than ever. Students who graduate from a public medical school have a median debt of $100,000; private-school students graduate with a median debt of $135,000, according to a 2003 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Compare that with 1984, when median debt for public-school graduates was $22,000 and private-school students was $27,000.

Monthly payment on a debt of $150,000 at the end of residency at an interest rate of 2.8% is $1,761, according to the study.

The amount of time it takes to pay off debt depends on the specialty. The average physician's net income, adjusted for inflation, declined 7% between 1995 and 2003, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. In order to enter the most lucrative specialties, like radiology, ophthalmology, anesthesiology and dermatology, doctors must continue with their training into their 30s. That means they can't start chipping away at their debt--let alone make money--until a time by which their counterparts in law or business are usually prospering.

Meanwhile, getting sued by a patient is a major concern. Of course, doctors who make fatal mistakes and who are unqualified should be held responsible. But there's evidence that the bulk of lawsuits brought are frivolous. Of all malpractice lawsuits brought to jury trial in 2004, the defendant won 91% of the time. Only 6% of all lawsuits go to trial; those that aren't thrown out are settled. Only 27% of all claims made against doctors result in money awarded to the plaintiff, according to Smarr, president of the trade association for medical malpractice companies.

Regardless, doctors need to defend themselves against the possibility of damages--and that's an extremely expensive proposition. It takes about four-and-a-half years from the start of a lawsuit to the end, and the average cost to the defense in legal fees was $94,284 in 2004, according to the American Medical Association.

Many states are trying to establish laws to protect doctors from baseless suits. Texas went from the state with the most lawsuits filed to the only state that wrote tort reform into its constitution after its citizens voted it into law. Since tort reform was enacted in 2004, the yearly premium doctors pay in Texas for malpractice insurance has dropped by 40%. Now, the most plaintiffs can recoup for emotional damages is $250,000 from doctors and $500,000 from hospitals. Most interestingly, the number of claims filed against doctors has dropped by about half.

"The lawyers know the huge damages they were [previously] able to get are [now] limited," says Smarr.

Miami-Dade County, in South Florida, is now the most precarious place for doctors to practice when it comes to lawsuits. In 2007, OB/GYNs paid on average $275,466 annually for malpractice insurance. That number is a slight drop from 2006, when the average cost was $299,000, according to Mike Matray, editor of the newsletter Medical Liability Monitor.

Doctors have to practice defensive medicine, and their insurance rates are so high," says Matray. "But rates are leveling off and coming down right now. However, if history repeats itself, they will go up in a few years. A lot of doctors right now are not encouraging their kids to be doctors."

To support that assertion, a 2007 survey by Merritt, Hawkins indicated that 57% of 1,175 doctors questioned would not recommend the field to their children.

The solutions are widespread. Nine new medical schools are under development or discussion, according to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools. The AAMC estimates that almost 800 first-year students will attend these new schools in the academic year 2012-2013, based on future enrollment figures.

Hospitals and medical practices are trying to entice doctors by addressing the work-life balance issue. Many hospitals now use "hospitalists," physicians that do shift work in order to relieve the physician shortage in many hospitals and practices. They chose only to work in hospitals and don't have outside practices. For instance, if a physician needs to admit a patient to the hospital, that patient might be seen by their primary doctor's hospitalist so the physician can continue to see scheduled patients. Laborists serve the same function in the OB/GYN field.

"That allows physicians to free up some of their time and makes them more efficient in their clinics," says Cindy Bagwell, vice president of professional staffing at Geisinger Medical Center in Dannville, Pa., a practice that uses hospitalists and laborists frequently.

On the flip side, many hospitalists and laborists enjoy knowing they have a set schedule and will never be woken up in the middle of the night by an emergency at the hospital. Many of these changes have to do with doctors wanting more free time and female physicians' desire to work and raise a family.

"It's hard to argue with people wanting to take great care of their children, so we try to make it work," says Bagwell. "As long as we can keep patient care at the forefront, we're willing to try things."

LaSalle Bank brand to Oblivion as BofA takes over

2008-05-04T22:13:00.001-07:00

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Bank of America Corp. will officially mark its $21 billion purchase of Chicago's LaSalle Bank Corp. on Monday, taking down LaSalle's green and yellow colors for the blue and red of Bank of America.

"Those red signs will be very evident in Chicago," said Liam McGee, Bank of America's president of global consumer and small business banking, in an interview with The Associated Press. "When they walk into a former LaSalle banking center, it will look and feel like a Bank of America banking center."

The nation's second largest bank by assets bought LaSalle Bank last year, picking up the unit of ABN Amro Holding Co. as Europe's biggest banks fought over the rest of the Dutch company. The deal filled a key gap in the Charlotte-based bank's national coverage map, adding thousands of ATMs and hundreds of branch offices in Chicago and Michigan.

While Bank of America and LaSalle customers have had access more than 18,500 ATMs to make cash withdrawals with no fees since October, McGee said customers as of Monday will have greater access to most of the bank's products and services in its banking centers.

A complete system conversion will occur later this year, he said.

In the coming weeks, LaSalle's roughly 1.5 million customers will receive new Bank of America-branded debit and ATM cards, and will begin to see account statements displaying the Bank of America name. To help ease the transition, existing customer account numbers and information will remain the same.

McGee said Bank of America still plans to lay off about 2,500 employees in Illinois over the next year. "There were redundancies and overlap between the two companies," he said. After the layoffs, Bank of America will have about 8,000 Illinois employees.

Best Foreign Cuisine book in the Gourmand World Award in the US "Taste of Nepal"

2008-04-27T03:27:00.001-07:00

When Jyoti Pathak (pictured, right) went to live in the United States 40 years ago, she did her household chores, spending a lot of time in the kitchen trying to make Nepali meals for her doctor husband and three children.

There were not too many Indian spice shops in the remote corner of New York state where they lived, and Jyoti had to rely on friends and family bringing masala, gundruk, maseura and tama from Nepal.

There were some Indian cook books in the bookshops, but nothing about Nepali cuisine. That is when the idea to write a Nepali cookbook first came to her.

Today, nearly four decades later, Jyoti has been awarded the Best Foreign Cuisine book in the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in the US for her book, A Taste of Nepal. Jyoti was in London last week to receive another nomination for her book to be declared the best foreign cuisine book internationally.

There have been quite a few Nepali cookbooks that have come out in the past 15 years. And, marching with these more inclusive times, there are books now on Newari, Sherpa and even Thakali cuisine. Jyoti's book weaves in Nepal's history and culture and how the food here has been influenced by Tibetan and Indian culinary traditions.

A Taste of Nepal
Hippocrene Books, 2007
Hardcover 470 pages
ISBN – 10: 078181121X

'Nepali food is characterised by its simplicity, lightness and healthfulness,' she writes, 'a typical meal uses the freshest ingredients, minimal fat and an artful combination of herbs and spices.'

Observing the mountains of rice that people eat on the food stalls along Nepal's highways, however, one could argue that it is the sheer volume of food ingested that makes Nepali diet unhealthy. Nepalis may have a low-fat diet, but the middle class ODs on carbs and does very little exercise to burn it off.

Jyoti's recipes include the simple mutton curry, and she uses the elaborate and exotic sounding Dahi Haleko Boka-Khasiko Masu which is guaranteed to make the diaspora Nepali's mouth water just hearing about it. Then there are the momos and raw marinated water buffalo and even the Basi Bhat Bhutuwa, the ingenious Nepali way to re-use leftover rice for an appetising snack.

A Taste of Nepal doesn't leave out the ingredients and recipes that make Nepali food different from Indian or Tibetan: Alu Tama, Gundruk Bhatmas ko Jhol, Maseura Alu, Jimbu, Lapsi ko Achar, Kalo Dal. Nepalis abroad may find it difficult to find these ingredients, but with 15 percent of Nepalis now living outside Nepal it is only a question of time before stores spring up stocking up on jimbu and
lapsi too.

Jyoti held long-range consultations with her family back home in Nepal and researched the 350 recipes thoroughly. "I used to cook with a pinch of this and a dash of that, but in preparing the book I actually had to go out and measure everything," she says.

Because it is primarily written for the western audience, the book has made it easy by including the masalas usually found in the ethnic food section of any US or European supermarket.

bon Vivant Nepamerican

2008-04-27T03:21:00.001-07:00

The first time I came to Nepal I was kind of intimidated by the food. Placed in front of me was a plate piled so high with rice that I feared having to reject half of it, an act which many have told me was one of the worst insults a person can commit in this country. Having managed to eat it all somehow, I had to fast for a day afterwards.

A friend in Kathmandu doesn't eat rice because she is allergic to it. I am impressed she is able to survive in Nepal. The only places where you can do this are big cities, or ironically, the poorest villages on the Mahabharat Lekh and remotest mountain districts, where people eat dhido or potatoes.

It's a shame that people look down on alternative staples like makai, alu and kodo, as poor man's food. Most of them are actually more nutritious than polished rice. Many rural Nepalis know this too, but those without khet would still rather sell cash crops and buy rice than eat makai day in day out, even though they remember that they used to be stronger on a maize diet. I suppose rice is more prestigious than maize and the rest, and if you're eating the same every day, it tastes more interesting.

Glamor of Nepali cuisine is known only to select few. Some people regard it as the lavish cousin of Indian food, people get to know this once they experience the subtleties of Nepali gastronomy.

The most delicious Nepali foods are really hard to explain to the uninitiated. How do you explain what gundruk is like? By describing the preparation? "Well, it's kind of half-fermented dried spinach." By describing the taste? I don't think there are words in English to describe the bouquet of gundruk ko jhol. Many foreigners are initially suspicious of gundruk, but once they have tried it lose their hearts to it.

The same can be said for tama. The first time I had it I was somewhat perturbed to find out I was eating bamboo. But now just thinking about alu tama with golbheda ko achar makes my mouth water.

There is also something lost in translation when they tell you sekuwa is "burnt meat". Only those who have tried it (preferably with jad or tongba, which I am saving for another column), know that pork sekuwa at the Airport Sekuwa Pasal can be one of the most delicious dishes in the world. Who cares about the tapeworms?

Part of the reason for Nepali food's mysterious profile outside of Nepal is translation problems. I have been served things in Nepal for which there is no word in English, or probably any other language.

Some of these I have only tasted in one or two households. Although the holy trinity of dal, bhat and tarkari with spicy pickles holds sway in most of the country, its preparation varies between districts, villages and even from house to house.

Many of the real Nepali delicacies are home recipes, sometimes made from ingredients which are specific to that area and unknown elsewhere. I have had foods in Panchthar which people had not heard of even in Ilam.

Many – not all – 'Nepali' restaurants in England serve Indian food, may be to attract a bigger crowd. A token hat is dipped to Nepalipan by including momos in the menu. But then again most Indian restaurants in New York and London don't serve real Indian food either. They conform to American & British expectations and tastes, which are used to canonical vindaloo, madras and tikka masala.

Hopefully with time and the spread of the diaspora, the profile of Nepali cuisine will rise internationally. Sadly, many of the local ingredients which make the food special in each place are not available outside the country (some are not even available in Kathmandu).

I just hope Nepali food doesn't sell out, and remains true to its spicy, salty, sour, and other tastes that I can't even name. The world will eventually understand the genius. Let them come.

New Gold Rush

2008-04-27T02:17:00.001-07:00

Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics -- many of which are enjoying near-record prices.

It's called "urban mining," scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket.

The materials recovered are reused in new electronics parts and the gold and other precious metals are melted down and sold as ingots to jewelers and investors as well as back to manufacturers who use gold in the circuit boards of mobile phones because gold conducts electricity even better than copper.

"It can be precious or minor metals, we want to recycle whatever we can," said Tadahiko Sekigawa, president of Eco-System Recycling Co which is owned by Dowa Holdings Co Ltd.

A tonne of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of gold on average, whereas a tonne of discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams (5.3 ounce) or more, according to a study by Yokohama Metal Co Ltd, another recycling firm.

The same volume of discarded mobile phones also contains around 100 kg (220 lb) of copper and 3 kg (6.6 lb) of silver, among other metals.

Recycling has gained in importance as metals prices hit record highs. Gold is trading at around $890 an ounce, after hitting a historic high of $1,030.80 in March.

Copper and tin are also around record highs and silver prices are well above long term averages.

RECYCLING METALS

Recycling electronics makes sense for Japan which has few natural resources to feed its billion dollar electronics industry but does have tens of millions of old cell phones and other obsolete consumer electronic gadgets thrown away every year.

"To some it's just a mountain of garbage, but for others it's a gold mine," said Nozomu Yamanaka, manager of the Eco-Systems recycling plant where mounds of discarded cell phones and other electronics gadgets are taken apart for their metal value.

At the factory in Honjo, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Tokyo, 34-year-old Susumu Arai harvests some of that bounty.

A ribbon of molten gold flows into a mould where it sizzles and spits fire for a few minutes before solidifying into a dull yellow slab, on its way to becoming a 3 kg (6.6 lb) gold bar, worth around $90,000 at current prices.

Wearing plastic goggles to protect his eyes while he works, Arai said he was awestruck when he started his job two years ago.

"Now I find it fun being able to recover not just gold, but all sorts of metals," he said.

The scrap electronics and other industrial waste is first sorted and dismantled by hand. It is then immersed in chemicals to dissolve unwanted materials and the remaining metal is refined.

Eco-System, established 20 years ago near Tokyo, typically produces about 200-300 kg (440-660 lb) of gold bars a month with a 99.99 percent purity, worth about $5.9 million to $8.8 million.

That's about the same output as a small gold mine.

Eco-System also recovers metals from old memory chips, cables and even black ink which contain silver and palladium.

RECYCLING CELL PHONES

But despite growing interest in the environment and recycling, the industry struggles to get enough old mobile phones to feed its recycling plants.

Japan's 128 million population uses their cell phones for an average of two years and eight months.

That's a lot of cell phone phones discarded every year, yet only 10-20 percent are recycled as people often opt to store them in their cupboards due to concerns about the personal data on their phones, said Yoshinori Yajima, a director at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Just 558 tonnes of old phones were collected for recycling in the year to March 2007, down a third from three years earlier, industry figures show.

As metals prices rise, the Japanese industry faces growing competition for scrap, which is pushing up prices.

"We are seeing more competition from Chinese firms, and naturally the goods go where the money is," Dowa's Takashi Morise said.

In response, Japanese firms are importing used circuit boards from Singapore and Indonesia, as they also contain valuable minor metals that Japan is particularly eager to recover.

These minor metals such as indium, a vital component in the production of flat panel televisions and computer screens, antimony and bismuth are indispensable for producing many high-tech products.

However, they are often not easy to acquire as China has tightened export controls, making it harder for Japanese manufacturers to buy these metals.

That's where the "urban miners" step in.

"Our wish is to be able to help Japanese manufacturers that need these metals," Eco-System President Sekigawa said.

Solution to Dinner-time Embarrasment

2008-04-24T21:09:00.001-07:00

How to Survive the 5 Most Embarrassing Dinner Date Mishaps

Dining mishaps come in all forms. And no, we're not talking about using the wrong fork for your salad! Spills, slip-ups, unsightly smears, these can turn a delightful dinner into a bit of a nightmare. Here's a guide to make the best of some messy situations...

The Spray Chatting while in the midst of chewing a bite is never desirable, although sometimes it's unavoidable. If you accidentally spit a bit of "collateral" on your company, it can be downright mortifying! Take a napkin and playfully wipe them off. A laugh and a shrug can do wonders! If you get lucky and they don't happen to notice that spot of food that landed on their sleeve, reach over and brush it off by touching their arm to emphasize something you're saying -- they'll never know.
The Whole Tooth Poppy seeds, fresh ground pepper, and shredded lettuce are top threats to your dignity. There's nothing like enjoying a delicious meal and leisurely conversation only to discover you've had a ribbon of green stuck around your tooth for the last hour. If your date points it out, laugh it off and graciously excuse yourself to remove it. Do not try to pick it out at the table! If you discover it on your own by way of a trip to the restroom, let it slide or make a light joke of it when you return to the table (depending on whom you're dining with).
The Spaz You pick up your fork to take a bite of tomato basil linguini and then SPLAT, it's all over your lap. Whether it's pasta sauce or iced tea, there's nothing slick about spilling food on yourself or the table, but you can handle the aftermath with grace. Just smile and say "whoops," then gently wipe yourself off with a napkin. If the spill calls for a more hardcore anecdote, excuse yourself to the bathroom to wipe it away with soap and water. It's better than feverishly scrubbing at the table.
The Drop Out If you drop a utensil on the floor, flag the waiter and politely ask for a replacement. He or she will generally retrieve the fallen item, so you don't end up diving under the table. Handle it as a non-event and move on with your meal. If you're at someone's home, subtly retrieve the item and go to the kitchen to rinse it off.
The Food Face Even for the most cautious diners, certain foods are always a bit messy -- take hot-and-cheesy pizza, sauce-laden barbecued chicken, and double-decker burgers for instance. If a speck ends up on your cheek, no worries. Delicately wipe it off. If you aren't aware of it, and your companion points it out, wipe it away with a good-natured laugh and a "thank you!!" When your dinner date is the one with a little stray sauce on his or her face, a simple "you've-got-a-little-yummy-right-here" will let them know in an amusing embarrassment-free way.

Sanskrit for Computer

2008-04-22T08:34:00.001-07:00

Computational linguistics

There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a metalanguage for knowledge representation in e.g. machine translation, and other areas of natural language processing because of its relatively high regular structure.^[27] This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized, prescriptivist form abstracted from the much more complex and richer Vedic Sanskrit. This leveling of the grammar of Classical Sanskrit began during the Brahmana phase, and had not yet completed by the time of Panini, when the language had fallen out of popular use.

The Sanskrit language

2008-04-22T08:30:00.001-07:00

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

Brain of Maoist Guerrilla in Nepal Speaks

2008-04-14T17:22:00.001-07:00

INTERVIEW WITH BABURAM BHATTARAI

By Prateek Pradhan, Ghanashyam Ojha and Puran P Bista

'King should leave palace right after CA's first sitting'

Maoist ideologue Dr Baburam Bhattarai has emerged as the real leader of this country after the Constituent Assembly (CA) polls. He defeated his Nepali Congress opponent Chandraprakash Neupane with a huge margin from Gorkha-2. He says the CPN (Maoist) will not dare to deviate from its political commitments nor will it ever betray the people. He thinks the Maoists have now taken upon their shoulders a greater responsibility, that of restructuring the country and steering it onto the track of economic prosperity.

Dr Bhattarai, a former student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, is not surprised by the results of the CA election. He argues that the CPN (Maoist) has changed the country's ground realities. Dr Bhattarai spoke with Prateek Pradhan, Ghanashyam Ojha and Puran P Bista of The Kathmandu Post on how the CPN (Maoist) would proceed with its economic and political agenda.

Excerpts: Q: Your party appears to have emerged as the largest one. How would you proceed with your political agenda?

Dr Baburam Bhattarai: We had always pushed for the CA election, which was finally held last week. During the interim period, the Seven-Party Alliance government had already made certain political commitments. One of them was that we would reach a political consensus to form the government. All the political parties that have participated in the CA polls will join the government. Now, the question is who will head it. Obviously, the largest political party will lead the new government. So, naturally, the CPN (Maoist) has to head the coalition government.

Q: Who will head the CPN (Maoist)? Could you name the captain of your party?

Dr Bhattarai: I can't tell you right now. We have to discuss and decide who should be the leader. We have to prepare a draft of the new political system. We have to decide the fate of the monarchy. And only then we can think of who will head the CPN (Maoist). Our intention is to establish a presidential system. But we can't be sure as we have to discuss the matter with other political forces too. We must reach a political consensus because the constitution would need to be amended to set up a presidential system. Unless we have a political consensus, we can't amend the constitution. So, we can't simply go for an executive president. In case of political differences, we may have to follow the present form of governance.

Q: How would the CPN (Maoist), being the largest political force, approach other political parties in order to form the government, abolish monarchy and declare Nepal a republic?

Dr Bhattarai: First, we are going to hold discussions with the major political parties. We would need to seek their opinion and views before forming the government. We would have to work under the Interim Constitution for the time being which would require a political consensus. We shall move forward on this basis. The first sitting of the CA will declare this country a federal republic. For that, we have to develop a political consensus. After that the question would be forming the new government which will be done again on the basis of political consensus. And then we will proceed with the drafting of the new constitution of Nepal.

Besides these issues, there are other political commitments such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, rehabilitation of displaced persons and revamping and integration of the security forces. I think there will be several challenges and questions. We have to review four things immediately – security, political structure, the economy and international relation. Such issues require a national consensus.

Q: How do you assess the election results? Did you expect that you would make such a strong showing?

Dr Bhattarai: The people were looking for total change. We advanced the political agenda for total change during the decade-long people's war. We have people from different castes, ethnicities, genders and people from different regions. The main agenda of the people's war was to restructure the state. It took 10 years of the people's war to establish our political agenda. The people felt that the country's socio-political and economic structure needed a complete overhaul. So we couldn't look at things through our old lenses. The media and the elite missed the picture. As a result, the CA results surprised many. The ground realities had changed and they helped us to emerge as the largest party.

Q: Do you think that the people's support that you have garnered is more than what you expected?

Dr Bhattarai: We had thought that we would come out as the largest party, and that we might, if we reached a consensus, form the next government. But the manner in which we have clinched victory in the CA polls makes us feel that we have achieved more than what we expected to.

Nevertheless, we did think that the results would be in our favor. I have observed how people's waves have swept parliamentary elections in India. In 1977, Indira Gandhi was defeated. Similarly, sympathy votes after her tragic death helped Rajiv Gandhi to sweep the 1985 parliamentary elections. I had seen such mass hysteria earlier. I personally visited 22 districts and assessed the situation three weeks before the CA polls. I could foresee a massive wave rising in our support. Unfortunately, the media saw things the opposite way. And we also could not convince the media until the CA results showed that the people had voted for us.

Q: You told a local FM station this morning that you have now been burdened by greater responsibilities. What do you mean by that?

Dr Bhattarai: I take it as a great responsibility because we have to restructure the 250-year-old feudal system. You cannot expect it to happen overnight. Secondly, while restructuring the state, we have to take into account different aspects such as poverty, illiteracy, health and others. We don't have enough resources and skill to reorganize the country in a way we want to. It may take at least 10-15 years to do it. There are mounting challenges ahead. Q: How can you restructure the state and achieve economic growth in a short span of time?

Dr Bhattarai: What we need right now is political stability. We cannot think of rapid economic growth sans political stability. Now the CA results have given some hope for political stability. Secondly, there must be a strong leadership. Above all, we have yet to start restructuring the state. So, how can we think of the economy? The 30-year-long panchayat system promised us that it would deliver the people's needs, but it could not do so as it was a political system imposed by the royal regime to serve its own interests.

The post-1990 parliamentary system created a sort of anarchy. It neither had any clear political vision nor could it deliver anything. During this interim period, it would be difficult to think of economic prosperity. We can only think of economic growth in the post-CA period. This mandate has just opened the door to a future Nepal. Now the job is to garner the support of all the political parties and maintain political stability. This would be the beginning.

Second, the resources we have include land, water, jungle, herbs and people. I do not think that we run short of resources, but we need external support for technology and skills. We need foreign investments. I am sure if we really work together, we can achieve rapid economic growth in a short span of time.

Q: China has adopted a liberal economic policy. It has achieved remarkable economic growth in the past 30 years. To what extent do you think we can follow China's model?

Dr Bhattarai: China eliminated the feudal system during Mao's regime. It established a solid foundation for economic growth. We could have thought of making rapid economic progress had the country been liberated from the age-old feudal system. When you inject new technology after the foundation for economic growth has been established, you can achieve such development. We don't have such a foundation now. Once we restructure the state and involve the private sector, it will be possible to achieve rapid economic growth. We would implement a transitional economic policy during such an interim period which involves public and private partnership.

Q: Currently we are seeing a pattern of capital flight. How are you going to halt this?

Dr Bhattarai: We can't think of developing this country in the absence of domestic and foreign investments. Technological inputs are of equal importance. So, we will follow the policy of attracting domestic and foreign investments. For that to happen, we have to put an end to political instability. From our side, we have to provide security to investors and create a conducive environment for domestic and foreign financiers. And I also think that we will be able to resolve the differences between labor and management. Unless we resolve such issues, we cannot create a better investment atmosphere. In a nutshell, we recognize the legitimacy of management and the participation of labor in management.

Secondly, we have to identify areas for investment and create the necessary infrastructure. We have to focus on productive sectors. We don't want to encourage assembly industries. Business activities should raise productivity and generate employment.

Q: You mean the state's involvement in economic activities will increase from now on?

Dr Bhattarai: The state will play the role of facilitator. The state cannot intervene in business activities. It will encourage investors to raise productivity and generate employment opportunities.

Q: We have seen – especially after the restoration of democracy in 1990 – how political parties rewarded their cadres with jobs in the bureaucracy and other social sectors. How are you planning to restructure the bureaucracy and other sectors?

Dr Bhattarai: We have to, at all costs, restructure the bureaucracy and the judiciary as they have always been tools of the monarchy. But we have to follow certain norms. So let us leave it open. But we have to think of revamping the security forces as integrating the People's Liberation Army and the Nepal Army is part of the peace process. We can think of starting the restructuring process only after the monarchy has been removed. But it will be open to discussion. We want to reform the bureaucracy and other sectors in a democratic manner.

Q: You once said that Nepal did not need a huge security force. But if you integrate the Maoist combatants and the army, you are going to have a huge security force. Do you think Nepal needs such a large army?

Dr Bhattarai: The strength of the security forces after the two are combined would be roughly over 100,000. Going by the country's population, such a number may appear necessary. But we have to reduce the size of the army in the long term. I think that instead of having such a huge number of army, we could go for trained militias who would defend the country at times of war. I think it would be useful to train such a force. We should mobilize them during emergencies.

Q: The UML fared badly in the CA polls. Do you foresee a single communist party in the near future?

Dr Bhattarai: Until recently, there were three political forces – royalists, social democrats (who represent the bourgeoisie) and leftists. I think there will be only two forces in the future – the Nepali Congress, which represents the rich, and the left, which represents the poor. The NC has its own political stand. It's not going to lose its identity as it has a clear vision and policy.

But the CPN-UML does not have any political position. It neither represents the rich nor the masses. It is a eunuch though it continues to be identified as a communist party. It has lost its identity. It can't stand any longer. Now the CPN (Maoist) has established itself as a communist party. We welcome committed communist cadres of the CPN-UML to our party.

Q: How long will it take to draft the new constitution?

Dr Bhattarai: It will take roughly two years. But how we proceed will depend on other political forces as well. We must finish the new constitution as early as possible so that we can focus on the economy.

Q: Some still argue that the Maoists may retain the monarchy in a ceremonial form. What do you think?

Dr Bhattarai: What surprises us is why people think that we will retain the monarchy when it has ceased to exist. There is no question of retaining the monarchy.

We did approach some nationalist royalists to join us. That does not mean we are going to keep the monarchy. It is not possible to save it in any form. It has ceased to exist in our minds.

Q: When will the king move out of Narayanhiti Palace?

Dr Bhattarai: The king has to quit Narayanhiti Palace immediately after we declare Nepal a republic. This is the understanding of the Seven-Party Alliance. He should leave the palace immediately after the first sitting of the CA.

Impending Global Hunger Crisis

2008-04-14T17:01:00.001-07:00

The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War. Since then, the spectacle of hunger sparking revolutionary violence has been the stuff of Broadway musicals rather than the real world of politics. And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world. Ironically, it may be the very success of capitalism in transforming regions previously restrained by various forms of socialism that has helped create the new crisis.

Haiti is in flames as food riots have turned into a violent challenge to the vulnerable government; Egypt's authoritarian regime faces a mounting political threat over its inability to maintain a steady supply of heavily subsidized bread to its impoverished citizens; Cote D'Ivoire, Cameroon, Mozambique, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Indonesia are among the countries that have recently seen violent food riots or demonstrations. World Bank president Robert Zoellick noted last week that world food prices had risen 80% over the past three years, and warned that at least 33 countries face social unrest as a result.

The sociology of the food riot is pretty straightforward: The usually impoverished majority of citizens may acquiesce to the rule of detested corrupt and repressive regimes when they are preoccupied with the daily struggle to feed their children and themselves, but when circumstances render it impossible to feed their hungry children, normally passive citizens can very quickly become militants with nothing to lose. That's especially true when the source of their hunger is not the absence of food supplies but their inability to afford to buy the available food supplies. And that's precisely what we're seeing in the current wave of global food-price inflation. As Josette Sheeran of the U.N. World Food Program put it last month, "We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."

When all that stands between hungry people and a warehouse full of rice and beans is a couple of padlocks and a riot policeman (who may be the neighbor of those who're trying to get past him, and whose own family may be hungry too), the invisible barricade of private-property laws can be easily ignored. Doing whatever it takes to feed oneself and a hungry child, after all, is a primal human instinct. So, with prices of basic foods skyrocketing to the point that even the global aid agencies - whose function is to provide emergency food supplies to those in need - are unable, for financial reasons, to sustain their current commitments to the growing army of the hungry, brittle regimes around the world have plenty of reason for anxiety.

The hunger has historically been an instigator of revolutions and civil wars, it is not a sufficient condition for such violence. For a mass outpouring of rage spurred by hunger to translate into a credible challenge to an established order requires an organized political leadership ready to harness that anger against the state. It may not be all that surprising, then, that Haiti has been one of the major flashpoints of the new wave of hunger-generated political crises; the outpouring of rage there has been channeled into preexisting furrows of political discontent. And that's why there may be greater reason for concern in Egypt, where the bread crisis comes on top of a mounting challenge to the regime's legitimacy by a range of opposition groups.

The social theories of Karl Marx were long ago discarded as of little value, even to revolutionaries. But he did warn that capitalism had a tendency to generate its own crises. Indeed, the spread of capitalism, and its accelerated industrialization and wealth-creation, may have fomented the food-inflation crisis - by dramatically accelerating competition for scarce resources. The rapid industrialization of China and India over the past two decades - and the resultant growth of a new middle class fast approaching the size of America's - has driven demand for oil toward the limits of global supply capacity. That has pushed oil prices to levels five times what they were in the mid 1990s, which has also raised pressure on food prices by driving up agricultural costs and by prompting the substitution of biofuel crops for edible ones on scarce farmland. Moreover, those new middle class people are eating a lot better than their parents did - particularly more meat. Producing a single calorie of beef can, by some estimates, require eight or more calories of grain feed, and expanded meat consumption therefore has a multiplier effect on demand for grains. Throw in climate disasters such as the Australian drought and recent rice crop failures, and you have food inflation spiraling so fast that even the U.N. agency created to feed people in emergencies is warning that it lacks the funds to fulfill its mandate.

The reason officials such as Zoellick are sounding the alarm may be that the food crisis, and its attendant political risks, are not likely to be resolved or contained by the laissez-faire operation of capitalism's market forces. Government intervention on behalf of the poor - so out of fashion during globalization's roaring '90s and the current decade - may be about to make a comeback. View this article on Time.com

"PARADISE on EARTH " being captured by Maoist Guerrillas as the world looks on helplessly

2008-04-14T12:37:00.001-07:00

"PARADISE on EARTH " being captured by Maoist Guerrillas as the world looks on helplessly

like a dumbo looking at Banana......

Now it sounds like being listed terrorist by United nation and USA does not count, their power have dwindled and helpless when it comes to human welfare on Earth.

Seized and Gripped by terror of Maoist Guerrillas, the ordinary folks of the most peace loving people dwelling on the most beautiful landscape on earth " The paradise on Earth " have no choice but to let the fierce thugs sweep through the unexpected victory. And the power of the world is too weak to challenge the Maoist Regime.

The Richest Dynasty

2008-04-13T23:19:00.001-07:00

Who is The Richest on Earth?

Remember when the pope came to the United States? How he chided us for not showing mercy? That we should give away what we have to the poor? We are such a wealthy nation. And then remember the great earthquake that took place in 1980 over in Italy? I remember when the pope came in to this ruined area, walked up to the bedside of some poor little wounded Italian man and the pope so benevolently laid his hand on his head and made the sign of the cross, blessed the man and walked off.

John Paul II, "Pilgrimage of Faith"

And the newscasters were telling of the devastation. And then we cut back to the United States and Senator Kennedy looked at the camera with sorrowful eyes and said, "Oh, we Americans, out of mercy we should send at least 45 million dollars to this devastated village so we can reconstruct it." Remember that? Now let me read something out of THE VATICAN BILLIONS by Avro Manhattan, and I think you're going to get as mad as I am right now. I want to bring to your attention the fact that this information was published 10 years ago, and the figures are probably even more startling today.

"The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone.

"In a statement published in connection with a bond prospectus, the Boston archdiocese listed its assets at Six Hundred and Thirty-five Million ($635,891,004), which is 9.9 times its liabilities. This leaves a net worth of Five Hundred and Seventy-one million dollars ($571,704,953). It is not difficult to discover the truly astonishing wealth of the church, once we add the riches of the twenty-eight archdioceses and 122 dioceses of the U.S.A., some of which are even wealthier than that of Boston.

"Some idea of the real estate and other forms of wealth controlled by the Catholic church may be gathered by the remark of a member of the New York Catholic Conference, namely 'that his church probably ranks second only to the United States Government in total annual purchase.' Another statement, made by a nationally syndicated Catholic priest, perhaps is even more telling. 'The Catholic church,' he said, 'must be the biggest corporation in the United States. We have a branch office in every neighborhood. Our assets and real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T., and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members must be second only to the tax rolls of the United States Government.'

"The Catholic church, once all her assets have been put together, is the most formidable stockbroker in the world. The Vatican, independently of each successive pope, has been increasingly orientated towards the U.S. The Wall Street Journal said that the Vatican's financial deals in the U.S. alone were so big that very often it sold or bought gold in lots of a million or more dollars at one time.

"The Vatican's treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country. When to that is added all the real estate, property, stocks and shares abroad, then the staggering accumulation of the wealth of the Catholic church becomes so formidable as to defy any rational assessment.

"The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars."

And I think back about how the pope, the wealthiest man on this planet, walked up to that poor little Italian man lying in that rubble, put his hand on his head, and said, "Bless you," and then walked away and just left him there. That has got to be the height of hypocrisy. And then Sen. Kennedy, the pope's boy over in the United States makes the big pitch to the U.S. people to foot the bill to repair that devastated village, right in the pope's backyard. What a set-up!

Egg Donor Human Trafficking & HQ0-High Quality 0ocyte

2008-04-08T17:44:00.001-07:00

Egg Donors and Human Trafficking HQ0-High Quality 0ocyte

Whenever most people hear the term "egg donor," they usually consider this a good thing, as most of us assume that anyone who donates is altruistically motivated and thus engaged in something intrinsically good. And besides, it's for a great cause, so everything is all right, yes?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Sadly, egg donation has less to do with altruism and more to do with the exploitation of women–particularly young women and often poor women who are usually facing large debts or just trying to make ends meet.

In fact, we contend that human egg harvesting is the newest form of human trafficking.

There is a fairly universal consensus that something horrible called human trafficking exists. We watch documentaries of young women and children being forced into the commercial sex industry, or toiling long hours in sweatshops. Our hearts ache at the human misery we see. Slowly, we Americans are beginning to recognize that these abuses of human life and dignity take place in our own backyards. Thankfully, the United States has been a leader in the global war to combat human trafficking. It was one of the first countries to pass comprehensive legislation that recognizes trafficking as a crime and that calls for concrete action, both in this country and overseas, to prevent it, as well as to protect and assist victims of trafficking and bring perpetrators to justice.

So what exactly are the current laws addressing human trafficking, and why do we think that human egg harvesting must be seen through the trafficking lens?

First, there is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which was signed into law on October 28, 2000, and imposes severe sentences on those who have been convicted of human trafficking. The TVPA demonstrates U.S. commitment to assist those persons trafficked into the United States by providing them with assistance and granting them a three-year residence visa–if they agree to cooperate with law-enforcement efforts.

But is the TVPA enough to keep human trafficking at bay? Unfortunately, no. Turn on the news, pick up a newspaper, and the stories are still there. The TVPA does not go far enough in preventing human trafficking and monitoring new means of abuse, notably those forms that develop as a result of technological and medical advances.

The TVPA also falls short in its definition of trafficking, which only includes sexual exploitation and forced or bonded labor. A more inclusive and comprehensive definition is required to correct newer forms of human-trafficking violations. The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime–known as the Trafficking Protocol–provided the anti-trafficking community with the first generally accepted definition of the crime and allows for a broader interpretation of trafficking. The Trafficking Protocol indicates that the purposes of exploitation that it lists are not to be considered exhaustive but rather are a "minimum listing": "At a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs" constitute human trafficking (emphasis added).

Article 3 of the Traficking Protocol provides a more comprehensive definition of human trafficking, namely:

• acts of trafficking, which include recruitment of persons. Young women are heavily recruited for their eggs. One Google search would confirm this.
• means of trafficking, such as forms of coercion, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits.
• purposes of trafficking: exploitation, which is at the heart of trafficking, for the purpose of forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs.

In March 2005, the European Parliament, taking its cue from the Trafficking Protocol, issued a resolution specifically condemning the trade in human eggs. The resolution, titled the European Parliament Resolution on the Trade in Human Egg Cells, was a direct response to the exploitation of Eastern European young women and condemned "the trade in human egg cells," stating that "harvesting of egg cells poses a high medical risk to the life and health of women." And, "despite the possibility of serious effects on women's life and health, the high price paid for egg cells incites and encourages donation, given the relative poverty of the donors." The European Union got serious about human trafficking following news stories of several young women who were severely harmed through egg donation in Eastern Europe.

U.S. laws do not currently recognize the trafficking of human organs as part of human trafficking. Yet the United States did recently ratify the U.N. Trafficking Protocol and, consequently, has a commitment to bring its national legislation into harmony with its provisions. The buying and selling of human tissue represents a commodification of the human body that has already been declared an affront to the basic dignity of the human being by international laws. Egg donation is a form of trafficking in the human body.

Vulnerable young women, trusting the medical establishment with their well-being, are being heavily recruited by means of deceptive advertisements and coerced with large sums of money in relation to their social-economic status. Advertisements such as Eggdonation.com recruit egg donors by suggesting that they are the "solution to solving female infertility." Thedonorsource.com says their egg donors create the "pathway to parenthood." Elitedonors.com, who represents financially well-off clients, offers a maximum compensation of $100,000 for the "preferred donor" who meets a set profile of physical characteristics. And now, adding to the competition for eggs, cloning researchers such as Harvard's Kevin Eggan and Advanced Cell Technologies' Robert Lanza say they hope there are women willing to donate their eggs for their cloning research in order to develop patient matched stem-cell lines.

The U.N. Trafficking Protocol places a premium on the crime of taking advantage of vulnerable women–whether young college women who face graduation with the prospect of entry-level wages and large student loans, or migrant workers in Spain who are unlikely to get within a hundred miles of a college education and so succumb to the growing egg trade in their country. Whatever their nationality or class, they are not told the truth about the health risks of egg donation. Medical science does not know the full implications of egg harvesting because there is inadequate tracking, monitoring, and meaningful short- or long-term follow-up of these young women. Prospective donors are told simply that there are "no known risks."

One donor explains her experience: When she had questions about the consent form, she was hurried and encouraged to "just sign it." After she made repeated calls complaining of side effects, a nurse from the agency finally responded that it was all part of taking the drugs and that she should continue to endure the side effects. Ultimately, the agency's inadequate screening process and neglect led to her suffering a major stroke and paralysis, and finally cost her the ability to conceive children naturally. Another woman was hospitalized with severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Less than a year later, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. These are only two examples of scores of similarly poor outcomes that have appeared in the medical literature but that are not systematically reported to any regulatory body. Potential donors have the right to know how common these disastrous outcomes are.

GlobalART USA's website touts its company as "The IVF Physicians' Source for High-Quality Oocytes . . . At Exceptional Prices." It is a state-of-the-art IVF laboratory maintained in Eastern Europe, in full operation since 1998. Why you might ask would a U.S. company be in full operation in Eastern Europe? So we can traffic human eggs to the world. The United States must extend its definition of human trafficking and realize that a new form of trafficking is occurring in egg harvesting. No matter how great the demand is for the human egg, we must resolve to protect young and vulnerable women.

Michele Clark is an adjunct professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and an international expert on combating human trafficking. Jennifer Lahl is national director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network and founding director of Hands Off Our Ovaries, an international awareness campaign on the risks of egg-harvesting practices.

References:

The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime

"Lack of Human Eggs Could Hamper US Cloning Efforts," Technology Review, June 15, 2006

Unemployment: Take care US in Recession

2008-04-08T17:10:00.001-07:00

Falling into an unemployment rut: don't let it happen

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- If you've just lost your job, the decisions you make in the coming days and weeks may be critical to your financial survival. How you organize your time, corral your resources and handle your money can help determine whether this job loss is a temporary setback or a potentially long-term disaster.

MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston says these five tips will help you find ways to cope, from keeping up your spirits to prioritizing your spending:

Get your head on straight. Keeping your energy level high and a "realistic sense of optimism" will be essential skills in helping you navigate the road ahead. While family and friends can try to help, what you really need is a job-hunting "board of directors" that can give you advice and encouragement. That means finding a job-search support group; the Web site Job-Hunt (www.job-hunt.org) may be a good place to start looking.

Let people know how to find you. Your business and professional contacts may have only your work email address and telephone number. As soon as possible, send a short email to all of your contacts letting them know where they can reach you now. Mention the change in job status (you might say something like, "Because of a staff reduction, my last day at XYZ Industries was Oct. 29."). Follow up later with a more personal note to key contacts to let them know you're looking for work.

Stay covered. If you had health insurance through your job, you should be able to purchase continued coverage under Cobra rules -- but that can be an expensive way to go. Fortunately, you usually have 60 days to sign up under Cobra and the coverage is retroactive, so you don't have to decide right away. If you get another job quickly, you may not need the coverage. If you don't, you may find that a high-deductible individual policy is a better deal.

Apply for unemployment benefits. Some people worry that applying for unemployment will affect their credit (it won't) or that jobless benefits are some kind of welfare (they're not, because your employer paid into the system on your behalf). The earlier you apply, the earlier you'll get your first check. Most states have a two- or three-week waiting period based on when you file, not when you lost your job. Although the national average unemployment check is only about $270 a week, benefits typically last for 26 weeks, and under some circumstances can be extended for an additional 13 to 20 weeks. But they are available only to workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. You generally can't get benefits if you were fired for cause or voluntarily quit your job. If the facts are in dispute, though, go ahead and file -- you can always argue your case.

Get your priorities straight. List your bills and other spending in order of importance. The items at the bottom should be pretty easy to trim. You should also have an "If Things Really Get Bad" list. Tops on it should be holding on to the roof over your head (the mortgage or rent), keeping the lights on (utilities) and ensuring you have transportation to get to job interviews (car payments and insurance). At the bottom should be your unsecured debts -- credit cards, student loans and other personal debt that paid for stuff that can't be repossessed. Skipping credit-card payments may result in a ding on your credit and phone calls from creditors, but skipping mortgage payments could leave you homeless.

Choose Life vs Cellphone&Smoking

2008-04-01T00:17:00.001-07:00

Cell Phones May Be Riskier Than Cigarettes

The danger of developing a brain tumor from extended mobile phone use is greater than the risk presented by smoking, an Australian doctor has concluded. Neurosurgeon Vini G. Khurana reached his conclusion by reviewing other studies into the connection between mobile phones and cancer.

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The dangers associated with cell phones could far outweigh those tied to asbestos and smoking, an Australian doctor recently warned in a new report.

In his paper, "Mobile Phones and Brain Tumors -- A Public Health Concern," Vini G. Khurana, a staff specialist neurosurgeon at the Canberra Hospital and associate professor of neurosurgery with Australian National University Medical School, summarizes a 14-month study in which he reviewed previous reports on the effects of mobile phone usage in medical and scientific publications as well as the popular press.

"There is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumors," Khurana writes. "The link between mobile phones and brain tumors should no longer be regarded as a myth."

Fourfold Risk Possible

Cell phones can be invaluable in emergency situations and have contributed to the quality of human life, Khurana acknowledges. However, when used heavily over many years, the electromagnetic radiation they produce can do harm to the brain, which is itself an electrical organ, he notes.

Cell phones can also heat up the contents of the head, he notes.

There is strong evidence suggesting a relationship between the length of cell-phone usage and the delayed occurrence of an acoustic neuroma or astrocytoma brain tumor on the same side of the head as the "preferred side" for phone usage, Khurana adds, amounting to a risk increase of 200 percent to 400 percent.

"Given the widespread use of mobile phones by children and adults alike, the presence of any health risk posed by long-term near-field radiation will inevitably set the stage for the emergence of a global public health problem," Khurana writes.

Back to Landlines?

The scientific and medical communities need to reevaluate previous studies that found no link between cell phones and brain cancer, Khurana says, and the telecommunications industry needs to expedite the development and promotion of "safe, practical and ubiquitous EMR/radiofrequency shielding devices for mobile and cordless phones and their Bluetooth and headset accessories."

It also should further refine hands-free speakerphone options, he says.

Consumers, meanwhile, should use landlines whenever possible, he said, or at least speakerphone options when available. They should minimize the use of mobile and cordless phones in general as well as Bluetooth devices and unshielded headphone accessories, he says.

Children, Khurana added, should use wireless technologies only in emergency situations.

'One Person's Opinion'

The cellular industry is yet to be convinced.

"This is just one person's opinion of existing research," Joe Ferren, a spokesperson for CTIA-The Wireless Association, told TechNewsWorld.

The link between mobile-phone use and cancer is even listed among the American Cancer Society's "Top 10 Cancer Myths," Ferren noted.

"There is a consensus among global health organizations and leading scientists that there is no association between wireless usage and health effects," Ferren said.

The Next Tobacco Industry?

Given the widespread nature of cell phones and the divergent results of the many studies that have been done, it will be difficult for consumers to draw any clear-cut conclusions.

"Could this cause people to overreact? I see that being inevitable," David Chamberlain, principal analyst with In-Stat, told TechNewsWorld. "Someone will want to pass a law somewhere."

It's to be expected that the wireless industry would downplay any such fears, Chamberlain added, noting that one day, "they could look like the tobacco companies."

'Life's a Risk'

In the meantime, however, "I think everybody should just continue to make their own choices just the way we do when we decide to wear helmets when we ride motorcycles or to wear kneepads when we skateboard," Chamberlain said. "It's all about the same thing."

For now, "I don't know what can be done, other than individuals taking steps to ensure their own safety when they perceive a risk," Chamberlain concluded. "Life's a risk, and making our own choices is all we can do."

NYLON rivalry New York and LONdon

2008-03-31T23:22:00.001-07:00

Big city of dreams ... New York has been rated as only the 27th priciest city in the world

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, is not your average politician. He flaunts the ostentatious humbleness that comes with great wealth. He refuses to trade in his Upper East Side apartment for the 18th century splendour of the official residence, Gracie Mansion, and rides to work by subway every morning despite having been valued at $5bn (£2.5bn).

Even by his own unorthodox standards, though, what the mayor did earlier this week was surprising. Other leaders might have been tempted to bury the news delivered recently to Mr Bloomberg by the McKinsey consultancy: that New York was in danger of being toppled from its throne as the world's financial capital by a rival city. He did the opposite. He trumpeted the report in front of the New York press, then flew to the very city that was threatening Wall Street's supremacy and trumpeted the findings all over again.

That city was London. According to McKinsey, which based its conclusions on a survey of top financial executives from around the world, New York's longstanding pre-eminence can no longer be taken for granted. Within 10 years the city which has been the headquarters of modern capitalism for most of a century could sink to the rank of a "secondary city". Secondary. The word is enough to send New Yorkers shrieking down Fifth Avenue.

In his counter-intuitive championing of the McKinsey findings, Mr Bloomberg went even further. He implied that should Wall Street fall from the number one slot, the whole of New York, indeed the entire United States, could come tumbling after. "Let's be clear: The financial services industry is one reason that the 20th century was the American century and that New York became the world's capital," he said.

So just how vulnerable is the Big Apple to its traditional rival? Is London really poised to take over as capital of the world?

In financial circles, there are clear signs that London is tearing up on the sidelines. Almost half of the respondents in McKinsey's survey thought New York had shed some of its appeal as a financial centre in the past three years, and that the reverse applied to London. About 13,000 new jobs, or 4.3% of the total, were created in London in the three years to 2005, while Wall Street lost 2,000 in the same period.

Stringent regulation of financial markets, together with tight immigration laws post September 11 which inhibit importation of skilled labour, are dragging Wall Street down. The avant garde of banking, hedge funds, have started migrating to London. And how symbolic that the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, standard bearer of capitalism, has a duplicate office in the City of London where he now spends half his time.

Look down on the two cities from a great height though, and what is striking is how much they have in common. Their respective populations are London 7.7m, New York 8.1m. They are both enjoying boom times and are projected to put on a further 1m each by 2030.

They are, says Tony Travers, an expert on cities at the London School of Economics, competitive but complementary. "The most interesting thing about the two places is how like each other they are. They have more in common with each other than with anywhere else in their respective countries."

But the assumption of superiority - bigger, better, richer, faster - that has attached to New York at least since the second world war is being threatened on several levels. Let's start with the frivolous. Here's Audrey Saunders, owner of the celebrated Pegu Club in downtown Manhattan, telling the New York Times this week that: "I hate to admit it, but London is the best cocktail city in the world."

Cocktails!

More substantially, bastions of New York culture have come under fire from the city's own critics. The 2004 expansion and renovation of the Museum of Modern Art was heralded as a triumph at the time, but is now being damned as a failure. The New York Times has compared the new Moma very unfavourably with Tate Modern, a gallery which it says is "working beautifully", while the New Yorker says the musuem's status as the prophet of the modern spirit is now in doubt.

You can dismiss all that as the carpings of the miserabilist liberal media. But the malaise goes further. A comparison of Broadway with the West End speaks volumes. Again, statistically the two theatre districts are at level-pegging. Both attracted a record 12m people to their shows in 2005, with box-office takings of about £400m each.

But the headline figures belie important differences. Broadway's 39 theatres are dominated by big, long-running shows which bring in guaranteed profits but clog up the system and block new work. The West End, by contrast, has many more productions on shorter runs, nourished by subsidised works emerging from the National Theatre. "What you get is a healthier theatre in London," says a leading player on Broadway, who asked not to be named. "It's frustrating but there's not much that can be done about it."

British playwright David Hare has spent a lot of time in Manhattan recently, transferring Stuff Happens to Broadway and opening his new play The Vertical Hour there. He reflects that New York is aesthetically a much more dazzling city. "You turn a corner and there is another extraordinary view, but it's also artistically much more conservative. There is a definite feeling - in music, in theatre, in opera, especially - of being bored with the old, and yet even more terrified of the new."

Hare adds that he finds London "much more genuinely cosmopolitan", which is revealing because London appears to have stolen from New York the mantle of the quintessential multicultural city. Forty per cent of London's population is foreign born, only slightly more than New York's 36%. But unlike Manhattan, even the prosperous areas of inner London are ethnically mixed and this has enabled London to claim the diversity high ground.

Early on in their Olympic presentation, New York told the IOC that there were "over 200 languages spoken in New York". The boast was dropped from the latter stages after the London bid informed the committee there are "over 300 languages spoken daily in London". The London Olympic bid team specifically attributes its victory to the city's extraordinary diversity. One analyst said: "We see New York as a great American city with lots of foreigners, and London as an international city. We promised the 'world games' with London as the backdrop."

The prospect of the 2012 Olympics, coupled with the confident - some would say cocky - demeanour of mayor Ken Livingstone, have given London's current buoyancy a focus. Mr Livingstone gave a keynote address at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos in which he was described by the television network CNBC as the "mayor of Europe's megacity". His congestion charge, which so confounded his critics and has provided a template for gridlocked capitals the world over, is about to be extended into west London, despite public resistance. Though many Londoners were suspicious of his brashness when he became mayor in 2000, his popularity ratings rose to be, and remain, highly favourable.

Which brings us back to Bloomberg. His style could not be more different from his counterpart's across the Pond. Quietly spoken, polite, almost meek, there is none of the Livingstone grandstanding. And yet their trajectories have been the same. Mr Bloomberg was elected in 2001, just after September 11 at a time of deep crisis for the city, needing to win the trust of New Yorkers. He has done that, and grown very popular too. As Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy at NY university, puts it: "Bloomberg is the only mayor in 60 years who doesn't have anyone who hates him."

True, there has been no congestion charge and New York remains traffic bound for it. Rush hour now lasts up to eight hours a day and is projected soon to stretch to 12 hours. But Mr Bloomberg can point to his own act of daring: the 2002 ban on smoking in restaurants and bars that has also set the world agenda and had an enormous impact locally, with smoking deaths down 10% saving 800 New Yorkers' lives a year.

So how do Manhattanites react to the suggestion that their city has lost its edge to London? With laughter, principally. Sir Harold Evans, once editor of the Sunday Times and author of The American Century, who has lived there since the 1980s, says the city's traditional ebullience is more evident than ever. "The energy in New York exceeds anywhere else in the world, even Dubai. You can't touch London for its cultural brilliance, but compare the two cities and the feeling is that if something big is going to happen, in a benevolent sense, it is going to happen here."

The loss of the Olympics has not dampened that spirit. Jay Kriegel, president of New York's bid team, points out that with the exception of the Olympic stadium that was to have been built on the West Side, all the other elements - from a subway extension in Manhattan to low-cost housing in Queens - are going ahead. In sporting terms, the success of Arsenal's Emirates stadium in north London is being topped by two new homes for New York's big baseball teams, the Yankees and Mets, both coming in on time and on budget in contrast to the fiasco of Wembley.

New York has had its building troubles. Ground Zero, the symbol of the city's darkest hour, has become its greatest embarrassment. Five years on it is still a gaping hole in downtown Manhattan. But Bloomberg, backed by the New York and New Jersey state governments, has now taken over the project and the Freedom Tower is rising. Mr Kriegel also emphasises that with crime down to levels not known for decades, notorious no-go areas are vanishing. "The city is entering a golden era. Neighbourhoods that have been stagnant for 50 years are being transformed."

Though New York remains the most expensive city in America, it has one overwhelming advantage over London in its lower cost of living. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks London as the seventh priciest city in the world, New York as 27th. London may be catching up, but there's still clear blue water between the cities in several other regards. Take the three Fs: film, fashion and food. London is becoming ever more desirable as a movie location, with 12,655 shooting days in 2005, but that's still only a third of its rival's activity.

New York remains the undisputed power house of the fashion industry, with (Briton) Anna Wintour its queen. And though London's food has improved beyond all recognition in recent years, it has a way to go before it matches the range and quality packed into Manhattan. You could feel chefs on either side of the Atlantic wince when Gordon Ramsay's new restaurant on West 54th, provocatively named the London, was met with the ultimate putdown from New York Times critic Frank Bruni. It suffered from a "dearth of inspiration", he said.

So don't be fooled by Mr Bloomberg's disarming self-criticism. This mayor, and the town he represents, hasn't given up its crown yet. Nor will they. Not, at any rate, without a fight.

· London v New York

The extraordinary strength of London's property market continues to be driven by demand from the top, and luxury apartments are achieving the highest prices in the world with four new penthouses at the Lord Rogers-designed One Hyde Park reported to be on sale for £84m each. New York still has more billionaires, with 40, but London has moved into third place on Forbes magazine's billionaires league table, with 23 (Moscow, in second place, has 25).

Workers in the City of London last year took home £8.8bn, with 4,000 employees receiving bonuses of more than £1m. Last year foreign firms spent £97bn buying British companies, while 367 companies came to the London stock exchange, compared with 270 on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq combined. Between 2002 and 2005, London's financial workforce grew by 4.3% to 318,000 while New York's declined by 0.7% to 328,400 jobs. And London's share of the top 50 hedge funds is growing, from three in 2002 to 12 in 2006, while New York's declined over the same period from 28 to 18.

London salerooms continue to break records with new buyers including Russians and Chinese. Sotheby's sold £167m worth of art in the past week. The weakness of the dollar has meant American collectors are choosing to sell in London while New York dealer Andrew Fabricant was named as the buyer of Francis Bacon's Study for Portrait II, sold for a record £14m at Christie's on Thursday night.

While the reopening of New York's Museum of Modern Art was initially regarded as a success, critics have since turned on it and pointed out that while Tate Modern attracts 3.9m visitors, Moma can only manage 2.7m. Both cities shuttled 12m people through the doors of their theatres, but artistically the iniative is with the Brits. David Hare and Tom Stoppard both have shows on Broadway while Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was one of several West End musicals to make the transfer.

Neither city scored well on a quality-of-life survey conducted among expatriate staff in which Zurich and Geneva scored highest. London managed 39th place, but New York was even lower at 46th.

CAREER Change- a smart move

2008-03-31T23:05:00.001-07:00

A great resume - one that clearly shows how suited you are for your desired profession - is essential. But once you have that, job search strategy becomes the key. Most career-changers have thought long and hard before deciding to make the move. Often they are switching to a new field after years of experience in their current industry or occupation. Some have reached their decision after extensive career counseling and others simply woke up one morning and decided to make a change.

But, regardless of how they reached their decision, most career-changers have the same question.

How can I get hired when I don¹t have relevant experience?

It is true that few companies will hire you as a graphic artist if you simply send them a resume outlining your 15 year career in tax accounting! Even the best resume cannot hide the fact that your previous experience has not qualified you for the position you seek.

The good news is that there are ways to gain entry into your chosen profession.

As Nicholas Lore explains in his exceptional career change book, The Pathfinder, ³you gain admittance into any group, social or professional, by creating agreement.² In other words, people are accepted because other people agree they belong. Agreement is developed through the things we say, the way we act, the knowledge we have etc. If a struggling, unpublished writer tells people ³I hope to be a writer some day,² she has already made it clear that she does not consider herself to be a writer. Others will agree with her categorization and accept that she is not a writer. But if she writes every day, submits short stories to small publications, attends writer¹s conferences and volunteers to write free articles for websites and local newspapers, she is now beginning to create agreement that she is, indeed, a writer.

The goal is to become your new profession. Don¹t wait until someone hires you before you think of yourself as a video game programmer. Start to think of yourself that way now. Begin gathering the knowledge and experience you will need. Surf websites and chat rooms. Talk to other programmers. Read books. Practice. And most importantly, begin to build a body of work.

We have worked with many professionals who took this route and were able to transition into new professions.

Take Jeff. A nurse by profession, Jeff was also a talented musician. He wanted to get into the video game industry, writing soundtracks and creating sound effects but he had little success when he first sent out his resume. The few responses he got were standard Œno-thanks¹ emails. Eventually, a friend suggested that Jeff take a different approach. Instead of sending in his resume, he created a demo reel of music he had written for famous video games. In each case he replaced the existing soundtrack with his own music. Then he started to network his way into the industry, attending game industry conferences and trade shows and meeting as many people as possible and keeping a database of his contacts. He subscribed to industry newsletters kept up to date with new technologies and industry developments. We created a website for Jeff which allowed him to demonstrate his music in addition to the demo CD he was mailing with his resume. Jeff created a snappy, short email which he sent, along with a link to his website, to all the key people in the industry. He received several calls praising his creative approach although no immediate job offers. Once a month, he stayed in touch with his network of contacts by sending a short email with a snippet of new music attached as an MP3 file. After four months, Jeff was called in to interview for a position as an entry-level sound engineer with an independent game developer. The call came from the company¹s creative director someone Jeff had met a year earlier at a trade show. The company is not Jeff¹s ideal employer as they make games for children and Jeff is much more interested in roleplaying action games, but he plans to stay there for a year learning all he can and then start to apply to the larger game companies.

Jeff¹s success was well-deserved. He took a proactive approach to his career change and dedicated much of his spare time to demonstrating his skills. By the time he was hired, he already thought and spoke and acted as a video game sound engineer. He knew the techniques and the software and had a solid grounding in the industry.

Another client is working towards a similarly dramatic change. Greg spent 10 years in the music industry where he was very successful. But his real passions were travel and photography. When Greg got the opportunity to live in Japan for a year he decided to make the leap and start serious work on changing his career. He built his own website so that he could demo his work and embarked on a number of ambitious projects, including traveling to and from South Korea, where, after much painstaking research and careful relationship building, he gained access to North Korean defectors. Greg had completed several major photography projects when he approached us and he was ready to start publicizing his work, encouraged by the fact that he has just received his first acceptance an article and photographs that had been published by the BBC. Greg is now working on seeking influential mentors and building a network. To assist him in making initial contact and attracting attention for his photographs, we designed an e-portfolio for him which links to his website. (You can see Greg¹s e-portfolio by clicking here.) Like Jeff, Greg knew that he would not be taken seriously as a photographer until he started being one.

Both stories highlight that the keys to success for career-changers are:

Get started. Don¹t wait for someone to pay you to be what you want to be. Just do it! If your dream job is in some way creative, you can develop a portfolio by working alone or volunteering to help people for free. If you want to prove you can design logos, for example, volunteer to redesign the logo for your friend¹s small business. Or simply redesign some existing corporate logos for demonstration purposes.
Learn everything you can. Read books, join associations, go to education events and trade shows. Read newsletters. Visit industry web sites and chat rooms. Learn the language and jargon of the industry you want to enter. Stay up to date with the newest trends and technologies. Understand the history of the industry in depth. Become an expert.
Make contacts. Build a network of influential people within the field you want to enter. Find creative ways to approach them and maintain the connection once it is made. One client actually approached one of the top names in her field and offered her assistance as a secretary in exchange for being able to attend meetings with him. He said yes! Offer to write an article for a trade magazine or website. Choose a topic which will provide you with a reason to contact key people within the industry.
Find Creative Approaches. Do not rely on the standard resume and cover letter. This will almost always fail when you are trying to make a shift to a new career. Most people are trained to read resumes to identify how your past experience matches with their current needs. You need to approach executives in a completely new and different way showing what you can do rather than what you have done. Our e-portfolio is one option but there are many others. Be creative!

If you follow the steps outlined above, you will be successful in making your career change. But your move into your new industry will not come via job advertisements or postings or from posting your resume online. Instead, it will come with time and commitment as a result of the marketing you have done and the network you have built.

Mystery & Eric Ekvall

2008-03-31T21:20:00.001-07:00

Eric Ekvall Upset

December 23, 2002

First, we will introduce the actors in this report on what happens when foreign media organizations don't apply enough scrutiny on their English-language correspondents in Latin America.

Eric Ekvall is a political consultant in Venezuela who used to work for the state-owned oil company PdVSA and the Ford Motor Company. He popped up last April, during the brief coup d'etat in Venezuela, defending Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona in an article by Juan Forero of the New York Times.

Phil Gunson refers to himself as a "freelance correspondent" in Venezuela. He has written during the past month for the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, MSNBC (online only) and the Independent of London. He has also been interviewed recently on NPR and on WAMU radio in Washington DC about the events in Venezuela (parts of those interviews are quoted below).

The two men have a relationship related to Gunson's "journalism" that – after they were given the opportunity to come clean by Narco News – neither Gunson nor Ekvall were willing to disclose.

Additionally, Gunson has an undisclosed conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest (all journalistic codes of ethics prohibit such nondisclosure), with the key source that he quoted last April 11th to blame the still unsolved sniper assassinations of that day on supporters of the government of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela: His source for that uncorroborated statement – part of the justification for the coup d'etat – was Eurídice Ledezma, who Gunson has told sources (but did not disclose in his article) was his former girlfriend; a rapidly pro-coup reporter in Venezuela, also – coincidentally? – a vocal defender of Dictator-for-a-day Pedro Carmona.

Asked about this apparent conflict, Gunson sent a "response" to Narco News (published in full and uncensored below) in which he issued no denial or clarification of that serious allegation. He simply did not address it at all.

There are other serious problems with Gunson's reports out of Venezuela last April and again this month. Many of his statements appear to us to have been made in a knowingly false manner.

More – a lot more – about Gunson in a moment…

Prologue: Ekvall's Para-Journalists

There is a fourth player in Venezuela (who like Gunson and Ekvall is not a native Venezuelan) who has been a party to some of these correspondences: Michael Rowan, former business associate of Ekvall and columnist for the pro-coup daily El Universal in Caracas.

Last June, I received a letter from Rowan, claiming to be writing a column for El Universal, asking me how I make my living and from what sources. Of course I answered him right away. I think this is a question that every individual in public life – including journalists – should answer, and I answered Rowan immediately: those sources are already disclosed on our links and disclosures page:

While offering mine, I also asked Rowan to make his own disclosure: Why, if he was a newspaper columnist for El Universal, did he send me his letter from the same email address used by partisan political consultant Erik Ekvall? And didn't he see a conflict-of-interest in using a shared email account with a political spin-doctor?

Rowan replied that his business relationship with Ekvall was strictly in the past, and that the shared email account was merely a holdover from that relationship. The question from Narco News must have concerned both men, because both, soon after, changed their email addresses.

Rowan also replied, aggressively, accusing me of being unwilling to disclose my sources of income because I had simply given him a link to where the information had already been disclosed to all readers, reporters and columnists, including him.

Noticing that Rowan wasn't the brightest bulb on the block, I then took the careful time to spell it all out for him; repeating, specially for him, the same facts that already appeared on our links page. Since I live below the poverty level by United States standards, and own no house, no car, no credit card, and put virtually every cent I can muster into the work of Narco News anyway, I also had some fun explaining to Rowan that I sometimes make a few extra bucks playing my Dobro guitar and singing in nightclubs.

Rowan, finding no scandal to write about, then claimed he was going to write a nice little column about my guitar and me, and people who dedicate our lives to our principles. But to paraphrase Aimee Mann, I'd rather be played by a pro: Of course I did not believe him – I figured he was merely on an intelligence gathering mission for Ekvall and whatever undisclosed clients are behind Ekvall – and my skepticism was confirmed when Rowan's supposed column never appeared.

Fast forward to October 2002: Ekvall pops up on the isle of Jamaica, during the respected and important Mind States conference "for a consciousness-expanding seminar unlike anything you've ever experienced before," where one of my disclosed supporters was also slated to attend. There in Negril, Jamaica, Ekvall asked a lot of questions about Al Giordano and did his usual lobbying-complaining about me as well. I find it extremely entertaining that Ekvall can afford to go to Jamaica to this conference (the listed cost was $1,300; well worth the price; wish I could have afforded it) on entheogenic plants and hallucinogenic drugs, even as Ekvall claims that Chávez has destroyed the economy of Venezuela.

Then came the December 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela. Apparently, whatever Ekvall was doing in Negril, Jamaica, he didn't take any of the lessons to heart, nor was his consciousness sufficiently expanded, obviously. Because despite the blood of 50 Venezuelans on his hands still from last April – through his defense of their butcher, Carmona – Ekvall is back at the pro-coup spinning wheel once again.

Gunson & Ekvall, Inc.?

Ekvall showed up on the Narco News radar screen again this month, via a Letter to the Editor sent December 19th by "freelance correspondent" Phil Gunson.

Gunson sent an email addressed "dear narco news" to complain about Narco News Associate Publisher Dan Feder's December 18, 2002 report: "AP's One-Sided Venezuela Coverage: On 'Desk Reporters' Who Phone-in the Spin."

That letter from Gunson is published, uncensored and in full, below.

I found the letter curious, additional to its weak arguments, because Feder's report did not mention Gunson (and Gunson's response was very defensive: perhaps he took the reference to desk reporters who phone-in the spin a bit personally?) and also because of who he Cced it to: political consultant Erik Ekvall.

I thought, "what the hell is a 'journalist' doing Ccing his journo-to-journo letter to a partisan political consultant?" Others – like Authentic Journalist Lucy Komisar – also received a copy of the letter; whether that was Ekvall acting as Gunson's consultant, spinning the letter, I don't know: Neither of these guys, offered the opportunity, would answer my question about the details, although both sent me emails that indicated they had received the questions.

I had already noted that Gunson's "reporting" – and interviews he gave on two United States radio programs – had reflected Ekvall's pro-coup spin on recent history in Venezuela. The two seem to speak with one voice. I found this quite curious.

Upon further investigation, I found that Gunson had, last April, quoted Ekvall's spin on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, without disclosing that Ekvall had previously been a consultant to that company.

Upon still further investigation, I found another undisclosed conflict of interest in a very key report by Gunson during the coup last April in Venezuela: that his sole source for an uncorroborated accusation of a political assassination was – according to what Gunson told sources, and that I'm told appears in a book about Venezuela by Richard Gott – Gunson's former girlfriend, Eurídice Ledezma, a rabidly pro-coup journalist and defender – like Ekvall – of Dictator-for-a-Day Carmona, whom she calls "Pedro."

The harmony in which each of these players sing – Ekvall, Gunson, Rowan, and Ledezma – in favor of the dictator Carmona's coup d'etat, with knowing distortions in their published statements regarding Chávez and Venezuela, is very troublesome precisely because the nature of these relationships is undisclosed.

Even more troublesome, is the fact that once offered the opportunity to clear the air on their undisclosed conflicts-of-interest, both Ekvall and Gunson didn't come clean. (At least Rowan, last June, admitted he had been a business associate of Ekvall's. But Ekvall and Gunson have simply stonewalled.)

Troublesome, too, is that in their "responses" to my offers to disclose and come clean, the script of both Gunson and Ekvall's letters to me this week is virtually identical. Both are published in full and uncensored below. Now let's examine their mutual party line.

Through the Looking Glass

Gunson has compared, in his published work, the situation in Venezuela to "Alice in Wonderland," that wonderful Lewis Carroll story that begins Chapter IV with Alice encountering two identical characters, which remind us of Ekvall and Gunson: Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

In the case of Ekvall and Gunson, it's just as hard to pull them apart.

THEY were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other "DEE". `I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself.
They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just going round to see if the word "TWEEDLE" was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked "DUM".

`If you think we're wax-works,' he said, `you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow.'

`Contrariwise,' added the one marked "DEE", `if you think we're alive, you ought to speak.'

Like Alice, I wondered if these two dumplings were alive or if they were what they appeared to be. And so I spoke to Ekvall and Gunson. I asked them questions: Like a reporter does. I gave each of them the chance to respond, to clear the air.

Ekvall fired off two responses, offering little to no disclosure, which he ended by declaring:

"End of conversation."

Gunson got is response in an hour or so before deadline, which he concluded with:

"This correspondence is over."

Touchy, eh? It was Gunson who started the conversation, after all. He dragged Ekvall into it, but he doesn't want to continue now that he's been asked some important questions about his undisclosed conflicts. No problem: We'll continue it with Civil Society.

The similarities in their "responses" are striking.

1. Both Gunson and Ekvall refused to answer legitimate questions or disclose their conflicts and potential conflicts..

Ekvall: "Al, I owe you no explanations whatsoever about how I make my living, who my clients are, or how I choose to spend my leisure time."
Gunson: "I'm not stupid enough to lend credence to your show-trial (or your unpleasant little publication) by taking part in it."

Keep in mind, kind readers: Gunson – "stupid enough" to have gotten caught in two undisclosed conflicts of interest this year regarding his Venezuela reporting – demands answers from others as a reporter. But when he's asked questions, he turns into the proverbial guy who tries to cover the camera with his hands. Ekvall, last June, sicked Michael Rowan on me from Ekvall's email address, demanding that I answer their questions – I answered them forthrightly, of course, not having anything to hide. But turn the table, and these guys become whining defensive hypocrites.

2. Both Gunson and Ekvall, in lieu of offering full disclosure, chose instead to play make-believe psychiatrists (this was my favorite part of their spin)…

Gunson: "I really don't know what unresolved childhood traumas lie behind your desperate need to be taken seriously and to bring other people down. And I have neither the time, the inclination nor the professional skills to help you get over them."
Ekvall: "I understand the business about the absent, irresponsible, derelict-in-his-duties father, and how this can lead to persecution-cum-crusader complexes, and how the whole stew entrains this zealous desire to trash authority under all its guises…. In short, I can relate."

Huh? I never mentioned my childhood or other such personal matters to either of these guys. Why would I? I think Ekvall probably bases that on my mention last summer, in an essay on Eminem, that like many people I'm the product of a single-mom household. The rest of his fantasy he can look up in his self-help books under the word "projection."

Gunson, meanwhile, outdoes even Ekvall on the "projection" front: He spent April and December of this year trying to take down an elected president by creating the simulated conditions for a coup d'etat, but he accuses me of trying "to bring other people down."

Oh, right, I forgot: This is Wonderland: So that's why I'm smiling like the Cheshire Cat?

3. Deepening their practice of pop-psychology, both Ekvall and Gunson wrote me out prescriptions for their diagnoses:

Ekvall: "you ought to get more sleep, relax, go for a walk, play the guitar more (I'm a guitar player myself), listen a little less to Eminem and a little more to, oh, The Incredible String Band, for example."
Gunson: "First of all, you really need to start taking yourself less seriously. Self-importance combined with paranoia can lead to stress-related diseases. Chill out a little. I've come across people like you before, Al, though never in such an advanced stage of decomposition. The trouble with the internet is that it gives ignorant loudmouths a platform to address the whole world."

Kind reader, did you catch that hostility to the Internet – and most people who use it – on Gunson's part? "The trouble with the internet," he complains, "is that it gives ignorant loudmouths a platform to address the whole world."

Actually, Gunson should know, the whole world tunes in or out as it wishes. To read something on the World Wide Web, you have to actively go look for it. When millions of readers have looked for and found Narco News, its not as if our coverage has been forced upon them; they tune in here voluntarily.

Gunson clearly misses the good old days, when simulating reporters like him could control the story as Power wanted it told from any Third World outpost. The real "trouble with the Internet" is that it has provided all of us with more ability to scrutinize Gunson's (and others') knowingly false reports, and to correct them. (The Internet also led us to discover him in the act of an undisclosed relationship with political consultant Ekvall… well, understandable that Gunson neither likes nor understands the Internet, especially not this month.)

Listen to their elitism: The world was a better place without the Internet nor Eminem, they say: Violent coups d'etat, good; Internet and rap music, bad. Wonderland, indeed!

It's also a distinctly elitist form of speaking in "code" to dismiss working-class or poor critics with psychobabble, and thus avoid the merits of the critique. The problem for them is that their "code" is well understood by the working and poor majorities in every land.

Well, anyway, Narco News has sure got the hornet's nest stirred up. These guys are like a tea-party salon full of blue-haired old biddies when a mouse runs in the room: all up on their chairs screaming!

4. Ekvall and Gunson, while describing Narco News as so "little" and "laughingstock" as not to matter, then portrayed themselves as victims being "bullied" and "picked on" by The Little Website That Could.

Gunson: "are you brave enough to publish this in full? or are you just a playground bully?"
Ekvall: "Go find someone else to pick on."

Jeez, these guys are sensitive. Ya can't touch 'em even with the petal of a rose without hearing their pitched screams.

Well, kind reader, you can read their words below, in full and uncensored.

I urge you to give careful reading, as well, to my questions to Gunson – the questions he is afraid to answer.

Remember these questions next time you read anything by Phil Gunson. In any case, reading Gunson through an educated lens will provide you with a pretty good indicator of the day's spin by pro-coup political consultant Erik Ekvall.

The dimmer bulbs of the Commercial Correspondents Caste of Caracas have their panties all up in a bunch over Narco News. Hooray and Merry Christmas! To that we say: You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Open Letter and Questions to Phil Gunson

Thursday, December 19, 2002

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR PHIL GUNSON ABOUT HIS VENEZUELA COVERAGE

EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2002

To: Phil Gunson philgunson@cantv.net

CC: Mario Renato Menéndez Rodríguez, Por Esto!, redaccion@poresto.net
Cynthia Cotts, the Village Voice, cc@villagevoice.com
Dan Kennedy, the Boston Phoenix, dkennedy@phx.com
Lucy Komisar, American Reporter, lkomisar@msn.com
Luis Gómez, Narco News, narconewsandes@yahoo.com
Dan Feder, Narco News, webmaster@narconews.com
Salón Chingón, somewhere in a country called América, salonchingon@hotmail.com

(All of the above individuals and groups know what "embargoed" means and, I strongly believe, will respect that)

Dear Phil Gunson,

Thank you, again, for your letter, and for agreeing to an interview by email.

Your reports over the past month from Venezuela for the Christian Science Monitor, MSNBC (online only), and the Miami Herald – the daily newspaper of coup plotters and oligarchs throughout Latin America – and the interviews you granted last week to NPR and WAMU radio, have raised many questions about you and your work.

Some of these questions began last April, after your "report" in the St. Petersburg Times became the basis for many "statements of fact" that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's supporters shot at demonstrators from rooftops on April 11, 2002.

Your report caused a lot of bloodshed. If your report was knowingly false, well, let the heavens fall and the truth be known.

This is your opportunity to clear the air.

I plan on publishing these questions on Monday, December 23, 2002.

You are of course invited to provide answers before or after that date, and I will publish your response, uncensored, whenever you send it.

According to my information and belief, all of these questions are based on accurate information. If you feel that any of these questions are based on incorrect information, I invite you to submit proposed corrections prior to Monday, December 23, 2002, at 10 a.m. eastern standard time. I think I'm being very fair with you to make you that offer.

By way of introducing this Q & A, I want to preface my questions with the kind of full disclosure on my part that I am now going to ask from you.

There are some matters that are very important to this hemisphere and I, like you, have opinions on them. I don't claim "objectivity," and I distrust "journalists" who claim it, because they indicate from the get-go that they are not reporting accurately on the subject they should know best: them selves.

The only truly ethical position for journalists is to disclose our biases.

So, I'll tell you, Phil Gunson, right off the bat: I favor democracy. I favor fair and free elections. I agree with all the major national and international monitoring and human rights organizations that have rated the six Venezuelan elections of the past four years as fair and free. Regarding Venezuela elections of the past four years, there's no question of that fairness, not in the way that there are lingering questions and controversies over the "elections" in Colombia or even in the United States.

I also believe that coups d'etat have left a long dark shadow over América for the past 30 years. Perhaps my opinion on this was formed early in life when I attended Georgetown University with Juan Pablo Letelier, whose father, Chilean minister Orlando Letelier, as you know, or should know, was assassinated in Washington DC as part of an ongoing coup.

I don't understand how any human being or journalist could not be biased, or disclose his or her bias, about whether he or she is for or against such brutal crimes against humanity.

Coups d'etat by the elites have resulted to be the single most damaging factor against authentic democracy, human rights, civil rights and liberties, press freedom, and political participation, by the marginalized poor and working majorities, in América. Even the threat of coup is harmful to all these values, because it creates an atmosphere of fear that makes authentic democratic participation impossible. I am not impartial about coups – whether imposed by military, economic or media elites – I oppose them, tooth and nail, with the best antidote to coups: the facts and the truth.

I disclose these views to my readers every day I publish. They know where I stand. There's no confusion there. And this has led to a wonderful relationship of trust and credibility between my readers and I, and the large number of colleagues in journalism who have publicly – not just privately – endorsed, praised, or openly quoted from my work.

I don't see the same level of disclosure on your part, and some of my questions are aimed at giving you the opportunity to disclose. Believe me: you'll feel much better about yourself when you do disclose.

Our mutual friend Lucy Komisar wrote me noting that you worked in Central America in the 1980s. Like you, I was in Central America in the 1980s. Like you, I have reported from Mexico and Venezuela. Like you, I have reported from other Latin American countries. I have also reported extensively on courts, crime and politics within the United States. I have reported extensively from Capitol Hill and about many elections. I know how political consultants try to spin reporters from Washington to Caracas to other American capitals.

The top political consultants know, from experience, that they can't spin me. You can talk to Democrat James Carville, or Republican Mary Matalin, to Republican Ron Kaufmann, or Democrat Mike Whouley, or any of scores of other spin-doctors active in the United States. And you can suggest to them, as you suggest in your letter to me, that I am somehow "parroting" anybody's "line" but my own, and these giants of spin who can't agree with each other on lunch will universally laugh at you and mock you for such an absurd and ignorant accusation. Go ahead: I invite you to ask around. I've been through that fire. I'm a known quantity. You're not a known quantity. If you're an honest man, you'll retract such a snide self-serving accusation.

If my views end up corresponding with those voiced by any party to a conflict, it's because they are my views, independently and skeptically formed by investigating the facts. I don't care who agrees with me, or who does not. I do care that I agree with my conscience. You should try that sometime, Phil.

I also believe, based on my long experience, that there are two kinds of reporters: Those that don't know better, and those that should know better. Reporters like you and me have clearly been around long enough that we can't plead ignorance of basic realities. To that extent, I expect more from someone like you, who worked in Latin America for years and should know the score. You're not in the category of someone like Alexandra Olson of AP who may or may not just be naïve and unaware of the consequences of her shallow undisclosed and hateful biases. After all these years Phil, if you don't know what your biases are, you should know. And you should disclose them. Now is the time.

Think of these following questions as a wonderful opportunity for Phil Gunson to come clean.

Now I'll begin with my questions.

Q. Your letter to me of yesterday, December 18, 2002, was CCed to political consultant Erik Ekvall, a partisan player during last April's coup attempt, and also during this most recent coup attempt in December. Quick, before Ekvall has a chance to answer for you: Why did you send Ekvall a copy of your supposedly personal correspondence?

Q. It is well known among the reporters covering Venezuela in the category of "those who should know better" that Ekvall is a player for one side of the conflict, the anti-democracy side: Ekvall, to my knowledge, and I've offered him the chance to deny it without response, is a consultant to the Ford Motor Company (PUBLISHER'S UPDATE: Ekvall did respond, after this letter was sent, and informs that he's an ex-consultant to Ford, a gig he left on March 15, 2002; he offered no other corrections or clarifications), a former consultant to PdVSA – the Venezuela state oil company – and part of the group ousted by the Chávez government: Someone clearly with an axe to grind; someone well known to reporters as a pathologically dishonest person and who openly defends coups d'etat and tries to spin or fool the press toward his mercenary view. What role does Erik Ekvall have as a party in a letter you sent that billed itself as a letter from one journalist to another?

Q. You're obviously aware of Ekvall's partisan pro-coup role in the events of April 2002: You quoted him back then, in an April 15, 2002, article in the St. Petersburg Times. You called Ekvall "a longtime American political analyst in Caracas," as if he were simply an impartial "analyst" and not a partisan player with his own interests and axes to grind. You quoted him without disclosing that he had been a consultant to PdVSA, the very agency he was commenting on that day. And you quoted him with an obviously partisan statement, complaining that Chávez "thinks he can get away with anything." Now you have CCed Ekvall an email that purports itself as a discussion between journalistic colleagues. Don't you think that looks a little strange, Phil, to include a partisan political consultant, known for his pro-coup mercenary position, as a party to your letter to Narco News? Please explain what role he has in this conversation.

Q. Sorry to ask forward questions – this form of conducting interviews has helped strengthen my reputation for never being successfully spun by anyone – but, I ask: Do you use Ekvall as your own volunteer political consultant? Or does he use you as "his" reporter? In other words, are you now in "damage control" mode after your embarrassing performance of December and are you now having him review even your personal correspondence? Is Ekvall the individual who forwarded your email to others like Lucy Komisar? Or was that somebody else? Is he now your own personal spin-doctor? (And, if so, why don't you choose somebody more talented, effective, and credible than the widely discredited Ekvall? After all: a political consultant who is pro-coup and hostile to democracy can and should become a liability to anyone's campaign in the present and future.)

Phil, I don't mind that you CC him or anyone else. I just think that if you are going to call yourself a journalist you must disclose this obviously too-close-for-comfort relationship you have with Ekvall, and the reasons for it. Please disclose the nature of your relationship with Ekvall that is so close that you include him as a party to your correspondence with another journalist. Do you think that serious journalists make partisan political consultants a party to their correspondence with other journalists without explaining why? Don't you think that gives him a power over you that should be unethical for any journalist to allow?

Q. Now let's move on to another player in the Venezuela conflict who you quoted at a very key moment in history last April: Eurídice Ledezma. You know Eurídice, don't you? I understand that Richard Gott's book – sorry, I don't have a copy, but is that true or not? – about Venezuela and Chávez alludes to this undisclosed relationship. What is the nature of your relationship – past or present – with Ms. Ledezma?

Q. On April 12, 2002, again in the St. Pete Times, you quoted Ms. Ledezma on the coup-day events in Caracas:

"'No one was expecting it. It was an ambush,' said local journalist Eurídice Ledezma, who described seeing plain-clothed snipers firing from the roof of the Caracas town hall, a bastion of government supporters."

Eurídice Ledezma was your sole source for your story that blamed the sniper attacks of April 11th – the provocation that was used to justify a coup d'etat – on government supporters and as such her words became the basis for repeated claims all over the world, including among corporate "press freedom" groups, that the gunfire came from "a bastion of government supporters."

Eurídice Ledezma even claimed to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York that the bullet that took the life of journalist Jorge Tortoza was fired from City Hall. Wow. What incredible eyesight she must have! It's particularly impressive – I'm speaking sarcastically and indignantly (of course I'm not impressed) – now that everybody acknowledges that shots were fired from many directions during that massacre.

Your undisclosed friend Eurídice Ledezma spun you that "plain-clothed snipers" fired the shots.

A day later, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York quoted the same Eurídice Ledezma claiming that a "military sniper" shot our colleague Tortoza.

Did you ever ask your friend Eurídice Ledezma which type of person fired the shot? Was it a "military sniper"? Or was it a "plain-clothed sniper"? It can't be both, can it, Phil? Or was she just making it up to cause the justification for a coup?

Subsequently, journalists who are hardly friends of the Chávez administration, such as those at the daily Tal Cual, documented that the gunshots came from various buildings, including a hotel. Certain facts are undisputed: Some of the gunmen were apprehended that day by the Chávez government's law enforcement authorities and they were held in detention. Later that day, Chávez was deposed by the coup d'etat, and Pedro Carmona was named as the un-elected dictator. It was during Carmona's brief rule that those gunmen were set free. In retrospect, if those gunmen had really been "Chavistas," do you believe that Carmona's regime would have set them free? What is your explanation for why the coup set the sniper-assassins free? That should be interesting.

Q. Why didn't you disclose on that terrible day that your sole uncorroborated source to imply blame for those tragic assassinations on one side of the conflict has been someone you've identified to others as your "former girlfriend"? Those are your words, aren't they?

Q. As the self-proclaimed "former boyfriend" of Eurídice Ledezma, you of course had to know that she was a rabidly partisan player already in the conflict. The magazine she works for, Exceso, is an ultra right wing rag of zero credibility, explicitly anti-democracy in its editorial position. Is this the same Eurídice Ledezma who later praised Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona in the same Exceso magazine, writing, "I don't believe that Pedro would have formed part of a conspiracy for the route of a military coup"? Note the first-name basis with our dear dictator "Pedro." ¡Guácala!

She also wrote, "he didn't commit a crime." Uh, Phil, reality-check time: Pedro Carmona abolished Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution: If your friend and foundation-stone source for all the disinformation that stemmed from your April 12th report has as cloudy a sense of perception as that statement reveals, and you already knew this person, how could you have been so spun by her? Well, okay, this Eurídice Ledezma was with you years ago in Mexico, wasn't she? Please correct me if I am in error, but I don't think that I am.

Beyond your dishonest failure to disclose your personal relationship with your source (Uh, Phil, journalistic careers rightfully go up in smoke over that kind of maneuver) why didn't you disclose her known partisan position when quoting her on something so incendiary as an implication that the bullets came from one party in the conflict?

Q. Given the fact that this dishonest implication then spread around the world before the truth could put its pants on, and had horrible consequences for the turn of events – justifying a coup that assassinated 50 opposition leaders in two days, and tortured various of them according to major human rights organizations; a coup that within hours abolished Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution's rule – why have you never clarified, corrected or disclosed the whole truth about your April 12th report?

Q. As a veteran reporter, were you somehow not aware of what the consequences of that simulated "report" and its lack of disclosure subsequently created the conditions that led to the assassinations of at least 50 Venezuelans?

Q. Phil: As Authentic Journalist Mario Menéndez – my friend and victorious co-defendant – often says, people's true character emerges during times of moral crisis. April 2002 revealed a lot about all of us who are journalists reporting on Venezuela. December 2002 turns out to be a grand "second opinion" as the doctors say. You don't really come out of this lookin' so good, chap.

Moving on from April – your ghost of Christmas past – to December – your ghost of Christmas present – and your expressed concern about one-sidedness in reporting (which seems hollow in light of these allegations, let's look at some of your own public statements in recent days.

Let's take a hard look at your comments made last week, December 12th, via telephone interview on the Diane Rehm Show on WAMU in Washington. The very elegant and fabulous Diane Rehm opened the interview by asking you to "describe for us, if you can, what's going on."

You replied that, "the country is virtually in a halt. In fact I was just writing here that in a way President Chávez is like one of those cartoon characters who run off the edge of cliffs and all of a sudden find that there's nothing beneath their feet."

Three days later, Letta Taylor, Latin American correspondent for Newsday, quoted another partisan political actor in Venezuela, Janet Kelly: "'Remember those cartoons with Sylvester and Tweety Bird, or the Road Runner?' asked Janet Kelly, a Caracas-based political analyst. 'There's a moment when they run over the canyon and are suspended in air and look at the audience as they suddenly realize they're going to fall. That's Chávez.'"

To be fair, that statement appeared very shortly after your own, but it does raise an eyebrow or two, because smart political consultants don't, in my long experience with them, just steal quotes from journalists without attributing them. They have to work with us, after all: The professionals take every opportunity to credit us when they quote from us. So I must ask: Who is ghostwriting for who? Are you the original author of that simile? Or is political consultant Janet Kelly? Or is there perhaps some other author ghostwriting for both of you?

Q. Do you know Janet Kelly? Please disclose the nature of any relationship you have with that political consultant who sings in such cartoon-loving harmony with you.

Q. If you are, in fact, the real author of that cartoon simile, are you going to take any action against Ms. Kelly for copyright infringement without attribution?

Q. About the simile itself: No matter who authored it, or who took dictation, what did you mean by, "Chávez is like one of those cartoon characters who run off the edge of cliffs and all of a sudden find that there's nothing beneath their feet"?

Q. If powerful economic forces like the Commercial Media, the overpaid ex-managers of the state owned oil company, or others, try to push someone "off the edge of cliffs" how does this simile work in which you claim that someone had "run" off the cliff?

Q. I know these are essentially literary questions, but we're both writers, Phil, please indulge and educate me: What did you mean by the idea that Chávez "all of a sudden find(s) that there's nothing beneath their (sic) feet?"

Q. Has it not been shown, again in December as in April, that Chávez has the Organization of American States, the Venezuelan Constitution, and significant masses of the people behind his survival as elected president? Suddenly even the New York Times editorial position is beneath his feet! Beep beep! Do you think, now, a week later, that your (or Janet's) simile – with which you led your MSNBC (online only) story – didn't quite describe what has truly happened in recent days? Does this perhaps suggest to you that your political analysis has, ahem, been incorrect in this month of December? How did you get steered so far from reality?

Q. Moving on – in your same December 12 interview with Diane Rehm – you said:

"Chavez is making no secret of the fact that he's seeking to impose ah what he calls the a revolution which is a strange kind of – as an editor of mine called it the other day – kind of gaseous concoction of kind of half-digested Marxism with some military nationalism thrown in, even a couple of strands of fascism, and this is something that really I think most of the Venezuelan people feel that they didn't sign up for when they voted for him in 98 and again in 2000. Uh, they finally realized that he's serious about this and uh they want to get rid of him before he has a chance to implement it."

I have a number of questions about this statement. The first is: Who was the "editor of yours" who demonstrated such a bizarre uneducated bias to his or her writer? Was it an editor from Coup Plotters' Daily (The Miami Herald)? Or was it an editor from another of the companies you work for? Which one?

Q. Phil, do you really think that you used the F-word – "fascism" – in a responsible or accurate manner in this case?

After all, most reasonable people don't consider a country that has had six fair and free elections over four years, with zero journalists in jail (except for a Community Radio journalist, Nicolas Rivera, tortured and kidnapped by rogue pro-coup Municipal Police forces last June; but you've never reported that most serious attack on press freedom, have you?), where even April's known coup plotters walk the streets in freedom, to be somehow "fascist" at all?

To the contrary, Phil, most reasonable people would consider the actions of the Dictator-for-a-Day of last April, Pedro Carmona, to have been those of a truly fascist regime. The fascist behavior in Venezuela has been on the part of the owning class, not of the elected government. Fascist behavior could certainly be observed in the behavior of the previous Venezuelan regimes, in the massacre of 1989 committed by then-President Carlos Andres Peres, now one of the "opposition leaders" trying to destabilize democracy in today's Venezuela. Do you think you showed your grand self-proclaimed impartiality and wisdom by bandying about the word "fascism" in that context the other day on United States radio? And if so, why?

Q. As a journalist, I must ask you: If you have an editor who uses the word "fascism" in such an irresponsible and partisan manner, do you really think this editor would allow you to report the whole truth? Or do you tailor your "reports" to meet the ignorant and incendiary bias of your boss in this case? C'mon, Phil, we're both experienced journalists. We both know how it works. I'm my own editor now: I don't have that problem. But you do still have that problem, don't you? So how do you deal with such an irresponsible editor if you want to tell the truth?

Q. You also said – and I'm amazed at how many distortions you are able to squeeze into a single phrase – that Chávez seeks to "impose" a "revolution." Is "impose" the right verb for someone working within a framework of an elected legislature and working Constitution? Did you mean to say "propose" instead of "impose"? And if not, please, by all means, explain why.

Q. You also said in that same statement that you "think most of the Venezuelan people feel that they didn't sign up for (a revolution) when they voted for him in 98 and again in 2000." Ahem. Are you trying to say that Chávez didn't use the word "revolution" and similar rhetoric in his 1998 campaign? Are you claiming that he didn't do it again in his 2000 campaign? Are you claiming that he didn't do it again in the four other election campaigns of the past four years? My memory – and the archived record – indicates that he used that language from the beginning to end, that the voters heard it loud and clear and signed up for it at the ballot box six times in four years. You knew that, didn't you, Phil?

And here is where we return to my point about "journalists who should know better." You also know, or should know, that the average Washington DC radio listener, to whom you spoke to in that interview, was probably not aware of those details. And this is why I think you are a simulator and no longer a "journalist": You know, or should know, the effect that your distortions have on people in foreign lands who may not be following the situation as closely as those of us who know the score. And you still chose to distort instead of report. Why should any reader or listener trust you when you go to such acrobatic leaps, as one who should know better, to fool those who may not know better?

Q. Diane Rehm, the radio host, fortunately, was not fooled by your antics, was she? She asked you: "But Chavez does have support among the poor?" And you answered that, "most of his remaining support is concentrated among the poor, that's true, he possibly has according to opinion polls somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the electorate. But I think it's wrong to analyze it just in terms of a rich and poor battle. But when you remember that something like 65% of Venezuelans are living in poverty – and incidentally that figure has risen since Chavez came to power – um then you realize that its not the case that all his opponents are among the rich."

This is also in the category of a situation in which you either know, or should know, better. As a reporter with experience in Latin America, you know, first, that polls down here are more often than not inaccurate, invented, and one of the ways that the rich manipulate the poor. You also know, or should know, that accurate polling in countries where the majority of people don't have telephones is virtually impossible. You also know, or should know, that the same commercial media pollsters who release such "polls" predicted Chávez's defeat in 1998. They were wrong then as now. You also know, or should know, that at least one major pollster in Venezuela told the Los Angeles Times this year that he wanted Chávez to be assassinated, and that the "polling class," in its parasitical and historic oligarchic relationships with the Commercial Media owning class and the old political class – and coup-mongers like your pal Ekvall – is part of the same simulation machine.

You also know, or should know, that accurate polling in a polarized country, where a dictator – Pedro Carmona – and his still at-large brownshirts from Alfredo Peña's municipal police and those of other "opposition" mayors and governors, had recently – last April – rounded up, tortured, illegally arrested and assassinated many individuals on one side of the conflict.

Who, in their right mind, Phil, is going to tell a total stranger from a suspect elitist polling company that they support Chávez when the penalty for others who have said so has death at the hands of coup plotters?

Q. But just for the sake of argument, let's imagine that poll, showing 36% (not 25 to 30 as you claimed) support for Chávez, even under those adverse conditions, is somehow accurate. We both know it's not, but let's just play along with it, for kicks. What if it were true? Mark Weisbrot has made an interesting historic parallel. On that same radio show, where he said he found your stance "ominous," Weisbrot noted that in 1983, during a recession in the United States, President Ronald Reagan's support in U.S. public opinion polls sank to 36%. A year later, Reagan was re-elected by a landslide. Polls are not elections. Is it fair to call for coup d'etat based on commercial polling numbers?

Q. Also on the Diane Rehm show, you said, and I quote:

"I believe that the only way that Chavez will eventually leave is when the armed forces tell him to do so as they did back in April."

Let's have some full disclosure, Phil: You're talking about a coup d'etat. Are you in favor? Or are you opposed to the scenario you outlined? Your words certainly sounded like those of a cheerleader.

I disclose to my readers and public where I stand. I am opposed to that scenario of military coup cheered by Phil Gunson on WAMU. You owe your readers and your public a similar disclosure. For the record: Where do you stand?

Q. You also said, in that same interview, that "the Venezuelans are going to have to do it themselves and unfortunately the president will not listen to anyone except the military."

That sounds like a pretty clear statement of what you favor. And if listeners got the wrong impression, I offer you the opportunity to correct that statement. Was that statement an accurate portrayal of your position? And, if not, what will you do to correct it?

Q. You made similar statements, two days earlier, on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program. There, on December 10th, you said, "last night what we saw was perhaps the worst example so far of something, a phenomenon that we've seen before, which is concerted attacks on different media organizations by mobs that are clearly organized by the government. For example, the mobs in most places were led by deputies, by congresspeople, belonging to the ruling party. And in the middle of the, ah, these activities, these attacks, the interior minister went on television basically justifying them."

I'm going to tell it to you straight, Phil. I think you reveal some very disturbing and undemocratic weaknesses both as a journalist and as a human being in that statement.

First, you call public protests that, at least in Caracas, were peaceful, "attacks on different media organizations by mobs."

Do you think that the people should not have the right to demonstrate outside of private-sector institutions like Commercial TV stations? And if you feel that way, why don't you? And if not, why do you distort the news by calling a peaceful assembly an "attack"?

Q. You also stated that these "mobs" were "clearly organized by the government." You are aware, or should be aware, of facts to the contrary.

For example, on public Internet sites for days prior to December 9th, there were various calls and a major open letter by at least 20 Venezuelan community groups addressed to Chávez demanding that he revoke the licenses of the distorting Commercial TV stations. Chávez didn't do that. The people were frustrated. They were asking their government for help against a destabilizing and dishonest commercial media tyranny of the airwaves, and the Chávez government did not respond.

In my analysis – as someone who is in daily contact with many of those people from Civil Society who are not government officials – the masses got ahead of the government on this one, and the Chávez government could not hold them back. At those demonstrations they were chanting, demanding: "Chávez: Govern!" They were angry at him, too, for allowing the pro-coup manipulations of Globovision, of Venevision, of RCTV, and the rest. In any case, their open letter and other public demands for action by Chávez prior to those demonstrations are archived on the Internet.

I also saw, on live TV, the statement by Diosdado Cabello of the Chávez government, urging people to be peaceful, to be nonviolent. To the contrary of your fabricated explanation to the United States public, Phil, he was not there "justifying" the protests (as if protests need justifying): He was there pleading for peace, for no one to harm anyone else. And no human life was harmed, was it?

The only evidence you cite for your claim that the "mobs" were "clearly organized by the government" other than Cabello's speech, was the presence of members of Congress. Phil: I've covered members of Congress in many lands. They see a crowd moving, they go to join it: That is, after all, part of their job. They're from the legislative branch of government, not the executive. They have every right to protest at TV stations, too!

Phil, don't you think that you've gone off the deep end with your "conspiracy theory" view of the situation? You transparently state that any action by any poor person, worker, and now legislator, against coups and media distortion, is "organized by the government."

I think, with these statements, you reveal a tremendous rich kid's bias against the poor. And that, given the difference in pigmentation between you and so many of the Venezuelan poor, I think you have to address your own inherent racism and class hatred.

Please don't answer "but some of my best friends are dark-skinned Venezuelans." You either know better, or should know better. The oligarchy in Venezuela, now that the poor aren't willing to be slaves any more, are, truly, suffering psychological problems. Don't kid yourself: as a British freelance correspondent for powerful newspapers in the United States, you are, by definition, a member of the Caracas oligarchy as much as any foreign Viceroy throughout history. You have privilege and power that the individual members of those "mobs" (your words, not mine) have never known. And with statements like the ones you've made, you're demonstrating to the world that you have become a member of an oligarchy that has always included foreigners like Ekvall and you. Why do you call the opposition demonstrators "protestors" and the other side "mobs"? What is the distinction that defines each term?

Q. Do you think that maybe it's time for you to take one of those racism sensitivity courses that are all the rage at First World newspapers these days? I would be happy to contribute to any costs involved. As one journo to another, as one human being to another, I think you need it badly if you are going to continue in this profession, particularly in Latin America where these matters or race and class are finally coming to light as never before.

Q. Why do you repeatedly say, in almost all of your articles, that an owner and management imposed lockout is somehow a "General Strike"? Do you understand the historic and common definition of that term?

Q. Why have you not reported on the collapse of that misnamed "strike" as stores have reopened throughout the country and Christmas shoppers are bustling through the streets and malls?

I have other questions, but perhaps this is enough for now.

Some of my questions contain, of course, my opinions that you are free to contest or counter with your own opinions. But I think that you do owe specific answers to each question.

I feel I am being very fair to you by showing you the text of this letter prior to publication, to give you every opportunity to speak to the issues, facts and opinions expressed. I am also willing to publish your response to these questions in full and uncensored form.

If I don't hear from you by Monday 10 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, I will post the questions exactly as they are written here. If you feel that any of the questions must be amended based on corrections of fact, I think four days is sufficient time for you to respond. To my belief, these opinions I express here are based on what my sources have told me, and on publicly available information.

You're a veteran: You know that four days is a very reasonable amount of time to respond. We all have our deadlines. Of course, you may also respond after Monday if you wish – the door will be held open – but the questions will be published on Monday.

And, believe me, the people in many lands are going to want answers. Please, if you still call yourself a journalist, provide them in the spirit of full disclosure.

Salud,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/
narconews@hotmail.com

Uncensored "response" from
freelance reporter Phil Gunson:

>From: "philgunson@cantv.net"
>Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:32:13 -0400

are you brave enough to publish this in full? or are you just a playground bully?

Full text of attachment:

Here is my response to your "interview questions". Please keep your promise and publish it in full.

First of all, you really need to start taking yourself less seriously. Self-importance combined with paranoia can lead to stress-related diseases. Chill out a little.

I've come across people like you before, Al, though never in such an advanced stage of decomposition. The trouble with the internet is that it gives ignorant loudmouths a platform to address the whole world.

Fortunately, grown-ups know that only in the school playground is something "truer" if you shout it louder and use more bad words.

Your techniques are the lie, the half-truth, the smear, and guilt by association. Although the two Joes (McCarthy and Stalin) are long dead, their techniques live on.

I'm not stupid enough to lend credence to your show-trial (or your unpleasant little publication) by taking part in it. No one whose opinion matters to me would mistake you for a genuine seeker-after-truth.

You presume to lecture us about journalistic ethics, but you don't even have the minimal courtesy to stick to your own "embargo". So much for your "generous offer" to take my comments into account.

A cursory glance at your ill-informed, poorly-researched attempts to tell us what is "really" going on in Venezuela reveals you to be a purveyor of half-digested propaganda. Why not come out from behind your desk (which, of course, happens to be in another country) and feel the tear-gas and the plastic bullets?

On second thoughts: stay well away. Your mind is made up – we wouldn't want to bother you with the facts. After all, they get in the way of a good story, don't they?

After nearly a quarter-century writing and broadcasting about Latin America, I'm perfectly happy to let my record stand for itself. No self-appointed thought-policeman can tell people what to think about me.

I really don't know what unresolved childhood traumas lie behind your desperate need to be taken seriously and to bring other people down. And I have neither the time, the inclination nor the professional skills to help you get over them.

Being libelled by you is – in the immortal words of British Labour politician Dennis Healey – like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Go right ahead. Give it your best shot. Just don't send me any more emails. This correspondence is over.

Phil Gunson

Full text of Gunson's first
letter to Narco News…

>From: "Phil Gunson"
>CC: Eric Ekvall
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 18:15:40 -0400

dear narco news,

your contributions to the important and necessary critique of foreign press coverage of venezuela would carry much more weight if you didn't fall into the trap of repeating government propaganda as if it were the "true" story the media are suppressing.

both sides use evidence-free claims of evil conspiracies by the other – and expect us to swallow them uncritically. it's often hard to sift through this garbage and find anything resembling the "truth" of what's going on.

for instance, the government's line that its opponents are all a bunch of well-heeled fascists whose "strike" is merely a cover for a coup plot is as much of an exaggeration as the opposition claim that the entire country is united against the "dictator" chavez.

the fact that one or two government spokesmen have claimed that gouveia was paid by the opposition doesn't turn it into a "credible theory" – especially when the only impartial evidence we have (including that from gouveia's former landlords) suggests he had links with the government.

the fact that the metropolitan police shot pro-chavez demonstrators after 11 april – while true enough – should be a reason for pursuing them through the courts, not sending the army to take over the police (thereby violating the constitution and worsening an already chronic crime situation in caracas).

your version of what is "really" happening in venezuela merely parrots the government's – and that's not good enough. this is the same government that (for instance) covered up the presence of montesinos in venezuela, for reasons that are still unclear. it is a government that repeatedly violates its own constitution, whilst constantly proclaiming it to be the finest in the world.

so come on, narco news – you can do better than that. criticise us by all means. but don't use the very methods you despise (sloppy, one-sided reporting) in order to do it.

saludos from caracas

Phil Gunson
(freelance correspondent)

Responses from political
consultant Erik Ekvall:

>From: "Eric Ekvall"
>CC: "Phil Gunson"
>Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:34:16 -0400

>Get your facts straight (again), Al—Phil's been living here for almost
>three years.

Giordano's first reply to Ekvall:

From: "Alberto M. Giordano"
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 9:52 AM

Duly noted.

Glad to hear you don't contest the facts from this paragraph:

"Interestingly, the only person he visibly CCed his letter to was Erik Ekvall, the April 2002 war criminal, political consultant hostile to democracy, former advisor to the state owned oil company, and, last I checked, consultant to the Ford Motor Company (at least during last April's coup attempt). Ekvall is the spin-doctor who popped up in last April's NYT puff piece by Juan Forero on Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona, defending the cretin who abolished Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution all in one day."

Ekvall's response to Giordano's
reply, Cced to Michael Rowan:

>From: "Eric Ekvall"
>CC: "Michael Rowan"
>Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 19:01:58 -0400

Fact: I resigned the Ford account March 15. (But to a devious, paranoid, seeing-fascists-under-every-rug mindset such as yours, I suppose this is just additional confirmation that by March 15 I was deeply involved in planning the April 11 coup, and for the purpose of protecting my "sponsors" and maintaining appearances, was attempting to sideline my erstwhile client from negative exposure by resigning only weeks before.)

The rest isn't "facts", just your opinion. And opinions, as you know, are like assholes…..

Al, I assume that making the world safe for anarchy (you flatter yourself as an anarchist, I see) and an eventual dictatorship of the proletariat (or "the masses"—your preferred term for what I think of as citizens), requires nonstop vigilance, but IMHO you ought to get more sleep, relax, go for a walk, play the guitar more (I'm a guitar player myself), listen a little less to Eminem and a little more to, oh, The Incredible String Band, for example.

The rage, the vitriol, the bile—that all-consuming hate that permeates so much of what you write—it's not good for the soul. I understand the business about the absent, irresponsible, derelict-in-his-duties father, and how this can lead to persecution-cum-crusader complexes, and how the whole stew entrains this zealous desire to trash authority under all its guises…. In short, I can relate. But history doesn't have to be destiny. And this kind of stuff clouds the mind.

If it's any comfort to you, the same thing is happening to Chavez. In fact, the Savonarola-like tactics and language you use against those you've targeted for "clean-up" (your words) remind me of something a close ally and collaborator of Chavez, who finally jumped ship in disgust earlier this year, said of his erstwhile idol: "Poor Hugo, he doesn't know how to distinguish adversaries from enemies."

And, this one is really from the heart: despite what is probably a slavish following among the don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts-my-mind's-made-up "left", who, in their ignorance, believe that the enemy (Chavez) of my enemy (The White House/US foreign policy/globalization/Israel/multinational corporations/WTO/you-name-it) is my friend, you're in the process of becoming an international laughingstock with your Comintern-speak, scorched-earth support of what has become the most corrupt and brazenly authoritarian regime in Latin America. The truth of his regime will come out, and sooner than later. Patience, Al.

It's too bad, because the initial objectives (as I understand them) of NN were to give no quarter to the immoral, corrupt, nonsensical and counterproductive 30+ -year USA-sponsored War on Drugs. Now that's a cause worth fighting for. Why don't you focus more on that, where at least you seem to understand the basics and have proven your mettle under fire? Because on Venezuela, you're way, way out of the ballpark, amigo.

Eric

Giordano's response to Ekvall:

Heh. Touched a defensive chord there, eh?

In sum: You refuse to disclose your sources of income, but expect to be believed in your characterizations of them.

You sound like a consultant with plenty to hide, Ekvall.

You're also quite paranoid. I have no statuatory power, no police, no prison, no guns, none of the instruments necessary for what reasonable people define as Inquisition, jury, prosecutor, commissar, whatever (and you think I'm the paranoid one? Ha! You slay me!). All I've got is words, and the only ones that hurt are the true ones.

Anyway, you can blame Gunson. He dragged you into this round. And implicated himself in unethical activity for a journalist by doing so.

Ekvall the War Criminal feels "picked on," by nothin' more than words and questions. Amazing, but not surprising.

Have a nice Christmas. In spite of all your efforts, it came this year!

Al Giordano

Ekvall's "final" response
(also Cced to Michael Rowan):

>From: "Eric Ekvall"
>CC: "Michael Rowan"
>Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 19:01:58 –0400

Al, I owe you no explanations whatsoever about how I make my living, who my clients are, or how I choose to spend my leisure time.

But I will let you in one one disappointing little secret: I have no clients in Venezuela, or abroad, for whom I have been working with any interest in the outcome of the current political struggle being waged in this country, and am not, nor have I been since Chavez came to power, on the payroll of, nor have I received compensation from in any way shape or form, any interest with a score to settle with Chavez.

Get it? Clear enough for your little inquisitor's brain?

Your self-appointed role as grand jury, public prosecutor and political commissar, all rolled into one, may impress, or intimidate, some but to me you're just a megalomaniacal, self-promoting gasbag. You're wasting your time with me, Al. Go find someone else to pick on.

End of conversation.

Mystery & Eric Ekvall

2008-03-31T21:16:00.001-07:00


		\| Issue #26
The Book is Printed and Ready to Ship! Oaxaca resiste DR 2006 Latuff Set Color: Print This Page Search Narco News: Narco News Issue #25 Complete Archives The Other Campaign La Otra Campaña A Outra Campanha L'Altra Campagna Die Andere Kampagne L'Autre Campagne De Andere Campagne «کارزاری ديگر» Farsi Contact: Publisher: Al Giordano Editor-in-Chief: Dan Feder Managing Editor: Laura del Castillo Newsroom Coordinator: Chris Fee Webmaster: David B. Briones Opening Statement, April 18, 2000 ¡Bienvenidos en Español! Bem Vindos em Português! Sign up for free alerts list: English Lista de alertas gratis: Español Lista de alertas grátis Português Narco News is supported by: The Fund for Authentic Journalism Editorial Policy and Disclosures Site Design: Dan Feder All contents, unless otherwise noted, © 2000-2008 Al Giordano The trademarks "Narco News," "The Narco News Bulletin," and "School of Authentic Journalism" © 2000-2008 Al Giordano RSS 1.0	Undisclosed Venezuela Conflicts Eric Ekvall Upset By Al Giordano With Unabridged Letters from Phil Gunson and Eric Ekvall December 23, 2002 First, we will introduce the actors in this report on what happens when foreign media organizations don't apply enough scrutiny on their English-language correspondents in Latin America. Eric Ekvall is a political consultant in Venezuela who used to work for the state-owned oil company PdVSA and the Ford Motor Company. He popped up last April, during the brief coup d'etat in Venezuela, defending Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona in an article by Juan Forero of the New York Times. Phil Gunson refers to himself as a "freelance correspondent" in Venezuela. He has written during the past month for the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, MSNBC (online only) and the Independent of London. He has also been interviewed recently on NPR and on WAMU radio in Washington DC about the events in Venezuela (parts of those interviews are quoted below). The two men have a relationship related to Gunson's "journalism" that – after they were given the opportunity to come clean by Narco News – neither Gunson nor Ekvall were willing to disclose. Additionally, Gunson has an undisclosed conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest (all journalistic codes of ethics prohibit such nondisclosure), with the key source that he quoted last April 11th to blame the still unsolved sniper assassinations of that day on supporters of the government of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela: His source for that uncorroborated statement – part of the justification for the coup d'etat – was Eurídice Ledezma, who Gunson has told sources (but did not disclose in his article) was his former girlfriend; a rapidly pro-coup reporter in Venezuela, also – coincidentally? – a vocal defender of Dictator-for-a-day Pedro Carmona. Asked about this apparent conflict, Gunson sent a "response" to Narco News (published in full and uncensored below) in which he issued no denial or clarification of that serious allegation. He simply did not address it at all. There are other serious problems with Gunson's reports out of Venezuela last April and again this month. Many of his statements appear to us to have been made in a knowingly false manner. More – a lot more – about Gunson in a moment… Prologue: Ekvall's Para-Journalists There is a fourth player in Venezuela (who like Gunson and Ekvall is not a native Venezuelan) who has been a party to some of these correspondences: Michael Rowan, former business associate of Ekvall and columnist for the pro-coup daily El Universal in Caracas. Last June, I received a letter from Rowan, claiming to be writing a column for El Universal, asking me how I make my living and from what sources. Of course I answered him right away. I think this is a question that every individual in public life – including journalists – should answer, and I answered Rowan immediately: those sources are already disclosed on our links and disclosures page: While offering mine, I also asked Rowan to make his own disclosure: Why, if he was a newspaper columnist for El Universal, did he send me his letter from the same email address used by partisan political consultant Erik Ekvall? And didn't he see a conflict-of-interest in using a shared email account with a political spin-doctor? Rowan replied that his business relationship with Ekvall was strictly in the past, and that the shared email account was merely a holdover from that relationship. The question from Narco News must have concerned both men, because both, soon after, changed their email addresses. Rowan also replied, aggressively, accusing me of being unwilling to disclose my sources of income because I had simply given him a link to where the information had already been disclosed to all readers, reporters and columnists, including him. Noticing that Rowan wasn't the brightest bulb on the block, I then took the careful time to spell it all out for him; repeating, specially for him, the same facts that already appeared on our links page. Since I live below the poverty level by United States standards, and own no house, no car, no credit card, and put virtually every cent I can muster into the work of Narco News anyway, I also had some fun explaining to Rowan that I sometimes make a few extra bucks playing my Dobro guitar and singing in nightclubs. Rowan, finding no scandal to write about, then claimed he was going to write a nice little column about my guitar and me, and people who dedicate our lives to our principles. But to paraphrase Aimee Mann, I'd rather be played by a pro: Of course I did not believe him – I figured he was merely on an intelligence gathering mission for Ekvall and whatever undisclosed clients are behind Ekvall – and my skepticism was confirmed when Rowan's supposed column never appeared. Fast forward to October 2002: Ekvall pops up on the isle of Jamaica, during the respected and important Mind States conference "for a consciousness-expanding seminar unlike anything you've ever experienced before," where one of my disclosed supporters was also slated to attend. There in Negril, Jamaica, Ekvall asked a lot of questions about Al Giordano and did his usual lobbying-complaining about me as well. I find it extremely entertaining that Ekvall can afford to go to Jamaica to this conference (the listed cost was $1,300; well worth the price; wish I could have afforded it) on entheogenic plants and hallucinogenic drugs, even as Ekvall claims that Chávez has destroyed the economy of Venezuela. Then came the December 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela. Apparently, whatever Ekvall was doing in Negril, Jamaica, he didn't take any of the lessons to heart, nor was his consciousness sufficiently expanded, obviously. Because despite the blood of 50 Venezuelans on his hands still from last April – through his defense of their butcher, Carmona – Ekvall is back at the pro-coup spinning wheel once again. Gunson & Ekvall, Inc.? Ekvall showed up on the Narco News radar screen again this month, via a Letter to the Editor sent December 19th by "freelance correspondent" Phil Gunson. Gunson sent an email addressed "dear narco news" to complain about Narco News Associate Publisher Dan Feder's December 18, 2002 report: "AP's One-Sided Venezuela Coverage: On 'Desk Reporters' Who Phone-in the Spin." That letter from Gunson is published, uncensored and in full, below. I found the letter curious, additional to its weak arguments, because Feder's report did not mention Gunson (and Gunson's response was very defensive: perhaps he took the reference to desk reporters who phone-in the spin a bit personally?) and also because of who he Cced it to: political consultant Erik Ekvall. I thought, "what the hell is a 'journalist' doing Ccing his journo-to-journo letter to a partisan political consultant?" Others – like Authentic Journalist Lucy Komisar – also received a copy of the letter; whether that was Ekvall acting as Gunson's consultant, spinning the letter, I don't know: Neither of these guys, offered the opportunity, would answer my question about the details, although both sent me emails that indicated they had received the questions. I had already noted that Gunson's "reporting" – and interviews he gave on two United States radio programs – had reflected Ekvall's pro-coup spin on recent history in Venezuela. The two seem to speak with one voice. I found this quite curious. Upon further investigation, I found that Gunson had, last April, quoted Ekvall's spin on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, without disclosing that Ekvall had previously been a consultant to that company. Upon still further investigation, I found another undisclosed conflict of interest in a very key report by Gunson during the coup last April in Venezuela: that his sole source for an uncorroborated accusation of a political assassination was – according to what Gunson told sources, and that I'm told appears in a book about Venezuela by Richard Gott – Gunson's former girlfriend, Eurídice Ledezma, a rabidly pro-coup journalist and defender – like Ekvall – of Dictator-for-a-Day Carmona, whom she calls "Pedro." The harmony in which each of these players sing – Ekvall, Gunson, Rowan, and Ledezma – in favor of the dictator Carmona's coup d'etat, with knowing distortions in their published statements regarding Chávez and Venezuela, is very troublesome precisely because the nature of these relationships is undisclosed. Even more troublesome, is the fact that once offered the opportunity to clear the air on their undisclosed conflicts-of-interest, both Ekvall and Gunson didn't come clean. (At least Rowan, last June, admitted he had been a business associate of Ekvall's. But Ekvall and Gunson have simply stonewalled.) Troublesome, too, is that in their "responses" to my offers to disclose and come clean, the script of both Gunson and Ekvall's letters to me this week is virtually identical. Both are published in full and uncensored below. Now let's examine their mutual party line. Through the Looking Glass Gunson has compared, in his published work, the situation in Venezuela to "Alice in Wonderland," that wonderful Lewis Carroll story that begins Chapter IV with Alice encountering two identical characters, which remind us of Ekvall and Gunson: Tweedledee and Tweedledum. In the case of Ekvall and Gunson, it's just as hard to pull them apart. THEY were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other "DEE". `I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself. They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just going round to see if the word "TWEEDLE" was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked "DUM". `If you think we're wax-works,' he said, `you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow.' `Contrariwise,' added the one marked "DEE", `if you think we're alive, you ought to speak.' Like Alice, I wondered if these two dumplings were alive or if they were what they appeared to be. And so I spoke to Ekvall and Gunson. I asked them questions: Like a reporter does. I gave each of them the chance to respond, to clear the air. Ekvall fired off two responses, offering little to no disclosure, which he ended by declaring: "End of conversation." Gunson got is response in an hour or so before deadline, which he concluded with: "This correspondence is over." Touchy, eh? It was Gunson who started the conversation, after all. He dragged Ekvall into it, but he doesn't want to continue now that he's been asked some important questions about his undisclosed conflicts. No problem: We'll continue it with Civil Society. The similarities in their "responses" are striking. 1. Both Gunson and Ekvall refused to answer legitimate questions or disclose their conflicts and potential conflicts.. Ekvall: "Al, I owe you no explanations whatsoever about how I make my living, who my clients are, or how I choose to spend my leisure time." Gunson: "I'm not stupid enough to lend credence to your show-trial (or your unpleasant little publication) by taking part in it." Keep in mind, kind readers: Gunson – "stupid enough" to have gotten caught in two undisclosed conflicts of interest this year regarding his Venezuela reporting – demands answers from others as a reporter. But when he's asked questions, he turns into the proverbial guy who tries to cover the camera with his hands. Ekvall, last June, sicked Michael Rowan on me from Ekvall's email address, demanding that I answer their questions – I answered them forthrightly, of course, not having anything to hide. But turn the table, and these guys become whining defensive hypocrites. 2. Both Gunson and Ekvall, in lieu of offering full disclosure, chose instead to play make-believe psychiatrists (this was my favorite part of their spin)… Gunson: "I really don't know what unresolved childhood traumas lie behind your desperate need to be taken seriously and to bring other people down. And I have neither the time, the inclination nor the professional skills to help you get over them." Ekvall: "I understand the business about the absent, irresponsible, derelict-in-his-duties father, and how this can lead to persecution-cum-crusader complexes, and how the whole stew entrains this zealous desire to trash authority under all its guises…. In short, I can relate." Huh? I never mentioned my childhood or other such personal matters to either of these guys. Why would I? I think Ekvall probably bases that on my mention last summer, in an essay on Eminem, that like many people I'm the product of a single-mom household. The rest of his fantasy he can look up in his self-help books under the word "projection." Gunson, meanwhile, outdoes even Ekvall on the "projection" front: He spent April and December of this year trying to take down an elected president by creating the simulated conditions for a coup d'etat, but he accuses me of trying "to bring other people down." Oh, right, I forgot: This is Wonderland: So that's why I'm smiling like the Cheshire Cat? 3. Deepening their practice of pop-psychology, both Ekvall and Gunson wrote me out prescriptions for their diagnoses: Ekvall: "you ought to get more sleep, relax, go for a walk, play the guitar more (I'm a guitar player myself), listen a little less to Eminem and a little more to, oh, The Incredible String Band, for example." Gunson: "First of all, you really need to start taking yourself less seriously. Self-importance combined with paranoia can lead to stress-related diseases. Chill out a little. I've come across people like you before, Al, though never in such an advanced stage of decomposition. The trouble with the internet is that it gives ignorant loudmouths a platform to address the whole world." Kind reader, did you catch that hostility to the Internet – and most people who use it – on Gunson's part? "The trouble with the internet," he complains, "is that it gives ignorant loudmouths a platform to address the whole world." Actually, Gunson should know, the whole world tunes in or out as it wishes. To read something on the World Wide Web, you have to actively go look for it. When millions of readers have looked for and found Narco News, its not as if our coverage has been forced upon them; they tune in here voluntarily. Gunson clearly misses the good old days, when simulating reporters like him could control the story as Power wanted it told from any Third World outpost. The real "trouble with the Internet" is that it has provided all of us with more ability to scrutinize Gunson's (and others') knowingly false reports, and to correct them. (The Internet also led us to discover him in the act of an undisclosed relationship with political consultant Ekvall… well, understandable that Gunson neither likes nor understands the Internet, especially not this month.) Listen to their elitism: The world was a better place without the Internet nor Eminem, they say: Violent coups d'etat, good; Internet and rap music, bad. Wonderland, indeed! It's also a distinctly elitist form of speaking in "code" to dismiss working-class or poor critics with psychobabble, and thus avoid the merits of the critique. The problem for them is that their "code" is well understood by the working and poor majorities in every land. Well, anyway, Narco News has sure got the hornet's nest stirred up. These guys are like a tea-party salon full of blue-haired old biddies when a mouse runs in the room: all up on their chairs screaming! 4. Ekvall and Gunson, while describing Narco News as so "little" and "laughingstock" as not to matter, then portrayed themselves as victims being "bullied" and "picked on" by The Little Website That Could. Gunson: "are you brave enough to publish this in full? or are you just a playground bully?" Ekvall: "Go find someone else to pick on." Jeez, these guys are sensitive. Ya can't touch 'em even with the petal of a rose without hearing their pitched screams. Well, kind reader, you can read their words below, in full and uncensored. I urge you to give careful reading, as well, to my questions to Gunson – the questions he is afraid to answer. Remember these questions next time you read anything by Phil Gunson. In any case, reading Gunson through an educated lens will provide you with a pretty good indicator of the day's spin by pro-coup political consultant Erik Ekvall. The dimmer bulbs of the Commercial Correspondents Caste of Caracas have their panties all up in a bunch over Narco News. Hooray and Merry Christmas! To that we say: You ain't seen nothin' yet. Open Letter and Questions to Phil Gunson Thursday, December 19, 2002 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR PHIL GUNSON ABOUT HIS VENEZUELA COVERAGE EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2002 To: Phil Gunson philgunson@cantv.net CC: Mario Renato Menéndez Rodríguez, Por Esto!, redaccion@poresto.net Cynthia Cotts, the Village Voice, cc@villagevoice.com Dan Kennedy, the Boston Phoenix, dkennedy@phx.com Lucy Komisar, American Reporter, lkomisar@msn.com Luis Gómez, Narco News, narconewsandes@yahoo.com Dan Feder, Narco News, webmaster@narconews.com Salón Chingón, somewhere in a country called América, salonchingon@hotmail.com (All of the above individuals and groups know what "embargoed" means and, I strongly believe, will respect that) Dear Phil Gunson, Thank you, again, for your letter, and for agreeing to an interview by email. Your reports over the past month from Venezuela for the Christian Science Monitor, MSNBC (online only), and the Miami Herald – the daily newspaper of coup plotters and oligarchs throughout Latin America – and the interviews you granted last week to NPR and WAMU radio, have raised many questions about you and your work. Some of these questions began last April, after your "report" in the St. Petersburg Times became the basis for many "statements of fact" that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's supporters shot at demonstrators from rooftops on April 11, 2002. Your report caused a lot of bloodshed. If your report was knowingly false, well, let the heavens fall and the truth be known. This is your opportunity to clear the air. I plan on publishing these questions on Monday, December 23, 2002. You are of course invited to provide answers before or after that date, and I will publish your response, uncensored, whenever you send it. According to my information and belief, all of these questions are based on accurate information. If you feel that any of these questions are based on incorrect information, I invite you to submit proposed corrections prior to Monday, December 23, 2002, at 10 a.m. eastern standard time. I think I'm being very fair with you to make you that offer. By way of introducing this Q & A, I want to preface my questions with the kind of full disclosure on my part that I am now going to ask from you. There are some matters that are very important to this hemisphere and I, like you, have opinions on them. I don't claim "objectivity," and I distrust "journalists" who claim it, because they indicate from the get-go that they are not reporting accurately on the subject they should know best: them selves. The only truly ethical position for journalists is to disclose our biases. So, I'll tell you, Phil Gunson, right off the bat: I favor democracy. I favor fair and free elections. I agree with all the major national and international monitoring and human rights organizations that have rated the six Venezuelan elections of the past four years as fair and free. Regarding Venezuela elections of the past four years, there's no question of that fairness, not in the way that there are lingering questions and controversies over the "elections" in Colombia or even in the United States. I also believe that coups d'etat have left a long dark shadow over América for the past 30 years. Perhaps my opinion on this was formed early in life when I attended Georgetown University with Juan Pablo Letelier, whose father, Chilean minister Orlando Letelier, as you know, or should know, was assassinated in Washington DC as part of an ongoing coup. I don't understand how any human being or journalist could not be biased, or disclose his or her bias, about whether he or she is for or against such brutal crimes against humanity. Coups d'etat by the elites have resulted to be the single most damaging factor against authentic democracy, human rights, civil rights and liberties, press freedom, and political participation, by the marginalized poor and working majorities, in América. Even the threat of coup is harmful to all these values, because it creates an atmosphere of fear that makes authentic democratic participation impossible. I am not impartial about coups – whether imposed by military, economic or media elites – I oppose them, tooth and nail, with the best antidote to coups: the facts and the truth. I disclose these views to my readers every day I publish. They know where I stand. There's no confusion there. And this has led to a wonderful relationship of trust and credibility between my readers and I, and the large number of colleagues in journalism who have publicly – not just privately – endorsed, praised, or openly quoted from my work. I don't see the same level of disclosure on your part, and some of my questions are aimed at giving you the opportunity to disclose. Believe me: you'll feel much better about yourself when you do disclose. Our mutual friend Lucy Komisar wrote me noting that you worked in Central America in the 1980s. Like you, I was in Central America in the 1980s. Like you, I have reported from Mexico and Venezuela. Like you, I have reported from other Latin American countries. I have also reported extensively on courts, crime and politics within the United States. I have reported extensively from Capitol Hill and about many elections. I know how political consultants try to spin reporters from Washington to Caracas to other American capitals. The top political consultants know, from experience, that they can't spin me. You can talk to Democrat James Carville, or Republican Mary Matalin, to Republican Ron Kaufmann, or Democrat Mike Whouley, or any of scores of other spin-doctors active in the United States. And you can suggest to them, as you suggest in your letter to me, that I am somehow "parroting" anybody's "line" but my own, and these giants of spin who can't agree with each other on lunch will universally laugh at you and mock you for such an absurd and ignorant accusation. Go ahead: I invite you to ask around. I've been through that fire. I'm a known quantity. You're not a known quantity. If you're an honest man, you'll retract such a snide self-serving accusation. If my views end up corresponding with those voiced by any party to a conflict, it's because they are my views, independently and skeptically formed by investigating the facts. I don't care who agrees with me, or who does not. I do care that I agree with my conscience. You should try that sometime, Phil. I also believe, based on my long experience, that there are two kinds of reporters: Those that don't know better, and those that should know better. Reporters like you and me have clearly been around long enough that we can't plead ignorance of basic realities. To that extent, I expect more from someone like you, who worked in Latin America for years and should know the score. You're not in the category of someone like Alexandra Olson of AP who may or may not just be naïve and unaware of the consequences of her shallow undisclosed and hateful biases. After all these years Phil, if you don't know what your biases are, you should know. And you should disclose them. Now is the time. Think of these following questions as a wonderful opportunity for Phil Gunson to come clean. Now I'll begin with my questions. Q. Your letter to me of yesterday, December 18, 2002, was CCed to political consultant Erik Ekvall, a partisan player during last April's coup attempt, and also during this most recent coup attempt in December. Quick, before Ekvall has a chance to answer for you: Why did you send Ekvall a copy of your supposedly personal correspondence? Q. It is well known among the reporters covering Venezuela in the category of "those who should know better" that Ekvall is a player for one side of the conflict, the anti-democracy side: Ekvall, to my knowledge, and I've offered him the chance to deny it without response, is a consultant to the Ford Motor Company (PUBLISHER'S UPDATE: Ekvall did respond, after this letter was sent, and informs that he's an ex-consultant to Ford, a gig he left on March 15, 2002; he offered no other corrections or clarifications), a former consultant to PdVSA – the Venezuela state oil company – and part of the group ousted by the Chávez government: Someone clearly with an axe to grind; someone well known to reporters as a pathologically dishonest person and who openly defends coups d'etat and tries to spin or fool the press toward his mercenary view. What role does Erik Ekvall have as a party in a letter you sent that billed itself as a letter from one journalist to another? Q. You're obviously aware of Ekvall's partisan pro-coup role in the events of April 2002: You quoted him back then, in an April 15, 2002, article in the St. Petersburg Times. You called Ekvall "a longtime American political analyst in Caracas," as if he were simply an impartial "analyst" and not a partisan player with his own interests and axes to grind. You quoted him without disclosing that he had been a consultant to PdVSA, the very agency he was commenting on that day. And you quoted him with an obviously partisan statement, complaining that Chávez "thinks he can get away with anything." Now you have CCed Ekvall an email that purports itself as a discussion between journalistic colleagues. Don't you think that looks a little strange, Phil, to include a partisan political consultant, known for his pro-coup mercenary position, as a party to your letter to Narco News? Please explain what role he has in this conversation. Q. Sorry to ask forward questions – this form of conducting interviews has helped strengthen my reputation for never being successfully spun by anyone – but, I ask: Do you use Ekvall as your own volunteer political consultant? Or does he use you as "his" reporter? In other words, are you now in "damage control" mode after your embarrassing performance of December and are you now having him review even your personal correspondence? Is Ekvall the individual who forwarded your email to others like Lucy Komisar? Or was that somebody else? Is he now your own personal spin-doctor? (And, if so, why don't you choose somebody more talented, effective, and credible than the widely discredited Ekvall? After all: a political consultant who is pro-coup and hostile to democracy can and should become a liability to anyone's campaign in the present and future.) Phil, I don't mind that you CC him or anyone else. I just think that if you are going to call yourself a journalist you must disclose this obviously too-close-for-comfort relationship you have with Ekvall, and the reasons for it. Please disclose the nature of your relationship with Ekvall that is so close that you include him as a party to your correspondence with another journalist. Do you think that serious journalists make partisan political consultants a party to their correspondence with other journalists without explaining why? Don't you think that gives him a power over you that should be unethical for any journalist to allow? Q. Now let's move on to another player in the Venezuela conflict who you quoted at a very key moment in history last April: Eurídice Ledezma. You know Eurídice, don't you? I understand that Richard Gott's book – sorry, I don't have a copy, but is that true or not? – about Venezuela and Chávez alludes to this undisclosed relationship. What is the nature of your relationship – past or present – with Ms. Ledezma? Q. On April 12, 2002, again in the St. Pete Times, you quoted Ms. Ledezma on the coup-day events in Caracas: "'No one was expecting it. It was an ambush,' said local journalist Eurídice Ledezma, who described seeing plain-clothed snipers firing from the roof of the Caracas town hall, a bastion of government supporters." Eurídice Ledezma was your sole source for your story that blamed the sniper attacks of April 11th – the provocation that was used to justify a coup d'etat – on government supporters and as such her words became the basis for repeated claims all over the world, including among corporate "press freedom" groups, that the gunfire came from "a bastion of government supporters." Eurídice Ledezma even claimed to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York that the bullet that took the life of journalist Jorge Tortoza was fired from City Hall. Wow. What incredible eyesight she must have! It's particularly impressive – I'm speaking sarcastically and indignantly (of course I'm not impressed) – now that everybody acknowledges that shots were fired from many directions during that massacre. Your undisclosed friend Eurídice Ledezma spun you that "plain-clothed snipers" fired the shots. A day later, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York quoted the same Eurídice Ledezma claiming that a "military sniper" shot our colleague Tortoza. Did you ever ask your friend Eurídice Ledezma which type of person fired the shot? Was it a "military sniper"? Or was it a "plain-clothed sniper"? It can't be both, can it, Phil? Or was she just making it up to cause the justification for a coup? Subsequently, journalists who are hardly friends of the Chávez administration, such as those at the daily Tal Cual, documented that the gunshots came from various buildings, including a hotel. Certain facts are undisputed: Some of the gunmen were apprehended that day by the Chávez government's law enforcement authorities and they were held in detention. Later that day, Chávez was deposed by the coup d'etat, and Pedro Carmona was named as the un-elected dictator. It was during Carmona's brief rule that those gunmen were set free. In retrospect, if those gunmen had really been "Chavistas," do you believe that Carmona's regime would have set them free? What is your explanation for why the coup set the sniper-assassins free? That should be interesting. Q. Why didn't you disclose on that terrible day that your sole uncorroborated source to imply blame for those tragic assassinations on one side of the conflict has been someone you've identified to others as your "former girlfriend"? Those are your words, aren't they? Q. As the self-proclaimed "former boyfriend" of Eurídice Ledezma, you of course had to know that she was a rabidly partisan player already in the conflict. The magazine she works for, Exceso, is an ultra right wing rag of zero credibility, explicitly anti-democracy in its editorial position. Is this the same Eurídice Ledezma who later praised Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona in the same Exceso magazine, writing, "I don't believe that Pedro would have formed part of a conspiracy for the route of a military coup"? Note the first-name basis with our dear dictator "Pedro." ¡Guácala! She also wrote, "he didn't commit a crime." Uh, Phil, reality-check time: Pedro Carmona abolished Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution: If your friend and foundation-stone source for all the disinformation that stemmed from your April 12th report has as cloudy a sense of perception as that statement reveals, and you already knew this person, how could you have been so spun by her? Well, okay, this Eurídice Ledezma was with you years ago in Mexico, wasn't she? Please correct me if I am in error, but I don't think that I am. Beyond your dishonest failure to disclose your personal relationship with your source (Uh, Phil, journalistic careers rightfully go up in smoke over that kind of maneuver) why didn't you disclose her known partisan position when quoting her on something so incendiary as an implication that the bullets came from one party in the conflict? Q. Given the fact that this dishonest implication then spread around the world before the truth could put its pants on, and had horrible consequences for the turn of events – justifying a coup that assassinated 50 opposition leaders in two days, and tortured various of them according to major human rights organizations; a coup that within hours abolished Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution's rule – why have you never clarified, corrected or disclosed the whole truth about your April 12th report? Q. As a veteran reporter, were you somehow not aware of what the consequences of that simulated "report" and its lack of disclosure subsequently created the conditions that led to the assassinations of at least 50 Venezuelans? Q. Phil: As Authentic Journalist Mario Menéndez – my friend and victorious co-defendant – often says, people's true character emerges during times of moral crisis. April 2002 revealed a lot about all of us who are journalists reporting on Venezuela. December 2002 turns out to be a grand "second opinion" as the doctors say. You don't really come out of this lookin' so good, chap. Moving on from April – your ghost of Christmas past – to December – your ghost of Christmas present – and your expressed concern about one-sidedness in reporting (which seems hollow in light of these allegations, let's look at some of your own public statements in recent days. Let's take a hard look at your comments made last week, December 12th, via telephone interview on the Diane Rehm Show on WAMU in Washington. The very elegant and fabulous Diane Rehm opened the interview by asking you to "describe for us, if you can, what's going on." You replied that, "the country is virtually in a halt. In fact I was just writing here that in a way President Chávez is like one of those cartoon characters who run off the edge of cliffs and all of a sudden find that there's nothing beneath their feet." Three days later, Letta Taylor, Latin American correspondent for Newsday, quoted another partisan political actor in Venezuela, Janet Kelly: "'Remember those cartoons with Sylvester and Tweety Bird, or the Road Runner?' asked Janet Kelly, a Caracas-based political analyst. 'There's a moment when they run over the canyon and are suspended in air and look at the audience as they suddenly realize they're going to fall. That's Chávez.'" To be fair, that statement appeared very shortly after your own, but it does raise an eyebrow or two, because smart political consultants don't, in my long experience with them, just steal quotes from journalists without attributing them. They have to work with us, after all: The professionals take every opportunity to credit us when they quote from us. So I must ask: Who is ghostwriting for who? Are you the original author of that simile? Or is political consultant Janet Kelly? Or is there perhaps some other author ghostwriting for both of you? Q. Do you know Janet Kelly? Please disclose the nature of any relationship you have with that political consultant who sings in such cartoon-loving harmony with you. Q. If you are, in fact, the real author of that cartoon simile, are you going to take any action against Ms. Kelly for copyright infringement without attribution? Q. About the simile itself: No matter who authored it, or who took dictation, what did you mean by, "Chávez is like one of those cartoon characters who run off the edge of cliffs and all of a sudden find that there's nothing beneath their feet"? Q. If powerful economic forces like the Commercial Media, the overpaid ex-managers of the state owned oil company, or others, try to push someone "off the edge of cliffs" how does this simile work in which you claim that someone had "run" off the cliff? Q. I know these are essentially literary questions, but we're both writers, Phil, please indulge and educate me: What did you mean by the idea that Chávez "all of a sudden find(s) that there's nothing beneath their (sic) feet?" Q. Has it not been shown, again in December as in April, that Chávez has the Organization of American States, the Venezuelan Constitution, and significant masses of the people behind his survival as elected president? Suddenly even the New York Times editorial position is beneath his feet! Beep beep! Do you think, now, a week later, that your (or Janet's) simile – with which you led your MSNBC (online only) story – didn't quite describe what has truly happened in recent days? Does this perhaps suggest to you that your political analysis has, ahem, been incorrect in this month of December? How did you get steered so far from reality? Q. Moving on – in your same December 12 interview with Diane Rehm – you said: "Chavez is making no secret of the fact that he's seeking to impose ah what he calls the a revolution which is a strange kind of – as an editor of mine called it the other day – kind of gaseous concoction of kind of half-digested Marxism with some military nationalism thrown in, even a couple of strands of fascism, and this is something that really I think most of the Venezuelan people feel that they didn't sign up for when they voted for him in 98 and again in 2000. Uh, they finally realized that he's serious about this and uh they want to get rid of him before he has a chance to implement it." I have a number of questions about this statement. The first is: Who was the "editor of yours" who demonstrated such a bizarre uneducated bias to his or her writer? Was it an editor from Coup Plotters' Daily (The Miami Herald)? Or was it an editor from another of the companies you work for? Which one? Q. Phil, do you really think that you used the F-word – "fascism" – in a responsible or accurate manner in this case? After all, most reasonable people don't consider a country that has had six fair and free elections over four years, with zero journalists in jail (except for a Community Radio journalist, Nicolas Rivera, tortured and kidnapped by rogue pro-coup Municipal Police forces last June; but you've never reported that most serious attack on press freedom, have you?), where even April's known coup plotters walk the streets in freedom, to be somehow "fascist" at all? To the contrary, Phil, most reasonable people would consider the actions of the Dictator-for-a-Day of last April, Pedro Carmona, to have been those of a truly fascist regime. The fascist behavior in Venezuela has been on the part of the owning class, not of the elected government. Fascist behavior could certainly be observed in the behavior of the previous Venezuelan regimes, in the massacre of 1989 committed by then-President Carlos Andres Peres, now one of the "opposition leaders" trying to destabilize democracy in today's Venezuela. Do you think you showed your grand self-proclaimed impartiality and wisdom by bandying about the word "fascism" in that context the other day on United States radio? And if so, why? Q. As a journalist, I must ask you: If you have an editor who uses the word "fascism" in such an irresponsible and partisan manner, do you really think this editor would allow you to report the whole truth? Or do you tailor your "reports" to meet the ignorant and incendiary bias of your boss in this case? C'mon, Phil, we're both experienced journalists. We both know how it works. I'm my own editor now: I don't have that problem. But you do still have that problem, don't you? So how do you deal with such an irresponsible editor if you want to tell the truth? Q. You also said – and I'm amazed at how many distortions you are able to squeeze into a single phrase – that Chávez seeks to "impose" a "revolution." Is "impose" the right verb for someone working within a framework of an elected legislature and working Constitution? Did you mean to say "propose" instead of "impose"? And if not, please, by all means, explain why. Q. You also said in that same statement that you "think most of the Venezuelan people feel that they didn't sign up for (a revolution) when they voted for him in 98 and again in 2000." Ahem. Are you trying to say that Chávez didn't use the word "revolution" and similar rhetoric in his 1998 campaign? Are you claiming that he didn't do it again in his 2000 campaign? Are you claiming that he didn't do it again in the four other election campaigns of the past four years? My memory – and the archived record – indicates that he used that language from the beginning to end, that the voters heard it loud and clear and signed up for it at the ballot box six times in four years. You knew that, didn't you, Phil? And here is where we return to my point about "journalists who should know better." You also know, or should know, that the average Washington DC radio listener, to whom you spoke to in that interview, was probably not aware of those details. And this is why I think you are a simulator and no longer a "journalist": You know, or should know, the effect that your distortions have on people in foreign lands who may not be following the situation as closely as those of us who know the score. And you still chose to distort instead of report. Why should any reader or listener trust you when you go to such acrobatic leaps, as one who should know better, to fool those who may not know better? Q. Diane Rehm, the radio host, fortunately, was not fooled by your antics, was she? She asked you: "But Chavez does have support among the poor?" And you answered that, "most of his remaining support is concentrated among the poor, that's true, he possibly has according to opinion polls somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the electorate. But I think it's wrong to analyze it just in terms of a rich and poor battle. But when you remember that something like 65% of Venezuelans are living in poverty – and incidentally that figure has risen since Chavez came to power – um then you realize that its not the case that all his opponents are among the rich." This is also in the category of a situation in which you either know, or should know, better. As a reporter with experience in Latin America, you know, first, that polls down here are more often than not inaccurate, invented, and one of the ways that the rich manipulate the poor. You also know, or should know, that accurate polling in countries where the majority of people don't have telephones is virtually impossible. You also know, or should know, that the same commercial media pollsters who release such "polls" predicted Chávez's defeat in 1998. They were wrong then as now. You also know, or should know, that at least one major pollster in Venezuela told the Los Angeles Times this year that he wanted Chávez to be assassinated, and that the "polling class," in its parasitical and historic oligarchic relationships with the Commercial Media owning class and the old political class – and coup-mongers like your pal Ekvall – is part of the same simulation machine. You also know, or should know, that accurate polling in a polarized country, where a dictator – Pedro Carmona – and his still at-large brownshirts from Alfredo Peña's municipal police and those of other "opposition" mayors and governors, had recently – last April – rounded up, tortured, illegally arrested and assassinated many individuals on one side of the conflict. Who, in their right mind, Phil, is going to tell a total stranger from a suspect elitist polling company that they support Chávez when the penalty for others who have said so has death at the hands of coup plotters? Q. But just for the sake of argument, let's imagine that poll, showing 36% (not 25 to 30 as you claimed) support for Chávez, even under those adverse conditions, is somehow accurate. We both know it's not, but let's just play along with it, for kicks. What if it were true? Mark Weisbrot has made an interesting historic parallel. On that same radio show, where he said he found your stance "ominous," Weisbrot noted that in 1983, during a recession in the United States, President Ronald Reagan's support in U.S. public opinion polls sank to 36%. A year later, Reagan was re-elected by a landslide. Polls are not elections. Is it fair to call for coup d'etat based on commercial polling numbers? Q. Also on the Diane Rehm show, you said, and I quote: "I believe that the only way that Chavez will eventually leave is when the armed forces tell him to do so as they did back in April." Let's have some full disclosure, Phil: You're talking about a coup d'etat. Are you in favor? Or are you opposed to the scenario you outlined? Your words certainly sounded like those of a cheerleader. I disclose to my readers and public where I stand. I am opposed to that scenario of military coup cheered by Phil Gunson on WAMU. You owe your readers and your public a similar disclosure. For the record: Where do you stand? Q. You also said, in that same interview, that "the Venezuelans are going to have to do it themselves and unfortunately the president will not listen to anyone except the military." That sounds like a pretty clear statement of what you favor. And if listeners got the wrong impression, I offer you the opportunity to correct that statement. Was that statement an accurate portrayal of your position? And, if not, what will you do to correct it? Q. You made similar statements, two days earlier, on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program. There, on December 10th, you said, "last night what we saw was perhaps the worst example so far of something, a phenomenon that we've seen before, which is concerted attacks on different media organizations by mobs that are clearly organized by the government. For example, the mobs in most places were led by deputies, by congresspeople, belonging to the ruling party. And in the middle of the, ah, these activities, these attacks, the interior minister went on television basically justifying them." I'm going to tell it to you straight, Phil. I think you reveal some very disturbing and undemocratic weaknesses both as a journalist and as a human being in that statement. First, you call public protests that, at least in Caracas, were peaceful, "attacks on different media organizations by mobs." Do you think that the people should not have the right to demonstrate outside of private-sector institutions like Commercial TV stations? And if you feel that way, why don't you? And if not, why do you distort the news by calling a peaceful assembly an "attack"? Q. You also stated that these "mobs" were "clearly organized by the government." You are aware, or should be aware, of facts to the contrary. For example, on public Internet sites for days prior to December 9th, there were various calls and a major open letter by at least 20 Venezuelan community groups addressed to Chávez demanding that he revoke the licenses of the distorting Commercial TV stations. Chávez didn't do that. The people were frustrated. They were asking their government for help against a destabilizing and dishonest commercial media tyranny of the airwaves, and the Chávez government did not respond. In my analysis – as someone who is in daily contact with many of those people from Civil Society who are not government officials – the masses got ahead of the government on this one, and the Chávez government could not hold them back. At those demonstrations they were chanting, demanding: "Chávez: Govern!" They were angry at him, too, for allowing the pro-coup manipulations of Globovision, of Venevision, of RCTV, and the rest. In any case, their open letter and other public demands for action by Chávez prior to those demonstrations are archived on the Internet. I also saw, on live TV, the statement by Diosdado Cabello of the Chávez government, urging people to be peaceful, to be nonviolent. To the contrary of your fabricated explanation to the United States public, Phil, he was not there "justifying" the protests (as if protests need justifying): He was there pleading for peace, for no one to harm anyone else. And no human life was harmed, was it? The only evidence you cite for your claim that the "mobs" were "clearly organized by the government" other than Cabello's speech, was the presence of members of Congress. Phil: I've covered members of Congress in many lands. They see a crowd moving, they go to join it: That is, after all, part of their job. They're from the legislative branch of government, not the executive. They have every right to protest at TV stations, too! Phil, don't you think that you've gone off the deep end with your "conspiracy theory" view of the situation? You transparently state that any action by any poor person, worker, and now legislator, against coups and media distortion, is "organized by the government." I think, with these statements, you reveal a tremendous rich kid's bias against the poor. And that, given the difference in pigmentation between you and so many of the Venezuelan poor, I think you have to address your own inherent racism and class hatred. Please don't answer "but some of my best friends are dark-skinned Venezuelans." You either know better, or should know better. The oligarchy in Venezuela, now that the poor aren't willing to be slaves any more, are, truly, suffering psychological problems. Don't kid yourself: as a British freelance correspondent for powerful newspapers in the United States, you are, by definition, a member of the Caracas oligarchy as much as any foreign Viceroy throughout history. You have privilege and power that the individual members of those "mobs" (your words, not mine) have never known. And with statements like the ones you've made, you're demonstrating to the world that you have become a member of an oligarchy that has always included foreigners like Ekvall and you. Why do you call the opposition demonstrators "protestors" and the other side "mobs"? What is the distinction that defines each term? Q. Do you think that maybe it's time for you to take one of those racism sensitivity courses that are all the rage at First World newspapers these days? I would be happy to contribute to any costs involved. As one journo to another, as one human being to another, I think you need it badly if you are going to continue in this profession, particularly in Latin America where these matters or race and class are finally coming to light as never before. Q. Why do you repeatedly say, in almost all of your articles, that an owner and management imposed lockout is somehow a "General Strike"? Do you understand the historic and common definition of that term? Q. Why have you not reported on the collapse of that misnamed "strike" as stores have reopened throughout the country and Christmas shoppers are bustling through the streets and malls? I have other questions, but perhaps this is enough for now. Some of my questions contain, of course, my opinions that you are free to contest or counter with your own opinions. But I think that you do owe specific answers to each question. I feel I am being very fair to you by showing you the text of this letter prior to publication, to give you every opportunity to speak to the issues, facts and opinions expressed. I am also willing to publish your response to these questions in full and uncensored form. If I don't hear from you by Monday 10 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, I will post the questions exactly as they are written here. If you feel that any of the questions must be amended based on corrections of fact, I think four days is sufficient time for you to respond. To my belief, these opinions I express here are based on what my sources have told me, and on publicly available information. You're a veteran: You know that four days is a very reasonable amount of time to respond. We all have our deadlines. Of course, you may also respond after Monday if you wish – the door will be held open – but the questions will be published on Monday. And, believe me, the people in many lands are going to want answers. Please, if you still call yourself a journalist, provide them in the spirit of full disclosure. Salud, Al Giordano Publisher The Narco News Bulletin http://www.narconews.com/ narconews@hotmail.com Uncensored "response" from freelance reporter Phil Gunson: >From: "philgunson@cantv.net" >Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:32:13 -0400 are you brave enough to publish this in full? or are you just a playground bully? Full text of attachment: Al Here is my response to your "interview questions". Please keep your promise and publish it in full. First of all, you really need to start taking yourself less seriously. Self-importance combined with paranoia can lead to stress-related diseases. Chill out a little. I've come across people like you before, Al, though never in such an advanced stage of decomposition. The trouble with the internet is that it gives ignorant loudmouths a platform to address the whole world. Fortunately, grown-ups know that only in the school playground is something "truer" if you shout it louder and use more bad words. Your techniques are the lie, the half-truth, the smear, and guilt by association. Although the two Joes (McCarthy and Stalin) are long dead, their techniques live on. I'm not stupid enough to lend credence to your show-trial (or your unpleasant little publication) by taking part in it. No one whose opinion matters to me would mistake you for a genuine seeker-after-truth. You presume to lecture us about journalistic ethics, but you don't even have the minimal courtesy to stick to your own "embargo". So much for your "generous offer" to take my comments into account. A cursory glance at your ill-informed, poorly-researched attempts to tell us what is "really" going on in Venezuela reveals you to be a purveyor of half-digested propaganda. Why not come out from behind your desk (which, of course, happens to be in another country) and feel the tear-gas and the plastic bullets? On second thoughts: stay well away. Your mind is made up – we wouldn't want to bother you with the facts. After all, they get in the way of a good story, don't they? After nearly a quarter-century writing and broadcasting about Latin America, I'm perfectly happy to let my record stand for itself. No self-appointed thought-policeman can tell people what to think about me. I really don't know what unresolved childhood traumas lie behind your desperate need to be taken seriously and to bring other people down. And I have neither the time, the inclination nor the professional skills to help you get over them. Being libelled by you is – in the immortal words of British Labour politician Dennis Healey – like being savaged by a dead sheep. Go right ahead. Give it your best shot. Just don't send me any more emails. This correspondence is over. Phil Gunson Full text of Gunson's first letter to Narco News… >From: "Phil Gunson" >CC: Eric Ekvall >Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 18:15:40 -0400 dear narco news, your contributions to the important and necessary critique of foreign press coverage of venezuela would carry much more weight if you didn't fall into the trap of repeating government propaganda as if it were the "true" story the media are suppressing. both sides use evidence-free claims of evil conspiracies by the other – and expect us to swallow them uncritically. it's often hard to sift through this garbage and find anything resembling the "truth" of what's going on. for instance, the government's line that its opponents are all a bunch of well-heeled fascists whose "strike" is merely a cover for a coup plot is as much of an exaggeration as the opposition claim that the entire country is united against the "dictator" chavez. the fact that one or two government spokesmen have claimed that gouveia was paid by the opposition doesn't turn it into a "credible theory" – especially when the only impartial evidence we have (including that from gouveia's former landlords) suggests he had links with the government. the fact that the metropolitan police shot pro-chavez demonstrators after 11 april – while true enough – should be a reason for pursuing them through the courts, not sending the army to take over the police (thereby violating the constitution and worsening an already chronic crime situation in caracas). your version of what is "really" happening in venezuela merely parrots the government's – and that's not good enough. this is the same government that (for instance) covered up the presence of montesinos in venezuela, for reasons that are still unclear. it is a government that repeatedly violates its own constitution, whilst constantly proclaiming it to be the finest in the world. so come on, narco news – you can do better than that. criticise us by all means. but don't use the very methods you despise (sloppy, one-sided reporting) in order to do it. saludos from caracas Phil Gunson (freelance correspondent) Responses from political consultant Erik Ekvall: >From: "Eric Ekvall" >CC: "Phil Gunson" >Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:34:16 -0400 >Get your facts straight (again), Al—Phil's been living here for almost >three years. Giordano's first reply to Ekvall: From: "Alberto M. Giordano" Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 9:52 AM Duly noted. Glad to hear you don't contest the facts from this paragraph: "Interestingly, the only person he visibly CCed his letter to was Erik Ekvall, the April 2002 war criminal, political consultant hostile to democracy, former advisor to the state owned oil company, and, last I checked, consultant to the Ford Motor Company (at least during last April's coup attempt). Ekvall is the spin-doctor who popped up in last April's NYT puff piece by Juan Forero on Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona, defending the cretin who abolished Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution all in one day." Ekvall's response to Giordano's reply, Cced to Michael Rowan: >From: "Eric Ekvall" >CC: "Michael Rowan" >Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 19:01:58 -0400 Fact: I resigned the Ford account March 15. (But to a devious, paranoid, seeing-fascists-under-every-rug mindset such as yours, I suppose this is just additional confirmation that by March 15 I was deeply involved in planning the April 11 coup, and for the purpose of protecting my "sponsors" and maintaining appearances, was attempting to sideline my erstwhile client from negative exposure by resigning only weeks before.) The rest isn't "facts", just your opinion. And opinions, as you know, are like assholes….. Al, I assume that making the world safe for anarchy (you flatter yourself as an anarchist, I see) and an eventual dictatorship of the proletariat (or "the masses"—your preferred term for what I think of as citizens), requires nonstop vigilance, but IMHO you ought to get more sleep, relax, go for a walk, play the guitar more (I'm a guitar player myself), listen a little less to Eminem and a little more to, oh, The Incredible String Band, for example. The rage, the vitriol, the bile—that all-consuming hate that permeates so much of what you write—it's not good for the soul. I understand the business about the absent, irresponsible, derelict-in-his-duties father, and how this can lead to persecution-cum-crusader complexes, and how the whole stew entrains this zealous desire to trash authority under all its guises…. In short, I can relate. But history doesn't have to be destiny. And this kind of stuff clouds the mind. If it's any comfort to you, the same thing is happening to Chavez. In fact, the Savonarola-like tactics and language you use against those you've targeted for "clean-up" (your words) remind me of something a close ally and collaborator of Chavez, who finally jumped ship in disgust earlier this year, said of his erstwhile idol: "Poor Hugo, he doesn't know how to distinguish adversaries from enemies." And, this one is really from the heart: despite what is probably a slavish following among the don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts-my-mind's-made-up "left", who, in their ignorance, believe that the enemy (Chavez) of my enemy (The White House/US foreign policy/globalization/Israel/multinational corporations/WTO/you-name-it) is my friend, you're in the process of becoming an international laughingstock with your Comintern-speak, scorched-earth support of what has become the most corrupt and brazenly authoritarian regime in Latin America. The truth of his regime will come out, and sooner than later. Patience, Al. It's too bad, because the initial objectives (as I understand them) of NN were to give no quarter to the immoral, corrupt, nonsensical and counterproductive 30+ -year USA-sponsored War on Drugs. Now that's a cause worth fighting for. Why don't you focus more on that, where at least you seem to understand the basics and have proven your mettle under fire? Because on Venezuela, you're way, way out of the ballpark, amigo. Eric Giordano's response to Ekvall: Heh. Touched a defensive chord there, eh? In sum: You refuse to disclose your sources of income, but expect to be believed in your characterizations of them. You sound like a consultant with plenty to hide, Ekvall. You're also quite paranoid. I have no statuatory power, no police, no prison, no guns, none of the instruments necessary for what reasonable people define as Inquisition, jury, prosecutor, commissar, whatever (and you think I'm the paranoid one? Ha! You slay me!). All I've got is words, and the only ones that hurt are the true ones. Anyway, you can blame Gunson. He dragged you into this round. And implicated himself in unethical activity for a journalist by doing so. Ekvall the War Criminal feels "picked on," by nothin' more than words and questions. Amazing, but not surprising. Have a nice Christmas. In spite of all your efforts, it came this year! Al Giordano Ekvall's "final" response (also Cced to Michael Rowan): >From: "Eric Ekvall" >CC: "Michael Rowan" >Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 19:01:58 –0400 Al, I owe you no explanations whatsoever about how I make my living, who my clients are, or how I choose to spend my leisure time. But I will let you in one one disappointing little secret: I have no clients in Venezuela, or abroad, for whom I have been working with any interest in the outcome of the current political struggle being waged in this country, and am not, nor have I been since Chavez came to power, on the payroll of, nor have I received compensation from in any way shape or form, any interest with a score to settle with Chavez. Get it? Clear enough for your little inquisitor's brain? Your self-appointed role as grand jury, public prosecutor and political commissar, all rolled into one, may impress, or intimidate, some but to me you're just a megalomaniacal, self-promoting gasbag. You're wasting your time with me, Al. Go find someone else to pick on. End of conversation. digg this \| save to del.icio.us \| reddit this Article Comments: Email this story to a friend Narco News is funded by your contributions to The Fund for Authentic Journalism. Please make journalism like this possible by going to The Fund's web site and making a contribution today. - The Fund for Authentic Journalism For more Narco News, click here.

World Outperforms USA in Underperforming

2008-03-27T08:52:00.001-07:00

For years, U.S. investors have been told to "go global" in search of stronger growth and higher returns. And Americans obliged by pouring billions of dollars into international stocks, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

But now the case for overseas investing appears to be unraveling.

Since global markets topped out late in 2007, the much-maligned U.S., the very source of the subprime mortgage meltdown that has racked credit markets worldwide, has dramatically outperformed some of last year's hottest markets.

The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average and the large-cap Standard & Poor's 500 both have lost much less than their major European and Asian counterparts of late, suggesting that the five- or six-year run in which foreign bourses routinely thrashed the S&P and the Dow has ended.

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"The international [outperformance] was a great story, but it's over," says Alec Young, S&P's international equity strategist, who notes that U.S. stocks now represent 41.3% of world stock market capitalization, up from 40% at the end of the year.

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International markets are down 20% across the board in local currencies, Young says, so the weak dollar doesn't even factor in. And over the past few months, S&P has been steadily reducing its recommended exposure to international stocks.

Despite big falls from their October all-time highs, the Dow and the S&P are among the world's best-performing major markets--Brazil, Mexico and Canada--all of which happen to be in the Western Hemisphere.

In fact, despite all the moaning and groaning on Wall Street and in the financial media, those big U.S. indexes have still not crossed the 20% decline that technically signals a bear market. And yet some of last year's biggest winners--Germany, India and especially China--are deep in bear market territory.

Despite a strong currency and a fairly robust economy, the German DAX index is down 21% from its high, in the same range as that of its querulous neighbor, France.

And in Asia, whose century we supposedly inhabit, it's been a bloodbath.

From India, which was just about to dethrone Silicon Valley as the world's low-cost high-tech capital, to China, the world's next economic superpower, to Japan, whose "lost decade" U.S. policymakers are now allegedly powerless to avert, investors have lost not only their shirts but also their shoes, their socks, their belts and their pants.

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These markets have racked up declines ranging from 28% in Mumbai to a sickening 38% in Shanghai, through March 19. Meanwhile, those of us who've been backward enough to stay in the "been there, done that" U.S. stock markets have taken relatively modest hits, with returns comparable to those of last year's global superstar, Brazil.

And that comes amid a financial crisis even former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan dubs "the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War." Housing prices have plummeted, consumer spending and employment have tumbled, oil prices topped $100 a barrel until March 19 and gasoline approaches $4 a gallon.

Either the equity markets are in complete denial, and U.S. markets will soon face a major crash, or maybe, just maybe, great U.S. companies that are not home builders or financials or purveyors of overpriced consumer junk are quietly selling excellent products and services around the world and are still making good money.

Despite everything, the U.S. economy is a giant with a lot of advantages that may be helping its markets now.

Meanwhile, the bloom is off the rose in China. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 3.5% overnight, and the Shanghai Composite Index has fallen below 4,000 after topping out over 6,000 last October, when we recommended selling Chinese stocks. Inflation is rising, threatening to puncture China's growth bubble amid food and fuel shortages and an energy squeeze.

And as the Beijing Olympics approaches, a rebellion has broken out in Tibet and in neighboring provinces as Tibetans look for some autonomy and religious freedom. China's answer: Crush the dissenters and blame the Dalai Lama for everything.

These events may help crack the finely wrought veneer the government has crafted in its effort to make China shine in the eyes of the world. Ultimately it may remind investors that this is very much a dictatorship whose economy is still firmly controlled by the Communist Party.

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So, what lessons can we learn?

First, nothing lasts forever in investing--not tech stocks in the 1990s, housing in the early part of this decade or commodities now. International stocks, especially emerging markets, had a great run, but now, as Young says, may be their time to revert to the mean and lag ours for a while.

Second, despite its many naysayers, the U.S. isn't dead. Over the last couple of years, I've observed a certain schadenfreude--a joy in other people's trouble--in the downright glee with which some commentators have viewed the recent fall of the U.S. dollar and underperformance of U.S. stocks. But now investors may realize that the U.S. economy is much more resilient than others in times of crisis like this.

Third, every boom and bubble has its own rationale, but you should always put it in perspective. Nine out of $10 from U.S. fund investors went into international equities in 2006, and pundits such as Fidelity's Bruce Johnstone until recently advised investors to put as much as two-thirds of their equity into overseas stocks. I'd say 20% (no more than 5% in emerging markets) looks about right now.

Yet even that's a lot more international exposure than Americans had a decade ago. The truth is, the world is a smaller place and many economies and markets are becoming big new players on the world stage. Emerging markets especially will have much bigger ups and downs, but in the long run they should show bigger growth.

Medical Residency Programs in USA

2008-03-26T05:19:00.001-07:00

"Nearly 13,000 graduates (84.6 percent) of allopathic medical schools in the U.S. landed one of their top three choices for a first-year residency slot, according to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP)."

Out of "15,242 U.S. graduates, 14,359 won residency positions," and of these, the "first choice of residency went to 59.9 percent of U.S. graduates, second choice to 15.8 percent, third choice to 8.9 percent, and fourth choice to five percent."

NRMP data also indicated that there "were 30 [for a total of 2,636] more family medicine residencies available this year than in 2007, the first increase since 1998."

Overall, 10,341 students graduated from "international medical schools, nearly 3,000 them U.S. citizens."

But, "[f]ewer than half of the non-U.S. medical graduates were matched to a residency."

Milk Powder and Risk of Respiratory Problems

2008-03-26T05:15:00.001-07:00

Study indicates exposure to milk powder may increase risk of respiratory problems.

The BBC (3/25) reports that according to a study published in the European Respiratory Journal, "[p]rolonged exposure to baby milk powder increases the risk of breathing problems, including wheezing and breathlessness." Maritta Jaakkola, of the University of Birmingham, U.K., and colleagues, examined about "170 workers in a Thai baby milk factory," which "had high hygiene standards, and concentrations of milk powder dust were relatively low." Most study subjects (130) "were directly involved in manufacturing and packaging baby milk," while 22 others "were responsible for adding vitamins to the milk, and 15 were quality controllers."

The researchers found that "of the workers exposed to the milk powder, 24 percent reported wheezing, and 33 percent reported breathlessness, compared with 12 percent and 16 percent of 76 office workers from the same factory who served as controls," MedWire (3/25, Holmes) adds. Moreover, "the exposed workers were twice as likely to have suffered from asthma compared with controls, while workers responsible for adding vitamins complained of eye and skin symptoms twice as frequently as controls." The authors conclude, "It would be important to provide careful monitoring of respiratory symptoms and respiratory function tests for workers in milk powder factories, even where air quality checks are satisfactory."

Copper to Prevent Drug-resistant Infections in Hospitals

2008-03-26T05:11:00.001-07:00

Copper may be used in hospitals to prevent spread of drug-resistant infections.

According to the New York-based Copper Development Association (CDA), "[c]opper doorknobs, bedrails, and faucets can prevent the spread of deadly drug-resistant infections that have become a growing...threat in hospitals."

In a statement, the group said that "[t]he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found copper, brass, and bronze can combat infections, including those caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus."

The CDA also noted that "Copper alloy surfaces can kill" approximately "99 percent of bacteria within two hours."

What sets USA apart ???

2008-03-26T00:46:00.001-07:00

What sets USA apart ???

Even the most decent, charismatic or bold politicians tend to adhere to conventional wisdom and conventional prescriptions in addressing America's economic future. In doing so, they miss the point that it is the unconventional that has driven America's recent success, and the unconventional that must drive our future success.

A quarter of a century ago, most leading economists--whether liberal or conservative--predicted that American economic growth would fall behind Japan and Germany by 2007. They typically estimated that Japan's annual gross domestic product would be roughly $5 trillion by now, with Germany at around $4 trillion, and the U.S. lagging behind at roughly $3.5 trillion.

The predictions for Japan and Germany were reasonably accurate. But America grew to $13 trillion.

How did the U.S. nearly quadruple the estimates of the world's best economists? One key is that these economists had based their guesses on a nation's quantity of natural resources, not on the quality of its intellectual capital or its ability to put that intellectual capital to use.

America's surprising economic growth has been traced back to some 1,000 key innovators, entrepreneurs, rainmakers, mentors and creative geniuses--some 60% of whom were foreign-born persons who were educated at American universities.

This meant that the U.S. had a unique edge in terms of the talent and the environment that was necessary for growth. The revolutions of technology--in electronics, in space technology and satellite communications, in personal computing, in the Internet and in information technology--were all American revolutions. The U.S. innovated while others imitated.

America's outrageous success in the past quarter-century, owing to the 1,000 unconventional superstars and rainmakers and the tens of thousands of stars who surrounded them, was mainly serendipitous. But a repeat of this success will require forward-thinking strategy and investment, in the face of an emerging Asia, a resurgent Europe and stiffer competition around the globe.

We would recommend a few cornerstone strategies, which would preserve and enhance the environment in which America can cultivate its next generation of stars of unconvention.

First, we must set our faces toward the medical and biological science frontiers, as those are the likely settings for the planet's next technological and humanistic revolutions.

The federal government also must strengthen its support for the American research enterprise--which since World War II has been carried out chiefly at some 50 leading U.S. research universities. Those universities produce some 80% of our Ph.D.s, and these Ph.D.s are the manpower and womanpower for this country's work in basic science.

Basic science and technology is the creator and destroyer of global industries and eras. Its discoveries can lead to marketplace innovations that create vast new economic sectors, businesses, jobs and products to drive the global economy. The Internet is the most recent example. Nanoscience may be the next one.

Yet given recent actions by Congress to skimp on research funding for university-based research for the Department of Defense, such a level of commitment no longer exists. Industry, given its constraints and pressures, is not in a position to perform science research on its own. America's best bet is for government, research universities and industry to work together in generating new discoveries and facilitating their way to the marketplace.

Our younger citizens must be prepared for a lifelong process of learning and unlearning. We must not merely train them in conventional skills--we must equip them to develop for themselves the sets of skills that would be appropriate for unexpected professional and technological developments. This requires every citizen to be as fluent in timeless arts and humanities as in timely technologies.

Finally, given that three in five of America's 1,000 key superstars and rainmakers were born in other nations, we must incentivize the continued migration of the world's best minds to America. Here we face escalating competition from Australia, England and other countries for "brain gain," the new Holy Grail of global leadership.

Just as yesterday's conventional wisdom held that Japan and Germany would pass us by, today's conventional wisdom holds that other nations soon will exceed us in skills and productivity. Yet by maintaining our edge in the unconventional things--especially in our ability to innovate while others continue to imitate--America will remain the pacesetter in this still-young century.

How to Take Care of Your Boss

2008-03-26T00:14:00.001-07:00

How to Take Care of Your Boss...

When "Managing Your Boss" was first published in 1980 in the Harvard Business Review, it was a relatively unknown concept. Until then, most companies operated top down--the boss told you what to do, and you did it.

John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter's article turned that concept upside down. Instead of waiting for the boss to make decisions, employees should understand the types of constraints and pressures their bosses are under, so they can better work together. It was particularly important as technology and globalization spurred the evolution of business.

Fast forward to modern times. Those issues are more prominent than ever. Perhaps that's why "Managing Your Boss" is one of the most popular Harvard Business Review articles of all time. It's in the top 20 of cumulative sales since publication and was recently repackaged into a small book.

Gabarro reflected on why almost 30 years later "Managing Your Boss" is still relevant and offered tips on how today's employees should accomplish it.

Forbes.com: What do you mean when you say managing your boss? Do you mean communicating with him or her?

John J. Gabarro: Communicating but also, understanding the world your boss operates in. Find out what the constraints and pressures are that she experiences. Get some sense of who her boss is. Also, what are her idiosyncratic needs are as a person. What are her strengths and weaknesses and try to mold your style.

Isn't that just not being selfish?

To some degree, yes. Every relationship is a two-way deal. This one has asymmetric power. But the boss is dependent on you. If you don't come through, the boss is in trouble. Most relationships are more effective if you understand the other person. If you do, it's easier to work out a set of expectations.

How do you go about understanding your boss?

Most people figure that out. They observe from the boss that he or she is fabulously creative, quick and decisive but is a bloody disaster when it comes to organization. You may have the opposite problem--a boss who isn't decisive and it's very hard to get a decision out of him or her.

Either way, anticipate the weaknesses and try to do something so the weaknesses don't cause you a problem. If your boss is always late in getting you the material needed to do your job, start asking for what you need from him or her earlier so you're not in the lurch. If you have the resources, you can help the boss get stuff together.

Let's say you're a consultant, and you have a deal that is eminent, but Christmas is coming up. A pile of the work can be done beforehand. Your supervisor is also working on two other transactions. Go up to the partner and say: "There are all kinds of due diligence that can be done before the holiday. Why don't we do it now so we don't have to have a team working over Christmas?"

Another proactive step is, after a month or six weeks on the job, have a conversation with your boss about goals. You might say, "I'm learning the basics of the job. It would be helpful for me to have a good idea of your goals and priorities." Bosses welcome that. A very useful question for all employees to ask their boss is, "What are your major priorities? What are the hot issues now that the department is facing? In what ways can I and the rest of the team help on that?"

This is a very modern topic because of globalization and all employees having to do more with less. But you and John Kotter wrote this article about 28 years ago. Why do you think it's still relevant?

The world has changed in a lot of ways. The good news is, managers are more sophisticated and around these issues. The bad news is the pace of business in general has really accelerated. That's driven by much better competitiveness and by technology. Work occupies more and more of our time. People are working harder today than 27 years ago. It's a much more competitive world, and most of us are on 24/7. It's a cliché, but it's true.

That's changed the nature of pressure on your boss. If you telecommute, you're working more often. There's less of a relationship and more work. The number of subordinates the average boss has is a lot larger now. You get a smaller piece of your boss. That means you have to manage him or her even more. Bosses are simply a lot more overloaded.

Education, Life Expectancy and Smoking

2008-03-24T07:32:00.001-07:00

"Increases in life expectancy in recent decades have been concentrated almost entirely among better-educated Americans," according to a study published in Health Affairs.

The researchers found that smoking is one of the main contributing factors, because only seven percent of Americans with graduate degrees smoke.

That figure is 35 percent among American who did not graduate from high school.

New tool for Burn Patients

2008-03-23T21:33:00.001-07:00

FDA approves fibrin sealant used to treat burn patients.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved "Artiss, a fibrin sealant used to attach skin grafts in burn patients."

The product "contains lower amounts of thrombin than similar adhesives, giving surgeons more time to align grafts before they begin adhering to the skin."

Insulin and Anti-ageing

2008-03-23T21:30:00.001-07:00

Tweaking insulin levels may potentially expand life spans.

Researchers "have gained new insight into the workings of insulin, potentially laying the groundwork for an anti-aging treatment," according to a study published in the Mar. 21 issue of the journal Cell.

T. Keith Blackwell, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator at Harvard Medical School's Joslin Diabetes Center, in Boston, and colleagues, examined "the effects of changing insulin levels in a species of tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans," which has a very short life span.

The scientists "found that more insulin results in less activity by a gene-regulating protein called SKN-1." Therefore, "by lowering insulin levels, the study authors were able to boost levels of the protein, and make the worms live longer."

The researchers noted that the "mechanism at work here seems to relate to how well cells defend themselves against damage," which may enable people to fight disease better, thereby extending their lives.

Happy Marriage and Blood Pressure

2008-03-23T21:27:00.001-07:00

Happy Marriage and Blood Pressure

Happily married individuals may have lower blood pressure than single, unhappily married people.

While individuals "in happy marriages have lower blood pressure than single people,...unhappily married adults have higher blood pressure," according to a study published in the Apr. issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D., an assistant psychology professor at Brigham Young University, and colleagues, "had 204 married and 99 single adults wear portable blood pressure monitors for 24 hours."

The participants "wore devices that recorded their blood pressure at random times over 24 hours," . After analyzing the data, the researchers "found that the more marital satisfaction and adjustment spouses reported, the lower their average blood pressure was over the 24 hours, and during the daytime." But, "spouses who scored low in marital satisfaction had higher average blood pressure than single people did." Moreover, in "the daytime, their average was about five points higher."

The authors stated that "Most prior research focused on marital status, and ignored the impact of the quality of relationships," "It's not just being married that benefits health. What's really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage."

Looking Great on Pix

2008-03-20T21:21:00.001-07:00

Looking Great on Fotoz & Videoz

Well who would not like to look cute on media?. Here are few tips you may try..:

Pose like a celebrity! — You may love this over-the-shoulder pose esp.women because it flaunts your back and draws attention to detail of your gown if it's backless or really ornate. Not for you? Standing at an angle with one knee out the "cheerleader stance" makes you appear slimmer in pics. Cross your ankles to elongate your legs and make sure your shoulders are back and you're standing tall.

For some additional tips, read more.

Avoid blinking — Ask your photographer to try taking two or three photos so that your eyes can adapt to the flash. Most people blink from the anticipation and shock of the bright light in their eyes.

7000 tonnes of GOLD that Glitters...............!!!

2008-03-15T21:41:00.001-07:00

The world's largest pile of gold still shines

New York is home to the world's largest pile of gold is it safe there?

Most of the gold belongs to foreign governments

On the bedrock of Manhattan, five storeys below ground, the largest accumulation of gold anywhere on earth...

King Midas or perhaps Tutankhamen must have known the feeling well. But whereas they would have been able to take a few bars home whenever they wanted, here the limits are a great deal more stringent.

No-one has ever tried to rob the gold vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), a few scant blocks from Wall Street, and our humble gathering of foreign correspondents were not about to test the security arrangements.

The entire place can be locked down in just 28 seconds by armed guards, most of them expert marksmen. There is even a practice firing-range on site, along with an in-house medical centre.

There is no door into the vault, where gold worth about $90bn (£50bn) is held, representing roughly one-quarter of the world's official reserves, weighing in at 7,000 tonnes. Instead, a narrow two-metre-long passageway is cut into a 90-tonne steel cylinder that is rotated shut every night.

The vault is locked manually, using large circular wheels

It's hardly comforting to be told that there is only enough oxygen to survive within the air-tight room for about 72 hours, just when we're standing inside when the locking procedure is demonstrated.

Goldfinger

Journalists are not allowed to take notes inside the vault, lest someone provides an overly-graphic account of the layout.

There are elements which, in a surreal fashion, resemble the set of the James Bond movie "Goldfinger" - beyond the beautiful, gleaming and numbered bars themselves.

The vault is locked manually, using large circular wheels, and the huge bullion-weighing machine itself looks like a throwback to the 1960s.

Most of the subterranean gold here belongs to foreign governments, although the Fed's employees are not at liberty to say exactly which. The New York Fed's senior vice president and spokesman, Peter Bakstansky, is good-natured but firm on the issue of whether, say, Iraq had any bars down below.

"I don't know where their gold is, and I wouldn't be able to tell you if it's here," he says.

"We know who our account relationships are with, but just as with the place where you banked, you probably wouldn't want your name listed on the wall.

"Our account holders feel much the same way."

Independence - of sorts

The reason why the bullion inside the thick walls and barred windows of the FRBNY comes from both domestic and foreign sources is the devolved responsibilities of the independent Federal Reserve System.

The Fed is a self-financing and trusted deposit point

New York not only handles foreign financial transactions for the US Treasury, but also for many central banks abroad. It is a self-financing and trusted deposit point for most of the world economy.

America's carefully-constructed central banking system ensures that routine politics and the changing desires of the markets are kept outside the door.

But independence has its limits. In the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, the Fed froze Iran's assets by presidential order.

In foreign dealings, Mr Bakstansky says, the State Department's instructions come first.

"We're independent in our policy making, but we're not an independent, floating-free entity within the United States. We're part of the government."

Foreign governments are not charged by the Fed for storing their precious reserves, but fees are incurred for withdrawals, or for moving bars to another compartment within the vault.

There has not been a single transaction so far this year. Governments, it seems, are happy to leave things as they are, despite the ever-present threats and alerts.

No charge

The threat of becoming a target is of course on the minds of those at the FRBNY.

The events of 11 September 2001 shook the Fed as it shook all other New York institutions.

Governments are charged for withdrawals and for moving bars

That day marked the most recent lockdown of the vaults, the doors staying shut for several days.

Yet moving the world's biggest pot of gold to somewhere which is a less obvious target is not an option.

"There's been no discussion of which I am aware to move gold reserves, and countries have not moved their reserves," Mr Bakstansky said.

"We have roughly the same amount now as we did three years ago and if countries felt this was an insecure facility, they would have moved their gold out and put it somewhere else where they felt safer."

Overseas dollars

The gold reserves are the glamorous focus of the FRBNY.

But the truly mind-boggling statistics are to be found in the volume of electronic funds that are moved around the national system.

The average daily weight of transactions is $2.2 trillion, with an individual "Fed Wire" payment averaging $3.5m.

Out there in the world's cash economy, however, the Fed has only limited control over the ebb and flow of the mighty dollar.

For all the levers at the disposal of the Board of Governors, and the dozen Reserve Banks around the country, it is worth remembering that only 30% of the dollars in circulation are in the US.

And although the FRBNY still has the biggest gold reserves in the world, the country with more 100-dollar bills than anywhere else isn't the US. It's Russia.

Is this going to be the Future of USA? .................................Nauru,

2008-03-15T21:26:00.001-07:00

There are not many countries you can bicycle around before breakfast. One of the very few is Nauru, a Pacific island nation halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

The island of Nauru is the world's smallest independent republic

Dubbed Pleasant Island in the 18th Century by the captain of a passing British ship - it is the world's smallest independent republic, a coral speck dwarfed by the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

On most assignments, one of the first tasks is to hire a car. On Nauru, it didn't really seem worth the bother, I opted instead for a battered mountain bike.

It took me about an hour and a half to cycle the narrow coast road, sweating profusely beneath the fierce equatorial sun. Before I knew it, I was back where I started. I had just circumnavigated the entire country.

Nauru may be little, but it once enjoyed enormous wealth. In fact Nauruans were among the richest people, per capita, in the world.

Hardly anyone thought of investing the money. Dollar notes were even used as toilet paper

A quirk of nature means that their island consists of some of the world's purest phosphate - the legacy of millions of years of sea bird droppings reacting with an uplifted coral.

Spending spree

From independence from Britain and Australia in 1968, until the 1990s, Nauru earned a fortune exporting its phosphate for fertiliser.

Islanders are returning to fishing now the money has run out

The decades of mining left the once-lush interior a bleak moonscape of strange, grey coral spikes - all that is left once the phosphate-rich top soil is scooped out of the ground - but Nauruans did not care.

They gave up their jobs, brought in migrants from other Pacific islands to do the hot, dirty work of digging and sat back waiting for the royalty cheques to drop into their hands.

They then went on an extraordinary spending spree. Families who had never left the island would charter aircraft to take them on shopping expeditions in Hawaii, Fiji and Singapore.

Sports cars were imported, despite the fact that Nauru has only one paved road and the speed limit is 25mph.

A police chief memorably bought a sleek yellow Lamborghini, only to find he was too portly to fit in the driver's seat. "We just didn't know how to handle it all," a barefoot islander told me as he played his guitar beneath a tree.

"Hardly anyone thought of investing the money. Dollar notes were even used as toilet paper," his friend told me. "It's true," he insisted seeing my look of disbelief. "It was like every day was party day."

The Nauraun children are still hopeful for the island's future

A procession of conmen and carpetbaggers persuaded successive governments to invest in a string of bizarre schemes, including a West End musical about the life of Leonardo da Vinci.

Nauru amassed a property portfolio of hotels and office blocks around the world. But corruption and downright incompetence took their toll and by the early part of this century, most of the assets had to be sold off to pay for the country's mounting debts.

Now all the money is gone.

Angry islanders

Signs of Nauru's former wealth are few and far between. Homes are dilapidated, with holes punched through their walls.

An area known as Location is one of the most squalid slums I have come across in the South Pacific, a concrete ghetto of smashed windows, stray dogs and graffiti.

We're doing our best to climb out of it. It won't be like in our heyday, but at least we'll be comfortable

Marcus Stephen, Nauru president

The brand new cars which islanders bought are rusted wrecks smothered in tropical undergrowth.

Last week a mob of angry islanders burnt down Nauru's only prison in what the government said was politically motivated unrest orchestrated by a former president.

Now comes another blow to this Micronesian micro-nation. A refugee detention centre, set up by Australia seven years ago, will close down at the end of this month.

It was built by the government of Prime Minister John Howard at a time when hundreds of boat people were trying to reach Australia.

It proved a huge vote-winner, but Mr Howard was turfed out in November and his successor, Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, swiftly moved to shut it down. Nauruans are distraught - the facility brought much-needed jobs and hundreds of big-spending contractors, police and officials.

Phosphate mining has resumed in on the island of Nauru

Despite all these trials, Nauru is determined to get back on its feet. A new reformist government is hatching plans to establish the island as a pit-stop for international tuna boats to refuel and repair.

A mining company hopes to extract precious metals from the surrounding sea-bed. Phosphate mining has resumed with the government claiming there is another 30 years of reserves up in the scarred interior.

Hangover

"We find ourselves in a big hole," concedes newly-elected president and former weight-lifting champion, Marcus Stephen. "We're doing our best to climb out of it. It won't be like in our heyday, but at least we'll be comfortable."

Nauruans realise that the party is well and truly over.

Now comes the hangover and then, with luck, some sort of recovery. But it will take squeaky clean governance, hard work and rock-solid investments for Pleasant Island to once again live up to its name.

It may not yet be paradise lost, but it is most definitely paradise postponed.

One Heart for Eva va va voom Ekval Johnson

2008-03-15T13:37:00.001-07:00

We close the prediction by landing in the most beautiful region, which considered as the Warehouse of beautiful and stunning women.

Venezuela always sends a competitive delegate.

Unfortunately, after Miss Universe went to North America & Caribbean region,
Miss World went to Africa, and
Miss International went to Europe.

The South America countries seemed not doing really well this year. The highest achievement were made by both Venezuelans, Eva va va voom Ekvall (Venezuela/Universe) who was the 3rd Runner Up in Miss Universe and Aura Zambrano (Venezuela/International) who was the 1st Runner Up in Miss International.

First lets go to Photogenic award, Aura Zambrano who considered as Denise Quinones replica from Venezuela should be up there along with Eva Ekvall,

The Sex Appeal award will be taken by Eva Ekvall. The Diva Eva Ekvall who made a quite big impact on pageant fans is a strong possibility to grab the Swimsuit award.

Eva Ekvall will make the Carolinas way harder to win the award. Evening gown is the hardest and the one of the most prestigious award especially for South America region. They always pay a serious attention in having a great wardrobe collection designed by a talented designer.

This year the competition continues with Venezuela being represented by Eva Ekvall with her unique patterns and glittery cream gown.

It cannot be denied that Eva Ekvall is the strongest delegate ever sent by Venezuela in terms of communication skills. Her capability for speaking English and the well preparation made by Venezuela, had resulted an incredible interview performance. Eva Ekvall is a definite nominee in Interview category for sure and a possible winner.

In Stage Presence category, again Eva Ekvall is a definite nominee. Another tough competition between Venezuela and Colombia will continue in Best Country performance award. Last year, again Colombia took the award from Venezuela. This year, Venezuela did much better than Colombia. Both countries only entered semifinal in Miss Universe and Miss International but Venezuela grabbed the 3rd Runner Up in Miss Universe and 1st Runner Up in Miss International while Colombia merely ended up as semifinalists.

For a woman who combines not only inside, but also her outward beauty, personality and much more in style. Eva Ekvall jumped to forefront at age 17 to win the Miss Venezuela 2000. Then, it was almost Miss Universe. Today, this interesting woman-recognized as one of our beauty queens, has greater charm and intelligence, -sharing her time between her studies and work in Las Rothenmayer, Televén

A DVD ,
a television show,
a good book,
her dog Toronto,
good company and…
rich food
is what really Eva Ekvall need to feel good.

Of course, if she feels strongly about cotufas and tres leches The Alicantina-worth of the wedge-those cravings can not wait. All that we discovered talking to this woman who walks into leather… Not bad thought! We refer to the shoes, handbags and belts, as well as in our home… Eve is also in leather!

Daughter of an American father (political adviser) and mother jamai-machine (fashion designer and interior).

"When I was a child everything they wore was made by her. We combined to my brother and me. What more ochen-toso! But no longer is designing ", Eva has mixed and merged the best of both cultures, which allows you to live in a nearly harmony inside. We say 'almost' because there is a rule that does not meet: Never combine their underwear.

- Mom always scolded me for that. I am a bit of silk, on the other hand, a lot of cotton.

And 'cotton' passed out while bamos say-with Eve. It was raining and… much. Hearing that rivers and streams in the Great Vargas and Caracas are desbordaban, printed nervousness to our meeting. "When there is someone to pray, chant the mantra , taught me that my father and I have discovered that it gives me a faith that nothing in the world I can provide.

Buddhism for me is a certain respect and a practice a religion. "

Our dialogue was initiated with a…

CONVERSACION Life

Spiritually-Who is Eva Ek-vall?
- Mentiría if you knew exactly who I mind. But I think being a soul that seeks freedom and peace. I am not a religion or have a specific God, but I believe in the God that is inside me. I have faith in Him and that is something essential in my life.

Born by Caesarean section a March 15, 1983 at the Centre Mé-dico San Bernardino in Caracas, the fourth student this semester Co-muni-cation Social Uni-versity Santa Maria, tie-poses some twenty-years dós fundamentosos. "I like fingernails thinking, for example, when I go to buy an apartment."

The fact concerned about their future, as well as that of his family or the country, does that "recently I have become more reflective, even with the smallest. I have been indecisive, something that I caused a lot of impatience on others. Could it be that I am getting older? "(Laughs).

The country and Vargas cuelan in our conversation. They raise interro-gantes about whether the lives are governed by fate or free will.

- Life has a very cynical sense of humor. It makes us think that we are governed by free will, we have control over it, but when it comes to earning the tortilla turns and makes our decisions shred. How can a tragedy of Vargas part of a life that is governed by the free will?

Her response leaves us thinking. We have been impressed by her intelligence and maturity. Reason is this girl who welcomes the affection and approval, even if they are not sentiments that look in the other. That, their personal security, also makes not attract attention on the basis of cause scandals.

Buddhism always formed part of the life of Eva. One of the customs ashamed and felt bad. "Imagí-nate a family unusual in itself, because they gringa. With a father who, every day for an hour and in a loud voice, sang the mantra of Buddhism. I am ashamed as I remember it with my friends from school. They invented stories because it was difficult to explain. "

Shame-para-you, it was the only thing my family I tried to impress upon how-to a religion. In difficult moments ciles I sang with my dad and everything improved.

-- How vulnerable-ra-ing are you?
- I am little vulnerable in things that perhaps should be very vulnerable to others that may seem bobadas. For example, defend my speed and my private space to coat and sword. I decide who enters and leaves it, if not, I feel invaded. A few months ago someone stole my car player. It was not stealing that I hurt me. What I was hurt horrors that have entered and reviewed my space ... I felt violated.

-- Which do you think is the meaning of life?
- If life had a meaning in itself, I do not see why so many innocent children die in wars. I have no idea and I try not think about it much. "Life can not be taken seriously, the work itself," as my friend would say Henrique Lazo. Here we all learn and help other beings ...

Living-Is it an art?
- Everything we do is an art, ma-nejar for me is an art! Enamorarse and enamorar is an art; decisions lately-for me-is a great art!
WELL SL…

Still not clear whether professional will be oriented towards the corporate or audio-visual. The only thing we know is that seek to teach, transmit, whether issues related to the strategy, marketing and communication, something to work with the formation of future generations. However, I would love to reach thirty-odd with the use of homemaker. Take for economic stability and take care of his family. But, "without the usual machismo that kind of relationship. Children need to be close to their mother. "

- Your ideal man…
- A gentleman visionary who admire and I babee by him. I am not interested in social status or physical. Yes having a sense of humor. That shows that he's intelligent.

Quality-male most admire…
- His muscle structure, because apart from that… we are not very different.

-- Is the female?
- The maternal instinct.

-- Does the countryside to the city?
- It depends. If Paris, the city. If botada by San Antonio de los Altos, the countryside. Sometimes you can not be black and white.

-- A feature yours?
- I am always despeinada.

PRACTICIDAD AND CONVENIENCE

It defines her style Eva Ekvall, who believes hes best cosmetic, it is your moisturizing cream. "I can remove up toothpaste, but I am mañosísima with hydration of my skin."

-- What is the most tedious to do in honor of physical beauty?
- Caring for a little bit my eating habits ... But I did not kill. I love life very much like to limit myself in the things I like. Rather than go to the gym, I prefer to read a book.

Although the trend is walking maquillada, Eva little or nothing it does, "unless dawn cranky and ugly I look in the mirror." It washes her hair one day, one day. "I do not like hairdressers. My hair brush when the sign in and sign out of the shower. " And as for meals…

- As, but not abuse of pasta and bread. Meals fast it performed, but only when I have no other or when I am in a period of such self-destruct when I want to eat like crazy.

-- What makes you run?
- A heavy .... The hatred!

-- What are you doing for your image?
- Studying. A pretty face does not last a lifetime.

WHAT TO THINK OF…

- Virginity
- It's like asking what I think of an ashtray.

- The cachos
-- Heavy. Painful mistakes you do not wish anyone.

- Money
Rico to travel, eat and the vagaries. I need money for a car, a roof and a bit of comfort, luxury else is.

- The couple, the children, the matrimonial cul-tural
- Three things totally different. There are gay couples who are unable to marry or have children, something cruel. There are women who left pregnant and alone, also very cruel. There arranged marriages. I would love to have a couple, then get married and then having children.

- The game
- Fun with restraint.

-- What are your projects, hopes and goals?
-- That the question I detest! Everything is so uncertain ... I want to graduate, to have a radio programme, provide for my family financially, enamorarme, get married, have children! In order…

-- What do you want bright?
-- The future!

Ashley ends up making her fortune via NY Gov Scandal

2008-03-15T08:43:00.001-07:00

The $1,000-an-hour prostitute reportedly hired by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer may soon make much more than that, turning her 15 minutes of infamy into a tidy sum of money.

Since 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre was identified by The New York Times late on Wednesday as the governor's paramour, the prostitute and aspiring singer's songs have become the most popular downloads on a music-sharing Web site and at least one magazine is prepared to pay her for a nude photo spread.

Proving the adage there's no such thing as bad publicity, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt told the Access Hollywood television program on Friday that he plans to offer Dupre $1 million to pose nude in his magazine.

Earlier this week, the woman told the Times she was worried about paying her rent this month after the escort service she worked for was shut down by federal officials.

The newspaper reported Spitzer was heard on a federal wiretap last month arranging a tryst with a prostitute called "Kristen," whom the paper identified as Dupre.

Spitzer resigned on Wednesday and apologized for his "private failings," but did not refer specifically to the report.

According to Dupre's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/ninavenetta), she left home at 17 and moved to New York, where she is trying to pursue a music career.

Her R&B- and pop-tinged songs "What We Want" and "Move Ya Body" are ranked as the two best-selling songs on the AimeStreet.com music sharing Web site.

A spokesman for Aime Street, which uses a demand-price model where users pay more for popular songs, would not confirm how many times Dupre's songs had been downloaded. But he said "Move ya Body," which was uploaded to the site around 2 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Thursday, rose to the highest download price (98 cents) faster than any other song in the site's history.

Dupre's page on the site has been viewed more than 300,000 times and artists get a 70 percent cut of sales. If 1 million copies were sold, as some media outlets have estimated, then she's already made more than $680,000 from her notoriety.

New York radio stations, including the top-rated Z100, have been playing her music on the airwaves. Her profile on the social networking Web site MySpace has had over 7 million page views.

Penthouse Magazine Group president and publisher Diane Silberstein has said the men's magazine would consider offering Dupre a nude cover shot.

On Friday, The New York Post ran five pages of revealing pictures of Dupre from a 2007 photo shoot purportedly to promote her music career.

US loses its no.1 spot on world Economy

2008-03-15T08:40:00.001-07:00

US loses its no.1 spot on world Economy

The U.S. economy lost the title of "world's biggest" to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets.

Taking the gross domestic product of both economies in 2007, the combined GDP of the 15 countries which use the euro overtook that of the United States when the European currency surged to a record high of more than $1.56 per euro.

"The curious outcome of breaching this latest milestone is that the size of the euro zone's annual output has now exceeded that of the U.S.," the economics department of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, said in a note to clients.

Taking official estimates of 2007 GDP -- $13,843,800 billion for the United States and 8,847,889.1 billion euros for the euro zone -- the economy of the latter passed the United States once converted into dollars, shortly after the euro topped $1.56.

The dollar sank to $1.5688 per euro late in European trading hours on Friday, at which rate the euro zone's 2007 GDP equates to $13,880,568.4 billion.

The 2007 GDP estimates are as published by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and provided to Reuters on request for the euro zone by Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office.

Billionaire Philanthropy

2008-03-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

Billionaire Philanthropy

There is a philanthropic convergence at the head of this year's billionaires' list. Warren Buffett, who tops the rankings, has pledged to turn over most of his fortune to the charitable foundation hitherto funded by the fortune of the man he replaces at the top, William H. Gates III.

This combination puts the pair at the forefront of a new wave of entrepreneurial philanthropists. They are eschewing traditional areas of giving such as the arts in favor of big global social issues, particularly poverty, health and education.

They have the wealth to do so. And, pace Buffett, who is outsourcing the disposal of his money to Gates, they are still young enough to have the energy and fire to undertake such ambitious and challenging philanthropy. They work on a global scale and apply the skills and approaches of business to the work of doing good.

This is reflected in our list of the largest U.S. charitable donations by billionaires last year. It is dominated by gifts of at least $100 million for specific health and education objectives.

In Pictures: The Biggest Billionaire Gifts Of 2007

Used to rigorous goal setting, benchmarking, accountability and operational efficiency, the new philanthropists seek to maximize the social impact of their actions, just as they sought to maximize shareholder value in their businesses. Comfortable with innovation, they believe they can develop new products and services through technology that will make it have a significant impact.

In practice, they are marrying the approaches taken by corporate social-responsibility programs now flourishing at companies like Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) and PepsiCo (nyse: PEP - news - people ) to the single-issue focus and reach of nongovernmental organizations. In the process, they promise to change the rules of the aid and economic development game.

Gates has promised to step down from the day-to-day operations of Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) this coming July to devote himself full time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been selling 20 million Microsoft shares each quarter and donating the proceeds to his foundation. Currently, the foundation has assets of $37.8 billion.

Buffett irrevocably committed in 2006 to giving the majority of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway (nyse: BRK - news - people ) to charity, mostly Gates' foundation, in 5% chunks over the next 20 years. At the time of the announcement, the gift was valued at $31 billion, but if Berkshire's shares continue to rise in value, the donation's ultimate size could far exceed that sum.

In inflation-adjusted dollars, Buffett will give away more money than John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie. And apparently it takes resources on this scale to truly make a dent in any of the world's myriad problems. It's worth remembering that no philanthropist has solved a worldwide problem since Carnegie brought universal access for the poor to books via libraries, and Rockefeller used his billions to fund the research that would lead to the eradication of polio.

Gates' ambition is on a similar scale. He wants to eradicate the 20 leading diseases in the world during his (or his wife's) lifetime.

Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican businessman who is now the world's second-richest person, has poked fun at Buffett and Gates for "going around like Santa Claus." In general, Latin American billionaires do not have a record of charitable giving comparable to Buffett or Gates, and the region's tax laws, unlike those in the U.S., often do not encourage it as much.

But Helú has given away hefty sums by any but Buffett and Gates' standards. He gave $100 million last year to the foundation run by former U.S. President William Clinton. In all, he has pledged close to $7 billion worth of cash and stock to fund education and health projects and to revitalize Mexico City's downtown historical district.

"Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things, rather than giving," he said when announcing in March 2007 a $450 million foundation for health care and research.

Gates and those of a similar mind would say that is exactly what they are doing. Most are as hands-on in their philanthropy as they were in their companies. They revel in the complexity of the challenges, and can imagine piecing together the necessary parts of, say, controlling malaria--from fundamental scientific research to creating low-cost delivery systems for the finished vaccine--as an exercise in supply-chain management.

The best of them also have the breadth of mind to join the dots between health and broader societal issues. How do you get a poor person to take a dose of medicine when he is too malnourished to swallow?

The Gates Foundation, for one, is already moving beyond the pure medical dimensions of health into agriculture and micro-financing. In January, it announced a $306 million package of agricultural development grants "designed to boost the yields and incomes of millions of small farmers in Africa and other parts of the developing world so they can lift themselves and their families out of hunger and poverty."

In the end, it and other foundations will inevitably find themselves in the business of promoting sound social infrastructure, open markets, the rule of law, and transparent and corruption-free government. This is the globalization and modernization of what Rockefeller called the "business of beneficence." And this will increasingly bring the new generation of foundations into conflict with governments around the globe.

It is already happening in India, where British-based Indian billionaire Anjil Agarwal is trying to use $1 billion of his $3.8 billion fortune to set up an elite private research university in India that Agarwal hopes will grow into an Indian rival to world-class institutions like Stanford, Harvard and Oxford. Though many Indians acknowledge the shortcomings of their country's higher education system, Agarwal is under attack from both the country's educational bureaucracy and local landowners, who would lose 10,000 acres of land. (Harvard, by contrast, makes do with 380 acres.)

While gaining some acceptance from governments, who, in U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's words, "are starting to realize their limitations," entrepreneurial philanthropists are deeply distrusted by the traditional charitable establishment. Nor will all cultures be comfortable with philanthropic foundations that promote Western values of freedom, technology and entrepreneurship.

It will be interesting to see how the $100 million program investment bank Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) announced this week to school women in Africa, Asia and the Middle East in business and management will be received in those countries where women have traditionally not been given access to such education. Thomas Robertson, dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the participating business schools, notes that there "will be issues when students go back into the family structure, or community, about how they'll apply what they learned."

Yet "no longer can businesses, governments or nongovernmental organizations afford to act independently of each other--the stakes are just too high," as John Connolly, global chairman of Deloitte & Touche, said at the World Economic Forum's January meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

It was there that Gates outlined the next evolution of entrepreneurial philanthropy, what he called "creative capitalism," a way to provide market incentives for companies to serve the poorest people in the world. But before the companies move in, the billionaires and their new foundations will beat the path.

$20 for Medical Records with Critical Information

2008-03-11T08:02:00.001-07:00

Florida hospital's medical records sold as scrap paper for $20.

In the Wall Street Journal's (3/10) Health Blog, Heather Won Tesoriero wrote, "When an enterprising Salt Lake City fourth-grade teacher paid $20 for scrap paper for her students, she walked away with a box of confidential medical records from a Florida hospital." Last December, the "Central Florida Regional Hospital shipped three boxes of medical records...via UPS to a Las Vegas auditor." The auditor never received one of the boxes, and "contacted hospital officials who, in turn, got in touch with UPS a couple of weeks later."

The information on the records included "detailed medical histories, phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers, and insurance information."

In addition, "[s]everal of the patients whose information was lost are dead." Although officials at the hospital tracked "the box since it was reported missing in Phoenix, [they] did not contact the affected patients," according to hospital risk manager Kelly Ferrell, who added that the hospital "worr[ies] about wrongful disclosure."

Magnesium to reduce STROKE risk...

2008-03-11T07:58:00.001-07:00

Study suggests diets rich in magnesium may cut stroke risk in smokers.

"Diets rich [in] magnesium, found in whole grains and vegetables, could help reduce stroke risk in smokers," according to a study published in the Mar. 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. Susanna Larsson, Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and colleagues, followed over 26,000 men "for more than 13 years," and "found that those who consumed an average of 589 milligrams of magnesium each day in their diets had a 15 percent lower risk for cerebral infarction -- a stroke that occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked -- than those who consumed less magnesium."

While "Larsson and colleagues did not investigate mechanisms by which magnesium might reduce ischemic stroke risk, they called the link 'biologically plausible.'" The researchers cited "earlier research indicating that high magnesium intake has beneficial effects on blood lipid and glucose levels, markers of systemic and vascular inflammation, and lipoprotein peroxidation."

Meeting Your 2b Otherhalf

2008-03-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

Meeting Your 2b Otherhalf

You spot her across a dark, smoky room. You buy her a drink. You think she said her name was Laura, but you can't hear that well over the heavy pulse of the bass. After a few minutes of small talk, you ask for her number. She scribbles it down, smiles, and shortly returns to her friends. You think things went pretty well until you call her three days later, only to hear Carl from Carl's Dry Cleaning answer the phone. What went wrong?

Here's the thing: Many women do not like meeting men at bars. Sure, you're good-looking, dressed nicely, even funny, but you keep getting fake phone numbers, polite rejections, and blatantly rude refusals. You're looking for women in all the wrong places. Bars and parties may seem like great spots to meet women, but women are rarely open to come-ons of any sort in these settings. Bars and parties exude mystery, wildness and sex; many women see men who are on the prowl at bars and parties as generic partiers who only want one-night stands.

go where few have gone before

A woman's defenses are up at a bar or party. You need to approach her in a place where she is relaxed and receptive to meeting you. So get away from the booze and the blaring music and approach women in less obvious places -- places where you aren't just an anonymous guy nodding his head to the music with a beer permanently attached to his hand. Approach her in places where she can get a sense of your personality and see that not only do you have interests, but you also share some of hers. Check out this list and you might actually have a chance of getting a phone number that won't connect to Doug's Pizzeria or the clinic for venereal diseases.

Number 10

Building supply/hardware stores

Pathetic, but true: Many women wander around hardware store aisles with very little idea of what they are doing -- and lots of questions. If she looks like she's trying to decide which item to buy, politely offer a suggestion and show her anything else she may need (including your number for house calls). "I once went to the hardware store looking for caulking for my windows. I knew I needed the white stuff and a caulking gun, but I had no idea how it worked," says Jenn, 25. "I finally asked this guy which gun was better, and he ended up coming over to help me caulk the windows. Now we're going out, and you wouldn't believe the amount of caulking jokes we have."

Number 9

Not only do you get to be surrounded by a group of sweaty, athletic women, but you also may meet someone who shares your love of sports. Try consoling a woman from the losing team and point out one of the excellent plays she made. Or, approach a woman from the winning team. Since her endorphins will be soaring from the exercise and the victory, she may be in a state to say yes to just about anything.

Number 8

At a bank, the DMV, or an amusement park. This is the time to pull out the wit: funny one-liners can break the monotony of the wait. At the bank, you can be the fun element in a normally tedious and sometimes stressful setting. At an amusement park, lineups are often over an hour long; plenty of time to chat her up, and convince her to spend the rest of the day with you (provided she's not there with her boyfriend). You never know what kind of rides you might end up on.

Number 7

Here's your chance to prove there is more to you than your swashbuckling good looks and rugged body. Check out a woman who's browsing in your favorite sections. This gives you the opportunity to ask her about a book she may have read, or recommend one that you've read -- especially over a latte at the bookstore's coffee shop.

Number 6

Painting, cooking or a language class: Although it may have been vehemently covered up in the '50s, women really do love men who can cook for them. And hey, while you're making her swoon over your Pasta Carbonara, impress her with your Italian. These types of classes also offer a perfect excuse to get together later -- to practice your grinding skills (uh, pepper grinding that is), or your tongue rolling skills (to roll your R's in Spanish, of course).

Dance, aerobics, or yoga classes: Once she realizes you're straight, she'll be very impressed by your ability to express your less masculine traits. And not only will you be improving your own physique, you will be surrounded by a classroom full of sculpted, scantily clad, sweating women.

Any dance class that requires a partner (i.e. Latin or swing dancing): Women love men who can dance even more than they love men who can cook. Just try mentioning the words, Dirty Dancing , Patrick Swayze, and John Travolta circa Grease around any woman and see how long it takes for her to sigh orgasmically.

Number 5

Yes, some women actually go to games too (but maybe just to see the built men running around in tight pants or shorts). Go with a friend, and pay a little less attention to the game, and a little more to the women watching it -- sit next to a couple of women and ask their opinions on a debate you and your buddy are having about the last play, the players, or previous games of the season. Switch teams if you have to -- just don't let all the scoring happen on the field.

Number 4

These events are usually rallied around passionate and controversial subjects, and the atmosphere is usually emotionally charged, making female attendees more emotionally available (or vulnerable) and open to discussing the events with a fellow concerned citizen. Try attending poetry readings, anti-clear-cutting lectures, or demonstrations to free Tibet. But make sure you actually have a somewhat intelligent opinion on the subject; otherwise she may run straight into the arms of the sensitive zealot with the banner and the guitar.

Number 3

Your eyes meet as you both reach for the last head of lettuce... The grocery store may seem like a better place to stock up on macaroni and cheese than meet women, but one advantage you have is the element of surprise -- she won't be expecting to meet men while cruising the aisles. Casually make a joke in the produce section; it worked for Jay, 26: "I made a funny comment about the frozen meat, and we ended up shopping together. I let her pay first, and she actually waited for me and we left together." Jokes are good; just don't compliment her on those beautiful melons.

Number 2

Be free to let your inner French painter out. You will find a plethora of single women at museums, either to admire the beauty of the paintings or to study them on a deeper artistic level. Read up on all the big names before going to visit the permanent collection, or just see the featured exhibit. But learn the difference between Van Halen and Van Gogh before you ask her which one is her favorite Dutch painter.

Number 1

Pretend you're shopping for your sister or some other female relative and ask either the saleswoman or a female shopper her opinion on which item she likes best. Ask about simple items, such as which sweater goes best with which skirt, or if those polka dot pants really are in style. Don't push your luck by asking her to try it on for you, but most women do enjoy giving advice on which color, size and style you should buy. Bonus: she might automatically assume you're shopping for your girlfriend, that is, until you break the news to her.

think outside the bar

A bar seems like an easy place to meet women, beautiful, single women consuming alcohol. But the problem is they don't want to meet you at a bar. To prove to the ladies that you have more substance than a light ale, you need to make more of an effort than throwing on a black shirt and some aftershave. You need to go to places where she can see that you are a well-rounded guy with interests and a functioning brain.

Not only will the extra effort help to enhance your personality and your appeal, but it also gives you the chance to meet a more exceptional woman, one who has better things to do than stand at the bar and wait for you to buy her a drink.

Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

Invasion of Very You

2008-03-01T07:55:00.000-08:00

Invasion of Very You

Microsoft's patent application for a "unique monitoring system" that would keep tabs on a worker's productivity levels, physical and mental well-being, as well as competence. This so-called system would consist of wireless sensors that would measure a worker's heart rate, body temperature, brain signals, facial movements, and respiration rate. As if that wasn't enough, the system would also provide assistance and alert management if it sensed a worker was highly stressed or frustrated. Talk about invasive!

Now there are those who think it will take years before these type of monitoring systems start showing up at work, but the reality is they're already out there. The UK's Hot Forest Technology has developed Optimal Office, a system that the company says will help you (meaning the boss) "identify the stress fingerprint of your organization." It's not as intrusive as the system Microsoft is working on, but Optimal Office comes close.

Workers are given a special mouse with bio-sensors that capture a person's body temperature and galvanic skin response, which are used to detect the user's level of anxiety and stress. The same bio-feedback technology used in the mouse is the same used in lie detectors, so that should give you an idea of how accurate it can be.

If the system determines a person's baseline stress level is peaking, it will alert them via a pop-up box, and walk them through a series of stress reducing exercises that are supposed to help relax the person. All the while, the information is being sent to a web server so your boss can view it anytime and determine whether they need to fire or hire more people around the office. It's a good thing this system is still overseas, but it'll be only a matter of time before something like this creeps into the American workspace. What do you think? You think the boss could ever get away with this?

Immigrants vs US born Citizens: Who commits more crime???

2008-02-26T20:09:00.001-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S.-born citizen to commit crime in California, the most populous state in the United States, according to a report issued late on Monday.

People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California's adult population but account for about 17 percent of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California showed.

According to the report's authors the findings suggest that long-standing fears of immigration as a threat to public safety are unjustified. The report also noted that U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated at a rate more than 2 1/2 times greater than that of foreign-born men.

"Our research indicates that limiting immigration, requiring higher educational levels to obtain visas, or spending more money to increase penalties against criminal immigrants will have little impact on public safety," said Kristin Butcher, co-author of the report and associate professor of economics at Wellesley College.

The study did not differentiate between documented immigrants and illegal immigrants.

The question of what to do about the millions of undocumented workers living in the United States has been one of the major issues in the U.S. presidential election. Mexico, which accounts for a high proportion of illegal immigrants in California, was deeply disappointed at the U.S. Congress' failure to pass President George W. Bush's overhaul of immigration laws last year.

When Butcher and her co-author, Anne Morrison Piehl, associate professor of economics at Rutgers University, considered all those committed to institutions including prison, jails, halfway houses and the like, they found an even greater disparity.

Among men 18 to 40, the population most likely to be in institutions because of criminal activity, the report found that in California, U.S.-born men were institutionalized 10 times more often than foreign-born men (4.2 percent vs. 0.42 percent).

Among other findings in the report, non-citizen men from Mexico 18 to 40 -- a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally -- are more than eight times less likely than U.S.-born men in the same age group to be in a correctional institution (0.48 percent vs. 4.2 percent).

"From a public safety standpoint, there would be little reason to further limit immigration, to favor entry by high-skilled immigrants, or to increase penalties against criminal immigrants," the report said.

Fastest conversion to Millionaire

2008-02-26T19:59:00.001-08:00

Fastest conversion to Millionaire

When asked what he plans to do as a brand new multimillionaire, lottery winner Robert Harris answered simply: "Live happy."

The 47-year-old iron worker used to have to work overtime just to make ends meet for 20 years. He and his wife, Tonya, lived in a trailer while dreaming of building a big house in the country where their two children and six grandchildren could visit.

Now that's all in the past.

The couple won Friday's $275 million Mega Millions jackpot — the largest prize won by a single player in Georgia Lottery history. With it, they plan to build that dream house, pay for their grandchildren's college education and shower their family with presents.

"They'll get anything they want," Robert Harris told a crowd of reporters gathered at the lottery's downtown Atlanta headquarters Monday afternoon.

The Harrises aren't big lottery players, but Robert Harris said something told him to buy tickets using the dates of his grandchildren's birthdays. He had his wife buy two $1 tickets at Clyde's Market in Portal, the town of 600 where the couple live.

They didn't even watch the Mega Millions drawing, thinking there was no chance they'd win the lottery. Tonya Harris' daughter, Felicia, is the one who delivered the good news with a phone call late Friday night.

First thing Saturday morning, Robert Harris let his boss know he wouldn't be coming back to work.

"It's very easy to walk away," he said.

The couple spent Sunday night at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta's tony Buckhead neighborhood before arriving at the lottery headquarters to claim their prize. They planned to buy a brand-new truck Tuesday morning.

But Tonya Harris said the money doesn't mean they'll stop being the simple folks they've always been.

"We're not gonna change," she said, wearing warmup pants and flip-flops. "I'm too country."

Lottery officials say the couple decided to take the lump sum, which is $167 million before taxes.

Billy Hodges, general manager of Clyde's Market, said news of the jackpot win set the tiny town abuzz. Portal is about 70 miles northwest of Savannah.

"It happened to a nice lady; I think this lady really deserves it," Hodges said.

A year ago, Ed Nabors, from Rocky Face, Ga., won half of a $390 million jackpot — the richest lottery prize in U.S. history. The other half was claimed by Elaine and Harold Messner, a couple from Cape May County in New Jersey.

Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state. The twice-weekly drawing is done in Atlanta.

PolyGamy in USA

2008-02-26T19:55:00.001-08:00

PolyGamy in USA

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was handed over to Arizona authorities Tuesday to face sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older relatives.

He already has been convicted in Utah in connection with one of those cases, involving a 14-year-old girl.

Deputies from the Mohave County Sheriff's Office took custody of Jeffs from Utah officials, sheriff's spokeswoman Trish Carter said. He was booked into the county jail, where he will be kept separate from other inmates, said sheriff's department Capt. Greg Smith.

"Now it's our turn," Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. "I hope the message is very simple: the law applies to everybody, whether they're the head of a large religious group, or somebody who's not. It's a crime to abuse children, and there are no exceptions."

Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, will plead not guilty to the Arizona charges Wednesday in a Kingman court, said defense attorney Mike Piccarreta.

Jeffs, 52, is charged as an accomplice with four counts of incest and four counts of sexual contact with a minor in an indictment.

Smith said Jeffs was booked on six counts of sexual conduct with a minor, four counts of incest and one count of conspiracy to conduct sexual conduct with a minor but couldn't explain the discrepancy. Prosecutor Matt Smith wasn't in his office on Tuesday afternoon and couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The Arizona charges stem from the arranged marriage of a man in his early 50s to a 17-year-old relative and another between a 19-year-old man and his 14-year-old cousin.

Jeffs was convicted last year in Utah of rape as an accomplice in the latter case, but Arizona prosecutors say that doesn't preclude them from bringing charges here.

Members of the church live in the isolated twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

"Our interest has always been in making sure that the rule of law applies in Colorado City and northern Arizona," Goddard said. "And certainly the most spectacular offender, the person doing the most to subvert the rule of law in that area, is Warren Jeffs."

Piccarreta plans to ask the judge for a change of venue, saying the northwestern Arizona city of Kingman is too close to St. George, Utah, the site of Jeffs' first trial, for him to get a fair trial here. The cities, separated by the Grand Canyon, are a more than 200-mile drive apart.

"If people want to give Mr. Jeffs a fair trial, we have to hold it in an area as far away as practical from the other case in Utah," he said. "And that case to me is an example of what occurs when you don't take the case away from people that have lots of knowledge and local publicity that has tainted the jury panel."

Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said the trial, which will be months from now, should be held in Mohave County because that's where the alleged crimes occurred.

It has been 2 1/2 years since Mohave County prosecutors filed charges against Jeffs and he went into hiding. He was on the FBI's Most Wanted list when he was arrested in August 2006 in Nevada.

Jeffs was named president, or prophet, of the FLDS church in 2002.

The mainstream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounced polygamy more than a century ago, excommunicates members who engage in the practice and disavows any connection with the FLDS church.

Jeffs was sentenced in Utah to serve two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison. Smith has said that if Jeffs is convicted in Arizona he would have to finish his Utah sentence before doing time here.

The Advertising Doctor

2008-02-26T07:49:00.001-08:00

The Advertising Doctor

"You won't be seeing any more of those Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) ads featuring Robert Jarvik, M.D., who invented the artificial heart." Drugmaker "Pfizer said it's pulling the ads for the cholesterol-lowering drug because they led to 'misimpressions.'"

"Questions about Dr. Jarvik's credibility as a spokesman were first raised on msnbc.com by our chief science correspondent, Robert Bazell, then by a congressional committee and some newspaper reports."

Pfizer "spent more than $258 million advertising Lipitor since January 2006, most of it on the Jarvik campaign, as the company sought to protect Lipitor, the world's best-selling drug, from competition by cheaper generics."

"Dr. Jarvik has starred in six campaigns for Pfizer." For example, "[o]ne ad depicts him at a lake discussing why he takes Lipitor." The ad "plays up the fact that he is a physician, saying, 'Just because I'm a doctor doesn't mean I don't worry about my cholesterol,'" and adding, "Lipitor is one of the most researched medicines. You don't have to be a doctor to appreciate that."

"House Democrats said the ads could be misleading to consumers because Jarvik is not licensed to practice medicine." On Monday, Pfizer pledged that "it would provide 'greater clarity in our advertising regarding the presentation of spokespeople'" in future marketing campaigns.

"Reps. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, have been investigating the drugmakers's advertisements. Reacting to Pfizer's announcement, Stupak said, "[w]e will continue to investigate the deception that occurs in direct-to-consumer advertising of medications, including Pfizer's Lipitor campaign."

Health Care on Airplanes

2008-02-26T07:44:00.001-08:00

Passenger's death raises questions about medical assistance aboard airplanes.

During "American Airlines Flight 896 from Haiti to New York Friday night,...a woman developed medical trouble and died on the flight before it could land."

"There are conflicting versions" about "what kind of medical help" the passenger received.

The passenger's death "is raising questions anew about what assistance airlines can provide if you become gravely ill on a plane." The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still attempting to determine what actually occurred. According to American Airlines, "its crew followed established procedures to help" the passenger. But, "a cousin who flew with her has said that her distress was initially ignored, and that the plane lacked functioning equipment to help her." The Journal notes that the FAA "has clear regulations about the medical equipment airlines are required to carry on board planes, including heart defibrillators and first-aid oxygen." Still, "the line blurs when it comes to procedures for administering assistance, providing nonemergency help, and even defining the point when a health concern becomes an emergency."

The passenger "had arteriosclerotic cardiovascular heart disease, or blockage in her arteries, as well as diabetes, according to the New York City medical examiner's office." Although her relatives maintain that there was no oxygen on board the flight, Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines, said that "oxygen was administered within a couple of minutes after" the passenger's "cousin came forward, [and] several doctors and nurses stepped in to help." Furthermore, Wagner stated that "all 12 canisters on board were full, and were checked before takeoff, as required."

The airline further maintained that it is "investigating this incident, as" it does "with all serious medical situations on board" its aircraft. Moreover, "oxygen was administered, and the Automatic External Defibrillator was applied," the airline stated.

The FAA "requires commercial flights to carry no fewer than two oxygen dispensers," so that the "oxygen [is] available in case there is a rapid cabin decompression." Nevertheless, the oxygen "can also be used for other emergencies."

8 High Profile Cyber Business

2008-02-23T09:53:00.001-08:00

Fifteen billion dollars: That's the value Microsoft slapped on Facebook when the computer giant invested $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Mark Zuckerberg's online social networking site. You could seethe with envy--or you could get started building your own fortune online. Here are eight basic business models (none requiring the brains of a Google software developer) to get you going. Be warned, though: Some are riskier, and demand more IT skill, than others.

Virtual Futures Market

As Internet usage grows, so too will the sophistication of online business models. Take 3-year-old Yoonew, which sells futures contracts on sports tickets. Fans buy the right to take delivery of tickets if their teams make it to a coveted playoff game, perhaps months away. Given the uncertainty of the bet, those contracts sell for a fraction of the future market value of the underlying tickets. If your team makes it to the big game, you've locked in a cheap seat; if it falls short, you lose that insurance premium. Yoonew makes money when the revenue it collects from selling all those contracts exceeds the cost of delivering a small number of very expensive tickets on game days. (The danger: If ticket prices spike, or there are no seats available, the company could suffer a loss or alienate its customers.)

Domain Flipping

As with tangible real estate, you can buy virtual plots (URL addresses), flip them and make a buck. GoDaddy.com sells unused domain names for under $10 apiece. To attract buyers, run tests to determine how often certain key words are searched so that you can demonstrate the likelihood that your URL will show up in a Google or Yahoo! search. (For more on this model, check out "Meet Noah Of The Internet" and "The Most Expensive Web Addresses.")

Tip/Warning: The best domain names are short, sweet, specific and easy to remember.

Domain Directory
Simply corral a bunch of related Web sites and charge their owners annual fees, or per-click fees, to post their listings. High-end example: Business.com, basically Yellow Pages for the Internet.
Tip/Warning: While this may sound easy, the bigger the online parking lot, the trickier the technology to support it. Business.com, for instance, requires a content-management system, search technology and a way to track ad clicks.

Content Provider (advertising model)

This is every pajama-clad blogger's dream. Selling advertising is also how thousands of established online media outlets pay their electric bills. They charge advertisers two ways: by the number of overall Web pages (called "impressions") they serve up, and by the number of people who click on the ads. Some small fries are surviving: Jossip.com, a media and gossip blog, counts Coca-Cola and Sketchers among its advertisers. The trick: attracting enough eyeballs to make it worth someone's while to pay to advertise on your site.

Tip/Warning: The "click-through" rates on ads tend to be quite low--in the neighborhood of one-half of 1%. To have any prayer of attracting large advertisers, sites need to attract at least 500,000 unique visitors per month, says Jossip publisher David Hauslaib.

Content Provider (subscriber model)

If you create truly valuable content, you should be able to charge for it, right? Targeted newsletters and pornography sites can, some yielding operating margins of 30% and higher; many other media outlets resort to selling advertising (see next slide). Dating sites like Match.com--a cross between a subscription-based content provider and a virtual marketplace--charge subscription fees for access to their members.

Tip/Warning: Subscription sites fill an urgent need--for tangible investment ideas, a potential mate, etc. General-interest content generally doesn't cut it with subscribers online.

Virtual Matchmaker

Matching buyers and sellers online sounded like a great idea back in the late '90s--until a lot of these Internet brokers went bust, still, online marketplaces persist. EBay runs online auctions and takes a cut of the final selling price. Other marketplaces simply charge buyers and sellers monthly fees for easy access to each other. Most are niche plays. Examples: Mfg.com matches equipment manufactures with smaller component suppliers, while H2Bid.com links municipalities with wastewater-equipment vendors.

Tip/Warning: Transparency adds value, so offer users the ability to rate the people they do business with. Also, auctions require more sophisticated software than basic online retailing.

© Andrew Park/Shutterstock

Virtual Landlord

You can move merchandise online without paying rent on a warehouse. Just play virtual landlord and charge other retailers monthly fees (or per-transaction fees) for the opportunity to market their products on your site. Amazon.com nabbed 28% of its revenues this way in 2006. Craigslist is another take on this model: The 25-person company charges businesses to post help wanted ads in San Francisco, New York and L.A., and also collects fees for apartment listings in New York City. (Total page views per month: about 5 billion.)

Virtual Store

This is one of the oldest online business models, and one that left many dot-coms in ruins when the Internet bubble burst in 2000. High-end goods (custom suits, fancy cars) are tough to peddle online, but some commodity items, from books and T-shirts to hotel rooms and mortgages, work nicely--if you execute well. Beyond an easy-to-navigate Web site, you'll need a warehouse to store the inventory, as well as "fulfillment" software so customers can complete the transactions. If you don't want to deal with the IT side, set up shop on eBay and let them handle the technical issues. Some of the best eBay retailers (affectionately called "Power Sellers") pull in more than $100,000 a year.

Tip/Warning: Retail is a cut-throat business, online and off. Target a niche and offer over-the-top customer service.

Cyber Earning

2008-02-23T09:42:00.001-08:00

Fifteen billion smackers: That's the value Microsoft recently slapped on Facebook when the computer giant invested $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Mark Zuckerberg's online social-networking site.

You could seethe with envy--or you could chase your own fortune on the Web.

Some online businesses require only a few hundred dollars in equipment, while others demand significant hardware and perhaps even a warehouse. Some might make you rich; others might just cover beer money. And all involve various levels of time, capital and technological skill.

In Pictures: Eight Ways To Make Money Online

"Some people have dreamed about owning their own business and have not followed through because of the investment in resources," says Jim Griffith, head of eBay University, for those aiming to set up shop selling goods at the online auctioneer's site. "The Internet allows people to at least try without making a large initial investment."

Army veteran Brandi Ramos of Springfield, Ill., did it. As a single mom in need of extra income, she started her online retail career peddling "big and tall" men's clothing on eBay.

Three years later, Ramos, 32, makes a good living working online out of her 600-square-foot basement packed with hanging displays and baker's racks piled with tupperware containing underwear and belts. Ramos aims to offer quick service, answering all e-mails within four to six hours. She claims to net $25,000 on $100,000 sales a year, and even earns a few bucks per order on shipping.

If managing inventory seems too big a chore, play virtual landlord and charge other retailers monthly fees (or per-transaction fees) for the opportunity to market their products on your site. Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) nabbed 28% of its revenues this way in 2006.

Craigslist is another take on this model: The 25-person company, worth a reported $2 billion, charges businesses to post help wanted ads in San Francisco, New York and L.A.; it also collects fees for apartment listings in New York City. Total page views per month: about 5 billion.

Then there's every pajama-clad blogger's dream: producing content supported by advertising dollars. Selling advertising is how thousands of established online media outlets pay their electric bills. They charge advertisers two ways: by the number of overall Web pages (called "impressions") served up, and by the number of people who click on the ads.

Setting up a blog requires not much more than a basic publishing program, a server and software to track ad clicks. The hard part, though, is attracting enough eyeballs to make it worth someone's while to pay to advertise on your site.

To have any prayer of attracting large advertisers, sites need to attract at least 500,000 unique visitors per month, says David Hauslaib, publisher of Jossip.com, a media and gossip blog that counts Coca Cola (nyse: KO - news - people ) and Sketchers among its advertisers. Sadly, even if you do generate enough traffic, the "click-through" rates on ads tend to be quite low--in the neighborhood of one half of 1%.

Subscription-based models are even harder to crack. Unless your site fulfills an urgent need (for tangible investment ideas, a potential mate, etc.), users aren't likely to pay for the content.

One way to garner subscription revenue is to run a virtual marketplace. These sites collect by allowing buyers and sellers easy access to each other. Many of these marketplaces flamed out in the dot-com bust, but some persist. Mfg.com, for instance, matches equipment manufacturers with smaller component suppliers. Dating sites like Match.com charge subscription fees for access to their members. And H2Bid.com links municipalities with wastewater-equipment vendors.

As with tangible real estate, you can buy virtual plots (URL addresses), flip them and make a buck. GoDaddy.com sells unused domain names for under $10 dollars apiece. To attract buyers, run tests to determine how often certain key words are searched so that you can demonstrate the likelihood that your URL will show up in a Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) or Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) search. One tip: The best domain names are short, sweet, specific and easy to remember. (For more on this model, check out "Meet Noah Of The Internet" and "The Most Expensive Web Addresses.")

As Internet usage grows, so too will the sophistication of online business models. Take 3-year-old Yoonew.com, which sells futures contracts on sports tickets.

Fans buy the right to take delivery of tickets if their teams make it to a coveted playoff game, perhaps months away. Given the uncertainty of the bet, those contracts sell for a fraction of the future market value of the underlying tickets. If your team makes it to the big game, you've locked in a cheap seat; if it falls short, you lose that insurance premium.

Yoonew makes money when the revenue it collects from selling all those contracts exceeds the cost of delivering a small number of very expensive tickets on game days. The danger: If ticket prices spike, or there are no seats available, the company could suffer a loss or alienate its customers.

Sure, you can make money online. But no one said it was easy.

Google In HealthCare

2008-02-23T08:28:00.001-08:00

Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic

By Steve Lohr

For 18 months, Google has been working to come up with a product offering and a strategy in the promising field of consumer health information. Until now, the search giant hasn't had anything to show for its labors other than bumps along the way — delays and a management change.

But on Thursday, Google's technology for personal health records, which is still in development, is getting a big endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic. The big medical center is beginning a pilot project to link the health information for some of its patients with Google personal health records.

Cleveland Clinic is at the cutting edge of health information technology, and its more than 100,000 patients each has a personal health record. But a sizable portion of those patients are retirees, notes Dr. C. Martin Harris, the clinic's chief information officer. Many of them, he said, spend about five months elsewhere, typically in Florida or Arizona, and the clinic's sophisticated electronic health records don't follow them there.

"It forces the patient to become his or her own medical historian," Dr. Harris said.

The Google personal health record, he said, is a solution to that problem, among others. A person can approve the transfer of information on, say, medical conditions, allergies, medications and laboratory results from the clinic's computers to a Google personal health record — a series of secure Web pages.

The pilot project will last six to eight weeks, and involve less than 10,000 patients. The project with Cleveland Clinic is "a milestone" for Google, said Marissa Mayer, a vice president, who took over management of the health team six months ago.

Google's personal health record is still in development, and it will be introduced publicly and made widely available, after the pilot project is concluded, Ms. Mayer said.

To be sure, Google is only one of several companies trying to make a business from Web-based personal health records. Microsoft, for example, brought out its entry, called HealthVault, last October, and it has commitments from medical centers including New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the Mayo Clinic. WebMD, Revolution Health and others also offer personal health records.

While it's still not entirely clear what Google's personal health record will be like, its approach seems to be ambitious and comprehensive. Google has its own user interface, while Microsoft, for example, appears to be focusing on back-end storage. Google is offering automated data links, so the patient does not have to type in personal data, as is required with some personal health records. And Google, along with Microsoft, has the deep pockets and technological knowhow to offer personal health records free to millions.

Other medical centers are ready to sign up. "This is truly a patient-controlled health record, and that's a very significant step in the drive toward a more consumer-oriented system of health care," said Dr. John D. Halamka, chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Halamka is also chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which plans to link its electronic patient records with Google personal health pages. He is also a member of
Google's Health Advisory Council.

9 Million for Insureance Company breaking its Contract

2008-02-23T08:26:00.001-08:00

A Southern California woman who had her medical coverage canceled as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer was awarded more than $9 million Friday in a case against one of California's largest health insurers.

Patsy Bates, 52, a hairdresser from Lakewood (Los Angeles County), had been left with more than $129,000 in unpaid medical bills when Health Net Inc. canceled her policy in 2004. The insurer contended Bates failed to disclose a heart condition and lied about her weight when she applied for the policy in July 2003.

But arbitration judge Sam Cianchetti ordered Health Net to pay her medical bills, plus $8.4 million in punitive damages and $750,000 for emotional distress.

"It's hard to imagine a situation more trying than the one Bates has had to endure," Cianchetti wrote in his findings. "The rug was pulled out from underneath, and that occurred at a time when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the leading causes of death for women."

Health insurers have come under fire from state regulators, attorneys and advocates for using mistakes or omissions in a member's application to justify canceling coverage after a policyholder becomes ill.

Friday's award marked the first punitive damages ordered by a judge in a case against an insurer for rescinding policies. Hundreds of cases in California have been settled quietly in confidential agreements.

"This punitive award will do more than anything to stop the shameful practice of post-claiming underwriting," said Bates' attorney, William Shernoff. "Other health insurers will obviously have to hear the message that the practice of canceling people's health insurance after they become sick will not be tolerated by the public."

Health Net officials released a statement Friday saying the insurer will rescind no policies in the future without a binding, third-party review process.

Health Net also said it would conduct a review of its practices and the way its brokers and agents are trained. The company said it is working with state regulators and will make additional announcements in the coming weeks.

Friday's award capped a difficult week for the insurer, which included being sued by the Los Angeles city attorney on claims of unlawful and deceptive business practices in connection with its rescission practices. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo also said the company illegally ran an incentive program in which it paid bonuses to an administrator for meeting policy-cancellation targets.

Bates, a mother of two, said she screamed when she heard about the damage award.

"I don't have anger toward the company," said Bates, whose cancer is in remission but who has some health problems. "I hope what they're saying is true, and that they're going to change their policies and take care of the people they insure."

Bates had previously been insured with another company but was persuaded to switch to a Health Net policy after an agent suggested she could save money.

She said she had undergone surgery to remove a tumor and had received her first two chemotherapy treatments when doctors stopped treating her because her bills were going unpaid.

xMDx

1st det 10ruls

Doctor: To be or Not to be

In Pictures: Reasons Not To Be A Doctor

LaSalle Bank brand to Oblivion as BofA takes over

Best Foreign Cuisine book in the Gourmand World Award in the US "Taste of Nepal"

bon Vivant Nepamerican

New Gold Rush

Solution to Dinner-time Embarrasment

How to Survive the 5 Most Embarrassing Dinner Date Mishaps

Sanskrit for Computer

Computational linguistics

The Sanskrit language

Brain of Maoist Guerrilla in Nepal Speaks

Impending Global Hunger Crisis

"PARADISE on EARTH " being captured by Maoist Guerrillas as the world looks on helplessly

The Richest Dynasty

Egg Donor Human Trafficking & HQ0-High Quality 0ocyte

Egg Donors and Human Trafficking HQ0-High Quality 0ocyte

Unemployment: Take care US in Recession

Choose Life vs Cellphone&Smoking

Cell Phones May Be Riskier Than Cigarettes

Fourfold Risk Possible

Back to Landlines?

'One Person's Opinion'

The Next Tobacco Industry?

'Life's a Risk'

NYLON rivalry New York and LONdon

CAREER Change- a smart move

Mystery & Eric Ekvall

Eric Ekvall Upset

Prologue: Ekvall's Para-Journalists

Gunson & Ekvall, Inc.?

Through the Looking Glass

Open Letter and Questions to Phil Gunson

Uncensored "response" from freelance reporter Phil Gunson:

Full text of attachment:

Full text of Gunson's first letter to Narco News…

Responses from political consultant Erik Ekvall:

Giordano's first reply to Ekvall:

Ekvall's response to Giordano's reply, Cced to Michael Rowan:

Giordano's response to Ekvall:

Ekvall's "final" response (also Cced to Michael Rowan):

Mystery & Eric Ekvall

Undisclosed Venezuela Conflicts

Eric Ekvall Upset

By Al GiordanoWith Unabridged Letters from Phil Gunson and Eric Ekvall

Prologue: Ekvall's Para-Journalists

Gunson & Ekvall, Inc.?

Through the Looking Glass

Open Letter and Questions to Phil Gunson

Uncensored "response" from freelance reporter Phil Gunson:

Full text of attachment:

Full text of Gunson's first letter to Narco News…

Responses from political consultant Erik Ekvall:

Giordano's first reply to Ekvall:

Ekvall's response to Giordano's reply, Cced to Michael Rowan:

Giordano's response to Ekvall:

Ekvall's "final" response (also Cced to Michael Rowan):

For more Narco News, click here.

World Outperforms USA in Underperforming

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Medical Residency Programs in USA

Milk Powder and Risk of Respiratory Problems

Study indicates exposure to milk powder may increase risk of respiratory problems.

Copper to Prevent Drug-resistant Infections in Hospitals

Copper may be used in hospitals to prevent spread of drug-resistant infections.

What sets USA apart ???

How to Take Care of Your Boss

Education, Life Expectancy and Smoking

New tool for Burn Patients

FDA approves fibrin sealant used to treat burn patients.

Insulin and Anti-ageing

Tweaking insulin levels may potentially expand life spans.

Happy Marriage and Blood Pressure

Happy Marriage and Blood Pressure

Happily married individuals may have lower blood pressure than single, unhappily married people.

Looking Great on Pix

Uncensored "response" from
freelance reporter Phil Gunson:

Full text of Gunson's first
letter to Narco News…

Responses from political
consultant Erik Ekvall:

Ekvall's response to Giordano's
reply, Cced to Michael Rowan:

Ekvall's "final" response
(also Cced to Michael Rowan):

By Al Giordano
With Unabridged Letters from Phil Gunson and Eric Ekvall

Uncensored "response" from
freelance reporter Phil Gunson:

Full text of Gunson's first
letter to Narco News…

Responses from political
consultant Erik Ekvall:

Ekvall's response to Giordano's
reply, Cced to Michael Rowan:

Ekvall's "final" response
(also Cced to Michael Rowan):