Viernes 12/24/10 Una Feliz Navidad para todos!!!

[admin]

Volkswagen y Peugeot Citroën estudian el desarrollo de marcas exclusivas para China con sus socios locales, indicaron personas al tanto de la situación. China cuenta con el mayor mercado de automóviles del mundo.

El crudo cerró ayer a US$91,5 por barril, un nuevo récord en los últimos dos años, impulsado por datos económicos favorables de EE.UU. Tras cinco jornadas consecutivas de subidas, los expertos anticipan que no tardará en alcanzar los US$100 el barril.

El gobierno de EE.UU. intensifica los esfuerzos para frenar las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Ayer, la agencia ambiental EPA propuso normas para controlar las emisiones en las centrales eléctricas y refinerías a partir de 2011.

Irlanda pretende recapitalizar el banco Allied Irish con US$3.930 millones, dijo ayer el ministro de Finanzas, Brian Lenihan. Esto le daría al gobierno más de 90% del control de la institución, que sería el cuarto banco irlandés en ser nacionalizado. Con esta medida, tratará de cumplir con las exigencias de capitalización.

Rio Tinto, minera anglo-australiana, obtuvo ayer el respaldo de la junta directiva de Riversdale Mining, también de Australia, para una oferta mejorada de US$3.900 millones. Las siderúrgicas Tata, de la India, y CSN, de Brasil, son accionistas de Riversdale, minera que se concentra en reservas de carbón en Mozambique.

General Electric, conglomerado estadounidense, indicó ayer que realizará un cargo extraordinario de US$500 millones en el cuarto trimestre, relacionados a una limpieza ambiental en EE.UU. La venta de bancos en América Latina debería ayudar a compensar. Por otro lado, una ganancia por la venta de su participación de 51% en la compañía de medios NBC Universal no será computada hasta el próximo año ya que el acuerdo de US$13.750 millones será cerrado en enero.

Deutsche Bank, banco alemán, señaló ayer que mantiene negociaciones exclusivas para venderle su filial BHF Bank a LGT Group, de Liechtenstein. El acuerdo sería completado en el primer trimestre de 2011. No se divulgaron detalles.

Bom Gosto y LeitBom, productoras brasileñas de lácteos, cerraron un acuerdo para fusionarse y competir en el mercado internacional. La nueva compañía se llama Lácteos Brasil, o LBR, y facturará US$1.800 millones al año. El banco de desarrollo BNDES inyectará US$412 millones en la operación.

Las autoridades chilenas aprobaron la construcción del puerto para la termoeléctrica a carbón Hacienda Castilla, desarrollado por la filial local del grupo brasileño EBX, ligado al empresario Eike Batista.

Colombia creció 3,6% en el tercer trimestre frente a igual lapso del año previo, informó la agencia oficial de estadísticas, Dane. Los analistas preveían una expansión de 4,4%.

Alan García, presidente de Perú, promulgó una ley que crea un mercado secundario de hipotecas para impulsar el crecimiento de la construcción en el país, que ya está en expansión.

Ventana, minera canadiense propietaria del proyecto de oro La Bodega en Colombia, recomendó a sus accionistas rechazar una oferta no solicitada de US$1.200 millones realizada por AUX, indirectamente controlada por EBX, al considerarla muy baja.

En Argentina, trabajadores de procesamiento de soya terminaron una huelga en el puerto de Rosario luego de alcanzar un acuerdo salarial con los empleadores.

[admin]

Los consumidores impulsan la economía estadounidense
Por Justin Lahart
La economía estadounidense recobró impulso en la recta final del año gracias a que los consumidores se llevaron la mano al bolsillo y las empresas se mostraron más dispuestas a contratar personal.

En noviembre, el gasto desestacionalizado de los consumidores subió 0,4% frente a octubre, anunció el jueves el Departamento del Comercio de Estados Unidos. Informes separados mostraron una mejoría del mercado laboral, un repunte en los pedidos de equipos nuevos por parte de las empresas y un aumento de la confianza de los consumidores.

"Parece que hemos hecho la transición a un período de sólido gasto del consumidor", dijo Dean Maki, economista de Barclays Capital. "Esto permite ser optimista sobre el crecimiento económico". EE.UU. es considerado un motor vital para la economía mundial, que en el último tiempo ha pasado a depender más de China.

El repunte del consumo en octubre, previamente estimado en 0,5%, fue revisado al alza para mostrar una ganancia más sólida de 0,7%. Como resultado, aunque el gasto no aumente en diciembre, se encamina a registrar un crecimiento desestacionalizado de 4% para el cuarto trimestre, la expansión más acelerada desde 2006.

Entre tanto, el índice de la confianza de los consumidores de la Universidad de Michigan saltó de 71,6 en noviembre a 74,5 este mes.

La fortaleza del gasto de los consumidores, que equivale a casi 65% de la demanda de la economía estadounidense, debería traducirse en un crecimiento generalizado más robusto.

.Maki, de Barclays Capital, dijo que datos recientes sugieren que el PIB de EE.UU. está creciendo a una tasa anualizada de 3,5% en el cuarto trimestre, mejor que la proyección actual de 3%. Los economistas de Morgan Stanley revisaron el jueves al alza su proyección del PIB de 4,3% a 4,5%.

El Departamento del Comercio también reveló que los pedidos de bienes duraderos, artículos como herramientas y maquinaria, cayeron 1,3% en noviembre frente a octubre. Sin embargo, el declive se atribuyó a un declive en los pedidos de aeronaves comerciales, que a menudo son volátiles. Fuera del sector de transporte, los pedidos aumentaron 2,4% después de un descenso de 1,9% en octubre.

El Departamento del Trabajo, por su parte, reportó que se registraron 420.000 solicitudes de seguro de desempleo en la semana finalizada el 18 de diciembre, 3.000 menos que en el lapso previo. La cifra corrobora un descenso que empezó en agosto.

La reciente fortaleza de la economía allana el camino para un sólido crecimiento en 2011, cuando es probable que un alivio tributario para los trabajadores impulse aún más el gasto.

Si el fortalecimiento de la economía genera una reducción del desempleo, o un brote inflacionario, la Reserva Federal (Fed) podría acelerar la decisión de subir la tasa de interés de referencia desde cero a 0,25%. El mercado espera que la tasa de fondos federales se ubique entre 0,25% y 0,5% a finales de 2001.

De todas formas, la economía estadounidense enfrenta grandes obstáculos, incluyendo un mercado inmobiliario deprimido. Aunque las ventas de viviendas nuevas crecieron a un ritmo anual desestacionalizado de 290.000 en noviembre, frente a 275.000 en octubre, la cifra es apenas un 20% de los niveles máximos registrados en 2005.

A los economistas les preocupa que la persistente caída en los precios de las viviendas reduzca el gasto de los consumidores. Las penurias que aquejan a los presupuestos de los gobiernos locales y estatales son otro factor que podría descarrilar el repunte, al igual que el alza en el precio del petróleo. Sin embargo, muchos economistas creen que la mejora en el consumo y la contratación de personal significa que la recuperación es sustentable.

[admin]

Copper December 24,07:38
Bid/Ask 4.2462 - 4.2490
Change +0.0136 +0.32%
Low/High 4.2016 - 4.2637
Charts

Nickel December 24,07:37
Bid/Ask 10.7825 - 10.7929
Change -0.0064 -0.06%
Low/High 10.6618 - 10.8387
Charts

Aluminum December 24,07:39
Bid/Ask 1.0803 - 1.0814
Change -0.0023 -0.21%
Low/High 1.0792 - 1.0946
Charts

Zinc December 24,07:39
Bid/Ask 1.0354 - 1.0367
Change +0.0041 +0.40%
Low/High 1.0268 - 1.0452
Charts

Lead December 24,07:37
Bid/Ask 1.1104 - 1.1155
Change +0.0040 +0.36%
Low/High 1.1065 - 1.1246

[admin]

Europe, Africa and Middle East
INDEX VALUE CHANGE % CHANGE TIME
Euro Stoxx 50 Pr 2,860.82 -3.70 -0.13% 06:00
FTSE 100 INDEX 5,980.01 -16.06 -0.27% 07:23
CAC 40 INDEX 3,899.42 -11.90 -0.30% 07:23
DAX INDEX 7,057.69 -10.23 -0.14% 12/23
IBEX 35 INDEX 10,106.90 -76.60 -0.75% 12/23
FTSE MIB INDEX 20,774.20 40.79 0.20% 12/23
AEX-Index 356.02 -0.19 -0.05% 07:24
OMX STOCKHOLM 30 INDEX 1,160.55 -2.73 -0.23% 12/23
SWISS MARKET INDEX 6,599.43 45.73 0.70% 12/23
More Europe, Africa and Middle East Indexes »

Asia-Pacific
INDEX VALUE CHANGE % CHANGE TIME
NIKKEI 225 10,279.20 -67.29 -0.65% 01:28
HANG SENG INDEX 22,833.80 -69.17 -0.30% 23:35
S&P/ASX 200 INDEX 4,777.30 -21.70 -0.45% 22:38
More Asia-Pacific Indexes »

[admin]

7:50 a.m. EST 12/24/10Currencies Last (bid) Prior Day †
Japanese Yen (USD/JPY) 82.88 82.96
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.3126 1.3119
† Late Thursday in New York

[admin]

SPOT MARKET IS OPEN
closes in 9 hrs. 23 mins.
Dec 24, 2010 07:51 NY Time
Bid/Ask 1384.40 - 1385.40
Low/High 1378.70 - 1386.80
Change +4.90 +0.36%
30daychg +7.90 +0.57%
1yearchg +297.30 +27.35%
Charts...

[Arnold]

Ya son mas de 3 años q soy participe de este nutricional foro, y la verdad q les doy gracias por sus aportes y su dedicacion para q inversion Peru siga "Alive" año tras año.
Aguila y amigos foristas les deseo una Feliz Navidad y un prospero Año Nuevo, que el nacimiento del niño Jesus, renueve nuestra alma, para ser mejores personas y agradezcamos por todo lo q Dios nos dio este año.

Dios los bendiga a todos uds y a sus familias!!!!!!!

[admin]

Editorial escrita en 1949

WSJ

Cuando Saul de Tarsus empezo su viaje a Damascus, el mundo entero estaba bajo un regimen de servidumbre. Habia un solo estado, y era Roma. Habia un master para todo y todos, y era Tiberius Caesar.

Habia orden civil, y por que el brazo de Roma era largo. En todas partes habia estabilidad, en el gobierno y en la sociedad, por que los centuriones se encargaban de que asi fuera.

Pero en todas partes, habia algo mas tambien. Y era opresion - para todos los que no eran amigos del Tiberius Caesar. Estaba el cobrador de impuestos que tomaba los granos de la tierra y el lino del husillo para proveer a las legiones de soldados o para alimentar las habrientas arcas del divino Caesar. Y estaba el que que buscaba a los que se presentaria en el circo. Habia ejecuciones para callar a los que el Emperador determinaba. Que mas podia hacer un hombre si no servir al Caesar?

Y habia la persecucion contra los hombres que se atrevian a pensar de manera diferente, aquellos cuyas extranias voces se leian en manuscritos. Habia esclavitud de las tribus que venian de otros lugares que no fueran Roma, desdenio por los que no lucian igual. Pero por sobre todo, habia desprecio por la vida humana. Que, para los fuertes, valia la vida de un hombre mas o menos?

Y de pronto, se hizo la luz en el mundo, y un hombre de Galilee aparecio diciendo: Dale al Caesar lo que es del Caesar y a Dios lo que es de Dios.

Y la voz de Galilea, la cual desafiaba la del Caesar, ofrecio un nuevo reino donde cada hombre podia caminar erguido y no arrodillarse ante nadie que no fuera Dios. Lo que hagas a los demas me lo estaras haciendo a mi. Y envio su palabra del Reino de Dios a los mas remotos lugares de la tierra.

Y la luz llego al mundo y el hombre que vivia en la oscuridad tuvo miedo, y trataron de bajar su cortina para poder seguir pensando que la salvacion estaba en sus lideres.

Pero ocurrio que en diversos lugares la verdad hizo libre al hombre, aunque los hombres en la oscuridad se ofendieron y trataron de apagar esa luz. La voz decia: camina mientras tengas la luz, menos oscuridad ante ti, que el camina en la oscuridad no sabe a donde va.

Y en Damascus la luz tambien brillo, Pero Paul of Tarsus tambien tenia mucho miedo. El temia que otros Caesars, otros profetas, un dia vinieran a persuadir al pueblo de que debian servirlos.

Y despues voveria nuevamente la oscuridad sobre la tierra y se quemarian los libros y los hombres solo pensarian en comer y vestirse y prestarian atencion solo al Caesar y a falsos profetas. Y los hombres no mirarian a la estrella del invierno en el este y una vez mas, no habria luz en la oscuridad.

Y entonces, Paul, el apostolo del Hijo del Hombre, hablo a los de brethren, los Galatians, las palabras que cada anio nos recordaria a nuestro Senior:

Mantente firme que Cristo nos ha dado la libertad y no caigas nuevamente en el yugo de la exclavitud.


In Hoc Anno Domini
The late Vermont Royster's classic 1949 Christmas editorial.

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14

[admin]

Gracias Arnold, Feliz Navidad para ti tambien. Muchos exitos en el nuevo anio.

[admin]

La mejor pelicula del anio: "The Social Network" (completamente de acuerdo)

Siguen: The King's Speech, Carlos, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, Mother, Please Give, Precious Life, Toy Story, Winter Bones.


Kings—Real and Virtual—Rule
"The Social Network," "The King's Speech' and "Toy Story 3" lead the pack in a modest movie year

By JOE MORGENSTERN

For better and worse, this is one of those movie years when there's widespread agreement among the early awards-givers and, presumably, among critics putting together their ritual 10-best lists. It's better because the movies winning consistent favor are really good, and worse because they're so few in number. While the pickings haven't been slim, they haven't been bountiful either.

My choice for the year's best movie is "The Social Network." If that means I've succumbed to a herd mentality, so be it; herds can stampede in the right direction. The film's ambition is what I admire most. It grabs onto a genuine phenomenon in contemporary life and tells us things we didn't know about it.

A whisker-close second is "The King's Speech." A pair of masterful performances by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush; a footnote to English history transformed into a resonant fable of challenge, achievement and friendship across class barriers; a period piece that speaks eloquently to the present—could anyone ask more of mainstream entertainment?

Few people will see "Carlos"—from here on these choices are in alphabetical order—as I saw it, all 5½ hours of it with only one short break. Relatively few people will see it at all. Yet this epic portrait of the international terrorist expands the notion of what film can do, and Edgar Ramírez, in the title role, is both terrifying and perversely majestic.

The most obvious reason for picking "The Fighter" is the exceptional quality of the acting: Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo are the main attractions, but not the only ones. More than a boxing story, the film stays in memory for what it says about the nourishing and imprisoning nature of a close-knit family.

Several small films reminded us that art can still coexist with entertainment in American independent features. One of them, "The Kids Are All Right," looks into an unconventional family headed by a mom and a mom—Annette Bening and Julianne Moore—and finds the classic, if not conventional, stuff of affecting comedy.

The word Mom doesn't leap to mind in connection with "Mother," a remarkable Korean film with Kim Hye-ja as a mother obsessively devoted to her 27-year-old brain-damaged son. Among the story's many surprises is its droll humor. The heroine becomes, among other things, a detective who could have been played by Margaret Rutherford.

Small may describe the physical scale and the 90-minute running time of "Please Give," but not the emotional power of this lovely comedy about empathy. The heroine, Catherine Keener's Kate, suffers from a surfeit of empathy, but the movie has suffered only from underexposure. In an alternate universe, it would have played as many theaters as "TRON: Legacy."

View Full Image

Shlomi Eldar/Origami Entertainment

A scene from the documentary 'Precious Life,' the story of a Palestinian baby who was born in Gaza three years ago with a severe immune deficiency, then treated in Israel by Israeli doctors.
.View Full Image

Disney/Pixar

A scene from 'Toy Story 3.'
.View Full Image

Roadside Attractions

Jennifer Lawrence in 'Winter's Bone.'
.Several documentaries distinguished themselves this year, among them "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer" and "Inside Job." Still, my favorite is "Precious Life," the story of a Palestinian baby who was born in Gaza three years ago with a severe immune deficiency, then treated in Israel by Israeli doctors. It may sound sentimental, though it's anything but.

What is there to say about "Toy Story 3" except hail, farewell and endless thanks for all the pleasure? It's now a commonplace that Pixar has set the standard for excellence in all American films. In the process, they set almost impossible expectations for the end of the "Toy Story" trilogy, then managed to fulfill them.

Far from being a downer, "Winter's Bone" makes its way from harshness and hardship into hope. Jennifer Lawrence plays—to perfection, and no bones about it—the 17-year-old heroine, Ree Dolly, who must save her family by finding her no-account, crank-cooking fugitive of a father, alive or dead.

Since space, like long-term memory, is at a premium, here are some other excellent films that didn't make the cut, listed without comment and in no particular order:

"A Prophet"; "127 Hours"; "The Ghost Writer"; "How to Train Your Dragon"; "Fish Tank"; "Animal Kingdom"; "Tiny Furniture"; "Unstoppable"; "Nowhere Boy"; "Cyrus"; "The Father of My Children"; "Boxing Gym"; "Greenberg"; "It's Kind of a Funny Story"; "White Material"; "The Secret in Their Eyes"; "Easy A"; "The Illusionist"; "Soul Kitchen"; "Splice"; "The Town."

[Arnold]

Gobierno culmina pago de deuda externa a Japón

El Gobierno culminó ayer los pagos de deuda externa con Japón y con otros dos organismos financieros internacionales, por un total de US$1,720.8 millones.

De ese monto, al país nipón le correspondieron US$849.08 millones; al Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), US$785.48 millones, y a la Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), US$86.21 millones, según refirió la directora de la Oficina de Endeudamiento del Ministerio de Economía, Betty Sotelo.

El pago se concretó con "los recursos obtenidos en la colocación (en noviembre pasado) de bonos soberanos en el mercado local por US$1,500 millones", dijo Sotelo.

[admin]

Este es el caso de un negro que fue enviado a prision por la muerte de un Rabbi. Presento su propia defensa y ahora esta libre y trabaja en una oficina de abogados como paralegal.

Estuvo preso por 15 anios, durante los cuales mantuvo su inocencia. Durante esos 15 anios iba a la biblioteca (sin computadora) de la prision a estudiar las leyes para poder hacer su propia defensa y salir de la carcel.

Jabbar Colllins no termino la secundaria, vivia en Brooklyn, su padre murio cuando tenia 12 anios, su mama trabajaba en dos lugares. El tenia tres hijos.

Expertos legales dicen que lo que el ha logrado es un milagro.

A Solitary Jailhouse Lawyer Argues His Way Out of Prison

By SEAN GARDINER
Each morning for 5,546 days, Jabbar Collins knew exactly what he'd wear when he awoke: a dark-green shirt with matching dark-green pants.

The prison greenies of a convicted murderer, he says, were "overly starched in the beginning, but as time wore on, and after repeated washes, they were worn and dull, like so many other things on the inside."

Today, Jabbar Collins works as a paralegal at the Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin in Manhattan. But for 15 years, he sat in prison, convicted of the 1994 murder of Rabbi Abraham Pollack. Mr. Collins, who maintained his innocence, spent much of those 15 years in a computerless prison law library.
..For most of those 15 years, Mr. Collins, who maintained his innocence, knew the only way his wardrobe would change was if he did something that's indescribably rare. He'd have to lawyer himself out of jail.

There was no crusading journalist, no nonprofit group taking up his cause, just Inmate 95A2646, a high-school dropout from Brooklyn, alone in a computerless prison law library.

"'Needle in a haystack' doesn't communicate it exactly. Is it more like lightning striking your house?" says Adele Bernard, who runs the Post-Conviction Project at Pace Law School in New York, which investigates claims of wrongful conviction. "It's so unbelievably hard…that it's almost impossible to come up with something that captures that."

Mr. Collins pried documents from wary prosecutors, tracked down reluctant witnesses and persuaded them, at least once through trickery, to reveal what allegedly went on before and at the trial where he was convicted of the high-profile 1994 murder of Rabbi Abraham Pollack.

The improbable result of that decade-and-a-half struggle was evident on a recent morning in a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper. Mr. Collins sat in a small office he now shares, wearing one of the eight dark suits he owns, a white shirt with French cuffs, a blue-and-gray striped tie and a pair of expensive wingtips. "Every day is beautiful" now, he said, smiling. "I don't have a bad day anymore. I think that my worst bad day out of prison will be better than my greatest good day in prison."

After more than 15 years behind bars and now free after getting his murder conviction overturned, Jabbar Collins starts his day like so many other New Yorkers; He takes the subway to his job in Manhattan. WSJ's Jason Bellini reports.
.On March 13, 1995, as Mr. Collins was led by officers through a side door of a Brooklyn courtroom to a holding cell, his mother let loose a wailing sound that he'd "never heard before or since." Her son had just been convicted of murder.

He was 22, a father of three and facing at least 34 2/3 years behind bars. Three witnesses had implicated him in the midday shooting of Mr. Pollack as the rabbi collected rent in a building at 126 Graham Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Mr. Collins said he was home getting a haircut at the time.

To that point in his life, Mr. Collins had been drifting. His father died when he was 12 and his mother worked two jobs while also studying nursing. Under-supervised, he skipped school often, smoked a lot of pot and fathered the first of his children when he was 15.

When he was 16, he was arrested for a robbery. He says he was just waiting outside the store where a robbery took place. Mr. Collins accepted a youthful-offender adjudication under which he got probation and the arrest could eventually be purged.

Mr. Collins later obtained a general-equivalency diploma and took some classes at Long Island University. He was trying to transfer to John Jay College of Criminal Justice when he was arrested for Mr. Pollack's murder.

During his trial, Mr. Collins recalls being mystified. "I felt like a child," he says, "everyone talking over my head." But hearing his mother wailing as he was taken away suddenly cleared his head. "You have a life of misery ahead of you," he remembers telling himself. "The only way you're going to get out is to become your own lawyer."

On returning to Rikers Island, the city jail complex, Mr. Collins headed to the law library. There and later at Green Haven prison north of the city, he spent most of his free time in law libraries, pouring himself into legal books: "Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure," "McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York," "The Legal Research Manual."

A thick text for paralegals called "Case Analysis and Fundamentals of Legal Writing" became his bible. He devoted two months to mastering the intricacies of federal and state law on access to public records.

Who Did What
Jabbar Collins achieved the rare feat of lawyering himself out of prison, 15 years after he was convicted of murdering a rabbi in Brooklyn, N.Y. Here are some of those involved.

PROSECUTOR:

Michael Vecchione denied any witnesses were rewarded or pressured.

JUDGES:

Robert Holdman rejected appeal at state level.

Dora Irizarry heard federal appeal where conviction was overturned.

WITNESSES:

Adrian Diaz testified at trial he saw Collins with a gun. When Collins much later called him, posing as a D.A. investigator, Diaz talked about his route to becoming a witness.

Edwin Oliva testified at trial that Collins had said he planned to rob the rabbi. When Collins wrote to Oliva years later, Oliva wrote back describing what lay behind his testimony.

Angel Santos testified at trial he had called 911 and said he saw Collins run past. His voice didn't seem to Collins to match any voices on the 911 tape.

LAWYER:

Joel Rudin helped Collins after his own 10-year legal effort.
.His first request for trial records under New York's Freedom of Information Law, in July 1995, was denied. He would go on to file six more requests, five more appeals and a lawsuit before a judge gave him some of the records over two years later.

Finally succeeding in a request, gaining 239 pages of documents and 94 audio tapes, emboldened him. "It kind of refilled the tanks," he says, "gave me the confidence to fight on."

Over time, Mr. Collins would file a dizzying number of records requests. If they were denied, he appealed. If he lost, he'd add his requests to those he prepared for other inmates.

"The mosaic of intelligence gathering," Mr. Collins calls this. "You collect one item at a time and you add to the picture piece by piece until you create what is a stunning mosaic of what really happened."

He picked away at his case for eight years, but by the fall of 2003 he had hit a wall. That's when he carried out a ruse to trick Adrian Diaz, who had testified to seeing Mr. Collins tuck a gun in his waistband after the murder, into talking to him.

"I became Kevin Beekman, district attorney's investigator, for about 25 minutes," Mr. Collins says. The fictitious Mr. Beekman said he needed to recreate documents lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack. When Mr. Diaz agreed to talk about his testimony, Mr. Collins routed the call through a phone in his mother's home so it could be recorded.

Mr. Diaz said that before the trial, he had gone to Puerto Rico, in violation of his probation for marijuana possession. He agreed to return and testify against Mr. Collins, he said, only after prosecutors promised they would make sure his probation wasn't revoked.

That account, which Mr. Diaz later attested to in a signed affidavit, wasn't provided by prosecutors to Mr. Collins's defense counsel, who could have used it to undermine the witness by showing he was given an incentive to testify.

In 2005 Mr. Collins wrote to another witness, Edwin Oliva, who had testified that before the murder, Mr. Collins said he was going to rob the rabbi. "I really need to know what happened between you and the District Attorney's Office," Mr. Collins wrote.

"I always knew I was going to hear from you sooner or later," Mr. Oliva wrote back. "And to tell you the truth, I am glad you wrote, now once and for all I can settle the record."

Mr. Oliva wrote that he had been arrested a few weeks after the Pollack murder for a robbery he pulled in the building. He said the police asked about the rabbi's killing and he told them all he knew was that Mr. Collins had been arrested.

Detectives threatened to charge Mr. Oliva as an accessory, he wrote, and then made up a statement implicating Mr. Collins. Mr. Oliva wrote that he was so strung out and sleepy from a month-long run of "smoking & sniffin' dope" that he signed the statement, adding he "didn't even know what...I was signing."

But now, Mr. Oliva added, he wanted to help Mr. Collins, "because I know you got a rotten deal."

Mr. Oliva granted access to his records. They included a Legal Aid document that referenced, without elaborating, a "deal" being discussed between the judge, a prosecutor and Mr. Oliva's attorney. Mr. Oliva was allowed to plead to a lesser felony than he had been indicted for. He received a sentence of up to three years. The other charge could have kept him in prison longer.

At the trial, lead prosecutor Michael Vecchione stated that no key witnesses had received anything for testifying. "Oliva's motive is simple," the prosecutor said. "Just like all the rest of the witnesses, he saw something, he heard something, someone asked him about it, and he is telling what he saw and he is telling what he heard. Nothing else." Mr. Vecchione declined requests for comment.

Mr. Collins, though a skilled jailhouse lawyer who helped many other inmates, could take his own appeal only so far without help. In late 2005, after 10 years working alone, he contacted Joel Rudin, a civil-rights attorney known for winning what was then the largest wrongful-conviction settlement in New York, $5 million.

"I was amazed" at Mr. Collins's file, Mr. Rudin says. "I've never seen anything like this. There was so much documentation."

As the lawyer began reworking the appeal, Mr. Collins gathered another piece of his mosaic. He obtained a tape of calls to 911 after the killing.

A witness had testified he called 911 and told of seeing Mr. Collins run past. But when Mr. Collins listened to the tape of 911 calls, none of the voices sounded like what he recalled this witness sounding like at the trial.

Mr. Collins obtained a tape of a prosecution interview with this witness, Angel Santos. He hired a voice expert to compare the interview tape with the tape of people calling 911. No matches.

Mr. Santos and the other two main witnesses, Messrs. Diaz and Oliva, couldn't be reached for comment. Michael Harrison, Mr. Collins's court-appointed trial lawyer, said he couldn't remember whether he ever received the 911 tape because it was so long ago.

In March 2006, Mr. Rudin asked a state judge to overturn Mr. Collins's murder conviction on the grounds of newly discovered information the defense should have been given.

Mr. Vecchione, the prosecutor, swore that claims authorities had either coerced witnesses or failed to turn over potentially exculpatory information "are, without exception, untrue."

Then the roof crashed down. Learning of Mr. Collins's impersonation of an investigator, state Justice Robert Holdman dismissed the appeal, declaring it to be "wholly without merit, conclusory, incredible, unsubstantiated, and, in significant part, to be predicated on a foundation of fraud." For good measure, he barred Mr. Collins from filing future requests for information.

"Just devastating," Mr. Collins says. "This had been my life's work for the last 10 years."

He didn't have the luxury of wallowing. State law allows only 30 days to appeal such a ruling. As he wrote his appeal, he couldn't keep out his bitterness, and Mr. Rudin had to redo it. The state appeal failed.

In what amounted to their last shot, they filed a motion in federal court in Brooklyn seeking to overturn the conviction based on prosecutors' "knowing presentation, at trial, of false or misleading testimony" and withholding of evidence that might have been used to discredit the main witnesses.

This March, after two years of legal wrangling, federal Judge Dora Irizarry approved Mr. Rudin's request for additional material from prosecutors. Information Mr. Collins had spent more than a decade trying to get his hands on suddenly began pouring in.

One document concerned Mr. Oliva, the witness who wrote that under police pressure he signed a statement implicating Mr. Collins in the murder, even though he knew nothing about it. The document suggested that as the murder trial neared, Mr. Oliva had balked at cooperating. It said his work release for a robbery conviction was revoked "after he failed to cooperate with D.A.'s office regarding a homicide."

Other newly discovered information suggested Mr. Oliva had briefly recanted his statement implicating Mr. Collins. A prosecutor preparing to fight Mr. Collins's appeal learned this from a retired detective, who said that Mr. Oliva recanted, then changed his mind again and stuck to his statement after the detective and several prosecutors spoke with him at the Brooklyn D.A.'s office.

This prosecutor turned that information over to Judge Irizarry, acknowledging it should have been provided to Mr. Collins's murder-trial defense. (Mr. Vecchione had denied at Mr. Collins's state appeal that any witness ever recanted or "had to be threatened or forced to testify.")

Four days before a scheduled hearing in Judge Irizarry's federal court, the D.A.'s office offered to reduce the charge against Mr. Collins to manslaughter, allowing his immediate release.

Mr. Collins rejected the offer.

Later the same day, prosecutors informed the court that they wouldn't fight Mr. Collins's effort to overturn his conviction, but said they planned to retry him.

A retrial would move the case back to state court, a venue where prosecutors had known nothing but success against Mr. Collins.

Mr. Rudin, desperate to keep the case in federal court, persuaded Judge Irizarry to hold a rare hearing on whether the D.A. should be barred from retrying Mr. Collins because its misconduct had been so pervasive.

The hearing's first witness was Mr. Santos, the man who had testified about making a 911 call after the murder, but whose voice didn't seem to match any of the voices on the 911 tape.

Mr. Santos told the hearing that in the period when the murder occurred, he was using drugs "every day. Twenty-four hours."

He said that as the murder trial neared a year later, he told Mr. Vecchione he didn't want to testify, but Mr. Vecchione began "yelling at me and telling me he was going to hit me over the head with some coffee table."

He said he was threatened with prosecution, then locked up for a week as a material witness. When he agreed to testify, he said, he was taken from jail to a Holiday Inn, which he described as "paradise."

The federal hearing was due to resume a week later with testimony from Mr. Vecchione and other prosecutors. Instead, the D.A.'s office gave up. It said its decision was "based upon the weaknesses that now exist with the witnesses," but added that its "position, then and now, was that we believe in this defendant's guilt."

Judge Irizarry was not pleased. "It's really sad that the D.A.'s office persists in standing firm and saying they did nothing wrong here," she said. "It is, indeed, sad." Judge Irizarry declined to be interviewed; the judge who turned down Mr. Collins's state appeal didn't return a call seeking comment,

Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes stood firm. "Michael Vecchione is not guilty of any misconduct," Mr. Hynes said at the time. He, Mr. Vecchione—who is now chief of the rackets division—and a spokesman for the D.A.'s office all declined to comment, citing likely litigation by Mr. Collins.

Mr. Collins walked out of prison on June 9, to an emotional welcome from his family. He has had many Rip Van Winkle moments. Swipe cards have replaced tokens on the subway; coffee shops called Starbucks are everywhere; there are these devices called iPhones.

But some things haven't changed. Mr. Collins is back in a law library. His attorney, Mr. Rudin, has hired him as a paralegal.

Mr. Collins is first concentrating on his own case. He has filed "notices of claim" announcing an intention to sue the city and state for $60 million.

As a paralegal, he can't give legal advice to the many inmates who have written seeking it. He hopes one day to change that, by becoming an attorney.

Write to Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com

[El_Diez]

Águila, una pregunta , hoy esta cerrada la bolsa de USA ??

[admin]

Todo cerrado.

[El_Diez]

En los últimos años los gringos si hacían funcionar su bolsa hasta el día 24 de diciembre y Lima la cerraba , que pasó ahora que las cosas se han invertido, la bolsa de Lima si esta abierta.