fufor's unregelmässige news

CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE
News Feed | December 13, 2007

This Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA crash landed on September 24, 2007 after it ran out of fuel over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula it had a cargo of several tons of Cocaine on board now documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA that crashed in Mexico. by TDL Source - Info
http://tinyurl.com/2zq7wo


CIA Torture Jet crashed with 4 Tons of COCAINE
A Gulfstream II jet that crash landed in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in late September bearing a load of nearly four tons of cocaine. This particular Gulfstream II (tail number N987SA), was used between 2003 and 2005 by the CIA for at least three trips between the U.S. east coast and Guantanamo Bay — home to the infamous "terrorist" prison camp — according to a number of press reports.
Added: December 11, 2007
02:44 Min.


WATCH VIDEO: http://tinyurl.com/2voxe6


CIA Drug Planes Caught in Mexican Standoff
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
Nov 28, 2007
by Daniel Hopsicker

At least four men have already paid with their lives in Mexico during the ensuing confusion which followed the crash of the CIA-connected Gulfstream business jet which was carrying more than 4 tons of cocaine as well as an yet-unspecified amount of heroin, in the jungle outside of Merida in Mexico's Yucatan on September 24th of this year.

Last week the Director of Civil Aviation in the Yucatan, Jose Luis Soladana Ortiz, was assassinated on his way to work.

And three tortured bodies were discovered lying across a road near the Merida airport several weeks ago, according to reports in the Mexican press.

The murders and multi-ton drug busts are part of a continuing "Mexican stand-off" between rival Mexican drug cartels allied with dueling factions contesting across Mexico's unsettled political landscape, a contest which has resulted in more than 1500 murders already this year.

Last month this massive upheaval resulted in the biggest drug seizure—not just in Mexican history—but in the history of the world.

An incredible 33 tons of cocaine were discovered in cargo containers offloaded from the cargo ship Esmeralda which sailed to Mexico’s Pacific Coast port of Manzanillo from Buenaventura in northwestern Colombia.

This came hard on the heels of headlines from Tampico in early October. "Mexican soldiers seize 10 tons of cocaine after shootout."

Altogether so far this year an unprecedented 48 tons of cocaine has now been seized by the Mexican government.

The two CIA-connected airplanes—the recent Gulfstream business jet (N987SA) and a DC9 airliner (N900SA) eighteen months ago—which sallied forth from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport only to be busted in the Yucatan carrying multi-ton loads of cocaine, may owe their ignominious fates to being caught in the middle of this contest.

CIA drug planes & the narco-pederastas

There is a wild card in the story of cartel wars and drug murders involving busted loads on American planes in the Yucatan...

Several figures in the story are implicated in another, and if possible even more serious Mexican scandal underway currently.

Kamel Nacif and Jean Succor, prominent Lebanese businessmen in Cancun, are widely reported to be major figures in the dominant drug cartel in the Yucatan whose cocaine was seized on the two American planes.

The two men are also at the heart of a scandal involving a huge child molestation ring which has been providing children as young as five to a clientele of wealthy Mexican and foreign businessmen.

They have been dubbed Narco-Pederastas in Mexican press coverage of the scandal, which is growing so fast that it may become Mexico’s Watergate.

A lot of criminal activity is tolerated, or even officially promoted, in Mexico. Buggering 5-year old girls and boys is not.

The scandal, which we will cover fully soon, has the potential to threaten the established order in Mexico.

Were it to become widely known that CIA-connected drug planes were flying multi-ton loads of cocaine for these men, it might shake the ground in the U.S. as well.

St-Petersburg Clearwater Int'l Airport: The New Mena?

In April of last year 5.5 tons of cocaine were discovered on a DC9 (N900SA) flight which originated in St. Petersburg, flew to Venezuela, to Colombia, and then on to Mexico, where it was busted by ordinary Mexican foot soldiers at a rural airport in Cuidad del Carmen on the Yucatan peninsula.

Then two months ago well over four tons of cocaine—some knowledgeable estimates went as high as six tons—were discovered on a Gulfstream business jet (N987SA) flight in Mexico.

This flight too originated at the St Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, flew to Colombia, and then on to Mexico, where it crash-landed in a field 45 kilometers outside of the Yucatan capital of Merida.

Having your city's airport host a major player in international drug trafficking would be big news in most cities. But seemingly sleepy St. Petersburg must have a lot more going on than normal burgs, because the news hasn't made it yet--even in the business section!--in the St. Petersburg Times, or been featured in the newsroom of the St. Pete-Clearwater Int'l Airport website.

Doing the Impossible: Making Asa Hutchinson look good

Both the DC9 and the Gulfstream had already and on numerous occasions successfully ferried multi-ton loads of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, according to sources, including published reports in the Mexican press.

Thus it must have been been a surprise and an unpleasant shock to the plane's flight crews when they were waved off and turned away by control towers at airports in Cancun and Merida, each of which had long-standing arrangements to let the planes land.

Ten tons of somebody's cocaine is now off the street. Someone must be smarting a little. And wondering, with results this dismal, what exactly the point is in using aircraft associated with the CIA.

Because both had flown successful and recent drug runs before their sudden reversals of fortune, the big unanswered question is: what happened?

Whatever happened, the head of the DEA doesn't know a thing about it. America’s DEA administrator Karen Tandy suggested before leaving office recently that the busts were the result of increasingly-vigilant Mexican government anti-drug trafficking operations.

Like the demise of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel fifteen years ago, the record cocaine seizures in Mexico recently had outgoing DEA director Karen Tandy all-but-crowing “Mission Accomplished.”

“We have created a perfect storm,” Tandy gushed.

But a drop in a very expensive bucket

Hardly. Evidence suggests that the real reason can be found in the fact that the two seizures both occurred on a trafficking route associated with supporters of former Mexican President Vicente Fox, and before Fox, the PRI.

What's going on owes far more to a power struggle for control of choice drug routes into the U.S. than it does to increased Mexican vigilance.

An officially 'protected' drug cartel associated with now-former Mexican President Vicente Fox is no longer being protected. Apparently, the message has been a little slow to sink in.

Replacing it on the route is it's main competition, apparently favored with Fox’s successor, current Jefe-in-Chief Felipe Calderon.

The story of the combined ten tons bust on CIA-connected planes flying out of St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport is just a drop in the bucket comparatively.

But it's a very expensive bucket.

Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss

Last month this massive upheaval resulted in the biggest drug seizure—not just in Mexican history—but in the history of the world.

An incredible 33 tons of cocaine were discovered in cargo containers offloaded from the cargo ship Esmeralda which sailed to Mexico’s Pacific Coast port of Manzanillo from Buenaventura in northwestern Colombia.

But in the voluminous press coverage of the bust in Mexico we were struck by the fact that we could find no picture of the ship itself. Just already-offloaded containers, presumably filled with cocaine, stacked on the dock, watched over by the watchful eyes and automatic weapons of soldiers from the Mexican military.

But no pictures of the Esmeralda.

Maybe its a ghost ship. A Philadelphia Experiment carrying cocaine in and out of the ether. Better than submarine, even.

Apparently Mexican authorities, before alerting the media, allowed the ship, after unloading, to proceed on its merry way.

Consider: if the government of Mexico found 23 tons of cocaine in the trunk of your car on your way back from a margarita-soaked weekend in Tijuana, would they hand back the keys after grabbing the dope?

Does 23 tons of cocaine get loaded onto a cargo ship while the Captain is out to lunch? If not, then the really important question becomes:

Who owned the ship?

Okay. Pencils down. Anyone want to guess the answer?

Ownership of big ticket items still causing uncertainty

If you said, “Nobody’s knows for sure,” buy yourself a drink on us…

Because the ownership of the cargo ship Esmeralda is apparently as closely guarded a secret as the ownership of Cocaine One and Cocaine Two, the two American drug-running airplanes,

One thing press reports agreed on about the Esmeralda was that it was sailing under Hong Kong's flag.

“The navy said that so far its officials have found 23 tons of cocaine on the Esmeralda,” reported the wire service Latin news round-up, “a Hong Kong-registered ship which sailed from Buenaventura to Manzanillo in the Pacific coast state of Colima.

“Big cocaine haul on ship flying HK flag” read the headline from the South China Morning Post.

“A Hong Kong-flagged ship was found carrying at least 11 tons of cocaine by the Mexican authorities in what is believed to be one of the nation's biggest drug busts,” reported the paper.

“The cocaine was hidden behind bars of soap. Sniffer dogs found the drugs. Initial press coverage indicated that the Esmeralda was registered in Hong Kong.”

All we need do to learn the true owner of the Esmeralda, and the 23 tons of coke, we figured smugly, would be to call the Hong Kong maritime authority.

But wait, what’s this? Someone beat us to it?

“The identity of the ship, which departed from Buenaventura, Colombia, remains a mystery as the Hong Kong Marine Department said, ‘it did not find its registration.’”

“All Hong Kong ships must register with us. Maybe it was flying the flag to conceal its real identity,” a department spokesman said.’

We were incensed. This was not cricket! (Do they still play cricket in Hong Kong?)

We wrote an email to the two reporters, Lina Lin and Martin Wong.

“On Nov. 2 Martin wrote, “The identity of the ship, which departed from Buenaventura, Colombia, remains a mystery as the Hong Kong Marine Department said "it did not find its registration."

Then on Nov 6 Lina called it the "Hong Kong-flagged vessel Esmeralda."

“Has the HK Marine Dept. found the Esmeralda's registration?” we asked plaintively. “Had it gone missing? Can you tell me who owns the ship?”

(If and when we hear anything, we'll let you know. But, if experience is any guide, we advice you to not hold your breath.)

Stay tuned.

Thursday: Top Mexican Government investigation exposes massive corruption. (Thank God we don’t have problems like that here.)
http://tinyurl.com/yu4w2o

India: Prime Destination for Unethical Clinical Trials
December 14, 2007
by Keya Acharya

BANGALORE - Lack of regulation, accountability, low costs of operation and wide availability of target participants are reasons why multinational drug companies, researchers and institutions are increasingly basing their clinical trials in India.An estimated 40 percent of all clinical trials now take place in Asia, Eastern Europe, central and south America.

“There is no compulsory registration system for clinical trials in these countries and many do not follow European directives in their operations”, says Dr. Jacob Sijtsma of the Netherlands-based WEMOS, an advocacy health organisation tracking clinical trials in developing countries.

Sijtsma, who was in India for a bioethics conference, held earlier this month at the Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health Sciences, said there is a growing concern in India’s medical and civil society on the lax regulation and ethicality over clinical trials conducted in this country.

In 2006, WEMOS and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations prepared an overview of 22 known examples of unethical clinical trials, eight of which were operating in India.

The Indian examples of illegal and unethical trials involved Sun Pharmaceuticals and Novartis’s Letrozole for inducing ovulation when approved only for breast cancer, Novo Nordisk’s for diabetes treatment, Solvay Pharmaceuticals’ for treating diarrhoea, Johnson and Johnson’s for treating acute malaria, Pfizer’s for cardiac events, Otsuka’s for arterial disease, Indian companies Shantha Biotechnics and Biocon for diabetes and the John Hopkins’ University’s trials for treating oral cancer.

Other countries with documented illegal trials include Russia, Nepal, Uganda, Peru, China, Nigeria, Argentina and even places like London and New York involving well-known institutes like the U.S. National Institute of Health, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Centres for Disease Control and several international pharmaceutical firms.

Dr. Bernard Lo from the University of California at San Francisco, also here for the conference, said even more disturbing questions arise in the field of stem cell research in its newest method called Induced Pluripotent stem cell (iPs cells).

In this system, embryonic stem cells are not used, but virtually any cell is taken to the laboratory, inserted with a human gene and grown into human cells.

“This makes for laboratory manipulation of basic science research, no consent is needed by anyone and the cells can be bought commercially, giving rise to all sorts of ethical questions that need to keep pace with the rapid research in this field,” said Lo.

“I am extremely concerned about the conduct of stem cell research in India,” said Dr. Pushp Bhargava, a highly respected former director of India’s Centre for Molecular Biology at Hyderabad city. “We have no idea where these cells are coming from, whether they have been characterised,” Bhargava told IPS.

“There is no method of validation or checking,” he complained.

WEMOS’s Dr. Leontien Laterveer says a lack of transparency and secrecy shrouding all clinical trials, whether in India or other countries, makes it very difficult to obtain information about their operations.

“We are appealing to Indian organisations looking at this issue to come forward and collaborate with us,” say both Laterveer and Sjitsma.

More importantly, there are insufficient checks by the European Union in spite of the Helsinki Declaration on a code of ethics for clinical trials, making it easy for drugs to enter the European market, add the two.

“European pharmaceuticals are also not bothered about legal and regulatory aspects,” said Laterveer. ‘’They leave it to the countries themselves.” The Helsinki Declaration is currently under review.

“We need the input of Southern experts to help process the review of the Helsinki Declaration,” said Sjitsma.

Media exposés of exploitation in cases such as the U.S. John Hopkins’ Hospital’s collaboration with the Regional Cancer Treatment Centre in Kerala, in 2000, forced the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to inquire into the trials.

The results however are still not public and no action has been taken against its then director, while the Johns Hopkins University barred the principal investigator from heading future research with human subjects.

In recent years, India has made some regulatory attempts, amending its drugs and cosmetics act to require compliance by trial conductors with a set of good clinical practices (GCP) guidelines along with the ethics committee that the ICMR formulated.

But there is still no mandatory compensatory payment, or strong penalty against the defaulting company.

“We need to pin down direct responsibility for monitoring with the ethics committee and measures taken to permanently revoke the licence of the defaulting company,” says Adarsh Gangadhar, a lawyer attached to the National Academy for Legal Studies and Research in Hyderabad.

Dr. Prathap Tharyan, head of psychiatry at the respected Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, and South Asia coordinator of Cochrane, a network of specialists working to improve evidence-based healthcare, averred that ‘’deception, fraud and structural problems in randomised clinical trials” are rampant in India.

Tharyan has now helped set up an online Clinical Trials Registry through ICMR. Its implementation, however, remains dependent on wider awareness of the issues involved in India.

‘’Ethics awareness in India is evolving and the law intervening, but I find a deficiency in working out solutions for implementation,” said Madhav Menon, one of India’s leading legal experts.

The National Institute of AIDS Research (NIAR) at Pune is committed to setting up community advisory bodies (CABs) with participation from field workers, patients and others concerned to disseminate awareness and information on the rights of participants in clinical trials.

However, the entire concept of CABs is still evolving, with insufficient information on rights or ethical principles and no mechanism for redressal of grievances, NIAR’s Dr. Sanjay Mehendale told IPS.
http://tinyurl.com/28lcek