xxx....and counting.

[Denver]

Are you kidding me?

I'm sending you one link: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/venezuela/bribery.htm

You can Google the rest yourself.

Neil

 

[ElQueso]

That is a baseless accusation. Given the track record of U.S lies and distortions in Venezuela and Argentina you are mighty naive to buy into this one too.

LOL. Yep, completely baseless. There is no corruption in either Argentina or Venezuela and the US is the most evil country in the world and is bent on ensuring that everyone outside the US is kept down in slavery to the poorly-educated fat idiot citizenry - who are, btw, slaves to some super-corporate conspiracy themselves.

 

[orwellian]

Are you kidding me?

I'm sending you one link: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/venezuela/bribery.htm

You can Google the rest yourself.

Neil

No are you kidding me? The Venezuelan businessman who brought the money is linked to the opposition in Venezuela, now why would he bring his adversaries' money illegally into Argentina? According to the article that you posted it was because he was paid by the Venezuelan government to do so. If you weren't so naive you might want to consider that he was paid by another organization to make that story up.

And the other people who were involved were? According to the U.S government they would have us believe Maionica, Kauffman and Duran, the owners of an oil company called Veneco, that was involved in the 2002 coup against Chavez, somehow have switched sides and are now working for Chavez. Are you really so naive that you believe that?

And why would Chavez use people who are his adversaries to smuggle cash anyways? Why not let a trusted diplomat do it in a sealed diplomatic bag which the customs can't open? The story makes no sense and it's obvious it's made up to discredit the governments of Venezuela and Argentina.

 

[orwellian]

LOL. Yep, completely baseless.

So do you care to indulge us with any actual evidence to the accusations?

...the US is the most evil country in the world and is bent on ensuring that everyone outside the US is kept down in slavery to the poorly-educated fat idiot citizenry - who are, btw, slaves to some super-corporate conspiracy themselves.

For once you are actually making sense.

 

[SaraSara]

LOL. Yep, completely baseless. There is no corruption in either Argentina or Venezuela and the US is the most evil country in the world and is bent on ensuring that everyone outside the US is kept down in slavery to the poorly-educated fat idiot citizenry - who are, btw, slaves to some super-corporate conspiracy themselves.

My thoughts, exactly.

Plus, I have it from a confidential source that Obama's CIA kidnaps white newborn babies and trades them for Iranian oil. Their parents are brain-dead after being zapped from orbiting satellites, and they don't even notice their disappearnce.

Stay tuned for further revelations...!

 

[NYKate]

I just got mugged on the subte. They tried to grab my mobile and snatch the watch off my arm - both cheap items bought here - but I had 2 hands on the mobile and the watch has a very strong strap and they got away with nothing. Just a scratched thumb and a bruised wrist to show for it. I'm still counting it as a 'robbery' though, albeit a failed one!

The title of this thread was going to be "16 and counting" - 16 being the number of times I have now been robbed since coming to Argentina 3 years ago, but then I thought when I come back to report the next one it'll be 17, so instead of having to start a new thread every time I put in the variable 'xxx'.

I made it 'xxx' rather than 'xx' because of the inevitability of it eventually reaching treble figures.

A new development this time was that one person spoke to me and apologized on behalf of her country afterwards. That's the first time I've ever received any sympathy or recognition that something 'wrong' had happened. Thankyou lady.

:-/

Al

I am so sorry that this happened to you but glad you are safe and didn't have any injury's!
Also, I appreciate you telling us about this just in case we have become too complacent because it hasn't happened in our world yet.
Best of luck!

 

[Alzinho]

I am so sorry that this happened to you but glad you are safe and didn't have any injury's!
Also, I appreciate you telling us about this just in case we have become too complacent because it hasn't happened in our world yet.
Best of luck!

Thanks Kate - you're welcome.
Although please note that I did say in a subsequent post that I don't think the subte is actually dangerous. Obviously you need to be careful, but I was pick-pocketed by professionals on the subte 3 years ago - a very slick operation (they crowd around their target, and as the train arrives and the doors open, there seems to be a really bad crush going on - it's 'manufactured' by them so that you don't feel the hand going into your pocket - then as the doors are about to close again, they all quickly jump off the train) and yesterday's incident was an opportunistic grab-and-run.

Most of the crime directed at 'tourists' here tends to be pretty low-key, petty theft. You still feel violated and anxious afterwards, but it's kind of something you have to get used to if you're going to stay here for any length of time. The generally accepted thing to do is to NOT fight back - losing a few possessions is nothing compared to the possibility of having to deal with a pi**ed off thief.

I actually love the subte here, especially Linea A - it's amazing how those old wooden carriages are still going. I'd like to go on it with a group of people one day so we can take photos - safety in numbers and all that!

Al

 

[sesamosinsal]

What the hell people!

The US and Japan, with 31% combined stock holdings, set a corporate agenda for ADB of starting a war in Afghanistan so that a pipeline could be constructed. The US government then spends XXX billion dollars and risks political fallout abroad and at home for what? The US wouldn't be pumping oil into it, nor would it be tapping it in the other end. (Look at a map). What would be the payout? Dividends paid out by ADB?

First of all, it's not an oil pipeline. It will be a natural gas pipeline. They're different.

The payout? Control over the development of China. That's why we're in Afghanistan, and that's why we're in Iraq.

The pipeline will be built by the ADB, but then it will be sold to a Western company. Obviously, the ADB isn't going to operate the thing. It "will transport up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually from the Dauletabad fields in South East Turkmenistan to consumers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly India." (Source) Interestingly enough, China just signed a deal to transport "30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas per year to China, starting in 2010 for a 30-year period." (Source) Thus, we have two opposed parties (West vs. China) looking for leverage in this region. Now it's just a matter of who will get the upper hand.

With regard to Iraq and the Middle East, it's interesting to note that China imports 50% of its oil from this region. So, if the U.S. and U.S. business interests control the Middle East, then U.S. and U.S. business interests have the ability to control the development of China.

And on Iran (who we have surrounded):

"China currently gets 13.6% of its oil imports from Iran. Beijing is also in the process of importing Iranian natural gas." (Source)

As far as political fallout, who cares? As one person put in a documentary (can't remember who), the United States should be renamed the "United States of Amnesia." Nobody remembers anything in the U.S., and most Americans don't care to know anything beyond what the TV tells them as long as they have a job and food in their stomachs. Most Americans believe we're in Iraq because of 9/11...

 

[ElQueso]

But if it's a natural gas pipeline and we are looking to control China's oil supply - how exactly does that work?

BTW - I'm not denying what you are saying about our desire to control oil supplies and the region is very important for us because of that, no doubt. But we would also be stupid NOT to be doing so with a power as huge as China vying for the same resources. I can also guarantee you this - if the US wasn't acting to control China's interests a bit (as China seeks to do the same where it can against the US), there would be either othyers doing it, or China would not hesitate to control it for themselves in a manner much different than the US (or so I believe).

I wish people would listen to me though I have the solution to the world's problems, as well to a big looming problem the US itself has in relation to China becoming more powerful than the US economically and militarily. I've posted about this before here and there.

Obama could have gone down as the most visionary leader the world has ever known if he had spent (or had caused to be spent) the 800 +- billion in government subsidies he called the "stimulus" on developing cheap access to space and the creation of a space industry instead.

There are untapped riches in near Earth asteroids, zero-gee factories that could be built, a whole host of things that I won't go into here. It would make the European Diaspora to the New World and the subsequent Industrial Revolution look like a long-forgotten child's game. We could be completely free of energy constraints as well by tapping into sunlight in space and beaming it down as microwaves, for example. Many, many thing we could do.

As it is, China and India will beat us into space commercially, I have little doubt about that. Once they have access to space, everyone else will be sitting down here on our little mudball of a planet asking them for favors.

Things like oil in the middle east will become completely forgotten.

 

[fifs2]

I would just like to send a message of support for Alzinho, not merely in the face of extraordinary bad luck and so many personal robberies but for being the victim of Almagesto`s vitriol and hatred. We appreciate your posts and your tempered posts.