An interesting read

Here's the link to the 191 page from the CIA Office of Inspector General entitled "Counterterrorism, Detention and Interrogation Activities, September 2001 to October 2003", written in May 2004 with 191 pages ready to read. A real pageturner, guaranteed to keep you enthralled right to the end.

Hey, why not download a copy? It's 17 mega big and so takes a while, but maybe it's one to keep for reading in your own time. H/T Miguel Olivera and his great blog

Ecuador news roundup

Rafa seen out with Bina last weekend

Let's all feign surprise: The US Central Intelligence Agency had "full knowledge" of the deadly Colombian raid March 1 on a FARC rebel camp inside Ecuador that led to a rupture in ties between Bogota and Quito.

Crisis what crisis? Ecuador's FinMin sez the country will grow 4% to 5% in 2009. Otto sez "believe that one when I see it".

The much delayed mining law is going to the lawmakers next week. Word is that Ecuador is now treating the matter as "a priority", but that word needs more than just a literal translation when transferring it from latino to anglosaxon mentality.

As for the oil sector, Studmuffin keeps on playing the hardball. The latest target is Repsol (REP) of Spain and he says that because REP and Ecuador can't come to an agreement on its local production it's end-of-contract-adios-amigos time.

But I've saved the best til last: Studmuffin got his dos centavos in about the world financial collapse and I agree with everything he said on this one.

"One of the few good things to come out of this crisis is that we don't have to put up with those yuppies of Lehman Brothers, Standard & Poors and JP Morgan. When I was minister, it was unbearable to have a line of those kids asking for an appointment so that I could do their job. They'd ask you for your analysis and then present it in a report as if were their own."

YAY....you still rock, Rafa.

Breaking: Spooks After Bolivian Peace Corps Mutineers

So here's the screenpaste of an interesting visit I had this evening. At 7:11pm EST some outfit called the "Central Intelligence Agency" from a place called 'Fairfax, VA' came a-visiting. Well that's very nice of them (please call again, or maybe take out an RSS feed, guys), but the interesting bit is where they came from.

If you notice the referral link below, it says "peacecorpssarah at blogspot dot com" which is the blog of that Peace Corps worker who quit the service to protest the way she was pulled out of Bolivia by her country and was then interviewed by AP. Here's the post on it I wrote yesterday with the link to her blog, just in case you need a reminder.

Domain Name		(Unknown)
IP Address		198.81.129.# (Central Intelligence Agency)
ISP		ANS Communications
Location		Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : Virginia City : Fairfax Lat/Long : 38.849, -77.3165 (Map) Distance : 3,849 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution : 1024 x 768 Color Depth : 32 bits
Time of Visit		Oct 14 2008 6:11:22 pm
Last Page View		Oct 14 2008 6:11:22 pm
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://peacecorpssarah.blogspot.com/
Visit Entry Page		http://incakolanews....ce-corps-munity.html
Visit Exit Page		http://incakolanews....ce-corps-munity.html
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Oct 14 2008 7:11:22 pm

Now it could just be me, but it does seem a little strange to suddenly get The Man snooping round a young Peace Corps worker's blog just days after she kicks up a fuss and makes it into the public forum via Associated Press. So Sarah, if you start seeing a lot of dudes hanging around your house wearing dark glasses and fedoras you know what the story is, yeah? They're just making sure....you're....errrr......protected.

Like............ errrrrr.......... safe............... y'know?

As for Bolivia, it's kinda strange that the CIA should be so interested, no? I mean, it probably has nothing to do with the secret meetings between opposition leaders and the US Embassy in August that were immediately followed by uprisings that tried to destabilize the Morales gov't by fascist autonomists and a successful massacre of indigenous people in the area.

Just a coincidence, you know.......move along now......nothing to see here.


UPDATE Wednesday AM: MGrace at Bolivian blog 'Down South' has had the spooky visitors, too