…I am called Marcos, and among the numerous personal flaws I bear, sometimes cynically and cockily, is that of being man, macho, male.

As such I must bear, and often flaunt, a series of archetypes, clich?s, proofs.

Not only in regard to me and my sex, but also and above all in reference to woman, the female gender.

To those flaws which define me personally, someone might add the one we have as zapatistas, to wit, that of still not having lost the capacity for being astonished, for being amazed.
As zapatistas, sometimes we approach other voices which we know to be different, strange, and yet similar and appropriate.

Voices which astonish and amaze our ear with your light…and with your shadow.

Voices, for example, of women.

>From the collective which gives us face and name, journey and path, we go to great effort in choosing where to direct ear and heart.

And so now we are choosing to hear the voice of women who have no fear.

Can one listen to a light? And, if so, can one listen to a shadow?

And who else chooses, as we are today, to lend ear – and with it, thought and heart – in order to listen to those voices?

We choose. We choose to be here, to listen to and make echo for an injustice committed against women.

We choose to be fearless in order to listen to those who were not afraid to speak.

The brutality wielded by the bad Mexican governments in San Salvador Atenco on the 3rd and 4th of May, and which is still going on, to this very night, against the prisoners, especially the violence against women, is what summons us.

And not only that. Those bad governments are trying to sow fear through their actions, and, no, what is happening now is that they are sowing indignation and anger.

In a newspaper this morning, one of the individuals who, along with Vicente Fox and his cabinet, are priding themselves on “imposing the Rule of Law,” SeŠor PeŠa Nieto (alleged Governor of the State of Mexico), stated that what happened at Atenco had been planned.

If this were so, then those who were beaten, illegally detained, sexually attacked, raped, humiliated, then they planned, among other things, to be women.

We know, from the statements of those without fear who were detained, who are our compaŠeras, that they were attacked as women, their women’s bodies violated.

And we also know from their words that the violence visited upon their bodies brought pleasure to the policemen.

The woman’s body taken violently, usurped, attacked in order to obtain pleasure.

And the promise of that pleasure taken on those women’s bodies was the lagniappe which the police received along with the mandate to “impose peace and order” in Atenco.

Certainly according to the government they planned on having the body of a woman, and, they planned, with extreme depravity, that their bodies would be plunder for the “forces of law.”

SeŠor Fox, the federal leader of “change” and of the “Rule of Law,” clarified for us a few months ago that women are “two-legged washing machines” (partial disclaimer, revolving payment plans and go to the customer service department).

And it so happens that up above those machines of pleasure and of work, which are the bodies of women, include assembly instructions which the dominant system assigns them.

If a human being is born woman, she must travel throughout her life a path which has been built especially for her.

Being a girl. Being an adolescent. Being a young woman. Being an adult. Being mature. Being old.

And not just from menarche to menopause. Capitalism has discovered they can obtain objects of work and pleasure in infancy and in old age, and we have “Gobers Preciosos” and pedophile businessmen everywhere for the appropriation and administration of those objects.

Women, they say above, should travel through life begging pardon and asking permission for being, and in order to be, women.

And traveling a path full of barbed wire.

A path which must be traveled by crawling, with head and heart against the ground.

And, even so, despite following the assembly instructions, gathering scrapes, wounds, scars, blows, amputations, death.

And seeking the one responsible for those sorrows in oneself, because condemnation is also included in the crime of being women.
zmag.org

U.S. specialists are currently awaiting the White House’s next drug certification report, which is normally released in September, to see whether the Bush Administration will continue to use the document as a political tool rather than a piece of objective research. In the summer of 2005, Venezuelan officials suspended collaboration with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) over Caracas’ allegations that the U.S. agency had engaged in spying. In response, Washington decertified Venezuela as a cooperative anti-narcotics partner, and labeled it as one of two countries worldwide which “failed demonstrably to make substantial efforts” in the anti-drug campaign. However, the decision to blacklist Venezuela in the “war on drugs” was an unalloyed hoax. The Bush Administration’s accusation that Venezuela had failed to implement anti-drug measures drawn up by U.S. policymakers did Caracas an injustice. It was a judgment inspired more by political differences rather than a genuine critique based on legitimate drug-trafficking issues. In fact, the administration’s finding was little more than Washington sensing an opening to take another jab at Ch‡vez’s Venezuela for its insolent attitude. This is not surprising considering that the decertification process is so self-serving and political that it is held in low esteem worldwide because of its lack of transparency and its indifference to evidence which challenges the White House’s simplistic verdict against the leftist regime.
counterpunch.org

“Passing over, for the present, all the evils and mischiefs which monarchy has occasioned in the world, nothing can more effectually prove its usefulness in a state of civil government than making it hereditary. Would we make any office hereditary that required wisdom and abilities to fill it? And where wisdom and abilities are not necessary, such an office, whatever it may be, is superfluous or insignificant.

Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or idiot may fill. It requires some talent to be a common mechanic; but, to be a king, requires only the animal figure of man, a sort of breathing automaton”. [[1]]

These are the words of Thomas Paine written in 1791. His logic and reasoning is as sound and pertinent now as it was then. But if Thomas Paine was alive and expressed similar sentiments in Saudi Arabia today, he would face imprisonment and torture. The very idea of republicanism which the founding fathers of United States so cherished is seen as subversive in Saudi Arabia, and is actively discouraged by the government.

Saudi Arabia is a special country. It is the place of two of the Muslims’ holiest sites. It is a major oil producer. It is the only country in the world that is named after its founder: Ibn Saud. It is one of a few countries in the world that is run as a family business. It also has the world’s highest military expenditure per head. In the period 1990 to 2004, Saudi Arabia has spent more on its military than Iran, Pakistan, or even India with a population of over 1 billion people. Yet, they (Saudis and friends) still feel that Saudi Arabia needs more military hardware.

On May 18, the general in charge of U.S. arms sales told Reuters that United States was talking to Iran’s neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and The United Arab Emirates (UAE), about ways to bolster their defences.
axisoflogic.com

ONE of BritainĶs most senior military strategists has warned that western civilisation faces a threat on a par with the barbarian invasions that destroyed the Roman empire.
In an apocalyptic vision of security dangers, Rear Admiral Chris Parry said future migrations would be comparable to the Goths and Vandals while north African “barbary” pirates could be attacking yachts and beaches in the Mediterranean within 10 years.

Europe, including Britain, could be undermined by large immigrant groups with little allegiance to their host countries „ a “reverse colonisation” as Parry described it. These groups would stay connected to their homelands by the internet and cheap flights. The idea of assimilation was becoming redundant, he said.

The warnings by Parry of what could threaten Britain over the next 30 years were delivered to senior officers and industry experts at a conference last week. Parry, head of the development, concepts and doctrine centre at the Ministry of Defence, is charged with identifying the greatest challenges that will frame national security policy in the future.

If a security breakdown occurred, he said, it was likely to be brought on by environmental destruction and a population boom, coupled with technology and radical Islam. The result for Britain and Europe, Parry warned, could be “like the 5th century Roman empire facing the Goths and the Vandals”.

Parry pointed to the mass migration which disaster in the Third World could unleash. “The diaspora issue is one of my biggest current concerns,” he said. “Globalisation makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned . . . [the process] acts as a sort of reverse colonisation, where groups of people are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the internet.”

Third World instability would lick at the edges of the West as pirates attacked holidaymakers from fast boats. “At some time in the next 10 years it may not be safe to sail a yacht between Gibraltar and Malta,” said the admiral.
timesonline.co.uk

Aw come on, honey. Brittania rules the waves.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, has refused to disown a speech by his deputy criticising the US government’s attitude to the UN.

The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, had demanded Kofi Annan should repudiate Mark Malloch Brown’s remarks.

Bolton described Tuesday’s speech as a “very, very grave mistake” that could undermine efforts to reform the organisation.

“Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations,” Bolton said at the UN on Wednesday after speaking to Annan.

Annan, however, will stand by his deputy’s views, said Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief spokesman.

“There is no question of any action to be taken against the deputy secretary-general,” he said.
aljazeera.net

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip, June 10 (Reuters) – “Don’t leave me alone.”

With those parting words, and amid a sea of tears from thousands of mourners, 7-year-old Huda Ghalya bade farewell on Saturday to her mother, father and three siblings killed when a sunny day on the beach turned into the child’s darkest day.

The five family members were among seven Palestinians who died when an explosion tore through the beach in northern Gaza on Friday as Israeli artillery shelled the coastal area used by militants to fire rockets into Israel.

She was swimming when her family died yards away onshore.

“Father, father, forgive me,” Huda cried as she kneeled to kiss her father’s face at the stark cemetery in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
today.reuters.com

Paralyzed for life
The tangle of tubes and the artificial respirator attached directly to her windpipe cannot hide her beauty. A little 3-year-old girl lying in the pediatric intensive care unit at Sheba Medical Center, Maria Aman’s sad, brown almond eyes are wide open, her lips murmur in a whisper: “Food, I want to eat,” but all her limbs are paralyzed, forever. Not far from there, in an intensive care unit at Ichilov Hospital, lies her uncle Nahed, age 33 and father of two, who is in even worse condition: He is not only on a respirator and completely paralyzed, he is being kept asleep.

No, these are not the victims of this weekend’s operation, but their predecessors – victims of an airborne assassination in Gaza three weeks ago yesterday, an operation that shocked almost nobody here in Israel. The events of this past weekend should not come as a surprise to anyone: The deterioration has been going on for weeks, and the question that should be asked is not what Israel is doing to counter the Qassams, but what it is not doing. An army that fires missiles at busy streets and tank shells at a beach cannot claim there was no intent to harm innocent civilians.

US approves annual aid to Israel
The House of Representatives has approved the allocation of USD 21.3 billion in foreign assistance during 2007, including USD 2.46 billion to Israel, the largest sum received by any country.

The annual assistance package to Israel is comprised of USD 2.34 billion in military aid, in addition to USD 120 million in standard economic aid.

BAGHDAD, Iraq ć Frightened by warnings of an imminent offensive by U.S. troops massed around Ramadi, residents are pouring out of the insurgent-infested city.

U.S. and Iraqi forces cordoned off the city Saturday and were asking civilians to evacuate, residents and Iraqi officials said. Airstrikes on several residential areas picked up, and troops used loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack, Ramadi police Capt. Tahseen Aldulaimi said.

U.S. military officials refused to confirm or deny reports that an offensive in the city of 400,000 was under way.

Thousands of families remain trapped, those who have fled say. Many can’t afford to leave or lack transportation, and other families decided to wait for their children to finish final exams at school.

“The situation is catastrophic. No services, no electricity, no water,” said Sheik Fassal Guood, the former governor of Ramadi. “People in Ramadi are caught between two plagues: the vicious, armed insurgents and the American and Iraqi troops.”
seattletimes.nwsource.com

Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers deserting every month
BAGHDAD, June 10 (UPI) — Erratic pay, inadequate food and poor living conditions are driving several hundred Iraqi soldiers out of the army every month.

Lt. Moktat Uosef is a company commander in the 4th Brigade of the 7th Iraqi Army Division. U.S. Marines working with the brigade told Stars and Stripes, the U.S. armed forces newspaper, that its strength dropped from 2,200 soldiers in December to 1,400 in May.

“Many of my soldiers have not gotten paid in six months,” Uosef said. “Sometimes, they don’t eat for two or three days at a time. I tell my commander, but what else am I supposed to do?”

Desertions are a major problem in Anbar Province, the major stronghold of the insurgency. But officials say logistical problems are hurting morale far more than danger is.

In April, hundreds of soldiers staged what amounted to a short strike, refusing for two days to go on patrol. The job action strained their relationship with U.S. troops.
“We won’t make any real progress until we stop hemorrhaging the personnel,” said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kenny, who commands the Marines working with the 2nd Brigade, 7th Army.

Iraq war bill deletes US military base prohibition
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an Iraq war funding bill that would have put the United States on record against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday.

The $94.5 billion emergency spending bill, which includes $65.8 billion to continue waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to be approved by Congress next week and sent to President George W. Bush for signing into law.

As originally passed by the House of Representatives, the Pentagon would have been prohibited from spending any of the funds for entering into a military basing rights agreement with Iraq.

A similar amendment passed by the Senate said the Pentagon could not use the next round of war funding to “establish permanent United States military bases in Iraq, or to exercise United States control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq.”

WASHINGTON — The best evidence yet for the oldest life on Earth is found in odd-shaped, rock-like mounds in Australia that are actually fossils created by microbes 3.4 billion years ago, researchers report.

“It’s an ancestor of life. If you think that all life arose on this one planet, perhaps this is where it started,” said Abigail Allwood, a researcher at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology and lead author of the new study. It appears Thursday in the journal Nature.

The strange geologic structures – which range from smaller than a fingernail to taller than a man – are exactly the type of early life astrobiologists are looking for on Mars and elsewhere.

They are known as stromatolites. They’re produced layer by layer when dirt sediments mix with carbon dioxide expelled from bacteria, water, and minerals – all trapped in the microbes’ sticky mucilage.

The theory is that these ancient mounds dotting a large swath of western Australia are not merely dirt piles that formed randomly into odd shapes, but that microbes built them a few billion years ago.
seattlepi.nwsource.com

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi raised hopes that Iraq’s slide toward civil war or sectarian disintegration could be arrested, but there are signs that Shiite-Sunni antagonism may now be too deeply rooted.
news.yahoo.com

Oh okay. I really believed it would.

A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a “good PR move to draw attention”.

Colleen Graffy told the BBC the deaths were part of a strategy and “a tactic to further the jihadi cause”, but taking their own lives was unnecessary.

But lawyers say the men who hanged themselves had been driven by despair.

A military investigation into the deaths is under way, amid growing calls for the centre to be moved or closed.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour programme, Ms Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, said the three men did not value their lives nor the lives of those around them.

… earlier, the camp commander, Rear Adm Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair.

“They are smart. They are creative, they are committed,” he said.

“They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”
bbc.co.uk

Gee what PR firm did they hire?