March 15, 2019

A clear example of The Guardian lying about the Venezuelan blackout?

A Guardian report today Friday March 15th, byline Joe Parkin Daniels in Caracas (link below) appears to falsely assert that a report from the Central University of Venezuela’s faculty of engineering confirms that the blackout was caused by a bush fire, and supports this assertion by linking to an earlier Guardian article published on Wednesday March 13th, byline Sam Jones (no location provided) which informs us that "According to Rodrigo Linares, a mechanical engineer and writer for the Caracas Chronicles website, the fault occurred on one of the main power lines between the San Gerónimo B and Malena substations." A link is provided to an article by this Roberto Linares published at the Caracas Chronicles website on March 10th.

The article by Roberto Linares, who decribes himself as "Many interests, little time. Mechanical Engineer, first from USB, later from MIT. Making a living as a machine designer.", informs us that "From people inside the electric industry, we know that an overheat alarm was triggered between the San Geronimo B and Malena substations, which are like nodes... The engineers suspect that the overheat alarm was triggered by a forest fire." In support of this speculation (no evidence is provided of the existence of such a bush or forest fire), Roberto Linares notes that "It is mandatory to keep vegetation trimmed under and around power lines, to avoid the risk of this kind of events. Anyone that has driven by the countryside and under these large power lines would see there’s a corridor under the lines. These corridors haven’t been maintained in years and there is a very hot summer going on. In a tropical country, this means the bushes can cover a line very fast."

Whatever reason The Guardian's Joe Parkin Daniels in Caracas might have for alleging the existence of a report from the Central University of Venezuela’s faculty of engineering (which is nowhere mentioned in the sources provided) allegedly confirming that the blackout was caused by a bush fire, he provides no evidence, beyond speculation written by a blogger.


I followed these links:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/14/venezuela-blackout-power-returns -> Joe Parkin Daniels in Caracas Thu 14 Mar 2019 21.51 GMT Last modified on Thu 14 Mar 2019 21.53 GMT
A new report from the Central University of Venezuela’s faculty of engineering confirmed that the blackout was caused when a bush fire near the Malena substation in eastern Venezuela took out a vital section of the country’s power grid. ->

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/venezuela-blackout-what-caused-it-and-what-happens-next -> According to Rodrigo Linares, a mechanical engineer and writer for the Caracas Chronicles website, the fault occurred on one of the main power lines between the San Gerónimo B and Malena substations. When that 765-kilovolt line went down, two others suffered an overload and also failed. ->

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/03/10/nationwide-blackout-in-venezuela-faq/ -> From people inside the electric industry, we know that an overheat alarm was triggered between the San Geronimo B and Malena substations, which are like nodes. San Geronimo B is just South of Valle de La Pascua (Guarico state, central plains); Malena is a bit in the middle of nowhere, between Bolivar’s Trocal 19 and the Orinoco River. From San Geronimo B substation, comes the electric load to power all the TVs, light bulbs, blenders, etc. At Malena substation end the cables that come directly from the turning water wheels of the Guri dam. If you follow the lines from Guri, the country’s main dam South of Ciudad Guayana, they go North from Guri to Malena and San Geronimo, and from there it splits into several lines going to the central region and then to the rest of the country (East and West).

This particular corridor carries three 765 kV (kilovolts) power lines, which are the largest and most important lines of the country. One of these lines, apparently the one between San Geronimo B and Malena, went out and overloaded the other two, so all three died. When all of a sudden the lines went off and power wasn’t getting through, not only all those TVs, blenders and lights went off: the water wheels started to spin out of control (in the industry we call this scenario a “load rejection”). Protections systems kicked in and the turbines shut themselves off, hopefully with no damage...

... The engineers suspect that the overheat alarm was triggered by a forest fire. It is mandatory to keep vegetation trimmed under and around power lines, to avoid the risk of this kind of events. Anyone that has driven by the countryside and under these large power lines would see there’s a corridor under the lines. These corridors haven’t been maintained in years and there is a very hot summer going on. In a tropical country, this means the bushes can cover a line very fast...

... Rodrigo Linares: Many interests, little time. Mechanical Engineer, first from USB, later from MIT. Making a living as a machine designer.

Foreign Affairs: https://www.democraticunderground.com/113323692


Edit: ... At the time of this writing I see no sign of any similar story at the AP, AFP, nor Reuters agencies.
AFP's latest on Venezuela tells us that:

Experts said an attack by a foreign state actor on Venezuela's grid was possible, but unlikely.

"Knowing Venezuela, it was likely an internal failure," Jeff Middleton, the chief technology officer at The Vault Foundation, a company that secures crypto currency transactions, told AFP.

Venezuela's infrastructure has degraded over years because of lack of investment, a significant brain drain, and the government's practice of putting the military in charge of key civilian facilities and companies. That has impacted not only the electricity grid but also the country's vital oil industry. The situation has worsened with successive rounds of US sanctions against Maduro's government, including steps that have severely curbed its oil exports.

- China, Spain offer help -

While Reuters has:

Military intervention not an answer for Venezuela - Colombia president tells paper

and:

Bolivia's Morales says Venezuela needs dialogue, not foreign meddling

March 15, 2019

A clear example of The Guardian lying about the Venezuelan blackout?

A Guardian report today Friday March 15th, byline Joe Parkin Daniels in Caracas (link below) appears to falsely assert that a report from the Central University of Venezuela’s faculty of engineering confirms that the blackout was caused by a bush fire, and supports this assertion by linking to an earlier Guardian article published on Wednesday March 13th, byline Sam Jones (no location provided) which informs us that "According to Rodrigo Linares, a mechanical engineer and writer for the Caracas Chronicles website, the fault occurred on one of the main power lines between the San Gerónimo B and Malena substations." A link is provided to an article by this Roberto Linares published at the Caracas Chronicles website on March 10th.

The article by Roberto Linares, who decribes himself as "Many interests, little time. Mechanical Engineer, first from USB, later from MIT. Making a living as a machine designer.", informs us that "From people inside the electric industry, we know that an overheat alarm was triggered between the San Geronimo B and Malena substations, which are like nodes... The engineers suspect that the overheat alarm was triggered by a forest fire." In support of this speculation (no evidence is provided of the existence of such a bush or forest fire), Roberto Linares notes that "It is mandatory to keep vegetation trimmed under and around power lines, to avoid the risk of this kind of events. Anyone that has driven by the countryside and under these large power lines would see there’s a corridor under the lines. These corridors haven’t been maintained in years and there is a very hot summer going on. In a tropical country, this means the bushes can cover a line very fast."

Whatever reason The Guardian's Joe Parkin Daniels in Caracas might have for alleging the existence of a report from the Central University of Venezuela’s faculty of engineering (which is nowhere mentioned in the sources provided) allegedly confirming that the blackout was caused by a bush fire, he provides no evidence, beyond speculation written by a blogger.


I followed these links:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/14/venezuela-blackout-power-returns -> Joe Parkin Daniels in Caracas Thu 14 Mar 2019 21.51 GMT Last modified on Thu 14 Mar 2019 21.53 GMT
A new report from the Central University of Venezuela’s faculty of engineering confirmed that the blackout was caused when a bush fire near the Malena substation in eastern Venezuela took out a vital section of the country’s power grid. ->

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/venezuela-blackout-what-caused-it-and-what-happens-next -> According to Rodrigo Linares, a mechanical engineer and writer for the Caracas Chronicles website, the fault occurred on one of the main power lines between the San Gerónimo B and Malena substations. When that 765-kilovolt line went down, two others suffered an overload and also failed. ->

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/03/10/nationwide-blackout-in-venezuela-faq/ -> From people inside the electric industry, we know that an overheat alarm was triggered between the San Geronimo B and Malena substations, which are like nodes. San Geronimo B is just South of Valle de La Pascua (Guarico state, central plains); Malena is a bit in the middle of nowhere, between Bolivar’s Trocal 19 and the Orinoco River. From San Geronimo B substation, comes the electric load to power all the TVs, light bulbs, blenders, etc. At Malena substation end the cables that come directly from the turning water wheels of the Guri dam. If you follow the lines from Guri, the country’s main dam South of Ciudad Guayana, they go North from Guri to Malena and San Geronimo, and from there it splits into several lines going to the central region and then to the rest of the country (East and West).

This particular corridor carries three 765 kV (kilovolts) power lines, which are the largest and most important lines of the country. One of these lines, apparently the one between San Geronimo B and Malena, went out and overloaded the other two, so all three died. When all of a sudden the lines went off and power wasn’t getting through, not only all those TVs, blenders and lights went off: the water wheels started to spin out of control (in the industry we call this scenario a “load rejection”). Protections systems kicked in and the turbines shut themselves off, hopefully with no damage...

... The engineers suspect that the overheat alarm was triggered by a forest fire. It is mandatory to keep vegetation trimmed under and around power lines, to avoid the risk of this kind of events. Anyone that has driven by the countryside and under these large power lines would see there’s a corridor under the lines. These corridors haven’t been maintained in years and there is a very hot summer going on. In a tropical country, this means the bushes can cover a line very fast...

... Rodrigo Linares: Many interests, little time. Mechanical Engineer, first from USB, later from MIT. Making a living as a machine designer.

Latin America: https://www.democraticunderground.com/110866290


Edit: ... At the time of this writing I see no sign of any similar story at the AP, AFP, nor Reuters agencies.
AFP's latest on Venezuela tells us that:

Experts said an attack by a foreign state actor on Venezuela's grid was possible, but unlikely.

"Knowing Venezuela, it was likely an internal failure," Jeff Middleton, the chief technology officer at The Vault Foundation, a company that secures crypto currency transactions, told AFP.

Venezuela's infrastructure has degraded over years because of lack of investment, a significant brain drain, and the government's practice of putting the military in charge of key civilian facilities and companies. That has impacted not only the electricity grid but also the country's vital oil industry. The situation has worsened with successive rounds of US sanctions against Maduro's government, including steps that have severely curbed its oil exports.

- China, Spain offer help -

While Reuters has:

Military intervention not an answer for Venezuela - Colombia president tells paper

and:

Bolivia's Morales says Venezuela needs dialogue, not foreign meddling

March 13, 2019

US to use more aggressive cyber to strike back at enemies

March 13, 2019

Who Ordered The CIA To Assault North Korea's Embassy In Spain?

Original El País report (Spanish):

March 12, 2019

US withdrawing last of its embassy personnel from Venezuela

Source: Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The United States announced late Monday that it is pulling the remaining staff from its embassy in Venezuela, citing the deteriorating situation in the South American nation.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the decision... Pompeo said the remaining diplomats would be out of Venezuela by the end of the week...

... President Nicolas Maduro said on national television Monday night that progress had been made in restoring power in Venezuela. He also said two people who were allegedly trying to sabotage power facilities were captured and were providing information to authorities, though he gave no details.

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled congress, and the United States say Maduro’s claims that the U.S. sabotaged the power grid with a “cyberattack” are an attempt to divert attention from the government’s own failings...



Read more: https://apnews.com/07e2f8abb3a64506a91d11dfd69e86cc

---

Reuters simultaneously reports:




And Agence France Presse also this morning in Europe informs us that:




For background on the three Agency newswires quoted above, see here:

March 11, 2019

May secures 'legally binding changes' in Strasbourg to Brexit deal

The package negotiated by Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to be in three parts:

A joint interpretative instrument – a legal add-on to the withdrawal agreement. It will give legal force to a letter from Juncker and Donald Tusk, the presidents of the commission and council, given to May in January which stated the EU’s intention to negotiate an alternative to the backstop so it would not be triggered or get out of it as swiftly as possible, if it was.

A unilateral statement from the UK. That is likely to seek to explain the British position that, if the backstop was to become permanent and talks were going nowhere on an alternative, the UK would seek to exit the arrangement.

Additional language in the political declaration to emphasise the urgency on both sides to negotiate an alternative to the backstop, and flesh out what a technological fix would look like. It is hoped this will be enough to persuade the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, to change his initial legal advice that the backstop could be in place indefinitely.

The problem: Very, very little of this is significantly new. The most substantive element is the joint interpretative instrument. But it falls well short of Cox’s demands over the last week for what amounted to a unilateral exit mechanism from the backstop...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/mar/11/brexit-latest-news-vote-tuesday-tories-suspect-may-could-pull-tuesdays-key-vote-after-talks-fail-to-deliver-progress-politics-live

March 11, 2019

Russian envoy vested with power to answer letter from Amesbury victim's son sent to Putin

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Alexander Yakovenko had the authority to reply to a letter Amesbury poisoning victim Dawn Sturgess’ son had sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Our diplomatic mission in Great Britain earlier informed Mr. Hope [the son of Dawn Sturgess who died in the Amesbury incident - TASS] - and you heard its statement on the matter - of our readiness to provide all necessary explanations that stems from the fact that from the very beginning, Russia has been calling for full cooperation that would make it possible to shed some light on the incident," Peskov said. He pointed out that "British authorities did not reciprocate to that initiative." "Perhaps, this is the main thing Mr. Hope should know," the Russian presidential spokesman emphasized.

When asked whether Putin would respond to Hope’s letter, Peskov said that "it is not necessary." "The matter is that Russian ambassadors are appointed by the president, an ambassador is an official who has the authority to speak on behalf of the Russian Federation," he added.

The Russian embassy in London said on March 6 that Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko "sent Mr. Hope a reply, in which he has expressed his condolences on the tragic death of Ms. Sturgess and proposed a meeting to answer in person to any questions that Mr. Hope might have." "The letter was accompanied by the report ‘Salisbury: Unanswered Questions’ on the key elements of the events one year ago, published by the Embassy on March 3, 2019," the embassy noted...

http://tass.com/world/1048120

March 11, 2019

Power station blast adds to sense of chaos in Venezuela

Source: Associated Press

Read more: https://apnews.com/07e2f8abb3a64506a91d11dfd69e86cc

---

AP either does not ask, for some reason, why in Sr. Cabas's opinion or according to his information did these critical conductors overheat at the hydroelectric station at the Guri Dam, the proximate cause, or for some reason fails to report the answer other than to dispute the idea that there could have been sabotage - by members of his union, for example, which opposes the government... Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez does, on the other hand, point to a credible alleged proximate cause: a cyberattack causing machines to boost power regardless of capacity or demand.

Edit: There is some further discussion on this subject at the Latin America group here.

March 9, 2019

Brexit and the First Rule of Streetfighting (Tom Peck in the Independent + 'Shantaram')

From 'Shantaram' (Khaderbhai Khan's philosophy):

... If the circumstances are right, bits of matter will always come together to make more complex arrangements. And this fact about the way that our universe works, this moving towards order, and towards combinations of these ordered things, has a name. In the western science it is called the tendency toward complexity, and it is the way the universe works... To continue this point, the universe, as we know it, and from everything that we can learn about it, has been getting always more complex since it began. It does this because that is its nature. The tendency toward complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex... this universe that we know, began in almost absolute simplicity, and it has been getting more complex for about fifteen billion years. In another billion years it will be still more complex than it is now. In five billion, in ten billion— it is always getting more complex. It is moving toward …something... And that final complexity, that thing we are all moving to, is what I choose to call God. If you don’t like that word, God, call it the Ultimate Complexity. Whatever you call it, the whole universe is moving toward it..

... Our planet may be smashed, it is true, and one day our beautiful sun will die. And we are, to the best of our knowledge, the most developed expression of the complexity in our bit of the universe. It would certainly be a major loss if we were to be annihilated. It would be a terrible waste of all that development. But the process would continue. We are, ourselves, expressions of that process. Our bodies are the children of all the suns and other stars that died, before us, making the atoms that we are made of. And if we were destroyed, by an asteroid, or by our own hand, well, somewhere else in the universe, our level of complexity, this level of complexity, with a consciousness capable of understanding the process, would be duplicated. I do not mean people exactly like us. I mean that thinking beings, that are as complex as we are, would develop, somewhere else in the universe. We would cease to exist, but the process would go on. Perhaps this is happening in millions of worlds, even as we speak. In fact, it is very likely that it is happening, all over the universe, because that is what the universe does...

... Anything that enhances, promotes, or accelerates this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is good... Anything that inhibits, impedes, or prevents this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is evil. The wonderful thing about this definition of good and evil is that it is both objective and universally acceptable... When we say that this definition of good and evil is objective, what we mean is that it is as objective as we can be at this time, and to the best of our knowledge about the universe. This definition is based on what we know about how the universe works. It is not based on the revealed wisdom of any one faith or political movement. It is common to the best principles of all of them, but it is based on what we know rather than what we believe. In that sense, it is objective. Of course, what we know about the universe, and our place in it, is constantly changing as we add more information and gain new insights. We are never perfectly objective about anything, that is true, but we can be less objective, or we can be more objective. And when we define good and evil on the basis of what we know— to the best of our knowledge at the present time— we are being as objective as possible within the imperfect limits of our understanding... When we say that this definition of good and evil is universally acceptable, what we mean is that any rational and reasonable person— any rational and reasonable Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or Christian or Jew or any atheist, for that matter— can accept that this is a reasonable definition of good and evil, because it is based on what we know about how the universe works...

... (W)e can only avoid chaos in the world of human affairs by having an agreed standard for the measure of a unit of morality... At the moment, most of our ways of defining the unit of morality are similar in their intentions, but they differ in their details. So the priests of one nation bless their soldiers as they march to war, and the imams of another country bless their soldiers as they march out to meet them. And everybody who is involved in the killing, says that he has God on his side. There is no objective and universally acceptable definition of good and evil. And until we have one, we will go on justifying our own actions, while condemning the actions of the others... (W)hen we look for an objective way to measure good and evil, a way that all people can accept as reasonable, we can do no better than to study the way that the universe works, and its nature— the quality that defines the entire history of it — the fact that it is constantly moving towards greater complexity. We can do no better than to use the nature of the universe itself. And all the holy texts, from all the great religions, tell us to do this...

https://steemit.com/philosophy/@milinko/shantaram-theory-of-ultimate-complexity

March 9, 2019

Guaido, man of the people, responded to the blackout:

... In the upscale Caracas neighbourhood of Los Palos Grandes, several hundred people gathered for an opposition rally where Guaido spoke.

“Everyone is hoping that with Guaido, the country will go back to being normal,” said Yamila Oliveros, a 53-year-old architect. “That’s all a person wants, to live normally. That when I open the tap, water comes out. That when I flip the light switch, the lights come on.”...

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-blackout/venezuela-power-flickers-after-worst-blackout-in-decades-idUKKCN1QP1B2

Los Palos Grandes is a residential, tourist and financial district located in the Chacao Municipality in east Caracas, served by the Caracas Metro through the Miranda station of line 1.

This neighborhood constitutes a touristic spot of the city thanks to its large number of restaurants, cafés and recreational places, standing out, the East Park and the Los Palos Grandes square with its reading room. This neighborhood also is part of the Financial District of Caracas, hosting several office buildings like Parque Cristal complex. This part of Caracas hosts the embassys of the United Nations, Uruguay, Ecuador and Dominican Republic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Palos_Grandes

Los Palos Grandes:



Elsewhere in Caracas (where Guaidó is unlikely to make any appearances):