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June 2007Beavis and Butthead in London jihadPosted: Saturday, June 30, 2007 ¤ Beavis and Butthead in London jihad Police and securocrats know that there aren't enough real terrorists in the world, which is why they have to keep manufacturing them. This is because citizens tire of being watched by cameras, frisked and x-rayed, having their belongings searched, giving fingerprints to so-called friendly nations on entry, contemplating the myriad government databases where their details and activities are preserved, and wondering if some dour little bureaucrat is reading their email or listening to them on the phone. Citizens tire also of reading the rolls of the war dead fraudulently sacrificed in the name of counterterrorist "victory", and of seeing hundreds of billions spent on surveillance and private security, ridiculous wars, and security-related gimmicks and gizmos, when it could be so much better spent on, oh, needs like housing, medicine and pensions, and mitigating actual mass threats to life via such non-sexy routes as traffic safety, fire safety, vaccinations, buildings and infrastructure inspection, water treatment, and food safety. ¤ London Bomb 'Not Scary Enough', Brown Tells MI5 PRIME Minister Gordon Brown has dismissed the latest London bomb scare as "feeble" and "unlikely to frighten the public". Mr Brown is understood to be disappointed with MI5's effort, describing it as "half-arsed and transparent". A source close to Brown said: "The PM wanted to start things off by scaring the absolute, holy shit out of people. "A badly driven Merc with a couple of gas bottles in the back does not cut the mustard. ¤ In which I become a conspiracy theorist ... OK I'm probably leading with my chin here but let me say that I find the horrifying stories of car bombs planted in the streets of London, ready to shred hundreds of innocent West End theatre-goers ... unconvincing. Which suggests that I'm becoming a conspiracy theorist, much to my horror. I blame that Robert Redford movie Day of the Condor ... ever since I watched it, I haven't been able to trust Western intelligence agencies ¤ It's hard to pull up your socks when your legs have been blown off ¤ Heavy rains continue in most areas of country ¤ Israel launches deadly Gaza attacks ¤ Afghanistan: US airstrikes kill 65 civilians ¤ Iraq condemns U.S. raid; 26 Iraqis killed ¤ Chávez hints at nuclear future for Venezuela ¤ What are Caribbean Govts' Views on Zimbabwe? Israel launches deadly Gaza attacks Posted: Saturday, June 30, 2007 At least seven Palestinians have been killed by a series of attacks launched by Israeli aircraft in the Gaza Strip. Three of the dead on Saturday were members of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad and were killed when an Israeli strike hit their car in the town of Khan Younis. Samir Abu Shamala, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, also said that Ziyad Ghannam, one of the senior leaders of the al-Quds Brigades, was among the dead. Israel launched six attacks aimed at increasing pressure on the area controlled by Hamas. Full Article : aljazeera.net Beavis and Butthead in London jihad Posted: Saturday, June 30, 2007 Huh-huh-huh, let's break somethin' By Thomas C Greene in Dublin Police and securocrats know that there aren't enough real terrorists in the world, which is why they have to keep manufacturing them. This is because citizens tire of being watched by cameras, frisked and x-rayed, having their belongings searched, giving fingerprints to so-called friendly nations on entry, contemplating the myriad government databases where their details and activities are preserved, and wondering if some dour little bureaucrat is reading their email or listening to them on the phone. Citizens tire also of reading the rolls of the war dead fraudulently sacrificed in the name of counterterrorist "victory", and of seeing hundreds of billions spent on surveillance and private security, ridiculous wars, and security-related gimmicks and gizmos, when it could be so much better spent on, oh, needs like housing, medicine and pensions, and mitigating actual mass threats to life via such non-sexy routes as traffic safety, fire safety, vaccinations, buildings and infrastructure inspection, water treatment, and food safety. But the guys with the guns and cameras and listening devices have been on a roll since 9/11, embarrassing their clip-board-toting rivals in the race for public money, even though, collectively, they've taken or made meaner far more lives than they can ever hope to protect with their strategy of violence in the name of peace, and fascism in the name of liberty. To keep the billions rolling in, they've got to produce a terrorist every now and then. Only real terrorists are hard to come by, so clowns and stooges with harebrained schemes end up doing bin Laden's perp walk periodically. Full Article : theregister.co.uk Chávez hints at nuclear future for Venezuela Posted: Saturday, June 30, 2007 Luke Harding in Moscow Friday June 29, 2007 The Guardian President Hugo Chávez yesterday hinted that Venezuela could try to become a nuclear power, during a visit to Russia apparently timed to antagonise the White House. Mr Chávez defended Iran's right to pursue a nuclear programme and said it might be a good idea if Venezuela eventually did the same thing. Speaking before an audience of communists and other elements hostile to America, Mr Chávez said: "Iran has a right to have a peaceful atomic energy industry, as it is a sovereign country. "The Brazilian president has declared his atomic energy initiatives, and Brazil has a right to do that as well. Who knows, maybe Venezuela will ultimately follow suit." Mr Chávez said he wanted a "multi-polar world in which "real freedom" was possible as opposed to "American freedom", which he characterised as the right to "threaten other nations and destroy cities". Full Article : guardian.co.uk London Bomb--What a Crock of Crap!! Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 ¤ Absurd London 'Bomb Plot' Inaugurates 'Control Freak' Brown "British police Friday thwarted a car-bomb attack that would have brought carnage to the streets of London just days before the second anniversary of the July 7, 2005, bombings that claimed 52 lives," writes Nile Gardiner for the neocon house organ, the National Review Online. "The car was packed with nails, gas canisters and petrol containers, and left outside a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus. This latest attempt to kill and maim hundreds of civilians is most likely the work of al Qaeda or one of its numerous British-based affiliates. It was timed to coincide with the departure of Tony Blair, and the entrance of new Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It also coincided with Blair's appointment as the Quartet's new Middle East envoy in the face of strong opposition in the Arab world." ¤ British MI5 Had Hand In Previous Car Bombings ¤ London Car-Bomb and the Need for Intelligent Skepticism ¤ London Bomb--What a Crock of Crap!! ¤ Palestinians massacred in Lebanon ¤ Grand Theft Country: How George W. Bush Looted Iraq George W. Bush invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein would have lowered the price of oil and would have insisted upon payment in Euros. It had nothing to do with fighting "terrorism" in Iraq where, in fact, there had been none. It had nothing to do with WMD in Iraq where, in fact, there had been none. It had nothing to do with bringing Democracy to Iraq where, in fact, there is none still. It had everything to do with protecting the interests of the big oil corporations who supported George W. Bush from the start. George W. Bush, therefore, completes the transformation of the US to fascism. Bush auctioned off America, sold it out to Big Oil. ¤ And those stealing money from Iraq are ... ¤ Horrendous crime of Interior commandos against Sunnis in the Ghazaliya ¤ Google, the Daily Kos, and the End of Free Speech ¤ When American servicemen and contractors rape American women ¤ Taking the Piss Envoy What a great day for peace enthusiasts! A new envoy to the Middle East has been appointed for the Quartet, and it’s no other than the former British PM, Tony Blair. Blair, the man who gave the Israelis the green light to flatten Beirut. Blair, the man who started an illegal war in Iraq. Blair, a man who, according to the Geneva Conventions, is to be held personally responsible for more than 700,000 dead in Iraq for failing to 'protect civilian populations against certain consequences of war’[1]. A man who is supposed to be charged for genocide at The Hague. That’s right, a man who should end his life behind bars is now becoming a peace envoy. ¤ Tony Blair: A true friend of Israel ¤ One million homeless in Pakistan ¤ The London Car Bomb Supreme Court to Hear Guantánamo Detainees' Case Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 By William Glaberson The United States Supreme Court reversed course today and agreed to hear claims of Guantanamo detainees that they have a right to challenge their detentions in American federal courts. The decision, announced in a brief order released this morning, set the stage for a historic legal battle that appeared likely to shape debates in the Bush administration about when and how to close the detention center that has become a lightning rod for international criticism. The exceptionally unusual order, which required votes from five of the nine justices, gave lawyers for detainees more than they had requested in a motion asking the justices to reconsider an April decision declining to review the same case. Lawyers for detainees had asked only that the court hold the case open for future consideration. Today's order meant that the court would hear the case in its next term, perhaps by December. Full Article : nytimes.com British MI5 Had Hand In Previous Car Bombings Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 Intelligence sources are refusing to rule out an Irish connection to a massive car bomb that was discovered in the heart of London this morning. Though at this early stage the facts are sketchy, any link to the IRA or its offshoots would re-open a can of worms concerning the MI5's role in past terror attacks, and specifically car bombings, over the last few decades in Britain and Northern Ireland. The timing of the attempted attack coincides with new Prime Minister Gordon Brown taking over from Tony Blair just yesterday. Full Article : propagandamatrix.com London Car-Bomb and the Need for Intelligent Skepticism Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 By John Chuckman smirkingchimp.com We should all exercise a healthy skepticism regarding the story of the car-bomb just found in London. There are powerful reasons for this. The grant of an appeal to the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. There is powerful evidence that key evidence in his trial was tampered with or manufactured by the CIA. The U.S. wanted this matter off its plate, the families of the dead being a constant irritation. And who better to pin it on than the then much-disliked Libyans? Actually, nothing is easier to fake than an amateur device like this. It takes little sophistication, and there is low risk of discovery. The CIA has just released papers it terms the 'family jewels' which concern many dark matters from decades ago. While these papers are carefully selected to make the CIA look more ineffectual than it is and to give it a public-relations boost in light of its torture and kidnapping activities today, they still document a perfect willingness to engage in the most unethical behavior. Mr. Brown has just taken office, and expectations are high that he will distance himself from Blair's foreign policy, a policy many thoughtful people regard as foolish, destructive, and rather servile. In the United States, paranoid games have been regularly - such as phony terror alerts and ridiculous arrests -played concerning threats to keep fears fired up. www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8404 London Bomb--What a Crock of Crap!! Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 So I turn on the telly this morning and find breathless CNN anchors hyperventilating over the nuclear suicide car weapon of mass destruction discovered smoldering outside of a London nightclub. One report from the scene notes that: London police were contacted when witnesses saw a Mercedes being driven erratically near London West End night club Tiger Tiger, and the driver jumped out of the automobile and ran away. The car was reported to have two gasoline canisters and be full of nails. Full Article : prisonplanet.com The American Massacre at al-Khalis Posted: Thursday, June 28, 2007 ¤ The US Colonisation of Somalia and the 'Power Vacuum' Fallacy Few days ago, I had published at an internet blog a paper. In it, I argued that Ethiopia's occupation of Somalia will continue, as long as this is possible, because it serves the U.S imperialist objectives in Somalia: to gain a total control over Somalia's unexplored energy and other natural resources and as a geopolitical outpost in support of other US imperial projects in Africa and the Horn and Africa in particular. In that work, I have also argued that in order to gain a total control over Somalia, the US is using the UN and other international bodies, such as the Security Council, African Union and EU, in order to overcome local resistance to US colonial takeover of Somalia. ¤ Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Kill 11 Palestinians including 4 unarmed Civilians and 2 Children in the Gaza Strip In the early morning hours of Wednesday, 27 June 2007, IOF conducted two incursions into the town of Khuza'a to the east of Khan Yunis and into Sheja'eya Quarter in the eastern part of Gaza City. Up to the publication of this report, these incursions resulted in the death of 11 Palestinians. Among those killed are 6 civilians, including 2 children and two brothers. In addition, 50 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been injured. In the afternoon, IOF withdrew from Sheja'eya, leaving behind considerable destruction. The incursion into Khuza'a continued at the time of publication. In light of this escalation and the persistence of IOF military operations, PCHR is concerned over the falling of additional civilian victims. It is noted that this escalation coincides with the continued hermetic closure of the Gaza Strip imposed two weeks ago; thus threatening to cause a humanitarian crisis in the Strip. ¤ How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps ¤ Bombing kills 22 at Baghdad bus station ¤ A Fruit Picker From South Africa Reveals The Human Cost of Cheap Food ¤ Fiddling While America Burns ¤ Blair's Middle East role tainted by associations with Bush ¤ 16 Dirty Secrets About Nuclear Power ¤ The Footprints of Democracies ¤ Pakistanis Baffled by US Support for Their Military Regime ¤ Where's the CIA's Missing Jewel? ¤ Slandering the Dead: The American Massacre at al-Khalis ¤ 30 killed in Iraq violence ¤ 'No' to false trappings of sovereignty ¤ Democracy at Gunpoint This states exactly our present policy toward Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, and on and on. We are not alone in this cold, Kisssingerian approach: like any other nation the United States has no friends; nations, as Charles de Gaulle said, have only interests. What, then, are our interests? During the last half century America's foreign policy makers of both parties have demonstrated a near-total inability to identify and pursue our real self interests. ¤ iPhonies ¤ The Banality of Greed As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American--and many more Iraqi--lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush's running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich. ¤ 20 beheaded bodies found in Iraq Twenty beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, two Iraqi police officers said. The dead — all men aged 20 to 40 years old — had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, the officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. ¤ Torrential rains ravage central Texas ¤ UN inspectors visit N Korea reactor ¤ The possibility of a US attack on Iran ¤ Ahmadinejad: "I am not anti-Semitic" ¤ Record opium crop in southern Afghanistan ¤ 13129 ¤ Sex, Lies, And Censorship --Zionism's Lifelines ¤ Government said to have lost control of Basra ¤ The Four Biggest Myths about the US War Against the People of Iraq Lies about Iraq are easily disproved. The myths die harder. Bush lied about Iraq in order to attack and invade. The many myths, however, have to do with the geo-political significance of Iraq, US motives and incompetence, and the nature of the resistance to the illegal US occupation. ¤ Gen Taguba Unveils Abu Ghraib, US Gulag - "The abused are only Iraqis!" CIA opens the book on a shady past Posted: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 The CIA declassified nearly 700 pages of secret records Tuesday recording its illegal activities during the first decades of the Cold War, publishing a catalog of adventures that run the gamut of spy movie clichés from attempts to kill foreign leaders and intercept Americans' mail to garden-variety break-ins and burglaries. "Most of it is unflattering, but it is CIA's history," the CIA's director, Gen. Michael Hayden, said last week in announcing plans to release the documents, which had been considered so sensitive that they were known internally as the agency's "family jewels." The documents were compiled beginning in 1973 at the order of then-CIA Director James Schlesinger, who wanted to be prepared for congressional investigations he expected in the wake of disclosures that arose during the Watergate scandal. Schlesinger's successor, William Colby, was outraged at much of the material, which he collected in a report to President Gerald Ford in 1975. Full Article : msnbc.msn.com Egypt's Female Pharaoh mummy found Posted: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 CAIRO, June 26 -- The centuries-old search for the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's most famous female pharaoh, may finally have ended. According to US-based Discovery Channel, Egypt's antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass will announce at a media conference in Cairo on Wednesday "the most important find in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun" in 1922. Egyptology discussion boards have been abuzz with the news that the one of the most important discoveries in Egypt's history could be announced soon. Full Article : africast.com Will Sudan be Re-Colonized? Posted: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 ¤ Poll: Even More Americans Blame Saddam for 9/11 As distrustful as I am of polls conducted by the corporate media, I had to take note of the following. "A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed 'gaps' in America's knowledge of history and current events," writes Josh Catone for Raw Story. "Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question 'Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?' That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004." I wouldn't call this lack of knowledge a "gap" but rather a chasm, the result of years of brainwashing—indeed, a process instituted from grade school onward, right up the present as millions of Americans sit idly before the tube with their brains disengaged, absorbing the incessant propaganda dispensed by Fox News and CNN. ¤ Will Sudan be Re-Colonized? The United States is maneuvering to introduce a UN peacekeeping force into Darfur, as a first step to securing control of the region's vast supply of oil. US control of Darfur's petroleum resources would deliver highly profitable investment opportunities to US firms, and scuttle China's investment in the region, thereby slowing the rise of a strategic competitor whose continued industrial growth depends on secure access to foreign oil. Washington is using highly exaggerated charges of genocide as a justification for a UN intervention it would dominate, while at the same time opposing a workable peacekeeping plan acceptable to the Sudanese government that would see the current African Union mission in Darfur expand. ¤ UN: World drug problem stabilising ¤ The Language of War One plus one is three. Oops. I didn't mean to hit the 'send' button. George HW Bush not using a condom, giving us W. These are mistakes. In today's media, and even in many leftist and 'progressive' outlets, we are seeing a very disturbing accounting of America's mood on the war. The majority of Americans believe the war to be a mistake. The first definition of that term, using www.dictionary.com, is “an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.” ¤ Chechnya — The Forgotten Struggle ¤ Be ready for guerrilla war against the US ¤ CIA Releases Key 1970s Files, Including Spying on Journos ¤ New Scrutiny as Immigrants Die in Custody ¤ The Real Casus Belli: Peak Oil ¤ Africa United in Rejecting US Request for Military HQ The Pentagon's plan to create a US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves with the Bush administration's “war on terror” and fearful of American intervention. A US delegation led by Ryan Henry, principal deputy under-secretary of defence for policy, returned to Washington last week with little to show for consultations with defence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti and with the African Union (AU). An earlier round of consultations with sub-Saharan countries on providing secure facilities and local back-up for the new command, to be known as Africom and due to be operational by September next year, was similarly inconclusive. The Libyan and Algerian governments reportedly told Mr Henry that they would play no part in hosting Africom. Despite recently improved relations with the US, both said they would urge their neighbours not to do so, either. Even Morocco, considered Washington's closest north African ally, indicated it did not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil. ¤ How Can Bush Free Iraq When He Brings Tyranny To America? ¤ CNN blows it. Truth told about Gaza. ¤ 'al Qaeda in Mesopotamia': The Numbers Just Don't Add Up ¤ U.S. losing its power over China ¤ The Coup Against Hamas ¤ China's New Weapons "China's new investments in its military are, like so many things about China, heavily criticized by the American establishment. The truth is they represent a small fraction of what the U.S. spends, no matter what accounting you use. Widely accepted, published data put China's military spending at about 10% of America's, although some say it may be about half again more than that through hidden spending. They may be right, but they ignore the reality of a great deal of hidden spending in America, particularly when it comes to so-called black programs, and the unquestioned fact remains that America accounts for fully half of the entire planet's military spending." ¤ The world that Bob made ¤ Quartet considers Blair envoy role ¤ Conditions in Iraq 'terrifying', says U.N. envoy ¤ The Australians who are outcasts in their own land ¤ Political Attention Deficit Disorder: New Psychiatric Condition According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance. The Australians who are outcasts in their own land Posted: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 Walk around the sprawling community of Wadeye and you will be assailed by children, quick to spot a stranger in town. They crowd around curiously and talk to you in broken English but chatter among themselves in Murrinh-patha, the indigenous language of this former Catholic mission. Six other languages are spoken here, all of them endangered, making Wadeye a laboratory for linguists. 'Language is our identity and if we forget our identity, we are nothing,' says Patrick Nudjulu, sheltering from the sun on the veranda of his house. A patriarchal figure, with white beard and a leg withered by leprosy, he points to his grandchildren playing nearby. Speaking in their mother tongue will keep them connected to their culture, says this old man. But he encourages the children to go to school to do their sums and to learn how to speak in English. 'You need to be able to talk to the white fella,' he says. Full Article : guardian.co.uk Political Attention Deficit Disorder Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007 Political Attention Deficit Disorder: New Psychiatric Condition by Joel S. Hirschhorn / June 25th, 2007 According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance. "The symptoms of PADD are all around us and treating it professionally can do more for our country than any election," said Dr. Mable Wank in the report's introduction; she is chairwoman of the Council and a professor at UCLA. Full Article : dissidentvoice.org African states oppose US presence Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007 ¤ 37 reported dead in string of suicide bombings in Iraq ¤ UN no longer seen as neutral, says former chief ¤ Hundreds killed by flooding in Karachi ¤ Suicide bomber kills 12 in Baghdad hotel attack ¤ African states oppose US presence The Pentagon's plans to create a new US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves publicly with the US "global war on terror". A US delegation led by Ryan Henry, the principal deputy undersecretary of defence for policy, returned to Washington last week with little to show from separate consultations with senior defence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti and with the African Union (AU). ¤ Afghan civilians reportedly killed more by U.S., NATO than insurgents U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have killed at least 203 civilians so far this year — surpassing the 178 civilians killed in militant attacks, according to an Associated Press tally. Insurgency attacks and military operations have surged in recent weeks, and in the past 10 days, more than 90 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery fire targeting Taliban insurgents, said President Hamid Karzai. ¤ Hamas acted on a very real fear of a US-sponsored coup ¤ Chavez warns of resistance war with U.S. ¤ How to Buy Coffee with a Conscience ¤ China's New Weapons ¤ Those Lazy Iraqis I can't take this anymore. It was bad enough when the White House started pushing that “when the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down” crap last year, but now the Democrats are chiming in with this “lazy, ungrateful Iraqis” trash, seemingly all at once. Where is this bullshit coming from? No doubt, some Frank Luntz type—possibly Frank Luntz—held a focus group and found that Americans respond better to criticism of the war when it doesn't hint at American culpability in the embarrassing disaster it has become. Politicians, desperate to avoid the logically meaningless but emotionally powerful charge of “not supporting the troops,” have hit upon a new formula: You can talk all you want about the hopelessness of continuing the occupation in Iraq, as long as you blame it all on the Iraqis. ¤ Zoellick confirmed World Bank chief ¤ Germany's plot against Zimbabwe exposed At least the world can now see for itself the extent of the cowardice, dishonesty and lies that characterise the West's engagement over Zimbabwe. A few days back, the Germany Embassy in Harare denied visas to two key members of the Zimbabwean delegation that was supposed to attend the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly underway in Wiesbaden, Germany, scuttling Zimbabwe's participation in the process. It is important to note that Zimbabwe was supposed to feature prominently on the agenda, yet the West did not want Zimbabwe to be present to defend itself against their malicious propaganda. ¤ Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran? ¤ While playing tricks with Abbas and Arab leaders African states oppose US presence Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007 Simon Tisdall in Washington Monday June 25, 2007 Guardian Unlimited The Pentagon's plans to create a new US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves publicly with the US "global war on terror". A US delegation led by Ryan Henry, the principal deputy undersecretary of defence for policy, returned to Washington last week with little to show from separate consultations with senior defence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti and with the African Union (AU). Full Article : guardian.co.uk Germany's plot against Zimbabwe exposed Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007 The Herald At least the world can now see for itself the extent of the cowardice, dishonesty and lies that characterise the West's engagement over Zimbabwe. A few days back, the Germany Embassy in Harare denied visas to two key members of the Zimbabwean delegation that was supposed to attend the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly underway in Wiesbaden, Germany, scuttling Zimbabwe's participation in the process. It is important to note that Zimbabwe was supposed to feature prominently on the agenda, yet the West did not want Zimbabwe to be present to defend itself against their malicious propaganda. What is more, they were only too happy to grant a visa to MDC legislator, Nelson Chamisa, whom they expected to grandstand on their behalf. Head of delegation Senator Forbes Magadu, who was supposed to table a resolution to expose the West's hand in the ongoing political and economic problems in the country, was conveniently denied a visa. Secretary to the delegation Dr Godfrey Chipare, the principal director (external relations) with the Parliament of Zimbabwe, who was supposed to help Senator Magadu with the paperwork, was also denied a visa. Of course, Senator Clarissa Vongai Muchengeti of Zanu-PF was granted a visa, but it was evident that the EU wanted to use her as a cover for Chamisa, as they considered her a soft-target since she did not have the responsibility of tabling the resolution. There you have it; Zimbabwe was supposed to be present but not represented, giving Westerners the opportunity to trash the country at will. Fortunately, their nefarious agenda was exposed and we hail the Parliament of Zimbabwe for withdrawing the credentials of the entire delegation. What is shocking about the saga is not Germany's wanton violation of the Cotonou Agreement that guarantees immunities and privileges to state parties conducting ACP-EU business, but the manner in which the Germans shamelessly lie that no applications were lodged with them when they refused to issue the application forms for the two delegates in the first place. They should tell the world why Chamisa and Cde Muchengeti had visas if no applications had been forwarded. The scandal is, however, consistent with the West's treatment of Zimbabwe, their strategy is simple — create problems and blame it on the victim. That is the whole story behind the land reform programme. White settlers of Western origin created the skewed land ownership with their racist policies. It was Britain that refused to honour its obligations to fund land reforms in Zimbabwe. The countries that reneged on the promises they made at the Land Donor Conference of 1998 were from the West. It was the West again that tried to internationalise a purely bilateral dispute between Harare and London. It is the West that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, which sanctions are behind the economic problems bedevilling the country today. It is the West that is sponsoring subversive political activities in Zimbabwe. It is the West that blames Zimbabwe for everything. This is why we hope those who are quick to judge, quick to be swayed by Western propaganda learn from this scandal. The West does not want the real Zimbabwean story to be heard. They would rather keep feeding the world with lies. If, as they say, they are right, they should give Zimbabwe the chance to present its side of the story and let an informed world decide who is right and who is wrong. We have no doubt Zimbabwe will be vindicated. Neo-cons Spinning Hearts and Minds Posted: Sunday, June 24, 2007 ¤ Hamas's victory in Gaza is a blow to Bush's plans The stunning military victory by the Palestinian Hamas movement over the rival Fatah organisation in the Gaza Strip last week was a strike against imperialism in the Middle East. The US and its allies have described the Islamist group Hamas's driving out of Fatah from Gaza as a "military coup" aimed at creating a "mini Taliban state". It is nothing of the sort. Hamas is the democratically elected Palestinian government. Its victory last week stopped an attempted military takeover sponsored by the US and its Israeli and Egyptian allies. George Bush rushed to embrace the "Fatah moderates" in "the battle with extremism". ¤ Black people and criminal justice: 'Target the system, not black culture' ¤ The Australians who are outcasts in their own land Walk around the sprawling community of Wadeye and you will be assailed by children, quick to spot a stranger in town. They crowd around curiously and talk to you in broken English but chatter among themselves in Murrinh-patha, the indigenous language of this former Catholic mission. Six other languages are spoken here, all of them endangered, making Wadeye a laboratory for linguists. ¤ Decline for Military in Black Recruits The number of blacks joining the military has plunged by more than one-third since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began. Other job prospects are soaring and relatives of potential recruits increasingly are discouraging them from joining the armed services. According to data obtained by The Associated Press, the decline covers all four military services for active duty recruits. The drop is even more dramatic when National Guard and Reserve recruiting is included. ¤ Israeli jets pound Gaza ¤ Over 230 killed, 200 injured in Karachi rain-related incidents Over 230 people were killed and more than 200 others were injured as a result of rain-related incidents in Karachi including collapse of roofs, walls and houses as well as up rooting of trees, poles and sign boards, besides the electrocution incidents in several parts of the city. Torrential rain and thunderstorms have killed at least 228 people and injured about 200 others in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, provincial health minister Syed Sardar Ahmed said Sunday. He said 43 people were killed as rain and high winds lashed the city on Saturday, while "the bodies of 185 more victims were identified today (Sunday)." ¤ Heavy rains kill 228 people in southern Pakistan ¤ The CIA's No-Questions-Asked Travel Agent ¤ 'It is time to put right the wrongs' ¤ Neo-cons Spinning Hearts and Minds As the George W. Bush administration struggles through its last two years in office, it appears that the agenda of neoconservative ideologues has finally lost its appeal among strategic parts of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus. But as their influence has waned at the Pentagon and State Department, neo-conservative hawks have taken charge on the battlefield of public diplomacy.Intent on fixing what American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Joshua Muravchik termed Bush's "public diplomacy mess," right-wing hawks have gained control of the weapons in the "war of ideas" — U.S. government-funded and supported media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA), Al-Hurra, and Radio Farda, which broadcast to the Middle East and aim to offer an alternative view of the news. ¤ Abu Ghraib: The Rest of The Story We were reminded again last week that in this administration, no good deed goes unpunished, and that no scandal is so great that it can't be hidden until it's forgotten. The sad spectacle that transpired inside the crumbling walls of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came roaring back to life with Seymour Hersh’s on-target article in The New Yorker magazine telling the story of an honest general who investigated and reported on events that shocked the world. Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba, U.S. Army retired, was an accidental choice to conduct one of 17 Pentagon investigations of the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. He was grabbed because he wore two stars, and they needed someone of that rank to probe a case that involved a one-star general. ¤ Lebanon blast kills Unifil troops ¤ US Muddles Along In The Middle East ¤ They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11 ¤ Iraq's 'Chemical Ali' sentenced to hang Abu Ghraib: The Rest of The Story Posted: Sunday, June 24, 2007 by Joseph L. Galloway We were reminded again last week that in this administration, no good deed goes unpunished, and that no scandal is so great that it can’t be hidden until it's forgotten. The sad spectacle that transpired inside the crumbling walls of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came roaring back to life with Seymour Hersh's on-target article in The New Yorker magazine telling the story of an honest general who investigated and reported on events that shocked the world. Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba, U.S. Army retired, was an accidental choice to conduct one of 17 Pentagon investigations of the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. He was grabbed because he wore two stars, and they needed someone of that rank to probe a case that involved a one-star general. The trouble was that Tony Taguba was honest and thorough and reported in detail, early and often, to his superiors on evidence he was uncovering – film and photos of abuses far worse than those the public saw. There was sexual abuse of female prisoners by their American guards and forced sex acts between a father and his young son. Full Article : commondreams.org Bush's Incredible Shrinking Coalition Posted: Saturday, June 23, 2007 ¤ Israeli Apartheid is the Core of the Crisis ¤ How Could Blair Possibly Get This Job? ¤ The Hidden Cost of War ¤ Bush's Incredible Shrinking Coalition Bush's "Coalition of the Willing," that motley crew of cajoled and pressured mostly minor nations that provided token troops to send to Iraq along with the U.S. juggernaut during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is looking decidedly smaller today. Since 2004, 17 countries, which had sent a total of 10,500 troops have pulled out entirely and brought everyone home. These include Italy, which at one point had the fourth-largest contingent of troops in the coalition (3200) and Ukraine, which had 1650 troops in Iraq, and also Iceland, which at one point had sent 2 soldiers, making it the smallest member of the invasion force. ¤ Bush to New Orleans Jazz Legend: "Pick Up All the Trash" Before Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans and ruined many of its cultural landmarks, people from all over the city — all over the country, in fact — would flock to the Bywater section to see trumpeter Kermit Ruffins’ weekly gig. I was in New Orleans immediately before Katrina and had the privilege of hearing Ruffins play. Inside a small, smoky bar, with his band positioned literally inches from its raucous audience, Ruffins commanded the room, using popular R&B arrangements like John Legend’s "Ordinary People" as his platform for long, cathartic improvisations.After the show, I spent twenty minutes talking music with Ruffins’ sidekick, the then-19-year-old prodigy, Trombone Shorty. A few of Shorty’s young friends stood nearby and listened in. The street was filled with the sound of easy chatter from liquor-sodden revelers who had stepped outside for a smoke. A Stevie Wonder song drifted from inside the bar. I think it was "My Cherie Amor." I was a world away from the dour east coast jazz scene where staggering door fees, drink minimums, and dress codes created an uptight atmosphere that favors the well-to-do, excludes young people, and keeps listeners at a distance from performers, who are often conferred undue reverence. ¤ Bombings Prompt Curfew in Colombian City ¤ 20 killed in Nairobi night of violence ¤ Darfur conflict heralds era of wars triggered by climate change, UN report warns ¤ The fight for the world's food ¤ Everyone we fight in Iraq is now "al-Qaida" That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term "Al Qaeda" to designate "anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq" is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as "Al Qaeda." But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically. I don't think the New York Times has published a story about Iraq in the last two weeks without stating that we are killing "Al Qaeda fighters," capturing "Al Qaeda leaders," and every new operation is against "Al Qaeda." ¤ A river of corpses ¤ The occupation forces destroy cars and houses in al-Ameriya ¤ Iraq Deaths Don't Mean Failure, Pace Says ¤ Over 40 killed in Karachi rainstorm Karzai Angry Over West's Tactics Posted: Saturday, June 23, 2007 by BBC staff Nato and US-led troops are failing to co-ordinate with their Afghan allies and thereby causing civilian deaths, President Hamid Karzai has said. He criticised his Western allies' "extreme" use of force and said they should act as his government asked. "Innocent people are becoming victims of reckless operations" because the troops had ignored Afghan advice for years, Mr Karzai told reporters. He was speaking after a week in which up to 90 Afghan civilians were killed. "You don't fight a terrorist by firing a field gun 37 kilometres (24 miles) away into a target. That's definitely, surely bound to cause civilian casualties," he said. Full Article : commondreams.org Zimbabwe 'Dooms Day' Report Seen as Promise not Prediction Posted: Friday, June 22, 2007 ¤ When Asking For Directions In America Proves Disastrous We like to think of this country as a pleasant place where, if we get lost and need directions, our fellow citizen would bring forth his Good Samaritan side, be engaging and helpful, and see us back on the right track. We see it in movies and advertisements all the time. And in our own interactions, we might have seen it on occasion work in this manner. However, do not be fooled into thinking this is the way it works all the time. If you happen to look Middle Eastern you might have a totally different and very disastrous experience. Like the ongoing nightmare Abdul Kewan is experiencing for simply asking for directions in America, this wonderful melting pot of humanity, where a person's rights and freedoms are considered sacred and protected at all costs. At least that is what we are told. Mr. Kewan knows better. ¤ Alliance With Atrocity: Bush's Terror War Partners in Ethiopia The New York Times paints a pretty picture of George W. Bush's bosom pals in Ethiopia, in an important story that once again gives the howling lie to the Bushists' pretensions of advancing freedom and democracy in their world-encircling Terror War. Of course, the story itself, by Jeffrey Gettleman, is marred by the usual uncritical acceptance of Administration spin on its key role in aiding the Ethiopian dictatorship's aggression in Somalia, and ignores entirely the American airstrikes during the invasion that killed scores of civilians (and are still going on in the Somali hinterland). This is not surprising, given that Gettleman's last big piece from the region was a truly odious bit of propaganda hackwork that essentially painted the victims of the aggression as greedy, worthless, anarchic trash who got what was coming to them. (See "The Lies of the Times: NYT Pushes Bush Line on Somalia.") ¤ Zimbabwe 'Dooms Day' Report Seen as Promise not Prediction Several Western media agencies are pushing an unnamed report from a group of unidentified "private consultants" urging organizations such as the United Nations, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Oxfam to prepare for a "total collapse" of Zimbabwe within 6 months. Western news agencies pushing this report, which many in the Pan-African community are calling propaganda, include the BBC, CNN, and the Associated Press (AP). At least 10 other new agencies have syndicated the AP story on their websites. The report from the AP states that, "If the worst happens, private consultants in Zimbabwe say, aid groups should brace for shops and businesses to close and for Zimbabwe to declare a state of emergency." This report is basing its prediction of a "doomsday scenario" on the fact that Western countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have pulled out nearly all of their financial resources causing not only a lack of confidence in the Zimbabwean currency on the international market but also causing hyperinflation that has been reported as high as four thousand percent, the highest in the world. ¤ Zimbabwe Watch ¤ Head-to-toe Muslim veils test tolerance of secular Britain ¤ 'Ridiculous' visa rulings set out ¤ Carter says US, EU must bring Hamas and Fatah together The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal." ¤ Oily Incompetence ¤ U.S. Corporations Aren't Disclosing Biological Warfare Research Work ¤ People are Disgusted with Them and Congress Doesn't Have a Clue! ¤ The Democratic Party and the Infantile Omnipotence of The Ruling Class Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public? Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It's the world's way of delivering the life lesson that it's time to shed the vanity of one's innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here's lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism, the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It's that simple. Why do the elites lie so brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they're entitled to, by virtue of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant conclusion? Because they think they're better than us. If they believe in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few billion neurons short of being governable by honest means. ¤ The tortured world of US intelligence ¤ Saving Darfur or Salvation Delusion? ¤ Sudan's Crisis ¤ A Tunisian in Guantánamo ¤ US air strike kills 25 Afghan civilians ¤ Completion of a Wall, Beginning of Suffering ¤ "They see us all as criminals" Carter says US, EU must bring Hamas and Fatah together Posted: Friday, June 22, 2007 The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal." Full Article : iht.com Head-to-toe Muslim veils test tolerance of secular Britain Posted: Friday, June 22, 2007 LONDON: Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. Like little else, their appearance has unnerved Britons, testing the limits of tolerance in this stridently secular nation. Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. At the same time, efforts are growing to place legal curbs on the full Muslim veil, known as the niqab. Full Article : iht.com 'Ridiculous' visa rulings set out Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2007 UK tourist visas are often denied to would-be visitors because they "plan a holiday for no particular purpose other than sightseeing", a report says. Others were turned down because they had never previously taken any foreign travel or could not speak English. The "ridiculous reasons" for rejecting visas were set out in a report by the independent monitor of UK visas. Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk Fox News and Venezuela Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2007 ¤ Sippy Cups as WMD's ¤ Fox News and Venezuela Thousands of Venezuelan students have been in the streets of major cities protesting the Chavez governments' actions against RCTV, the country's oldest and most popular TV station, and what they perceive to be an assault on freedom of speech in general. Perhaps ironically FOX News should be applauded for giving so much coverage to Venezuela - not necessarily a "popular" story. But unfortunately the highest-rated network so thoroughly butchered the truth, that it is not surprising that many Chavez supporters are becoming conspiracy theorists vis-à-vis the US media. In segment after segment, FOX News anchors, along with its main correspondent Adam Housley, told falsehood after falsehood. The issue here has nothing to do with condemning or supporting Hugo Chavez, nor his actions regarding RCTV . This is about how FOX News spread demonstrably false information on several occasions over the course of a week. The manipulation of fact was so extreme, that one has to wonder if it was deliberate. ¤ The New York Times vs. Hugo Chavez ¤ US occupation troops' war videos on web ¤ US Is Fighting A Contractor War ¤ Dividing Palestinians Won't Work ¤ The (Drug) War on 'Cheese' Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." The total failure of the Drug War to decrease drug use exemplifies this definition of insanity, and now it seems there is a new chapter. There is a new drug down in Texas. It is called "Cheese," and according to police Cheese is a combination of black tar Mexican heroin and crushed medications that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, found in products such as Tylenol PM. Tylenol PM is marketed as a combined analgesic and sedative, or more simply, pain reliever and sleep aid, to treat occasional headaches and minor aches and pains with accompanying sleeplessness. Heroin is an opioid, synthesized from the opium poppy, that mimics the action of endorphins, creating a sense of well-being. Cheese produces "A double whammy – you're getting two downers at once," says Dallas police detective Monty Moncibais. "If you take the body and you start slowing everything down, everything inside your body, eventually you're going to slow down the heart until it stops and, when it stops, you're dead." ¤ Faced with the tragedy of Iraq, the US must rethink its whole foreign policy ¤ Abu Ghraib Cover-up About to Explode Gen. Antonio Taguba is one of America's most respected senior officers, was put in charge of the Abu Ghraib investigation, and has now leveled a series of powerful public charges that will soon blow this case sky-high. Gen. Taguba went public early this week in long on-the-record interviews with Sy Hersh reported in his New Yorker piece now on newsstands. ¤ Tyranny and the Military Commissions Act ¤ A Moratorium Wired to Stop the War ¤ Egypt Trying to Avoid Policy Clash With US ¤ The West Chooses Fatah, But Palestinians Don't ¤ Bush pledges to increase US funding to Israel ¤ Solution for Darfur Genocide: Stop Breathing ¤ House Vote on Condemning Ahmadinejad This afternoon the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to urge the United Nations to indict the President of Iran for inciting genocide. The charge is over a disproven allegation (based on a mistranslation) that Ahmadinejad was called for the destruction of Israel. Only two members of the House voted against the resolution, Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich. Eleven members voted 'present' indicating a weak opposition. Usually-consistently-antiwar Rep. Barbara Lee supported the hawks in this vote. The West Chooses Fatah, But Palestinians Don't Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2007 In the west, there's a huge sense of relief. The Hamas-led government that has been causing everyone so much trouble has been isolated in Gaza, and a new government has been appointed in the West Bank by the "moderate," peace-loving Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. So why then do Palestinians not share in the relief? Well, for one thing, the old government had been democratically elected; now it has been dismissed out of hand by presidential fiat. There's also the fact that the new prime minister appointed by Abbas--Salam Fayyad--has the support of the West, but his election list won only 2% of the votes in the same election that swept Hamas to victory. Fayyad and Abbas have the support of Israel, but it is no secret that they lack the backing of their own people. There is a reason the people threw out Abbas' Fatah party in last year's election. Palestinians see the leading Fatah politicians as unimaginative, self-serving and corrupt, satisfied with the emoluments of power. Full Article : counterpunch.org Egypt Trying to Avoid Policy Clash With US Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2007 Egypt, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, is trying to avoid clashing with Washington over its very different approach to dealing with the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli expert said here on Thursday. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is hosting a summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. Jordan's King Abdullah II will be there as well. But Mubarak is seeking a different outcome than the one discussed earlier this week between Olmert and President Bush, said Dr. Yoram Meital, chairman of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Full Article : cnsnews.com Bush and Rumsfeld 'knew about Abu Ghraib' Posted: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 ¤ Repatriated to Torture Fears that the governments of both the US and the UK are conspiring to break international safeguards preventing the return of prisoners held without charge or trial to their home countries--where they face a serious risk of torture and abuse--have gained prominence in the last few days. On Saturday, I wrote on these pages about the case of Abdul Rauf al-Qassim, a Libyan prisoner in Guantánamo who is struggling to prevent his enforced return to the country of his birth, and on Tuesday the Pentagon announced that two Tunisian prisoners in Guantánamo, cleared for release since last year, had been returned to Tunisia on Sunday. Zachary Katznelson, Senior Counsel at Reprieve, a London-based legal charity representing one of the Tunisians, Abdullah bin Omar, immediately denounced his client's enforced repatriation, stating that he was "cleared by the United States--found not to be a threat and not to have information about terrorism. But the US has not apologized and set him free after five years in Guantánamo. Instead, he has been shipped to Tunisia, where abuse and possibly torture await. What has happened to American justice? How are we any safer by sending cleared men back to notorious regimes in the dead of night?" ¤ Countering Terrorism ¤ US-occupied Iraq is now ranked second among the world's failed states Last year US-occupied Iraq was ranked fourth in the Failed States Index produced by America's Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace. Now, in the 2007 Failed States Index released on Monday, Iraq has emerged as the world's second most unstable country, behind Sudan, giving the lie to the Bush administration's oft-repeated assertion that conditions in Iraq are improving. In fact, conditions in US-occupied Iraq continue to worsen and the country is now in a state of chaos, with the death toll from bomb explosions and other attacks averaging running about 100 people a day. According to the respected British medical journal The Lancet, more than 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of US bombing and missile strikes since March 2003. ¤ The Record of the Newspaper of Record Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times publishing "All The News That's Fit To Print" by its standards. Others wanting real journalism won't find it on their pages allowing only the fake kind. It's because this paper's primary mission is to be the lead instrument of state propaganda making it the closest thing we have in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda. ¤ The CIA and Fatah; spies, quislings and the Palestinian Authority ¤ The 8 Fallacies of Bush's Abbastan Plan ¤ Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare ¤ Gaza Strip - A Deceptive Calm is Lingering ! Israeli is to punish the Gaza Palestinians for their support to the victory of the Hamas movement. - Winners of the Palestinian parliamentary elections 2006 - the victory over Fateh militia and gunmen in the ground battles on the Gaza Strip the past week - the tumultuous break down of Palestinian institutions and the Fatehist's deceptions in within the three months old Palestinian unity government, that also fell apart because of them the[Israelis] - The Israelis must also punish Hamas Islamic movements for it' s findings and the successful apprehension of a compromising Fateh' Intelligence archive. - ¤ 78 Killed by Bombing at Baghdad Mosque ¤ Exposed : Abu Ghraib - Sodomy And Humiliation Audio ¤ The Mother of All Scandals ¤ Bush and Rumsfeld 'knew about Abu Ghraib' ¤ Hamas to work to free BBC journalist Hamas to work to free BBC journalist Posted: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Intensive negotiations are underway toward freeing British Broadcasting Corp. journalist Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped three months ago in Gaza, a senior Hamas official said Tuesday. Ahmed Youssef, an aide to deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said the talks are with the Doghmush family, a violent clan with its own militia, and he hoped "in the next 24 hours, either this man will be released or something will be done to solve this problem." He did not elaborate. Full Article : chron.com U.S., Russia: Iraq had no WMDs Posted: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 ¤ Palestinians won't accept a Vichy government The vast bulk of Palestinians, at home and in the Diaspora, will not accept a quisling government in Ramallah that might be at Israel's beck and call. This is precisely what the Bush administration and Israel expect the new government, headed by Salam Fayyad, to be. Of course, it is entirely up to Fayyad and his cabinet to prove the falseness of Israeli bedding and American expectations. ¤ The Measure of a Life, in Dollars and Cents What's an Iraqi life worth? How about an Iraqi car? For the U.S. military in Iraq, it may be roughly the same. A report released late last month by the Government Accountability Office examines the practices and rules guiding condolence payments that the U.S. military can distribute to families of Iraqi civilians killed "as a result of U.S. and coalition forces' actions during combat." These voluntary payments -- known as "solatia" payments -- can also cover injuries and loss or damage to property. They constitute "expressions of sympathy or remorse based on local culture and customs, but not an admission of legal liability or fault," according to the report. ¤ Dozens killed in Iraq as house-to-house search becomes violent battle ¤ Aides' e-mails likely destroyed ¤ Car bombing in Baghdad kills 22 ¤ Iran: Blowback, detainee-style ¤ The Bush/Cheney Holocaust in Iraq ¤ 22 killed in US –led Iraq operation ¤ Rise and Fall of the Bizarro Empire ¤ Bush Policy Detained in Iran ¤ Iraq now ranked second among world's failed states ¤ 100 Killed In 3 Days In Afghanistan ¤ A different kind of hell for one American in Iraq ¤ U.S.-led coalition airstrike kills 7 children in eastern Afghanistan ¤ How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties On the afternoon of May 6, 2004, Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba was summoned to meet, for the first time, with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his Pentagon conference room. Rumsfeld and his senior staff were to testify the next day, in televised hearings before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees, about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq. The previous week, revelations about Abu Ghraib, including photographs showing prisoners stripped, abused, and sexually humiliated, had appeared on CBS and in The New Yorker. In response, Administration officials had insisted that only a few low-ranking soldiers were involved and that America did not torture prisoners. They emphasized that the Army itself had uncovered the scandal. ¤ Blair feared US would 'nuke' Afghanistan Sure.... ¤ U.S., Russia: Iraq had no WMDs The U.S. and Russia have agreed to dismantle the U.N. agency that searched Iraq for weapons of mass destruction and affirm that Saddam Hussein's government had no such arms at the time of the American invasion in March 2003. The Security Council will adopt a resolution the last week in June to close the U.N. Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission, created in 1999 to search Iraq for biological and chemical weapons, Belgian and British diplomats said. The measure will also end the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's mandate to look for nuclear arms in Iraq. U.N. inspectors found no banned weapons before or since the invasion. ¤ Tragedy in Gaza ¤ The Vast and Messy Neocon Experiment in Iraq and the Middle East Like apprentice sorcerers, a group of pro-Israel Neocons, took hold of U.S. foreign policy under President George W. Bush and designed the most wicked and the most improvised war of aggression by any country against another that one can remember. This small group of ideologues, lacking in judgment, knowledge and wisdom but full of fanaticism, arrogance and hubris seized upon a double opportunity to advance their narrow interests at the expense of the American people, the Iraqi people and world peace and order. ¤ UK occupation troops kill 30 Iraqi civilians ¤ Many killed by car bomb in Baghdad ¤ Millions of Desperate Iraqis Stream into Syria ¤ The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand ¤ War at the Remote It's a popular notion: TV sets and other media devices let us in on the violence of war. "Look, nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens," President Bush told a news conference more than three years ago. "I don't. It's a tough time for the American people to see that. It's gut-wrenching." But televised glimpses of war routinely help to keep war going. Susan Sontag was onto something when she pointed out that "the image as shock and the image as cliche are two aspects of the same presence." ¤ America's Guilty Silence Crimes against humanity don't happen unless it is possible to commit them with impunity. Government corruption and gross imbalances of power will bring them closer to the edge of possibility. But the anticipation of impunity must be personal and social as well as legal and political. The perpetrators need to make sense of their crimes within a positive sense of themselves. A shared sense of impunity that can pay for mass murder and torture chambers without self-reproach requires denial, distortion, and ignorance of swaths of reality. In totalitarian societies, the state handles these chores to try to keep the people unaware of its most criminal activities. ¤ Why We Must Break with the American Crazies When Gordon Brown returned from his fact-finding tour of Iraq on Monday, he proclaimed the importance of learning from our mistakes but also of looking forward instead of backward. Did this admission hint at a shift in Britain's foreign policy when Mr Brown takes over in ten days' time? To judge by the announcement he made in the next sentence - a restructuring of the British security apparatus to guard against future intelligence failures such as the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction - the answer is "no". Mr Brown's foreign policy will remain as backward-looking and self-deluding as Tony Blair's. US and Israel Stir Up Palestinian Crisis Posted: Monday, June 18, 2007 by Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org Published on Friday, June 15, 2007 It's so obvious that Fatah and Hamas should work together to achieve an independent Palestine. Not long ago, they were proclaiming their unity. So why are they now destroying each other? If you get your news from the mainstream U.S. media, you might well think that they are just two irrational factions, driven crazy by lust for power. But if you know how to read between the lines, even our mainstream media tell a much more complicated story, one that implicates Israel and the U.S. government too. All the quotes that follow are from reporting on the crisis in the mainstream's flagship newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post. "An Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs, Danny Rubinstein, said the 'primary reason for the break-up is the fact that Fatah has refused to fully share the Palestinian Authority's mechanism of power with its rival Hamas, despite Hamas's decisive victory in the January 2006 general elections.'" "Fatah leaders failed to heed warnings that the party's corruption and arrogance were alienating voters." "Fatah 'was forced to overrule Palestinian voters because the entire world demanded it do so,' Mr. Rubinstein added. 'Matters have come to the point where Hamas attempted to take by force what they believe they rightfully deserve.'" The U.S. and Israel have led the world in forcing Fatah to resist Hamas' democractically-won power. In a just-released document, "the United Nations' former top Middle East envoy has sharply criticized U.S. and Israeli efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government, saying the policy has further radicalized Palestinian opinion and undercut long-term efforts to establish a viable Palestinian state. The broadside by Alvaro de Soto was contained in a confidential 52-page report he filed before resigning from the United Nations last month. Starting in May 2005, de Soto directed U.N. efforts to ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." "With all the focus on the failings of Hamas," De Soto observed, "the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated." But Hamas' complaint is more specific. "Hamas wants a restored unity government where the security forces would all report to the interior minister." Why is that so important? The security forces have been controlled by Fatah and its security chief Mohammed Dahlan. "During 12 years in power, Fatah had repeatedly cracked down on the [Hamas] Islamists, including in 1996 when the Preventive Security Service, then led by Dahlan, arrested Hamas leaders." "Many of those who were imprisoned remember the treatment they received as cruel and humiliating." Now "Hamas spokesmen said the movement had no political goal except to defend itself from a group within Fatah collaborating with Israel and the United States. They said they wanted to bring the security forces under the control of the unity government." "A Hamas spokesman said the movement was defending itself, not reaching for unalloyed power. He said Hamas 'is doing the work that Fatah failed to do, to control these [security] groups,' whom he accused of crimes, chaos and collaboration with Israel and the United States." Indeed, Israel "has made no bones about backing Fatah and attacking only Hamas targets." And the U.S. has funded and supported the Israeli efforts. "Since the election victory of Hamas in January 2006, the United States and Israel have worked to isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with recognition and weaponry." The weapons go to Fatah's security forces, led by Dahlan. CIA operatives have long worked closely with Dahlan's security apparatus. According to De Soto, "U.S. officials 'clearly pushed for a confrontation' between Hamas and Fatah. ... A U.S. [diplomatic] representative, he recalled, said: 'I like this violence . . . it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas.'" In the midst of the current crisis, the Bush administration continues to take sides and stir up the conflict. "Administration officials were pushing Mr. Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing agreement between Fatah and Hamas [and] dismiss the entire government." When Abbas did just that, "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed support for Mr. Abbas's decrees." Also, "administration officials were weighing the possibility of ... pressuring Egypt to seal the tunnels leading from its territory into Gaza; American and Israeli officials say the tunnels are often used to smuggle weapons to Hamas. One administration official suggested Wednesday that the United States might then try to prod Israel into taking down Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a way to shore up Mr. Abbas." Of course this strategy is likely to turn the Palestinian public even further against Abbas and Fatah. But that seems to be what Israel wants. The Times and Post omitted a key passage from De Soto's report charging that Israeli policies seem "perversely designed to encourage the continued action by Palestinian militants." Israel has always tried to keep the Palestinians divided. It played a central role in creating Hamas to prevent Fatah from consolidating its political power. But now Israel seems to have a new reason for fanning the Fatah-Hamas feud into a civil war. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "is expected to tell Mr. Bush that Israel favored sealing off the West Bank from the turmoil in Gaza, continuing to prevent contact between the two territories." "Some Israeli security officials say Israel wants to see the West Bank isolated from Gaza." Why? "A Hamas-run Gaza would likely seal the coastal strip's pariah status and Israel could well block the borders." "One official suggested that Hamas's show of strength in Gaza would make it more likely that the Israeli military would intervene there this summer to cut back Hamas's military power." "Israel would be forced to retaliate harshly to protect its civilians, despite the fact that previous military incursions into the densely populated territory have failed to halt the rocket fire." If military action is likely to be fruitless again, why would Israel still pursue this strategy? There are several reasons. "Israel would like to seal off Gaza from the West Bank as much as possible to prevent the spread of Hamas military power there [in the West Bank], where Israeli troops still occupy the territory. Israel would also like to confront Hamas with the responsibility for governing Gaza - providing jobs and food and security to people." Meanwhile, "Israeli officials suggested that Israel would work with Mr. Abbas and a Fatah government in the West Bank." There is also the political benefit any Israeli government reaps by taking a tough stand against the enemy, especially after last summer's fiasco in Lebanon. Most importantly, perhaps, "rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza would finalize that split, and push prospects of a Palestinian state even further away. Efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, including a recent push by moderate Arab states, would be dealt a big blow because Abbas could no longer claim to represent all Palestinians and would lose his credibility as negotiating partner." "Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas control of Gaza would limit Israel's ability to negotiate with Mr. Abbas." There are still plenty of Israelis who can see that this is self-defeating, that eventually their government must make peace. "Some in Israel are beginning to ask whether it might make sense to have indirect discussions with Hamas, which is clearly not going away." But doesn't Hamas refuse to negotiate? Isn't it sworn to Israel's destruction? In fact, "there is debate within Hamas about how far to go in meeting Israeli and American demands. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh says Hamas's goal is the creation of a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders of West Bank and Gaza. The group's military wing, based in Syria, says it will only consider a long-term truce when Israel withdraws from the West Bank." "The offensive in Gaza is driven by Hamas hard-liners. It's not clear, however, how much direction they are getting from Hamas' exiled supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal. The movement's pragmatists, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have been largely silent in recent days." The pragmatists have been silenced by a civil war abetted, if not fomented, by Israel. It's hardly the first time. At least twice last year, when the pragmatists prevailed and Hamas united with Fatah to promote a plan for peace, Israel used violence to provoke Hamas hard-liners and block the peace process, as I have reported here before. Why would the Bush administration support this Israeli policy? Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution describes the fears that haunt our foreign policy elite: "'Gaza will be a full terrorist state, right on the fault line of the Western world. ... a haven for all the bad guys - Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad.'" "Hamas is seen as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, and much of the West." "A Hamas victory in Gaza would put an Iranian-backed militia not just on Israel's northern border, but also its southern one" — or at least a supposedly Iranian-backed militia, since "it's not clear how much direction they are getting from Iran." "Equally alarming to Bush administration officials is the prospect that if Hamas does not take over control of Gaza, and the fighting there continues, more of Gaza's young and increasingly frustrated population might be driven into the embrace of Al Qaeda, a rival of Hamas that, until now, had largely been shunned in Gaza." Perhaps this is all overheated imagining. If it is accurate, though, it may not really be so alarming to the administration's hawks. Perhaps it would help them create the radically polarized world they have warned about, the only kind of world that can sustain the policies they still so ardently promote. Whether they want it or not, that's the kind of world they may be helping to create as they fan the flames of Palestinian civil war. Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin. Email: chernus@colorado.edu Reprinted from: www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/15/1897/ FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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Why We Must Break with the American Crazies Posted: Monday, June 18, 2007 by Anatole Kaletsky When Gordon Brown returned from his fact-finding tour of Iraq on Monday, he proclaimed the importance of learning from our mistakes but also of looking forward instead of backward. Did this admission hint at a shift in Britain's foreign policy when Mr Brown takes over in ten days' time? To judge by the announcement he made in the next sentence - a restructuring of the British security apparatus to guard against future intelligence failures such as the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction - the answer is “no”. Mr Brown's foreign policy will remain as backward-looking and self-deluding as Tony Blair's. I say this with growing despair, because I too have returned from a fact-finding tour, to America. Viewed from across the Atlantic it is clear that the parochial British obsession with WMD and “sexed-up dossiers” bears no relationship to the catastrophes now unfolding in the Middle East and beyond - not only in Iraq, but also in Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and soon maybe Syria, Iran and Pakistan. What people are talking about in America is not whether the invasion of Iraq was legally or morally justified but why it went so disastrously wrong and whether the same blundering fanatics will launch another catastrophic military adventure, most likely a bombing campaign against Iran, to distract attention from failure in Iraq. After all, the neoconservative ideologues who still run the Bush Administration have nothing left to lose politically - and in their fevered imaginations they still think they could inflict military defeat on the “Islamofascists” in what they now see as an even greater historical confrontation than the Cold War. While Mr Brown and the British media are still fretting about who said what to whom about WMD intelligence, the talk in American policy circles is about an article, The Case for Bombing Iran, published two weeks ago in Commentary and The Wall Street Journal and cited approvingly to anyone who cares to listen by officials close to Dick Cheney. Its author, Norman Podhoretz, is an intellectual mentor to the people who took America into Iraq. His self-explanatory message is that Iran today is more dangerous than Hitler's Germany, since it could soon have nuclear weapons - and that Israel's very existence is menaced now as never before. Full Article : commondreams.org Government collapse a blow to diplomacy Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 The Saudi king was said to be angered by the US's failure to support the accords or end its year-long boycott of the Palestinians - one key factor that Arab officials say undermined the agreement. The lack of US support left Israel under no pressure to help the government survive by, for example, ending a freeze on tax transfers it owes the Palestinian [National] Authority - estimated at $700 million (about Dh2.5 billion). "The Americans are the ones who are now delighted by what happened because they were furious at the Makkah accord," said an Arab official yesterday. "But it's a shameful state of affairs. We've been afraid of this all along." Full Article : gulfnews.com Haniyeh: 'We Are the Legitimate Government' Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 by Patrick Saint-Paul LE FIGARO EXCLUSIVE: The Palestinian Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, received our correspondent in his house in the refugee camp of Shati, targeted by bombardments on Thursday. Le Figaro: Some accuse Hamas for having carried out a coup d'état in the Gaza Strip. How do you respond to them? Ismail Haniyeh: I respond to them with a question: a coup d'état against what? Against ourselves? We are the legitimate. We are the legitimate government, which originates from the democratically elected Parliament. Full Article : mrzine.monthlyreview.org Secret New Plan For EU Superstate Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 TONY Blair wants to hand the European Union radical new powers in his last act as Prime Minister, it emerged today. The Prime Minister has welcomed controversial plans to bring back the troubled EU constitution by the back door - totally bypassing the need for public referendums on sweeping new powers for Brussels. Full Article : dailyexpress.co.uk Israel plans attack on Gaza Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 ISRAEL's new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there. According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas's military capability in days. The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings. Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas. Full Article : timesonline.co.uk OAS Secretary General Assures Venezuelan Democracy is Not Threatened Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 By Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com Friday, Jun 15, 2007 Democracy is not being threatened in Venezuela according to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Jose Miguel Insulza yesterday at a press conference in Uruguay. Insulza explained that the decision of the Venezuelan government to not renew the broadcast license of the private television channel RCTV does not threaten democracy in the country but he maintained that he would still be willing to head a mission to Venezuela to investigate the case of RCTV if the OAS member nations request it. The Secretary General made the statement yesterday in Montevideo, Uruguay, where the Second Meeting of Government Spokespeople of OAS Member Countries is being held. During the last OAS General Assembly meeting in Panama, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested the organization to send an OAS mission to Venezuela to investigate the recent conflict that emerged around the RCTV decision. "If the United States made a formal petition, then I would contact Venezuela and the rest of the countries. If they believe I should go, then I will go," said Insulza to reporters at a press conference. "I have an obligation to make consultations, which does not diminish the fact that the Secretary General has a certain degree of freedom to take actions. However, in this case I have to make consultations with the member states," he explained. Insulza went on to explain that the Venezuelan government's decision to not renew the broadcast license of the private channel RCTV was not debated by the General Assembly of the OAS two weeks ago because the decision was an administrative decision taken by a member state of the organization and did not "threaten its democracy." "We should wonder why a number of democratic countries where freedom of expression prevails decided not to take a stance on this issue," he said upon being asked about the RCTV case. "I believe the reason is that they believed this is an administrative measure taken by a member state which does not threaten its democracy." The Secretary General explained that the OAS charter allows for this type of political action "only when there is a serious threat of a rupture in the democracy." When asked about the confrontational discourse of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his government in response to different OAS member countries, including the United States, Insulza guaranteed the union of the organization. "I do not think this rhetoric is likely to disturb or jeopardize union," he said. The Insulza also affirmed his willingness to formalize "constructive dialog" with Cuba, which has not participated in the Organization of American States since 1962 when relations were suspended. The dialogue would have the purpose of Cuba's re-entry into the regional organization. Insulza clarified that the situation of Cuba was not an "expulsion" but rather a "suspension" of relations which evidently "has never produced any effect, to the contrary it has caused harm for the civilian population." For that reason, Insulza considers it time to review the situation after 45 years. The Second Meeting of Government Spokespeople of OAS Member Countries concluded on Thursday that both freedom of expression and access to public information in Latin America and the Caribbean have made progress, but still have a long way to go. "Democratic governments should always be ready to be checked by their citizens, as they have to be accountable for their decisions. We should spread the culture of transparency," concluded Insulza. Source: www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2331 Welcome to 'Palestine' Posted: Saturday, June 16, 2007 by Robert Fisk How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today “Palestine” - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East. Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement. No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of “Palestine” still left to negotiate over? Full Article : commondreams.org The Reality Of U.S. Occupation Posted: Saturday, June 16, 2007 ¤ Calling Evil By Its Name ¤ Up and Down the Bush Philosophy Every president has a political philosophy that guides him and, sometimes, the nation. George W. Bush believes he has divine inspiration to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, and to make his subjects adhere to whatever beliefs he holds for the moment. His political philosophy is a chunk of swiss cheese that is being forced down the throats of a lactose-intolerant nation. ¤ Paris Hilton's Punishment ¤ The Gaza Cage ¤ Omphaloskepsis, Coprophagia, and War Without End, Amen. ¤ 'Honest Conservatives': Oxymoron? ¤ Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House ¤ North Korea's 23 million dollars frozen in Macau finally moving back to communism via Russia ¤ Uprooted Iraqis move into "atrocious" camps ¤ The Reality Of U.S. Occupation ¤ OAS Secretary General Assures Venezuelan Democracy is Not Threatened Democracy is not being threatened in Venezuela according to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Jose Miguel Insulza yesterday at a press conference in Uruguay. Insulza explained that the decision of the Venezuelan government to not renew the broadcast license of the private television channel RCTV does not threaten democracy in the country but he maintained that he would still be willing to head a mission to Venezuela to investigate the case of RCTV if the OAS member nations request it. ¤ Suicide bombers hit Afghanistan ¤ US backing for Musharraf ¤ Venezuela Launches Sale of "Bolivarian" Computers Gaza: Another Mess Made in U.S. Posted: Friday, June 15, 2007 Zimbabwe's Interception of Communications Bill Gaza: Another Mess Made in U.S. Everyone following the conflict in Gaza knows full well that the reason for the violence is not that Palestinians have not "sorted out their politics" — they've made their political preferences abundantly clear in democratic elections, and later in a power-sharing agreement brokered by the Saudis. The problem is that the U.S. and the corrupt and self-serving warlords of Fatah did not accept either the election result or the unity government, and have conspired actively ever since to reverse both by all available means, including starving the Palestinian economy of funds, refusing to hand over power over the Palestinian Authority to the elected government, and arming and training Fatah loyalists to militarily restore their party's power. Unfortunately, after three days of some of the most savage fighting ever seen in Gaza, that strategy now lies in tatters. Fatah is, quite simply, no longer a credible fighting force in Gaza, where it has long been in decline as a credible political force. US and Israel Stir Up Palestinian Crisis Gaza: Not Just a Prison, a Laboratory Afghanistan: The west has to accept that there is no military solution The west has to accept that there is no military solution Here’s a surprise: Remember how we were told that if we just waited until the fall, we’d see that George W. Bush’s “surge” was working in Iraq? Well, now it turns out that we shouldn’t expect answers in September after all. White House spokesman Tony Snow was purposeful on Wednesday in stomping, trampling, tap-dancing upon and otherwise giving a definitive beat-down to any expectations of a serious, fact-based reassessment of Iraq policy in the fall. Never mind that the White House raised those expectations in the first place. Terrorizing Artists in the USA The ‘Surge’ Bait and Switch Here’s a surprise: Remember how we were told that if we just waited until the fall, we’d see that George W. Bush’s “surge” was working in Iraq? Well, now it turns out that we shouldn’t expect answers in September after all. White House spokesman Tony Snow was purposeful on Wednesday in stomping, trampling, tap-dancing upon and otherwise giving a definitive beat-down to any expectations of a serious, fact-based reassessment of Iraq policy in the fall. Never mind that the White House raised those expectations in the first place. The Day After We Strike Iran Let us suppose that the Bush-Cheney administration answers the neocons’ prayer and does indeed bomb Iran sometime soon. The plan apparently involves more than the destruction of nuclear facilities, replicating Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981. (That attack, by the way was condemned by the whole world, including a furious President Ronald Reagan). It includes an all-out assault on the Iranian political and religious leadership. Government buildings and officials’ residences will be targeted, guaranteeing collateral damage. The Pentagon as Global Gas-Guzzler THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SHAM "Poor beleaguered Israel" is the catch-phrase we have been hearing for decades. The image portrayed is that of a peace-seeking country under constant and imminent threat of annihilation by the Arabs. After all, Israel is surrounded by Arab countries that want nothing more than to drive the Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea. The above scenario is common, yet it is as false as Iraq’s massive stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Israel is a military powerhouse that has the ability to quickly destroy the Arab world. Included in the huge hi-tech arsenal is a stock of hundreds of nuclear weapons. But, no one can mentions these nukes in polite conversation without being accused of an affinity to Nazi Germany. Afghanistan: No Military Solution Posted: Friday, June 15, 2007 Afghanistan: The west has to accept that there is no military solution The team that wrote President Bush's Prague speech on democracy this week have clearly never visited Afghanistan. Otherwise they would not have had the president quoting a Soviet dissident who compared "a tyrannical state to a soldier who constantly points a gun at his enemy". The guns that most Afghans see pointed at them are held by Americans, and they are all too often fired. At least 135 unarmed civilians have been reported killed over the past two months by western troops, mainly US special forces. Full Article : guardian.co.uk A New Assertiveness for Latin American Governments Posted: Friday, June 15, 2007 By: Mark Weisbrot - International Business Times The relationships between governments and investors - especially transnational corporations -are changing rapidly, and this is especially true in Latin America today. Last month, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua surprised many international observers by announcing that they would withdraw from the World Bank's international arbitration body, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The ICSID is a place where - under prior arrangement - foreign investors who have a dispute with a host government can submit their case to binding arbitration. Bolivia's position is that ICSID is not an impartial arbitrator, and cannot be expected to act as one, so long as it is part of the World Bank. As was highlighted by the recent controversy that led to the resignation of World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, the Bank may have 185 member countries, but it is really dominated by Washington. The saga continues as the Bush Administration once again has chosen a close neo-conservative associate of President Bush - former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick - to run the institution. The World Bank has long used its power - not only from its own lending of $23 billion annually, but also as part of a "creditor's cartel" led by the International Monetary Fund - to pressure governments to adopt policies favored by transnational corporations. These include privatizations and removing restrictions on foreign ownership, trade, and investment flows. Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com The Administration That Cries Wolf Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2007 ¤ Chavez Makes Surprise Visit to Meet Castro in Havana ¤ UN envoy: anti-Hamas rhetoric undermines democracy ¤ Vatican tells Catholics to abandon Amnesty ¤ Seven soldiers among nine gunned down in Quetta ¤ The Administration That Cries Wolf That didn't take long, did it? It took barely a week before the supposed plot to blow up the fuel tanks and pipelines at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and incinerate the borough of Queens in the process was swept away by Paris Hilton and the blather over the last episode of "The Sopranos." While the press loves to hype a good terrorist plot, pop culture apparently still trumps death and destruction. But in those rare moments where there isn't a celebrity doing something dumb, you can count on the press dutifully reporting upon the latest foiled attempt at a second 9/11 being thwarted by our brave and valiant law enforcement authorities. ¤ Election 2004: The Urban Legend ¤ Phony Terror and Black America ¤ Fighting Words ¤ Venezuela strikes £500m deal to buy Russian submarines ¤ Army Hiring More Psychiatrists Overwhelmed by the number of soldiers returning from war with mental problems, the Army is planning to hire at least 25 percent more psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. A contract finalized this week but not yet announced calls for spending $33 million to add about 200 mental health professionals to help soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health needs, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. ¤ The Death of American Empire ¤ How to Sell a War The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons at the target audience: us. To understand the Iraq war you don't need to consult generals, but the spin doctors and PR flacks who stage-managed the countdown to war from the murky corridors of Washington where politics, corporate spin and psy-ops spooks cohabit. ¤ A true land of opportunity Gordon Brown was in Iraq yesterday on a "fact-finding mission". It needn't all have looked gloomy for the next prime minister, however - not if he did some fact-finding about Blackwater, a North Carolina company that is now one of the most profitable military contractors operating in Iraq, and proves just what a land of opportunity Iraq really is. Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, acclaimed a "staggering" 600% growth in 2004: "This is a billion-dollar industry," he said, "and Blackwater has only scratched the surface of it." So if Gordon, or any of us, wants to get on this Iraqi gravy train, we could do worse than see how Blackwater goes about it. ¤ US Officer: Iraqi Police Disappearing ¤ Black Power Through Low Power Radio ¤ Bush Pushes Iraq Oil Law for ExxonMobil ¤ 'There Are Cracks in Everything' ¤ Gaza: Another Mess Made in U.S. Coming, as he does, from Fox News, Tony Snow is obviously a deeply cynical fellow, but this takes some beating: Asked to comment Wednesday on the bloodbath in Gaza, he answered: "Ultimately, the Palestinians are going to have to sort out their politics and figure out which pathway they want to pursue — the pathway toward two states living peaceably side-by-side, or whether this sort of chaos is going to become a problem." Everyone following the conflict in Gaza knows full well that the reason for the violence is not that Palestinians have not "sorted out their politics" — they’ve made their political preferences abundantly clear in democratic elections, and later in a power-sharing agreement brokered by the Saudis. The problem is that the U.S. and the corrupt and self-serving warlords of Fatah did not accept either the election result or the unity government, and have conspired actively ever since to reverse both by all available means, including starving the Palestinian economy of funds, refusing to hand over power over the Palestinian Authority to the elected government, and arming and training Fatah loyalists to militarily restore their party’s power. Unfortunately, after three days of some of the most savage fighting ever seen in Gaza, that strategy now lies in tatters. Fatah is, quite simply, no longer a credible fighting force in Gaza, where it has long been in decline as a credible political force. Vatican tells Catholics to abandon Amnesty Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2007 The Vatican said today it was suspending all financial aid to Amnesty International and called on all Catholics to stop supporting the human rights group, accusing it of promoting abortion. "No more Catholic financing of Amnesty International after the organisation's pro-abortion about-turn," said a statement from the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The council's president, Cardinal Renato Martino, said the "suspension of all financing of Amnesty by Catholic organisations and by individuals" is the "inevitable consequence" of the group's recent decision to support access to abortion for women who had been raped or whose health was endangered by their pregnancy. Amnesty Italy promptly said it did not receive any Vatican or Catholic Church funding anyway. Full Article : theaustralian.news.com.au UN envoy: anti-Hamas rhetoric undermines democracy Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2007 Alvaro de Soto, the just-retired UN coordinator for the Middle East, has warned that international hostility to the Palestinian Hamas movement, now fighting in the bitterly escalating civil conflict in Gaza, could have grave consequences by persuading millions of Muslims that democratic methods do not work. The Peruvian diplomat's sensational valedictory dispatch, written last month and published exclusively in the Guardian today, traced increasingly violent responses to the victory of the Islamist group in the Palestinian elections in January 2006. These included a continuing boycott of the freely-elected government - which he admits has had "devastating" consequences, which have contributed to the current violence between Hamas and Fatah. Full Article : guardian.co.uk RCTV's Colonial Television Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2007 Racism and TV in Venezuela By Richard Gott After days of rival protests in the streets of Caracas, memories have been revived of earlier attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chávez, now in its ninth year. Street demonstrations, culminating in an attempted coup in 2002 and a prolonged lock-out at the national oil industry, once seemed the last resort of an opposition unable to make headway at the polls. Yet the current unrest is a feeble echo of those tumultuous events, and the political struggle takes place on a smaller canvas. Today's battle is for the hearts and minds of a younger generation confused by the upheavals of an uncharted revolutionary process. Full Article : counterpunch.org Chavez Makes Surprise Visit to Meet Castro in Havana Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2007 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise visit to Cuba yesterday afternoon to meet with the nearly recuperated Cuban leader Fidel Castro and to discuss the growing relations between the two countries. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also was to arrive to the island to discuss the integration plans between the nations as a part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). "Long live Cuba, long live Fidel!" was first thing the Venezuelan president said upon arriving at José Martí Airport in Havana, Cuba. Chavez was received by the Cuban officials Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque, as well as the Venezuelan Ambassador in Cuba German Sanchez Otero. Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com Taking the 'War on Terror' to Africa Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 Taking the 'War on Terror' to Africa Menacing Somalia On 26 December, 2006, Ethiopian tanks supported by US AC 130 helicopter gun ships[2] invaded Somalia in order to install a puppet regime of the Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) by ousting the Union of Islamic Courts (U.I.C.). Six months earlier, in June 2006, the Somali people allowed the Union of Islamic Courts to take power to help end the anarchy that resulted from a 15-year civil war in the battered country. As a result, the Islamic Union Courts assumed centralised control over many parts in the South, including the capital city, Mogadishu. This move came about partly after it was revealed that the CIA was secretly working with Somali warlords and Ethiopia to invade Somalia. Despite U.S. cash payments to various warlords none was able to assert their authority over the population and bring law and order and security to the Somali people. Zimbabwe: Mbeki hails Govt, MDC attitude SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki yesterday said he had been encouraged by the attitude of Zimbabwe's Government and the opposition since being tasked by Sadc to mediate their differences, as Russia threw its weight behind the Sadc initiative to assist Zimbabwe revive its economy. "We . . . are encouraged in this regard by the positive attitude evinced by the protagonists in that country," Mr Mbeki told Members of Parliament in Cape Town during debate on the presidency's annual budget. Racism and TV in Venezuela After days of rival protests in the streets of Caracas, memories have been revived of earlier attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chávez, now in its ninth year. Street demonstrations, culminating in an attempted coup in 2002 and a prolonged lock-out at the national oil industry, once seemed the last resort of an opposition unable to make headway at the polls. Yet the current unrest is a feeble echo of those tumultuous events, and the political struggle takes place on a smaller canvas. Today's battle is for the hearts and minds of a younger generation confused by the upheavals of an uncharted revolutionary process. US admits Iraq suicide attacks, civilian deaths up Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran US Senator Joseph Lieberman's call for cross-border bombing raids into Iran appears to be the culmination of a two-week campaign by proponents of war to put the military option center-stage in the US debate over Iran once more. The immediate effect of reigniting the let's-bomb-Iran discussions is the undercutting of the recently initiated US-Iran talks over Iraq, which in turn will cause the military confrontation with Iran to be viewed in a new light. A grand bargain Russia might just refuse 'Kill Anyone Still Alive': American Special Ops in Somalia How many people did American forces actually kill when they attacked refugees fleeing from the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia last January? We know from reports by Oxfam, the Guardian, the Associated Press and Reuters that dozens of innocent civilians were slaughtered near the Kenyan border, including villagers and nomadic tribesmen hit by American gunships seeking to kill alleged al Qaeda operatives who may or may not have been among the refugees. But a new story in Esquire magazine — detailing the creation of America's most recent military satrapy, the Africa Command — provides disturbing indications that the post-invasion killing by American operatives in Somalia was far more extensive — and deliberate — than previously known. Blasts destroy Shia shrine minarets A Slap in the Face of the Crawford Caligula The Perfect (Sine) Wave The Afghans Are Sick of Our Armies Killing Their People Twenty Things You Should Know About Corporate Crime A state of ill health The cry of the invisible U.S. fire mistakenly kills 8 Afghan cops Israel's new President: a war criminal par excellence You Are So F-ing Obscene Taking the 'War on Terror' to Africa Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 By John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark Last week, European investigators slammed the US for its handling of terror suspects. But little seems to have changed. Now, the CIA has set up shop on the Horn of Africa. When Swedish citizen Saafia Benaouda, 17 years old and pregnant, left on a multi-stop trip through the Persian Gulf region with her husband, 25-year-old Mounir Awad, in December, they were looking forward to an exciting Christmas vacation. It didn't take long, however, for their adventure holiday to deteriorate into a nightmare. Following a stop in Dubai, the couple decided to make an ill-advised detour into Somalia -- for a quick holiday stop in a country torn by civil war. At the time of their trip, fundamentalist Muslim militias and groups allied with the unstable transitional government were involved in heavy fighting. Full Article : spiegel.de Zimbabwe: Mbeki hails Govt, MDC attitude Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 The Herald SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki yesterday said he had been encouraged by the attitude of Zimbabwe's Government and the opposition since being tasked by Sadc to mediate their differences, as Russia threw its weight behind the Sadc initiative to assist Zimbabwe revive its economy. "We . . . are encouraged in this regard by the positive attitude evinced by the protagonists in that country," Mr Mbeki told Members of Parliament in Cape Town during debate on the presidency's annual budget. The parties, Mr Mbeki said, "do recognise that the people of Zimbabwe expect of them nothing less than concrete action to extricate them from the difficulties they face currently". Mr Mbeki was asked in March by fellow Sadc leaders at an extraordinary summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to mediate between the Government and the MDC ahead of elections next year. His team has been in touch with both sides but he has yet to meet directly with either President Mugabe or MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on the issue. President Mbeki reiterated yesterday that "we intend to move with speed in executing this mandate". On Monday President Mugabe once again reached out to the MDC to work with the Government on matters of national interest. Acknowledging the presence of MDC Senators and Members of the House of Assembly at the commissioning of agricultural equipment in Harare, Cde Mugabe said such events should unite the Government and the opposition despite their political differences. "It's a national event . . . that realisation is important that there must be occasions when we must be together. After all, we eat together. Nyaya yekudya inyaya yedu tese, hapana asingararame nekudya. Kana toita politics dzekutukana tinenge taguta," the President said to applause by guests. Leading MDC officials were among the first beneficiaries of the farm mechanisation programme, who will get tractors, planters and combine harvesters, among other equipment, bought by the Reserve Bank. Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono said the programme cuts across the political and social divide. "Feeding the country may not be left to one region, political party, gender or business community, but is a shared responsibility," said Dr Gono. President Mugabe has repeatedly urged the opposition to be nationalistic, homegrown and to join forces with the Government to defend Zimbabwe's sovereignty and independence. In Harare, outgoing Russian Ambassador Mr Oleg Scherbak yesterday said his country was confident the Sadc initiative would see Zimbabwe overcome its problems. Mr Scherbak said Zimbabwe was going through a challenging time in its post-colonial history. "We believe the country will surmount all its current difficulties and in the end things will mend. That is why we welcome the latest Sadc initiative on Zimbabwe as a comprehensive package," he said at a function to mark the Russian national day. The ambassador said his country would continue to advance a constructive international agenda and was convinced that the best way to settle critical situations was about engagement in dialogue and not about isolation of any country. Russia foreign policy priorities, he said, were to focus much on Africa. "Today we see African countries vigorously joining the global process and by that vindicating once again that exclusive zones of influence which have become a thing of the past. A broad field of constructive action is opened here for Russia and its business community," he said. Mr Scherbak said his country's stable economic growth had enabled it to contribute to concerted efforts at the international community and bilateral level to support sustainable development of Africa. By the end of this year, he said, Russia would have cancelled some US$500 million of poor African countries' debts. The total amount of Africa's debts written off by Russia in recent years would come to US$11,8 billion. Mr Scherbak said he was confident that the time-tested co-operation between Russia and Africa would continue to grow since all necessary prerequisites for this were already in place. "At present there is every reason to assess the relationship between Russia and Zimbabwe on the same lines. There is no doubt about their good future," he said. Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Cde Reuben Marumahoko commended the relations between the two countries. He said the ties were premised on a solid foundation in the spirit of true friendship and co-operation dating back from the days of the liberation struggle. Cde Marumahoko said Zimbabwe attached great importance to the partnership with Russia, emphasising the need to broaden the bilateral co-operation in the economic, technical and cultural fields. "Zimbabwe appreciates the efforts by the Russian government to enrich our human resources base through the award of annual scholarships for study in Russia. Many Zimbabweans from both the public and private sectors have benefited immensely from these scholarships," he said. However, Cde Marumahoko noted that the strong political ties that bound the two countries had not fully translated into the economic sphere as demonstrated by the low volume of trade between them. — AFP/Herald Reporters. Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 WASHINGTON -- A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials. The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting "senior officials" in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Full Article : commondreams.org Colin Powell can't stop lying Posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 ¤ Castro Says Bush Craving For Affection In Albania Cuban leader Fidel Castro said U.S. President George W. Bush is so unpopular he had to travel to Albania and Bulgaria to get attention free of protests. "Bush is craving for affection," the convalescing Castro wrote in his latest column entitled "The tyrant visits Tirana" published Tuesday by Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma. ¤ Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials ¤ Child Labor Behind Firestone Tires ¤ Developing Nations Have Right To Be Suspicious ¤ A True Land of Opportunity ¤ Guantánamo Takes A Hit ¤ 'Forced Disappearances': It Can Happen Here ¤ Things Your Media Momma Didn't Tell You ¤ The Neocon Threat to American Freedom The Bush/Cheney White House, which told the American people in 2003 that the Iraqi invasion would be a three to six week affair, now tells us that the US occupation is permanent. Forever. Attentive Americans of which, alas, there are so few, had already concluded that the occupation was permanent. Permanence is the obvious message from the massive and fortified US embassy under construction in Iraq and from the large permanent military bases that the Bush regime is building in Iraq. ¤ How to Sell a War The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons at the target audience: us. To understand the Iraq war you don't need to consult generals, but the spin doctors and PR flacks who stage-managed the countdown to war from the murky corridors of Washington where politics, corporate spin and psy-ops spooks cohabit. ¤ Bush mantra: Be afraid, be very afraid ¤ The Rot of Occupation ¤ US forces 'kill Afghan police' ¤ Seasons in Hell: Voices From the American Gulag ¤ Munitions Dumping at Sea ¤ Mourning Peerless Film Giant Ousmane Sembene ¤ Zimbabwe: President reaches out to MDC ¤ Colin Powell can't stop lying Mourning Peerless Film Giant Ousmane Sembene Posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Ousmane Sembene who died this past weekend was a rare breed of African artist--of the emerging days of African independence that used creative restorative images and cinematic language rooted in African culture for the social and mental liberation of African people. The grandmaster of African film died at the age of 84 in Dakar, Senegal, Saturday. He was one of the last few surviving giants of pioneers of African cinema who chronicled the lives of the dispossessed, exposed the inequalities of wealth and power in postcolonial Africa. Full Article : blackstarnews.com Zimbabwe: President reaches out to MDC Posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 By Itai Musengeyi and Fortious Nhambura June 12, 2007 The Herald LEADING MDC officials were yesterday among the first beneficiaries of the farm mechanisation programme as President Mugabe once again reached out to the opposition to work with Government on matters of national interest. Acknowledging the presence of MDC Senators and Members of the House Assembly at the commissioning of the agricultural equipment, Cde Mugabe said such events should unite Government and the opposition despite their political differences. "It's a national event ... that realisation is important that there must be occasions when we must be together. After all, we eat together. Nyaya yekudya inyaya yedu tese, hapana asingararame nekudya. Kana toita politics dzekutukana tinenge taguta," the President said to applause by guests. Some of the MDC officials present at the ceremony were Pumula-Luveve Senator Mr Fanuel Bayayi, Lobengula-Magwegwe Senator Mr Thabiso Ndlovu, Bulawayo-Nkulumane Senator Ms Rittah Ndlovu and Umzingwane Member of the House of Assembly Ms Nomalanga Khumalo. The four MDC MPs were all beneficiaries together with Government ministers, war veterans, youths, women, business executives, senior civil servants, service chiefs, white farmers and university farms. Leading opposition figures who are beneficiaries are faction leader Professor Arthur Mutambara, who is farming in Chimanimani District, his deputy Mr Gibson Sibanda (Bulilima) and their secretary general Professor Welshman Ncube (Umguza), deputy leader of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction Ms Thokozani Khupe (Matobo), the opposition chief whip in Parliament Mr Innocent Gonese (Mutare District), Mr Giles Mutsekwa (Mutare), Mr Joel Gabbuza (Binga), Mr Blessing Chebundo (Kwekwe), Mr Job Sikhala (Seke), Mr Tapiwa Mashakada (Mazowe), Masvingo executive mayor Mr Alois Chaimiti (Masvingo) and Mr Rensen Gasela (Gweru District). Other MDC legislators who benefited were Mr Tongai Matutu, Mr Njabuliso Mguni, Mr Jealous Sansole, Senator Sinampande H. Madolo, Senator Greenfield Nyoni, Ms Editor Matamisa and Mr Lovemore Moyo. Also on the list of notable beneficiaries were Mr Edgar Tekere, Dr Ibbo Mandaza, former Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Mr Kumbirai Katsande, current CZI president Mr Callistus Jokonya, Delta chief executive Mr Joe Mutizwa, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Mrs Marah Hativagone, former Commercial Farmers' Union president Mr Doug Taylor-Freeme (Makonde District), Dr Robbie Mupawose and Mr Timothy Chiganze. Institutions of higher learning that benefited were Solusi University, National University of Science and Technology, Bindura University of Science Education and Midlands State University. The following white farmers also benefited: Mr Paul Dollar (Mazowe), Mr Chris Hougood (Seke), Mr Jeremy Vaughan (Kwekwe), Mr Dawie Joubert (Chipinge), Mr Oliver Hendrick (Mwenezi), Mr A.S.J. Rosenfels (Umguza), Mr Bistol Kerwood (Beitbridge) and Mr Burger Naude, who is believed to be Indian. Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono said the programme cuts across the political and social divide. "Feeding the country may not be left to one region, political party, gender or business community, but is a shared responsibility," said Dr Gono. Cde Mugabe said prominent in Government's preferred way of allocating resources was the elimination of corruption, favouritism and discrimination of whatever nature. President Mugabe has repeatedly urged the opposition to be nationalistic, homegrown and to join forces with Government to defend Zimbabwe's sovereignty and independence. At the burial of the late Vice President Cde Simon Muzenda in 2003, Cde Mugabe hailed the MDC officials who joined thousands of Zimbabweans to bury the national hero at the National Heroes Acre in Harare. "So kushamwari dzedu dzeMDC dziri pano tinovati aiwa you are also Zimbabweans. Sadza ratinodya rakafanana, tinodya matumbu embudzi akamonwa tinoada zvikuru," Cde Mugabe said then. He told the mourners that Zanu-PF and MDC were "sons of the soil and they should behave like sons of the soil". The President's remarks therefore came true yesterday when a coterie of MDC officials was among beneficiaries of the mechanisation programme, which is a phase of the land reform programme. Bush in "Fantasyland" Posted: Monday, June 11, 2007 ¤ The Silence of the Bombs The available evidence is strong that the u.s. air war is escalating -- with a surge of resulting casualties among iraqi civilians. their suffering and their deaths get very little coverage in the u.s. news media. ¤ Filmmaker rides to rescue of nemesis out to discredit him ¤ Pentagon arms its enemy's enemies in Iraq The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle al-Qaida operatives in Iraq. The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with tribal elders and other local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pickup trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops. ¤ 106 Journalists Killed in Iraq ¤ Authentic? Never Mind Oh, and as a candidate George W. Bush was praised as being more authentic than Al Gore. As late as November 2005, MSNBC’s chief political correspondent declared that Mr. Bush’s authenticity was his remaining source of strength. But now The A.P. says that Mr. Bush’s lack of credibility is the reason his would-be successors need to seem, yes, authentic. Talk of authenticity, it seems, lets commentators and journalists put down politicians they don’t like or praise politicians they like, with no relationship to what the politicians actually say or do. ¤ Thousands of Demonstrators Protest Bush Visit to Rome Thousands of demonstrators have come out in Rome to protest against globalization and U.S. President George Bush, who was winding up a European tour. The demonstrators filled Rome’s streets as the President met with Pope Benedict at the Vatican. It was President Bush’s first meeting with Pope Benedict since the former Cardinal was elected to lead the world’s Roman Catholics in 2005. During their half hour meeting, they discussed many subjects including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq. ¤ Bush in "Fantasyland" "President Bush is rushing to deploy a technology that does not work against a threat that does not exist," Cirincione says. "Iran is at least 5 to 10 years away from the capability to build a nuclear weapon and at least that far from having a missile that could hit Europe let alone the US. And anti-missile systems are still nowhere near working despite $150 billion spent since the 1983 Star Wars program started and years of phony tests staged to demonstrate 'progress' and 'success.'" ¤ Federal Court Rules in Favor of 'Enemy Combatant' A federal appeals court today ruled that the U.S. government cannot indefinitely imprison a U.S. resident on suspicion alone, and ordered the military to either charge Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri with his alleged terrorist crimes in a civilian court or release him. The opinion is a major blow to the Bush administration's assertion that as the president seeks to combat terrorism, he has exceptionally broad powers to detain without charges both foreign citizens abroad and those living legally in the United States. The government is expected to appeal the 2-1 decision handed down by a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which is in Richmond, Va. ¤ U.S. arming some Sunni groups to fight Al Qaeda With the four-month-old "surge" in U.S. troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight Al Qaeda-linked militants who have been their allies in the past. ¤ US says Iran arming Sunni groups ¤ Outcry as border guards seize British 'dirty bomb' lorry heading for Iran ¤ The Israel Lobby Sign Up ¤ In Iraq's four-year looting frenzy, the allies have become the vandals ¤ President Bush gets enthusiastic welcome in Albania Flashback ¤ Wag the Dog The chosen country is Albania. “Why?” “Why not?” The choice of Albania was not a coincidence. The break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s did not address the Albanian population of Kosovo. Continuing Serbian repression had radicalised many Albanians, some of whom decided that only armed resistance would effect a change in the situation. On April 22, 1996, four attacks on Serbian civilians and security personnel were carried out virtually simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo. A hitherto unknown organization calling itself the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA) subsequently claimed responsibility. Though often publicly labelled as “terrorists” by the US government, in practice, the US largely endorsed their cause and never made any effort to cut off their funding or import of weapons. ¤ Violence in Egypt over polls ¤ A Catch-22 Nuclear World Here's the strange thing: Since 2001, our media has been filled with terrifying nuclear headlines. The Iraqi bomb (you remember those "mushroom clouds" about to rise over American cities), the North Korean bomb, and the Iranian bomb have been almost obsessively in the news. Of course, the Iraqi bomb turned out to be embarrassingly nonexistent; experts still consider the Iranian bomb years away (if it happens); and the North Korean bomb, while quite real, remains a less than impressive weapon, based on a less than spectacular nuclear test in October 2006. And yet these are the nuclear weapons that have taken all our attention. ¤ The Morality of the Iraq War The question of the morality of the Iraq War is not a difficult one. It is, in fact, an open and shut case. The war was immoral from the very beginning. It is still immoral right now. And anything short of immediately withdrawing U.S. troops merely continues the immorality. ¤ Fresh Gaza violence leaves seven dead ¤ British parliament rejects inquiry into Iraq war decision ¤ Monsoon kills at least 78 in Bangladesh ¤ Iraq: The mess that was to be In Venezuela, Reality TV Posted: Monday, June 11, 2007 CARACAS - On Sunday night, May 27, at 11:59, the big switch took place. RCTV broadcast the National Hymn of Venezuela, sung by faces as pale as those you would find in any country, but this one a country Alejo Carpentier called the telluric compendium of the Americas. One second later, the insignia for Venezuelan Social Television (TVES) appeared on screen. A song from the street, a popular guaracha, reminded anyone listening "that everything comes to an end," and over Mount Avila the fireworks flashed. Full Article : commondreams.org Smoke and mirrors Posted: Sunday, June 10, 2007 ¤ The campaign to keep Paris Hilton in jail: nothing healthy about it ¤ Smoke and mirrors Who would have thought weather, that most banal of subjects, would become intensely politicized and a subject of furious debate? World leaders grandstanding at the G-8 summit in a heavily guarded German Baltic resort spent much of their time trying to hammer out agreement on how to deal with global warming. They pretty much failed, papering over deep differences with the usual post-summit platitudes. G-8 members represent 63% of world economic activity and produce much of the carbon pollution causing global warming. In Europe, glaciers are melting and summers increasingly torrid. ¤ Obliviousness is not a belief system ¤ S. Wis. Shooting Kills 6, Wounds Toddler ¤ Bomber Kills 10 in Hit on Iraqi Police ¤ In Venezuela, Reality TV RCTV's situation would never have received such attention if others were not so bent on focusing disinformation on the Bolivarian government. It is hardly the first time RCTV has vacated the national frequency spectrum-the network was closed on three occasions, in governments previous to Hugo Chavez's-nor is Venezuela the first to decide to maintain control of its airwaves. In fact, the country is following the European television model of public ownership practiced by Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, to name a few. This model differs from commercial television practiced in North America, where what sells is good and what doesn't is bad. ¤ Obliviousness is not a belief system ¤ Time to Ignore the Middle East? ¤ Don't Trust Government It's the carefully detailed accounts of injustices committed by the U.S. government against American Muslims that gave me the insight about Hitler. In the early days of the Third Reich, if you weren't a criminal, a communist or a Jew, you never saw the dark side of the Nazi government. You saw an economy being revitalized, superhighways being built, Germans being put back to work, the disgraceful Versailles Treaty being scrapped. It must have looked a lot like morning in Germany to the people who had suffered through runaway inflation, economic depression and street riots. ¤ Putin won't rule out 3rd presidential bid ¤ Dennis Miller Still Believes in WMDs, Tooth Fairy? ¤ Why Pardon When You Can Paris? ¤ Putin's missile proposals catch US administration off guard ¤ Putin's Censored Press Conference ¤ The Cry Of The Mosques In Baghdad ¤ Water Crisis Hits Baghdad Students in Venezuela Expose Coup Attempts Posted: Saturday, June 9, 2007 By Felix Lopez Venezuela witnessed Thursday an unprecedented episode in its history when the National Assembly opened its doors to give the floor to university students who favour and oppose the decision of not renewing the license of private TV broadcaster Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), property of the oligarchic group 1 Broadcasting Caracas (1BC). Opposition groups have used the Venezuelan government’s decision to not renew RCTV’s license as an excuse to mount a new coup against the administration of Hugo Chavez, this time using CIA methods that were applied in former socialist countries in Eastern Europe. Full Article : periodico26.cu Is JFK Terror Plot for Real? West Indians Wonder Posted: Saturday, June 9, 2007 ¤ U.S.: 6 Inmates Die in Iraq Jail Attack ¤ Holding Back the Public's Right to Information ¤ Neoconned Again One vote decided the race for World Bank president: that of the only world leader who thought neoconservative lothario Paul Wolfowitz was doing a heckuva job managing the troubled lender of last resort for developing nations. So it came as no surprise that voter in chief George W. Bush chose a Wolfowitz with an even sharper bite, former US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, to create the impression of change while maintaining the substance of the Bank's operations. Even before Wolfowitz had secured his generous severance agreement, Bush pointedly refused to bow to calls by Brazil, Australia and reform-minded Europeans to end what Ute Koczy, the German Green Party's development policy spokeswoman, describes as the “wretched tradition” of letting the United States pick the World Bank boss while the European Union selects the International Monetary Fund leader. And Bush certainly was not going to heed demands from developing nations and activist groups for real change in how the Bank does business. ¤ Is There a 'Foxification' Underway at Al Jazeera Television? ¤ Mommy, It's Not Right! ¤ A Real Oil Conspiracy ¤ Behind Venezuela's "Student Rebellion" Firstly, opposition parties made a clear decision to stay out of the spotlight, emphasizing the "independent" and "spontaneous" nature of the student protests. Beyond anything else, this gesture proves the degree to which the opposition has been discredited, garnering a reverse Midas touch through years of poor decisionmaking and supporting coups. From the beginning, the government was arguing that opposition politicians were behind the student mobilizations, and so when government-run channel 8 covered one of the early student demonstrations in Plaza Brion in Chacaito, the headline read "opposition demonstration disguised as a student demonstration." ¤ Is JFK Terror Plot for Real? West Indians Wonder ¤ The Prison is the War Crime ¤ In Iraq, U.S. spotlights al-Qaida ¤ Iraqi civilians bring abuse claims to the High Court ¤ The G8: What they said and what they meant ¤ GOP/Media Rewrite Iraq War History ¤ Muscle cream caused NYC teen's death ¤ Suicide bomber kills 14 Iraqi soldiers ¤ Egyptians, Not Greeks, Were True Fathers Of Medicine ¤ Bush visits pope amid protests ¤ The battle over the media is about race as well as class The battle over the media is about race as well as class Posted: Saturday, June 9, 2007 The protests in Venezuela are motivated by more than a TV station. The oligarchy fears it is losing its right to run the country Richard Gott in Caracas Thursday June 7, 2007 The Guardian UK After 10 days of rival protests in the streets of Caracas, memories have been revived of earlier attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chávez, now in its ninth year. Street demonstrations, culminating in an attempted coup in 2002 and a prolonged lock-out at the national oil industry, once seemed the last resort of an opposition unable to make headway at the polls. Yet the current unrest is a feeble echo of those tumultuous events, and the political struggle takes place on a smaller canvas. Today's battle is for the hearts and minds of a younger generation confused by the upheavals of an uncharted revolutionary process. University students from privileged backgrounds have been pitched against newly enfranchised young people from the impoverished shantytowns, beneficiaries of the increased oil royalties spent on higher education projects for the poor. These separate groups never meet, but both sides occupy their familiar battleground within the city, one in the leafy squares of eastern Caracas, the other in the narrow and teeming streets in the west. This symbolic battle will become ever more familiar in Latin America in the years ahead: rich against poor, white against brown and black, immigrant settlers against indigenous peoples, privileged minorities against the great mass of the population. History may have come to an end in other parts of the world, but in this continent historical processes are in full flood. Ostensibly the argument is about the media, and the government's decision not to renew the broadcasting licence of a prominent station, Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), and to hand its frequencies to a newly established state channel. What are the rights of commercial television channels? What are the responsibilities of those funded by the state? Where should the balance between them lie? Academic questions in Europe and the US, the debate in Latin America is loud and impassioned. Here there is little tradition of public broadcasting, and commercial stations often received their licence in the days of military rule. The debate in Venezuela has less to do with the alleged absence of freedom of expression than with a perennially tricky issue locally referred to as "exclusion", a shorthand term for "race" and "racism". RCTV was not just a politically reactionary organisation which supported the 2002 coup attempt against a democratically elected government - it was also a white supremacist channel. Its staff and presenters, in a country largely of black and indigenous descent, were uniformly white, as were the protagonists of its soap operas and the advertisements it carried. It was "colonial" television, reflecting the desires and ambitions of an external power. At the final, close-down party of RCTV last month, those most in view on the screen were long-haired and pulchritudinous young blondes. Such images make for excellent television watching by European and North American males, and these languorous blondes are indeed familiar figures from the Miss World and Miss Universe competitions in which the children of recent immigrants from Europe are invariably Venezuela's chief contenders. Yet their ubiquity on the screen prevented the channel from presenting a mirror to the society that it sought to serve or to entertain. To watch a Venezuelan commercial station (and several still survive) is to imagine that you have been transported to the US. Everything is based on a modern, urban and industrialised society, remote from the experience of most Venezuelans. Their programmes, argues Aristóbulo Istúriz, until recently Chávez's minister of education (and an Afro-Venezuelan), encourage racism, discrimination and exclusion. The new state-funded channels (and there are several of them too, plus innumerable community radio stations) are doing something completely different, and unusual in the competitive world of commercial television. Their programmes look as though they are taking place in Venezuela, and they display the cross-section of the population to be seen on cross-country buses or on the Caracas metro. As in every country in the world, not everyone in Venezuela is a natural beauty. Many are old, ugly and fat. Today they are given a voice and a face on the television channels of the state. Many are deaf or hard of hearing. Now they have sign language interpretation on every programme. Many are inarticulate peasants. They too have their moment on the screen. Their immediate and dangerous struggle for land is not just being observed by a documentary film-maker from the city. They are being taught to make the films themselves. Blanca Eekhout, the head of Vive TV, the government's cultural channel, launched two years ago, coined the slogan "Don't watch television, make it". Classes in film-making have been set up all over the country. Lil Rodríguez, an Afro-Venezuelan journalist and the boss of TVES, the channel that replaces RCTV, claims that it will become "a useful space for rescuing those values that other models of television always ignore, especially our Afro-heritage". With time, the excluded will find a voice within the mainstream. Little of this is under discussion in the dialogue of the deaf on the streets of Caracas. For the protesting university students, the argument about the media is just one more stick with which to hit out against the ever-popular Chávez. Yet as they mourn the loss of their favourite soap operas, they are already aware that their eventual loss may be more substantial. As children of the oligarchy, they might have expected soon to run the country. Now fresh faces are emerging from the shantytowns to challenge them, a new class educating itself at speed and planning to seize their birthright. Just a few weeks ago, Chávez outlined his plans for university reform, encouraging wider access and the development of a different curriculum. New colleges and technical institutes across the country will dilute the prestige of the older establishments, still the preserve of the wealthy, and the battle over the media will soon be submerged in a wider struggle for educational reform. Chávez takes no notice of the complaints and simply soldiers on, with the characteristics of an evangelical preacher: he urges people to lead moral lives, live simply and resist the lure of consumerism. He is embarked on a challenge to the established order that has long prevailed in Venezuela and throughout the rest of Latin America, hoping that the message of his cultural revolution will soon echo across the continent. · Richard Gott is the author of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution Reprinted from: www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2097161,00.html US must never be allowed into Darfur Posted: Friday, June 8, 2007 ¤ US must never be allowed into Darfur AFRICA must be wary of moves by the United States and its Western allies to send Nato troops into Sudan's southern Darfur region, as the move is potentially divisive. We all know that for years, the US spent sleepless nights trying to divide Africa so that it could easily exploit available resources. This explains why the US and other Western countries are now exerting pressure on Sudan to accept the deployment of Nato troops under the aegis of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. ¤ Casting a suspicious eye on some 'big' terror plots ¤ Chavez Accuses U.S. of a 'Soft Coup' Attempt in Venezuela Chavez accused the Venezuelan opposition and the U.S. of planning a "soft coup with a slow fuse," using the same method that has been applied in various eastern European countries in the past few years. Chavez made the accusation during a press conference with representatives from the international media yesterday. "To George Bush and the ideologues of this soft coup with a slow fuse: Sirs, your plan for Venezuela, forget about it, the only thing that could happen here is a revolutionary explosion. We do not want this to happen, but if it does, I would be at the forefront..." said Chavez in his introductory remarks to the assembled journalists. ¤ What If NBC Cheered on a Military Coup Against Bush? During the Cold War, if an American journalist or visitor to the Soviet Union reported seeing churches full of people, this was taken as a sign that the people were rejecting and escaping from communism. If the churches were empty, this clearly was proof of the suppression of religion. If consumer goods were scarce, this was seen as a failure of the communist system. If consumer goods appeared to be more plentiful, this gave rise to speculation about was happening in the Soviet Union that was prompting the authorities to try to buy off the citizenry ¤ Everlasting US pyramids in Iraqi sands ¤ US eyeing bigger UN role in Iraq ¤ Can Democrats End the Iraq War? ¤ At Gitmo, It All Hinges On A Word What's in a word? When the word is "unlawful," quite a lot. Earlier this week, in another major setback for the Bush administration's beleaguered military commissions, military judges in two trials declared that they lacked jurisdiction to try terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay. Their holdings hinge on an apparent technicality. When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, it only gave the commissions jurisdiction over "alien unlawful enemy combatants." The two suspected Al Qaeda members whose cases were at issue this week, Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, had previously gone before Guantanamo's Combatant Status Review Tribunals, but those tribunals had merely determined that they were "enemy combatants," not "unlawful" enemy combatants. As a result, declared Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III and Navy Capt. Keith Allred, the military commissions lacked jurisdiction over them. ¤ Lies, Sighs and Politics ¤ Bush in "Fantasyland" ¤ Bush popularity hits all-time low ¤ The Real Reason for Bush's Invasion of Iraq Is a National Security Secret ¤ Separate and Not Equal– the G8 Reveals our Apartheid Style Democracy ¤ How Permanent Are Those Bases? ¤ For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid! ¤ The Victory that Wrecked Israel ¤ US death toll in Iraq passes 3,500 ¤ Dozens killed in Iraq bombings ¤ US 'world rights champion' ¤ The British Army Rebels Against Propaganda ¤ Bush mantra: Be afraid, be very afraid The Democrats in Congress wring their hands, gnash their teeth and wail that there was nothing they could do but cave in and vote to continue funding the war in Iraq. After all, that crafty George W. Bush had maneuvered them into a corner and they didn't have the votes to override his veto. Horse manure. All they had to do was keep passing a war funding bill with a hard-and-fast timetable for beginning - and ending - the complete withdrawal of the more than 150,000 American troops fighting in that far-away place. Over and over and over, throwing it back into the face of a president who mistakes stubborn and hardheaded for principled resolve. ¤ Some democracy, America Chavez Accuses U.S. of a 'Soft Coup' Attempt in Venezuela Posted: Friday, June 8, 2007 By Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com Chavez accused the Venezuelan opposition and the U.S. of planning a "soft coup with a slow fuse," using the same method that has been applied in various eastern European countries in the past few years. Chavez made the accusation during a press conference with representatives from the international media yesterday. "To George Bush and the ideologues of this soft coup with a slow fuse: Sirs, your plan for Venezuela, forget about it, the only thing that could happen here is a revolutionary explosion. We do not want this to happen, but if it does, I would be at the forefront..." said Chavez in his introductory remarks to the assembled journalists. Sketching his understanding of what he was talking about on a whiteboard, Chavez explained, "The slow fuse plan has a combination of small explosions that could give birth to a big explosion, but it would be a big revolutionary explosion – that's the only kind of explosion that could happen here. It would be an explosion that would go against them and we do not want this to happen." Chavez was referring to the recent students protests as protests that copied the model of demonstrations that helped topple governments in Serbia, Ukraine, and Lithuania recently. Chavez explained that, according to the French journalist Thierry Meyssan, the mastermind behind this model, is the director of the Albert Einstein Institution, founded by Gene Sharp. This institution advocates the use of non-violence to destabilize government, using the sectors of society that are easiest to manipulate. In Venezuela, though, this strategy would fail, said Chavez, because it can only work with governments that are unpopular. "We are fully able to cut the slow fuse here, to extinguish it, but even if we did not manage to do so, because they are putting much money, meeting in Miami and in countries in Latin America, we are deployed 24 hours a day, doing intelligence and counter-intelligence work, here in Latin America and even in the United States," said Chavez. In many cases Chavez said that his government managed to neutralize the plans. "In these days there have been things we have already neutralized, sites where weapons of war were collected, Molotov cocktails, rifles. We have arrived and neutralized them and we will continue to do so." The reason for the effort to destabilize his government, said Chavez, had to do with his Venezuela's leadership in forming ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America, to which Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and recently Nicaragua belong. "Venezuela has become the bastion of a new process in Latin America. The success of the ALBA summit worries them and they want to kill the snake by the head because they believe that by placing the brakes on Venezuela they will put the brakes on a historical process that is coming about," said Chavez. U.S. Defeat in OAS Chavez also touched on a variety of other topics, such as the recent OAS General Assembly meeting in Panama, where a request by the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to send an OAS delegation to Venezuela, was not put on the meeting agenda. Chavez said "not one country" supported the proposal to have a delegation examine the case of RCTV in Venezuela. Rice's abrupt departure from the meeting when Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro was about to speak showed, "signs of imperial decadence," according to Chavez. Rice leaving like that was "a lack of respect. Bush left the same way at the [OAS meeting in] Mar del Plata [Argentina]." The attacks on Venezuela do not hurt, though, because "all these aggressions [against Venezuela] strengthen Venezuela – they don't realize it," exclaimed Chavez. Venezuela to Leave IMF, But Not Right Away Asked about Venezuela's plans to leave the IMF, Chavez clarified that the plans still stand, but that due to technical reasons Venezuela cannot do so right away. "As a matter of fact, we have nothing to do with the International Monetary Fund, which is facing a serious crisis," he said. Also, so far there are no plans to nationalize the country's mining industry, about which there has been some speculation recently. With regard to the plans to change the constitution so as to allow more an indefinite number of reelections of the president, Chavez clarified that this issue would be placed on the ballot as a separate referendum question in addition to the other possible changes to the constitution. Source: venezuelanalysis.com US must never be allowed into Darfur Posted: Friday, June 8, 2007 By Isdore Guvamombe, herald.co.zw June 08, 2007 AFRICA must be wary of moves by the United States and its Western allies to send Nato troops into Sudan's southern Darfur region, as the move is potentially divisive. We all know that for years, the US spent sleepless nights trying to divide Africa so that it could easily exploit available resources. This explains why the US and other Western countries are now exerting pressure on Sudan to accept the deployment of Nato troops under the aegis of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. Clearly, Washington wants to split the unity in the African Union over Sudan and disrupt its support to Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. To some of us, it is clear that as in Zimbabwe, where they have unsuccessfully fought President Mugabe over land, the main aim of the US is to get to Sudan's oil wealth. Washington's intentions to deploy as soon as possible UN peacekeepers in Darfur is linked to its plans to give a legal base for Nato troops' presence in the country, yet the AU has the capacity to deal with that. With the help of these troops, Americans want to limit Bashir's power and, through that, support rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army and Movement for Justice and Equality. These rebel groups will then see the US as their master – the only one who can guarantee them support for their separatist plans. This is the same with the MDC syndrome in Zimbabwe. At the same time, Americans are strengthening their positions in southern provinces by creating loyal structures in rebels. The State Department is trying to implement its programme that should turn Sudanese militia groups into special units for protection of American national security and interests in the region. The next step will be removing from Khartoum's jurisdiction, the oil rich southern territories and giving them to rebel groups controlled by Washington. This move will give American oil companies the opportunity to take over oil reserves there. Africa must not be fooled. There is no doubt that the US plans to impose its will on Sudan so that it could be better placed to destabilise the entire region, if not the whole continent. US intervention threatens the territorial integrity of Sudan and could lead to the appearance of quasi-state formations in the region. If that happens, it will push other separatist movements in neighbouring countries to increase their dissident activities with disastrous consequences for the whole region. The resultant chaos will attract terrorist groups and could lead to the emergence of terrorist training camps there. It should be noted that US intervention could lead to an increase in the number of refugees in the region and not in America. Last week, the UN was used as a smokescreen to blame the government of President Bashir through a damning report created to give the US the impetus and justification to send Nato troops into his country. The report claimed that a Sudanese liberation movement had blamed Sudanese government forces for fresh attacks on its positions in North Darfur, saying aerial bombardment had been employed against its fighters. Sudanese government forces, further claimed the report, clashed with rebels last week in the Rockero area of North Darfur state, the UN Mission in Darfur (UNMIS) reported, adding that it was unable to estimate the number of casualties following the violence. A spokesman for the faction, Jar Al Nabi Abdal Karim, said government forces had resumed attacks in the area, citing other incidents in Malam al Hosh and in the Jabal Moon region. At least five people died, he said. Government officials denied the reports, according to local reports in the Sudanese media on May 22, saying only aerial reconnaissance had been carried out in the area. Africa should not be fooled by such a report and, in any case, the AU has the capacity to mobilise troops and resources to deal with the situation, should the report prove to be true. UNMIS also reported clashes in Abu Surug in South Darfur state, adding that the local defence force had fought about 120 armed men, believed to be from Arab militia, last Saturday. The reports of attacks come amid more internally displaced persons (IDPs) arriving at Al Salam camp in South Darfur in the past few days, driven by the recent attacks on their villages by armed militiamen. Why should all these things happen at a time the UN Secretary General's special envoy to Darfur, Jan Eliasson, has assured all that formal political negotiations to resolve the Darfur conflict could begin soon? Why should Washington then push for urgent Nato troops intervention and not give Africa the chance to flex its muscles in Darfur? I smell a rat here. Casting a suspicious eye on some 'big' terror plots Posted: Friday, June 8, 2007 Some of the more spectacular anti-terrorism busts of the last few months have these elements in common: Announcements laced with scary, end-of the-world warnings -- usually cast in the secretly taped words of the alleged plotters -- and crowds of law enforcement suits huddled close together so they all can get inside the TV camera lens as they warn of what might have been if they hadn't been so diligent. Full Article : nj.com Africa and Its Discontents Posted: Thursday, June 7, 2007 ¤ Poor-Washing, the Gates Foundation & the 'Green Revolution' in Africa Genetically altered crops will rescue Africa from endemic shortfalls in food production, claim corporate foundations that have announced a $150 million "gift" to spark a "Green Revolution" in agriculture on the continent. Of course, U.S.-based agribusiness holds the patents to these wondercrops, and can exercise their proprietary "rights" at will. Are corporate foundations really out to feed the hungry, or are they hypocritical Trojan Horses on a mission to hijack the world's food supply - to create the most complete and ultimate state of dependency. ¤ Africa and Its Discontents We hear about people dying in Africa because of civil wars, or because they didn't have a few dollars for medicine or malaria nets. We regret that their corrupt governments cause these problems and make our aid ineffective. On the surface this is indeed the reason for their problems. But if we look more deeply at the effects of our need for oil and minerals, we arrive at a different conclusion. We find the existence of 'rentier' states such as the Republic of Congo, Chad, and Nigeria, where once-healthy and self-sustaining agricultural countries have effectively rented themselves out to a demanding western world by focusing on the sale of one valuable commodity that doesn't offer any benefits to the masses. ¤ Yet Another G8 Farce ¤ The Mexican Model ¤ Hail to the Stupid ¤ JFK airport plot 'a US setup' ¤ Yasin Abu Bakr Denies Link to JFK Terror Plot ¤ How to Foil a Terrorist Plot in Seven Simple Steps ¤ The JFK Pipeline "Plot": another "chilling" example of political and media hyperbole The JFK pipeline plot appears to be the work of yet another gang that couldn't jihad straight. Its ring leader made a living exporting broken air-conditioner parts to Guyana. Talk about your boom market! Where can I buy stock? There was no set plan. There was no financing. They didn't have any explosives -- and yet government officials were quoted calling the amorphous plot "one of the most chilling plots imaginable" that almost "resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction." And people wonder why the public has become cynical about how the war on terror is being used for political purposes. ¤ IRAQ: Hundreds go missing or get killed at checkpoints ¤ Cheney Lies To High School Kids ¤ The Battle Over The Media Is About Race As Well As Class ¤ Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran ¤ Iraq Occupation Coming to a Head Over Oil ¤ A G-man in Every Plot; an Informant in Every Mirage This brings us to the question of the FBI informant involved. We know that in the recent Fort Dix case and last year’s Miami case, the FBI informant seems to have been the driving force behind the plots, suggesting ways they could be carried out and providing technical and material support. In this latest alleged plot, according to the Newspaper of Record, the "informant is a convicted drug trafficker, and his sentence is part of his cooperation agreement with the federal government." What better way to cooperate than to hatch a terrorist plot and then get credit for helping to bust it? ¤ Torture finally gets discredited in the mainstream media ¤ Oil tops $67 ¤ Teacher to get retrial over internet porn ¤ Bush dashes Blair hopes of breakthrough on climate change deal Tony Blair has prepared the ground for a tactical retreat over climate change after George Bush rejected demands by Britain and Germany for him to commit to a specific target for cutting global carbon emissions. At their last meeting before he stands down on 27 June, Mr Blair will meet the US President at breakfast today in the margins of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, to press the case for a 50 per cent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. ¤ 4.2 million Iraqis are now displaced ¤ Cyclone Gonu blamed for 23 deaths Cyclone Gonu battered Oman's coast Thursday, flooding highways and tearing down trees and power lines but sparing the region's oil industry. At least 23 people were killed in deaths related to the cyclone — a rarity in the Middle East. But as Gonu headed from Oman to the southeastern Iranian coast, it continued to lose steam, weakening to tropical storm strength, according to the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center. ¤ Anti-Musharraf protests continue ¤ Rights Groups Call for End to Secret Detentions Imperialism in the Guise of Humanitarianism Posted: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 ¤ If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran ¤ The Russian Bear Awakes As Washington and Moscow exchange increasingly angry accusations and rebukes these recent weeks, it is hard to avoid a sense of Cold War déjà vu. Last Tuesday, Russia launched with great fanfare a new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile that it claimed could penetrate new US anti-missile defenses. President Vladimir Putin warned the Bush Administration’s plans to deploy anti-missile radars and missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland would turn Europe into a "powder keg." Moscow accused the Bush Administration of violating international law, following double standards, and being a major violator of human rights. After crushing the life out of Chechnya, Russia was hardly in any position to lecture the US about human rights. ¤ Could an al-Qaeda Attack Trigger War With Iran? Following revelations of a George W. Bush administration policy to hold Iran responsible for any al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. that could be portrayed as planned on Iranian soil, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned last week that Washington might use such an incident as a pretext to bomb Iran. ¤ US missiles hit Russia where it hurts ¤ How Does George Bush Sleep at Night? What a hideous combination of conceits Bush has. He has the ego that drives him to want to be the top man. He has the arrogance to think that he his qualified. But he has the laziness that makes him not want to actually do the job. He has the insecurity that makes him want to cover up his faults. He has the smallness of character that will not concede his weaknesses and seek out help. He has the hubris to think that he could cover up all this, run the world into the ground and think that people won't notice. How has the world fallen into the grasp of this tiny, tiny man? ¤ America's Robespierre: President George W. Bush? ¤ Syria Dumps US Dollar Peg As Global Confidence In Greenback Falls ¤ A Hypocritical Oath: Psychologists and Torture First, do no harm. This tenet of medicine applies equally to psychologists, yet they are increasingly implicated in abusive interrogations, dare we say torture, at U.S. military detention facilities like Guantanamo. While the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association both have passed resolutions prohibiting members from participating in interrogations, the American Psychological Association refuses to, despite the outrage of many of its members. Now, with the declassification of a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general detailing psychologists’ role in military interrogations, the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services announced it will investigate. ¤ Bomb Iran: For Israel and America! ¤ A Menacing Tide Against Women Who Speak Their Minds ¤ Is Bill Gates Trying to Hijack Africa's Food Supply? Genetically altered crops will rescue Africa from endemic shortfalls in food production, claim corporate foundations that have announced a $150 million "gift" to spark a "Green Revolution" in agriculture on the continent. Of course, U.S.-based agribusiness holds the patents to these wondercrops, and can exercise their proprietary "rights" at will. Are corporate foundations really out to feed the hungry, or are they hypocritical Trojan Horses on a mission to hijack the world's food supply --- to create the most complete and ultimate state of dependency. ¤ Don't listen to what the rich world's leaders say - look at what they do ¤ The uncanny similarities between Blair and Beckham ¤ Blair and Bush: the final reckoning ¤ Palestinian civilian shot dead in raid on family home ¤ US casts doubt on G8 climate change deal ¤ "The Secret History of the American Empire" ¤ The Petro Dollar, Iraq, Oil and Bush ¤ Why Being “Worst President Ever” Is Not Enough ¤ Not for Freedom ¤ Ghosts of History Haunt Pakistan and US War on Terror ¤ Saddam Outfoxes Schwarzkopf On March 3, 1991, General Schwarzkopf met with eight Iraqi officers, led by General Sultan Hashim Ahmad, to sign the cease-fire agreement. On TV, we saw a gruff-looking Schwarzkopf staring down the Iraqi delegation. There were no socializing formalities: he would dictate the agenda and the Iraqis would listen. His harsh look may have been attributed to the Iraqis not recognizing him. They thought he was an enlisted man because they had never seen a general as obese as Schwarzkopf. This lack of acknowledgement immensely upset the 16-star general. ¤ IRAQ: Years of war, current insecurity take toll on environment Neglected factories, military scrapyards and battle sites containing hazardous material across the country pose a serious threat to Iraq's environment and to public health, experts warn. The current security situation is also hampering rubbish collections and clean-up operations. "Chemical and other forms of hazardous material can easily be found in many areas of Iraq. Military scrapyards aren't destroyed, but rather left wherever they are. Urgent clean-up measures are needed, but few financial resources are available, while ongoing insecurity is preventing specialists from even reaching the sites in question," Iraqi enivronmental specialist, Professor Rand Abdel-Jaffar of Iraq's Baghdad University, said. ¤ Imperialism in the Guise of Humanitarianism Jean Bricmont’s Humanitarian Imperialism is a book that, to use the overwrought (but in this case true) rhetoric of book blurbs, should be read by anyone concerned with rebuilding the left, stopping the Iraq war, or with the future of humanity in general. The subject of his book is the human rights ideology which insists that the US/the West is morally obligated to military intervene to protect the political and civil rights of various peoples around the world. He argues that this line of thought has been absorbed by most of the left in Europe (and, we would add, in the US), and that it helps account for the listlessness of the struggle against the Iraq occupation. Not a timid writer, Bricmont expends no energy deconstructing the discourse of human rights, or expounding on its intellectual genealogy. ¤ Israeli troops shoot Hebron family Israeli soldiers have killed an unarmed 67-year-old Palestinian and wounded four members of his family in a raid in the West Bank town of Hebron. Yehia al-Jabari was shot dead by soldiers who raided his home on Wednesday to detain one of his sons. ¤ Hundreds of Thousands March in Support of Chavez ¤ U.S. and Venezuela Clash at OAS Meeting The United States and Venezuela clashed sharply yesterday at a special session of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Panama. After US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested that an OAS mission be sent to Caracas to investigate the case of the private television channel RCTV, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro responded by calling it an "unacceptable intervention" in the internal affairs of Venezuela and accused Washington of heading a new destabilization plan against the government of Hugo Chavez. In her speech on Monday at the 37th General Assembly of the Organization of Americas States, Rice requested that General Secretary of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza, travel to Venezuela to make a report about Chavez’s decision to not renew the broadcast license of RCTV. According to Rice, the RCTV decision represents an undemocratic move that violates freedom of expression. U.S. and Venezuela Clash at OAS Meeting Posted: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 By Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com Caracas, June 5, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)– The United States and Venezuela clashed sharply yesterday at a special session of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Panama. After US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested that an OAS mission be sent to Caracas to investigate the case of the private television channel RCTV, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro responded by calling it an "unacceptable intervention" in the internal affairs of Venezuela and accused Washington of heading a new destabilization plan against the government of Hugo Chavez. In her speech on Monday at the 37th General Assembly of the Organization of Americas States, Rice requested that General Secretary of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza, travel to Venezuela to make a report about Chavez’s decision to not renew the broadcast license of RCTV. According to Rice, the RCTV decision represents an undemocratic move that violates freedom of expression. "When you start closing television stations because they express opposition to authorities, it is indeed a strong move against democracy," said Rice on her way to the OAS meeting. "This is not the first move of this kind in Venezuela, but it is perhaps the most drastic one," she said. "In keeping with Article 18 of the Democratic Charter, we urge the Secretary General to go to Venezuela to consult, in good faith, all interested parties and to present a full report to the foreign ministers through the Permanent Council," Rice said at the OAS meeting, even thought the case of RCTV was not included in the agenda. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro responded to Rice's statement declaring that "the intervention of the United States representative constitutes an unacceptable intervention in the internal affairs of a democratic, sovereign republic." "The OAS would have to make a special commission in order to study the daily violation of human rights along the southern borders of the United States," he replied denouncing "the wall of indignity" that Washington is building along the border with Mexico. Maduro also made reference to the violation of human rights that takes place in the military base of Guantanamo, Cuba. "How many prisoners do you have in the Guantanamo prison, we ask the government of the United States. How many are there? Who are they? Do they have the right to a trial? Where did you kidnap them from? Do they have due process? Men and women, without a face, without a name, kidnapped," said Maduro who went on to denounce a "new destabilization plan" behind which is the government of the United States. Maduro emphasized that Rice had "violated the agenda of the General Assembly," and reminded the ministers that the central topic of the meeting was "energy for sustainable development." Secretary of State Rice responded by saying that the United States has a "free and independent" press which "debate and criticize" the government. "On any issue, I am quite certain that it would be difficult for any commission to debate more fully, to investigate more fully, to criticize more fully the policies of the United States government than is done every night on CNN, on ABC, on CBS, on NBC and on any number of smaller channels in the United States," said Rice. "The citizens of the United States have that assurance. I sincerely hope that the citizens of Venezuela will have that assurance as well," she continued. Rice then got up and left the meeting without listening to Nicolas Maduro's response. Maduro continued to emphasize the violations of human rights on the part of the United States in secret prisons around the world and he also emphasized that Venezuela sees itself on equal terms with the United States. "We have more freedom of expression than many countries that try to fly the flag," he said. "Venezuela demands respect for its sovereignty. We have a completely consolidated, participatory, and open democracy. We are not superior or inferior countries. We don't see ourselves as less than anyone, we see ourselves as equals." Destabilization Plan Headed by the United States Maduro also accused the United States of being behind a plan to destabilize the government of Hugo Chavez. Maduro claims that the intervention of the US in the OAS meeting shows a clear connection between the United States government and the Venezuelan opposition, including the recent protests in Caracas which he claims had the intention of spilling blood. "Look how perfect it fits, the strategy of the right-wing opposition in Venezuela, united to the Embassy of the United States, with the request from the OAS" said Maduro. "They were looking for blood in the streets of Caracas all these days so that they could ask for the intervention of the OAS. Since they can't do anything else about the leadership of President Chavez, with the strength of our people, then they ask for outside forces to come do the work that they are incapable of doing because they don't have leadership, truth, or a political project." "We denounce a new plan against the government of President Chavez, that the government of the United States finances and directs. Today it has been revealed before the world who is behind the plan against President Chavez again, and we say, in the name of the legitimacy of the leadership of Chavez, that we are going to defeat this plan with the people of Venezuela and the solidarity of the honest men and women of this continent," he concluded. Source: www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2319 JFK Terror Suspect Abdel Nur Surrenders Posted: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 Police have confirmed to TrinidadAndTobagoNews.com that around 11:15 a.m. today, Abdel Nur turned himself into the West End Police Station in Diego Martin. Nur was later transferred to a Port of Spain police branch. Continue to: 'JFK Terror Suspect Abdel Nur Surrenders' Plot to Blow Up JFK? Why I am Skeptical Posted: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 ¤ Plot to Blow Up JFK? Why I am Skeptical There is terrorism being committed by governments (state terrorism) and terrorism being committed by individuals and non-governmental groups; we have to be vigilant about all forms of terrorism. Most people have been duped into viewing terrorism in terms of little groups of people (mostly Islamic) trying to advance political or religious agendas while they fail to see these same actions by governments such as the US and Israel as terrorism. ¤ I'm plotting to blow up Sea-Tac Airport Um... forgive me for being cynical, but we've been lied to so many times before, with Bush administration propagandists transforming the angry ramblings of narcissistic pizza-boys into sophisticated, 24-like conspiracies, well... I'm having trouble taking any of these stories seriously. I mean, I suppose I wouldn't chafe so much at the inconvenience of the enhanced security restrictions put in place in the wake of the infamous "plot" to bring down a jetliner by mixing a high-powered liquid explosive mid-flight, if the would-be terrorists actually had the resources or know-how to carry out their threat, or if the plan was at least, you know, scientifically possible. ¤ Deconstructing Fatah al-Islam an Easy Task, Thanks to DEBKAfile DEBKAfile, the Mossad front, makes life so much easier. For instance, in regard to Fatah al-Islam, the bank robbing contract Sunni terrorist group put together by the neocons and Saudi prince Bandar in Lebanon to confront the Shi'a Hezbollah and currently holed up in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, DEBKAfile tells us "Fatah al-Islam are not fighting alone; they are backed by elite units of the Iranian-Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian-General Command, which is commanded by Ahmed Jibril. These Palestinian units are highly trained in urban guerrilla warfare by Syrian commando battalion officers and Iranian Revolutionary Guards and have better skills than the Lebanese commandoes." ¤ America Flounders as America Blunders At breakneck speed I pull up to the waiting departure lounge for a connecting domestic flight on an airline that shall remain nameless. This connection needs to be seamless and on schedule to get me to the nation's capital, Washington DC, since I will be going directly to work, upon landing. Things start to unravel when the representative at the boarding gate counter announces, after the scheduled boarding time has passed, that the reason for the delay is that the plane, just arrived from Caracas Venezuela, has been found to have a mechanical problem. She adds that the problem is being worked on and we should be boarding shortly. There are collective sighs and grunts of dismay as many glare at their watches and fish out their cell phones to update their pickup people at the other end. My thought was, "All the other times when I do this trip and am not on a deadline everything goes like clockwork. Now the one time I am, something goes wrong." Half hour later, we are allowed to board the flight. ¤ America's Cuba Policy ¤ CounterTerrorism as International Healthcare ¤ Shaming the Official Antiwar Movement ¤ Olympics blamed for forcible removal of 2m over 20 years ¤ Nigeria sues Pfizer for $7bn over 'illegal' tests on children ¤ Iraq’s Mercenaries - With A Licence To Kill ¤ Tune In, Turn On – Get Shot ¤ All they have is each other... "George Bush and the corporate war profiteers have blanketed the landscape of the entire country with yellow ribbon. "Support the Troops" is non-sequitural double think -- a psyops tool cleverly used by both Republicans and Democrats to desensitize and control the slobbering masses. It means you are anti-American if you scream in pain each time a soldier or marine is killed -- innocent Iraqis are massacred. It means shut the hell up and support whatever deranged blather comes out of Bush's mouth, even if we must sacrifice our sons and daughters on his killing fields." ¤ Yes, Rambo, you get to win this time ¤ Jail for former Cheney aide ¤ Car bomb near Iraq's Falluja kills 19 ¤ It’s Time to Shut down the U.N. ¤ Number of Iraqi displaced tops 4.2 million; shanty towns mushroom I'm plotting to blow up Sea-Tac Airport Posted: Monday, June 4, 2007 If you've watched TV, listened to the radio, read a newspaper or browsed the InterTubes in the past 24-hours, then you've surely heard about the "unthinkable" plot to blow up JFK Airport, that was foiled just in the nick of time: Um... forgive me for being cynical, but we've been lied to so many times before, with Bush administration propagandists transforming the angry ramblings of narcissistic pizza-boys into sophisticated, 24-like conspiracies, well... I'm having trouble taking any of these stories seriously. I mean, I suppose I wouldn't chafe so much at the inconvenience of the enhanced security restrictions put in place in the wake of the infamous "plot" to bring down a jetliner by mixing a high-powered liquid explosive mid-flight, if the would-be terrorists actually had the resources or know-how to carry out their threat, or if the plan was at least, you know, scientifically possible. Full Article : trinicenter.com Putin: Russian missiles will be aimed at US bases Posted: Monday, June 4, 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in an interview that US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons at sites in Europe. The threat, voiced in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera , marked one of Mr Putin's most strident statements to date against the US plans. Mr Putin was asked whether the US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe would compel Moscow to direct its own missiles at locations and US military sites in Europe, as during the Cold War. "Naturally, yes," Mr Putin said, according to Corriere. "If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe. It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles. But this is just a technical aspect," he was quoted as saying. Full Article : independent.co.uk Politicians Are Behind Venezuelan Student Protests Posted: Sunday, June 3, 2007 ¤ Politicians Are Behind Venezuelan Student Protests Leaders from the opposition political parties in Venezuela are the real actors behind the student protests in Venezuela, according to several Venezuelan National Assembly Members who released evidence yesterday. The Assembly members released recorded telephone conversations of some opposition leaders apparently showing their involvement in what they call "a conspiracy plan to overthrow the president of the Republic, Hugo Chavez." ¤ JFK Four: Connecting Propaganda Dots from Jamaat al-Muslimeen to Hugo Chávez? Russell Defreitas, the elderly and hapless patsy ensnared by the FBI for the crime of dreaming up a fantastical plot to blow up Kennedy Airport, "may have been inspired by Osama bin Laden," however "was not an al-Qaida wannabe, according to authorities. He told an FBI informant that he and other non-Arab Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana wanted to do their part in the global jihad," Newsday reports. These "other non-Arab Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana" are allegedly members of Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a Muslim group headed up by Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, who led members in an attempted coup d'état against the government of Trinidad and Tobago in July 1990. Bakr is a former policeman who converted to Islam while a student in Canada. ¤ Thousand Hurt in Anti-G8 Protest, Police Arrest 128 People ¤ U.S. Health Care Is Bad For Your Health One of the most contentious issues of the U.S. presidential campaign will be how to fix what many agree is a malfunctional health-care system. Adding fuel to the fire is a study published last month detailing the shortcomings of U.S. health care when compared to the systems of other developed countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The study, entitled "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care," released by the Commonwealth Fund in New York, finds that not only is the U.S. health care system the most expensive in the world (double that of the next most costly comparator country, Canada) but comes in dead last in almost any measure of performance. ¤ Only Some Of Us Are At War – The Rest Just Watch It On TV ¤ Gorbachev Criticizes US 'Empire' The former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, has blamed the US for the current state of relations between Russia and the West.In a BBC interview, Mr Gorbachev said that the Russians were ready to be constructive, but America was trying to squeeze them out of global diplomacy. He added that the Iraq War had undermined Tony Blair's credibility. Mr Gorbachev accused America of "empire-building", which he said the UK should have warned it away from. ¤ Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident ¤ America is not Bush ¤ Lebanese troops move in for the kill ¤ Boat disaster kills 60 An estimated 60 people, including Taliban militants, died when their boat sank while crossing a river in Afghanistan's most dangerous province yesterday, the Ministry of Defence said. The Afghan army was investigating to see how many Taliban insurgents and how many civilians were on board. The boat sank while crossing the Helmand River, which snakes through Helmand province, the world's leading opium poppy producing region and site of recent fierce battles. ¤ The Media is Priming the Pump for A Dictatorship in America ¤ Think the "Cold War" Ended Well for All of Us? Think Again. Politicians Are Behind Venezuelan Student Protests Posted: Saturday, June 2, 2007 Leaders from the opposition political parties in Venezuela are the real actors behind the student protests in Venezuela, according to several Venezuelan National Assembly Members who released evidence yesterday. The Assembly members released recorded telephone conversations of some opposition leaders apparently showing their involvement in what they call "a conspiracy plan to overthrow the president of the Republic, Hugo Chavez." At a press conference yesterday, vice president of the Assembly Desiree Santos Amaral, together with Assembly members Gabriela Ramirez and Calixto Ortega, assured that the student protests in Venezuela over the last few days "are not spontaneous," but are rather a part of a plan to provoke violence. Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com An Empire Run by Idiots Posted: Saturday, June 2, 2007 ¤ JFK Four: Connecting Propaganda Dots from Jamaat al-Muslimeen to Hugo Chávez? Russell Defreitas, the elderly and hapless patsy ensnared by the FBI for the crime of dreaming up a fantastical plot to blow up Kennedy Airport, “may have been inspired by Osama bin Laden,” however “was not an al-Qaida wannabe, according to authorities. He told an FBI informant that he and other non-Arab Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana wanted to do their part in the global jihad,” Newsday reports. These “other non-Arab Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana” are allegedly members of Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a Muslim group headed up by Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, who led members in an attempted coup d’état against the government of Trinidad and Tobago in July 1990. Bakr is a former policeman who converted to Islam while a student in Canada. ¤ What I Admire Most About Cindy Sheehan What Cindy is saying is simply, “I no longer choose to embrace the teddy-bear illusion that I live in a democratic republic in which the rule of law and the Constitution prevail. I am no longer willing to believe that a two-party system exists in this empire, and I refuse to continue to ‘hope’ that one wing of the one-party system will ever significantly challenge or extricate itself from the other wing. I will not live in denial, even if it brings me adulation, inspires others to resist the empire, or nurtures within me a feeling of doing the right thing. I will open my eyes, and my mouth, and I will buy OUT of the current paradigm.” ¤ The 'Mysteries' of Bushenomics Supposedly we are in a sustained economic recovery and have been since 2002. Part of this is Bush hot air and the Republican Noise Machine, which the media quotes verbatim. By a certain measure, however, it's real. The economy has grown. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Average income is up. There's lots of money around. But the recovery has some really strange features. Oddities never before seen in a recovery. ¤ US 'foils plot to bomb airport' ¤ Pentagon chief seeks more pressure on Iran ¤ Of Mice and Men -- A Case of Misplaced Outrage ¤ US forces attack Somalia American Navy warship off the coast of Somalia's Northern Province of Puntland reportedly struck suspected Somalia Mujahiddin operatives believed to be hiding in the mountains near Baar-gaal settlement in the semiautonomous region, according to the provincial puppet officials. US especial envoy for Somalia, John Yates, revealed, in an exclusive interview with Shabelle, that the US officials "believe al-Qaeda linked groups have still been active in the country". ¤ The Age of Rhetoric ¤ Chavez denounces critics of TV shutdown ¤ Dying for Nothing ¤ This is Not a Story About Cindy Sheehan ¤ Nothing Succeeds Like Failure ¤ The Price of Free Airwaves ¤ America Likes an Idiot, but It Needs Al Gore Al Gore has been in town launching his new book, “The Assault on Reason," and you could have predicted the buzz: Is he about to jump into the race? What you probably wouldn't have predicted, because it's insane, is the counterbuzz-that Gore, poor fellow, is just too ostentatiously smart to be elected president. In the book, you see, Gore betrays familiarity with history, economics, even science. He uses big words, often several in the same sentence. And in public appearances-get this-he doesn't even try to disguise his erudition. These, supposedly, are glaring shortcomings that should keep noncandidate Gore on the sidelines, rereading Gibbon and exchanging ideas about the structure of the cosmos with Stephen Hawking. ¤ Giuliani: Worse Than Bush ¤ A Message From The "Iraq Resistance" ¤ Whose Truth? ¤ An Empire Run by Idiots ¤ Separating the Waters ¤ ABC Leaks Plans to Extend ‘Surge,' Then Pulls the Story Terrorism Defined Posted: Friday, June 1, 2007 ¤ US squares up to Tehran over detainees ¤ Gore calls Bush greenhouse summit plan 'smoke and mirrors' ¤ Why Catching The 'Spam King' Won't Save Your Inbox ¤ 19 people, including 3 soldiers, killed in north Lebanon clashes ¤ Afghans' anger over US bombings ¤ China urges patience on Sudan, opposes sanctions ¤ The FBI and the Godfather (of Soul) ¤ Ambush Kills 16 Policemen on Highway in Afghanistan ¤ Return to Cuba ¤ How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built ¤ 78,000 Iraqis Have Been Killed by Coalition Airstrikes ¤ Terrorism Defined Probably no word better defines or underscores the Bush presidency than "terrorism" even though his administration wasn't the first to exploit this highly charged term. We use to explain what "they do to us" to justify what we "do to them," or plan to, always deceitfully couched in terms of humanitarian intervention, promoting democracy, or bringing other people the benefits of western civilization Gandhi thought would be a good idea when asked once what he thought about it. ¤ Cowering In The Suburbs of Berlin ¤ Why Cindy Sheehan 'Retired' Cindy Sheehan's done it again. In 2005 she made the invisible visible. The bereaved mom of a US soldier killed in Iraq, Sheehan cried in public, cursed in public and gave public voice to what for many was until then a private question. Why did my son die, she asked the president: "What is the noble cause?" Two years later, Sheehan's pushed another question into the public glare. Quitting the Democratic Party and resigning from the front ranks of the US anti-war movement, Sheehan said out loud what hundreds of Democratic voters have been muttering: Democrats in Congress -who do you think you're working for? In a letter to Democratic leaders shortly after they permitted a vote in Congress that approved $120 billion more for war, Sheehan wrote: "There is absolutely no sane or defensible reason for you to hand Bloody King George more money to condemn more of our brave, tired, and damaged soldiers and the people of Iraq to more death and carnage." ¤ Venezuela and the Media: Fact and Fiction ¤ Venezuelan Groups Accuse U.S. of Fomenting Destabilization ¤ Who censures the censors? ¤ US strongly backs Lebanon assault on militants ¤ Was Iraq Invaded to Boost Oil Prices? Value of Exxon Reserves Rose by $666 Billion ¤ Why I am Ashamed to be an American ¤ IAEA chief warns of "crazies" seeking Iran war ¤ Putin: US imperialists start new round of arms race ¤ What happened in Amiriya ¤ Marine feels killing 'right thing' ¤ The Destruction of Iraqi Healthcare Infrastructure Ten thousand doctors have fled the country. Two thousand have been killed. Some hospitals lack the rudimentary elements of care: hygiene, clean water, antibiotics, anesthetics and other basic drugs. Oxygen, gauze, rubber gloves, and diagnostic instruments such as X-rays are absent or rarely evident. This is Iraq today. Before Iraq suffered through an embargo and two wars with the United States starting in 1990, its healthcare system was considered one of the best in the Middle East. Iraq had well-trained physicians and modern facilities. Today, the healthcare system barely exists at all, with few healthcare workers and hospitals that are battlegrounds. ¤ New Opium Crops - In Iraq ¤ Marine on Haditha: 'They got the message' Case of TB traveler reveals holes in global disease control Posted: Friday, June 1, 2007 The U.S. health authorities failed to notify their Italian counterparts that an American tourist with an extremely dangerous form of tuberculosis was staying in a Rome hotel this month until he was leaving the country, Italian officials said Thursday. That time lapse allowed him to leave Rome and fly to Prague and Montreal, potentially exposing dozens of people to an often lethal germ. Full Article : iht.com Venezuelan Groups Accuse U.S. of Fomenting Destabilization Posted: Friday, June 1, 2007 Venezuelan Civil Society Groups Accuse U.S. of Fomenting Destabilization By Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com May 31, 2007 Organizations, journalists, students, activists and intellectuals in Venezuela accused the national and international media of waging a campaign against Venezuela and of supporting destabilization plans that have been carried out in the country in the past few days. According to declarations made by various groups and individuals, the RCTV protests and media coverage of them have a hidden agenda directed by the United States and their Venezuelan allies to destabilize the country. At a press conference yesterday in Caracas, more than six hundred different social organizations, including communal councils, political movements, collectives, community media, and cooperatives signed a document in rejecting the "imperial interference to destabilize and overthrow the Bolivarian government." The organizations support the Venezuelan government's decision not to renew the broadcast license of the private TV network RCTV and insist that the protests in the country are a part of an imperial strategy. "The Venezuelan people forcefully reject the interference of the United States government in the internal affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Once again the CIA has put a destabilization plan in place with the objective of overthrowing the Bolivarian government and of assassinating President Hugo Chavez," said the opening paragraph of the document. Later in the document the text makes reference to recent revelations of "documents that show the payment in dollars of journalists" from RCTV and Globovision "by the government of the United States, through the National Endowment for Democracy, connected with the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency through Freedom House." The document assures that the plan seeks to create violence and deaths in the street with the intention of discrediting and weakening the government of Hugo Chavez. In contradiction to the claims made by the media regarding freedom of expression in the country, the social organizations claim that RCTV and Globovision have systematically "called for subversion, chaos, fascism, terrorism, and assassination." "These television channels have been spokespersons of foreign interests, specifically those of the Bush government, whose final objective is to overthrow and assassinate President Hugo Chavez," they said. Eva Golinger, Venezuelan-American attorney and author of the recent book Bush vs. Chavez, affirmed these declarations yesterday, calling on all Venezuelans to be aware of the media offensive on the part of national and international media with the intention of destabilizing the country. "We have to be very aware that there are actors that are looking to create a scenario that later is going to justify what they want, which is an international intervention, above all from the United States," said Golinger. Journalists and students in Venezuela have also denounced the media campaign in recent days. Journalist Ernesto Villegas assured that part of the destabilization plan surrounding the case of RCTV includes an immense media operation to create a situation similar to the 2002 coup attempt. "Here what they are looking for is a death," said Villegas on the state television channel VTV yesterday. "The opposition media insists on stressing the peaceful nature of the protests, but, in reality, we have been able to observe that they aren't of that nature. We can see a clear intention to destabilize through the use of violence and provocation," he said. Students who support the government from various universities across the country also came out against the media campaign. In a statement released yesterday the students rejected the destabilization plan and warned the Venezuelan people to not be deceived. "We, the university students, denounce before the country and the world the destabilization plan that is being promoted by the private media that respond to the interests of the national and transnational elite," said the statement. "With this behavior they are trying again to break the constitutional order." "We reject and condemn the manipulation of the private media who use the freedom of expression guaranteed by law, to "denounce" a supposed abuse of that right on the part of the government," they said. "Likewise, we repudiate the use of that lie to alter the public order and peace, with the intention of creating situations similar to the events of April 11th 2002, and during the oil strike of 2002 and 2003." Some Argentinean intellectuals also came out against what they called a "disturbing" campaign in the international press earlier this week. Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, filmmaker Fernando Pino Solanas, and sociologists Atilio Boron and Alcira Argumedo all condemned the campaign for trying to "convince the world" of the supposed "closure" of RCTV. According to the intellectuals, the media campaign is a "dangerous escalation of disinformation that could serve as a platform for other plans by Washington." For a full listing of the groups that signed the statement, see: http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/n95859.html |
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