Wednesday, June 30th
Bush readies new measures to weaken Castro
by George Gedda (Associated Press) For more than 40 years, the debate has persisted: Do tough sanctions against Cuba weaken Fidel Castro's government or entrench it? President George W Bush's actions make clear where he stands. He believes loopholes in the embargo are serving as a lifeline for Castro. At midnight on Wednesday, new regulations take effect to sharply reduce Cuba-bound dollar flows from the United States, mostly by way of Cuban-Americans. Properly enforced, the measures could deprive the island of up to USD150 million a year, according to government estimates. Full Article : hindustantimes.com
Caribbean on 06.30.04 @ 04:21 PM CST [ link]
Haiti's Former Prime Minister
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Alone in a grimy-walled prison cell, former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said he has no confidence in new Haitian leaders who allowed his home to be ransacked and whose lack of protection forced him into hiding. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Caribbean on 06.30.04 @ 11:50 AM CST [ link]
Who's our S.O.B now?
Remember Ahmed Chalabi? The shady, silken-suited leader of the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress (INC), and supposed Iraqi frontman for the neo-cons. With all the turmoil in Iraq, and now America's so-called 'transfer of sovereignty' on 28 June, it is difficult to recall the role that Chalabi was once destined to play in the Pentagon's post-Saddam vision for Iraq. Full Article : spiked-online.com
USA on 06.30.04 @ 11:16 AM CST [ link]
Seizing sovereignty in Africa
By Kojo Bedu-Addo
Senior Analyst, Control Risks Group Recent conflicts in Sudan, Liberia and Ivory Coast have ignited discussion about foreign intervention in failing states. Humanitarian intervention is intended to help ordinary citizens who bear the brunt of the violence and economic hardship in such situations. However, the concept remains contentious, raising important questions about when a state's sovereignty should be over-ruled. The new African Union's security council has acknowledged that intervention is a likely scenario. The AU's charter explicitly overturns the old respect for national sovereignty. Full Article : BBC
Africa on 06.30.04 @ 11:12 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, June 29th
US to North Korea: Trust Us, We'd Never Lie
By Stephen GowansPicture this: Al-Qaeda offers Washington a "provisional" guarantee not to attack the country or seek to target US interests abroad in return for the US dismantling its military. The agreement would depend on the US giving international inspectors access to US military sites and meeting a series of deadlines for disabling and dismantling its military facilities, and then shipping them out of the country. Would Washington agree? Never. No country would deliberately leave itself defenseless, simply because an enemy promised not to attack, and then only provisionally. Yet absurd as the proposal is, this is what Washington is offering North Korea.
USA on 06.29.04 @ 09:50 PM CST [ more..]
Iraqis have lived this lie before
The British transfer of sovereignty in the 20s was equally meaningless by Haifa Zangana
June 29, 2004 - The Guardian UKIn Iraq, we have an expression: same donkey, different saddle. Iraq's long-heralded interim government has now formally assumed sovereignty. Official labels and tags have duly changed. The US administrator will now be an ambassador, while Sheikh Ghazi al Yawar and Iyad Allawi, US-appointed members of the former governing council, are to be known as president and prime minister. To formalise the change, the UN has already issued a resolution under which "multinational forces" will replace "US-led forces". On the issue of control over US troops, the message is clear: the US forces are there to stay only because "Iraqi people" has asked them to. But which Iraqi people? Do they mean the new administration headed by the CIA's Iyad Allawi? And why does all this sound strangely familiar? In Iraq we don't just read history at school - we carry it within ourselves. It's no wonder, then, that we view what is happening in Iraq now of "liberation-mandate-nominal sovereignty" as a replay of what took place in the 1920s and afterwards. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 06.29.04 @ 08:57 PM CST [ link]
Focus on sex education - an antidote to HIV/AIDS
JOHANNESBURG, 29 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - What most parents would not wish to know is that the age of their children's first sexual encounter is getting younger, and with it the risk of HIV infection. In Swaziland, nearly one-third of young people in secondary school have had sex by age 16, according to the UN Population Fund. In Zambia, when looking at teenage girls alone, that figure rises to nearly half of those questioned. The consequences can be shocking. A major survey of South African youth conducted by the University of Witwatersrand's Reproductive Health Research Unit, found that one in every 10 South Africans aged between 15 and 24 was HIV-positive, the vast majority of them young women, many of whom were coerced into their first sexual encounter. Full Article : irinnews.org
Africa on 06.29.04 @ 04:02 PM CST [ link]
Zuma hails success of meeting with China
South Africa and China signed seven agreements involving education, business and agriculture after a binational commission (BNC) meeting in Pretoria, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday. "We certainly do share views on a number of issues and there are many similarities between our two countries," said Zuma explaining that South Africa and China agreed to work together both economically and politically. Despite a handful of protesters picketing outside the presidential guest house in Pretoria against alleged Chinese human rights abuses, the BNC was hailed as a success by both parties. Full Article: iol.co.za
Africa on 06.29.04 @ 03:59 PM CST [ link]
Iraq Regime Change a Sham, Say Mideast Experts
by Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service UNITED NATIONS - Despite the positive responses Monday from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and members of the Security Council who praised the U.S. "transfer of sovereignty" to an interim government in Iraq, Middle East experts and political analysts dismiss the regime change in Baghdad as a "monumental fraud". "The truth is that Iraqi sovereignty is a sham," says Rahul Mahajan, publisher of the blog EmpireNotes.org and author of 'Full Spectrum: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond'. The United States will keep at least 138,000 troops in Iraq (augmented by about 20,000 from other countries) for the forseeable future, he said. Fourteen permanent or semi-permanent military bases have been and are being constructed to house them, said Mahajan, who returned recently from a trip to Iraq. "Those forces have, by an eleventh hour edict of Paul Bremer (head of the former U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority), complete immunity from Iraqi law and Iraqi courts," he added. The role of the new interim government in Baghdad has been reduced to "advice" and "consultation". "This is, and remains, a direct military occupation," Mahajan told IPS. He said the level of control that the United States retains "is just short of full colonial administration". Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 06.29.04 @ 12:31 PM CST [ link]
Monday, June 28th
Phony Baloney
You know, of course, that the alleged hand-over of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30 is a phony-baloney public-relations stunt. The armed forces will remain in the country. A U.S. embassy with 1,000 employees will open. In other words, it will be a continued occupation with an Iraqi face. What the White House hopes will happen is that the American media, once Iraqis are allegedly in charge, will lose interest in Iraq, and American casualties, which shall surely continue, will be relegated to the inside pages of the newspapers and barely mentioned by the television talk-show crowd. Full Article : lewrockwell.com
USA on 06.28.04 @ 07:24 PM CST [ link]
Supreme Court Deals Blow to War on Terror
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court severely limited the Bush administration's war on terrorism on Monday and allowed cases brought by terror suspects challenging their confinement to proceed in the American legal system. The surprising moves by the high court came in a series of term-ending decisions that pitted civil liberties concerns against national security arguments and marked a blow to President Bush's assertion of sweeping presidential powers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In one ruling the court said the hundreds of foreign terror suspects at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba could turn to American courts to challenge their confinement. In another ruling it said an American held in his nation is entitled to procedural protections to contest his detention. "Today's historic rulings are a strong repudiation of the administration's argument that its actions in the war on terrorism are beyond the rule of law and unreviewable by American courts," Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union said. Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 06.28.04 @ 03:19 PM CST [ link]
Zimbabwe: Local authorities want land for housing projects
By Michael Padera, www.herald.co.zw URBAN local authorities have urged the Government to expeditiously hand over to them land that was acquired under the land reform programme for residential expansion. The call was one of the 36 resolutions made by local authorities during their just-ended 63rd annual Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe conference held in Kariba. Under the land reform exercise, all local authorities were allocated surrounding farms for housing, urban agriculture and industrial development.
Africa on 06.28.04 @ 01:12 PM CST [ more..]
Let's ensure peace in West Africa
The Executive Secretary of Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), Dr. Ibn Chambas has said the responsibilities of ensuring peace and security in West Africa should be shared among the member states, civil societies, regional and sub-regional organisations and international communities. He said the UN, through its Security Council, has the principal responsibility of ensuring peace and security, but member states, civil societies, regional and sub-regional organisations should make their contributions to maintain peace and security. Dr. Ibn Chambas said this at a press conference held by the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC) delegations to West Africa in Accra. Full Article : accra-mail.com
Africa on 06.28.04 @ 01:04 PM CST [ link]
Iraq's missing oil billions
Billions of dollars from Iraq's oil fund cannot be accounted for by the US occupation authority - which was given responsibility for the country's finances by the UN. Reports by Christian Aid and the Liberal Democrats, Britain's third-largest political party, said there were glaring gaps in the handling of $20 billion generated by Iraq's oil. Full Article : aljazeera.net'Failure to account' for Iraq cash$20m 'hole' in Iraqi funds held by US-led authority
USA on 06.28.04 @ 10:07 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, June 27th
The Virgin Oilfields of Iraq
A large part of the country is still mainly unexplored. Of the more than 80 oilfields discovered, only 21 have been developed.When it comes to oil, Iraq is—believe it or not—largely virgin territory. Though much of the talk about rebuilding Iraqi fields focuses on bringing production back up to prewar levels of about 3 million barrels a day, Iraq is the only Middle Eastern oil power other than Saudi Arabia with huge reserves that are untapped, even unexplored. Indeed, Iraq has the potential to match the 10.5 million barrel-a-day capacity of Saudi Arabia, which is now the only producer capable of using its excess capacity to moderate world oil prices. Full Article : msnbc.msn.com
USA on 06.27.04 @ 05:43 PM CST [ link]
Pipelines or pipe dreams?
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have lot of oil and a whole lot of gas. All that oil and all that gas are going to pass through Pakistan. We are the only bridge between Central Asian oil and the rest of the world. But, are we? Are we going to make hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees every year? First things first. The two principal engines of growth in Asia are China and India. India is now the 3rd largest economy (purchasing power parity basis) on the face of the planet. As India grows so would its need for oil and gas (India doesn't have much of its own). In order for pipelines to be economically viable the reservoirs have to be large enough so as to be able to fulfil the needs of the user for a good 30 to 40 years. The three primary reservoirs of oil and gas in the region are: Apsheron Trend Oil Field, Dauletabad Gas Field and South Pars Gas Field. Full Article : jang.com.pk
USA on 06.27.04 @ 03:10 PM CST [ link]
Saturday, June 26th
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Replay of Chile and Nicaragua?By Alexander Cockburn, www.counterpunch.orgYou can set your watch by it. The minute some halfway decent government in Latin America begins to reverse the order of things and give the have-nots a break from the grind of poverty and wretchedness, the usual suspects in El Norte rouse themselves from the slumber of indifference and start barking furiously about democratic norms. It happened in 1973 in Chile; we saw it again in Nicaragua in the 1980s; and here’s the same show on summer rerun in Venezuela, pending the August 15 recall referendum of President Hugo Chávez. Chávez is the best thing that has happened to Venezuela’s poor in a very long time. His government has actually delivered on some of its promises, with improved literacy rates and more students getting school meals. Public spending has quadrupled on education and tripled on healthcare, and infant mortality has declined. The government is promoting one of the most ambitious land-reform programs seen in Latin America in decades. Most of this has been done under conditions of economic sabotage. Oil strikes, a coup attempt and capital flight have resulted in about a 4 percent decline in GDP for the five years that Chávez has been in office. But the economy is growing at close to 12 percent this year, and with world oil prices near $40 a barrel, the government has extra billions that it’s using for social programs. So naturally the United States wants him out, just as the rich in Venezuela do. Chávez was re-elected in 2000 for a six-year term. A US-backed coup against him was badly botched in 2002. Full Article
USA on 06.26.04 @ 12:50 PM CST [ link]
Chilling call to murder as music attacks gays
Jamaican rights activist's death is officially said to be motivated by robbery, but campaigners point to pop-fuelled homophobiaIn the heat of January in Jamaica 30,000 people came to the Rebel Salute concert in St. Elizabeth to hear some of the nation's most popular singers deliver a chilling call. With Capleton and Sizzla singing almost exclusively about gay men, the call went out from the stadium: "Kill dem battybwoys haffi dead, gun shots pon dem ... who want to see dem dead put up his hand" (Kill them, the queers have to die, gun shots in their head ... put up your hand if you want to see them dead.) Two weeks ago Jamaica's most prominent gay activist, Brian Williamson, was murdered at his home. Mr Williamson, a co-founder of Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), was found with multiple stab wounds to his neck and his face and his throat cut. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Caribbean on 06.26.04 @ 12:48 PM CST [ link]
The multibillion robbery the US calls reconstruction
The shameless corporate feeding frenzy in Iraq is fuelling the resistance Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and" - get this - "embarrassment". I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 06.26.04 @ 11:14 AM CST [ link]
Al-Zarqawi, An American False Flag Operative
Bruce KennedyOver the past months, JUS has been watching a frightening trend of "false flag" operations beening waged by US intelligence. The latest in the series is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who has been accredited with everything from the Ricin attacks (which later turned out to be fake) to the resistance in Fallujah. An amazing enemy in deed for a man who has the staring role in an American "False Flag" operation. As America escalates its "war on terrorism" which in fact is a war on Islam, the need to escalate disinformation and propaganda is also prevalent, particularly when the American public is loosing its stomach for the battle, when American lives are being lost each day and when the President continues to be caught red handed in one scandal after another. Full article: prisonplanet.tv
USA on 06.26.04 @ 11:11 AM CST [ link]
Friday, June 25th
Fahrenheit 9-11: Summer Feel-Good Movie for Lefties
Well this was in some ways a typical Michael Moore production, somewhat unfocused, throwing out a lot of information without getting to the point, too soft on Democrats…But for once Moore pretty much left himself out of the equation except for a couple of maudlin moments and let the footage speak for itself… …Representative after Representative from the Black Congressional Caucus standing up to contest the 2000 election results in the joint session, over which Gore presides, to verify the Bush's 'election'…Again and again Gore asks: "Did a member of the Senate sign the petition?" And each time the Congressperson, getting shouted down, has to say ‘No. Not a single Senator…the Senate is missing in action…" These were perhaps the most moving and evocative moment of the film. 400 years of history were standing up there, denied yet once more. Full Article : www.rootsie.com
USA on 06.25.04 @ 09:37 PM CST [ link]
The Part Of The 9-11 Story Michael Moore Missed!
FAHRENHEIT 9/11" documents that the American people have been lied to in the push for war. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was not a threat. Iraq had no link to 9-11. Iraq was not supporting Al Qaeda. The government of Iraq under Saddam killed far fewer Iraqi people than the government of Iraq under George Bush. The Kurds were actually gassed by Iran (and does the name "Waco" ring a bell?). The only nuclear weapons found in Iraq are the tons of depleted uranium munitions dropped on the Iraqi people by the United States. And, far from being the champion of human rights, the United States stands exposed as a willing user of torture on prisoners who in many cases were innocent of any wrongdoing. That's the major message. We The People were lied to about, well, just about everything. Including 9-11 itself. Bush sat there and read about goats while the towers fell. The video tape of "Osama's" confession turned out to be fake. Osama himself turned out to be a fake, a CIA asset trained and funded by the US to fight the USSR in Afghanistan. Blair's dossier turned out to be fake, plagiarized from a student thesis. The mobile biological weapons trailers turned out to be fake; actually balloon inflators sold by the British to Iraq. And on and on and on. Deception after deception after deception. Full Article : www.whatreallyhappened.com
USA on 06.25.04 @ 09:31 PM CST [ link]
Americans were 'bushwhacked,' weapons inspector Ritter says
Claiming Americans were "bushwhacked," Scott Ritter, former United Nations chief weapons inspector in Iraq, believes President Bush not only hid the truth, but he used deception to get citizen support for the war. "Instead of presenting the issue honestly to the American people, face-to-face, and letting us decide, we were bushwhacked behind our backs," he said. Ritter, who is one of the Bush Administration's principal critics over the war, will deliver a first-hand account of the Iraqi dilemma and its failures this Monday, June 28, at the Napa Valley Opera House at 7 p.m. "Look at the evidence coming out now. Clearly we were lied to about the link to Al-Qaeda, about the weapons of mass destruction, and about Saddam Hussein being a threat to the United States," Ritter said. "We were told we'd be greeted with flowers--It'll never happen." Full Article : www.napanews.com
USA on 06.25.04 @ 09:27 PM CST [ link]
From Posterboy to Wanted Poster
Going After Qaddafi (Again)By KURT NIMMO, www.kurtnimmo.comRemember when the Bush Ministry of Disinformation made such a big deal out of Qaddafi's reported deal to stop working on nuclear weapons? Mu'ammar's so-called "renunciation" had neocons and Bush warmongers strutting around declaring the invasion of Iraq -- and the murder of 11,000 innocent Iraqis -- was a good and righteous thing because it scared the heck out of Arab dictators and will force them to the table to negotiate their emasculation.
USA on 06.25.04 @ 03:40 PM CST [ more..]
Thursday, June 24th
69 dead as violence sweeps Iraq
Insurgents today launched a wave of apparently coordinated car bomb and grenade attacks in several Iraqi cities, killing at least 69 people and injuring 270 more. It was one of the worst days of violence since the US president, George Bush, declared the end of major combat in May 2003. Attacks targeting Iraqi police and US troops began at dawn in the Sunni-dominated cities of Baquba and Ramad and in the northern city of Mosul, where at least four bombs killed dozens of people. The Guardian UK Full Article
USA on 06.24.04 @ 08:47 PM CST [ link]
Moonie leader 'crowned' in Senate
Republicans and Democrats attend cult blessing ceremony The US Senate was used for a bizarre ritual in which the Rev Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification church, was "crowned" and declared himself the messiah in the presence of more than a dozen Republican and Democratic members of Congress, it was reported yesterday. "Emperors, kings and presidents ... have declared to all heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's saviour, messiah, returning Lord and true parent," the 85-year-old Korean "Moonie" cult leader told several hundred guests at the meeting in one of the Senate's office buildings on March 23, according to the Washington Post. He also claimed endorsement from Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, who had all been reformed and reborn through his church's teachings - an idiosyncratic version of Christianity which rejects the use of the cross as a symbol and denounces homosexuals as "dirty dung-eating dogs". The Guardian UK Full Article
USA on 06.24.04 @ 08:39 PM CST [ link]
UN rebuff to the US: A Pyrrhic victory
NEW YORK - Faced with the prospect of certain defeat, the United States has abandoned its proposal to seek Security Council exemption for US soldiers from possible war crime charges in future United Nations peacekeeping operations overseas. Full Article
USA on 06.24.04 @ 08:35 PM CST [ link]
Wednesday, June 23rd
Bush's Accurate Case for War
"We must remove Saddam Hussein from power, although his only known threat to the United States is that he hates us. While we know that Hussein possessed and used weapons of mass destruction in the past, we have no evidence that he has them today or that he's making more. But he hasn't proved that he doesn't have them, and this constitutes an urgent threat to America. "So we must act now, because Hussein, who had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, might choose to give the WMDs that he doesn't have to Osama bin Laden, with whom he has never collaborated. Full Article
USA on 06.23.04 @ 10:03 PM CST [ link]
U.S. Drops U.N. Bid for War Crime Shield
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Facing strong opposition, the United States announced Wednesday it was dropping a resolution seeking a new exemption for American peacekeepers from international prosecution for war crimes. U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham made the announcement after a U.S. compromise that would limit the exemption to one final year failed to get support from key Security Council opponents. Several council members refusing the compromise cited the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers and Secretary-General Kofi Annan's opposition to renewing the exemption for a third year. Full Article
USA on 06.23.04 @ 02:56 PM CST [ link]
Polio Reaches Sudan's Conflict-Ridden Darfur
NAIROBI, 23 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - Epidemiologists warned on Tuesday that west and central Africa were on the brink of "the largest polio epidemic in recent years", as confirmation was received that the Darfur region of western Sudan had been reinfected. A five-year old child in Darfur was on Monday confirmed to have been paralysed by the same polio virus that was endemic to northern Nigeria, Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) told IRIN. The virus had spread from Nigeria into Chad, which was reinfected in 2003, and into western Sudan, he added. Full Article
Africa on 06.23.04 @ 01:37 PM CST [ link]
UN slams U.S. over spending Iraq funds
Report: Oil-funded projects 'open to fraudulent acts'BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON - United Nations-mandated auditors have sharply criticized the US occupation authority for the way it has spent more than $11 billion in Iraqi oil revenues and say they have faced "resistance" from coalition officials. In an interim report, obtained by the Financial Times, KPMG says the Development Fund for Iraq, which is managed by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and channels oil revenue into reconstruction projects, is "open to fraudulent acts". Full Article
USA on 06.23.04 @ 09:02 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, June 22nd
Fox News Spins 9/11 Commission Report
June 22, 2004, www.fair.org The Bush administration's long-running attempts to link Iraq and Al Qaeda were dealt a serious blow when the September 11 commission's June 16 interim report indicated that there did not appear to be a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Osama bin Laden, and that there was no evidence that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. But if you were watching the Fox News Channel, you saw something very different, as the conservative cable network eagerly defended the Bush administration and criticized the rest of the media for mishandling the story.
USA on 06.22.04 @ 07:25 PM CST [ more..]
Haiti After the Press Went Home
Chaos Upon ChaosBy LUCSON PIERRE-CHARLESThe recent disastrous floods that killed more than 2,000 people, left some 1,800 missing and 10,000 more homeless have been a tragedy of enormous proportion and unless some drastic measures are taken, this disaster could be seen as a preview of the things to strike Haiti. Such a tragedy is the consequence of years of bad policies and mismanagement inherited by the current administration. The Prime Minister's reaction to the disaster demonstrated undoubtedly that his administration is reluctant to deal with one of the most important crisis facing this impoverished nation today. He blamed deforestation for what happened and promised, among other things, to create a forest protection unit made of former soldiers of the demobilized Haitian army. Blaming deforestation as the only cause is easy but the environmental degradation is much greater than that. It is a chain-linked dilemma and until Haitians pull up their forces together, the prospect will remain grim.
Caribbean on 06.22.04 @ 05:13 PM CST [ more..]
WHO warns of polio epidemic in west, central Africa
Experts of the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a stark warning on Tuesday that west and central Africa is on the brink of the largest polio epidemic in recent years. The warning made by epidemiologists of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative follows confirmation on Tuesday that a child was paralyzed on May 20 by polio in the Darfur region of Sudan, a country which has not seen the disease in more than three years. In addition to the re-infection of Sudan, five times as many children in west and central Africa have been paralyzed by polio so far in 2004 compared with the same period in 2003. "There is no question that the virus is spreading at an alarming pace," said communicable disease expert David Heymann, WHO's representative for polio eradication. Full Article
Africa on 06.22.04 @ 02:24 PM CST [ link]
Militants in Iraq Kill South Korean Hostage
BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi militant group has beheaded its South Korean hostage, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday, just hours after a go-between said the execution had been delayed and there were negotiations for the man's release. The South Korean foreign ministry issued a statement confirming that Kim Sun-il had been killed but did not say he was beheaded. Kim's body was found by the U.S. military between Baghdad and Fallujah, 22 miles west of the capital, at 5:20 p.m. Iraq time, said South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil. Full ArticleReuters timeline:
6:00am they say they will extend deadline
11:54 negototians going well
01:20 they announce they found his body
body found by US military. You would assume it would take some hours to look for his body. The U.S. seems to be on top of things? Report: S.Korean's Abductors Drop Iraq Troop DemandBy REUTERS
Published: June 22, 2004
Filed at 11:45 a.m. ETSEOUL (Reuters) - Muslim militants holding a South Korean businessman have dropped their demand that Seoul pull its troops out of Iraq and not send more, a security company president was quoted as saying on Tuesday. The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper's Web Site quoted Choi Seung-gap as telling South Korean reporters the abductors of 33-year-old Kim Sun-il had made other demands that were acceptable, but he declined to elaborate for fear of jeopardizing the negotiations. The militants kidnapped Kim and threatened on Monday to behead him within 24 hours if South Korea did not withdraw the 670 military medics and engineers it has in Iraq and ditch plans to send another 3,000 troops. Seoul rejected the demand. A mediator told Reuters in Baghdad the militants had agreed to give more time for talks on his fate. Full Article : nytimes.com
USA on 06.22.04 @ 02:17 PM CST [ more..]
Monday, June 21st
The Sour Smell of Spoiled Ballots
By Greg Palast, AlterNet. Posted June 21, 2004.In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate. This year, it could get worse. These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-round. Full Article
USA on 06.21.04 @ 08:55 PM CST [ link]
Did Ashcroft 'Behead' an Innocent Man
Did Ashcroft 'Behead' an Innocent Man in an Ohio Election-terror Scam? by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis While the major media screams about the latest beheading in the Middle East, John Ashcroft's destruction of a man in the middle west -- likely for political purposes -- has gone unnoticed. The ghastly court appearance here in Columbus, Ohio, of Nuradin Abdi has underscored the high likelihood that the Bush Administration used variations of torture to break this impoverished Somali immigrant. And his dubious indictment may well have been used to overshadow a campaign visit here by John Kerry. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio. On Monday, June 14, the eve of Kerry's two-day visit here, Attorney-General Ashcroft dramatically seized national headlines by unsealing a month-old four-count indictment of Abdi, a Somali native living in Columbus. "The American heartland was targeted for death and destruction by an al-Qaeda cell allegedly which included a Somali immigrant who will now face justice," Ashcroft boasted. Full Article
USA on 06.21.04 @ 08:07 PM CST [ link]
Iraqis See U.S. Sham as Abuse Trials Open
'People who gave orders will never be punished' by Todd Richissin and Gail Gibson BAGHDAD, Iraq - Court-martial proceedings against Maryland-based U.S. soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners are to begin here today, but among many Iraqis the verdict on the legal process is already in: It's a sham. Their evidence has little to do with what went on inside Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities and more to do with conditions outside those walls more than a year after American promises of a new Iraq were made: Government buildings are still charred shells, clogged streets are still without traffic signals, gasoline supplies are limited, hospitals are filled with maimed Iraqis, morgues are overflowing with the dead. Full Article
USA on 06.21.04 @ 02:19 PM CST [ link]
Simple Minded President Was No Friend of Africa
The East African Standard (Nairobi)Makau Mutua
Nairobi President Ronald Reagan pursued a corrosive, hateful and ultimately racist policy towards Africa. It is shocking that the American Press has over the past week engaged in revisionist history over President Reagan's legacy. He was perhaps the most polarising, insensitive and simple-minded American president of the past century. Both his domestic and foreign policies were disastrous. in the US, who can forget his cutbacks on social programmes, including lunch programmes for needy school children, his sacking of striking airport tower control workers, his opposition to affirmative action, his refusal to recognise the Aids crisis, his tripling of the nation's red ink, and his coddling of racist individuals and groups such as Bob Jones University? In foreign affairs, he supported Contras, destabilised Nicaragua, traded arms for hostages with Iran, paid homage to Nazis by his visit to a death camp in Eastern Europe, and committed countless other foreign policy blunders. But Reagan saved his most hateful policies for Africa. With Jeane Kirkpatrick, his UN ambassador, Reagan developed and amplified the policy of support for right-wing dictatorships around the world, as long as those despotic states could be used as pawns in the Cold War. Thus, he supported Apartheid South Africa, and declared that Nelson Mandela and the ANC were terrorists. He vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Sanctions Act, but was overridden by the Congress and it became law. You may also recall that Reagan referred to Jonas Savimbi's Unita killers as freedom fighters! Full Article
Africa on 06.21.04 @ 02:14 PM CST [ link]
Refugees opt for Zimbabwe
By Alfred Chagonda
www.herald.co.zw ZIMBABWE now hosts more than 10 000 refugees, mostly from troubled central and east African countries. In an interview, the Director of Social Services, Mr Sydney Mhishi, said the country was now looking after 10 282 refugees, almost all from Africa although there were about 80 from Near East countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. By end of the week, another 14 asylum-seekers were awaiting vetting at the Waterfalls Transit Centre in Harare. Zimbabwe’s prolonged years of peace, tranquillity and stability, coupled with a good human rights record since independence in 1980, has seen the country attracting the refugees. Mr Mhishi said while asylum-seekers go to all countries in the region, those that came here said they preferred Zimbabwe because it was a peaceful country. Mr Mhishi said the refugees in the country come from Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo, Bangladesh, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, Bosnia, Cameroon, Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Armenia, Kenya, Eritrea, Pakistan and Mauritius. Full Article
Africa on 06.21.04 @ 11:40 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, June 20th
Fishy reports on Beheaded US Hostage - Johnson
This was CNN's report: June 19, 2004 Al Qaeda militants kill American hostageHis body was found Friday in northern Riyadh soon after an Islamist Web site posted photographs of his decapitated body. U.S. officials said the remains were "definitely" Johnson's. Yahoo! News: Sun, Jun 20, 2004 Saudis Search for Slain Hostage's Body Saudi officials had reported that Johnson's body was found Friday dumped on the northern outskirts of the capital, hours after his captors killed and decapitated him and posted Web photos of his severed head. But officials backtracked Saturday. "We haven't found the body yet," said Adel al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah in Washington. "We think we know the area where it is." Whose remains did US officials identify as "definitely" Johnson's?
USA on 06.20.04 @ 11:27 AM CST [ more..]
Saturday, June 19th
U.S. Missiles Kill 20 Fallujah Residents
U.S. Missiles Kill 20 Fallujah Residents uscrusade.com comment:"In an effort to keep the propaganda running about an Iraq and al-Qaeda link, the US calls this attack on a home in Iraq that killed women and children, ' an attack on an al-Qaeda safe house'. This is just part of their ongoing attempt to distract US voters from the 9/11 panel report which states there were no ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda - an argument Bush and Blair have uses repeatedly in an attempt to justify their invasion of Iraq."
USA on 06.19.04 @ 06:31 PM CST [ link]
Tracing the Halliburton money trail to Nigeria
The Cheney Connectionby Doug Ireland, www.laweekly.comWas Halliburton, the oil conglomerate once headed by Dick Cheney, involved in a massive $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria on Cheney’s watch? Hopes that the veil may finally be lifted on yet another odoriferous Halliburton scandal were raised last Friday, when it was announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has finally opened a formal investigation into the alleged bribery - which French authorities have been probing for a year. In Paris, official documents revealing that Cheney might be among those indicted on corruption charges as a result of the French investigation made front-page news there last Christmas - but not here. The newly launched SEC probe was undoubtedly sparked by the latest revelations in the French investigation. A Halliburton London lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler - identified by the French investigating magistrate conducting the international bribery probe as the bagman who controlled the secret $180 million "slush fund" set up (according to French press reports) by a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) - admitted in mid-May, under oath, making two payments from the slush fund totaling nearly $1 million to two top KBR executives. At the heart of the complicated scandal is a $6 billion gas-liquefaction factory - one of the largest in the world - built in Nigeria on behalf of oil mammoth Shell by Halliburton in partnership with a large French petro-engineering company, Technip. Nigeria has been rated by the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International as the second-most corrupt country in the world, surpassed only by Bangladesh. The French investigation is the first under a new statute, passed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and ratified by France in 2000, making bribe giving in the course of business transactions a crime. The U.S. is one of the 30-country member signatories to the OECD conventions, and U.S. law has banned such payments for 25 years. Full Article
Africa on 06.19.04 @ 04:18 PM CST [ link]
U.N. Admits Mistake in Iran Nuclear Report
www.reuters.comVIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog was forced to make an embarrassing admission Thursday -- that it had wrongly accused Iran of withholding information about imports of potentially weapons-related technology. Full Article
USA on 06.19.04 @ 02:31 PM CST [ link]
U.S. More Than Two Dozen Secret Detention Facilities Worldwide
www.humanrightsfirst.orgWASHINGTON, D.C. (June 17) – A new report from Human Rights First (the new name of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) outlines the scope of the global network of U.S. detention facilities holding suspects in the "war on terror." The report lists more than two dozen facilities that have been reported by Human Rights First sources and the media; at least half of these operate in total secrecy. In addition to listing known detention facilities – including prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Force Base, and Abu Ghraib – the report, "Ending Secret Detentions" provides an accounting of U.S. military detention facilities reported in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, and aboard U.S. ships at sea (see attached list). "The abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib cannot be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, the Director of Human Rights First's U.S. Law and Security Program. "The United States government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability, or law." Full Article
USA on 06.19.04 @ 01:47 PM CST [ link]
The oil that troubles US-China waters
By Travis Tanner www.atimes.comEarly this month, crude oil futures prices peaked at a 21-year high, reaching US$42.45 a barrel. In conjunction with terrorist risk premiums, China's surging demand for oil is a major driver behind the soaring prices. In fact, since the beginning of 2000, China has accounted for 40% of the growth in world oil demand. Oil is an essential ingredient in China's successful formula for economic growth. It is critical for driving industrial activity, generating power, constructing infrastructure projects and fueling the rapidly growing number of automobiles on China's roads. Today, imports comprise one-third of China's total oil consumption, growing 31% last year, and by 2020 some estimates put China's dependency on foreign oil as high as 70%. Oil consumption in the United States, the world's largest consumer of petroleum, is expected to grow nearly 50% over the next 20 years. Beijing, also on the fast track to oil dependency, is on a search to secure energy sources across the globe. This quest, in addition to China's heavy reliance on Middle Eastern oil, suggests a potential rivalry between the US and China over access to oil-rich regions. Many analysts argue that the trajectories of the world's two most voracious oil consumers will inevitably lead to a clash over the scarce resource. full article
USA on 06.19.04 @ 12:27 PM CST [ link]
Friday, June 18th
Occupation of Iraq has Been a Rousing Success
By Chris Floyd,
www.themoscowtimes.com Surely it is now time for all the Bush-bashers and war critics -- on both left and right -- to swallow their pride, put aside their partisanship, and admit the stone-cold truth: The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a rousing success. For despite many setbacks and dark days, it cannot be denied that George W. Bush has accomplished exactly what he set out to do in launching his aggression: the installation -- through "a heavy dose of fear and violence," as one U.S. commander eloquently put it -- of a client state in Iraq, led by a strongman who will facilitate the Bush Regime's long-term (and long-declared) strategic goal of establishing a permanent military "footprint" in the key oil state, while also guaranteeing the short-term goal of opening the country to exploitation by Bush cronies and favored foreign interests. All of this has now been done -- and even sealed with the approval of the UN Security Council.
USA on 06.18.04 @ 08:19 PM CST [ more..]
China tells Bush to face facts on Iraq
www.iol.co.zaBeijing - American President George Bush needs to start facing the facts on Iraq instead of "playing with reality", Chinese state media chided Friday after an official panel found no evidence linking al-Qaeda with Saddam Hussein. "The United States would do itself and the world a huge favour by establishing a closer relationship with reality rather than wrestling with its own version of the truth, as the international credibility of American military intelligence is simply of zero value," said the China Daily. "The truth is the United States used the threat of Iraqi WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and a connection to al-Qaeda as justification for launching the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein." Despite an official inquiry into the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks finding no credible evidence of operational ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda, Bush Thursday held fast to one of his justifications for going to war in Iraq. "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Bush told reporters. The English-language China Daily, often used as tool by the government to get its point across, said the US administration had failed to produce evidence showing Saddam was going to give whatever WMD he possessed to terrorists, despite treating it as a proven fact. "It is likely the Bush team will face more backlash both at home and abroad," it said. China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, opposed the US-led war in Iraq. From: www.iol.co.zaThe missing link
USA on 06.18.04 @ 07:10 PM CST [ link]
Thursday, June 17th
MoD may release photos of abused Iraqis
by Kim Sengupta and Marie Woolf Chief Political Correspondent
Independent.co.ukThe shocking photographs of abuse of Iraqi prisoners that led to charges against British troops could become public during their court martial. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is considering releasing the images, which are said to show Iraqi inmates being forced to perform sexual acts on each other and a naked prisoner, bound and gagged, suspended in a net from a forklift truck. The photographs, allegedly taken as "trophy" pictures, form the basis for prosecution allegations against the soldiers. Full Article
USA on 06.17.04 @ 03:13 PM CST [ link]
Mohammad Atta and the 911 cover up in Florida
INN WORLD REPORT HICKS: The new book is called Welcome to Terrorland, about Mohammad Atta and the 911 cover up in Florida. There is a lot to talk about here. You are unique because a lot of these 911 books are speculative. But you do did two years of independent research in Florida obviously putting yourself through a lot of risk and danger. We want to jump in and talk about Amanda Keller, Mohammad Atta's girlfriend and maybe go to a clip later, but before we do that give us the summary of what you've found in Florida. HOPSICKER: What I found in Florida was that the government story about the terrorist conspiracy's activities before September 11th is not just an error, it s a lie. The time line is wrong. The FBI's timeline is wrong. Everything they are doing is designed to protect an operation that was under way in southwest Florida that trained, between 1999 and September 2001, literally hundreds of Arabs to fly. In other words, in 1998, there were two or three Arabs learning how to fly, by the end of '99 it was flying hundreds of them. So obviously there was a covert operation going on; the flight school where Mohammad Atta went to, Huffman Aviation in Florida is not a business and was not operating like a business. So it was, and is, something else. Full interview:
www.sanderhicks.com/hopsickerinterview.htmlAlso reproduced here
USA on 06.17.04 @ 06:11 AM CST [ link]
Wednesday, June 16th
9/11 commission discounts Saddam-Bin Laden link
Agencies
www.guardian.co.ukThe commission investigating the attacks on America of September 11 2001 has found "no credible evidence" of a relevant link between Iraq and al-Qaida, contradicting President George Bush's assertion that such a connection justified the toppling of Saddam Hussein. In a report released today, the commission found that Osama bin Laden considered cooperating with Saddam even though he opposed the Iraqi leader's secular regime. A senior Iraqi intelligence official reportedly met with Bin Laden in 1994 in Sudan, the panel found, and Bin Laden "is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded". "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred after Bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report said. "Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq," the report says. As recently as Monday, the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, asserted that Saddam had "long-established ties" with the terrorist network. Full ArticleCheney Claims al-Qaida Linked to SaddamBush backs Cheney on assertion linking Hussein, Al Qaeda
USA on 06.16.04 @ 05:30 PM CST [ link]
Secret world of US jails
Jason Burke charts the worldwide hidden network of prisons where more than 3,000 al-Qaeda suspects have been held without trial - and many subjected to torture - since 9/11 Sunday June 13, 2004
The Observer The United States government, in conjunction with key allies, is running an 'invisible' network of prisons and detention centres into which thousands of suspects have disappeared without trace since the 'war on terror' began. In the past three years, thousands of alleged militants have been transferred around the world by American, Arab and Far Eastern security services, often in secret operations that by-pass extradition laws. The astonishing traffic has seen many, including British citizens, sent from the West to countries where they can be tortured to extract information. Anything learnt is passed on to the US and, in some cases, reaches British intelligence. The disclosure of the shadowy system will increase pressure on the Bush administration over its 'cavalier' approach to human rights and will embarrass Tony Blair, a staunch ally of President George Bush. Full Article
USA on 06.16.04 @ 01:25 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, June 15th
Iran takes on west's control of oil trading
by Terry Macalisterwww.guardian.co.ukIran is to launch an oil trading market for Middle East and Opec producers that could threaten the supremacy of London's International Petroleum Exchange. A contract to design and establish a new platform for crude, natural gas and petrochemical trades is expected to be signed with an international consortium within days. Top oil producing countries are determined to seize more control of trading after being advised that existing markets such as the IPE and Nymex in New York are not working in their favour. Three years ago a former compliance director accused the IPE of manipulating prices, although these allegations were dismissed after an investigation. The Tehran oil bourse is scheduled to open in 2005, according to its architect, Mohammad Javad Asemipour, who is a personal adviser to the Iranian energy minister. "We are in the final stage of choosing a concession for what is going to be a very big development for us and the region," he said. Full Article
Africa on 06.15.04 @ 09:53 PM CST [ link]
Guinea accuses Spain of coup plot
John Vidal in Malabo
Wednesday June 16, 2004
The Guardian UK
Reproduced for Fair Use OnlyEquatorial Guinea accused Spain yesterday of trying to overthrow its government in the alleged plot by foreign mercenaries to kill the president. In an interview with the Guardian, President Teodoro Obiang's special adviser, Miguel Mifuno, accused Madrid of sending a warship to the country with 500 marines on board. He alleged that they were to have been sent in to secure the capital after mercenaries had killed the president and ministers. Mr Mifuno, a former ambassador, is the president's closest colleague. "Our intelligence sources say that the warship was going to arrive on the same date that the coup attempt was going to take place - March 8," he said.
Africa on 06.15.04 @ 09:50 PM CST [ more..]
Anti-American sentiment growing among the Kurds
In the days since the UN Security Council passed a resolution governing the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty that has no overt mention of Kurdish concerns, something has been brewing in the streets here that was unheard of just a few weeks ago: anti-American sentiment. news.yahoo.com
USA on 06.15.04 @ 10:33 AM CST [ link]
Monday, June 14th
New Terror Website Registered to a Dallas Address
jackblood.netStatements posted on an 'Islamist website,' by individuals with alleged ties to Al-Qaeda leader and former CIA protégé Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Paul M. Johnson, a U.S. contractor in Saudi Arabia. One of the statements said: "Our fighters of the Fallujah Brigade in the Arabian peninsula have kidnapped an American, a Christian, Paul M. Johnson Jr. born in 1955 and working as an aeronautics engineer," said the statement signed "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula" and published on the Islamist website (www.ansarnet.ws/vb/showthread.php?t=9351). The "Al-Qaeda group" claiming responsibility for the kidnapping posted a passport size photo of Johnson and a Lockheed-Martin business card on the website. According to their statements, he will be treated "the same the way U.S. troops have treated Iraqi prisoners." Full Article
USA on 06.14.04 @ 08:01 PM CST [ link]
Is the U.S. trying to plant WMD in Iraq?
U.S. Trucks Carrying Radioactive Materials Intercepted In Iraq-Kuwait BorderIs this one of Bush's Election 'surprises' that they were/are planning?www.tehrantimes.comTEHRAN (MNA) -– The UAE-based daily Al-Khaleej reported on Monday that Kuwaiti tariff officials have intercepted a truck loaded with radioactive materials in the Iraq-Kuwait border. The daily quoted informed sources as saying that the radioactive control team from Kuwait’s Health Ministry discovered that one of the trucks belonging to the U.S.-led coalition forces was carrying heavy radioactive materials trucks. The trucks were headed for Iraq. The daily said that such materials could only enter a country when there is permission from related bodies while the materials were secretly being carried to Iraq.
USA on 06.14.04 @ 07:47 PM CST [ more..]
U.S. Proposal to Exempt Foreigners From 'Iraqi Law'
Interim Government Resists U.S. Proposal to Exempt Foreigners From Iraqi LawTo start with, the US does not want to be accountable to any international courts. Then they illegally invaded Iraq and set up their own illegitimate government. Now they want the illegitimate Iraqi government to exempt foreigners from their laws. They already forced them allow the US army to be exempted from their laws. So is it that the US actions/abuses are not regulated by the laws of the land and are simply acts of God?By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 14, 2004; Page A01 BAGHDAD, June 13 -- In an early test of its imminent sovereignty, Iraq's new government has been resisting a U.S. demand that thousands of foreign contractors here be granted immunity from Iraqi law, in the same way as U.S. military forces are now immune, according to Iraqi sources. The U.S. proposal, although not widely known, has touched a nerve with some nationalist-minded Iraqis already chafing under the 14-month-old U.S.-led occupation. If accepted by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, it would put the highly visible U.S. foreign contractors into a special legal category, not subject to military justice and beyond the reach of Iraq's justice system. Full Article
USA on 06.14.04 @ 01:54 PM CST [ link]
Oil giant Shell admits it fuels Nigeria violence
By Dino Mahtani in Lagos
June 14, 2004, www.smh.com.au The behaviour of Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria is often indirectly responsible for a vicious cycle of violence and corruption that results in the theft of its crude oil, a leaked report funded by the oil giant says. An increase in crime in the poverty-stricken Niger Delta could force Shell out of onshore production in Africa's largest oil producer by 2008, the WAC Global Services report said. Full Article
Africa on 06.14.04 @ 10:28 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, June 13th
Reagan, Race and Remembrance
by Tim Wise If one needs any more evidence that whites and people of color live in two totally different places, politically and psychically, one need only look at the visual evidence provided by the death of Ronald Reagan. More to the point, all one needs to know about this man and his Presidency can be gleaned by looking even haphazardly at the racial and ethnic makeup of the crowds flocking to his ranch, or his library to pay tribute. So too will it be apparent from the assemblage lining the streets of DC for his funeral procession, or gathering in the Capitol Rotunda to pay respects to their departed hero. They are, and will be – in case you missed it or are waiting for the safest prediction in the history of prognostication – white. Far whiter, one should point out, than the nation over which Reagan presided, and even more so than the nation into whose soil he will be deposited within a matter of days. Full article
Tyehimba on 06.13.04 @ 09:04 PM CST [ link]
US 'meddling in Australian vote'
BBC NewsAustralia's main opposition party has accused the US of meddling in upcoming elections by criticising plans to withdraw troops from Iraq if it wins. Labor president Carmen Lawrence said she believed the Bush administration was trying to help conservative Prime Minister John Howard win the election. Australian voters do not like being told how to conduct themselves by other governments, she added. President Bush has said an Australian withdrawal would be "disastrous". His comments earlier this month have been echoed by other White House officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell. Full Article
USA on 06.13.04 @ 05:25 PM CST [ link]
Iraqi minister, cleric assassinated
Separate assassinations of a top Iraqi deputy and a Kurdish Sunni cleric, and the killing of three captives mark a bloody day in Iraq.Bassam Kuba, Iraqi undersecretary of foreign affairs, was shot dead outside his Baghdad home on Saturday as he left for work. Kuba had just returned from New York where he was part of an Iraqi mission to the United Nations. He was the first national official to be assassinated since the country's new transitional government was unveiled less than two weeks ago. aljazeera.net
USA on 06.13.04 @ 05:24 PM CST [ link]
Chavez says Bush is his real adversary in August 15 recall referendum
Long-standing tension between Caracas and Washington flared anew when President Hugo Chavez, fighting for his job in a recall vote, said US President George W. Bush -- not the Venezuelan opposition -- was his true political foe. Chavez faces a recall election August 15 that could unseat him. "Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush will face off in the August 15 referendum," Chavez told supporters. "That is the real confrontation." He said Venezuela's political battle would play out between the US president, "who wants to take over this country, and myself, who is prepared to do whatever is necessary to defend the country. "The fight is not between Chavez and" the opposition," he said. "It's between Chavez and Bush. That's the choice." If 3.75 million voters -- the number who voted for Chavez in 2000 -- vote against him August 15, he will have to step down and a new presidential election will be held. sg.news.yahoo.com
Venezuela on 06.13.04 @ 11:33 AM CST [ link]
Use of Dogs to Scare Prisoners Was Authorized
Military Intelligence Personnel Were Involved, Handlers Say  U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators. Full Article
USA on 06.13.04 @ 12:15 AM CST [ link]
Saturday, June 12th
Zimbabwe's Land Reform Justified, Says Coltart
June 10, 2004
www.herald.co.zw Key MDC legislator and fierce opponent of the land reform programme Mr David Coltart has made a U-turn. He now says there is need to redistribute land which he said was unfairly taken away from the locals by colonial settlers. Mr Coltart, the Member of Parliament for Bulawayo South, said this during debate on the Acquisition of Farm Equipment Bill in Parliament yesterday. The MDC legislator, who is the opposition party's secretary for legal affairs, said he agreed that there was need to redistribute land since it was forcibly taken by the colonial settlers in 1890. "We have always maintained that position that the landholding in this country was unjust and inequitable," Mr Coltart said.
Africa on 06.12.04 @ 09:40 PM CST [ more..]
Tsvangirai loses election petition
By Fidelis Munyoro, www.herald.co.zw THE High Court yesterday dismissed an application by MDC leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai for the nullification of the 2002 presidential poll results. Mr Tsvangirai had, in November last year, petitioned the High Court to nullify the election after the hearing of legal arguments without getting to factual arguments of the case. Justice Ben Hlatshwayo dismissed the application with costs because none of the arguments brought to court by Mr Tsvangirai warranted the invalidation of the election results. "I hereby . . . dismiss with costs the preliminary points raised by the petitioner (Tsvangirai) in that none of them on its own nor all of them collectively suffice at this stage to invalidate the election . . . dismiss with costs the relief sought by the petitioner as to the constitutional validity of section 158 of the Electoral Act (Chapter 2:01) and the Electoral Act (Modification) Notice 2002, Statutory Instrument 41D of 2002 and the declaration sought that all orders made and directions given and acts done in terms of the Electoral Act (Modification) Notice 2002, SI41D are void," ruled Justice Hlatshwayo.
Africa on 06.12.04 @ 09:25 PM CST [ more..]
Hypocrisy: The US Government's Biggest Single Problem
by Charley Reese, www.antiwar.com The biggest single problem the federal government has is its hypocrisy. It talks one way and acts another. It talks of spreading democracy while supporting dictators; it blathers about human rights while violating them; and it claims to promote the rule of law while scoffing at laws it considers inconvenient. If the basis of our foreign policy is going to be American security and American economic gains, then we ought to say so and shut up about spreading democracy and promoting human rights. Instead, we steadily destroy our credibility in the world by talking one way and acting another. We more or less invented war crimes by staging the show trials at Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of World War II. We happily hanged German and Japanese officials. Now, however, the world wants to establish a permanent international tribunal to try people for war crimes. Our reply is, "No way." Not only are we not supporting the international tribunal, but we are exacting agreements from individual countries to never offer up Americans to their jurisdiction. War crimes, applied to us, are "just politics." Full Article
USA on 06.12.04 @ 06:14 PM CST [ link]
Help the whole of Africa, says Mbeki
mg.co.zaSouth African President Thabo Mbeki said United States assistance to Africa is too focused on individual countries and should be directed in large measure toward the continent as a whole. Mbeki, making a stopover in Washington on Wednesday evening before heading to the Group of Eight summit at Sea Island, Georgia, cited US funding to combat HIV/Aids in Africa and a new foreign aid programme aimed at countries deemed to have effective governments. "We want to see targeting of the entire continent," Mbeki said, alluding to the US development programmes in Africa after making the same observation about the American approach to the HIV/Aids fight on the continent. Full Article
Africa on 06.12.04 @ 01:08 PM CST [ link]
The Pentagon's new "Terrorist Mastermind"
Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?by Michel Chossudovsky, globalresearch.caThe US intelligence apparatus has created it own terrorist organizations. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist warnings concerning the terrorist organizations which it has itself created. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program "to go after" these terrorist organizations. Counterterrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror warnings must appear to be "genuine". The objective is to present the terror groups as "enemies of America." The underlying objective is to galvanize public opinion in support of America's war agenda. The "war on terrorism" requires a humanitarian mandate. The war on terrorism is presented to as a "Just War", which is to be fought on moral grounds "to redress a wrong suffered." The Just War theory defines "good" and "evil." It concretely portrays and personifies the terrorist leaders as "evil individuals". Several prominent American intellectuals and antiwar activists, who stand firmly opposed to to the Bush administration, are nonetheless supporters of the Just War theory: "We are against war in all its forms but we support the campaign against international terrorism." To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat. Full Article
USA on 06.12.04 @ 10:04 AM CST [ link]
Friday, June 11th
Ray Charles: Music Legend Dies at 73
"I was born with music inside me," said legendary musician Ray Charles. "Music was one of my parts... Like my blood. It was a necessity for me, like food or water." After 50 years of entertaining the world, Ray Charles has died at the age of 73. He was born Ray Charles Robinson on September 23, 1930 in Albany, Georgia. His family moved to Florida when Ray was a baby. By the age of seven Charles was totally blind. His mother enrolled him in the Florida state School for the Blind in St. Augustine. For years administrators at the state schools for the blind all over the country did not know exactly what to do with the children; music was an answer. And for many the music they learned at a state school for the blind was a way out and up. The program produced some very talented and successful musicians – Ronnie Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles to name a few. www.soulshine.caWorld pays tribute to Ray CharlesTributes poured in from the music world following the death of American legend Ray Charles, the "Genius" credited with virtually inventing soul music. Top names in the recording industry united in mourning Charles, who died on Friday (AEST) at the age of 73 of complications from liver disease, after a year of health problems. "He was a fabulous man, full of humour and wit," said fellow music legend Aretha Franklin. "A giant of an artist and, of course, he introduced the world to secular soul singing," she said in a statement. The 13-time Grammy Award winner's musical legacy was praised by his lifelong friend and collaborator Quincy Jones, the renowned music producer. www.theage.com.au
USA on 06.11.04 @ 05:51 PM CST [ link]
The Burning Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Funeral GamesBy CHRIS FLOYDSome cynics say that Heaven's newest sunbeam, Ronald Reagan, was called "The Great Communicator" because he delivered his innumerable lies in words of one syllable. But this is just a typically vicious liberal canard. For Reagan truly was a great communicator, though not with words - or with facts, which he once called "stupid things." No, his genius lay in the manipulation of symbols to convey powerful messages that could no longer be voiced openly in polite society - messages of hate, envy, fear and violence. Reagan officially launched his successful 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia - not the Quaker-founded "city of brotherly love" in Pennsylvania, but a small town in the piney swamps of Mississippi, where three young civil rights workers had been brutally murdered by local officials in 1964 for the heinous crime of registering black people to vote. This was the famous "Mississippi Burning" case, a stark symbol of the era of violent race-hatred and government-sanctioned oppression. The decades-long struggle to bring full constitutional liberty into this system was fiercely resisted under the rubric of "states' rights" - a codeword for the preservation of white privilege and black subjugation. Every Southerner raised in that system (such as yours truly) understood this secret language of public bigots.
USA on 06.11.04 @ 03:13 PM CST [ more..]
Thursday, June 10th
Coke Benefiting From Child Labor in Sugar Cane Fields
WASHINGTON - Coca-Cola and other large businesses are indirectly benefiting from the use of child labor in sugarcane fields in El Salvador, according to a new report released here Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) which is calling on the company to take more responsibility to ensure that such abuses are halted. From 5,000 to 30,000 Salvadoran children, some as young as eight years old, are working in El Salvador's sugarcane plantations where injuries, particularly severe cuts, are common, according to the report, 'Turning a Blind Eye: Hazardous Labor in El Salvador's Sugarcane Cultivation.' Under Salvadoran law, 18 is the minimum age for dangerous work and 14 for most other kinds. But the relevant provisions generally go unenforced in part because the children are hired as "helpers," rather than employees that would entitle them to certain protections. Not only is the law circumvented in this way, but children who are injured in the fields often must pay for their own medical treatment despite another provision in the labor code that makes employers responsible for medical expenses for injuries incurred on the job. www.commondreams.org
USA on 06.10.04 @ 08:22 PM CST [ link]
Bush opens new rift over Middle East plan
Attempts by President George Bush to exploit the diplomatic triumph of the United Nations resolution on Iraq were last night running into stiff opposition at the G8 summit, as France joined Arab countries in deriding the White House plans for a greater Middle East initiative. Buoyed by the 15-0 UN security council vote, Mr Bush and Tony Blair were seeking a three-pronged follow-up that would involve greater Nato involvement in Iraq, plans to bring western-style democracy and economic reform to the Middle East and north Africa and a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Britain and the US believed the UN show of international unity could mark the end of the west's year-long schism and draw a close to a turbulent period in which the two leaders have been dogged by violent insurrection and allegations of torture in Iraq. "After almost two months of rough news, we had finally had a series of significant moves forward on the political side," said a senior Bush administration official. www.guardian.co.uk
USA on 06.10.04 @ 05:58 PM CST [ link]
Wednesday, June 9th
Over the Edge: The Madness of King George
By Kurt Nimmo, www.kurtnimmo.comIt's described as "erratic behavior" by Capitol Hill Blue. Bush has "wide mood swings," he rants and raves against "enemies" both domestic and foreign, and quotes the Bible like a deranged Southern preacher. It's like the Nixon days is how a worried GOP political consultant describes it. Only Bush, unlike Nixon, will not resign and fly off into the sunset. Nixon knew to get out while the getting was good.
USA on 06.09.04 @ 02:26 PM CST [ more..]
Reagan Played Decisive Role in Saddam Hussein's Survival
Agence France Presse WASHINGTON - As Americans mourn the passing of president Ronald Reagan, almost forgotten is the decisive part his administration played in the survival of Iraq's president Saddam Hussein through his eight year war with Iran. US soldiers now fighting the remnants of Saddam's regime can look back to the early 1980s for the start of a relationship that fostered the rise of the largest military in the Middle East, one whose use of chemical weapons set the stage for last year's war. More: www.commondreams.org
USA on 06.09.04 @ 02:20 PM CST [ link]
Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks
New York Times
by Joel BrinkleyWASHINGTON, June 8 - Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say. Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule. No public records of the bombing campaign exist, and the former officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. They could not even recall exactly when it occurred, though the interviews made it clear it was between 1992 and 1995. More: www.commondreams.org
USA on 06.09.04 @ 02:20 PM CST [ link]
CIA got 'legal guidance' for torture
aljazeera.netThe US Justice Department offered justification for the use of torture against al-Qaida detainees in an August 2002 memo to the White House, The Washington Post has reported. The memo said if a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, "he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al-Qaida terrorist network", the newspaper reported. The memo also said that arguments centring on "necessity and self-defence could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability" later, according to the Post. The view from the Justice Department's office of legal counsel - written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance - was contained in a 50-page document obtained by the newspaper. full article
USA on 06.09.04 @ 12:19 PM CST [ link]
Zimbabwe to nationalize land
by Stella Mapenzauswa
Reuters News AgencyHARARE, Zimbabwe—Zimbabwe plans to nationalize all the country's farmland and issue farmers with 99-year leases, Land Reform and Resettlement Minister John Nkomo was quoted as saying yesterday. A leading commercial farming group said the move was effectively a continuation of the government's drive to seize white-owned farms and could further alienate bank funding for commercial agriculture after several years of food shortages. More: www.thestar.com
Africa on 06.09.04 @ 09:36 AM CST [ link]
S Africa rejects bid on suspected mercenaries
www.rte.ieA court in South Africa has rejected a demand that the government intervene to bring home 70 suspected mercenaries being held in neighbouring Zimbabwe. The Pretoria High Court said the matter was not within its jurisdiction. The men, all travelling on South African passports, were arrested in Zimbabwe in March and accused of plotting a coup in the West African State of Equatorial Guinea. full article
Africa on 06.09.04 @ 09:20 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, June 8th
Ronald Reagan's Legacy
by William BlumRonald Reagan was not the most interventionist American president of modern times. Dwight Eisenhower retains that honor, insofar as significant extralegal meddling in other countries' politics is concerned. Reagan intervened in the face of political obstacles which would most likely have inhibited Eisenhower or any other president to a marked degree. Reagan presided over an American public grown cynical and suspicious of the overseas adventures of the CIA, the U.S. military, and other arms of the U.S. government. World opinion was yet more cynical. The previous decade had brought Indochina, Chile, Angola, Watergate, seemingly endless revelations about CIA misdeeds, exposes by former Agency officers, lengthy and relatively antagonistic Congressional investigations, oversight committees, professional CIA-watchers of the left and the center, and a media that had finally learned to ask some of the right questions and follow up on some of the right leads.
USA on 06.08.04 @ 08:58 PM CST [ more..]
America's ignorance is a threat to humanity
NEW YORK George Tenet's resignation last week came after failures of American intelligence in the Iraq war as well as in the lead-up to the Sept. 11 attacks. But the U.S. government's intelligence failures extend far beyond the CIA and the countries where America is at war or chasing terrorists. In the world's poorest regions, from the Andes to Central Asia, the U.S. government seems to operate almost blindly, facing challenges that it simply does not understand and therefore can't resolve. This isn't a problem that started in this Bush administration, though the combination of ignorance and arrogance in President George W. Bush's foreign policy has proved especially lethal. www.iht.com
USA on 06.08.04 @ 08:54 PM CST [ link]
Monday, June 7th
Riding Reagan's Coffin
by Ed WeathersForgive me, but I am about to speak ill of the dead. In the coming months, the Republican propaganda machine will shift into high gear. Their goal: to turn Ronald Reagan into a saint. Just watch. First will come the coffin in the Capitol rotunda. Then there will be a proposal to put Reagan's face on the dollar coin. Next will come a demand that his statue appear on the Washington Mall. And at the Republican Convention in September -- oh, just wait. The highlight of that week will be a long, elegiac video of Saint Ronald, with moving music, snippets of favorite speeches, and the voiceover of, say, Charlton Heston. When the video ends, there will be heard the rapturous cheers of the faithful. Then George W. Bush will try to ride Ronald Reagan's coffin back into the White House. www.memphisflyer.com
Africa on 06.07.04 @ 05:00 PM CST [ link]
Libya hits out at West in "AIDS plot" case
By Tom HeneghanTALLOIRES, France (Reuters) - Western countries criticising Libya for sentencing five Bulgarian nurses to death should show compassion for the 426 children they were convicted of infecting with the deadly HIV virus, Libya says. www.reuters.co.uk
Africa on 06.07.04 @ 04:56 PM CST [ link]
Sunday, June 6th
Gaddafi Regrets Reagan Died Without Facing Trial
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, said today he regretted that Ronald Reagan, a former US president, had died without ever being tried for 1986 air strikes that killed dozens of people, including the Libyan leader's adopted daughter. "I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appeared before justice to be held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children," Gaddafi said. Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air strikes in response to a disco bombing in West Berlin that killed three people, including two US servicemen. Washington blamed Libya for the blast. Libya said more than 40 people died in the strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi. The targets included Gaddafi's home, where his 15-month-old adopted daughter died. www.sabcnews.com
Africa on 06.06.04 @ 10:36 PM CST [ link]
Mercenaries in 'coup plot' guarded UK officials in Iraq
Shocked MP demands a rethink of the way government awards its security contracts. Special report by Antony Barnett, Solomon Hughes and Jason Burke The Observer Mercenaries accused of planning a coup in an oil-rich African state also worked under contract for the British government providing security in Iraq, raising fears about the way highly sensitive security work is awarded, The Observer has learnt. The Department for International Development (DfID) signed a £250,000 deal last summer with the South-African based Meteoric Tactical Solutions (MTS) to provide 'close protection' for department staff, including bodyguards and drivers for its senior official in Iraq. Two of the firm's owners were arrested in Zimbabwe last March with infamous British mercenary and former SAS officer Simon Mann. The men are accused of plotting an armed coup in Equatorial Guinea.
USA on 06.06.04 @ 01:00 PM CST [ more..]
Saturday, June 5th
Caribbean floods' dead, missing top 3,300
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The toll of dead and missing from floods that ravaged parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic was set at more than 3,300 on Friday as aid workers reached the most remote areas. In Haiti, the official death toll was at 1,191 and the number of missing at 1,484. The figures on the Dominican side of the border were 395 dead and 274 missing. That brought the overall toll to at least 3,344 from flooding caused by days of rains that unleased torrents of water and mudslides on the border area of Hispaniola island nearly two weeks ago. www.timesunion.com
Caribbean on 06.05.04 @ 11:21 PM CST [ link]
Blair 'fooling himself' over Iraqi WMD
500,000 protest Bush's visit to RomeRome, Italy, Jun. 4 (UPI) -- Thousands filled Rome's streets Friday to protest President Bush's visit and their own country's involvement in the Iraq war, CNN reported. Police deployed some 10,000 officers around Rome as an estimated 500,000 protested Bush's arrival and Italy's active support of the U.S. war in Iraq. washingtontimes.comBlair 'fooling himself' over Iraqi WMDBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair is fooling himself if he thinks weapons of mass destruction will still be found in Iraq, says the former head of the US-British Iraq Survey Group (ISG).
USA on 06.05.04 @ 09:46 PM CST [ more..]
90 days to stop another disaster in Africa
Unfolding crisis in Sudan could see 300,000 deaths Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
The Guardian UKA huge operation to tackle the world's worst unfolding humanitarian crisis will swing into action today following a warning that up to 300,000 people in Sudan could die within months even if essential aid gets through. The United Nations will launch a 90-day emergency programme after securing promises of funds from the US and other countries at a conference in Geneva. The UN yesterday described a developing catastrophe in the region of Darfur and said the relief effort was crucial "to avoid massive death and starvation". www.guardian.co.uk
USA on 06.05.04 @ 05:33 PM CST [ link]
Friday, June 4th
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill BluePresident George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind. In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state." Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home. "It reminds me of the Nixon days," says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. "Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That's the mood over there." In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be "God's will" and then tells aides to "f--k over" anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration. Full Article at www.capitolhillblue.com
USA on 06.04.04 @ 01:08 PM CST [ link]
Aljazeera airs tape of Italian captives
Aljazeera has run a video of three Italian contractors being held in Iraq by anti-occupation forces.Aljazeera also showed an Arabic-language statement by their captors, calling itself the Green Battalion, urging Italian people to demonstrate against the policies of US President George Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. More at aljazeera.netFlashback: 'US knew Iraq was WMD free'Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr Imad Khadduri has told Aljazeera.net he does not believe any ''errors'' were made regarding WMD intelligence. Dr Khadduri, a former senior Iraqi nuclear scientist who worked for the Iraqi nuclear programme from 1968 to 1998, said there was a deliberate media blackout of evidence proving Iraq did not possess WMD, and that to redress the balance he had written a book in English to have his witness testimony made available to the world. More at aljazeera.net
USA on 06.04.04 @ 12:57 AM CST [ link]
Thursday, June 3rd
America is First in Deranged
"My criticism of the United States is not concerned with how it wishes to order its own society, but about how its activities spill over into the rest of the world. Its actions in the world too often resemble those of an ugly drunk pushing his way into your living room and puking all over the carpet." Article at counterpunch.orgAmerica is breaching international law at willMeanwhile, a critical issue - since it focuses on the on-going process of killings and abuse of Muslims - is the ever-more expansive revelation of the US military’s violent abuse of Muslim prisoners. Every day brings new tales of horror regarding the inhumanity of the US military towards its captives not only in Iraq, but also in Guantanamo Bay, and, once again, in Afghanistan. It was not enough to kill Afghan and other Muslim prisoners held captive in trucks and with their hands tied in Qila Janghi; nor was it enough to carry them across to Guantanamo Bay and hold them like captive animals for years without being charged; they had to be kept alive and abused in Afghanistan after the end of the war against the Taliban regime. The more one delves into the whole issue of the large-scale and clearly systematic abuse of Muslim prisoners in US custody, one realises that the US is guilty of war crimes according to the principles that it itself upheld after WWII. www.jang.com.pk
USA on 06.03.04 @ 07:45 PM CST [ link]
A First Look at "Fahrenheit 9/11"
Controversy aside, the new Michael Moore film is a fine documentary By MARY CORLISS/CANNES A few years ago, Michael Moore spoke with then-Governor George W. Bush, who told the muckraker: "Behave yourself, will ya? Go find real work." Moore has made trouble for so many powerful people he has become a media power of his own. He can even make celebrities of mere movie reviewers: When his latest cinematic incendiary device, "Fahrenheit 9/11," had its first press screening Monday morning, American critics emerging from the theater were besieged by a convoy of TV and radio crews from networks around the world who wanted to know what they thought of Moore’s blast at the Bush Administration. Full Article at: www.time.com
USA on 06.03.04 @ 03:09 PM CST [ link]
Wednesday, June 2nd
Will the NY Times Pay For Its Crimes?
by Ahmed Amr
www.dissidentvoice.org In a recent Guardian article titled 'Prime Time for Liars and Sleaze Artists' (3/8/2004), Peter Preston quotes Kurt Eichenwald, a New York Times reporter. "Pathological liars are pathological liars. They lie. I have come across more than my share of Blair-type liars. They are all the same. Once they are caught, they pretend to be confessing -- then lie all over again ... And all of them -- as you dig deeper into their false confessions -- are thoroughly, thoroughly unrepentant ...". Over at Salon.com, another NYT reporter, Judith "WMD" Miller, was still defending the lies of the Times. "I was f--king right." Eichenwald is well advised to stop preaching on the pages of the Guardian and start giving sermons in Times Square. After his indignant outburst in an English paper, it would be interesting to hear Kurt's critique of the lame mea culpa that his employer published just last week. www.dissidentvoice.org
USA on 06.02.04 @ 09:07 PM CST [ link]
Washington turns the anti-Cuba lash on Jamaica
Like the Energizer bunny of the television commercial, the United States government just never quits when it decides on certain courses of action. Every new step it takes seems to reinforce the previous step, as well as the rightness of what it is doing, even if this is demonstrably outdated, ill-advised, shopworn or downright stupid. The most egregious example of this fixity of mind is its relations with its close neighbour, Cuba. Since the middle of the 19th century, the United States has had an interest in Cuba far different from its relationship with any other country. More at: jamaicaobserver.com
Caribbean on 06.02.04 @ 02:03 PM CST [ link]
U.N. Peacekeepers Establish Post in Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- U.N. peacekeepers have established their command post in Haiti, preparing to take over from an American-led force later this month despite uncertainty over troop numbers, funding and how to help thousands of flood victims. customwire.ap.orgU.S. peacekeeping troops leaving Haiti
Caribbean on 06.02.04 @ 11:58 AM CST [ link]
New archaelogical findings may re-shape Sudanese history
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA)Historians may have to revise their previous beliefs about the history of the Nile River valley and human history following the recent discovery of seven statues in Karma, northern Sudan, south of the Third Cataract, which represented monarchs during the ancient Nubian Kingdom. In a recent report, Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) reported that a group of archaeologists working in the Sudan discovered the statues. These researchers established that five of them, namely Taharqa, Tanoutamon, Senkamanisken, Anlamani and Aspelta, date back to the era of Nubian Kings. www.countrywatch.com
Africa on 06.02.04 @ 11:10 AM CST [ link]
The Return of the Draft, a Bipartisan Production
Barring a sudden reversal in the direction of US foreign policy, a strong bipartisan push to reinstate the draft can be expected soon after the November elections. Whether or not Bush wins is irrelevant. The logic of empire requires more boots on the ground, and conscription looks like the only way to get them. In fact the campaign for the draft is already under way, though election-year politics have dictated a nuanced approach. Long-dormant draft boards have been quietly reactivated and restaffed -- even as the Bush administration continues to claim, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that current troop levels are sufficient. Full Article: www.duckdaotsu.org
USA on 06.02.04 @ 03:29 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, June 1st
Media Fall Short on Iraq, Venezuela
by Mark Weisbrot Last week the New York Times published an 1100-word note "From the Editors" criticizing its own reporting on the build-up to the Iraq war and the early stages of the occupation. On Sunday the newspaper's Public Editor went further, citing "flawed journalism" and stories that "pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors." This kind of self-criticism is important, because the media played an important role in convincing the American public -- and probably the Congress as well -- that the war was justified. Unfortunately, these kinds of mistakes are not limited to the New York Times -- or to reporting on Iraq. Venezuela is a case in point. The Bush administration has been pushing for "regime change" in Venezuela for years now, painting a false and exaggerated picture of the reality there. As in the case of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and links to Al-Qaeda, the Administration has gotten a lot of help from the media. Reporting on Venezuela relies overwhelmingly on opposition sources, many of them about as reliable as Ahmed Chalabi. Although there are any number of scholars and academics -- both Venezuelan and international -- who could offer coherent arguments on the other side, their arguments almost never appear. For balance, we usually get at most a poor person on the street describing why he likes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, or a sound bite from Chavez himself denouncing "imperialist intervention." www.commondreams.org
USA on 06.01.04 @ 06:32 PM CST [ link]
10 African Countries Working on Nile River Regulations
by Cathy MajtenyiNairobi Officials from 10 African countries bordering on the Nile River and its tributaries are drawing up regulations for the use of the world's longest river. The Nile River meeting taking place in Uganda. The weeklong meeting in Uganda is the third such gathering of experts in recent months to negotiate an agreement on the use of the Nile River. The discussions are taking place under the Uganda-headquartered Nile Basin Initiative, a program that began in 1999 to bring the 10 countries together on how best to share and manage the world's longest river. www.voanews.comAfrican Union to Send Mission into War-Torn Darfur to Oversee Cease-FireThe African Union is preparing to send a mission into the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan to oversee a cease-fire between the Sudanese government and warring rebels. A spokesman for the African Union, Desmond Orjiako, says 10 military and civilian observers plan to travel to Sudan's capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday, then on to the Darfur region to begin their mission. Mr. Orjiako says the main aim of its cease-fire monitoring commission is to ensure that the Sudanese government and the two main rebel groups operating there, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, stop their fighting. The African Union will be happy to see that all the conflict parties drop their guns and cooperate with the observers, and ensure that the cease-fire is observed, Mr. Orjiako said. english.chosun.comMiners Drawn to Illegal Congo Uranium20 Die in Southwest Somalia Clan FightingCease-fire in eastern Congo fails
between government troops and former rebel forcesCourt: Taylor Not Immune From Prosecution
Africa on 06.01.04 @ 03:44 PM CST [ link]
'Friendly fire' killed American football star in Afghanistan
Military Officials conceded at the weekend that a former American football star, who left his multimillion-dollar career to join the armed forces after the 11 September attacks and was killed in action in Afghanistan last month, was probably a victim of "friendly fire". The death of Corporal Patrick Tillman on 22 April shocked the US and was a reminder to many Americans of the continuing perils for soldiers in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. At the time, the US Army said he had been shot by enemy fire while on patrol south-west of Khost, near the Pakistan border. independent.co.ukCaught lying againGiving few details, the Army offered the revised version of his fate after reports that he may have been killed by "friendly fire" surfaced in newspapers in Arizona on Saturday. It is an embarrassment for the US military, however, which had earlier given a fairly detailed account of the events leading up to his death. In that version, Cpl Tillman was said to have died after the second unit in a two-unit convoy came under attack and he turned back with his men to help his comrades. - uscrusade.comBush's Iraqi memorabilia - Saddam Hussein's pistol
USA on 06.01.04 @ 01:39 PM CST [ link]
West Africa move to common currency
ABUJA, June 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Five west African states have agreed to take urgent and decisive actions to introduce a common currencyby next July 1, an official statement released in the Nigerian capital said Tuesday. The currency with the name of "eco" was billed to have been introduced to the states of Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia by Jan. 1, 2003, but the date was shifted due to the countries' inability to meet four convergence criteria. The criteria are budgetary discipline, reduced inflationary financing, price stability and healthy reserves position. A statement issued by the Accra-based West African Monetary Institute in Abuja said Tuesday the five countries have decided to improve compliance with the convergence criteria and ratification of all signed statutes promptly. xinhuanet.com
Africa on 06.01.04 @ 11:39 AM CST [ link]
Aristide gets diplomatic welcome in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was welcomed to South Africa yesterday in a style reserved for visiting heads of state, ending a three-month search for what he maintains will be a "temporary home" in exile. Before leaving Jamaica on Sunday, Aristide insisted he was still the elected president of Haiti and promised to return. www.jamaicaobserver.com
USA on 06.01.04 @ 11:25 AM CST [ link]
The lying game
news.independent.co.ukAn A-Z of the Iraq war and its aftermath, focusing on misrepresentation, manipulation, and mistakesA) Mohammed Atta. The Bush administration claimed that a meeting between the lead hijacker of the 11 September attacks and a senior Iraqi intelligence officer proved a connection between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein. But there is no evidence such a meeting took place. B) Bush and Blair: The two leaders have reacted strongly to all suggestions they misled their respective electorates over the war, and maintain time will prove they were right to go to war. Both, though, are suffering poll difficulties, as problems in Iraq become worse, and each needs speedy improvement to shore up his position. C) Ahmed Chalabi. The leader of the Iraq National Congress, who is a member of the Iraq Governing Council, is now accused of having duped the Bush administration, as well as the media, into believing that Saddam Hussein represented a direct threat to US and British security. D) Dollars. Between 1992 and the US raid on Ahmed Chalabi's home last week, the US government channelled more than $100m (£55m) to his Iraqi National Congress. The money may have been a motivating factor for defectors to say what they thought the Americans wanted to hear. That funding has now been stopped. More at: independent.co.uk or commondreams.org
USA on 06.01.04 @ 11:22 AM CST [ link]
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