Venezuelan ambassador: Aznar a Yankee tool
Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid Arevalo Mendez said yesterday that former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar "has no voice, nor thought, nor discourse of his own." When analyzing the Latin American political system, "Aznar is carrying Bush on his shoulders, which limits the vision the US has of the region."
Aznar had committed himself to working to stop "the return to populism" in the area. He said, "Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, maybe Argentina. All those places run the risk."
Méndez said, "I'm surprised that a person with enough intellectual capacity to have his own voice" is agreeing with Bush on Latin American issues. He added, "In analyzing current politics in the region, you can "use the context of internal leadership in Latin America, or the Americanized viewpoint of the US, which Aznar supports."
Mendez added that Aznar was wrong when he called on Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez not to use "petrodollars" in foreign policy, because that would be like "asking Spain not to use the money it receives from tourism to make international policy, or Argentina not to use what it receives from meat to make international policy. This sort of right-wing statements have no validity nor stand up to minimal discourse."
spainherald.com
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 09:03 AM CST [
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Senators hear 'shocking examples' of FEMA waste
FEMA has let nearly 11,000 unused manufactured homes deteriorate on old runways and open fields in Arkansas, and the agency spent $416,000 per person to house a few hundred Hurricane Katrina evacuees for a short time in Alabama last fall, government investigators told the Senate on Monday.
news.yahoo.comHotel Aid Ends; Katrina Evacuees Seek Housing Again NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 13 — Thousands of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina became transients again on Monday, wheeling their entire lives onto the street on luggage carts or dragging bulging garbage bags through hotel lobbies, when the federal government stopped paying their hotel bills.
In the largest single step in its phaseout of emergency housing assistance for victims of the hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ended the hotel payments for 12,000 families across the country, including 4,400 now living in New Orleans.
Most will get apartment rental assistance or trailers. Federal officials acknowledged Monday that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of mobile homes might never be used to house hurricane victims.
Most?
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 08:58 AM CST [
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Taleban say attacks will increase, US “helpless”
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan - Afghanistan’s Taleban guerrillas are gaining strength and will step up attacks against government and foreign troops when spring comes next month, a Taleban commander said on Tuesday.
The Taleban claimed responsibility for a blast on Monday that the US military said killed four troops. The Taleban said nine Americans were killed and US forces were helpless in the face of such attacks.
“Taleban attacks will further increase with a decrease in the winter cold,” a former Taleban governor of Kandahar province, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Rahmani, told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.
Fighting in Afghanistan traditionally eases off during the winter months when mountain passes get snowed under.
But violence has surged in recent months, including 15 suicide blasts since November.
US military officials say the Taleban have changed tactics since suffering heavy losses in clashes last summer and are now increasingly using roadside blasts and suicide bombers against soft targets.
khaleejtimes.com
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 08:41 AM CST [
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Kurdish Group Claims Istanbul Bombing
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- A bomb exploded at an Istanbul supermarket during Monday's afternoon rush, injuring 15 people. A Kurdish news agency reported that a Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, which came days after a fatal bombing at an Internet cafe in the city.
In an e-mail, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons Organization said it carried out both attacks in response to Turkey's policies toward the Kurdish people, the Firat News Agency said on its Web site.
The shadowy group - believed linked to the main Kurdish guerrilla group, Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK - has claimed responsibility for a number of bomb attacks in Turkey, including a blast in the Aegean resort town of Cesme last summer that wounded 21 people. The same group had also claimed Thursday's bomb attack on the Internet cafe, which killed one person and injured 15, including seven policemen.
"From now on, we will continue our actions uninterrupted" until the Turkish government changes its policies, the militant group said.
ap.org/nydailynews
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 08:38 AM CST [
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Popular Ohio Democrat Drops Out of Race, and Perhaps Politics
Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and popular Democratic candidate in Ohio's closely watched Senate contest, said yesterday that he was dropping out of the race and leaving politics altogether as a result of pressure from party leaders.
Mr. Hackett said Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada, the same party leaders who he said persuaded him last August to enter the Senate race, had pushed him to step aside so that Representative Sherrod Brown, a longtime member of Congress, could take on Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent.
Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. It was his performance in the Congressional race that led party leaders to recruit him for the Senate race.
But for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress.
"This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me," said Mr. Hackett, whose announcement comes two days before the state's filing deadline for candidates. He said he was outraged to learn that party leaders were calling his donors and asking them to stop giving and said he would not enter the Second District Congressional race.
"For me, this is a second betrayal," Mr. Hackett said. "First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."
Mr. Hackett was the first Iraq war veteran to seek national office, and the decision to steer him away from the Senate race has surprised those who see him as a symbol for Democrats who oppose the war but want to appear strong on national security.
nytimes.com
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 08:24 AM CST [
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Can You Say "Permanent Bases"?
...Assuming, then, a near year to come of withdrawal buzz, speculation, and even a media blitz of withdrawal announcements, the question is: How can anybody tell if the Bush administration is actually withdrawing from Iraq or not? Sometimes, when trying to cut through a veritable fog of misinformation and disinformation, it helps to focus on something concrete. In the case of Iraq, nothing could be more concrete -- though less generally discussed in our media -- than the set of enormous bases the Pentagon has long been building in that country. Quite literally multi-billions of dollars have gone into them. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of several billion dollars being sunk into base construction ("the numbers are staggering"). Since then, the base-building has been massive and ongoing.
In a country in such startling disarray, these bases, with some of the most expensive and advanced communications systems on the planet, are like vast spaceships that have landed from another solar system. Representing a staggering investment of resources, effort, and geostrategic dreaming, they are the unlikeliest places for the Bush administration to hand over willingly to even the friendliest of Iraqi governments.
informationclearinghouse.info
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 08:00 AM CST [
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Budget axes public health projects
WASHINGTON - President Bush has requested billions more to prepare for potential disasters such as a biological attack or an influenza epidemic, but his proposed budget for next year would zero out popular health projects that supporters say target more mundane, but more certain, killers.
If enacted, the 2007 budget would eliminate federal programs that support inner-city Indian health clinics, defibrillators in rural areas, an educational campaign about Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain-injury centers, and a nationwide registry for Lou Gehrig's disease. It would cut close to $1 billion in health care grants to states and would kill the entire budget of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center.
In a $2.8 trillion budget, the amounts involved may seem minuscule, but proponents argue that the health care projects Bush has singled out are the "ultimate homeland security," as Vinay Nadkarni put it. The spokesman for the American Heart Association said he cannot fathom why the administration has recommended eliminating a $1.5 million program that provides defibrillators to rural communities and trains local personnel on how to use the machines to restart hearts that go into cardiac arrest.
bradenton.com
rootsie on 02.15.06 @ 07:45 AM CST [
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Tuesday, February 14th
Haitians Angry Over Election Take to Streets
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 13 -- Haiti's hopes for a peaceful presidential election exploded Monday in a torrent of violence as mobs overturned cars, set piles of tires ablaze and built elaborate roadblocks across major highways, protesting delays in the vote count and alleged fraud in last Tuesday's balloting.
Demonstrators paralyzed cities across the country, from Cap-Haitien in the north to this impoverished seaside capital, where tens of thousands of people took to the streets to demand that Rene Preval -- a former president and favorite of this city's poor -- be named president.
Haiti's distinctive "tap-taps," the colorfully painted trucks that ferry hundreds of thousands of passengers a day, were effectively stilled by roadblocks, set up by armed thugs demanding bribes, on the major arteries connecting cities.
In Port-au-Prince, at least one protester was killed, a luxury hotel was occupied by demonstrators and the international airport was closed. There were reports that U.N peacekeeping forces had shot into the crowds, but U.N. officials here said they had fired only into the air.
U.N. troops did not intervene when a boisterous crowd burst into the Montana Hotel, where election results were being prepared, and ran through the halls and jumped into the pool.
Hoping to quell the unrest, Preval -- who is far ahead of all rivals with 90 percent of votes counted -- flew to the capital late Monday on a U.N. helicopter from his home town in a remote mountain village. Preval had urged calm in recent days, but he had also stoked emotions among followers by accusing Haiti's electoral commission of lowering his vote total to force him into a runoff and by mockingly singing, "They're stealing our votes," on his porch.
"We have questions about the electoral process," Preval told reporters late Monday after meeting with the top U.N. official in Haiti and ambassadors from the United States, France, Canada and Brazil. "We want to see how we can save the process."
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 09:00 AM CST [
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America's Historic Debt to Haiti
As Haiti intrudes again on the U.S. consciousness with a new round of troubled elections, Americans see a violent, backward, poverty-stricken country run by descendants of African slaves. There are feelings of condescension mixed with a touch of racism.
But what few Americans know is that they owe this Caribbean nation a profound historical debt. Indeed, perhaps no nation has done more for the United States than Haiti and been treated as badly in return.
If not for Haiti – which in the 1700s rivaled the American colonies as the most valuable European possession in the Western Hemisphere – the course of U.S. history would have been very different. It is possible that the United States might never have expanded much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
consortiumnews.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:56 AM CST [
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Republicans brand Katrina response a national failure
The response to Hurricane Katrina was "a national failure" and "an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare", according to details from the first of three anticipated reports into the disaster, published yesterday.
The report, by a committee of Republicans in the House of Representatives, declared that "all the little pigs built houses of straw".
The report, entitled A Failure of Initiative, is due to be published on Wednesday. It criticises the homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, saying his detachment from events led him to implement federal emergency response measures "late, ineffectively or not at all".
It finds that President George Bush was the one person who could have cut through the bureaucratic paralysis crippling the federal response to last summer's hurricane. "Earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response," it says.
It adds that the White House did not "substantiate, analyse and act on the information at its disposal". It also questions why the "untrained" Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) chief, Michael Brown, was selected to lead the response to the disaster, noting that he and the US military set up rival chains of command.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:53 AM CST [
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Powerful lobbying by black communities led to Church of England slavery apology and the fight for reparations will continue, say activists
Mainstream press left out the role played by black communities
"They are focusing on how many slaves the Church owned, what properties the Church owned and how many slaves it owned, reducing the role of Christianity in the chattel enslavement of Africans
Dr William Lez Henry, Sociologist and Cultural Historian"
Reports last week in the mainstream press made quite a meal of the Church of England (C of E) apology over its participation in what Europeans refer to as ‘The Transatlantic Slave Trade.’
Using emotional quotes from Archbishop Rowan Williams referring to “the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors” and its “repentance and apology” not being “words alone”; once again the British establishment has tried to claim the moral high ground on the issue of ‘The African Holocaust.’
Nowhere in any of the news reports the mainstream media offered up was there any mention of the involvement of reparations movements, campaign groups and church leaders from the black communities.
Black Britain learnt from Kofi Mawuli Klu, joint co-ordinator of Rendezvous of Victory (ROV) an anti-slavery, African led abolitionist heritage organisation, of the events that led to the C of E’s apology.
He explained that after the ROV’s People’s University of Lifelong Learning launch in 2004, (the year that the United Nations designated as the International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle against Slavery) supported by Home Office Minister Fiona Mc Taggart; the C of E invited ROV to be part of a working group for its 2007 project.
Mawuli Klu then became part of the Executive of the Working Committee established by representatives of church groups. Anti-Slavery International (ASI) was also brought on board. He told black Britain:
“ROV was there as an African led community organisation so that the views of black communities could be fed into the discussions and debates.”
According to Mawuli Klu, the first meetings revealed that: “The only people the Church of England seemed to know about were: William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, John Newton and all the white abolitionists.”
blackbritain.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:48 AM CST [
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U.S. Missionaries Leave Venezuela Outposts
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - U.S. missionaries accused by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of espionage have been forced from their remote outposts among jungle tribes by a government order, the final pair leaving Thursday after years of evangelical work.
The New Tribes Mission flew those two out of the rain forest to regroup with other missionaries in the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz. There they will decide what to do next: leave the country or continue with a legal battle seeking to overturn the government's order to expel them from indigenous areas by Sunday.
Most of the group's missionaries are Americans.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:44 AM CST [
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Rumsfeld vows to strengthen north African military ties
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, promised to strengthen military ties with north Africa yesterday in a visit that highlighted the growing importance of the region in Washington's battle against radical Islamists.
Mr Rumsfeld told authorities in Algiers that he wanted to increase military and counter-terrorism cooperation with them. Pentagon officials admitted that arms sales were a possibility.
"We look forward to strengthening our military-to-military relationship and our cooperation in counter-terrorism," Mr Rumsfeld said during a joint appearance with Algeria's president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. In what officials said was the first ever visit by a US defence secretary to Algeria, Mr Rumsfeld avoided saying whether future cooperation was dependent on political reforms.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:40 AM CST [
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Iraq in Black
Thawra Youssef is familiar with this aspect of Iraqi history. She grew up in a Basra neighborhood called Hakaka, where many of the dark-skinned people lived at the time of the rebellion. Her mother, who worked as a maid in the homes of one of the wealthiest lightskinned families in Basra, told her that her family came from Kenya and that their family had arrived in Iraq through slavery.
"Our whole family used to talk about how our roots are from Africa," says Youssef, who straightens her tightly curled hair and wears it in a soft bouffant. Sometimes she will drape a see through black scarf over her head when she steps out into town.
Youssef, a graduate student at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts, is writing a dissertation about African-inspired healing ceremonies that she says are held exclusively within the Black community where she grew up.
For the past two years she has researched the ceremonies, which were orally passed down and are held to cure the sick, the shtanga, and one called Nouba, which takes its name from the Nubian region in the Sudan. There are also ceremonies for happy occasions, such as weddings, and to remember the dead.
24hourscholar.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:37 AM CST [
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Tariq Ali:
...How many citizens have any real idea of what the Enlightenment really was? French philosophers did take humanity forward by recognising no external authority of any kind, but there was a darker side. Voltaire: "Blacks are inferior to Europeans, but superior to apes." Hume: "The black might develop certain attributes of human beings, the way the parrot manages to speak a few words." There is much more in a similar vein from their colleagues. It is this aspect of the Enlightenment that appears to be more in tune with some of the generalised anti-Muslim ravings in the media.
What I find interesting is that these demonstrations and embassy-burnings are a response to a tasteless cartoon. Did the Danish imam who travelled round the Muslim world pleading for this show the same anger at Danish troops being sent to Iraq? The occupation of Iraq has costs tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. Where is the response to that or the tortures in Abu Ghraib? Or the rapes of Iraqi women by occupying soldiers? Where is the response to the daily deaths of Palestinians? These are the issues that anger me. Last year Afghans protested after a US marine in Guantánamo had urinated on the Qur'an. It was a vile act and there was an official inquiry. The marine in question explained that he had been urinating on a prisoner and a few drops had fallen accidentally on the Qur'an - as if pissing on a prisoner (an old imperial habit) was somehow more acceptable.
Yesterday, footage of British soldiers brutalising and abusing civilians in Iraq - beating teenagers with batons until they pass out, posing for the camera as they kick corpses - was made public. No one can seriously imagine these are the isolated incidents the Ministry of Defence claims; they are of course the norm under colonial occupations. Who will protest now - the media pundits defending the Enlightenment or Muslim clerics frothing over the cartoons?
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:31 AM CST [
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Report attacks France's human rights record
...Mr Gil-Robles said he was "shocked by the lamentable state" of certain police cells where "detainees even sleep on the floor and are not given any mattress or bed linen". He said it was a "sad fact" that chronic overcrowding and a lack of money in French prisons "deprived a large number of detainees from exercising their basic rights" and made their incarceration a "double punishment".
...Le Parisien said the council's report also criticised the fact that prisoners who misbehaved could be placed in punishment cells for up to 45 days.
...Mr Gil-Robles told France-Info radio: "For me the most important thing is that the prison route is not a route of vengeance but a route to obtain justice - to give criminals a punishment and afterwards allow them to be reintegrated into society ... In France that is not possible."
Mr Gil-Robles had harsh words for France's immigration policy and the announcement last year by the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, of a 50% rise in expulsions of illegal immigrants.
"The very fact of announcing quotas is a shocking practice," Mr Gil-Robles said.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:26 AM CST [
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UN inquiry demands immediate closure of Guantanamo
A United Nations inquiry has called for the immediate closure of America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.
The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.
The Red Cross monitors the centre at Guantanamo monthly
It calls for the United States to halt all "practices amounting to torture", including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.
The report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that "all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice".
telegraph.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:18 AM CST [
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Hamas Assails US Over Regime Change Report
JERUSALEM - Hamas derided the United States and Israel on Tuesday following reports they were exploring ways to topple the militants' incoming government.
Israeli security officials said they were looking at ways to force Hamas from power, and were focusing on an economic squeeze that would prompt Palestinians to clamor for the return of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' ousted Fatah Party. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
But Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said, "There is no such plan."
The New York Times, citing anonymous U.S. and Israeli officials, reported Tuesday that the United States and Israel were considering a campaign to starve the Palestinian Authority of cash so Palestinians would grow disillusioned with Hamas and bring down a Hamas government.
news.yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:14 AM CST [
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Israel cuts Jordan Rift from rest of West Bank
While the international community busied itself with the disengagement from the Gaza Strip last summer, Israel completed another cut-off process, which went unnoticed; In 2005, Israel completed a process of sealing off the eastern sector of the West Bank, including the Jordan Rift Valley, from the remainder of the West Bank.
Some 2,000,000 Palestinians, residents of the West Bank, are prohibited from entering the area, which constitutes around one-third of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Rift, the area of the Dead Sea shoreline and the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountains.
Military sources told Haaretz that the moves have been "security measures" adopted by the Israel Defense Forces and have no connection to any political intentions whatsoever.
Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were imposed at the start of the intifada and were gradually expanded. But the sweeping prohibition regarding entry into the area by Palestinians was imposed after security responsibility in Jericho was given back to the Palestinians on March 16, 2005.
haaretz.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:10 AM CST [
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Thousands would die in US strikes on Iran, says study
A surprise American or Israeli air strike on Iranian nuclear sites could cause a large number of civilian as well as military casualties, says a report published today.
The report, Iran: Consequences of a War, written by Professor Paul Rogers and published by the Oxford Research Group, draws comparisons with Iraq. It says the civilian population in that country had three weeks to prepare for war in 2003, giving people the chance to flee potentially dangerous sites. But Prof Rogers says attacks on Iranian facilities, most of which are in densely populated areas, would be surprise ones, allowing no time for such evacuations or other precautions.
guardian.co.ukThe Report: IRAN:
CONSEQUENCES OF A WAR This briefing paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the likely nature of US or Israeli military action that would be intended to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It outlines both the immediate consequences in terms of loss of human life, facilities and infrastructure, and also the likely Iranian responses, which would be extensive.
An attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would signal the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably grow to involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, as well as the USA and Iran. The report concludes that a military response to the current crisis in relations with Iran is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further. Alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be.
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 08:06 AM CST [
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Four U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan
Four U.S. service members were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan today while on patrol with Afghan National Army forces, the military announced today.
The troops were traveling in a Humvee armored vehicle when the attack occurred north of Deh Rahwod in Uruzgan Province.
After the attack, the military said the patrol got into a firefight involving small arms and rocket propelled grenades.
U.S. aircraft were called in to aid forces on the ground, according to a news release issued by the Combined Forces Command in Kabul.
"This is a said and tragic day for all of us," Brig. Gen. John Sterling, deputy commanding general, said in a statement. "This incident increases our resolve to continue their efforts to ultimate success."
washingtonpost.comTwo Afghan militiamen killed, six missing in Taliban attack KABUL: Two militia soldiers working for US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan were killed and six were missing after an attack by Taliban in the volatile south, a commander said Monday.
An eight-member militia convoy came under attack in troubled Helmand province, "Two of our soldiers were killed yesterday as they came under attack by Taliban. We have found two bodies and another six soldiers are missing," he said.
A purported spokesman for the Taliban militia, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the ambush in Helmand's Girishk district and said eight soldiers had been killed.
There are regular clashes in Helmand, Afghanistan's top opium-producing area. More than 40 people were killed there earlier this month in a single day of battles between suspected Taliban and security forces.
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 07:58 AM CST [
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Bush Administration Spent Over $1.6 Billion on Advertising and Public Relations Contracts Since 2003
Washington, D.C. - Congressman Henry A. Waxman, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congressmen George Miller and Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report today finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span.
"The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising," said Congressman Waxman. "Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States."
californiachronicle.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 07:48 AM CST [
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America's masterplan is to force GM food on the world
Just a few years ago, World Trade Organisation officials used to act hurt when described by social activists as irresponsible, secretive bureaucrats who trampled over national sovereignty and placed free trade over the environment or human rights. But that was when the global-trade policeman ruled on disputes that had little bearing on Europeans.
The WTO court's latest ruling will greatly increase the number of people who believe the organisation needs radical reform, if not burial. This week three judges emerged after years of secret deliberation to rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on GM food imports between 1999 and 2003, violating WTO rules. The court also ruled that Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg had no legal grounds to impose their own unilateral import bans. "Europe guilty!" shouted the US press. "This is glorious news for the Bush administration," said one blogger.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 07:45 AM CST [
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Wetlands sucked dry in China
More than four-fifths of the wetlands along northern China's biggest river system have dried up because of over-development, the state media reported yesterday in the latest warning of the dire environmental consequences of the country's economic growth.
Fifty years ago, the Haihe river and its tributaries formed an ecologically rich area that included 1,465 square miles of wetlands. But in the years since, the expanding mega-cities of Beijing and Tianjin have sucked much of it dry. The Xinhua news agency reported that the wetlands have shrunk to 207 square miles.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 07:41 AM CST [
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Kuwait Company’s Secret Contract & Low-Wage Labor
A controversial Kuwait-based construction firm accused of exploiting employees and coercing low-paid laborers to work in war-town Iraq is now building the new $592-million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Once completed, the compound will likely be the biggest, most fortified diplomatic compound in the world.
Some 900 workers live and work for First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting (FKTC) on the construction site of the massive project. Undoubtedly, they have been largely pulled from ranks of low-paid laborers flooding into Iraq from Asia's poorest countries to work under U.S. military and reconstruction projects.
Meanwhile, their boss, Wadih al-Absi jets back and forth to the United States, dreaming of magazine covers celebrating his rise to a global player in large-scale engineering and construction.
corpwatch.org
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 07:36 AM CST [
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Every move you make ... they'll be watching you
...The real surprise, though, may be how so much of what you do on an everyday basis already gets screened, monitored, tracked, scanned and observed - often without your ever knowing it.
From spyware on your computer to police cameras on your street to GPS devices on your cell phone, how much of your private life is really private any more?
"It's all part of the general evaporation of privacy," said Peter Wayner, a Baltimore-based computer programmer who has written several books about online protocol and safety.
The Justice Department has obtained records of millions of anonymous, random searches made on Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online as it attempts to revive a child pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Google, the world's most popular search engine, refused to comply, and the Justice Department has gone to court to force the company to turn over the data.
"I think the Justice Department isn't looking for personal information. They seem to want to do some research," Wayner said. "But the future may be different."
sun=sentinel.com
rootsie on 02.14.06 @ 07:30 AM CST [
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Monday, February 13th
Little Progress Made in Closing Racial 'Asthma Gap'
MONDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Black Americans are five times more likely to die of asthma and four times more likely to be hospitalized for the condition than other Americans.
That's just one of the asthma care disparities between minorities and whites noted in a number of studies in the February issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Among the other statistics:
Puerto Rican Americans have the highest prevalence of asthma (13.1 percent), followed by Native Americans (9.9 percent), and non-Hispanic blacks (9.5 percent).
The asthma death rate for blacks increased from 9.9 to 13.2 deaths per 1 million people from 1980-84 to 2000-2001. During that same time, asthma death rates for whites increased from 2.1 to 2.6 deaths per 1 million people.
One study noted that national efforts to improve asthma care over the past decade haven't shrunk the gap between blacks and whites in terms of asthma-related deaths and hospitalizations. Reducing these disparities in asthma care should be a national priority, said study author Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
When treating children with asthma, doctors should consider racial/ethnic factors that might help prevent hospitalizations and premature death. In a prepared statement, Gupta also noted: "The number of uninsured adults is increasing, and lack of insurance for adults could explain why asthma prevalence and mortality has increased."
Another study suggested genetics may explain the differences in asthma prevalence in blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans.
And separate research found that one way to reduce asthma disparities is through traditional prevention strategies, such as identifying and removing asthma risk factors, and disease detection, management and control.
yahoo.comLet's see-there's the fact that poor, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods like South Bronx are subjected to an array of toxic pollutants from chemical plants, medical waste incinerators, etc. disproportionately placed there, and then there's just the reality that asthma is also anxiety/stress related. The pscychological stress caused simply by being black in the USA is a killer.
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 01:39 PM CST [
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The West Can't Save Africa
...Awuah says that he could do more, but like some other enterprising individuals in Africa I know of, he has been turned away by official aid agencies. Everyone, it seems, was invited to the "Save Africa" campaign of 2005 except for Africans. They starred only as victims: genocide casualties, child soldiers, AIDS patients and famine deaths on our 43-inch plasma screens.
Yes, these tragedies deserve attention, but the obsessive and almost exclusive Western focus on them is less relevant to the vast majority of Africans -- the hundreds of millions not fleeing from homicidal minors, not HIV-positive, not starving to death, and not helpless wards waiting for actors and rock stars to rescue them. Angelina, the continent has problems but it is not being destroyed.
...Dare one hope that in 2006, it will finally be understood that Africa's true saviors are the people of Africa, and that those who would help them in their task must also be accountable to them?
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 08:52 AM CST [
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Demonstrators demand Preval be declared president of Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - More than 10,000 people demonstrated in the Haitian capital demanding Rene Preval be declared president, despite partial results that put him just shy of the 50 percent needed to win the election outright.
Results announced earlier in the day and based on 75 percent of the ballots showed that Preval, a former president, had 49.1 percent of the vote, short of the majority he needs to avoid a runoff election.
Several hours before the final outcome of the February 7 election was to be announced, residents of dirt-poor shantytowns poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince for a second consecutive day, chanting "Preval president."
The demonstrators marched and danced in a carnival atmosphere, and had no doubt the victory went to Preval, who enjoys widespread support among the millions of impoverished Haitians.
Tension mounted as the protesters stopped in front of the electoral council's offices, where only a few Haitian police, armed with automatic weapons, were in evidence.
Pro-Preval marches were also staged in other parts of the country, according to radio stations.
Members of the 9,500-strong UN military and police force took position in key parts of the capital amid concern of a renewed explosion of violence if Preval fails be declared victorious.
Should the balloting go to a runoff, scheduled for March 19, Preval, 63, would likely compete against Leslie Manigat, 75, also a former president, who had 11.7 percent in the partial results.
yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 08:35 AM CST [
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US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.
telegraph.co.ukBoston Globe: Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn WASHINGTON -- Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists.
US and Israeli officials have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to thwart its nuclear ambitions. Among the options are airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations or covert action to sabotage the Iranian program.
But military and intelligence analysts warn that Iran -- which a recent US intelligence report described as ''more confident and assertive" than it has been since the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution -- could unleash reprisals across the region, and perhaps even inside the United States, if the hard-line regime came under attack.
Iran 'danger for world': Gore JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Former US vice president and defeated presidential hopeful Al Gore lashed out at Iran's clerical regime, denouncing it as a threat "for the future of the world."
"Iran is ruled by corrupt politicians and clerics," the Democrat said in an address to the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia.
He said the "corrupt leadership" combined with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli outbursts should raise alarm bells all over the world, including the Arab world and the Gulf region.
Ahmadinejad: Israel 'will be removed' Tehran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and "other nations" will eventually remove Israel from the region.
Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust "fairy tale".
"We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them," Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
"Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations," the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a "fairy tale" and said Europeans have become hostages of "Zionists" in Israel.
This guy is just too good an evil enemy to be true.Sanction the IAEA Board, not Iran You probably heard that – as a result of extreme pressure brought by the Bush-Cheney administration – a "special" meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors was convened last week to discuss what to do about the "gravest" threat to develop to "our" national security since the end of the Cold War.
The "threat"?
The announced resumption of certain IAEA Safeguarded programs, voluntarily and temporarily suspended by Iran more than two years ago.
What did the Board decide to do?
Well, you may have heard misleading reports that the Board – unable to satisfy itself that Bush-Cheney allegations that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that IAEA inspectors had been unable to find any trace of, despite almost three years of intrusive inspections were without merit – did "refer" the matter to the Security Council.
The Associated Press even reported – falsely – that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had "ordered" the end of voluntary cooperation with the IAEA "in response to the U.N. agency decision to refer Iran to the Security Council over fears the country is trying to develop a nuclear bomb."
But there was no referral.
Far from turning over the alleged "Iranian nuclear crisis" to the Security Council, the IAEA Board specifically "remains seized with the matter."
The AP did correctly report that "Iran will resume uranium enrichment and will no longer allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities – voluntary measures it had allowed in recent years in a gesture to build trust."
But, the AP didn't tell you that Iran's Parliament had passed a law last year that required – in the event the IAEA Board reported Iran to the Security Council – the cessation of all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA above and beyond that required by Iran's Safeguards Agreement. And, a resumption of all Iranian Safeguarded nuclear programs that had been voluntarily suspended.
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 08:25 AM CST [
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Europeans' arrogance the cause of Muslim anger
...It is too simplistic and easy to categorize this as a clash of civilizations, a very Western perspective that explains political tensions primarily through the lens of cultural and values differences. Most Muslims (and non-Muslim Middle Easterners such as several million Christian Arabs) probably see the current tensions as a political battle, not a cultural one. This is not primarily an argument about freedom of press in Europe, much as our dashing European friends would like to believe it is. It is about Arab-Islamic societies' desire to enjoy freedom from Western and Israeli subjugation, diplomatic double standards and predatory neo-colonial policies.
rockymountainnews.com
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 08:10 AM CST [
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CIA chief sacked for opposing torture
The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed.
Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he was “not quite as aggressive as he might have been” in pursuing Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.
Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counter-terrorism at the agency, said: “It is not that Grenier wasn’t aggressive enough, it is that he wasn’t ‘with the programme’. He expressed misgivings about the secret prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists.”
Grenier also opposed “excessive” interrogation, such as strapping suspects to boards and dunking them in water, according to Cannistraro.
informationclearinghouse.info
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 08:05 AM CST [
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Where the Taliban still rule
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Four years after the United States led the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a new Taliban movement has taken control in a swath of neighboring Pakistan.
Taliban militants control much of Waziristan, a rocky, mountainous area twice the size of Long Island along the Pakistani border. Despite a heavy presence of Pakistani troops, Waziristan has become the largest and most protected sanctuary for Islamic militant guerrillas in the Afghan-Pakistani theater of the "global war on terror."
U.S. military officers and Afghan officials in three neighboring provinces of Afghanistan say the infiltration of guerrillas from Waziristan has continued unabated and is the primary engine of the continued Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Waziristan "is very important to the Taliban" as a base of operations in the Afghan-Pakistani theater, said Mike Scheuer, a former top analyst at the CIA.
And it is likely to stay that way for years, analysts say. "The strength of the militants in Waziristan has built up over a generation," said Behroz Khan, the regional bureau chief for a Pakistani daily, The News. At best, "it will take a generation to pacify and integrate this region" into the Pakistani state, he said.
newsday.comThe province where the Taliban were never defeated he Taliban never really fell in Helmand province. While the outside world was celebrating the end of the Taliban regime after the fall of Kandahar in 2001, the Taliban were still in control of most of Helmand. It was in Helmand that the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, took refuge after the fall of Kandahar, and from which he is believed to have staged a dramatic escape on the back of a motorcycle in early 2002. There were even claims from the Taliban in 2003 that the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, had spent some time on the border between Helmand and the neighbouring province of Nimroz, under the noses of US forces.
When a British security contractor was forced out of his car at gunpoint, taken into the hills and beheaded in the nearby province of Farah last year, there were reports that the Taliban insurgents responsible were from Helmand.
Over the past year, Helmand has emerged as one of the main centres of the Taliban insurgency. Although it is only now attracting the attention of the outside world, the Taliban insurgency has been raging in Helmand ever since the original victory of US-led forces in Afghanistan in 2001. As early as 2002, the insurgents tried to assassinate the Afghan intelligence chief in the province. In March 2003, two US special forces soldiers were ambushed and killed by the Taliban in the province.
But over the past year the insurgency has rapidly grown in intensity, with the import of tactics from Iraq. There has been a spate of suicide bombings, beheadings, and attacks on soft targets, where previously the Taliban preferred to attack US and Afghan forces head on.
Into the valley of death: UK troops head into Afghan war zone uicide bombings and firefights, Western troops under attack, sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni, foreigners taken hostage. Days of escalating violence have left dozens of people dead and more than a hundred injured. This is not Iraq but Afghanistan, a conflict which has now overtaken on the grim league table of body counts - 89 killings in the last eight days in Afghanistan compared with 54 in Iraq during the same period.
It is into this maelstrom that the Royal Marines - the first batch of 5,700 British troops being sent to Afghanistan - will begin deploying this week in a mission lasting at least three years at a cost of £1bn.
With no exit strategy from Iraq in sight, British forces are entering another deadly conflict. Tony Blair's insistence that there should be no sizeable withdrawal from Iraq until the security situation appreciably improves means that contingency plans for a large-scale reduction in numbers have had to be shelved. But last week John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, appeared to pave the way for a "significant" withdrawal from Iraq even if the country continued to face serious problems.
rootsie on 02.13.06 @ 08:01 AM CST [
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Sunday, February 12th
Cheney mistakes fellow hunter for a quail, shoots him
WASHINGTON Feb 12, 2006 (AP)— Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.
Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
abcnews.go.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 06:33 PM CST [
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Latinamerican trade surplus with US tops 100 billion
With oil exporters Venezuela and Mexico leading, Latin America and the Caribbean posted a 100.8 billion US dollars trade surplus with the United States in 2005, up 32.2% percent from the previous year, reported Friday the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 17.5% of all goods and services imported by the United States, up slightly from its 17% share of 2004. But the region accounted for a significantly lower percentage of U.S. exports, 13.2%, compared to 21% in 2005.
Venezuela's trade surplus with the United States rose to 27.6 billion last year, compared with 20.2 billion in 2004. Mexico jumped to a 50.1 billion surplus in 2005 from 45 billion the previous year. Brazil's trade surplus in 2005 was up almost 2 billion to 9.1 billion, and Argentina posted 472 million US dollars surplus compared with 357 million in 2004.
The United States 2005 overall trade deficit was 725.8 billion in 2005, almost 18% more than in 2004. While exports have climbed, they have struggled to keep up as record oil prices, strong consumer demand and cheap foreign goods boosted imports.
falkland-malvinas.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:50 PM CST [
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Costa Rica election another blow to US trade pact
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - A U.S. free trade pact with Central America, already delayed by a legal wrangle, has run into further trouble at presidential elections in Costa Rica where voters punished the main pro-trade candidate.
Costa Rica's electoral board began a recount on Tuesday of the vote from the weekend, which ended with a near dead heat despite opinion polls showing free trade advocate Oscar Arias would win easily.
Arias, a former president who strongly backs the U.S.-Central American Free Agreement, or CAFTA, won just over 40 percent of votes on Sunday, on a par with main rival Otton Solis who wants to renegotiate the deal.
A winner should be announced in two weeks. If it turns out that no candidate garners minimum support of more than 40 percent, a new round of voting will be held on April 2.
"Even if Arias wins, it is still bad news for CAFTA because Costa Ricans said, 'Hold on, this is something we have to look at,'" said Michael Lettieri of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs think tank in Washington.
reuters.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:45 PM CST [
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Evo Morales: the Early Days--Pushing Reforms While Under Fire
Evo Morales is just an inspirational symbol for his people? Think again. Bolivia's first Indian president has shown political acuity in his early days in office, skillfully maneuvering and sticking to his radical program for transforming the country while keeping adversaries at home and abroad at bay.
On Feb. 6, just 15 days after his inauguration, Morales called for the mobilization of the country's peasant organizations to shield his government against efforts by "some transnational corporations" to destabilize the country to stop the "nationalization" of energy resources. The plot, he said, had been detected by the armed forces.
A day after swearing in, Morales shook up the Bolivian high command by choosing a low-ranking general to head the military, effectively forcing higher-ranking generals to resign. The move was a key move, as the Bolivian armed forces have a long history of intervening in Bolivian politics.
Morales also called on peasant and other popular organizations to rally behind his call for the election of a constituent assembly in early July, to draft a new constituent for Bolivia. "The oligarchs," he said, "should not be given time to breathe" as the country tries to reshape its basic institutions.
counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:37 PM CST [
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Brazil poised to join the world's nuclear elite
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - While the world community scrutinizes Iran's nuclear plans, Latin America's biggest country is weeks away from taking a controversial step and firing up the region's first major uranium enrichment plant.
That move will make Brazil the ninth country to produce large amounts of enriched uranium, which can be used to generate nuclear energy and, when highly enriched, to make nuclear weapons.
Brazilians, who have long nurtured hopes of becoming a world superpower, are reacting with pride to the new facility in Resende, about 70 miles from Rio de Janeiro.
realcities.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:32 PM CST [
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Shed Your Addiction: Beyond Mere Survival in the American Dystopia
...Via Fox, the Bush Regime streams steady doses of its “opiate to the masses” via a distribution network reaching 85 million cable subscribers. Fox and most other mainstream media entities are the syringes mainlining the mind-altering, psychosis-inducing propaganda munificently showered upon Americans by the Party. Social Darwinists comprising the Party, including major corporate shareholders and executives, Israeli interests, the military industrial complex, plutocrats, the power players of the Religious Right, and intellectual elites hold the Great Beast (us “commoners”) at bay with a powerfully addictive state of being called the American Dream.
It is indeed a Brave New World. As many Americans somnambulate through their existence, they are virtually oblivious and indifferent to the profound human misery which must occur in order for a tiny fraction of humanity to experience the American Dream. When (or if) their Soma fix finally wears off, I suspect they will be ready to chew off their own arms to escape the disease-ridden whores with whom they have unwittingly climbed into bed. Mirroring Hitler’s Germany, this nation of “decent, God-fearing” people is pledging allegiance to a murderous regime. Are the comfort of conformity and the safety of loyalty to the Empire worth the price of one’s soul?
America’s ruling class has created a scintillating facade to hide its dystopia, assuring the Great Beast that we all have the right and the means to attain the looks of a Victoria's Secret model, the money of a Donald Trump, and the athletic ability of a Michael Vick. Infomercials, work from home schemes, plastic surgery, hypnosis, and myriad other avenues to instant success and immediate gratification abound amongst the virtually infinite number of hollow pursuits littering the spiritually barren landscape of the United States. Those who fall short of the “American ideal” simply need to continue upping their dose American Soma. If that fails and they fall victim to the ravages of unbridled addiction, spiritual emptiness, poverty, despair, self-hatred, or anorexia, they can simply end their misery with a drug overdose or a shotgun blast to the face. America’s predator class, the pushers of the opiate of the masses, is not concerned with the suffering they inflict. In their zeal to appease the triumvirate they worship (power, money, and narcissistic desires), the “chosen ones” of our society do not hesitate to sacrifice the rights, dignity, sanity and even lives of hundreds of millions of innocent human beings. After all, if they come from amongst the rabble of the Great Beast, how can they be truly human and why would their anguish or death matter?
axisoflogic.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:28 PM CST [
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Auditors Find Huge Fraud in FEMA Aid
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — Thousands of applicants for federal emergency relief money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita used duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers or bogus addresses, suggesting that the $2.3 billion program was a victim of extensive fraud, a Congressional auditor will report Monday.
The examination of the so-called Expedited Assistance program determined that the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to take even the most basic steps to confirm the identifies of about 1.4 million people who sought expedited cash assistance, leaving the program vulnerable to the "significant fraud and abuse," the Government Accountability Office intends to report.
The auditors did not try to estimate the total dollar amount of fraudulent claims. But the report says that FEMA itself had found that 900,000 of the 2.5 million applications for all forms of individual assistance were "potential duplicates."
Even when FEMA's automated computer system picked out what might be fraudulent applications, payments were at times still sent, says the advance testimony of Gregory D. Kutz, the managing director of the G.A.O.'s forensic audits unit.
The controls were so lax that auditors were able to secure their own $2,000 relief check by using "falsified identifies, bogus addresses and fabricated disaster stories," and then simply waiting for the money to arrive in the mail, says the report for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
nytimes.comThe suggestion here is that a bunch of bad black people are scamming, but I'll bet there is much more to this story than a bunch of duplicate $2000 checks.
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:24 PM CST [
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Mardi Gras Revelers Find Solace in Satire
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The first Mardi Gras parade since Hurricane Katrina marched through the French Quarter pulling carts with blue tarps, effigies of Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco and floats with themes such as ``Give Me That Mold Time Religion.''
The Krewe du Vieux lampooned Katrina and public officials blamed for the bungled response to the catastrophe in their parade Saturday themed ``C'est Levee,'' a play on the French phrase meaning ``that's life.''
Mardi Gras has long been an occasion for the city to laugh at tragedy and aim barbs at authorities. Given all the pain New Orleans has suffered in the past year, the irreverence should reach new heights this season.
``It is hard living here now. We need to have our opportunity to release,'' said organizer Keith Twitchell. ``If you don't laugh, you're dead. There's a lot to cry about here.''
One display asked France to buy Louisiana back, suggesting the state might get better treatment than it has from the American government. Another float was themed ``Fridge Over Troubled Water.'' In place of a parade map, the Krewe du Vieux had a ``projected path'' adorned with a swirly hurricane symbol.
Still, in the midst of revelry and satire, even the city known as the Big Easy has a serious side.
The Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, a 90-year-old historically black group that holds one of the city's most beloved parades, held a service and lit 10 candles in honor of club members who have died since the storm. An eleventh was lit to honor the hundreds of people killed by Katrina.
Mardi Gras parades typically run on weekends leading up to and on Mardi Gras, which falls on Feb. 28 this year, almost exactly six months after the Aug. 29 storm. The parades are put on by private clubs across the city; Krewe du Vieux is a smaller French Quarter parade that runs in advance of the major parades.
Masked riders in the parades have long used the opportunity to mock the ruling class and government officials, said Mardi Gras expert Arthur Hardy. The tradition goes back to 1873, when the Mistick Krewe of Comus themed its parade ``The Missing Links to Darwin's Origin of the Species'' and portrayed Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as a tobacco grub.
Hardy said the satire serves as a coping mechanism.
``It's almost like you laugh to keep from crying. It's a chance to say 'This can't keep us down,''' he said.
Even groups that are typically less tongue-in-cheek are taking swipes at the storm and politicians this year.
The Krewe of Carrollton, which holds its parade on Feb. 19, chose the theme ``Blue Roof Blues'' - a reference to the tarps protecting damaged and leaky roofs. The Krewe of Mid-City will use blue tarps along the bottom of its floats - in part out of necessity because of flooding at its warehouse.
The Mid-City parade, scheduled for Feb. 26, will have floats called ``New Orleans Culture'' - that's culture as in mold - and ``I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was gone,'' a bitter twist on the line from Don McLean's ``American Pie.''
guardian.co.ukThis goes a lot deeper than some release mechanism. The roots of Carnival and Mardi Gras are in African 'spirituality', and point to its particular strength as a tradition that is responsive to lived reality. There is a reason that Haitian 'voudou' (as one example) is indestructible:it is in many aspects an ongoing conversation with and about Haiti's brutal history, and provides not simply a mechanism for coping with tragedy,but is a taproot that links people in this hemisphere back to the most ancient truths. 'Religion' in its realest sense.
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:16 PM CST [
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Thousands of child 'witches' turned on to the streets to starve
...Naomi gives a smile as she recounts how she found another church which took her in and sent her to Kinshasa. She has ended up in a hostel run by War Child. She is lucky. Tens of thousands of children live in the cemeteries, markets and streets of Kinshasa feeding on rubbish, begging and stealing. Most are there because of witchcraft accusations - mostly from their own families. The phenomenon is spreading, with recent cases of child abuse motivated by the belief that the child is possessed by evil spirits, showing up in London, Paris and Amsterdam.
I found Nelphy Lelu, a lanky 14-year-old, in another Kinshasa hostel. He has British citizenship and until recently he went to New Rush Hall School in Hainault, north-east London, and speaks with a soft London accent. He dreamt a man in black was trying to kill him and told his mother, who took him to a church in Tottenham, where the pastor declared him to be a witch. His mother beat him and he was taken into care before his mother brought him to Kinshasa. There he was sent to his grandmother, where the beatings continued.
As Congolese society has disintegrated, undermined by the country's rulers and ravaged by Aids and poverty, the family has collapsed. Children have been the main victims, often accused of witchcraft when families suffer misfortunes.
guardian.co.ukThis article fails to mention that this witchcraft scare originated in evangelical churches in Congo. Just another of the countless rotten fruits of the European, and mainly British (until recently) "Christianizing mission." Churches demonize children and then take them in to 'save' them. Some sick sh**.
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 03:01 PM CST [
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The Road to the Muslim Holocaust
“We are being challenged by Islam these years - globally as well as locally. It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and lazy. We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance. And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction”.
- Queen Margrethe II of
Denmark, 15 April 2005
Tolerance is a falsehood often pronounced with difficulty in all of Western societies. Small countries such as Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden are leading the pack in the war on Muslims at home, and may be on the road to encouraging a new Holocaust against humanity.
While these countries are part of the U.S.-led coalition, which is responsible for the mass murder of Iraqis, they have also introduced discriminate and draconian immigration laws which are specifically directed against Muslims fleeing war and economic hardship. The pretexts are always the phantom of the “War on Terror”.
Historically, Muslims have been at the receiving end of Western-Christian violence for centuries. Following the 9/11 attack on the USA, Western Europe joined the U.S. in its anti-Muslim crusade: “We are all Americans now” united against Muslims. Although, 9/11 stills a mystery, it is used to legitimise a new form of Western-Christian fascism. Media pundits such as Christopher Hitchens and Daniele Pipes, who support the anti-Muslim ideology, are springing up like mushrooms all over the Western world. Using the cliché of “free speech”, they are fuelling a vicious and violent war against Muslims around the world.
axisoflogic.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 02:51 PM CST [
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Dalit woman to address UN meet in New York
PATNA: Her frail frame disguises the steel within, which not only saw her tame the abusive men folk who battered their wives after getting drunk but also earned her a opportunity to address a United Nations meet in faraway New York.
For Girija Devi, 59, a Dalit Mushar (rat-eating caste) woman from the dingy Bhirkhia-Chipulia village, about 30 km from Motihari, the headquarters of Bihar's East Champaran district, it will be a long journey to New York where she will address the 15th session of the UN's division of advancement of woman and department of economic and social affairs later this month--in Bhojpuri.
newindpress.comAnd what about political rights for all Dalit people?
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 02:47 PM CST [
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'Bush is certainly not welcome in India'
NEW DELHI: Seven political parties, including CPI, CPI(M) And Samajwadi Party, on Friday decided to oppose the forthcoming visit of US President George W Bush to the country.
"Under President Bush, the US continues to occupy Iraq and oppress its people. It threatens Syria and has targeted Iran on the issue of its nuclear programme. It backs the naked oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel.
"He is certainly not welcome in India," a joint statement of CPI, CPI(M), RSP, AIFB, CPI(ML) Liberation, JD(S) and SP said after a decision in this regard was taken at a meeting on Thursday.
"We have constituted a broad-based committee against Bush's visit and decided to organise under its banner a massive peoples march and rally to protest against his visit," it said, calling the American leader an "enemy of sovereign nations".
newindpress.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 02:35 PM CST [
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Democrats Push Bill That Would Bar Third Parties in Races for Congress
Panic and retaliation among progressive Democrats over Green challenges are behind HR 4694, say Greens, citing the bill's prohibitive petition requirements, ban on private contributions; Greens call the bill patently unconstitutional.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders called on Congress to reject a House bill that combines public funding of congressional campaigns with a scheme to ban third party and independents from such races.
HR 4694 ("Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act") would grant nominees of parties (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) that had averaged 25% of the vote for House races in a given district in the last two elections would get full public funding.
gp.org
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 02:28 PM CST [
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Army Offers Incentives to Try to Retain Officers
...By 2007, the Army projects it will be short 3,500 active-duty officers, primarily captains and majors -- positions that are needed for new combat brigades and other units that are critical to plans for expanding and reorganizing the nation's ground forces. One factor in the shortfall is that the Army took in too few officers in the 1990s, personnel officials say.
...In another sign of the pressing demand for officers, the Army is recalling hundreds of officers who had returned to civilian life but who are still subject to call-up, sparking protests from some who have already served in Iraq and now face more than a year of extended war-zone duty.
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 02:05 PM CST [
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Violent Crime Rising Sharply in Some Cities
MILWAUKEE — One woman here killed a friend after they argued over a brown silk dress. A man killed a neighbor whose 10-year-old son had mistakenly used his dish soap. Two men argued over a cellphone, and pulling out their guns, the police say, killed a 13-year-old girl in the crossfire.
While violent crime has been at historic lows nationwide and in cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles, it is rising sharply here and in many other places across the country.
And while such crime in the 1990's was characterized by battles over gangs and drug turf, the police say the current rise in homicides has been set off by something more bewildering: petty disputes that hardly seem the stuff of fistfights, much less gunfire or stabbings.
...Police Chief Nannette H. Hegerty of Milwaukee calls it "the rage thing."
...The police say the suspects and the victims tend to be black, young — midteens to mid-20's — and have previous criminal records. They tend to know each other. Several cities said that domestic violence had also risen. And the murders tend to be limited to particular neighborhoods. Downtown Milwaukee has not had a homicide in about five years, but in largely black neighborhoods on the north side, murders rose from 57 in 2004 to 94 last year.
...The neighborhoods with the most murders tend to be the poorest. In Milwaukee, Mallory O'Brien, an epidemiologist brought in to direct the new homicide review commission, said suspects and victims tend to have been born to teenage mothers. The city has one of the nation's highest teen pregnancy rates for blacks, and among black men, one of the lowest high school graduation rates. An industrial base that used to provide jobs for those without a high school diploma has shrunk.
nytimes.comCanaries in the coal mine, the morst vulnerable people most impacted by disastrous policies at home and abroad. A feature of the discourse about this is never making the connection with rampant militarism, and most certainly never with a shameful history and the present reality of racism. Black boys are full of rage? Go figure.
rootsie on 02.12.06 @ 01:22 PM CST [
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Saturday, February 11th
Haiti poll may go to second round
Latest interim results in Haiti's election suggest the presidential race will go to a second, run-off round.
Former President Rene Preval, a one-time ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is now polling 50.2% with half the votes counted.
Mr Preval needs at least 50% to avoid a run-off. His supporters are alleging fraud after seeing his share drop from more than 60% in first results issued.
But international observers say the poll was free and fair.
Another ex-leader, Leslie Manigat, has 11.4%, while industrialist Charles Henry Baker has 8.3%, latest results show.
The country - the poorest in the Americas - is choosing a 129-member parliament as well as a new president.
The election process has so far been peaceful but the news of a possible second round could bring fresh instability, says the BBC's Claire Marshall in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
"We all voted for Preval. I really hope there isn't a second round because it will mean the election results were fiddled with and there will be trouble," one woman in an impoverished slum, where Preval enjoys strong support, told the BBC.
Charles Henry Baker has also alleged fraud, claiming some people were allowed to vote more than once because voter lists were not followed.
International observers say there were some minor procedural irregularities during Tuesday's voting but have deemed the election free and fair.
The US State Department has also declared the voting process free from fraud.
"The key here is that there is a high turnout. The Haitian people invested in this election process," state department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
However, in an implicit warning to Mr Preval - who once had strong links with Mr Aristide - the spokesman said the US expects the deposed leader to remain in exile in South Africa.
bbc.co.ukand a few hours previous:Hope grows for Haiti peace as Preval nears election victory Rene Preval, the former close ally of the exiled President Aristide, appeared to be heading for a convincing victory in the Haitian presidential elections yesterday. While counting continues in the election, which took place on Tuesday, officials and rival candidates agreed that Mr Preval was virtually certain to top the poll.
Early returns indicated that Mr Preval, a former president and prime minister, was on 61% with his nearest rival, Leslie Manigat, on 15%. Charlito Baker, a rightwing businessman who has waged the most aggressively anti-Preval campaign, had around 5% of the vote. There are 32 candidates, and Mr Preval has to win more than 50% of the total votes in order to avoid a run-off on March 19. A clear result is expected at the weekend.
Unreal, the way this sh** goes down right before our eyes.
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:51 AM CST [
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Nigeria's oil hope and despair
...Most of the promised development projects, like schools, roads and electricity supplies, have failed to materialise. Instead, they say, their land and water have been polluted by oil spills and their air ruined by the constant burning-off of natural gas.
There is an apocryphal story often told about the origin of the disquiet in the Delta.
In the 1990s the then military ruler, Sani Abacha, invited people from the Delta to the new purpose-built capital, Abuja.
When they saw its huge, well-ordered roads, bridges and high-rise buildings, they realised what the oil money could do, and how little of it they saw.
And so the trouble began.
bbc.co.uk
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:41 AM CST [
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A Fitting Funeral for Mrs. King
...Mrs. King and her late husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., were renowned proponents of nonviolence and racial and economic justice. They had close ties to peace and social action organizations. Mrs. King was a fixture at antiwar rallies. She was a dignified and reserved public figure, yes; a shrinking violet, no. To recall, she was arrested here in Washington at the South African Embassy in an anti-apartheid protest.
So it should have come as no surprise that during a six-hour funeral for a woman whose life was dedicated to the civil rights and peace movements -- and on a program with more than 35 participants -- a few would have something to say about racism, the futility of war, and military spending when it trumps the needs of the poor. That the outspoken critics happen to have been a preacher, an ex-president and a mayor, and that they did it in the presence of a sitting president, is hardly the outrageous act that conservative pundits have made it out to be.
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:37 AM CST [
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Bush lied over Katrina, sacked head of disaster agency says
Michael Brown, head of the federal disaster agency at the time of Hurricane Katrina, has reopened a painful wound for President George Bush, charging that the White House knew New Orleans' protective levees had broken far earlier than it had acknowledged.
Testifying to a Senate committee yesterday, Mr Brown said that by the evening of Monday 29 August, his Fema agency had reported to superiors that catastrophic floodwaters were pouring into the city, that fires were breaking out and large numbers of people were stranded.
Conditions, a Fema message said that evening, were "far more serious" than media reports suggested. Nonetheless the following morning, Mr Bush told the country from his ranch in Texas that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet".
independent.co.uk
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:31 AM CST [
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Boy, 14, dies hours after videotaped beating in boot camp
Pensacola FLA: Officials are investigating the death of a 14-year-old boy allegedly brutally beaten by guards at a young offenders' "boot camp" hours before he died. A video apparently shows the guards punching, kicking and choking the boy after he became unco-operative during a work-out session.
...Frank McKeithen, the Bay County Sheriff, said politicians over-reacted and made "inaccurate statements". But the boy's mother, Gina Jones, demanded to see the video, saying her son's organs were so damaged they could not be donated.The boy was sent to the camp after being arrested for joy-riding in his grandmother's car. She did not want to press charges. The results of a post-mortem examination have not been released.
independent.co.uk
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:27 AM CST [
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Europe's cartoon battle lines are drawn in shades of grey, not black and white
It is not often that the left agrees with Tony Blair, let alone George Bush. But the good sense the two leaders have shown in the Danish cartoons affair by siding with leftwing and liberal critics of the offensive drawings' publication is one of the more remarkable aspects of the drama. The Bush-Blair position is a useful antidote to those who claim that fear is stalking the offices of western newspapers, where cowardly executives allegedly shrink from publishing anything that might upset Muslims. Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, which first printed the unfunny cartoons, says he wanted to break away from Denmark's "self-censorship" in the face of Islam. Other European papers that followed suit boasted of courage.
They will find it hard to claim that the men who sent ground troops into one of the oldest capital cities of the Arab world, and still keep them there on an open-ended basis in spite of opposition from a majority of Iraqis, are afraid to upset Muslims. Nor can one seriously argue that Bush is now trying to appease the Islamic world after "learning a lesson" from Iraq. He continues to inflame many Muslims with his sabre-rattling over Iran.
The fact is that on the cartoon issue the great neocon and his ideological advisers were pragmatic and smart enough to see that the drawings were in poor taste, deliberately provocative and grotesquely inaccurate in suggesting that every Muslim is a murderous would-be martyr and, worse still, that the Qur'an advocates suicide bombing.
Bush's reaction shows that Americans have a better understanding of multiculturalism than most Europeans.
guardian.co.ukOh I very highly doubt it: this is what they call in the biz 'good cop
bad cop.' The essential cluelessness on both sides of the pond is the same.
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:22 AM CST [
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Moscow invitation to Hamas angers Israel
Israel has accused Russia of stabbing it in the back after President Vladimir Putin invited Hamas leaders to visit Moscow as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people after the Islamic group's election landslide last month.
The Russian government responded by saying that all the big powers would inevitably have to talk to Hamas if they wanted to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.
guardian.co.ukArchitects threaten to boycott Israel over 'apartheid' barrier A group including some of Britain's most prominent architects is considering calling for an economic boycott of Israel's construction industry in protest at the building of Israeli settlements and the separation barrier in the Occupied Territories.
Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, whose members include Richard Rogers and the architectural critic Charles Jenckes, met for the first time last week in secret at the London headquarters of Lord Rogers' practice. He introduced the meeting, and the 60 attendees went on to condemn the illegal annexation of Palestinian land and the construction of the vast fence and concrete separation barrier running through the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The group said that architects, planners and engineers working on Israeli projects in the occupied territories were "complicit in social, political and economic oppression", and "in violation of their professional code of ethics".
It said that: "Planning, architecture and other construction disciplines are being used to promote an apartheid system of environmental control."
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:15 AM CST [
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Bush ignored CIA advice on Iraq, says former spy
The CIA official in charge of intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of ignoring assessments that sanctions and weapons inspections were the best way to deal with Saddam Hussein, and that an invasion would have a "messy aftermath".
In an article in the next edition of the bimonthly journal, Foreign Affairs, Paul Pillar, has become the highest-ranking CIA official from the prewar period to accuse the White House of manipulating the intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
..."If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war - or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath."
Mr Pillar said a CIA assessment of the implications of a US-led occupation had "presented a picture of a political culture that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult, and turbulent transition", including guerrilla attacks and sectarian conflict.
guardian.co.ukThat's cool...the more turbulent the better.Rumsfeld cautions Iran and Syria about aiding Iraq insurgency TAORMINA, Sicily (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cautioned Iran and Syria against trying to undermine the newly elected government in Iraq, but he also said he understood their determination to resist U.S. efforts to stop them.
"I think they are making a mistake," Rumsfeld told a news conference Friday in this Sicilian seaside resort after two days of talks with North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers.
...Rumsfeld did not cite specific examples of Iranian and Syrian behavior or detail what the United States was doing about them.
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 11:05 AM CST [
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8 soldiers killed, 4 Canadians hurt in fresh Afghan violence
ASADABAD: Roadside bombs killed eight Afghan soldiers on Friday, a provincial governor said. Seven soldiers were wounded in two separate blasts in Kunar province, on the Pakistani border, said the province’s governor, Assadullah Wafa.
“The soldiers were travelling in convoys when the enemies of Afghanistan set off bombs planted on the roads,” Wafa told Reuters. Six soldiers were killed in one of the blasts and two were killed in the other, he said. He did not elaborate on who he thought was responsible but Taliban and allied militants are known to operate in the province.
US forces mounted a major sweep to clear insurgents from Kunar last year and 16 US troops were killed there in June when their helicopter was shot down.
In a separate incident, four Canadian soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their armoured vehicle in the Kandahar province on Thursday, a spokesman for Canadian troops said. A Taliban commander claimed responsibility.
dailytimes.com
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 10:55 AM CST [
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World is at its warmest for a millennium
The entire northern hemisphere is experiencing a sustained period of warming that is unprecedented in the past millennium, a study has found.
A review of a range of temperature records, from tree rings and ice cores to historical documents, has found that at no time since the 9th century have temperatures been so consistently high. The study, published in the journal Science, found that the late 20th century was the warmest period for the northern hemisphere since at least 800AD, eclipsing the well-known medieval warm period when vines were cultivated successfully in northern Europe and the Vikings exploited the ice-free seas to colonise Greenland.
independent.co.uk
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 10:51 AM CST [
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Trade Gap Hits Record For 4th Year In a Row
The U.S. trade deficit soared to a record in 2005 for the fourth year in a row, according to a government report released yesterday that provided a reminder of the dangers hovering over a generally robust economy.
The United States imported $725.8 billion more in goods and services than it exported last year, the Commerce Department said. That is up 17.5 percent from last year, and it is an all-time high not only in dollar terms but as a proportion of the economy; the figure is equal to 5.8 percent of gross domestic product.
For December alone, the trade gap increased to $65.7 billion from a revised $64.7 billion in November. That is the third-highest monthly deficit ever.
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 10:46 AM CST [
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The New Robber Barons
02/10/06 "ICH" -- -- The U.S. Department of Labor claims we have an unemployment rate of 4.9% [1]. According to "the Economist, however, the true unemployment rate in the U.S. is over 8%, or 12.6 million Americans [2]. The difference is due to the fact that the U.S. Government doesn't count people as unemployed after six months without a job [3].
I recently joined the ranks of our many unemployed citizens. The termination of my employment as a Vice President at Pfizer was subject to intense media interest [4], partly due to the fact that Pfizer notified the press before they informed me.
...Clearly the system we have today isn't just broke. The system is utterly and completely sick and our weakest citizens are paying the price, every day. And while I have belatedly been forced to share some of the experiences of our poor, uninsured, and unemployed, my situation doesn't even start to compare with people with no resources, no voice, nowhere to go and no one who listens to them. For those citizens we have something that's called the Government; a government that is supposed to look out for the people who can't look out for themselves, but instead focuses on "pay to play money.
Today's system is built on greed. Greed is defined as an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than someone needs or deserves. Greed is not a corporate executive who builds an organization such as Microsoft, creates a lot of jobs, and happens to get rich. Greed is to become CEO for a drug company such as Pfizer, be responsible for a stock price drop of 40% over his five year tenure, twice as much as the AMEX Pharmaceutical Index [10], secure a $100 million retirement package [11] while firing 16,385 Pharmacia and Pfizer employees [12], and get a 72% pay increase to $16.6 million as his reward [13].
informationclearinghouse.info
rootsie on 02.11.06 @ 10:38 AM CST [
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Friday, February 10th
Intel pros say Bush is lying about foiling 2002 terror attack
Outraged intelligence professionals say President George W. Bush is "cheapening" and "politicizing" their work with claims the United States foiled a planned terrorist attack against Los Angeles in 2002.
"The President has cheapened the entire intelligence community by dragging us into his fantasy world," says a longtime field operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. "He is basing this absurd claim on the same discredited informant who told us Al Qaeda would attack selected financial institutions in New York and Washington."
Within hours of the President’s speech Thursday claiming his administration had prevented a major attack, sources who said they were current and retired intelligence pros from the CIA, NSA, FBI and military contacted Capitol Hill Blue with angry comments disputing the President’s remarks.
“He’s full of shit,” said one sharply-worded email.
capitolhillblue
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 04:13 PM CST [
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Can anyone save New Orleans?
What's cooking in New Orleans? "Nothing," celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse recently told the New York Post's Cindy Adams. "The mayor's a clunk. The governor is also a clunk. They don't know their (derrieres) from a hole in the ground. All my three restaurants got hit. I've reopened Emeril's, but only a few locals come. There're no tourists. No visitors. No spenders. No money. No future. No people. It's lost. It'll never come back."
Congressman Richard Baker believes New Orleans and its environs can come back if it can rebuild its housing stock and thus begin rehabilitating battered communities. The Baton Rouge Republican's proposed Louisiana Recovery Corporation (LRC) appears to be the only coherent plan for revitalizing the tempest-tossed Bayou State. It deserves the proper hearing it will get before the Senate Banking Committee on Feb. 15.
Baker's bill, H.R. 4100, would issue Treasury bonds to create a $30 billion revolving loan fund. Owners of Louisiana's 240,000 damaged or destroyed homes and small businesses voluntarily could sell their property to the LRC. It would pay owners 60 percent of their equity and lenders up to 60 percent of their mortgage receivables. The LRC would consolidate these distressed or demolished properties and auction them off to private developers. Sales revenues would repay bondholders. Original owners could ask for first dibs on revitalized properties. The LRC would expire after 10 years.
Also, Baker's $30 billion revolving loan fund would collect and repay 60 cents on the dollar. Even if it underwrote 40 cents on the dollar, that would involve a $12 billion outlay, not all $30 billion.
"In this case, there is basically no market. As such, people have little or no options," Baker told BayouBuzz.com. Baker, who launched a still-operating real-estate agency at age 22 and enjoys a 91 percent lifetime American Conservative Union rating, added: "The situation calls for an unprecedented solution, through a corporation that basically remakes the market, reintroduces market forces, gets property back into commerce in a necessarily more comprehensive approach, and then gradually recedes from the marketplace over time."
As public programs go, Baker's proposal is a bit like a live-virus vaccine. A limited amount of government now, followed by better health, rather than illness and, eventually, even more government. Baker's plan should inoculate against the alternative: an epidemic of mortgage foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, bank failures, and an inevitable bailout by federal regulators at greater expense in outlays and litigation.
"I don't believe in taxing the good people of Kansas, New Hampshire, and California $30 billion on the grounds that otherwise you'll tax them more later," responds David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute.
While I usually agree that free markets should solve these things, New Orleans' markets largely have washed away. Last November, I witnessed moderate to jaw-dropping flood damage from Lake Pontchartrain clear down to Marais Street, just above the French Quarter. Only the roughly 10-block-wide "Sliver by the River" abutting the Mississippi, stood essentially intact.
"The bottom line is this, it is difficult to understand how Louisiana rebuilds if its landscape is littered with the remains of over 200,000 unusable homes and business properties," former Louisiana governors Mike Foster, Buddy Roemer, and David Treen, all Republicans, wrote President Bush Feb. 1. Without the Baker plan, they fear these deeds will stay "tied up in a legal mess impenetrable to the private market, for years and years to come."
capitolhillblue.com
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 04:05 PM CST [
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Democrat Reid also took money from Abramoff clients and went to bat for them
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid portrays convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's activities as involving only Republicans. But Abramoff's billing records and congressional correspondence tell a different story.
They show Abramoff's lobbying team billed for nearly two dozen contacts with Reid's office in a single year to mostly discuss Democratic legislation that would have set the minimum hourly wage for the Northern Mariana Islands, an Abramoff client, initially almost $3 lower than other U.S. states and territories.
Reid, D-Nev., also wrote at least four letters to the Bush administration helpful to Indian tribes Abramoff represented, often collecting donations from Abramoff-related sources around the same time.
And in the midst of the contacts, Abramoff's firm hired one of Reid's top legislative aides to lobby for the tribal and Marianas clients. The aide then helped throw a fundraiser for Reid at Abramoff's firm.
The activities _ detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press _ are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm, lobbying partners and clients.
capitolhillblue.com
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 04:00 PM CST [
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Dad Slams Attack On Bush At King Rite
(CBS) Former President George H.W. Bush has expressed dismay and anger at attacks on his son, President Bush, at the funeral for Coretta Scott King.
"In terms of the political shots at the president who was sitting there with his wife, I didn't like it and I thought it was kind of ugly frankly," the former president said in an exclusive radio interview with CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer.
"Anybody that shoots at the president of the United States at a funeral, I just didn't appreciate that," Mr. Bush added.
Former President Carter and the Rev. Joseph Lowery criticized the president during remarks they made at the King funeral in Atlanta.
The Rev. Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., drew a roaring standing ovation when he said: "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor" - a takeoff on a line from a Stevie Wonder song. The comment drew head shakes from Mr. Bush and his father as theysat behind the pulpit.
Former President Carter brought up the government response to Katrina, saying, "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi" to know that inequality exists. He also noted that the Kings once were "victims of secret government wiretapping" - echoing Mr. Bush's domestic spying program.
Former President Bush also had praise for his friend, Bill Clinton: "I thought President Clinton was maybe the best. It was his crowd. They talk about Bill Clinton being 'the first black president,' well when you walk into that church with 12,000 or whatever it was, I mean it was very clear who that crowd loved and respected."
cbsnews.com
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 01:22 PM CST [
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Libby Testified He Was Told To Leak Data About Iraq
Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff testified that his bosses instructed him to leak information to reporters from a high-level intelligence report that suggested Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to court records in the CIA leak case.
Cheney was one of the "superiors" I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said had authorized him to make the disclosures, according to sources familiar with the investigation into Libby's discussions with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame.
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:53 AM CST [
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Life in the USA
The political system has not been corrupted. It is working effectively, like always. The backbone is the patronage system. Politicians have wonderful memories. They know who they owe. Prostitution is a profession, allegorically the oldest one. Politics is a business. At one time it was popular to think that if someone rich enough were to get elected, he (at that time it would surely be a he) would be immune, but who can owe as much as the rich?
informationclearinghouse.infoGovernment without Representation: A Call to Action There are events in human history that galvanize a people into action. Such events are so profoundly wrong and troubling that they can no longer be ignored by the great majority of the citizenry. Instinct tells us that we are nearing a crossroads in the history of our nation, when we must decide upon a course of action. In this momentous decision there can be no neutrality. It is understood that there can be no reconciliation with corrupt power and authority. Either we stay the course and witness the systematic destruction of not only our own nation, but perhaps the entire world; or we refuse our allegiance to this system of inequity called capitalism and operate upon a new premise, or paradigm.
Upwards of eighty percent of the people recognize that they have essentially no representation in government. They appreciate the political process for the sham it is and many of them refuse to participate in it. In the process they allow a small minority to elect people to office, some of them as servants to the people, others not.
Inside the Global Dominance Group ...At the beginning of 2006 the Global Dominance Group's agenda is well established within higher circle policy councils and cunningly operationalized inside the US Government. They work hand in hand with defense contractors promoting deployment of US forces in over 700 bases worldwide.
There is an important difference between self-defense from external threats, and the belief in the total military control of the world. When asked, most working people in the US have serious doubts about the moral and practical acceptability of financing world domination.
Catchy name.
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:48 AM CST [
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Return oil profits to American people
...In the best of all possible worlds, ExxonMobil might recognize the sources of its good fortune and give something of reasonable scale back to the American people (beyond the relatively modest amount it donates to the arts, education and other causes).
It might, for instance, help make heating oil available to low-income citizens, as Venezuela is doing in Massachusetts, New York and Maine.
Or it could simply contribute money to help offset the pain: Appropriations for the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program for this fiscal year are only $2.1 billion, nearly $3 billion short of what Congress authorized.
Beyond this, ExxonMobil could make a major contribution to helping rebuild New Orleans, where it has an important refinery. Private citizens have donated about $3.2 billion so far to the rebuilding effort. The $13 million contribution ExxonMobil touts on its Web site is a mere one-eighth of 1 percent of the increase in its 2005 profits.
Actually, given its New Orleans refinery, ExxonMobil might do very well by doing good: It could protect its investment by getting serious about helping the city build strong Category 5 levees and restoring hurricane-slowing wetlands. The estimated total cost is $31 billion - $5 billion less than ExxonMobil's 2005 huge profit flows.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where significant, voluntary "give-backs" to American society are common.
baltimoresun.comChavez just rejected an Exxon Mobil bid because they won't get with his program.Oil corporations working in Venezuela are obligated to 'do good.'
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:38 AM CST [
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U.S. cutting military aid to Bolivia 96 percent
WASHINGTON Less than a month after an assertively anti-American president took office in Bolivia, the Bush administration is planning to cut military aid to the country by 96 percent.
The amount of money Bolivia normally receives is small; much of it is used to train Bolivian military officers in the United States. But the cut holds the potential to anger the powerful Bolivian military establishment, which has been responsible for a long history of coups.
Evo Morales, a Socialist leader, became president on Jan. 22 and has promised to end U.S.-financed programs to eradicate the Bolivian coca crop.
Coca is the main ingredient in cocaine. U.S. officials say if Bolivia ends the programs, farmers in Peru and other coca-producing states could demand the same. And that could lead to a flood of cocaine in the Americas and Europe.
The State Department said the military aid is being cut because of a law that says Washington must end military assistance to countries that have failed to ratify a pledge not to extradite Americans to the International Criminal Court.
The Bush administration does not recognize the court as legitimate.
Under pressure, just over 100 countries have signed an agreement. The administration has in some cases waived the rule and provided military aid to countries that have not signed, but officials would not provide numbers.
Bolivia and five other countries - Romania, Bahrain, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia and Jordan - have signed the agreement, but have not ratified it in their legislatures. The administration waived the requirement for the other five countries, leaving their military aid at roughly the same level as in previous years.
Administration officials said some of those other countries won exemptions because they were allies while others were not members of the International Criminal Court system.
One senior State Department official said the administration had no choice but to cut Bolivia's aid. But another State Department official said the administration could choose, later, to provide the money. The officials declined to be named, citing department rules.
In the current fiscal year that began Oct. 1 2005, Bolivia is to receive about $1.7 million. Next year, according to the budget proposal, Bolivia would get only $70,000. Just over half of the money this year would be used for civil defense supplies and other nonlethal equipment. About $792,000 would be used primarily to send Bolivian military officers to the School of the Americas, a combat training school for Latin American officers at Fort Benning, Georgia.
For many Latin American countries, including Bolivia, the training is an important part of their military tradition. In recent years, Bolivia has sent between 50 and 100 officers a year to the school, said Adam Isacson, program director for the Center for International Policy, which tracks military aid to Latin America. Cutting the financing "would antagonize the Bolivian military," he added.
The Bolivian military was responsible for numerous coups and partial coups in the 1960s and 1970s. The last one was in 1980.
iht.com
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:27 AM CST [
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Uganda accused of 'pulling plug' on disappearing waters of Lake Victoria
Engineers in Uganda are secretly draining Lake Victoria to generate electricity, flouting an international agreement to protect the world's second largest freshwater lake, according to a new report.
Daniel Kull, a hydrologist with the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in Nairobi, Kenya, says the country is directing more of the lake's waters than agreed 50 years ago under an international pact.
Mr Kull has calculated that the water level in the lake is almost half a metre lower than it should be. Official reports on the hydroelectric dam operations published for March and November last year show that water releases were almost twice their permitted rates, he says. The report is published by a US environmental lobby group, International Rivers Network.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:17 AM CST [
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Church offers apology for its role in slavery
Two hundred years after Anglican reformers helped to abolish the slave trade, the Church of England has apologised for profiting from it.
Last night the General Synod acknowledged complicity in the trade after hearing that the Church had run a slave plantation in the West Indies and that individual bishops had owned hundreds of slaves.
It voted unanimously to apologise to the descendents of the slaves after an emotional debate in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, urged the Church to share the "shame and sinfulness of our predecessors".
The Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados and slaves had the word "Society" branded on their chests with red-hot irons.
telegraph.co.uk
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:13 AM CST [
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Israelis may regret Saddam ousting, says security chief
Israel's Shin Bet security service chief has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, because strong dictatorship is preferable to the present chaos in Iraq. Yuval Diskin, who was secretly recorded talking to teenage Jewish settlers preparing for military service, also said Israel's judicial system discriminates against Arabs.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:09 AM CST [
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Israel plans to build 'museum of tolerance' on Muslim graves
Skeletons are being removed from the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem to make way for a $150m (£86m) "museum of tolerance" being built for the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
Palestinians have launched a legal battle to stop the work at what was the city's main Muslim cemetery. The work is to prepare for the construction of a museum which seeks the promotion of "unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths".
independent.co.ukU.S. Jews block conference set to include anti-Israel professors Pressure exerted by Jewish organizations in the United States has succeeded in preventing an American Association of University Professors (AAUP) conference, in which a number of supporters of an academic boycott on Israel were scheduled to take part.
The AAUP announced Thursday that it was indefinitely postponing the conference, which was scheduled to take place in Italy next week.
Some twenty professors were invited to take part in the conference, less than half of whom openly oppose an academic boycott of Israel.
yup. toleranceChurch of England Takes a Position Against Israel (IsraelNN.com) The Church of England voted earlier this week to divest from all holdings which the Church deems support Israel’s presence in Yesha areas.
The resolution is to "heed the call from our sister church, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, for morally responsible investment in the Palestinian occupied territories and, in particular, to disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar Inc., until they change their policies."
bulldozers like the one that crushed Rachel Corrie and doubtless many others
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 08:05 AM CST [
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US plans massive data sweep
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.
The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.
csmonitor.com
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 07:55 AM CST [
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L.A. Mayor Blindsided by Bush Announcement
LOS ANGELES - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by President Bush's announcement of new details on a purported 2002 hijacking plot aimed at a downtown skyscraper, and described communication with the White House as "nonexistent."
"I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," the mayor told The Associated Press. "I don't expect a call from the president — but somebody."
yahoo.com9/11 Special - Dutch Television Documentary “Was 9/11 more than just an attack? Could the Bush administration have had anything to gain from the attack? Two prominent European politicians, Michael Meacher and Andreas von Bülow, express their serious doubts about the official version of the 9/11 story.”
Two former Government Ministers have grave doubts about what Americans call "the war on terrorism"
Michael Meacher - MP - Former UK Government Minister. "The war on terror is bogus"
Andreas Von Bulow, Former German Secretary Of Defense "The official story is so inadequate and far fetched that there must be a different one"
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 07:51 AM CST [
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Boos, jeers and threats as Olympic flame kindles protests across Italy
...On its two-month, 7,000-mile journey around Italy, it has been booed and jeered. Attempts have even been made to block its path, wrestle it from torchbearers and extinguish it.
Since it arrived from Athens on December 8, it has become the focus of protest by anti-globalisation groups, those angry at a planned high-speed train link, and people bitter about the games' commercialisation. What should have been a symbol of celebration has become a sign of controversy. Even by Italian standards, with a strong anarchic tradition, the furore has been unusual.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.10.06 @ 07:40 AM CST [
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Thursday, February 9th
Preval Reportedly Leads Haitian Vote
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A spokesman for former Haitian President Rene Preval said Wednesday that unconfirmed early results showed him with a wide lead in the country's presidential race — even though many ballots were still being carried in from remote polling places by plane, truck and mule.
The claim from Preval's team could not be verified, and the first official results were not expected to be released until Thursday, said Jacques Bernard, director general of Haiti's electoral council. Final results could come on Friday or Saturday, he said.
Tuesday's elections were the first since the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a bloody revolt two years ago, and officials said collecting and tabulating the results would take several days.
But some polling stations posted unconfirmed local results outside. These showed strong early support for Preval, a shy and soft-spoken 63-year-old agronomist widely supported by Haiti's poor masses.
At a large polling center near the huge slum of Cite Soleil, unconfirmed results taped to large columns inside showed Preval winning about 90 percent of the votes cast there.
Across the capital in Petionville, home to many of Haiti's wealthiest citizens as well the poor Haitians who serve them, Preval took slightly more than 70 percent of the vote at another polling station, according to posted results.
Preval's political adviser, Bob Manuel, said preliminary calculations show the former president having won 67 percent of the nationwide vote, with 16 percent of votes counted.
Preval himself was in his rural hometown of Marmelade and wasn't speaking to reporters. He emerged from his family home once, briefly dancing along to a band playing outside and waving to supporters.
Bernard said only a small percentage of balloting results had reached the capital, slowing the vote count. "By Friday night or Saturday noon, we will have a clear idea of the results of the election," he told reporters
Haitians eagerly awaited the first returns Wednesday as scores of U.N. peacekeepers patrolled quiet streets in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Tuesday's voting, guarded by a 9,000-strong U.N. force, was fraught with early delays but largely free of the violence that has plagued the capital since Aristide fled.
The leading contender among the 33 presidential candidates was Preval, the only elected leader in Haitian history to finish his term. He is also a former ally of Aristide, who remains in exile in South Africa.
yahoo.comGoing to Great Lengths to Vote in Haiti PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitians wearied by spiraling unrest and gang violence turned out in huge numbers Tuesday to choose a new president and parliament and perhaps put their impoverished Caribbean homeland on the path to some prosperity and peace.
Clutching her newly printed voter identification card, Marie Vincent, 20, a resident of Cite Soleil, the Haitian capital's most notorious slum, arrived at her polling station at 3:30 a.m., 2 1/2 hours before it was scheduled to open. Late in the morning, she was still waiting.
"I'm ready to spend the entire day here," Vincent said. "Because we want change in the country."
"We have tens of thousands of people outside some polling stations. Huge numbers," said David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the United Nations, which provided security and technical aid for the election.
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:56 AM CST [
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"The Devil Wears Prada:" María Corina Machado and Washington’s Indecent Game Against Venezuela
With the State Department’s unwarranted recent expulsion of Venezuelan diplomat Jeny Figueredo from her post as second-in-command of that country’s Washington’s embassy, its conflict with Caracas has reached its most stressful phase yet. Building on a diplomatic tug of war over a widening range of issues, including Washington’s efforts to frustrate the Chávez government’s desire to purchase upgraded military equipment for its modestly equipped armed forces, the quid-pro-quo expulsion of the Venezuelan official was just one more instance where the Bush administration calculatedly poured salt on the deepening wound affecting the two nations’ relations. This step followed Venezuela’s public accusation that U.S. naval attaché John Correa was engaged in espionage, which led to his ejection from the country (Venezuela had no reason to invent this claim and Washington, every reason to deny it). The scorched earth diplomacy with which Washington responded, made certain that Washington’s strategy was more that just one more hostile sortie against an admittedly abrasive Chávez. Hemispheric public opinion now deserves to be sharply focused on the expulsion issue as an example of using diplomacy to worsen, rather than improve, relations between the two growing antagonists.
coha.org
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:49 AM CST [
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Colombian Paramilitary Fighters Turn In Arms
BOGOTA, Colombia — A founder of Colombia's anti-rebel paramilitary movement laid down his weapon Tuesday, ending nearly three decades of outlawed jungle warfare.
Ramon Isaza was joined by 990 fighters from his Medio Magdalena bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, handing over 754 weapons, 15 vehicles and abundant munitions.
The ceremony in Puerto Triunfo, 90 miles northwest of Bogota, brings to more than 22,000 the number of right-wing fighters to demobilize under a peace deal between the AUC and the government, Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said in a statement.
In exchange for promising to never again take up arms, each rank-and-file fighter will receive a monthly stipend of about $180 and amnesty from prosecution for rebellion and other crimes. AUC leaders such as Isaza will serve a maximum of eight years in jail if found guilty of any heinous crimes, including massacres.
latimes.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:45 AM CST [
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Muttering at the World Bank
t the World Bank, they are sometimes referred to as "the entourage," "the palace guard," or "the circle of trust," because of their close relationship with bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz. They are Americans with ties to the Bush administration, and the immense clout they wield has sparked a furor in the ranks of the giant development leader.
Their roles have rekindled fears among the staff that Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy defense secretary, is bent on imposing a conservative agenda on the bank. Wolfowitz has repeatedly sought to dispel such concerns since he became bank president in June. He has pledged his commitment to the bank's mission of alleviating poverty, and his unassuming manner has charmed many staffers who were averse to his role as a chief strategist of the U.S.-Iraq war.
But after months of seeming tranquillity, the bank is stewing with discontent over Wolfowitz's choice of several confidantes with administration or Republican connections to serve in key bank posts. The most influential is Robin Cleveland, who worked closely with Wolfowitz when she was a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget and is now his top adviser. Two others are Kevin S. Kellems, a former spokesman for Vice President Cheney who last month became the bank's chief communications strategist; and Suzanne Rich Folsom, a former Republican activist named last month to head the Department of Institutional Integrity, the bank's internal watchdog unit. Kellems also holds the title of senior adviser to the president, and Folsom has the title of counselor to the president.
washingtonpost.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:41 AM CST [
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Flemming Rose and the Straussian Art of Provocation
Kurt Nimmo
As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations” engineered by the Straussian neocons. As Christopher Bollyn writes for the American Free Press, the neocon operative behind the cartoon scheme is Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who has “has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons.” Rose “traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares ‘militant Islam’ with fascism and communism,” Bollyn reveals.
kurtnimmo.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:37 AM CST [
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Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state
The acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that he plans to annex the Jordan Valley and major Jewish settlement blocks to Israel in drawing new borders, according to a television station that recorded an interview with him yesterday.
In Mr Olmert's first policy statement since he succeeded Ariel Sharon last month, Channel 2 television said that he made clear he intends to carry through his predecessor's vision of creating an emasculated Palestinian state on Israel's terms.
guardian.co.ukHamas sets out conditions for peace The political leader of Hamas said today that he would only accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 borders and accepts the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
"When Israel says that it ... will withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and grant the right of return, stop settlements and recognise the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, only then Hamas will be ready to take a serious step," Khaled Meshal told the BBC.
"There's a problem that happened to the Palestinians. They were a people that used to live on their land, and did not find justice from the international community," he said.
"There are roots to the problem, but in reality we now say that if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, there could be peace and security in the region, and agreements between the sides, until the international community finds a way to solve everybody's problems."
Asked whether, if Israel "changed", and was prepared to implement a two-state solution along the pre-1967 borders, Hamas would accept it, and live in peace alongside it, Mr Meshal said: "If Israel changes, come and ask me to change."
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:33 AM CST [
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Iran Greatest Threat, Most Americans Think
Iran Greatest Threat, Most Americans Think A new poll finds Americans now think Iran is the biggest threat to the U.S.
As recently as October, Iraq, China, and North Korea ranked as the most threatening.
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which did the poll, says among people who've been following recent news about Iran, there's even greater concern.
President Bush has been warning about Tehran's nuclear program, which also worries many other countries.
The UN Security Council is taking it up, which prompted Tehran to order UN surveillance gear and seals be removed.
The poll found two-thirds or more of Americans think if Iran develops nuclear weapons, it's likely to attack Israel, Europe, or the U.S.
This is the level of discourse taking place in most of the country. It sounds like it's written for third-graders, and indeed millions of Americans can't read any better.
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:28 AM CST [
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Addicted to Empire, Not Middle Eastern Oil
...But contrary to conventional wisdom in dominant media, Bush's supposed super-candid "addicted to oil" statement was more about deception than frankness. This is for two reasons. The first one is simple: the U.S. imports just 20 percent of its petroleum from the Middle East, the obvious geographic meaning (though he may also have had Venezuela in mind) of Bush's phrase "unstable parts of the world."
The second reason is a bit more complex. When it comes to America, Iraq, oil, war, and world geography, the really honest and relevant point regarding U.S. policy is that Uncle Sam is addicted to global dominance and empire. That addiction and not any direct-use reliance on Persian Gulf petroleum is the real reason "we" are in Iraq (against the wishes of "our" own populace not to mention those of the Iraqis) and not likely to leave anytime soon.
zmag.org
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:10 AM CST [
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The corporate plunder of Iraq
The neo-liberal transformation of Iraq is portrayed as a humanitarian venture. Western corporations and occupying governments now talk of the liberation of Iraq from the “tyranny of Saddam’s planned economy”.
On the day that major hostilities were declared over, Tony Blair told the Iraqi people, “Saddam Hussein and his regime plundered your nation’s wealth. While many of you live in poverty, they have the lives of luxury. The money from Iraqi oil will be yours – to be used to build prosperity for you and your families.”
This has turned out to be another shameless lie. Saddam’s regime was undoubtedly corrupt, in the sense that he established a system of patronage and rewards for the elite that remained closest to him. But the scale and intensity of the corruption and fraud perpetrated by the occupation is unprecedented in modern history.
The largest part of the money spent by the US-British occupation was not US or international donor funds, but oil revenue that belongs to the Iraqi people. During the period of direct rule the US spent, or committed to spend, around £11.3 billion, most of which was disbursed to US corporations.
Of this expenditure, £5 billion is unaccounted for. From the available evidence we know that much of it has vanished into the hands of corporations, corrupt public officials and elite Iraqi deal fixers.
socialistworker.co.ukIraqi voices are drowned out in a blizzard of occupiers' spin The deception that launched the invasion of Iraq now increasingly shapes media coverage of the occupation.
Three years after invading Iraq, George Bush and Tony Blair are still dipping into the trough of deception and disinformation that launched the war: hailing non-existent progress, declaring sanctimonious satisfaction with sectarian elections and holding out the mirage of early withdrawal. In reality, the occupation and divide-and-rule tactics have spawned death squads, torture, kidnappings, chemical attacks, polluted water, depleted uranium, bombardment of civilians, probably more than 100,000 people dead and a relentless deterioration in Iraqis' daily lives.
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:04 AM CST [
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Capitol Police: Nerve Agent Tests Negative
WASHINGTON - At least nine senators were among 200 people herded into a Capitol parking garage Wednesday night after a security sensor indicated the presence of a nerve agent in their office building. Later tests proved negative.
"Test results have been cleared and all test results are negative, so that's very good news," said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider.
yahoo.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 08:00 AM CST [
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Soldiers Face Debilitating Diseases
They served their time in the military in places like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and more recently, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most returned in good health.
But an NBC 30 investigation has found that for some soldiers, their service has meant a long and debilitating death sentence with mysterious diseases.
"I have good days, I have bad days," said M. Sterry, of New Haven. "There were eight of us that served together. Six of my friends are dead."
She looks healthy, but Sterry is a very sick woman who has no idea how much longer she will live.
"I've had three heart attacks, two heart surgeries. I have chronic headaches, chronic upper respiratory infections. I get pneumonia two or three times a year," she said. "I have chronic fatigue, joint aches, muscle aches. I have a rash that migrates all over my body."
...State Sen. Gayle Slossberg said one of the sources of the diseases may be depleted uranium. She was one of those who helped pass legislation last year setting up a health registry in Connecticut, strictly to keep records on our military personnel.
nbc30.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 07:57 AM CST [
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Bush calls for sell-off of Western public land
Washington - President Bush wants to sell more public land across the West to raise money for schools, conservation and deficit reduction.
Bush's proposed 2007 federal budget, sent to Congress on Monday, calls for granting the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management new authority to sell off land. Those agencies together control hundreds of millions of acres in Western states.
Democrats and environmentalists compare the idea to recent proposals by Tom Tancredo and other Republicans in Congress to sell federal land to pay for hurricane relief and invigorate the mining industry.
Dave Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society dubbed the new sell-off proposal "a billion-dollar privatization program."
And Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., sees it as a destructive way to pay for what he considers reckless tax cuts. "It's like selling your homestead to pay your credit cards," he said.
denverpost.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 07:52 AM CST [
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Students, Parents Sue Over High School Exit Exam
A group of high school students and their parents filed a class-action lawsuit today against the State Board of Education on behalf of the tens of thousands of California students who have failed the exit exam required to graduate.
The suit seeks a court order allowing students in this year's graduating class to earn their diploma regardless of whether they passed the math and English portions of the exam.
Lawyers for the students plan to argue that underfunded schools have failed to adequately prepare minority and disadvantaged students for the exam and that the state board did not consider alternatives to the test, as required by law.
"We are telling kids that they do not get a diploma if they do not pass an exit exam. We think that is unfair. It is unwise and it is illegal," said Arturo Gonzalez, the lawyer for the group.
"Many students in California have not been given a fair opportunity to learn the material on the exam," said Gonzalez, who filed the lawsuit in Sacramento.
latimes.com
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 07:47 AM CST [
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Eureka! Lost manuscript found in cupboard
...A long-lost 17th century manuscript charting the birth of modern science has been found gathering dust in a cupboard in a Hampshire home. Filled with crabby italics and acerbic asides, the 520 or so yellowing and stained pages are the handwritten minutes of the Royal Society as recorded by the brilliant scientist Robert Hooke, one of the society's original fellows and curator of experiments.
The notes describe in detail some of the most astounding and outlandish scientific thinking from meetings of the society between 1661 to 1682. There is the very earliest work with microscopes, confirming the first sightings of sperm and micro-organisms. There is correspondence with Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren over the nature of gravity, with the latter's proposal to fire bullets into the air to see where they might drop. And there is a page that lays to rest the bitter controversy over who designed the watch that would eventually lead to the first measurements of longitude.
guardian.co.uk
rootsie on 02.09.06 @ 07:42 AM CST [
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Wednesday, February 8th
Mayor: New Orleans will seek aid from other nations
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Shortcomings in aid from the U.S. government are making New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin look to other nations for help in rebuilding his hurricane-damaged city.
Nagin, who has hosted a steady stream of foreign dignitaries since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August, says he may seek international assistance because U.S. aid has not been sufficient to get the city back on its feet.
"I know we had a little disappointment earlier with some signals we're getting from Washington but the international community may be able to fill the gap," Nagin said when a delegation of French government and business officials passed through on Friday to explore potential business partnerships.
Jordan's King Abdullah also visited New Orleans on Friday and Nagin said he would encourage foreign interests to help redevelop some of the areas hardest hit by the storm.
"France can take Treme. The king of Jordan can take the Lower Ninth Ward," he said, referring to two of the city's neighborhoods.
reuters.com
rootsie on 02.08.06 @ 09:01 AM CST [
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Washington Digs In for a 'Long War' as Rumsfeld Issues Global Call to Arms
The Bush administration's re-characterisation of its "global war on terror" as the "long war" will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish. But from the Pentagon's perspective, the change reflects a significant upgrading of the "generational" threat posed by worldwide Islamist militancy which it believes to have been seriously underestimated.
The reassessment, contained in the Pentagon's quadrennial defence review presented to Congress yesterday, presages a new US drive to rally international allies for an ongoing conflict unlimited by time and space. That presents a problematic political, financial and military prospect for many European Nato members including Britain, as well as Middle Eastern governments.
According to the review, a "large-scale, potentially long duration, irregular warfare campaign including counter-insurgency and security, stability, transition and reconstruction operations" is necessary and unavoidable. Gone is the talk of swift victories that preceded the 2003 Iraq invasion. This will be a war of attrition, it says, fought on many fronts.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, suggested at the weekend that western democracies must acknowledge they are locked in a life or death struggle comparable to those against fascism and communism. "The enemy have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire."
commondreams.orgGuns Over Butter, Abroad and at Home WASHINGTON - Despite his administration's growing concerns about preventing the collapse of states in strategic parts of the world, U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed cuts in development and disaster assistance while increasing the defence budget by almost seven percent.
We see that diplomacy and defence are well taken care of, but development is the weakest tool in our kit. Yet that's where our long-term security lies.
Mohammad Akhter, president, InterAction
Under his 2007 budget request submitted to Congress Monday, Pentagon spending next year would rise to some 440 billion dollars, not including another 120 billion dollars that the administration is expected to ask for as a supplemental appropriation to fund U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, when fiscal 2006 ends.
By contrast, Bush's proposed 2007 foreign-aid request will remain roughly the same as last year's at some 24 billion dollars, the equivalent of what Washington spends in less than five months in Iraq.
Moreover, the president is calling for a nearly 20 percent cut in development aid -- from roughly 1.5 billion dollars to 1.26 billion dollars in development aid -- and similar cuts in disaster assistance and child-survival and health programmes.
"This administration has said there are three components to national security -- diplomacy, defence, and development," said Mohammad Akhter, president of InterAction, a coalition of some 160 U.S. non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in developing countries. "We see that diplomacy and defence are well taken care of, but development is the weakest tool in our kit. Yet that's where our long-term security lies.
Yes. We will 'aid' them into submission.
rootsie on 02.08.06 @ 08:57 AM CST [
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Olmert facing dissent within Kadima over unilateral pullout
Senior Kadima figures Avi Dichter and Tzachi Hanegbi strongly oppose party leader and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's vision of further unilateral withdrawals in the West Bank, Army Radio reported Wednesday.
In his first media interview since taking on the job of acting premier, Olmert said Tuesday that Israel "will separate from most of the Palestinian population that lives in the West Bank, and that will obligate us to separate as well from territories where the State of Israel currently is."
"We will gather ourselves into the main settlement blocs and preserve united Jerusalem... Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel will be part of the state of Israel," Olmert told Channel 2 television.
Asked by interviewer Nissim Mishal what he intended to do with the Jordan Valley, Olmert responded: "It is impossible to give up control over Israel's eastern border."
"The direction is clear," he continued. "We are moving toward separation from the Palestinians, toward setting Israel's permanent border."
The radio quoted former Shin Bet director Dichter as saying Wednesday morning that he was "staunchly opposed" to further withdrawals.
Aides to cabinet minister Hanegbi were quoted by the radio Wednesday as saying that he was also opposed and would continue to oppose Olmert's vision of additional unilateral withdrawals.
In the interview, Olmert declined to offer any further details, and in particular failed to mention settlements such as Hebron, Beit El and Ofra, which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had viewed as part of the settlement blocs that Israel would retain.
"The Olmert plan for further unreciprocated withdrawals was exposed last night despite his efforts to camouflage it, fudge it and not say anything," said Likud MK Gilad Erdan in response to Olmert's interview.
"After the head of the Shin Bet [Yuval Diskin] warned against giving additional territory to Palestinian terror without any quid pro quo, Olmert continues to speak in a way that is detached from reality."
"The public certainly notices that in the same day in which Olmert approves a negative, personal campaign against Netanyahu, he dares speak out against 'a culture of personal insult', by means of which he reached the pinnacle," Erdan said.
Olmert also reiterated that the road map peace plan would remain the basis for any diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians.
Regarding Iran, Olmert said: "The less we talk about Iran, and the more we coordinate international action as we have done with the United States and Europe, the better." He also thanked U.S. President George Bush for pledging to defend Israel against any attack by Iran, terming this "the closest thing to an announcement of a military alliance with Israel."
Earlier Tuesday, Olmert toured the separation fence around Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, and pledged that "we will make an enormous effort this year to finish the fence as quickly as possible."
haaretz.com
rootsie on 02.08.06 @ 08:49 AM CST [
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Ex-U.N. Inspector: Decision Already Made To Attack Iran
02/06/06 (Santa Fe New Mexican, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The former U.N. weapons inspector who said Iraq disarmed long before the U.S. invasion in 2003 is warning Americans to prepare for a war with Iran.
"We just don't know when, but it's going to happen," Scott Ritter said to a crowd of about 150 at the James A. Little Theater on Sunday night.
Ritter described how the U.S. government might justify war with Iran in a scenario similar to the buildup to the Iraq invasion. He also argued that Iran wants a nuclear energy program, and not nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration, he said, refuses to believe Iran is telling the truth.
He predicted the matter will wind up before the U.N. Security Council, which will determine there is no evidence of a weapons program. Then, he said, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves."
"How do I know this? I've talked to Bolton's speechwriter," Ritter said.
Ritter also predicted the military strategy for war with Iran. First, American forces will bomb Iran. If Iranians don't overthrow the current government, as Bush hopes they will, Iran will probably attack Israel. Then, Ritter said, the United States will drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.
informationclearinghouse.infoRussian Ultranationalist Leader Expects U.S. to Attack Iran in Late March 02/07/06 "Moscow News" -- -- A senior Russian parliamentary official and leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Vladimir Zhirinovsky believes that a US attack on Iran is inevitable, he has told Ekho Moskvy radio station.
“The war is inevitable because the Americans want this war,” he said. “Any country claiming a leading position in the world will need to wage wars. Otherwise it will simply not be able to retain its leading position. The date for the strike is already known — it is the election day in Israel (March 28). It is also known how much that war will cost,” Zhirinovsky said.
He went on to add that the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the European press was a planned action by the U.S. whose aim is “to provoke a row between Europe and the Islamic world”. “It will all end with European countries thanking the United States and paying, and giving soldiers,” he said. Russia should “choose a position of non-interference and express minimal solidarity with the Islamic world”, Zhirinovsky added.
'Iran is world's most serious threat since WWII' Israel's Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon said on Tuesday morning that Iran is the biggest problem facing the world since World War II.
He said the UN Security Council must force Iran to accept real supervision that would prevent the further development of its nuclear program.
If they continue with their plans, Ayalon warned, Iran may have the know-how needed for the production of nuclear weapons by the end of the year.
U.S. offers shield against attack by Iran It has been mutually agreed that the U.S. will provide a defense umbrella to shield Israel from any Iranian attack, according to recent comments by U.S. President George Bush and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Bush has raised the American commitment to Israel a notch closer to the defense level it provides for NATO. "It's similar to the American defense umbrella on NATO members," a source said.
Germany lambastes Iran for dragging Israel into cartoon fray An Iranian newspaper's call for Holocaust cartoons is an attempt to drag Israel into a conflict between Europe and the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, a German government minister said.
"After denying the right of Israel to exist and denying the Holocaust, the people around President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad are trying to escalate the situation," Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler was quoted as saying in Wednesday's edition of the Berliner Zeitung daily newspaper.
"This fills us with deep concern, that a state is using this clash of cultures as a tool to further its own dominance."
Iran's best-selling newspaper launched a competition on Tuesday to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust, in retaliation for the publication in Denmark and other European countries of caricatures of Islam's most revered prophet.
rootsie on 02.08.06 @ 08:43 AM CST [
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The Hillary and George Show
There aren't many elected officials in Washington who want to throw the gantlet down on Iran more than Hillary Clinton. The New York Senator believes the president has been too soft on the militant Islamic country, claiming that Bush has played down the threat of a nuclear-armed Tehran.
...You certainly don't have to pull out a microscope to differentiate between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Both want a continued occupation of Iraq. Both want sanctions on Iran. And they both claim to want democracy in the Middle East. Yet neither will accept a democratic outcome if it doesn't favor US interests.
counterpunch.org
rootsie on 02.08.06 @ 08:07 AM CST [
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Tuesday, February 7th
KING FUNERAL TURNS POLITICAL: BUSH BASHED BY FORMER PRESIDENT, REVEREND
Today's memorial service for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King -- billed as a "celebration" of her life -- turned suddenly political as one former president took a swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor!
The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.
"She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," Lowery said.
The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation.
A closed-circuit television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed the president smiling uncomfortably.
"But Coretta knew, and we know," Lowery continued, "That there are weapons of misdirection right down here," he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!" The crowd again cheered wildly.
Former President Jimmy Carter later swung at Bush as well, not once but twice. As he talked about the Kings, he said: "It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps." The crowd cheered as Bush, under fire for a secret wiretapping program he ordered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, again smiled weakly.
Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America. Some black leaders have blamed Bush for the poor federal response, and rapper Kayne West said that Bush "hates" black people.
drudgereport.comI thought he said Bush 'doesn't care about black people' but we get the idea--it's those black folks acting up again.
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 05:10 PM CST [
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Astronomers shed light on mystery of 'dark matter'
...Dark matter does not give off any light, hence its name. Scientists had always assumed that because it couldn't be seen it was "cold" - a sort of dead, sluggish cosmic sludge. But there were two further unexpected findings from the Cambridge research. The first showed that dark matter actually has a "temperature" higher than that of the surface of the Sun.
If it was made of hydrogen atoms, dark matter would be 10,000C and appear as a blinding light. Yet, confusingly, it does not give off any heat.
The second surprise was that particles of dark matter zip about at 9km per second and are loosely packed.
They are transparent to light, and unlike most particles of ordinary matter, have no electric charge. But they are weighty enough to exert a gravitational pull that prevents the stars in galaxies from flying apart.
independent.co.uk
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 09:03 AM CST [
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The Haitian Revolution and Black History
Patrick Elie is a long-time poltical and human rights activist in Haiti. While he is a chemist by trade, he is also someone who is passionate about his people and their history.
We spoke with Patrick Elie in Port au Prince about Haiti's history and the slave revolt in the context of Black History Month. Elie asserts that the Haitian revolution was not only a momentous event for Haitians, but for people all over the world in demonstrating that freedom, not slavery, was the natural state of humankind.
Elie elloquently makes the links between Haiti's distant past, and the current political situation, as imperialist forces are once again meddling in the country's affairs. Just like in 1791, Haitians are today embroiled in a struggle against racist imperialism and colonization. The characters and terms have changed, but the game largely remains the same.
zmag.org
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:58 AM CST [
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Racism takes a subtle turn in voice profiling
Does black have a sound?
James Robinson thinks it does. He says his recent inquiry over the telephone about an apartment was rebuffed because of his voice. It made him sound like the black man that he is.
To test his theory, he asked two friends to call about the same two-bedroom apartment. One is African-American, the other white. Only the white person was told about the vacancy.
Discrimination based on someone's voice, or linguistic profiling, happens more often than people realize because of its subtle nature. Most victims don't even know it has happened.
"People understood, under Jim Crow, that was wrong because it was overt," said national linguistic expert John Baugh. "You had a sign that said, `Coloreds don't eat here. Coloreds don't sit here.' But when it's covert, when it's gone underground, that's the point it can escape detection."
kansascity.com
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:54 AM CST [
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Deepak Chopra: Democracy and the Untouchables
...As the world's leading democracy, it's ironic that we have been so afraid of it elsewhere, supporting reactionary royal families and dictatorships in country after country, although capriciously our support of a Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Duvalier, Aristide, Assad, Musharaf, etc. can suddenly sour. We should welcome democracy for the same reason that India learned to accept the rise of the untouchables to power.
Historically, it was unthinkable that the most despised and dispossessed people in the country should share in its rule. But no horrors have come to pass, and India's democracy has been strengthened. The factions rising to power in South America and the Middle East are similarly dispossessed and despised. Much as we dislike the religious Shiites who are about to rule Iraq, weren't they the same rebels who tried to rise against Saddam in 1991 and were massacred by the thousands when the U.S failed to help them?
commondreams.orgGee I think all the democracy and power-sharing in India would be news to the Dalit people.
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:50 AM CST [
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Congo: Bringing justice to the heart of darkness
The mineral-rich country has been riven by tribal warfare in which three million died. But now there is hope that war crimes trials will bring those responsible to justice.
...National elections are due in April which could pave the way for long-term peace. The International Criminal Court has made the crimes committed in Congo the subject of its first investigation. Those who bear ultimate responsibility for the killings of Nyakunde and elsewhere may yet face justice.
independent.co.ukTribal warfare indeed. Heart of darkness indeed. But justice will be restored, not by the Congolese people of course.
If you've read Conrad, you know he found the heart of darkness not in Africa, but in the heart and soul of Europe. And it's funny how all the 'tribal war' dovetails with others' interest in all those minerals.
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:43 AM CST [
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Clash Over Cartoons Is a Caricature Of Civilization
No serious American newspaper would commission images of Jesus that were solely designed to offend Christians. And if one did, the reaction would be swift and certain. Politicians would take to the floors of Congress and call down thunder on the malefactors. Some Christians would react with fury and boycotts and flaming e-mails that couldn't be printed in a family newspaper; others would react with sadness, prayer and earnest letters to the editor. There would be mayhem, though it is unlikely that semiautomatic weapons would be brandished in the streets. Fortunately, it's not likely to happen, because good newspapers are governed, in their use of images, by the basic principle of news value.
When those now-infamous 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad were first published in Denmark, they had virtually no news value at all. They were created as a provocation -- Islam generally forbids the making of images of its highest prophet -- in a conservative newspaper, which wanted to make a point about freedom of speech in liberal, secular Western democracy. Depending on your point of view, it was a stick in the eye meant to provoke debate, or just a stick in the eye.
washingtonpost.comRobert Fisk: Don't Be Fooled This Isn't an Issue of Islam versus Secularism ...In any event, it's not about whether the Prophet should be pictured. The Koran does not forbid images of the Prophet even though millions of Muslims do. The problem is that these cartoons portrayed Mohamed as a bin Laden-type image of violence. They portrayed Islam as a violent religion. It is not. Or do we want to make it so?
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:29 AM CST [
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Lab officials excited by new H-bomb project
For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards.
If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated fac- tory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads.
"We are on the verge of an exciting time," the nation's top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory.
insidebayarea.com
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:23 AM CST [
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Use of force against Iran is on agenda, warns bullish Rumsfeld
...Mr Rumsfeld, who attended a weekend security conference in Munich, Germany, made no bones about the seriousness of the situation.
"All options - including the military one - are on the table," he told a German newspaper. "Any government that says Israel has no right to exist is making a statement about its possible behaviour in the future."
At the conference, Mr Rumsfeld accused Tehran of being behind international terrorism. "Iran is the main sponsor of terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," he said.
His belligerent tone was echoed by Abdolrahim Moussavi, the Iranian head of the joint chiefs of staff, who told Iranian troops yesterday: "We are not seeking a military confrontation, but if that happens we will give the enemy a lesson that will be remembered throughout history."
news.scotsman.com
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:19 AM CST [
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Sunnis build up their own militia in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sunni Arabs have formed their own militia to counter Shi'ite and Kurdish forces as part of an attempt to regain influence they lost after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
The so-called "Anbar Revolutionaries" have emerged from a split in the anti-U.S. insurgency, which included al Qaeda.
They are a new addition to a network of militias that have thrived in Iraq's bloody chaos and are tied to the country's leading ethnic and political parties, now negotiating the formation of a coalition government after the December 15 election, the second such polls since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The newly-organized militia is made up mostly of Saddam loyalists leading an insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi government forces, Iraqi Islamists and other nationalists.
reuters.comIraq's Sadr says US spreading strife among Arabs DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr met Syrian leaders on Monday and said the United States and Israel were trying to spread strife among Arab countries.
Sadr, who led two anti-U.S. uprisings in Iraq, expressed support for Syria, which is facing western pressure over its alleged support for rebels in Iraq and the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
"Both Iraq and Syria are under U.S. pressure. We have good relations but our common enemies, Israel, the United States and Britain, are trying to spread strife among us. The people will not fall for this," he told reporters.
"I will help Syria in every way. We are witnessing Islamic solidarity," said Sadr, who met President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara.
rootsie on 02.07.06 @ 08:14 AM CST [
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IRAQ'S CIVIL WAR HAS COST $3,000 PER U.S. FAMILY-- SO FAR
LOS ANGELES -- God forbid critics of the war on Iraq should compare it with the war in Vietnam. But perhaps it is worth mentioning that the liberation of Iraq is now costing more each month than the preservation of the Republic of South Vietnam did more than 30 years ago.
As the admitted direct cost of the war reached $250 billion last week -- and the White House asked for $120 billion more on Thursday -- new analyses estimate that the invasion of Iraq could end up costing $2 trillion before it is over.
news.yahoo.comBush's Budget Bolsters Pentagon President Bush yesterday proposed a $2.77 trillion spending plan for the coming year that drains money from two-thirds of federal agencies, continues a large military buildup and predicts that the federal deficit this year will far eclipse the previous record, reaching $423 billion.
In the White House budget for the fiscal year ending in October 2007, Pentagon funding would increase by nearly 7 percent and, for the first time in Bush's presidency, claim more than half the government's expenditure on discretionary programs, those that get set each year. The $439.3 billion that the plan devotes to the military is 45 percent greater than the Pentagon budget when Bush took office five years ago.
The only other parts of the government to reap substantial increases under the proposal are the departments of State and Veterans Affairs and activities related to homeland security.
In comparison, the White House is recommending a reduction of $2.2 billion in government operations that are unrelated to the nation's security -- a 0.5 percent cut whose practical effect is magnified when inflation is taken into account. Eleven agencies would receive less money than they did this year, with the deepest cuts to the Transportation, Justice and Agriculture departments.
Taken together, the budget's patchwork of generosity and austerity reflects the priorities of Bush, who has defined his administration's central goal as combating terrorist threats in the United States and abroad ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As a side effect, Bush sought in the early years of his administration to slow the growth of many domestic programs; last year and again in the budget released yesterday, he has sought to cut many of them outright.
The budget also makes it clear that the White House is mindful of twin political objectives: not forcin
