Ireland to waste 30 billion euros in bailing out pointless bank

As a commenter explains under the extremely brief BBC news note, that is the cost of two years of public healthcare. All commenters agree: let it fall, use public money in public investment to generate much needed jobs instead. 

You are probably familiar with this image already: in yesterday's class war pan-European protests a demonstrator crashed this truck, representing the burden of Anglo Irish Bank to the Republic of Ireland, against the Parliament's gates. The incident has become known as cementgate, and is generating a number of silly jokes involving the words concrete and gate, as well as others such as constructive protest, crash, foundations, etc.

But the issue is much more serious: why should a state bail out a private bank? If anything it should nationalize it or, alternatively, just let it fall. Most business do not have the heavy state protection some banks do, nor see even a fraction of the absurdly high profits and disparate salaries for their managers. And most business, unlike banks, contribute to the real and not just the speculative economy.

Ireland is one of the European countries worst affected by the budget crisis, along Greece, Latvia and Hungary, all which are under IMF intervention (with the only result that their recession has aggravated many levels since then). I imagine that the least they can do is to waste 30 billion in a useless bank.

Can anyone tell me what do banks contribute to the real economy? I can't find a single idea, specially since they do not even issue loans anymore. 

Let them fall, all the banks except the public ones (which are the ones issuing money and which can lend directly to the public and even make a benefit from that).

Judge accepts denounce against Julio Núñez and provincial government in the Iruña-Veleia archaeological destruction case

In a hopeful twist in the Iruña-Veleia scandal, Instruction Judge no. 1 of Vitoria-Gasteiz has accepted the denounce against the new site director Julio Núñez (left, "at work") and the provincial government of Araba for the alleged destruction of patrimony, as evidenced by photos, videos and testimonies previously discussed in this blog.

In the denounce it is requested that the Director Plan for the Vasco-Roman site of Iruña-Veleia is paralyzed urgently on light of it not being even respected at all by chief archaeologist Núñez. It is also requested that judicial police and independent experts survey piles of disposed soil with embedded archaeologically remains.

Source: Noticias de Alava[es]


Update: a comic by Zaldieroa (Crazy Horse). It's not really new (May) but it is funny anyhow:

 

1st panel:

In the Ivory Tower of Irati (a large forest in the Pyrenees)

2nd panel

Goblin: My Lord, here there are the latest reports on Veleia.

Lord: Still with that issue around?

Goblin: Yes, my Lord.

3rd panel

Lord: But... tell me... has the ergative been found in Veleia?
Goblin: Not, my Lord, there is no trace of any ergative.
Lord: Then they are false, 'leñe'!! That is not genuine Basque!

Note: the Lord is described in previous cartoons, as Euskal Taliban Jatorra (the purebred Basque Taliban), the goblin is called Yoda. The "Taliban" is depicted often as a linguistic purist of the worst kind.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill was many times the government figures

Researchers from Columbia University (NY, USA) conclude that the amount of oil released daily by BP's Deepwater Horizon well until the first cap was placed on June 15 was 56-68,000 barrels per day, maybe more. This is many times more than the official figures, which evolved from a ridiculous claim of of one thousand barrels to 19,000.

The total oil released to the environment is at least 4.4 million barrels, most of which is still there even if it has been hidden by the use of massive amounts of highly toxic dispersants, in what is the most massive environmental and public health scandal in US history and globally only comparable to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

Possible variations in the flows from day to day lead to some uncertainty. Additionally, the analysis does not include other smaller plumes from several holes near the broken pipe, holes that are believed to have grown with time.

Lead author, Timothy Crone, developed his technique of optical plume velocimetry to study deep undersea thermal vents in the Pacific Ocean in 2006.

Source: Science Daily.

Reference: Timothy Crone and Maya Tolstoy, Magnitude of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak. Science 2010. Pay per view.

Yet another international linguist takes a stand in favor of Gil in the Iruña-Veleia affaire

In this case it is Roslyn M. Frank, professor emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa and a scholar who has dedicated some good time to deal with Basque language, visiting this little corner of Europe very often since 1974 and authoring several books on Basque theme, mostly on linguistics.

Roslyn M. Frank (linguist)

In her latest visit, these days, Frank offered two interviews with Noticias de Alava (local newspaper in Spanish language):

In one of them she states her astonishment and that of the European scientific community because of the lack of analytics on the controversial pot shards with inscriptions (mostly in Basque and Vulgar Latin).

Two weeks ago I was at a congress in Germany in which there were a lot of scientists from everywhere in Europe, among them several archaeologists. When I told them about Iruña-Veleia, the first thing they asked was: 'Which were the results of analytics?' And I had to reply that they were never made. They could not understand. And asked once and again: 'But why were they not made?' And I did not know what to answer.

She compares the Kafkian circumstances surrounding Iruña-Veleia with a paternity demand in which the alleged father is the one demanding a paternity test after being declared guilty without any evidence.

It is impossible to talk of scientific consensus in this case. The data provided by the [official] report are very weak because of 359 pages most do not even have bibliographic references.

She is outraged by the procedure executed by the new director, Julio Núñez, which she considers an attack against the patrimony. A position held by this blog and SOS Iruña-Veleia, among others.

For linguists, she argues that the philological reconstruction of proto-Basque (the main argument held against the Lurmen archaeological team led by Eliseo Gil) cannot ever disprove any archaeological finding:

... the word 'proto' always means a reconstruction, which is hypothetical, because the appearance of new data often changes the nature of the reconstruction.

In other words, the academic inquisition of the Philology department of the Basque Country University has, consciously and mischievously, put the cart before the horses in this case.

In the other interview, she says that she hopes the best but expects little for Iruña-Veleia, at least while Núñez is in charge. Her denounce of his destructive methods contrasts with the support for the period in which the site was under the direction of Eliseo Gil and Idoia Filloy, when the site attracted as many as 35,000 visitors (2008).

In both interviews she lists a number of other important supporters of the original methods and findings, some of whom have already been mentioned here: Juan Mari Elexpuru (linguist), Hector Iglesias (linguist), Emilio Illarregi (archaeologist), Luis Silgo Gauche (archaeologist) and Edward Cecil Harris (archaeologist).

Found at Iruña-Veleia, Gezurra Ala Egia?[eu], where a paper by Roslyn Frank on the graphological analysis used to smear Eliseo Gil is also linked (click on 'descargar', PDF in Spanish). This document, which concludes with a request for the provincial government be stripped from its role as custodian of the original graffiti in benefit of the right of defense, is part of the procedures of the trial against Eliseo Gil. In this procedure it has also been ordered an official analytic by police as the provincial government has refused to do so.

For background and further information on this most sad scandal, see the category Iruña-Veleia in this blog.

UN whitewashes the ecocide and genocide of Shell in Niger Delta

If BP is insulting and harming the US people and clearly manipulating the US government, go figure what can happen in a much poorer country like Nigeria!

But what about the United Nations? It seems that Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest company of the world and one with a very murky past (specially remembered for its support of the Apartheid regime in South Africa), is also perfectly able to buy its favors.

This is what Black Agenda Report denounced a few days ago: that the study by the UN Environmental Program, paid by Shell, blames locals and the guerrilla for 90% of polution and spills in the Delta Region, once known as Biafra. However it seems that it has backtracked and claims now that no official report is due until next year.

Whatever the case the situation in the Niger Delta, denounced by AI, may be even worse than that of the Gulf of Mexico, at least in many aspects.


The true scope of Niger River Delta pollution is catastrophic, with the equivalent of 9 to 13 million barrels of oil fouling the waterways, farmlands and mangrove forests of Africa's largest wetland. That's at least twice as much oil as escaped in the recent Gulf of Mexico disaster, thus ranking Nigeria and Shell as the number one oil polluters in the world (Glenn Ford at Black Agenda Report).

Huge underwater "dispersed" oil plume confirmed and other Louisiana catastrophe news

As I have said before, I feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and misinformation around the Louisiana Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and hence I cannot follow it here at Leherensuge with the intensity I would like. I have mentioned also that other more dedicated blogs, such as Washington Blog, Alexander Higgins' Blog and Florida Oil Spill Law, provide a much better and comprehensive critical following of the catastrophe at official and unofficial levels.

But today I must mention some important news. However I am in a hurry, so I apologize in advance for being brief.

Giant oil plume scientifically confirmed at 1 km depth

This is official enough to have made it to the mainstream media. BBC (watch out for a clear pro-BP bias in all British media) and Science Daily report on it, for instance.

The plume is made up of dispersed oil, up to the point that is not easy to see with naked eye. Yet it is there, it is huge and it is not being degraded biologically because water temperature is way too cold.

The news comes from a research paper, published at Science magazine yesterday, by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). However they had to stop their field research short because of bad weather. Therefore the plume has not been fully mapped yet.

This confirms the previous denounce by other scientists about the US administration oil figures being a fairy tale. Most oil is still there and because the use of dispersants (which are still being sprayed and are themselves highly toxic) the oil cannot be cleaned up (nor easily found) at surface nor can be degraded naturally by microorganisms, posing an even worse threat.



Independent expert speaks out

Washington Blog published yesterday an interview with University of California professor Dr. Robert Bea, engineer with ample experience in offshore drilling.

According to him, the good news is that the methane bubble doomsday scenario is most unlikely to be a real risk. All the rest are bad news: the geology is fractured and oil will follow such fractures and possibly leak out to the sea many kilometers from the damaged well. Solving the leak certainly will need relief wells - some previous such incidents have needed as many as five different relief wells.


Seafloor fractures in detail

Alexander Higgins has a great article today on how the macondo well might have fractured the geology of the area and its consequences. It can be synthesized to some extent in this image:


There are many other news, many of great interest, but I seriously recommend you to browse the blogs I mentioned in the first paragraph because I have no room in Leherensuge nor even in my mind for all them.

Very bad looking steady black flow from the Louisiana oil spill spot

Just posted at Florida Oil Spill Law with time stamp of 3:00 am today (local time, I presume):



I am more and more concerned. Well, more like beginning to panic, admittedly. They have no damn idea of what kind of forces they are dealing with and the only thing it seems to matter is profit and/or cutting losses.

Even if the doomsday scenario hypothesis does not become true (and I do not know what to think really), such an uncontrolled flow of oil and methane is a true disaster. It was already the worst oil-related disaster ever but it will be even worse, as it seems it is going to run uncontrolled for months or who knows for how long.

I am in Europe, many many kilometers away... but if you follow NOAA predictions (which only reach to mid-July) the oil has already reached the Atlantic Ocean and will keep flushing in that direction (all that is not skimmed or end ups into beaches and such). Eventually it will reach here too, as the Gulf Stream ends in the Atlantic coasts of Europe. Typically that is a blessing, allowing for several degrees of temperature above what is usual for these northernly latitudes, but now it seems it may become a curse.

Louisiana oil disaster: the more I read/watch, the more pessimistic I am

In theory they have capped it and that's about it. In practice it is extremely worrisome that they are systematically falsifying, hiding, photoshopping the truth.

Like this bubbling methane seep captured yesterday by one of BP ROVs but hidden by something as simple as darkening the image:



It's just an example. There's a lot more really depressing and hidden-under-the-carpet stuff at Florida Oil Spill Law and Alexander Higgins' blogs. You have to like research journalism though.

It is also worrisome, beyond the immediate disaster the consequences that the lack of a grassroots political organization of the working class can carry: millions of people are being affected by this, including not just the disaster as such but criminal mismanagement at all levels, directly affecting health and jobs, as well as the whole ecological balance of one of the most diverse seas on which these rely and where is the response?

There is only limited response because there are not class organizations beyond unions and sectorial activist groups in the USA. As some member of the fishing community of Louisiana put it already months ago: "we are expendable". It only matters to pretend that everything is under control and to minimize losses to the big corporations.

Even if the doomsday scenario forecast by several people of the oceanic bottom ripping off and causing a huge tsunami and releasing cataclysmic amounts of usually frozen methane to the atmosphere fails to happen (I really hope so), the damage caused by corporate interests is already immense and will grow in the following months as the remainder and future residues of oil and corexit poison spread around. This should warrant people going out to the streets in protest at least every other weekend... but nobody is mobilizing this anger and frustration and the corporative masters and their politician and judiciary minions do as they please therefore.

More info resources on the Louisiana catastrophe

I recently mentioned a couple of resources to follow the oil spill info beyond what the corporate media wants to show. Another fantastic and daily updated blog I found dealing mostly with this disaster is Alexander Higgins Blog, a true research journalism site on the matter, where you can get at least some of the info denied or hidden by the authorities and the media.

Today, among other stuff, he posted this oddly beautiful (albeit sad) video made by himself with pictures of the oil spill and music from Rick Barry ("Atlantis", a song on the effects of Katrina hurricane):




The details (description and dates) for the images can be found here.

There are many interesting articles in this blog, but what really brought me there was this excellent research on the methane gas seeps around the DWH site. It seems that BP may have drilled right away through a methane field, the huge nearby RIGEL field, what may be at the origin of most of the trouble past, present and future. Because this disaster is surely not over.

Update: see also this article with maps from three days ago that contradict the claims that skimmers can't find anymore oil: it is all around!

96% of Iraq development fund vanish, while still in US hands

It's commonplace to say that the Iraqi administration is corrupt but what is not so frequently read or heard is that the Pentagon is corrupt also.

Judge yourself: 8.7 billion dollars (USD), out of a total of 9.1 billion of the Iraq Development Fund, for the reconstruction of Iraq and trusted for that purpose to the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) have vanished. The accountancy controls are so tenuous that even, after an audit, nobody knows where the money went to. In 2007 the Iraqi government demanded the money but, after the audit, it seems unclear if the missing billions can be tracked at all.

Meanwhile most of the country still lacks edible water and electricity, almost a decade after the invasion.

Source Atilio Boron's blog, originally from Clarín newspaper (both sources in Spanish).

Politicians finally take a stand on the Iruña-Veleia scandal

Opposition party Aralar, by mouth of their leaders Patxi Zabaleta and Iñaki Aldekoa, has demanded the immediate suspension excavations and the firing of Julio Núñez from his charge of chief researcher of the Roman era site.

In press release they showed the video I posted here two days ago, demanding that the excavator was removed for good.

Hopefully this exposition of the ugly truth of the excavation will cause enough indignation, at popular, political and academic levels as to detain this crime against the archaeological patrimony.

Sources: Iruña-Veleia Gezurra ala Egia?[eu], Berria[eu], ABC[es]


Judges demand new analysis of the controversial inscriptions

On request of former director, Eliseo Gil, the tribunal in charge of the case for alleged fraud in the previous dig at Iruña-Veleia has ordered new analysis of the shards and other pieces that caused the controversy. The probe will be realized by the Guardia Civil (military police corps) after the Provincial Government has ignored all requests by the tribunal to produce analytic research themselves.

Sources: Iruña-Veleia Gezurra ala Egia?[eu], El Correo[es]


Each day the case against the former archaeologists seems weaker and motivated by pure pathetic camarilla reasons. Giving the charge to the only archaeologist who participated in the persecution, Julio Núñez, with the atrocious results of brutal destruction, maybe in order to destroy possible further evidence in favor of Lurmen, only shows how negatively such camarilla conspirations can evolve when they feel protected by institutionalized impunity and without any real investigative media around to air the dirty clothes.

If we had a half-decent democracy and a half-decent media context this scandal and manipulation could surely never have gone so far.

For background information on Iruña-Veleia, see previous tematic posts at Leherensuge, SOS Iruña-Veleia and Lurmen's dedicated site.

Sad re-inauguration of Iruña-Veleia archaeological site. Video of the destructive dig

Yesterday the Vasco-Roman site of Iruña-Veleia was officially re-inaugurated after several years of closure. For Julio Núñez and his demolition team it was just another day of mechanical excavation and dumping of layers and layers of archaeological treasures.

This has no name!



In the video above (narration in Spanish) it is shown how the excavator is almost the only one working at the site. Nobody gathers any remnant nor keeps any record of the layers nor anything: it's all dumped in the truck once and again without any control.

It is intentional and criminal destruction of the patrimony.

Just before the authorities and official press arrive for the discourses and photos, the excavator and truck are hidden. The members of SOS Iruña-Veleia attempt (says the narrator) to give a letter of protest to the Provincial President but police prevents them from doing so.

As the politicians leave the demolition continues.

Found via Iruña-Veleia Gezurra ala Egia?

Excellent coverage of oil disaster at Washington's Blog

The Louisiana oil catastrophe, with its many aspects (toxic dispersants, ecological and economic impact, BP owners, hidden data and even possible doomsday scenarios), is something I have covered only sparingly. This is partly because it is a main page news issue and partly because I'm truly overwhelmed by the many ramifications of the catastrophe.

However I imagine that many among Leherensuge's readers would appreciate more quality and intensive information about it. I know of two written sources (I don't watch so many visual media, sorry):

One is Global Research and the other and most important one is Washington's Blog. I say most important because many of the materials found at Global Research and elsewhere actually come from this blog and that's how I found it myself. The blog is a general "news and analysis" blog but as of late it has become almost monolithically focused on the Louisiana hecatomb.

I've been trying to add this blog to the blogroll and follow it via Google but it seems to have some strange problems with the feedback link: it works perfectly in Google Reader however. In any case I hope these links are of use to you... because the mainstream media after all is the monopoly of a few oligarchs who simply are not going to put any effort in keeping you properly informed if they can help it.

Archaeologist Idoia Filloy against the destruction of Iruña-Veleia

J. M. Elexpuru published yesterday night an article of Idoia Filloy, co-director of the previous archaeological team, Lurmen, where she denounces the atrocity that is being perpetrated against which is possibly the most important Vasco-Roman site.

The article is in Spanish and it is too long for me to translate integrally but I will provide here some of the most important passages:

Parcel 98 [see map] is where work has begun, planned to affect 17,000 m². In this area, thanks to air photography carried by us, it is known the existence of a dense network of structures, clearly visible from air, thanks to the shadows that differential vegetation growth projects, which trace a whole urban network under the soil. Also, in 2006, our team -under the direction of Eliseo Gil and myself- carried 13 stratigraphic probes that showed the existence in this parcel of a most rich archaeological patrimony of Roman and pre-Roman age. We could assess how, under a layer of agricultural disturbance of some 30 cm. on average, intact Roman archaeological remains appeared, with strata and structures to which abundant materials were associated. (...)

However Núñez' Director Plan contemplates the mechanical elimination with heavy machinery of 50 cm. of earth potency in 14,000 m² of the site, estimating a removal of some 7000 m³ of soil. The Plan itself admits the risks of such an actuation, because of the possibility of affection to layers of archaeological interest (...)

But the worst has happened when field work has begun, that is when the mechanical elimination of soil was started. And that is because not only the planned 50 cm. have been removed but in many cases more than 1 m. has been excavated with heavy machinery. (...) We can see clearly in the photographs how the mechanical excavation has not just affected structures but that has eliminated vast archaeological layers, what has caused the irreparable loss of most important archaeological information, fundamental for the reconstruction of the historical sequence of the site, as well as of associated materials. There is even a zone where a Roman pavement at a depth of more than 1 m. has been exposed, and I ask: where are occupation archaeological layers, the collapse remains or whatever it had on top? (...)

The feeling one gets is that the goal is to reach the archaeological structures (at whatever depth they were) as if the objective was to offer in the shortest possible term a wide zone with visible constructions. (...)

I must remind that this zone is one of the areas where the so-called exceptional graffiti were found, both on the surface as in three of the stratigraphic probes, what means that the mechanical excavation of the area would cause the destruction of evidence for a possible future judicial investigation.

One of the many controversial exceptional graffiti, in this shard, found in parcel 98, we can read NEU ('I' or 'me' in Basque)

Therefore it is my opinion as experienced archaeologist (...) that a flagrant destruction of the patrimony of Iruña-Veleia is being carried. And in a few days more the level of affection would be even greater if nobody intervenes. I believe that excavating as is being done here means destroying severely and permanently the underlying patrimony.

Hence this text is an express denounce of what, in my opinion, is a grave attack against our Patrimony and I request to the responsible public institutions to act accordingly and not to tolerate something like this.

Additionally, to the judicial denounce presented by SOS Iruña-Veleia association we have added now our own.

Further reading:

• Articles on Iruña-Veleia at Leherensuge
• SOS Iruña-Veleia (mostly in Spanish but with many informative photos)
• Veleia.com (Lurmen's site on Iruña-Veleia)
  

Send emails of protest to: dfa@alava.net (Provincial Government) and patrimoniohaa@alava.net (Provincial Direction of Historical-Artistic and Archaeological Patrimony).

Update (Jul 20): I have been suggested to send protests also to the Basque Government - Direction of Patrimony. No direct email available but there is a suggestion box of the Department of Culture HERE.

And more "archaelogical" vandalism at Veleia

SOS Iruña-Veleia is doing a prime job documenting the atrocity that "archaeologist" and "educator" Julio Núñez is doing at Iruña-Veleia, with new photos each workday. These here belong to July 16 and are part of a larger group of images.



As you can see in these photos of Prof. Núñez at work (notice how he has achieved his likely goal of digging in perfectly clean white clothes!) the layer removed must be of at least 1 meter, twice the size he authorized himself to do and three to five times the agricultural layer on top.


The average height of Basque males is like 175 cm., hence the mechanical excavation must have get rid of 125 to 150 cm according to the image above, unless that guy is a Pygmy.

Archaelogy is, we know, a destructive procedure, hence the importance of keeping the best possible record and being very methodical, even of leaving sectors untouched for future excavations to implement presumably more advanced techniques. In this case, huge amounts of potentially (and most likely) informative material have just been dumped.

I can only understand this as cultural genocide: destroying the archaeological legacy of Basques and all Europeans.

Images of the destruction at Iruña-Veleia

A member of SOS Iruña-Veleia, just stopped by Leherensuge (see comments in previous post) to comment that the destruction is terrible:

I was there yesterday and it is horrendous what they are doing. They remove the earth with a big excavator - not just removing the top layer affected by agriculture - till the appearance of Roman structures, up to more than one meter deep. I could clearly distinguish the destruction of structures and otherwise archaeological layers.

He also mentioned that there are now many photos at their site documenting the archaeological atrocity perpetrated by Prof. Núñez.




Above just a couple of examples of how not to do an archaeological dig... unless your intention is merely to destroy everything, to erase the archaeological evidence in that site.

The excavator has dug much deeper than the 50 cm allowed by the director (even if the agricultural layer is just 20-30 cm deep), removing a lot of potentially informative material, destroying the stratigraphy and even in some cases reaching to the base rock, that is: destroying the whole stratigraphic sequence.

This has no name. This is a crime against history for mere particular (and I suspect ideological) interests.

I am not sure of what can we do but I imagine that a good idea is to send emails of protest to the Provincial Government of Araba (Álava) in charge of the site and the dig expressing your outrage in the hope that they react to public pressure and forbid these "methods" altogether.

Relevant email addresses are:

Provincial Government (Arabako Foru Aldundia - Diputación Foral de Álava):

dfa@alava.net

Museums - Service of Historical-Artistic and Archaeological Patrimony

patrimoniohaa@alava.net

Reckless destruction at Iruña-Veleia Vasco-Roman site

J.M. Elexpuru denounces that excavator activities have been authorized and have already began in the most important Vasco-Roman site of Iruña-Veleia. I translate directly from Basque:

S.O.S. The destruction has begun!!!

Today at afternoon, thanks to the information of a person who passed by the site, we have got to know that the destruction has begun: some workers with an excavator were laboring at the south of the archaeological site, around the main gate. From the probes made by Lurmen*, we know that this area is also very rich in archaeological remains. But according to the approved Directive Plan, the new director general, Núñez, has allowed himself to dig with machines up to 50 cm, without taking in consideration that at the depth of just 20-30 cm there is also a wealth of archaeological material, as found by Lurmen in the probes of 2005 and 2006. The destruction has begun, we are at the gates of a new edition of what happened at Gaztelu Plaza in Pamplona, Navarre**.

Notes:

* Lurmen is the company in charge of the dig up to 2006, when they were forced by rumors to prematurely announce the finding of a host of Roman era impressive findings, including many of the oldest Basque texts known to date. This triggered a witch hunt by a camarilla of well-connected linguists, led by Joseba Lakarra, who saw their theories in danger, resulting in the removal of Lurmen and its competent team from the dig, which was given to one of the few archaeologists who supported the witch-hunt. To date the archaeologists in charge of Lurmen have been acquitted of any charges but not yet rehabilitated in spite of growing academic support.

** The "emergency" dig at Gaztelu Plaza (or Plaza del Castillo) in Pamplona's old city center, where most important Roman era (and probably older) remains, including baths, were found when an underground parking lot was being built, was another archaeological scandal of mismanagement and cruel disinterest in unveiling Basque history. The park had no urgency whatsoever but was built anyhow at the expense of science and patrimony, stuff on which our institutional politicians seem to have no interest - or even a quite clear interest in hiding and deforming.

For further info, see category Iruña-Veleia in this blog. Also at SOS Veleia (in Basque, English and Spanish).

Puerto Rico: de facto coup by NPP?

What Puerto Rican dramatist Roberto Ramos-Perea denounces[es] regarding the political situation in Puerto Rico sounds most worrisome.

He denounces that the pro-annexation New Progressive Party, which won the elections in 2008, lead by Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz and Chief of Staff Marcos Rodríguez Ema, is making an institutional coup that has caused strikes and violent confrontations. The theoretical leader of the party and the country, Governor Luis Fortuño is claimed to be without will, without opinion and without public presence nor responsibility.

Ramos-Perea informs that the conflict began with the firing of more than 20,000 public servants with the pretext of solving public deficit along with strangling the budget of art institutions. Meanwhile the government hired at great cost many companies and advisors akin to the NPP.

The NPP also placed four party members in the Supreme Court, which totals seven members. Then it suppressed student participation in the University government causing a student strike that lasted 60 days, followed by a legal modification of the number of members of the University government (Junta de Síndicos), that again granted the NPP total control.

The NPP has also privatized a large fraction of the natural area known as "Karso del Noroeste", that gathers 1/3 of all water in the country. The new country's budget and associated laws will promote privatization and hand public funds to the private sector without surveillance. When approving these laws, the microphones of opposition representatives and senators were turned off.

Two weeks ago the FBI arrested Senator Héctor Martínez, right hand of Rivera Schatz, on corruption charges. Martínez was taped in his last instance of graft and is said to have links with narcotraffic. Rivera Schatz defense of the "innocence" of his friend caused even greater political upheaval.

In June 30, date in which the text seems to be written, student and citizen groups claimed their right to assist to the deliberations in the Puerto Rican Congress, being beaten and tortured by the police. The National Guard was mobilized and sent to the Capitol, causing more clashes and repression.

So far the synthesis of what Ramos-Perea denounces as happening these last months in Puerto Rico. I am somewhat surprised of not having known anything about this earlier, a clear sign of media disinterest or censorship.

If any reader can point me to more extensive information, I'd appreciate it.

How the working class is taxed and the rich get away with their loot

Based on data from Ciudad Futura[es].

In the Kingdom of Spain:

• Workers declare raw salaries averaging 18.400 euros (14 monthly pays of 1314 euros)
• Company owners declare income averaging 13.525 euros (14 monthly pays of 966 euros)

Naive conclusion: capitalists are poor charitable souls who sacrifice for their workers and the economy, getting a Greek salary for that. They live in slums typically.

Reality: they declare as little as they can, earning many times what the Tax Office is told.

This is confirmed by the following data:

• In Spain only 727 individuals have patrimonies over 10 million euros, according to the Tax Office
• In Spain 5270 individuals have patrimonies over 10 million euros, according to Banif (Banco Santander)

It is hence estimated that the Spanish Tax Office fails to collect 90 billion euros every year, enough to multiply by 28 times the Education budget (anyhow just a way to pay tithes to the Catholic Church) or the Health and Social Policies budget.

Black money circulating in Spain beyond state reaches is estimated in 245 billion euros. The black market level in Spain seems to be 10 times higher to the Eurozone average.

Spain: Supreme Court defend corrupts, attacks freedom of speech

No wonder Spain is, along with Italy and other countries a headache for EU: while the head of the Supreme Court lamented some time ago that citizens seldom denounce corruption, they now sentence to a huge fine of 15,000 euros to journalists reporting on corruption in the Canary island of Lanzarote.

It seems obvious that corruption is upheld from the highest instance of the state, which do not stop just at persecuting innocent Basque citizens, hiding systematic tortures, interpreting that the state-backed death squads are not "terrorist" or even bringing to court their colleague Baltasar Garzón for daring to dig too much in the dirty fascist past of the Spanish rotten political system.

They also let go clear cases of corruption such as that of judge José Antonio Martín, former president of the provicial court of Las Palmas (Canary Islands), when he put his legal knowledge at the service of a well known narcotraffic capo and pressed his colleagues for him to be set free. And now they even go further, persecuting media (Cuadernos del Sureste) for reporting that Felipe Fernández Camero, then Secretary of the Town Hall of Arrecife (Canary Islands) doubled as legal representative for for real state companies, which is illegal as well as highly suspicious, suspicions that they emphasized by his thesis as Town Secretary which were usually coincident with the interests of the real state corporations.

Naturally (for Spanish standards of democracy and transparency), the provincial tribunal sentenced, without even proper trial, the magazine and its speaker to pay 6000 and 9000 respectively to the corrupt politician. However this sentence was revoked by the Provincial Court, that decided that the use of the term "corruption" was appropriate (there seems that there are some honest judges who like transparency and free speech too). The issue of course had political repercusions and Fernández Camero was fired by an order issued directly from Madrid and is now being persecuted in two different trials for corruption, along with two former majors.

But the issue did not end there for the Canarian magazine and the prevaricator appealed nothing less than to the Supreme Court. Now it's been known that they initial sentence that fined them has been upheld at the highest tribunal of the Kingdom of Spain.

Antonio Marsá, speaker of the magazine and the main victim of this judiciary abuse, recalled in his declarations to the press, that the behaviour of the Spanish tribunals is worrying. He explicitly metioned the sentence by the Madrid Provincial Court against media corporation SER and specifically its journalists Daniel Anido and Rodolfo Irago for reporting on irregular affiliations of conservative politicians.

In brief: it's clear that Spain is the private ranch of a petty oligarchy and that judges are there to defend their priviliges.

Source: Rebelión.