Willie Colon, Bronx-born of Puerto Rican grandparents, has fused his musical talent, his passion for humanity, and his community and political activism into an extraordinary, multifaceted career.
His achievements in all his activities are widely recognized. As musician, composer, arranger, singer, and trombonist, as well as producer and director, Colon still holds the all time record for sales, he has created 40 productions that have sold more than thirty million records worldwide.
Falta Chavez! NO SABES COMO ME ALEGRA VER QUE POR FIN ME ENTENDIERON! Esta es una de las grabaciones más importantes de mi vida. Esta canción casi desconocida me causó tantos problemas porque a todo el mundo le picaba. Insistí en incluirlo en el álbum CRIOLLO y me resultó ser vetado de muchos sitios y círculos por más de 20 años la maldición de El General me costó millones de dolare y los mejore años de mi ca…rrera artística. Esta canción iba ser el primer vídeo concepto en la historia de la Salsa pero cuando los productores le dieron cráneo a la letra si retiraron del proyecto y ahora 26 años después sale este vídeo. Pero hizo nacer mas fuerte mi activísimo politico. Agua pasada. Gracias al que hizo el vídeo…
Chavez is missing! I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW HAPPY I AM TO BE FINALLY UNDERSTOOD! This unknown song is one of the most important recording in my life because it brought so many problems. It pushed everbody’s buttons on the left and the right. To my record company’s chagrin, I insisted on including it in the CRIOLLO album causing me to be blacklisted from many places and circles. For more than 20 years the curse of El General has cost me millions of dollars some of the best years of my artistic career. This song was going to be the first concept video in the history of Salsa (1984) but the producers of my own record company forced the flimers to withdrew from the project. Now 26 years later.. this video. This whole issue stremgthened my resolve to be more active politically. Spilled milk… Thanks to whoever made this video.
This image released by Mexico’s Navy shows, shows the alleged site where 72 bodies, not seen, were found in San Fernando, eastern Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010. A Mexican drug cartel massacred 72 Central and South American migrants within 100 miles of the U.S. border that they were trying to reach, according to Lala Pomavilla who said to be a survivor who escaped and stumbled wounded to a highway checkpoint where he alerted marines. Lala Pomavilla told investigators that his captors identified themselves as members of the Zetas drug gang, said Vice Adm. Jose Luis Vergara, a spokesman for the Mexican Navy. (AP Photo/ Mexico’s Secretary Navy)
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, MARK STEVENSON
updated 8/26/2010 11:02:23 AM ET
MEXICO CITY — Mexican security forces were bringing refrigeration equipment for the bodies of 72 Central and South American migrants massacred by drug cartel gunmen at a remote ranch in northern Mexico, while investigators tried Thursday to determine their identities and why they were gunned down 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the U.S. border.
The sole survivor — an Ecuadorean who escaped and stumbled wounded to a marine checkpoint on a highway — told authorities that his captors had identified themselves as Zetas, a drug gang whose control of parts of the northern state of Tamaulipas is so brutal and complete that even many Mexicans avoid traveling its highways.
If confirmed as a cartel kidnapping, the Tamaulipas massacre would perhaps be the most extreme case seen so far and the bloodiest massacre of Mexico’s drug war.
President Felipe Calderon said cartels are increasingly trying to recruit migrants as foot soldiers — a concern that has also been expressed by U.S. politicians demanding more security at the border.
He insisted that such activities indicated the cartels have been battered by thousands of troops and federal police battling them in their strongholds, and are desperate for alternate means of income.
Calderon frequently makes that argument, while critics counter that Mexico’s cartels have only gotten more powerful and brutal since the government launched its offensive against the cartels in late 2006.
The drug gangs “are resorting to extortion and kidnappings of migrants for their financing and also for recruitment because they are having a hard time obtaining resources and people,” Calderon said in a statement Wednesday night.
Authorities said they were trying to determine whether the 72 victims in Tamaulipas were killed at the same time — and why. The government was taking the bodies from the ranch to the small town of San Fernando for identification, and will have to move in refrigeration equipment that the local authorities lack, said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the federal Attorney General’s Office.
Investigators believe the migrants were from Ecuador, Brazil, El Salvador and Honduras.
A spokesman for Brazil’s foreign ministry said the vice consul of the Brazilian Embassy in Mexico City will be among several diplomats flown by the Mexican government to San Fernando to “help in any way he can with the investigation.” He asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to discuss the matter with the news media.
Marcio Araujo, Brazil’s consul general in Mexico, said documents found at the scene indicated at least four of the dead were Brazilian.
Migrants running the gauntlet up Mexico to reach the United States have long faced extortion, violence and theft. But reports have grown of mass kidnappings of migrants, who are forced to give the telephone numbers of relatives in the United States or back home who are then required to transfer ransom payments to the abductors.
Teresa Delagadillo, who works at the Casa San Juan Diego shelter in Matamoros just across from Brownsville, Texas, said she often hears stories about criminal gangs kidnapping and beating migrants to demand money — but never a horror story on the scale of this week’s massacre.
“There hadn’t been reports that they had killed them,” she said.
In an April report, Amnesty International called the plight of tens of thousands of mainly Central American migrants crossing Mexico for the U.S. a major human rights crisis. The report called their journey “one of the most dangerous in the world” and said every year an untold number of migrants disappear without a trace.
Mexico’s government has confirmed at least seven cases of cartels kidnapping groups of migrants so far this year, said Antonio Diaz, an official with the National Migration Institute, a think tank that studies immigration.
But other groups say migrant kidnappings are much more rampant. In its most recent study, the National Human Rights Commission said 1,600 migrants are kidnapped in Mexico each month. It based its figures on the number of reports it received between September 2008 and February 2009.
On Tuesday, Ecuadorean migrant Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla staggered to the checkpoint with a bullet wound in his neck. He told the Mexican marines he had just escaped from gunmen at a ranch in San Fernando, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas.
The marines scrambled helicopters to raid the ranch, drawing gunfire from cartel gunmen. One marine and three gunmen died in the gunbattle.
Then the marines discovered a hellish scene: piles of people, some of them blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their back, slumped on top of each other along the cinderblock walls at the ranch.
The 58 men and 14 women were killed by the Zetas gang, the migrant told investigators Wednesday. The gang, started by former Mexican army special forces soldiers, is known to extort money from migrants who pass through its territory.
The marines seized 21 assault rifles, shotguns and rifles, and detained a minor, apparently part of the gang.
Violence along the northeastern border with the U.S. has soared this year since the Zetas broke with their former employer, the Gulf cartel. Authorities say the Gulf cartel has joined forces with its once-bitter enemies, the Sinaloa and La Familia gangs, to destroy the Zetas, who have grown so powerful they now have reach into Central America.
It was the third time this year that Mexican authorities have discovered large masses of corpses. In the other two cases, investigators believe the bodies were dumped at the sites over a long time.
The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, who runs a shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, where many migrants pass on their way to Tamaulipas, said the Zetas have put informants inside shelters to find out which migrants have relatives in the U.S. — the most lucrative targets for kidnap-extortion schemes.
He said he constantly hears horror stories, including people who “say their companions have been killed with baseball bats in front of the others.”
Solalinde said he has been threatened by Zetas demanding access to his shelters.
He said the gangsters told him: “If we kill you, they’ll close the shelter and we’ll have to look all over for the migrants.”
I check my blance on Chase online and find a debit for $9,999,999.00 so I call and after being on hold for 20 minutes I am curtly told by some account executive that “CHASE BANK HAS CHOSEN NOT TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU ANYMORE.”
WHAT!
Can you tell me why?
"No, we don’t have to tell you why. It’s in your banking agreement."
This is fucking outrageous! I’ve been with this bank over 25 years. They hold my mortgage and now they are closing all of my accounts! Just because.
I’ve got to go out and open new accounts before I leave for the weekend!
Boy I sure am glad we did those bailouts now!
You know those movies when they start to shut somebody down because they were messing with the wrong people?
by Willie Colón on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 6:18am
Were it not for pioneers like Graciela many of us in the business would not have a career.
Life in the USA back in the 1940s was not as hospitable and tolerant. It took guts and tenacity besides talent to practice your craft back in Jim Crow’s America.
But there were a few back then that knew what they wanted and decided to go for it. The work of Mario Bauzá, Machito, Noro Morales and later Tito Puente presented irrefutable evidence that Latinos weren’t a bunch of savages but a people cable of making some sophisticated music.
When these old school warriors rolled out them big bands they weren’t fooling around. They presented a disciplined musical force to contend with. Jazz greats like Dizzie Gillespie immediately got the message. These legendary greats spoke for us in the universal language. We couldn’t have had a better spokesperson than Graciela. With her great voice her sexy looks and her poise she said for us “He don’t you wish your girlfriend was like me?” They made being Latino something people would covet. All that rhythm and talent and Class!
It is no small thing they gave us. In a time when most Latinos had little more than a hope and a dream in their pocket these folks got us together at the dances, they made happy, they made us proud, they connected us. The music, the language, the culture were a keystone to our survival as Latinos in this city and the rest of the country.
If we have all that we have today we must recognize how important the work that they did was to lay the bedrock of life in this city for Latinos. But their work didn’t only enhance the Latino cause. They made strides in civil rights for all Americans. They contributed to making New York the musical Mecca that it is.
I wasn’t able to make last night’s memorial at Saint Peter’s Church (The Jazz Church) so I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU GRACIELA. Those of you Latinos who today stand tall remember that you do so upon the shoulders of greats like Graciela Perez Gutierrez.
RECORDANDO “GRACIELA” PÉREZ GUTIÉRREZ
Si no fuera por pioneros como Graciela muchos de nosotros en este negocio no tendríamos una carrera.
La vida en los EE. UU en los años 1940s no era tan hospitalaria y tolerante. Se necesitaba agallas y tenacidad además del talento para practicar tu arte atrás en la América racista de Jim Crow.
Pero había unos pocos que sabían lo que querían y decidieron luchar por eso. El trabajo de Mario Bauzá, Machito, Noro Morales y Tito Puente posterior presentó pruebas irrefutables que Latinos no eran un manojo de salvajes, pero una gente capaz de crear y ejecutar una música muy sofisticada.
Cuando estos viejos guerreros arrancaban con esos bandones no perdían el tiempo. Ellos presentaron una fuerza musical disciplinada a la contienda. Grandes del Jazz como Dizzie Gillespie inmediatamente entendieron el mensaje. Estos legendarios hablaron para nosotros en la lengua universal. No podíamos haber tenido a una mejor portavoz que Graciela. ¿Con su voz sus miradas atractivas y su estilo ella dijo “NO te gustaría ser como yo?” Hizo ser Latina algo que la gente codiciara fervientemente. ¡Ritmo y talento y Clase!
No es ninguna pequeña cosa que nos dieron. En un tiempo cuando la mayor parte de Latinos tenía poco más que una esperanza y un sueño en el bolsillo esta gente nos reunió en los bailes, nos hicieron sentir feliz, nos llenaban de orgullo. La música, el idioma, la cultura fueron clave para nuestra supervivencia como Latinos en esta ciudad y el resto del país.
Si tenemos todo lo que tenemos hoy, debemos reconocer la importancia del trabajo que ellos hicieron para poner el lecho de roca de nuestras vidas en esta ciudad y el mundo como Latinos. Pero su trabajo sólo no realzó la causa de Latino. Ellos hicieron le dieron pasao a la lucha por derechos civiles para todos los americanos. Ellos contribuyeron en hacer de Nueva York la Meca musical que es.
No pude llegar al conmemorativo anoche La Iglesia de San Pedro (la Iglesia de Jazz) por eso quiero tomar esta oportunidad para decir GRACIAS GRACIELA. Aquellos de ustedes Latinos quiénes hoy están en alto recuerdan que es porque ha sido sobre los hombros de grandes como Graciela Pérez Gutiérrez.
Rescuers: 33 Chilean miners found alive after more than 2 weeks trapped underground
Published August 22, 2010
| Associated Press
AP
Aug. 22: Chile’s Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, left, smiles as an unidentified official listens with a medical oscilloscope to unknown sounds coming from the area of a collapsed mine where about 33 miners have been trapped for 17 days in Copiapo, Chile, on Sunday.
SANTIAGO, Chile – SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — All 33 Chilean miners trapped deep underground for 17 days were found alive Sunday, Chile’s president confirmed.
A probe sent some 2,257 feet (688 meters) deep into the collapsed mine early in the morning came back with a handwritten note: "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter."
President Sebastian Pinera joined authorities and family members in congratulations and hugs. They climbed a nearby hill, planted 33 flags and sang the national anthem.
"We are overjoyed at the news," said Pinera, who euphorically waved the note written in red letters. "Today all of Chile is crying with excitement and joy."
Mine officials and relatives of the workers had hoped the men reached the shelter when a tunnel collapsed Aug. 5 at the San Jose gold and copper mine about 528 miles (850 kilometers) north of the capital, Santiago. But they had said air and food supplies were limited.
When rescuers sent the probe early Sunday, one of eight drilled since the mine collapse, they heard hammering sounds and immediately turned optimistic.
Pinera traveled to the site after contact was made with the shelter.
A miner identified as Mario Gomez sent a separate note to his wife confirming their exact underground location.
Rescuers say it could take four months to get the miners out. But they will lower water, food, oxygen and sound and video equipment through another probe in the meantime.
Rescue equipment brought from outside the country was being assembled Sunday to dig a tunnel 27 inches (68 centimeters) in diameter through which the miners will eventually be brought to the surface.
Rescuers had tried seven times before to reach the shelter, most recently drilling 2,300 feet (700 meters) and missing the target on Thursday.
They blamed the error on the company’s maps of the mine.
Hundreds of workers are using equipment from the United States and Australia in the rescue.
Microsoft, Firefox, Facebook, the Mac–they live on in our hearts.
By Harry McCracken | Posted at 9:41 am on Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Wired Editor in Chief Chris Anderson is catching flack for the magazine’s current cover story, which declares that the Web is dead. I’m not sure what the controversy is. For years, once-vibrant technologies, products, and companies have been dropping like teenagers in a Freddy Krueger movie. Thank heavens that tech journalists have done such a good job of documenting the carnage as it happened. Without their diligent reporting, we might not be aware that the industry is pretty much an unrelenting bloodbath.
After the jump, a moving recap of some of the stuff that predeceased the Web–you may want to bring a handkerchief.
CHILE| Lo ha confirmado el presidente Piñera en televisión
Los mineros atrapados en Chile desde hace 17 días siguen con vida
El presidente Piñera, con la nota de los mineros: ‘Estamos bien’. | Efe
Efe | Agencias | Santiago de Chile
Actualizado domingo 22/08/201016:52 horas
El presidente chileno, Sebastián Piñera, confirmó este domingo que los 33 mineros atrapados desde hace 17 días a 700 metros de profundidad en un yacimiento del norte del país están todo vivos.
“Esto salió hoy día de las entrañas de la montaña, de los más profundo de esta mina y es el mensaje de nuestros mineros que nos dicen que están vivos“, exclamó el mandatario, quien viajó hoy desde Santiago hacia Copiapó, a 830 kilómetros al norte de Santiago.
Piñera leyó el mensaje que los propios obreros enviaron a la superficie en un trozo de papel adosado a un hierro de la perforadora en el aparecía escrita la frase: “Estamos bien en el refugio los 33″. Con un trozo de papel en la mano, en el que se podía ver una frase escrita en color rojo y con una gran sonrisa Piñera agregó que “están unidos, por volver a ver la luz del sol y abrazar a sus familiares”.
“Hoy día Chile entero está feliz, lleno de emoción“, exclamó el mandatario, mientras que los familiares se abrazaban emocionados y agitaban banderas chilenas en el campamento “Esperanza”, donde unas 200 personas han vivido angustiadas estas últimas dos semanas.
Piñera elogio “la fuerza, el valor y el coraje” de los 32 trabajadores chilenos y un boliviano atrapados en esta mina de la empresa San Esteban que “han resistido más de dos semanas solos en las profundidades de la montaña”.
También agradeció a los familiares, “que nunca perdieron la esperanza y siempre siguieron bregando”, y al equipo de especialistas de compañías mineras públicas y privadas, “que no escatimó ningún esfuerzo y que hizo todo lo humanamente posible por rescatar con vida a los mineros”.
“La noticia nos llena de alegría y de fuerza. Me siento más orgulloso que nunca de ser chileno y de ser el presidente de Chile. Más orgulloso que nunca de nuestra gente. Creo que no podíamos empezar mejor nuestro mes de la patria (septiembre) y la celebración del Bicentenario que con esta maravillosa noticia”, enfatizó Piñera.
Los 33 mineros cumplieron este domingo 17 días a 700 metros de profundidad en el yacimiento de cobre y oro San José, de la empresa minera San Esteban, en la región norteña de Atacama.
Imagen de uno de los mineros atrapados a 700 metros de profundidad. | Efe
El plan
Según informa El Mercurio de Chile, el ingeniero encargado de las maniobras, André Sougarret, dio a conocer el plan que se llevará a cabo en los siguientes días para concretar el rescate de los 33 trabajadores.
Según informó, en una hora y media más podrán establecer comunicaciones con los mineros. Sougarret informó que se realizará a través de una sonda, por donde bajará una cámara de televisión con audio. La idea, según afirmó el experto, es “darle una palabra de aliento” a los mineros.
Posteriormente se realizará la entubación del pozo, proceso que podría demorar 6 horas y que permitirá entregarle líquido y alimentos a los mineros.
Una vez establecida las comunicaciones y entregado el alimento, se ingresará una sonda de mucho mayor tamaño para iniciar las tareas de rescate.
Según afirmó Sougarret, para eso se requerirá un trabajo topográfico. La máquina para realizar esta labor saldrá de Codelco Andina y comenzará a trabajar desde mañana. Finalmente, el experto aseguró que el rescate podría durar hasta 4 meses.
Slavery exists today -
A millones se les obliga a
vivir como esclavos
Slavery exists today despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practised. It is also prohibited by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.
Slavery exists today - A millones se les obliga a vivir como esclavos
A millones de mujeres, niños, niñas y hombres de todo el mundo se les obliga a vivir como esclavos. Si bien a esta explotación a menudo no se le llama esclavitud, las condiciones son las mismas. A las personas se les vende como a objetos, se les obliga a trabajar por salarios irrisorios o sin salario, y viven a merced de sus “empleadores”.
Oh yes, Roger Clemmons is going to get 30 years, Miguel Tejada already plea bargained, then there’s Barry Bonds. For what? Using drugs on themselves? PEOPLE IT’S ONLY BASEBALL! Meanwhile BP has poisoned our hemisphere and left tons of hazardous waste in our waters and food chain yet they get off scott free! God bless America, we really know what’s important.
¡Que bien! A Roger Clemmons le quieren dar 30 años, Miguel Tejada ya la súplica negociar, y queda Barry Bonds. ¿Por cual razón? ¿Meterse esteroides? ¡MI GENTE ESTO SE TRATA DE BÉISBOL! ¡Mientras tanto BP ha envenenado nuestro hemisferio y ha dejado toneladas de la basura tóxica en nuestras aguas y cadena alimentaria y salen ilesos y libres de cargos criminales! Dios bendiga América, realmente sabemos lo que es importante.
CONGRESS HAS SPENT TWO YEARS INVESTIGATING ROGER CLEMMONS FOR USING DRUGS ON HIMSELF. THIS IS JUST DISGRACEFUL. SUCH BALD FACED HIPOCRISY! THE WAY THEY GIVE US ROGER CLEMMONS BUT NOT THE REAL VILLAINS WHO ARE REALLY SCREWING UP OUR LIVES AND GETTING FILTHY RICH WHILE KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE. WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET BY GOING ALONG LIKE LITTLE LAMBS.
SO WE’RE FINALLY PULLING OUT OF IRAQ! Can somebody tell me what exactly we accomplished besides getting thousands of our sons and daughter killed (God bless them), bombing Iraq into the 19th century and making a lot of unscrupulous people very wealthy? What did we accomplish? Deposing and executing Sadaam Hussein didn…‘t make things any better. There was probably less violence when he was in power.
POR FIN SALIMOS DE IRAQ! ¿Alguien puede decirme qué exactamente logramos fuera de la muerte de miles de nuestros hijos e hijas (Dios los bendiga), bombardear Iraq al 19o siglo y hacer a mucha gente poco escrupulosa muy rica? ¿Qué logramos? Deponiendo y ejecutando Sadaam Hussein no hizo cosas un mejor. Había probablemente menos violencia cuando él estaba en el poder.
More Oil in the Gulf:
There’s More Than We Thought
JUST LIKE I SAID: Just common sense that it’s laying at the bottom. Yeah the OIL is gone but the poisons aren’t. There are tons of tar and disperesed oil in the Gulf. It didn’t just evaporate and disappear like they want us to believe. The sealife is getting poisoned as will we in time.
August 19 issue of Science contai…
ns the best evidence yet that a 22 mi-long underwater plume of oil exists more than 3,000 ft. below the surface — and that the crude definitely came from BP’s well.
In the weeks after BP’s blown well began gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists wondered about what would happen to all that crudewhether it would pool at the surface, or somehow spread…
THERE ARE 20 MILLION HOMELESS PEOPLE IN PAKISTAN. An area that is the size of New England is now underwater! 3.5 million are children. United Nations says that 6 million of those victims lack access to food, shelter and water.
HAY 20 MILLONES DESAMPARADOS EN PAQUISTÁN. ¡Un área que es el tamaño de Nueva Inglaterra está submarina ahora! 3.5 millones son niños. Las Naciones Unidas dicen que 6 millones de aquellas víctimas carecen del acceso a alimento, refugio y agua potable.
Que se lo pregunten al venezolano José Oliveros Granadillo, de 27 años, que tiene esperiencia al respecto. Y es que sí, acabó con el pene fracturado. Seguro que te estás preguntando qué hizo para que le pasara esto. Al parecer, todo tiene que ver con un encuentro con una bailarina del centro nocturno Las Vegas.
Después de practicar algunas posiciones un tanto complicadas, empezó a sentir un dolor insoportable y tuvo que ser llevado al hospital. Y es que parece que el pene también puede fracturarse. Eso sí, que nadie se asuste porque no es nada frecuente (2 de cada 100.000 habitantes).
Con la erección, los cuerpos cavernosos del pene se llenan de sangre, por lo que con la rotura, es posible que haya un sangrado interno, que se manifiesta con un cambio de color del pene a un tono azul. Las consecuencias pueden ser graves, por lo que hay que acudir al médico en cuanto sucede.
Por lo general, las posturas sexuales forzadas pueden producir este tipo de problemas, por lo que hay que tener cierto cuidado.
La verdad es que si se trata a tiempo, no tiene por qué haber problemas, pero sin duda, es un mal trago…
COPIAPO Chile (Reuters) - Rescuers struggled on Friday to reach 34 miners trapped deep inside a small copper and gold mine in northern Chile after a cave-in, hoping miners took refuge in an underground shelter with oxygen and water.
Officials had no details about those trapped on Thursday in the mine located 28 miles from the northern city of Copiapo and 450 miles north of the capital, Santiago, but said they could survive for days in the shelter.
Mine owner Compania Minera San Esteban Primera said it was unclear what caused the collapse at the underground mine located in Chile’s arid northern Atacama region, and manager Pedro Simonevic said it took all necessary safety precautions.
Distraught relatives hugged, cried, prayed and shouted angrily near the mine entrance as workers erected a plastic tent with makeshift beds for them.
"There have been lots of accidents at this mine, but this is the worst," said Cristina Nunez, 26, whose husband is stuck in the mine. "It’s the anguish of the wait that’s hardest."
The accident shut down the mine, one of three adjacent sites producing a combined 1,200 metric tons of refined copper annually.
The closure is not expected to hurt copper output in Chile, the world’s No.1 copper producer. Major mining accidents are uncommon in the country, because authorities keep strict controls over operations.
But local union representative Felix Medina told Reuters conditions in many smaller mines in the area are precarious and Mining Minister Laurence Golborne was warned of the situation in a recent meeting.
Golborne, who is returning from Ecuador, said he had sent his undersecretary and other officials to the accident site.
"At the moment, we have no details on the workers’ condition. We assume that conditions will allow them to be rescued soon," Golborne told Reuters.
"Once the crisis is over, we are going to evaluate the causes and origins of this collapse," he added.
Isabel Allende, senator for the northern Atacama region, visited the area and said Congress would investigate the incident.
The region’s superintendent, Ximena Matas, said the miners could have huddled in a shelter that contained oxygen and food, and believed air was flowing into the mine.
She said rescuers had found several cave-ins and were trying to clear air shafts to try to reach those trapped around 7 km (4.5 miles) inside the winding mine using ropes.
The trapped miners are around 900 feet underground. Rescuers have descended around 300 feet. The rescue has been slowed by the need to reinforce the tunnel to avoid further collapses.
Medina said the mine employs 150 and has a recent history of accidents, with 13 fatalities on site and three deaths on the winding road to Copiapo.
"This is an area with a lot of mining activity but the authorities don’t have the resources for proper supervision," said the union leader.
He added that the mine lacks escape routes and was closed in 2005 by workers because of bad conditions, but was reopened two years ago.
"Unfortunately, we as workers expected this accident," Medina said.
National emergency service ONEMI said 130 people are working on rescue efforts with five support vehicles, along with specialists for the Michilla mining company in Antofagasta, 250 miles further to the north.
"The last thing we can do is lose hope," said 35-year-old carpenter Darwin Tapia, whose cousin is trapped in the mine. "We are praying heavily that we find them alive."
(With reporting by Antonio De la Jara, Fabian Cambero, Brad Haynes and Molly Rosbach in Santiago and by Santiago Silva in Ecuador; Editing by Simon Gardner and Jerry Norton)
by Willie Colón on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 11:02am
Rep. Charlie Rangel
A special ethics subcommittee charged Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) with 13 counts of violating House rules and federal laws, including conduct reflecting discreditably on the chamber.
Congress, amidst the stigma of having an agonizingly low approval rating has decided to offer one of its elders as an appeasement to the Gods of re-election so that they may end this plague of disappointment and skepticism. "Let’s give ‘em Charlie!"
The allegations were outlined in a 40-page report, the product of a two-year probe by an investigative subcommittee of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
Let the pontifications begin!"The public office is a public trust," said ethics Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who also leads the adjudicatory panel. "Our task is to determine whether Rep. Rangel’s conduct met that standard."
Rangel will have "violated multiple provisions of House rules and federal statutes."
Let’s look at the egregious crimes Charlie Rangel is accused of:
Rangel is accused of violating House rules by soliciting foundations and corporations with business before the Ways and Means Committee for which he then served as chairman and for soliciting donations to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York. Rangel is also alleged to have misused his staff and official House resources for these solicitations. Soliciting funds for a Center for Public Service at a city college bearing his name? Hmmm… that’s sounds really corrupt doesn’t it?
The evidence in the record — assembled by the Investigative Subcommittee over its nearly two-year investigation — is that Congressman Rangel did not dispense any political favors, that he did not intentionally violate any law, rule or regulation, and that he did not misuse his public office for private gain.
Using an apartment illegally?
The investigative report revealed that while a certain landlord took legal action against other tenants for using their apartments for nonresidential purposes, Rangel was on a "special handling list" because of his status as a Member of Congress and was not sued. Rangel was wrongly allowed to use a rent-stabilized apartment in New York as a campaign office.
With all of the growth, development, opportunities and resources that Charlie Rangel has bought to New York and specifically Harlem , should he now be prosecuted for accepting an apartment from a grateful landlord? OK, it could be a campaign donation violation; but hardly worthy of 2 years of Congressional Committee proceedings.
Foreign Real Estate?
There are also allegations that Rangel failed to report rental income from his Dominican Republic villa on both his financial disclosure report and personal taxes. Rangel is also accused of failing to report $600,000 worth of assets on his annual financial disclosure forms.
Many people have vacation homes. It sounds like a very nice place but $600k is not the Kennedy Compound or the Playboy Mansion. So he pays the taxes! IRS is not going to put him in prison if he pays up. We hear about people who owe millions who are allowed to make a deal.
Misusing a Parking Space:
Rangel misused a House parking space for long-term vehicle storage.
Oh come on now! Aren’t we reaching a little on this one?
Oh! It’s Rangel that Brings Discredit.
"Mr. Rangel may have broken the rules of the House and brought discredit to this body."
During the brief meeting, Members of the adjudicatory panel referred repeatedly to public skepticism toward Congress and a desire to shore up the institution’s reputation.
"We have an obligation to the American people to protect the integrity and credibility of the House," McCaul said. "It is certainly not lost on any member of this subcommittee the approval ratings of this body. … The pressure is even greater to ensure these proceedings are fair, open and conducted in a strictly nonpartisan manner. In the minds of the American people Congress has become completely self-serving and so tone-deaf that Members somehow feel the rules don’t apply to them. We must regain the people’s trust."
None of these allegations are criminal offenses. After a lifetime of outstanding service that’s all they have? In corporate America someone with Charlie’s skills will make more in one year than Charlie has made in his whole life. Moving his car and paying his personal back taxes does NOTHING to change the peoples’ minds about the job congress is doing Sir!
These are not evil deeds. It’s not like Rangel absconded with funds, was money laudering, got caught taking kickbacks or broke a glass on his girlfriends face.
Yes, Charlie is arrogant sometimes but he is effective. He is a skilled negotiator who can sit with the most powerful elected officials and businessmen and extract assets for the people of his district and state which is why the people have kept him there! You can see where Charlie Rangel’s district begins and ends by the development and the prosperity he has brought to the area. Especially when you look at the Bronx where you enter the abyss of "do nothing Jose" Serrano’s district.
In the end, it’s up to the people of his District whether he stays their Congressman. Congress can censure him, sanction him and even expel him; but in the end he will be right back in Washington if the people of District 15 say so. I wouldn’t count Charlie Rangel out just yet.
Experto: túnel para rescatar a mineros demoraría al menos un mes
10 de Agosto de 2010 • 07:00
El ingeniero Jaime Chacón advirtió de la relevancia de llegar con el sondaje a los mineros. Foto: EFE
Jorge Arellano M.
TERRA.cl
SANTIAGO.- SANTIAGO.- Cuando se cumplen cinco días desde que permanecen atrapados 33 mineros en el yacimiento San José, en las cercanías de Copiapó, sigue la incertidumbre respecto a la posibilidad de rescatarlos con vida. En este sentido, el experto de la Universidad de Chile, Jaime Chacón, sostuvo que si se lograra llegar con sondas hasta los afectados, para darles alimentación, oxigeno y agua, ellos tendrían que esperar al menos un mes para ser evacuados.
“Por lo que he leído, un túnel o galería de acceso para rescatar a esta gente por lo menos tiene una longitud de unos 500 metros y 500 metros de un túnel es un mes de trabajo con harto apuro, empleando todas las tecnologías, las más modernas, haciendo un trabajo a tres turnos, las 24 horas al día y con personal muy especializado, cosa que se podría hacer, pero yo creo que en menos de treinta días es muy difícil que se logre”, sostuvo el Ingeniero Civil de Minas de la Universidad de Chile y académico del curso de Perforación y Tronadura de la Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas de la Universidad de Chile.
El catedrático, con más de 50 años de experiencia en el rubro de la minería, sostuvo que los sondajes para llegar con ayuda vital a los trabajadores tienen del orden de 800 metros de longitud y con rendimientos de avance de entre 100 y hasta 200 metros por día, con el equipamiento que se tiene, se podría acceder a los afectados en cuatro días.
“Son sondajes de ochocientos metros y el principalmente problema con estos equipos y sondajes es la desviación que sufren. Entonces no es fácil llegar al lugar preciso donde podrían estar ubicados estos mineros (…) son seis u ocho sondajes los que se van a hacer, entonces las probabilidades de que uno llegue son más altas”, puntualizó.
El especialista en minas subterráneas sostuvo que si el sondaje cumple su objetivo y se decide la opción de cavar un túnel para llegar a los mineros el trabajo será muy complicado.
“Un túnel de 500 metros de longitud aplicando una tecnología de punta y con operadores muy especializados podría tardar un mes en hacerse, tres disparos por día o sea tres tronaduras. Estoy hablando muy en general, con un avance de 3 metros por disparos que es lo normal tendríamos un avance de 10 metros por días y si son 500 metros estamos hablando de 50 días, ahora con una tecnología de punta con gente muy especializada, si el comportamiento del cerro lo permite y no siguen los derrumbes a lo mejor podría hacerse en 30 días pero es difícil”, puntualizó.
Chacón también señaló la alternativa de traer una “máquina tunelera” desde el extranjero que permitiría evitar las tronaduras y mitigar posibles derrumbes, aunque advirtió que conseguir esta maquinaría de forma rápida tampoco es fácil.
RESCATES DE ACCIDENTES MINEROS EN CHILE
El 19 de febrero de 1964 se produjo un derrumbe en la mina de cobre Flor de Té, en el sector El Culebrón, de Andacollo. En la oportunidad cinco mineros lograron ser rescatados sin heridas de consideración tras siete días bajo tierra.
Chacón también recuerda el caso del derrumbe ocurrido en 1997 en la mina San Andrés, sector las Arenilla, también en Andacollo donde lograron ser rescatados con vida tres mineros tras cinco días atrapados.
Las autoridades temen que no haya sobrevivientes Foto: EFE
COPIAPO (Reuters).- Los equipos de rescate avanzaban lentamente para intentar contactar a los 33 mineros atrapados hace cuatro días en una mina de cobre y oro en el norte de Chile, aferrados a la esperanza de que estén con vida en un refugio en el interior del yacimiento con poca comida y agua.
Las tareas de rescate se concentran en la perforación de agujeros pequeños y profundos para alcanzar a los mineros y proporcionar alimentos, mientras se diseñan nuevas formas de rescatarlos desde el depósito subterráneo de cobre y oro que se derrumbó en la tarde del jueves.
El derrumbe en la mina conmocionó a Chile, el mayor productor mundial de cobre, y dejó a la luz las condiciones de seguridad de las minas pequeñas en el desierto de Atacama, rica en minerales y donde cientos de personas arriesgan sus vidas por un pedazo de la bonanza de las materias primas.
Las esperanzas se hicieron añicos el sábado, luego de que un ducto de aire empleado por los rescatistas para descender hasta unos 300 metros cedió, dejando la idea de que las tareas de búsqueda se extenderían por más de una semana, en lo que sería uno de los peores accidentes del sector en décadas.
“Hemos pasado de horas a días y ahora, posiblemente, un rescate que podría tomar semanas, que es muy doloroso para nosotros y genera un sentimiento de ira e impotencia”, dijo Laurence Golborne, ministro de Minería, quien supervisa las tareas de rescate.
Decenas de familiares se encuentran en las afueras de la mina sufriendo las noches heladas y de día el sol del desierto, a la espera de noticias alentadoras sobre sus seres queridos.
El presidente chileno, Sebastián Piñera, se comprometió a apoyar plenamente la misión de rescate e investigar las causas del accidente cerca de la ciudad minera de Copiapó.
Los esfuerzos de rescate son otra dura prueba para el gobierno de Piñera, un ex empresario que avanza en la reconstrucción de ciudades e industrias que fueron devastadas por el terremoto que arrasó el centro y sur del país a fines de febrero.
La mina San José, propiedad de la local Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera, forma parte de un complejo minero que produce alrededor de 1200 toneladas de cobre al año.
A raíz de este accidente, los legisladores han prometido revisar las normativas de seguridad minera de Chile, aunque no se esperan grandes cambios en un sector que sufre pocos accidentes en la gran minería.
1 de 14 - Rescatista y bopmberos trabajan en la zona de destastre, las tareas de rescate se complicaron a raíz de un nuevo derrumbe que dificulta aún más el trabajo - Foto: AP
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