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Mission accomplished?
Posted: Sunday, May 11, 2008
¤ Philadelphia Police Beating Caught on Video, Causes Controversy
¤ Sharpton: Philly Beating 'Worse Than Rodney King'
¤ U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia, Repeating Venezuela Effort
Having avoided any meaningful coverage of Bolivia since the election of Evo Morales in December, 2005, the international media is now obliged to play catch up. Yesterday, the Andean nation of 9.1 million held a crucial vote which could pave the way for secession of the resource-rich Santa Cruz region.
¤ Venezuela Declares Solidarity with Bolivia's Government in Face of Separatist Effort
¤ Gas jumps above $3.67, oil passes $126 on Venezuela concerns
¤ Burma death toll 'could reach 1.5 million'
¤ Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez
¤ Morales and the Red Ponchos
The Bolivian oligarchy has initiated its plan to balkanize the country. Traditionally, the oligarchy controlled the oil, natural gas, and the best farmland in Bolivia; and, for the most part, it has never indicated a desire to share the wealth with the nation's indigenous majority. That majority, 60 percent of the population, lives primarily in the Andean highlands of western Bolivia, although in recent decades, the Indians of those areas have begun moving down to the cities in search of jobs.
¤ Yet Another Feather in the Cap of Hugo Chavez?
An image flashes across the screen of pretty young women. They're dressed in red T-shirts, wave a red flag, and run towards the camera. A voice intones, "Let us all participate in the great party of hope! Change is coming!" The image then shifts to a dapper young man with glasses who is thronged by enthusiastic crowds.
¤ The Afghans of Gitmo
¤ Polarizing Bolivia
A vote for autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia was passed by approximately 82% of voters on Sunday, May 4th. The vote endorses a move by Santa Cruz to, among other things, gain more control of gas reserves in the area and resist the central government's break up of large land holdings. Clashes during the vote in Santa Cruz left 35 injured. One man died from asphyxiation due to tear gas fired by police forces. The vote and conflict marks a new phase in the polarization of Bolivia, and a new challenge for the region.
¤ Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly
¤ Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.
¤ A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War
The "War on Terror" is a fraud and a façade, a mere label concocted and trumpeted by an Administration known for its signature dishonesty. The label conceals the Bush Administration's international crimes of unprovoked military aggression-the armed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, two sovereign nations the Administration meant to attack from its first days in office.
¤ People Can Handle the Truth About War
¤ Why Big Media Needs Propaganda to Survive
¤ Global Poverty: More Big Business Is Not the Solution
¤ A Television Show That May Make You Sick
¤ Mission accomplished?
¤ At least 16 said dead in Missouri, Oklahoma tornadoes
¤ Neocons and the truth: Bitter enemies to the end
Junkie Nation
Posted: Wednesday, May 7, 2008
¤ 100,000 could be dead in Burma, diplomat says
¤ Aid agencies face battle to reach victims of the cyclone
¤ Obama-Clinton Hilarious Math Update
It's reached a point that everyone has known for months it had to reach, the point at which even people paid to do so cannot keep it going with a straight face. On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama picked up approximately 99 new pledged delegates from North Carolina and Indiana, while Senator Hillary Clinton picked up about 85. The final count may move a delegate or two, but these numbers are close enough for the following calculation.
Obama now has 1,592 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,419. There are 217 delegates remaining to be pledged. Of those 217, Clinton would need to win 196 to beat Obama, or a victory of 90 percent to 10 percent. That's about as likely as Dick Cheney hitting 50 percent approval.
¤ Amnesty Intl: Ethiopian troops commit atrocities in Somalia
In a new report, Amnesty International detailed chilling witness accounts of indiscriminate killings in the Horn of Africa country and called on the international community to stop the bloodshed.
Ethiopia's government said the report was unbalanced and "categorically wrong."
The London-based rights group said testimony it received suggested all parties to Somalia's conflict have committed war crimes. But it singled out Ethiopian troops, who are in the country to back Somalia's U.N.-sponsored government, for some of the worst violations.
¤ Insurgents say US airstrike hit Somalia; US denies report
¤ Large earthquake hits Japan
¤ Obama's Clarifying Win: The Fly on the Wall Is the Wall
¤ Why Media Fix on Wright and Ignore Hagee
¤ As Executions Resume, So Do Questions of Fairness
The release of the third death row inmate in six months in North Carolina last week is raising fresh questions about whether states are supplying capital-murder defendants with adequate counsel, even as an execution on Tuesday night in Georgia ended a seven-month national suspension.
In all three cases, North Carolina appeals courts found that evidence that would have favored the defendants was withheld from defense lawyers by prosecutors or investigators. In two of the cases, including that of Levon Jones, who was released on Friday after 14 years on death row, the courts said the defendants' lawyers had failed to mount an adequate defense. Nationwide, Mr. Jones's release was the sixth in a year.
¤ Junkie Nation
¤ High Oil Prices for Obama and Clinton
¤ Wright or Wrong: What's Going On?
¤ Iron Man and the Merchants of Death
The phrase Merchants of Death takes center stage in the movie Iron Man, which is a spectacular expose of a subject that dominates the American economic landscape but about which Americans have very little knowledge. The phrase and the movie deal with the odd juxtaposition of capitalism and war as found in the weapons industry. Here we have innovations and efficiency of the type we associate with the private commercial sector but serving ends that are the very opposite of capitalism. The industry serves war, not peace, depends on coercion, not human volition, and profits from destruction, not creation.
¤ Bush's Brain Speaks to Obama
¤ A Monument to Stupidity
¤ US Media Trivializes Campaign 2008
¤ What Is It with Men and Torture?
Back in 2005 James Wolcott wrote of torture: "Women may take part -- though I imagine it's rare, and under duress -- but only men could devise the intricate and cruel tortures and torture devices that have been inflicted over the centuries."
This is one generalization about women that feminists let slide. Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib fame was a blip on torture's radar screen and women would like to keep it that way. But what infuses men with the urge to torture?
¤ Oil jumps over $123 on drop in diesel, heating oil supplies
Self-determination is at root of conflict
Posted: Monday, May 5, 2008
¤ Poll results, Zimbabweans the winners
¤ Presidential candidates set for a run off election
¤ Self-determination is at root of conflict
With controversy in the western media about Zimbabwe, disputes about the outcome of March 29 voting for president, charges of against President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party, and calls from opposition leaders for western intervention, Final Call interviewed Zimbabwean Ambassador to the United States, Machinvenyika Tobia Mapuranga to discuss the political situation in Zimbabwe and issues facing the country.
¤ Zimbabwe: More Than Complicity of Silence
Today Zimbabwe has taken a high profile place in corporate media headlines. Are we getting the truth this time and can we rely on the same progressives who broke through misinformation around Iraq to do the same for us again?
¤ Expressions of imperialism within Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa on Friday denounced the US and Britain for their interference in Zimbabwe's elections. At the same time, he decried the Morgan Tsvangirai faction of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), and its civil society partner, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), as being part of a US and British program to reverse the gains of Zimbabwe's national liberation struggle.
¤ Myanmar cyclone kills 10,000 people
The Myanmar government has said that the cyclone that struck the south-east Asian nation this weekend has killed 10,000 people.
The toll from Cyclone Nargis, which swept through Myanmar knocking out power and causing widespread flooding, might rise further as 4,000 people remain missing. Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.
¤ Oil passes $120, gas prices slip more than a cent
¤ Why (?) The Wright Story Stuck...and will most likely continue to
¤ The Dummies' Guide to Stupid Leaders and Misleading Numbers
In case you didn't know, the loss of 20,000 American jobs in April is actually good news. You see, economists had predicted 73,000 jobs would be lost last month, so thank God we dodged that bullet, right?!
In fact, the unemployment rate fell to 5.0% from 5.1% in March. Therefore, the unemployment rate is going down!! Surely, a .1% drop in the unemployment rate means America's determined locomotive is chugging toward the dawn of a new economic renaissance...right?
¤ The Green Recession
Americans are feeling the pinch of stagflation. Going to the grocery store and to the gas station leaves consumers in a state of sticker-shock. Neighbors are losing their homes. Retailers, restaurants, and countless other businesses are closing their doors. Mass layoffs are being announced with alarming frequency. As inflation and joblessness spiral upward, the economy plunges to greater depths. Opinions abound as to why America's economic ship is taking on water. Just as certainly as John McCain has personally witnessed global warming, I have ascertained the cause of America's economic malaise. Indeed, in a moment of deep insight, I have discovered that our economy is sinking in direct proportion to the rise of the environmental movement. The greener Americans become, the further our economy falls.
¤ How to live without money
¤ The Pentagon vs. America
I recently heard from an anti-war student I met while I was speaking at a college in northern Vermont. The e-mail included the following query:
"I told you about how I wanted to build a career around social activism and making a difference. You told me that one of the most important things was to make myself reputable and give people a reason to listen to you. I think this is some of the best advice I've received. My issue however is that you mentioned joining the military as a way to do this and mentioned how that is how you fell into it. … We talked extensively about all of our criticisms of the military currently and our foreign policy. … What I don't understand is, how can you [advise] someone who wants to make a difference with the flawed system, to join that flawed system?"
¤ The Media, The Right and 1988: Endless Deja Vu
¤ Bush Admits He Approved Torture
¤ Rev. Wright, the CIA and the AIDS Thing
¤ The Fed Sinks the Dollar
Against the recommendations of most economists and even the Financial Times of London, the Federal Reserve Board yesterday cut its discount rate by yet another quarter-point, to just 2%. Ostensibly, the intention is to try and spur economic "recovery" – as if a cut in the interest rates would do this. At first glance this seems to reflect the Fed's ideology that manipulating the interest alone can expand or contract the economy – as if it is like a balloon, with its structure is pre-printed on it, to be inflated or deflated at will to control the level of activity.
¤ US teenagers ruthlessly kill homeless just because they are not humans
¤ Report: U.S. Not as 'Free' as Touted
¤ Iraq Says No Hard Evidence of Iran Support For Militia
¤ ocuments Confirm Psychologists Collaborated with "War on Terror" Torture Program
¤ Iraq hospital 'damaged by US raid'
A Massacre of the World's Poor
Posted: Tuesday, April 29, 2008
¤ Carter accuses Rice of being untruthful over Hamas meeting
¤ Uruknet Cut Off From Google News Again!
¤ Gaza streets to be flooded with wastewater if fuel crisis continues
¤ Is Big Brother Hacking Into The Internet?
¤ Several believed dead in US air raids in Baghdad
¤ The World must Step in
This morning, seven residents of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun were killed in Israeli shelling. The tank shell directly hit a home in the Azbat Abed Rabbo quarter of the town, taking the lives of an entire family. Khadra Abu Muteq was killed along with her four children: one year old Musaab Abu Muteq, Hana’ Abu Muteq, 3, Saleh Abu Muteq 4, and Rudeineh Abu Muteq, 6. One teen, 17-year old Ayoub Atallah was also killed by the shelling and his friend Mutassem Sweilem injured as they were walking to school. Nine others were injured in the attack, several of them in serious condition.
¤ Taliban Karzai Attack Propaganda Victory
The attack on a military parade in the capital was a propaganda victory for the Taliban, undermining confidence in the West-backed regime of Hamid Karzai's ability to protect itself let alone the Afghan people, analysts believe.
"It was clearly aimed at grabbing enormous amounts of attention; striking in the center of the capital," Joanna Nathan, a Kabul-based analyst for International Crisis Group, told Reuters on Monday, April 28.
¤ Is There an Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?
The Department of Defense statistics are alarming - one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. The warnings to women should begin above the doors of the military recruiting stations, as that is where assaults on women in the military begin - before they are even recruited.
¤ Jeremiah Wright Delivers the Knockout Punch
"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America!
¤ How Safe Are Green Cleaning Products?
¤ Bloated in Baghdad
¤ A Massacre of the World's Poor
Food riots have broken out across the globe destabilizing large parts of the developing world. China is experiencing double-digit inflation. Indonesia, Vietnam and India have imposed controls over rice exports. Wheat, corn and soy beans are at record highs and threatening to go higher still. Commodities are up across the board. The World Food Program is warning of widespread famine if the West doesn't provide emergency humanitarian relief. The situation is dire. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez summed it up like this, "It is a massacre of the world's poor. The problem is not the production of food. It is the economic, social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in crisis."
¤ On "Withdrawing Responsibly" from Iraq
¤ "Adelitas" Shut Down Mexico's Congress
¤ Fifty Shots! That's Murder!
¤ The Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War
¤ The Torture Election
¤ War with Syria?
¤ Barack Obama cuts bait with Jeremiah Wright
¤ Many states appear to be in recession
¤ Wheat prices down 40% from peak
¤ Sweep of polygamists' kids raises legal questions
¤ Skepticism toward Bush claims about Syria and North Korea
¤ Barack, Hillary, Jeremiah and Howard
Maybe the best solution would be for Barack and Hillary to step aside and let Howard Zinn run for President! The Reverend Wright would no doubt be qualified, but as a man of God, he would probably not be interested in the demotion. But Howard Zinn has the knowledge, the understanding, the empathy and the character to stand up for the common man. If properly organized, this should give him the best potential for electability in a democracy."
Food - The Ultimate Weapon Of The Ruling Elite
Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008
¤ Food - The Ultimate Weapon Of The Ruling Elite
McNamara's thinly veiled genocidal utterances took place over thirty years ago, echoing the wealthy and the privileged's fear of the 'great unwashed' when 'over-population' was the buzzword. So not much has changed has it, we're hearing the same, tired old messages being rolled out once again by the ruling elites and their spin doctors. McNamara's cries of fear about being up to his neck in Mexicans is exactly same as the current bogey doing the rounds in Europe, only now they're Africans.
¤ In lean times, biotech grains are less taboo
¤ Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
¤ Bay Area Shoppers Asked To Limit Rice Purchases
¤ Japan's hunger becomes a dire warning for other nations
¤ Nato admits mistakenly supplying arms and food to Taliban
¤ New Britney Spears Sex Tape Bares All!
I know no one cares about Somalia, because every time I write about it on the website, the traffic drops like a stone. (Let's see if that headline draws a few eyeballs, though. If it works, we might just rename the whole damn blog.) But I don't care if no one cares. There is a continuous slaughter and ravaging of innocent human beings going on in Somalia, a vast atrocity that is sponsored, funded, greenlighted and directly aided by the United States government, and I'm going to keep on writing about it.
¤ US News Media's Latest Disgrace
After prying loose 8,000 pages of Pentagon documents, the New York Times has proven what should have been obvious years ago: the Bush administration manipulated public opinion on the Iraq War, in part, by funneling propaganda through former senior military officers who served as expert analysts on TV news shows.
¤ OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE WHAT ISRAEL IS TRYING TO HIDE
¤ Israeli military refuses entry of food aid to Gaza
¤ Hillary Clinton ready to eliminate Iran, if she takes office
¤ U.S. to Expand Collection Of Crime Suspects' DNA
The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested in connection with any federal crime and from many immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than 1 million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database.
¤ Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture
¤ Hillary Clinton Must Explain The Praising of a Group of KKK Supporters
¤ Nigeria attacks harm Shell exports
¤ The Terrible Plight of Afghan Children
¤ Iraqis Pay? The Arrogance of the USA
The war ended with the toppling of Saddam's statue, the Iraqis want them out, and now the occupiers, having destroyed much of Iraq, have the arrogance to ask Iraqis to pay for the occupation and reconstruction.
The Iraq war began with lies - weapons of mass destruction, mushroom cloud, Al Qaeda, and it ended with more lies.
¤ Iran deplores civilian deaths in Basra, Sadr City, urges US to stop air strikes
¤ US jets drop bombs on Sadr City
¤ Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand
¤ Rice: Muqtada a Coward
¤ Bush, Calderon Plot Economic and Military Integration at NOLA Summit
¤ The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots
Thirty years ago, Haiti raised nearly all the rice it needed. What happened?
In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce tariff protections for their Haitian rice and other agricultural products and some industries to open up the country's markets to competition from outside countries. The U.S. has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF.
¤ Obama Chose Right Word
¤ Polygamy & State Regulation of Sexual Life
¤ Bush's Paraguayan Fiasco
¤ Spinning Saddam's Linkages
¤ Masai return to their hunting grounds as tourism collapses
¤ The US Economy and the Costs of War
Is the Iraq War to blame for America's long-term economic decline and for the current economic crisis?
Martin Neil Baily, a chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, and now director of the business initiative at the Brookings Institution, in an opinion piece that ran Sunday in the New York Times, says no. Claiming to be opposed to the Iraq War, he nonetheless suggests that the nearly $500 billion spent on Iraq to date--all of it borrowed money--cannot be blamed for the credit crisis, or for high oil prices.
Global Hunger, Corporate Greed
Posted: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
¤ Health problems linked to chemical in plastic products
¤ The rise of the new energy world order
Oil at US$110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live - trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.
¤ Arms Export Control Act: Israeli Breaches and U.S. Indulgence Result in Palestinian and Lebanese Civilian Casualties
"Perhaps most egregiously, the U.S. Congress failed to stand up for American citizen Rachel Corrie and her family after Corrie was crushed to death in the Gaza Strip by a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer. The timidity of American officials regarding Corrie's death and the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese undercuts American standing in the world and creates a dramatic rift between American law and its implementation. Both Democrats and Republicans have failed to apply the law where Israel is concerned. Consequently, Israeli officials take increasing liberties in using American firepower on the field of battle-and in civilian neighborhoods."
¤ Occupation, Not War
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended some years ago. In Iraq, the war ended with the fall of Saddam Hussein's government; in Afghanistan, with the fall of the Taliban government. What's been happening since is occupation and resistance to occupation.
It's always helpful to call things by the right name. One of the ways using the wrong word can trip us is illustrated by John McCain's campaign theme. We have to win the war in Iraq, he keeps saying. Ending a war implies either winning or losing. No such baggage is attached to an occupation. You can end an occupation without either winning or losing. You just withdraw your troops.
¤ As Food Costs Soar, US Must Step Up to Plate
¤ Global Hunger, Corporate Greed
¤ Fueling the Food Crisis
Unlike some lefties, I've never regarded Fidel Castro as infallible, mainly because of his uneven record on human rights (exemplary in meeting basic economic needs but execrable in terms of respecting civil liberties).
Nonetheless, a warning he made in early 2007 on biofuels has turned out to be eerily prophetic. In a conversation with Hugo Chavez, Castro warned that using agricultural crops to power cars would push up the price of food and that the consequences would be "tragic".
¤ Credit Crunch? The Real Crisis Is Global Hunger.
¤ Global Hot Spots of Hunger Set to Explode
As food prices continue to escalate worldwide, some of the poorest nations in the developing world are in danger of social and political upheavals.
The unrest, which is likely to spread to nearly 40 countries, has been triggered largely by a sharp increase in the prices of staple commodities, including wheat, rice, sorghum, maize and soybeans, according to the United Nations.
¤ UN warns of N Korea food shortage
¤ Speculators and soaring food prices
¤ Vitamin supplements 'do us no good and may be harmful'
¤ America's Whipping Boy For 9/11
¤ Obama, Bitterness, Fundamentalists and Guns
¤ Bush Regime Normalcy
¤ Pope Benedict Go Home
Why would American media, politicians and average citizens welcome a Hitler Youth member who personally worked to insure Bush's re-election and who openly praised the genocide conducted against American Indians? If the man in question becomes pope, it obviously doesn't matter what he says or does. Otherwise sensible people suddenly act like illiterate medieval peasants and fight to kiss his ring.
¤ Bush welcomes pope and says US is open to his message
¤ A Personal Reflection on Hypocrisy Over Tibet
¤ "Certifiable, Insane" - Zubaydah, Bush and the Bureaucracy of Torture
¤ Crude turns lower after earlier nearing $115 a barrel
¤ Israel strikes after Hamas raid
¤ SADC rules no electoral impasse in Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean government delegation to the SADC summit held at the weekend has hailed SADC's ruling that there is neither a stalemate nor an impasse in the electoral process in Zimbabwe.
Addressing journalists in Harare this afternoon, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa said the Zimbabwean delegation briefed the summit on the recent harmonized elections and emphasized that the situation was calm and peaceful. In his reasons for calling the summit on Zimbabwe, Zambian leader and current SADC chairman, Mr. Levy Mwanawasa cited an alleged stalemate and impasse in the Zimbabwean harmonized elections.
¤ Tree man 'who grew roots' hopes to marry after 4lb of warts removed
¤ Why China is the REAL master of the universe
Cecil Rhodes, the businessman-imperialist of Africa, the creator of Rhodesia, suffered no flicker of doubt about who were the masters.
"To be born an Englishman," he mused, "Is to win first prize in the lottery of life."
It wasn't idle boasting. In the jingoistic triumphalism of the late 19th century, when waving the Union Jack was a simple pleasure, people sang: "Rule Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves" without any irony. It was a statement of fact.
A quarter of mankind lived under the British flag in the largest empire the world had ever known.
¤ The Coming War with Iran: It's About the Oil, Stupid
World civilization is based on oil. The world is running out of oil. The oil companies and governments are not telling the truth about how close we are to the end. Dick Cheney knew about peak oil back in 1999 when he spoke to the London Petroleum Institute as Halliburton CEO. He predicted it would come in 2010. After that it's just a matter of years before it runs out. Whoever controls the remaining oil determines who lives and who dies.
Sixty percent of this oil is under a triangular area of the Middle East the size of Kansas. In that speech Cheney said: "The Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."
¤ Venezuela approves $9 bln oil windfall profit law
¤ Israel builds more settlements defying Annapolis - US ex-president Carter
¤ Attitudes Toward U.S. Worsen in Arab World
¤ War Crimes in Occupied Afghanistan
¤ Source: U.S. Strike on Iran Nearing
¤ Killing of Reuters journalist brings death toll in Gaza to 18
¤ Nobody wants to rescue dollar
The world was waiting all the last week, but nothing serious occurred in the exchange market. The session of the Central Banks of Great Britain and Europe that took place this week, was expected. There the problems of money-credit policy were considered. As the market participants expected that the interest rate in Europe will remain the same and will decrease in England, the behavior of Central Banks hadn't made any substantial changes in the deal on Forex.
¤ USA uses Summer Olympics 2008 to label China as new empire of evil
¤ Foolishness Over the Olympics and Tibet
Iraq Was Not A Preemptive War
Posted: Friday, April 11, 2008
¤ The New York Times v. Hugo Chavez
¤ BBC v. Hugo Chavez
At a time of growing public disenchantment with the major media, millions now rely on alternate sources. Many online and print ones are credible. One of the world's most relied on is not - the BBC. It's an imperial tool, as corrupted as its dominant counterparts, been around longer than all of them, now in it for profit, and it's vital that people know who BBC represents and what it delivers.
¤ US trade deficit jumps to 62.3 billion dollars
¤ IMF says US crisis is 'largest financial shock since Great Depression'
¤ Pakistan's prime minister warns 'dictatorship' is threatening newly restored democracy
¤ Afghans hold secret trials for men that U.S. detained
¤ Iraq Was Not A Preemptive War
This week, Republican presidential candidate John McCain claimed that he would reserve the right to wage preemptive war, and with good reason. After all, preemptive war could one day be necessary, and every president should reserve the right to wage it.
The problem, however, is that neither John McCain, nor the media for that matter, seem to know what a preemptive war actually is. The Iraq War, for one, was not a preemptive war, but a preventive one. There is a big difference.
¤ US-Iran conflict likely to deepen
¤ Bleak assessment of Iraq
¤ U.S. strikes kill 10 in Iraq, Bush to halt troop cuts
¤ What Motivates the Terrorists?
Immediately after 9/11, U.S. officials, led by President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, announced that the attacks were motivated by hatred for America's freedom and values.
Not so, responded we libertarians. Instead, the anger and hatred that people have in the Middle East for the United States is rooted in U.S. foreign policy, specifically the bad things that the U.S. government has done to people in that part of the world.
¤ White House Authorized War Crimes
In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
¤ ABC News: Top Bush officials intimately involved in planning war crimes
¤ We're Locked and Loaded Into Our Rambo Fantasy
¤ We'll Reap What We Sow
¤ Iraqi Detainees Languish Uncharged In Crowded Jails
¤ Oops, Our Bad
¤ Hey, Berkeley, Want To Be Really Antiwar?
¤ Slavery in the Fields
José Vasquez couldn't stand any more.
On November 19, he and two other workers escaped through a ventilation hatch in the box trailer where they had been locked up for the night. For more than a year, the three immigrants and a dozen more were forced to work for the Navarrete family picking tomatoes in Immokalee, Fla.
¤ The Clintons' $800,000 Colombian Windfall
¤ Breaking The Silence Video
¤ Khalil regrets toppling statue of Saddam
Flashback ¤ Toppling of Saddam Statue: A Government/Media Hoax
¤ Chavez: Castro predicted fall of dollar
¤ Poor go hungry while rich fill their tanks
Rocketing global food prices are causing acute problems of hunger and malnutrition in poor countries and have put back the fight against poverty by seven years, the World Bank said yesterday.
Robert Zoellick, the Bank's president, called on rich countries to commit an extra $500m (£250m) immediately to the World Food Programme, and sign up to what he called a "New Deal for global food policy".
¤ Food prices stir poverty concern
¤ Food agency calls for ban on six artificial colours
¤ Zimbabwe Election Deja Vous
¤ Have you ever heard of Bremer's 100 orders?
If the answer is "no" then you don't understand the true destruction of Iraq. This is not altogether something to be ashamed of; the media, led by Murdoch's "FOX News" has deliberately refrained from covering the laws in any detail, mostly because if they did reveal the extent of the destruction, good American citizens would be outraged.
¤ Capital Crimes: Another Smoking Gun on Terror War Torture
Hamas Accepts State Within 1967 Borders
Posted: Friday, April 4, 2008
1,000 in Iraq's Forces Quit Basra Fight
Gaza 'Bombshell' Took a Year To Fall
US Coup Backfires, But Most Media Outlets Unwilling to Investigate, Cover Story
Hamas Accepts State Within 1967 Borders
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said that his movement supports the united Palestinian position that calls for the establishment of a fully sovereign state within the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem, and refugees' right to return.
Land Grab on a Global Scale
Among the English-speaking settler societies – U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand – an irrational but powerful myth still prevails. It drove "manifest destiny" and is still alive and well, if usually unconscious.
Zanu-PF, MDC-T in photo finish
THE contest for the House of Assembly went into a photo-finish with MDC-Tsvangirai ending with 99 seats, Zanu-PF with 97, MDC with 10 and one independent.
Argentine president lays 'inalienable' claim to Falklands
Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands, which remain in British hands after the 1982 war between the two countries, is "inalienable," President Cristina Kirchner said Wednesday.
Cow-human cross embryo lives three days
We have created human-animal embryos already, say British team
Embryos containing human and animal material have been created in Britain for the first time, a month before the House of Commons votes on new laws to regulate the research
USA 2008: The Great Depression
Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis
Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'
Brain expert warns of huge rise in tumours and calls on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation
Food prices to rise for years, biofuel firms say
High-tech gear disables car if borrower misses payment
When the light starts to flash, you had better have the cash. That's the reality for millions of subprime borrowers whose used car purchase is contingent upon having an unusual option: a little box mounted underneath the dashboard that forces them to make their payments on time.
Report warns of Saudi Arabia and Turkey possibly joining in a nuclear arms race
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