by the El Reportero’s wire services

Isabelo “Chabelo” de Molina

People in recession-battered Puerto Rico were fuming Wednesday over the news that the mayor of a town of 40,000 near San Juan increased his monthly salary from $6,500 to $8,000.

By comparison, the mayor of San Juan – a city of around 400,000 people – receives $10,000 a month.

The pay hike for Mayor Isabelo “Chabelo” Molina’s pay hike was approved by the city council in Vega Alta, controlled by the main opposition PNP party, media outlets said.

The councilors also voted to increase their per diems for attending sessions from $64 to $100, Primera Hora newspaper pointed out.

Mexico sees 7.5 percent increase in international visitors

Mexico registered the arrival of 5.2 million international visitors by air in the first five months of 2013, an increase of 7.5 percent over the same period last year, the Tourism Secretariat announced on Thursday.

The United States remained the main tourist market for Mexico, providing 2.8 million visitors in the first five months of the year, a figure 7.2 percent above that registered during the same period in 2012.

During the same time span, 944,000 tourists arrived from Canada, 154,000 from Britain, 129,000 from Argentina and 113,000 from Brazil.

Just in May, 880,000 international visitors arrived by air, a 14 percent increase from the same month in 2012.

Tourism generates about 9 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product, is the country’s third leading source of hard currency after oil exports and remittances and employs 2.5 million people.

Last year, Mexico welcomed 23 million international tourists and took in more than $11 billion in revenues from tourism.

Venezuela questions relations with Spain following Bolivian plane incident

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday that he will re-evaluate relations with Spain in light of this week’s incident involving Bolivian head of state Evo Morales’ plane, which had to divert to Vienna after several western European countries barred the flight from their airspace.

“What Spain’s government did is disgraceful, trying to search the aircraft of a South American president,” Maduro said in Caracas on his return from an official trip to Russia and Belarus.

“What does that Prime Minister (Mariano) Rajoy believe, that we South Americans are your slaves?,” the Venezuelan leader said.

Morales did not arrive back in Bolivia until shortly before midnight Wednesday, more than 24 hours after he left Moscow, where he attended a conference of gas-exporting nations.

The Bolivian presidential aircraft spent 13 hours on the ground in Vienna as Austrian authorities searched the plane for former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has released documents exposing Washington’s massive surveillance of global telephonic and Internet communications.

The diversion to Vienna came after Portugal, France and Italy barred Morales’ plane from their airspace, apparently on suspicion that Snowden was onboard.

You are fighting the war in Syria on America’s behalf”

Paul Joseph Watson

Former Al-Qaeda member Sheikh Nabil Naiim has released astounding video testimony in which he asserts that the leader of Jabhat Al-Nusra, the primary fighting force in Syria attempting to topple President Bashar Al-Assad, is a CIA operative.

Sheikh Nabil Naiim, considered to be the historical leader of the Islamic Jihadist movement in Egypt, led the Safwa Al-Qaeda training camp where he met Osama Bin Laden. Naiim then moved to Sudan with Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and was officially recognized as an Al-Qaeda member.

Having been directly involved in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat, Naiim was imprisoned after an attempt to assassinate Hosni Mubarak and only released after Mubarak’s regime collapsed. Naiim subsequently abandoned violence and is now outing his former comrades as being on the CIA payroll.

“I personally believe that the leader of the Nusra Army (Mohammed al-Jawlani), who declared his support for Ayman Al Zawahiri, is a CIA operative in the Al Nusra,” states Sheikh Naiim.

Naiim also identified Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as a US double agent.

“What is Zawahiri going to give you? Scud missiles? He owns nothing and he’s constantly on the move. All he owns is the recording that he releases every 6 months. But these however are his orders from the Americans,” states Naiim.

Speaking of being “fooled by an American plot,” Naiim states that “the US has been allowing us (Al-Qaeda) to fight in Afghanistan for 18 years and have funded and supported us,” adding that members of the militant group were being manipulated.

He then turns his attention to Al-Nusra terrorists fighting to topple Assad in Syria, warning them, “You are fighting the war in Syria on America’s behalf” and that eventually they will “be called terrorists and you will be killed or put in prison just like what happened to us after Afghanistan.”

“These leaders are manipulating you, you will find yourself dying and the Americans fulfilling their goals not yours,” adds Naiim.

Naiim’s assertion that Jabhat Al-Nusra is being directed by the CIA would demolish claims by the White House and other NATO powers that there is a distinction between the Al-Nusra front, which killed U.S. troops in Iraq, and Free Syrian Army rebels.

The leader of Jabhat Al-Nusra, Mohammed al-Jawlani, swore allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri back in April.

Immediately after the State Department declared Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization, 29 different FSA rebel outfits pledged allegiance to the Al-Qaeda group.
In addition, a top FSA General recently told Al-Jazeera that the FSA is cooperating with Al-Nusra.

The Obama administration recently announced that it would send heavy weaponry to the Syrian rebels, although the CIA has been aiding in weapons transfers from other Gulf countries since at least the beginning of last year, according to the New York Times.

There are numerous other clear indications that Syrian rebels have merged with Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria.

– FSA rebels are defecting to Jabhat al-Nusra in droves.

– FSA rebels have vowed to “fight the U.S.” once they finish with Bashar Al-Assad.

– FSA rebels have been filmed burning US and Israeli flags on more than one occasion.

– FSA rebels have been filmed on previous occasions singing songs that glorify Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks.

– One FSA group even calls its fighting unit the “Osama Bin Laden” brigade.

– Another video shows FSA rebels chanting, “We are all with Osama bin Laden!”

– FSA rebels have voiced their desire to see the Al-Qaeda flag fly over the White House once the rebels are victorious across the region.

The fact that deadly weapons about to be sent by Washington will almost certainly end up in the hands of Al-Qaeda terrorists who won’t hesitate to later use them against American interests has not stopped the mad rush to pour gas on an inferno that some experts have warned could escalate into world war three.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos.

(Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News).

by the El Reportero wire services

Evo Morales

President Evo Morales denounced acts of conspiracy and delivery of confidential documents to the United States by workers of Bolivia’’s foreign ministry.

In an act of possession of new deputy ministers, the president said they have evidence that institution staff violated state secrecy and gave secret information to the U.S. Embassy.

In an inauguration ceremony of new deputy ministers, the president said to have evidence that the institution staff has been violating state secrecy and giving secret information to the U.S. Embassy.

Morales said he could not understand how Foreign Ministry workers could betray their country and said that the release of documents was not free.

Colombia Rejects Nicaraguan report to UN about continental shelf

The Colombian Foreign Ministry has rejected a report presented by Nicaragua before a United Nations commission calling for the recognition of the boundaries of its continental shelf extending beyond the visible 200 mile limit in the western Caribbean.

According to a public statement from the foreign ministry published here, the Nicaraguan government is trying to get the U.N. to make a pronouncement recognizing the existence of “a supposed continental shelf platform.”

The document was presented on Monday by Nicaraguan authorities before the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), founded by United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in 1982.

“Colombia is not part of the CLCS and the CLCS has not been ratified by Colombia, therefore it does “not accept any action by the CLCS,” says the statement from the Colombian foreign ministry.

Nicaragua said yesterday that the documents presented to be reviewed by the U.N. Commission contain scientific and technical information that is required to establish the outside boundaries of its continental shelf 200 miles further out to sea.

The Nicaraguan permanent mission before the U.N. reaffirms itself as a coastal country and member of the Convention on the Law of the Sea that has enjoyed since 2000 “all its rights over the continental shelf.”

U.S. Congressman threatens Ecuador with trade retaliation

U.S. Republican Congressman Sandy Levin today threatened Ecuador with trade retaliation if that country grants asylum to former contractor of the National Security Agency Edward Snowden, who is now in Moscow, Russia.

According to Levin, a decision of this kind from the Quito authorities could prevent the passage in Congress of a bill to renew the facilities to trade with that country, and even immediately block discussion of the measure in the U.S. Congress.

The Andean Trade Preference Act, passed in 1991, expires at the end of July and the process of recovery will be analyzed through the Ways and Means Committee, which Levin chairs at the House of Representatives, and by a Senate panel for financial affairs, said today the newspaper The Hill.

A statement of the Ecuadorian Embassy in this capital recalled Wednesday that the controversy over the Snowden case was not caused by that nation, and demanded that the White House present their written arguments against the granting of asylum to the former contractor.

The deputy chief of the diplomatic mission of Ecuador, Efrain Baus, called the cessation of false, negative and counter accusations against his government by officials of the administration of President Barack Obama. Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño, reiterated this week that the nation put their principles above their economic interests, defending the decision of considering the asylum application of Snowden, accused by U.S. authorities of giving secret information to the press about government spyware. (Prensa Latina contributed to this report).