Allawi Cautions Shiites on Baath Ban
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's interim prime minister cautioned the winning Shiite alliance against banning members of Saddam Hussein's former party from government, saying Thursday that it would "throw the country into problems."
In an interview with The Associated Press, Ayad Allawi urged the incoming government to focus on national unity and reconciliation rather than hit at those Iraqis — mainly Sunni Muslims — who dominated Iraq until their abrupt removal from power following the U.S.-led war in 2003.
The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, which took 48 percent of the vote in the Jan. 30 national elections, has made weeding out Baath Party members part of its platform. The policy has raised concerns among Sunnis, who see it as a way to make sure they have no positions in a new government.
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.17.05 @ 09:47 PM CST [
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Negroponte Draws Criticism South of Border
MEXICO CITY - Central American politicians and human rights activists issued stinging criticism Thursday of John Negroponte, nominated to become America's first intelligence director, citing the career diplomat's active backing for the Contra rebels and support for a government involved in human rights abuses.
John Negroponte, now U.S. ambassador to Iraq (news - web sites), served as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, a time of intense conflict in Central America in which the United States played a central role. The Reagan administration feared that leftist rebels were leading Central American countries toward totalitarian regimes.
Negroponte assisted the U.S.-backed Contra rebels in their attempt to overthrow Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government. In the process, activists claim, he ignored human rights abuses by the rebels and their Honduran hosts.
The effort to oust Daniel Ortega's Moscow-leaning Sandinista regime produced a huge scandal in the United States when it was learned the United States secretly sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund the Contra operation.
"What an outrage!" said Bertha Oliva, the coordinator of the Committee for Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras, an independent group representing civilians believed to have vanished while in government custody. "The United States has invented a position to reward someone who was a dangerous person."
In Nicaragua, Tomas Borge, former interior minister for the Sandinista regime and a current leader of the Sandinista opposition party, said Negroponte "is the most efficient and ideal representative for the Bush administration's primitive international security policy."
"He is faithful to Bush's excessive and ultra-right policy in Iraq and other parts of the world," he said.
Borge is the only surviving founder of the Sandinista movement, and was in charge of domestic political control as the Sandinistas battled U.S.-backed opponents.
The new U.S. intelligence chief has denied accusations that his reports to Washington dramatically underplayed human rights problems in Honduras.
During 2001 confirmation hearings for his U.N. ambassadorship — an appointment that was delayed for six months because of the controversy over his tenure in Honduras — Negroponte testified that he did not believe death squads were operating in Honduras.
However, a 1993 Honduran government human rights report said 184 suspected leftists had disappeared in government custody, many of them at the hands of a U.S. trained Honduran army battalion.
"It was obvious that he knew what was happening," said Leo Valladeres, a law professor in Honduras who wrote the report. "They used outlaw methods to kill ... and it is absolutely impossible to believe that a diplomatic mission such as that of the United States was unaware of the situation faced by Honduras and Central America."
In neighboring Guatemala, a U.S.-supported government that was engaged in battle with left-wing rebels trained paramilitary squads that were found later to have committed large-scale civilian massacres.
In El Salvador, U.S.-trained army squads hunted down leftist rebels in offensives fraught with human rights abuses.
Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archives in Washington, said declassified documents on the Iran-Contra scandal also showed that Negroponte was involved in seeking more guns for the Contras — "the role that normally would be reserved for the CIA station chief."
Kornbluh also said the documents he cited showed that Negroponte helped clear the way for a secret agreement under which the United States would provide more CIA money to Honduran army generals and additional military and economic aid to the country. In exchange, he said, Honduras agreed to allow the Contras to continue operating on Honduran soil.
Ironically, Kornbluh said, the controversy surrounding Negroponte's past helps qualify him for the job.
"Someone who is a career diplomat ... on paper doesn't seem to have the intelligence background needed," he said. "The fact that he certainly departed from his diplomatic role and was involved in paramilitary operations against Nicaragua ... means he has had a relationship with covert operations in the past."
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.17.05 @ 09:42 PM CST [
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Negroponte Selected As Intelligence Chief
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the government's first national intelligence director Thursday, turning to a veteran diplomat to revive a spy community besieged by criticism after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ending a nine-week search, Bush chose Negroponte, who has been in Iraq for less than a year, for the difficult job of implementing the most sweeping intelligence overhaul in 50 years.
Negroponte, 65, is tasked with bringing together 15 highly competitive spy agencies and learning to work with the combative Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the brand new CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence leaders. He'll oversee a covert intelligence budget estimated at $40 billion.
Negroponte, a former ambassador to the United Nations and to a number of countries, called the job his ``most challenging assignment'' in more than 40 years of government work.
His U.N. nomination was held up for half a year in 2001 over criticism regarding his record as ambassador in Honduras from 1981 to 1985, the time of the Iran-Contra scandal.
He was widely believed not to have been Bush's first choice for the new job, but officials denied the president had had trouble filling the position.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.17.05 @ 06:56 PM CST [
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Why Go to College, When You Can be Cannon Fodder?
Do You Know What Your Kids Are Watching on "Educational" TV at School?
By Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
I learned something new yesterday. Channel One News, the "educational" TV show that my daughter Isa and millions of other American kids watch every morning at school, is busy recruiting our teenagers into the military.
"Mom, they're really aiming at the black kids, and the Hispanic kids too. I'm so sick of seeing those military ads everyday. "The Power of One", and all that lots of my friends are falling for it!"
This is especially upsetting to Isa because several of her black friends, 18, 19 and 20 years old, have been shipped to Iraq. Some were promised they wouldn't have to be in combat, but would be doing "mechanical work", "communications", or "wiring".
It seems doubtful that, when push comes to shove, kids who've been promised such jobs will be allowed to avoid combat. One of her friends has already been shot "in an embarrassing place"; he's being treated overseas instead of the US so that he can be sent quickly back into combat in Iraq. Mr. Bush's military needs warm bodies, able or not.
I stopped the car and asked, "Wait a minute. What do you mean when you say you're "seeing those military ads every day"?"
"We have to watch this short thing every morning in homeroom called "Channel One News"," Isa explained with a weary tone. "It's educational, supposedly. You know, the day's news, so we'll be up on current events. But in between the stories, there are more and more ads for the Army and the Marines."
I thought about "No Child Left Behind" and the malignant purpose behind that sweet-sounding act that Mr. Bush and his men (and at least one journalist paid $250,000 by the White House) have continuously promoted to trusting parents across the US. After catching my breath I asked,
"Are you saying you're being recruited through the TV you watch during homeroom?" She nodded. I asked again, "What do your teachers think about this? What about Mr. Hitchens (not his real name), who told you privately that he's antiwar? Doesn't he say anything against it?"
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.17.05 @ 06:52 PM CST [
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Wednesday, February 16th
A Battlefield for the Wars of Others: The Blame for Harari Hit Falls on Syria
by Robert Fisk
They will bury Rafik Hariri today beside the city he rebuilt and next to the ruins of the Roman columns that made ancient Beirut famous. But his violent death on Monday has repercussions that go far further east than Lebanon or the Roman empire; for his killing is intimately linked to the insurgency in Iraq--and President Bush's belief that Syria is encouraging the guerrilla war against US troops in the country.
American pressure on Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon--a cause that Mr Hariri, for quite different reasons, supported--is part of Washington's attempt to smother Syria's supposed sympathy for the bloody and increasingly efficient insurgency in Iraq.
Last night, Washington announced the withdrawal of its ambassador to Damascus. It was the clearest sign so far that the US is going to accuse Syria of Mr Hariri's murder.
Israel, predictably, chose the same moment to add new pre-conditions for any peace talks with Syria: expulsions of "terrorist headquarters" from Damascus, "allow the Lebanese Army to deploy its forces along the border with Israel", and "end the Syrian occupation of Lebanon".
Israel, which occupied part of Lebanon for 24 years, then demanded the "expulsion" of Iranian Revolutionary Guards--who in reality left Lebanon more than 15 years ago. In harness with the Americans, the Israeli threat--especially the specious references to Iranians no longer in Lebanon--represents a grave deepening of the crisis.
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.16.05 @ 07:25 PM CST [
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CIA issues warning on China’s military efforts
The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has warned that China's military modernisation is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait and increasing the threat to US forces in the region.
Delivering the agency's annual assessment of worldwide threats on Wednesday, Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman who was named in September to head the CIA, dropped any mention of the co-operative elements of the US-China relationship that characterised recent CIA statements. Instead, he said China was making determined military and diplomatic efforts to “counter what it sees as US efforts to contain or encircle China”.
news.ft.com
rootsie on 02.16.05 @ 07:12 PM CST [
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Officials Warn of Future Terror Attacks
WASHINGTON - Speaking with one voice, President Bush (news - web sites)'s top intelligence and military officials said Wednesday that terrorists are regrouping for possible new strikes against the United States.
They said the best defense was for Congress to approve the president's military and anti-terror budget. But some in Congress, including prominent Republicans, were questioning some of that spending.
Offering few specifics on terror threats, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a House hearing that the government could reasonably predict attacks would come from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and other means.
Meanwhile, new CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Iraq war was giving terrorists experience and contacts for future attacks, and Director Robert Mueller expressed worry that a sleeper operative in the U.S. may have been in place for years, awaiting orders for an attack.
"I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing," Mueller said in remarks he submitted to the senators.
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.16.05 @ 07:01 PM CST [
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Iran, Syria to Form 'United Front'
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran and Syria, who both are facing pressure from the United States, said Wednesday they will form a "united front" to confront possible threats against them, state-run television reported.
"In view of the special conditions faced by Syria, Iran will transfer its experience, especially concerning sanctions, to Syria," Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran's first vice president, was quoted as saying after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otari.
"At this sensitive point, the two countries require a united front due to numerous challenges."
Otari concurred, saying, "The challenges we face in Syria and Iran require us to be in one front to confront all the challenges imposed (on us) by others."
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.16.05 @ 06:55 PM CST [
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Tuesday, February 15th
Israel and/or America Implicated in Killing of Rafik Harriri:
"This is the work of an intelligence service, not a small group," said Rime Allaf, Middle East analyst at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Sam Hamod, Ph.D.
02/14/05 "Information Clearing House" - - We must do as they do in other criminal cases, look at who had the most to gain from the assassination of Prime Minister Harriri. The Lebanese had a lot to lose, as did the Syrians (he was close to Bashir Al Assad, the leader of Syria), as did the other Arab countries in the region who saw him as a strong leader and a stabilizing force in Lebanese politics. On the other hand, Israel has wanted chaos in Lebanon, as has America, and both countries have been agitating to get Hezbollah outlawed and both America and Israel have wanted the Lebanese to oust Syria. In both cases, the Lebanese government has said, “NO,” that Hezbollah is a respected part of Lebanese life and that Syria is there to protect Lebanon from Israeli aggression.
No matter where else you look, no one else had anything to gain except Israel and the U.S. because this death could cause some possible upset in Lebanese politics and life.
Most Middle East experts in the Arab and Muslim worlds believe Israeli hands were at work in the killing of former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik Harriri.
FullArticle:infoclearinghouse.info
rootsie on 02.15.05 @ 11:47 AM CST [
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Monday, February 14th
U.S. Troops Braced for Ethnic Conflict in Kirkuk
KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops were braced for violence in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk Monday after a strong showing by Kurds in provincial elections threatened to upset the city's delicate ethnic balance.
``I think there'll be some ethnic violence here, I really do,'' said U.S. Captain Mitch Smith, a company commander in the heart of Kirkuk, the most ethnically diverse city in Iraq.
``Before the elections there were concerted attacks on coalition forces and Iraqi security forces but I think the focus may have shifted now,'' he told Reuters.
``Rather than targeting us, I expect we might see the various groups in the city fighting among themselves.''
Kirkuk's 850,000-strong population is split roughly three ways between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, with Assyrian Christians forming a minority of around three percent.
The Kurds regard the city as theirs, and many want it to become the capital of a federal Kurdish state within Iraq, or even an independent Kurdistan.
The Turkmen, who have close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey, trace their arrival in Kirkuk from eastern Asia to the 11th century, and have no intention of leaving.
Full Article:nytimes.com/reuters
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:43 PM CST [
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Split Verdict in Iraqi Vote Sets Stage for Weak Government
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 13 - The razor-thin margin apparently captured by the Shiite alliance here in election results announced Sunday seems almost certain to enshrine a weak government that will be unable to push through sweeping changes, like granting Islam a central role in the new Iraqi state.
The verdict handed down by Iraqi voters in the Jan. 30 election appeared to be a divided one, with the Shiite political alliance, backed by the clerical leadership in Najaf, opposed in nearly equal measure by an array of mostly secular minority parties.
Full Article: nytimes.comMy, how convenient.
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:38 PM CST [
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Iraqi Shiites Win, but Margin Is Less Than Projection
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 13 - A broad Shiite alliance led by two Iran-backed religious parties won a slim majority of seats in the national assembly, final election results showed Sunday.
The alliance's victory - in the first fully elected parliament in Iraq's 85-year history as a separate state - was narrower than the alliance had projected and set the stage for protracted maneuvering.
The 8.5 million people who voted, a turnout of 58 percent, appeared to have spread their choices widely enough to assure that power in the new government, and in the drafting of a new constitution, will have to be broadly shared among the assembly's 275 members, lessening the possibility that a religious Shiite theocracy could emerge from the elections.
Full Article: nytimes.com
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:34 PM CST [
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Bush Wants $82B More for Iraq, Afghan Costs
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Monday urged Congress to approve quickly his request for $82 billion to cover the costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and a myriad of other internationally related expenses, such as training Iraqi security forces, aiding tsunami victims and helping military forces in other nations.
"The majority of this request will ensure that our troops continue to get what they need to protect themselves and complete their mission,'" Bush said in a statement released before the White House officially sent the supplemental budget request to Capitol Hill.
Full Article: apnews.myway.com
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:31 PM CST [
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Billionaire Hariri Led Lebanon Rebuilding
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Rafik Hariri, a self-made billionaire construction tycoon who amassed his fortune in Saudi Arabia, led the rebuilding of a shattered Lebanon as its prime minister in the years following the tiny country's protracted civil war.
Hariri died Monday when his motorcade was bombed in Beirut. He was 60.
Hariri's vast fortune — estimated at $4 billion — allowed him to maintain political independence without defying his country's main power-broker, Syria, which keeps about 15,000 troops in Lebanon and influences virtually all key political decisions.
He oversaw the country's revival after the 1975-90 civil war, serving as prime minister for 10 of 14 years before stepping down in October 2004 amid an intense power struggle. For years, he'd been engaged in a fierce rivalry with Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.
A charismatic man with international connections — including a close friendship with French President Jacques Chirac — Hariri was for years regarded by many Lebanese as the country's hope for economic revival and political stability.
Though he had publicly tried to avoid offending Damascus, his pro-Syrian opponents accused him of being the driving force behind the U.S.-backed U.N. Security Council resolution in September that demanded Syria withdraw its army from Lebanon.
Full Article: yahoo.com/news
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:28 PM CST [
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Palestinians Fete Israel's Return of Militant Remains
GAZA (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinians, some wearing mock suicide-bomber belts, lined Gaza roads Monday to welcome home the remains of 15 gunmen handed over by Israel in a gesture to help President Mahmoud Abbas shore up a cease-fire.
The move gave a modest boost to Abbas as he tries to nudge militants, now observing an informal pause in fighting Israel, into a formal cease-fire in keeping with a declaration he made at a Feb. 8 summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Full Article: nytimes.com15 corpses. Just what the Palestinians need. Strange 'gesture.'
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:22 PM CST [
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Four Israelis arrested for trying to sell Palestinian land
Police investigators arrested three suspects last week - including a member of the Likud's Central Committee - on suspicion of planning to use forged documents to sell land belonging to absentee Palestinian owners to an American millionaire.
The three allegedly planned to sell land amounting to 92 dunams (about 23 acres) between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Beit Sahur for $10 million, according to Superintendent Aharon Gilor, head of the police fraud squad's northern division.
At the start of last week, police arrested Issa Safouri, a 34-year-old Nazareth resident and a member of the Likud Central Committee who is thought to have made of use of forged documents and located the American buyer.
Full Article:haaretzdaily.com
rootsie on 02.14.05 @ 08:16 PM CST [
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Sunday, February 13th
Mideast: No Peace Without Justice
by Robert Fisk
So, the Palestinians will end their occupation of Israel. No more will Palestinian tanks smash their way into Haifa and Tel Aviv. No more will Palestinian F-18s bomb Israeli population centers. No more will Palestinian Apache helicopters carry out "targeted killings" -- i.e., murders -- of Israeli military leaders.
The Palestinians have promised to end all "acts of violence" against Israelis while Israel has promised to end all "military activity" against Palestinians. So that's it, then. Peace in our time.
A Martian -- even a well-educated Martian -- would have gathered that this was the message, supposing he dropped in on the fantasy world of Sharm el-Sheikh this week. Palestinians had been committing "violence," the Israelis carrying out "innocent" operations. Palestinian "violence" or "terror and violence" -- the latter a more popular phrase since it carried the stigma of 9/11 -- was now at an end.
Mahmoud Abbas, who told a close Lebanese friend this year that he wore a suit and tie so that he would look "different" from Yasser Arafat -- went along with all this. Just which people were occupying the homes of which other people remained a mystery.
Silver-haired and wisdom-burdened, Abbas looked the part. We had to forget that it was this same Abbas who wrote the Oslo Accords, who in 1,000 pages failed to use -- even once -- the word occupation and who talked not of Israeli "withdrawal" from Palestinian territory but of "redeployment."
At no point at Sharm el-Sheikh did anyone mention occupation. Like sex, occupation had to be censored out of the historical narrative. As usual -- as in Oslo -- the real issues were put back to a later date. Refugees, the "right of return," East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital: Let's deal with them later.
Full Article: commondreams.org
rootsie on 02.13.05 @ 12:20 AM CST [
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Judge Questions Gov't Response to Detainee
WASHINGTON (AP) - Concerned about government secrecy in a terrorism case, a federal judge expressed skepticism Friday at the Bush administration's request to dismiss a lawsuit on behalf of a Virginia man held in Saudi Arabia.
The government is bolstering its effort to get the case thrown out by submitting classified information to U.S. District Judge John Bates that is unavailable to lawyers for imprisoned terrorist suspect Ahmed Abu Ali.
``This is about as close to a state secrets shutdown'' of a case without the executive branch of government actually doing so, the judge said at a hearing.
One of Abu Ali's lawyers, David Cole, argued that ``the government would throw the adversarial process out the window'' with classified information that the other side is not allowed to see.
The suit by Abu Ali's family marks the latest instance in which the Bush administration is trying to keep terrorism suspects beyond the reach of U.S. courts.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.13.05 @ 12:16 AM CST [
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'Dresden was a dead city- everything was burnt'
As the British bombers streamed towards Dresden, 18-year-old Götz Bergander was heading home on a tram with his mother.
The family's second-floor flat in Friedrichstrasse was one of the few homes in the city equipped with a proper air-raid shelter. 'It had steel doors and rubber curtains. Most other people had merely dumped a few sandbags in the cellar,' said Bergander, who survived the raid on Dresden 60 years ago today and later became a historian. It was the shelter that almost certainly saved his life when, at 9.50pm on 13 February 1945, the first RAF planes appeared in the cloudless skies above.
According to Bergander, the city's population had wrongly assumed that the allied air raids that had devastated Hamburg, Cologne and other German cities wouldn't affect them. Dresden's Nazi gauleiter had encouraged the myth that the baroque city wasn't a target, he added. 'The opera house and theatre closed down only in September 1944. Right up until the attack, cinemas were still open,' Bergander, now 78, recalled. 'I was going there two or three times a week. People weren't prepared.'
After the alarm sounded, Bergander retreated to the air raid shelter, taking with him his Philips radio. 'From there we followed the progress of the bombers as they flew across Germany.'
The first attack lasted 30 minutes. When Bergander emerged from his shelter, he found Dresden's central Neustadt on fire. The nearby yeast factory where his father worked had survived, but much of the city no longer existed. 'Many houses were burning. People were fleeing from the city. They were covered in dust. Other people headed to the hospital because their eyes had been burnt.
'And then we heard the air raid sirens again. We thought, "There can't be another attack. It isn't possible."'
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.13.05 @ 12:13 AM CST [
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Fading liberal dream tears Dutch apart
Martyn Loosman, impeccably turned out in a traditional costume of baggy trousers and a red and white striped shirt, buffs up the Dutch Queen Wilhemina coins on his belt buckle.
'The government is going too far by proposing body searches and forcing suspected terrorists to report weekly to police,' he says before sloping off, his black clogs scraping nonchalantly against the cobblestones of the fishing village of Urk.
Forty miles south, in an Amsterdam coffee shop, advertising copywriter Geert Beck toys with his blond dreadlocks while sucking on a joint. 'There are too many immigrants in Holland. They are stealing our society.'
The men, both 29, represent the contradictions in the Netherlands' liberal society and pose questions over whether it has died or was only ever superficial.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.13.05 @ 12:10 AM CST [
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Allies move in on top terrorist
Iraq's most wanted terrorist, the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is hiding out in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk after fleeing from Mosul, according to police sources.
The claim comes barely days after the Iraq's interim government said that it was close to catching the jihadist, whose group has been behind the beheadings of foreign hostages, including Briton Kenneth Bigley, and suicide bombings.
'He came to Kirkuk from Mosul,' a source in the Kirkuk police department told Reuters yesterday, speaking anonymously. 'There's a possibility that he might be captured at any moment.'
Full Article:guardian.co.ukI won't be holding my breath.
rootsie on 02.13.05 @ 12:07 AM CST [
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Saturday, February 12th
Castro Says U.S. to Blame if Chavez Assassinated
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro warned the United States Saturday against plotting to kill his most important ally, Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.
``I say to world public opinion: if they assassinate Chavez, the responsibility will fall squarely on the president of the United States, George W. Bush,'' Castro said.
The Cuban leader, who was the target of CIA assassination plots after his 1959 revolution steered Cuba toward Soviet Communism, gave no evidence that Chavez's life was in danger.
But he said the United States would be responsible for killing Chavez even if the Venezuelan military was to carry out the assassination.
He added: ``If they can eliminate him, they will.''
Full Article: nytimes.com/reuters
rootsie on 02.12.05 @ 09:24 AM CST [
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Venezuela Dismisses U.S. Complaints Over Russian Arms
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela Friday dismissed as ``impertinence'' U.S. criticism of its plans to buy Russian rifles and helicopters and suggested Washington was just sore it was not buying U.S. weapons.
``This is a sovereign action by Venezuela which President (Hugo) Chavez's government is not willing to discuss,'' Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said in a terse statement.
It was the second public rebuttal this week by left-winger Chavez's government of U.S. fears about the planned Venezuelan arms purchases announced several months ago.
Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, is a major supplier of oil to the United States. But Chavez and President George. W. Bush's government have been at loggerheads for several years.
Rangel rejected concerns expressed by the State Department Thursday that 100,000 Kalashnikov automatic rifles Venezuela is buying from Russia could fall into the hands of leftist guerrillas Washington considers ``terrorists.''
In his statement, Rangel described the U.S. reaction as ``another impertinence from Mr. Bush's government.''
``One has to ask whether the U.S. concern might not stem from the fact that this equipment is being bought in Russia and not in the United States,'' he said.
Full Article: nytimes.com
rootsie on 02.12.05 @ 09:20 AM CST [
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Fear of Islamists Drives Growth of Far Right in Belgium
ANTWERP, Belgium - Filip Dewinter, a boyish man in a dark blue suit, bounds up two flights of steep stairs in his political party's 19th-century headquarters building where posters show a Muslim minaret rising menacingly above the Gothic steeple of the city's cathedral.
"The radical Muslims are organizing themselves in Europe," he declared. "Other political parties, they are very worried about the Muslim votes and say let's be tolerant, while we are saying - the new political forces in Europe are saying - no, we should defend our identity."
From the Freedom Party in Austria to the National Front in France to the Republicans in Germany, Europe's far right has made a comeback in recent years, largely on the strength of anti-immigration feelings sharpened to a fear of Islam. That fear is fed by threats of terrorism, rising crime rates among Muslim youth and mounting cultural clashes with the Continent's growing Islamic communities.
But nowhere has the right's revival been as swift or as strong as in Belgium's Dutch-speaking region of Flanders, where support for Mr. Dewinter's Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, has surged from 10 percent of the electorate in 1999 to nearly a quarter today.
Full Article: nytimes.com
rootsie on 02.12.05 @ 09:17 AM CST [
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Islamists Win Landmark Saudi Capital Elections
RIYADH (Reuters) - Islamist-backed candidates triumphed over tribal opponents and businessmen in Saudi Arabia's landmark men-only elections in the capital Riyadh, according to preliminary results released Friday.
Losing candidates cried foul, saying six of the seven victors had violated a ban on election alliances when their names were circulated via mobile phones and the Internet to voters in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom with messages suggesting they had Islamist backing.
Full Article: nytimes.com/reuters
rootsie on 02.12.05 @ 09:14 AM CST [
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Rare and Aggressive H.I.V. Reported in New York
A rare strain of H.I.V. that is highly resistant to virtually all anti-retroviral drugs and appears to lead to the rapid onset of AIDS was detected in a New York City man last week, city health officials announced on Friday.
It was the first time a strain of H.I.V. had been found that both showed resistance to multiple drugs and led to AIDS so quickly, the officials said. While the extent of the disease's spread is unknown, officials called a news conference to say that the situation is alarming.
"We consider this a major potential problem," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The department issued an alert to all hospitals and doctors in the city to test all newly detected H.I.V. cases for evidence of the rare strain.
The virus was found in a New York City man in his mid-40's who engaged in unprotected anal sex with other men on multiple occasions while he was using crystal methamphetamine. Health officials have long said that the drug's stimulating effect and erasure of inhibitions contributes to sex marathons that have increased the spread of H.I.V.
...Some AIDS specialists outside New York City expressed skepticism about the alarm, believing that it might be an isolated case related to the patient's immune system.
Full Article: nytimes.com
rootsie on 02.12.05 @ 09:10 AM CST [
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Friday, February 11th
Democracy According to Elliott Abrams
by Larry Birns
Why has an admitted perjurer, a facilitator of death squads and an arms broker to Islamic terrorists just been appointed to be deputy national security adviser to President Bush?
It's tough to think of anything more "un-American" and less reflective of traditional family values than lying to Congress about illegal U.S. arm sales to a CIA-created band of murderous rightwing terrorists known as the Contras, and sticking up for death squads. Also, can one defend selling arms to Islamic terrorists by claiming that waging the Cold War sometimes required subscribing to the thesis that the end justifies the means? Given that Elliott Abrams managed to commit all the derelictions cited above, one might think that there was sufficient reason to prevent his name from being associated with the word "democracy." However, it appears that the Bush administration, as was the case of its appointing a known human rights violator like U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte (when he was the ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s), rewards those who offer the White House their blood-soaked resumes.
On February 2, the White House announced that Abrams was being appointed to the number two position on the National Security Council, where he "will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy." In terms of the outrageous, one could compare this to appointing Pinochet or Kissinger to head the inquiry into Chile's human rights record during the general's dictatorial rule, or Saddam's conversion to the Quaker faith.
A brief review of his more notorious exploits will show that no one in the president's neocon inventory would be a less appropriate candidate than Abrams to be the overseer of global democratization and to make certain that "freedom's on the march."
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:38 PM CST [
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Lynne Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
by Jennifer Van Bergen
In a shocking jury verdict today, a tireless watchdog for liberty was convicted of violating special administrative prison rules and of providing material support to terrorists.
Only a few weeks ago, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Barkow told the jury in his closing statement that Lynne Stewart "thought she could blow off the rules that apply to everyone else because she's a lawyer, and she's above the law. She said, 'I think my client is more important than the law. My cause is more important that the risk to lives of innocent people.' "
This is a complete distortion of the woman I have come to know. The woman who, when her husband became angry at a heckler during her speech at a small rally, told him the man was only exercising his rights to free speech--he had a right to disagree with her.
The woman who is as courteous to the man next to her at the podium, who is declaring that the ACLU--which, remember, stands for the American CIVIL LIBERTIES Union -- is a communist organization, as to those who thank her for coming.
A woman who put herself endlessly and courageously on the front lines to defend the rights of those who were under-represented, unrepresented, disenfranchised, or disregarded: those whose voices are suppressed or silenced.
Lynne Stewart never ever thought she could blow off the rules that apply to everyone else. She never thought she was above the law. She never supported or endorsed terrorism. Nor did she ever intend to provide material support to terrorists.
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:31 PM CST [
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A hunger for truth
In the city of São Paulo, where Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-77) lived and wrote, a census conducted 10 years ago indicated that nearly 20% of its residents, approximately 1,900,000 inhabitants, were living in shanty towns. Last year, the World Bank released figures revealing that poverty in Latin America had not seen any real change over the past 20 years. Millions of impoverished people inhabit a region where economic growth is failing to reduce the high levels of inequality that are the result of an extremely grave problem of income distribution.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:24 PM CST [
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LA police spark fresh fury by killing boy, 13
The man in the hooded sweatshirt, a large gold medallion hanging from his neck, was in no mood to talk. "Turn around and cross the street," he said. "You're with a newspaper? Turn around and cross the street."
The man was one of half a dozen gathered at the spot in South Los Angeles where 13-year-old Devin Brown met his death at the hands of Los Angeles Police Department just before 4am on Monday.
The boy was shot by an officer at the end of a three-minute car chase in which he was either the driver or passenger of a vehicle that may or may not have been stolen.
...Initially, police said the victim was a gang member, although they have not repeated the claim. Family members say that although the boy was having problems following the death of his father six months ago, he was not in a gang. The police also said the car was stolen, but there is no record of it being reported as stolen.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:20 PM CST [
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Sectarian massacres shake Iraq
Violence swept Iraq yesterday as insurgents switched the focus of their attacks from the security forces to Shia civilians, killing at least 12 in a bombing outside a mosque and gunning down nine in a Baghdad bakery.
The massacres appeared designed to raise sectarian tension as the country prepared for the results from last month's election which will cement the ascendance of the Shia majority and the political marginalisation of the Arab Sunni minority.
Full Article: guardian.co.ukDesigned by who?
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:15 PM CST [
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WAL-MART CHIEF VOWS TO BE 'EVERYWHERE WE ARE NOT'; SAYS EMPLOYEES DON'T NEED A UNION
The chief executive of WAL-MART on Friday will defended the retailer's decision to close a Canadian store after its employees voted to form a union.
"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape," H. Lee Scott Jr. explains in an interview set for Friday editions of the WASHINGTON POST.
Scott says WAL-MART saw no upside to the higher labor costs and refused to cede ground to the union for the sake of being "altruistic."
"It doesn't work that way," he said.
WAL-MART'S decision has infuriated the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which was negotiating a contract for the Quebec store's 190 employees. If it had succeeded, the store would have become the only WAL-MART store in North America with a union contract.
Scott says WAL-MART'S strategy for growth is to be "everywhere we are not."
In the United States, that means edging closer to major cities, such as Los Angeles, New York and Washington, where the chain is likely to find less land, higher costs and stiffer resistance from labor unions and neighborhood activists.
Full Article: drudgereport.com
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:12 PM CST [
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CNN News Executive Eason Jordan Quits
NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (news - web sites) last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.11.05 @ 10:08 PM CST [
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Wednesday, February 9th
Recount forces Iraq to delay election result
Iraqi election officials admitted on Wednesday that the result of the country's elections 11 days ago would be delayed to allow a recount of 300 ballot boxes from outlying regions.
The officials did not say when the final results, which had been due for release on Thursday, would be published. "It will be a little bit delayed," said Farid Ayar, spokesman for Iraq's independent elections commission. "We don't know when this will finish."
Officials said the 300 boxes to be recounted represented a "sample", apparently to check the initial counts conducted by election centres throughout Iraq shortly after the votes were cast. Officials had hoped to publish final results for the election to the 275-seat assembly today - 11 days after the poll.
Full Article: news.ft.com
rootsie on 02.09.05 @ 07:39 PM CST [
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Display Stirs Controversy
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Nestled in a quiet Sacramento neighborhood is a very loud political statement that is testing the very foundation of the right to free speech.
Hanging from a house in Land Park, a soldier's uniform in a noose dangles from a rooftop. The words "your tax dollars at work" are scrolled across the chest.
In a community full of patriotism, this view of the war in Iraq has not gone unnoticed.
"I think it's the ultimate sign of disrespect. We have troops dying for us," Land Park resident Mark Cohen said.
"(I'm) annoyed and disgusted. I think if this is the way someone feels they can find a better way to vent their opinions," Land Park resident Pete Miles said.
The homeowners behind the controversy are Steve and Virginia Pearcy. They released a statement saying, "There will always be people who are offended by political speech, and the most important forum of all ... is one's own residence. The First Amendment is meaningless unless dissent is allowed."
Some neighbors agree.
"Even if you don't agree with it, he has the right to state his opinion. I don't find it offensive at all," Land Park resident Cece Williams said.
The tension in the neighborhood has escalated into more than just a political feud.
The matter has been reported to the police department and to the city attorney. The city council has even heard about it, but says they can't solve the problem.
"Unfortunately or fortunately this is protected speech by the First Amendment ... so there is nothing we can do about it," Sacramento City Councilman Rob Fong said.
KCRA 3 received a call late Wednesday morning from the homeowner saying that a group of people had torn down the display. He said that what he did was not illegal, but what was done by the people who removed the display was.
thekcrachannel.comThings are getting real ugly real fast
rootsie on 02.09.05 @ 07:35 PM CST [
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Hezbollah May Be Threat to Mideast Truce
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Hezbollah is emerging as the biggest threat to a fragile Israeli-Palestinian truce, with Lebanese guerrillas offering West Bank gunmen thousands of dollars to step up attacks on Israelis, the gunmen and Palestinian security officials said Wednesday.
The Iranian-funded Lebanese guerrillas, who have hundreds of West Bank gunmen on their payroll, have stepped up pressure on them in recent weeks, the security officials said.
One retired militant told The Associated Press that a Hezbollah recruiter called him just a day before this week's Mideast summit in Egypt, told him the cease-fire wouldn't last and offered a generous payment if he returns to violence. A squad of five or six militants typically receives $5,000 to $8,000 a month from Hezbollah for expenses, including bullets, weapons, cell phone calling cards and spending money.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose political survival depends on making the cease-fire stick, is trying to avoid confrontation with Hezbollah for the moment.
Full Article: news.yahoo.comHere is scenario someone gave me today: A Kurdistan that comprises northern Iraq, Iran, and Syria. To the Caspian. The Turks hate it, but you throw them the EU bone. 'A Palestinian state' to calm and distract.
rootsie on 02.09.05 @ 07:25 PM CST [
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Violence and scepticism follow ceasefire
Street violence and media hostility today underlined the obstacles to peace in the Middle East, a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared a ceasefire in the four-year conflict.
..."Maybe this time," read the headline in today's Maariv Israeli daily over a picture of Sharon and Abbas smiling and shaking hands.
But Arab commentators were sceptical, saying Israel took more than it gave at the meeting. Newspapers across the Middle East criticised Tuesday's summit at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort for harming - not helping - the Palestinian cause.
"The whole world classifies him (Sharon) as a war criminal, and yet he was welcomed and given a place at a round table as if his hands were clean of Palestinian blood," wrote Abdul-Wahab Badrakhan of the widely read pan-Arab Al Hayat daily.
Lebanon's leftist As-Safir newspaper ran the headline: "Sharm el-Sheik summit crowns Sharon a man of peace ... for nothing."
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.09.05 @ 07:20 PM CST [
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Study: White House Seeks Evem More Cuts
WASHINGTON (AP) - Spending restraints in President Bush's budget proposal would mean deep cuts to environmental protection, community development, veterans benefits and other programs through the end of the decade, a liberal think tank said Wednesday.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said its calculations, made using budget information provided to congressional committees, reveal future spending cuts that the White House wants but didn't detail in the 2006 budget it sent to lawmakers Monday.
``They did real budgeting, they just decided to hide it,'' said Richard Kogan, a budget analyst at the center. ``I don't fault them for budgeting, I fault them for hiding it.''
By proposing annual lids on government spending without giving program-by-program details of potential program cuts in 2007 through 2010, the report said, the White House sidestepped a debate on policy trade-offs.
``It is difficult to assess the impact of the proposed caps when one does not know what types of cuts the administration is planning to achieve them,'' the report concluded.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.09.05 @ 07:14 PM CST [
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Energy Secretary 'Focused' on Yucca Mtn.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told lawmakers Wednesday that while progress on a nuclear waste project in Nevada will be delayed, the government is ``very focused and committed'' to building the facility.
Bodman was questioned about the Bush administration's commitment to the program two days after the Energy Department said it would ask for only $651 million for the Yucca Mountain program for the budget year that begins in October.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, noted that until recently, it had been anticipated that beginning next year the department would need more than $1 billion a year to keep the program on track so it could begin accepting high-level waste from nuclear power plants by 2010.
Department officials have delayed plans to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the project and acknowledged the new target date for opening the facility - if it gets an NRC license - is 2012.
Potential problems that could delay programs, Bodman said, are court rulings that strike down the proposed radiation safety standards for the site and problems in preparation of the license application. But that ``is not to suggest any less enthusiasm for Yucca Mountain,'' Bodman told the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Full Article: guardian.co.ukWell of course not. What's a little lethal radiation among friends?
rootsie on 02.09.05 @ 07:11 PM CST [
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Sunday, February 6th
Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World: Book Review
As many as one out of six people on earth is an illegal squatter. In
Shadow Cities, journalist Robert Neuwirth describes his travels through the megalopolises of Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Nairobi to discover what life is like for that 1 billion. What he finds defies many of the stereotypes of grime- and crime-ridden Third World slums.
The improvised shanties he visits on hillsides and along train tracks, though constructed illicitly, are often well tended. Neuwirth finds the "law-abiding outlaws" who inhabit them to be for the most part upstanding and neighborly. "People may be poorer here," a woman tells him in one of Rio’s favelas. "But they pay their bills."
Squatting is not simply trespassing, contends Neuwirth, but an inevitable phase of urbanization. "All cities," he writes, "start in mud": New York’s Upper East Side began as a shantytown, and Paris and London once teemed with the semi-homeless.
City governments should learn from this history, he argues. Instead of ignoring (or bulldozing) slums, they should provide squatters a fair stake in their de facto homes. Ultimately, Neuwirth has faith that the most daunting aspect of squatter cities -- their size -- will be their salvation, as their residents discover the sheer power of numbers.
Full Article: motherjones.com
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 09:23 PM CST [
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Backlash in Baghdad: An Interview with Manal Omar
One third of the candidates in Iraq’s January 30 elections are women, and women have been guaranteed 25 percent of the seats in the country’s new national assembly. But even with such provisions in place, the status of women in Iraqi society after Sunday’s vote remains uncertain. Women are facing a growing backlash, according to Manal Omar, the director of Women for Women International’s program in Iraq. “It’s been really difficult coming to terms with how bad the situation has become,” she says. “We’re seeing women’s rights leap backwards.”
The precarious position of Iraqi women is outlined in a recent report (PDF) by the WWI, which is based in Washington, D.C., and assists women in post-conflict countries. It paints a bleak picture: Iraqi women are under siege from all sides, and they’re losing their access to civil society in the process. Much of the blame lies with the bloody insurgency and the strictures of religious conservatives, but the report also criticizes the U.S.-led coalition and the interim Iraqi government for ignoring -- and at times undermining -- women’s concerns. A WWI survey found that while Iraqi women overwhelmingly want opportunities for education, work outside the home, and political participation, their most basic needs are not being met. Ninety-five percent said their families did not have adequate electricity; only five percent said the government had done something to improve their lives in the past year. Omar criticizes the U.S. for supporting policies on paper -- such as the 25-percent representation rule -- without creating the conditions that would make those changes stick once a new government takes over. “The Kodak moment has been more important than the reality,” she says.
Full Article: motherjones.com
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 09:17 PM CST [
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Crips, Bloods and Laura Bush
by Earl Ofari Hutchinson
President Bush wasted no time in dispatching his newly designated gangbuster, wife Laura, to the mean streets of Philadelphia. That city, like other big cities, continues to be plagued by gang killings. Laura's mission, as Bush made it clear in his State of the Union speech, is to help halt that violence. In addition to tapping Laura as his gang czar, Bush says that he'll shell out $150 million to youth education and violence prevention programs. But in the past Bush's flashy, new initiatives, unveiled with much public fanfare, have fizzled out due to lack of money, lack of political will to push them through, or lack of practicality. Bush's gang initiative may suffer the same fate. The money will be spread out over three years. That adds up to about $1 million for each state. That paltry sum will barely by hoops for one inner city youth recreation center. That is, if the money is ever appropriated. Bush has said that he will meat ax dozens of federal programs to cut the mountainous federal deficits that he created by piling on billions to wage war and reconstruction in Iraq, and his disastrous tax cuts that mostly benefit the corporate rich. The dollars would be dribbled out to Bush's pet faith based groups to push his morals and values message.
But increased dollars, Laura's inner-city treks, and Bush's moral finger wag, will do little to stop the killing. Many of the young men that tuck guns in their waistbands and shoot-up their neighborhoods feel that no one cares whether they live or die. Their belief that their lives are devalued fosters disrespect for the law and forces them to internalize anger and displace aggression onto others.
Full Article: commondreams.orgCalif. Police Kill Suspected Gangster, 13LOS ANGELES - A 13-year-old suspected gang member driving a stolen Toyota was killed by police early Sunday after a pre-dawn chase in which he rammed an LAPD (news - web sites) patrol car, authorities said.
The vehicle was moving erratically and police began their pursuit after suspecting the driver was drunk, said LAPD spokeswoman Kristi Sandoval.
The driver stopped and a passenger, described as another suspected gang member, fled on foot.
The driver ignored commands from police, then shifted the 1992 red Toyota into reverse and rammed a black-and-white cruiser, prompting police to open fire, Sandoval said.
She could not say how many officers opened fire, or how many shots were fired.
The driver died at the scene. Sandoval did not know how many times the youth was hit by bullets, or where.
news.yahoo.comExcuse me, police kill CHILD, age 13
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 09:14 PM CST [
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Paranoia Grips the U.S. Capital
The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon anti-terrorist unit called something like "Contelinpro."
Life imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name "JCS Conplan 0300-97," authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret "anti-terrorist" military units on American soil for what the author claims are "extra-legal missions."
In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the U.S. Civil War.
Full Article: commondreams.org
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 09:09 PM CST [
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Sunnis demand timetable for foreign troops withdrawal
BAGHDAD, Feb. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraq's influential Sunni religious leadership on Saturday put the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country as a condition to participate in the constitution-writing process.
Spokesman of the Committee of Muslim Scholars Omar Ragheb revealed it to reporters after Hareth al-Dhari, head of the committee, met with Ashraf Qazi, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy in Iraq.
"Qazi asked the committee to take part in drafting the constitution," said Ragheb, adding "we told him that we had conditions and one of them is to reach a consensus with all partiesover a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign troops from Iraq".
Full Article: xinhuanet.com
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 09:05 PM CST [
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Haiti: Time for justice
Haiti to have local elections on 9th October and presidential and parliamentary elections on 13th November
The elections will fill the gap in Haiti since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from power last year in the most blatant example of political interference and intrusion by the United States of America in the region since the failed coup d'etat in Venezuela.
As the elections are announced, members of Aristide's party, the Lavalas Family Party, complain that their senior members are being detained without trial (a practice with which Washington has been connected elsewhere).
In fact, the recent history of Haiti is a study in Washington's interference against a progressive, democratically-elected government. From the time when Aristide was elected in 2000, the USA launched an economic aid embargo, funded opposition groups, and provided support for coup plots.
Full Article: pravda.ru
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 09:00 PM CST [
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Venezuela shifts oil sales strategy
Venezuela is today's US fourth oil supplier, but this could drastically change in the short term. As the relationship between neo-conservative Washington and leftist Caracas deteriorates day after day, the government of Hugo Chavez is looking for new oil partners in China, Russia, India, Iran and Argentina, as advanced by PRAVDA.Ru.
In the last months, Chavez moved quickly to accomplish his strategy by signing bilateral deals with these countries. More recently, rumours about selling American oil-refining operations used to process Venezuelan crude for the U.S. market, came to confirm what looks to be a trend.
Venezuela is world's fifth oil exporter and responsible for 15 percent of the US imports. Much of that comes through its Houston-based subsidiary, Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). This is the unit Wall Street expects to be sold by Caracas, which could mean a huge operation as Citgo is the ninth-largest refiner in the US.
Full Article: pravda.ruBuy Citgo.
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 08:56 PM CST [
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Solar activity disrupts radio communication and crashes satellites
Powerful bursts on the Sun have become quite frequent lately. Planet Earth was seized with a strong magnetic storm several days ago, which measured almost the maximum on the 0-9 scale. Proton currents were especially intensive in the European part of Russia. Common people's interest in the solar activity is not limited to the desire of having a good tan. The activity of the Sun may result in bad health, headaches, and blood pressure surges. It may also disrupt radio and satellite communication, or lead to technical malfunctions in the work of devices possessing strong electromagnetic fields.
Full Article:pravda.ru
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 08:51 PM CST [
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Georgian prime minister mysteriously dies
Zurab Zhvania died because of natural gas poisoning, although assassination is quite possible too.
The death of Zurab Zhvania, the prime minister of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, will most likely become the subject of numerous discussions about who gains profit from it and who he was an obstacle to. Zhvania was a reformer and ally of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili; he was persona number two in the administration of the republic.
Full Article: pravda.ru
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 08:47 PM CST [
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MPs Return to Somalia, Cabinet Backs Peace Force
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The Somali government took a fresh step toward establishing itself on home soil on Sunday when a second team of officials including a senior minister flew from Kenya to Mogadishu to assess security in the failed state.
Five thousand Somalis who had waited six hours cheered when 50 MPs including the speaker of parliament and the national security minister entered a Mogadishu stadium, the second team of MPs to arrive in a week to ready the government's return.
Full Article:nytimes.com/reuters
rootsie on 02.06.05 @ 08:32 PM CST [
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Saturday, February 5th
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
By P. Sainath
Number of homes damaged by the tsunami in Nagapattinam: 30,300. Number of homes destroyed by the Congress-NCP Government in Mumbai: 84,000.
How agonized we are about how people die. How untroubled we are by how they live.
Maharashtra's Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, says every Chief Minister would like to leave behind a legacy. His own, he believes, will be that of the man who cleaned up Mumbai. Mr. Deshmukh, in short, wishes to be remembered.
He will be. His Government wiped out 6,300 homes on a single day. This is a record the Israeli army would be proud to match on a busy afternoon in the occupied territories.
The Mumbai mass evictions - now on hold - reflected well an elite mindset towards the deprived that fully matured in the 1990s. It is a lot about how we see the poor today. About a view marked by contempt for the rights and suffering of ordinary people. Unless that suffering is certified as genuine by the rest of us.
Mr. Deshmukh now says the destruction of "some" houses was "an accident". Not intended. Which perhaps places his Government in the category of natural calamity. However, most of Mumbai's beautiful people, some of whom attended `tsunami dinners' after expressing satisfaction over the city's mass demolitions, are firmly with their Chief Minister. No one from that fraternity has `adopted' a demolished slum for adoring cameras. Nor organized relief operations for people, including many babies shivering without shelter, in one of the coldest winters.
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.05.05 @ 11:53 PM CST [
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Brown's hopes dashed at G7
Britain launched a last-ditch bid to muster support for its plan to rid Africa of poverty despite a flat rejection by the United States in talks among the Group of Seven industrial powers today.
Finance ministers engaged in heated and occasionally angry exchanges late into Friday night but failed to achieve any kind of resolution, sources said as talks went into a second day.
"The Americans are on a different wavelength," German deputy finance minister Caio Koch-Weser told reporters.
British finance minister Gordon Brown wants approval for his International Finance Facility (IFF) scheme to double aid to Africa to $100 billion a year and write off the debts of the poorest countries completely.
The plan has the backing of South Africa's Nelson Mandela who made an emotional appeal to the G7, equating the fight against poverty to the struggle against apartheid.
"Do not delay while poor people continue to suffer," the 86-year-old former political prisoner said putting all his moral weight behind his plea. He demanded a full write-off of African debt and $50 billion extra a year in aid for the next decade.
But without US support the chances of any breakthrough appear remote.
US Treasury under secretary John Taylor yesterday rejected Brown's plan to double existing aid by using rich countries' guarantees to raise money in the capital markets.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.05.05 @ 10:40 AM CST [
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Bad vibes as tug-of-love hits Marley anniversary
The road from Kingston to Bob Marley's mausoleum swerves and dips past stalls of sugarcane, papaya and mangoes and then hugs the hairpins of Dry Harbour mountains. Ask a man at Prickly Point the directions and he will tell you: "Bob is up there."
"Once you get up there you will feel he vibe," he adds, and then moves on with his cutlass over his shoulder.
Up in the village of Nine Miles, where Marley was born 60 years ago tomorrow, the reggae superstar - who died aged 36 in 1981 - lies encased in marble. "This is where Bob rests in peace," says Jonathan Braham, the tour guide. The question most people on the island are asking is, for how long?
Marley's family has announced plans to move his remains to Ethiopia, sparking a pan-African tug-of-love not just between his family and his fans but between the country in which he was born and the continent he revered in his religion and music.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.05.05 @ 10:36 AM CST [
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Friday, February 4th
Cuba Says Illiteracy Must Be Eliminated
Havana, Feb 2 (AIN) Cuba's Minister of Education Luis Ignacio Gomez said in Havana that the world has the obligation to respond to humanity's call for eradicating illiteracy as part of the fight for social justice and emancipation.
During the opening of the First World Congress on Literacy on Tuesday -attended by Cuban President Fidel Castro- Gomez noted that the world's 860 million adult illiterates surpasses the number of Internet visitors. He indicated that despite the technological advances illiteracy continues to be one of the main problems on Earth.
The Cuban Education Minister recalled that 15 years ago humanity made a commitment to reduce illiteracy but despite the commitments of many nations, the goal of 2015 will not be possible as experts predict that by that year over 800 million people will remain illiterate.
He pointed out that to transform this situation 8 billion dollars are needed for education or en equivalent of four days of military spending in the world.
Gomez noted that the United States spends 56 times more than that figure each year on its war machine, which he said shows the lack of a political will to help address a problem inherited from colonialism, imperialist exploitation and unequal exchange.
Full Article: periodico26.cuCuba willing to assist Latin America in literacy effortsvnagency.com
rootsie on 02.04.05 @ 10:15 PM CST [
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Journey of Mankind: The Peopling of the World
The Bradshaw Foundation, in association with Stephen Oppenheimer, presents a virtual global journey of modern man over the last 160,000 years. The map will show for the first time the interaction of migration and climate over this period. We are the descendants of a few small groups of tropical Africans who united in the face of adversity, not only to the point of survival but to the development of a sophisticated social interaction and culture expressed through many forms. Based on a synthesis of the mtDNA and Y chromosome evidence with archaeology, climatology and fossil study, Stephen Oppenheimer has tracked the routes and timing of migration, placing it in context with ancient rock art around the world.
Who were our ancestors? From where did we originate? If we came out of Africa, what factors governed our routes? And when? Now finally this interactive map reveals an exciting journey of opportunity and survival, confirmed by genetic science and documented by ancient rock art.
bradshawfoundation.com/journey
rootsie on 02.04.05 @ 09:18 PM CST [
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Antarctic ice sheet is an 'awakened giant'
The massive west Antarctic ice sheet, previously assumed to be stable, is starting to collapse, scientists warned on Tuesday.
Antarctica contains more than 90% of the world's ice, and the loss of any significant part of it would cause a substantial sea level rise. Scientists used to view Antarctica as a "slumbering giant", said Chris Rapley, from the British Antarctic Survey, but now he sees it as an "awakened giant".
Rapley presented measurements of the ice sheet at a major climate conference in Exeter, UK. Glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula, which protrudes from the continent to the north, were already known to be retreating. But the data Rapley presented show that glaciers within the much larger west Antarctic Ice sheet are also starting to disappear.
If the ice on the peninsula melts entirely it will raise global sea levels by 0.3 metres, and the west Antarctic ice sheet contains enough water to contribute metres more. The last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2001, said that collapse of this ice sheet was unlikely during the 21st century. That may now need to be reassessed, Rapley warned.
Full Article: newscientist.com
rootsie on 02.04.05 @ 04:32 PM CST [
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Thursday, February 3rd
New non-lethal weapon lets troops microwave hostile crowds
The United States has developed a non-lethal microwave weapon for use in Iraq.
Officials said the vehicle, termed Sheriff, would contain the Active Denial System. The system uses millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy that can be directed at targets at a range of 1 kilometer.
The ADS system would be downgraded for Iraqi deployment in urban areas, officials said. The ADS causes the skin to burn, causing the people to run away.
The Pentagon plans to install the non-lethal, high-powered microwave weapon on a military vehicle. The deployment of the first platforms in Iraq would take place in September 2005.
Full Article: worldtribune.comMicrowave beam weaponry. Just goes to show you can never be too paranoid. In this spirit, since they announce they are going to deploy it, I am sure they already have.
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 10:42 PM CST [
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Strike a blow against the empire
I don't know about you, but there's only so much plodding through the mucky trail of kleptocrats and fascists (and, God help us, perhaps even worse) before I need to wash that crap right outta my mind.
Enter, Hugo Chavez.
President Chavez's closing speech at the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre reminded me that so long as there are fascists, there will be anti-fascists. And the lyrics of folksinger Rovics continue to give me the hard-headed, honest hope that even when they win, their victories are neither eternal nor absolute, and will always meet resistance. We're way passed utopias here; we can't exactly kid ourselves anymore about building the New Jerusalem. But we may yet be able to light some more candles against the darkness.
And we do have our victories. The enduring fact of Hugo Chavez, for one. We need to remember that the bad guys don't always win. And nowhere do we find more examples of this than in Venezuela.
So a little mental hygiene today, on the side of the righteous angels who know what deserves rebellion.
Full Article: rigorousintuition.blogspot.com"Imperialism is not invincible"
Venezuela’s Chavez Closes World Social Forum with Call to Transcend Capitalism venezuelanalysis.com/news
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 06:12 PM CST [
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On the Injustice of Getting Smeared
by Ward Churchill
In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.
The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.
I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 05:54 PM CST [
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Women Provide Emotion at State of Union
WASHINGTON - They met just before the speech began: the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and the daughter of a man killed by Saddam Hussein's regime. They found some comfort in a spontaneous moment that electrified President Bush's State of the Union address.
The two women, both touched by death in Iraq, reached out for each other while lawmakers, military leaders, the president and the nation watched. Their locked embrace inspired the longest applause of the evening.
Full Article: yahoo.com.newsWell at least women are good for something in this great warmongering fest. We're supposed to cry and wave our handkerchiefs as our sons and husbands go off to the slaughterhouse. 'Spontaneous moment'-yeah right.
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 01:49 PM CST [
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DR Congo re-erects Belgian statue
A statue of former Belgian colonial king Leopold II has been re-erected in the centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo capital, Kinshasa.
The statue of Leopold riding his horse is still dirty after spending 40 years in an open-air dump.
The Congolese culture minister said DR Congo's history should be revived.
Leopold II set up the Congo Free State in 1885 as his personal possession and left arguably the worst legacy of all the European colonial regimes.
HolocaustFormer BBC Kinshasa correspondent Mark Dummett says King Leopold II turned the country into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people.
Leopold's legacy of violence In front of the statue outside the central station, one man told the BBC:
"He left us in poverty. He exploited our raw materials and left us with nothing."
Another said: "It's important for us to remember our past, like the Jewish people remember the Holocaust."
Full Article: bbc.co.uk
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 01:29 PM CST [
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Our man in Kenya back on warpath
The British high commissioner to Kenya launched a renewed attack on corruption last night, claiming that "massive looting" of public funds was devastating the country's economy.
Sir Edward Clay's fresh attack on sleaze follows a speech last July accusing the government of being "gluttons", which caused a furore.
Last night Sir Edward claimed that foreign associates of the previous government of Daniel arap Moi were working with officials of the new government to steal public funds through crooked procurement ventures.
"We are not talking about minor corruption. We are talking about massive looting and/ or grand corruption which in total has a huge impact on Kenya's economy," he said in a speech at Kenya's Journalist of the Year awards, released to Reuters.
In a speech to British businessmen last July, Sir Edward accused the government of President Mwai Kibaki of "arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons".
Full Article: guardian.co.ukPerhaps Sir Edward would not like to recall that African 'gluttons' are the pure product of European ones. They have excellent role models.
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 01:24 PM CST [
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Shell reports UK record profits
The Anglo-Dutch giant Shell today reported the biggest-ever profits by a UK company, revealing that it had made $17.5bn (£9.3bn) - or £25m a day - last year, despite being plagued by a reserves scandal.
Thanks to soaring oil prices, Shell's profits, up by 38% from the year before, beat the previous UK record of £7.7bn, which was set by the HSBC bank.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.03.05 @ 01:20 PM CST [
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Wednesday, February 2nd
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
By Richard Oxman
Ward Churchill, University of Colorado at Boulder professor, recently resigned his post as head of the school's ethnic studies department following an uproar over an article he wrote about the people who died in the World Trade Center 9/11 event. Pressure had been applied.
The longtime native rights activist and leader of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement had written an article underscoring how US foreign policies in Iraq and its support of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians played a role in the attack in inspiring the hijackers. He questioned whether the victims inside the World Trade Center should be described as "innocent civilians."
I remember (very well) the first time I came across his "little Eichmans" take; if I live long enough...I think it'll stay with me more vividly than the JFK assassination moment has to date.
To draw from one of Democracy Now!s headlines which delved into Churchill's mind/recent statements: "They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire - the 'mighty engine of profit.' Churchill accused the victims of Sept. 11 as being among the Americans who were too busy in their own lives to see the abuses being carried out by the U.S. overseas. This week Churchill said 'The overriding question that was being posed at the time was...why did this happen, why did they hate us so much,...and my premise was when you do this to other people's families and children, that is going to be a natural response."
Full Article:counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.02.05 @ 02:27 PM CST [
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The Future of Iraq and the US Occupation
by Noam Chomsky
Let's just imagine what the policies might be of an independent Iraq, independent, sovereign Iraq, let's say more or less democratic, what are the policies likely to be?
Well there's going to be a Shiite majority, so they'll have some significant influence over policy. The first thing they'll do is reestablish relations with Iran. Now they don't particularly like Iran, but they don't want to go to war with them so they'll move toward what was happening already even under Saddam, that is, restoring some sort of friendly relations with Iran.
That's the last thing the United States wants. It has worked very hard to try to isolate Iran. The next thing that might happen is that a Shiite-controlled, more or less democratic Iraq might stir up feelings in the Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia, which happen to be right nearby and which happen to be where all the oil is. So you might find what in Washington must be the ultimate nightmarea Shiite region which controls most of the world's oil and is independent. Furthermore, it is very likely that an independent, sovereign Iraq would try to take its natural place as a leading state in the Arab world, maybe the leading state. And you know that's something that goes back to biblical times.
What does that mean? Well it means rearming, first of all. They have to confront the regional enemy. Now the regional enemy, overpowering enemy, is Israel. They're going to have to rearm to confront Israelwhich means probably developing weapons of mass destruction, just as a deterrent. So here's the picture of what they must be dreaming about in Washingtonand probably 10 Downing street in Londonthat here you might get a substantial Shiite majority rearming, developing weapons of mass destruction, to try to get rid of the U.S. outposts that are there to try to make sure that the U.S. controls most of the oil reserves of the world. Is Washington going to sit there and allow that? That's kind of next to inconceivable.
What I've just read from the business press the last couple of days probably reflects the thinking in Washington and London: "Uh well, okay, we'll let them have a government, but we're not going to pay any attention to what they say." In fact the Pentagon announced at the same time two days ago: we're keeping 120,000 troops there into at least 2007, even if they call for withdrawal tomorrow.
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.02.05 @ 02:24 PM CST [
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Climate change 'will hit Africa hardest'
Urgent action must be taken in order to prevent Africa from bearing the brunt of global warming, a scientific conference on climate change was told today.
If current trends continued, temperatures in sub-Saharan Africa could rise by 2C with rainfall declining by 10%, according to Anthony Nyong, a scientist at Jos university in Nigeria. "There must be substantial and genuine reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by the principal emitters," Dr Nyong wrote in a paper presented to the conference, taking place in Exeter.
The event was called by the prime minister, Tony Blair, in order to stress to world leaders the importance of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Mr Blair has pledged to make Africa and curbing climate change the top priorities for the UK's presidency of the G8 group of the world's eight richest nations this year.
Dr Nyong said the G8 accounted for almost half the global carbon dioxide emissions in 1999. Scientists say carbon dioxide is a major factor in climate change, with most agreeing that much of it is caused by car exhausts and electricity generation.
The US stands almost alone in the developed world, however, in disputing this human element in the phenomenon.
Full Article: guardian.co.ukWell, maybe the US is counting on it rather than disputing it.
rootsie on 02.02.05 @ 01:43 PM CST [
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Tuesday, February 1st
"Free" Iraqis Still Waiting for the Wind of Change
by Robert Fisk
The gale tore into Baghdad yesterday, stripping the walls of election posters, sending miniature whirlwinds between the shuttered shops of Rashid Street, giving new meaning to the black hoods and masks worn by the policemen at Tahrir Square.
Tahrir--"independence"--is a word which a lot of people voted for on Sunday; not for "democracy" as the Western media would have it, but for freedom; freedom to speak, freedom to vote, freedom from the Americans.
They were in Baghdad, too, yesterday, driving their Humvees through Karada, circling the city in their Apaches and their little bee-like Sioux spotter helicopters.
For days we will have to wait for the election results. A spokesman for the Shia Muslim Iraqi National Alliance is quoted in The New York Times as saying that the Americans and British say his party might have won more than 50 per cent of the vote--the Shia Republic has come of age!--and it's all the talk of Baghdad when the people hear it in Arabic on their own networks from the Gulf. But how could the Americans know now that the INA has won more than half the votes?
Full Article: counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.01.05 @ 11:14 PM CST [
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Exxon makes $25bn profit
Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly quoted oil and gas firm, yesterday said it made $25bn (£13bn) in 2004, the highest profits in the company's history.
The earnings are roughly equal to the gross domestic product of Luxembourg or Guatemala, and higher than the individual GDPs of Syria, Bulgaria and Kenya.
The record profits were achieved on the back of the surge in oil and gas prices last year due to high demand and instability in some of the biggest producing nations.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.01.05 @ 11:06 PM CST [
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The Vietnam turnout was good as well
by Sami Ramadani
On September 4 1967 the New York Times published an upbeat story on presidential elections held by the South Vietnamese puppet regime at the height of the Vietnam war. Under the heading "US encouraged by Vietnam vote: Officials cite 83% turnout despite Vietcong terror", the paper reported that the Americans had been "surprised and heartened" by the size of the turnout "despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting". A successful election, it went on, "has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam". The echoes of this weekend's propaganda about Iraq's elections are so close as to be uncanny.
With the past few days' avalanche of spin, you could be forgiven for thinking that on January 30 2005 the US-led occupation of Iraq ended and the people won their freedom and democratic rights. This has been a multi-layered campaign, reminiscent of the pre-war WMD frenzy and fantasies about the flowers Iraqis were collecting to throw at the invasion forces. How you could square the words democracy, free and fair with the brutal reality of occupation, martial law, a US-appointed election commission and secret candidates has rarely been allowed to get in the way of the hype.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.01.05 @ 11:02 PM CST [
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Pentagon gets to pay informers
Obscure provision cuts reliance on CIA
WASHINGTON Congress has given the Pentagon important new authority to fight terrorism by authorizing Special Operations forces for the first time to spend money to pay informers and recruit foreign paramilitary soldiers.
The new authority, which would also let Special Operations forces purchase equipment or other items from the foreigners, is spelled out in a single paragraph of an 800-page defense authorization bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in October.
It was requested by the Pentagon and the commander of Special Operations forces as part of a broader effort to make the military less reliant on the Central Intelligence Agency, according to congressional and Defense Department officials.
...Defense Department officials did not call attention to the program even at a briefing last week in which they confirmed news reports about other steps to broaden the military's involvement in intelligence operations. Those include the formation of a new clandestine unit within the Defense Intelligence Agency to work more closely with Special Operations forces in supporting battlefield missions, including counterterrorism operations.
A CIA official said the new authority would not rival the agency's own programs.
"The fact that DOD has fixed a gap in its capability is a good thing," the official said, referring to the Department of Defense.
"But the CIA exists to do exactly this. Just because another agency has a new authority doesn't mean we stop doing what we're doing. In fact, the president has asked us to increase our capability by 50 percent."
Full Article: iht.com
rootsie on 02.01.05 @ 12:13 PM CST [
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Churchill resigns chairmanship at CU amid 9/11 dispute
Embattled University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill resigned his chairmanship of the school's ethnic studies program Monday.
"I don't think it is appropriate that under these conditions, that I represent my department," said Churchill, who added that he has recently received numerous "credible" death threats
...It doesn't look to be a routine day. The CU College Republicans are planning a four-hour protest outside the University Memorial Center, highlighting their petition drive asking President Betsy Hoffman to fire Churchill.
The group will also present fliers to students arriving for Churchill's 12:30 p.m. class in the American Indian Studies program, "Indian/Government Conflicts."
The fliers will inform students about Churchill's 9/11 commentary.
Conflict has been a close companion lately for Churchill, who is also a prominent member of the American Indian Movement of Colorado.
Full Article: rockymountainnews.com
rootsie on 02.01.05 @ 12:06 PM CST [
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