MEXICO

The following is taken from:
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=160fcd4b7336a1a8&cat=c08dd24cec417021

MEXICO: Writer Who Exposed Child Sex Ring Fears Worst Is Yet to Come

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Feb 24 (IPS)

When Mexican freelance journalist and human rights activist Lydia Cacho published a book last year exposing a paedophile ring, she was warned by friends and colleagues that she would run into trouble.

It did not take long for their warnings to come true.

She was arrested by the police, driven 900 kms to the state of Puebla, held for 30 hours, mistreated and threatened.

Now that she is the target of the wrath of powerful Mexican businessmen and politicians, she is worried that the worst is yet to come.

"Now I am news, and that protects me somewhat. But when I am no longer news, I'm afraid of reprisals by these criminals, who stop at nothing," Cacho told IPS.

Her book, "Los demonios del Edén" (The Demons of Eden), contains the personal accounts of minors who talk about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of a child prostitution and pornography ring in which prominent figures were allegedly involved.

Cacho said that her personal plight is not important, and that what matters is that the existence of child sexual exploitation and pornography in Mexico has come to light.

"In the end, the real heroes of this whole thing are the girls and boys who dared to tell their stories," she stressed.

The 43-year-old writer, who is the director of a Cancún women's shelter, has been under police protection since she began to receive threats last year.

More recently, she was dragged into a scandal after a dozen taped telephone conversations were leaked to the press and broadcast on Feb. 14. In the obscenity-laced conversations, a voice identified as that of Mario Marín, the governor of the state of Puebla, can be heard telling a man who is allegedly textile mogul Kamel Nacif that "I just gave a bump on the head to that old witch."

In her book, Cacho described Nacif as a friend of Jean Succar, a Lebanese-born businessman who is facing charges of arranging paedophile parties.

The illegally taped phone conversations attributed to the governor and various individuals, including a reporter, apparently took place in December, after Cacho was taken into custody by the police in the southeastern resort town of Cancún and driven to Puebla.

In the conversations, the voices identified as those of Nacif and Marín discuss how they had the activist arrested and thrown into a cell with "nutcases and dykes (lesbians)," so that she would be raped.

That did not happen, however, because in the prison in Puebla, "the prisoners themselves and the guards protected me," said the writer.

But she was mistreated. Cacho described how she was threatened during the nearly 20-hour trip to Puebla and was only allowed to eat once.

When the news of her arrest broke, the rights watchdog Amnesty International, the World Organisation Against Torture, the Inter-American Press Association and other international groups raised an outcry, and Cacho was released on bail.

Nacif, a textile magnate with factories in Puebla and other states, filed suit against Cacho for criminal libel last October.

He is named in her book as a close friend of hotel owner Succar, who fled Mexico in 2003 after being exposed as the head of a child sex ring in Cancún.

Succar was arrested in the United States in February 2004 and is currently awaiting the conclusion of an extradition trial.

Marín, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) - which ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000 insists that the recording of his telephone conversation with Nacif was doctored.

But numerous independent experts have refuted this claim.

The Catholic Church, politicians, business representatives and other sectors are calling for the governor's resignation, but he and his fellow PRI members maintain that he is innocent and will not step down.

Nevertheless, the pressure on Marín is building alongside the wave of indignation sparked by the tawdry telephone conversations.

In addition, the Mexican Congress has called on the Supreme Court of Justice to investigate Marín, in order to determine whether or not he is guilty of manipulating the courts in Puebla to attack Cacho.

"I will not rest until I see Marín removed from office and punished for defending paedophiles and for using the full weight of his power to manipulate the justice system and persecute me," said the activist, who is now working with her lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the governor.

Nacif filed his suit against Cacho in Puebla, where most of his business interests are based and where he claims to have influential friends, including the governor himself.

However, the crimes in which he is implicated took place in Cancún, and the book that accused him of involvement was published in Mexico City.

There are numerous irregularities in the trial against Cacho which demonstrate that Governor Marín and his friends manipulated the justice system to suit their own purposes, says Miguel Granados Chapa, a columnist with the Mexican daily Reforma.

Cacho, who is also the co-founder of the Centro Integral de Apoyo a la Mujer (CIAM), a shelter for victims of domestic violence and rape in her home base of Cancún, interviewed many of Succar's victims for her book.

The youngsters described how the hotel owner sexually abused them himself, set up a prostitution ring to allow others to abuse them, and photographed them in order to sell the pornographic images on the Internet.

This case is just one thread in a vast web of similar rings throughout Mexico.

Some 17,000 minors in Mexico are victims of the sex trade, according to a study by researcher Elena Azaola, published in 2004.

Azaola's research included visits to the establishments where these children and teenagers are forced to engage in prostitution and interviews with some of those who have managed to escape.

"I hope that my case will represent a watershed," marking the end of government apathy in the face of child sexual exploitation and the beginning of decisive action against this crime, said Cacho.

What lies beneath

Suspected plot revealed against journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro



~~

Fine Art VII

Winslow Homer
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31442
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31483
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31403
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31404

Willy Ronis
http://www.parisartphoto.com/ronis/deroul_ron.html

Sergey Pjatakov, Cadet youth

Eugeny Mokhorev, A Difficult Age

Vladimir Mishukov, On Another Level

Sergei Chilikov, The Beach

Arthur Prince Spear
http://grapefruitmoongallery.com/artists/8.shtml
http://grapefruitmoongallery.com/finearts/57.shtml

Degas
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=6074

Marc Ribout
http://www.clubcultura.com/galerias/vergaleria.php?gal_id=37&despl=3

Uwe Ommer
http://www.clubcultura.com/galerias/vergaleria.php?gal_id=11&despl=3

Muhammad Qasim
http://homoerotimuseum.net/asi/asi02/207.html
Abu Nuwas and the Three Youths
Riza i-Abbasi
http://www.androphile.org/preview/Museum/Iran/twoloversM.html
Bizhad
http://homoerotimuseum.net/asi/asi02/215.html
http://www.glbtq.com/arts/islamic_art.html
http://www.shadmehrtour.com/Gallery/Isfahan/page_01.htm

Corot
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31573

Henry Farny
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31607

Stefan Rohner
http://www.photographer.ru/nonstop/author.htm?id=7555&page=1





~~

Fine Art VI

John Singer Sargent
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=27631
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=27581

John White Alexander
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=29077

Elizabeth Dew
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/cat/3401/display/3429467

Jack Picone
http://www.jackpicone.com/gallery.php?alp=I&g=90

Dietmar Keve
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/466393/display/4490857

Ruud van der Lubben
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/pcat/128760/display/3334057

Cherkashin
http://members.tripod.com/cherkashin/page15.html

Bernard Safran
http://www.safran-arts.com/picindex.html

Anderson Zaca
http://www.andersonzaca.com/pages/criancas_main_frameset.html
http://www.andersonzaca.com/pages/fine%20art/cuzes%20main%20frameset.html

Carol Ginandes
http://www.carolginandes.com/detail.html?sortNumber=4&gallery=South%20American%20Portfolio&skipno=0

Niko Nella
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/pcat/71907/display/3169207

Edwin Huddle
http://www.edwinhuddle.com/portraits.htm

Duane Hanson
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collections/artist_search.php?objectId=297


Wallace Rollins
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/473398/display/1767366

Andreas Pöschek in Iran
http://viennaphoto.at/gallery/shiraz-strassen/L1020556

Leon Sparx
http://www.leonsparx.com/gallery/slideshow.php?set_albumName=Iraq2005

Daily Mirror
http://www.imakecontent.net/images/2003/030314Mirror.jpg

Iraq
http://www.imagesushi.com/london/blair.html

Caroline Webber - Syria
http://www.carolinewebber.com/syr_006.htm

Oswald Achenbach
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=8479
http://pintura.aut.org/BU04?Autnum=13.042

Greuze
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Jean-Baptiste_Greuze_001.jpg

Litvinov Wjacheslav
http://forster-art.com/?id=artists&ats=101

Mariano José María Bernardo Fortuny y Garbo Marsal
http://pintura.aut.org/BU04?Autnum=11.627

Henry Ryland
http://www.rastko.org.yu/drama/zstefanovic/orfej/mit/img/art/ryland2.jpg

Corot
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/corot/genoa.jpg

Marius Bauer
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/MariusBauergroot?coulisse

Mourchou
http://www.ark-id.com/Maroc/gal/eCoD10.htm
http://www.ark-id.com/Maroc/gal/eCoD35.htm

Tracey Tippet
http://www.marketplacephotography.com/fair2_fine_art_photography.htm
http://www.marketplacephotography.com/children2_fine_art_photography.htm
http://www.marketplacephotography.com/rodeo2_fine_art_photography.htm

Boris Mikhailov
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/boris_mikhailov_90.htm
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/boris_mikhailov_63.htm
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/boris_mikhailov.htm

Henry Richardson
http://www.geocities.com/hrich11/thailand/ayuthaya-boys.jpg

Dave Beckerman
http://www.davebeckerman.com/gallery-blog/image/ClimbingAlice-2a.jpg

Frederick Bridgeman
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31295
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=31283

Robles Munoz
http://www.artelibre.net/ARTELIBRE1/ROBLES/ROBLES.htm

Baciar
http://www.baciar.com/egypt/indofphoto.html

Mazurin - Having a Stroll
http://www.mdf.ru/english/search/photo/?letter=H

Bernard Faucon
http://www.mdf.ru/english/search/authors/faucon/
http://www.mdf.ru/english/festivals/fotobiennale/2002/childrenchildhood/mosthappyday/

Ñàøà è Êîñòÿ
http://www.mdf.ru/exhibitions/worldwide/streetartfashion/photo18.html

Robert Doisneau
http://www.mdf.ru/english/festivals/fashion_style/2001/paris1950/

Pirelli
http://www.mdf.ru/english/festivals/fashion_style/2005/pirelli_clndr_fs05/

Soviet set photography 1960’s
http://www.mdf.ru/english/festivals/fashion_style/2005/katyakolya_fs05/







~~

Mother Teresa

The words of Mother Teresa

"There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them.Love them."

"I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: ‘My son did this to me.’ I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: ‘I forgive my son.’ Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand."

"There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic."

"When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing."





~~~

Fine Art V

Kaylee
http://www.glblast.com/Kaylee.html

Natasha Calzatti
http://www.womeninphotography.org/wipihome.html

Berthe Manet / Morisot
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=6057

Julie Manet
http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/photo_ME0000053268.html

Anon - after Herbert Draper
http://www.intaglio-fine-art.com/images/trc221b.jpg

Anon - after Gainsborough
http://www.intaglio-fine-art.com/proddetail.php?prod=C038

Pierre Joubert
http://www.sossi.org/articles/joubert3.htm

Edouard Manet
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=4886
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=790

Claude Monet
http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/photo_ME0000053219.html
http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/photo_ME0000093731.html
http://www.insecula.com/us/contact/A006104_oeuvre_1.html

Sally Mann
http://www.21stphotography.com/plat_mann.htm
http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/mann_sally.php
http://www.skundberg.no/oystein/kunst/mann.htm
http://www.kochgallery.com/artists/contemporary/Mann/series/08.html
http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/writing/2adoles08/alea.html

Dave Feiling
http://ompi.onemodelplace.com/OMP_Images/Model/48250/48250_m_E2E79096-2B3D-897A-2A1C8C5A3294EAF1.jpg
http://www.lightwriting.com/models/models03.html
http://www.lightwriting.com/models/models15.html
http://www.lightwriting.com/heatherg/images/5908w.jpg
http://www.musecube.com/dafeiling/26154/index.htm

Godward
http://argon.csustan.edu/jtb/FINE-ART/historic/HISTORIC/ART-SRC/Godward-Sweet_Siesta.jpg

Eric Bottomley
http://www.eb-prints.co.uk/originals.asp

Francis Hopkinson Smith
http://www.spanierman.com/06_americansinitaly/smith_920103_b.html

Lawrence Wibur
http://www.jmbgalleries.com/fineart/painting/wilbur.htm

John Whorf
http://www.spanierman.com/06_americansinitaly/whorf_980110_b.html

Henry Jules Jean Geoffroy
http://www.artnet.com/artist/665402/henry-jules-jean-geoffroy.html

Giacomo Ceruti
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/ceruti/boy_bask.html

Victor Gabriel Gilbert
http://artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=9058
http://artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=9383
http://artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=204&page=1&order=m
http://markmurray.com/view_image.html?image_no=334

Hugh Collins
http://www.johngarnerantiques.com/pages/682.htm

Renoir
http://www.zona-pellucida.com/renoir11.html

Gauguin
http://www.classicartrepro.com/data/large/Gauguin/Young_Breton_Boys_Bathing.jpg
http://www.genders.org/g41/g41_potvin.html#6

Charles Filiger
http://www.kilidavid.com/Art/Artwork/Filiger/untitled3.jpg

A village priest
http://www.charlesnesphotography.com/exhibition.html

Felix Bonfils
http://www.charlesnesphotography.com/exhibition/exhibition-page4.html

Vintage ads
http://www.plan59.com/av/av021.htm
http://www.plan59.com/av/av214.htm
http://www.plan59.com/cars/cars133c.htm

George Tice
http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/artphotogallery/photographers/george_tice_03.html

Joseph Garlock
http://outsider.art.org/garlock/garlock-37.htm

Tundmatu autor. Laulupidu
http://www.kunstikeskus.ee/galerii/naitus/sotsrealism/pilt/laulupidu.JPG

Soviet realism
http://www.korpanyuk-art.com/dinamic_gallery/img.php?file=P1010243.jpg
http://www.korpanyuk-art.com/dinamic_gallery/img.php?file=P1010131.jpg
http://www.korpanyuk-art.com/dinamic_gallery/img.php?file=94.jpg

Jim Logan
http://www.inuitfinearts.com/paintings/logan/logan-boy-with-dog.html

Willy Ronis
http://www.hackelbury.co.uk/artists/ronis/ronis_pic07.html
http://www.hackelbury.co.uk/artists/ronis/ronis_pic13.html
http://www.hackelbury.co.uk/artists/ronis/ronis_pic24.html

Cremonse School
http://www.timothy-sammons.com/dynamic/large/24-2

Barry Singer
http://www.singergallery.com/gallery.cfm?artistID=317&start=13

Sisley
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/sisley/bridge.jpg

Mircea Tiron-Tudor
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/678557/display/4621041

Goran Stamenkovic
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/582426

Rarindra Prakarsa
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/574065
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/574065/display/3195199
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/574065/display/4734721

Martin Johnson Heade
http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/display_image.php?id=30572

Gainsborough
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=2107

Esther Scheelings
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/578967/display/4421908

Turner
http://www.museiciviciveneziani.it/vedi.asp?id=1769&musid=68






~

April Ashley

What connects George Jamieson, Elvis Presley, John Prescott, Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole, David Bailey, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, John lennon, Mick Jagger, Sarah Churchill, Lord Rowallan, Michael Hutchence, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jean Paul Sartre, and, April Ashley?

George Jamieson became April Ashley.

(Photos: http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/4601/April.htm )

Reportedly:

Deputy UK Prime Minister John Prescott shared rooms with George Jamieson.

Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole had affairs with George Jamieson after George became April Ashley.

Winston Churchill's daughter Sarah became friends with April while April was working as a hostess in a club in Paris.

At the same club, Elvis Presley took a fancy to April.

Jean Paul Sartre and Bob Hope became friends with April.

Other friends of April included John Lennon and Mick Jagger.

April was photographed by David Bailey for Vogue.

Catherine Zeta-Jones may one day play the part of April in a film, according to Hollywood producer Mark Sennet.

April married the son of the Chief Scout, Lord Rowallan.

They did not stay married for long.

April slept with Michael Hutchence.

According to http://www.smh.com.au/news/People/Sex-and-the-single-grande-dame/2005/06/03/1117568360972.html :

April will give precious little claps of her hands, for instance, when imitating the sound of Kenneth Tynan being spanked (she shared a flat with the drama critic when she was "the Queen of Chelsea" in the swinging '60s).

George was born in a Liverpool slum.

George Jamieson, as he was christened, was one of nine children. His mother was vicious, his father a drunken but amiable Royal Navy cook. "My mother hated me," April says. "She used to whack me and I would say, 'Mother, why did you do that?' and she replied, 'In case you did anything.' She was threatened with prison by a doctor because of the injuries on me." April examines her nails nonchalantly. "My mother was dead for 10 years before I found out."

Had George wanted to be like his father? "Yes, I thought he was marvellous." He was an ordinary working-class man, she says, who had extraordinary tastes: oysters and mushrooms gently warmed in cream. And he was tiny. "I was the only one in my family who was tall - 178 centimetres. He was a gentle drunk. He drank himself into a stupor every night. He was the only one in my family who understood me. I saw him just before he died and he said, 'Darling, you are so beautiful. I always knew.' "

...Revelations about April didn't deter the Honourable Arthur Corbett, a married nightclub owner, son of the chief scout and, as the future Lord Rowallan, the heir to a 2340-hectare estate. He proposed in 1963. "I told Arthur about my sex change straight away. He was a transvestite himself. At Sandhurst he used to ride side-saddle. I never saw him in a frock. But I could see when 'she' appeared. 'She' was terribly jealous of me. One day, when 'she' was being nasty, I told Arthur, 'I'm going to see my lover in Spain, the Duke of Infantado.' And he took me to the airport with seven suitcases and a great dane. That was before we married. I was never unfaithful to him while we were married."

...She also, she says, had a weakness for toyboys. At Oxford picnics "I was always surrounded by handsome young undergraduates. I went to bed with every one of them, by the way." Did she count the notches on her bedpost? "Oh, no, goodness no." Did she tell prospective lovers her secret?

~~~~