Estou nesta...

... cobrindo o caso Terry Schiavo. Podem ler tudo aqui.

Algo para recordar

Acabo de descubrir estas entrevistas que PBS le hizo a Joe García y Carlos Saladrigas sobre el caso Elián González. Ahora que estamos a punto de cumplir cinco años de la conclusión del “Caso Elián”, creo que es oportuno leerlas. [RF]

Otras entrevistas

In New York...

Dr. Amina Wadud prays as she leads the first public mixed-gender Muslim prayer service in New York City, March 18, 2005. Dr. Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, held the service at the Synod House in New York. REUTERS/Jeff Christensen

Derribaron al dictador

La estatua de Franco, en Madrid, fue finalmente derribada. Aquí está el vídeo y algunas fotos.

¡Enhorabuena!

Entrevista con Aznar

Escuche a José María Aznar, ex presidente del Gobierno español en una reunión con la Junta Editorial de The Miami Herald y periodistas de El Nuevo Herald.

¡A no perder!

Monumental Lata

Tratando os lisboetas como idiotas, a Câmara Municipal como um hobby, a política como uma brincadeira e Carmona Rodrigues como seu criado, Pedro Santana Lopes regressa à autarquia. Santana não tem um pingo de vergonha na cara e alguém tem de lhe dizer que para tudo há limites. Mimado e absolutamente inútil para qualquer função, é absolutamente indigno de dirigir uma cidade que merece dedicação e competência. Se queria regressar, não se candidatava a deputado e aprimeiro-ministro. Lisboa não é um depósito para quem perde eleições.

Daniel Oliveira

Eles proibem, a gente publica!

Trabalho voluntario

Farwell, my friend

Dan Rather, leaving by the high road



Emptying out his cubbyhole office in the CBS News building on West 57th Street in New York, wading through stacks and boxes of memorabilia accumulated over the years, Dan Rather came upon a piece of framed embroidery made and sent to him a couple decades ago by a nun who was, one might say, among the faithful -- a regular and loyal viewer.

Ele sabe o que faz

My truth

by Giuliana Sgrena

I'm still in the dark. Friday was the most dramatic day of my life. I had been in captivity for many days. I had just spoken with my captors. It had been days they were telling me I would be released. I was living in waiting for this moment. They were speaking about things that only later I would have understood the importance of. They were speaking about problems "related to transfers."

I learned to understand what was going on by the behavior of my two guards, the two guards that had me under custody every day. One in particular showed much attention to my desires. He was incredibly cheerful. To understand exactly what was going on I provocatively asked him if he was happy because I was going or because I was staying. I was shocked and happy when for the first time he said, "I only know that you will go, but I don't know when." To confirm the fact that something new was happening both of them came into my room and started comforting me and kidding: "Congratulations they said you are leaving for Rome." For Rome, that's exactly what they said.

I experienced a strange sensation because that word evoked in me freedom but also projected in me an immense sense of emptiness. I understood that it was the most difficult moment of my kidnapping and that if everything I had just experienced until then was "certain," now a huge vacuum of uncertainty was opening, one heavier than the other. I changed my clothes. They came back: "We'll take you and don't give any signals of your presence with us otherwise the Americans could intervene." It was confirmation that I didn't want to hear; it was altogether the most happy and most dangerous moment. If we bumped into someone, meaning American military, there would have been an exchange of fire. My captors were ready and would have answered. My eyes had to be covered. I was already getting used to momentary blindness. What was happening outside? I only knew that it had rained in Baghdad. The car was proceeding securely in a mud zone. There was a driver plus the two captors. I immediately heard something I didn't want to hear. A helicopter was hovering at low altitude right in the area that we had stopped. "Be calm, they will come and look for you...in 10 minutes they will come looking for." They spoke in Arabic the whole time, a little bit of French, and a lot in bad English. Even this time they were speaking that way.

Then they got out of the car. I remained in the condition of immobility and blindness. My eyes were padded with cotton, and I had sunglasses on. I was sitting still. I thought what should I do. I start counting the seconds that go by between now and the next condition, that of liberty? I had just started mentally counting when a friendly voice came to my ears "Giuliana, Giuliana. I am Nicola, don't worry I spoke to Gabriele Polo (editor in chief of Il Manifesto). Stay calm. You are free." They made me take my cotton bandage off, and the dark glasses. I felt relieved, not for what was happening and I couldn't understand but for the words of this "Nicola." He kept on talking and talking, you couldn't contain him, an avalanche of friendly phrases and jokes. I finally felt an almost physical consolation, warmth that I had forgotten for some time.

The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell. Nicola Calipari sat next to me. The driver twice called the embassy and in Italy that we were heading towards the airport that I knew was heavily patrolled by U.S. troops. They told me that we were less than a kilometer away...when...I only remember fire. At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, shutting up forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.

The driver started yelling that we were Italians. "We are Italians, we are Italians." Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me and immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard his last breath as he was dying on me. I must have felt physical pain. I didn't know why. But then I realized my mind went immediately to the things the captors had told me. They declared that they were committed to the fullest to freeing me but I had to be careful, "the Americans don't want you to go back." Then when they had told me I considered those words superfluous and ideological. At that moment they risked acquiring the flavor of the bitterest of truths, at this time I cannot tell you the rest.

This was the most dramatic day. But the months that I spent in captivity probably changed forever my existence. One month alone with myself, prisoner of my profound certainties. Every hour was an impious verification of my work, sometimes they made fun of me, and they even stretch as far as asking why I wanted to leave, asking me stay. They insisted on personal relationships. It was them that made me think of the priorities that too often we cast aside. They were pointing to family. "Ask your husband for help," they would say. And I also said in the first video that I think you all saw, "My life has changed." As Iraqi engineer Ra'ad Ali Abdulaziz of the organization A Bridge For [Baghdad], who had been kidnapped with the two Simones had told me "my life is not the same anymore." I didn't understand. Now I know what he meant. Because I experienced the harshness of truth, it's difficult proposition (of truth) and the fragility of those who attempt it.

In the first days of my kidnapping I did not shed a tear. I was simply furious. I would say in the face of my captors: "But why do you kidnap me, I'm against the war." And at that point they would start a ferocious dialogue. "Yes because you go speak to the people, we would never kidnap a journalist that remains closed in a hotel and because the fact that you say you're against the war could be a decoy." And I would answer almost to provoke them: "It's easy to kidnap a weak woman like me, why don't you try with the American military." I insisted on the fact that they could not ask the Italian government to withdraw the troops. Their political go-between could not be the government but the Italian people, who were and are against the war.

It was a month on a see-saw shifting between strong hope and moments of great depression. Like when it was a first Sunday after the Friday they kidnapped me, in the house in Baghdad where I was kept, and on top of which was a satellite dish they showed me the Euronews Newscast. There I saw a huge picture of me hanging from Rome City Hall. I felt relieved. Right after though the claim by the Jihad that announced my execution if Italy did not withdraw the troops arrived. I was terrified. But I immediately felt reassured that it wasn't them. I didn't have to believe these announcements, they were "provocative." Often I asked the captor that from his face I could identify a good disposition but whom like his colleagues resembled a soldier: "Tell me the truth. Do you want to kill me?" Although many times there have been windows of communications with them. "Come watch a movie on TV" they would say while a Wahabi roamed around the house and took care of me. The captors seemed to me a very religious group, in continuous prayer on the Koran. But Friday, at the time of the release, the one that looked the most religious and who woke up every morning at 5 a.m. to pray incredibly congratulated me shaking my hand, a behavior unusual for an Islamic fundamentalist -- and he would add "if you behave yourself you will leave immediately." Then an almost funny incident. One of the two captors came to me surprised both because the TV was showing big posters of me in European cities and also for Totti. Yes Totti. He declared he was a fan of the Roma soccer team and he was shocked that his favorite player went to play with the writing "Liberate Giuliana" on his T-shirt.

I lived in an enclave in which I had no more certainties. I found myself profoundly weak. I failed in my certainties; I said that we had to tell about that dirty war. And I found myself in the alternative either to stay in the hotel and wait or to end up kidnapped because of my work. We don't want anyone else anymore. The kidnappers would tell me. But I wanted to tell about the bloodbath in Fallujah from the words of the refugees. And that morning the refugees, or some of their leaders would not listen to me. I had in front of me the accurate confirmation of the analysis of what the Iraqi society had become as a result of the war and they would throw their truth in my face: "We don't want anybody why didn't you stay in your home. What can this interview do for us?" The worse collateral effect, the war that kills communication was falling on me. To me, I who had risked everything, challenging the Italian government who didn't want journalists to reach Iraq and the Americans who don't want our work to be witnessed of what really became of that country with the war and notwithstanding that which they call elections.

Now I ask myself. Is their refusal a failure?

(C) Il Manifesto

Os 440 anos do Rio de Janeiro

Curiosidades da história do Rio de Janeiro

Quatrocentos e quarenta anos de vida não são pouca coisa. É fácil imaginar a quantidade de fatos curiosos que há por trás da história do Rio. Alguns deles:

A Mangueira, uma das mais tradicionais escolas de samba do Rio, foi fundada em 28 de abril de 1928. O primeiro concurso de escolas de samba do Rio foi realizado em 2 de janeiro de 1929, no Engenho de Dentro. A competição tornou-se oficial em 1933.


A cantora Beth Carvalho, carioca de gema, apaga as velas do bolão de aniversário.

O nome oficial do Viaduto Paulo de Frontin, que liga as zonas norte e sul, é Elevado Engenheiro Freyssinet. Inaugurado em 1974, demorou cinco anos para ficar pronto. Durante as obras, em 1971, ele desabou.

Em 1808, quanto a Família Real chegou ao Rio, a cidade tinha, aproximadamente, 60 mil habitantes.

O Banco do Brasil começou a funcionar em 11 de dezembro de 1809, na antiga Rua Direita, esquina com a Rua São Pedro. Em 25 de abril de 1821, dom João VI e a corte deixaram o Rio rumo a Portugal, levando todos os recursos depositados no Banco do Brasil.



O Palácio de São Cristóvão, na Quinta da Boa Vista, foi um presente de dom Pedro I à Marquesa de Santos, sua amante, em 1827. Da janela de seus aposentos, onde hoje funciona o Museu Nacional, dom Pedro controlava a vida da Marquesa. Há quem diga que havia um túnel secreto unido os dois palácios, o que tornaria possível as visitas íntimas do imperador.

Depois de proclamar a Independência, em São Paulo, dom Pedro demorou cinco dias para chegar ao Rio, a cavalo.

No baile da Ilha Fiscal, em 9 de setembro de 1889, os 4.500 convidados consumiram 800 quilos de camarão. A comida foi feita por 90 cozinheiros e servida por 150 garçons. O jantar foi o último baile da Monarquia.

O primeiro telefone do país foi instalado no Rio, em 1876, na residência Imperial.



Três cariocas chegaram à presidência da República: João Figueiredo, Fernando Collor de Melo e Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Vinte e oito candidatos concorriam ao cargo de presidente da República em 1989. Entre eles, Júlio Nascimento, do Partido de Renovação Moral, tinha uma banca de jornais no Rio.

Quando o presidente eleito Prudente de Moraes chegou ao Rio, ninguém foi recebê-lo na estação de trem da Central do Brasil. Ele foi à sua própria cerimônia de posse, no Palácio do Itamaraty, numa carruagem puxada por dois pangarés.

O mineiro Afonso Pena foi o primeiro presidente do Brasil a morrer no Palácio do Catete. Em seu velório, Rui Barbosa ficou horas preso no elevador do palácio.

O segundo presidente a morrer no Palácio do Catete foi Getúlio Vargas, que cometeu suicídio em 24 de agosto de 1954. Mais de um milhão de pessoas foram ao velório.



O Jardim Botânico do Rio foi criado por dom João VI em 1808. Só em 1838, trinta anos após a sua criação, o Jardim Botânico foi aberto à visitação pública.

Na eleição para prefeito em 1988, o Macaco Tião recebeu 400 mil votos. A candidatura do famoso habitante do Zôo foi lançada pelo Partido Bananista Brasileiro, uma criação dos humoristas do 'Planeta Diário'. O mais famoso habitante do Zôo do Rio morreu em dezembro de 1996, de diabetes.

A Igreja da Candelária é a mais antiga da cidade. A pedra fundamental é de 1630. A cúpula foi construída com 1.400 pedras.

O nome oficial da Ponte Rio-Niterói é Ponte Presidente Costa e Silva. Uma das construções mais importantes da cidade, foi inaugurada em 4 de março de 1974.

Originalmente, o bairro de Realengo era chamado de Real Engenho. Devido à forma como era escrito, na placa da estação de trem Real Engº, as pessoas começaram a ler Realengo. A usina açucareira deu nomes a outros bairros, como Engenho Novo, Engenho de Dentro e Engenho da Rainha.

As obras do bondinho do Pão de Açúcar foram feitas entre 1907 e 1912. A primeira linha do bondinho, que vai da Praia Vermelha até o Morro da Urca, tem 575 metros de extensão. A segunda, que vai até o topo do Morro do Pão de Açúcar, tem 750 metros.

O Hotel Copacabana Palace, um dos mais chiques da cidade, que já foi eleito o melhor da América Latina, foi inaugurado em 13 de agosto de 1923. Cenas do filme que juntou pela primeira vez Fred Astaire e Ginger Rogers, "Voando para o Rio", de 1933, foram gravadas no Copa.

Hay males que por bien no vengan

La camarógrafa personal del dictador Augusto Pinochet reclama a «Terra» más de cinco millones de dólares por difundir sus imágenes sin autorización.

Mónica Wehrhahn lloró desconsolada al saber que todo el material que guardó durante años «Terra» lo usó sin su autorización. Ahora está más tranquila. Sus abogados le aseguran que ganará el caso llevado ante los tribunales, cuya cuantía al parecer no tiene precedentes. Wehrhahn asegura que nunca dio autorización al portal español, como tampoco "nunca" supo de las violaciones a los derechos humanos mientras trabajó junto a Pinochet.

Antiamericanismo y alpargatas

por Ibsen Martínez

1

En una ocasión, pronto hará de esto uno 20 años, recibimos la visita “de buena voluntad” de un portaaviones nuclear gringo, el USS Eisenhower.

Por aquel tiempo, este servidor llevaba una vida más bien desordenada y compartía un apartamento con su hermano menor, por mal nombre llamado “el Cóscoro” en algunos ambientes del “demi-monde” salsero.

Vivíamos los dos en un sitio del litoral de Vargas conocido como La Vuelta del Playón.

El “gajo” del que hablo estaba en el piso 15 ó 17 de una torre de apartamentos playeros. Entre semana, el edificio estaba casi desierto.

Una noche, el Cóscoro y yo anduvimos de juerga —fue una noche de salsa brava en un local de Catia La Mar— y nos fuimos cada uno a la cama con una “jumita” bastante regular. Al despertar, a la mañana siguiente, fui hasta el refrigerador a servirme media pinta de jugo de naranja pasteurizado y, entonces, chancleteando y aún legañoso, me acerqué al balcón.

No tenía puesto los lentes y en ese momento lo único que pude advertir era una mole gris alzándose del mar, como si un islote azul cobalto hubiese emergido de las aguas durante la noche merced algún movimiento telúrico.

Cuando me puse los lentes, vi que el islote era un bruñido portaviones estadounidense fondeado a unas cinco millas náuticas de la línea costera.

Luego supimos que a bordo viajaban unas 8.000 personas —los habitantes de cualquier pueblo—, incluyendo, desde luego, una brigada de despliegue rápido de los proverbiales “marines” y todos los pilotos de todos los aviones cazas, los cazas-interceptores de despegue vertical, los helicópteros y los tripulantes encargados de surtir las máquinas expendedoras de Coca Cola, Marlboro, 7-Up, Ginger Ale y condones Durex.

Era tal su calado que el USS Eisenhower no cabía en el puerto de La Guaira y tenía que estarse ahí, fondeado en la rada exterior.

La tripulación y oficialidad que bajaba a tierra debía hacerlo en unas embarcaciones que hacían las veces de “dinghis”, sólo que los “dinghis” del USS Eisenhower lucían, desde nuestro balcón, del tamaño de fragatas misilísticas de la OTAN.

Ahí me estuve, realmente embobecido por el tamaño del portaviones Eisenhower, cuya obra muerta y la arboladura de sus torretas se elevaban sobre el nivel del mar hasta la altura de un edificio de 10 ó 12 pisos. Mi hermano despertó algo más tarde, fue él también por su dosis de electrolitos y potasio, y cuando se apostó junto a mí en el balcón tampoco pudo dar crédito a sus ojos.

—¡Váyale al carajo! ¿Qué rayos es eso?
—Un portaviones gringo. Del tipo nuclear, claro.

Y le pasé los binoculares.

Entonces el Cóscoro profirió una frase que nunca he podido olvidar, un comentario geopolítico, fruto de ese lúcido estado crepuscular de la mente que puede ser una resaca bien ganada en una buena noche de salsa y bembé: —Con portaaviones así, todos —no solamente Cuba— estamos a menos de 92 millas del imperialismo yanqui.

Solíamos almorzar en un figón, muy modesto y muy bueno, que aún está en la Primera calle de Maiquetía, pero que no menciono aquí porque la calidad de la comida ya no es lo que era, o quizá, somos nosotros los que ya no somos los mismos. Después del almuerzo, nos dio por acercarnos al terminal de pasajeros por ver los “dinghis” más de cerca: de nuevo las proporciones nos admiraron, lo que en verdad no era nada difícil: total, somos civiles y absolutamente legos en cuestiones de guerra naval. Lo cierto es que, al lado de aquellas embarcaciones, los destructores o fragatas —no sabría la diferencia— de nuestra marina de guerra, surtos en La Guaira, parecían peñeros artillados.

No sé dónde he leído que uno de los generales de nuestra Fuerza Armada —uno de los más inteligentes e ilustrados, hasta donde alcanza uno a saber—, ha desarrollado toda una teoría de “guerra asimétrica en el siglo XXI”, para el caso de que tengamos que defendernos de una invasión yanqui.

“Guerra asimétrica” : no suena nada mal. Pienso en el USS Eisenhower, por mencionar una sobredosis, y pienso también en las veces y en el modo en que la guerrilla de las FARC ha diezmado a nuestros jóvenes soldados destacados en la frontera, y el concepto de asimetría se impone indiscutible y tautológicamente.

Un conflicto armado entre Venezuela y Estados Unidos seguramente resultaría tan asimétrico, y por ello mismo, tan breve que el departamento de mercadeo de CNN no tendría tiempo de ofrecer espacio para las cuñas publicitarias de su espacio estelar “War in Venezuela, Live from the South Caribbean. Coming Saturday” .

Sé que puedo sonar derrotista pero, la verdad, no creo que los venezolanos tengamos el genoma de la resistencia suicida iraquí. Y, en cualquier caso, la afamada Guardia Republicana bagdadí se derritió —es la expresión que usan los medios oficiales del Pentágono— en menos de dos horas y media de incursión yanqui.

Que el desempeño político de la pre y la posguerra iraquí haya resultado una ciénaga para los dirigentes gringos es cosa cierta, pero no debe hacernos olvidar la calidad relampagueante y sangrienta que, militarmente hablando, tuvo la toma de Bagdad.

Pero la verdadera pregunta que corretea por los sótanos de esta croniquilla es: “¿Somos los venezolanos tan antimaericanos como para que se apele propagandísticamente al antimperialismo con posibilidades reales de convertir al país alguna vez en una inexpugnable fortaleza bolivariana y antiyanqui?” Un poco de historia quizá ilumine la singularidad de ser Venezuela el país latinoamericano donde el antiamericanismo como reclamo publicitario oficial resulta en extremo novedoso.

2

Entre los primeros encuentros de béisbol que se disputaron en Venezuela destaca una serie amistosa jugada en el puerto de La Guaira en 1905. Venezuela estuvo representada por un batallador equipo de estibadores, patrocinado por doña Zoila, la esposa del “ultranacionalista” dictador Cipriano Castro. El otro equipo era una novena de marines. La marina estadounidense visitaba el país en plan disuasivo, atenta a que las potencias europeas intentaran de nuevo un bloqueo naval a Venezuela, similar al que habían impuesto en 1902. La paradoja estaba en que Cipriano Castro, un idiosincrásico dictador de altisonante retórica antiimperialista, nada menos que el de “la planta insolente del extranjero”, etcétera, debía agradecer la protección que los buques de la imperialista armada estadounidense le brindaban.

Las fotos que se conservan de aquella serie merecerían aparecer en un anuario de relaciones públicas de la U.S. Navy y ofrecen una metáfora muy apta de lo que han sido los sentimientos de los venezolanos “de a pie” hacia Estados Unidos durante el último siglo.

El nacimiento de los partidos “modernos” en Venezuela, en tiempos del Comintern del Caribe, vino acompañado de un vigoroso sindicalismo de izquierda que, antes y después de la muerte del dictador Juan Vicente Gómez, creció a su vez al calor de grandes y memorables huelgas contra las compañías petroleras gringas.

Empero, nada de ello abonó, a la larga, una cultura nacional de antiamericanismo entre nosotros.

La última gran manifestación antiamericana, callejera y violenta, que se recordaba en Venezuela hasta hace poco, ocurrió en 1958, a raíz de la visita que Richard Nixon, por entonces vicepresidente de Estados Unidos, dispensó a nuestro país en el transcurso de una gira latinoamericana. Pero cabía esperar esas reacciones en 1958: el gobierno estadounidense había apoyado resueltamente al aborrecido dictador Marcos Pérez Jiménez, derrocado pocos meses antes de la visita de Nixon.

Tal vez me equivoque, pero circunscrita al ámbito de la izquierda radical parlamentaria, académica y estudiantil, la pulsión antiamericana nunca ha prendido en Venezuela.

Una explicación para esto fue ofrecida hace décadas por un desaparecido y ocurrente comentarista deportivo: Venezuela es el único país de la cuenca del Caribe que jamás ha experimentado una intervención directa de Estados Unidos. Los marines, cuando nos han visitado, lo han hecho sólo para jugar al béisbol.

Pero claro, usted no tiene por qué creerlo: soy, como es sabido, sólo otro pitiyanqui de izquierda.