Massive power outage hits Argentina, Uruguay: power companies

Yahoo – AFP, June 16, 2019

View of downtown Buenos Aires on June 16, 2019 during a massive power cut
(AFP Photo/Alejandro PAGNI)

Buenos Aires (AFP) - A massive outage blacked out Argentina and Uruguay on Sunday, leaving both South American countries without electricity, power companies said.

By mid-morning, streets were largely empty in a rainy Buenos Aires although some stores were open, operating with generators, while Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, was almost entirely without power with only some traffic lights working.

Uruguay's system went down at 7:06 am (1006 GMT), according to the Uruguayan power company UTE, which attributed the outage to "a fault in the Argentine network."

"The causes are being investigated and have not yet been determined," Argentina's secretariat of energy said on its Twitter account, adding it would take "some hours" to restore power completely.

Argentina, with 44 million people, and Uruguay, with 3.4 million, have a common power grid centered on the bi-national Salto Grande dam, 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of Buenos Aires.

A woman prepares milk bottles by candle lights at her home in Montevideo during 

a massive power failure (AFP Photo/MIGUEL ROJO)

Two Argentine power companies confirmed that the failure knocked out electricity throughout Argentina, without specifying the cause.

"A massive failure in the electrical interconnection system left all Argentina and Uruguay without power," Edesur Argentina said on Twitter.

Edenor, Argentina's largest electricity distributor, attributed the outage to a "general failure in the interconnection system."

UTE said the failure left Uruguay's "entire national territory without service, as well as several provinces of the neighbor country."

More than an hour after the blackout, UTE said its system was being brought back "from zero."

"Some coastal cities already have service and work continues toward general restoration (of power)," it said.

German judges agree to hear Peruvian's climate case against RWE

Yahoo – AFP, Daphne Rousseau with Tom Barfield in Frankfurt, November 30, 2017

Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya claims energy giant RWE must share
 the cost of protecting his hometown from a swollen glacier (AFP Photo/
PATRIK STOLLARZ)

Berlin (AFP) - A German court ruled Thursday that it would hear a Peruvian farmer's case against energy giant RWE over climate change damage in the Andes, a decision labelled by campaigners as a "historic breakthrough".

Farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya's case against RWE was "well founded," the court in the northwestern city of Hamm said in a statement.

Lliuya argues that RWE, as one of the world's top emitters of climate-altering carbon dioxide, must share in the cost of protecting his hometown Huaraz from a swollen glacier lake at risk of overflowing from melting snow and ice.

RWE's power plants emitted carbon dioxide that contributed to global warming, increasing local temperatures in the Andes and putting the father of two's property at risk from flooding or landslides, Lliuya argues.

"Even people who act according to the law must be held responsible for damage they cause to property," the judges said.

Now the court must decide whether "the accused's contribution to the chain of events depicted here is measurable and calculable," they added.

"This is a major success not just for me, but for the people of Huaraz and everywhere in the world threatened by climate risks," Lliuya said in a statement circulated by NGO Germanwatch.

He wants RWE to pay 17,000 euros ($20,000) towards flood defences for his community in Peru's northern Ancash region.

The 37-year-old also wants the German company to reimburse him for the 6,384 euros he himself has spent on protective measures.

Lliuya bases his claims on a 2013 climate study which found that RWE was responsible for around 0.5 percent of global emissions "since the beginning of industrialisation".

The court said in the statement that it would choose experts to evaluate the claim in cooperation with both plaintiff and defendant, with Lliuya paying some 20,000 euros in fees up front.

"It will be up to the experts to quantify (RWE's) role, which could be different" from the amount he claims, the judges said.

'Can't be accountable'

After an initial hearing in mid-November, the Hamm court gave both sides until Thursday to provide further arguments to help them decide whether the case should go ahead.

The decision to hear the case is a "historic breakthrough with global relevance," Germanwatch, which has backed Lliuya's claim, said in a statement.

"Major emitters of greenhouse gases can be held responsible for protective measures against climate damage."

For RWE's part, "we still believe that one single emitter can't be held accountable for something that was contributed to from millions of sources and factors worldwide," the energy giant's spokesman Guido Steffen told AFP after the ruling.

"We realise that (Lliuya) is afraid for the safety of his land, but we think it's up to the authorities where he lives to defend it from acute dangers."

He added that RWE would appeal any ruling against it to Germany's highest court.

A lower court in the German city of Essen, where RWE is based, initially found that the lawsuit against the energy giant was unfounded.

The company has in the past said it did not understand why it has been singled out for legal action, stressing the efforts it had made to become more environmentally friendly.

As well as modernising its coal-fired power plants to reduce CO2 emissions, RWE has invested billions in renewable energy as part of Germany's move away from fossil fuels, it says.

Shares in RWE plunged on Germany's DAX index of blue-chip shares following the news, closing down 1.94 percent.

The Peruvian's case comes at a time when German politics is sharply divided over how to balance climate action against economic growth.

A government-directed "energy transition" to renewables, rather than nuclear power and fossil fuels, is making only halting progress, while environmentalists are pushing the country's powerful auto industry to produce less polluting vehicles after a series of scandals.

Climate and energy policy was among the most bitterly disputed issues in three-way coalition talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats and the ecologist Greens before they broke down this month.

Solar panels shine in darkest Amazon, the 'last frontier'

Yahoo – AFP, Paula RAMON, October 11, 2017

Remote communities in the Amazon, such as here near Labrea, are being encouraged
to use solar energy to power their villages (AFP Photo/CARL DE SOUZA)

Ituxi Extractive Reserve (Brazil) (AFP) - In the darkest reaches of Brazil's Amazon, solar panels are bringing light -- and could help save the rainforest.

Aurelio Souza is working to install solar panels in villages along the remote Purus and Ituxi rivers in the western Amazonas state.

"The Amazon is the last big frontier for electricity in the country," says the consultant for a joint program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Brazil's environmental agency ICMBio.

"You have at least two million people (in the Brazilian Amazon) without access to modern energy."

Bringing power to millions might not sound like an obvious way to preserve the world's greatest forest, already under constant pressure from loggers and farmers.

But consider what the solar panels are replacing.

In tiny communities of the Ituxi nature reserve, west of the city of Labrea, small scale farmers almost universally depend on noisy, smoky generators for light and refrigeration -- and frequent trips to buy more fuel at higher than usual prices.

To keep fish they catch in the rivers fresh they also use large quantities of Styrofoam, another environmental menace.

"The reduction in the consumption of diesel cuts greenhouse gases and reduces the dependency of communities on fossil fuels," Souza said.

The project was launched in July in a neighboring nature reserve, called Medio Purus, home to about 6,000 people who subsist on fishing and family farms. And without the din of generators drowning out the deep silence of the forest night, life is already changing.

In Cassiana, in the Amazon's Medio Purus Reserve, night classes have benefited

from solar energy (AFP Photo/CARL DE SOUZA)

Silence

At the community school in the Cassiana community, part of Medio Purus, night classes taught by satellite link have already become a whole lot more rewarding now that the generator is no longer needed.

"We couldn't concentrate with the noise of the motor and a lot of our classes were cancelled because there wasn't enough fuel," said Francisca de Almeida, 30, who is in her second year of studies.

Further up the river in the settlement of Jurucua, neighbors are using solar power to run a cassava mill, while Maria Francisca de Souza, 54, is finally able to have river water pumped to her house. She hopes to build her first bathroom soon.

The community association for the Ituxi reserve, with a population of barely 600, has hooked up to solar power to run a water well pump. There's even a refrigerator for special occasions that used to cost $400 a month in fuel.

These might be small steps but innovation is the best bet for Brazilians in remote communities. Despite an official state policy of bringing power to the entire country, "the cost is very high in these places," Souza said.

Solar panels donated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Brazilian government
are carried by boat to the village of Volta do Bucho in the Western Amazon (AFP Photo/
CARL DE SOUZA)

For Irismar Duarte, vice president of the Ituxi association, the solar panels open the door to more progress.

"Everyone is looking for ways to innovate and people are adapting to the changes. That's what we're trying to do here," she said.

The association hopes to get a freezer next and ability to power equipment to ramp up production of acai, a potentially valuable fruit which so far is only grown for domestic consumption.

When Duarte hears the solar panel-powered pumps fire up, almost noiselessly, she still can hardly believe the change.

"It's a dream, something I thought would never happen," he says.

Costa Rica boasts clean energy -- and bad car pollution

Yahoo – AFP, Marco SIBAJA, November 19, 2015

The Churchill Mamiche ice-cream parlour in Caldera, Puntarenas, 80 km 

southwest of San Jose is entirely powered --day and night-- by solar panels

(AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Caldera (Costa Rica) (AFP) - At dusk one weekend on Costa Rica's tropical Pacific coast, Mamiche is catering to a line of customers in front of the beachside ice-cream stand he tends.

All looks balmy and typical -- except for one little detail: the stand's refrigerator, fan and lighting are not connected to the electricity network and there's no noisy generator.

Instead, solar panels on the roof are providing the power, another sign of an eco-friendly push in Costa Rica that has made the country a model of development and clean energy.

Costa Rica expects 97% of its energy 

generation to come from renewable

 sources this year (AFP Photo/

Ezequiel Becerra)

The ice-cream outlet's owner, Luis Diego Vasquez, recalls how he used to spend up to $40 a day on fueling a smelly generator to keep the shop running.

"Fed up with the noise and the pollution, we started thinking about putting up solar panels to use the sun -- something we have a lot of here," he told AFP.

Land of renewable energy

With an electricity grid supplied by hydroelectric dams across rivers, from the heat of its numerous volcanoes, and from wind and the sun, the small Central American nation expects 97 percent of its energy generation to come from renewable sources this year.

"Costa Rica has renewable resources -- a sun that shines. The wind. It has hydro resources. And all of that, along with geothermal and biomass energy, allows us to have such a renewable energy network," Javier Orozco, planning chief at the national energy company ICE, told AFP.

Next to him, ICE's CEO, Carlos Obregon, said the ultimate aim was to eventually have 100 percent renewable energy, "but that requires us to find a balance between different energy production, and that's not a question of a year, but of many years."

Still, the country caught the attention of the world ahead of December's COP21 UN Convention on Climate Change in Paris by being totally reliant on renewable energy for the first 75 days of this year, with no recourse to its thermal plants using fossil fuels.

A report by the environmental protection group WWF last year highlighted the country as a Latin American leader in clean energy and predicted that in 2021 it would have an entirely renewable energy supply.

Owner Luis Diego Vasquez installs more solar panels for the Churchill 

Mamiche ice-cream parlour (AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Polluting cars

But there is another side to Costa Rica, one that tarnishes its image as an environmentally conscientious nation: that of its congested roads, saturated with old cars and buses, many spewing smoke.

According to the Environment and Energy Ministry, the transport sector is responsible for 66 percent of hydrocarbon consumption and 54 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions, one of the principal gases responsible for climate change.

Despite its clean-energy network, Costa Rica produced 1.7 metric tons of CO2 per head of population between 2011 and 2015, on a level with other countries at a similar stage of development, such as Colombia or Uruguay, World Bank figures show.

Costa Rica has nearly 1.4 million cars for a population of five million. RITEVE, its roadworthiness inspection agency, says the average age of the vehicles is 16 years, which aggravates the emission problem.

In an effort to address the issue, one lawmaker, Marcela Guerrero, of the governing Citizen Action Party, last month presented a bill to lift import duties on electric vehicles for five years and to encourage ownership of CO2 emission-free cars.

She told AFP that she hoped to see 100,000 electric cars replace ones with conventional engines.

"We want users, with clear signals, to get behind a new pattern of consumption that will lower emissions," she said.

Wind turbines of the National Power and Light Company in Santa Ana, 

Costa Rica (AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Electric train?

Another initiative is to start up an urban electric train system in the most populated center of the country, where the congested capital San Jose lies.

Although considered crucial from transport and environmental perspectives, lawmakers have made little headway in having the train project approved because of funding discrepancies.

Guerrero said she was confident a consensus allowing a vote would be reached by April 2016, and that the trains would be operational in the following five years.

The question is whether Costa Rica can maintain its clean energy goal while providing the sparks needed for electric transport.

Obregon is convinced that ICE will be able to handle the increased demand by deepening investment in non-conventional sources such as wind and solar power, which currently play a marginal role in its mix.

"We are preparing for a future where consumers are also (energy) generators," making contributions to the grid through private solar panels and the like, he said.

If it goes that way, Mamiche's little stand may end up selling not only ice, but fire.

Related Article:

Benin tackles climate change with sunshine and coconuts

Argentina gets China's help on wind energy development

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-07-06

Wind turbines in Xinjiang, June 5. (Photo/Xinhua)

China has been playing an increasingly important role in helping Argentina modernize and improve its energy mix via boosting clean energy development led by wind power.

Arauco Wind Farm, showcase of the Sino-Argentinean wind power development endeavor, falls under jurisdiction of northern Argentina's La Rioja province, home to 40% of the South American country's olive-growing industry.

Located in the Puerta de Arauco Valley, Arauco Wind Farm was built in 2012 with 12 wind turbines capable of generating 25 megawatts of power, along with a transformer station. The wind farm was added with an extra installed capacity of 25 megawatts in 2013.

In March, La Rioja and Chinese company Hydrochina International Engineering signed a deal worth of more than US$300 million to raise Arauco Wind Farm's installed capacity by 104 more megawatts.

La Rioja "has as a strategic objective to move forward in what we are good at, 'energy sovereignty', to supply our citizens with the energy they need," said Javier Tineo, the regional official in charge of Economic Production and Development, in an interview with Xinhua.

Tineo said they hoped the wind farm would be able to generate more electricity to pump water and expand irrigated area in the agriculturally important province on completion of the expansion program with the help of the Chinese company.

By increasing output at the wind farm, "we will make the province self-sufficient and give the surplus to the national power grid," said Tineo. He added that Chinese company's contribution is the key to the next stage of development at the wind farm.

"The province's government began looking for financial and technological partners. We met with one of the most important Chinese companies (Hydrochina) and came to an agreement," recalled Tineo, who praised Yang Wanming, Chinese ambassador to Argentina, for his role in helping make the cooperation program a reality, saying the wind farm "involves friendship and cooperation from both the Chinese and Argentinean governments." According to Tineo, there is "high expectation" in Argentina that increased trade and cooperation with China will "contribute to our food production, our job creation, our conditions for producing both wind and solar energy."

"We expect to make progress with Chinese companies and the Chinese government, because we need their expertise, industry and development in the (energy) field, and their ability to develop machinery and equipment to improve our primary productivity and food industry," said Tineo, the local official from La Rioja.

Obama and Rousseff take climate focus, turn page on spy row

The leaders of Brazil and the US have pledged to work towards visa-free travel and increased use of renewable energy. Brazil's Dilma Rousseff labeled the talks a "relaunch" of relations following the NSA spying scandal.

Deutsche Welle, 30 June 2015

US President Barack Obama and his Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff, announced "ambitious" plans to increase use of renewable energy and reduce deforestation, at joint press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

Both countries aim for one-fifth of their energy consumption to be supplied from renewable sources by 2030.

"These are very ambitious goals, a near tripling for the United States and more than double Brazil's current output," said Obama.

The leaders hope to present a collective front at UN-sponsored climate talks in Paris in late November and December.

The heads of state also discussed trade and defense cooperation, and agreed to take steps so that Americans and Brazilians can travel between the two countries without visas.

Turning the page on the spy row

The diplomatic trip, which started Monday, was originally planned for 2013. However, it was delayed when documents released by Edward Snowden showed that the US National Security Agency had tapped Rousseff's telephone calls and those of millions of other Brazilians.

On Tuesday, Rousseff called the visit a "relaunch" of relations between Washington and Brasilia, following a bitter row.

"Since then, some things have changed," she said, citing assurances that the US would no longer spy on leaders in allied countries. "I believe President Obama," Rousseff added.

"He has told me that, should he ever need non-public information about Brazil, he would just pick up the phone and call me."

Rousseff also praised the American president over the thaw in relations with Cuba, saying the rapprochement improved US standing across Latin America.

In turn, Obama hailed Brazil as a "global player" and pointed to good relations with Rousseff.

"I trust her completely," Obama said. "She's always been very candid and frank with me about the interests of the Brazilian people and how we can work together. She's delivered on what she's promised."

After Washington, Rousseff will be heading to Silicon Valley to meet with executives at Google, Apple and Facebook.

dj/jr (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Anti-Rousseff protests draw 1.5 million across Brazil

Yahoo – AFP, Laura Bonilla Cal, Natalia Ramos, 16 March 2015

Demonstrators protest against the government of President Dilma Rousseff in

Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil on March 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Nelson Almeida)

Sao Paulo (AFP) - About 1.5 million protesters hit the streets across Brazil on Sunday in a major show of anger against leftist President Dilma Rousseff, who faces crises from a faltering economy to a massive corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras.

Many called for the impeachment of Rousseff, less than six months after she was narrowly returned to power in the most bitterly fought presidential race since the end of a military dictatorship in 1985.

The biggest demonstration took place in Sao Paulo, where a million people rallied -- according to police estimates -- many in the distinctive yellow and green of Brazil's national football team. The city -- South America's biggest, and Brazil's business and industrial hub -- is a stronghold of opposition to Rousseff.

A demonstrator with his face painted in the colours of the Brazilian national

 flag and a message reading "Dilma out" takes part in a rally to protest against 

the government in Rio de Janeiro on March 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Christophe Simon)

Peaceful demonstrations also took place in 83 cities and towns around the country, including major protests in the capital Brasilia and in Rio de Janeiro.

The numbers matched the vast rallies that roiled Brazil in June 2013, when protesters angry at the cost of hosting the 2014 World Cup demanded an end to corruption and more spending on transportation, health and education.

"We are thousands and thousands of people who demand the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff," Rubens Nunes, 26, told AFP in Sao Paulo, where the massive crowd stretched along four kilometers (2.5 miles) of Avenida Paulista, a major thoroughfare.

The protests are significantly larger than those convened on Friday in support of Rousseff and Petrobras by unions and social movements related to her ruling Workers' Party (PT).

In the capital Brasilia alone, between 45,000 and 50,000 people marched Sunday towards the Congress, according to police estimates.

The government was keen to appear to be listening and towards the end of the day Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo and Miguel Rossetto, presidential chief of staff, gave a press conference saying immediate steps would be taken to fight graft and impunity.

"The demonstrations against the government are legitimate. What is not legitimate is the coup, violence and unfounded 'impeachment' that is damaging democracy," said Rossetto.

Demonstrators protest against the government of President Dilma

Rousseff in Rio de Janeiro on March 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Yasuyoshi Chiba)

'Go to Cuba'

In Rio de Janeiro, people waved Brazilian flags along the coastal Copacabana avenue behind a truck blaring slogans against Rousseff.

"Get out Dilma; get out PT!" people chanted. A few protesters among the 15,000 packed there even called for military intervention to end the PT's 12 years in power.

Rita Souza, a 50-year-old television producer, carried a banner reading: "Military intervention now."

"I'm not asking for a coup, but a constitutional intervention to call new fair elections," Souza told AFP. "They can all go to Cuba!"

Construction contractor Alessandro Braga, 37, attended the rally in Brasilia with his wife and son.

"I support the departure of Dilma," he said. "The biggest corruption scandals occurred during her administration and she said nothing."

Demonstrators protest against the government of Brazilian President 

Dilma Rousseff in Manaus, on March 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Raphael Alves)

The marches were supported by the opposition Social Democracy Party, whose president Aecio Neves -- who lost the election runoff to Rousseff -- said in video on Facebook that "the road is just beginning."

"We will not disperse," he said.

Litany of problems

Dozens of political figures, including close allies of Rousseff, and former Petrobras executives are under investigation over a kickback and money laundering scheme that saw an estimated $3.8 billion creamed off inflated contracts over a decade.

No one has been convicted yet, but some of the alleged wrongdoing took place while Rousseff was chairman of the Petrobras board.

Twenty-two deputies, 13 senators and two governors have been implicated in the bribe-taking allegations. Rousseff is not being investigated.

In addition to the corruption scandal at Petrobras, Rousseff is also facing rising inflation and a Brazilian economy that is on the brink of recession.

Related Article:

Brazil ruling-party treasurer accused of graft: prosecutor - New

Top Brazilian politicians to be investigated in Petrobras graft scandal

Top Brazilian politicians to be investigated in Petrobras graft scandal

Brazil's top court has given the green light for an inquiry into whether dozens of top lawmakers received kickbacks from state-controlled oil company Petrobras. The politicians were previously immune from scrunity.

Deutsche Welle, 7 Mar 2015

Brazil's Supreme Court will investigate the speakers of both houses of Congress and more than two dozen other politicians in connection with a multibillion-dollar kickback scheme from state-controlled oil giant Petrobras.

A court official said on Friday that 54 people were under investigation, including senators and congressmen, all but one from the ruling coalition of President Dilma Rousseff, who was narrowly re-elected last year and is struggling to rehabilitate a flagging economy.

Rousseff allies implicated

The Petrobras kickback scheme is believed to have stretched back for decades. The firm allegedly paid kickbacks amounting to $3.8 billion (3.4 billion euros) for overpriced contracts. The politicians involved in the probe include the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, and the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, both of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the main coalition ally of Rousseff's Workers' Party (PT).

Two former members of Rousseff's cabinet are also implicated, Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, who was chief of staff during the first Rousseff administration, and former energy minister Edison Lobao. The incident has undermined support for Rousseff, who was chairman of the board at Petrobras from 2003 to 2010, when the kickback scheme was allegedly still operating.

The lawmakers held immunity in the graft investigation until now, as elected politicians can only be tried by the highest court. The move follows a call from Brazil's Attorney General, Rodrigo Janot, on Tuesday for the Supreme Court to allow the politicians' activities to be scrutinized.

es/gsw (AP, Reuters)

Obama adviser John Podesta's biggest regret: Keeping America in dark about UFOs

Yahoo News, Caitlin Dickson, February 13, 2015

In this Nov. 19, 2014 file photo, Counselor to the President John Podesta speaks in

 Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014. In the year that will pass before the 2016 

campaign for president formally kicks off with the votes in the Iowa Caucus, any

 number of candidates, donors, political operatives — and people who have nothing

 to do with American politics — will shape the race for the White House. (AP Photo/

Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Outgoing senior Obama adviser John Podesta reflected on his latest White House stint Friday, listing his favorite moments and biggest regrets from the past year. Chief among them: depriving the American people of the truth about UFOs.

1. Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files. #thetruthisstilloutthere cc: @NYTimesDowd
— John Podesta (@Podesta44) February 13, 2015

Podesta’s longtime fascination with UFOs is well-documented, as his brief political hiatus following four years as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff freed him up to pursue his otherworldly passion.

At a 2002 press conference organized by the Coalition for Freedom of Information, Podesta spoke on the importance of disclosing government UFO investigations to the public.

“It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there,”  he said. “We ought to do it, really, because it’s right. We ought to do it, quite frankly, because the American people can handle the truth. And we ought to do it because it’s the law.”

Following Podesta’s tweet, Friday, the Washington Post recalled an exchange one of its reporters had with Podesta in 2007. Karen Tumulty had asked Podesta about reports that the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, had been bombarded with Freedom of Information Act Requests specifically seeking email correspondence to and from the former chief of staff including terms like “X-Files” and “Area 51.” Podesta’s response, through a spokesperson, was “The truth is out there,” the tagline for the TV show “The X-Files” of which Podesta was known to be a fan.

A 2010 editorial in Missouri’s Columbia Tribune disparaged reports that Podesta had asked an outspoken UFO photographer to stop discussing his knowledge of extraterrestrial activities in public.

“One wonders why Podesta would do such a radical reversal, given his former plea for UFO disclosure,” the editorial implored.

But contrary to the Columbia Tribune’s concerns, Podesta had clearly not abandoned the cause. He wrote an introduction to the 2010 book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.”

Unfortunately, Podesta will likely have little time to fill out FOIA requests in his new job at Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Perhaps, as his tweet suggests, he’s passing the torch to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

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"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”

Argentina and China sign landmark nuclear export deal

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-02-09

The Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, built by the
Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company, July 12, 2013. (File photo/CNS)

On Feb. 4, Chinese and Argentine officials signed agreements in Beijing on collaboration to build two nuclear power reactors for the South American country, Shanghai's National Business Daily reports.

While one of the reactors will be a heavy-water model, the other will be a pressurized-water model based on China's self-developed third-generation nuclear technology.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, who witnessed the signing with her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, said on Twitter that the two reactors will require investment of US$5.8 billion and US$7 billion, respectively.

The third-generation nuclear technology, known as the ACP1000 or Hualong One, is jointly developed by China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC), the country's largest nuclear power plant operator, and China General Nuclear Power Group.

CNNC said on its website that the project marks the first time China has exported its third-generation nuclear technology to Latin America.

Wang Xiaotao, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said Feb. 6 that the heavy-water reactor to be built for Argentina will be the first to be exported by China.

Wang promised that China will pay attention to the safety of the countries receiving its nuclear technology and help to boost their economic and industrial development.