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November 2002World NewsPosted: Saturday, November 30, 2002 ¤ War, war, war ¤ Arab Americans & American Jews Agree ¤ Belarus: KGB Chief Accuses U.S. Of Staffing Embassy With Spies ¤ South Koreans protest U.S. acquittals ¤ U.S. Is Preparing Base in Gulf State to Run Iraq War ¤ The truth behind the Miss World riots ¤ Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake ¤ Monitors give Pyongyang arms deadline ¤ Russian soldier killed eight of his colleagues ¤ Sleeping with the enemy ¤ Weapons of mass distraction ¤ Once again, Africa has become the battleground for somebody else's war ¤ American held among Kenya suspects ¤ Inspections proved Blair's 'lies': Iraq ¤ Kenya holds 12 over attacks, US points to al Qaeda ¤ UN watchdog deplores North Korea nuclear stance ¥ Why not call on the US, Israel and Russia first? ¤ Sharon pledges to take revenge ¤ Whites flock to isolated desert enclave ¤ This could be a long and dangerous war ¤ Angry nation brings home its dead and wounded ¤ Straight from the shoulder - deadly threat airlines dread ¤ Kenya is the venue, but it's not the target ¤ We don't deserve this, shocked workers cry ¤ Israeli travellers find the world is getting smaller General Strike Approaches Posted: Saturday, November 30, 2002 -- VHeadline.com reader Jose Arconada Rodriguez writes: As the date for a new general strike approaches (Monday, December 2), and in view of the scarce support it is bound to find within a Venezuelan society increasingly weary of a vain, sterile and all-too-long campaign of harassment against a legitimate government of Venezuela, new outbreaks of sponsored violence and rioting are bound to occur ... mainly in the capital Caracas ... inducing more chaos and promoting am unsustainable situation which is the only strategy Venezuela's opposition has been able to come up with. Incapable as it has been of offering convincing reasons for President Hugo Chavez to stand down, it will more than ever before act out of despair, under the poor quality umbrella of Coordinadora Democratica ... an ill-intentioned creature born out of an only apparently contra natura coupling between corrupt union leaders and a predatory corporate leadership ... with the vast majority of the country's privately-owned media playing its role of a loud, all pervading, hysterical "Greek choir," and a few military officers who (acting out of sheer spite), have been staging a non-stop harangue calling to civil and military desobedience. Their show has been on now for 500+ hours, they proudly claim. In any other country they would have already spent 499 and a half hours behind military prison bars (far more than that, if we take into account that many of them were personally involved in the April 11 coup d'etat) and we would all have found their imprisonment perfectly reasonable. But not so in Venezuela, where the media is only praying for that to happen so that they can shout and scream accusations of Stalinist behavior on the part of the Chavez Administration. The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela has ruled that the call for a consultative referendum seeking for President Chavez to stand down is null and void ... and the Greek choir will only howl and wail louder as some remunerated squads keep dropping tear gas cans here and there. Why? Because getting violently rid of Chavez is the one and only fast track back to a life of selfish privilege. Why not wait for the constitutionally envisaged referendum in August 2003? Because they know too well that Chavez would win it again. Serious journalism will find in Venezuela a case study of public opinion manipulation. Thank you, VHeadline.com for your brave and intelligent work of journalism. Keep it up! Jose Arconada Rodriguez josarconada@hotmail.com World News Posted: Friday, November 29, 2002 ¤ Norway set to ban public smoking ¤ Chechnya's Forgotten Majority ¤ UN plans to boost weapons inspection teams by 300 ¤ Saudis hit back over terror funding claims ¤ Critics mock choice of Kissinger for inquiry ¤ Henry's revenge ¤ Ford, Kissinger And The Indonesian Invasion, 1975-76 ¤ Kissinger Out Of The Closet ¤ Shhh! American Prisoners Being Held in Afghanistan ¤ UN struggles to explain away inspector with S&M fetish ¤ UN team faces smear campaign ¤ Fighting Dirty: A new low for the War Party ¤ Saddam hides arsenal in people's homes > This reads like the customary US/UK propaganda ¤ Planes kill civilian, Iraq claims ¤ Front lines in the mother of all public relations battles ¤ Total Information Awareness (Flash) ¤ How the War Party Put Iraq on the Side of the Angels ¤ Accounts in Israeli banks used for terrorism ¤ Fears for Chechen refugees as camp is cleared ¤ Look at Israel's nukes too says Goff ¤ Mombasa attacks 'a dangerous escalation of terror' ¤ Six dead in attack on Likud party office ¤ American war on terror: courting disaster ¤ Wary of West, Muslim tourists from ME throng Malaysia World News Posted: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 ¤ N Korea accuses US of 'fabrication' ¤ Sharon's massive win over Netanyahu in Likud race ¤ Thinking with a Manichaean bent ¤ Disgraced Admiral Now a Super Spy ¤ What Happens When You Wake Up A War Monger? ¤ America is voting for Sharon ¤ Churchill's Cousin Was A Russian Spy ¤ The Churchill you didn't know ¤ Aide to Canadian PM replaced for calling Bush a "moron" ¤ Bush picks Kissinger to head official probe? > New stage in the September 11 coverup ¤ The Kissinger Bombshell ¤ Thwarting an African Taliban ¤ Think-tank downplays Saddam threat ¤ Iraq producing weapons in mobile factories: US ¤ Group rejects US plan for military rule ¤ The Latest Kissinger Outrage Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation? ¤ Twin attacks target Israeli hotel, plane ¤ Israelis targeted in Kenya attacks ¤ 3 Israelis dead in Kenya blast; Arkia plane attacked ¤ Eleven Dead In Kenya Bomb Attack ¤ Palestinian Gunmen Kill Five Israelis ¤ More to US appeasement of Saudi Arabia than meets the eye ¤ Russia demands Georgia extradite detained Chechens ¤ Palestinian olive trees sold to rich Israelis ¤ US denies Saudi ultimatum ¤ Blast on South African bridge ¤ US, Jews under threat from Islam: Pat Robertson ¤ Saudi princess outraged her donation was linked to terrorists ¤ White House treads very softly on Saudi finance ¤ Indonesia still dangerous place, warns US diplomat ¥ Indonesia refuses to allow the US to set-up base ¤ UN inspectors welcome Iraqi cooperation ¤ Disease Outbreaks in N. Congo Kill 185 ¤ Cost-price drugs plan for poor countries ¤ Saudis react with fury to American accusations of funding al-Qaida ¤ Schröder makes u-turn on Iraq ¤ Indonesia still dangerous place, warns US diplomat ¤ Miss World flies home to another storm of protest ¤ Thinking with a Manichaean bent ¤ Who says the United Nations is better than NATO? ¤ Rethinking foreign aid ¤ Palestinian olive trees sold to rich Israelis ¤ Russia demands Georgia extradite detained Chechens World News Posted: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 ¤ Iraq wants press at inspections - UN doesn't ¤ Bush Family Dipping Into Security Pie ¤ Bush names Kissinger to head 9/11 probe ¤ Henry Kissinger: Haunted by his past > Kissinger lied about east timor > Official: Int'l Court Worries Kissinger > WAR CRIMES: Henry Kissinger > Is Henry Kissinger a War Criminal? ¤ War With Iraq ¤ South African whites plot to get 'their own' back ¤ Bali suspect 'admits al-Qaeda link' ¤ First Iraq inspection completed ¤ Go check your stores, adamant Iraqis told ¤ There will be only one winner of an Iraqi war - Osama bin Laden ¤ US ultimatum to Saudi leaders, 'do it, or we will' ¤ Screws put on Saudi to tackle al-Qaeda financiers ¤ Big Business's Funding Shift Boosts GOP ¤ Ford Motor Is Linked to Argentina's 'Dirty War' ¤ Bush Taps Kissinger to Head 9/11 Probe ¤ USAC Passes Resolution Condemning War with Iraq ¤ Germany pledges to supply Israel with Patriot missiles ¤ Turkey demands talks on joining EU ¤ Bush 'sorry' over S Korean deaths ¤ North Korea ends de-mining stand-off ¤ Colombian rebels kill troops in ambush ¤ Courage under Israeli fire ¤ Germany Gives U.S. Overflight Rights ¤ France and Germany plan Euro defence union ¤ Arafat Deputy: Uprising Was a Mistake ¤ UN whistleblower awarded £100,000 A United Nations worker who won her case for unfair dismissal after she blew the whistle on an alleged prostitution racket involving her colleagues in Bosnia was awarded more than £100,000 in compensation yesterday. ¤ Aids epidemic 'bringing social collapse' ¤ What will be the trigger for war? ¤ Fatwa is issued on Nigerian journalist ¤ France paralysed by mass walkouts ¤ 3 Minor Earthquakes Hit San Francisco ¤ Ship Fires Blaze in Japan and Hong Kong ¤ South Africa Government shuns apartheid lawsuits ¤ US increases pressure on Saudis over terrorist funds ¤ UN inspectors: Our technology will find Saddam's weapons ¤ PM's aide quits after calling Bush a moron ¤ US divvies aid funds to worthy poor countries ¤ Nine Maoist rebels among 12 dead in Nepal ¤ Three school children among 13 killed in held Kashmir ¤ Israeli army storms Gaza Strip ¤ Troops occupy U.S. Congress ¤ UN whistleblower awarded £100,000 ¤ France and Germany plan Euro defence union World News Posted: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 ¤ US urges Saudi action against terror ¥ In other words, let us use your base ¤ Italian Doctor Says Cloned Baby Due in January ¤ Risk of internet collapse rising ¤ Saudi denies funds were passed on ¤ Feds Doubt Allegations of Saudi Terror Funding Although Royal charity money may have reached a roommate of 9/11 hijackers, U.S. officials say even he was unaware his friends were terrorists ¤ Syria acts to defuse Kurdish 'timebomb' ¤ Situation in Afghanistan worsening: Russian envoy ¤ One year on: Fear of a neverending war ¤ Four years on, UN team back in Iraq ¤ The £1m-a-mile wall that divides a town from its own land of plenty ¤ Philip Morris factory is a smoke-free zone ¤ FBI: Hate Crimes Vs. Muslims Rise ¤ Blix warns Iraq to come clean with UN before deadline ¤ Palestinian boy, 8, killed by IDF gunfire in Nablus ¤ Situation in Afghanistan worsening: Russian envoy ¤ 10 Indian troops killed in exchange of fire along LoC ¤ Jammu temple siege ends as two more militants killed ¤ Early morning arrests in the land of the free ¤ Yugoslavia 'at centre' of arms trade with Saddam ¤ Baghdad protest as UN team flies in ¤ War on terrorism challenges the right to remain silent ¤ The inspectors fly in - with limited scope ¤ Two US bases in Afghanistan hit by rockets ¤ Watchdog warns of boom in slave trade ¤ Bevy of beauties all dressed up with nowhere to go ¤ City mourns after Miss World riots ¤ Yugoslavia 'at centre' of arms trade with Saddam ¤ Saudis play down growing row over terrorist links ¤ Israel fears Hamas wooing Egypt, planning to shunt Arafat ¤ War on terrorism challenges the right to remain silent ¤ Two US bases in Afghanistan hit by rockets ¤ Some Israeli pols talk about fencing off the whole West Bank World News Posted: Monday, November 25, 2002 ¤ Targeting terrorism . . . or privacy? ¤ Before US reorders the world, sober thinking on costs ¤ Voters are unprepared for real cost of war ¤ U.N. Monitor Says Iraqis Are Denying Having Arms Cache ¤ The Price of Paranoia The Myriad Costs of Homeland Security ¤ We should preserve freedom from terror, not sacrifice it more ¤ The Invisible Death of Iain Hook ¤ Pentagon Papers' Ellsberg Sees Deja Vu in Iraq ¤ FBI: Surge in Crimes Against Muslims ¤ Anti-Saddam groups urged to employ sabotage ¤ Saudi Calls Report on Gifts to Hijackers 'Crazy' ¤ White House: Saudis 'Good Partner' in Terror War ¤ U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia at "crisis stage" ¤ Bush Signs Homeland Bill Into Law ¤ Commons debate on Iraq opens ¤ U.S. expected to approve $14 billion aid request ¤ S. Korean Students Firebomb US Base In Protest ¤ Where is Israel's Daniel Ellsberg? ¤ Lawyers fear misuse of cyber murder law ¤ Colombian paramilitaries agree to cease-fire ¤ The Beauty Myth ¤ Israeli occupation army murders another child in Nablus ¤ Blair: No Doubt Saddam Has Weapons ¤ Weapons denial could be breach: Blair ¤ Blair is potentially a greater danger than Saddam ¤ Whose Hands Are Dirty? ¤ Lobby Targets Egypt, Saudi Arabia for Overthrow ¤ Bush administration to track Iraqis living in the US ¤ The Philippines joins US "war and terrorism" ¤ U.S. May Test Two-War Doctrine ¤ Arab "U.S." business wary of wrath over Iraq war ¤ Pakistan uses US plane to trade with North Korea ¤ Lieberman asks Bush to tell all about Saudi ties ¤ Saudis dismiss talk of funds for terrorists ¤ Soldiers 'thought official's mobile was grenade' ¤ CIA agents try to buy intelligence ¤ Undercover force tackles arms flow to rogue states ¤ Eight dead in attacks on Kashmir temples ¤ 11 killed in militants' attack on Jammu temple ¤ City under curfew, pageant departs ¤ Plan to poison millions of black South Africans foiled ¤ Israeli shots kill UN man during ceasefire bid ¤ You must fight Iraq within your budget, Brown tells the Army ¤ Cuts will leave Army struggling in the sand ¤ New (Very Long) Bin Laden Letter Threatens Civilians An instrument to secure Venezuela's future Posted: Monday, November 25, 2002 VHeadline.com editorial commentary (c) by Gustavo Coronel An instrument to secure Venezuela's future ... not merely be a way to survive the present Monday, November 25, 2002 -- A group of more than 250 Venezuelans of the most diverse expertise and political tendencies has answered an initiative by former Presidential candidate Henrique Salas Romer to convene a Congress entitled "A Project For Venezuela" which will aim to establish a 15-year plan for Venezuela ... road maps which could be utilized by any political leader in charge, to assist in policy-making. For years now, Venezuela has lacked a clear sense of direction ... a Plan which could serve the country to become a harmonious society and an integral part of the 21st century. The "Project For Venezuela" Congress is, thus far, a virtual one inasmuch as participants are distributed all over Venezuela but divided into five main sectors: Social Development (as in Quality of Life); Balance between the cities and rural areas; Sustainable Development; National Security, and The State for the 21st century. Each sector, in turn, includes 4-5 round tables each of which have a Coordinator, a Secretary and 10 members ... although anyone interested in the different topics could contribute to the tables. I have accepted the coordination of the Round Table in Petroleum, Mining, Tourism & Environment. Initially, these topics would seem to be quite unrelated and, yet, they have a common denominator in sustainable development. Venezuela has lived for too many years with the exploitation of petroleum and minerals, which are of a non-renewable nature. Tourism, on the other hand, is a renewable resource where the environment and its preservation should be one of the most common concerns. The Petroleum, Mining, Tourism & Environment Round Table has already started its work, on the basic premise that the economic well-being of the Venezuela of the future should rely on renewable resources rather than in resources which have a finite life span. Petroleum & Mining will continue to be very important contributors to the Venezuelan economy but not any more as the only, or even, the most important resources. Although the methodology of the Congress' work of has not yet definitely been agreed, we have already started to work on the basis that Venezuela is sick and tired of diagnoses and that what we urgently require is the cure. Hundreds of thousands of pages have been written about Venezuela's ailments and many of my fellow countrymen seem to feel that the more voluminous the diagnosis, the better. They forget that the Ten Command-ments occupy only half a page. We Venezuelans are experts on the WHY but very little has been done about the WHAT and the HOW ... what in the planning terminology is usually called OBJECTIVES and STRATEGIES. Our work will emphasize the Objectives & Strategies rather than repeating the diagnoses for yet another time. While Objectives, as they are identified for every area of work, should rather be few and permanent in timeframe ... Strategies can and probably should be numerous and flexible. I would like to give just one example of the task we are just starting to accomplish... The first Objective we have visualized is for the Venezuelan petroleum sector and reads: "To provide the Nation with optimum income for the longest period of time....." Although this is a short statement, it contains much substance. For example, it talks about optimum, not maximum income. For many years now the tendency of Venezuelan governments has been to obtain of maximum income. However, the Nation could be much better served by an optimum income over the longest possible time ... even if that income is not the maximum theoretically obtainable at any given time. Another concept contained in the statement is that of Nation. In Venezuela, petroleum has never really been the property of the Nation but the property of the State ... a very different thing! The Nation is all of us! The State is usually confused with the Government! Petroleum income has been, and is being handled by the Government ... which often has very different priorities to those of the Nation. Furthermore, the fact that petroleum income is handled by the Government (Executive Power only due to the weakness of the other powers) and usually with minimum transparence, has historically been one of the greatest sources of Venezuelan corruption. It is easy to see, therefore, that the Strategies to accomplish the Objective should be flexible, devoid of rigidities usually associated with ideological dogmas. We have created a "religion" around petroleum. It should be totally controlled by the State is one of those dogmas. Why? Isn't the private sector more efficient? We should always belong to OPEC. Why? Is an alliance between producers necessarily better than an alliance with consumers? Perhaps the crux of the matter is that we have to maintain a strategic balance between our loyalties to one group and to the other. But we must never insist on a dogmatic, inflexible approach. This is just an example of the type of considerations we are dealing with in the "Project For Venezuela" Congress and the outcome of this effort could be used by anyone. It will emphasize the rationale over the dogmatic. It should, at least, serve to incite many more Venezuelans to think instead of fighting. It will be an instrument designed to secure Venezuela's future and not merely be a way to survive the present. Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983. In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort. You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve Homeland Schmomeland Posted: Monday, November 25, 2002 by Charley Reese The new Department of Homeland Security will merge 22 federal agencies and 170,000 federal employees into one monstrous bureaucracy. It will not make America safer. After all, the key agencies most directly involved in fighting terrorism are excluded. They are the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Department, not to mention the National Security Agency. So, if the most important intelligence agencies are left as separate agencies, what do they hope to accomplish by consolidating less-important agencies? MORE World News Posted: Sunday, November 24, 2002 ¤ The Oval Office Liars' Club ¤ Western conceit ignores culture and history of Arabia ¤ Israel has banned all Palestinian fishermen ¤ Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America' ¤ Blix making friends as the hawks hover ¤ West outgrows Nato paper tiger ¤ Kosovo still not ready for talks with Serbia ¤ Iran hardliners stage show of strength ¤ U.S. Defends FBI's Saudi-9/11 Probe ¤ Saudi Arabia denies funding hijackers ¤ Saudis arrest sixth 'bomb' Briton A sixth British man has been arrested in Saudi Arabia in connection with a series of bomb attacks against westerners. ¤ Settling Iraq problem will not end terrorism: Russia ¤ US warship docks in China ¤ US pulls out Karzai's military bodyguards ¤ US plea for British base to bomb Iraq ¤ Muslim Charity Leader Ordered Deported ¤ Iraq hits out at Bush on eve of new inspections ¤ With dominion over all ¤ Some Got rich off Tragedy ¤ Sharon's hard-line policy of terror reoccupation ¤ Top Sharon adviser on 'aid request' in Washington ¥ Pay up or troops remain in Palestine to frustrate war ¤ Israeli forces destroy more Palestinian homes ¤ Briton killed in Jenin 'pleaded for ceasefire' ¤ US forces told to destroy supply lines of terror ¤ U.S. at Work at Saudi Base but War Role Is Uncertain ¥ Hand over the base or be exposed ¤ Yugoslavian officials 'sold chemical weapons to Iraq' ¤ Focus: The secret war Behind public preparations for an invasion, British and American aircraft are destroying Iraq's air defences while covert groups of special forces are training Kurdish fighters and preparing equipment. Raymond Whitaker reports ¤ Blair will lead a divided country into war ¤ 'Perverse' Blair stifles Iraq debate Tony Blair's government stands charged with being "somewhere between perverse and hypocritical" in its attempts to stifle dissent in tomorrow's Commons debate on Iraq. ¤ Palestinian farmers lose land to Israeli border fence ¤ Putin raises questions over U.S.-led coalition ¤ Lawmakers: FBI probe of Saudis falls short ¤ CIA agents try to buy intelligence ¤ CIA 'justifies' killing of al-Qaida suspects ¤ UN contests Israeli army account of Jenin official's death ¤ New U.S. Road Map Termed "Anti-Israeli" ¤ Israeli acts of terror designed to humiliate World News Posted: Saturday, November 23, 2002 ¤ White House confirms Saudi probe ¤ S Arabia denies having al-Qaeda sleeping cells ¤ Iraq Inspectors to Start Slowly ¤ Justice Dept. Acts to Use New Power in Terror Inquiries ¤ Bush to push for amnesty for Mexican illegal aliens ¤ Pentagon's plan to eyeball America's databases is drawing fire ¤ Head of Afghan Multinational Force Warns of Attacks if Iraq Is Invaded ¤ Right-wing US group lobbies for war on Iraq ¤ Bethlehem Occupation Must End 'As Quickly As Possible': US ¤ What is Antisemitism? ¤ N. Korea bans use of U.S. dollars ¤ Bush Administration Seeks to Relax Clean Air Rules ¤ Report: 9/11-Saudi Links Unexamined ¤ Reports: Saudis probed for Sept. 11 links ¤ 1-US 9/11 inquiry checking on Saudi government links Setting the stage for an assault on the Saudis for refusing their bases. Is the US government going after Saudi Oil next? ¤ President Bush May Be "Moron": Stupidity Experts ¤ Veterans Say Pentagon Still Covering Up Weapons Tests ¤ North Korea shuts door on nuclear inspectors ¤ Bush Welcomes New NATO Partners By adding members that are hungry for US aid, Bush can claim majority NATO support for his war campaign ¤ Auto-ID: Tracking everything, everywhere ¤ Welcome to the American Gestapo ¤ Colonial conquest in the name of "liberation" ¤ Aid worker killed 'by Israeli soldier' ¤ Putin stands firm with US on disarming Iraq ¤ Rumsfeld says U.S. would not believe Iraqi denial ¤ Bethlehem back under Israeli occupation ¤ Fence them in: the Israeli Army's solution to the intifada ¤ Top ranking al-Qaeda captive named ¤ Oil company set to profit from disaster ¤ 105 killed in Miss World protests World News Posted: Friday, November 22, 2002 ¤ Putin Questions Reliability of U.S. Allies in War on Terrorism ¤ Iraq's nuclear non-capability ¤ U.S. Warplanes Hit Targets in Iraq for Third Day ¤ Over a barrel The mother of all legal rows over who has the right to Iraq's lucrative oilfields is likely if the United States wins its war for the country itself ¤ Subs to have big war role ¤ FBI Denies Shift in Terrorism Fight ¤ 'Suicide bomber' set off blast: suspect ¤ Chechnya is Russia's Internal Affair: Bush ¥ Lives are exchanged for oil profit ¤ House rubber-stamps Homeland Security Bill ¤ NATO looks beyond its 7 new ex-communist invitees ¤ U.S. to deploy Aegis destroyer to guard Israel ¤ CIA: North Korea can build nukes right now ¥ OK, OK, OK, N Korea is not that evil anymore ¤ N Korea raises stakes in nuclear row ¤ The Most Biased Name in News > Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt ¤ On the Microsoft FTP server leak ¤ Deep Doo-Doo And Weapons Of Mass Distraction ¤ CBS Sells Fake TV News in VNR Venture ¤ The Bush White House is at war - with itself ¤ Weapons checks are one thing - spying another, says Iraq ¤ Nato's doubters prevent solid support for US ¤ U.N. official killed in West Bank ¤ Spate of Anti-US Attacks Raises Arab Terrorism Fears ¤ Saddam the new Hitler, Bush tells Europeans ¤ Ukraine leader turns up to spoil the party ¥ Just can't miss that KKK gathering ¤ Miss World riots 'leave 100 dead' ¤ Key Bali suspect 'confesses role' ¤ Israelis troops raid Bethlehem ¤ Over a barrel ¤ Wildlife suffers as oil spreads along Spanish coast ¤ Jakarta's military chief threatens to sue Washington Post for £640m ¤ Not so big, Mac ¤ Gov't Has Trouble Finding Immigrants ¤ Why is Mr Blair attacking our civil liberties? ¤ Nato suffers from a terminal illness, but no one dares kill it off just yet ¤ The CIA's Yemen Operation: a Legal Critique ¤ A Brief History Of Alfredo Peña's Little Army ¤ Weapons checks are one thing - spying another ¤ At least 11 killed as bomb explodes on crowded bus ¤ Red Cross charged over blood bank scandal ¤ Deaths feared in anti-Miss World riots in Nigeria ¤ Israel seals off Bethlehem and razes Gaza home ¤ NATO commits to "effective action" on Iraq, but Germany holds back Another Coup Foiled in Venezuela Posted: Friday, November 22, 2002 "I was fooled when they told me that they sought a democratic solution and what had really been intended was a secret pact between (union boss) Carlos Ortega and (ex-General) Medina Gómez that a general strike… would try to generate disorder, violence and death so that the Armed Forces could take political control of the country. For that, they have accumulated weapons below Plaza Altamira and the Four Seasons Hotel..." - Army Captain Pedro Sánchez Bolívar, minutes ago, breaking from the "dissident" ex-military commanders in Caracas Listen to the audio recording of the press conference Publisher's Note: Over the past few days, AP, Reuters and other simulators of international public opinion have produced a number of articles that comment on the Venezuelan National Guard's "takeover" of the Caracas Metropolitan police stations. What's missing in most of these articles is context. The following article, by Alex Main, provides a little background information on the PM that helps understand why the Venezuelan government decided to have it de-clawed. I met Alex Main last June, while I reported from the Venezuelan capital. A clean-cut young man from the United States (he was wearing a suit when I met him), he had recently arrived in Caracas to see, with his own eyes, what was happening. We went, together, to the popular barrio of San Juan and spoke directly with many of the people there that the U.S. commercial media correspondents never allow to be heard. Main has subsequently become an important organizer of international solidarity efforts with Venezuelan democracy, and an honest set of eyes and ears for the rest of us. Continue The "Take-Over" of Caracas Police HQ Was Necessary Palestinian Identity Under Siege Posted: Thursday, November 21, 2002 by PAUL de ROOIJ, www.counterpunch.org The Palestinian struggle -- that a people should endure such unremitting cruelty from Israel and still not give up, is a collective miracle. --- Edward Said, "Disunity and factionalism", Al Ahram 21 August 2002. The Israeli war waged against the Palestinians has taken many forms and not all of them well known to us. Bombings, assassinations, house demolitions, and arbitrary imprisonment are some of the concrete manifestations in this war--these are clear for all to see and understand. However, other tactics employed in this war aren't so evident. Foremost among them is an assault on the Palestinian identity itself. European colonialists learned that to keep a strangle hold on their possessions a policy of divide and rule was necessary. However, the unintended consequence of this was to engender a strong nationalism, a force that eventually doomed the colonialist enterprise. The Israelis have learned this lesson, and trying to implement measures that shield them from the errors of the past. The policies now applied in the Occupied Territories (OPT) apply the divide and rule principle, but they attempt to quell the nationalism that accompanied this in the past. The foremost element to achieve this is to actively demolish or restrict the Palestinian identity in the OPT. The process of connecting all the settlements in the OPT to Israel proper by building the networks of the so-called bypass roads also entailed intentionally stopping traffic and contact between neighboring towns in the OPT; contact between the West Bank and Gaza has been mostly impeded since 30/Sept/2000. It is now very difficult for a resident of any Palestinian city to visit the nearby village. Either a circuitous path must be taken, or it is simply impossible to cross the so-called military checkpoints, in reality choke points. Furthermore, quite a few villages have been isolated thanks to the fences and walls currently being built unilaterally by Israel. Finally, some Palestinian villages have been isolated due to the settlement expansion activities. Consequently it is difficult for Palestinians anywhere to relate to other Palestinians elsewhere in the OPT. The Israeli instigated policy aims to fragment the Palestinian identity, and make people think of themselves exclusively as residents of Ramallah or Bethlehem.  For the past 145 days (since June 25, 02), Nablus has been under military curfew. People are only allowed out for a few hours every week, otherwise they are subjected to a lock down regime that even prevents them from sitting on a balcony or peer out of the window. Here the frame of reference of the citizens of Nablus has been further restricted to only account for the individual. People are atomized, and start to view their problems with reference only to themselves, and it is difficult for them to appreciate that it is their entire community facing this collective punishment. Again, the Palestinian identity is threatened, and the ensuing frame of reference stultified so that it can be manipulated more easily by the Israeli military. Nablus' militancy singled it out for this atomization and an assault on people's identity. From the Israel occupying forces (IOF) perspective, perhaps it is an experiment to determine how others can similarly be "broken". During the past few months community leaders not related to the Palestinian Authority have been rounded up and subjected to arbitrary detentions (e.g., see Arbitrary Detentions [1]). The aim of this policy is to remove leaders who provide the necessary cohesion to a society. Once the educated organizers have been imprisoned, the sense of isolation is reinforced, increasing the vulnerability of the population. Furthermore, the actions of the Israeli occupation have targeted the middle class where most of the leadership of a society emanates. The people who can direct others or offer an interpretation of events are hounded, imprisoned or isolated. For Palestinians the temptation to escape the communal misery must be very difficult for many to resist. It may come in the form of the advertisements by the Israeli ultra right-wing Moledet Party offering assistance for Palestinians to emigrate; the temptation to drop everything and leave must be very great (e.g. see: One way ticket [2]). The enticements by Israeli soldiers to obtain collaborators are an added element in the psychological warfare. People will be tempted to obtain favors, food, permission to work, in exchange for betraying fellow Palestinians. Accepting to collaborate accelerates the demolition of their Palestinian identity; it is difficult to see how these people will act in the interests of their society afterwards. The suspicion that someone in their midst is giving information to the IOF also poisons the air in the mind of other Palestinians. Either way, the Palestinian identity has come under threat by attempts to corrupt the vulnerable or criminal elements in the society. Traveling in the West Bank and Gaza one immediately becomes aware of the importance of symbols. The IOF is very keen to plant an Israeli flag wherever it is, and it is keen to rip down Palestinian symbols. Even the colors of the Palestinian flag elicit a violent response from soldiers. During the first intifada in July 1989, Jamal Radwan, an agricultural laborer from Gaza and a father of five, had the tattoo of the Palestinian flag on his arm cut off by an Israeli soldier. The scar runs more than half way from his shoulder to his elbow. Perhaps today the IOF isn't so much concerned with the physical manifestation of symbols, but is more concerned with the mental national identity. During the Israeli invasion of Beirut, Israeli soldiers plundered and destroyed the Palestinian archives and important cultural treasures. During the invasion of Ramallah earlier this year, the same thing happened, important historical archives were plundered, key databases destroyed, and the video archives of the Palestinian TV stations were damaged. The Sakakini Centre and Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah, two very important contemporary cultural institutions, were demolished earlier this year. These attacks aim to erase the Palestinian history and culture, an important aspect of any national identity. While Israelis belabor their past and use it for political ends, they are at the same time attempting to erase the history of the nation they occupy. If one thinks of one's national identity, then some buildings and their history come to mind. For the English Big Ben is extremely important; Americans similarly relate to the Statue of Liberty. For Palestinians the key symbols are the Haram Al Sharif temple (known to Israelis as Temple Mount) and the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Casbah -- the Old Town (dating from 71BC) -- and the al-Khadra Mosque (1,000+ years old) in Nablus, all are of great importance. The latter has already been demolished in several phases this year--this is destruction of world heritage monuments. The Casbah has been blasted by very large bombs and repeatedly hit by tank fire (see Nablus info [3]). The Church of the Nativity with a spiritual value to hundreds of millions of people was damaged earlier this year by Israeli actions. A clear threat hangs over the Haram Al Sharif temple with ever increasing calls by the erstwhile fanatic fringe of the settlers, but increasingly coming from centrist politicians to demolish the temple. The extremist settlers aim to blow it up or undermine the structure by digging tunnels under it; some "centrist" politicians have called to cut the building in pieces, and send the crates to Saudi Arabia. Supposedly, this temple is in the way of a planned Jewish sacred temple, and just like Palestinians have been pushed aside in most of their homeland, their monuments may soon be cast aside too. The destruction of the national identity has an architectural component.  For decades, Israelis have been attempting to erase the vestiges of the 400+ Palestinian villages and towns destroyed during the 1948 war. The towns have been bulldozed and the ruins have been built over. Where one finds a pine forest in Israel proper one will find the ruins of a Palestinian village that the Israelis are trying to hide. In recent months, many of these ruined villages have been "developed" so that Palestinians won't be able to claim them in an eventual peace agreement, but part of the process is to rid the country of Palestinian history and vestiges. Erasing the ruined villages is not only an attempt to rid any Palestinian claim to the land, but also another attempt to demolish their identity. The most potent symbol for Palestinians is the "key"--the claim to the homes that the Israelis stole. The key is also the principal symbol excised out of all cartoons and art by the Israeli censor. Further demolition of the ruins has important implications for all. Archeology has been a battleground with a long history. Israelis have always claimed monopoly in archeology, and they have prohibited Palestinians from studying this field in Israeli universities. Israeli archeologists will usually concentrate on the old layers in the archeological excavations, to the exclusion of the more recent ones dealing with Palestinian history -- these are usually destroyed. A few years ago, Dr. Albert Glock, an American archeologist head of the Palestinian Institute of Archeology at Bir Zeit University, was excavating the recent layers near Ramallah when he was mysteriously assassinated. Palestinians suspect that the Israelis assassinated him because digging up the recent history counters the Israeli attempts to bury the Palestinian history. The looming threat of war against Iraq casts a dark shadow over the Palestinians. As Prof. Illan Pappe has stated, it is now a centrist political position in Israel to propose plans for "transfer" -- that obscene euphemism for the mass expulsion of Palestinians. One can read about this in the Israeli press, listen to the Molodet Party's proposals, or one can listen to some of the principal cabinet members in the current government; they all clamor with varying degrees of viciousness about plans to expel the Palestinian population. The only restraining factors are the international reaction to such a crime and the feasibility of expelling the population to Lebanon, Jordan, or Iraq. Graham Usher, a British journalist, recently said that what is being envisaged by the US in the area is not simply "regime change, but region change." [Note 4] If such seismic changes are implemented entailing the redrawing of borders in Iraq and Jordan, then Israel may see an opportunity to implement its sinister plans. One must see the current attempts to demolish the Palestinian identity in this context. An atomized and brutalized population without any effective leadership can perhaps be terrorized to flee across the border in the event of a war. It is unimaginable why any population should be subjected to the threat of ethnic cleansing in the 21st century. After WWII, the world had achieved a consensus that the "might makes right" principle was unacceptable and incompatible with peace. Annexation by war, it was agreed, could not be tolerated. As such, the incessant pressure to expel the Palestinian population, to erase their history, and to demolish their identity, are incompatible with principles that have formed the basis of international law and consensus for the past 50+ years. It is the responsibility of the so-called international community to put a stop to the war and to the Israeli campaign against Palestinians. One would hope that the UN would play a leading role, but the organization is currently compromised and manipulated by the US. One can hardly expect Kofi Annan, a venal politician, to act decisively; the Rwandan genocide occurred during his watch, and the callousness he exhibited then doesn't portend for an active role now. Unfortunately, up to now, the stance of most European governments has been disgraceful. Similarly, the role of major human rights organizations with responsibility for the area has been less than honorable (see Amnesty [5]). The establishment of a war crimes tribunal holding Sharon, Mofaz, Netanyahu, Ben-Eliezer, and Peres, to account is of paramount importance, yet no action is seen for its institution. One fears the worst: that mass crimes and ethnic cleansing will occur in the area and no peep will be heard from the so-called international community. Paul de Rooij is an economist living in London. Note 1: www.counterpunch.org/bahour1023.html Note 2: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2377273.stm Note 3: www.nablus.org/invasion/press2.html. Don't miss: www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=10291 Nothing like seeing the photos. Note 4: Talk given in the House of Parliament, London, Nov. 14, 2002. Note 5: www.counterpunch.org/rooij1031.html World News Posted: Thursday, November 21, 2002 ¤ The Downside of Foreign Military Intervention ¤ Missiles R Us takes on the world ¤ Pentagon to Track American Consumer Purchases ¤ Pentagon confirms 'snooping' system ¤ Britain prepares 30,000 troops to answer US call ¤ Jerusalem bus blast kills 11 ¤ Nile calls for Muslim headscarf ban ¤ Oil giants still hire cheaper, older ships ¤ Why is it only oil tankers that snap in half? ¤ Blast at Ecuador Army Base Kills 5 ¤ Teen Opens Fire at Trinidad School ¤ ‘Either I will be dead or several other people’ ¤ A war that can't be won ¤ US must put Afghanistan back together ¤ A snap in the dark ¤ Washington on its own in clash over no-fly zones ¤ Moussaoui tied to 9/11 plot, says US ¤ US agrees it must do more to rebuild Afghanistan ¤ Sniper suspect's request for psychiatrist denied ¤ Peru's rainforest at risk as US firms push gas project ¤ Stay alert ... against terrorist attacks and draconian measures ¤ Bush warns Saddam not to deny he has weapons ¤ Gunman ignites fire at McDonalds in Saudi Arabia ¤ Pakistan's Musharraf to transfer power in next few days ¤ Nigerian Muslims riot over Miss World report ¤ US warns citizens of 'terror actions' ¤ Two black holes merging BREAKING NEWS: Illegal weapons dumps Posted: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 www.vheadline.com BREAKING NEWS: Illegal weapons dumps in Plaza Altamira and Four Seasons basements ... Venezuelan Army Captain Pedro Sanchez Bolivar -- one of the rebel officers who has camped out in Plaza Altamira for the past several weeks -- has revealed that anti-government opposition forces have been storing quantities of arms and ammunition. Sanchez Bolivar says he has been deceived into believing that his fellow rebels were seeking a democratic solution. In a shock announcement, he has told reporters that rebel General Enrique Medina Gomez has conspired with trade union leader Carlos Ortega to incite protesters "to create general mayhem, violence and to kill if necessary" to force a military takeover of the Chavez Frias government. Sanchez Bolivar has called on fellow officers to not allow themselves to be drawn into terrorist plans for a coup d'etat ... "it will only leave blood on the pages of our Venezuelan history." In late breaking news, it has been revealed that the rebel officers have received financial support from "a North American embassy" as well as huge sums from Venezuelan business personalities. Not unsurprisingly, rebel Brigadier General Jose Felix Ruiz Guzman has rushed to the microphones in Plaza Altamira to claim that Sanchez Bolivar has been "bought" by the government and that he is currently "collaborating with government spy agencies to smear the opposition "disobedience" rebellion in Plaza Altamira. Ruiz Guzman says Sanchez Bolivar is "simply a parrot for Chavez Frias" and that he will be "taking appropriate measures to ensure that these fools do not plant weapons there." World News Posted: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 ¤ When Bush and Ashcroft Promise to Uphold Rights, Beware ¤ Anger and fear don't justify war with Iraq ¤ Fighting terror by terrifying U.S. citizens ¤ 'Unexploded bombs' kill Afghan children ¤ U.S. watch list has 'taken on life of its own,' FBI says ¤ The UN Resolutions & Saddam ¤ Mosque-bomb suspect remembered as "a true Jewish hero" ¤ ADC cautions media on Israel's deceptions ¤ Did Wolfowitz Blow CIA Secret To Set Up the President? ¤ War crimes arrest blow to Iraqi opposition > Contrast: Did Saddam Hussein Gas His Own People? ¤ Bush flies to seek Nato support against Iraq ¤ Bush calls for new Nato commitment ¤ PRAGUE, Czech Republic: Bush said... ¤ Israel rejects black Hebrews as Jews Read: ¤ Israel and White Supremacy ¤ Attack on Baghdad without new UN resolution illegal Britain and the US would be in breach of international law if they use force against Iraq without a new UN resolution, a leading barrister warned yesterday ¤ Palestinian, 4 civilians killed by Israeli forces ¤ Pakistani MP: "America is the biggest terrorist state" ¤ US embassy worker beaten in Zimbabwe ¥ This is the US-UK report ¤ War vets detain US trespassers ¥ This is Zimbabwe's report ¤ Three arrested in California on terror charges ¤ Annan clashes with US over no-fly violations ¤ US backs down on rift over no-fly war ¤ Iraq firing at US aircraft is not material breach ¤ Nato boosts its arsenal for political ends ¤ Iraqi mattress and slipper factories for examination ¤ Bush flies to seek Nato support against Iraq ¤ Disaster threatens coastline as stricken tanker breaks apart ¤ US claim tests Baghdad consensus ¤ White House offers to defray war costs ¤ Bomb plot foiled ahead of NATO meeting ¤ US urged to resume nuclear tests ¤ Explosion near Tokyo US Army base ¤ Terrorists threaten Australia ¤ Suspicious types to face police searches ¤ We forgot he was a bomb suspect, say Indonesians ¤ Driver's Bali role in doubt but he ran guns World News Posted: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 ¤ Oil tanker breaks in two off Spanish coast ¤ Indian PM issues Iraq warning ¤ The Homeland Security Monstrosity ¤ New Bush administration attack on civil liberties ¤ Vaccinating America at Gunpoint ¤ ACLU Calls on President Bush to Disavow New Cyber-Spying Scheme ¤ Israeli army desertions rise ¤ How close is America to outright dictatorship? ¤ US secret agents work at Microsoft ¤ More Leeway On U.S. Spying ¤ Alleged MI6 death plot exposed ¤ US puts finishing touches to its Iraq invasion plans ¤ As arms inspectors arrive, row erupts over US smears ¤ Team leader says attacks by hawks 'unhelpful' ¤ Blix bears brunt of hawks'frustration ¤ Saddam already defying UN, says White House ¤ Annan Says Iraqi No-Fly Zone Firing No Violation ¤ Hebron settlers plan to build 1,000 units in new neighborhood ¤ 15 Hebron families warned of house demolitions ¤ Mitzna promises immediate Gaza withdrawal ¤ Al-Qaeda cells spread across Europe ¤ Bush now seems to accept that this must be a UN war ¤ Germans call Churchill a war criminal ¤ Internment Camps: The Mechanics Of Tyranny ¤ On the West Bank ¤ US, British jets bomb Northern Iraq, AGAIN ¤ Australian accused of plot to bomb embassies ¤ Yes, I drove the van: bomber's brother surrenders ¤ Mixed feelings greet Blix on Baghdad's streets ¤ Blix caught between Iraq and a hard place ¤ Slip of the tongue, or did N Korea admit having the bomb? ¤ Sharon supports settlers' expansion move > First occupy the land illegally then steal more ¤ Jewish settlers lay claim to road through Hebron ¤ Russian police recover historic Newton books ¤ British 'set out to terrorise civilians' ¤ Al-Jazeera is expanding it's Washington bureau Venezuela's opposition must back off Posted: Monday, November 18, 2002 Editorial commentary (c) by VHeadline.com Business News Editor Robert Rudnicki Monday, November 18, 2002 -- Which ever way you look at it, the opposition must back off if it wants to avoid a social explosion. It's clear that the government is not going to give the opposition a chance to remove it until it is constitutionally permitted, i.e.. August 2003. So whichever way you look at the last few weeks events, it's going to have to be the opposition that leads the way in the calming of the situation. Pro-government supporters no doubt believe that the government is merely responding to pressure placed upon it by the opposition, and it is this pressure that, over the weekend, forced the government to take control of the Metropolitan Police from vehement government-critic, Metropolitan Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena. No doubt 'Chavistas' will feel that the opposition threat to call a national general strike, the continuing Plaza Altamira protest and the recent actions of the Metropolitan Police are more than sufficient reasons for the government to respond with a further show of force ... and if the opposition continues to scale up its pressure, then they probably think the government should follow suit. On there hand, opponents of President Hugo Chavez Frias and his government will probably be accusing the President and his backers of creating a problem-reaction-solution scenario, whereby the government could be creating situations on the streets that it then uses to justify its responses in front of the national and particularly the international community. The opposition no doubt sees the deaths during last week's demonstrations outside Caracas' Metropolitan City Hall, and last night's explosion outside the Globovision TV news station, as well as similar explosions at the headquarters of several newspapers, Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) and Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Fedecamaras) offices as government-planned attacks aimed at giving the government the excuse of stepping up the militarization of the capital and placing troops outside all key Caracas institutions. Either way, the only viable and peaceful solution for the opposition to take is to back off and wait for August 2003. Of course, if the government were to back down and call an election in the next few weeks, that would provide a more viable and less confrontational solution to the current crisis ... but lets face it ... it's not going to happen ... and whatever anyone says it is unconstitutional. At a time when United Nations weapons inspectors are heading back into Iraq, it is very unlikely that Washington will want to see the Venezuelan boat rocking ... no wonder President Chavez Frias took the opportunity at the weekend to reassure the US that oil supplies would continue to be guaranteed. This may give the President the maneuver room he needs to step up pressure on the opposition without the normally speedy criticism of US politicians. The President must feel that so long as he remains broadly within the Constitution, he's on pretty solid ground until August. Rightly or wrongly, it now seems that unless the opposition wants to allow/force the government into further increasing its grip on power ... or speeding along a huge civilian or military explosion ... it may be the order of the day to step back and take the coming months to develop a long-term strategy that is capable of winning support from all sectors of Venezuelan society and to choose a plausible contender to represent that strategy. If the opposition really wants to give birth to a new improved Venezuela, maybe it should take the coming nine months to develop properly, and not risk being stillborn. World News Posted: Sunday, November 17, 2002 ¤ U.S., U.N. Differ on Arms Hunt ¤ Bush's War Cabinet is riven by feuding ¤ Court OKs Broad Wiretap Powers ¤ White House Works Phones for Homeland Bill ¤ CIA Feels Strain of Iraq and Al Qaeda ¤ N Korean nuclear 'admission' in doubt ¤ Bomb Attack on US Base in Japan ¤ Mubarak Calls For Similar WMD Inspection On Israel ¤ Antiwar Activists Plan to Stay The Course > Women Settling In For Four-Month Vigil ¤ Israel says Iraq hints it would strike at Israel attacked ¥ Even Amazon knows Israeli sources cannot be trusted ¤ Amazon denies backing Israel > Amazon has cancelled its deal with the Jerusalem Post ¤ Israel's Sacred Terrorism ¤ Bush Homeland Security bill nears passage by US Congress ¤ Protecting corporations, victimizing workers ¤ Iraq calls on the UN to stop US violations ¤ Secretary Rumsfeld Live Interview ¤ Unanswered questions remain in Bali investigations ¤ No "Worshipers" Were Killed in Hebron ¤ U.S. military: Iraqis fire on coalition planes again ¤ Iraq lashes out at U.S. over "no fly" zone claims ¤ Iraq vows to deny US pretext for war ¤ Gene-altered grain mishaps spark fears of contamination Corn, soybeans in two U.S. states ordered destroyed Texas firm takes responsibility for farm incidents ¤ Bush versus Robin Hood ¤ Democrats Finally Get It: Bush's War on Terrorism is a Dud ¤ Venezuela's opposition must back off ¤ Analysis / The attack in Hebron was not a 'massacre' ¤ US must disarm: Carter ¤ Ease up on Zimbabwe, world urged ¤ Spain blames UK over oil disaster ¤ Blix leads weapons team back into Iraq ¤ Israeli Copters, Tanks Hit Gaza City ¤ N. Korea Radio Says Nation Has Nukes ¤ Nato grapples with new role in terror war ¤ The US will be legislator, judge and executioner ¤ US Afghan ally 'tortured witnesses to his war crimes' ¤ Baghdad warns that a US strike will lead it to hit back at Israel ¤ How can Mr Blair persuade the voters to go to war ¤ A blunt question for the terrorists: Can't you do any better? ¤ Seven killed as British coach overturns ¤ US troops are losing battle of the bulge ¤ Team 'unlikely to find Iraq arms' ¤ Bali Bombers' faces revealed amid warnings to public ¤ Downer ducking out on Bali, says Labor ¤ Al-Qaeda video may signal raid on hotel ¤ Tension already as Blix heads for Iraq World News Posted: Sunday, November 17, 2002 ¤ Israel won't agree to int'l intervention ¥ Sure they won't ¤ Israel lies about civilian deaths in Hebron ¤ MASSACRE? 'Jewish Worshippers' Were All Armed Men ¤ Bush Leading Toward Lawless World Of Endless Wars ¤ Americans need truth before starting a war ¤ Amnesty International & Israel: Say it Isn't So! ¤ U.S./Iraq Farce, Act 1: Prove a negative ¤ Israeli jets roar over Lebanon, Hizbollah fires ¤ Greeks Protest Against War in Nov 17 Rally ¤ Federal agencies often seek public input, then ignore it ¥ Like most governments worldwide ¤ Sharon Wants to Bolster Settlements ¤ U.S., Israel Conducting Covert Missions in Iraq ¤ Bush restates threat to take military action ¤ US nervous that Iraq may get a clean bill of health ¤ The Complete 9/11 Timeline ¤ The invincible Kiwi ¤ Al Gore warns that Bush is leading America into deep trouble. ¤ Pentagon creates a Big Brother so Uncle Sam can keep his eye on us ¤ Blair 'is arming tyrants' to beat terror ¤ With disarmament off the agenda, will Japan go nuclear next? ¤ Thousands Expected For Ga. Protest ¤ Blix admits risk of spies in team ¤ 'Green pope' warns of worldwide catastrophe over new Gulf War ¤ A shameful chapter in the recent history of Wall St ¤ UN pressures Saddam ¤ Israel hits back after 12 killed in ambush ¤ Iraq will cooperate with weapons inspectors: Tareq ¤ Israeli troops re-occupy Hebron; arrest 41 ¤ Musharraf sworn in as president ¤ Iraq says U.N. inspectors will "expose the truth" ¤ Sudan peace talks focus on power-sharing What Would George W. Do? Posted: Sunday, November 17, 2002 VHeadline.com by Charles Hardy George W. Bush is President of the United States of America. Hugo Chavez Frias is president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. George W. Bush's brother is Governor of the State of Florida. Hugo Chavez Frias' father is Governor of the State of Barinas. George W. Bush works out of the White House in Washington, D.C. Hugo Chavez Frias works out of Miraflores in Caracas, D.F. George W. was a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard ... he eventually became a lowly Lieutenant. Today he is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States. Hugo C. became a Lieutenant Colonel. Today he is Commander-in-Chief of the Venezuelan armed forces. George W. had an interest in baseball. He became part owner of the Texas Rangers in 1989 and invested $606,000. In 1998 he sold his interest for $15,000,000. Hugo C. also has had an interest in baseball, but not the luxury of a financial one. He enjoys playing the game. We have, then, two men with somewhat similar backgrounds. Now here's today's question for all those who see the United States as the bastion of freedom of expression and the beacon of democracy: What would George W. Bush do if a handful of military officers decided to declare themselves in disobedience to him as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and set up camp between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.? The answer: he would unhesitatingly send in federal troops to immediately arrest and jail them. Now my question is, why doesn't Hugo Chavez Frias do the same? I don't know but here are two possible answers: 1) He is dealing with a part of society that is having a tantrum. They're babies who will cry and kick because they can't have their way. They lost their election three years ago and, until daddy will give in to them and give them what they want, they are not going to stop yelling. Chavez Frias would like to spank them, but that wouldn't help. Besides that, the television cameras would blare any spanking around the world and give the Venezuelan family an even poorer image than that which the opposition has already given it. 2) He doesn't want violence. In spite of all the claims that Chavez Frias is the reason for the division that exists today in Venezuela, I continue to maintain that it was always there. Chavez Frias just happened to be the one to announce the bad news. It is not Chavez Frias, but the opposition who have exacerbated the situation and who continue to do so. Hugo Chavez Frias has shown an incredible patience ... George W. Bush would never have done so. Now another question: What would George W. Bush have done if the Mayor of Washington, D.C. acted like Alfredo Pena, using the police as "an appendix" (the words of a Metropolitan Police officer) to support a group of people in favor of overthrowing the government? The answer: He would take over the police. What did Hugo Chavez Frias do? The answer: After a lot of patience, he finally did the same that George W. Bush would have done long ago. I didn't vote for President Bush (and I cringe as I write this), but maybe President Chavez Frias should be more like him. So, here we have two men with many similarities. Yet one acts and would act in an authoritarian manner and considers himself to be the leader of the free world ... the other acts with extreme patience and gentleness and is called a "dictator" and "communist." We have George W. Bush ... who just barely won an election under very strange circumstances ... with the Supreme Court, not the people, voting him into office. Nobody questions his legitimacy. We also have Hugo Chavez Frias who won an election with almost 60% of the votes and now the opposition wants him to resign. Let's face it. They don't want a referendum, really. They want a resignation because they, who have held the power for so long, want it back. They have $ millions to spend on publicity to try to convince everyone that they were right all along: that the democratic elections in 1998 were a mistake. Yes, they were a mistake. . . for them. Their strategy failed. Chavez Frias was never supposed to have won. He did. So, go on. Cry! Shout! Kick your feet! I'm not saying you won't get your way someday. But I will always maintain that, just because you have money and power, you don't deserve it and you never have. In the meantime, don't criticize Hugo Chavez Frias if he starts acting like your hero, George W. Bush. You asked for it! World News Posted: Saturday, November 16, 2002 ¤ 7 civilians killed in US-British raids: Iraq ¤ Doctors: Bill allows forced vaccinations ¤ U.S., India Discussing Military Sale ¤ Sharon and Mofaz agree not to exile Arafat ¤ U.S. plots reaction to no-fly incident ¤ Saddam: U.S. Wants 'to Wage War' ¤ Nato strike force to bypass states in hunt for terrorists ¤ We aren't bombing Sadam, but the citizens of Iraq ¤ US expands Iraq resolution to include no-fly zones UN Security Council members had insisted that the resolution did not cover actions in the no-fly zones. ¤ Globalist Plan to Disarm America ¤ Fox News Series On Israeli Spying In America ¤ True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel ¤ White House rejects criticism of anti-terror campaign ¤ Pentagon Zionist campaign to get George Tenet fired! ¤ Blix says will sack spies on Iraq inspection team ¤ Four Israeli spies were on UN inspection team ¤ The easy war, or the hard way. (Flash) ¤ Al-Qaida Leader's Son Tortured To Death By FBI ¤ Jimmy Carter Slams 'Arrogant' US Foreign Policy ¤ At least 12 dead in attack on Israelis in Hebron ¤ Iraqi army is tougher than US believes ¤ Meet the cloned cash cow ¤ Surplus to requirements? ¤ Sweet nothings ¤ UN begs to differ with Bush ¤ Rattled Czechs hand security over to the Pentagon ¤ Argentina may be left out in cold after $1.4bn repayment default ¤ Afrikaners feel they are losing ground ¤ Australia rejects PNG pleas for loan relief ¤ Revenge of a Child ¤ Warning that war could plunge world into deep recession ¤ It is fear, not greed, that drives Mr Bush ¤ Open gates, despite it all ¤ U.S. won't support Net "hate speech" ban ¤ FBI's secret detention of suspect alarms Pakistan ¤ German parliament extends role in war on terror ¤ 150 feared dead as Maoists launch attacks in Nepal ¤ Leave us to discover the truth, says chief nuclear inspector ¤ Disarming missile man's Iraq mission ¤ Rattled Czechs hand security over to the Pentagon ¤ Pakistani's execution sparks rallies ¤ UN readies to end presence in Bosnia World News Posted: Friday, November 15, 2002 ¤ Phase Two of Bush's War Plan Rumbles Ahead ¤ At least 12 Israelis killed > 20 wounded in Hebron shooting attack ¤ Gun attack 'kills several Israelis' ¤ Homeland Security bill 'A supersnoop's dream' ¤ British Empire blamed for modern conflicts BBC ¤ The US will soon have to choose Saddam's successor ¤ US training Iraqis to run post-Saddam government ¤ Baghdad warns UN it is acting 'contrary to the law' ¤ Go ahead Saddam, make Bush's day ... ¤ 'We' have played straight into Bin Laden's hands ¤ We don't want your oil, Blair tells Iraqis ¤ Bush tries to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply ¤ Israel seizes 'leader of kibbutz raid' > Israel just got to make those raids seem important ¤ Powell attacks Christian right ¤ Deal reached on 9-11 inquiry ¤ Israel and White Supremacy ¤ Police chief defends 'smiling assassin' circus ¤ Bombings will go on: Hamas ¤ Interview made perfect sense to Indonesians ¤ US army fires Arabic linguists for being gay ¤ All set for Kasi's execution ¤ UN condemns Afghan police for killing students ¤ Pakistan, Russia to swap terror intelligence ¤ Ecumenical Intolerance ¤ US executes Pakistani killer ¤ Gun company 'liable' for teacher death ¤ Rebels launch attack in Nepal ¤ Eminem scoops MTV awards Drought : Lessons from America Posted: Friday, November 15, 2002 www.indiatogether.org September 2002, by Devinder Sharma There isn't a time when an educated Indian doesn't search for answers from 'America - the dream land' for the problems that crop up time and again at home. Whether in preventing hunger, promoting sustainable agriculture, kick-starting industrial growth, food habits, music, or adopting successful models of economic growth, India must follow the Americans. No wonder, the intelligentsia, the economists and the scientists are always desperate for opportunities to travel and return with a bag full of answers to our multitude of problems. The solutions to India's raging drought - some call it the worst in recent memory - which haunts and ravages 12 states, too rest in the way America has managed its crop lands. After all, the United States has put together a drought-mitigation strategy, which has been touted as something that India needs to follow immediately. With hi-tech transformation, American agriculture, we all believe, has become insulated from the vagaries of drought. They apply laser, information technology and huge machines to farm cropland. They use satellite data, electronics and now genetic engineering for what is popularly called 'precision farming'. For Indian agriculture, with its fragmented land holdings, subsistence farming methods, poor productivity and the exploitation of the natural resource base as a consequence, there are serious doubts over the sustainability and viability of the farms. The only escape for the country, we are invariably told by agricultural scientists, is to follow the American model. That approach will provide an impeccable drought proofing. And it is primarily for this reason, corporate agriculture is being pushed as the way out from the crisis that afflicts Indian agriculture. By a strange coincidence, America too is faced at present with its worst drought since the great 'dust bowl' of the 1930s. As many as 26 of the 50 American states are reeling under a severe drought, with "exceptional drought" conditions - the worst level of drought measured - prevailing in thirteen states, including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. Such is the crop damage that like the drastic reduction expected in rice production this year in India, US wheat production is anticipated to fall to its lowest levels in nearly 30 years. There couldn't have therefore been a better time to study America's drought-coping mechanisms and suggest its replication in a poor developing country like India, or for that matter elsewhere in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. It comes as a rude shock. The American agriculture that we studied in the universities and appreciated has crumbled with one year of severe drought. It is well known that Indian agriculture falters because of its complete dependence on monsoons. But with the kind of industrialisation that took place in the United States, and with the amount of investments made, we were told that US agriculture is not dependent upon rains. Now, though, the drought-proofing that we heard so much about appears to be a big farce. At first impression, news reports appearing in the American media seem to be emanating from a drought-stricken village in India's hinterland. Till you see the dateline. You continue to read in utter disbelief. About 100 desperate farmers and rural residents praying for rain at the St. Patrick parish church in Grand Rapids, Ohio. With hands clasped and eyes cast downward, they seek divine intervention. "None of us have control over whether it is going to rain or not," Sister Christine Pratt, rural life director for the Catholic Diocese of nearby Toledo told Reuters, the wire agency. "But the people are praying for one another and there is some hope." Another report in the Washington Post states President George Bush was unwilling to extend any more finances under drought relief than the support that can come from $180 billion farm bill he signed in May. The president however underscored his commitment to helping farmers under current programs, including the Agriculture Department's decision that provides $150 million in surplus milk - "spoiled milk," as Democrats called it - to be made available for use in animal feed in four drought-stricken states, including South Dakota. Cattle are dying and crops are shrivelling. Fodder has become scarce, and therefore the need to feed surplus 'milk' instead. There is a scramble for new water sources as town and city residents are urged to stop watering lawns and washing cars. In heat-baked fields ranchers have sold off herds rather than let them starve for lack of pasture. "I have never seen it like this and I'm 60 years old," said Richard Traylor, who owns 37,000 acres in Texas and New Mexico but has sold off much of his cattle herd. Serious hydrological problems with wells and reservoirs have emerged. Streams have gone dry. The groundwater table has fallen drastically. Wildfires have become more rampant, and an estimated 4.6 million acres, has been scorched this year, twice the average acreage burnt in the previous decade. "It is pretty dire," said Mark Svoboda, climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center. From southern California to South Carolina and from Montana to New Mexico, individuals and industries are suffering, the news agency reports. In India, the total drought relief demanded by the affected states is around Rs 30,000 crore. In America, the drought relief being sought is in the range of US $ 5 billion. In India, the government still hasn't banned the watering of lawns. But in Monticello, Georgia, south of Atlanta, all outdoor watering has been banned, because creek levels were so low that the area could run out of water in 30 to 45 days. And like the loss estimates being worked out by the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, the national estimates for drought-related losses are also being prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture waiting for harvesting of corn and soybean and other key crops to conclude before loss figures are compiled. Lack of rain is the obvious reason for the prevailing drought in both India and America. But let us not forget that while India receives almost its entire rain in 100 hours during the monsoon season, it continues to rain intermittently in much of America. And still, water shortages are prompting battles between 'upstream and downstream states and between individuals and businesses in Dodge City, Kansas. In Jasper County, South Carolina, a drop in an underground aquifer left households without water. Rural residents, like In India, blamed businesses for using too much water. And as if this is not enough, North and South Carolina are fighting over North Carolina's refusal to release water from its reservoirs. In Colorado, Denver's water reservoir has already hit a historic low. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens has approved a $1 million emergency drought fund so that farmers and ranchers can buy water. "People are battling for water like we've never seen before," said Hope Mizzell, South Carolina's drought program coordinator. Like Rajasthan, which is faced with its fourth consecutive year of drought, some areas in America are also experiencing their fifth consecutive year of drought. The conditions are near those seen during the country's most devastating drought in the 1930s - the "dust bowl" years, when some 60% of the United States was affected, media reports. Isn't it the same situation that India is also passing through? After all, if a severe drought some 70 years after the 1930 'dust bowl' years still results in massive devastation, isn' t it time to question the efficacy of the American model of farming? Isn't it a fact that the hi-tech American agriculture remains as vulnerable to dry weather as the subsistence farming systems that prevail in India? Why then should India follow a faulty agriculture and farming system? It is time India realises that it has to develop its own low-cost farming strategies suiting the needs of the country. Indian agricultural scientists must look inwards for building up a farming system that meets the nation's requirements and also addresses problems of sustainability. Blindly aping the industrial farming system would only push the country into a hitherto unforeseen crisis, much more severe than the recurring drought. Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst. Among his recent works include GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair, In the Famine Trap and Gatt and India: The Politics of Agriculture Reproduced by consent of Devinder Sharma and www.indiatogether.org More on Genetically Modified Food Aid World News Posted: Thursday, November 14, 2002 ¤ 'Patience,' Annan tells Bush ¤ The US "free" press and the Pentagon war machine ¤ N. Korea says it has bio-arms ¤ Latest Bin Laden Tape Seen as Morale Boost for Terrorist ¤ U.S. Scours Tape for Information on Bin Laden ¤ Police Officer Misled Investigators, Chairman Says ¤ Outrage Grows Over Pentagon Plan > Super Database Will Track Citizens >> Homeland Security deal struck >> Homeland Security Bill Limits Smallpox Vaccine Damages ¤ No 'illegal' strikes on Iraq, Russia warns US ¤ Documents Should Lead to Indictments of Kissinger and Bush ¤ Israeli Forces Sweep Into Gaza City ¤ Inspectors will fly to Baghdad on Monday ¤ Israeli tanks enter Gaza 'in deepest incursion for years' ¤ 'Clean' Iraq will admit weapons inspectors ¤ 'Flood of immigrants' to Europe warns Belarus ¤ Intelligence shambles leaves Australians vulnerable ¤ Saddam's move could split hawks and doves ¤ 1 in 3 in UK say Bush is biggest threat ¤ Education have failed 2 in 3 Britons ¤ Netanyahu manoeuvre ensures he is heir to Sharon ¤ Oil spill could be Spain's worst for a decade ¤ America's hawks are obsessive in their pursuit of war ¤ Australia and US to start talks on free trade deal, says PM ¤ Saddam accepts UN resolution ¤ Inspectors will fly to Baghdad on Monday ¤ Annan thanks Bush for taking multilateral route ¤ Putin loses his cool over Chechnya ¤ Outrage at smiling assassin interview ¤ US to facilitate transfer of high-tech to India ¤ Israeli tanks raid Nablus, gunship attack on Gaza city ¤ Student riots overshadow Kabul take-over anniversary ¤ Anti-Muslim hate crimes rise in US after Sept 11 ¤ Canadian gas customer posts bail then arrested ¤ Canada pissed off at border incidents ¤ Powell to Try to Soothe Hard Feelings World News Posted: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 ¤ The Real Rogue Nation ¤ Attention, Small-D Democrats: The Party's Over ¤ Bin Laden Resurfaces to Haunt US at Critical Time ¤ Diplomat: Iraq Accepts U.N. Plan ¤ Homeland Security deal struck ¤ Spacey makes case for Iraq-nophobia ¤ United States Troops Under United Nations Command ¤ US Wants to Use Biological Weapons on Iraq ¤ The Pentagon's Path From Osama to Saddam ¤ Tricked and bamboozled into war > The west's warlords will get their invasion ¤ Stalemate Ends in Bush Victory on Terror Bill ¤ US Official: UN inspection team 'cannot prevent war' ¤ Europe lacks moral fibre, says US hawk ¤ Son of Saddam is unlikely defender of UN resolution ¤ U.S. says tape shows bin Laden alive ¤ North Korea Warns of Military Expansion in Response to US Threat ¤ 'Bin Laden' threatens Australia, other US allies ¤ 'Bin Laden' says Bali bombing justified, warns US allies ¤ Excerpts From 'bin Laden' Tape ¤ Iraq deputies defy UN call to disarm ¤ Oil Rises on Iraq Parliament's Defiance ¤ Iraqi assembly decision mocked by Bush ¤ American agents prime Kurdish allies for action ¤ Regime's order for gas antidote worries US ¤ War on Iraq will create recruits for terror ¤ The gun at Saddam's head ¤ Saddam's merry dance cannot hide the sad inevitability of events ¤ Cleric names his price for ruling with Musharraf ¤ Knickers in the name of capitalism only ¤ Israelis search refugee camp for kibbutz killer ¤ Netanyahu: I would expel Arafat ¤ Israel Fires Missiles on Gaza City ¤ Milosevic's poor health halts war crimes trial ¤ Chechens beg Kazakhstan to let them return ¤ Putin offers radical surgery for Chechen rebels ¤ UN meeting eases ivory ban ¤ Violence at Kabul student protests ¤ U.S. Taking Over As U.N.'s CFO ¤ The fear, the warnings and how a nation was placed on high alert ¤ How Dounreay's nuclear dream turned sour One dead as police clash with pro-government supporters Posted: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 vheadline.com At least one person was killed and nine injured during clashes between government supporters and Metropolitan Police (MP). Protestors blocked the entrance to Metropolitan Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena's office in downtown Caracas before being dispersed with tear gas and shotgun pellets. Engulfed by tear gas, shopkeepers pulled down their shutters and fled the area until order was restored. Pena, a staunch Chavez-critic, says "this is a provocation by President Hugo Chavez Frias." The Metro Mayor's office has been the subject of many recent attacks, as the anti-government forces accuse the government of losing control over its more radical supporters. World News Posted: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 ¤ Iraq has few weapons left, says former UN inspector ¤ The rescue parties ¤ Lott's Promise to Bring Up Abortion Worries Bush Aides ¤ State Coalition Approves Internet Sales Tax Plan ¤ Latest American airstrikes pave way for an invasion ¤ British support for attack on Iraq 'falling' ¤ The Final Death Throes of the Global Elite ¤ Could Bush Become another Hitler? ¤ An Open Letter to America from a New Zealander ¤ Iraq Reported Trying to Buy Nerve Gas Antidote ¤ Biological Blame Game: USA in First Place ¤ The intrigue behind the drone strike > Yemeni: US lacks discretion as antiterror partner ¤ Political crisis deepens in Iran ¥ Look for the US involvement as they promised ¤ North Korea hits at South's 'provocation' ¤ Kabul student protest turns bloody ¤ Nigeria rules out Bakassi war ¤ Blair says terror warnings are coming 'almost daily' ¤ South Africa fears terror threat of white extremists ¤ World fears terror threat of white extremists (Bush and co.) ¥ Iraqi leaders rally around Saddam ¤ World's richest man tries to hold back 'gathering tempest' ¤ Former English Chancellor attack on Burma goes up in smoke ¤ Israelis fear war crimes arrests ¤ Colombia Army Kills 7 in Clash ¤ A glimmer of European defiance ¤ US floats plan to bring back blimps ¤ Palestinians: 2-year-old boy killed by IDF fire in Gaza ¤ Attacked Kibbutz Was an Oasis of Peace ¤ Hawk-dove split reopens ¤ Iraqi deputies urge Saddam to stand firm ¤ Bush dishes out licences to kill on a wide front ¤ 163 caribbean cruise passengers fall ill from food ¤ Hang Seng opens lower and tests key support ¤ Pakistan assembly due but no coalition in sight ¤ Sovereignty takes a contract hit ¤ Labor fakes it again - and the settlers stay on ¤ Israeli army sweeps into West Bank ¤ US tornadoes kill at least 35 ¤ Iraqi parliament adjourns over UN resolution ¤ Bush dishes out licences to kill on a wide front ¤ Military force against N Korea ruled out ¤ Gunman kills five in kibbutz carnage ¤ US warns of war by Christmas ¤ Putin rejects Chechnya treaty ¤ Smoking aircraft plunges 34 into Manila Bay World News Posted: Monday, November 11, 2002 ¤ Deadly slide to assassination ¤ Why People Hate America and Americans ¤ 33 Die As Storms Ravage South, East US ¤ SEC aide quits after leak to Chinese ¤ The golden rulemakers ¤ Impotent Arab League puts on brave face ¤ We're not spies, says inspection chief ¤ Shooting of four 'martyrs' sparks anger in Jordan ¤ We Should Shun Assassinations ¤ UK expects Iraq to fail arms tests ¤ Three Killed in Philippines Crash ¤ Israel Fires on Gaza After Shooting ¤ Germany at pains to mollify Washington ¤ Five killed on Israeli kibbutz after police foil suicide attack ¤ British soldiers may be charged with Kabul killing ¤ Violent Storms Kill 7 in Tenn., Ohio ¤ India rebuffs Bill Gates in Aids row ¤ Bush demands 'zero tolerance' Iraq policy ¤ British Cabinet split over need for approval of military action ¤ Mr Blair returns to the war on crime, more in desperation than wisdom ¤ Germany probes into possible arms sales to Iraq ¤ Two Palestinians killed in car blast ¤ US may stop oil shipments to North Korea ¤ Putin sees Chechnya peace without Maskhadov ¤ Saddam faces three-pronged attack ¤ 'Recycled' refugees swindle UN of millions ¤ Al-Qaeda planned to assassinate Pope: report ¤ Only matter of time before US hit by terrorists: Ridge ¤ US weighs moving trial of '20th hijacker' to Cuba ¤ Slovenia's PM wins most votes in Slovenian presidential ballot World News Posted: Sunday, November 10, 2002 ¤ Tolerating Protest Is The Downside To Being President ¤ Iraq accepts new UN resolution, Prince Saud says ¤ The US is starting to look more like Bush's kingdom ¤ After Iraq, Bush will attack his real target ¤ U.S. Prepares Military Package For Turkey ¤ Iraq's Euro - American Weapons Collusion ¤ US lays out plans to invade Iraq with 200,000 troops ¤ America's new favourite son ¤ Italy Anti-War March Draws 450,000 ¤ Sun's rays to roast Earth as poles flip ¤ How to democratise global institutions ¤ A dark week for democracy ¤ UK forges £1bn secret arms deal with Thailand ¤ Ceasefire hopes dashed as Israel kills militant ¤ Defect to us, America tells Iraqi scientists ¤ Oh, what a lovely war ¤ Leaked photos alarm Pentagon ¤ Zimbabwe names Blair in bar on critics ¤ Why Russia isn't looking for peace ¤ Britain mobilises 15,000 troops for war on Saddam ¤ Howard vows to join US attacks ¤ British Cabinet splits over Blair hard line on Iraq ¤ All change as Eminem hailed as new Elvis World News Posted: Saturday, November 9, 2002 ¤ European Anti-War Rally Streams Through Florence ¤ Bush's Iraq plans: Reincarnation of failed 1930s British policy ¤ US Soldier Was Killed by Friendly Fire ¤ No evidence so far of al-Qaeda link to Bali suspect ¤ Israeli forces kill senior Islamic Jihad member ¤ Pressure on Japan to get missile shield ¤ UN has not endorsed unilateral action on Iraq: Syria ¤ UN vote casts the die ¤ Syria makes a virtue of a necessity ¤ Turkey must be kept out of the union, Giscard says ¤ Hope of peaceful march against military action ¤ Falling sales slow worldwide march of McDonald's ¤ Arab League Seeks to Avoid Iraq War ¤ Netanyahu's power play clouds US relations ¤ Dominant at home and abroad, but it could all go quickly wrong ¤ The face of power, the raw, real power of Bush's America ¤ George Bush crosses Rubicon - but what lies beyond? ¤ Diplomacy and dollars secure rare unanimity at the UN ¤ Waverer voted yes 'to stop use of force and US right to go to war' ¤ This time we mean it, says Bush ¤ Humbly, Bush asks for action - and PRONTO ¤ Fledgling weapons inspectors find they have a lot to learn ¤ Russia must take some of the blame for theatre siege ¤ UN defers debate on anti-cloning treaty ¤ 'Hated Americans' target of Bali bombs > This story does not make sense. (Parts of this article makes sense.) ¤ Hawaii, Trapped in a colonial bubble ¤ US Pressure on Japan to get missile shield > I guess that makes sense, or Dollar$ for US ¤ Top soldier suggests aid, not bombs, for Afghanistan ¤ TV tale of fight against Zionism angers Israelis A History of Corporate Rule and Popular Protest Posted: Saturday, November 9, 2002 by Richard Heinberg * The corporation was invented early in the colonial era as a grant of privilege extended by the Crown to a group of investors, usually to finance a trade expedition. The corporation limited the liability of investors to the amount of their investment--a right not held by ordinary citizens. Corporate charters set out the specific rights and obligations of the individual corporation, including the amount to be paid to the Crown in return for the privilege granted. Thus were born the East India Company, which led the British colonisation of India, and Hudson's Bay Company, which accomplished the same purpose in Canada. Almost from the beginning, Britain deployed state military power to further corporate interests--a practice that has continued to the present. Also from the outset, corporations began pressuring government to expand corporate rights and to limit corporate responsibilities. The corporation was a legal invention--a socio-economic mechanism for concentrating and deploying human and economic power. The purpose of the corporation was and is to generate profits for its investors. As an entity, it has no other purpose; it acknowledges no higher value. Many people understood early on that since corporations do not serve society as a whole, but only their investors, there is therefore always a danger that the interests of corporations and those of the general populace will come into conflict. Indeed, the United States was born of a revolution not just against the British monarchy but against the power of corporations. Many of the American colonies had been chartered as corporations (the Virginia Company, the Carolina Company, the Maryland Company, etc.) and were granted monopoly power over lands and industries considered crucial to the interests of the Crown. Much of the literature of the revolutionaries was filled with denunciations of the "long train of abuses" of the Crown and its instruments of dominance, the corporations. As the yoke of the Crown corporations was being thrown off, Thomas Jefferson railed against "the general prey of the rich on the poor". Later, he warned the new nation against the creation of "immortal persons" in the form of corporations. The American revolutionaries resolved that the authority to charter corporations should lie not with governors, judges or generals, but only with elected legislatures. At first, such charters as were granted were for a fixed time, and legislatures spelled out the rules each business should follow. Profit-making corporations were chartered to build turnpikes, canals and bridges, to operate banks and to engage in industrial manufacture. Some citizens argued against even these few, limited charters, on the grounds that no business should be granted special privileges and that owners should not be allowed to hide behind legal shields. Thus the requests for many charters were denied, and existing charters were often revoked. Banks were kept on a short leash, and (in most states) investors were held liable for the debts and harms caused by their corporations. All of this began to change in the mid-19th century. According to Richard Grossman and Frank Adams in Taking Care of Business: "Corporations were abusing their charters to become conglomerates and trusts. They were converting the nation's treasures into private fortunes, creating factory systems and company towns. Political power began flowing to absentee owners intent upon dominating people and nature."1 Grossman and Adams note that: "In factory towns, corporations set wages, hours, production processes and machine speeds. They kept blacklists of labor organizers and workers who spoke up for their rights. Corporate officials forced employees to accept humiliating conditions, while the corporations agreed to nothing." The authors quote Julianna, a Lowell, Massachusetts, factory worker, who wrote: "Incarcerated within the walls of a factory, while as yet mere children, drilled there from five till seven o'clock, year after year what, we would ask, are we to expect, the same system of labor prevailing, will be the mental and intellectual character of future generations -a race fit only for corporation tools and time-serving slaves?... Shall we not hear the response from every hill and vale: 'Equal rights, or death to the corporations'?" Industrialists and bankers hired private armies to keep workers in line, bought newspapers and (quoting Grossman and Adams again): "painted politicians as villains and businessmen as heroes. Bribing state legislators, they then announced legislators were corrupt, that they used too much of the public's resources and time to scrutinise every charter application and corporate operation. Corporate advocates campaigned to replace existing chartering laws with general incorporation laws that set up simple administrative procedures, claiming this would be more efficient. What they really wanted was the end of legislative authority over charters." During the Civil War, government spending brought corporations unprecedented wealth. "Corporate managers developed the techniques and the ability to organise production on an ever grander scale," according to Grossman and Adams. "Many corporations used their wealth to take advantage of war and Reconstruction years to get the tariff, banking, railroad, labor, and public lands legislation they wanted." In 1886, the US Supreme Court declared that corporations were henceforth to be considered "persons" under the law, with all of the constitutional rights that designation implies. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, passed to give former slaves equal rights, has been invoked approximately ten times more frequently on behalf of corporations than on behalf of African Americans. Likewise the First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech, has been invoked to guarantee corporations the "right" to influence the political process through campaign contributions, which the courts have equated with "speech". If corporations are "persons", they are persons with qualities and powers that no flesh-and-blood human could ever possess--immortality, the ability to be in many places at once, and (increasingly) the ability to avoid liability. They are also "persons" with no sense of moral responsibility, since their only legal mandate is to produce profits for their investors. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, corporations reshaped every aspect of life in America and much of the rest of the world. The factory system turned self-sufficient small farmers into wage-earners and transformed the family from an interdependent economic production unit to a consumption-oriented collection of individuals with separate jobs. Advertising turned productive citizens into "consumers". Business leaders campaigned to create public schools to train children in factory-system obedience to schedules and in the performance of isolated, meaningless tasks. Meanwhile, corporations came to own and dominate sources of information and entertainment, and to control politicians and judges. During two periods, corporations faced a challenge: the 1890s (a depression period when Populists demanded regulation of railroad rates, heavy taxation of land held only for speculation, and an increase in the money supply), and the 1930s (when a profound crisis of capitalism led hundreds of thousands of workers and armies of the unemployed to demand government regulation of the economy and to win a 40-hour week, a minimum-wage law, the right to organise, and the outlawing of child labour). But in both cases, corporate capitalism emerged intact. In the words of historian Howard Zinn: "The rich still controlled the nation's wealth, as well as its laws, courts, police, newspapers, churches, colleges. Enough help had been given to enough people to make Roosevelt a hero to millions, but the same system that had brought depression and crisis remained."2 World War II, like previous wars, brought huge profits to corporations via government contracts. But following this war, military spending was institutionalised, ostensibly to fight the "Cold War". Despite occasional regulatory setbacks, corporations seized ever more power, and increasingly transcended national boundaries, loyalties and sovereignties altogether. GLOBAL PILLAGE In the 1970s, capitalism faced yet another challenge as postwar growth subsided and profits fell. The US was losing its dominant position in world markets; the production of oil from its domestic wells was peaking and beginning to fall, thus making America increasingly dependent upon oil imports from Arab countries; the Vietnam War had weakened the American economy; and Third World countries were demanding a "North - South dialogue" leading towards greater self-reliance for poorer countries. President Nixon responded by doing away with fixed currency exchange rates and devaluing the dollar, largely erasing US war debts to other countries. Later, newly elected President Reagan, at the 1981 Cancún, Mexico, meeting of 22 heads of state, refused to discuss new financial arrangements with the Third World, thus effectively endorsing their further exploitation by corporations. Meanwhile, the corporations themselves also responded with a new strategy. Increased capital mobility (made possible by floating exchange rates and new transportation, communication and production technologies) allowed US corporations to move production offshore to "export processing zones" in poorer countries. Corporations also undertook a restructuring process, moving toward "networked production"--in which big firms, while retaining and consolidating power, hired smaller firms to take over aspects of supply, manufacture, accounting and transport. (Economist Bennett Harrison defined networked production as "concentration of control combined with decentralization of production".) This restructuring process is also known as "downsizing", because it results in the shedding of higher-paid employees by large corporations and the hiring of low-wage contingent workers by smaller subcontractors. Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello write in Global Village or Global Pillage that: "As the economic crisis deepened, there gradually evolved a 'supra-national policy arena' which included new organizations like the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations and NAFTA and new roles for established international organisations like EU, IMF, World Bank, and GATT. The policies adopted by these international institutions allowed corporations to lower their costs in several ways. They reduced consumer, environmental, health, labor, and other standards. They reduced business taxes. They facilitated the move to lower wage areas and threat of such movement. And they encouraged the expansion of markets and the 'economies of scale' provided by larger-scale production."3 All of this has led to a globalised economy in which (again quoting Brecher and Costello): "All over the world, people are being pitted against each other to see who will offer global corporations the lowest labor, social, and environmental costs. Their jobs are being moved to places with inferior wages, lower business taxes, and more freedom to pollute. Their employers are using the threat of 'foreign competition' to hold down wages, salaries, taxes, and environmental protections and to replace high-quality jobs with temporary, part-time, insecure, and low-quality jobs. Their government officials are justifying cuts in education, health, and other services as necessary to reduce business taxes in order to keep or attract jobs." Corporations, no longer bound by national laws, prowl the world looking for the best deals on labour and raw materials. Of the world's top 120 economies, nearly half are corporations, not countries. Thus the power of citizens in any nation to control corporations through whatever democratic processes are available to them is receding quickly. In November 1999, tens of thousands of students, union members and indigenous peoples gathered in Seattle to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This mass demonstration seemed to signal the birth of a new global populist uprising against corporate globalisation. In the three years since then, more mass demonstrations--some larger, many smaller--have occurred in Genoa, Melbourne, Milan, Montreal, Philadelphia, Washington and other cities. In January 2001, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office, following a deeply flawed US election. With strong ties to the oil industry and to the huge energy-trading corporation Enron, the new administration quickly proposed a national energy policy that focused on opening federally protected lands for oil exploration and on further subsidising the oil industry. Enron, George W. Bush's largest campaign contributor, was the seventh largest corporation in the US and the 16th largest in the world. Despite its reported massive profits, it had paid no taxes in four out of the previous five years. The company had thousands of offshore partnerships, through which it had hidden over a billion dollars in debt. When this hidden debt was disclosed in October 2001, the company imploded. Its share price collapsed and its credit rating was slashed. Its executives resigned in disgrace, taking with them multimillion-dollar bonuses, while employees and stockholders shouldered the immense financial loss. Enron's bankruptcy was the largest in corporate history up to that time, but its creative accounting practices appear to be far from unique, with dozens of other corporations poised for a similar collapse. Following the outrageous and tragic attacks of September 11, Bush launched a "War on Terror", raising the listed number of potential target countries from three to nearly 50, most having exportable energy resources. With Iraq (holder of the world's second-largest proven petroleum reserves) high on the list of enemy regimes to be violently overthrown, the Bush administration's Terror War appeared to be geared toward making the world safe for the expanded reach of US oil corporations. Meanwhile, new laws and executive orders curtailed constitutional rights and erected screens of secrecy around government actions and decision-making processes. It remains to be seen how the American populace will react to these new developments. Here again, a little history may help us understand the options available. HURDLES IN THE PATH The Populism of the 1890s failed for two main reasons: divisiveness within, and co-optation from without. While many Populist leaders saw the need for unity among people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in attacking corporate power, racism was strong among many whites. Most of the Alliance leaders were white farm owners who failed in many instances to support the organising efforts of poor rural blacks, and poor whites as well, thus dividing the movement. "On top of the serious failures to unite blacks and whites, city workers and country farmers," writes Howard Zinn, "there was the lure of electoral politics." Once allied with the Democratic party in supporting William Jennings Bryan for President in 1896 the pressure for electoral victory led Populism to make deals with the major parties in city after city. If the Democrats won, it would be absorbed. If the Democrats lost, it would disintegrate. Electoral politics brought into the top leadership the political brokers instead of the agrarian radicals... In the election of 1896, with the Populist movement enticed into the Democratic party, Bryan, the Democratic candidate, was defeated by William McKinley, for whom the corporations and the press mobilised, in the first massive use of money in an election campaign."4 Today, a new populist movement could easily fall prey to the same internal divisions and tactical errors that destroyed its counterpart a century ago. In the recent American presidential election, populists faced the choice of supporting their own candidate (Ralph Nader) and thereby contributing to the election of the far-right, pro-corporate Republican candidate (Bush), or supporting the centrist Gore and seeing their movement co-opted by pro-corporate Democrats. Meanwhile, though African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, European Americans and Native Americans have all been victimised by corporations, class divisions and historical resentments often prevent them from organising to further their common interests. In recent elections, ultra-right candidate Pat Buchanan appealed simultaneously to "populist" anti-corporate and anti-government sentiments among the working class, as well as to xenophobic white racism. Buchanan's critique of corporate power was shallow, but it was often the only such critique permitted in the corporate-controlled media. One cannot help but wonder: were the corporations looking for a lightning rod to rechannel the anger building against them? While Buchanan had no chance of winning the presidency, his candidacy did raise the spectre of another kind of solution to the emerging crisis of popular resentment against the system--a solution that again has roots in the history of the past century. A FALSE REVOLUTION In the early 1900s, workers in Italy and Germany built strong unions and won substantial concessions in wages and work conditions; still, after World War I they suffered under a disastrous postwar economy, which fanned unrest. During the early 1920s, heavy industry and big finance were in a state of near-total collapse. Bankers and agribusiness associations offered financial support to Mussolini--who had been a socialist before the war--to seize state power, which he effectively did in 1922 following his march on Rome. Within two years, the Fascist Party (from the Latin fasces, meaning a bundle of rods and an axe, symbolising Roman state power) had shut down all opposition newspapers, crushed the socialist, liberal, Catholic, democratic and republican parties (which had together commanded about 80 per cent of the vote), abolished unions, outlawed strikes and privatised farm cooperatives. In Germany, Hitler led the Nazi Party to power, then cut wages and subsidised industries. In both countries, corporate profits ballooned. Understandably, given their friendliness to big business, Fascism and Nazism were popular among some prominent American industrialists such as Henry Ford) and opinion shapers (like William Randolph Hearst). Fascism and Nazism relied on centrally controlled propaganda campaigns that cleverly co-opted the language of the Left (the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist German Workers Party--while persecuting socialists and curtailing workers' rights). Both movements also made calculated use of emotionally charged symbolism: scapegoating minorities, appealing to mythic images of a glorious national past, building a leader cult, glorifying war and conquest, and preaching that the only proper role of women is as wives and mothers. As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook Fascism's economic agenda--the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government--in their analysis of its authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic society.5 Corporations themselves, after all, are internally authoritarian (courts have ruled that citizens give up their constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, etc., when they are at work on corporate-owned property); and as corporations increasingly dominate politics, media and economy, they can mould an entire society to serve the interests of a powerful elite without ever resorting to stormtroopers and concentration camps. No deliberate conspiracy is necessary, either: each corporation merely acts to further its own economic interests. If the populace shows signs of restlessness, politicians can be hired to appeal to racial resentments and memories of national glory, dividing popular opposition and inspiring loyalty. In the current situation, "friendly fascism" works somewhat as follows. Corporations drive down wages and pay a dwindling share of taxes (through mechanisms outlined above), gradually impoverishing the middle class and creating unrest. As corporate taxes are cut, politicians (whose election was funded by corporate donors) argue that it is necessary to reduce government services in order to balance the budget. Meanwhile, the same politicians argue for an increase in the repressive functions of government (more prisons, harsher laws, more executions, more military spending). Politicians channel the middle class's rising resentment away from corporations and toward the government (which, after all, is now less helpful and more repressive than it used to be) and against social groups easy to scapegoat (criminals, minorities, teenagers, women, gays, immigrants). Meanwhile, debate in the media is kept superficial (elections are treated as sporting contests), and right-wing commentators are subsidised while left-of-centre ones are marginalised. People who feel cheated by the system turn to the Right for solace, and vote for politicians who further subsidise corporations, cut government services, expand the repressive power of the state and offer irrelevant scapegoats for social problems with economic roots. The process feeds on itself. Within this scenario, George W. Bush (and similar ultra-right figures in other countries) are not anomalies but, rather, predictable products of a strategy adopted by economic elites--harbingers of a less-than-friendly future--as the more "moderate" tactics for the maintenance and consolidation of power founder under the weight of corporate greed and resource exhaustion. CAUSE FOR HOPE? These circumstances are, in their details, unprecedented; but in broad outline we are seeing the re-enactment of a story that goes back at least to the beginning of civilisation. Those with power are always looking for ways to protect and extend it, and to make their power seem legitimate, necessary or invisible so that popular protest seems unnecessary or futile. If protest comes, the powerful always try to deflect anger away from themselves. The leaders of the new populist movement appear to have a good grasp of both the current circumstances and the historical ground from which these circumstances emerge. They seem to have realised that, in order to succeed, the new populism will have to: ¥ avoid being co-opted by existing political parties; ¥ heal race, class and gender divisions and actively resist any campaign to scapegoat disempowered social groups; ¥ avoid being identified with an ideological category-- "communist", "socialist" or "anarchist"--against which most of the public is already well inoculated by corporate propaganda; ¥ direct public discussion toward the most vulnerable link in the corporate chain of power: the legal basis of the corporation; ¥ internationalise the movement so that corporations cannot undermine it merely by shifting their base of operations from one country to another. As Lawrence Goodwyn noted in his definitive work, The Populist Moment, the original Populists were "attempting to construct, within the framework of American capitalism, some variety of cooperative commonwealth". This was "the last substantial effort at structural alteration of hierarchical economic forms in modern America".6 In announcing the formation of the Alliance for Democracy, in an article in the August 14, 1996 issue of The Nation, activist Ronnie Dugger compiled a list of policy suggestions which comprise some of the core demands of the new populist movement. These include: a prohibition of contributions or any other political activity by corporations; single-payer national health insurance with automatic universal coverage; a doubling of the minimum wage, indexed to inflation; a generic low-interest-rate national policy, entailing the abolition of the Federal Reserve System; statutory reversal of the court-made law that corporations are "persons"; establishment of a national public oil company; limitations on ownership of newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations to one of any kind per person or owning entity; and the halving of military spending. The new populists are, in Ronnie Dugger's words, "ready to resume the cool eyeing of the corporations with a collective will to take back the powers they have seized from us".7 The new populism draws some of its inspiration from the work of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), a populist "think-tank" that explores the legal basis of corporate power. POCLAD believes that it is possible to control--and, if necessary, dismantle--corporations by amending or revoking their charters.8 Since the largest corporations are now transnational in scope, the new populism must confront their abuses globally. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) was founded for this purpose in 1994, as an alliance of 60 activists, scholars, economists and writers (including Jerry Mander, Vandana Shiva, Richard Grossman, Ralph Nader, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jeremy Rifkin and Kirkpatrick Sale), to stimulate new thinking and joint action along these lines. In a position statement drafted in 1995, the International Forum on Globalization said that it: "views international trade and investment agreements, including the GATT, the WTO, Maastricht and NAFTA, combined with the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to be direct stimulants to the processes that weaken democracy, create a world order in the control of transnational corporations and devastate the natural world. The IFG will study, publish and actively advocate in opposition to the current rush toward economic globalization, and will seek to reverse its direction. Simultaneously, we will advocate on behalf of a far more diversified, locally controlled, community-based economics We believe that the creation of a more equitable economic order--based on principles of diversity, democracy, community and ecological sustainability--will require new international agreements that place the needs of people, local economies and the natural world ahead of the interests of corporations"9 Leaders of the new populism appear to realise that anti-corporatism is not a complete solution to the world's problems; that the necessary initial focus on corporate power must eventually be supplemented by a more general critique of centralising and unsustainable technologies, money-based economics and current nation-state governmental structures, by efforts to protect traditional cultures and ecosystems, and by a renewal of culture and spirituality. It would be foolish to underestimate the immense challenges to the new populism from the current US administration and from the jingoistic, bellicose post-September 11 public sentiment fostered by the corporate media. Nevertheless, POCLAD, the Alliance for Democracy and the IFG (along with dozens of human rights, environmental and anti-war organisations around the world) provide important rallying points for citizens' self-defence against tyranny in its most modern, invisible, effective and even seductive forms. Endnotes: 1. Grossman, Richard and Frank Adams, Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation, pamphlet, 1993, available at http://www.poclad.org/resources.html. 2. Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, Harper Perennial, 2001. 3. Brecher, Jeremy and Tim Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic Reconstruction from the Bottom Up, South End Press, 1998. 4. Zinn, op. cit. 5. Gross, Bertram, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, South End Press, 1998. 6. Goodwyn, Lawrence, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, Oxford University Press, 1978. 7. The Alliance for Democracy website, http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/. 8. POCLAD website, http://www.poclad.org. 9. IFG pamphlet, 1995; revised position statement at IFG website, http://www.ifg.org. About the Author: Richard Heinberg is a journalist, educator, editor, lecturer and musician. He has lectured widely and appeared on national radio and TV in five countries. He is a core faculty member of New College of California, where he teaches courses on Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community. He is the author of: "Memories and Visions of Paradise"; "Celebrate the Solstice"; "A New Covenant with Nature"; and "Cloning the Buddha: the Moral Impact of Biotechnology". His next book, "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies", is to be published by New Society in March 2003. His essays have been featured in The Futurist, Intuition, Brain/Mind Bulletin, Magical Blend, New Dawn and elsewhere. Richard is also author/editor/publisher of MuseLetter, a monthly, subscription-only, alternative newsletter which is now in its tenth year of publication. MuseLetter's purpose is "to offer a continuing critique of corporate-capitalist industrial civilization and a re-visioning of humanity's prospects for the next millennium". His article, "A History of Corporate Rule and Popular Protest", was originally published in MuseLetter in 1996 as "The New Populism", and was revised in August 2002. Visit the MuseLetter website at http://www.museletter.com. Reproduced by consent of Richard Heinberg & www.nexusmagazine.com World News Posted: Friday, November 8, 2002 ¤ Bush confident of UN agreement on Iraq ¤ South Africa joins Miss World boycott ¤ UN defers debate on anti-cloning treaty ¤ McDonald's to Close 175 Restaurants ¤ Gibraltar Voters Reject Spain Rule ¤ Not even the UN can reconcile the case for war with the case for peace ¤ Bush fights for another clean shot in his war ¤ Blunkett blunders in issuing dire warning of 'dirty bombs' ¤ U.S. helping Japan make up its mind on Iraq ¤ U.S. expands registration of Muslim visitors ¤ Bush claims new mandate on Iraq ¤ Bashir link to Bali suspect ¤ Banned Islamic group thrives in NSW ¤ Indonesia moves on Papua murders ¤ US, British jets bomb southern Iraq, AGAIN ¤ US citizen among al Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen ¤ Wounded losers turn to 2004 White House race ¤ Rout of Democrats leaves Bush master of US political universe ¤ Malevolent White Supremist in South African ¤ US push for swift UN vote on Iraq offer ¤ Man admits planting Bali bomb, say police ¤ Britain imposing visa requirements on Zimbabweans ¤ Victorious Bush to focus on economy and security ¤ Election over, President must play out his hand on Iraq World News Posted: Thursday, November 7, 2002 ¤ US and France Reach Agreement on UN Resolution ¤ Pentagon Moving B-2 Bombers Closer to Baghdad ¤ Couple in New York Evaluated for Bubonic Plague ¤ Iraq resolution picked apart ¤ On The 2002 Midterm Elections ¤ America has always been at war ¤ Israel weighs expanding navy to protect its nukes ¤ Forced Vaccines Haunt Gulf Vets ¤ Murder By Injection ¤ The Innovations We're Missing ¤ Bush: Bestriding the world? ¤ Think People!!! The Fix Was In ¤ Stop and search figures show strong race bias ¤ Buoyant Bush wins mandate for war ¤ US tables resolution for action against Iraq ¤ This Iraq resolution is wired for war ¤ The binational option ¤ A foreign legion for the Pentagon? ¤ Europeans see a boost for Bush's world view ¤ Rearmed, president will push agenda ¤ Netanyahu returns to office with swipe at US peace plan ¤ Bush wins hardline UN deal on Iraq ¤ Document leaves way clear for war ¤ Mystery as 20 die in Luxembourg plane crash ¤ US may intervene to save Zimbabweans >> U.S. eyes end run around Mugabe >>> UK behind invasion plot >>>> Harare accuses U.S. in food flap ¤ Man Tests for Bubonic Plague in NYC ¤ America's weapons of mass attraction count most ¤ A foreign legion for the Pentagon? ¤ 'Fix' backfires as army halts Pakistan assembly ¤ Florence under siege as protesters arrive ¤ Bush moves on Saddam after victory ¤ Germany to extend anti-terror troop mandate ¤ US braces for retaliation after Yemen assassination ¤ Soldier and outsider in a duel to the death ¤ Missile threat a test of Japan's nerve ¤ At least 17 dead in plane crash ¤ Twelve killed as Paris-Munich train bursts into flames ¤ Bush seizes the moment to push UN ¤ A dark hour for American liberalism ¤ Supporter of Taliban poised to be next PM ¤ Australian govt to block access to Protest websites ¤ Missile threat a test of Japan's nerve ¤ A tiny nation's envoy caught in the crossfire over Iraq World News Posted: Wednesday, November 6, 2002 ¤ Train fire kills 12 in east France ¤ 18 dead in Luxembourg plane crash ¤ Gephardt to Step Down As Dem Leader ¤ With friends like these ¤ Adrian Hamilton: It is wrong to be judge, jury and executioner ¤ Winona Ryder guilty of shoplifting ¤ US makes big interest rate cut ¤ Zambia 'furious' over GM food ¤ Democrats have only themselves to blame ¤ US 'still opposes' targeted killings ¤ U.S. closes Yemen embassy fearing retaliation ¤ US Muslim ad drive 'a waste of time' ¤ Analysis / Sharon's gov't goes, Arafat stays ¤ Islamists on brink of power in Pakistan ¤ The Privatisation of Water ¤ It is wrong to be judge, jury and executioner ¤ A justifiable tool in the war against terrorism? ¤ Republicans Seize Control of Congress ¤ 'Clean' sweep for Republicans ¤ Florida votes - and the talk is of another 'fix' ¤ 16 dead in Luxembourg plane crash ¤ US secures deal on new Iraq weapons resolution ¤ Islamists on brink of power in Pakistan ¤ Street protests press Chavez to face Venezuelan electors ¤ Russia claims right to take action beyond borders ¤ Israelis will fight election as war with Iraq looms ¤ US hopeful of deal on Iraq resolution ¤ Targeting Iran would be 'grave error': Britain ¤ Straw and Sharon 'deeply disagree' ¤ Israel's leadership fight will end hope of new peace talks ¤ 'War crimes' fear for British troops ¤ Silent killer changes rules of engagement ¤ CIA seeks and kills al-Qaeda chief ¤ US election exit polls abandoned ¤ Bush keeps it cool after a hectic campaign ¤ Parties deploy armies of lawyers at polling stations ¤ Desert kill: How the CIA got their man ¤ Four nations may have killer disease stocks ¤ Angry Sharon calls February elections ¥ Some sources say January, others February... Whatever! ¤ Islamic leader pledges Western stance ¤ US peace drive continues despite Israel vote ¤ France nabs eight for synagogue bomb ¤ MI5 "whistleblower" faces jail ¤ Afghan "Hero" governor accused of torture ¤ Bali alert raises payback fears ¤ US prepares to submit Iraq resolution to UN ¤ Countries pledge to wipe out trade in "blood diamonds" ¤ A Call for Drug War Democracy World News Posted: Tuesday, November 5, 2002 ¤ FLORIDA VOTERS CLAIM MACHINES 'BROKEN' > VOTED FOR MCBRIDE, MARKED IT AS BUSH ¤ Poll Problems Reported In Central Florida ¤ Turkish Party: Opposes U.S. Strikes ¤ Chechnya's savage war comes home to Moscow ¤ Iran refutes Zionist war criminal's anti-Iran statement ¤ Beijing looks to bring neighbours under its wing ¤ US and Israel: Rogue States With Weapons Of Mass Distruction ¤ Support for attack on Iraq falls to new low ¤ White House rejects talks, tells N. Korea to scrap arms > Or what? Invade a nation that really have nuclear weapons? ¤ Attack Iran the day Iraq war ends, demands Israel ¤ Sharon faces fresh challenge ¤ 'P2OG' allows Pentagon to fight dirty ¤ Archbishop warns West of nuclear conflict over Iraq ¤ Asian leaders scorn travel alerts ¤ Satirical NZ Web site sends Kiribati into panic ¤ Iraq hints at compliance as US adjusts resolution ¤ Push us at your peril, Powell warns Saddam ¤ CIA killed al Qaeda suspects in Yemen, official claims ¤ Al-Qaeda chief killed by US drone ¤ Spy plane now CIA's deadliest weapon ¤ Turkey's voters deliver the 'wrong' result ¤ Oratorical skills of popular politician led to ban ¤ Poll victors in Turkey flaunt EU credentials ¤ Saudi Arabia sends strong anti-war message to US ¤ Britain may call up 10,000 for war with Iraq ¤ Iran confirms, then backtracks over bin Laden son's arrest ¤ Aussie girls caught with heroin; one faces execution ¤ Netanyahu 'yes' to key cabinet job, has strings ¤ Mid-term house cleaning may sweep aside history ¤ Karzai sacks chiefs in test of strength ¤ Bali attack has reignited debate on Australia, Asia Pacific relations ¤ Indonesian ferry sinks, leaving 5 dead, 73 missing ¤ Moscow police turn against Chechens ¤ Russia sets media guidelines after hostage siege ¤ Texas to execute severely mentally ill man ¤ Straw to tackle Belgrade on arms to Africa ¤ Asylum seekers cursed by the legacy of Henry VIII ¤ IVF mix-up: White couple can keep black twins says judge ¤ Britain plays poodle partly because... > The US is stitching up the world's oil supplies World News Posted: Sunday, November 3, 2002 ¤ Rally at Common Protests War in Iraq ¤ Oprah used her program to propagandize for war ¤ Human Rights Press for Release of Haitians Seeking Asylum ¤ Islamic party sweeps Turkish poll ¤ Bush and Clinton join battle in Florida ¤ Netanyahu Calls Sharon on Elections ¤ Saudis Won't Help U.S. Attack Iraq ¤ The odd coupling ¤ Netanyahu will join cabinet if election called ¤ Angolan oil millions paid into Jersey accounts ¤ Norway's dark secret ¤ Amnesty calls for arrest of Israelis for war crimes ¤ Attempt to Resolve Serb Feud Fails ¤ Tigers give backing to democracy across Sri Lanka ¤ Ending the monarchy would halt these absurdities ¤ Cambodia hostages freed, two kidnappers killed ¤ Ducking and weaving ¤ A war on terrorists to wage together ¤ 1 Palestinian killed, 3 hurt in separate incidents in Gaza ¤ Southeast Asia urges world not to warn against visits ¤ Ecuadorean city covered in volcanic ash ¤ Saddam says Iraq ready for war as UN consensus still in doubt ¤ Chechens shoot down Russian helicopter, nine dead World News Posted: Sunday, November 3, 2002 ¤ U.S. Civilians Wage Drug War from Colombia's Skies ¤ Saudi Arabia will not help any U.S. strike on Iraq ¤ Saudis hit back over terror claims ¤ Russia launches new assault in Chechnya > Another Russian helicopter is shot down by rebels ¤ Netanyahu 'accepts' Sharon offer ¤ Karzai launches corruption purge ¤ Russia targets Chechen refugee camps ¤ Russia pushes for Chechen extradition ¤ France denies secret Baghdad deal ¤ Saddam orders agents to assassinate Iraqi opposition leaders ¥ Could be true but this sounds like typical US propaganda ¤ The Allies' war machine is pushing inexorably towards Iraq ¤ Army's secret 'people zapper' plans ¤ Carve-up of Iraq's oil riches begins ¤ Netanyahu offered 'job swap' by Sharon in leadership deal ¤ U.S. Pilots in Gulf Use Southern Iraq for Practice Runs ¤ Moving in for the kill ¤ Central Burundi Erupts in Fighting ¤ Turkey takes revenge on old guard ¤ Opposition Takes Over Czech Senate ¤ US in denial as poverty rises ¤ Fox Says Mexico Has Ignored Drug Use ¤ Jakarta man arrested for Bali nightclub bombings ¤ Parties struggle to get the vote out ¤ A modern Queen must be answerable to the law ¤ Russian youth dodge conscript military ¤ Former IDF chief Mofaz accepts post of defense minister ¤ North Korea Says Nuclear Program Can Be Negotiated ¤ Chechens demanding to stop the war ¤ Chechen warlord claims siege ¤ Chechen warlord warns of 'devastation' to come ¤ We can't afford to go to war, say Brits ¤ Right-wing regroup firms up Sharon's grip on government ¤ Did Her Majesty panic over what butler saw? ¤ What butler saw will remain secret Caribbeans express concern about Venezuela Posted: Sunday, November 3, 2002 GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) -- The Caribbean Community said Saturday it was worried about political instability in Venezuela, especially with several segments of society challenging President Hugo Chavez's ability to lead the country. The Guyana-based secretariat of the 15-member Caribbean Community issued a statement saying it was concerned about recent events which "call into question the legitimacy of the democratically elected government." In recent weeks, Chavez has faced two alleged assassination plots, coup plots, a general strike, a small military protest and a threatened indefinite strike. A group of Venezuelan military officers declared themselves in rebellion on October 22. They are pushing for early elections, citing Chavez's politicization of the military and an economy in crisis. The left-leaning Chavez was elected president in 1998 and re-elected in 2000 on an anti-corruption, anti-poverty platform, vowing to destroy a system that impoverished 80 percent of Venezuela's 24 million people. Chavez was ousted from power after 19 people died during an April 11 opposition march and his generals disobeyed an order to deploy troops against civilians. He was restored April 14 after interim President Pedro Carmona dissolved Venezuela's constitution. The Caribbean Community's statement provided no further details except to say the group rejected violence and was committed to promoting dialogue. Two Caricom members are close to Venezuela. Guyana shares a 350-kilometer (220-mile) border with the South American country and Trinidad and Tobago's coastline is some 32 kilometers (20 miles) away. Reproduced from: http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/11/02/caribbean.venezuela.ap/ World News Posted: Saturday, November 2, 2002 ¤ Man 'Crucified' In Attack In Belfast ¤ Bin Laden son detained in Iran ¤ Earthquake Off Indonesia's Sumatra Injures 40 ¤ Woody Allen Says Bush Unconvincing on Iraq War ¤ Chechen warlord warns his next terror goal is maximum damage ¤ A case that may inflict serious damage on the monarch and monarchy ¤ Russia to gag press during terror crises ¤ Dear suspect, your phone is being bugged ¤ Bases may be off-limits if US goes it alone in Iraq ¤ Settlers target the olive pickers in the battle for land ¤ Israeli forces give thumbs up to 'road map' ¤ Earthquake school folded like a house of cards ¤ Sharon tries to neutralise Netanyahu with job offer ¤ Commonwealth rebuffs Pakistan ¤ Blacks aim to avenge Florida's 2000 poll >> Jeb Bush's secret weapon ¤ Expert: No Guarantees in Caspian Oil > And other 'experts' said largest oil reserves in Caspian ¤ Court Finds Mexican Generals Guilty ¤ Mondale exploits his age to keep Democrats in charge ¤ America tackles the real issues: pot, pregnant pigs and cockfights ¤ Belgrade told to stop arms sales to Saddam ¤ War on Iraq 'too expensive': UK ¤ Australia: A continent running dry ¥ I guess Indonesia looks attractive to colonize ¤ Gun-toting US society in deep trouble ¤ It looks like we're going to get an American empire ¤ Police, White right-wing soldiers blamed for Soweto bombs ¤ Italian primary school flattened by quake ¤ Butler trial collapses as Queen speaks up ¤ North Korea warns of nuclear retaliation ¤ Bush has failed to make case for Iraq attack: academics ¤ Moscow says Turkey and Qatar aiding Chechens ¤ Police investigate new Israeli Defence Minister over war crimes World News Posted: Friday, November 1, 2002 ¤ Floridians are paying as Republicans profit ¤ Johnny Gulf War Syndrome? ¤ The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks ¤ Chemical Weapons and Homicidal Mania ¤ Colombian drug lords 'to be freed' ¤ Microsoft antitrust settlement approved ¤ US urged to release Afghan detainees ¤ Russia: Lawmakers Pass Restrictive Press Law ¤ Ignorance Perpetuates the Chechen War ¤ Scandalous arrest of Zakayev ¤ Russia Mulls Anti-Terror News Limits ¤ N. Korea missile threat increases ¤ For Whales' Sake, Judge Halts Sonar ¤ New Quake Hits Italy as Last Bodies Found in School ¤ A funny thing happened on the way to the war ¤ U.S. Prepares to Revise Iraq Draft ¤ Crucial US allies on Iraq fall out over oil ¤ US admits Iraqi arms inspections could take months ¤ Netanyahu Could Become Israeli Foreign Minister ¤ Looking at a MacArthur-type occupation in Iraq ¤ Bush's Iraq adventure is bound to backfire ¤ North Korea claims right to nuclear weapons ¤ Don't keep us in dark, says angry Jakarta > Raids not done lightly: ASIO chief >> Muslims in 'shock' after ASIO raids ¤ Bali blast suspect group outlawed ¤ Mbeki blames white extremists for bomb blasts ¤ Mbeki pledges to fight rightists as blasts hit Soweto ¤ Sniper suspects had navigation equipment, computer, radio and fake ID ¤ Save your sisters: Afghan militants target schools ¤ Russian officials present siege evidence ¤ Slavery claims investigated in Australia |
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