Photo via BankTrack While many countries throughout the world are seeking to boost their economies by pumping the oil within their borders , Ecuador is now set to receive $3.6 billion for leaving it in the ground. In a UN agreement that’s the first of its kind, the country has committed to not drill in its Yasuni National Park — one of the most biologically-diverse corners of the
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Ecuador Will Receive $3.6 Billion to Not Drill for Oil
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Tagged country, ecuador, Hollywood, national-park, oil, pumping-the-oil, the-country, world
These are some of the outtakes that the Ecuadoran plaintiff lawyer Steve Donziger probably wished were left on the cutting room floor. Back in May 2009, CBS’s “60 Minutes” featured a story on the legal conflict between Chevron and an eco-group called the Amazon Defense Coalition for $27.4 billion in so-called environmental damage in Ecuador’s rain forest from then-Texaco Petroleum’s (Texpet) operation of oil well sites over a decade ago. However, in 1998, the government of Ecuador certified that Texpet , a minority partner in an exploration and production venture state-owned oil company PetroEcuador, had met Ecuadorian and international remediation standards and had released Texpet from future claims and obligations. During that May 3 broadcast, Donziger was portrayed by CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley as a shining individual with a deeply rooted compassion for the indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. “We traveled downriver in search of an Indian tribe which is part of the group suing Chevron. For centuries this has been the territory of the Secoyas,” Pelley said. “We sat with two of their leaders who said they had never seen oil until it was on the river. Humberto told us oil looked like flowing black blankets and ruined the fishing. The Secoyas took us to their community hut, where we saw the driving force behind the suit, Stephen Donziger, a New York lawyer, far from home.” However, the National Association of Manufacturers blog ShopFloor.org , in a post by Carter Wood, reports a legal filing from Chevron with a transcription of outtakes from the movie “Crude” by Joe Berlinger , which were left out of the actual film, portrays Donziger in a less-the-flattering light, or as he would say, “a bunch of smoke and mirrors and bulls**t.” (filings available here ): “Hold on a second, you know, this is Ecuador … You can say whatever you want and at the end of the day, there’s a thousand people around the courthouse, you’re going to get what you want. Sorry, but it’s true.” “Because at the end of the day, this is all for the Court just a bunch of smoke and mirrors and bullshit. It really is. We have enough, to get money, to win.” Wood also pointed out those filings suggest a “sordid orchestration of the claims against Chevron, with Steven Donziger being the cynical conductor” – that this random figure $27.4-billion figure was in fact not assigned independently: The Crude Outtakes Show That Plaintiffs’ Counsel and Consultants Planned and Created the Supposedly Independent $27.4 Billion “Global Expert Assessment” The outtakes that Chevron has reviewed so far leave no doubt that Plaintiffs arranged for Cabrera’s appointment and decided what Cabrera’s report would say, and that Plaintiffs’ lawyers and their U.S. consultants – not independent experts working for Cabrera – drafted Cabrera’s initial work plan and ultimately his damages assessment in the Lago Agrio Litigation. In a separate post also dated Aug. 3, Wood shows these filings suggest there’s probably more to be revealed in these outtakes: “It would strain the Second Circuit’s Order to include only footage of counsel and not footage of those working on behalf of or in concert with Plaintiffs’ counsel. There is little question that groups such as Soltani’s Amazon Watch and Amazon Defense Front have been working on behalf of or in concert with Plaintiffs’ counsel in connection with the Lago Agrio Litigation, and thus footage of personnel from those groups should be produced pursuant to the Second Circuit’s Order. Indeed, recognizing the role that personnel from such organizations have played on behalf of Plaintiffs’ counsel, Berlinger has treated Luis Yanza and other members of Amazon Defense Front as part of Plaintiffs’ litigation team, and has already produced footage including Luis Yanza. See Ex. U. Nonetheless, during the meet and confer, Berlinger’s counsel stated that Mr. Berlinger has taken the position that communications with or film involving Amazon Watch and the Frente are privileged, even though they stand effectively in the same position as Yanza. But Plaintiffs have asserted in the District Court in Colorado that the Frente, Amazon Watch, and Karen Hinton are so closely aligned that they fall within the circle of attorney-client privilege. Ex. QQ. They cannot possible contend here that communications with “Plaintiffs’ counsel” do not include Karen Hinton, the Frente, and Amazon Watch.” There have been a lot of questions surrounding the legitimacy of case. Last September, an undercover camera showed the judge in the case willing to participate in a $3 million bribery scheme . Will “60 Minutes,”and also The New York Times as well, run follow-up pieces about the questions surrounding the case they touted as important to the people Ecuador? Time can only tell.
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Tagged damages, ecuador, ecuadorian, Hollywood, islam, karen hinton, movie, muslim, new-york-times, News, plaintiffs, secoyas
The ongoing saga of the class action lawsuit, Aguinda v. Chevron, originally filed in 1993 by the people of Ecuador whose rainforest land had been contaminated by oil production practices, and documented on film by Joe Berlinger in “Crude,” has taken a new turn. Chevron's latest diversionary and delaying tactic is to engage in a widespread and unprecedented legal assault on the First Amendment in their attempt to force Berlinger, the celebrated independent documentarian, to turn over more than 600 hours of private film outtakes from “Crude.” Chevron's legal tactic has attracted widespread criticism from prominent individuals across the media community, including actor and filmmaker Robert Redford, journalist Bill Moyers, bestselling author John Perkins, documentarians Michael Moore and Ric Burns, the Director's Guild of America, the Writer's Guild of America, and others. Virtually every major U.S. media outlet, including the NY Times, LA Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Associated Press, Dow Jones, HBO, and others have opposed Chevron's action in court. This latest action by Chevron is part of a worldwide, desperate litigation campaign by the oil giant to escape liability for what is thought to be the world's worst oil-related environmental catastrophe. The extent of the contamination is almost unfathomable – by Chevron's own admission they dumped at least 15.8 billion gallons of toxic 'produced water' in the region, and their own audits indicate that the number may actually be much higher – more than 18.5 billion gallons. Of the 18.5 billion gallons of toxins, at least 345 million gallons of it was pure crude oil. To put this in perspective, as of June 15, 2010, U.S. government estimates have indicated that the BP spill in the Gulf has spilled somewhere between 73 and 126 million gallons of oil. At least the BP spill was not intentional. By contrast, Chevron's dumping was, by the company's own admission, a deliberate production decision to maximize profits. According to experts, a saving of approximately $1-3 per barrel of oil was achieved by dumping the toxins rather than disposing of them properly. The end result of this has been incredible devastation of a formerly pristine section of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. Though Chevron no longer operates in the area (having ceased Ecuadorian drilling operations in 1990), the pollution still remains. The people living in that region do not have widespread running water or plumbing, and have had no access to water that has not been polluted by the oil operations for nearly four decades. I have seen firsthand the reality of the aftermath of Chevron's actions in Ecuador. I have seen some of the unlined, unfenced waste pits that Chevron left behind. I have met many people there who have lost their parents, their children, and who are losing heir own lives. The area is besieged with oil-related illnesses; families are plagued with extremely elevated levels of childhood leukemia, spontaneous abortions, birth defects, and other serious oil-related health impacts. Experts have estimated that at least 1,400 people have died needlessly from oil-related sicknesses due to the illegal dumping. In 1993, the people in the region brought a lawsuit against the oil giant to force the company to clean-up the damage it caused on their land. An independent court-expert has estimated that the damage caused in the region could cost as much as $27.3 billion to clean up. However, even that amount will be insufficient to return the people to the lifestyles they knew before the Chevron showed up. Small wonder Chevron are running scared. Without taking sides in the lawsuit itself, the enormous legal liability tied to all of these harms provides the context for why Chevron is so aggressively attacking its critics across the world. Chevron has one animating principle in their attacks on Joe Berlinger, the Ecuadorean people, and anyone attempting to hold the company responsible for the pollution it left behind in Ecuador: to find some way of eliminating the legal liability to protect the company's bottom line. But the time has come for Chevron to stop its attacks, and to stop trying to evade its responsibilities. The company should cease its futile attempts to force documentarians and journalists to open up their files to the company's lawyers, and instead focus on the essential issue: how they will remediate the damage it caused in Ecuador to the 30,000 affected people and their land. http://www.crudethemovie.com/ added by: captainplanet71
Posted in Celebrities, Hot Stuff
Tagged america, berlinger, celeb news, contamination, current, ecuador, ecuadorean, first-amendment, legal, lost, People, time, world
Liberal director Oliver Stone revealed his anti-American bent on Monday’s Good Morning America, praising the rise of mainly left-wing leaders across South America and even went so far to support Brazilian President Lula da Silva for “trying to strike to deal with Iran,” wildly predicting ” it’s going to be like North Vietnam again ” if the U.S. pursued sanctions against the country. Anchor George Stephanopoulos interviewed the Oscar-winning director 44 minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour. Stephanopoulos referenced how Stone has “tackled war, Wall Street, and the Kennedy assassination” and is now “taking on South America. He says our neighbors to the south haven’t gotten a fair shake from the American media, and, armed with a camera, he’s set out on a road trip to try to change that.” Before asking about Chavez, Stephanopoulos played a clip from Stone’s documentary “South of the Border,” which included a sound bite from CNN’s John Roberts that gave the impression that the anchor was condemning the Venezuelan leader: “He’s more dangerous than Bin Laden, and the effects of Chavez, his war against America, could eclipse those of 9/11.” Actually, Roberts, in the January 15, 2009 segment from his American Morning program, actually was reading a quote from a book by his guest, Doug Schoen: “Right off the bat, in the very front of the book, you quote Otto Reich, who was the former ambassador to Venezuela back in the 1980s, as saying that he’s more dangerous than bin Laden and the effects of Chavez, his war against America could eclipse those of 9/11.” Earlier, the ABC anchor asked, “Why take this on?” The director characterized the left-wing trend in leaders in South America as a “march towards reform” and praised these favorite leaders on the continent without naming them: STONE: They have democratically-elected leaders who look like the people who elected them. They have a priest in Paraguay. They have a woman in Argentina. They have an Indian leader- the first Indian- in Bolivia. They have an economist in Ecuador and they have a soldier who’s poor- comes from a poor family- who was elected three times in Venezuela- that’s Hugo Chavez. These are good people. When you look in their eyes, you see it, and you see it on film. That’s why you have to do a film because on paper, it sometimes it didn’t come across, you know? The leader of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, is actually a former Catholic bishop who admitted that he fathered a child with a woman in her 20s when he was still a bishop. Lugo led a mainly left-wing coalition into office when he was elected in 2008. Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, nationalized $30 billion in private pension funds late in 2008. Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuador’s executive, Rafael Correa , are both avowed socialists. The ABC anchor later pressed the director on his endorsement of his Venezuelan “soldier:” STEPHANOPOULOS (live): Do you believe Hugo Chavez is a good person? STONE: Yes, I do- absolutely . STEPHANOPOULOS: But even the United Nations has said that Hugo Chavez has not been a paragon of free speech- his crackdown on the media in his own country. STONE: I have not seen that report. I know that- you know, there’s no pattern of censorship in this country . I’ve been there. So, you can see it. You can go down to South America, spend three days, and you’ll see the most vibrant opposition in the world . STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the reasons the United States has put a lot of pressure on Chavez is over oil, you believe, and there was particular opposition from the Bush administration. How do you think the relationship may change, now that President Obama is in office? STONE: Well, I hope it changes because America seems to want to control every oil-producing nation in the world, whether it’s Iraq or Iran or Venezuela. Since Stone named Iran, Stephanopoulos mentioned how “the president of Brazil [is] trying to strike a deal with Iran, counter to what the Obama administration is looking for.” The director replied that this move as a ” good thing .” When the anchor asked why, Stone made his “North Vietnam” comparison: STONE: Because- well, the march to sanctions in Iran. We want sanctions. We want- it seems to me, once they start intercepting their ships, we’re going to be in a- it’s going to be like North Vietnam again. We’re going to get into a position where we’re going to get closer to war. There’s no reason for to us go to war in Iran, any more than there was a reason to go in Iraq – STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if they want to build a nuclear weapon? STONE: Hmm? STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if they want to build a nuclear weapon? STONE: I think that has to be discussed. So the Oscar winner not only acted as a left-wing apologist but also vouched for inaction against a nation who has nuclear ambitions and has made threats against its neighbors. Stephanopoulos and Stone concluded by briefly discussing how the director was also releasing a sequel to his acclaimed 1987 movie, “Wall Street.” After thanking his guest, the ABC anchor noted that “‘South of the Border’ is open in New York now” as a title graphic for the movie flashed on screen. But, in a parallel to Stone’s edit of Roberts, the graphic that ABC used for the movie was actually cropped from its movie poster which emulated left-wing propaganda art . Eagle’s talons represented United States’s power in South America on the poster, which were mounted on top of South America which was appropriately painted red.
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Oliver Stone Lauds Hugo Chavez, Criticizes Action Against Iran on ABC’s GMA
Posted in Hollywood, Hot Stuff, News
Tagged america, director, ecuador, evo morales, george stephanopoulos, Obama, oliver-stone, politics, stars, Street, united-states, venezuela
e-mail: pia@piapecora.com.ar web: www.piapecora.com.ar Pia Pecora was called for teaching and performing The Pole Dance for a Tv Program in Ecuador, in May 2009. (sattic pole)
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Pole dance Pia Pecora en Ecuador MAyo 2009
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Tagged baile del caño, baile del poste, baile del tubo, bennyhollywood, dance, ecuador, Hollywood, pecora, pia pecora, pole-dance, sattic-pole, stars, world pole dance
Each and everyone of us varies from our food preferences. Food is meant to be eaten and enjoyed, but what would you think of the following food? Tell me your reactions: 1. Monkey Brains in China Chinese cuisine is very varied. They can cook and prepare anything crawls, flies, swims or slithers. It’s one of the reasons that there’s such little wildlife near any inhabited region of China. Animals are food and there’s no room for sentimentality. But imagine sitting in a restaurant where a live monkey is brought in, its head sliced open and its brains served up as a rare (and illegal) delicacy? 2. Maggot Cheese in Sardinia One of Sardinia’s national delicacies is a rotten cheese (casu marzu) infested with maggots – the worms themselves become full of cheese fat and are considered quite sumptuous. 3. Roasted Silk Worm Pupae in South Korea If you go out drinking in South Korea, check if your order of beer is served with a tray of roasted peanuts….I mean….silkworm pupae. The cocoons are sold also on the street and taste, remarkably enough, like rotting meat. When you pass the vendors stoke up the pupae and the smell causes many foreigners to retch. 4. Live Ants in South America In the jungles of Colombia and Ecuador, there are species of ants which make for good eating. The locals dab them from the trees with a fingertip and it’s about as laborious as eating sunflower seeds to get a good mouthful. The trick is to chew the ants before they try and bite you. 5. Deep-fried Cockroaches in Thailand Disgusting and loathsome housepest comes as a tasty snack in Thailand which is sld deep-fried. 6. Fly Pancakes in Malawi In Malawi,flies are caught in the net and squashed into a patty and then fried as a pancake on any available metal surface, the sun being so hot. 7. Anything to do with Fish in Japan Everyone knows about sushi and stories about writhing fish, eyeballs etc are pretty commonplace. But what about a fish that contains a toxin so dangerous that it paraylses the muscles in your lungs? 300 people die a year from eating Fugu Blowfish and they have to just sit and wait until they suffocate. 8. Bull’s Testicles in Spain Wanna be man enough? The organic of counterpart of Viagra or way much better, they say. 9. Black Pudding in England Boiled pig’s blood and is served for breakfast sometimes. (Check ‘Dinuguan’ – Filipino Cuisine) 10. American Fast Food The food has all been processed to the point that it’s quite tasteless and then souped up with chemical flavouring that ensure that your Big Mac will taste exactly the same, wherever in the world you eat it. Bring on the maggot cheese. World’s Weirdest Food is a post from: Daily World Buzz Continue reading
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