Cancun is attracting some important, international events. In May, this year, there was the World Organization of National Colleges, Academies and Academic Associations of General Practitioners/Family Physicians annual meeting, the biggest and most important event of family medicine professionals in the world, attracting more than 5,000 doctors with experience in clinical affairs, administration, education, research, epidemiology and other health-related issues. Cancun may be a particularly apt place for the hosting of the UN's 16th Conference of the Parties (COP 16)/ 6th Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 6) which will be held in Cancun 29 November to 10 December, this year. A very long title for a meeting, but this meeting represents the very important and continuing efforts of nations around the world to develop a common approach to limiting the warming of our planet. ____________________ The hurricane season this year is living up to its billing, with an extraordinary number of storms of great power being generated week after week. Much of this is blamed on rising seawater temperatures packing more energy into each storm, and generating more storms. Cancun has also been negatively affected by the phenomenon, now occurring worldwide, of erosion of its beaches, which many blame on rising sea levels leading to more sand being carried away by the waves and requiring, in the case of Cancun, periodic and expensive beach restoration projects. The U.S., with the highest per capita contribution to CO2 to the air, and China, with the highest absolute annual contribution of CO2- having recently taken over from the U.S. in this category- continue to act as the chief obstacles to obtaining meaningful commitments to dealing with this problem, now recognized by many as the biggest threat faced by mankind. There is a painful logic to the largest contributors of CO2 also being the most reluctant to give it up.
Find it funny that Cancun will host the "Kyoto protocol"-meeting, considering the immense ecological destruction that goes on here Pisses me off.
Rawkus, I'm sure there are plenty of things you could point to in the peninsula which represent destruction of habitat more specific than our planetary atmosphere, such as destruction of the forests; but, Yucatan may not contribute much to global warming, most of its power coming from, as I understand it, the relatively clean source of hydro-electric, from Chiapas. (No form of power generation I know of is not destructive to the environment in some measure.) However, even if this conference were specifically about some destruction that was actually occurring here, what better place to have it? Physicians should go where people are ill. A large, international conference on one or more of your concerns could be a good idea, and might result in some sensitization to the issue, and some education of the population to the importance of the issue, right? I'm reminded of the staging of the Olympics, in Beijing, where the population was treated to some relatively clean air for about three weeks: don't you think that helped energize those who are concerned about air quality there, and gave a boost to their efforts to draw attention to the issue? __________________
Gringation: Its a start that should have been initiated some 30 years ago... :S V: I see your point, but I dont think any of the "big guys" here in Cun gives a damn, especially if it means less cash in their bank accounts... Puerto Morelos was in the headlines regarding the "ecogenocide"(unsure about the word..) that currently occurs there. Hotels deliberately cut off the water flow to the mangrove, slowly drying it out. The have some canals, but its not nearly enough for the vast amount of fish, crustaceans, birds and reptiles that depend on the areas to survive. I met a group of Dutch students who came here to do research regarding the water quality and the pressure on the clean water system. The results were all but "ok". The city`s water system can apparently only handle some 20% of the requirement, and NO restrictions have been implemented... This is 6 months ago and its still unchanged. The building of Puerto Cancun meant clearing out ad killing a huge area of mangrove, which is actually against Mexican law. Cant remember his name, but the main guy responsible, was going to jail for it, until all charges were dropped... Hehe, now people are complaining about higher costs of fish and shrimp - thats what happens when you destroy their breeding areas. So now some of the ones that have done very destructive things to the local environment here in Cancun, will host the "Kyoto"-event... People that according to Mexican law, should be in jail as we speak :aktion033: Regarding Beijing: Yes, clean air for some for a while, but removal of villages and cut of water supplies for many... EDIT: On the positive side: We can show the delegates first hand where and how the laws were broken and what the result is
Michael E Kelly The cases you referred to, Rawkus, against Michael E. Kelly, filed in the U.S. District Courts, both criminal and civil, make for interesting reading. However, I can see no indication that charges against him have been dropped, or that the action against him filed by the SEC has been abandoned. So far as I can tell, they still wend their way slowly through the judicial system. I can find no information on his current whereabouts, though some sources on the internet suggest he's presently in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, and there is evidence the judge in his criminal case refused to grant his motion for bail. He has plead not guilty to 14 counts of fraud, etc., and apparently is awaiting trial: if he's a flight risk, as the government suggested in their motion opposing bail, that could explain his possible pretrial detention. I remind the readers that, in the U.S., you are not considered guilty merely because charges have been filed against you, or because you are in detention: there remains a presumption of innocence.
V: I know about Kelly. Last I heard was that he was supposed to hand over his Avalon hotels to the FBI, in exchange for his "freedom"... Dont know what happened with that though... Have several friends who worked in Avalon as well... That company was/is(?) all but clean, ugh... There was someone else that was involved with the Puerto Cancun-project... He was the one that gave clearance to drying, draining ad ripping up the mangroves... Bastard. I know he is involved in Real Resorts as well... Dont want to write more about that here though. Haha, imagine Ahmadinejad hosting a pro gay-rights conference in Iran...?
The SEC civil action names those thought by the U.S. District Attorney's Office to have conspired with him, naming twenty some odd. The court documents in both the criminal and civil cases are available for reading, on line, for those with a greater interest. [To the readers: merely because someone is named in a court document which charges an offense does not, by itself, establish any guilt on their part.]
V: "Innocent until proven guilty"... The guy Im thinking of, broke the Mexican law that protects mangrove. Dont know if he is mentioned in the same thing as Kelly. Ill ask my neighbor next time I see her - she worked with the case on behalf on PROFEPA. Far as I know, "mr X" was "only" involved in the part of the mangroves. Dont know if he was/is more involved in the project itself, or merely just gave way to it by overturning a federal law(unsure about the term. I mean a law that is the same all over the country, no exceptions.). Clearly, the law WAS broken as Puerto Cancun couldnt exist without the removal of the mangroves...
On complex issues like we're talking about, it's easy to get going in two or more different directions: as I understand it, Rawkus, you're concerned with possible violations of Mexican Federal Law protecting wetlands and coastline, in the development of Puerto Cancun. Has this question been litigated through the Mexican Courts? The charges against Kelly seem mainly to involve alleged violation of U.S. Securities Law, by operating a "Ponzi Scheme", in which mainly U.S. based investors were induced to hand over money totaling some 424 million USD on promises of a guaranteed fixed return, based on some essentially non-existent business operations he was claiming to have. Court documents suggest he's been in custody, continuously, since his arrest in Florida, December 22, 2006. Bernard Madoff, in the U.S., was the most recently convicted practitioner of this art that I'm aware of, but his case went quickly because he plead guilty. _______________________ Michael E Kelly is an American phenomenon. The activities he's alleged to have engaged in were a product of the build up to the financial collapse of 2008. In the early years of the 21st century, investors were experiencing extremely low returns on their investments, and were hungry for anything promising better. (I can remember getting just 0.5% interest on savings accounts.) Along came those who promised better: if you can believe the charges, he was offering guaranteed returns of 11%, and refund of initial investment any time it was requested. There are those who say they put their entire life savings into his hands, and lost everything. The half billion alleged to have been lost in investments in his offerings pales in comparison to the trillions lost later in the decade by American home owners, and others around the world, who became entrapped and victimized, directly and indirectly, by that infamous Wall Street invention, the Collateralized, Mortgage-Backed Security. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will recover from the loss of wealth this generated, and we lived to see. _________________ Because of the complexity of the issues involved, I'm going to back off commenting on these cases, at this point. As I said earlier, those with an interest can easily see the court documents, online. The SEC's case can be found at- http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp20267.pdf The original criminal case filing can be seen at- http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2008/pr0509_02a.pdf ____________________
