Madeleine McCann Disappearance

They agreed to follow special guidelines for covering Trump's campaign. To justify the changes and the existence of the new guidelines, they used the same arguments that neo-nazis use to take the blame of the Holocaust out of Hitler's regime: it was the Jews fault, they brought it upon themselves, with their own segregationist behavior and lack of integration in the German society.

Some journalists elaborated, later, in order to make those guidelines more clear. Many of them used their own newspapers to explain to colleagues why and how they were allowed to liquidate Trump. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for example, referred that applying "fairness" to the billionaire candidate could risk "normalizing Donald Trump", without the public "fully acknowledging what an abnormal candidate he was".

I met Nicholas Kristof many years ago, in Macau, when he went there to follow a story - and it was a hell of a story! North Korean generals, under the protection of Chinese Secret Services, used the Portuguese colony to for their business deals with international trafickers, buying sofisticated military equipment, like night vision googles, radar systems to increase the accuracy of SAM missiles, and so on.

They always came with a couple of their Chinese counterparts and it was big party time. The arms dealers booked 15/20 rooms on 5-star hotels, champagne and prostitues included. One of those dealers was a Macanese - a mixed blood Portuguese/Chinese-speaking resident - let's call him V. Once, we were having a beer on the hotest night-spot of Macau, the Wankao Disco, aka Mondial, and complained bitterly about those Chinese generals.

Of course, business was quite profitable, his field was aviation & radar equiment. He bought it from Israeli businessmen [so I presume Mossad was aware of that] and also Lebanese dealers, making a huge profit. But every time the Chinese generals came, he had to buy, at least, a few gifts for each one - usualy, a Rolex. The North Korean paid cash, initialy, but after they 'dumped', on a local Chinese Bank, a few dozen millions of the so-called "Superdollar", faked but almost perfect 100 USD, printed in the Beeka Valey by Hezbollah, with US printing machines, given by them by Iranian regime [US government sold it to the previous ruller in Theeran...] the arms dealers asked for something more solid: gold.

I knew abouth the existence of those millions, because the wife of a friend mine worked at the Delta Asia Bank and she saw the confusion when Mr. Stanley Au, the chairman - a nice guy, with Portuguese natiionality and a endless capacity to drink "maotai", the strong Chinese spirit, stronger than vodka - realized his bank was going down, not only because of the hundreds of millions of "superdollars" the North Korean government was trying to wash, through his bank, but also because USA issued orders forbiding any business deal with Delta Asia Bank.

Nicholas Kristof had all the information about it, and obviously it only could have came from CIA, as he showed to Macau Government head of Security Services copies of the transfers made with several accounts from Bank of China. I know this, because I participated on that meeting. It was part of my job, as deputy-director of Macau Government Press Office. The red-faced Macau government members could't barely say a word and I remember that, after the meeting, I had a chat with Nicholas Kristof, on the car that took us to the jet-foil pier.

"I wonder how you will received me, next time I came to Macau" - he said.

"Well, as any other journalist" - I replied.

A couple of years before, a humble and respectfull Paulo Reis had shaken hands, on that same Government's VIP waiting room, with a living a legend of the journalism, a icon of TV News, Mr. "Voice of America", Walter Conkrite. He was half-retired but was doing a special report about Macau and Hong Kong, territories that would be, soon, anded back to China.

Years after, I also said goodbye to Mike Chinoy, not at the VIP room, becasue I was no more deputy-director of Macau Government Press Office, I was editor of "Gazeta Macaense", a small Portuguese daily newspaper. We met on a lunch prepared by Afonso Camões, the most efficient row dog of Rocha Vieira, the "last plunderer" of Macau, a world wide joke when his Press adviser gave a 'kit' to the journalists that went with him, in his first official visit to Beijing, with a 'biography' of the Prime-Minister Li Peng where he was mentioned as "arrogant" and "authoritarian". I was quite surprised when I received the invitation. I was never invited to nothing, as "public-enemy nº 1" of the General, a man with extreme difficulty to understand concepts like Freedom of Expression or Press Freedom.
Just a detail: that row dog, Camões, was recorded on police tapes, talking with the former Portuguese Prime-Minister José Sócrates (arrested several months, waiting for trial for corruption, now...) explaining to him that he should explain to a potential employer that he, Camões, was a "Prussian general that never disobeyd order" and "always followed them without asking questions..."
Mike Chinoy quickly understod the true nature of Macau's Governor and we met after lunch, at his hotel, because he asked me for a interview with CNN, to talk about Press Freedom in Macau. It was very interesting to listen to some stories of the last western journalist to live Tiananmen, just before de June 4th massacre.
No wonder that Rocha Vieira chosed and appointed Mr. Farinha Ribeiras, a fascist, public admirer of Salazar, Franco and Mussolini to be the first judge-president of Macau Supreme Court. His row dog made things clear, in 1993, on a interview, after arriving to Macau: "More than journalists, we need militants of the [Portuguese] national interests. Samuel Johnson classifed this kind of scumbags many years ago, when he said that "Patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel". Later, Camões made one attempt to expell from Macau all "anti-patriot" Portuguese journalists - something I wrote about, in detail, in this post:

"The Camões' List - The 'Final Solution' for Anti-Patriot Portuguese Journalists of Macau"

I had a curious episode with Mr. Ribeiras [and other 37, as he filled 38 complaint in court againstme, for defamation]. When the recently appointed Judge-President of Macau Supreme Court gave his first TV interview, he mentioned that "Italians still miss Mussolini, because trains used to run on schedule". I publsihed a open letter to Mr. Ribeiras and politely disagree. Trains were on schedule not by virtue of Mussolini's government, but by demand of their German allies.

The Nazis had a daily quota of Jews to incinerate, so they just dind't accepeted delays on the trains coming from Rome to Birkanaw, Dachau, Treblinka, Auschwitz and son on. That open letter marked the begin of my long relatioship with Mr. Farinha Ribeiras, a relationship that lasted until 1995, when I was put on trial for 7 crimes of defamation - the best that a canine Public Prosecutor's Office managed to do, from the initial 38 complaints of Mr. Riberias.

And he was indeed decided to make pay. After filling the complaints, he requested to Macau Criminal Court that I was arrested ad put on jail until my trial - something that never happened in Portugal, not even during the 48 years of Salazar dictatorship.

The Committe to Protect Journalists was kind enough to transform a letter that I send them into the preface of their 1995 annual report, "Index On Censhorship" and found a perfect tittle: "Codes Of Silence".

Amnesty International also reacted and made public that, if I went to jail, I would be listed as a AI "Prisioner of Conscience", as Pierre Sané told journalists, in Bangkok, after a meeting of the Asian AI branches of the organization - founded, by irony, because a young British lawyer was shocked with the story of two Portuguese students being sentenced to seven years in jail, for making a toast to Freedom, on a bar in Coimbra, in the center of Portugal.
Mr. Farinha Ribeiras also will remain in History as the only person to sue Amesty International. Pierre Sané had a funny comment, at the time: "Members of Amnesty have been arrested, tortured, even killed, but never targeted on a complaint to a court..."
All of this was years before I had to be alert 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a pack of muslim fundamentalists from the Tabligi Jamat sending me daily death threats, bombs threats to the newspaper's office ("O Independente", second leading weekly newspaper, in Lisbon, where I was editor-in-chief). I spent several months investigating that organization, even simulated to be a Christian in conflict with my religion and went to several meetings for 'candidates' to the conversion to Islam. The main problem was that I published a picture of the Tabligi Uamat 'operational' leader, a man that was on the 'radar' of DCCB - Portuguese anti-terrorist special police unit....

My work, as a journalist, and my life as a citizen from a Democracy, goes well beyond the Madeleine McCann Case. I have two other blogs, where I post News and Opinion (in Portuguese and English) about subjects that interest me:

“ O Ovo da Serpente!” [“The Serpent's Egg”]

“And therefore think him as a serpent's egg

Which, hatch'd, would as his kind grow mischievous

And kill him in the shell (...)”

Julius Caesar Act 2, scene 1, 28–34

[Brutus, soliloquizing, casts about for a rationale

to join the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar]

“Notícias Digitais” [“Digital News”]

“Hedonism, the absence of ideals, a weakness that can not be differentiated from cowardice, here and there a foolish sense of superiority, of 'values' and 'civilization', are other factors in our probable defeat. The 'good' behavior of not defending ourselves against those who attack us, respecting those who do not respect us, insisting on reaching out to those who despise us, certainly finds some justification in Christian doctrine, but it is counterproductive in a situation of conflict, especially when the opposite side applies Clausewitz's war strategy, while ours opts for postponement and gives priority to Facebook's computer games, friendships and likes."

“A Ira de Deus Sobre a Europa”

[“God's Wrath Over Europe”]

by J. Rentes de Carvalho

Here is a list of what I consider the best posts I published at those blogs: