México convulso

NARCOTICS: CIA-Pentagon Death Squads and Mexico's 'War on Drugs" Mexico Arrests Three Army Generals

By Tom Burghardt

Mexico se encuentra en una permanente situación de sobresalto y galopante militarización debido a la lucha contra los señores del narcotráfico. Un entramado complejo en el que incursiona Burghardt, y que para aquellos interesados en profundizar en los problemas del país azteca vale la pena que revisen el artículo completo.

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31100

Earlier this month, the Mexican government arrested three high-ranking Army generals "including a former second in command at the Defense Ministry," The New York Times reported. According to multiple press reports, Tomás Ángeles Dauahare, who retired in 2008, was an under secretary at the Defense Ministry during the first two years of President Felipe Calderón's "war" against some narcotrafficking cartels and had even been mentioned as a "possible choice for the top job."
The Times disclosed that in the early 1990s Ángeles "served as the defense attaché at the Mexican Embassy in Washington," a plum position with plenty of perks awarded to someone thought by his Pentagon brethren to have impeccable credentials; that is, if smoothing the way the for drugs to flow can be viewed as a bright spot on one's résumé.

The other top military men detained in Mexico City were "Brig. Gen. Roberto Dawe González, assigned to a base in Colima State, and Gen. Ricardo Escorcia Vargas, who is retired."
Reuters reported that "Dawe headed an army division in the Pacific state of Colima, which lies on a key smuggling route for drugs heading to the United States, and had also served in the violent border state of Chihuahua."
When queried at a May 18 press conference in Washington, "whether and to what extent" these officers participated in the $1.6 billion taxpayer-financed boondoggle known as the Mérida Initiative or had received American training, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Robert L. Ditchey II tersely told reporters, "We are not going to get into those specifics."
Inquiring minds can't help but wonder what does the Pentagon, or certain three-lettered secret state agencies, have to hide?

CIA-Pentagon Death Squads
Although little explored by corporate media, the CIA and Defense Department's role in escalating violence across Mexico is part of a long-standing strategy by American policy planners to deploy what the late Col. L. Fletcher Prouty called The Secret Team, "skilled professionals under the direct control of someone higher up." According to Prouty, "Team members are like lawyers and agents, they work for someone. They generally do not plan their work. They do what their client tells them to do."
In the context of the misbegotten "War on Drugs," that "client" is the U.S. government and the nexus of bent banks, crooked cops, shady airplane brokers, chemical manufacturers, and spooky defense and surveillance firms who all profit from the chaos they help sustain.
As Narco News disclosed last summer, "A small but growing proxy war is underway in Mexico pitting US-assisted assassin teams composed of elite Mexican special operations soldiers against the leadership of an emerging cadre of independent drug organizations that are far more ruthless than the old-guard Mexican 'cartels' that gave birth to them."
"These Mexican assassin teams now in the field for at least half a year, sources tell Narco News, are supported by a sophisticated US intelligence network composed of CIA and civilian US military operatives as well as covert special-forces soldiers under Pentagon command--which are helping to identify targets for the Mexican hit teams."
"So it should be no surprise," Bill Conroy wrote, "that information is now surfacing from reliable sources indicating that the US government is once again employing a long-running counter-insurgency strategy that has been pulled off the shelf and deployed in conflicts dating back to Vietnam in the 1960s, in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, and beyond, and in more recent conflicts, such as in Iraq."

Bankia:or very G.U.B.U.

El lunes  España figuraba en la primera página del diario estadounidense New York Times. Y más nos hubiera valido no ganarnos semejante palmarés. Pero es que somos, como dijo Fraga y admite don Joaquín Estefanía en un sombrío artículo de opinión de "El País": "Spain is different". Pero para muy mal.  El NYT ponía a España a caer de un burro. Y siembra, fomenta, una suspicacia aguda en todo lo que tenga que ver con "nuestro" (el de ellos, el de los grandes gestores, el de los intocables diseñadores de la virtual quiebra  que se padece) del cojitranco sistema financiero. Resulta que en 2011 la entidad matriz de Bankia, el centro de gravedad del banco, la caja del tesoro vamos, declaró unos beneficios estratosféricos. Nada que sospechar de sus números, al parecer, ya que para eso están las entidades financieras. Su naturaleza dentro del sistema capitalista es la generación de beneficios que se extiendan a inversores y ahorradores, sin necesidades de capital suministrado por los estados. Y ahora resulta que Bankia es en la práctica un tenebroso agujero negro,  van tres veces en que se proclama la cantidad necesaria, dinero público, para que no arrastre quién sabe dónde al resto de factores implicados. No se depuran responsabilidades. No se rinden cuentas. Todo adopta una opacidad apestosa. Una ciénaga.

Un sesudo analista de "Nomura", un tal Doragh Quinn, con sede en la City de Londres califica la recapitalización de Bankia de G.U.B.U. Lo que para quienes no estén muy puestos significa "grotesque", unbelievale", "bizarre","unprecedent". Toma castaña.

Los humanos olemos menos y mal

No New Neurons for Smell?

by Elizabeth Norton

Reproduzco aquí un precioso artículo de Science que explica las investigaciones en neurogénesis a nivel del bulbo olfatorio, que es la región cerebral dedicada al olfato. En dicha zona las neuronas sí se reproducen (neurogénesis) pero luego desaparecen. Los humanos, por falta de uso, perdemos la facultad de oler, como probablemente hicieron nuestros ancestros más bestiales. Entre otras pruebas, los investigadores han utilizado avanzadas técnicas de imaginería, en un modelo con ratones. En un entorno plagado de esencias, el sistema nervioso hubiera respondido de otra manera. Hay que hacer notar lo poco que se conoce del órgano que nos hace humanos.

The nose knows. Olfactory neurons (arrows) don't seem to be added throughout life, but is this true only for people who don't use their noses?

Credit: Chiyacat/Shutterstock; (inset) Adapted from O. Bergmann et al., Neuron 74 (24 May) © Elsevier, Inc.Do our brains continue to produce neurons throughout our lifetimes? That's been one of the most hotly debated questions in the annals of science. Since the 1950s, studies have hinted at the possibility, but not until the late 1990s did research prove that the birth of new neurons, called neurogenesis, goes on in the brains of adult primates and humans. Now a surprising new study in humans shows that in the olfactory bulb-the interface between the nose and the brain and an area long—known to be a hot spot of neurogenesis—new neurons may be born but not survive. The finding may rule out neurogenesis in this area, or it might show only that some people don't stimulate their brains enough through the sense of smell, some researchers say.

Previous studies have found evidence of neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb of adult humans. But those studies measured only proteins produced by immature neurons, leaving open the question of whether these youngsters ever grew up to connect with other cells to form functional networks, says neuroscientist Jonas Frisén of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. If new olfactory neurons really reached adulthood throughout a person's life, researchers should find neurons of a variety of ages in this region.

That's not what Frisén and his team saw. The discovery is based on a technique he and his colleague Kirsty Spalding hit upon in 2005, in which they found a clever way to deduce the age of neurons. The method relies on atomic testing carried out in the 1950s and 1960s, which released massive amounts of carbon-14 into the atmosphere; the atmospheric 14C has been steadily declining ever since. Thus, the later a cell is born after this testing, the less 14C it contains.
In the new study, published this week in Neuron, Frisén, Spalding, and colleagues measured levels of 14C in olfactory bulb tissue taken during autopsy from the brains of 15 subjects who were born either before or after the atomic testing period. The researchers found that the neurons in the olfactory bulb were all the same age: the age of the individual they came from. "[That's] evidence that in humans, in this area, neurogenesis doesn't occur," says Frisén.

The finding may mean that as humans evolved from animals, we lost the ability to produce new neurons in this area because we don't rely as much on our sense of smell. On the other hand, it may mean that people living in an affluent, Western city like Stockholm aren't exposed to enough new smells to keep the neurons alive.
Neurobiologist Jeffrey Macklis of Harvard University says the study, though elegant and rigorous, doesn't settle this question quite yet. Macklis's lab and others have found that in mice, newly born neurons play a unique role in learning novel odors and die unless they are activated by new, unfamiliar smells. Because people depend less than rodents on the sense of smell, we might have comparatively less of these neurons to begin with, Macklis says. And what few we do create may not survive, because we aren't exposed to the same number of smells as other animals. "In affluent, Westernized areas, we shower every day; we use deodorant, air fresheners. We go out of our way to make sure that the only smells we're exposed to are the ones we know," Macklis says.

In addition, Macklis points out that the tissue samples may have biased the results. The donors in the study died at the Karolinska Institute, he notes, and some had a history of substance abuse or psychiatric illness, both of which have been shown to decrease neurogenesis. He says that a better test would be to repeat the experiment in healthy people constantly exposed to new scents—chefs, sommeliers, perfumers, or travelers to exotic locales.

Neuroscientist Fred Gage of The Salk Institute in San Diego, California, agrees that the population studied may not be the best one. Gage, who first reported evidence of neurogenesis in the human brain, says the decrease in neurogenesis may show that as animals evolved from quadrupeds to primates to humans, the sense of smell became less important for survival.

No confíe : pregunte a la prensa

When media gives you the answers, you need to ask more questions


URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31003

Turn on the television today, and you will undoubtedly hear the voice of mainstream newscasters reassuring you that the safety and security of you and your loved ones is being taken care of by your government, so much so that they are preparing to go to war on your behalf. Don't worry, they'll tell you, the military will eliminate the "threats" before they can even become threats! Just go about your daily life, spend your money (credit gladly accepted), and trust that your tax dollars are where they need to be -- protecting you from bogeymen, the ones who so selfishly refuse to bend to this so-called Western-style "democracy".
No matter how many times we're sold the line that war is the only way to peace, the fundamental paradox in this statement can never be masked, not with all the corporate dollars thrown into creating mainstream media spin, nor by the best PR campaigns waged so smoothly by political lobbyists.
The truth, as David Swanson points out in no uncertain terms, is the following:
"The majority of Americans want the wars ended and the military spending cut. And the more they learn, the more they agree. The message of peace is one that you can expect people to agree with even if they don't at first... So, never believe your television. Never doubt the popular demand for peace. Never stop spreading the word. Never accept that mass murder has been civilized. Know your own strength." (See "Ending the Mindset That Gets Us into War")
This may seem easier said than done, but engaged citizens across the globe are proving that we will not acquiesce quietly to the militarized media machine. Ever increasingly, people are waking up to the fact that tyranny, repression and exploitation are not and should never be the norm. Another way is possible.
In Chicago, protesters have been risking arrest to demonstrate against this past weekend's NATO summit. To the north, Quebec is seeing the largest mass protest in North America this year... and perhaps ever, with the way people have been taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands.
More and more, people are asking themselves and each other the same question that Dr. Paul Craig Roberts challenges us to consider:
"How do we rescue America from its government and from the corrupt media that serves as a Ministry of Truth for a corrupt government? (See "'The Global War on Terrorism': Are Americans Catching On, Waking Up, Unplugging?")
Together, worldwide, we are seeing the alternatives, and Global Research is at the forefront of the battle against media lies. And unlike mainstream media, we don't just give you the answers; instead, we help you ask the right questions. What kind of world do you want to live in? What kind of future do you picture for coming generations? Please support us in this challenge. Our independence exists wholly due to your donations and memberships. Scroll down to learn how you can help us fight the tide of media disinformation.

Los tiempos duros en EEUU

AMERICA: Desperate Times Demand Revolutionary Measures

Towards Sociopolitical-environmental Collapse


By Prof. Peter Phillips

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30844

“Don't waste any more time or energy on the presidential election than it takes to get to your polling station and pull a lever for a third-party candidate-—just enough to register your obstruction and defiance—and then get back out onto the street. That is where the question of real power is being decided.” Chris Hedges, May 2012
Runway capitalism is moving unrelentingly towards sociopolitical-environmental collapse—cheered on by a two-headed single party machine known as US Congress. Activists, who see the coming disasters as catastrophic, are seeking revolutionary change through non-cooperation, and occupy disruptions. Yet, many are the still delusional hopefuls desperately fumbling with traditional responses; including "Kum ba yah" marches, and the futile support for progressive left-leaning candidates seeking positions of influence inside the Washington beltway.
Do we understand that habeas corpus is no longer a legal protection in the US or that the US president can torture and kill American citizens, let along anyone in the world? How can we ignore the inconvenient truths of warrentless wire taps and electronic monitoring for everyone? Why do we tolerate that US-NATO forces killing people in over one hundred countries in the world using special service operatives, private assassins and drones—a million civilians deaths in Iraq alone? How can we be so blind as not to see our corporate media is a propaganda fog machine for the one percent? These questions, reflecting the reality of America today, are so far from the values of our traditions that accepting any aspect of authority from Washington DC is a sacrilege to our honor. We are in desperate times.
In Congress, wealth begets membership, and wealth is the reward for correct action. The members in the House and Senate have a collective net worth of $2.04 billion, up from $1.65 billion, in 2008. While at the same time, Americans' household net worth has continued to declined and the number of people living in poverty has risen for the fifth year in a row.

The American Congress is in reality an artificial organization serving as cheerleader to the transnational corporate class of the world. Congress offers its members little more than a transitional path into the good life of corporate affluence as long as the members remain loyal to party discipline. Our legitimate electoral process has been completely usurped by the Supreme Court ruling that a corporation’s free speech rights allow unlimited campaign spending, and congressional lobbying knows no bounds. Any candidate willing to serve in the Democrat or Republican parties in the US congress today, even as a gadfly of resistance, is stepping beyond the pale of constitutional government.

La habénula: posibles funciones

The habenula: from stress evasion to value-based decision-making


by Okihide Hikosaka


Abstract: La supervivencia en un mundo pleno de amenazas y oportunidades requiere adoptar las conductas necesarias a las circunstancias. Hallazgos recientes sugieren que la habénula puede tomar una parte importante en ello a través de sus sistemas de neuromodulación, en particular los que involucran neurotransmisores dopaminérgicos y serotoninérgicos. La habénula puede tener que ver con las respuestas al dolor, al estrés, la ansiedad, el sueño, y conductas compensatorias. También su disfunción puede llevar a la depresión, esquizofrenia, y la psicosis asociada a drogas. La habénula es una estructura bien conservada y evolutivamente constante.

Surviving in a world with hidden rewards and dangers requires choosing the appropriate behaviours. Recent discoveries indicate that the habenula plays a prominent part in such behavioural choice through its effects on neuromodulator systems, in particular the dopamine and serotonin systems. By inhibiting dopamine-releasing neurons, habenula activation leads to the suppression of motor behaviour when an animal fails to obtain a reward or anticipates an aversive outcome. Moreover, the habenula is involved in behavioural responses to pain, stress, anxiety, sleep and reward, and its dysfunction is associated with depression, schizophrenia and drug-induced psychosis. As a highly conserved structure in the brain, the habenula provides a fundamental mechanism for both survival and decision-making. (Artículo completo en Nature).

Armas para Siria

US Officially Arming Extremists in Syria
Denied no longer, US officials admit US-Saudi cash & logistical support arming terrorists in Syria.


By Tony Cartalucci




URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30891

Recently reported in "Brookings Announces Next Move in Syria: War," it was stated that "by the US policy think-tank Brookings Institution's own admission, the Kofi Annan six-point peace plan in Syria was merely a ploy to buy time to reorganize NATO's ineffective terrorist proxies and provide them the pretext necessary for establishing NATO protected safe havens from which to carry out their terrorism from." It was also examined in detail, how in 2007, US, Saudi, and Israeli officials admitted they were creating a militant front of extremists for the sole purpose of causing the destabilization of Syria we see today, and ultimately overthrowing the Syrian government. It was noted how these extremist militants had direct ties to Al Qaeda.


Now it is fully admitted that weapons, cash, and logistical support is indeed being provided to terrorist forces in Syria by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf States. This, despite a current UN ceasefire the West has continuously berated the Syrian government for violating, indicates that indeed reorganizing, rearming, and redeploying NATO's terrorist proxies is complete, and another round of destructive violence has begun.
In the Washington Post's article, "Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination," not only is this admitted, but claims made by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been confirmed that Syria's historically violent Muslim Brotherhood, stated in 2007 by Seymour Hersh as being a direct proxy of US-Saudi-Israeli funding and support, is also directly arming and funding contingents of extremists committing acts of terror across Syria.


Areas across Syria that have until now been portrayed as centers for "pro-democracy" protests, racked by violence depicted as "repression" by Syrian troops, are now admitted by the Washington Post to be areas where "material is being stockpiled." This includes the flashpoint city of Idlib on the Turkish-Syrian border, in the suburbs of Damascus, and along Syria's border with Lebanon. And again, in 2007, Seymour Hersh revealed that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia had planned to array extremists along Syria's border to commit the very violence now being admitted by the Post today.


The Washington Post openly admits that these weapons, supplies, cash and support, provided by the US and Saudi Arabia are directly responsible for the increased violence in Syria, in the midst of a ceasefire the West has attempted to disingenuously use to defame the Syrian government, hamper its ability to restore order, and indeed, rearm, reorganize, and redeploy their terrorist proxies to begin another attempt at violent foreign-backed regime change: