60 Minutes Report
NEW YORK (CBS) With gas prices hitting record levels this summer, and violence in the Middle East unabated, America has been scouring the globe searching for new sources of oil.

And one could be Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation that’s been dubbed the Kuwait of Africa because it has so few people and so much oil.

It used to be called the armpit of Africa because it was so desperately poor. But since the discovery of oil 10 years ago, that has started to change.

In fact, as Correspondent Bob Simon reported last fall, African countries like Equatorial Guinea will provide as much as 25 percent of America’s oil in the next decade.

And giants like Exxon-Mobile are pumping out more of it all the time.

The oil workers come in droves, and there are so many that there’s now a weekly flight direct from Texas to Equatorial Guinea called the Houston Express.

The country has the third largest reserves in Africa, so the men know what they’re here for, even if they’re not quite sure where they are.

The men are bussed straight to a compound, and then out to sea – the oil is offshore. Simon visited an offshore platform in the Gulf of Guinea. There is lots of oil a couple of miles under those waters.

The big discoveries began in the ’60s in Nigeria, Angola and Cameroon, but remarkably no one could find much of anything in the waters off Equatorial Guinea. The Spanish tried and failed, so did the French, and the giant American companies simply weren’t interested.

Then, in 1992, a tiny American firm scraped together some money, bought a concession to explore, and hit the jackpot.

“You know, when they tell you, you don’t have anything, you make a deal,” says Pierre Atepa, an adviser to the Guinean president. “And they say, ‘OK, let’s hit a deal. If we find, we take almost everything.’ You know, you may as well have a little bit of everything than everything of nothing.”

Equatorial Guinea got to keep a mere 12 percent of the oil revenues in the first year of its contract — not much of a deal considering that other African countries were keeping as much as 60 percent. full report

NY Times/Reuters
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iraq is ready to retaliate against countries it accuses of supporting violence wracking the country, the country’s defense minister warned Tuesday.

Hazim al-Shaalan mentioned no countries by name but accused old foe Iran of “blatant interference.” Iraq has also complained in the past about guerrilla fighters entering the country from Syria.

“We are prepared to move the arena of the attacks on Iraq’s honor and its rights to those countries,” he was quoted as saying by the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.full article

commondreams.org
In his 2003 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, presidential candidate John Kerry disavowed the U.S. quest for empire as he criticized the Bush Administration’s foreign policy as “the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history.” Instead of empire, Kerry will commit the United States to a “new progressive internationalism” buttressed by renewed alliance and enforced by a dominant US military.

Kerry’s “new” foreign policy has its roots in a policy paper entitled, “Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy,” found at the Progressive Policy Institute (www.ppionline.org), a New Democrat think-tank. These New Democrats represent the conservative tilting wing of the Democratic Party.

Progressive internationalists define their strategy as a “tough minded internationalism,” that “occupies the vital center between the neo-imperial right and the non-interventionalist left.” They advocate the “bold exercise of American power, not to dominate but to shape alliances and international institutions.”

Their forebears include the Democratic Presidents of the 20th century who they credit with building the international institutions that led to global prosperity and global security. While they argue that they’re opposed to empire, these progressive internationalists honor presidencies that exhibited imperial strains such as Wilson’s invasion of Mexico, US sabotage of Italian elections under Truman, Kennedy’s attacks on Cuba and the invasion of Vietnam, Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War, and Clinton’s brutal use of bombing and sanctions against Iraq. These events are left unexplained and unexamined and beg the question as to how a democratic national security strategy differs from imperialism.

As a result, “Progressive Internationalism” reads like a saccharine strategy for US hegemony through a multilateral veil. The program calls for the US to again lead the free world by spreading the gospel of free-trade, open markets, and representative democracy cooperatively when possible, militarily if necessary. full article

by Khalid Hassan Daily Times (Pakistan)
WASHINGTON: The US media has surprisingly failed to pick up the shocking disclosure by Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s leading newspaper, that the Irqai Prime Minister Iyad Allawi personally executed six suspected insurgents in a Baghdad police station.

The story by award-winning Australian journalist Paul McGeough said that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi PM. Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents. Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are also claims the Iraqi interior minister and four American men were present.

An Australian television channel interviewed the reporter who is in Iraq telling him that the Allawi family had denied the story. He replied, “Well it’s a very contentious issue. What you have is two very solid eyewitness accounts. Each witness is not aware that the other spoke.” full article

by David Swanson counterpunch.org
Recently the two biggest stories in the U.S. news media have been the war in Iraq and the presidential election campaign. Labor unions have been part of a number of major stories on the presidential campaign, especially stories about Senator Kerry’s selection of John Edwards as a running mate.

But labor has not been part of stories on the war. There was some reason for that up until a few weeks ago. The AFL-CIO has not taken a position on the war, and most of the international unions have followed suit. That changed at the conventions last month in California of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Kerry spoke at both conventions, and his speeches received significant media coverage.

What did not receive coverage and should have was that both SEIU and AFSCME passed resolutions at their conventions supporting the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. These strongly worded resolutions passed by two of the largest, most politically active labor unions in the country — two unions that have received substantial coverage from national political reporters on other stories — were quickly followed by passage on July 13 of a similar resolution by the California Labor Federation, the largest state federation within the AFL-CIO. Together, these three organizations represent close to 5 million union members. Other union conventions will be addressing the issue throughout the summer, a remarkable development and a striking contrast to labor’s behavior during the Vietnam War. full article

by David Rohde NY Times
NEW DELHI, July 19th — Ending a long legal struggle for victims of a catastrophic gas leak in Bhopal, India, that killed at least 5,000 people in 1984, India’s Supreme Court ruled today that $330 million in compensation should be distributed directly to the victims and no longer held by the Indian government.

The leak at a plant run by the Union Carbide Corporation was one of the worst industrial accidents in history, immediately killing 3,000 people and injuring 105,000. Indian officials are still pursuing criminal charges against the company’s then-chairman, Warren Anderson, who is now in his early 80’s living a low-profile retirement on Long Island and in Florida.

Victims hailed today’s ruling but said the company, which is now part of Dow Chemical, should be forced to quadruple the amount of damages it has paid. At the time the compensation was paid in 1989, the figure was based on the 3,000 people who perished immediately and 105,000 injured. full article

by Ira Dreyfuss Guardian UK
WASHINGTON (AP) – Thousands of black farmers have been denied payment under a landmark settlement of bias complaints against the Agriculture Department, according to a report released Monday by the Environmental Working Group and the National Black Farmers Association.full article

Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An Israeli military strike likely would not solve the problem of Iran’s nuclear program and would harm U.S. national interests, two former senior U.S. officials said on Monday.

Growing concern about advances in Iran’s nuclear capabilities has fanned speculation that Israel could act to wipe out key Iranian facilities, as it did against Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.

But former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates, co-authors of a new study on Iran, said it was unlikely such a strike would be effective and it would damage U.S. interests.

They spoke at a news conference to discuss a new Council on Foreign Relations report which urges the United States to begin a selective engagement with Iran and argues the lack of sustained contacts hurts U.S. interests.full article

Capitol Hill Blue
Four of the five House ethics committee Republicans investigating Majority Leader Tom DeLay have accepted money in the past from the fund-raising operation involved in the complaint against him.

While leaders in both parties maintain organizations to raise money for candidates, the appearance of a conflict in DeLay’s case is enough alone to warrant hiring an independent counsel of the type that investigated dethroned former speakers Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich, watchdog groups said Thursday.

“Mr. DeLay’s stature as one of the most powerful members of Congress – with the capacity to extract retribution from anyone – makes it especially difficult for his peers to sit in judgment of him,” said Common Cause president Chellie Pingree.

DeLay, who has denied the charges against him, said through a spokesman that an independent counsel is unnecessary. “We have full confidence the ethics committee will handle this in a proper manner,” said aide Jonathan Grella.full article

by Joshua Frank counterpunch.org
…This is all a clear indication that progressives who live in swing states should scurry to the local Ralph Nader campaign office, and volunteer immediately. Progressive Democrats too. Force Nader to run hard. Push Kerry to either champion progressive causes, or lose. Tell the DLC that their tactics don’t win elections — they lose them. Make it clear that it is Kerry’s fault in the end — which it will be — for he doesn’t represent you. Don’t let the Democratic Party take you for granted. Because they will. And they do.

Does this mean the Democrats must be abolished? Certainly they’ll deserve it if they continue to embrace right of center politics.

This brings us back to Cheney. Unless he dies of a heart attack, he’ll be in the race come November. Count on it. Rove won’t let him go. Because he knows that McCain’s centrist positions would never make for a lively debate with smooth talking Edwards. He’ll let the Democrats move right. In fact he encourages it. For he knows when they do, voters would rather vote for the real thing every time. And in the end it won’t be Nader who “threw the election.” It’ll be Kerry. How many more loses do they need before they get it? full article