Showing posts with label LOST. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LOST. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Wednesday, August 07, 2024
Friday, August 11, 2023
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Run from Cuba, Americans cling to claims for seized property
Michigan
US families who fled Cuba generations ago wonder if new diplomacy will pay for what they lost
In this undated photo provided by Carolyn Chester, her parents, Edmund and Enna Chester and their daughter, Patricia, arrive in Cuba on a flight from Florida. When Fidel Castro's government began confiscating the property of thousands of U.S. citizens and companies in 1959, the Chesters lost an 80-acre farm and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock. (AP Photo)(AP)
By ADAM GELLER AP National Writer
Posted on March 30, 2015 at 1:22 a.m.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The smell of Cuban coffee drifts from the kitchen as Carolyn Chester digs through faded photos that fill boxes spread across the dining table.
Friends linked arm-in-arm on a Cuban beach.
Men in suits and women in evening gowns at a Havana nightclub.
And in almost every frame, an American man with a salt-and-pepper mustache and a raven-haired woman — Chester’s parents — smiling at good fortune that, they could not know, would soon be snatched away.
“I always heard about Cuba ... and all this money that we lost and ‘Maybe one day,‘ but I didn’t understand it,” Chester says.
Six decades later, that day may finally be nearing for Chester and others like her. To reach it, though, diplomacy will have to settle very old scores.
After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Cuba confiscated property belonging to thousands of American citizens and companies. Edmund and Enna Chester lost an 80-acre farm, thousands of dollars’ worth of stock, and a Buick that, who knows, may still be plying Havana’s streets.
In 1996, Congress passed a law insisting Cuba pay for confiscated property, valued today at $7 billion, before lifting the U.S. embargo.
That went unmentioned in President Barack Obama’s December announcement that the countries would resume diplomatic ties. Given Cuba’s frail economy, experts say companies whose property was taken might settle for rights to do business there and move on.
But corporations don’t cling to memories like families can. That’s clear inside Chester’s 832-square-foot bungalow, where her mother’s gold-framed portrait watches over the yellowing property deed and worthless stock certificates — reminders that Cuba before Castro is history.
But bitterness over what came after lingers on.
Inside a little-known federal agency, 5,900 claims files tally property that once belonged to Americans in Cuba.
But really, the claims are stories of lives left behind.
Edmund Chester’s story began when he returned to Louisville, Kentucky, from the Army and found work as a newspaper reporter. He taught himself Spanish and in 1929 was hired by The Associated Press, which dispatched him to Havana.
Chester spent a decade reporting from the Caribbean and Latin America, time that seeded two crucial relationships.
The first came after covering a 1933 revolt that put a former sergeant, Fulgencio Batista, in charge of Cuba’s military. In the 1950s, when Batista was Cuba’s dictator, he trusted Chester — by then a confidante and no longer a journalist — to write his biography.
The second began when Chester covered a 1939 earthquake in Chile and spotted Enna at a hotel swimming pool.
In 1940, CBS hired Chester as chief of radio broadcasting for Latin America. Eventually, he became the network’s director of news in New York.
Chester returned to Cuba in 1952, buying a chain of radio stations on an island that was a U.S. economic outpost and a hedonistic getaway for Americans, including celebrities like Frank Sinatra.
Chester eventually sold the stations, but the family continued splitting time between Havana and Florida. He opened a public relations agency in Cuba and bought an 80-acre farm there. In 1957, the Chesters acquired $250,000 worth of Cuban Telephone Co shares.
But Edmund Chester, then Batista’s speechwriter, grew uneasy as Castro gained ground.
“I agree that we ought to make (a) complete break with Cuba at the earliest possible moment,” he wrote Enna in 1958.
He rejoined the family in Florida before Christmas. Batista fled days later, and Castro seized control.
When the Soviet Union began shipping oil to Cuba, the U.S. ordered island refineries, most American-owned, not to process its archrival’s crude.
Cuba seized the refineries. The U.S. eliminated price protection for Cuban sugar, which earned 90 percent of the island’s hard currency. By the time President John F. Kennedy imposed the embargo in 1962, Cuba had confiscated scores of properties.
Marooned, Edmund Chester wrote that his nest egg had been “whipped into a batch of Cuban scrambled eggs by the tyranny of Fidel Castro.”
__
The federal Foreign Claims Settlement Commission fielded thousands of claims for confiscated Cuban property. The largest came from corporations, led by U.S.-owned Cuban Electric Company, for power plants valued at $268 million. But most came from individuals and families.
Experts differ on what to make of the American claims, protected by international law.
“You’re now dealing in the realm of memory more than anything else,” says Robert Muse, an attorney representing companies with claims.
But Mauricio Tamargo, commission chairman until 2010 and now a Washington attorney representing claimants, said confiscations inflicted lasting damage on families.
“Many of them never recovered financially,” Tamargo says.
__
Edmund Chester, in his early 60s with three young children, put his remaining savings into chicken farms that were “a financial disaster,” son Edmund Jr. says.
Stress weighed on the elder Chester, whose mental faculties were fading. He feared Castro’s men were coming to kill him. At night, he awoke screaming.
Before dying in 1975, he invested hopes in winning compensation for property seizures that were “so sudden, so violent, and so complete.”
Enna Chester’s death in 2001 left her daughter with old home movies, dense paperwork and debts.
After moving to Omaha in 2006, Carolyn Chester got a job at Creighton University and showed co-workers her Cuba photos.
One day, a colleague mentioned that law school professors were researching claims for confiscated Cuban property. Hadn’t Castro taken the Chesters’ property, too?
In 2005 U.S. officials commissioned a study of the claims and strategies for settling them. A group at Creighton won the job.
Professors pored over old claims. Two flew to Cuba, searching for the properties. Some were moldering, others gone.
“These are people’s lives, the things that they lost,” political science professor Rick Witmer says.
But Cuba doesn’t have the money to pay claims in full, law professor Michael Kelly says.
In 2007, Creighton professors cautioned claims might net just 3 or 4 cents on the dollar.
Claimants had long been told losses would be adjusted for inflation. When an investor offered to buy Chester’s claim for a fraction of its original $489,000 value, she grew angry and began devoting hours to studying records.
In December, Chester listened as Obama spoke of rewriting policy “rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”
To Chester, the speech signaled the desire of politicians and corporations to look beyond the claims.
But Castro didn’t merely take property, she says. He stole her parents’ financial security, her father’s health — and her inheritance.
Fifty-six years later, she says, “I’m not going to let him take from me again.”
Adam Geller can be reached at features@ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AdGeller
By ADAM GELLER AP National Writer
Posted on March 30, 2015 at 1:22 a.m.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The smell of Cuban coffee drifts from the kitchen as Carolyn Chester digs through faded photos that fill boxes spread across the dining table.
Friends linked arm-in-arm on a Cuban beach.
Men in suits and women in evening gowns at a Havana nightclub.
And in almost every frame, an American man with a salt-and-pepper mustache and a raven-haired woman — Chester’s parents — smiling at good fortune that, they could not know, would soon be snatched away.
“I always heard about Cuba ... and all this money that we lost and ‘Maybe one day,‘ but I didn’t understand it,” Chester says.
Six decades later, that day may finally be nearing for Chester and others like her. To reach it, though, diplomacy will have to settle very old scores.
After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Cuba confiscated property belonging to thousands of American citizens and companies. Edmund and Enna Chester lost an 80-acre farm, thousands of dollars’ worth of stock, and a Buick that, who knows, may still be plying Havana’s streets.
In 1996, Congress passed a law insisting Cuba pay for confiscated property, valued today at $7 billion, before lifting the U.S. embargo.
That went unmentioned in President Barack Obama’s December announcement that the countries would resume diplomatic ties. Given Cuba’s frail economy, experts say companies whose property was taken might settle for rights to do business there and move on.
But corporations don’t cling to memories like families can. That’s clear inside Chester’s 832-square-foot bungalow, where her mother’s gold-framed portrait watches over the yellowing property deed and worthless stock certificates — reminders that Cuba before Castro is history.
But bitterness over what came after lingers on.
Inside a little-known federal agency, 5,900 claims files tally property that once belonged to Americans in Cuba.
But really, the claims are stories of lives left behind.
Edmund Chester’s story began when he returned to Louisville, Kentucky, from the Army and found work as a newspaper reporter. He taught himself Spanish and in 1929 was hired by The Associated Press, which dispatched him to Havana.
Chester spent a decade reporting from the Caribbean and Latin America, time that seeded two crucial relationships.
The first came after covering a 1933 revolt that put a former sergeant, Fulgencio Batista, in charge of Cuba’s military. In the 1950s, when Batista was Cuba’s dictator, he trusted Chester — by then a confidante and no longer a journalist — to write his biography.
The second began when Chester covered a 1939 earthquake in Chile and spotted Enna at a hotel swimming pool.
In 1940, CBS hired Chester as chief of radio broadcasting for Latin America. Eventually, he became the network’s director of news in New York.
Chester returned to Cuba in 1952, buying a chain of radio stations on an island that was a U.S. economic outpost and a hedonistic getaway for Americans, including celebrities like Frank Sinatra.
Chester eventually sold the stations, but the family continued splitting time between Havana and Florida. He opened a public relations agency in Cuba and bought an 80-acre farm there. In 1957, the Chesters acquired $250,000 worth of Cuban Telephone Co shares.
But Edmund Chester, then Batista’s speechwriter, grew uneasy as Castro gained ground.
“I agree that we ought to make (a) complete break with Cuba at the earliest possible moment,” he wrote Enna in 1958.
He rejoined the family in Florida before Christmas. Batista fled days later, and Castro seized control.
When the Soviet Union began shipping oil to Cuba, the U.S. ordered island refineries, most American-owned, not to process its archrival’s crude.
Cuba seized the refineries. The U.S. eliminated price protection for Cuban sugar, which earned 90 percent of the island’s hard currency. By the time President John F. Kennedy imposed the embargo in 1962, Cuba had confiscated scores of properties.
Marooned, Edmund Chester wrote that his nest egg had been “whipped into a batch of Cuban scrambled eggs by the tyranny of Fidel Castro.”
__
The federal Foreign Claims Settlement Commission fielded thousands of claims for confiscated Cuban property. The largest came from corporations, led by U.S.-owned Cuban Electric Company, for power plants valued at $268 million. But most came from individuals and families.
Experts differ on what to make of the American claims, protected by international law.
“You’re now dealing in the realm of memory more than anything else,” says Robert Muse, an attorney representing companies with claims.
But Mauricio Tamargo, commission chairman until 2010 and now a Washington attorney representing claimants, said confiscations inflicted lasting damage on families.
“Many of them never recovered financially,” Tamargo says.
__
Edmund Chester, in his early 60s with three young children, put his remaining savings into chicken farms that were “a financial disaster,” son Edmund Jr. says.
Stress weighed on the elder Chester, whose mental faculties were fading. He feared Castro’s men were coming to kill him. At night, he awoke screaming.
Before dying in 1975, he invested hopes in winning compensation for property seizures that were “so sudden, so violent, and so complete.”
Enna Chester’s death in 2001 left her daughter with old home movies, dense paperwork and debts.
After moving to Omaha in 2006, Carolyn Chester got a job at Creighton University and showed co-workers her Cuba photos.
One day, a colleague mentioned that law school professors were researching claims for confiscated Cuban property. Hadn’t Castro taken the Chesters’ property, too?
In 2005 U.S. officials commissioned a study of the claims and strategies for settling them. A group at Creighton won the job.
Professors pored over old claims. Two flew to Cuba, searching for the properties. Some were moldering, others gone.
“These are people’s lives, the things that they lost,” political science professor Rick Witmer says.
But Cuba doesn’t have the money to pay claims in full, law professor Michael Kelly says.
In 2007, Creighton professors cautioned claims might net just 3 or 4 cents on the dollar.
Claimants had long been told losses would be adjusted for inflation. When an investor offered to buy Chester’s claim for a fraction of its original $489,000 value, she grew angry and began devoting hours to studying records.
In December, Chester listened as Obama spoke of rewriting policy “rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”
To Chester, the speech signaled the desire of politicians and corporations to look beyond the claims.
But Castro didn’t merely take property, she says. He stole her parents’ financial security, her father’s health — and her inheritance.
Fifty-six years later, she says, “I’m not going to let him take from me again.”
Adam Geller can be reached at features@ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AdGeller
.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
'Not Again': AirAsia Plane Disappears, Months After MH370 Went Missing
12/27/2014 @ 11:51PM
Another Asian airliner has gone missing: AirAsia flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control at 7:24 a.m. local time on Sunday, AirAsia reported about four hours after the plane disappeared en route to Singapore.
(For context for American readers, flight QZ8501 disappeared at 7:24 p.m. EST on Saturday in the United States.)
AirAsia is a private airline based in Malaysia, and the country already has suffered two major aviation catastrophes this year.
In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control when it was about several hundred miles north of Singapore. Rescuers still have been unable to find any traces of flight MH370, or its 239 passengers and crew, despite an unprecedented search effort.
In April 2014, or one month after MH370 went missing, AirAsia’s CEO was forced to apologize after the company’s in-flight magazine suggested that AirAsia’s own well-trained pilots would never lose a plane.
AirAsia was forced to apologize for this article in its in-flight magazine, after MH370 went missing.
AirAsia said the magazine was printed before MH370 disappeared, and was not intended as a commentary on its rival airline.
In July 2014, Malaysia Airline flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing nearly 300 passengers and crew.
Details on AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Sunday’s missing AirAsia flight was traveling between Surabaya, in Indonesia, and Singapore. There were 155 passengers and seven crew on board the Airbus A320-200, officials have said.
The plane was operated by Indonesia AirAsia, a joint venture with Air Asia proper. (The company has several affiliates, including AirAsia India and AirAsia X.) Indonesia AirAsia has a fleet of 30 Airbus A320s.
An AirAsia official told the media on Sunday that the plane had requested “an unusual route” before air traffic control lost contact with QZ8501 over the Java Sea. However, an Indonesia Transport Ministry spokesperson later clarified that the pilot’s request was permission to change altitude due to bad weather, Steve Herman reported for the Voice of America.
“At the present time we unfortunately have no further information,” according to AirAsia’s statement. “At this time, search and rescue operations are in progress and AirAsia is cooperating fully and assisting the rescue service.”
After releasing its statement to reporters, AirAsia immediately changed the appearance of its various social media accounts. On AirAsia’s Facebook account, for instance, the company swapped out its usual bright red logo in favor of a muted gray logo, and changed the background of its Facebook from a festive holiday theme to a shrouded, all-black bar.
Malaysians were “shocked” by the news of a third potential lost airliner this year, the Malaysian Insider reported, and tens of thousand of people around the globe took to social media to express their surprise and sorrow.
“Another plane went missing,” one Malaysian tweeted. “Ya Allah not again.”
“Pray for QZ8501.”
Another Asian airliner has gone missing: AirAsia flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control at 7:24 a.m. local time on Sunday, AirAsia reported about four hours after the plane disappeared en route to Singapore.
(For context for American readers, flight QZ8501 disappeared at 7:24 p.m. EST on Saturday in the United States.)
AirAsia is a private airline based in Malaysia, and the country already has suffered two major aviation catastrophes this year.
In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control when it was about several hundred miles north of Singapore. Rescuers still have been unable to find any traces of flight MH370, or its 239 passengers and crew, despite an unprecedented search effort.
In April 2014, or one month after MH370 went missing, AirAsia’s CEO was forced to apologize after the company’s in-flight magazine suggested that AirAsia’s own well-trained pilots would never lose a plane.
AirAsia was forced to apologize for this article in its in-flight magazine, after MH370 went missing.
AirAsia said the magazine was printed before MH370 disappeared, and was not intended as a commentary on its rival airline.
In July 2014, Malaysia Airline flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing nearly 300 passengers and crew.
Details on AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Sunday’s missing AirAsia flight was traveling between Surabaya, in Indonesia, and Singapore. There were 155 passengers and seven crew on board the Airbus A320-200, officials have said.
The plane was operated by Indonesia AirAsia, a joint venture with Air Asia proper. (The company has several affiliates, including AirAsia India and AirAsia X.) Indonesia AirAsia has a fleet of 30 Airbus A320s.
An AirAsia official told the media on Sunday that the plane had requested “an unusual route” before air traffic control lost contact with QZ8501 over the Java Sea. However, an Indonesia Transport Ministry spokesperson later clarified that the pilot’s request was permission to change altitude due to bad weather, Steve Herman reported for the Voice of America.
“At the present time we unfortunately have no further information,” according to AirAsia’s statement. “At this time, search and rescue operations are in progress and AirAsia is cooperating fully and assisting the rescue service.”
After releasing its statement to reporters, AirAsia immediately changed the appearance of its various social media accounts. On AirAsia’s Facebook account, for instance, the company swapped out its usual bright red logo in favor of a muted gray logo, and changed the background of its Facebook from a festive holiday theme to a shrouded, all-black bar.
Malaysians were “shocked” by the news of a third potential lost airliner this year, the Malaysian Insider reported, and tens of thousand of people around the globe took to social media to express their surprise and sorrow.
“Another plane went missing,” one Malaysian tweeted. “Ya Allah not again.”
“Pray for QZ8501.”
.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Family of Christians lost at sea goes home
By The Associated Press
Published: Sunday, August 11, 2013, 7:12 p.m.
Updated 7 hours ago
PHOENIX — The Christian family who fled the country because they were fed up with government interference in religion and became lost at sea, flew back home on Sunday as more details of their arduous journey emerged.
The Gastonguays — Hannah, 26; her 30-year-old husband, Sean; his father, Mike; and the couple's daughters, 3-year-old Ardith and 8-month-old Rahab — set sail from San Diego for Kiribati in May.
They wouldn't touch land again for 91 days.
At first, “we were cruising,” Hannah Gastonguay said. But within a couple of weeks “when we came out there, storm, storm, storm.”
The boat had taken a beating, and they decided to set course for the Marquesas Islands. Instead, they found themselves in a “twilight zone,” taking more damage.
After about two months at sea, they were down to “some juice and some honey.” She said they were able to catch fish. Still, we “didn't feel like we were going to die or anything. We believed God would see us through.”
A Canadian cargo ship came along and offered supplies, but when they pulled up alongside, the vessels bumped, and the smaller ship sustained even more damage.
They were getting hit by “squall after squall after squall.”
“We were in the thick of it, but we prayed,” she said. “Being out on that boat, I just knew I was going to see some miracles.”
Eventually, their boat was spotted by a helicopter that had taken off from a nearby Venezuelan fishing vessel, which ended up saving them.
“The captain said, ‘Do you know where you're at? You're in the middle of nowhere.' ”
They were transferred to a Japanese cargo ship and arrived in Chile on Friday.
Their flights home were arranged by U.S. Embassy officials, Gastonguay said.
Hannah Gastonguay said the family will now “go back to Arizona” and “come up with a new plan.”
The Gastonguays are not members of any church; they read the Bible. Among other things, they didn't want to be “forced to pay these taxes that pay for abortions.”
Source: http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/4515612-74/gastonguay-hannah-boat#ixzz2bjZa8Yij
.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Family leaves US on sailboat over religious concerns to start new life, becomes lost at sea
August 10, 2013 7:59 pm
By Greg Moore The Associated Press
Hannah Gastonguay, holding her baby Rahab, is followed by her husband Sean and the couple's 3-year-old daughter Ardith, as they disembark in the port city of San Antonio, Chile, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. AP Photo/Las Ultimas Noticias
PHOENIX – A northern Arizona family that was lost at sea for weeks in an ill-fated attempt to leave the U.S. over what they consider government interference in religion will fly back home Sunday.
Hannah Gastonguay, 26, said Saturday that she and her husband “decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led us” when they took their two small children and her father-in-law and set sail from San Diego for the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati in May.
But just weeks into their journey the Gastonguays hit a series of storms that damaged their small boat, leaving them adrift for weeks, unable to make progress. They were eventually picked up by a Venezuelan fishing vessel, transferred to a Japanese cargo ship and taken to Chile where they are resting in a hotel in the port city of San Antonio.
Their flights home were arranged by U.S. Embassy officials, Gastonguay said. The U.S. State Department was not immediately available for comment.
The months-long journey has been “pretty exciting” and “little scary at certain points,” Gastonguay told The Associated Press by telephone.
She said they wanted to go to Kiribati because “we didn’t want to go anywhere big.” She said they understood the island to be “one of the least developed countries in the world.”
Kiribati is a group of islands just off the Equator and the international date line about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. The total population is just over 100,000 people of primarily Micronesian descent.
Hannah Gastonguay said her family was fed up with government control in the U.S. As Christians they don’t believe in “abortion, homosexuality, in the state-controlled church,” she said.
U.S. “churches aren’t their own,” Gastonguay said, suggesting that government regulation interfered with religious independence. “Jesus isn’t the head of the church. God isn’t the head of the church,” she said.
Among other differences, she said they had a problem with being “forced to pay these taxes that pay for abortions we don’t agree with.”
The family moved in November from Ash Fork, Arizona, to San Diego, where they lived on their boat as they prepared to set sail. She said she gave birth to the couple’s 8-month-old girl on the boat, which was docked in a slip at the time.
In May, Hannah, her 30-year-old husband Sean, his father Mike, and the couple’s daughters, 3-year-old Ardith and baby Rahab set off. They wouldn’t touch land again for 91 days, she said.
She said at first, “We were cruising.”
But within a couple of weeks “when we came out there, storm, storm, storm.”
The boat had taken a beating, and they decided to set course for the Marquesas Islands. Instead they found themselves in a “twilight zone,” taking more and more damage, leaving them unable to make progress.
They could have used a sail called a genoa, she said, but they risked snapping off the mast and losing their radio and ability to communicate.
They had been on the ocean for about two months and were low on supplies. They were out of food and were down to “some juice and some honey.” She said they were able to catch fish, but they didn’t see any boats.
Still, we “didn’t feel like we were going to die or anything. We believed God would see us through,” she said.
At one point a fishing ship came into contact with them but left without providing assistance. A Canadian cargo ship came along and offered supplies, but when they pulled up alongside it, the vessels bumped and the smaller ship sustained even more damage.
They were getting hit by “squall after squall after squall.”
“We were in the thick of it, but we prayed,” she said. “Being out on that boat, I just knew I was going to see some miracles.”
They watched the surrounding storms disperse, and “next thing you know the sun is out. It’s amazing.”
Eventually, their boat was spotted by a helicopter that had taken off from a nearby Venezuelan fishing vessel, which ended up saving them.
“The captain said, ‘Do you know where you’re at? You’re in the middle of nowhere,”‘ she said.
They were on the Venezuelan ship for about five days before transferring to the Japanese cargo ship, where they spent nearly three weeks before landing in Chile on Friday. The Chilean newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias reported the story of their arrival.
Sean Gastonguay’s brother Jimmy, who lives in Arizona, said he had provided a description of the family’s vessel to the U.S. Coast Guard and exchanged emails with them once they were picked up by the first boat.
“There was some concern, but we were hoping for the best, and they eventually popped up,” he said. He was able to keep track of the family with the help of the Coast Guard as they were transferred from ship to ship.
“We’re all happy. We have good peace of mind now,” he said.
Hannah Gastonguay said the family will next, “go back to Arizona” and “come up with a new plan.”
AP Writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed to this report.
Source
.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
NORTON SEARCH DOCUMENTARY FILM PROJECT
NORTON SEARCH DOCUMENTARY FILM PROJECT
Prepared: August 6, 2009
On February 16, 2009 at approximately 7:45 AM my close friend Captain Robert “Bob” Norton, his wife and 5 others went missing in the jungles of Venezuela. Bob has been serving there as a missionary pilot to the Indigenous Indians for the past 8 years and was on a emergency medical flight from Karum to Betel in his plane.
The Venezuelan Civil Protection and the Indigenous Indians immediately began searching for them in the dense jungle.. As they began their physical search there, we pulled together a team consisting of engineers, pilots, medical professionals, search experts and computer analysts here in the U.S. We contacted GeoEYE and Digital Globe to get current satellite images of the areas where we believed the plane went down. We also began working with an organization that specializes in finding missing aircraft called Missing Aircraft Search Team (M.A.S.T.). Together we developed a search plan with a prioritized, zone by zone, analysis of where the plane might have gone down. It has been more than 5 months and we continue to work together to try to find the missing plane and it’s occupants. We have also sent down pieces of technology (i.e. GPS Transponder, GPS Tracker, and a digital camera) for the Venezuelan ground search team to assist with the search effort.
At this point in the search, we have decided to produce a documentary about the search effort and about the work that Captain Norton was doing. We are doing this to raise awareness about the search and to help keep the search efforts going. We are looking for sponsors for this documentary. I plan to return to Venezuela in September to film the work being done by the Indians and to film and interview members of the Civil Protection to show the incredible work that has been done there. I will also be filming some of those who have been helped by Captain Norton through the past 8 years. We currently have a little over $2500 in the search account at OCI, which is enough to send the ground search team back into the jungle for a month. We need to raise additional funds for the camera equipment and other gear needed for the trip down in September. If you are interested in helping in anyway please contact me directly or send your tax deductible donations marked “Bob Norton Search” to:
Outpost Centers International
5340 Layton Lane
Apison, TN 37302
Tel: 423.236.5600
Thank you so much for your support in this challenging search effort. Proceeds from the documentary will be used to continue the search effort.
Also, if you want to see pictures and updates from the search effort go to the discussion board “Finding Bob Norton” on Facebook or tag me as a friend on Facebook.
Bob Edwards
206 Lind St., McMinnville, TN 37110
Cell 423.280.8217 / Home 931.474.2477
Monday, March 23, 2009
Dusting Off The UN Law Of The Sea Treaty
Dusting Off The UN Law Of The Sea Treaty
By Dana Gabriel http://www.borderfirereport.net/dana-gabriel/dusting-off-the-un-law-of-the-sea-treaty.php
By Dana Gabriel http://www.borderfirereport.net/dana-gabriel/dusting-off-the-un-law-of-the-sea-treaty.php
The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is another one of those international agreements that the U.S. has yet to ratify. President Reagan rejected the treaty, but a revised version was signed by President Clinton in 1994. As a result of intense opposition, LOST was never brought before the Senate for a full vote. Several failed attempts were also later made by the Bush administration to galvanize support for the treaty. The Democrats are now laying the groundwork to finally ratify LOST. Proponents view ratifying the treaty as an opportunity for the U.S. to further promote global security and stability. Critics maintain that under LOST, the U.S. would be forced to surrender more sovereignty to the UN.
LOST is the legal framework by which all activities on, over, and under the world’s oceans are to be governed. It would place 70% of the earth’s surface under UN control. In a past article entitled 'LOST at Sea,' Congressman Ron Paul writes, “Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, an International Seabed Authority would control the minerals and other resources of the oceans’ seabed. After taking its own cut, this UN body would transfer whatever is left to select third-world governments and non-governmental organizations.” Many argue that if the U.S. does not ratify LOST, they might lose out on the mad dash for Arctic resources. Critics contend that under the treaty, the U.S. would be forced to obtain UN permission before conducting ocean development, which would make any new activities that much more difficult and costly.
The International Seabed Authority would have the power to set production control for ocean mining, drilling and fishing. They would also regulate ocean exploration, issue permits, charge fees and settle disputes within its own court system. Under LOST, an international tribunal has been established made up of a panel of 21 UN judges who have the power to enforce treaty provisions and rulings. Ratifying LOST would further place U.S. interests at the mercy of international courts whose decisions could override domestic laws.
In the same article on LOST, Ron Paul also states that, “The Law of the Sea Treaty also would give the UN power to tax American citizens and businesses, which has been a long-time dream of the anti-sovereignty globalists.” LOST is closely integrated with other treaties, such as the Convention on Climate Change and it could be used as a backdoor for global taxation. Ratifying LOST could facilitate the ability of environmental organizations to sue the U.S., using international courts. Under the guise of protecting the environment, the UN is gaining more control over individuals and nation-states alike.
A recent incident in the South China Sea between a U.S. military intelligence ship and several Chinese vessels, has prompted accusations from both sides. The Americans insist that the Chinese were harassing the U.S. ship and were in violation of international law. In turn, China condemned U.S. actions as being illegal and in violation of LOST, as well other laws and regulations. China has ratified LOST and it appears as if their interpretation of the treaty is being used as a means to try and ban all foreign military ships from operating inside its 200 mile exclusive economic zone. The U.S. ratifying LOST would not prevent any such future incidents, but rather could serve to limit its military intelligence operations. LOST could severely compromise America’s ability to move freely on the high seas.
The United Nations cannot be trusted in protecting American interests. Under LOST, the U.S. would only have one vote, unlike the UN Security Council where it enjoys veto power. UN bureaucracy has proven to be a breeding ground for corruption. It would be unwise to hand over any control of the oceans, oil, gas and minerals to the UN. The last thing the U.S. needs to do is surrender more sovereignty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)