Cuba Moves Toward Capitalism ?

 

Cuba Moves Toward Capitalism HAVANA – When Cuba legalizes buying and selling real estate by the end of the year – as the government promised again this week – many expect a cascade of changes: higher prices, mass relocation, property taxes and a flood of money from Cubans in the United States and around the world. Private property is the nucleus of capitalism, of course, so the plan to legitimize it here in a country of slogans like “socialism or death” strikes many Cubans as jaw-dropping. Indeed, most people expect onerous regulations and, already, the plan outlined by the state media would suppress the market by limiting Cubans to one home or apartment and requiring full-time residency. Yet even with some state control, experts say, property sales could transform Cuba more than any of the economic reforms announced by President Raul Castro’s government. Cuba under Raúl: Creeping toward capitalism? Since Raúl Castro took the helm in February, he's rolled out a series economic changes, including allowing Cubans to buy cellphones and giving farmers profit-incentives. Clandestine gym: Guillermo Arrastia built exercise equipment out of old scaffolding. He runs this illegal gym in a Havana garage. Havana A handful of Cubans are taking turns doing bicep curls and pedaling on stationary bikes. At first glance, there's nothing extraordinary about this nameless gym in the basement of a Havana apartment complex. Yet when night falls, the machines – crafted out of wood planks and scavenged metal tubing – disappear like a government informant into the shadows. They are disassembled and tucked away to make room for the coughing Russian Ladas and '50s-era American cars that fill the building's parking lot. Officially, this fly-by-day gym does not exist, but Guillermo Arrastia opened it five years ago. He employs a staff of three and collects monthly $5 fees from more than 100 members. It is run completely "por la izquierda" – "on the left" – a term that describes how most Cubans make ends meet. "We have to survive," says Mr. Arrastia, unapologetically. Such gray-market microenterprises exemplify a spirit of dynamism and creativity straining to be fully unleashed, say some observers of Cuba. The question of the day: Is Raúl Castro about to release it? The island nation's economy has struggled mightily since losing the support of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Free-market reforms within a socialist system, like the kind embraced by China, had been rejected by Fidel Castro, who ruled for a half century. But there are signs that younger brother Raúl, who permanently replaced Fidel in February, may orchestrate a move toward a more capitalist economy. Raúl's reputation as a pragmatist is unfurling expectations here that the era of asceticism and austerity is coming to a close. Major agricultural reforms have been unveiled. And in a speech earlier this month, he seemed to be preparing the populace for an economic shift. "Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income," Raúl said on July 11 while addressing Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament in its first session since he replaced Fidel. "Equality is not egalitarianism." It's hard to imagine the father of the 1959 revolution ever uttering such words, say Cuba analysts. And a recent flurry of headline-grabbing changes – such as allowing Cubans to patronize tourist hotels and to own cellphones, DVD players, and computers – is fueling speculation about how fast Raúl will pursue the "China model" of a managed creep toward free markets. Some expect more reforms to be announced during a speech by Raúl on July 26, Revolution Day. "Cuba is never going to go as far as the Chinese have in dismantling the social safety net," says William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University in Washington. But he says that Raúl has already exhibited an expediency that Fidel never dared: acknowledging under-the-table wages, raising salaries and enticing productivity with payment, and, most important, he says, introducing market incentives in the farming sector that could be the starting gun for reforms in other sectors. "To some extent, they are experimenting to see how additional market mechanisms work out economically and to see the political ramifications," he says. "I think there are a lot more changes coming." After the Soviet Union collapsed – and Cuba lost generous oil supplies and subsidies that had buoyed the economy for decades – a "special period" of economic hardship ensued. In this context, Fidel grudgingly loosened the economy, giving rise to a new crop of tailors, mechanics, and restaurateurs. The government created about 150 categories of licenses for Cubans to start their own businesses, and the ranks of self-employed swelled to 200,000. Today that number has fallen to 150,000, says Antonio Jorge, a retired economics professor from Florida International University who also worked as a finance official in the early years of Fidel's reign. Fidel began to discourage such businesses the late 1990s, saying that they were creating economic inequality, says Mr. Jorge. A gap was growing between entrepreneurial haves and state-employed have-nots. In response, the government stopped issuing new licenses for 40 categories of businesses (including restaurants) in 2004, jacked up taxes, and created other limits on income growth, such as reducing the number of tables permitted at paladares – private restaurants that Cubans are allowed to run out of their homes. Jorge says that Fidel wouldn't allow anything that detracted from absolute central government control. But, he says, that Raúl could, for example, boost the number of categories of small businesses and be more liberal in the granting of licenses, or remove some of the barriers such as high taxes. "These are measures that won't affect his hold on power or change the collectivist nature of the regime, but will improve standards of living for some people," says Jorge. But for now, the burdens Fidel imposed have merely pushed entrepreneurial activity underground. Ani, a 20-something Cuban woman – who like most Cubans interviewed for this series withheld her last name – has opted out of the state jobs system, one that she once idealistically embraced, she says. She was trained as a teacher in her home province Pinar del Rio, and moved to Havana to teach junior high students. But after a few years of making 200 pesos ($9) a month, she quit. "The [pay for the] job was not worth it," she says. Now she has no official job, aside from helping her aunt rent out a room to foreign tourists, an illegal but far more lucrative venture. When asked about the loss of her contribution to society as an educator, she shrugs: "This is how it works here. What we don't have we invent." Everything is 'on the left' It takes no more than a half day with Jorge Aviles to see that nearly everyone in his Havana neighborhood, and in his sphere of activities, operates "on the left." There is the neighbor who rents out her empty apartment to foreign tourists – even though by law to rent a room in your house you must live there. There is another who sells pizzas out her side window at night. As Mr. Aviles walks down the street, he gets "business" proposals, ranging from risky to innocuous. One a recent day, he bumps into an old friend and is offered a year's supply of soap bars for $75. He counters by offering the spare room he sometimes rents by the hour to couples. The friend replies that he and his girlfriend have recently gotten their own place. How about an installment plan of $25 a year for three years, he asks. Aviles passes. "Everything here is about selling and negotiating, and it's all illegal," says Aviles, who insists on using a pseudonym since he is on the government's radar after being fined in November for renting his room to foreign tourists without authorization. He questions why endeavors that would be considered entrepreneurial and encouraged in most countries are outside the law here. Back at his underground gym, Arrastia also knows he faces a fine if he is found out. After he lost his computer sales job and hit on the idea of a gym in the parking lot, he sought a government license for his gym. But he found out that the business category doesn't exist. So he consulted his building's neighborhood association, which approved of his plans. Today he pays the association about $12 a month to keep quiet about the arrangement. He knows he is at the mercy of any disgruntled neighbor, but he also says that such endeavors will be legalized and that his tiny exercise room with about 25 homemade machines will be the template for a much bigger business some day. "I do believe this will be authorized," says Arrastia. "I want to have another much bigger gym, legally.... I will grow this business and have gyms all over Havana." Farm reform on fast track How soon, if ever, urban Cubans like Arrastia will get the opportunity to legally run small businesses isn't clear. But Cubans in the countryside may already be on a faster track to change. Agricultural reforms could radically transform the island's economy: Last week, Raúl granted private farmers the right to till plots of up to 99 acres of unused government land. This follows a previous announcement to shift control of farms from the central government in Havana to local councils, raise prices for certain products to boost production, and give farmers the right to use whatever farm equipment they can afford to buy. Almost immediately upon taking power 50 years ago, Fidel Castro began nationalizing the telecommunications industry and expropriating farm lands. Less than a decade later almost all businesses were in state hands. In exchange, Cubans were given subsidized food, free healthcare, and homes. The economy never functioned independently, and it has never quite recovered from the fall of the Soviet Union. Cuba now relies heavily on Venezuela, whose leftist President Hugo Chávez sends nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day to the island in exchange for social services, such as Cuban doctors and teachers. Even though Raúl promises not to veer from the ideals of the revolution, he has publicly acknowledged that the system does not work in its current form. The moves to increase crop production are, in part, a response to a global spike in fuel and food prices, which has made the subsidized food system – once regarded as one of the major successes of the revolution – untenable for many ordinary Cubans today. "We're [in deep trouble]," whispers a man, using an expletive, while exiting a state-run produce market in Havana. He says he could not afford to buy anything to supplement the monthly ration of rice, beans, potatoes, eggs, a little meat, and other goods. Many Cubans say the ration does not last them more than three weeks, if that. In his most recent speech to parliament, Raúl implored his countrymen to work harder and prepare for tough times ahead as the global food crisis ripples toward Cuba. "We have to definitively reverse the decline in the amount of cultivated land," he said, adding that it has shrunk by 33 percent in the past nine years. "Stated simply, we must return to the land. We must make it produce. There is already a clear strategy and a plan of action, from the national level to the lowest level of production." Currently more than half of arable land lies fallow or is under used, according to Cuban government figures cited by The Associated Press. Cuba spent $1.5 billion importing food last year. This year it is expected to spend $1 billion more, say officials. "There's been a recognition by Raúl that the government cannot run farms as well as [private] firms can," says John Parke Wright, a wealthy rancher and sixth-generation Floridian whose ancestors were instrumental in cementing trade ties between Tampa and Havana in the 1800s (see sidebar, page 11). Mr. Wright and other longtime observers say that market experiments on farms are just a stepping stone to a more open economy. Texan cattle and cotton But while some Cubans blame their economic woes on strict controls and prohibitive taxes, many still view the US and its 1962 trade embargo as the bigger culprit. No matter how much Raúl seeks to open the economy, the embargo will stand in the way of much-needed foreign investment, analysts say. If the economy is opened up, the tourist industry will explode. But it is on the farms and fields of Cuba where a change is most likely – and there is no shortage of investors eyeing potential changes. On May 27, a group of trade representatives from Texas wrapped up the first official state visit to the island since the US established the embargo. "Cubans expressed a sincere desire to do business with Texas," says Texas agriculture commissioner Todd Staples, who led the delegation. Cuba is an important market for Texan cattle, rice, poultry, cotton, and processed food products that enter under provisions in the US embargo that allow small amounts of trade in agricultural products. "We just went to develop relationships, but the trip exceeded our expectations," says Mr. Staples. Members of the delegation signed two new cotton contracts worth $400,000 and initiated several other contracts for poultry, milk, and processed foods. "Positive trade relationships can lead to greater understanding of the issues that divide us," he says. Such goodwill may not be the status quo in either nation right now, but the sense that change is coming certainly is. "The social values we espouse mean nothing if there is no economic basis," says Renel, a young lawyer in Havana. "Whether it is socialism, communism, capitalism, even feudalism, things are going to change." Squatting to fix one of his broken-down stationary exercise bikes, Arrastia agrees: "In the future, the economy will open up. It has to. The people have a limit." Marxism demands the abolition of private property as one of the most important points in the move away from the free market so allowing it is surely a sign that Cuba is now moving closer to capitalism. In all fairness Cuba does allow people to ‘sell’ for example their house but it more closely resembles a complicated system of bartering and government monitoring through officials that usually need to be bribed. It’s more like a state sponsored trade where the government acts like the mafia and demands a cut of the profit. What does this mean for the Cuban people? For the first time since the revolution Cubans can now they say they own their house or a piece of land. This could trigger the most rudimentary market, cause Cubans to recognise this as their right and cut out the state from the process of allowing individuals to buy, sell and exchange their property for goods or services. I’ve just inadvertently made an assertion that is pivotal in the next section: that Cubans have the right to own property and the state should be cut out of the process of buying or selling it. There are several human rights that would support the presence of a free market in property, the right of individuals to own things and the right to be left alone by the state when you’re conducting private business. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states our right to privacy and to a home, denying the state the right to interfere with the process of buying or selling things or owning our home at all. Article 17 of the Declaration explicitly states we have the right to own property; therefore there is no reason why we cannot buy and sell things, the basis of the free market. I am unimpressed by the Cuban Government’s statement that it will ‘allow its people to own property’. It simply isn’t empowered to say which human rights Cubans do or don’t have. Cuban people have always had the right to own property and the right to be left alone by the state; the Cuban Government just didn’t respect it. I don’t think we should dismiss this important move towards greater freedom for Cubans simply because ‘they’ve always had it’ but I don’t think we should stand up and applaud Raul Castro for not denying his people their human rights. We wouldn’t say ‘well done’ if he announced that the Cuban Government had decided not to deny the people the right to life would we? It’s an extreme parallel to draw but human rights are indivisible, you can’t have one without the others. The right to life is part of the right to property and vice versa. They are also interdependent, they rely upon each other. The right to property is one that comes up against attack from left of centre governments and ideologues more often than the others. They claim ‘property is theft’, ownership is taking away from the environment or property instead of being an individual right is a collective right belonging to society. All of these arguments have their merits but simply put, guaranteeing the right to property, with all its inherent connotations such as buying or selling goods or services, is guaranteeing equality in a market economy. Let me give some examples, the right to property prohibits a person of one ethnicity refusing to sell their home to a person of another. The buyer is human being therefore has the right to own property. It prohibits a gay person being refused service in a restaurant, that person is a human being therefore has the right to buy a service. It prohibits women being denied inheritance, she is a human being therefore has the right to own land and to receive and pass it on without interference. A wheelchair user can expect an access ramp into a cinema because they have an equal right to use the service as someone who can take the stairs. To paraphrase: the right to own property is not just the right to acquire a house, it’s the right of all human beings to participate in a market as equals, irrespective of any personal defining characteristic. The right to own property might be arguably the most capitalist of our human rights, it’s inextricably tied to the market and ownership, but it is also a great equalizer and without knowing it I am sure many of us invoke it every day.   The seafront at Havana. Cubans are having to deal with the possibility of widespread redundancies as the state struggles to manage a mixed economy. Photograph: Desmond Boylan/Reuters It was supposed to be the start of a brave new world in which the customer was king. But the teenage boy in the barber's chair stared at his reflection, aghast and almost crying. "What have you done?" he asked, caressing uneven clumps on a shorn scalp. The barber, a fortysomething man with a grubby white coat, put down the scissors, lit a cigarette, and shrugged. "Looks OK to me. Don't know what you're on about." The young customer examined his head from different angles, each worse than the last. "It's like …" – he struggled for words – "a tennis ball. A bald bloody tennis ball." The barber took another drag and put out his hand. "Forty pesos. Have a nice day." The scene on Neptuno street, a crumbling, sun-bleached quarter near downtown Havana, was a taste of Cuba's challenge in transforming its socialist economy with a sweeping privatisation drive. Authorities announced yesterday they will lay off more than 1 million state employees in the island's biggest economic shake-up since the 1960s. Cuts begin immediately, with 500,000 jobs due to go by March. Loosened controls on private enterprise will, it is hoped, jumpstart the private sector and turn former public workers into entrepreneurs. "Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls [and] losses that hurt the economy," said the official Cuban labour federation, which announced the news. "Job options will be increased and broadened with new forms of non-state employment, among them leasing land, co-operatives and self-employment, absorbing hundreds of thousands of workers in the coming years," it said. In fact, the changes started in April with a pilot scheme to privatise barbers and hairdressers. Formerly state employees – about 85% of the labour force works for the communist state – they were told to take over their own salons, charge whatever they wanted, pay tax – and court customers. As the barber showed, providing good customer service, let alone expanding market share, is an alien concept to many accustomed to receiving the same pittance wage regardless of job performance. "I don't want to take over this place," Luis, the barber, who preferred not to give his surname, told the Guardian. "How do I know it'll make a profit? How do I pay suppliers?" Like it or not, those are questions many more Cubans will soon be asking after receiving their pink slips. The authorities, according to a 26-page party document leaked to the Associated Press, have a plan for them to raise rabbits, paint buildings, make bricks, collect garbage and pilot ferries across Havana's bay. Some of those let go will be urged to form private co-operatives, others will be directed towards foreign-run companies and joint ventures, and others will be encouraged to set up their own small businesses. The Communist party document admitted lack of experience, insufficient skill levels and low initiative could sink new enterprises. "Many of them could fail within a year," it says. After half a century of official certitude about being its socialist course, Cuba is entering new waters. Its final destination remains unclear. "A hybrid is evolving which can't be said to be any one thing," said Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank. "We're seeing a uniquely Cuban transition but within the global economy." Unemployment last year was officially 1.7%, but with average monthly salaries of only $20, supplemented by a ration book and free health care and education, many Cubans make minimal efforts, prompting an old joke: "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." Che Guevara's dream of creating a "socialist man" motivated by moral rather than material incentives has long been abandoned. This week's announcement – widely reported across state media – has been trailed since Raul Castro succeeded his brother Fidel as president in 2008. "We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world in which people can live without working," he told the national assembly last month. The decades-old US embargo – a crippling, punitive measure – could no longer be blamed for all the island's woes, he said. It was no longer possible to protect and subsidise salaries on an unlimited basis and cuts will affect all government sectors, said the labour federation. "Losses that hurt our economy are ultimately counterproductive, creating bad habits and distorting worker conduct." Workers at the ministries of sugar, public health, tourism and agriculture will be let go first, according to the Communist party document. The last in line will be those at civil aviation and the ministries of foreign relations and social services. To ease the pain, authorities hope to energise the stunted private sector by encouraging Cubans to raise animals, grow vegetables, drive taxis, repair vehicles, make sweets and dried fruit and seek building work. Leftwingers abroad may feel let down by the cuts, but Cuban officials believe the thriving black market is an indicator that the private sector will soak up surplus labour. Such consensus would contrast with Britain, Ireland and Greece, among others, where cutbacks have triggered vocal protests. One Havana-based western diplomat was less sanguine about Cuba's response, especially as there were simultaneous cuts in subsidies for food, cigarettes and other products which people used to barter. "People knew this was coming, but now it's here, it's real, and they're worried. Bosses will get rid of the least productive employees, the ones who don't work or show up for work. The type of people who may lack the get up and go to start a business. People wonder if there will be a rise in crime, or social protests." Europe was enduring its own economic travails but was at least accustomed to unemployment, said the diplomat. "People here aren't used to being threatened with losing their job. They may complain their salary is only $15 a month, but that's $15 more than nothing." The US journalist who elicited Fidel Castro's apparent admission that Cuba's economic model does not work has insisted the quote accurately reflected the former president's views. Castro confirmed uttering the nine-word remark,, which caused widespread astonishment, but said he had been misinterpreted and that he had meant the "exact opposite". At the end of a lunch in Havana Castro told Daniel Goldberg, a correspondent with the Atlantic magazine: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." The comandante was in full flow, touching on many different topics at the same time, said Goldberg. "I don't want to call it a throwaway line but it was kind of semi-stream of consciousness." Goldberg said he was surprised at Castro's subsequent attempt to explain away the remark. "I don't know how you can interpret that as its opposite. The 84-year-old had made similar admissions before, said the journalist, and economic changes underway on the island made it "a truism that the Cuban model isn't working". Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert who also attended the lunch, backed Goldberg's version and said Castro's apparent U-turn was aimed at a domestic audience. "He wanted to say that although we're changing our model that doesn't mean we're importing US-style capitalism," she said. Castro's spate of public appearances and comments, said Sweig, were "spontaneous" but fitted the economic reform strategy of his brother and successor, Raul Castro. It's never too late to learn. Current news from Spain, France, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, England, the Malvinas and several other parts of the planet are serious and all foretell political and economic disaster due to the foolhardiness of the United States and its allies. By Fidel Castro Cuba found itself forced to fight for its existence against an expansionist power located a few miles off its coast that had declared the annexation of our island and that believed our destiny was to fall into their lap like a piece of ripe fruit. We were condemned to cease to exist as a nation. Memorial José Martí --- "Apostle of Cuban Independence" Jose Marti was among the glorious legion of patriots who throughout the second half of the 19th century fought against the loathsome colonialism brandished by Spain for 300 years. Marti most clearly foresaw such a dramatic destiny and expressed this view in the last lines he would write prior to engaging in tough combat against a well-equipped and battle-hardened Spanish column. He declared that the primary objective of his struggles were “… preventing in time, by Cuba’s independence, that the United States should expand through the Antilles and pounce with that added strength on our lands of America. Everything that I have done up to now and will do in the future shall be done for this purpose.” Today one cannot be a patriot or a revolutionary without thoroughly understanding this profound truth. Without a doubt, the mass media, the monopoly of technical resources, and the substantial funds earmarked for misleading and making the masses mindless today represent considerable but not insurmountable obstacles. Havana's most fashionable residence street and driving thoroughfare extends from the gloomy Punta fortress along the line of the ancient city wall, past the Central Park to Colon Park, shaded with laurels and lined with handsome homes and clubs. In 1907 a hurricane wrecked many of the great laurels, as well as the royal palms of Colon Park, but in the genial climate of Cuba the ravages of the elements were rapidly repaired. The Prado was officially renamed by the Cuban Republic the Paseo de Marti, in honor of José Marti, but the old name still clings inseparably to it. Cuba showed that —despite being a factory of Yankee colonialism with widespread illiteracy and generalized poverty— it was possible to stand up to the country that threatened to definitively takeover the Cuban nation. No one can argue that at the time there was a national bourgeoisie that was opposed to the empire. In fact, the Cuban bourgeoisie at the time had developed such close ties to the empire that, shortly following the triumph of the Revolution, it sent 14,000 unprotected children to the United States based on the horrendous lie that Cuba was to abolish parental authority. History would come to remember this event as Operation Peter Pan and as one of the worst manipulations of children for political ends ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Barely two days after the triumph of the Revolution the national territory was invaded by mercenary forces —made up of former Batista soldiers and sons of landowners and the bourgeoisie— armed and escorted by the United States with ships from the US Navy fleet including aircraft carriers with equipment ready for action. The defeat and capture of almost the entire force of mercenaries in less than 72 hours, and the destruction of their planes that were operating out of Nicaraguan bases and naval transportation means, represented a humiliating defeat for the empire and their Latin American allies who had underestimated the Cuban people’s capacity to fight. Responding to the stoppage of oil supplies from the US, the previous total suspension of traditional Cuban sugar quotas in the US market, and the ban on trade in place for more than 100 years, the USSR began to supply fuel, to buy our sugar, to trade with our country and, finally, to supply the arms that Cuba could not acquire in other markets. Nikita Jrushchov The idea of a systematic campaign of pirate attacks organized by the CIA, sabotages and military actions by groups created and armed by the US, before and after the mercenary attack and that would culminate with the United States’ military invasion of Cuba, gave rise to the events that pushed the world to the brink of total nuclear war that no sides or even humanity itself would have survived. Those events no doubt cost Nikita Jruschov his job. He had underestimated his adversary, ignored opinions and information, and did not consult his final decision with those of us who were in the frontline. What could have been a significant moral victory became a costly political setback for the USSR. For many years the US continued to commit the worst crimes against Cuba and many, such as its criminal blockade, are still carried out today. Jruschov made extraordinary gestures to our country. At the time I did not hesitate in strongly criticizing the agreement reached with the United States without consultation. But it would be ungrateful and unjust to not acknowledge his extraordinary solidarity at difficult and decisive junctures for our people in their historic battle for independence and their revolution in face of the powerful US empire. I understand that the situation was extremely tense and that he did not want to lose a minute when he made his decision to remove the missiles and the Yankees, very secretly, agreed to not carry out their invasion. Despite all the decades that have passed and make up more than half a century, the Cuban fruit has not fallen into Yankee hands. Current news from Spain, France, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, England, the Malvinas and several other parts of the planet are serious and all foretell political and economic disaster due to the foolhardiness of the United States and its allies. I will limit myself to just a few topics. I must point out that the campaign to select a Republican candidate as the possible future president of this globalized and far-reaching empire has become —I say this in all seriousness— the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been heard. But as I have things to do, I cannot dedicate any time to this topic. I knew it would be like this. I prefer to analyze some other press dispatches that show the incredible cynicism generated by the decadence of the West. One of these reports, with amazing tranquility, tells the story of a Cuban “political prisoner” who, according to the article, died after a 50-day hunger strike. A journalist from Granma, Juventud Rebelde, radio or any other [Cuban] news agency might make a mistake writing on any given topic, but they would never make up a news story and fabricate a lie. The article published in Granma confirms that the 50-day hunger strike did not take place. The prisoner was in jail for committing a common crime and sentenced to four years for an assault that left his wife’s face battered. The man’s own mother-in-law went to the police to request their help. All family members were aware of all the procedures taken regarding the medical care he received and were thankful of the efforts carried out by the specialist doctors who attended him. The article goes on to say that he received care at the best hospital in eastern Cuba, as any other citizen would have received. He died as a result of secondary multiple organ failure associated with an acute respiratory infection. The patient had received all the available medical care from a country that possesses one of the best medical systems in the world and that provides these services free-of-charge, despite the empire’s blockade against our country. It simply represents a duty in a country where the Revolution proudly respects, as it always has for more than 50 years, the principles that gave it its invincible force. Given their excellent relations with Washington, it would be best if the Spanish government went to the United States to take a look at what happens in Yankee prisons, their ruthless treatment of millions of prisoners, their electric chair policy, and the horrors committed against prisoners and public protesters. Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz and President Raul Castro Ruz at the Communist Party of Cuba Congress held in April 2011. The revolutionary brothers have contributed decades of struggle on behalf of the humanity.Image : Pan African News Wire File Photo On Monday, January 23, Granma published a full-page, hard-hitting editorial entitled Cuba’s Truths. The article details the exceptional degree of shamelessness in the latest campaign of lies launched against our Revolution by some governments “traditionally committed to anti-Cuban subversion.” Our people are well aware of the standards that have governed over the irreproachable conduct of our Revolution since the first combat and that has never been sullied throughout more than half a century. They also know that they can never be pressured or blackmailed by their enemies. Our laws and regulations will invariably be abided by. This is worthwhile to point out with total clarity and openness. The Spanish government and the beat-up European Union, in the midst of an acute economic crisis, should know what to abide by. It is a disgrace to read declarations from both regions in news reports that are full of shameless lies attacking Cuba. Try to save the Euro first if you can, try to resolve chronic unemployment that increasingly affects young people, and respond to the indignados who have only received attacks and constant beatings from the police. We cannot ignore that those who currently govern in Spain are admirers of Franco, who sent members of the Blue Division along with SS and SA Nazis to kill Soviets. Close to 50,000 of them participated in the bloody attacks. In the most cruel and painful operation of that war, the Leningrad Blockade where one million Russian citizens died, the Blue Division were part of the forces that attempted to strangle the heroic city. The Russian people will never forgive that horrendous crime. The rightwing fascists led by Aznar, Rajoy and other servants of the empire must know about the 16,000 fatalities suffered by their predecessors of the Blue Division and the Iron Crosses that Hitler awarded the officials and soldiers of that division. It is not a surprise then to see how the Gestapo police are treating the Spanish men and women who demand the right to work and bread in the country with the highest unemployment in Europe. Why do the mass media outlets of the empire lie so shamelessly ? Those who control those media outlets are determined to deceive and make the world mindless with their gross lies, maybe believing that they represent the main recourse necessary to maintain the global system of domination and plunder, especially against those victims close to the mother country —the close to 70 million Latin Americans and Caribbean people who live in this hemisphere. The fraternal republic of Venezuela has become one of the main targets of this policy. The reason is obvious. Without Venezuela, the empire would have imposed its Free Trade Agreement on all of the people of the continent living south of the United States; an area that holds the planet’s largest reserves of land, fresh water and minerals as well as great energy resources, which, when managed in solidarity with the other people in the world, constitutes resources which cannot and must not fall into the hands of transnationals that impose a suicidal and despicable system. David Cameron and President Hamid Karzai to sign agreement on Afghanistan’s future It is enough, for example, to look at the map to understand the criminal dispossession carried out against Argentina of a piece of its territory in the far south. In the Malvinas, the British employed their decadent military apparatus to assassinate inexperienced Argentine recruits dressed in summer clothing in the middle of winter. The United States and their ally Augusto Pinochet shamelessly supported England in this endeavor. Currently, with the London Olympics on the horizon, British Prime Minister David Cameron is once again proclaiming, as did Margaret Thatcher, his right to use nuclear submarines to kill Argentines. The British government is unaware that the world is changing and that the disdain felt in our hemisphere by the majority of the people against the oppressors is growing with each day. The case of the Malvinas is not alone. Does anyone know how the conflict in Afghanistan will end? A few days ago US soldiers committed outrages against the bodies of Afghani combatants, killed by NATO drone aircraft. Three days ago a European news agency published an article stating that Afghani President Hamid Karzai gave his support of a negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban, stressing that it must be resolved by citizens in his country. Hamid Karzai added that the peace and reconciliation process belongs to the Afghani nation and that no foreign country or organization can take away this right from Afghanis. An article in the Cuban press written in Paris reported, “Today France suspended all its military training and support operations in Afghanistan and threatened to move up the date for the withdrawal of its troops after an Afghani soldier killed four French military officers in the Taghab valley in the province of Kapisa…Sarkozy gave instructions to Defense Minister Gerard Longuet to immediately travel to Kabul, and warned of the possibility of an early withdrawal of troops.” When the USSR and the Socialist Camp disappeared, the United States government thought that Cuba would not be able to support itself. George W. Bush had already prepared a counterrevolutionary government to preside over our country. The same day that Bush began his criminal war against Iraq, I requested that our authorities stop with the policy of tolerance towards the counterrevolutionary leaders in Cuba that had been hysterically calling for an invasion of Cuba. In reality, their actions constituted an act of treason against the Homeland. Bush and his stupidities reigned for eight years at a time when the Cuban Revolution had already lasted for more than half a century. The ripe fruit has never fallen into the lap of the empire. Cuba will never become another force used by the empire to expand over the people of the Americas. Marti’s blood will not have been shed in vain.

1 A man gets a haircut in Central Havana, July 26, 2011. The area is one of the most heavily populated of the Cuban capital since many of these old buildings have been subdivided to house multiple families. (The New York Times) # 2 People look at signs offering to exchange housing, a process known as "Permutar," (or "swap") in a park where they gather every Saturday, in Paseo del Prado, July 30, 2011. Private property is such a central tenet of capitalism that the plan to legitimize it here strikes many Cubans as jaw-dropping. (The New York Times) # Looking for the HTML code and photo file link? Check out this FAQ. 3 An old house that has been subdivided and is in use by several families, known as a "solar," in central Havana, July 29, 2011. Experts say that even with some state controls, property sales, announced recently by the government that some would be permitted, could transform Cuba more than any other economic reform announced by President Raul Castro's government. (The New York Times) # 4 An image of Che Guevara on a wall of the Port Inspection Building in Old Havana, July 25, 2011. Experts say that even with some state controls, property sales, announced recently by the government that some would be permitted, could transform Cuba more than any other economic reform announced by President Raul Castro's government. (The New York Times) # 5 A building in Central Havana, July 29, 2011. The area is one of the most heavily populated of the Cuban capital because many of these old buildings have been subdivided to house multiple families. Experts say that even with some state controls, property sales, announced recently by the government that some would be permitted, could transform Cuba more than any other economic reform announced by President Raul Castro's government. (The New York Times) # 6 A grandfather, left, with his son and grandson, center, watch television in their small house where they live with four other family members in Old Havana, July 26, 2011. In the background is a makeshift partition where another room was created. (The New York Times) # 7 Central Havana seen through a window, July 26, 2011. (The New York Times) # 8 Soviet-era housing complex in Alamar, near Havana, Cuba. July 30, 2011. Experts say that even with some state controls, property sales, announced recently by the government that some would be permitted, could transform Cuba more than any other economic reform announced by President Raul Castro's government. (The New York Times) # 9 One of several old buildings that have been restored in Old Havana, seen July 29, 2011. (The New York Times) # 10 A mother and son sleep in the livingroom of their house in Central Havana, July 27, 2011. Other family members sleep in a room known as "barbacoa (the barbecue)," a windowless floor added atop their current dwelling for added space. (The New York Times) # 11 A woman climbs the stairs to her "barbacoa" (the barbecue), the name given to a small windowless room built on top of the main room of an apartment, carved out of an old building in Central Havana, July 26, 2011. (The New York Times) # 12 An old house that has been subdivided and is in use by several families in the Old Vedado neighborhood of Havana, July 27, 2011. Private property is such a central tenet of capitalism that the plan to legitimize it here strikes many Cubans as jaw-dropping. (The New York Times) # 13 An old house that has been subdivided and is in use by several families, known as a "solar," in Old Havana, July 26, 2011. (The New York Times) # 14 A worn staircase in an old house that has been subdivided and is in use by several families, known as a "solar," in Old Havana, July 28, 2011. Experts say that even with some state controls, property sales, announced recently by the government that some would be permitted, could transform Cuba more than any other economic reform announced by President Raul Castro's government. (The New York Times) # 15 A street in Old Havana, one of the most most densely populated areas in Latin America, July 28, 2011. (The New York Times) # 16 Children play at the entrance to a "solar", an old house subdivided into various dwellings housing several families, in Central Havana, July 30, 2011. (The New York Times) # La Habana: Parque Central Cuba - La Habana - Habana Vieja - Parque Central below Right: La Habana: Jose Martì y el Capitolio Looking for the HTML code and photo file link? Check out this FAQ.

 

 

Suicide or Political Persecution? The Mysterious Deaths of Ernest Hemingway and Iris Chang

 

 

If the implications of the sinister dimension of Hoover's FBI are not acknowledged, it is not possible to realistically assess the actual substance of the relationship between Hoover and Hemingway. There is in fact a huge gaping omission in the historical record because deception, denial, fraud and evasion has too often provided the opportunity to cover up Hoover sponsored crime. Moreover, the common tendency to ignore the significance of Hoover's ferocious, anti-Hemingway crusade certainly dulls the prospect of reconstructing the elusive truth. In retrospect, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the extreme hostility between Hoover and Hemingway drew battle lines which were clearly defined and courted predictable casualties. In particular, Hemingway despised and opposed the McCarthy-style persecutions that Hoover secretly supported, criticized the practise of using the FBI to harass American citizens without justification and was predictably "exiled" for vigorously condemning the tyranny that Hoover promoted and encouraged. Quoted in Look in May of 1954, when McCarthy was at the height of his power, Hemingway said that there is nothing "wrong with Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin that a .577 solid would not cure". McCarthy and Hoover evidently incited the worst and destroyed the best of everything they touched. Hemingway was not a gun-toting extremist. It was Hoover who induced that spirit. Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway, who was born 21 July 1899 15th July 1944: American writer and war correspondent Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961). Original Publication: Picture Post - 1748 - Hemingway Looks At The War In Europe - pub. 1944 (Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images) The frustration of being persecuted by Hoover's FBI had taken its toll as early as 1954, when FBI agents evidently shadowed Hemingway wherever he went. Recall that Frank Wilkinson, a relatively obscure target had as many as eight FBI agents tailing him -an internationally reputed author like Hemingway was invariably the victim of an equally outrageous degree of unwarranted, illegal surveillance. But despite the fact that he was a target of covert, illegal operations, Hemingway was provided no recourse to justice and could do very little beyond mock the "obtrusive, inescapable FBI men, pleasant and all trying to look so average, clean-cut-young-American that they stood out as clearly as though they had worn a bureau shoulder patch on their white linen or seersucker suits". Hoover used the "infallible" wing of the FBI to spy on Hemingway, and unbeknownst to agents who were simply following relatively innocuous instructions, they ultimately aided and abetted a murderer like J. Edgar Hoover. Clearly, when FBI agents placed Hemingway under surveillance to develop a derogatory profile, the plot to discredit Hemingway escalated from the effort to label him a drunk, a liar, and a Communist to the determination to declare him insane in order to justify his alleged suicide. FBI smear campaigns against Hemingway were extremely secretive because Hoover was afraid to confront him in public and public ignorance made it easy for him to promote the suggestion that Hemingway was paranoid. How, for example, could Hemingway convincingly claim that Hoover's FBI was America's Gestapo, when the FBI did not publicly demonstrate any interest in him? In the final analysis, it is the extreme secrecy that Hoover maintained which provided the opportunity to promote the claim that Hemingway was paranoid and unstable when in fact he was more reasonable and more perceptive than most. Critics who harp on common misrepresentations had a field day with the claim that Hemingway committed suicide, but they merely promoted common ignorance. Hoover had spent over a decade trying to convince anyone who would listen that Hemingway was unreliable, and it was only a matter of time before his relentless, illegal intrusions destroyed Hemingway. Having committed the unpardonable sin of challenging the infallible reputation of the FBI, Hemingway was clearly a priority target who was always shadowed by the FBI until the very day he was murdered or, as the official record dictates, "committed suicide".  "Hemingway doing something badass." American author Ernest Hemingway, who, at the time, was a reporter and paramilitary aide in the liberation of France from German occupation in World War II, is shown wearing boxing gear in July 1944. (AP Photo) In late 1960, when Hemingway arrived in New York, having left Cuba for the last time, Hemingway told his wife Mary: "They're tailing me out here already... Somebody waiting out there."9 Hoover's FBI was indeed always tailing Hemingway -a harassment that disturbed him so profoundly that he didn't even want to leave his small apartment. Hemingway's wife dismissed his legitimate concerns and developed the belief that he was "losing it". Ironically, it is the fact that Hemingway was perceptive enough to challenge unwarranted FBI surveillance which prompted the allegation that he was suffering from delusions, paranoia, fear of persecution -mental illness. But it is the people who claimed that Hemingway was unstable who were ultimately deluded. Hoover's FBI in New York had nothing better to than to tail so-called Communist subversives and prominent adversaries like Hemingway were invariably smothered by overzealous FBI agents who thrived upon the opportunity to satisfy the Director's paranoia over public literary enemy number one. Hemingway's deepest and most disturbing fear concerning the FBI was well grounded, yet he was constantly branded paranoid whenever he exposed what was essentially the truth. Perfectly logical commentary like "nobody likes to be tailed... investigated, queried about, by any amateur detective no matter how scholarly or how straight", reflected legitimate frustrations not paranoia -frustrations that Hemingway had to deal with all by himself. Even his wife and his so-called friend Hotchner, who called him paranoid simply because he acknowledged the obvious, inadvertently made it easier for Hoover to persecute Hemingway. Determined to "prove" that Hemingway was unreliable, paranoid and delusionary, the secrecy that Hoover imposed ultimately granted the opportunity to exploit the ignorance of those who did not acknowledge the threat that Hoover's FBI posed. Mary and Hotchner certainly manifested the phenomenal ignorance which shaped their frivolous perspectives: Both Mary and Hotchner have said that Hemingway imagined he was being followed and spied on by FBI agents in Ketchum and in the Mayo Clinic, and that no kind of argument or evidence could change his mind or alleviate his irrational but quite terrifying fear. Mary and Hotchner thought his fear of the FBI meant that he was losing touch with reality and heading for a mental breakdown -[all music to Hoover's ears] Hemingway, who was invariably always followed by Hoover's FBI, has been posthumously vindicated. Hemingway wasn't paranoid. Hotchner and Mary were ignorant. In 1960, suffering from high blood pressure, liver and kidney diseases and haemochromatosis, a rare, chronic form of diabetes, Hemingway sought medical treatment to relieve his physical ailments. Hemingway was not, as has been frequently suggested, a psychiatric patient. Having endured a liver malady since 1937, Hemingway had given up drinking on the advice of his doctor, but by 1960, his worsening condition prompted the need for further medical attention. Thus, on November 30, 1960, Hemingway entered the Mayo clinic and hoped to return home by Christmas. Knowing that the FBI was monitoring every move that he made, Hemingway sought to enter the Mayo clinic under an assumed name to keep his visits to the Mayo a secret, but despite Hemingway's expressed orders, Dr. Rome, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic, violated Hemingway's right to privacy. The FBI was carefully monitoring Hemingway's treatment at the Mayo clinic and "a letter from special agent in Minneapolis to J. Edgar Hoover on January 13, 1960 reported that Hemingway had secretly entered the Mayo Clinic and the FBI knew about his treatment." Indeed "the FBI had, in fact, tracked Hemingway to the walls of the Mayo Clinic and discussed his case with his psychiatrist." Dr. Rome was evidently cooperating more with Hoover's FBI and not at all, to the concerns of Ernest Hemingway. This direct, unethical violation of Hemingway's rights and expressed orders is directly responsible for his murder. At the Mayo Clinic, instead of treating the physical ailments that concerned him, Hemingway was given a series of electric shocks to the brain. Electro-convulsive therapy was the best-known treatment for hopeless psychiatric patients, it was not a cure for liver disease. It was, above all, an extreme, illegal, perverted effort to induce a stubborn non-conformist to become the docile and passive FBI cheerleader that Hoover demanded. Prior to having received shock therapy at the Mayo, Hemingway had never attempted suicide and had never sought out or received psychiatric treatment. Moreover, there is no credible evidence to suggest that he required a treatment as harmful and as controversial as shock therapy. When medical experts like Dr. Bonnie Burstow, an outspoken critic of ECT, describes the treatment, it sounds like the entire procedure was the ideal behaviour modification tool that Hoover spent a life time seeking to acquire. According to Dr. Burstow: Why am I opposed to shock treatment... To begin with, because of what it is, intrinsically a brain damaging treatment. To understand this, it is important to know how the treatment works. Shock treatment is one in which sufficient electricity is passed through the brain to produce a grand mal seizure, thereby resulting in cell death. This is what it does; this is all it does. Brain damage, to be clear, is not a side-effect of shock treatment. It is the primary effect. Moreover, there is absolutely no reliable evidence to even remotely suggest that Hemingway would ever submit to such a radical method of treatment. On the contrary, his lifelong scorn of psychiatrists coupled with his assertion that his analyst was "portable Corona No. 3", strongly suggests that the treatment that he received at the Mayo Clinic, a direct violation of everything that Hemingway believed in, was as improper and as unethical as aiming a gun at his head and pulling the trigger. If Hemingway cooperated with Dr. Rome, it was probably because, as Anthony Burgess has indicated, Dr. Rome "was a psychiatrist but did not present himself as one." In retrospect, the fact that J. Edgar Hoover exploited the prestige of the FBI and used the behavioral sciences to control people like Hemingway, is not at all surprising. Given Hoover's paranoia and obsessions, it is not unreasonable to assume that there exists a closet full of controversial "suicide" cases which reflect Hoover's tendency to use the influence of his "infallible" FBI to enlist the services of unsuspecting or sympathetic professionals, in his private, covert war against domestic "subversives". The two most common cases which evidently reflect Hoover-sponsored tampering are Dr. Rome who treated Hemingway and Dr. Greenson, who treated Marilyn Monroe. Hoover had essentially cultivated the extraordinary capacity to "dictate individual sanity" and that evidently intoxicated Hoover with the sense that his power was absolutely divine. Indeed, when Martin Luther King, Jr., became his priority target, Hoover's FBI actually sought to induce him into committing suicide. The astounding arrogance of the belief that Hoover's FBI could simply will King into committing suicide by promoting the belief that the civil rights champion was perverse and mentally unstable, is evidently an astonishing insight into what Hoover's FBI deemed possible -like the capacity to prompt the "suicide" of Hemingway. The bizarre plot to provoke the "suicide" of King had to be linked to previous Hoover-instigated perversions like the "suicide" of Hemingway -it just doesn't make sense in isolation. But if Hoover had made Hemingway kill himself, why couldn't he attempt to do the same to King? In the final analysis, the missing ingredient in the attempt to cause King's suicide was a "politically reliable" Doctor who could be prevailed upon to manipulate King and to maintain the level of secrecy that Hoover demanded. Indeed, without Dr. Rome, Hoover could not have possibly prompted Hemingway's "suicide" because he would have been denied the opportunity to exploit the influence of the "behavioral sciences" in the ongoing effort to "prove" that Hemingway was insane. The cooperative, extremely secretive relationship between Dr. Rome and Hoover's FBI, ultimately determined that Hemingway was hopelessly insane. In the midst of it all, secrecy is ultimately responsible for the perverted plots that Hoover managed to get away with. Secrecy provided J. Edgar Hoover the opportunity to recruit "politically reliable" doctors who did little beyond perform what they saw as their patriotic duty by taking Hoover's FBI at face value. Secrecy provided Dr. Rome the opportunity to zap Hemingway's brain with electric currents while he slept, and secrecy provided J. Edgar Hoover the opportunity to cover it all up. In retrospect, the aura of secrecy which surrounds the treatment of Hemingway is repugnant. Dr. Rome conveniently claimed patient/client privilege and refused to talk but he was evidently quite comfortable talking to Hoover's FBI about Hemingway. Despite violating Hemingway's trust by cooperating with Hoover's FBI, Doctor Rome demonstrated the shameless audacity to hide behind the censorship refrain: "I've made it practice never ever to reveal any of my contacts with Mr. Hemingway because I gave him my word when he was my patient."14 It all sounds very ethical, but under the circumstances, an orchestrated cover up is the only rational explanation which accounts for the extreme secrecy. Psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom made a futile effort to uncover the truth, but "gag orders" effectively denied the opportunity to penetrate all the deception. Doctor Irvin D. Yalom is as specific as Rome is evasive. According to Yalom: I attempted to interview Howard Rome, the psychiatrist who treated Hemingway in his final depression but he informed me, with a finger across his mouth, that before treating Hemingway he had been obliged to promise that his lips would be forever sealed. How convenient. Here you have the murder of an internationally celebrated genius and Doctor Rome's "lips were sealed". At the same time, while Doctor Rome distorts the truth through his refusal to tell it, he belittles the opinions of psychiatrists through arrogant commentary like "That's his opinion", and "I don't know that Dr. Robitscher ever saw Mr. Hemingway", and having been told that he had not, he pompously added, "Then that's his opinion, gratuitously." In actual fact, even if Dr. Robitscher had tried to see Hemingway before his death, he would have been denied access, and in that respect, Dr. Rome is not at all authoritative, just evasive. Indeed, even Hemingway's friend, Winston Guest, was denied access to Hemingway. According to Mr. Guest: I knew he'd gone to a hospital, but I was very naive about it; I didn't know how ill he was. I'll never forget finding out who was the top psychiatrist at the hospital and I called him and said I wanted to talk to Ernest. I told him who I was. The doctor said practically, "Are you mad? Are you crazy? You can't talk to him at all." So then I guessed he must have been seriously ill, mentally ill. And I never saw him again after that." Mr. Guest illustrates the ease in which the assumption that Hemingway was insane was, without good cause or authority, matter-of-factly accepted. A more scrupulous analysis, offered by author Jeffrey Meyers, effectively challenged the credibility of the erroneous assertion that Hemingway was insane and highlights the simple fact that Hemingway was essentially murdered through shock therapy when he said: For some people, yes [shock therapy is an effective treatment]. But when it didn't work with Hemingway the first time they tried it a second time. And when it didn't work a second time, they tried it a third time. Rome should have gotten the picture that with this patient it's not working. He just had one way of doing everything. If somebody came in to Rome with cancer or a hang nail, he'd probably get shock treatment. When author Denis Brian asked Doctor Rome to justify repeated shock therapy treatment, he predictably said: "Unless you know the whole content of what he had... But I choose not to talk about that." To talk about the "whole content," Ernest Hemingway was obsessed by the incredible passion to live -he even gave up drinking for it. In fact, throughout his life, he repeatedly equated the act of committing suicide with cowardice, and one would really have to stretch the imagination to suggest that Hemingway was a coward. Indeed, the very thought of what he perceived to be a cowardly act like suicide repulsed Hemingway and in 1935, he clearly exposed his unequivocal, anti-suicide "crusade" when he wrote: My father was a coward. He shot himself without necessity. At least I thought so. I had gone through it myself until I figured it in my head. I knew what it was to be a coward and what it was to cease being a coward. Now, truly, in actual danger I felt a clean feeling as in a shower. Of course it was easy now. That was because I no longer cared what happened. I knew it was better to live it so that if you died you had done everything that you could do about your work and your enjoyment of life up to that minute, reconciling the two, which is very difficult. Having equated the act of suicide to cowardice, Hemingway was effectively immune. The ending of A Farewell to Arms, rewritten seventy times, reflects Hemingway's general philosophy: He has the most profound bravery that it has ever been my privilege to see... He has had pain, ill-health, and the kind of poverty that you don't believe-the kind of which actual hunger is the attendant; he has had about eight times the normal allotment of responsibilities. And he has never compromised. He has never turned off an easier path than the one he staked himself. It takes courage. In the final analysis, the claim that Hemingway committed suicide is patently absurd. Hemingway was in fact the last person in the world who can credibly be called suicidal. Even despair, which is commonly used to justify suicide, was a hurdle that motivated Hemingway to strive to become the very best that he could possibly be. In a letter to Scott Fitzgerald in 1934, Hemingway essentially exposed the motivation that made him both a great writer and an unlikely suicide victim, when her wrote: We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it -don't cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist. Despair was never a serious obstacle, it is actually what made Hemingway put pen to paper. Living through his work, Hemingway retained his zest to live and to write for as long as he was not the victim of shock therapy. That became quite obvious in February of 1961, [after shock therapy treatment] when Hemingway tried to pen a few words to commemorate the newly inaugurated President John F. Kennedy. The month previous, an invitation to attend the Kennedy inauguration had cheered Hemingway, but he was too ill to attend. And so he continued to try to pen just a few words, to thank the new President for the invitation. Hours latter, the paper was still blank. J. Edgar Hoover had finally destroyed Hemingway's capacity to think and to write. Just a few words, any school child, gifted or not, could pen just a few words. Hemingway, the literary genius, father of A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls could not pen just a few words. Hemingway was dead. It had taken a long time for Hoover to determine how to deal with a popular dissenter like Hemingway without arousing suspicion and he had finally figured it out. In retrospect, it was all a typically perverted J. Edgar Hoover plot -it was the most bizarre, unbelievable exploitation of power imaginable. The golden rule of pre-watergate, mainstream America was to obey and not to question authority and that gave Hoover's highly trusted FBI agents an extraordinary degree of power. But in the context of the abuse of power that Hoover practised, FBI agents were essentially spies who provided Hoover the opportunity to target and to scheme the murder of his enemies. Indeed, even unsuspecting FBI informants like Ronald Reagan, who spied on his fellow co-workers in hollywood and branded them Communists, ultimately furthered the perverse ends of J. Edgar Hoover. In the final analysis, the evil inherent in spying on law abiding citizens is clear. History clearly records the fact that there is very little, if any distinction between politically motivated spying and counselling to commit murder, and intelligence agencies and their informants have established an extremely deplorable record of criminal culpability. Indeed, throughout North America, the most enduring legacy that intelligence agencies have established on the domestic front is a record of excessive, unmerited use of covert action. The tragic, senseless murder of Ernest Hemingway is just one of countless cases where targets of illegal surveillance were exterminated like flies. The only reason we can determine what happened to Hemingway is that he was famous enough for people to have written books about him. Lesser targets or relative unknowns, were even easier to victimize through the power of secrecy. A staged suicide, a staged burglary, a staged car accident or any other perverted scheme that lurks in the minds of the Gordon Liddy's and the Howard Hunt's of this world, should be exposed by the vast resources of the intelligence community, they should not be facilitated. Like Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe was also a victim of Hoover's McCarthyite witch hunts. Since 1956, when Marilyn Monroe's husband, playwright Arthur Miller, was hauled before the Un-American Activities Committee to purge his so-called Communist associations, Monroe developed a serious hatred for Committee supporters like Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover and she didn't hesitate to make her views known. Like Hemingway, who had lashed out at McCarthy, Monroe was livid with anger and in 1958, she blasted: Some of those bastards in Hollywood wanted me to drop Arthur. Said it would ruin my career. They're born cowards and want you to be like them. One reason I want to see Kennedy win is that Nixon's associated with that whole scene.

Suicide or Political Persecution? The Mysterious Deaths of Ernest Hemingway and Iris Chang   Five decades after his suicide by shotgun, it appears that what had been assumed to be simple paranoia on the part of literary giant Ernest Hemingway was in fact grounded in the reality of his systematic persecution by certain elements within the US government.  Veteran writer A. E. Hotchner, a close friend and author of the classic biography Papa Hemingway (1966), recounted the days spent with a demoralized, confused, and frustrated individual who was struggling to complete basic creative tasks central to his work. Hemingway had contacted Hotchner in May 1960 to ask for his help in editing an overly-long article that had been commissioned by Life magazine.  In an article published July 01, 2011 (New York Times), Hotchner now realizes that government harassment and surveillance by wiretaps, tax audits, and pharmacologically induced mind control claimed by his increasingly harried and depressed friend were indeed valid.[i] The revelation that Hemingway had been targeted for surveillance by the government intelligence unit headed by J. Edgar Hoover, is consistent with a well-documented history of American citizens held under suspicion by the FBI or the scores of other less well-known spy agencies within the government, military, and civilian sectors.[ii]   There is a bounty of literature that raises disturbing questions about the murder of individuals ranging from community organizers such as Fred Hampton to prominent artists such as John Lennon.[iii]  The examples of assassination as politics by other means abound:  JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy.  According to opinion polls the overwhelming majority of Americans today do not believe the official findings of the Warren Commission that had been formed to investigate the public killing of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.[iv] It is in this historical context that the seemingly paranoid claims made by Iris Chang in the months prior to her death in 2004 must be taken seriously.  Chang had become a literary sensation at age twenty-nine with the publication of the incendiary study The Rape of Nanking (1997).[v]  Like Hemingway, Chang also died by her own hand.  On November 09, 2004 she was found dead in her car was parked on an isolated road near Los Gatos, California.  It was determined that Chang had taken her own life with a pistol she had purchased the day before the incident.  She was thirty-six years old. Former journalism school classmate and personal friend Paula Kamen advanced the notion that the Chang suicide was the result of  “mental illness.”  She first had believed the “dark topics” that Chang was writing about had drove her over the edge, but then concluded that the ambitious author suffered from “bipolar disorder.”[vi]  In Finding Iris Chang (2008), Kamen interprets her friend’s demise through the lens of the medico-pharmacological orthodoxy that has come to predominate throughout a society that is viewed as being composed of sick and debilitated individuals that suffer from an ever-lengthening list of ailments grouped under the heading of “mental illness.” The “mental illness” characterization was rejected out of hand by Ying-Ying Chang in The Woman Who Could Not Forget (2011).  As her mother, it was she who had been the principal person caring for Iris Chang during her final months of dark despair.  Instead, she points to the side effects caused by experimental “anti-psychotic” drugs prescribed by a succession of psychiatrists as responsible for the downward spiral of a spirited woman who, although sensitive, never before betrayed signs of so-called mental illness. . Ernest Hemingway, Milan 1918 Ernest Hemingway, American Red Cross volunteer. Portrait by Ermeni Studios, Milan, Italy. (Credit: Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.)

Joris Ivens, Ernest Hemingway, and Ludwig Renn (Spanish Civil War, 1937) Ernest Hemingway fishing postcard Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21, 1899. In 1953, he won the Pulitzer Prize for "Old Man and the Sea" and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. He is considered by many to be the greatest, most influential American writer of all time.       Kamen herself suffered from chronic pain and the overriding theme of her book on Chang is that the revolution in anti-depressant pharmacology has been a boon to the sad and afflicted masses.  Against Kamen, however, there is a sizeable and growing body of literature that traces the less-than-altruistic origins of psychopharmacology in the mind control human experiments conducted by the CIA beginning in the 1950s.  Based upon documents that saw limited release due to pressure from the US Congress and its Church Committee investigation, The Search For The “Manchurian Candidate” (1979) by John Marks is a good place to start for those ignorant of government initiatives in mind management and political pacification.[ix]  More recent publications issued from perfectly respectable quarters (as opposed to those tagged as “conspiracy” buffs) contend that the system of mind control research, development, and application remains in place albeit in a far more sophisticated guise.[x] The pervasiveness of pharmacological mind control is evident to anyone (i.e. anyone not on psychotropic medication) who works in a classroom environment with the current generation of students who have been labeled as “depressed” or plagued by “attention deficit disorder” and are then promiscuously prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).[xi]  Young people who would otherwise be in prime physical and intellectual condition have been transformed into zombie-like creatures whose flat affect and deadened eyes betray their forced chemical romance with the military-pharmacological complex.[xii] According to Hotchner, Hemingway complained that the feds had his telephones tapped; automobile and rooms bugged.  His mail was being intercepted and sifted through.  He was being tailed as well.  Then Hemingway was admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota in November 1960 for psychiatric treatment.  He underwent electro-shock therapy and endured eleven separate sessions.  Hemingway became even more depressed and attempted suicide on more than one occasion.  In response to Hotchner asking him why he wanted to kill himself, Hemingway said that everything he valued in life—friends, sex, health, and creative work—had been taken from him.  He ended his life on July 02, 1961.  Documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that Hemingway had been under FBI surveillance since the 1940s. Prior to her suicide, Chang had told those close to her that “powerful” forces linked to the government were closing in on her.  She left written statements that unambiguously outlined the contours of the plot laid against her while attempting to complete an historical account of the “Bataan Death March” as it is known popularly.  Most attributed her mounting “paranoia” to stress, overwork, and exposure to stories told to her by survivors.  Chang was also a new mother, so some felt that this only compounded matters.  Although Chang hid the fact, Kamen discovered that her son had been adopted.  This ruled out the “post-partum depression” theory. In one of the notes addressed to her parents, Chang wrote: “There are aspects of my experience in Louisville [in a mental hospital in August 2004] that I will never understand.  Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do.  I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined.  Whether it was the CIA or some other organization, I will never know.  As long as I’m alive, these forces will never stop hounding me…. “Days before I left for Louisville, I had a deep foreboding about my safety.  I sensed suddenly threats to my own life:  an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box.  I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government’s attempt to discredit me. "I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead."[xiii] Read in proper context, these words make perfect sense.  They are far from being the ravings of a “paranoiac.”  Ying-Ying Chang, who suspects that Japanese rightists might have been responsible for the harassment of her daughter, accepts the claims of Iris Chang that she had been approached personally and threatened.  Nor does she dismiss the possibility that images of “horrible atrocities and ugly images of children torn apart by wars” had been streamed purposely to the television set of the Louisville hotel where Chang had been staying while on a research trip. In acting as unofficial spokesperson for the post-1965 Taiwanese American cohort composed of scientists and engineers who were pushing for a stronger political voice commensurate with their significantly large representation within the academic/military/corporate complex, Chang had the temerity to accuse the US government and President George W. Bush of attempting to stonewall the movement by Taiwanese Americans pressing its demands for reparations to those who suffered at the hands of the Imperial government during World War II.  Since Japan is an important US ally in East Asia it was thought that Washington was loath to support an initiative that would harm the postwar relationship and consensus formed between the top two economic powerhouses in the world. Predictably, assertions that ultranationalist Japanese elements in some way were implicated in the death of Chang appeared online and in print almost immediately after the news of her suicide appeared.  She became a martyr for the truth in the Peoples Republic of China but especially among overseas Chinese in the US.  In the former case, reminders of the “Asian Holocaust” perpetrated by Imperial Japan has been a useful tool in the hands of the communist oligarchs to deflect attention from the tens of millions of fellow Chinese that were sacrificed to consolidate power during the reign of Mao.[xiv]  Today, orchestrated anti-Japan agitation via the internet helps maintain one-party dictatorial control in a nation roiling with internal conflict and rebellion in its far flung regions. For Taiwanese Americans—a large number (including both parents of Chang who earned Ph.D.s at Harvard) of whom have been recruited since the 1950s specifically to staff highly specialized positions within (ironically) the death-dealing US military-industrial complex—the “Asian Holocaust” has been an effective rallying point in attaining the level of political clout that matches their professional status and economic standing.[xv]  Moreover, a shared historical memory of the widespread destruction and atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese military during World War II eases political tensions between the PRC and Taiwan via a shared sense of victimhood directed against Japan.  At the same time, the US arms industry continues to reap enormous profits through the sale of aircraft, communications systems, and all manner of advanced weaponry to Taiwan despite protests by PRC officials.  Complicating the campaign to promote memory of the “Asian Holocaust,” a number of highly placed Chinese Americans have been implicated in brokering the transfer of strategically sensitive American satellite and missile technology to the People’s Liberation Army.[xvi] In the battle over historical memory and the role that Iris Chang played in massaging it, however, there is one possible scenario that has been overlooked:  That she might have been silenced for having ventured too close to truths that if exposed would have put the US—not Japan—in a most unflattering light.  More significantly, the investigative trail she was following with her most recent book project involving The Philippines could have led to wider exposure of the not widely known historical circumstances that undergird the very basis of the postwar economic and political order led by the US. An incredible book that went largely un-reviewed by the corporate press was published by the independent Verso imprint in 2003 titled Gold Warriors:  America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold written by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave.[xvii]  Well-researched and thoroughly documented (including a CD containing facsimiles of original papers), the book reveals the process whereby hundreds of tons precious metals, gems, and countless art treasures that had been looted by the Japanese Imperial Army throughout Asia fell into the hands of Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies in the waning days of World War II en route to Japan where they would be kept as spoils of war.  The vast quantity of gold bullion produced from the booty that came into the possession of the United States was instrumental in the postwar economic recovery of Japan.  America’s special friend Marcos had succeeded in locating much of “Yamashita’s gold” thanks to the torture of key informants who pointed to vast stores of purloined wealth had been cleverly hidden. Iris Chang began her career as a hard charging and ambitious crusader for truth.  Beginning with her first book Thread of the Silkworm (1996), she only touched upon the duplicity of government and the utter cynicism in which its interests are pursued.[xviii]  The subject of the work, research scientist Tsien Hsue-Shen who helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, was sacrificed to anti-Red hysteria that took hold when the Communist Party came to power with the Chinese Revolution.  With the Rape of Nanking, Chang discovered that historical truth is never self-evident nor is it necessarily welcomed.  This is the point at which she might possibly have come to the realization that real politik was grounded in cynicism, opportunism, and exploitation.  The political-economic oligarchs that use government for their own purposes will tolerate and even encourage truth seeking up to a point.  After all, these elite families dole out millions of dollars each year in sophisticated tax-avoidance and wealth-maintenance schemes to all manner of idealists, reformers, and truth tellers through private foundations bearing their names.  Should anyone come too close to exposing the source of their totalistic power, however, like the Venetian families of old they will not hesitate to have such persons eliminated.  Poisons have been their proven specialty. So long as the work of Iris Chang satisfied the agendas of the different interest groups, governmental entities, and political factions that benefitted from the good will and public sympathy garnered by The Rape of Nanking, she functioned as a useful asset.  But with her final book project, thorough and meticulous researcher that she was, Chang independently of the Seagraves might have uncovered truths that would undermine the very foundation of the US monetary system, which had been taken off the gold standard by President Richard Nixon in 1971.  Not coincidentally, early in his political career Nixon reportedly received large cash payments from Ferdinand Marcos, who as dictator of The Philippines enjoyed political and generous financial support from the US.[xix]  Ed Rollins, former campaign director for Ronald Reagan, wrote of ten million US dollars allegedly handed over by high-level political operators from the Philippines.[xx]  Indeed, structural corruption has defined the relationship between the US and The Philippines from the start.  Quite possibly Chang had found during the course of her research and political involvement on behalf of those who experienced profound losses during wartime that her own American government was complicit if not at the center of the multiple holocausts of the twentieth century. In August 2004, while conducting interviews with survivors of Bataan in Louisville, Kentucky, Chang exhibited signs of mental instability.  With the assistance of a certain “Colonel Kelly” whose presence she stated had frightened her severely, Chang was committed to the Norton Psychiatric Hospital.  There she was diagnosed as having experienced a “brief reactive psychosis.” For at least three days Chang was subjected to “antipsychotic” drugs until her parents arrived to take their daughter back to California.  Once returned home, she was placed on a regimen of “anti-depressants” that did little to improve her condition.  Brett Douglas, the IT professional to whom she was married appeared to offer scant emotional support to his wife other than insisting that she hew to the treatment prescribed her by medical professionals.  His seeming callousness toward her was remarked upon by Kamen in Finding Iris Chang when upon visiting with Douglas at his home for an interview, she was introduced to a Chinese woman also named “Iris.”  He had met her online only months after the suicide death of his wife. In an age when Big Pharma has succeeded in enslaving an alarmingly large percentage of American women to SSRIs—commonly known as “anti-depressants”—the   death of Iris Chang should serve as a cautionary warning.  The historical origins of the psychiatric dictatorship lie in the Cold War mind control experiments known collectively as MK-ULTRA.[xxi]  Instead, the totalitarian triumph of the medico-pharmacological model combined with the so-called “mental health” establishment is embraced and welcomed by well intentioned but dangerously compromised medical professionals and psychotherapists held in the thrall of the insurance industry and drug makers. Although the “suicides” of Ernest Hemingway and Iris Chang are separated in time by close to five decades, they are connected in a closed loop formed by the dark history of authoritarian regimes that actively suppress the truths that would subvert their rule.  The oligarchs will go so far to order that the life force be snuffed out of those who dare bring light to the world.  Instead of murdering directly two well admired literary figures of worldwide stature and thereby run the risk of official inquiries, Hemingway and Chang were harassed, gang stalked, and psychiatrically maimed to the point where they found it too painful to live. The twin orthodoxy of psychiatry and pharmacy provided the respectable cover to preclude a closer look into the deaths of Hemingway and Chang.  As it was in the case of Hemingway, however, the death of Iris Chang is not a closed book.  Further investigation into the circumstances of her mental breakdown, coerced psychiatric treatment, and the identification of persons such as the mysterious “Colonel Kelly” who had her committed in Louisville, will shatter the easy and conveniently premature conclusion that the death of Chang was due to so-called “mental illness” alone. In time, it will be seen that in her death the final gift to humankind bequeathed by Iris Chang will be the exposure of the system announced in 1969 by José M. R. Delgado of Yale University in Physical Control of the Mind.[xxii]  Chang was far from being “mad” or “paranoid.”  Rather, Chang to the very end was engaged in a quite sane but desperate struggle for the recovery of the humanity that had been stripped from her.  Instead of allowing herself to be forced into a permanent state of narcotized semi-awareness and zombie-like passivity, Chang mustered the courage to end her life by a method so disturbing and sensational that questions concerning the circumstances leading to this final act of resistance will be asked far into the future.  This is made clear in the intimate account given by Ying-Ying Chang, who was closely involved with her daughter in seeking therapeutic approaches that in the end failed to restore the élan vital that had been sapped by fear and loathing. In this, Chang left the door open for future researchers and writers to enter the dark house of pain to poke about just as she had done.  Once inside, she had gained deeper knowledge of the slithering political realities that go largely unremarked by corporate journalism and unexamined in foundation-funded academic research.[xxiii] Chang had stumbled across a venomous nest of vipers and was bitten hard, repeatedly.  Though slowly poisoned, her core strength caused her to remain lucid amidst the institutionalized madness.  Such fortitude allowed her to leave behind a wealth of written clues, personal leads, and questions that cry out for follow-up.  Instead, the political importance of her legacy fades as Chang continues to be memorialized in books, statuary, and film by those no doubt motivated by the utmost sincerity.  Let the example of Hemingway and his documented state-facilitated suicide serve as a reminder that repressive governments over the course of human history are the leading cause of death.  If Iris Chang claimed that government forces were “hounding” her, then it would be wise to heed this last testament and treat it with the grave seriousness it warrants.

Scientists capture first clear X-ray image of the flow of gas towards a black hole

 

 

Like a moth to the flame: Scientists capture first clear X-ray image of the flow of gas towards a black hole

The flow of hot gas toward a black hole has been clearly imaged for the first time in X-rays. The observations from Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory will help tackle two of the most fundamental problems in modern astrophysics - understanding how black holes grow and how matter behaves in their intense gravity. The black hole is at the centre of a large galaxy known as NGC 3115, located some 32million light-years from Earth. A large amount of previous data has shown material falling towards and onto black holes, but none with this clear a signature of hot gas.   Composite: This image contains X-rays from Chandra (blue) and optical data from the VLT (gold) of the galaxy NGC 3115. Using the Chandra data, the flow of hot gas towards the supermassive black hole in the centre of this galaxy has been imaged - the first time that clear evidence for such a flow has been observed in any black hole By imaging the hot gas at different distances from the supermassive black hole, scientists at the University of Alabama have observed a critical threshold where the motion of gas first becomes dominated by the black hole’s gravity and falls inward. The distance from the black hole is known as the 'Bondi radius'. Lead researcher Dr Ka-Wah Wong said: 'It’s exciting to find such clear evidence for gas in the grip of a massive black hole. 'Chandra’s resolving power provides a unique opportunity to understand more about how black holes capture material by studying this nearby object.' As gas flows toward a black hole, it becomes squeezed, making it hotter and brighter, a signature now confirmed by the X-ray observations. The researchers found the rise in gas temperature begins about 700 light-years from the black hole, giving the location of the Bondi radius. This suggests the black hole in the center of NGC 3115 has a mass about two billion times that of the sun, making it the closest black hole of that size to Earth. The Chandra data also show that the gas close to the black hole in the centre of the galaxy is denser than gas further out, as predicted. Using the observed properties of the gas and theoretical assumptions, the team then estimated that each year gas weighing about 2 per cent the mass of the sun is being pulled across the Bondi radius toward the black hole. Making certain assumptions about how much of the gas’s energy changes into radiation, astronomers would expect to find a source that is more than a million times brighter in X-rays than what is seen in NGC 3115. 'It’s exciting to find such clear evidence for gas in the grip of a massive black hole' Dr Jimmy Irwin, from the University of Alabama and the study's co-author, said: 'A leading mystery in astrophysics is how the area around massive black holes can stay so dim, when there’s so much fuel available to light up. 'This black hole is a poster child for this problem.' There are at least two possible explanations for this discrepancy. The first is that much less material actually falls onto the black hole than flows inside the Bondi radius. Another possibility is that the conversion of energy into radiation is much less efficient than is assumed. Different models describing the flow of material onto the black hole make different predictions for how quickly the density of the gas is seen to rise as it approaches the black hole. A more precise determination of the rise in density from future observations should help astronomers rule out some of these models. The research is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Keeping us company, the newly discovered asteroid leading the Earth around the Sun Until now a tiny asteroid had secretly and silently run ahead of Earth on the planet's stroll around the Sun. But scientists have found that for the coming hundreds of years we are certain not to only have the Moon for company on the year-long journey.    The discovery of this companion, known as Trojan 2010 TK7, which measures only about 300 yards across, makes Earth the fourth planet in the solar system that is known to share its orbit with an asteroid. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Not alone: This artist's impression by NASA shows the trojan leading the Earth, and its extreme orbit around our planet is shown in green. Earth's orbit around the sun is indicated by blue dots It well never get closer than 50-times the distance the moon sits from the us. Currently, it is about 50 million miles away, and should come no closer than about 18 million miles. 'These objects are difficult to find from Earth, simply because they're not very big and they're pretty faint, and they're close to the Sun as seen from Earth,' explained Christian Veillet from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and a co-author on the Nature study. 'But we can find them from space, and future satellites will likely find some more. We think that there are others which will be very close to the Earth and have motions that make them relatively easy to reach. So, they could be potential targets to go to with spacecraft,' he told BBC News. The future: Scientists believe that astronauts could decide to land on Trojan 2010 TK7 Experts say in order to imagine its path, people should picture Earth and the asteroid travelling around a clock face, with the Sun in the middle. Generally, the asteroid runs about two numbers ahead. However, the asteroid sometimes ranges so far ahead that it's on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, said Martin Connors of Canada's Athabasca University in Alberta. He reports the discovery in today's issue of the journal Nature. An asteroid of this type has previously only been detected only around Jupiter, Neptune and Mars. There are few for Mars and Neptune and nearly 5,000 for Jupiter. Spotting one in Earth's orbit is difficult from the ground because the potential locations are generally in the daytime sky, yet Connors and colleagues were able to focus a ground-based telescope in Hawaii on it in April, determining its orbit with enough precision to show it was a Trojan. Donald K. Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, who didn't participate in the discovery, agreed that the asteroid is a Trojan. 'Most scientists suspected Earth had them', he said, and 'I would guess there's others.'   'Hundreds of black holes that can swallow whole planets and solar systems roam galaxy' Hundreds of invisible black holes powerful enough to swallow entire solar systems could be roaming the galaxy, say scientists. The spiralling traps, created by the collapse of matter to an infinitely-dense state, are places where gravity is so strong it sucks in even light. Now a new threat of 200 wandering "rogue" black holes has been predicted by supercomputer simulations of what happens when two black holes of different sizes or spin speeds collide. Scroll down for more... Black hole: The spiralling gravity traps can swallow entire solar systems and roam our galaxy Scientists believe they would merge into a single black hole and be kicked into space at speeds as high as 2,500 miles per second. Any star, planet or spacecraft that crossed the path of one of these black holes would be engulfed by its gravity, never to escape. It would be difficult to see the danger coming, according to US astronomer Dr Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "Rogue black holes like this would be very difficult to spot," she said. "Unless it's swallowing a lot of gas, about the only way to detect the approach of such a black hole would be to observe the way in which its super-strength gravitational field bends the light that passes nearby. "This produces an effect called gravitational lensing that would make background stars appear to shift and brighten momentarily." Dr Holley-Bockelmann studied models of "intermediate mass" black holes that may reside in globular clusters - ancient collections of 100,000 to a million stars. Black holes of this type, whose existence is controversial, would contain the equivalent of a few thousand Suns. Dr Holley-Bockelmann's team investigated what would happen if an intermediate black hole collided with a smaller "stellar" black hole created by the explosion of a giant star at the end of its life. The result is a "big kick" that would shoot the combined black hole out of the globular cluster at high velocity. Astronomers have ample evidence for the existence of stellar black holes weighing less than 100 solar masses, which are thought to be plentiful in globular clusters. A kick would also occur if black holes rotating at different speeds were to collide. "We used different assumptions for the initial black hole mass, for the range of stellar black hole masses within a globular cluster, and assumed that the spins and spin orientations were distributed randomly," said Dr Holley-Bockelmann, who presented her findings today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. "With our most conservative assumptions, we found that, even if every globular cluster started out with an intermediate-sized black hole, only about 30 per cent retain them through the merger epoch. With our least conservative assumptions, less than 2 per cent of the globular clusters should contain intermediate mass black holes today." Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains roughly 200 globular clusters, leading Dr Holley-Bockelmann's team to conclude that hundreds of rogue black holes could be at large. However the scientists say it is "extremely unlikely" that they will present any threat to us in the lifetime of the universe. "Their danger zone, the Schwarzschild radius, is really tiny, only a few hundred kilometres," said Dr Holley-Bockelmann. "There are far more dangerous things in our neighbourhood!"   Super-massive black hole devours a star and scientists watch it for the first time Astronomers watch as Nasa telescope captures rare event Phenomenon only occurs once every 100million years A stunning cosmic jet from a super-massive black hole which shredded then swallowed a star has been observed by astronomers for the first time. The extremely rare phenomenon caused by stellar debris being consumed by the hole has never been observed before. Known as 'relativistic jets', they can reach hundreds of thousands of light years in length. Stunning: This illustration shows plasma shooting out of the black hole after it devours a star. Such an event took place four billion light years from Earth Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical (white, purple) and X-ray telescopes (yellow and red) showing the bursts Most galaxies have super-massive black holes - regions of space that suck in everything nearby with their strong gravitation pull - at their core, with masses of millions or even billions of suns. Scientists were first alerted to the phenomenon in March after Nasa's Swift telescope detected several bursts of X-rays from a quiet patch of sky. Teams from both Pennsylvania State University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said the bursts could be the remnants of a star pulled apart when it came too close to a black hole located 3.9billion light years away. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A STAR FALLS INTO A BLACK HOLE As a star falls toward a black hole, it is ripped apart by intense tides. The gas is corralled into an accretion disk that swirls around the black hole and becomes rapidly heated to temperatures of millions of degrees. The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where rapid motion and magnetism create dual, oppositely directed 'funnels' through which some particles may escape. Jets driving matter at velocities greater than 90 percent the speed of light form along the black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these jets happened to point straight at Earth. Dr David Burrows, from Pennsylvania State University which controls Swift, said chemical analysis of the bright flash's ultraviolet light show it comes from material being sucked into a black hole the size of a million suns. Writing in Nature, they concluded that the Swift satellite just happened to be in the path of the jet of star remains that were shot out at 99.5 per cent the speed of light. Dr Burrows said: 'Incredibly, this source is still producing X-rays and may remain bright enough for the Swift satellite to observe into next year. It behaves unlike anything we've seen before.' The swallowing of a star by a black hole only happens once every one hundred million years in a galaxy. The black hole is now believed to be even more powerful because of the additional mass from the swallowed star. The absorption of large mass such as stars or even other black holes is what gives black holes growth and spawn the existence of super-massive black holes.Super-massive black holes could contain up to billions of solar masses. By comparison, the sun is just one solar mass and the Earth is 1/332,950th of a solar mass.

Moist black hole home to largest and farthest water reservoir ever detected in the universe Mass of water vapour is 140trillion times the size of all the water in the world's oceans combined The reservoir is 30billion trillion miles away It takes light 12billion years to reach Earth from there The largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe has been discovered 30billion trillion miles away. Looking into a quasar - one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos - researchers have found a mass of water vapour that's at least 140trillion times that of all the water in the world's oceans combined, and 100,000 times bigger than the sun. Because the quasar is so far away, its light has taken 12billion years to reach Earth. The observations therefore reveal a time when the universe was just 1.6billion years old. An artist's impression of a quasar, or feeding black hole, similar to APM 08279+5255, where scientists have found the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe Matt Bradford, a scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: 'The environment around this quasar is unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water. 'It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times.' A quasar is powered by an enormous black hole that is steadily consuming a surrounding disk of gas and dust; as it eats, the quasar spews out huge amounts of energy. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology, studied a particular quasar called APM 08279+5255, which harbours a black hole 20billion times more massive than the sun and produces as much energy as a thousand trillion suns. Since astronomers expected water vapour to be present even in the early universe, the discovery of water is not itself a surprise, according to Mr Bradford. There's water vapour in the Milky Way, although the total amount is 4,000 times less than in the quasar, as most of our galaxy's water is frozen. Nevertheless, water vapour is an important trace gas that reveals the nature of the quasar. In this particular quasar, the water vapour is distributed around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light-years - a light-year is about six trillion miles - and its presence indicates that the gas is unusually warm and dense by astronomical standards. Although the gas is a chilly -53C (-63F) and is 300trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere, it's still five times hotter and ten to 100 times denser than what is typical in galaxies like the Milky Way. The water vapour is just one of many kinds of gas that surround the quasar, and its presence indicates that the quasar is bathing the gas in both X-rays and infra-red radiation. 'It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times' The interaction between the radiation and water vapour reveals properties of the gas and how the quasar influences it. For example, analysing the water vapour shows how the radiation heats the rest of the gas. Furthermore, measurements of the water vapour and of other molecules, such as carbon monoxide, suggest that there is enough gas to feed the black hole until it grows to about six times its size. Whether this will happen is not clear as some of the gas may end up condensing into stars or may be ejected from the quasar. Mr Bradford's team started making their observations in 2008, using an instrument called Z-Spec at the Caltech Submillimetre Observatory (CSO), a ten-metre telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Z-Spec is an extremely sensitive spectrograph, requiring temperatures cooled to within 0.06C above absolute zero. The instrument measures light in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum called the millimetre band, which lies between infra-red and microwave wavelengths. The researchers' discovery of water was possible only because Z-Spec's spectral coverage is ten times larger than that of previous spectrometers operating at these wavelengths. The astronomers made follow-up observations with the Combined Array for Research in Millimetre-Wave Astronomy, an array of radio dishes in the Inyo Mountains in southern California. The research will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Saturn water mystery finally solved as scientists discover giant jets of vapour from moon are responsible Water expelled from the moon Enceladus forms a giant torus of water vapour around Saturn, scientists have said. The discovery by the European Space Agency's Herschel space telescope solves a 14-year mystery by identifying the source of the water in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. It means that Enceladus is the only moon in the Solar System known to influence the chemical composition of its parent planet. At least four distinct plumes of water ice spew out from the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Light reflected off Saturn is illuminating the moon while the sun, almost directly behind Enceladus, is backlighting the plumes Enceladus expels around 250kg of water vapour every second, through a collection of jets from the south polar region, known as the Tiger Stripes because of their distinctive surface markings. These crucial observations reveal that the water creates a doughnut-shaped torus of vapour surrounding the ringed planet. The total width of the torus is more than ten times the radius of Saturn, yet it is only about one Saturn radius thick. Enceladus orbits the planet at a distance of about four Saturn radii, replenishing the torus with its jets of water. Despite its enormous size, it has escaped detection until now because water vapour is transparent to visible light, but not at the infrared wavelengths Herschel was designed to see. Saturn's atmosphere is known to contain traces of gaseous water in its deeper layers. A particular enigma has been the presence of water in its upper atmosphere. Samples of ice spray shooting out of Enceladus were collected by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft. Scientists last month said they believe it is the strongest evidence yet that Enceladus has a large saltwater ocean lurking beneath its surface First reported in 1997 by teams using ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory, the source of this water was unknown until now. Computer models of these latest Herschel observations show that about 3 to 5 per cent of the water expelled by Enceladus ends up falling into Saturn. Lead researcher Paul Hartogh, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, said: 'There is no analogy to this behaviour on Earth. 'No significant quantities of water enter our atmosphere from space. This is unique to Saturn.' Although most of the water from Enceladus is lost into space, freezes on the rings or perhaps falls onto Saturn’s other moons, the small fraction that does fall into the planet is sufficient to explain the water observed in its upper atmosphere. Herschel's infrared images have reveal that the water creates a doughnut-shaped torus of vapour surrounding the ringed planet It is also responsible for the production of additional oxygen-bearing compounds, such as carbon dioxide. Ultimately, water in Saturn's upper atmosphere is transported to lower levels, where it will condense but the amounts are so tiny that the resulting clouds are not observable. Researcher Göran Pilbratt said: 'ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory found the water vapour in Saturn’s atmosphere. Then Nasa/ESA’s Cassini/Huygens mission found the jets of Enceladus. 'Now Herschel has shown how to fit all these observations together.'   Is this the biggest rock ever? Astronomers discover planet made of DIAMONDS It is certainly what you could call a gem of a discovery. Astronomers believe they have found an entire planet made of diamonds. Scientists at the University of Manchester think they have unearthed a once-massive star in the Milky Way that has been transformed into a small planet made of the precious rock. Scroll down for video Twinkle, twinkle little star: The diamond planet - the shrunken core of a once-huge star - is a chunk of crystallised carbon measuring 40,000 miles across, five times the diameter of Earth The international research team first detected an unusual star, called a pulsar, and followed up their discovery with research using a telescope based in an observatory in Cheshire. The findings led the scientists to discover the gravitational pull of a small companion planet orbiting the pulsar. Pulsars are small spinning stars more than ten miles in diameter – the size of a small city – that emit a beam of radio waves. The team, also made up of scientists from Australia, Germany, Italy and the United States, thinks that the ‘diamond planet’ is all that remains of the original star, most of whose matter was siphoned off towards the pulsar. The companion planet is small, at less than 40,000 miles wide – about five times the diameter of Earth. But it is so close to the pulsar that if it were any bigger it would be ripped apart by the gravitational force of the star, which rotates more than 10,000 times per minute and has a mass of about 1.4 times that of the sun. Precious: The international research team found the diamond planet in our Milky Way (above) after first detecting an unusual star, called a pulsar. They think the planet is all that remains of the original star, most of whose matter was siphoned off towards the pulsar Research team member Dr Michael Keith said: 'This remnant is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times.' The density means that this material is certain to be crystalline, that is, a large part of the star may be similar to a diamond. The pulsar, dubbed PSR J1719-1438, and its planet are part of the Milky Way's plane of stars and lie 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens - the Snake. The modulations in the radio pulses told astronomers a number of things about the planet. It orbits the pulsar in just two hours and ten minutes, and the distance between the two objects is about 373,000 miles - a little less than the radius of our sun. Despite its small size, the planet has slightly more mass than Jupiter.  About 70 per cent of millisecond pulsars have companions of some kind.  Astronomers think it is the companion that, in its star form, transforms an old, dead pulsar into a millisecond pulsar by transferring matter and spinning it up to a very high speed. The result is a fast-spinning millisecond pulsar with a shrunken companion - most often a so-called white dwarf.