It was not the first time the unsupportable claim that humans were causing global warming had made the news. A major incident occurred in 1988 when James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), appeared before Senator Al Gore’s committee and said he was “99 percent” certain the Earth had warmed.
Few who study climate change denied warming even though many were accused. They knew that for 22,000 years the world generally warmed as it emerged from the last Ice Age and more recently it warmed from 1680 out of the Little Ice Age (LIA). However, Hansen then suggested the cause was likely an enhanced Greenhouse Effect due to human addition of CO2 from industrial activity what was to become known as the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory The problem is there was no proof and there were many other possible explanations. It was an untested theory that was accepted as fact by the IPCC.
By the time of the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), the politics and hysteria about climate change had risen to a level that demanded clear evidence of a human signal.  An entire industry had developed round massive funding from government.  A large number of academic, political, and bureaucratic careers had evolved and depended on expansion of the evidence. Environmentalists were increasing pressure on the public and thereby politicians. In addition, the bar of proof was raised by claiming the 20th century and especially the last decade had 9 of the 10 warmest years in history; warming beyond anything previous and therefore unnatural.  These claims were to become their downfall because, as some climate experts knew, there were much warmer periods in the historic record.
There were hundreds of research papers from a wide variety of sources confirming the existence of a period warmer than today just a thousand years ago known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Its existence is well documented in the work of Soon and Baliunas. 
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Soon, W., and S. Baliunas, 2003. Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1,000 years. Climate Research, 23, 89–110. 
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This period was clearly warmer than present temperatures and warmer than some computer model predictions for the future. Its existence was a serious problem because it negated the claims that the 20th century temperatures were unprecedented. What to do?
The answer is provided by Professor Deming in the following letter to Science .
“With the publication of the article in Science [in 1995], I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” (My emphasis)
This was effectively done by what became known as the “hockey stick”.  The name came from the shape of a graph which showed no temperature increase for 1000 years (the handle) with a sudden rise in the 20th century (the blade). It was ideal, two strikes with one event. The MWP was gone and the sudden rise in the 20th century was clearly unnatural. It had to be due to human activity. 
Research that produced the hockey stick came from dendroclimatology, the reconstruction of past climates from tree ring data--but they tacked on modern temperature data for the blade. They incorrectly assumed tree rings are only a function of temperature and cherry-picked those trees that gave the desired result. When challenged on this, one dendroclimatologist justified this practice by telling a US Congressional committee, “You have to pick cherries if your are going to make cherry pie.” Another wrote, “However as we mentioned earlier on the subject of biological growth populations, this does not mean that one could not improve a chronology by reducing the number of series used if the purpose of removing samples is to enhance a desired signal. The ability to pick and choose which samples to use is an advantage unique to dendroclimatology.” These are deeply disturbing comments in any area of research.
Source of the hockey stick was a dendroclimatic study published in 1998 by Mann, Bradley and Hughes, (known as MBH98) was introduced in Chapter 2 of the Technical Report (produced by Working Group I).  Conflict screamed because Mann was a lead author of the Chapter while Bradley and Hughes were contributing authors, but was ignored. It screamed louder when the hockey stick appeared as a major part of the Summary for Policymakers again with Mann involved. After an opening statement that said,
“New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. It is also likely that, in the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year”
The graph appeared on the second page of the Summary and underscored the argument visually and scientifically. It also, as intended, stole the media limelight and versions quickly appeared in everything from National Geographic to government web sites. Now they could bully people who questioned the science and introduce draconian legislature to get rid of the evil CO2 as was the intention all along. Now the useless Kyoto Protocol apparently had justification.
The hockey stick fiasco was unmasked by a basic scientific test known as reproducible results. Other scientists use the same data and procedures to try and reproduce the original findings. Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (M&M) attempted, but failed to reproduce the MBH98 findings. A debate ensued with claims M&M were wrong or not qualified climate experts. They replied that Mann had refused to disclose all the codes he used to achieve the results, but even without them the major problem was a misuse of data and statistical techniques. In effect the hockey stick was meaningless.
The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) appointed a committee chaired by Professor Wegman to investigate and arbitrate. His committee report found in favor of M&M as follows;
It is not clear that Mann and associates realized the error in their methodology at the time of publication. Because of the lack of full documentation of their data and computer code, we have not been able to reproduce their research. We did, however, successfully recapture similar results to those of MM. This recreation supports the critique of the MBH98 methods, as the offset of the mean value creates an artificially large deviation from the desired mean value of zero.
Mann continues to refuse disclosure of all his codes. He and his acolytes are still fighting a rearguard action claiming the work is valid.
Serious concerns were raised about the objectivity of an IPCC Report and Summary with major input from scientists citing their own research. Unfortunately, this is typical of the incestuous, political, nature of the entire IPCC process. In his report Professor Wegman’s first recommendation says,
Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.
Most people, especially the media, missed the equally startling and disturbing conclusion by Wegman. 
In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface.
The incestuous potential of such a small close-knit group is disturbing beyond co-authorship. Proponents of the anthropogenic global warming theory have made much of the fact that critics have few or no ‘peer reviewed’ papers. Why? It appears members of the group of 43 were also peer reviewing each other’s papers. It is one possible explanation why Mann’s paper sailed through peer review.  Journal editors are not required to disclose the names of reviewers, so we can’t know. It probably also explains why so much is made of peer review by members and defenders of the IPCC. When you have a small group in a specialized research area it is too easy to control what gets published. What I call peer review censorship.
The hockey stick debacle caught the attention and shifted the views of many who understood the scientific problems. It did not deter the group now known as the hockey team. It seems they were victims of what Tolstoy presciently wrote about 100 years ago.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” 

Most of the public did not understand the issue, something those pushing human caused warming and climate change understood. They pushed ahead riding the wave of global warming hysteria broadcast by most of the media. They also developed the technique of convincing people that what was natural was unnatural. The science in Gore’s movie is mostly wrong, but the images he shows are natural. I will examine a major example of that approach in the next Part as the IPCC continued to point the finger at CO2 in its search for a human signal.

Global Warming Series:
Part 1: Environmental Extremism
Part 2: Historical and philosophical context of the climate change debate.
Part 3: How the world was misled about global warming and now climate change
Part 4: How UN structures were designed to prove human CO2 was causing global warming
Part 5: Wreaking Havoc on Global Economies

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez allegedly tried to arm Colombian rebels with help from Belarus, the El Pais newspaper reported Saturday, citing documents from the computer of a slain rebel leader.

The Spanish daily quoted a February 8 e-mail from Ivan Marquez, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), saying Chavez had considered with Belarussian authorities the possibility of providing weapons to FARC.

The e-mail was alleged to have been found in the seized computer of FARC second-in-command Raul Reyes, who was killed in March, El Pais said.

The partially coded message mentioned someone identified only as “friend of Belarus,” who El Pais identified as Victor Sheiman, secretary of the Belarus Security Council and a close associate of Alexander Lukashenko, the hardline president of the former Soviet republic.

El Pais added that other possible arms sources for FARC, particularly ground-to-air missiles, were mentioned in computer messages, including contacts with “Australian traffickers”.

The left-of-centre newspaper reported last December that Venezuela had become a safe haven for FARC, harbouring several rebel camps on its territory.  Venezuela has denied this.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that US intelligence officials believe that seized computer files showing strong ties between Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and Colombian rebels are authentic.

The files describe meetings between guerrilla commanders and top Venezuelan officials including Chavez himself, the newspaper said, based on its review of more than 100 documents allegedly seized from Reyes’ computer.

Venezuela insists the files, seized by Colombia after it bombed a rebel camp in Ecuador, killing Reyes, are fakes.

“We don’t recognize the validity of any of these documents,” Venezuelan ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez told the Journal Wednesday. “They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan government.”

The electronic documents — more than a dozen — were shown to The Associated Press on Friday
They detail alleged meetings between senior Venezuelan officials — including that country’s chief of military intelligence and interior minister — and top leaders of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Some discuss the procurement of weapons, others rebel training for Venezuelan home defense forces.

Venezuelan officials maintain that Bogota is manipulating the truth.

“The whole thing is like a movie. Fiction is fiction, reality is reality,” Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to Washington, said Friday.

The documents shown to the AP are among 11,000 that Colombian officials say they found in laptops, external drives and memory sticks recovered in a March 1 cross-border raid in Ecuador that killed rebel leader Raul Reyes and 24 other people.

Some 2,000 of the documents had been erased but were recovered through computer forensics, a senior Colombian official told the AP.

Colombia released several dozen documents immediately after the raid, and since then has periodically shown more to reporters. A Washington intelligence official vouched for the documents’ authenticity, saying they were delivered to U.S. intelligence agencies in March.

The U.S. and Colombian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The documents seen by the AP are all allegedly internal communications between FARC commanders, chiefly messages from Ivan Marquez, the rebels’ main representative in Venezuela. Several discuss what Colombian officials interpret as an open-ended Venezuelan loan of at least US$200 million to obtain arms.

Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez, has expressed ideological sympathy for the FARC, but denies aiding the rebels militarily. He consistently refers to “the supposed computer of Raul Reyes.”

The peasant-based FARC has been trying to overthrow successive Colombian governments for a half-century. But since taking office in 2002, current President Alvaro Uribe has used a U.S.-backed military buildup to throw the rebels off balance.

At Colombia’s request, Interpol has examined the three laptops, two external drives and three memory sticks and is expected to issue a report on them next week.

On Friday, a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal about some of the new documents suggested their disclosure would put more pressure on the Bush administration to add Venezuela to a list of state sponsors of terrorist groups.

Analysts call that unlikely because such a designation would mean economic sanctions — and the U.S. relies too much on Venezuelan oil.

“There is not even consensus among the Republicans that it would be helpful,” said Adam Isacson of the Washington-based Center for International Policy. “Also, having to get a special license for all Venezuelan oil sales to the U.S. would throw the fuel market in a bit of turmoil.”

The price of crude rose above US$126 a barrel for the first time Friday as investors questioned whether the Wall Street Journal report could lead to a confrontation between Washington and Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Bush referred to Venezuela’s alleged backing of the FARC in a speech.

“Colombia faces a hostile and anti-American neighbor in Venezuela, where the regime has forged an alliance with Cuba, collaborated with FARC terrorists and provided sanctuary to FARC units,” he said.

Chavez called that a lie in a speech Friday, saying: “It’s good that Comrade Bush is messing with us, because that means we’re doing well.”

Recapping his first year as director of the 115,000-strong police force, General Naranjo told El Nuevo Herald that Colombia’s oldest and best armed leftist guerrillas are at a turning point.

‘’Their communications are very much dislocated,’’ he said.

Naranjo said that the war against drug-trafficking is working and that the state has succeeded in controlling the surging of groups that could destabilize the Colombian government.

CARTELS LOSING POWER

There have been several arrests of large cartel leaders that monopolized drug production and power Colombia where they operated, Naranjo said.

‘’There are no longer monopolies that claim authority. We are facing micro-groups, not cartels, and they don’t represent a threat to institutional stability,’’ he said.

He noted that only four of the United States and Colombia’s 26 most-wanted drug traffickers remain at large and that cocaine seizures are at record numbers—36 tons in 2007.

The general also noted his direct involvement in the capture and subsequent extradition of 375 out of the 700 Colombian citizens sent to the United States to stand federal charges for drug trafficking and money laundering during the last six years.

Among them were the two Mejía Múnera brothers, Miguel and Víctor, known as Los Mellizos or ‘’The Twins.’’ One of them was killed and the other arrested.

‘’They were the most violent and aggressive capos, with the greatest capacity for trafficking in Colombia,’’ Naranjo said.

Despite the destruction of thousands of hectares of coca plantations (196,000 in the last 18 months), the production of cocaine does not seem to have diminished, he said.

‘’How to finish off the cultivation is the crux of the entire matter,’’ said Naranjo. ``Despite efforts, there is no notable diminishing, a vertical drop that should occur, which means that the reserve is still very high.’’

According to the general, the FARC have lost their own production capacity and have been forced to rely on protection taxes to the groups that still produce cocaine—not as profitable a business as exporting drugs themselves.

Another sign of the guerrilla’s weakening are the numbers of desertions by combatants that had been with the FARC anywhere from five to 12 years, said Naranjo.

‘’It is their qualified combatants that are demobilizing,’’ he said. ‘’What I’m seeing for the first time in the last 30 years is that the FARC are no longer growing—to the contrary, ‘’ they are shrinking.

Naranjo was appointed by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to reveal the documents found in computers seized from guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes, killed on a March 1 attack by Colombian forces in a FARC jungle camp in neighboring Ecuador.

ECUADOR RAID

Regarding this incident, which nearly escalated into a regional conflict with Venezuela and Ecuador, the general was adamant that no other country besides Colombia participated in the border-crossing operation.

‘’The [Defense] Minister and the Commander General have been very clear in this: The intelligence was ours and I can guarantee that it was [an operation] based on human sources, not satellites. It was a patient work of recruiting,’’ he said. Ecuador has charged that the United States collaborated with the Colombian forces.

A television tuned to Fox Sports beams in a golf tournament. Ecuadorean contractors serve sloppy Joes near refrigerators bulging with Dr Pepper and Gatorade. Air Force personnel in jumpsuits preparing to board an Awacs surveillance plane leaf through dog-eared paperbacks.

But by next year, if President Rafael Correa gets his way, this base will be gone, and, with it, one of the most festering sources of controversy in Washington’s long war on drugs.

“It’s not panic mode yet,” said Steven Tate, 42, a Clearwater, Fla., contractor who moved here two years ago after retiring from the Air Force to help run the base fire station. “I’m hoping a miracle will happen that will allow us to stay.”

To the Bush administration, the American air station here is a critical component in the war on drugs in the Andes. The 180 service members based here conduct about 100 flights a month over the Pacific looking for drug boats from Colombia, the source of about 90 percent of the cocaine used in the United States.

Last year, those flights led to about 200 cocaine seizures, the Air Force said.

But to Ecuadoreans, Manta is a flash point in a regional debate over the limits of American power in Latin America.

In 1999, American officials negotiated a 10-year agreement with President Jamil Mahuad to set up the elaborate airborne radar detection project at Manta, a port of 250,000. The deal did not require the United States to pay rent to Ecuador. Nor did it allow Americans stationed here to be judged in Ecuadorean courts for crimes committed in Ecuador. Nor was it submitted to the Ecuadorean Congress for approval.

Mr. Mahuad was toppled in a military coup a few weeks later.

To Mr. Correa, 45, who opposes renewing the agreement allowing the American base at Manta, the base compromises Ecuador’s sovereignty. Many Ecuadoreans fear it could end up dragging their nation further into Colombia’s long civil war, a fear that was heightened in March, when Colombian forces raided a rebel camp in Ecuadorean territory. Particularly after the Bush administration explicitly sided with Colombia in the diplomatic crisis that erupted after the raid, critics of the United States here see little reason to keep the base.

But to Mr. Correa, the debate is personal as well as political. When he was a child in Guayaquil, his father was imprisoned in the United States for several years on smuggling charges.

He has no intent of ensnaring Ecuadoreans further in the American war on drugs. He has proposed pardoning couriers with long prison sentences for smuggling small amounts of cocaine. He is also one of the most vocal proponents of creating a Latin American defense council that excludes the United States.

In a shake-up of the armed forces in April, Mr. Correa picked Javier Ponce, a poet who advocates less military cooperation with United States, as defense minister. “Should Ecuador have a base in Miami? Or New Jersey?” Mr. Ponce, 59, said. “The decision of the government is not to renew this accord.”

For now, operations here continue as they have for years. When asked what his mission consists of, Lt. Col. Robert Leonard, the ranking American officer in Ecuador, points to the blue waters of the Pacific.

The Awacs sitting on the tarmac at Manta are useless over Colombian soil; the jungle canopy effectively renders them blind for spotting small aircraft, Colonel Leonard explained.

But over the ocean, sometimes the Awacs’ radar happens upon speedboats, some of which transport Colombian cocaine to points north. If this seems like using a $300 million plane to track down far more primitive and cheaper vessels, the personnel here are the first to acknowledge that it is.

“It is a big game of cat and mouse,” the colonel said. “We look for dots on a radar screen. Those dots are smuggling drugs.”

None of the planes here are armed; their mission is detection.

The military says it spends $15 million a year for its operations here, although that figure excludes major expenses like fuel.

Finding another location would have been easier a decade ago, when American standing in the region was higher and allies were easier to find. For now, American officials are resigned to transferring Manta’s operations when the agreement expires in November 2009, most likely to bases in Curaçao and El Salvador.

Together, officials here said, those three bases, known in military jargon as F.O.L.’s, or forward operating locations, helped seize $1.1 billion worth of drugs in 2007, with the focus of the seizures on smuggling out of Colombia. The officials had no estimate of how much cocaine eluded them.

“We have had a lot of success in the fight against drugs with the F.O.L.,” Linda Jewell, the American ambassador to Ecuador, said recently. “We will talk to the government to find ways in which we can continue working together.”

But some antinarcotics experts in Ecuador and the United States question whether it is worth the cost of maintaining the base, both economically and politically.

And many Colombian traffickers have shifted tactics in ways that render Manta less effective. Smugglers, for instance, have begun to rely less on speedboats and more on semi-submersibles, the low-tech subs built for $1 million each in Colombia’s jungle that easily elude high-tech Awacs.

Russell Crandall, a former White House adviser and an expert on Andean antinarcotics efforts, said interdiction efforts, as well as Colombia’s resilient drug trade, would survive without Manta. “Manta is just icing on the cake,” he said. “We had the drug war going full speed before Manta, and we’ll have it full speed after Manta.”

Meanwhile, the four-member crews take off each day here for 12-hour sorties. “We have hours of sheer boredom followed by moments of sheer terror,” said Lt. Charles Moore, the leader of one Awacs crew. “It is like finding needles in a haystack.”

This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday May 12 2008 on p4 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:03 on May 12 2008.

British consumers have become the biggest export market for the controversial crop which is used in margarine and pastries as well as toothpaste, soap and detergents and cosmetics.

The surge in demand has sustained a ruthless landgrab by rightwing paramilitary groups in Colombia’s rural areas, War on Want, a London-based advocacy group, says in its report.

“The UK, despite being one of the largest consumers of Colombia’s palm oil products, remains unaware of the devastating impact of cultivation of this crop on the lives of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities.”

The report details numerous land seizures in the south-west Pacific region where subsistence farmers have been expelled and in some cases killed by armed groups allegedly seeking to cash in on the palm oil bonanza.

“The chocolate, margarine or soap that we see on supermarket shelves contains palm oil that has a good chance of coming from a country where thousands of people are being forced off their land, some of them brutally killed, in order to meet international demand.”

In the past four years Colombia has more than doubled cultivation to 350,000 hectares, with about a quarter of exports going to the UK and much of the rest bound for Germany and Spain. Colombia is the world’s fifth largest palm oil exporter behind Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

Colombia’s government has promoted the crop as a legitimate alternative to coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine which fuels the country’s conflict between leftwing rebels, rightwing militias and the security forces. President Alvaro Uribe, Washington’s closest ally in South America, has also promoted its use as a biofuel and said he hopes the area planted with the crop will grow tenfold in the next decade to more than 3m hectares.

In January prosecutors opened a formal investigation into 23 oil palm plantation owners in Uraba for alleged links with paramilitary forces.

Jens Mesa, president of the National Palm Growers Federation, told the Guardian the crop was bringing much needed investment to the countryside and that there were only a few isolated cases of land seizures.

“We deplore what happened in Uraba [Colombia]. The whole palm industry has been stigmatised by this. The conflict exists not because of the palm but because of drug trafficking. Coca is even displacing palm in some areas.”

In addition, Mega is pleased to announce a substantial increase in its uranium interests in Colombia, through a farm-in agreement with AngloGold Ashanti Colombia SA, and applications for additional tenements in the Chaparral area of Tolima Province and the Abejorral area of Antioquia Province.

Berlin Uranium Deposit

As previously reported by Mega (news release of March 7 2008), the Berlin deposit in Caldas Province comprises a 1-3 metres thick, concordant layer of uranium mineralisation within Lower Cretaceous carbonaceous and phosphatic shales in a north-trending syncline, of 12 kilometres length and 0.5-2 kilometres width. In the 1978-1981 period, the French company Minatome investigated the southernmost 5 kilometre length of the syncline by means of 20 trenches, 4 adits and 11 widely spaced diamond drill holes (total 2136 metres). Using a simple cross sectional area method, Minatome estimated that the area investigated had a resource potential of 12.9 million tonnes @ 0.13% U3O8 (38 million pounds U3O8)(1).

Farm-In Agreement with AngloGold Ashanti

Mega has signed a farm-in agreement with AngloGold Ashanti Colombia SA ("AngloGold"), a subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd, to earn a 75% interest in uranium deposits discovered within AngloGold’s tenements, and any current or future tenement applications, in three areas of the Central Cordillera - Murillo (87 km2), Quinchia (13km2) and Saldana (11,828km2). The areas were chosen by Mega geologists following a detailed review of the multi-element analyses of 4870 rock and stream sediment samples collected by AngloGold in its comprehensive geochemical survey of the Central Cordillera. Currently AngloGold holds a total of 5975 km2 in these three areas in the form of granted concessions (120 km2) or concession applications (5855 km2).

Under the agreement, Mega can earn a 75% interest in any uranium deposit discovered in the properties by delineating a NI43-101 compliant resource within three years from the date of the agreement and meeting minimum expenditure requirements of $US500,000 within the first six months and an additional $US1 million over the succeeding 12 month period. Should the exploration results not justify further participation, Mega can retire from the agreement at the end of the first six month period. In the event that Mega earns a 75% interest, AngloGold has the option to maintain its 25% interest by funding future expenditure pro rata or to dilute according to the standard dilution formula. Should AngloGold’s interest dilute to 10%, it will revert to a 2% NSR.

Chaparral Concession Applications

Mega has applied for four concessions covering 78.3 km2 of ground in the Chaparral area of the Central Cordillera in Tolima Province. The applications cover ground in which Minatome ground radiometrics and trenching in the 1976-1981 period delineated three separate, 1-1.5 metre thick, concordant layers of Berlin-style uranium mineralisation within Cretaceous carbonaceous/phosphatic shales. The mineralized zones have not been investigated by drilling.

Abejorral Concession Applications

Mega has made applications for two concessions covering 39.7 km2 in the Abejorral area of the Central Cordillera in Antioquia Province. In the 1976-1981 period, Minatome discovered Berlin-style uranium mineralisation in the Cretaceous black shales of the area.

Notes:

(1) The Berlin resource estimate is historical and is reported in Castano, R. (1981), Calcul provisoire des reserves geologiques de Berlin, sur la base des resultats des sondages, unpublished Minatome report, 15p. Recent independent verification of the historical data has not been performed and sufficient exploration work has not been completed to verify the historical estimate. Mega is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources and it should not be relied upon. As the 38 million pound U3O8 estimate is based only on 11 widely spaced drill holes, it is regarded by Mega as merely an indication of the magnitude of the uranium resource potential of the southernmost 5 kilometre long portion of the syncline containing the Berlin uranium mineralization.

(2) Under an agreement between Energentia and Sociedad Kedahda SA ("Kedahda"), a wholly owned subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd, Energentia can acquire the tenements over the Berlin uranium deposit through cash payments of $US250,000 on signing of the agreement (already done), $US250,000 on transfer of the tenements and $US500,000 on the commencement of uranium production. Kedahda retains a 2% NSR on uranium production.

Stewart Taylor, Mega’s President and Qualified Person under NI43-101, is responsible for this release and has verified the contents disclosed.

About Mega Uranium

Mega Uranium Ltd. is a Toronto-based mineral resources company with a focus on uranium properties in Australia, Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Mongolia and Cameroon. Further information on Mega can be found on the company’s website at http://www.megauranium.com. Mega Uranium’s Australian uranium properties, including without limitation Ben Lomond, Maureen and Lake Maitland, are subject to State policies that presently prohibit the mining of uranium.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes “forward-looking information”, which is information regarding possible events, conditions or results of operations that is based upon assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action. All information other than matters of historical fact may be forward-looking information. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as “seek”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “budget”, “plan”, “estimate”, “continue”, “forecast”, “intend”, “believe”, “predict”, “potential”, “target”, “may”, “could”, “would”, “might”, “will” and similar words or phrases (including negative variations) suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook. Forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements about Mega’s plans and expectation for its Columbian properties.

By its nature, forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information contained in this release include, but are not limited to risks related to the inherent uncertainty of mineral exploration and development activities generally, including political and regulatory risks.

Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking information, readers are cautioned that this list is not exhaustive and there may be other factors that we have not identified. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained in this release. Forward-looking information is based upon our beliefs, estimates and opinions as at the date of this release, which we believe are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these will prove to be correct. Furthermore, we undertake no obligation to update or revise forward-looking information if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.

All forward-looking information contained in this release is expressly qualified by this cautionary note.

Contacts:
Investor Relations:
Mega Uranium Ltd.
Richard Patricio, VP Corporate and Legal Affairs
(416) 643-7630
Email: info@megauranium.com
Website: http://www.megauranium.com

A growing number of policy-makers are inclined to start lowering rates in a bid to control the strength of the local peso , which is up 13.5 percent against the dollar over the last 12 months, according to minutes released on Friday.

But with inflation running well above the country’s full 2008 targeted ceiling of 4.5 percent, most members of the board disagreed, according to minutes from the April 25 monetary policy meeting at which members left their key overnight rate unchanged at 9.75 percent for the second month in a row.

“Since last month’s meeting, inflation in April surprised on the upside ... This is likely to have strengthened the hand of the hawkish camp,” said a Goldman Sachs research note issued after the minutes were released.

“The central bank is likely to keep the rate unchanged at a slightly restrictive 9.75 percent for the time being,” the note said.

But Colombian exporters, who pay their bills in pesos while receiving weaker and weaker dollars for their overseas sales, are lobbying the bank hard to do something to control the strength of the local currency. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama,) BOGOTA, May 9 (Reuters) - Colombia’s central bank is split between interest rate hawks and doves as the country gets squeezed by above-target inflation and a disturbingly strong peso, minutes from April’s policy-setting meeting show.

A growing number of policy-makers are inclined to start lowering rates in a bid to control the strength of the local peso , which is up 13.5 percent against the dollar over the last 12 months, according to minutes released on Friday.

But with inflation running well above the country’s full 2008 targeted ceiling of 4.5 percent, most members of the board disagreed, according to minutes from the April 25 monetary policy meeting at which members left their key overnight rate unchanged at 9.75 percent for the second month in a row.

“Since last month’s meeting, inflation in April surprised on the upside ... This is likely to have strengthened the hand of the hawkish camp,” said a Goldman Sachs research note issued after the minutes were released.

“The central bank is likely to keep the rate unchanged at a slightly restrictive 9.75 percent for the time being,” the note said.

But Colombian exporters, who pay their bills in pesos while receiving weaker and weaker dollars for their overseas sales, are lobbying the bank hard to do something to control the strength of the local currency. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama,)

With those injury problems being resolved, Angel scored the game winner in a 2-1 Red Bulls’ victory to push his team to third in the top-heavy Eastern table.
The goal came less than a minute after L.A. tied the score at one on an Alan Gordan tally.

New York took a first half lead when rookie winger Danleigh Borman scored his first goal of the season in the 22nd minute. New York striker Jozy Altidore fired a hard shot on goal from inside the L.A. penalty area that was saved by Galaxy goalkeeper Steve Cronin, but Borman hammered home the rebound for his first MLS goal in just his second MLS start.

That was how the score stayed until Gordan took a pass from Mike Randolph in the New York area in the 77th minute and blasted past Jon Conway for his third goal of the season.

But the celebration was short-lived when Angel scored the winner less than a minute later. The Colombian veteran took a pass from winger Dane Richards behind the defense, took a touch around Cronin and fired home to close out the scoring.

The Red Bulls will look to continue on their solid 3-1-2 start to the season when they host Kansas City next Saturday while L.A. (2-3-2) hosts Dallas on May 18 in its next league fixture.

The trove—found on a dead guerrilla leader’s laptops during a military raid in March—is likely to ratchet up pressure for the U.S. to impose sanctions on one of its most important oil suppliers.

The files that have been made public so far have largely confirmed Mr. Chávez’s well-known sympathy for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But a review by The Wall Street Journal of more than 100 new files from the computers suggests that Venezuela has broader and deeper ties to the FARC than previously known.

These documents indicate Venezuela appears to be making concrete offers to help arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled grenades and ground-to-air missiles. The files suggest that Venezuela offered the FARC the use of one of its ports to receive arms shipments, and that Venezuela raised the prospect of drawing up a joint security plan with the FARC and sought basic training in guerrilla-warfare techniques.

“There is complete agreement in the intelligence community that these documents are what they purport to be,” a senior U.S. official said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has been sharing its assessments with the White House, this official said.

Washington’s stance is likely to hurt Venezuela’s already deeply strained relationship with the U.S., its biggest trade partner. It could also add pressure for the U.S. to declare Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism, alongside Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, and impose sanctions.

Mr. Chávez has repeatedly said the files were faked by Colombia. “We don’t recognize the validity of any of these documents,” Bernardo Álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S., said in a Wednesday interview. “They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan government.”

Interpol, the international police organization, has yet to give its view on the files’ legitimacy. Colombia asked Interpol to perform an independent forensic analysis, and next week, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble is scheduled to travel to Colombia to present the findings.

Mr. Noble declined to comment on Interpol’s conclusions. He said Interpol hasn’t yet briefed foreign governments on its findings. “Anyone who has told you that Interpol has informed him about our findings has given you false information,” he said.

Cross-Border Raid

The computer files hint at the depth of Mr. Chávez’s antipathy towards the U.S., which he often describes as an “empire” oppressing Latin America. According to one document, Venezuela’s interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacin, last November asked the FARC to train Venezuela’s military in nuts-and-bolts guerrilla tactics—including “operational tactics, explosives, ... jungle camps, ambushes, logistics, mobility”—so that soldiers would be prepared to fight a guerrilla war if the U.S. were to invade Venezuela.

The documents are among more than 10,000 files that Colombian intelligence services say came from three computers belonging to Raúl Reyes, the FARC’s former second-in-command. Mr. Reyes was killed in March when Colombia’s military staged a contentious cross-border raid into Ecuador, where he was camped.

The FARC itself has suggested the files are fake. A FARC statement published on the Web site of Venezuela’s Information Ministry ridiculed Colombia’s claims about the computer files, saying computers couldn’t have survived the Colombian army attack “even if they had been bullet-proof.”

A senior staffer in the U.S. Senate, who had been briefed on the contents of the files, cautioned that Mr. Chávez is known for his bombast, and that while tantalizing, the information in the files would need careful corroboration before action is taken against Venezuela. “We need to see proof of what is mentioned in the reports,” the staffer said.

There have been some recent indications that the computers contain accurate information. Police in Costa Rica staged a successful raid on a home belonging to alleged FARC sympathizers, and recovered $480,000 in cash, guided by information from the documents suggesting the money would be located there.

In addition, Ecuador’s interior minister confirmed that he had met with Mr. Reyes, after an email describing the previously secret meeting was found on the laptops and made public by Colombia.

The FARC, which has been fighting for control of Colombia for nearly a half-century, funds itself mostly through drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransom. The U.S. considers it to be one of the world’s main cocaine suppliers.

The FARC is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, Colombia and the European Union. For the U.S., any group that deliberately attacks civilians for political reasons merits such a designation. With troop strength estimated at around 9,000 fighters, that would make the FARC Latin America’s oldest and largest such group.

However, Colombia’s neighbors, including Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil, don’t consider the FARC to be a terrorist organization. Indeed, Mr. Chávez has hailed the group as brother revolutionaries. He has thrown Venezuela’s weight behind an effort to remove the FARC from terrorist lists and instead grant the group diplomatic recognition as a “belligerent army.”

According to the senior U.S. intelligence official, the Colombian government delivered “thousands” of the controversial documents to Washington in March. Since then, American technical experts have studied them for signs of forgery and to assess whether they correspond to the methods the FARC typically uses to communicate.

“There are no indications whatsoever that they’ve been fabricated by the Colombians,” the official said.

The official said that the most troubling information in the files suggested the FARC’s willingness to purchase virtually any type of weapon from any source. The official said Mr. Chávez’s government has increasingly been willing to help the FARC reach international buyers. The official cited the FARC’s particular desire to acquire surface-to-air missiles, although he said there weren’t any signs of the guerrilla movement succeeding.

The FARC Situation

During a speech Wednesday on Latin American relations, President Bush brought up the FARC situation. “Colombia faces a hostile and anti-American neighbor in Venezuela, where the regime has forged an alliance with Cuba, collaborated with FARC terrorists, and provided sanctuary to FARC units.”

According to a study last week from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sanctions against Venezuela could backfire if done poorly. The U.S. would need to rally significant regional support or risk that sanctions become “counterproductive” by stirring nationalist or anti-U.S. sentiments.

Venezuela has mounted a vigorous diplomatic offensive to block any move by the U.S. to declare the nation a terrorism sponsor. Such a declaration would prompt U.S. economic sanctions, disrupt $50 billion in annual bilateral trade and jolt the already jittery global oil market, since Venezuela is a major oil producer.

In a speech last month in New York, Mr. Álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador, warned the U.S. would pay a heavy economic price if it made any such move. “There will be very grave economic consequences,” Mr. Álvarez said, adding that some 230,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs depend on U.S. exports to Venezuela, which in turn sends some 1.58 million barrels of oil daily to the U.S.

The documents suggest Mr. Chávez is personally involved in helping the guerrillas. In a September 2007 message to the FARC’s ruling body, a commander wrote: “Chávez is studying our documents and has said that just like Fidel [Castro] has decided to delegate his other responsibilities to concentrate on the Venezuelan situation, he [Chávez] is ready to do the same to dedicate more time to Colombia.”

Colombia has long accused Venezuela of letting the FARC operate on its side of the border, allegations the Venezuelans have denied. But according to one 2005 email, from Jorge Briceño (known as Mono Jojoy, a top FARC military commander), the rebels at that time had some 370 guerrillas and urban sympathizers operating inside Venezuela.

Getting ‘Rockets’

One email, apparently sent by a FARC commander known as “Timochenko” to the guerrillas’ ruling body in March 2007, describes meetings with Venezuelan naval-intelligence officers who offer the FARC assistance in getting “rockets.” The Venezuelans also offer to help a FARC guerrilla travel to the Middle East to learn how to use the rockets.

Colombian military analysts believe the reference is to shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, a weapon that the guerrillas desperately need if they hope to blunt Colombia’s recent gains. “The FARC realizes that its military problem is air power,” says Gen. Oscar Naranjo, who heads the country’s national police.

In another email dated early 2007, FARC commander Iván Márquez describes meetings with the Venezuelan military’s intelligence chief, Gen. Hugo Carvajal, and another Venezuelan officer to talk about “finances, arms and border policy.” Mr. Márquez relates that the Venezuelans will provide the guerrillas some 20 “very powerful bazookas,” which Colombian military officials believe is a reference to rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

An officer reached at Gen. Carvajal’s office said the general was the only person authorized to comment and he couldn’t be reached because he was traveling.

At the meeting with Gen. Carvajal, another Venezuelan general is described as offering the port of Maracaibo to facilitate arms shipments to the guerrillas. The general suggests piggybacking on shipments from Russia—from which Venezuela itself is buying everything from Kalashnikovs to jet fighters—to “include some containers destined to the FARC” with various arms for the guerrillas’ own use.

A spokesman at the Russian embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The proposals to obtain weaponry are part of a broad program of economic and political support for the FARC from Mr. Chávez’s government, some of which was detailed in emails that were made public in the days just after the cross-border military raid that yielded the computer files.

Another email describes a November meeting between two FARC commanders and Mr. Chávez. The commanders, Ricardo Granda and Iván Márquez, report back in the email that Mr. Chávez gave orders to create “rest areas” and hospital zones for the guerrillas to use on the Venezuelan side of the border.

Many documents talk about how to fit generous offers of Venezuelan aid to the FARC’s long-term “strategic plan” of taking power in Colombia. In one document dated January 2007, one top FARC commander speaks of a “loan” for $250 million to buy arms which the FARC will pay back once it has reached power. “Don’t think of it as a loan, think of it as solidarity,” says Mr. Rodríguez Chacin, the interior minister, in another document.

Mr. Rodríguez Chacin’s press office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Earlier this week, he dismissed Colombian newspaper reports that Interpol had confirmed that the computer documents were authentic, according to an Interior Ministry press release. “Imagine somebody taking [evidence] home and manipulating it as he wants, and afterwards presenting it,” he said. “What court in the world will accept that evidence?”

While the documents indicate that the FARC is appreciative of Venezuela’s efforts, privately the guerrillas occasionally make fun of the Venezuelans’ work habits. “It hasn’t been easy for us to adapt to the way of being of the Venezuelans,” complains Mr. Reyes in one document. “It doesn’t seem as if they are conscious of their boring lack of formality.” Mr. Chávez “always leaves things until the last moment.”

--David Gauthier-Villars in Paris and David Crawford in Berlin contributed to this article.

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

The files describe meetings between guerrilla commanders and top Venezuelan officials including Chavez himself, the paper said, based on its review of more than 100 documents seized from a slain rebel leader’s computer in March.

They show Venezuela offering to help the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) obtain “rockets” and “bazookas” from foreign suppliers and to use a Venezuelan seaport to receive them, the paper said.

“There is complete agreement in the intelligence community that these documents are what they purport to be,” an unnamed senior US official told the paper.

Caracas insists the files, seized by Colombia after it bombed a rebel camp in Ecuador, killing FARC’s second-in-command Raul Reyes, are fakes.

“We don’t recognized the validity of any of these documents,” Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez told the Journal Wednesday.

“They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan government.”

Colombia accused both Ecuador and Venezuela of colluding with its FARC rebel foes after it seized the computer records in a March 1 cross-border military strike that raised the specter of a regional military confrontation.

Colombian officials said they had found records of payments totalling 300 million dollars to the rebels from Chavez, and evidence of contacts between Reyes and Ecuadoran Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea.

Quito and Caracas strongly denied links to the FARC, broke diplomatic ties with Bogota and massed troops along their borders, then agreed to settle the standoff peacefully at a regional summit a week later.

The Wall Street Journal report contains many new allegations of Venezuelan involvement with the FARC, based on documents reviewed by the paper, all dating from 2007.

They include:

- FARC Commanders Ivan Marquez and Ricardo Granda wrote that they met with Chavez in November and that he had gave orders for rest areas and hospital zones to be created for FARC fighters inside Venezuela.

- Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin asked the FARC in an email to train Venezuela’s military in guerrilla tactics as preparation in case the United States invades.

- Regarding a 250 million dollar Venezuelan “loan” to buy weapons, Rodriguez Chacin wrote: “don’t think of it as a loan, think of it as solidarity.”

- FARC commander Ivan Marquez described meeting with Venezuelan military intelligence chief General Hugo Carvajal and another Venezuelan general to discuss “finances, arms and border policy.”

- The other general, who is not named, offered the Venezuelan port of Maracaibo to receive FARC arms shipments and suggested including “some containers destined to the FARC” in its own shipments of arms purchased from Russia, Marquez wrote.

- Venezuelan naval intelligence officers reportedly met with FARC guerrillas and offered to help them acquire “rockets” and to send a FARC member to the Middle East to learn how to use them.

The United States and the European Union view the FARC, which has been fighting the Colombian goverment for four decades, as a terrorist organization.

The new allegations may increase pressure on Washington to declare Venezuela, one of its main oil suppliers, a state sponsor of terrorism.

Colombia has sent thousands of the documents seized from the FARC to the United States where they are being studied by technical experts.

“There are no indications whatsoever that they’ve been fabricated by the Colombians,” the intelligence official told the Journal.

Colombia has also asked Interpol to conduct forensic analysis on the files, and Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble is to present its findings in Colombia next week, the paper noted.

U.S. Congressional Democrats have blocked passage of the pact, saying that conservative President Alvaro Uribe has not done enough to crack down on right-wing militias that have killed hundreds of labor union members in the name of combating Marxist rebels.

“It’s an agreement that would benefit both Colombia and the United States,” said World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who started negotiating the Colombian trade deal in 2004 when he was U.S. Trade Representative.

“It is important beyond trade because it is part of a series of reforms that support the overall agenda of Colombia, whether it be security, human rights issues and anti-narcotics efforts,” he said during a trip to Bogota. “It is part of a package supporting the success of Colombia.”

The country’s economy has picked up under Uribe, a hard-liner on security and the White House’s strongest ally in South America. Colombia has received about $5.5 billion in mostly military aid from the United States since 2000.

But the country remains the world’s biggest cocaine exporter and is mired in a four-decade-old guerrilla war with a mosaic of illegal groups battling for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes.

(Reporting by Monica Garcia; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Eric Walsh)

The US designation bars US persons from doing business with these individuals and entities.

The action “targets the FARC’s drug trafficking and terror activities by undermining its financial network,” said Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Washington considers the FARC a terrorist group.

The Treasury measure hits the Bogota-based Mercurio Internacional S.A. money exchange operation, which has several branches throughout Colombia.

“The FARC used this Colombian money exchange house—or “casa de cambio” as they are commonly known in Colombia—to launder narcotics proceeds from its Eastern Bloc,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

“The FARC sells its illicit foreign currency to domestic money exchange businesses or profesionales del cambio. These profesionales del cambio then sell the foreign currency to casas de cambio that, like a bank, can export the foreign currency from Colombia,” read the statement.

According to Treasury, Mercurio Internacional “accepted foreign currency from the FARC via a number of profesionales del cambio. The FARC derived this foreign currency from drug sales. Mercurio Internacional would then convert the foreign currency back into pesos for the FARC to use in Colombia to fund its activities.”

On April 22 the Treasury Department announced it hit two Colombian money exchange business and four individuals with sanctions on charges they acted on behalf of the FARC.

The FARC, Marxist rebels who have sought to topple the government in Bogota for four decades, is believed to detaining around 700 people. It uses kidnapping and Colombia’s narcotics trade to finance its insurgency.

The finance ministry announced on Tuesday that it plans to eventually convert all of its $20 billion in foreign currency obligations into pesos through a series of hedge-type operations.

The first step will involve money owed to the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development, which is the arm of the World Bank that lends to middle income and emerging economies. (Reporting by Javier Mozzo; Editing by Diane Craft)