Fake 'Che' Shirts fool the FARC!!!! HA! Ironic, no?

`Che' Shirts, Fake Rebels, Acting Class Helped Free Betancourt

Bloomberg LP - click above to access article direct or click on Bloomberg's link and go to the Latin America section. Experts copy and pasted below.

By Helen Murphy

July 4 (Bloomberg) -- The T-shirts with images of Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara convinced Ingrid Betancourt. She assumed the men with the iconic revolutionary on their chests were ushering her into the helicopter for transfer to yet another rebel camp.

Instead, Betancourt, along with 14 other hostages, was taking her first steps toward freedom after six years of captivity at the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Less than 24 hours later, she would be reunited with the two children she hadn't seen since her capture.

The white helicopter Betancourt climbed into was piloted by Colombian troops, and the six men wearing Che shirts were soldiers who tricked the rebels into following ``orders'' to move the prisoners. Colombian intelligence had infiltrated the group, known as the FARC, and started planning the rescue mission as long as a year ago.

....

The day of her release, Betancourt awoke as usual at 4 a.m. to listen to a radio program that broadcasts news and messages from family members to the FARC's more than 700 captives. She and her fellow hostages were told by their guards an international aid helicopter would come and take them to the encampment of Alfonso Cano, the drug-funded group's leader.

`Surreal'

``The helicopters arrived, and these absolutely surreal characters came out,'' said Betancourt, gripping rosary beads after she landed at Bogota's military airport. ``They were wearing Che Guevara shirts and I thought, it's the FARC.''

The captives were handcuffed and manhandled onto the aircraft by the undercover agents. ``It was very humiliating,'' she said.

After the unmarked helicopter flew over the jungle and out of range of the FARC camp, the hostages saw the men in Che T- shirts spring on their captor. Gerardo Antonio Aguilar Ramirez, known by his alias as Cesar, was tied up, stripped and blindfolded. Then the Colombian troops revealed their identity.

``We are the national army, you are free!'' the agents told them. ``The helicopter almost fell out of the sky because we jumped and screamed, we hugged and cried,'' Betancourt said.

`Movie-Style'

Colombian intelligence officials were able to plan the rescue, code-named Operation Check for the end-game chess move, with information from John Frank Pinchao, a police official who escaped in April last year and helped pinpoint the FARC camps. ``This was a movie-style rescue that freed 15 people who had been tortured for so many years,'' Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters.

A sustained barrage of air and ground attacks on the FARC has weakened the group, and local commanders have largely lost contact with the senior leadership, ex-guerrillas say.

The military placed covert operatives inside the camp holding Betancourt about six months ago. They started to gain the trust of the commander Cesar, according to General Freddy Padilla, chief of the armed forces.

With help from a FARC leader who hasn't been identified, the military was able to con Cesar into thinking he'd been given the mission of transporting three groups of prisoners to Cano, who replaced the FARC's founder Manuel Marulanda in May after his death of a heart attack. Those who arrived in the helicopter were given acting lessons to pretend to be aid agency personnel, said General Mario Montoya, the army's top officer.

``I never expected to get out alive,'' said Betancourt, who thanked the military for its ``impeccable'' mission.

Plan B

The military had a Plan B. Some 30 helicopters and 58 men surrounded the camp, ready to strike or offer payments to the captors if the covert plan failed, Padilla said.

....

``In all these years, I thought that as long as I was alive, as long as I continued to breathe, I must continue to hope,'' she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Helen Murphy in Bogota at hmurphy1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 4, 2008 00:01 EDT

Colombian presidential candidate- Ingrid Betancourt. Kidnapped in 2002 is rescued from the FARC with 14 others

Betancourt is freed in Colombia --

Reuters update 1





"Betancourt was among 15 captives rescued from leftist guerrillas by Colombian troops posing as aid workers. A pale, but smiling Betancourt landed at Catan military base outside Bogota. Dressed in black pants and a camouflage vest, she descended the stairs of hte plane and hugged her mother, Yoland Pulecio who was waiting on the runway"

Reuters update 2





"The children of released hostage Ingrid Betancourt prepare to meet their mother after receiving news of her release."

"After talking to the media at the Elysee Palace in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the children headed to an army airport with Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner. "

Latin America Makes International News! & China continues strengthening its "free floated" currency... having risen 20% since 2005

As described in my previous post... Latin America is sadly trapped within mass media as a mere "attention grabbing story." I in no way what so ever intend to make this sound as if I am criticizing, Reuters, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the organization which is why I use their video "embed" feature. They truely do strive to offer unbiased reporting and are represented by the best of the world's journalists.

This post is simply a effort to convey the particular and unique attention that is given to Latin America as a whole.

Colombian cocaine seizures soar --- Reuters





Ellion joings young communists --- Reuters




High Altitude Training --- Reuters: Finally a bit of positive news... hehe - High Altitude Training for Olympics

Bloomberg LP

Yuan Extends Gains to 20 Percent Since End of Peg on Inflation

By Judy Chen and Kim Kyoungwha

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- The yuan extended gains to 20 percent since China ended a fixed exchange rate to the dollar in 2005, passing the milestone as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson prepares to meet with Chinese officials.

The currency climbed to a post-peg high of 6.8918 per dollar today as the People's Bank of China seeks faster appreciation to curb the cost of imports and slow inflation. The so-called Strategic Economic Dialogue in Annapolis, Maryland today and tomorrow will focus on energy and the environment after the yuan's advance eased trade tensions with the U.S. that dominated previous meetings.

``Inflation remains the dominant policy issue in China,'' said Sue Trinh, a currency strategist with Royal Bank of Canada in Sydney. ``The focus will be on more rapid appreciation of the yuan.''

The currency climbed 0.12 percent to 6.8918 a dollar in Shanghai as of 1:03 p.m., from 6.9004 yesterday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. It's risen 1.7 percent this quarter compared with a 4.2 percent advance in the previous three months.

The yuan may rise to 6.5 by the end of 2008, Trinh said.

China's trade surplus, which rose to a record in 2007, narrowed in May, for the first time in five months, while foreign-exchange reserves surged 40 percent to $1.68 trillion in March, flooding the economy with cash and fueling inflation.

Trade-Weighted Index

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a report yesterday that the yuan will gain about 10 percent in a year as China stems inflation that slowed to 7.7 percent in May from the almost 12- year high of 8.5 percent in April. To cool inflation, the central bank has ordered banks to set aside bigger reserves five times this year after raising interest rates six times last year.

The currency has strengthened almost 6 percent against the dollar this year, nearing the 7 percent gain for all of 2007.

The Westpac Nominal Effective Exchange Rate, a trade- weighted index for the yuan that includes the euro and the yen, has climbed 5.7 percent so far this year, compared with the 3.4 percent gain for all of 2007. Gains in the yuan may accelerate versus the euro as policy makers calm criticism from officials in Europe and the dollar rises against major currencies.

``We are expecting to continue to see trade-weighted appreciation,'' said David Mann, a senior currency strategist at Standard Chartered Plc in Hong Kong. ``So the moves in the yuan may be more dictated by the broad dollar than was the case previously.''

Reform is Critical

China needs to move ``more quickly'' on yuan appreciation and exchange-rate reform will be ``critical'' to the country's social stability, said Paulson on June 10 in Washington. China's central bank said on May 14 that it will further increase the exchange rate's flexibility to curb price increases.

Gains in the currency attract speculative capital, injecting cash into the financial system already awash with money from the trade surplus and foreign direct investment.

China will strengthen monitoring of money inflows after the surplus for the capital and financial account, a measure of investment flows, jumped more than seven-fold in 2007 to $73.5 billion from $10 billion a year earlier, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said on June 5.

The People's Bank of China said yesterday in a report that investors' expectations for continued appreciation of the yuan are attracting inflows of ``hot money,'' and should such expectations turn around, a ``massive outflow'' of money will affect China's financial security.

Forward Rates

The central bank may ``unexpectedly adjust the pace of yuan appreciation, like the stagnation in April, to deter investors betting on one-way appreciation,'' said Yang Shengkun, a currency analyst in Beijing at China Citic Bank Co., a unit of China's biggest state investment company.

China slowed yuan gains to 0.35 percent in April, the smallest monthly advance in more than a year, prompting traders to pare bets for the extent of yuan appreciation in the next 12 months. Inflows of ``hot money'' into China may have reached $500 billion last year due to trade, investment and firms borrowing abroad, according to research by Shanghai Securities Co. published in the China Securities Journal.

One-year non-deliverable forwards contracts, agreements in which assets are bought and sold at current prices for future delivery, show traders are betting on a 6.6 percent rise in the yuan to 6.4680 in the next 12 months. The yuan will reach 6.65 per dollar by year-end, according to the median estimate of 23 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

To contact the reporters on this story: Judy Chen in Shanghai at xchen45@bloomberg.net; Kim Kyoungwha in Beijing at kkim19@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 17, 2008 01:21 EDT


Sneaking this in at the end of the post for all those out there who know what Bembos is--the Peruvian Fast Food Chain which competes quite admirably with Mc Donalds, KFC and other mainstream and international fast food names. The video is a bit long and can get boring, but here is the explanation of it from youtube. In short... a Peruvian fast food chain is expanding to India. It is simply incredible the exchange going on in today's globalized society, 20 years ago no one would have thought emerging markets like Peru and India would be cooperating in fast food among all else. The first video simply describes the deliciousness that is Bembos... sadly it's in Spanish, and I apologize for those of you out there who do not speak / understand it. There are subtitled videos available if you use either my search provided by google or go straight to youtube and simply type in "Bembos."

Copy/Pasted from Video Description on youtube.com

Bembos -- Best Burger in the World




The South American fast food chain Bembos opened its first outlet in Delhi NCR yesterday at the Great India Place Mall in Noida.

Bembos has been maintaining its leadership in hamburger sales in front of strong competitors in the international market like Mcdonalds & Burger King in South America and are now eying the Indian market.

"Our three Bembos outlets in Mumbai are doing exceptionally well & we are very excited at the proposition of catering to people in the Delhi NCR region," said an upbeat Anil Kapur, the master franchisee of Bembos in India.

So what makes bembos special? Apart from the colourful interiors, the size, taste & price points are the USP of the Bembos burgers.

"We are elated at Bembos coming to India," said Carlos A Yrigoyen, the acting Ambassador of Peru in India, who along with his wife Regina inagurated the outlet. "Nothing is as delicious as a Bembos grilled burger, " Yrigoyen said.

Also present at the inaguration were Rahul Mittra CEO Brandsmith with wife Sarina, Dimple Kapoor, Bharati Chajjed Associate Director Standard Chartered, apart from heavy print & electronic media.

"Brandsmith is very happy to be associated with such a premium brand from South America, " said Rahul Mittra who has been accredited with successfully managing international brands like Ceres juices from South Africa & Weetabix from UK." We will ensure it gives the big daddies a run for their money, "said Mittra.

H.S. Communication.