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Covert action in Colombia
U.S. intelligence, GPS bomb kits help Latin American nation cripple rebel forces
Story by Dana Priest
The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials.
The secret assistance, which also includes substantial eavesdropping help from the National Security Agency, is funded through a multibillion-dollar black budget. It is not a part of the public $9 billion package of mostly U.S. military aid called Plan Colombia, which began in 2000.
Above: A Colombian Air Force member cleans an A-29 Super Tucano, a turboprop aircraft typically involved in strikes on FARC targets. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)
The previously undisclosed CIA program was authorized by President George W. Bush in the early 2000s and has continued under President Obama, according to U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials. Most of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program is classified and ongoing.
The covert program in Colombia provides two essential services to the nation's battle against the FARC and a smaller insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN): Real-time intelligence that allows Colombian forces to hunt down individual FARC leaders and, beginning in 2006, one particularly effective tool with which to kill them.
That weapon is a $30,000 GPS guidance kit that transforms a less-than-accurate 500-pound gravity bomb into a highly accurate smart bomb. Smart bombs, also called precision-guided munitions or PGMs, are capable of killing an individual in triple-canopy jungle if his exact location can be determined and geo-coordinates are programmed into the bomb's small computer brain.
In March 2008, according to nine U.S. and Colombian officials, the Colombian Air Force, with tacit U.S. approval, launched U.S.-made smart bombs across the border into Ecuador to kill a senior FARC leader, Raul Reyes. The indirect U.S. role in that attack has not been previously disclosed.
The covert action program in Colombia is one of a handful of enhanced intelligence initiatives that has escaped public notice since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most of these other programs, small but growing, are located in countries where violent drug cartels have caused instability.
Sources: U.S. State Department, Pais Libre, Colombian Defense Ministry and the Air Force. Research and data compiled by Elyssa Pachico. Graphic by Cristina Rivero. Map by Gene Thorp.
The roster is headed by Mexico, where U.S. intelligence assistance is larger than anywhere outside Afghanistan, as The Washington Post reported in April. It also includes Central America and West Africa, where trafficking routes have moved in response to U.S. pressure against cartels elsewhere.
Asked to comment on U.S. intelligence assistance, President Juan Manuel Santos told The Post during a recent trip to Washington that he did not wish to speak about it in detail, given the sensitivities involved. "It's been of help," he said. "Part of the expertise and the efficiency of our operations and our special operations have been the product of better training and knowledge we have acquired from many countries, among them the United States."
A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment.
Colombia and the FARC have been in peace negotiations in Havana for a year. They have agreed so far on frameworks for land reform, rural development and for allowing insurgents to participate in the political process once the war ends. The two sides are currently discussing a new approach to fighting drug trafficking.
Police outside El Nogal nightclub after the FARC destroyed it with a car bomb in February 2003. More than 20 people were killed. The bombing further united Colombia against the insurgents. (Javier Galeano/AP)
Instability in Colombia
Over the past decade, many indicators of insecurity have improved . . .
. . . as terrorist group strength has weakened and extraditions to the United States for criminal trials have increased.
2004, 2005 and 2010 not available.
*Includes FARC-related kidnappings and killings.
Sources: U.S. State Department, Pais Libre, Colombia Defense Ministry, Colombian Air Force, compiled by Elyssa Pachico
On the verge of collapse
Today, a comparison between Colombia, with its vibrant economy and swanky Bogota social scene, and Afghanistan might seem absurd. But a little more than a decade ago, Colombia had the highest murder rate in the world. Random bombings and strong-arm military tactics pervaded daily life. Some 3,000 people were kidnapped in one year. Professors, human rights activists and journalists suspected of being FARC sympathizers routinely turned up dead.
The combustible mix of the FARC, cartels, paramilitaries and corrupt security forces created a cauldron of violence unprecedented in modern-day Latin America. Nearly a quarter-million people have died during the long war, and many thousands have disappeared.
The FARC was founded in 1964 as a Marxist peasant movement seeking land and justice for the poor. By 1998, Colombia's president at the time, Andres Pastrana, gave the FARC a Switzerland-sized demilitarized zone to encourage peace negotiations, but its violent attacks only grew, as did its links with the narcotics trade.
By 2000, the emboldened insurgency of 18,000 took aim at Colombia's political leaders. It assassinated local elected officials. It kidnapped a presidential candidate and attempted to kill a presidential front-runner, hard-liner Alvaro Uribe, whose father the FARC had killed in 1983.
Fearing Colombia would become a failed state with an even greater role in drug trafficking into the United States, the Bush administration and Congress ramped up assistance to the Colombian military through Plan Colombia.
By 2003, U.S. involvement in Colombia encompassed 40 U.S. agencies and 4,500 people, including contractors, all working out of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, then the largest U.S. embassy in the world. It stayed that way until mid-2004, when it was surpassed by Afghanistan.
"There is no country, including Afghanistan, where we had more going on," said William Wood, who was U.S. ambassador to Colombia from 2003 to 2007 before holding the same post in war-torn Afghanistan for two years after that.
When Bush became president, two presidential findings were already on the books authorizing covert action worldwide. One allowed CIA operations against international terrorist organizations. The other, signed in the mid-1980s by President Ronald Reagan, authorized action against international narcotics traffickers.
A presidential finding is required for the CIA to do things other than collect and analyze overseas intelligence. Giving spy equipment to a partner, supporting foreign political parties, planting propaganda, and participating in lethal training or operations all require a finding and a notification to congressional intelligence committees.
The counternarcotics finding had permitted the CIA and a technical unit of the clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to provide support to the years-long hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, killed by Colombian forces 20 years ago this month. It also made possible CIA-supported operations against traffickers and terrorists in Bolivia and Peru years ago.
Under the Colombian program, the CIA is not allowed to participate directly in operations. The same restrictions apply to military involvement in Plan Colombia. Such activity has been constrained by members of Congress who had lived through the scandal of America's secret role in Central America's wars in the 1980s. Congress refused to allow U.S. military involvement in Colombia to escalate as it had in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama.
In February 2003, the FARC took three U.S. contractors hostage after their single-engine Cessna, above, crashed in the jungle near La Esperanza. A covert CIA program was launched to find them. (El Tiempo via AP)
The FARC miscalculates
The new covert push against the FARC unofficially began on Feb. 13, 2003. That day a single-engine Cessna 208 crashed in rebel-held jungle. Nearby guerrillas executed the Colombian officer on board and one of four American contractors who were working on coca eradication. The three others were taken hostage.
The United States had already declared the FARC a terrorist organization for its indiscriminate killings and drug trafficking. Although the CIA had its hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush "leaned on [CIA director George] Tenet" to help find the three hostages, according to one former senior intelligence official involved in the discussions.
The FARC's terrorist designation made it easier to fund a black budget. "We got money from a lot of different pots," said one senior diplomat.
One of the CIA officers Tenet dispatched to Bogota was an operator in his forties whose name The Washington Post is withholding because he remains undercover. He created the U.S. Embassy Intelligence Fusion Cell, dubbed "the Bunker."
It was a cramped, 30-by-30-foot room with a low ceiling and three rows of computers. Eight people sat at each row of consoles. Some scoured satellite maps of the jungle; others searched for underground FARC hiding places. Some monitored imagery or the movement of vehicles tagged with tracking devices. Voice intercepts from radio and cellphone communications were decrypted and translated by the National Security Agency.
Bunker analysts fused tips from informants and technically obtained information. Analysts sought to link individuals to the insurgency's flow of drugs, weapons and money. For the most part, they left the violent paramilitary groups alone.
The Bunker's technical experts and contractors built the Colombians their own nationwide intelligence computer system. They also later helped create regional fusion centers to push tactical intelligence to local commanders. The agency also paid for encrypted communications gear.
"We were very interested in getting the FARC, and it wasn't so much a question of capability, as it was intelligence," said Wood, "specifically the ability to locate them in the time frame of an operation."
Outside the Bunker, CIA case officers and contractors taught the art of recruiting informants to Colombian units that had been vetted and polygraphed. They gave money to people with information about the hostages.
Meanwhile, the other secret U.S. agency that had been at the forefront of locating and killing al-Qaeda arrived on the scene. Elite commandos from JSOC began periodic annual training sessions and small-unit reconnaissance missions to try to find the hostages.
Despite all the effort, the hostages' location proved elusive. Looking for something else to do with the new intelligence equipment and personnel, the Bunker manager and his military deputy from the U.S. Special Operations Command gave their people a second mission: Target the FARC leadership. This was exactly what the CIA and JSOC had been doing against al-Qaeda on the other side of the world. The methodology was familiar.
"There was cross-pollination both ways," said one senior official with access to the Bunker at the time. "We didn't need to invent a new wheel."
At the urging of President George W. Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, left, the CIA program to find the U.S. hostages began targeting FARC leaders with U.S.-provided intelligence and smart bombs. (Charles Dharapak/AP)
A request from Colombia's president
Locating FARC leaders proved easier than capturing or killing them. Some 60 times, Colombian forces had obtained or been given reliable information but failed to capture or kill anyone senior, according to two U.S. officials and a retired Colombian senior officer. The story was always the same. U.S.-provided Black Hawk helicopters would ferry Colombian troops into the jungle about six kilometers away from a camp. The men would creep through the dense foliage, but the camps were always empty by the time they arrived. Later they learned that the FARC had an early-warning system: rings of security miles from the camps.
By 2006, the dismal record attracted the attention of the U.S. Air Force's newly arrived mission chief. The colonel was perplexed. Why had the third-largest recipient of U.S. military assistance [behind Egypt and Israel] made so little progress?
"I'm thinking, 'What are we killing the FARC with?' " the colonel, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview.
The colonel, a cargo plane expert, said he "started Googling bombs and fighters" looking for ideas. Eventually he landed on the Enhanced Paveway II, a relatively inexpensive guidance kit that could be strapped on a 500-pound, Mark-82 gravity bomb.
The colonel said he told then-defense minister Santos about his idea and wrote a one-page paper on it for him to deliver to Uribe. Santos took the idea to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In June 2006, Uribe visited Bush at the White House. He mentioned the recent killing of al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. An F-16 had sent two 500-pound smart bombs into his hideout and killed him. He pressed for the same capability.
"Clearly this was very important" to Uribe, said retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who had taken over as CIA director just months earlier.
First, there was the matter of fitting the smart bombs onto a Colombian aircraft. Colombia did not have F-16s. Raytheon, the kit manufacturer, sent engineers to figure out how to mount the equipment on a plane. First they tried mounting it on a Brazilian-made Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, a turboprop aircraft designed for low-flying counterinsurgency missions. But affixing the cable that ran from the bomb's computer brain to the cockpit meant drilling too close to the fuel cell. Instead, they jerry-rigged it to an older Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, a light attack aircraft first developed by the U.S. Special Operations air force for Vietnam and later used in the Salvadoran civil war.
Then the engineers and Colombian pilots tested the first of three PGMs in a remote airfield near the Venezuelan border. The target was a 2-by-4 stuck in the ground. The plane launched the bomb from 20,000 feet. "It landed about a foot from it," the colonel said. The results were so good, he thought, "why waste two more kits?" The smart bombs were ready for use.
But White House lawyers, along with their colleagues from the CIA and the departments of Justice, Defense and State, had their own questions to work through. It was one thing to use a PGM to defeat an enemy on the battlefield — the U.S. Air Force had been doing that for years. It was another to use it to target an individual FARC leader. Would that constitute an assassination, which is prohibited by U.S. law? And, "could we be accused of engaging in an assassination, even if it is not ourselves doing it?" said one lawyer involved.
The White House's Office of Legal Counsel and others finally decided that the same legal analysis they had applied to al-Qaeda could be applied to the FARC. Killing a FARC leader would not be an assassination because the organization posed an ongoing threat to Colombia. Also, none of the FARC commanders could be expected to surrender.
And, as a drug-trafficking organization, the FARC's status as a threat to U.S. national security had been settled years earlier with Reagan's counternarcotics finding. At the time, the crack cocaine epidemic was at its height, and the government decided that organizations that brought drugs to America's streets were a threat to national security.
There was another concern. Some senior officials worried that Colombian forces might use the PGMs to kill their perceived political enemies. "The concerns were huge given their human rights problems," said a former senior military officer.
To assure themselves that the Colombians would not misuse the bombs, U.S. officials came up with a novel solution. The CIA would maintain control over the encryption key inserted into the bomb, which unscrambled communications with GPS satellites so they can be read by the bomb's computers. The bomb could not hit its target without the key. The Colombians would have to ask for approval for some targets, and if they misused the bombs, the CIA could deny GPS reception for future use.
"We wanted a sign-off," said one senior official involved in the deliberations.
To cut through the initial red tape, the first 20 smart bomb kits — without the encryption keys — came through the CIA. The bill was less than $1 million. After that, Colombia was allowed to purchase them through the Foreign Military Sales program.
Secretly assisting Colombia against rebels
Raytheon's Enhanced Paveway II is a laser-guided bomb upgraded with a GPS-guided capability, which works better against targets in the thick jungle. An encryption key inserted into the guidance system allows the bomb's computer to receive military-grade GPS data used to guide a bomb to its target.
Paveway is the generic name for the guidance system that converts "dumb" gravity bombs such as the MK-82 into precision-guided munitions. The kit consists of a computer that controls the air foil group. The system gets its position information from its GPS antennas and from its laser sensor.
Four retractable tail wings are deployed when the bomb is released by the plane. The navigation computer integrated in the bomb controls the angle of the fins, adding lift and aerodynamic stability necessary for in-flight maneuvering.
A general purpose MK-82 gravity bomb includes 500 pounds of explosives and two fuses, one on the nose and one on the tail. The Paveway smart bomb system can be installed on different kind of gravity bombs with higher quantities of explosives, such as the MK-84 with more than 2,000 pounds.
Anatomy of Lethal Air Operations in Colombia
First strike: In a typical mission, several Cessna A-37 Dragonflys, a light attack aircraft first developed by the U.S. Special Operations for Vietnam, fly at 20,000 feet carrying smart bombs. They can be launched once the planes get within three miles of the target. The bombs communicate with GPS satellites to know where they are at all times and to hit the target.
Bombardment: Several Brazilian-made Embraer A-29 Super Tucanos, a turboprop aircraft flown at a much lower altitude, follow the A-37s. They drop conventional gravity bombs in a pattern near the smart bombs to flatten the jungle and kill other insurgents in the FARC camp.
Gunship strike: Low-flying Vietnam era AC-47 gunships, nicknamed Puff the Magic Dragon, strafe the area with machine guns, shooting the survivors, according to one of several officials who described the scenario.
Ground units Finally, if the camp is far into the jungle, Colombian army troops are usually ferried in by U.S.-provided Black Hawk troop-carrying helicopters. Troops would collect the remains of the killed FARC leader if possible, round up survivors and gather electronic equipment like cellphones and computers that could yield valuable information about FARC operations.
A first strike
Tomas Medina Caracas, also known as Negro Acacio, the FARC's chief drug trafficker and commander of its 16th Front, was the first man the U.S. Embassy Intelligence Fusion Cell queued up for a PGM strike.
At about 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 1, 2007, pilots wearing night vision goggles unleashed several Enhanced Paveway II smart bombs into his camp in eastern Colombia as officials in both capitals waited. Troops recovered only a leg. It appeared by its dark complexion to belong to Acacio, one of the few black FARC leaders. DNA tests confirmed his death.
"There was a great deal of excitement," recalled William Scoggins, counternarcotics program manager at the U.S. military's Southern Command. "We didn't know the impact it would have, but we thought this was a game changer."
Six weeks later, smart bombs killed Gustavo Rueda Díaz, alias Martin Caballero, leader of the 37th Front, while he was talking on his cellphone. Acacio's and Caballero's deaths caused the 16th and 37th fronts to collapse. They also triggered mass desertions, according to a secret State Department cable dated March 6, 2008, and released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks in 2010. This was just the beginning of the FARC's disintegration.
To hide the use of the PGMs from public discovery, and to ensure maximum damage to a FARC's leaders' camp, the air force and U.S. advisers developed new strike tactics. In a typical mission, several A-37 Dragonflys flying at 20,000 feet carried smart bombs. As soon as the planes came within a three-mile "basket" of the target, a bomb's GPS software would automatically turn on.
The Dragonflys were followed by several A-29 Super Tucanos, flying at a much lower altitude. They would drop a series of dumb bombs in a pattern nearby. Their blast pressure would kill anyone close in and also flatten the dense jungle and obscure the use of the smart bombs.
Then, low-flying, Vietnam-era AC-47 gunships, nicknamed Puff the Magic Dragon, would strafe the area with mounted machine guns, "shooting the wounded trying to go for cover," according to one of several military officials who described the same scenario.
Only then would Colombian ground forces arrive to round up prisoners, collecting the dead, as well as cellphones, computers and hard drives. The CIA also spent three years training Colombian close air support teams on using lasers to clandestinely guide pilots and laser-guided smart bombs to their targets.
Most every operation relied heavily on NSA signal intercepts, which fed intelligence to troops on the ground or pilots before and during an operation. "Intercepts . . . were a game changer," said Scoggins, of U.S. Southern Command.
The round-the-clock nature of the NSA's work was captured in a secret State Department cable released by WikiLeaks. In the spring of 2009, the target was drug trafficker Daniel Rendon Herrera, known as Don Mario, then Colombia's most wanted man and responsible for 3,000 assassinations over an 18-month period.
"For seven days, using signal and human intelligence," NSA assets "worked day and night" to reposition 250 U.S.-trained and equipped airborne commandos near Herrera as he tried to flee, according to an April 2009 cable and a senior government official who confirmed the NSA's role in the mission.
The CIA also trained Colombian interrogators to more effectively question thousands of FARC deserters, without the use of the "enhanced interrogation" techniques approved for use on al-Qaeda and later repudiated by Congress as abusive. The agency also created databases to keep track of the debriefings so they could be searched and cross-referenced to build a more complete picture of the organization.
The Colombian government paid deserters and allowed them to reintegrate into civil society. Some, in turn, offered valuable information about the FARC's chain of command, standard travel routes, camps, supply lines, drug and money sources. They helped make sense of the NSA's voice intercepts, which often used code words. Deserters also sometimes were used to infiltrate FARC camps to plant listening devices or beacons that emitted a GPS coordinate for smart bombs.
"We learned from the CIA," a top Colombian national security official said of the debriefing program. "Before, we didn't pay much attention to details."
FARC commander Raul Reyes in 2002 in Los Pozos, Colombia. In 2008, Colombia, with tacit U.S. approval, launched U.S.-made smart bombs into Ecuador, killing Reyes, considered to be the group's No. 2 leader. (Scott Dalton/AP)
Ecuador and the not-forgotten hostages
In February 2008, the U.S.-Colombian team got its first sighting of the three U.S. hostages. Having waited five years, the reaction was swift at U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, which began sending JSOC commandos down, said a senior U.S. official who was in Colombia when they arrived.
The JSOC team was headed by a Navy SEAL Team Six commander. Small units set up three operational areas near the hostages and conducted long-range reconnaissance, the senior official said. The NSA increased its monitoring. All eyes were on the remote jungle location. But as initial preparations were underway, operations were heating up elsewhere.
Just across the Putumayo River, one mile inside Ecuador, U.S. intelligence and a Colombian informant confirmed the hideout of Luis Edgar Devia Silva, also known as Raul Reyes and considered to be the No. 2 in the seven-member FARC secretariat.
It was an awkward discovery for Colombia and the United States. To conduct an airstrike meant a Colombian pilot flying a Colombian plane would hit the camp using a U.S.-made bomb with a CIA-controlled brain.
The Air Force colonel had a succinct message for the Colombian air operations commander in charge of the mission. "I said, 'Look man, we all know where this guy is. Just don't f— it up.' "
U.S. national security lawyers viewed the operation as an act of self-defense. In the wake of 9/11, they had come up with a new interpretation of the permissible use of force against non-state actors like al-Qaeda and the FARC. It went like this: If a terrorist group operated from a country that was unable or unwilling to stop it, then the country under attack — in this case, Colombia — had the right to defend itself with force, even if that meant crossing into another sovereign country.
This was the legal justification for CIA drone strikes and other lethal operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and, much later, for the raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.
So minutes after midnight on March 1, three A-37 Dragonflys took off from Colombia, followed by five Super Tucanos. The smart bombs' guidance system turned on once the planes reached within three miles of Reyes's location.
As instructed, the Colombian pilots stayed in Colombian airspace. The bombs landed as programmed, obliterating the camp and killing Reyes, who, according to Colombian news reports, was asleep in pajamas.
Above: The 2008 bombing of Raul Reyes's camp in Ecuador sparked a diplomatic dispute. Ecuador moved troops to border towns such as Puerto Nuevo. (Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images; Dolores Ochoa/AP)
Colombian forces rushed across the border into Ecuador to retrieve Reyes's remains and also scooped up a large treasure trove of computer equipment that would turn out to be the most valuable FARC intelligence find ever.
The bombing set off a serious diplomatic crisis. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez called Colombia "a terrorist state" and moved troops to the border, as did Ecuador. Nicaragua broke off relations. Uribe, under pressure, apologized to Ecuador.
The apology, while soothing relationships in Latin America, angered the small circle of U.S. officials who knew the back story, one of them said. "I remember thinking, 'I can't believe they're saying this,' " he said. "For them to be giving up an important legal position was crazy."
But the flap did not damage the deep ties between U.S. and Colombian forces or deter the mission to rescue the hostages. In fact, the number of JSOC troops continued to mount to more than 1,000, said the senior official then in Colombia. Officials thought for sure they would be spotted, but they never were. A U.S.-Colombian military exercise provided sufficient cover when the International Committee of the Red Cross showed up at isolated bases and stumbled upon some burly Americans, said two U.S. officials.
After six weeks of waiting to find the hostages, most of the JSOC troops left the country for pressing missions elsewhere. One unit remained. On July 2, 2008, it had the role of unused understudy in the dramatic and well-documented Operation Checkmate, in which Colombian forces pretending to be members of a humanitarian group tricked the FARC into handing over the three U.S. hostages and 12 others without a shot fired. The JSOC team, and a fleet of U.S. aircraft, was positioned as Plan B, in case the Colombian operation went awry.
A Colombian pilot boards a Super Tucano in Bogota in 2006. Recently, Colombia has fitted smart bombs onto some of its Super Tucanos, which have been largely used to drop dumb bombs during airstrikes. (Jose Miguel Gomez/Reuters)
Santos continues the smart-bomb war
As a sign of trust, in early 2010 the U.S. government gave Colombia control over the GPS encryption key. There had been no reports of misuse, misfires or collateral damage from the smart bombs. The transfer was preceded by quick negotiations over the rules of engagement for smart-bomb use. Among the rules was that they would be launched only against isolated jungle camps.
President Santos, who was defense minister under Uribe, has greatly increased the pace of operations against the FARC. Almost three times as many FARC leaders — 47 vs. 16 — have been killed under Santos as under Uribe. Interviews and analysis of government Web sites and press reporting show that at least 23 of the attacks under Santos were air operations. Smart bombs were used only against the most important FARC leaders, Colombian officials said in response to questions. Gravity bombs were used in the other cases.
President Juan Manuel Santos, who was Colombia's defense minister when the CIA covert program ramped up, has increased efforts to weaken the FARC. (Jose Cendon/Bloomberg)
Colombia continues to upgrade its air capabilities. In 2013, the air force upgraded its fleet of Israeli-made Kfir fighter jets, fitting them with Israeli-made Griffin laser-guided bombs. It has also fitted smart bombs onto some of its Super Tucanos.
Having decimated the top FARC leadership and many of the front commanders, the military, with continued help from the CIA and other intelligence agencies, appears to be working its way through the mid-level ranks, including mobile company commanders, the most battle-hardened and experienced remaining cadre. One-third of them have been killed or captured, according to Colombian officials.
The Santos administration has also targeted the financial and weapons networks supporting the FARC. Some critics think the government has been too focused on killing leaders and not enough on using the army and police to occupy and control rebel territory.
Killing an individual has never been a measure of success in war, say counterinsurgency experts. It's the chaos and dysfunction that killing the leadership causes to the organization that matters. The air operations against the FARC leadership "has turned the organization upside down," said a senior Pentagon official who has studied the classified U.S. history of Colombia's war.
Some have fled to Venezuela. One member of the secretariat hides out intermittently in Ecuador, according to senior Colombia officials, breaking the important psychological bond with ground troops and handicapping recruitment.
For fear of being located and targeted, units no longer sleep in the same place two days in a row, so camps must be sparser. "They know the government has so much information on them now, and real-time intelligence," said German Espejo, security and defense counselor at the Colombian Embassy. Worried about spies in their midst, executions are common.
The FARC still mounts attacks — a car bombing of a rural police station Dec. 7 killed six police officers and two civilians — but it no longer travels in large groups, and it limits most units to less than 20. No longer able to mount large-scale assaults, the group has reverted to hit-and-run tactics using snipers and explosives.
The weariness of 50 years of transient jungle life has taken its toll on the FARC negotiating team, too. Those who have lived in exile seem more willing to continue the fight than those who have been doing the fighting, said Colombian officials. The negotiations, Santos said in the interview, are the result of the successful military campaign, "the cherry on the cake."
On Dec. 15, the FARC said it would begin a 30-day unilateral cease-fire as a sign of good will during the holiday season. The Santos administration rebuffed the gesture and vowed to continue its military campaign. Later that day, security forces killed a FARC guerrilla implicated in a bomb attack on a former minister. Three days later, the army killed another five.
Elyssa Pachico and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Funding the intelligence program
Explore the U.S. "black budget," which spans over a dozen agencies that make up the National Intelligence Program.
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U.S. officials fear that the new Mexican government will ease off the brutal drug cartels.
Graphics by Alberto Cuadra, Cristina Rivero, Gene Thorp
© 1996-2019 The Washington Post
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The Food Act 1984 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom relating to food and markets law.  The act consolidates several earlier acts and also enables ministers to pass regulations without further legislation.  The Food Act brought additional protection for the consumer from foods harmful to human health, which had previously relied on Victorian era definitions.  It also specified the relationship between the government and the recently privatised British Sugar and permitted local authorities to establish cold storage facilities.  Much of the act was replaced by the Food Safety Act 1990 but part III, granting powers to local authorities to regulate markets, remains in force.

Description
The Food Act 1984 was passed by the Houses of Parliament in 1984, during Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher's second term in office as prime minister.  It received Royal Assent on 26 June 1984.

The Food Act 1984 was a consolidating act, bringing together existing powers into a single act without significant change.  Acts consolidated included the Foods and Drugs Acts from 1955 to 1982, the Sugar Act 1956, the Food and Drugs (Milk) Act 1970 and parts of the European Communities Act 1972, the Local Government Act 1972 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982.  Much of the legislation consolidated had not been substantially updated since 1938.  It is also an enabling act, allowing ministers of health and of agriculture to introduce further regulations and codes of practice in the future without additional primary legislation.

The act has seven parts.  Part I covers food in general, part II dairy products, part III the regulation of markets, part IV the sale of food by hawkers, part V the sugar beet industry and cold storage, part VI dealt with administrative matters and legal measures and part VII dealt with miscellaneous matters, including allowing ministers to make regulations to accord with European Community provisions.  The act has been described by food law writer Stephen J. Fallows as "the corner-stone of the system of food legislation operating in Britain".

Food
The Food Act was the most comprehensive set of food safety measures in English law at that point.  For the first time the law created offences beyond the limited "adulteration" offence introduced in the Victorian era, bringing the law into line with the development of new food additives, chemicals and processes.  Adulteration covered only the addition of deleterious materials to foodstuffs.  The Food Act 1984 required that nothing be added or taken away from food to make it unfit for human consumption (to "render the food injurious to health").  As well as the offence of making a food unfit for human consumption the act created offences of selling or advertising such food, even unknowingly.

The act also provided for a general protection for food purchases in that it was an offence to sell food "not of the nature, substance or quality" demanded by the purchaser.  This wording has been in British food law since 1875.  The "nature" statement relates primarily to natural foods and covers false description by the purchaser, for example misstating the type of fish a product contains.  The "substance" clause relates to the composition of the food and includes adulteration, contamination or foreign bodies.  The "quality" is a subjective judgement by the court that the food was not to the standard expected and includes, for example, food that has expired.  The act states that an offence is only committed where food is sold to the "purchaser's prejudice", meaning no offence arises if the purchaser is made aware of the difference from that expected at the time of purchase.

Most prosecutions under the substance clause tended to be for obvious breaches such as visible mould growth or the presence of foreign bodies.  Prosecutions under the quality clause tended to be on the basis of misleading description of the product by the seller.  These included otherwise legal products sold as "premium" or "extra quality" where the proportion of poor quality material was greater than the purchaser expected.  The maximum penalty for selling sub-standard food was £2,000.

The act also granted ministers the power to request details of the ingredients of any foodstuff from manufacturers.  It also regulated the labelling of foods, making it an offence for sellers to falsely describe foodstuff or to use intentionally misleading labelling.  The sugar beet portion of the act primarily dealt with the special relationship between the government and the recently privatised British Sugar.  The cold storage section dealt mainly with permitting local authorities to establish cold storage facilities for the storage of foods.  The act also included 11 schedules which included those setting out specific procedures for sampling of foods.

Markets
Part III of the act regulates markets.  It applies to markets of all kinds and not just those dealing with foodstuffs.  The act gave local authorities the power to establish markets in their area and to bring existing markets under their control, with the agreement of the existing management.  It also permitted them to establish market places and erect market halls.

In 2021 Newark Town Council discovered that its 1329 Royal Charter permitted only a weekly Wednesday market and an annual May fair.  It had been operating additional weekly markets on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays and was required to use the Food Act 1984 to designate these.  In November 2022 Leicester City Council used their powers under the act and in combination with their 1199 market charter (granted by King John) to levy a charge of £64 on two Christmas lights switching-on events in Oadby and Wigston.

Partial replacement
Some parts of the act were replaced or extended by the Food Safety Act 1990.  The 1990 act modernised the legislation and addressed gaps in coverage.  While much of the act was superseded by the 1990 act, Part III relating to markets, remains in force.  Aside from the modernisation in 1990, the basic structure of British food law has not changed substantially since 1984, though several new regulations have been introduced by ministers.

References

Food policy in the United Kingdom
Food safety in the United Kingdom
Hospitality industry in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1984
Health and safety in the United Kingdom

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


What do you wear when it's freezing one day and bright and sunny the next? Whatever you want! I ditched my normal color palette of black and grey and ventured out of my comfort zone with a bright, cheery striped cardigan. I paired it with some skinny navy pants and my favorite rose gold jewelry, but the cardigan would also work well with my favorite jeans – cuffed, of course – on the weekends.


text:
Members of SAF counter-piracy team in Gulf of Aden receive recognition
A member of the SAF Command Team working with his South Korean counterpart during their deployment to the Gulf of Aden. For three months, members of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 remained alert and thwarted numerous piracy attempts in the Gulf of Aden. -- PHOTO: YEO SAM JO
Dr Ng Eng Hen interacting with medal recipients and their family members after the presentation ceremony. For three months, members of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 remained alert and thwarted numerous piracy attempts in the Gulf of Aden. -- PHOTO: YEO SAM JO
Colonel Giam Hock Koon, 47, receiving the SAF Overseas Service Medal from Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at the presentation ceremony. For three months, members of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 remained alert and thwarted numerous piracy attempts in the Gulf of Aden. -- PHOTO: YEO SAM JO
Yeo Sam Jo
https://str.sg/wqaN
For three months, members of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 remained alert and thwarted numerous piracy attempts in the Gulf of Aden.
But it was the second last morning of June this year that commander of the force Colonel Giam Hock Koon remembers the most. The task force was involved in the successful disruption of a hijacking by about a dozen Somali pirates on an Indian dhow that was carrying livestock.
"The alert was raised and we responded to it by directing the Japanese maritime patrol aircraft, which after a few searches, was able to localise this vessel and subsequently direct the adjacent task forces, which were able to pressurise the pirates into abandoning their plans," he recalled. "This was the closest the pirates were to being successful," added the 47-year-old navy officer.
Colonel Giam was one of 47 recipients of the SAF Overseas Service Medal on Monday at the Defence Ministry, in recognition of their counter-piracy efforts.
Since 2009, the Republic of Singapore Navy has deployed more than 1,200 personnel to the CTF 151 in the Gulf of Aden. Under Colonel Giam, the SAF team took charge of 11 ships from six different navies, and worked with other multinational naval forces and independent navies. There were no successful pirate attacks in their area of operations this year, compared to about 250 in the Gulf of Aden in 2011.
Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen, who handed out the awards, emphasised the importance of combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden, which accounts for 20 per cent of global trade. He said: "It is critical to all countries that the sea lines of communication in the Gulf of Aden remain free for navigation."
Dr Ng also announced that the SAF has accepted an invitation to assume the post of Deputy Director of Operations in the 29-nation Combined Maritime Forces Headquarters, which oversees CTF 151.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Filmjolk is a traditional Swedish cultured milk that contains a blend of 15 live cultures and probiotics.
Rokeby Farms are an Australian brand owned by The Made Group that also includes Cocobella and Impressed Juices.
Research by the Gut Foundation Australia has shown that over 50 per cent of Australians complain of gut related health issues every year.
Advanced Sports Dietitian and Nutrition Health expert Simone Austin said many people are unaware that symptoms such as bloating and lethargy can be linked to gut health.
"The consumption of naturally probiotic-rich foods such as Filmjolk could help restore your inner health and wellbeing," Austin said.
Co-founder and Director of The Made Group Luke Marget says Australia's love for fresh dairy such as milk and yoghurt makes Filmjolk the perfect breakfast food.
"We recommend enjoying our Filmjolk as part of your daily breakfast routine, poured over cereal or fresh fruit or simply drinking on its own," Marget said.
Filmjolk contains Bifidobacterium which is a powerful probiotic proven to support gut health by increasing digestive regularity according to Marget.
Probiotics are live micro-organisms such as bacteria and yeasts which in adequate amounts may have health benefits.
Probiotics differ from prebiotics which are non-digestible food ingredients that can increase the activity of some 'good' bacteria.
Prebiotics occur naturally in bananas, onions, wheat and garlic.
In Australian, probiotic products are considered either functional foods and regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand or complementary medicine and regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Rokeby Farms Filmjolk is available in Natural and Blueberry at Woolworths supermarkets and independent retailers in Australia for $5 per 750ml bottle.
Buderim Ginger is entering the alcohol market with two ginger flavoured drinks.
Doritos Burn corn chips are returning to Australian supermarkets.


text:
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Designing Roads for Higher "Level of Service" Isn't About Safety
By Angie Schmitt
Officials in greater St. Paul want to knock over this building in the name of "Level of Service." Photo: Streets.mn
Traffic engineers have an maddening tendency to hold out "Level of Service" — a measure of motorist delay — like a trump card. We need to widen this road, they'll say, because otherwise drivers will angrily stew in traffic, and then there might be "accidents," or some other dire consequence.
That's what's happening right now in greater St. Paul, on Randolph Avenue, Bill Lindeke reports at Streets.mn. Ramsey County officials are planning to knock down an apartment building to widen an intersection and add a turn lane by a Trader Joe's.
They say they must do this, or else motorists will get frustrated by delays and start driving like psychopaths. This is not a very smart way to make street design decisions, Lindeke says:
Safety isn't just the number of accidents that occur, but needs to also include the larger urban landscape. If we "improve" an intersection by allowing cars to travel fast or turn more easily, we are also making the intersection more dangerous for anyone on foot or bicycle. In an urban area like this, that's a big mistake! Safety isn't just about compliance with rules. Neither is safety about decreasing the total number of accidents, though that is part of the picture. In an urban area, safety is about reducing car speeds and creating a comfortable and welcoming environment for people on foot.
Ramsey County's insistence that they are going to widen the road at Lexington and Randolph is an example of backward thinking. Tearing down two-story dense apartments and single family houses to make a turn lane is a bad idea, but doing it in the name of safety is particularly ironic. Hopefully, as neighbors and the city weigh in more clearly, the conversation will come to its senses.
Elsewhere on the Network today: Better Cities & Towns! says more transportation engineers need to step up and bring the profession into the 21st century. Street Smart takes on Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings' claim that only small cities have torn down urban freeways. And Transportation for America reports that U.S. DOT has adopted an important new performance measure, promoted by advocates, that will track the condition of roads and bridges.
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Gary, Ind. Considers Switch to All-Electric Buses
These States Won't Adopt Even Bare Minimum Roadway Safety Laws
Wednesday's Headlines Are Too Thrifty to Drive
ANALYSIS: When Speed Cameras Are Racist
Tuesday's Headlines Are Capped Out
ALSO ON STREETSBLOG
The Problem With Designing Streets for Peak Hour Traffic
By Angie Schmitt	| Dec 11, 2015
When engineers make decisions about streets, they tend to emphasize the "peak hour" — the morning and evening rush when traffic is at its most intense. For the most part, city streets are still designed to move motor vehicles during this relatively short period of time, to the detriment of people outside of cars — i.e. the people who live in […]
Finding the Political Will to Fix "Four-Lane Death Roads"
By Angie Schmitt	| Jun 6, 2016
A driver struck and killed a woman last week in St. Paul on what Bill Lindeke at streets.mn calls a "four-lane death road." The victim was 32-year-old Erin Elizabeth Dunham, who was dropping her kid off at the bus. She was walking in the crosswalk on Maryland Avenue, a four-lane, high-speed road running through an urban area. Local officials know Maryland […]
The Airtight Case for Road Diets
By Angie Schmitt	| Oct 29, 2014
Bill Lindeke at Streets.mn calls them "death roads." Four-lane roads in urban areas can indeed be perilous. An 11-year-old boy was struck by a motorist on one of these roads recently in St. Paul. The media and others responded in typical fashion, deeming the crash an unavoidable "accident." But the truth is these types of collisions are easy […]
8 Transportation Engineering Euphemisms That Should Be Tossed Out
By Angie Schmitt	| Jan 17, 2017
To this day, jargon that originated in the mid-20th Century highway era tilts transportation engineering against walking, biking, and transit.
In the Twin Cities, Population Still Clustered Where the Streetcar Went
By Angie Schmitt	| Jun 12, 2014
It's been six decades since the Twin Cities' streetcar era. But as demonstrated by the above map, making the rounds on Twitter, population density in Minneapolis and St. Paul still reflects the region's historic streetcar routes. Bill Lindeke at Streets.mn considers the implications: It's worth remembering that historic 1950 densities in Minneapolis and Saint Paul were […]
No, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Didn't Save Money by Killing the Red Line
By Brad Aaron	| Jul 14, 2015
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan spiked long-standing plans for the Baltimore Red Line because, he said, it cost too much. According to Hogan, he's saving taxpayers money by diverting Red Line funds to road projects. But Ben Ross at Greater Greater Washington reports that, when it comes to return on investment, the governor's claim doesn't add up. Ross writes […]
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Corporate power has turned Britain into a corrupt state
Westminster lobbying is the least of it. Revolving-door colonisation of public life is a corrosive threat to democracy
@seumasmilne
Tue 4 Jun 2013 17.20 EDT First published on Tue 4 Jun 2013 17.20 EDT
'Hector Sants, head of the Financial Services Authority in charge of regulating banks until last year, who joined Barclays six months later. But he's only one of a stream of regulators who have made similar moves.' Photograph: Micha Theiner/City AM / Rex Features
If you're under attack, create a diversion. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been floundering as the spectre of Westminster sleaze has returned to haunt them. Four years after the MPs' expenses scandal engulfed British politics, yet another alleged scam has been exposed. First a Tory MP and then a clutch of greedy peers were caught on camera apparently agreeing to take cash from journalists posing as representatives of foreign companies. "Make that £12,000 a month," grinned Jack Cunningham, Tony Blair's former "enforcer".
Cameron and Clegg had promised to deal with parliamentary influence-peddling, and done nothing about it. So on Monday they came up with a plan: to crack down on trade unions. Wrapped in a panic bill to set up a register of lobbyists are to be powers to police union membership lists and cut union spending in election campaigns. The first will make what is already the almost impossible task of holding a legally watertight strike ballot still harder. The second is a direct attack on Labour funding.
The contemptuous class cynicism of the coalition leaders' response takes some beating. Not only are unions the most accountable and only democratic part of the political funding system; but by including anti-union clauses in the new bill, Cameron and Clegg want to ensure Labour's opposition – all the better to change the subject and wrongfoot the opposition in the process.
Even Conservative MPs were embarrassed at the crude chicanery of it. Just as absurd is the fact that the register would have done nothing to prevent the latest lobbying scams – except help the puffed-up parliamentarians avoid getting stung in the first place. And the new law would apply only to lobbying firms, while directly employed corporate lobbyists would be exempt. Add to that the failure to bring elections to the House of Lords, and there will certainly be more jobs-for-life cronies cashing in with corporate clients in the years to come.
The truth is that parliamentary sleaze merchants are small fry in the corporate lobbying game. Before he became prime minister, Cameron predicted that secret corporate lobbying was "the next big scandal waiting to happen", adding: "We all know how it works." As a former lobbyist himself, he certainly did – and still does.
Cameron's own election adviser, the Australian Lynton Crosby, is a lobbyist – for tobacco, alcohol, oil and gas companies. Which is why the prime minister came under attack for dropping curbs on cigarette packaging and alcohol pricing. His party treasurer Peter Cruddas resigned after offering access to Cameron for a £250,000 party donation. His defence secretary, Liam Fox, resigned over his relationship with the lobbyist Adam Werritty.
But lobbying doesn't begin to cover the extent of corporate influence. More than ever the Tory party is in thrall to the City, with over half its income from bankers and hedge fund and private equity financiers. Peers who have made six-figure donations have been rewarded with government jobs.
But the real corruption that has eaten into the heart of British public life is the tightening corporate grip on government and public institutions – not just by lobbyists, but by the politicians, civil servants, bankers and corporate advisers who increasingly swap jobs, favours and insider information, and inevitably come to see their interests as mutual and interchangeable. The doors are no longer just revolving but spinning, and the people charged with protecting the public interest are bought and sold with barely a fig leaf of regulation.
Take David Hartnett, head of tax at HM Revenue & Customs until last year and the man whose "sweetheart deals" allowed Starbucks and Vodafone to avoid paying billions in tax. He now works for the giant City accountancy firm Deloitte, which works for Vodafone. The two-way traffic between the big four auditing firms and government is legendary: staff are sent on secondments to HMRC and the political parties and then return to devise new loopholes for corporate clients.
Then there's Hector Sants, head of the Financial Services Authority in charge of regulating banks until last year, who joined Barclays six months later. But he's only one of a stream of regulators who have made similar moves. The same goes for the 3,500 military officers and defence ministry officials who have taken up jobs in arms companies in the past 16 years – as it does for top civil servants and intelligence officials. The cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, is the living embodiment of the revolving door, having moved effortlessly from the Treasury to Blair's office to the investment bank Morgan Stanley and back to work for Cameron.
That's before you get to the politicians. City directorships in opposition used to be a Tory preserve. But after New Labour embraced corporate power it became a cross-party affair. Blair is in a class of his own, of course, raking in £20m a year from banks and autocratic governments; but he is followed closely by dozens of New Labour ministers who moved out of government into lucrative corporate jobs, often for firms hustling for contracts from their former departments.
It defies rationality to believe that the prospect of far better paid jobs in the private sector doesn't influence the decisions of ministers and officials – or isn't used by corporations to shape policy. Who can seriously doubt that politicians were encouraged to champion light touch regulation before the crash by the lure and lobbying of the banks, as well as by an overweening ideology?
Privatisation has extended the web of lubricated relationships, as a mushrooming £80bn business uses jobs and cash to foist a policy that is less accountable, lowers standards and is routinely more expensive on the public realm. When 142 peers linked to companies involved in private healthcare were able to vote on last year's health bill that opened the way to sweeping outsourcing – and the City consultancy McKinsey helped draw it up – it's not hard to see why.
Britain is now an increasingly corrupt country at its highest levels – not in the sense of directly bribing officials, of course, and it's almost entirely legal. But our public life and democracy is now profoundly compromised by its colonisation. Corporate and financial power have merged into the state.
That vice can be broken, but it demands radical change: closure of the revolving doors; a ban on ministers and civil servants working for regulated private companies; a halt to the corrosive tide of privatisation; and a downward squeeze on boardroom pay to reduce the corporate allure. It's going to need a democratic backlash.
Twitter: @SeumasMilne
Thames Water pays no corporation tax on £1.8bn turnover
UK's largest water company defers tax for year that bills rose 6.7% while boss wins 5.9% pay rise plus £274,000 bonus
Vodafone paid no corporation tax in Britain last year
Generous tax breaks mean second largest mobile phone company able to reduce bill to zero for second consecutive year
Published: 7 Jun 2013
Apple shop in London targeted by Mark Thomas and tax protesters
Flashmob singing Irish songs, in reference to company's use of overseas subsidiaries, descends on flagship Regent Street store
Four in 10 might join consumer boycott over tax avoidance
Anger over tax affairs of some big companies shown by survey, with older people most likely to take action


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Carl Sagan's daughter has a book out in Oct.
Sasha Sagan, daughter of the late Carl Sagan, has a book called part memoir, part guidebook and part social history
Carl Sagan's daughter has a book out in Oct. Sasha Sagan, daughter of the late Carl Sagan, has a book called part memoir, part guidebook and part social history Check out this story on detroitnews.com: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/books/2019/02/21/carl-sagans-daughter-book-oct/39093473/
The Associated Press Published 4:56 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2019 | Updated 4:58 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2019
This combination of photos released by G.P. Putnam's Sons shows a cover image for the book, "For Small Creatures Such As We: Finding Wonder And Meaning In Our Unlikely World," and a portrait of author Sasha Sagan. G.P. Putnam's Sons announced Thursday that Sagan's book is coming out in October. She will share memories of her father, Carl Sagan, the famed astronomer, and explore her beliefs in the prevalence of science and the natural world. (Photo: AP)
New York – Sasha Sagan, daughter of the late Carl Sagan, is working on a book her publisher is calling "part memoir, part guidebook and part social history."
G.P. Putnam's Sons announced Thursday that Sagan's "For Small Creatures Such As We: Finding Wonder and Meaning in Our Unlikely World," is coming out in October.
She will share memories of her father, the famed astronomer, and explore her beliefs in the prevalence of science and the natural world. She will also write about how she and her husband created "new, secular rituals" when they became parents.
Sasha Sagan is a writer, filmmaker and producer. Her book is drawn from a widely read essay, "Lessons of Immortality and Mortality From My Father, Carl Sagan," that she wrote for New York Magazine in 2014.
Read or Share this story: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/books/2019/02/21/carl-sagans-daughter-book-oct/39093473/
Restaurant report: Summer openings and recent closings
Fourth films: 13 all-American movies to stream for Independence Day
PJ's Lager House in Corktown for sale for $2.2M
Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter start filming 'Bill & Ted Face the Music'
Greektown gets new rooftop club, restaurant


A stunning 6 stage sequence of a resurgent Tiger Woods of the United States captured at the 2018 Players Championship at the TPC in Sawgrass, Florida. The rear view sequence captures the key stages of Tiger's swing as he hits a driver wearing his trademark final round red shirt.
The sequence is available print only or fully framed – our print only sequences now all come as a single print with the images in place for easy mounting and framing. The framed option comes with each image individually window mounted and in a wide choice of our standard or deluxe frame mouldings.


text:
Q: [OleDbException (0x80004005): Could not find file [OleDbException (0x80004005): Could not find file, I have my database in the App_Data folder.
protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string connectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|storeDB.accdb";

A: Make sure the db exists in the above location and directory has sufficient read/write privileges to create files on the fly.
Please see the following links Link1 Link2

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Keep Calm and Preach On!
Let me tell you a couple of things. The first thing we all need to understand is that this is no surprise to God Almighty. He is God and knows all things past, present, and future. We also need to remember that the Bible clearly predicts the fall of nations to lawlessness and sin.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved (Matthew 24:12-13 NKJV).
As the end times draw near, so will evil in the world. Jesus warned His disciples about this, and it is all over the New Testament. We must remember that we can still overcome evil with good, and that Jesus has already overcome death and evil.
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33).
Another thing we must realize is that this isn't the first time our nation (or any nation for that matter) has fallen away. We have been fallen since the first sin of Adam and Eve. Just look around and you can see sexual immorality, immodesty, lust, greed, violence, and hatred in abundance. This has been going on since the beginning of time, and it will continue to grow until the day our Savior comes for us.
Don't let this make you feel discouraged my dear readers! As I said before, the Bible already warned us about all of this…it's just Biblical prophesy coming true! We also need to place our hope in Jesus and remember that He can redeem anyone from any sin.
I also want to point out that although it is very easy to look around and point out the sins of our neighbor, oftentimes we neglect our own sin. We need to remain humble at all times–especially when we are thinking about or talking about unbelievers.
Although nobody is perfect, we must learn to lead by example and remember that we all fall short of God's righteousness. We all need His grace and perfect love in order to conquer the sin in our own lives.
You may not agree with what someone else says or does, but that doesn't mean you can't love them.
We do exactly what the Word of God tells us to do. We pray, falling before God and humbling ourselves in repentance. We pray for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the world. We must also learn to love one another and continue to preach the Gospel. You may not agree with what someone else says or does, but that doesn't mean you can't love them.
We all have different beliefs and opinions, and sadly, some will refuse the truth of the Gospel. Even so, we must love them. Only the perfect love of Christ can save our souls; this is the hope we must hang on to forever.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).


Holi, the festival of color, is one of the most popular and ancient festivals that is celebrated all across the country. This is the festival that brings joy, happiness to everybody's heart. It is this festival of color that binds the different nation together and thus, now this is being celebrated all over the world. In India, it has many customs associated with it and exchange of gifts is one of them. There are many unique and creative Holi Gift Ideas being flashed over the digital devices that have really made it more demanding and joyful festival. The ritual of gifts exchanging help in restoring cordial relations with loved one.
Giving gifts can be a bit of confounding on occasion. Yet, in the event that you get Online Holi Gift Ideas that can be basic and fun as well. Simply ensure who you are giving the gifts to somebody the unique gift that wins the heart of received. Additionally, the gifts are dependably a splendid approach to express your sentiments. In any case, giving exactly what somebody needs can be truly pleasant.
The word "Holi" itself splashes colors across the mind and we generally begin to think how to make this festival more colorful and bring happiness to our dear and near one. Cards are one of the traditional as well as conventional methods for communicating your feeling and sentiments. Sending welcome cards on Holi and various other events had been a standout amongst the most well-known customs. Prior cards were simple with just plain text and less representation. Today, consideration is paid on all parts of the cards, from outlining to format, from pictures to text to price. There are many online gift stores that offer greeting cards at a much reasonable price. Additionally, it also gives you benefits to Send Flowers to Delhi, Mumbai or any other corner of the world in a hassle-free manner and double the joy of happiness on the occasion of colored festival, HOLI.
1. Sweets: No festival is completed without sweet and thus, it is considered to be an integral part of celebrations. Gujia is one of the most demanded sweet dish as well as traditional sweets that are very much preferred on this festival.
2. Chocolate Box: Wow!! Chocolates! Yes, it is yet again a most popular sweet that is available in various flavor as well as colors. No doubt, this is liked and loved by almost all age groups and hence is the perfect Holi Gifts.
3. Dry fruits: Yes, like any other festival, Holi also is liked and played by everyone and everywhere. Dry fruits as gifts can be a unique and innovative gift ideas that can be offered with loved one in a stylish packing in addition to different colors.
4. Apparels: Off course, Apparels are most demanding gift items on any occasion and thus, you have ample range of items in this for both boys and girls. You can choose Suit, Sarees, Kurt, Shirts, Pants, Jeans, and so on that one can buy & send online as well. Whats' more, these Online Holi Gift Ideas is very much in demand as it spares your time as well as money.
5. Gift Hampers: Nothing can be the best than offering a Holi gift Hamper that should have a color pack in it in addition to other gift items such as dry fruits, sweets, Gulal, balloon, idols of Lord Ganesha, and so on. This all in one gift hampers makes the festival of color more charming and lovable.
So, do not miss a chance to celebrate and enjoy with friends, family, and relatives and make them feel more delightful by giving gifts and colors. You can likewise take more Holi Gift Ideas from this online portal as well that has ample gift collections for Holi and other festival and bring joy & happiness on your loved one's face.


First listed on 17 April, this house has been on Domain for 4 days (last updated on 17 April). 34 other 3 bedroom house in Glenvale have recently been sold.
We couldn't find a recent sale of another semi-detached with 3 beds, 2 baths, 1 parking space in this street.


I've never met a conspiracy theory I didn't like. There are so many of them, though, that I often find I've forgotten details or attributed extraterrestrial activity to the Illuminati or vice versa. Kudos to Arthur Goldwag, who has compiled some of the best theories, facts, and far-out doctrines into this outstanding reference work.
Divided into the three categories in the title – cults, conspiracies, and secret societies — Goldwag's book provides brief histories of hundreds of individuals and endeavors, including a few you probably haven't heard about yet. Each section is introduced with an examination of the broader topic as well as an explanation of the criteria Goldwag uses, but quickly moves on to the alphabetically arranged, cut-to-the-chase entries.
The first introductory piece, "What Makes a Cult Cultish?" includes the dictionary definition of "cult" but wisely elaborates on the distinctions made by others between traditional religious institutions and cults. "When members of [orthodox religion] use the word 'cult,' more often than not they are using it pejoratively, to undercut a disreputably heterodox challenge to their own authority," Goldwag reminds us. He goes on to explain that he has chosen the cults included here based on their "coercive or totalizing relationship" between leader and followers. It's not only an accurate description of cults but also the only sensible way to define one. This won't stop members of the included cults from complaining or suing Goldwag for libel, of course, but any resulting publicity will only increase the book's sales and draw attention to potentially dangerous cult activity.
Admitting to occasional "snarkiness", Goldwag nevertheless captures the essence of cult movements through history. Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, Satanism, Scientology, and Opus Dei are just a few of the featured groups.
The conspiracies written about here are, for the most part, the truly grand ones, involving hundreds or thousands of plotters engaged in economic, political, or terror schemes that affect the entire world. Al Qaeda, for example, is mentioned in this section rather than in Cults because of its criminal and political agenda and its noticeable lack of religious motivation. Masons, militias, the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and Lincoln, and of course Area 51 and the Roswell crash have starring roles with full backgrounds provided.
Secret societies are all around us, or rather societies with secrets. Secret handshakes, secret passwords - it doesn't have to be an important secret to bind members together and make them feel special. Goldwag selects for inclusions some societies that are well-known, some that are historical, and some "simply because they tickled me." Aryan Brotherhood, the BPOE, the Masons and the Jasons, Yakuza, and of course the Templars may be found in the Secret Societies section of the book.
Goldwag has sifted through an abundance of information and anecdotes and boiled it down to the basics - how each movement or group began, its fundamental doctrine or mission, its activities. The author restrains himself from commentary, giving the reader an unemotional, non-judgmental account of a far-flung phenomenon that is fascinating at best, terrifying at worst. Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies is a must-have resource for the student of human nature, sociology, or popular culture. It's also a must-have for the paranoid as well as for those of us who know there are shadow forces at work and want to keep track of them.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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During the inspection, a few bolt holes of the aluminum oil cooler have been rotated. This was solved on the spot by providing all four bolt holes with Helicoils. The oil cooler was then tested by raising the water pressure again, no leakages were observed.
- Adjust the axial clearance of the flexible coupling correctly.
All white metal bearings and shafts are badly damaged.
The cause for this is; the lubrication between the shaft and the bearing was inadequate.
We performed an inspection and repair on a EKATO gearbox.
We performed an inspection and repair on a gearbox HANSEN QVRE2X-CUN.


text:
Hiring Is Poised to Weaken
CommentaryThe debate over the state of the economy has quieted. With the midterm elections done, the side claiming that a recession had already begun has less need to make its case, while the other side has less need to refute it. But if the politically obsessed have turned away from such matters, economics still matters, and so also does the parsing of the arguments used in that mostly political debate. The picture such an effort paints is far from upbeat. Signs of economic weakness, if not outright recession, are undeniable. The real gross domestic product (GDP) fell in the year's first two quarters. For many, that is the definition of recession. Though real GDP rose modestly during the third quarter, neither the paltry 2.6 percent annual growth rate nor the underlying detail did much to contradict the weakness described earlier in the year. Other evidence of weakness is widespread. New home purchases have fallen 28.1 percent since the start of the year. Residential construction, as measured by new housing starts, has fallen 19.5 percent during this same time. New homes under construction at a housing development in Novato, Calif., on March 23, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) The consumer has held up on balance, but spending has slowed appreciably. In real terms, consumer outlays expanded at only a 1.4 percent annual rate during the third quarter, less than half the over 3.0 percent rate averaged during the second half of 2021. The consumer probably would have slowed more were it not that inflation has induced households to accelerate their buying before prices rise again. Capital spending by businesses has also slowed. In the third quarter, it grew at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in real terms, well below the 7.9 percent growth rate during the year's first quarter. Those who talked up the economic situation relied partly on technicalities but mostly pointed to still strong hiring rates. In October, for example, employment grew by 261,000, a strong figure by historical standards. They also noted that the unemployment rate had remained low at 3.7 percent of the workforce. They doubted recession, asking if such high hiring and low unemployment rates could exist in an economic downturn. Three considerations dull the force of this counterargument. First, the pace of jobs growth has slowed. October's hiring was only about half the 535,000 monthly hiring rate averaged during the year's first three months. At this pace of decay, the early months of next year will hardly offer much encouragement. Second, a Nov. 18 Bureau of Labor Statistics report on state-by-state employment showed that unemployment fell in only one state and rose in 24. Rates remain historically low, but the direction of change is ominous. Perhaps most compelling is the historical record that shows how it takes a while for labor markets to weaken in a declining economy and strengthen in an improving one. Such lags stand to reason. Employers will wait for confirmation of a slowdown before going through a painful and expensive round of layoffs and similarly wait for confirmation of growth before engaging in a round of hiring. This lagging pattern seldom, if ever, wavers in over 70 years of data on economic cycles. If anything, the lag has become more pronounced in recent cycles. During the Great Recession of 2008-09, for example, the unemployment rate hit a low of 4.4 percent in March 2007 and stayed low even as the economy approached the recession's start in January 2008. At first, unemployment rates rose only slowly. It took seven months after the recession began, until August 2008, to get above 6.0 percent. When the recession ended in June 2009, unemployment had risen to 9.5 percent. Then, even as the economy began its recovery, unemployment continued to climb, reaching almost 10 percent in September 2009. Jobs so lagged the recovery that unemployment remained above 9.0 percent until September 2011. A similar pattern is evident in the data on the milder 2001 recession. Unemployment hit a low of 3.9 percent in November 2000 and only crept up to 4.4 percent as the economy weakened and went into recession in May 2001. The rate rose to 5.5 percent as the recession ended in November of that year but continued to rise, reaching 6.3 percent 19 months later in June 2003. History never repeats itself exactly, but it does argue that the still seemingly strong jobs market is no reason to dismiss other signs of economic weakness. It will take a long while for the statisticians at the National Bureau of Economic Research to say when the United States entered and exited recession this time. In the meantime, the evidence, if not quite beyond cavil, says that the economy, if not yet in recession, is pointing to one. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Follow Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest,
The debate over the state of the economy has quieted. With the midterm elections done, the side claiming that a recession had already begun has less need to make its case, while the other side has less need to refute it. But if the politically obsessed have turned away from such matters, economics still matters, and so also does the parsing of the arguments used in that mostly political debate. The picture such an effort paints is far from upbeat.
Signs of economic weakness, if not outright recession, are undeniable. The real gross domestic product (GDP) fell in the year's first two quarters. For many, that is the definition of recession. Though real GDP rose modestly during the third quarter, neither the paltry 2.6 percent annual growth rate nor the underlying detail did much to contradict the weakness described earlier in the year.
Other evidence of weakness is widespread. New home purchases have fallen 28.1 percent since the start of the year. Residential construction, as measured by new housing starts, has fallen 19.5 percent during this same time.
New homes under construction at a housing development in Novato, Calif., on March 23, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The consumer has held up on balance, but spending has slowed appreciably. In real terms, consumer outlays expanded at only a 1.4 percent annual rate during the third quarter, less than half the over 3.0 percent rate averaged during the second half of 2021. The consumer probably would have slowed more were it not that inflation has induced households to accelerate their buying before prices rise again.
Capital spending by businesses has also slowed. In the third quarter, it grew at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in real terms, well below the 7.9 percent growth rate during the year's first quarter.
Those who talked up the economic situation relied partly on technicalities but mostly pointed to still strong hiring rates. In October, for example, employment grew by 261,000, a strong figure by historical standards. They also noted that the unemployment rate had remained low at 3.7 percent of the workforce. They doubted recession, asking if such high hiring and low unemployment rates could exist in an economic downturn.
Three considerations dull the force of this counterargument. First, the pace of jobs growth has slowed. October's hiring was only about half the 535,000 monthly hiring rate averaged during the year's first three months. At this pace of decay, the early months of next year will hardly offer much encouragement. Second, a Nov. 18 Bureau of Labor Statistics report on state-by-state employment showed that unemployment fell in only one state and rose in 24. Rates remain historically low, but the direction of change is ominous.
Perhaps most compelling is the historical record that shows how it takes a while for labor markets to weaken in a declining economy and strengthen in an improving one. Such lags stand to reason. Employers will wait for confirmation of a slowdown before going through a painful and expensive round of layoffs and similarly wait for confirmation of growth before engaging in a round of hiring. This lagging pattern seldom, if ever, wavers in over 70 years of data on economic cycles. If anything, the lag has become more pronounced in recent cycles.
During the Great Recession of 2008-09, for example, the unemployment rate hit a low of 4.4 percent in March 2007 and stayed low even as the economy approached the recession's start in January 2008. At first, unemployment rates rose only slowly. It took seven months after the recession began, until August 2008, to get above 6.0 percent. When the recession ended in June 2009, unemployment had risen to 9.5 percent. Then, even as the economy began its recovery, unemployment continued to climb, reaching almost 10 percent in September 2009. Jobs so lagged the recovery that unemployment remained above 9.0 percent until September 2011.
A similar pattern is evident in the data on the milder 2001 recession. Unemployment hit a low of 3.9 percent in November 2000 and only crept up to 4.4 percent as the economy weakened and went into recession in May 2001. The rate rose to 5.5 percent as the recession ended in November of that year but continued to rise, reaching 6.3 percent 19 months later in June 2003.
History never repeats itself exactly, but it does argue that the still seemingly strong jobs market is no reason to dismiss other signs of economic weakness. It will take a long while for the statisticians at the National Bureau of Economic Research to say when the United States entered and exited recession this time. In the meantime, the evidence, if not quite beyond cavil, says that the economy, if not yet in recession, is pointing to one.
Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm. Before joining Vested, he served as chief market strategist and economist for Lord, Abbett & Co. He also writes frequently for City Journal and blogs regularly for Forbes. His latest book is "Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live."
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Dictatorship Chic


Facebook is moving beyond more than just the usual social media platform where people post and share content. The company has been catering more and more to businesses/retailers alike allowing brands to target customers better. It is not only investing in a new mapping system but it is also boosting its role in the publishing ecosystem. Despite contentions that some of these moves may only reach a smaller audience than previous systems, Facebook claims that the reach and engagement should be better. Is the social platform a good bet for businesses?
Facebook has been expanding its publishing capabilities lately trying its hand on publisher's ad targeting and pitching articles to be directly posted on the social media platform.
There is focus on "interest- targeting" as well allowing publishers to direct their content to a specific set of followers depending on what pages they liked. Interest-targeting will feed off content related to the interest of the users and not to anyone else. It may reach a smaller audience but engagement should offer more potential according to Facebook. These posts offer more likes, shares and comments compared to non-targeted content. It should also be beneficial for businesses in the long run as this may offer higher conversion rate with a more dedicated user following.
Facebook did warn that interest targeting should be used with caution so as not to raise flags from users and other parties. As with other marketing ploys or gimmicks, moderation is key.
Recently, Facebook and Nokia quietly inked a deal to boost and power up maps on several of its platforms. Facebook has started using Here maps for its mobile edition with the company testing the new system to boost power location in native apps such as Messenger and Instagram.
The move not only presents Facebook users with a new enjoyable experience but it can also support geocoding better. Geocoding can offer significant insights on consumer or user behavior for future references of Facebook and businesses.
Social media continues to shape up as an influential platform for many online parties including businesses. As its reach is unparalleled, businesses and brands alike can be in a unique and strategic position to encourage more patrons should they utilize it properly.