Fwd: Esto ha sido nuestro 79th. ano en este planeta - nuestros cumpleanos son el 18 de Febrero para Jean y el 27 de Enero para Jim.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: James Donald <tiare.taporo3@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2025 at 15:21
Subject: Esto ha sido nuestro 79th. ano en este planeta - nuestros cumpleanos son el 18 de Febrero para Jean y el 27 de Enero para Jim.
To: Perry Lanaway <Perry_Lanaway@hotmail.com>

Hi to everyone once again - from Jim and Jean in El Retiro, Colombia,

We hope that all is well and that so far life in 2025 has been treating you well, in spite of all the huge uncertainties in the world which currently surround us.

In February we had the pleasure of a visit from Jim's eldest Midwife daughter, Amanda and her long-time boyfriend, Dave. They arrived via Santiago (Chile) and Bogota and then left for Cartagena, Santa Marta and Palomino on the Caribbean coast. After that they went to Lima, Peru and the Peruvian Amazon.  Then Santiago again before returning to Godzone!! As they're both working in NZ, their total time is limited, but we made the most of it. We hadn't seen her since 2019 when we were last in NZ, so it was an emotionally short time here and of course one never knows the future. 

Anyway, they saw where and how we live here in El Retiro and we also went to Medellin where we went up on the Parque Arvi cable car with its spectacular views of the city. And also the Botero Museum with its iconic paintings (mainly portraits), and huge sculptures, in the Botero style. But the highlight was on the Saturday night at Salon Malaga. This place has been operational since the 1920's and is the centre of tango dancing here in Medellin. There are all sorts of memorabilia there, including antique juke-boxes and photos of old Medellin. The music was electrifying and the tango was itself spectacular. There was quite a crowd and it is necessary to book in advance, but it is not possible to book more than 7 days in advance so our friend Daniela did the booking by phone for us. The crowd was almost entirely Colombian and they are so exuberant and demonstrative! It was great to see multigenerational family groups all having a great time and singing together. Grannies, grandchildren and all in between!! We would probably have sung too but we didn't know the Spanish words!! Probably just as well, because we wouldn't necessarily have added to the harmony!!  It was a wonderful night which we will all remember. Drank far too much Ron Medellin, but surprisingly felt reasonably good the next day! 

On their last day here we went to Guatape, which is an artificial lake created for a hydro dam. The original town was flooded when the lake was originally filled, but there is another town on the lake shore which is now very touristified. Not exactly our idea of where to go, but the history is interesting. The area flooded is very topographically rugged which has created a fascinating vista of islands and inlets almost as far as one can see. And there is a volcanic plug (El Penol) near the new town of Guatape which one can climb (750 steps!!) if one's knees are up to it. The view from the top is even more spectacular.

It was emotional saying goodbye when the time came all too soon for them to depart. But we all enjoyed the visit and they achieved an overview of Retiro and Colombia which they can build upon with their next visit.

The other highly personal event was by contrast so sad. Our very good friend, world-renowned orchid breeder and fellow New Zealander, Andy Easton, passed away in his sleep at the age of 77 sometime during the night of 2nd. - 3rd. July. It was so sudden that it hit us like a sledgehammer. Only the previous Sunday June 29th. we had had our usual very enjoyable extended breakfast at 4Elementos - a relatively new breakfast/brunch restaurant at La Fe - only about a 15 minute drive from here, and of course we were looking forward to repeating the weekly experience, but it was not to be.

At least Amanda and Dave met Andy when we all had dinner at our favorite Restaurante Inspiracion in the Media Luna Mall, about a mile from our house.

Anyway, even after 18 weeks it is still painful to write about and we did send everyone a copy of Andy's obituary which no doubt you all read. Suffice it to say that Andy probably possessed the best knowledge of Cymbidium Orchids of anyone of his era. He was absolutely immersed and singularly focused with what had been his life (with a few interruptions!) for the last 66 years. He was academically qualified with a B.Sc. in Botany from Victoria University, Wellington and a masters degree from Colorado State University where he met his first wife, Carol, who was a highly qualified biologist. He dealt with suppliers and customers from Asia to Europe and in the US. And of course also in NZ and Australia. Just a few months before his passing, he had travelled with his Colombian wife, Patricia, visiting Turkey, the Netherlands and China. It can only be hoped that sufficient people are coming on in the orchid world to carry on his inspiring work. It needs people who are not just academically qualified, but also possessed of that unquantifiable and difficult to define passion for orchids. He will be difficult to replace. Andy has been a real ambassador for New Zealand, and a passionate advocate for orchids and the orchid world world-wide.

About a year ago Andy had given us an orchid plant which he said we could just plant in the garden and it would flower. However, it never did and in fact was not looking all that healthy, so we made the decision to move it to a large pot at the back of the house. Then, in the last few weeks 2 large flower spikes have appeared and at the time of writing, the first with 17 blooms on it started opening with spectacular yellow flowers with a maroon/scarlet interior. Beautiful and we are deriving such pleasure from the orchid. Such a pity that Andy is not here to see it. There is a picture of it at the end of this blog.

Apart from that, life has been fairly quiet. We have been having our usual issues with our 32 year old German chariot - nothing serious, but so very difficult to find anyone competent enough to diagnose even the smallest thing. However, we had some time ago been recommended to go to Jose Luis in Itagui - which is a municipality south of Medellin and a bit of a trek for us from Retiro. By the time we deliver the car and then catch a combination of the Medellin Metro and the bus to Retiro from under the Metro Estacion at Exposiciones to get back home, a good chunk of the day is gone! Then when the car is ready to be collected, the process is reversed.

We had some concern lately because the last communication from Jose Luis was at the end of July and we knew he had had serious heart surgery some time previously. Our messages had been read but not answered - very strange, and we were concerned for his welfare. Anyway, we have a small remaining issue we want to get to the bottom of, so in some apprehension we took the car to a workshop in Medellin which had been recommended. But when we got there the shop was filthy and nothing gave any confidence at all. There are lots of workshops like that in Medellin. We don't expect anything too flash like a MB dealership with attendant costs, but just somewhere clean and organised with a sense of competence. However, another workshop next door which only deals with late model European cars, remembered Jose Luis and rang him. They succeeded in talking to him and we were relieved to know that at least he was ok! Typical of Colombia; sometimes you only get quite important information by the most circuitous of routes! However, a few days later we received a further communication from his family advising that he was in hospital and his recovery time was not known. We can only hope that he eventually recovers in some good health.

But, it was then of course necessary to re-evaluate our strategy. We made an approach to a workshop in Oriente de Medellin (Llanogrande), but they, like the concessionaires - Alemautos, would not look at a venerable old girl like ours! But they did give us the name of a Mercedes expert who was semi-retired in La Ceja - another town, bigger than Retiro and about 30 minutes drive from here. We have now made a preliminary visit to meet Jose and, although the workshop looks quite primitive, we were impressed with Jose's knowledge and also to learn that he and Jose Luis used to work together with Jose Luis being Jose's assistant when the W124's were current back in the 1980's-90's. So, dare we hope that we have after over 2 years found someone we can rely on? We also met his family and his 15 year old son, Matteo who when he overcomes his shyness, acts as interpreter for us and his father.

Anyway, hopefully this time the issues will be solved. The whining noise that we had sometimes experienced has turned out to be a bearing in the airconditioning compressor - it's taken 2 years to find that! And it appears that some of the electrical refurbishment that Jose Luis said he had done was not 100%. So Jose in La Ceja who has an electrical manual, is in the process of sorting those remaining issues.

Another issue which has occupied a disproportionate amount of our time was that we decided to renew the material under our roof tiles. The 16 house development at Alameda Campestre is about 15 years old and apparently that is about the life of this material, which is like a soft waterproof fabric about 1 cm thick. The integrity of the roof depends on the state of this fabric and of course of the tiles which are laid on top. Our roof is complicated by the fact that there are 2 internal gutters which take about 80% of the roof run-off into concealed downpipes at each corner of the house. The other 20% is near the edge of the roof and discharges into normal exterior gutters, which before we came here simply poured water all over our front garden. We now have proper downpipes which discharge into a drain! Spoutings which discharge into thin air are common here - for example on the other side of the house the water discharges into the next door property as our new extension is only about half a metre from the boundary! "Rules" are almost non-existent here; on the other hand NZ with its planning rules, is far too rules based and restrictive. No doubt there's a happy medium somewhere!!

So, once the fabric had been replaced in June, two roof leaks began in one of our spare bedrooms. The main leak was from one of the internal gutters. And we still had about 15 broken tiles. So, then we had to find a source of the tiles, which was not easy as they are a discontinued pattern. And no-one had told us anything of all this, which is typical of Colombia!! All part of the charm of living here!! 

Anyway, with the belated help of our roofing contractor, we managed to find a roof materials supplier in Rio Negro which in turn was able to order 20 new tiles for us from a factory about 3 hours drive south of Medellin!! So, we ordered them and then after about another month we finally received them. Then we had to have several hours of drying weather before our contractor could get on the roof, AND we had to organise an extension ladder to coincide with all of that. Finally, after about 11 weeks since the original job, the final repairs have been done and then the weather was dry so we hadn't been able to test the roof! But there was rain forecast for the next days and hopefully then we would be able to relinquish the buckets which we had been using to catch the drips!! The proof would then be in the pudding, as they say!! All in all a new roof for 5 million pesos (NZD 2,200). Can't be too bad.

Well, since writing the foregoing, we have had some quite heavy rain with no leaks, so our confidence is returning!!

Changing the subject, we have finally found a sheep farm about 20 kms from here just outside La Ceja. We haven't been there yet, but they deliver, so we ordered 2 lamb racks, a shoulder and a leg. So far, we have consumed everything - the racks, shoulder and leg - the latter of which our friend, Monica slow cooked overnight a couple of months ago, as a practice run for Christmas when Jean's son, Perry, and Tracie and the 2 nietos (Carter and Nash) are here from Miami. We've decided that the shoulders are best so we have ordered 3 - 1 for another test cooking and 2 for Christmas.

We are looking forward to seeing them for their first Colombian Christmas. Sheep meat in Colombia is not really well-known or popular, but maybe over time it will become an accepted part of the local cuisine. But for us, we are very pleased to have discovered the farm because lamb is almost the only thing we miss about New Zealand.

And sometimes we are asked what we do all day!! All the above is at least partially the answer, and with the language issues, we won't be getting Dementia!!

Apart from all that, we certainly continue to enjoy living here, and in fact consider ourselves very lucky, as the people are wonderful, as is the town and its surroundings. And the wonderful raw materials for food continue in abundance, and at such reasonable prices. Never a dull moment, as they say.

However, a slight dark cloud - as at 13/11, the NZ currency (NZD) has depreciated by just over 13.5% against the Colombian Peso (COP) so far this year, which is having a negative effect on our living costs. However, we just have to hope that the NZ economy improves going into 2026. And the US dollar (USD) by an almost identical amount - 13.6%.  We are now also slowly getting a bit more disciplined with internet sites to further our Spanish speaking ability - Jean is more diligent than Jim!! Jean has a daily session on Duolingo, which is certainly helping. 

And finally, some geopolitical comments, which are unavoidable in this world of rapidly increasing madness:

** Firstly, we have to say with much disappointment, that we are very concerned at the direction that the Trump Administration in the US has taken. There seemed to be some promise that they could reverse the disastrous course of the US in recent years, both financially with the Federal debt now over 38 TRILLION US dollars and with geopolitical events having been handled so incompetently. But not so it seems. Both of these situations have the potential for very serious ramifications for all of us, and they are rapidly getting worse. More belligerent and ignorant incompetence.

We have come to realise that the only thing which can save the world from belligerent US foreign policy is the inevitable financial crash in the US, which is coming. We can only hope that it comes in time. Many commentators whose opinions we respect and agree with are all saying the same thing. The last person who we have heard to express similar opinions was Warren Buffet - 95 years old and having invested in the US for the last 70 of those years. You cannot ignore that degree of experience and wisdom. 

** Ukraine - we have talked about this disaster before. The Russian Federation was forced into the invasion in February 2022 by continual provocations by the US (CIA) and NATO (CIA and MI6). The original NATO aim was twofold - to force regime change in Russia and also the dismemberment of the Russian Federation into smaller compliant states. Both objectives have failed spectacularly and have blown up in NATO's and the US's faces with Russia now certain to retake the originally Russian port city of Odessa (founded by Catherine the Great in the 1700's), and to complete their line of advance to the Dnieper River. What is left of Ukraine will then deservedly become a landlocked rump state.

Mention should also be made of the British who are heavily involved behind the scenes with MI6 stirring up as much trouble as they can in Ukraine and in central Asia with all the countries around the Caspian Sea just north of Iran. The British created the Palestinian Mandate in 1917 by drawing straight lines on a map which has caused endless problems ever since. They have always had a fixation with "containing" Russia; just remember the battle of the Crimea in 1853 with the "Charge of the Light Brigade". How did that go?!! And now they still have delusions of empire, but Russia is a very different animal compared to the 1850's as the lunatics in Whitehall are finding out to their cost.

Russia will not accept any peace settlement until ALL of the above territorial requirements are achieved and Ukraine de-Nazified with a cast-iron undertaking to NEVER be part of NATO. All completely reasonable and in line with their insistence on total security for their southern border. 

And all very similar to US demands over Soviet Russian missiles in Cuba in 1962. Russian demands over Ukraine (which unlike Cuba, has a contiguous land border with Russia) should and must be respected.

The Russian victory in Ukraine will in any case cause NATO to be disbanded (which should have happened when the old Soviet Union collapsed in 1991) and in all probability the EU itself will also not survive the Ukraine debacle and defeat.

Many European economies are now in free-fall and their globalist governments won't last much longer. In spite of directions from the US and the EU in Brussels, they will be re-organising to buy much cheaper oil and gas from Russia in an effort to re-ignite their industries. Germany in particular has been very hard-hit by the forced lack of energy caused by the US blowing up the Nordstream pipeline which ran from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. Possibly it can be repaired - but who would pay?!!

And finally - we must all be VERY thankful that President Putin is the President of the Russian Federation.

Putin has consistently shown great restraint in the face of outrageous provocation. The lunatics in the US, Britain, France and Germany have been lobbing medium-range missiles into the Russian heartland with gay abandon ever since the war began. Russia has so far not retaliated in any serious way, but that will change soon, unless these deranged "leaders" change their ways. Otto von Bismarck (the unifier of Germany in the 19th. century) once famously said - "it is easy to let the Russian bear out of its cage, but it is difficult to put it back in"!!

Russia and China have hypersonic missiles which can hit their targets at upwards of 9,000 mph. The kinetic energy thus released is said to easily exceed that of a small yield nuclear device, but without the fallout. They cannot be detected, much less intercepted. The US has NOTHING anywhere near comparable.

** Israel and the Middle East - Israel is a rogue genocidal state and unbelievably has in the vicinity of 300 nuclear weapons. No wonder Iran wants (needs) to create their own nuclear deterrent in the face of such unpredictable and determined aggression. 

Israel has become a pariah state with its systematic murder of the Palestinians - mainly in Gaza, but also on the West Bank. A common and horrific practice is to lure starving women and their children to "food distribution centres" where they are then executed. And of course the continual and on-going bombing of Gaza has killed a further untold number. Unofficial estimates vary, but are upwards of 200,000 and the world DOES NOTHING. At least Colombia had some guts and kicked the entire Israeli embassy out of Bogota. 

The real worry is that Israel knows that they cannot sustain any conventional military action against Iran without the guaranteed support of the US, which in itself is in serious military decline, compared with Russia and China. Therefore, once desperation sets in, they could well resort to nuclear weapons. 

However, the US remains 100% willing (although that willingness is now declining) to do Israel's bidding, but it is becoming increasingly clear that blackmail is being used against President Trump, and possibly others in his Administration. The source of this blackmail is what has become known as the Epstein Files, which were used by Israel and the Mossaad to effectively set prominent people up and then use sexual blackmail in order to further their control of the US Government. No further comment should be necessary if you follow the true (and not the so-called mainstream) news. If you don't, we can't help you!!!!

The fact that world geopolitical events, with potentially horrendous consequences, should be affected by such sordid details, is the real concern. 

The publication of the Epstein Files has been blocked by Trump ever since he took office, in spite of promising to do the opposite during his election campaign. Wonder why he has taken this stance?? Surely he can't be compromised?!!!

** And Venezuela - our neighbour here in Colombia. Trump has definitely lost the plot with a heavy cruiser, 2 amphibious landing ships with 4,500 Marines on board, 5 destroyers, a nuclear submarine and now a complete aircraft carrier strike group being transferred from the Middle East - no doubt to avoid the carrier being sunk by a Russian hypersonic Oreznik missile!! And they are all floating around off the Venezuelan coast - to achieve what exactly??? And Russian missiles are now also in Venezuela! 

Venezuela is a country slightly bigger than France and Germany combined and so, if Trump is contemplating an invasion, he needs to rethink. If they attempt it with just 4,500 Marines, it would be a guaranteed bloodbath. Venezuela has just mobilised between 200,000 and 300,000 troops - depending on whose report you read. The excuse for any military action against Venezuela is drug smuggling, but the real reason, apart from Venezuela's mineral resources, which they plan to steal, is to maintain declining US hegemony over all of S America. This is completely delusional and as usual, all that the US is doing is to bolster complete lack of trust in themselves -  already well under way, after domination of the Western Hemisphere since the 1820's. US influence in this part of the world is rapidly coming to an end, as it is in many other areas of the world. And the rise of BRICS, which offers an alternative method of international trade and international trade settlements in currencies other than the US dollar, is hastening this decline of US international hegemony.

And it must be said, with all these seemingly non-connected conflicts, that they are actually very much connected, because they all constitute, or have evolved into, an overall conflict between the old globalist world order (mainly the US, some British Commonwealth countries and Western Europe) and those countries represented by the BRICS movement. The latter is characterised by fairness and free trade, whereas the former is dominating, threatening and demanding. Unsurprisingly therefore, an increasing number of countries are choosing BRICS, whose total GDP is increasing at 3 times the rate of the G7 countries. And the BRICS countries - led by the Russian Federation and China - now constitute approximately 50% of the world's population - and that percentage is also growing.

So the (mainly economic) conflict between Globalism and BRICS is not going to end any time soon. We must just hope that as the scales tip more and more in favour of BRICS, the Globalists do not resort to extreme military measures as their desperation grows. We don't have to define "extreme military measures".

 And on that happy note this well overdue blog must come to an end. We hope that everyone is well and looking forward to a Happy Christmas. We hope that 2026 treats you well.

With all best wishes and lotsaluv from us in El Retiro, Colombia,

Jim and Jean

Phs. (Whatsapp) - Jean +57 4184948798 and Jim +57 3103069697

ANDREW WILLIAM EASTON 1948 - 2025

Hi to everyone,

This has to be a very sad blog to all our family and friends.

Andy Easton, who we met in 2021 when we moved to El Retiro here in Colombia, passed away in his sleep on July 3rd. He was a fellow New Zealander and renowned world authority on orchids. He had been growing orchids since he was 11 in 1959 in Hastings, New Zealand. 

He had become a great friend and we were in constant contact. Our custom was to have breakfast together most Sunday mornings and these culinary events often lasted 3 to 4 hours wherein we discussed every subject under the sun, including reminiscences of our earlier lives in New Zealand. Andy's passing will leave a huge hole in our lives.

It turned out that Andy had visited Rarotonga, Cook Islands in his youth on more than one occasion, almost coinciding with Jim's first visit in 1967 as part of the crew of HMNZS Endeavour when we took NZ's new decimal currency up there, and then Jim's later 6 month stay there in 1968 working for his family's trading company. The odds of finding 2 New Zealanders living in El Retiro, Colombia in 2021, who had both visited Rarotonga in the late 1960's, and stayed at the ONLY accommodation in those days - the Banana Court - a NZ Govt. owned boarding house full of eccentric expats - must be about a million to one!!

Andy was also a great traveller as part of his orchid business and earlier this year had visited Turkey, Holland, the USA and China. He also visited Santa Barbara, California, USA on a regular basis. From our earlier experience flying Turkish Airlines when we still had our yacht in Malaysia, we had introduced the idea of Turkish to Andy and he became a great fan.  

Another connection we discovered was that when Andy was growing up in Hastings, his family were near neighbours of Charlie Slater and his wife. Mr. Slater had been the owner of C.H. Slater Ltd., which was a wholesale fruit and vegetable auctioneering business in Hastings and Napier. Jim's family business in Auckland had bought C.H. Slater Ltd. back in the 50's and never changed the name. Andy told us that Mrs. Slater was an expert concert pianist and it wasn't uncommon on a summer evening to hear the strains of Beethoven and that of many others floating on the breeze.

It should be noted here that Andy was an accomplished singer taking part in many events in his younger days. He even competed several times in the Mobil Song Quest - once in the finals against Kiri te Kanawa. Guess who won!! 

And he was asked at one time to stand for election in the Hastings seat for Parliament. Luckily for the orchid world he declined!

As regards the biographical details of Andy's life, we found an excellent article on the Tauranga Orchid Society's website, and so we are taking the liberty of quoting it verbatim here - 

"A LIFE IN ORCHIDS: ANDY EASTON, 1948 - 2025

Many thanks to Andy Easton, who has been a very patient interviewee by email, and Nancie Bonham, for permission to quote from 'A History of Orchid Growers in NZ'. 

Update: Andy passed peacefully in his sleep in El Retiro, Colombia on July 3rd. 2025 and was discovered by his driver in the morning.

Andy was a man of robust and fearless opinions, but also a leading hybridiser and generous by nature. He is survived by his widow, Patricia, and adult children in North America. Just last month he had travelled to the US to attend a family event, and was posting on his NHO (New Horizon Orchids) forum the day before his death. Patricia lives in Bogota looking after her elderly parents and she and Andy had travelled extensively together earlier this  year.

Andy Easton, a well-known name to many older members of the New Zealand orchid world, has lived a life in orchids that few could rival. 

Born in Hastings, New Zealand, Andy recalls being given his first orchid in 1958 at the age of 10 - a flowering spike that had been knocked off a plant. He took it home and he and his mother marvelled at the stem's longevity in a vase. He was already growing Cyclamen in a small greenhouse and selling them to local florists, as well as growing chrysanthemums and breeding poultry!

In 1959 Andy obtained some Cattleya flowers for his display at the Hastings Horticultural Society autumn show from local pharmacist, Noel Wilson (foundation president of the Hawkes Bay Orchid Society in 1970) and it was Noel and his wife, who also grew orchids, who introduced Andy to what has become his life's passion.

In 1961, while staying with relatives in Wellington, Andy met Norm Porter, who had the local agency for UK nursery, Mansell and Hatcher (operated 1890's - 2006) and was selling community pots of their Cymbidium seedlings. Andy invested some of his strawberry picking money into the plants.

His relatives also took him to the races at Trentham and - aged 13 - Andy won 1,000 pounds! The following week he went to a flower show in Lower Hutt seeing plants that were new to him, and was introduced to Herbie Poole, who had a nursery accessible by public transport. Andy visited Herbie and spent some of his winnings on Laelias, Masdevallias, Cattleyas, Cymbidiums and Paphiopedilums. Andy's father was aghast when the boy arrived home by the railcar with boxes of what he knew to be expensive orchids, fearing his son had stolen them! It took a phone call to Wellington to clear up the matter.

Andy now needed somewhere to house his precious cargo and later that year two friends of the family - florists - announced their retirement and that Andy could have their greenhouse. The balance of his winnings was spent on moving the greenhouse - 28 x 15 feet (8.6M x 5M) - which was full in a year! The florists, May Hopcroft and Elsie Mitchell, have both had Andy Easton - bred Cymbidiums named for them.

By 1970 Hawkes Bay was quite an orchid growing centre, thanks to South Pacific Orchids, started by Bruce Lindeman and where Russell Hutton began his commercial orchid career. The business imported flasks from Santa Barbara Orchid Estate (US) and Armstrong and Brown (UK) and also grew Cymbidiums for the cut flower market.

Andy graduated with a BSc. in Botany from Victoria University in 1969 and decided to do postgraduate work in the United States. The Colorado Flower Growers Association covered his tuition fees and made a living expenses grant of about USD 270  a month in return for study at Colorado State University on carnation diseases (he found time for some orchid research too).

In 1972 Andy graduated with an MS in Botany and Plant Pathology and returned to NZ with his American wife Carol, but lasted only 6 months at Lincoln before returning to the US and joining Chase Gardens in Eugene, Oregon where he managed 80 staff and 60 greenhouses. The business primarily grew roses, but also had about 4 acres (1.6ha) of Cattleya and Cymbidium orchids.

Andy attended his first Santa Barbara Orchid Show in 1973 (and hasn't missed one since, although the 2020 show was cancelled at the last minute, he was there) and took the opportunity to visit and buy from the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate, which at the time offered the world's most complete collection of awarded and breeding Cymbidiums.

During the 5 years at Chase, Andy completed the American Orchid Society judging course, which included compulsory attendance at monthly meetings in Seattle - a round trip of 885 kms!!

In 1978 he leased 1,486 sq. metres of greenhouse in Santa Barbara to establish his own business (Featherhill Exotic Plants) but the next year moved to California where he worked as general manager for Dos Pueblos and ran his own business at the weekends.

In 1985 Andy and Carol returned to New Zealand, this time to Rotorua, and by 1986 all his collection was at Tikitere on the outskirts of Rotorua - 17,000 plants quarantined on site and hundreds of flasks sent to Norm Porter for growing on, ready for the opening of Geyserland Orchids.

Andy helped organise the World Orchid Conference in Auckland in 1990, served as president of the Orchid Council of New Zealand (OCNZ) and funded both the Ken Blackman Award and the John Easton Award, named for his father and given to an outstanding contribution to the culture of orchids in New Zealand.   

In 1993 he received a Plant Raisers Award (and a silver medal) from the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture with the two plants selected being Cymbidium Tracey Reddaway "Geyserland" and Cymbidium Geysergold.

Sadly Carol passed away soon after their move to Rotorua and Andy's second marriage ended in a divorce which saw him leave these shores permanently in 2000, heading back to the US. He met his third wife, Patricia in Medellin, Colombia and they have now been married for almost 20 years.

Andy was the education director of the American Orchid Society from mid 2000 until late 2004 when he returned to commercial orchid growing - plus finding time to complete an MBA in California, graduating in 2015. His company, New Horizon Orchids, was until 2018 based in Salinas, California where he says the climate approximated more closely to European, Australian and upland Japanese orchid growing regions than anywhere else. 

However, being married to Patricia exposed Andy to Colombia and Colombian orchids and he began to seriously consider a permanent move there.

The greenhouse where he rented space in Salinas sold to (legal) cannabis growers in 2016 "so I saw some urgency in making the decision" he says. "I had plants at a friend's nursery in Santa Barbara while we were still living in Salinas so it was a weekly long day trip to attend my plants with extended stays for summer potting and also to attend the Santa Barbara show.

But from 2016 the die was cast and we gradually moved essential stock to Colombia shipment by shipment with many flasks also travelling from the laboratory we use in Thailand".

Andy now lives in El Retiro near Medellin in Colombia, where he's still busy growing, hybridising and attempting to learn Spanish. He is now officially a Colombian resident but also retains his US citizenship.

New Horizon provides hobbyist and commercial Cymbidiums to Guest Orchids in South Australia and Leaf and Limb Orchids in Queensland. Flasks are also supplied to Plantae Orchids in South Africa, Sorella Orchids in the US and Ruiter Orchids in The Netherlands. "Floricultura, the largest orchid company in the world, continues as our largest and longest - term commercial customer".

Andy has developed a new line of temperature tolerant Cymbidiums, "road testing" them in Florida. "These plants will fill a huge gap in the Cymbidium varietal selection", he says. "These plants will perform in lowland Japan, China, Central America and other subtropical regions".

New Horizon also produces Odontoglossum Alliance pot plants and they are becoming more popular again after two decades of inertia. "Colombia is home to many Odont species so the hybrids grow exceptionally well here and we have the finest forms of this species to work with too. We are even developing warmth tolerant types of these".

Andy says the orchid world has changed dramatically since he left New Zealand in 2000, particularly at the hobby level. "in 2000 the American Orchid Society had 30,000 members. Today it struggles to hold at 10,000. Millenials seem to have little interest in orchid growing as a hobby. I sell a few flasks to a friend in New Zealand as a courtesy but it's not commercially viable. The hobby situation in Australia is similar, except that they do have a buoyant blooming orchid market.

New Zealand's commercial orchid export sector never recovered from the 2009 Oberon spray disaster and what had been a lucrative business, shrank to a trickle. At the same time commercial growers in the southern hemisphere lost their "off-season" advantage to growers in The Netherlands improving their culture and breeding plants that now see Cymbidiums in flower from mid-August until the end of June. 

Andy works with a large Colombian Cymbidium operation that exports to the US 12 months of the year. "There are no seasons here on the Equator so Cymbidiums will bloom any time they make a growth".

New Horizon is, he says "by far" leading the field in producing warmth tolerant Cymbidiums. "it's maybe 60% of what we hybridise and some of these warmth tolerant varieties are making the grade as cut flowers. Almost 100% are sold under trade names (no RHS registration). Because we are unable to have any practicable worldwide protection for our intellectual property, we resort to trade names, specific variety sales to individual clients, etc. Let me say we work much harder for every dollar now than in 2000!" 

As an example, Andy says that although potted blooming orchids are increasing steadily in sales, a grower's return is between 10c. and 25c. (US) per plant. "It takes hundreds of thousands of units to make any decent money. Fortunately, it's not work to me. I bounce out of here Monday wondering what has opened on Sunday and leave the greenhouse Saturday afternoon reluctantly".

"My hope is that I can be working in a greenhouse until the day I die. My funeral is already arranged and paid for which, upon reflection, is a strangely liberating thought. The longer I live the poorer the deal is for the service provider, so if I should make it to 85, I will be getting a deal anyone with Scottish ancestry should be proud of!"

The on-line New Horizons Orchid Forum is a site for erudite (and robust) conversation about all things orchids. "As you have likely figured out, I try to always be truthful and I'm quite fearless about saying what I believe to be accurate".

Andy Easton-bred orchids include Cymbidiums: Last Tango "Geyserland"; Cali Night "Geyserland" HCC/AOS; Majeed Khadaroo; John McCormack; Devon Elf "New Horizon" 4n; Kirby Lesh; Magic Devon; Candy King; Phar Lap; Mem. Amelia Earhart; Falling Passion; George Formby and Gateway to Gold. Plus Odcdm Tiger Brew and Cattleya Ned Nash."

At this point we should make mention of Daniela Bonett who runs 2 businesses in town and who originally introduced us to Andy back in 2021. Daniela is Venezuelan and speaks excellent English. She recognised our Kiwi accents and immediately made the connection. Daniela had also done office and translation work for Andy and is a good friend of us all.

And there is Larry, another Venezuelan who is a tech wizz kid, and who had done work for Andy (and us) from time to time.

Andy was an unforgettable personality and we will never forget the wonderful and entertaining times we spent with him.

Of late however, we had been becoming increasingly concerned at a walking disability he unfortunately had suffered as a result of a fall he had had at the greenhouse. This made simply getting around a much greater effort than it should normally be, but he always had a cheerful face and made light of his disability.

Although you were with us for only a short time in our lives, we will never forget you, Andy. Rest in Peace. 

From your forever friends - Jim and Jean in El Retiro, Colombia

Phone: +57 310 3069697

Email: tiare.taporo3@gmail.com

Website: tiaretaporo3@blogspot.com

 

 

FELIZ NAVIDAD PROSPERO ANO Y FELICIDAD

Hola a todos nuestros amigos y familiares,

It is that time of year again - the years roll by with ever increasing speed. Our last blog was in May so high time for another!

Nothing much has changed in the last 6 months. We remain feeling very lucky to be living in such a land of plenty - and at such a reasonable cost of living. There doesn't seem to be any sign of a recession here. There are many individual street front shops and many people out and about walking the streets. When going to the old town (only about a 20 minute walk from our house), we usually walk for the exercise, because driving in such narrow streets with very limited parking is problematic. Different if we are going to Llanogrande where there are two large supermarkets, or Rio Negro (30 kms away) where there is a large shopping mall with the local equivalent of Mitre 10 or Bunnings - the name is Homecentre. In all those cases there is underground parking. In Llanogrande there is also an icecream shop selling yoghurt icecream. Absolutely delicious and you can have two toppings from a choice of at least 20, We are becoming more and more like locals (Paisas) every day! 

Our car, a 1993 W124 E320, had continued to be a little concern, so we went to the local MB agent, Alemautos in Llanogrande, who we knew had a policy of not servicing or repairing any Mercedes older than 10 years. This is a policy which we find abhorrent and hypocritical as MB always tout the long-term reliability of their cars, but when it comes to the crunch, they don't want to know. Probably mainly because these days no-one knows how to diagnose ANY car unless you can plug it in to a computer.

Friends here had recommended us to a workshop in Llanogrande and we had a few things done there and for once they were always helpful and diligent. This particular place specialised in older classic cars and among others they had a 1931 Chevrolet Tourer and a 1957 Ford Thunderbird as well as a very ancient Overland - the forerunner of Willys. There was even a Ford Prefect, which those of us of a certain age probably remember in NZ!! 

However, they didn't have the knowledge to correctly diagnose a problem we had with incorrect idling and controlling the correct fuel/air mixture. The offending part was the throttle body. Hence the visit to Alemautos was helpful as they put us in touch with a guy who lived in a nearby town, La Ceja. He has a 1970's W123 200 (4 cylinders) and he in turn recommended us to Jose Luis in Itagui. This is a light industrial urban area just south of Envigado (Medellin) where we used to live. So, as we were reluctant to drive down there (although we had been using the car around here), we organised a tow truck (grua) and delivered the car to Jose Luis. He is the guru for all those strange types who enjoy owning and driving these wonderful old vehicles. He himself has a 1987 W126 500SEL (V8) which gave Jim some confidence as the last MB in NZ had been a 1987 W126 420SEC. Jose Luis organised for the throttle body to be sent away to a specialist shop in Medellin to have the wiring and mechanicals rebuilt. He also diagnosed that the entire engine wiring system needed replacing as MB in those years (90's) installed biodegradable wiring in the mistaken belief that they were assisting the environment! We could have obtained a complete wiring loom from Germany, but Jose Luis assured us that he could rebuild the electrics on-site - and cheaper! This he did for 2.2 million pesos which is the equivalent of NZD 860 - half the German price. The car was also overdue for a service so that was all done and now the old girl is as good as new. The secret here is to find someone with the knowledge of these cars - it has taken us almost 2 years, but now we feel we are on top of things. We also have a spare throttle body and a spare Engine Control Module which we plan to have repaired/rebuilt also in Medellin. Then we will have workable spares.

Over the last 2 years the car has certainly cost us to get all the issues sorted, but it is still a "cheap" car! Original cost two and a half years ago 26,000,000 Pesos (USD5,900) - NZD10,400. Not sure what we've spent since, but certainly not that much and these cars are appreciating in value as more and more people realise their build quality and value compared with anything more modern.   

The other issue re the car and driving was to renew Jim's driver's licence. The original had been issued in Medellin in November 2019. As it was expiring this year, 5 years on, it needed renewing. There was a place in Llanogrande where this process could be initiated. There they conducted various physical tests - hearing, sight, heart, blood pressure and a psychological test! The old boy passed all with flying colours, but then there was a problem. Our previous car, which had been sold in 2021, had a fine attached to it for breaching Pico y Placa in 2022. This should have been the liability of the new owner, but the RUNT (Registro Unico Nacional de Transito) had been tardy in registering the change of ownership. This meant that the RUNT wouldn't issue the new licence until the outstanding fine had been paid - plus interest! 

One of the problems with Colombia is getting ANYONE to accept responsibility for any error or oversight, and so it was in this case. There was no option but for us to pay the 560,000 pesos (NZD 220), but it had to be paid in Medellin! However, we found a guy who could do this for us which meant at least that we didn't have to go there for this nonsensical reason. Then the RUNT computer system went down for a couple of days which meant they couldn't issue the actual licence anyway!!! However, that was fixed and now Jim is the holder of  a new licence which expires in October 2028 when he will have been 80 years old for about 9 months! At that stage the requirement is for renewal every 12 months until one either expires altogether, or decides to discontinue driving, or fails the test.

As a footnote, Jim's NZ licence has been expired now for 3 years, so that won't be renewed. 

We had some sad news a couple of months ago. Des Kearns, an Australian who with his Thai wife ran a boat yard at Krabi Boat Lagoon in Thailand, had passed away according to a Serbian friend of Jean's (Maja) who we had met when we were in Krabi at the marina. Des as a young man  of 19 in 1964, had sailed from NZ to Rarotonga on A.B. Donald's old original schooner, "Tiare Taporo". That was just after Jim's family had sold her after 50 years of ownership. So, when Jim had been researching places to get some maintenance done, he emailed Des on this email address and Des's comment when we subsequently met him was that the email address just "jumped off the page at him"!! That was the start of a great relationship, in spite of some engineering issues that we had at one stage. While we were in Chennai, India getting 2 replacement hips for Jean in 2014, Des's yard at our instigation raised the floor of our teak cockpit and used some surplus teak that had come from "Cariad", a very large ketch (over 100 feet) that had been built in Southampton, U.K. in 1896 that Des and the yard had been instrumental in restoring a few years earlier. We felt very honoured to have had some of that ancient and historic teak.

After his "Tiare Taporo" experience, Des had gone on to sail on some very famous yachts, including "Ondine II" which won the Sydney - Hobart Yacht Race in 1968 - with Des on board! He was also a Cape Horner, having sailed around Cape Horn a few years earlier and also sailed on another famous old schooner, "Bluenose II" from the Caribbean to Halifax, Nova Scotia. He later obtained his foreign-going Master Mariner ticket and at one stage commanded the then largest ship in the world, an Arctic oil-drilling ship. His life was a fascinating story of the sea. Later in life he had settled on Langkawi, Malaysia conducting a marine insurance business. He had moved to Thailand by the time we met him and was married to Ked who ran the office of the business. We won't forget Des. 

Our health remains in reasonably good shape. Jean has had issues with tendons and connective tissues but has now found a natural health massage therapist who practises at La Fe - only about a 10 minute drive from here. She comes up here from Calli once a month and Jean (who is hard to please!) is pleased with her. They manage the language issue with extensive use of Google Translate on her phone!

We are still members of Hacienda Fizebad (just past La Fe) and Jim swims there in their heated pool. He's been having roughly 6 monthly blood tests and for the past year now the HbA1c results have been very encouraging as they have been consistently in the "posible presencia de Diabetes" range. So, it's been possible to reduce the medication to a very low level with the goal of eliminating it altogether. Another area of concern in the last 12 months has been a very underactive Thyroid (TSH). We have been treating that with daily Iodine (Yodo) drops and the results have improved markedly, although still not completely within the "Valores de Referencia". Hopefully in the next 6 months........ We order the Yodo from Medellin, pay for it on-line and then it gets delivered here within a week! Nothing happens quickly here in Colombia! 

Other than that, when the car has been in the workshop, walking is the order of the day and we've even been known to walk about a mile to the La Dulce Compagna cafe on a Sunday morning for breakfast with Andy, our fellow NZ'er orchid breeding friend. There is a small supermarket, a fruit and veg shop and various health shops all within easy walking distance. Our Venezuelan friend, Daniela, who has a coffee kiosk close to us here, has also recently opened a shop selling health foods just up towards the old town. She has made a great job of setting the shop up and we buy some of our requirements from her, including goat's milk yoghurt and organic chicken breasts or thighs. And organic eggs. Daniela had originally introduced us to Andy back in 2021 when she recognised an accent similarity!! Daniela speaks excellent English and obtained a business degree from a university in Caracas, before things became untenable in Venezuela. All her immediate family are here, including her early 90's grandmother! We have met Granny, a wonderful redoutable old lady.

Andy is flat out most of the time with his orchid breeding business, and supplying his many customers around the world. He hosted us at 2 orchid shows this year as part of the annual Medellin Flower Show. A fascinating day, especially as the explanations were from a world expert!

Jean went to Miami in October for Carter's 10th. birthday - a landmark event. She had great fun with the nietos, but on the last day slipped while playing futball with the young lads and hurt her already bad knee, so much that they had to order a wheelchair for the flight the next day. But in typical fashion, she was able to walk off the plane with the man pushing the wheelchair behind her!! 

As another footnote, 11 years ago we were sailing on "Tiare Taporo III" one night in the Java Sea heading towards northern Indonesia and Singapore when we received a Sailmail from Perry advising of Carter's entry into this world in NZ.. Jean was then a Granny!! A notable event.

As said, we really enjoy living here with everything at hand. Even if we eventually cannot drive, we can walk short distances and catch the El Retiro-Rio Negro bus anywhere we want to go. The buses stop on demand. When the old German chariot has been in the workshop we have become very adept at utilising the local buses.

There is a carniseria at the local Cantaleta shopping centre and we often buy oxtails - 3 or 4 at a time. They average around 30,000 pesos each (NZD 12). We also get whole filet steaks which we used to call Cube Rolls in NZ. Here they are known as Solomito - about 100,000 pesos each (NZD 40) and we chop them up at home - probably 5 or 6 meals out of one.

Our country club, Hacienda Fizebad, is still going but we believe they had struck some financial problems. There was remedial work being done to the sauna, hot tub and massage area but that stalled for lack of money to finish, but now it appears that they have sold an area of land at the back near where the horse stables are. That would have given the club a financial boost - we just hope that any development is not high rise as that would detrimentally affect the whole ambience.  

On that note, everywhere you look on the approach roads to El Retiro, there are residential apartment developments and including up the hill behind Retiro where there is a very large development called Argentina - almost a town in its own right. The worry is that with all these developments, the local infrastructure will not cope. Traffic and roads (already getting quite congested at times), water supply (Medellin draws much of its water from up here) and when local demand grows, that could impact the city. We have reticulated natural gas in the town, but Colombia is already importing a quantity of gas, so not sure what the long-term future holds. An offshore gas field just 12 miles off the Caribbean coast has been recently discovered, but that will take 3-4 years to bring on-line. And electricity - it's OK for now with a very large hydro scheme now fully operating not too far away, but worryingly we see more electric cars on the road, and apart from getting nervous if they park next to us with the attendant fire risk, if there are too many the grid will simply not cope. This is true of many countries of course.

We have a non-flued gas heater which we turn on when some nights get a bit chilly (it's technically "winter" here now) and it does a great job of heating the house. Only problem is that these houses were built with NO insulation in the roof and so the heat is quickly lost, but with any luck we are tucked up in bed by then! But really, here at 7,000 feet, there is very little seasonality. We are only 6 degrees north of the Equator.

Just to give you an idea of energy costs - we received our latest monthly energy bill the other day. The total has gone up a bit and was COP 646,948 (NZD 259). That's for a month and covers water, waste water, gas and electricity. 

The weather has been variable - some prolonged dry periods along with some very wet days just to balance things out. We've even had a couple of hail storms which haven't done our Anthurium lilies much good but they are coming along well again. They are native to Ecuador and SW Colombia. Andy gave us some orchids some months ago now and one so far has flowered - twice. So, maybe sometime in the next 100 years, we may become accomplished orchid growers!!

Again on the subject of family, Jim's eldest daughter Amanda, who is now 53, and who is a very busy midwife in Auckland, announced that she and her long-time boyfriend, Dave, are planning a S American trip in early February next year. They will only be with us for 8 days and we haven't seen each other for 5 years, but of necessity their total time is limited and they do want to see a few other places in S America while they are here. They fly direct from Auckland into Santiago, Chile with LATAM, and will also have a quick trip to Valparaiso (the port for Santiago), then Bogota for a couple of days, then here when we will also go to Medellin, and then they have a flying visit to the Colombian Caribbean coast. Then on the way back they go to Lima in Peru and to a resort on the Amazon somewhere before heading home via Santiago. We are very much looking forward to the visit - the first of any family member since we moved permanently to Colombia 7 years ago.

Now we must comment on the geopolitics of this world, which as things are going, have a very good chance of snuffing out all life on this planet. We must just hope that there are some sane heads in Washington who will stymie any further efforts on  the part of the criminal Democrats to create any more booby traps for the incoming Trump Administration.

The fact that the current Democrat Administration is prepared to risk all of our lives with nuclear war just for vindictive revenge for Trump winning the election by a landslide, is just appalling. What can you say - there are no words to sufficiently convey the absolute horror of this situation.

Hardly anyone seems to realise it, but we are all VERY FORTUNATE that President Putin has conducted such a restrained military "special operation" in Ukraine, while the US has authorised Ukraine to lob US Atacam and British Storm Shadow missiles 200 miles into Russia every so often. Russia has now developed the Oreznik missile which is hypersonic and can travel at up to Mach 9 (7,000 mph) which means it cannot be detected, much less intercepted.

Washington still seems to think that Russia is inferior in military strength; 2 years of Russian dominance in Ukraine (and now absolute victory) should persuade otherwise, but unfortunately there is a severe lack of intellect in the White House. They will learn. As long as we don't have to learn the hard way with them?

And apart from Ukraine, the whole of the Middle East is on fire thanks to the crooked inept Biden administration. There was a plan a few years ago hatched by Israel with US (CIA) support, to start wars of destabilisation in 7 Middle East countries -  Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Iran. Now, 6 of these countries are in turmoil thanks to the at least partial success of this plan. Iran remains the last country to be attacked and P.M. Netanyahu of Israel is now just itching to attack Iran, as he is flush with success with CIA instigated recent events totally destabilising Syria. In the process Israel will drag the US into the war with Iran, as Israel cannot prolong an Iranian war on its own, and so would request a rescue by the US. Such a war would be damaging enough, but would also mean that Russia and probably China would also become involved. Then all bets are off. And there is also the spectre of Turkish forces on the northern Syrian border poised to attack the Kurds, with whom they have been enemies for centuries. The US had guaranteed the Kurds' safety, but will now abandon them to their fate from Turkey. Interestingly, Turkey and Israel appear to be allies for now in suppressing Syria from the north and south, but in fact they are implacable enemies and Turkey would like nothing more than to march into Jerusalem to "liberate" Israel for the Moslems. And a further perhaps unintended consequence of US (CIA) meddling - the "rebels" that were aided by the US in taking Damascus are in fact a product of the same terrorists that caused the 9/11 attacks in New York. The hypocrisy of the US is mind boggling. 

There is a lot more that needs to be learnt about this troubled part of the world; suffice it to say that it is a cauldron rapidly coming to the boil with who knows what consequences. 

Let's just hope that these situations can remain at least somewhat stable until President Trump takes office on January 20th. because he has said his first priority is to stop these needless wars. The problem is that there are people in Washington right now who are for ideological reasons opposed to making peace and another reason is that they and most of the Houses of Congress are under the sway of  substantial political donations from the Military/Industrial Complex whose profit driven aim is simply to continue to keep any war going that they can.

Trump's task will be extraordinarily difficult because in ending these wars he is going against the Deep State and the strong financial donation link between Congress and the military - the Pentagon and also the State Dept. At least he has tentatively appointed some excellent people who will support him in these efforts - unlike in his first term when through lack of political experience, he appointed many of the wrong people.

We also feel concerned at Trump's readiness to threaten financial sanctions and tariffs - even now when the ability of the USD to be weaponised is waning under the threat from the BRICS nations who have already de-dollarised their international transactions. These USD threats do not carry the same weight that they once did and the Trump Administration should act with caution, otherwise the US dollar is likely to lose its World Reserve Currency status, as a result of more countries joining BRICS as they seek to avoid on-going USD hegemony. If that happens, the whole US economy would be in dire straits, given the current level of federal debt.  

The bottom line is that the US is no longer the dominant world economy and the BRICS countries are already making substantial inroads into tradicional markets. 

Having said all that, a Trump Presidency is a life saver for the world compared to the unthinkable Harris alternative.

On top of all that, the EU which has been struggling under the impossible odds of unfettered immigration of mainly young Moslem men, and extreme left-wing governments, is close to imploding. And with it will go the Euro. France's government has collapsed and Germany has called an emergency election for February where almost certainly the Socialists of Chancellor Schultz will be gone. The biggest problem will be deporting the illegals - unlike the US where they will just send them packing back across the Rio Grande. And Russia has announced that ALL gas supplies into Europe via Ukraine will be cut off - in the middle of winter. 

NZ remains a concern as they are struggling under an enormous debt load as the legacy of the completely destructive Ardern government. There have been 2 consecutive quarters now of falling GDP - the technical definition of an economic recession.

NZ may well need to join BRICS because we cannot imagine that China would continue to pay for Kiwifruit and milk powder, except in Yuan or a new BRICS currency. Same goes for Australia with minerals.

The NZ coalition government should also get rid of any on-going racially divisive legalities so that ALL NZer's are governed equally as one people. There will be NO substantive economic progress until all the racial bickering and receipt of taxpayer funds is fully dealt with and abolished.

And again let's hope that the recently begun 2nd inquiry into Covid and how it was mismanaged will come up with some conclusions and that individuals who acted entirely inappropriately can be held accountable. The main thing is to get the mRNA "vaccines" banned because there is on-going harm still coming to light and these mRNA "vaccines" have never been tested anywhere near properly. We get regular up-dates on the situation from NZ Doctors Speaking Out About Science - NZDSOS. It is frustratingly slow but things are happening - unlike the first "inquiry" which was intended solely as a whitewash. We owe the much better constituted second inquiry to NZ First who had insisted on this in the original coalition agreement. 

Hopefully there won't be a similar attempt to whitewash the inquiry in the same way that National appears to be willing to ignore ACT's Treaty Principles Bill in the vain hope that it will all go away.  

The UK and all of western Europe is in total financial and political chaos - from financially supporting the corrupt black hole the Ukraine has been from the outset and now their people and industry are going to suffer badly because of Russia pulling the plug on gas exports. This situation is exacerbated by the ridiculous green policies adopted in recent times. The only hope for the future is for the right wing political parties to gain sufficient ground that they succeed in upcoming elections which are not far away in most cases.

As regards future energy needs are concerned, particularly if the lunatic pursuit of electric cars continues, the required energy can only be produced by the use of clean burning fossil fuels and/or nuclear power from modern modular nuclear power stations. This comment applies to NZ also.

How's that for a controversial finish to a Christmas blog?! 

We hope that everyone has a very happy festive season and that the New Year is everything that you would wish for.

With lotsaluv and all best wishes from us in El Retiro, Colombia...........

Jim and Jean

 

P.S. This Jean standing in front of a publicity poster of Retiro.

President Trump's historic win

Hi to all,

We, along with millions of others, have received the news of Donald Trump's becoming the 47th. President-elect of the United States with great pleasure and a huge sense of relief. And along with Trump, comes a very competent younger team. This includes the Vice President elect, J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard - a Lt. Colonel in the US Army Reserve as well as having been a Democrat Congresswoman from Hawaii. She is now a member of the Republican Party. Then there is Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential contender, R.F. Kennedy Jnr., a son of R.F. Kennedy who was assassinated in 1968. He is an Independent and a crusader for public health, including the banning of mRNA vaccines which have not been adequately tested. And Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X fame.  

In addition the Republicans have increased their majority in the House as well as gaining an outright majority in the Senate. All of this will absolutely enable the Trump Administration to have a real prospect of dealing with America's ills that have been deliberately created by the criminal Democrat Administration - not to mention the CIA with at least 80 attempts at interference in other countries' affairs since 1944 and many times with catastrophic consequences.

These issues include illegal immigration and associated drug running along with child trafficking. The US has become the world's largest consumer of children for sex trafficking and underage labour. Right now, over 300,000 children are "missing". Hardly anything to be proud of.

Then there is the US Federal debt, now approaching 36 Trillion US dollars. The annual interest bill on this staggering amount is now over one trillion dollars per annum, and rising. That's more than the entire defense budget. It can never be repaid without a drastic overhaul of the US monetary system, but we have no idea what form that might take. If the US dollar was to lose its status as the World Reserve Currency, this debt level would no longer be sustainable and the American economy would implode with catastrophic world-wide results.

With the advent of BRICS as a direct result of 80 years of US weaponisation of the US dollar, there is a real chance that this scenario could come to pass. BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and there are many more countries either joined, or waiting to join. BRICS is an alternative method of circumventing the US dollar to facilitate international trade among members, together with offering an alternative method to SWIFT for international payments in currencies alternative to the US dollar. 

Russia has no love for the US with all the deception and the lies being told over many years by the US concerning all the Cold War years of hostile relations with Russia (formerly the USSR), and over the Ukraine question and NATO expansion on Russia's border. This is the direct reason that Russia finally invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The Ukraine War is now without question emphatically won by Russia and negotiation is the only way forward after the slaughter that has occurred. And in their dying last gasp the criminal Democrats in Washington are not only trying to encourage NATO into more war with Russia (which they absolutely cannot win), but also promoting war with China in the western Pacific. There has even been talk of Australia and New Zealand being dragged into that proposed lunatic conflict. Let's hope that Trump is able to slap the Democrats down hard even before he is sworn in as President, because these scenarios must absolutely not be allowed to develop.

All of this war-mongering is giving huge impetus to the BRICS movement which, after their recent summit in Kazan, Russia, is growing perceptibly.

Tellingly, President Putin has refused to congratulate President Trump until he sees tangible evidence that Trump is true to his word to end the dangerous conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. We are sure that the congratulations will then be forthcoming!   

Trump's election seems like divine intervention in the affairs of the world and its human inhabitants. We are not religiously inclined, but we cannot shake the feeling. Anyway, the world has been saved - and not just by Trump's election. President Putin has always exercised great restraint in his invasion of Ukraine - no doubt to avoid too much antagonism with NATO and the US, and to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible.

However, unless Trump can continue to assure Putin of his good faith, we fear that things could escalate uncontrollably.

But for now we have hope..............

And finally - we have just listened to Leighton Smith's latest podcast number 264 which contains the best analysis that you are ever likely to hear of Trump's amazing and totally deserved win and the current state of America with justifiable hope for the future.

Cheers and lotsaluv from us in El Retiro, Colombia............

Jim and Jean 

  

Excellent geopolitical analysis by Colonel Douglas Macgregor

https://youtu.be/9AkMpxarZVc?si=BoT0q5FWDTUirSJP 

Hi everyone,

We heard this expose by Colonel Macgregor while still in bed around 6 am this morning! He gives his usual succinct account of the situation in Ukraine and the Middle East, and of course to those of us who keep abreast of the news, none of this will be particularly new. Suffice it to say that none of it is good and President Trump will have his hands full extricating the US from the various debacles. Except that the US will remain true to its policy of many years to defend Israel. But note that the significant word is "defend". Even that will not be possible if Israel continues its suicidal obsession of defeating Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. None of these entities are defeated now, nor will they be. Peaceful co-existence is the only viable option.

The really interesting aspect of this latest Macgregor interview is his analysis of what it will take to rid the US of the scourge of illegal immigration, child trafficking and lethal drugs, aided and abetted by the left. Note that there are over 300,000 children "missing" in the US right now. Child sex slavery and work slavery are the most likely destinations for these poor little souls - those that have actually survived that is. The US has become the largest consumer of child trafficking and forced prostitution in the world. And ditto for Europe, except that their problem is more difficult, as the illegals in many cases have to be trafficked back through neighbouring countries and then across the sea - to where exactly? Whereas in the case of the US, there are contiguous land borders north and south over which deportations can, and will, occur. 

And then there is the horrendous debt level - in many "western" countries. The damage deliberately wrought by the radical left will take many years to expunge and return to economic and national health and pride once again.

Colonel Macgregor's analysis is highly recommended...........

With lotsaluv from us in El Retiro, Colombia

Jim and Jean 

Fwd: Colombian doings and the fraught world we live in - thanks to lying politicians

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: James Donald <tiare.taporo3@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2024 at 16:01
Subject: Fwd: Colombian doings and the fraught world we live in - thanks to lying politicians
To: <admin@sellarbone.co.nz>

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: James Donald <tiare.taporo3@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 5 May 2024 at 08:24
Subject: Colombian doings and the fraught world we live in - thanks to lying politicians

Hi to all our friends and families,

These blogs seem to be few and far between these days (the last one was early November last year) - , but there is so much happening in the world, and with us here⁷ in Colombia as well, that these matters constitute our excuse. We'd also have to say that the lack of response to these blogs remains an inhibiting factor, in spite of the few hardy souls who put up with our irrational rants - and make comments! But we will continue to persevere. Oh God, we can hear the chorus of woke folks around the place!

First our doings over the last 6 months or so - 

** We first applied for our 5 year Permanent Residency visas (a misnomer if ever there was one, unless it is expected that we would expire from this mortal coil in 5 year's time!) in October 2023. Jim's went through with no issues, although we had to put up with the usual Migracion Colombia's unaccountable delays. However, it is now in hand, so no worries. That sounds like an Aussie - God forbid!! 

But Jean's was another historia. Not to labour the story, she went to Miami in April 2022 and in order to qualify for a new long-term visa, you cannot be out of Colombia for more than 6 consecutive months during the preceding visa period. However, this is where the nonsensical story starts. Her Spirit Airlines flight on 22/04 was cancelled after she had been processed through Immigration. So she did the correct thing and was processed back into Colombia. She flew out the following day and returned in about 10 days. However, this is where the problems started.  Migracion did not process the cancelled flight at all, but entered the re-entry as an entry from Panama City. She has never been to PC and without a recorded  exit from Colombia, how could that have happened? Through some sort of twisted logic, they then deduced that all that meant that she had been out of Colombia for more than the statutory 6 months! However, the stamps in her passport are correct, inasmuch as they record the correct situation. In our innocence, we simply thought that a reasonable discussion and explanation with Migracion would solve the issue, which was their error anyway!! But NO - for some inexplicable reason they insisted on a confirmation letter from the airline that the flight on 22/04/22 had actually been cancelled. Our existing lawyer (who is not a specialist immigration lawyer) was unable to obtain this letter - and in fact Spirit initially denied that the flight had been cancelled!  At this stage things were getting a bit desperate and we were recommended to a specialist immigration lawyer. This is in no way a criticism of our original lawyer who is our friend and was up against a situation she had no experience of.

However, to cut a long story short, our new lawyer obtained the airline letter, and when we asked how - she said "don't ask"!! Then after many visits to Migracion in Belen, Medellin, we now have the correctly modified Movements Certificate and the 3rd visa application is underway. Jean's existing visa expires on June 5th. so after thinking we had plenty of time, that commodity is now in somewhat short supply, but we have been assured that her new visa will be ready before the expiry date. All in all, this farcical process will have cost us in total 8 million Colombian Pesos (NZD 3,500) since October last year. But cheaper than having to move to Argentina!!

We jokingly said to Perry that he dodged a bullet because if her visa was expiring before the issuance of the new one, he might have had Jean descending on him for an indefinite period of time! Anyway, she could have slept on the boat which is on davits on the jetty in front of the house!!

The lesson that we have learnt is don't try and argue with Migracion from a logical point of view because there is NO logic.You just go with the flow and provide whatever they ask for and maintain some sort of civility. They are quite literally a law unto themselves.

But now SUCCESS!! On 04/05 we were advised by our immigration lawyer that Jean's 5 year visa had been approved. We were expecting this, but nevertheless it is a huge relief. We have since been back to Migracion to confirm that the details on the new visa are correct - why they can't simply do all that by email is beyond us. Now on or about May 30th. we will have to go back to Migracion to collect Jean's cedula - a plastic card with all the visa details, about the size of a credit card which is actually the ID we always carry. But we will get copies made and laminated and carry those, keeping the originals here out of harm's way. 

Before we can get a Colombian passport, we will need another 5 year visa, by which time we will be 87! Whether it will be worth obtaining a passport at that stage is a moot point - it will depend on whether we will have popped our clogs or not!! We've increased our whisky intake to preserve ourselves into the future - only joking!! 

** Last December we flew to Miami to be with Perry and his family for Christmas and New Year. They had been in New Zealand before that and we actually arrived in Miami 3 days before they got back. While in NZ, they saw Perry's father who lives in Riverton at the bottom of the South Island and caught up with friends and family, as you do. Thinking of Riverton, puts us in mind of the time before we sailed from NZ in July 2011 on "Tiare Taporo III" when we would listen on the SSB to weather reports on Bluff Fisherman's Radio for the Puysegur marine area. A woman called Mere called the weather in a monotonous tone and typically it would go something like this - "SW 25 knots this morning turning NW gusting 40 in the afternoon. Overnight and in the morning gusting NW 55 then turning SW gusting 50 then reducing to 30 overnight". We had harboured thoughts of circumnavigating NZ before leaving for warmer climes but after a few of those we were glad events had conspired against us!!

We had a great time in Miami, although we have to say that the atmosphere generally had deteriorated since our previous visit. People were distant and unsmiling and it was just different. Still, when you consider what Biden has done to the country with unbridled immigration and inflation, perhaps it was unsurprising.

We had a restful time during our Miami sojourn and found a Colombian cafe with very good coffee and food around the next block - but SO expensive compared with El Retiro. Whole Foods Supermarket - owned now by Jeff Bezos - was also a frequent destination. We bought some clothes and Jim a hat from West Marine, which was good, but a visit to Target was disappointing and a great waste of time. Ross Dress for Less even more so. But speaking of spending money in the US, it really isn't much fun for us as recently the NZD/USD exchange rate has hovered around NZD 1.00 = USD 0.60, so we're losing around 40% of a NZ dollar's purchasing power. We use our NZ credit card whenever in the US as we don't have any USD bank account. But soon many reports have the USD crashing as their national debt level right now is approaching 35 Trillion US dollars - an unsustainable amount. One consequence of this debt level is that the annual interest cost is now exceeding the annual defence budget. And this level of debt could well (probably) see the USD lose its World Reserve Currency status - a position they have held since the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944.

There was a New Year party at Perry's and that was a great success. All no doubt drank far too much, but a good time was had by all and the food was great on Perry's new outdoor built-in BBQ. At Christmas we had all been to their Argentinian friends' place and had a very pleasant hospitable time. Their grandfather, Santiago, was visiting from Buenos Aires and they also came to Perry's for New Year. Jim and Santiago had a very long talk about the geopolitical situation! He is in his 80's and still does financial consulting work.  

A highlight was being taken one evening up to Fort Lauderdale where we went to a live theater performance of the Shen Yun touring troupe, which is based in NY City. They were performing Chinese folk songs and stories from 5,000 years ago and it was spectacular. The movements and costumes were mesmerising. Thank you to Perry and Tracie for enabling this as our Christmas present. Sadly the CCP of China doesn't like any Chinese history which isn't part of the CCP and so has been lobbying the US Government to have them shut down, especially as they were publicising Falung Gong which is anathema to the CCP. All in all, an unforgettable night.

The weather in Florida was of course winter, but unseasonably cold and swimming in the pool was impossible without running the heater and heating the whole pool from cold. At $10 per hour for gas and the need for at least 12 hours to get it up to a reasonable temperature, that was hardly a cost effective operation! 

Then towards the end of our stay, Perry hired a Jeep Wagoneer with 9 seats and we all went up to the Sebring area where they have an older house on one of the lakes - Lake Josephine, which is joined by narrow shallow channels to two other lakes. It was all fascinating to see as we had been keen to see the Florida lakes area north of Okeechobee, but a little disappointing as all the lakes are fairly shallow sink holes on peat bottoms, so the water is black! We had a good look around the area - there are some very palatial homes on some of the lake shores and of course Sebring is the home to a very famous motor racing track.

Then it was back to Miami and very soon on Jan. 9th. we were winging our way back to Medellin - Aeropuerto Jose Maria Cordova. Good to be home again after living out of suitcases which contained some more spare parts for our old German chariot! Much more on that subject further on!!

** In March this year we had a friend of Jean's, Catherine, come to stay. Jean had first met Catherine during their GE Free protest days in NZ around 20 years ago. Catherine had organised a  visit to Jamaica before flying to Medellin for a month's stay. Jim had met her back in NZ before our nautical adventures and so it was good to see her again. We collected her from Jose Maria Cordova and brought her back to our house. 

Catherine has since travelled on to a few of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean which she has been enjoying.

We spent time in Medellin and all 3 went up to Parque Arvi on the cable car - 2,000 feet above Medellin. We also saw again the Botero Museum which has a great collection of Botero's works - paintings and sculptors which are unmistakable in style and entertaining to see. We visited Astrid, our lawyer, in her apartment and then had a look at Parque Luces and the surrounding extensive very cheap market-like shops selling all manner of things. We showed her all around Oriente which comprises the area where we live and also went to El Carmen de Viboral where the world-famous hand painted crockery is made. 

** Then on the return from there the car started to miss so we changed course and went to the workshop of Juvenal in Rio Negro, to whom we had been introduced by Juan - the owner  of a 1981 W123 250 which he had bought new in Germany back then. Jim also had had a 1977 W123 250 in NZ some years before. Anyway, the problem appeared somewhat more serious than just a coil. A transistor on the Engine Control Module had blown and was irreparable in Colombia. So, we tracked down another unit from a "totalled" car in Miami and had that sent to Colombia along with 3 replacement coils of a much better German brand than could be obtained in Colombia - and at about one third of the price. Now we have the car back and it is running perfectly, but we would like to get the spare damaged Module repaired back in the US. However, the problem is finding someone who repairs ancient electronic items! 

We are changing the existing 16" wheels back to the original 15" ones, which the previous owner still had, and replacing a thermal switch which controls the electric auxiliary cooling fans as well as brake pad wear sensors. The brake pad warning light stays on and we know the pads are ok because we replaced them last year.

The joys of owning a 31 yr old classic MB, especially in Colombia, where almost all the problem is finding a workshop which has an empathy with and knowledge of older cars. Juvenal (fingers crossed) seems to have the necessary credentials. His workshop in a bus park in Rio Negro is hardly impressive but he is prepared to enlist the help of particular experts in various areas, which was certainly the case with our electronic issue. At one stage he even gave us a ride in an almost 60 year old Renault R12 - same type which Jim's family through Etablissements Donald-Tahiti used to sell in French Polynesia all those years ago. As an aside, the first car that Jim ever drove on the right was a Renault R16 on Tahiti in 1968!!! He's since driven on the right in New Caledonia, Turkey and Florida - and now in Colombia.

Since then though, after a chance conversation with another expat we met recently here, we have been introduced to another workshop which specialises in classic car restoration. The big problem with Juvenal was that the car was filthy when we collected it and it took us 5 hours collectively to clean it up - particularly the inside. It reminded Jim of the bad old days in NZ where after even just a lube and oil change, it was necessary to wipe the grease off the steering wheel! We've even given the seats some leather preservative and the Colombian leather looks a million dollars - well, not quite!!

But we always get pleasure from driving the old girl, which in our experience is incomparable to cars costing 5 or 6 times more to buy. And if we have to be without her for a week or so now and again, it's not of any consequence as we have no urgent need to go anywhere. Shops are within walking distance, which we became well used to during our sojourn on the yacht!! And the bus service here is without peer - to Medellin or Rio Negro and the bus stops on demand, whether getting on or off. The drivers are the most obliging we have EVER met anywhere. And the 30 km trip from here to Medellin for instance is only 19,000 Pesos for both of us - NZD8.30. A trip from here to Medellin and then to Migracion by 35 minute taxi ride and return to El Retiro is typically COP 80,000 (NZD 35) in total for both of us.

We have had quite a change in the weather in the last 2 weeks or so. Previously we and most of the western S American continent as well as Panama, had been in the grip of an El Nino induced drought. Panama has been in a bad way with diminishing water supplies from the Gatun Lake which has forced the reduction in the number of ships transiting the Canal. However, La Nina seems to have made a comeback as forecast and typical rains have resumed. There have been severe water shortages in Colombia with the capital, Bogota having complete water shut-downs by suburb on a daily basis. There was even a last minute panic here and in Medellin (which gets all of its water from this area) to save water, but in reality the shortage, which is now over, is being caused by extensive residential apartment building without corresponding infrastructure enhancements. However, the realisation seems to have now hit home and necessary works to capture more water from the rivers that tumble down from the hills above us, is underway. And the drought has now broken with a vengeance as a few nights ago (03/05) it poured all night and the lower part of Retiro was flooded again, although not as badly as in October 2022 just before we moved up here. Our house is elevated so no risk of flooding here, unless the flood was of biblical proportions a la Noah!! At 7,000 feet altitude not too much chance of that. But we are not as high as the top of Mt. Ararat here!! Ararat in Turkey/Armenia is over 5,000 metres (approx. 17,000 feet), so maybe we will need to build an ark. We'll be very choosy as to who is allowed on board!!!  

And now for the meaty part of the blog where weighty matters of the day are discussed - and there is no shortage of those!! They are in no particular order of importance.

** To start with, we have been trying to make sense of all the geopolitical events of late. And it seems to us that in trying to understand things completely, you can boil the whole ghastly mess down to just one issue - GLOBALISM versus NATIONALISM. We have to say that we are very much in the latter camp as this is the ONLY way in which countries can maintain their culture, character, control of their own currency and economic and political affairs, and basically their FREEDOM. 

Globalism a la the WEF is an extremely destructive philosophy as it requires countries to abrogate all those matters as above and which have been established over centuries with corresponding extreme hardship and sacrifice - all to be thrown away on the altar of Globalism. This is just another word for another more truthful description - that of traitorousness and sedition. 

Trade agreements are another issue  - perfectly natural and desirable to protect individual countries' rights to trade expeditiously with one another, but NOT as the EU has developed from the original European Economic Community in 1973 into an almost fully fledged United States of Europe.

** We have the on-going Ukraine War which has been slowly building since 2014. Then in 2022 of course Russia invaded Ukraine due to the lies and deception of the US and its NATO allies, where in the Minsk Accords of 2015 they promised that Ukraine would never join NATO and would remain neutral. But then they immediately began building the Ukrainian military into an efficient and credible fighting force to impose US will on Russia a la the Russian effort in Cuba in 1961. But Russia was quite understandably not having any of that, since a red line had most definitely been crossed. So, they invaded - intially with a small force, as they believed that at that point the US would finally take them seriously. In fact at that point Ukraine and Russia had an agreement for a cease-fire, but NO - the US and NATO in the form of the British P.M., Boris Johnson at the behest of his US masters, told Ukraine in no uncertain terms that the cease-fire would cease immediately and that the war would continue. Part of their twisted thinking was that by continuing, they would force regime change in Russia, but that was a massive miscalculation. President Putin is now more popular than ever and the bulk of the Russian population is solidly behind him. In the meantime Russia has exerted more and more pressure on Ukraine because really they have had no alternative. 

Now we have the appalling spectacle of the warmongers in the US Congress, aided and abetted by the Republican RINO Speaker, passing another ludicrous spending bill to throw another 60 odd BILLION dollars down the Ukraine toilet to enrich all the members of Congress as well as the military/industrial cabal. Then a small proportion actually goes to Ukraine to grease the palms of the crooks who purport to run the country. Ukrainian military casualties already total over 600,000 DEAD and at least 100,000 wounded with most of those AMPUTEES. Biden and Zelensky and their hangers-on are the real war criminals and at some point they must be held to account. 

Russia will advance over the whole front to the Dnieper River and they will take the Russian cities of Karkhov and Odessa. Then, thanks to the ludicrous US foreign policy a la Biden, all that will be left of Ukraine will be a land-locked mountainous rump of a country with very little wealth. It may in fact, along with Moldova, be subsumed into Romania, which would make sense, except that Romania is part of NATO and that would put another NATO country on the Russian border. Hmmmmm.

The Russian Federation will hold onto the traditional Russian areas already conquered and Russia will no longer face the cold prospect of NATO missiles aimed at Moscow. Russia will not be disposed to ANY concessions when it comes to "negotiations", given the outright deceit with which they have been treated over many years by the US and NATO. They will understandably be extremely hard-nosed.

GAME OVER!!!!!! 

As a footnote - it is just very fortunate for humanity as a whole that President Putin is a very clever strategist who is not given to impulsive or emotional decisions. His actions to date have been admirably restrained. By contrast, the clowns/lunatics in the White House - and some European "leaders" - notably Macron - are simply deluded opportunists who seem to think that a "limited" nuclear war, which they continue to try to goad Russia into, is somehow acceptable. What planet do these people come from? Let's hope that they somehow learn that a "limited" nuclear war is just a fantasy which exists only in their fevered phsycopathic imaginations. Quite simply, nuclear war means Armageddon. 

The other factor which must be weighing heavily among Washington "minds" is that the USD is now under unprecedented attack from BRICS and the many nations who are now members. It seems to us that this attack, along with other issues affecting the future of the World Reserve Status of the USD, will eventually succeed as the world as a whole is now finished with American financial hegemony and will embrace almost any alternative. 

But the danger now is that, with desperation setting in, the US and NATO will probably be inclined to resort to any action that they perceive as possibly effective in propping up the USD. The possible consequences of this thinking, when you consider all the angles, are hardly re-assuring. 

** Israel and Gaza - here we are torn between understanding the horrific attack that took place against Israel on October 7th. 2023 and the need for Israel to destroy the people that initiated the attack which saw almost 1,500 Israeli civilians lose their lives in the most horrific circumstances.

But in destroying Hamas, tens of thousands of mostly innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed and Hamas is still far from exterminated. In fact it is not possible to exterminate Hamas, because it is simply an idea or movement, and there will always be more religious fanatics to fill the shoes of those "exterminated".

In all of this, it is necessary to also consider the escalating risk of regional war with Iran, Turkey, Egypt and even Russia, unless Israel reigns in its continued policy of destroying Gaza with no thought of collateral civilian casualties. In considering this, it also needs to be well understood that the US is not the military power that it once was in the 1990's. In fact Russia right now has a modern mechanised army of in excess of one million under arms and Turkey could muster over two million. And their military is modern and well equipped as well. 

By contrast the US would be lucky to muster much more than maybe 250.000 combat ready troops - and they are scattered in many places, thanks to the lunatic US policy of creating war wherever the opportunity presents itself. These wars have been a big contributor to the current US Federal debt of 35 TRILLION US dollars, but of course they have been massively profitable for the Military/Industrial Complex! In addition to all that, the US does not any longer have the financial or physical wherewithal to produce weapons on the scale that would be required - unlike Russia with China's help. Their munitions factories are working 24/7.

Probably the only workable solution right now is what has been postulated on numerous occasions, and that is the continuation of Gaza in a two-state solution with Israel. A strong and policed security fence along the Gaza/Israel border should hold the situation in the immediate term.

Otherwise continued slaughter of Palestinians with all the human cost, will achieve nothing except an unacceptable increased risk of nuclear war which could easily and very quickly escalate into a global conflict.   

However, it's all very well to be idealistic about the possibility of Israel finally accepting the notion of a two state solution. But there are oil deposites off the Gazan coast and Israel, which is devoid of natural resources, no doubt has its eye firmly on those, which would be unattainable unless Gaza and its inhabitants are removed from the map. Already some 300 million USD has been spent on creating on-shore docking facilities so the intentions of Israel seem clear. 

Palestine is NOT at this stage a sovereign state and so the oil deposits fall within Israel's EEZ and therefore legally belong to Israel. 

The only impediment to exploiting the oil is the pesky population of Palestinian Arabs and the terrorist organisation of Hamas. So it seems likely that the continued GENOCIDE of Palestine will continue with all the geopolitical consequences that are entailed. As this is written, Israel is already conducting "operations" in Rafah in southern Gaza on the Egyptian border.  

** We can only hope that the US, and by extension the world, can survive the next 6 months until President Trump is re-elected President of the United States of America. The scale of the immense damage that has been deliberately wrought by the Democrats is daunting to say the least. Apart from the geopolitical issues detailed above there are inflation which will be largely brought under control by freeing up oil and gas production in the US, and the southern border, where it is estimated that up to 40 million illegals (12% of the whole population) have been released with no recognisance whatsoever into the continental US. The number of bad actors and where they may currently be is absolutely unknown. President Trump has said that he will deport ALL the illegals,but if the total of 40 million is correct, that would amount to 27,000 per day for the next 4 years. An impossible goal in our opinion. Then there is the matter of the Federal debt approaching 35 TRILLION dollars. The interest on this alone is now more than the entire military budget.

These matters are enormous hurdles, but with single-minded determination and a Congress willing to disassociate itself from the bribery of big Pharma and the Military/Industrial Complex, they can possibly be achieved, although it will probably take more than the 4 years of the next presidential term.

** The other pressing matter directly involved with the US debt is the effort being made by the BRICS countries to establish their own gold-backed currency which they will use for international trade, and particularly for petroleum. This effort has been well referred to above. It is now well advanced and looks like being successful in the medium term. The US has enjoyed financial dominance over world trade for the last 80 years, but stupidly they have used this privileged position to constantly bully other countries to follow their own agenda, including sanctions and the like - which have really blown up in their faces where Russia is concerned. Russia's financial position has gone from strength to strength since Russia invaded Ukraine. The total US debt combined with the BRICS movement could well see the US dollar lose its coveted World Reserve Currency status and if that happens, the consequencs with the US debt in the mix as well can only be imagined. But it won't be pretty, and that's putting it mildly.

** And finally this matter that we wanted to discuss is the latest development as regards the Covid mRNA "vaccines" - which are not vaccines at all. They're actually GMO's - Genetically Modified Organisms. This is now legally well proven and it is legally established that the pharmaceutical companies concerned were well aware that the product they were pushing was in fact a GMO - well capable of changing an individual's DNA. They wilfully withheld this fact from various regulatory agencies in all countries in order to get fraudulent approval for "THE JAB" from which they have made billions of dollars. If they had been upfront and declared the JAB as a GMO from the outset, the approval time would have been far longer, and there would have been much more extensive testing which would have exposed the harmful effects of the JAB. If this delay had occurred, approval would at the least have been considerably delayed, or withheld altogether. Then all the excess deaths which have appallingly occurred would not have happened. Having said that, it seems anecdotally that MOST of the harmful effects have only occurred after the third jab. 

Far fewer people would have died with effective Covid medication such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, and Covid would have simply faded into the background. Instead we had all the fear-mongering and social pressure combined with mandates for the "vaccine".and people still got the Covid and in many cases died because their immune systems had been so badly compromised due to the deleterious genetic effects on the human system from the "vaccine". These events briefly outlined here constitute the greatest medical scandal ever to have seriously harmed the human race. There is a very informative conversation between Dr. John Campbell of the UK and Mr. Julian Gillespie - an Australian lawyer who is closely involved in bringing an action against the Australian Government for damages caused to the people whose welfare they are supposed to defend. A very interesting point - as the JAB is now a legally proven GMO, the indemnity which various governments around the world gave to companies like Pfizer have NO LEGAL EFFECT. This is because the various indemnities given covered vaccines - NOT GMO's. This development now leaves the way wide open for multi-billion dollar lawsuits which are only now just beginning. If you have any shares in Pfizer, we'd sell them NOW!! It is noteworthy that AstraZeneca have now withdrawn their JAB from the market and stopped any further "vaccinations". Perhaps they are trying to circumvent legal actions which they are possibly anticipating?

The Campbell/Gillespie conversation, which lasts for an hour and a half, was recorded on Youtube on April 22nd. We have listened to the podcast and, although we were aware of many of the issues discussed, we were nevertheless mesmerised and we have sent it on to National, ACT and NZ First to use in the current NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry into the mishandling of the so-called Covid "pandemic" in NZ. We hope that at least someone listens. If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy of the podcast, just let us know and we can email it to you along with a copy of our informal submission via the Coalition members to the Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Finally, don't dare accuse us of being conspiracy theorists - the conspiracists are the pharmaceutical companies who outrageously deceived sovereign governments by claiming their product was a "vaccine", whereas THAT WAS A LIE; THE "VACCINE" WAS/IS A GMO - GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM with all the ramifications flowing from that causing death and injury which governments the world over are now shamefully and wilfully ignoring in a criminal cowardly attempt to evade proper responsibility.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is now pressuring all countries to sign an agreement which would give the WHO unbridled control of individual countries' health systems in the event of another "pandemic". From what we hear, Bird Flu is the next one and "gain of function" scientific endeavours are well underway to create a highly transmissable and lethal virus upon the world - again. These people are evil and no doubt Fauci et al are financially involved as it is now well proven that they had this involvement with Covid-19. trump will undoubtedly take the US out of the WHO and in view of the harm they have caused to date, NZ should do the same.

For further education, we suggest you read/listen to Naiomi Wolf who is an investigative journalist and who has many Youtube interviews which further expose these crimes against humanity - and we are all victims, directly or indirectly - "vaccinated" or not, and whether at this stage we know it or not.

Our references for all of the above, who we mostly listen to on Youtube (sometimes on Rumble when the Youtube censorship gets too much!) are:
Colonel Douglas Macgregor - former decorated officer of the US Army. advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump Administration, consulting expert in strategy, policy and defence and complex geopolitics of Ukraine and European history in general.

Scott Ritter - former US Marine and US nuclear weapons inspector - expert commentator on current events in Ukraine

Judge Andrew Napolitano - former New Jersey Superior Court Judge

Gerald Celente - known for his irreverent use of language and publication of the weekly Trends Journal, which covers financial and geopolitical matters. He often appears with Judge Napolitano.

Redacted - Clayton and Natalie Morris - investigative journalists

Dr. John Campbell of the UK - exposing current world-wide "excess deaths" situation

Michael Bordenaro re the real estate situation in the US - and especially in Florida

Professor Jeffrey Sachs - Professor of political economics at Columbia University - specialising in public policy analysis, sustainable and economic development

Lena Petrova CPA - for analysis of the world financial situation

Victor Davis Hanson - classicist and military historian 

President Trump's lawyers who are steadily taking the Deep State's efforts to legally discredit him to pieces

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana

Jesse Waters and the rest of "The Five" team incl. Judge Jeanine Pirro, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld

Mark Levin

Nigel Farage - of Brexit fame and currently presenter on GB News. Possible future British PM!!

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri 

Steve Forbes - editor in chief of "Forbes" - an American business magazine

Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee

Tucker Carlson - independent US investigative journalist - recent interviewer of President Putin

John Mearsheimer - political commentator - war and international politics

Whitney Webb - American author living in Chile, commenting on world finance and associated political trends

NZ Doctors Speaking out About Science

Keri Molloy - NZ investigative journalist

Well, that's the end of another blog. Sorry we have had to cover some geopolitical and health news which make less than pleasant reading.

We hope that everyone is well and that life is treating you all tolerably well........

Cheers and lotsaluv from us in El Retiro, Colombia.

Jim and Jean