Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader wanted for war crimes, is being flown to his home country following his arrest in Nigeria.
The warlord was caught trying to slip across Nigeria’s north-eastern border with Cameroon, a police spokesman told Reuters.

Mr Taylor was then escorted to a nearby military barracks, where a Reuters reporter saw him walk on to the runway surrounded by about 20 soldiers.

The plane took off en route for the Liberian capital, Monrovia, a security official said.
guardian.co.uk

Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. have made an oil discovery off the coast of Gabon in West Africa that could hold as much as 1 billion barrels of oil and gas. The discovery could be the largest find so far this year.

San Ramon-based Chevron (NYSE: CXV) is the operator of the field, with a 51 percent stake. It acquired its stake in 2004, and exploratory drilling began in January. Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) owns a 40 percent stake, with the remaining 9 percent stake held by Dangote Energy Equity Resources. The well was drilled in the Nigeria Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone, in the deep waters of the Gulf of Guinea, approximately 190 miles north of the city of Sao Tome, according to the company.
bizjournals.com

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s presidential race has gone sharply negative with attempts to tie the front-runner to Hugo Chavez and portray him as a leftist revolutionary in the same mold as the Venezuelan president.

After weeks of leveling unsubstantiated allegations that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s campaign has been infiltrated by Chavez supporters, the conservative National Action Party went even further in a TV ad aired this month.
yahoo.com

‘Negative’? This will probably ensure Lopez Obrador’s election.

…The decisions by Venezuela, Uruguay and Argentina to cut all ties with the SOA and its legacy of terror and repression is an expression of the growing power of grassroots organizing within those countries. Popular movements have swept leaders into power who adhere to the will of the people.

Chile and Bolivia might very well be next to reject SOA training. While civil society in Latin America never had a doubt about it, there’s now also a number of new Latin American presidents like Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, for whom the SOA stands synonymous with torture and the repressive military regimes that killed their loved ones. When Augusto Pinochet came to power with the help of SOA-trained generals in the September 11, 1973 coup, Michelle Bachelet’s father was detained under charges of treason. Following months of daily torture at Santiago’s Public Prison, he suffered cardiac arrest and died. In Bolivia, SOA graduates played key roles on every level of the repression campaign against the social movements of which Evo Morales is a part.
soaw.org

AMMAN — A leading U.S. security firm has offered to provide forces for any counter-insurgency mission around the world.

J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA told the Special Operations Forces Exhibition (Sofex-2006), that his company could supply private soldiers to any country. Black, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism coordinator, said Blackwater has been marketing the concept of private armies for low-intensity conflicts.

“About a year ago, we realized we could do it,” Black said.
Blackwater has been a leading private security firm in Iraq. The company provides thousands of foreign and Iraqi personnel for government and private security missions.

In his presentation in Amman, Jordan, on March 27, Black said Blackwater could supply peace-keeping forces. He said the company was capable of providing a brigade-sized force on alert.

One option, Black said, was for Blackwater to provide forces for Sudan’s Darfour province. He said the company could bolster existing peace-keeping forces from the African Union.

“I believe there is a contribution to be made by a small force,” Black said. “The issue is who’s going to let us play on their team?”
worldtribune.com

With the American raid on the Mustafa mosque, the occupation of Iraq is rapidly reaching a point at which it is no longer tenable: as the Shi’ite giant awakens, the country is about to become a battleground in a much larger war, one that will envelop much of the Middle East.
antiwar.com

Fear Up Harsh: The Iraqi Civil War in Context
The causes underlying any civil war are always complex, confused, even contradictory — as one would expect in an outbreak of madness. But those seeking to discover some of the key precipitating factors behind Iraq’s furious plunge into chaos and disintegration might find one of them in the records of an obscure Congressional committee meeting on August 10, 2004.

At that meeting, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, General Peter Pace (now head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General Bryan Brown, head of Special Operations Command, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee. In a long session larded with the usual rhetorical posturing, mutual backscratching with the committee’s rubberstamp Republican majority – and a couple of polite queries from the timid Democratic minority – Wolfowitz announced the Pentagon’s plan to give money, arms and training to a network of local militias in trouble spots around the world. These irregular forces – “not just armies,” Wolfowitz emphasized – would be used to “counter terrorism and insurgencies,” provide greater internal security” in regions of American interest and “deny sanctuary” to America’s designated enemies, according to Pentagon transcripts of the testimony.

General Brown said the use of militas was part of the “unconventional warfare” being waged by the Bush Administration across the globe, “whereby special forces accomplishes our national objectives through, by and with surrogate forces.” General Pace gave the legislators a view of the scope of such operations, mentioning “Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Georgia, Paraguay, Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iran” and of course Iraq, which he mentioned twice. Wolfowitz told the Congressman that Bush wanted $500 million to set up this network – his own personal Janjaweed.

Sectarian threats purge 30,000 Iraqis from homes

30-40 Mutilated Bodies Found Each Day Around Baghdad

Americans’ call for removal of Iraqi PM threatens rift with Shias

US admits attack target contained a mosque

US led coalition no longer responsible for Iraq: Daniel Pipes
Three years on from the invasion of Iraq, where do the neo-conservatives, who were so influential in the lead up to war, stand now?

One of them, Daniel Pipes, arrived in Australia today, and he says that even if Iraq does descend into full-scale civil war, it would not be a strategic tragedy.

Arab summit opens with pledge of support to Palestinians, Iraq

Arabs renew peace offer to Israel
Arab leaders meeting in Sudan on Tuesday promoted a land-for-peace offer to Israel, even as Israelis voted in polls that could give their next government a mandate to impose permanent borders with the Palestinians.

US cuts diplomatic ties with Hamas government

Arab Nations Urged to Enter Nuclear Club

‘Saudi secretly working with Pak experts’
Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing western security sources.

Rice: Iran a Menace Beyond Nuclear Issue
…”We need now to broaden that thinking and that coalition, not just to what Iran is doing on the nuclear side but also what they’re doing on terrorism,” Rice said.

Neo-con cabal blocked 2003 nuclear talks
WASHINGTON – The George W Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neo-conservatives who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials.

With this cluster of good news, it becomes clear that we are sitting back watching a long-term strategy unfold, as unthinkable as that may be to some. If anybody doubts who blew the golden dome off that mosque…since that event, the US has turned on the Shia and embraced the Sunni/Baathists, and unleashed the full chaos so many of us have insisted was the strategy all along. Creating Hamas, propelling it into power, and then isolating Palestine, forcing response from the Arab states… If we were unable three years ago to imagine the horror that would ultimately ensue, now as we see it unfolding day by day…the unthinkable becomes real.

Here’s an update on Deb Mayer, the teacher who said her contract was not renewed because she answered a student’s question about whether she would participate in a demonstration for peace. (See “Teacher Awaits Day in Court.”)

Her case involves an incident that occurred on January 10, 2003, at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana.

The students were reading an article in Time for Kids about peace protests. She responded to the student’s question by saying she sometimes honks for peace and that it’s important to seek out peaceful solutions both on the playground and in society. Afterwards, the parents of one of the students got angry and insisted that she not speak about peace again in the classroom. Mayer’s principal so ordered her.

When the school district did not renew Mayer’s contract at the end of the semester, she sued for wrongful termination and for violation of her First Amendment rights.

On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer’s case, granting summary judgment to the defendants.

The judge said the school district was within its rights to terminate Mayer because of various complaints it received from parents about her teaching performance.

But beyond that, Judge Barker ruled that “teachers, including Ms. Mayer, do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions with their students during the instructional period.”
progressive.org

The corporatist Republicans (“amnesty!”) are fighting with the racist Republicans (“fence!”), and it provides an opportunity for progressives to step forward with a clear solution to the immigration problem facing America.

Both the corporatists and the racists are fond of the mantra, “There are some jobs Americans won’t do.” It’s a lie.

Americans will do virtually any job if they’re paid a decent wage. This isn’t about immigration – it’s about economics. Industry and agriculture won’t collapse without illegal labor, but the middle class is being crushed by it.

The reason why thirty years ago United Farm Workers’ Union (UFW) founder Caesar Chávez fought against illegal immigration, and the UFW turned in illegals during his tenure as president, was because Chávez, like progressives since the 1870s, understood the simple reality that labor rises and falls in price as a function of availability.

As Wikipedia notes: “In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valley to the border of Mexico to protest growers’ use of illegal aliens as temporary replacement workers during a strike. Joining him on the march were both the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. Chávez and the UFW would often report suspected illegal aliens who served as temporary replacement workers as well as who refused to unionize to the INS.”

Working Americans have always known this simple equation: More workers, lower wages. Fewer workers, higher wages.

Progressives fought – and many lost their lives in the battle – to limit the pool of “labor hours” available to the Robber Barons from the 1870s through the 1930s and thus created the modern middle class. They limited labor-hours by pushing for the 50-hour week and the 10-hour day (and then later the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day). They limited labor-hours by pushing for laws against child labor (which competed with adult labor). They limited labor-hours by working for passage of the 1935 Wagner Act that provided for union shops.

And they limited labor-hours by supporting laws that would regulate immigration into the United States to a small enough flow that it wouldn’t dilute the unionized labor pool. As Wikipedia notes: “The first laws creating a quota for immigrants were passed in the 1920s, in response to a sense that the country could no longer absorb large numbers of unskilled workers, despite pleas by big business that it wanted the new workers.”

Do a little math. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 7.6 million unemployed Americans right now. Another 1.5 million Americans are no longer counted because they’ve become “long term” or “discouraged” unemployed workers. And although various groups have different ways of measuring it, most agree that at least another five to ten million Americans are either working part-time when they want to work full-time, or are “underemployed,” doing jobs below their level of training, education, or experience. That’s between eight and twenty million un- and under-employed Americans, many unable to find above-poverty-level work.

At the same time, there are between seven and fifteen million working illegal immigrants diluting our labor pool.
commondreams.org

Well where are the ‘progressives’ then on NAFTA and CAFTA? The obvious solution is a hemsipheric workers’ movement.

Bush Wants to Make IMF and World Bank Even Worse
Tucked away deep in the new “National Security Strategy” that Bush released on March 16 was some bad news for Third World countries: Bush wants the IMF and World Bank to shove the free market even further down their throats.

Chapter VI of that document is entitled “Ignite a New Era of Global Economic Growth Through Free Markets and Free Trade.”

It boasts of all the new free trade agreements the Bush Administration has negotiated, and it vows to create a Middle East Free Trade Area by 2013. (It hopes to sign a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, but that one may have been set back by the port controversy.)

The chapter warns of some challenges, including the fact that some countries have the audacity to “restrict the free flow of capital, subverting the vital role that wise investment can play in promoting economic growth.” This, even though countries like China, India, and Chile that place some controls on capital flow have had much greater economic success than others and did not suffer the turbulence caused by capital flight that many countries contended with in the late 1990s.

As for Third World countries with natural resources like oil, the chapter is quite clear: “The Administration will work with resource-rich countries to increase their openness, transparency, and rule of law,” it says. This will “attract the investment essential to developing their resources and expanding the range of energy suppliers.” By “diversifying the suppliers,” the Administration says its plan “diminishes the leverage of irresponsible rulers.”

In a section on “strengthening international financial institutions,” the document amazingly urges the IMF and the World Bank to do more of what they do wrong.

Immigration debate triggers more protests
Thousands of students took to the streets in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas and other cities Tuesday to protest a proposed toughening of immigration policy.

The demonstrations took place as Republican senators in Washington emerged from a meeting saying they will begin debating immigration legislation this week.

Tuesday’s demonstrations, smaller than those that clogged streets over the weekend, were mostly peaceful, police said.

•In Los Angeles, 8,800 students walked out of class, said Susan Cox, a school district spokeswoman. They will have to make up the work they missed.

•In Dallas, as many as 3,000 students protested, many of them gathering at City Hall, said Lt. Rick Watson, a spokesman for the police department. Some of the students entered the building, but Watson said there were no incidents or arrests.

•In Phoenix, about 1,200 students gathered at the state Capitol, said Alan Ecker, a spokesman for the Arizona department of administration. The crowd dispersed without incident, he said.

“I’m here for my parents,” Juliana Rojo, 14, told the Associated Press. She said her parents are illegal immigrants. “They work hard. I just want them to be treated fairly.”

There’s no doubt that a grassroots impeachment movement is brewing in Vermont. Dan DeWalt’s Newfane town meeting impeachment resolution – passed also by Dummerston, Putney, Marlboro, Brookfield and, in modified form, by Brattleboro – attracted international attention. The state’s Democratic Party is now considering a call for impeachment. So you might think that Vermont is once again ahead of the pack.

But don’t believe for a moment that we can be smug about our outrage, our good common sense, and our progressive values.

True, we were the first state to outlaw slavery. True, we were the first state to debate gay marriage and grant civil rights to gays and lesbians. True, our beloved Sen. James Jeffords switched out of the Republican Party to help balance the power in the early days of the Bush Administration. True, our former governor, Howard Dean, almost swept the last presidential sweepstakes and is now chief fund-raiser and grassroots hell-raiser for the Democratic Party. True, we have a group working hard for Vermont’s secession from the Union. True, we voted loud and clear that we want Bush out of office as soon as possible.

But let’s look at reality.
commondreams.org

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Schoolchildren cheered as the first total eclipse in years plunged Ghana into daytime darkness Wednesday, a solar show sweeping northeast from Brazil to Mongolia.

As the heavens and Earth moved into rare alignment, all that could be seen of the sun were the rays of its corona – the usually invisible extended atmosphere of the sun that glowed a dull yellow for about three minutes, barely illuminating the west African nation.
ap.org