May 2009

Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive?
Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009

¤ Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive?

¤ North Korea Issues Heated Warning to South
¤ Obama says North Korea nuclear test a "grave concern"
¤ Japan says N.Korea nuclear test "unacceptable"
¤ NKorea test-fires short-range missile: Yonhap
¤ NKorea says it has conducted a second nuclear test
¤ Analysis: NKorea widens threat, limits US options
¤ North Korea threatens South, restarts plutonium plant
¤ U.S. notified of nuke test by N. Korea in advance: S. Korea

¤ Defiant North Korea fires rockets, blames U.S.
North Korea defied international condemnation of its latest nuclear test by firing three short-range missiles off its coast on Tuesday and major powers considered tougher action against the isolated communist state.
With tension in the region high, South Korea said it would join a U.S.-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, something Pyongyang has warned it would consider a declaration of war.

¤ They May Not Want The Bomb
Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What's the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons.

¤ Russia urges dialogue with Hamas
¤ Venezuela Captures Top Colombian Drug Trafficker

¤ Europe is well on its way to Walk the Plank of Recession
Even the euro economies are now groaning under the permanent global blows and merciless onslaught of the roaring, violent waves of destruction, while world capitalism inexorably is marching towards global recession and depression, towards the annihilation of capital and labor.

¤ Sri Lankan minister admits army killed civilians

¤ Sri Lankan army slaughters LTTE leaders

¤ How Many Secret Prisons Does Israel Have?
The United Nation’s watchdog on torture has criticized Israel for refusing to allow inspections at a secret prison, dubbed by critics as “Israel’s Guantanamo Bay,” and demanded to know if more such clandestine detention camps are operating.

¤ Credit Default Swaps; The poison in the system
¤ Passer-By Pushes Man Contemplating Suicide Off Bridge in China
¤ Former SKorean leader leaps to death over scandal

¤ Israeli document: Venezuela sends uranium to Iran
¤ Iran's Ahmadinejad rejects Western nuclear proposal
¤ Iran sends six warships to international waters

¤ Hollow 'victory' over Tamil Tigers won't bring peace in Sri Lanka

¤ Obama to visit Saudi Arabia to discuss peace, Iran
¤ UN council puts cash behind support for Somalia
¤ Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals

¤ Photos show rape and sex abuse in Iraq jails: report

¤ Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'
At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

¤ Mike Tyson's 4-Year-Old Daughter Dies
¤ Chevron, Shell and the True Cost of Oil

The Obama Dystopia Manipulation, propaganda, imagery & PR wizardry
Posted: Tuesday, May 26, 2009

¤ Redefining Pakistan
Pakistan today finds itself very much at the centre of the world's headlines, unfortunately though for almost entirely the wrong reasons. Just in the last few weeks alone we have witnessed an unprecedented level of turmoil in the country - the outrageous attacks on the police academy outside Lahore and on the Sri Lankan cricket team inside the city, the political theatrics of rule in Punjab, the Long March episode followed by the subsequent reappointment of the Chief Justice and the continued violation of sovereignty and killings via US drone attacks - indeed Pakistan as a nation is in grave turmoil.

¤ Rumsfeld's Pentagon Published Bible Verses on Top-Secret Intel Reports
¤ Hamas: Obama's remarks deceptive

¤ Oil prices bounce above $60 in New York
Oil prices jumped to a six-month high above 60 dollars Tuesday on growing signs of economic recovery amid concerns about unrest in African crude producer Nigeria, traders said. New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, rallied to 60.48 dollars a barrel -- a level last seen on November 10. The contract later stood at 59.90 dollars, up 87 cents from Monday's close. Brent North Sea crude for July delivery touched a six-month high of 59.65 dollars a barrel before pulling back to 59.05 dollars, up 58 cents from Monday.

¤ 'Tamil Tiger Leader's Body Shown On Video'
¤ Al Qaeda figure who provided link to Iraq reportedly dead in Libya

¤ We tortured to justify war
The single most pertinent question that Dick Cheney is never asked -- at least not by the admiring interviewers he has encountered so far -- is whether he, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush used torture to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. As he tours television studios, radio stations and conservative think tanks, the former vice-president hopes to persuade America that only waterboarding kept us safe for seven years.
Yet evidence is mounting that under Cheney’s direction, "enhanced interrogation" was not used exclusively to prevent imminent acts of terror or collect actionable intelligence -- the aims that he constantly emphasizes -- but to invent evidence that would link al-Qaida with Saddam Hussein and connect the late Iraqi dictator to the 9/11 attacks.

¤ Fossil find may be monkey, human ancestor
¤ The Link? Primate Fossil Could Be Key Link in Evolution

¤ Torture Is Not a New US Foreign Policy Tool
"We are going to smash your hands to pulp like the Chileans did to Victor Jara." Those were the words of the torturers in a Uruguayan prison spoken to my friend Miguel Angel Estrella, a pianist from Argentina. They were referring to the fate of the imprisoned Chilean singer and guitarist Victor Jara, whose hands were destroyed so that he would never play the guitar again. Jara, a fervent opponent of the Pinochet regime, was brutally tortured and later machine-gunned to death after the coup that brought Pinochet to power in 1973.

¤ Afghan was taken to Guantanamo aged 12-rights group

¤ Cheney's Speech Ignored Some Inconvenient Truths
¤ Dollar hits new multimonth low vs euro, pound, yen
¤ FBI, NYPD Arrest 4 in Alleged Plot to Bomb NY Synagogues
¤ Shell on Trial: Oil Giant Faces Charges of Human Rights Abuses

¤ The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold
On October 3rd, as the spreading economic meltdown threatened to topple financial behemoths like American International Group (AIG) and Bank of America and plunged global markets into freefall, the U.S. government responded with the largest bailout in American history. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, better known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized the use of $700 billion to stabilize the nation's failing financial systems and restore the flow of credit in the economy.

¤ IraqTortureGate: Powell Denies Knowing He Used Tortured Evidence for UN Case

¤ The CIA's Torture Untruths
If you've been reading the Washington DC-based press of late, you might have the impression that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is the mastermind of the US's torture regime. DC reporters have been obsessing for over a month now on the manufactured controversy of whether Pelosi was briefed by the CIA on its use of torture against suspected members of al-Qaida.

¤ Netanyahu: If Israel Doesn't Take out Iranian "Threat", No One Will
¤ Nukes 'Politically Retarded', says Ahmadinejad

¤ Bolivia denies supplying Iran with uranium

¤ Armageddon Now?
¤ The Next Leg Down

¤ America's Nightmare: The Obama Dystopia Manipulation, propaganda, imagery & PR wizardry
After 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare during which we saw the wanton destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the cynical negation of centuries of Law designed to protect the most basic human rights and a foreign policy worthy of Genghis Khan, there came along the "Great Black Hope" in the persona of Barack Obama. The collective world consciousness turned uncritically to what was presented as a new era for peace, change and trust in Government. Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power.

¤ A Nation of Cowards, Pt. 2

¤ Colin Powell Still World's Biggest Asshole
¤ "Peace is not Simply the Absence of Violence" A Lesson for Israel

¤ Canadian TV rapped for Obama assassination joke

An Acceptable Dictator for Afghanistan?
Posted: Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Viceroy, Counsel-General, or CEO. Whatever he's called, it appears that Afghan-born US foreign policy establishment figure Zalmay Khalilzad is being sized up for a new role: An "acceptable" dictator for Afghanistan.

By Stephen Gowans
May 21, 2009 - gowans.wordpress.com

From close to the end of the 19th century for twenty-five years, the real ruler of Egypt was Sir Evelyn Baring of the British banking establishment, Baring Brothers. Sir Evelyn ran Egypt's affairs as Counsel-General, following the principle that the interests of British bondholders and those of the Egyptian people were identical. (1)

Was it Sir Evelyn that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had in mind when he prodded Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai to talk to the former US ambassador to occupied Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, about becoming the "chief executive officer" (that is, Counsel-General) of Afghanistan?

Or does Khalilzad, the Afghan-born member of the US foreign policy establishment, fit the bill as the "acceptable" dictator Washington and London have searched for, to strengthen their precarious hold over Afghanistan?

In a diplomatic cable leaked last autumn, then British ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, warned that,

"The current situation (in Afghanistan) is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust. The presence of the coalition, in particular, its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution. Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis." (2)

The only "realistic" path, reasoned the British ambassador, is for Afghanistan to be "governed by an acceptable dictator."

A half year later, The New York Times (3) revealed that Khalilzad — who in Afghanistan had been "involved to a degree that is virtually unheard of for an ambassador" –- is being considered for a job that he and Karzai describe "as the chief executive officer of Afghanistan." (4)

Washington denies ownership of the idea, but all the same, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to the region, have signed off on it.

Washington is concerned "that any belief that the West was behind the plan would harm its chances inside Afghanistan," which means, even if US officials are prodding Karzai to take on Khalilzad as CEO, they're not going to admit it. This is to be seen as an idea Karzai had himself, possibly implanted by Brown, but in no way bearing a stamp marked Made in the USA.

Apart from his duties as ambassador to occupied Afghanistan, Khalilzad also served as US ambassador to occupied Iraq and the UN.

He is said to have considered challenging Karzai – who has increasingly fallen out of favor with his imperial masters in Washington — for the presidency in elections scheduled in August, but missed the May 8 deadline for filing and didn't want to relinquish his US citizenship.

As an assistant professor at Columbia University, Khalilzad worked with Zbigniew Brzezinski, architect of the Carter administration policy of backing the Islamic resistance to the reforms introduced by the pro-Soviet revolutionary government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Brzezinski sought to draw the Soviet Union into (as he put it) its own Vietnam, by backing the reaction to the Afghan Revolution. The outcome was an end to a project of advancing Afghan literacy, education and women's and economic rights, and the plunging of the country back into the darkness of warlordism and feudal backwardness.

Khalilzad later worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank which brings together CEOs, scholars, and government and military officials in discussion groups to formulate policy to reflect the interests of the corporations and hereditary capitalist families that provide its funding and furnish its directors. CFR policy papers are then submitted to the US State Department, to be turned into policy by the former CFR personnel who are routinely placed in senior State Department positions.

There is a continual migration of personnel between the CFR and the State Department, and Khalilzad, no less than other fixtures of the US foreign policy establishment, moved easily between the two organizations. He followed up his stint at the CFR by moving to the State Department, where he worked with Paul Wolfowitz, who would later become architect of the US war of conquest on Iraq, and acted as an advisor on US support for the feudal and religious reaction in Afghanistan.

His State Department duty was followed by a job at the RAND Corporation, a research organization set up by the US Air Force in 1948, to formulate policy on national security. There, Khalilzad founded its Center for Middle Eastern Studies and its journal Strategic Appraisal.

While at Rand, the future ambassador to Afghanistan acted as a liaison between UNOCAL (now Chevron), which was looking to build a pipeline through Afghanistan, and the Taliban, which, at the time, formed the government. Soon after, Khalilzad joined Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and other neo-conservatives in the Project for a New American Century, a think thank that promotes an overt military imperialism under the rubric of "promoting American global leadership."

As ambassador to occupied Afghanistan, Khalilzad was accused of scheming behind the scenes to favor Karzai –- Washington's favored candidate – over other candidates in presidential elections. Khalilzad's influence as ambassador was so strong, that Afghans nicknamed him 'the Viceroy," likening him (accurately) to a colonial governor. (5)

With Afghans strongly opposed to US domination, their opposition expressed in armed resistance and growing anger over civilian deaths caused by US military operations, Washington is trying to pull a veil over the influence it wields in the country. As former British ambassador Cowper-Coles warned, the West needs an acceptable dictator, someone who can execute US foreign policy goals from within the country, while at the same time claiming independence from the US government.

Khalilzad, as a private citizen with no current formal connection to the US government, offers Washington the prospect of plausible deniability that it is running the show in Afghanistan. If Khalilzad steps in as CEO, Washington can claim that day-to-day decisions are being made by a private citizen with no formal ties to the US government.

Even if Washington isn't orchestrating Khalilzad's consideration as CEO, we can be sure, given his background, that his administration of Afghanistan's affairs would rest on the same principal Sir Evelyn Baring used to govern Egypt: that the interests of foreign bond holders and those of the natives are identical.

NOTE:

1. A.L. Morton, A People's History of England, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1938.

2. The New York Times, October 4, 2008.

3. The New York Times, May 19, 2009.

4. It is the practice in some circles to refer to countries as economies. Those of us who live in a G-8 country are advised to be proud of living in a G-8 economy. The idea of a chief executive officer of a country (as separate from the president, the chief of the executive of a republic) takes this idea one step further. A country now becomes, neither country nor economy, but a business.

5. The Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2004.

Venezuela Buys Bank of Venezuela for $US 1.05 billion
Posted: Monday, May 25, 2009

By James Suggett
May 25th 2009 – Venezuelanalysis.com

The Venezuelan government will pay the Spanish Santander Group $1.05 billion for the Bank of Venezuela, which was nationalized on July 31st 2008.

Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez, Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez, and the president of the Bank of Venezuela, Michel Goguikian, cordially signed the agreement last Friday in front of television cameras.

Venezuela will make the first payment of $630 million on July 3. Then it will pay $210 million on October 3 and on December 30 of this year.

"The bank of Venezuela is one of the strongest Banks in the national financial sector. We are acquiring it as part of the integral development strategy of the country, because the financial sector is the great driver of the economy... the Bank of Venezuela will strengthen the public financial sector," said Carrizalez upon signing the accord.

Carrizalez guaranteed that neither the workers nor the clients of the bank will be negatively affected by the ownership transfer. "We want to convey confidence and calmness to the workers as well as the clients of this financial institution," he said.

Ricardo Sanguino, the president of the Finance Commission of Venezuela's National Assembly, said the nationalization of the bank "will permit an increase in the amount of credits directed to productive activities."

Goguikian called the deal "extremely satisfying." The Santander Group had been looking to sell the bank in the months leading up to last year's nationalization.

President Chávez commented that the nationalization of the Bank of Venezuela means it "becomes a bank of the people, because what is of the government is not truly of the government, it is of the people."

The 118-year old Bank of Venezuela was privately owned until 1994, when the Venezuelan government became the majority stockholder. Two years later, the Santander Group acquired 96% in a re-privatization of the bank. It is Venezuela's third largest bank, holding 11.3% of total deposits in Venezuela in 2007, according to company financial reports.

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com

The Politics of Food
Posted: Tuesday, May 19, 2009

¤ Israel bans books, music and clothes from entering Gaza

¤ Lifting the Hood - Iraq Video
November 2005 As the 'hooded man' in the infamous Abu Ghraib pictures, Haj Ali became an icon of everything that was wrong with the US occupation. He tells his story and we hear from other prisoner..

¤ Distant voices, desperate lives
In the early 1960s, it was the Irish of Derry who would phone late at night, speaking in a single breath, spilling out stories of discrimination and injustice. Who listened to their truth until the violence began? Bengalis from what was then East Pakistan did much the same. Their urgent whispers described terrible state crimes that the news ignored, and they implored us reporters to “let the world know”. Palestinians speaking above the din of crowded rooms in Bethlehem and Beirut asked no more. For me, the most tenacious distant voices have been the Tamils of Sri Lanka, to whom we ought to have listened a very long time ago.

¤ U.S. stirs a hornet's nest in Pakistan
The Obama administration had threatened to stop $2 billion US annual cash payments to bankrupt Pakistan's political and military leadership and block $6.5 billion future aid, unless Islamabad sent its soldiers into Pakistan's turbulent NWFP along the Afghan frontier.
The result was a bloodbath: Some 1,000 "terrorists" killed (read: mostly civilians) and 1.2 million people -- most of Swat's population -- made refugees.

¤ Europe in deepest recession since War as Germany suffers
¤ India's ruling party wins resounding victory
¤ Sri Lanka president declares victory in civil war

¤ Why don't we care about Sri Lanka?
Do we have favourites when it comes to civilian casualties? Do we care about some peoples’ suffering more than others? The contrasting levels of public concern and protest over the killing of innocent civilians in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Gaza since the beginning of this year make the answer an emphatic ‘yes.’

¤ Sri Lanka warned on 'war crimes'

¤ UN: Sri Lankan attack a 'bloodbath'
The UN has described the alleged killing of hundreds of Sri Lankan civilians in the country's offensive against the separatist Tamil Tigers as a "bloodbath". The comments on Monday followed a weekend military attack on the last remaining stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE), in the northeast, that is said to have killed at least 378 civilians.

¤ 'Beam me up Barack': Obama as Vulcan?
¤ New flu cases climb among Japan high school students
¤ Swine Flu Claims Life Of NYC Assistant Principal
¤ US Drone Attack Kills 29 in North Waziristan

¤ The Politics of Food Video
From industrial agriculture and human health to the recession's impact on the way we eat, food and politics are not easily separated. In fact they never have been. As lines at food banks swell and restaurants close their doors what control do we have over the food we eat?

¤ Even with Obama in Charge, Anti-War Democrats Powerless

¤ Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off
¤ Stealth Move by IMF to Get $100 Billion Without Congressional Debate

¤ Critics CallObama's Tribunals 'Bush Lite'

¤ The Impotent President

¤ The Impotent President
What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups? A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure.

¤ Obama Continues Torture and Torture-related Murder in the Bogus War on Terror

¤ Buyer's Remorse: Is it too late to swap Obama for McCain?
Anyone who has ever wasted good money on a clunker only to drop the transmission 15 minutes after leaving the car-lot, knows the feeling. It's like a swift-kick in the groin followed by weeks of fist-pounding rage. It's called buyer's remorse; "Gawd, I wish I hadn't bought that piece of dogshite!" There are probably a lot of former-Obama supporters feeling that same agonizing sense despair now that President Rainbow has done an about-face on every campaign promise he made. So much for "truth in advertising", eh? What a disaster. Did anyone know it was gonna be this bad?

¤ "Cowboys" and Other Horrors of Empire, Version Obama 1.0

¤ Caught in a Lie: US is Using White Phosphorus in Afghanistan as a Weapon
¤ UK Government Lies Exposed; Spy Visited Binyam Mohamed In Morocco
¤ What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown

¤ Sad End to the Immigration Issue
¤ The China Puzzle
¤ Changing Obama's Mindset
¤ Tales of Murder and Torture Video

¤ US drone attack kills 29 in North Waziristan
¤ Villagers in Afghanistan Describe Chaos of U.S. Strikes
¤ Record bombs dropped in Afghanistan in April
¤ Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth
¤ U.S. Special Forces Sent to Train Pakistanis

Venezuela Uses Recovered Land to Plant Rice
Posted: Saturday, May 16, 2009

As part of Venezuela's food sovereignty and security plan, and as a result of an agreement with Vietnam, Venezuela has increased its rice cultivation by farming land that was previously privately owned and unused.

On Wednesday, the newly created "socialist company" Marisela started planting rice on 26 hectares (64.2 acres) of land that the government recovered from a large private estate in Apure state.

The Venezuelan government has worked with a team of Vietnamese agronomists to develop planting techniques and create rice seed hybrids appropriate to Venezuelan agricultural conditions, and also to develop an agro-ecological project involving fish cultivation in the secondary irrigation canals of the rice paddies.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

U.S. Foreign Policy Caused the Taliban Problem
Posted: Wednesday, May 13, 2009

¤ U.S. Foreign Policy Caused the Taliban Problem
U.S. officials are now concerned not only with a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan but also a Taliban takeover in Pakistan. These problems, however, were caused by the U.S. Empire itself. While most Americans now view President Bush’s Iraq War as a “bad war,” the common perception is that Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan was a “good war” (despite the fact that he went to war without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war). The notion is that the U.S. government was justified in invading Afghanistan and ousting the Taliban regime from power because the Taliban and al-Qaeda conspired to commit the 9/11 attacks.

There’s just one big problem with that belief: it’s unfounded.

¤ UN calls for Palestinian state, Israel bites back

¤ Probe reveals 140 Afghan civilians killed in strikes
An investigation appointed by President Hamid Karzai concluded on Monday that 140 civilians, including children, were killed in the US air strikes in Afghanistan last week, a police chief said. A team, appointed by Karzai and headed by Chief of Army Staff General Bismillah Khan, told authorities in Farah that they had concluded their investigation on Monday, provincial police chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar said.

¤ Obama seeks to block release of abuse photos
¤ In an about-face, White House opposes release of alleged prisoner abuse photos

¤ Covering up Israel's Gaza crimes with UN help
In my last article, I considered how UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon might handle the inquiry into Israeli attacks on UN facilities in the occupied Gaza Strip last winter. I hoped for the best but feared the worst given press reports that Ban had been told by the United States not to publish the report in full lest that harm the "peace process."
Unfortunately, the worst fears were fully justified as Ban published and sent to the Security Council only a 27-page summary of the 184-page document submitted to him by a board of inquiry led by a former head of Amnesty International.

¤ Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship
By choosing Cairo, Egypt as the platform for his long awaited address to the global Muslim community, President Barack Obama predictably leans on a reliable dictatorship suffocating a country that is teetering toward religious and political irrelevance. Indeed, modern Egypt resembles its ubiquitous tourist attraction, the Sphinx, the symbolic temple guardian adorned with a human head on a prostrate lion. Similarly, the near-30-year, brutal autocracy of Hosni Mubarak weighs heavily on the immobilised body of an exasperated, stifled and proud populace who've wearily observed their country, a former beacon for Arab nationalism, transformed into a loyal watchdog and stooge for anti-democratic, "pro-western" policies.

¤ US military: 44 Afghan cases of white phosphorus
¤ List of 140 Afghan dead includes 93 children

¤ U.S. forces shoot Iraqi boy dead after grenade attack

¤ Obama bombs over Pakistan
¤ he Man Who Knew Too Much? A Convenient Suicide in a Libyan Prison

¤ Cambodia Deja Vu: the Invasion of Pakistan
Last September, during the American presidential campaign, I wrote a column declaring that the United States had again invaded Cambodia, only this time "Cambodia" was Pakistan. President George W. Bush had ordered U.S. ground attacks on the Taliban inside Pakistan's Tribal Territories, without Pakistan's authorization. That was also when Barack Obama's foreign policy campaign platform was promising withdrawal from Iraq and military emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan, location of the "real" problem in the great war on terror.

¤ The hidden hand of Dick Cheney

¤ U.S. forces shoot Iraqi boy dead after grenade attack
¤ Zuma sworn in as SA’s fourth democratic President
¤ Zuma's three wives to attend inauguration
¤ Obama and Latin America: No Light, All Tunnel
¤ Ghost of Haditha Haunts American Shooting Spree in Iraq
¤ The Bomb Iran Faction
¤ Is America Overstretched?
¤ Roxana Saberi's Plight and American Media Propaganda
¤ The Return of Bonnie & Clyde?
¤ Guatemala President Accused Over Murder
¤ Osama bin Laden was US operator: President Asif Ali Zardari

Venezuelan Police Discover Large Arms Cache
Posted: Wednesday, May 13, 2009

By Tamara Pearson
May 11th 2009, Venezuelanalysis.com

Venezuelan police arrested four men and confiscated a large quantity of sophisticated weaponry that government officials speculate could have been part of an assassination plan against President Chávez. This discovery occurred in the context of a wave of apparently politically motivated violence that Chávez supporters suspect is part of a wider new campaign against the government.

On Friday the Venezuelan investigative police raided an apartment in north Caracas which was allegedly the property of a French citizen, Frederik Bocquet, who according to Tarek El Aissami, minister for internal affairs, is "a person ready and trained in the military and furthermore, is a sniper."

Following the weapon confiscation El Aissami said, "There's an irrational sector of the opposition in this country who still hold hopes of destroying this revolutionary process and they have planned as their objective, getting rid of President Chávez."

He explained, "We can demonstrate that this type of weapon used by these military terrorist organisations are for destabilisation actions. With this discovery we don't hesitate to tell the country that we have landed a strong blow against terrorism and to those groups who want to drag Venezuela down to scenes of blood and confrontation."

In the apartment police found a range of weaponry, including 13 long range rifles, 3 shot guns, knives, two machine guns, silencers, telescopic citers, bullet-proof vests, 20,000 bullets, grenades, military uniforms, radio equipment, electronic detonator systems, and half a kilogram of C4 explosives.

In connection to the discovery the police have detained three men of Dominican nationality along with Bocquet.

Suspicions About A Wave of Politically Motivated Violence

In addition to the discovery of the weapons arsenal, a series of other incidents, such as the murder of a socialist party youth activist, attack on state oil workers, and murders of union organizers, have raised alarm bells about a possible link to the opposition.

While it is not certain that any of the recent incidents were politically based, they follow the murder of Toyota union leader Argenis Vasquez last Tuesday in Sucre state who was shot by a person from a car and the murders of three National Workers Union leaders in November last year in Aragua state.

The opposition is in the "decisive stage" of a destabilisation plan, said former vice president Jose Vicente Rangel during his TV show on Sunday.

He described political military organisations with facades of social organisations and gave examples of the security corporation of opposition Caracas mayor, Antonio Ledezma or the social networks of Leopoldo Lopez, opposition leader and ex mayor of Chacao. Rangel said that opposition sectors are injecting their presence in rural and urban networks, "to promote social demands and a large number of social, labour, and education conflicts."

Rangel argued that opposition leaders are trying to generate various rumours and promote discontent within organisations like the National Armed Forces, "to promote panic and distrust towards the government's security policies."

PSUV Youth Killed

On Saturday morning a 24 year old PSUV member, Junior Hermoso, was shot three times and killed while he was staffing a PSUV registration tent in Caracas.

Omar Perez, from the PSUV youth organization said the murder could be classified as a hired political assassination (sicariato) because the method of murder—a quick drive by shooting—is characteristic of such assassinations.

Chavez expressed his condolences over the death, but also warned that Venezuelans should be careful about making theories over the cause of the murder.

On Sunday El Aissami announced that the murderer had been caught. Although he did not release a name he mentioned that the person had been under the influence of drugs at the time of the shooting.

Five Oil Workers Injured by Gun Shots

Also on Friday, at least four people in Zulia state were injured when strangers in a car opened fire on them while they were carrying out a government vaccination campaign with the support of PSUV members, according to local Zulia papers.

However, the newspaper Panorama, reports that the people in the car shot into a crowd of around 800 oil workers and community representatives who had assembled to watch the government takeover of various petroleum related companies. Both sources agree that the shootings took place outside one such nationalised contract company, Hermanos Papagayos. Panorama reported six injuries.

Two Trade Unionists Killed

Finally, last Wednesday, two trade unionists were shot dead. Wilmer Bermudez, 32, of a construction union, was killed in Vargas state at 7am. He received 8 shots.

Sergio Devis, 33, in Bolivar state and also a construction unionist, received a shot to the head after he was thrown out of a car, according to neighbours. National paper Ultimos Noticias reports that in both cases, it seems there were disagreements within the respective union organisations.

Source: venezuelanalysis.com

Some Thoughts about Torture. And Mr. Obama
Posted: Thursday, May 7, 2009

¤ President Ortega’s Opening Statement at the Fifth Summit of the Americas

¤ Fifth Summit of the Americas

¤ Little Shock of Horrors Video

¤ America: A Superpower No More

¤ America’s Shame
Nations that use torture disgrace themselves. Armed forces and police that torture inevitably become brutalized and corrupted. "Limited" use of torture quickly becomes generalized. "Information" obtained by torture is mostly unreliable. I learned these truths over fifty years covering dirty "pacification" wars, from Algeria to Indochina, Central and South America, southern Africa, the Mideast, Afghanistan, and Kashmir in which torture was commonly used.

¤ U.S. Has a 45-year History of Torture
¤ Jon Stewart: Wimp, Wuss, Moral Coward
¤ Regime Change: Promise and Peril

¤ Some Thoughts about Torture. And Mr. Obama
Okay, at least some things are settled. When George W. Bush said "The United States does not torture", everyone now knows it was crapaganda. And when Barack Obama, a month into his presidency, said "The United States does not torture",1 it likewise had all the credibility of a 19th century treaty between the US government and the American Indians.
When Obama and his followers say, as they do repeatedly, that he has "banned torture", this is a statement they have no right to make. The executive orders concerning torture leave loopholes, such as being applicable only "in any armed conflict".

¤ Governor asks: What if pot's legal and taxed?
¤ Advice for Obama from the Hemisphere
¤ Oil prices jump to high for the year
¤ Serious Lapse of Judgement - Indeed!
¤ US reports 642 new H1N1 flu cases
¤ A pandemic of punditry: Shoo fly, er, flu shy, don't bother me
¤ Chomsky On Adam Smith

¤ Native American Removal in the United States and Mexico Video Lecture
¤ California fire burns unchecked, homes destroyed

¤ Flu overhyped? Some say officials 'cried swine'
Did government health officials "cry swine" when they sounded the alarm on what looked like a threatening new flu? The so-far mild swine flu outbreak has many people saying all the talk about a devastating global epidemic was just fear-mongering hype. But that's not how public health officials see it, calling complacency the thing that keeps them up at night.

¤ When Piggies Come Home to Roost

¤ The Déjà Vu Flu
OK, we get it: somewhere in Mexico lies the epicenter of an outbreak of swine flu. It doesn’t really matter where because any part of the country would suffice for the hate-mongers in the media (Malkin, Beck, etc.), for which only Keith Olbermann has called out within the mainstream media. Is the swine flu really the next major human catastrophe? More people have died from “regular flu” since January, roughly 36,000. So then why isn’t there hysteria about that? Most of the deaths attributed to swine flu have taken place in Mexico, about 150, and only one in the US so far. Even so, the real culprit was probably Smithfield Foods, an Anglo-American company that owns factory pig farms.

¤ Mexico's Plague-Bringers

¤ Top Cuban government official says they won't negotiate political system with US
¤ Time for the hypocrisy to end on nuclear proliferation
¤ The Hounds of Heaven: "Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government"

¤ Buying Brand Obama
Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

¤ The Torturer’s Apprentice
¤ Ban Ki-moon's Moral Failure

¤ IDF fired missile that killed 30-40 people in a Gaza school
United Nations investigators found that Israeli missiles killed 30 to 40 Palestinians in the immediate vicinity of the Jabalia school in Gaza Strip, where hundreds of others had taken refuge during the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to a report released Tuesday. The attack against the Jabalia boy school, also known as the al-Fakoura school, which was run by the UN refugee agency in the Middle East (UNWRA), was among the six attacks against UN compounds cited in the report by a three-member investigative board.

¤ UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks

¤ US Afghan Strikes Kill 100, 'Mostly Civilians'

¤ After US Strikes, Afghans Describe 'Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies
As President Barack Obama prepares to send some 21,000 more US troops into Afghanistan, anger is rising in the western province of Farah, the scene of a US bombing massacre that may have killed as many as 130 Afghans, including 13 members of one family. At least six houses were bombed and among the dead and wounded are women and children. As of this writing reports indicate some people remain buried in rubble. The US airstrikes happened on Monday and Tuesday. Just hours after Obama met with US-backed president Hamid Karzai Wednesday, hundreds of Afghans—perhaps as many as 2,000— poured into the streets of the provincial capital, chanting “Death to America.” The protesters demanded a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

¤ Justice Dept. Finds Many Flaws in FBI Terror Watch List

¤ US Strategy in Latin America was Wrong
¤ US Security Firm Blackwater Ends Iraq Operation

¤ Call it a Massacre, Not a Mistake
¤ Obama's Defense Budget

¤ Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

¤ Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?
How can we explain the fact that famine still exists in the 21st century? One person in seven on this planet is permanently hungry. The causes are well known: a profound injustice in the distribution of wealth and the monopolizing of land by a small minority of large landowners. According to the FAO , 963 million people were suffering from famine in 2008. Paradoxically, these people mainly live in rural areas. They are generally farmers who do not own land or do not own enough, and are without the means to cultivate it effectively.

¤ Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

¤ Dancing on the Promises of Paved Roads
¤ Afghan Police Fire on Anti-US Protest

A food system that kills
Posted: Tuesday, May 5, 2009

¤ Egypt's Christians see bias in pig slaughter

¤ US hides behind Iran sanctions threat

¤ Israel warns EU to tone down its criticism
Israel warned the European Union on Thursday to tone down its criticism of the new Israeli government or risk forfeiting the bloc's role as broker in Mideast peace efforts. The warning came after EU's commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, this week criticized Israel's refusal to endorse a Palestinian state. She said an upgrade in Israeli-EU relations would depend on Israel's commitment to the "two-state solution."

¤ Swine flu goes person-to-pig; could it jump back?
¤ Mexico says flu epidemic over the worst

¤ A Lexicon of Disappointment
All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from Treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's Gaza attack.

¤ Swine Flu Is Evolution in Action
¤ Lessons of 1976: flu, fear, wasted millions

¤ Swine flu may be less potent than first feared
The swine flu outbreak that has alarmed the world for a week now appears less ominous, with the virus showing little staying power in the hardest-hit cities and scientists suggesting it lacks the genetic fortitude of past killer bugs. President Barack Obama even voiced hope Friday that it may turn out to be no more harmful than the average seasonal flu.

¤ Iraq to cull wild boars in Baghdad Zoo to halt flu
¤ Egypt's call to kill pigs amid flu scare ridiculed
¤ WHO says confirmed flu cases total 331, 10 deaths
¤ Egypt starts pig slaughter, some farmers resist
¤ Venezuela establishes ties with Palestinians

¤ CIA Torture Began In Afghanistan 8 Months Before DOJ Approval
Last December, in a typically bullish defense of the Bush administration's conduct in the "War on Terror," Vice President Dick Cheney stated, "On the question of so-called ‘torture,' we don't do torture, we never have. It's not something that this administration subscribes to. [W]e proceeded very cautiously; we checked, we had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross. The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful, wouldn't do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong."

¤ New Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland
¤ Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

¤ A food system that kills
¤ Irate pig farmers clash with police in Egypt

¤ China has 'canceled US credit card': lawmaker
China, wary of the troubled US economy, has already "canceled America's credit card" by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman said Thursday. China has the world's largest foreign reserves, believed to be mostly in dollars, along with around 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds, more than any other country. But Treasury Department data shows that investors in China have sharply curtailed their purchases of bonds in January and February.

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