Web / Press / Offsite Media Updates: July 11th - July 18th

by narconews Mon Jul 12, 2004 00:39

"In any newspaper, magazine, website or weblog, done for reasons other than banal financial profit or mere vanity, there is a cumulative educational process, aimed at raising awareness.

A population that has grown used to, and rightly cynical about, a mass media whose goal is to put and keep that population docile and domesticated does not wake up because it reads one article or report. Rather, it is the collective, cumulative, weight of many varied reports and commentaries that slowly helps the reader to "get" your worldview and, if successful, to act upon it."

by redjade Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:15

The Ugly Ironies of France's Muslim-Jewish Problem
By Jason Gitlin

A recent spate of hate attacks in France’s Alsace region has left a number of cemeteries desecrated with swastikas. At first glance, this may appear to be the latest report on anti-Jewish acts in France, but it actually refers to vandalism against Muslim gravestones that is believed to have been committed by Neo-Nazis.

This disturbing trend and its resemblance to a number of similar incidents on Jewish institutions perpetrated by French youth of North African descent is just one of the sad ironies associated with France’s ongoing Muslim-Jewish problem.

by redjade Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:54

American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call "alarming" intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack....

[US Justice Dept] was specifically asked to review a recent letter to Ridge from DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Soaries noted that, while a primary election in New York on September 11, 2001, was quickly suspended by that state's Board of Elections after the attacks that morning, "the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election." Soaries, a Bush appointee who two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress, wants Ridge to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call. Homeland officials say that as drastic as such proposals sound, they are taking them seriously—along with other possible contingency plans in the event of an election-eve or Election Day attack. "We are reviewing the issue to determine what steps need to be taken to secure the election," says Brian Roehrkasse, a Homeland spokesman.

by pat c Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:12

The Bush administration is reported to be investigating the possibility of postponing the presidential election in the event of a terror attack. US counter-terrorism officials are examining what steps would be needed to permit a delay, Newsweek reports.

Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge last week warned al-Qaeda was planning to attack the US to disrupt the poll but conceded he had no precise information.

A senior Democrat in Congress has said talk of postponement is "excessive".

by redjade Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:20

Ronald McDonald imposter stuns diners

July 9, 2004 | Oslo, Norway -- Diners at a McDonald's in southern Norway were stunned when a man dressed as the U.S. fast food chain's mascot Ronald McDonald launched into a diatribe criticizing its policies and food, the outlet's owner said Friday.

The man -- a performance artist -- was arrested by police summoned by restaurant staff when he refused to leave and continued his tirade against the Oak Brook, Illinois-based fast food chain. The incident made national news in Norway on Friday.

by pat c Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:23

Editor shot dead in Moscow street


Paul Klebnikov's employer described him as a courageous reporter
The editor of the Russian edition of the financial magazine Forbes has been shot dead near his office in Moscow.
Paul Klebnikov, 41, was shot four times in the street at about 2200 (1800 GMT) on Friday and died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, police said.

Reports say shells of different calibre were found at the scene of the shooting, indicating that there were at least two attackers.

The US citizen was an outspoken critic of Russia's wealthy oligarchs.

by pat c Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:41

Tropical storms and now drought that is gripping central and eastern Cuba have prompted authorities to rush to switch to heartier crops, Cuba's agriculture ministry said. Officials also are seeking to use less fuel and irrigation water, even if modifications turn out to be costly, according to Granma Internacional, which quoted agriculture vice ministers Ruben Gomez and Juan Perez.

Plant varieties should be chosen according to their resistance to disease and drought, because high winds have destroyed standing crops and irrigation systems, the National Tropical Tuber Institute told legislators this month.

The agriculture ministry in the Americas' only communist-run country supported continued planting of vegetables in urban gardens, the weekly said.

by pat c Mon Jul 12, 2004 14:45

Japanese Folk Singer Wins Parliament Seat

TOKYO - A peace-loving, flower-wielding Japanese folk rock star who campaigned against the war in Iraq (news - web sites) claimed a parliamentary seat Sunday — one of the more unorthodox victories for Japan's largest opposition party in the national elections.

Shokichi Kina, who denounced Japan's backing of the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq, ran on the opposition Democratic Party's ticket to win a seat in the upper house of parliament.


"Trade all weapons for instruments. Turn all military bases into flower gardens. Let's have festivals, not war," Kina said at a music hall where he held a concert after being notified of his victory.

by redjade Mon Jul 12, 2004 15:50

A group of antiwar advocates is accusing Clear Channel Communications, one of the nation's largest media companies, with close ties to national Republicans, of preventing the group from displaying a Times Square billboard critical of the war in Iraq.

The billboard - an image of a red, white and blue bomb with the words "Democracy Is Best Taught by Example, Not by War" - was supposed to go up next month, the antiwar group said, and it was to be in place when Republicans from across the country gathered in New York City to nominate President Bush for a second term.

username/password: freenyt/freenyt

by iosaf Mon Jul 12, 2004 18:01

As of this morning, France and the newly sovreign Iraq have re-established normal diplomatic relations and will move to exchange ambassadors as soon as possible.
http://libe.com/page.php?Article=223155
This has followed intense speculation in the last week that Quai d'Orsay was adopting a complete revision of its expectations regarding judicial and political developments in Iraq ahead of it's elections in 2005, since the establishment of Sovereignty on the 28th June.
press statement July 6th Quai.d'Orsay.-
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/actual/declarations/pp/20040706.html
handover of Iraqi sovereignty:-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65788

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:58

Nine days after making the names of more than 47,000 potential felon voters public, state officials have scrapped the entire list, saying it was too flawed to be trusted.

County supervisors of elections were told Saturday not to use the list of people the state believed had committed felonies and illegally registered to vote.

[....]

The list was created by cross-checking voter registration and criminal records. Of the more than 47,000 voters on the potential felon list, Hispanics made up one tenth of 1 percent - this in a state where nearly 1 in 5 residents is Hispanic.

[....]

Many Hispanic voters vote Republican. That they were largely omitted from a list disproportionately weighted with Democratic-leaning blacks has fueled theories that voter rolls were being manipulated for political motives. State officials said it was data errors, not politics, that excluded Hispanics from the list.

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:01

Marlon Brando's statement in support of indigenous peoples

"What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice?

"It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one's neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours, and that all we have done, all that we have succeeded in accomplishing with our power is simply annihilating the hopes of the newborn countries in this world, as well as friends and enemies alike, that we're not humane, and that we do not live up to our agreements."

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=1755

above link found at: http://amsam.org/

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:03

The Philippines said on Monday it would withdraw its troops from Iraq as soon as possible to save a Filipino hostage threatened with death by militants.

CNN quoted unidentified Philippine officials as saying they expected truck driver Angelo de la Cruz to be released on Tuesday, but no independent confirmation was available.

Al Jazeera broadcast footage of Philippine deputy foreign minister Rafael Seguis reading out a statement, which the television station translated into Arabic, shortly after the expiry of a new execution deadline set by the militants.

"In response to your request, the Philippines ... will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible," Seguis said according to the translation of the statement, addressed to the Islamic Army in Iraq group holding 46-year-old de la Cruz.

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:10

Politics aside, the creation of a contingency plan requires debate on a number of fronts. If an attack were to take place Nov. 2, would all polls be closed or just in the areas attacked? What about votes already cast? How long would a delay last and who decides when to go ahead? What safeguards would prevent an incumbent from extending it? What constitutes a large enough disruption to postpone voting? These and other questions need to be addressed if the plan goes forward and, as the Patriot Act taught us, rushing a plan through can create more problems than it's designed to solve.

And that's the point. There has been ample time since the Sept. 11 attacks to create a backup plan for Nov. 2, but nobody moved on it. While their motivation might be pure, it's not surprising that officials' attempts to develop a plan in the eleventh hour are meeting with skepticism. This should have been decided long ag

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 13:14

The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent, and the deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the Earth.

During a reversal, the main field weakens, almost vanishes, then reappears with opposite polarity. Afterward, compass needles that normally point north would point south, and during the thousands of years of transition, much in the heavens and Earth would go askew.

A reversal could knock out power grids, hurt astronauts and satellites, widen atmospheric ozone holes, send polar auroras flashing to the equator and confuse birds, fish and migratory animals that rely on the steadiness of the magnetic field as a navigation aid.

username/password: freenyt/freenyt

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 13:27

On an evening 35 years ago, a high-level Pentagon analyst named Daniel Ellsberg carried a briefcase filled with documents stamped "Top Secret" out of his office with one clear plan: Leak them to Congress, leak them to the media, and get the truth out about the Vietnam War.

[....]

Now Ellsberg is launching "The Truth-Telling Project, a call to patriotic whistleblowing," encouraging Pentagon, White House and other national security insiders to reveal secrets that involve alleged government cover-ups and lies.

"My message to people in the Pentagon, the State Department and the administration is this: If you have information, especially documents, that the public is being lied to about war or other matters of life and death, then I urge you to consider doing what I wish I had done much earlier than I did," said Ellsberg. "We need to delegitimize silence that costs lives."

The call is not without risk, including the potential of dishonor, prosecution and shame. Critics say national security leaks can be illegal and put soldiers' and civilians' lives in danger.

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 13:31

On the 35th anniversary of the so-called "Act of Free Choice" (AFC) that resulted in West Papua's annexation by Indonesia, newly declassified documents depict the administration of President Richard Nixon as unwilling to raise any objections to the process despite its assessment that the move was overwhelmingly opposed by the Papuan people.

The memos were released by the independent National Security Archive (NSA) Friday.

Washington's Cold-War courtship of Gen. Suharto, who had come to power in a military coup d'etat in 1966 and ruled Indonesia with an iron fist until his ouster in 1998, was considered a much higher priority than a plebiscite on independence "which would be meaningless among the stone age cultures of New Guinea," according to a memo by then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger to Nixon on the eve of a meeting with the Indonesian strongman in Jakarta in June, 1969.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0712-06.htm

- - - - -
National Security Archive (NSA)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB128/index.htm

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 14:06

A new political party for indigenous Maori people in New Zealand scored its first victory at the weekend when it won a by-election that returned its founder to parliament.

Tariana Turia was sacked from Helen Clark's Labour government in May for refusing to support its controversial plan to nationalise the country's seabed and foreshore.

Ms Turia, who resigned from Labour and formed the Maori Party, won more than 90 per cent of votes in the by-election in her old seat of Te Tai Hauauru, on North Island.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=540115

by redjade Tue Jul 13, 2004 14:08

[The US] government's major producer of small-arms ammo cannot keep up with the increased demand, even though it has increased its output from 350 million rounds/year in 1999 to 1.2 billion rounds in 2003. Consequently, the Army has looked to foreign sources -- including the Israeli and British military defense industry -- to bridge its ammunition shortfalls. The Pentagon and Congress have worked had to add capacity to the domestic plant at Lake City, but not in time to meet demand so far. It's unclear how long this boom will last for the bullet business, and how long it will retake to rebuild American stockpiles of ammunition for training and future contingencies. But this is definitely one logistical indicator to keep our eye on.

by Someone Tue Jul 13, 2004 23:05

Very scary news.
If the Bush admin finds they can postpone elections in the event of an Al-Qaida attack, they will make sure there is such attack.
What did Bush say to his team in Michael Moore's '9/11 Farenheit'? "They call you the elite, I call you my base". Al-Qaida means 'the base'.

Who masterminded the attack in Spain last March? Guess.

What have we done that a few pricks can rule the world and bomb us as they please (we Palestinians, Iraqis, Spanish, Americans...) to make sure they get their way.

by Michael Hennigan - Finfacts Wed Jul 14, 2004 00:12 finfacts at finfacts dot ie 087 2474328

These are 2 articles on racism. The first article focuses on Michael McDowell's contribution to the blurring of the distinction between legal immigrants here and asylum applicants.

The second article focuses on issues of racism in general.

The Many Facets of Racism 1
http://www.finfacts.com/comment/comment14.htm


The Many Facets of Racism 2
http://www.finfacts.com/comment/comment15.htm

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:41

Vice President Dick Cheney faces criminal indictments for illegal activities while CEO of energy giant Halliburton and also illegally intervened to secure a $7 billion no-bid contract for his former employer after his election to office, an analysis by the White House counsel’s office concludes.

The Vice President is currently under investigation by French authorities for bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate assets while at Halliburton and also faces a U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission probe of a $180 million "slush fund" that may have been used to pay bribes.

Although the White House Counsel analysis is not available to the public because of the secrecy of “attorney-client privilege,” it has generated speculation among senior White House aides who suggest the Vice President should step down as President George W. Bush’s running mate for the November Presidential elections.

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:48

An increasing number of Saudis who crossed the border into Iraq to fight the U.S.-led military occupation are returning home to plot attacks against the Saudi government and Western targets in the desert kingdom, according to Western counterterrorism officials and Saudis with ties to militant groups.

[....]

Other analysts said the Afghan veterans presented a more serious threat and questioned the ability of their replacements.

"You have two distinct generations," said Ramzi Khoury, a journalist who tracks violent extremists in the kingdom. "You have those guys who came from Afghanistan, who are very well trained, very effective, very well brainwashed. And you have the kids. The kids are angry and depressed, angry over what's going on in Palestine and Iraq."

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:54

The international Red Cross said Tuesday it suspects the United States is hiding detainees in lockups across the globe, though the agency has been granted access to thousands of prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere.

Terror suspects reported by the FBI as captured have never turned up in detention centers, and the United States has failed to reply to agency demands for a list of everyone it's holding, said Antonella Notari, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"These people are, as far as we can tell, detained in locations that are undisclosed not only to us but also to the rest of the world," Notari told The Associated Press.

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:40

Liberty, Vigilance and the Writing on the Wall

Though a cynic might deduce that this administration’s game plan is to either scare the public into voting for Bush or, barring that, to simply cancel or manipulate the election, it’s important to remember that eternal vigilance is, in fact, the price of liberty. So, once again: Will the 2004 election be called off?

As surreal as this sounds, for the first time in the country’s history, it looks as if could be. Or it could be postponed, while the administration and media sell us God knows what.

With that in mind, here is a brief run down of statements experts, pundits and regular Joes have been making for months that suggest even more terror -- and more unconstitutional clampdowns -- may be headed our way....

by pat c Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:42

Fans celebrate Neruda centenary
Poetry fans in Chile and all around the world are celebrating 100 years since the birth of Pablo Neruda, one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, on 12 July.
Neruda, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971, was born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in July 1904 in the town of Parral in Chile. He changed his name to Pablo Neruda at the age of 16, in memory of the Czechoslovakian poet Jan Neruda.

His prolific output included many works on love, making his name synonymous with great romantic poetry - it was this side of his writing that was on display in the Oscar-winning film Il Postino.

But he also wrote odes to simpler, more elemental, things, such as lemons and clothes.

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:46

Iraq's new leader wants to call some of its old army back to duty to help restore peace in his war-torn land. Disbanding that defeated force 13 months ago was a mistake made in Washington, says a U.S. Army colonel who held a pivotal role in Baghdad at the time.

"It was because ideology ruled where reality should have," Col. Paul F. Hughes, then strategic policy director for the U.S. occupation authority, said of last year's decision.

[....]

"Anyone who ever worked in any country after a losing war knows you have to do something with the old soldiers," Hughes told The Associated Press. "Otherwise, they're out of work and they will do what people do who know how to use guns."

Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister, says he hopes to reconstitute three or four divisions of the old army - up to 40,000 troops, about 10 percent of the huge force maintained under the ousted Baathist government of Saddam Hussein.

by pat c Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:46

Artist Kahlo's legend grows
The 50th anniversary of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's death, is being celebrated by her growing number of worldwide fans. BBC News Online looks at her life and work.
During her lifetime, Kahlo did not enjoy the same level of recognition as Mexico's great mural painters - Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros.

But now her works depicting the artist as a private, vulnerable woman are becoming ever more popular.

During her life, Kahlo was a mythic figure in her own country - famous for her stormy marriage to the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera as well as her communist ideals and native Mexican dress and jewellery.


In recent years her art has been sought by leading museums, while her dress has inspired fashion designers.
Meanwhile, her bohemian lifestyle has been the subject of plays, as well as the 2002 Oscar-nominated film Frida starring Salma Hayek.

by pat c Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:48

Frida Kahlo link

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 14:05

from email from http://undercurrents.org
. . . . .
Undercurrents has been involved in setting up a Channel 4 wife swap senario.

Tonight at 9pm you can decide if getting our hands dirty with mainstream 'reality' TV was worth it.

We negoitated an activist couple, Larch and Emily from Swansea to take part in the high rating Wife Swap series.
In the programme we engineered events to highlight issues such as aviation and climate change, eco-living , destructive power of Tv on kids and much more.

Undercurrents had no control over the filming nor the editing process so you can join us in deciding if the issues get across to a wider sceptical public.

Tune in tonight at 9pm on Channel 4 and email us tomorrow on wifeswap@undercurrents.org with your comments.

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 14:10

Attorney General John Ashcroft took yet another step last week to deep-six the Sibel Edmonds case by classifying the report of an investigation into her allegations of FBI wrongdoing so the public will never know what it says. Meanwhile, Justice Department officials met in secret with a federal judge in Washington, following which he dismissed her suit charging the FBI with wrongfully firing her.

Edmonds is the translator hired by the FBI after 9-11 to help its woefully inadequate staff translate documents and wiretaps pertaining to the attacks in languages such as Farsi and Turkish. As she has told the Voice in past and recent interviews, she was given a top secret security clearance. She soon discovered that there were what she describes as two enemy moles with possible connections to 9-11 working both in the FBI and with the Air Force in weapons procurement for Central Asia, at one point.

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 14:18

What if you were told however that Western companies were profiting from the horrific conditions in the Congo, with the connivance of Western governments? What if you were told that in fact much of the finance for the weapons used in these conflicts comes from unscrupulous trade, and that these actions help to prolong the wars?

In October of 2002, an expert panel set up by the UN, named 85 Western companies as being in breach of OECD guidelines for Multinational Corporations, in relation to business being done in the Congo.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was formed in 1961, and currently has a membership of 30 countries, including most Western Governments. The OECD guidelines for Multinational Corporations are precisely that: guidelines. They were created in 2000, and cover a wide range of areas, such as human rights, labour, environment, taxation and bribery. They are not legally binding, however.

by redjade Wed Jul 14, 2004 15:23

Video blogging in Ethiopia.

Dutch guy googles a webpage in ethiopia then searches for the webdesigner in ethiopia....

found at http://www.tropisms.org/

i dug out the direct quicktime links... (press play when QT images appear)

http://darwin.dischosting.nl/tropisms.dischosting.nl/Luuk/ASSAD1.mov

http://darwin.dischosting.nl/tropisms.dischosting.nl/Luuk/ASSAD2.mov

by iosaf Wed Jul 14, 2004 17:47

Hamed Abderraman Ahmed, a native of Ceuta [an enclave of 28km squared in Morocco under Spanish sovereignty since 1668] was arrested by US soldiers in Afghanistan and detained there for four months prior to being transferred to Guantánamo bay island (a US naval base, ceded by Spain in 1898).
He was held in Guantánamo for 2 years.

Balthazar Garzón, is the Spanish State Prosecutor and is famous beyond Spain for many reasons which include -
*his detention order served in 1998 on Pinochet (Chilean Dictator 1974-1988) which led to him being held in England that year. Garzón is also famous for implementing *the "complete criminalisation process" of ETA and Basque seperatism which led to the illegalisation of the political wings of ETA and the closure of the only Basque language newspaper during the final years of Aznar's government.

on the 27th of February Garzón succeeded in extraditing the Ceutan from Guantánamo bay to Spain, where he was held in the Madrid prison Alcalá-Meco. There he was subject to interrogation by the Judge Garzón, and a variety of psychological tests.

Garzón yesterday released the young man (29 years of age) amidst harsh criticism of the illegality and arbitrary nature of his detention by the USA of this man, and with a surety of 3,000€.

Garzón statements are worth noting. He has made considerable reference to the nature of interrogation techniques being used by the USA and it's operatives and their non compatibility with Human Rights or the normal run of Law.

There still remain some European citizens in Guantánamo Bay, but most have been transferred to their countries of citizenship- Britain, France and Spain.

by indivisible Wed Jul 14, 2004 18:09

"All that said, I'll be dressed like a yuppie if it keeps me free in the street. I don't want to walk into a holding cell. I want to do my part."

by pat c Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:23

British National Party activists have confessed to racially motivated crimes including an assault on an Asian in a BBC undercover documentary. BNP member Steve Barkham told reporter Jason Gwynne how he kicked and punched a man during the 2001 Bradford riots.

The Secret Agent also shows the party's leader Nick Griffin condemning Islam as a "vicious wicked faith". Mr Griffin accused the BBC of selective editing and said his full speech had discouraged attacks on communities. BBC producers say the material will be handed over to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Secret Agent is broadcast on BBC One at 2100GMT on Thursday, 15 July.

Full story at:

by redjade Thu Jul 15, 2004 12:59

A revolt is underway at the venerable Voice of America radio and TV network, which is under a congressional mandate to broadcast news abroad objectively.

Nearly half of Voice of America's (VOA) 1,000 staffers have signed a petition protesting what they call the "piece-by-piece" dismantling of the 62-year-old service, which reaches 87 million people in 44 languages.

The petition asserts that the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees U.S taxpayer-funded broadcast outlets, has been funneling money into new radio and TV stations that are not subject to the same journalistic standards and monitoring as VOA. The new broadcast outlets are directed primarily at the Middle East, where the U.S. image is at a historic low.

"As broadcast professionals ... we call on the U.S. Congress to conduct an immediate inquiry into the actions of the Broadcasting Board of Governors," the petition says. It goes on to accuse the board of "killing VOA" by closing its Arabic radio service, reducing English-language broadcasting and launching services with "no editorial accountability" and limited breaking news.

by redjade Thu Jul 15, 2004 13:26

President Bush was widely reported last week to be on the verge of nominating local boy Francis Harvey to serve as secretary of the Army. So let's meet the man who may soon be the newest player in the top ranks of the military-industrial complex.

[....]

More likely, it was Harvey's ties to the defense industry and the influential Carlyle Group that won him the Bush administration's favor.

Carlyle is a high-power Washington investment firm that counts among its leaders and advisers former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of State James Baker and, until last year, former President George H.W. Bush, who happens to be the father of the current president.

The firm figures prominently in filmmaker Michael Moore's controversial exploration of the Bush administration, "Fahrenheit 9/11."

by redjade Thu Jul 15, 2004 13:33

A husband and wife who wore anti-Bush T-shirts to the president’s Fourth of July appearance aren’t going down without a fight: They will be represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union as they contest the trespassing charges against them Thursday morning in Charleston Municipal Court.

Police took Nicole and Jeff Rank away in handcuffs from the event, which was billed as a presidential appearance, not a campaign rally. They were wearing T-shirts that read, “Love America, Hate Bush.”

Spectators who wore pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush-Cheney campaign buttons were allowed to stay.

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Jeff Rank. The couple, who said they had tickets just like everybody else, said they simply stood around the Capitol steps with the rest of the spectators.

“We sang the national anthem,” Rank said.

by pat c Thu Jul 15, 2004 14:34

Gary Younge
Thursday July 15, 2004
The Guardian

On the countless occasions that Winson Hudson, who has died aged 87, went to the Mississippi courthouse to try to register to vote, she would wear a bright red dress to make sure the Ku Klux Klan knew she was not intimidated. In a lifetime of activism that she last year described as "a lonely walk", Hudson brought the first suit to desegregate schools in a Mississippi county and was a longstanding activist for the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
Born and raised in Mississippi, the deep southern state with the most vicious reputation for racist violence - Martin Luther King described it in his 1963 "I have a dream" speech as "sweltering in injustice" - Hudson was years ahead of her time where civil rights activism was concerned. In 1937, while King was still a toddler, she went to Leake County Courthouse with her sister Dovie to try to register to vote "for the heck of it". It would be 25 years before she would succeed, and in the intervening years came tales of persecution and bureaucratic obstruction.

In 1961, she was passed a note as she went to the courthouse which read: "The Eyes of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are upon you." A year later, she finally got the franchise, but only after she had written out and then explained a lengthy section of the state's constitution. "The more they did to us, the meaner we got," she said in an interview in 1994.

by redjade Thu Jul 15, 2004 15:34

the Miami Model (2004)

In November, 2003, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, Florida, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). FTAA threatens to devastate workers, the environment, and public services like health care, education, and water, and to destroy indigenous rights and cultural diversity across North, Central, and South America.

Thousands of union members, environmentalists, feminists, anarchists, students, farm workers, media activists, and human rights activists who gathered in Miami to struggle against the FTAA were brutally attacked with rubber bullets, pepper spray, electric guns and shock batons, embedded reporters and information warfare, all coordinated by the new United States Department of Homeland Security.

Against Capital’s model of paramilitary oppression, information warfare, and corporate rule, we offered models of grassroots resistance, creative action and solidarity.

by tom Thu Jul 15, 2004 16:04

During its civil war America didn't cancel elections .Yet the extraodinary proposals revealed in Newsweek to delay November's poll in the event of a terrorist attack have drawn a surprisingly muted response from American TV stations and newspapers......
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jul2004/wash-15j.shtml

by David Nally Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:45

“The concept of progress is to be grounded in the Idea of the catastrophe. That things ‘just go on’ is the catastrophe” – Walter Benjamin. Scanning through the mainstream press and digesting the fairly erratic and mostly insipid news on the continuing murders in Sudan, one is gripped by the horrible thought that maybe it is true that nobody cares. After all Bush and his cronies — who were so quick to ignore the United Nations in their dealings with Iraq — now seem only too content to evoke the selfsame authority in order to legitimise their policy of enforced abandonment in regard to Sudan [1]. This selective disengagement seems to prove well enough that the people of Sudan are today’s “unworthy victims.”

by redjade Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:27

Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

He called the prison scene "a series of massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and the vice president, by this administration anyway…war crimes."

The outrages have cost us the support of moderate Arabs, says Hersh. "They see us as a sexually perverse society."

DOWNLOAD: Seymour Hersh Video (8.3megs)
http://www.sadlyno.com/uploads/sadlynoseymour.rm

Link Source:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107946/2004/07/14.html#a1922

More links and info on Bush's Abu Ghraib Rape Rooms
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/15/133030/088

by redjade Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:31

U.S. Works to Sustain Iraq Coalition
4 Nations Have Left, 4 More Are Getting Ready to Leave International Force
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50417-2004Jul14?language=printer

The Bush administration faces growing challenges in holding together the 32-nation coalition deployed in Iraq, with four countries already gone, another four due to leave by September and others now making known their intention to wind down or depart before the political transition is complete next year, according to officials from 28 participating countries.

The drama over the Filipino hostage in Iraq, which led the Philippines government to say this week that it will pull out before its August mandate expires, is only the latest problem -- and one of the smaller issues -- in U.S. efforts to sustain the 22,000-strong force that, with 140,000 U.S. troops, forms the multinational force trying to stabilize postwar Iraq.

Norway quietly pulled out its 155 military engineers this month, leaving behind only about 15 personnel to assist a new NATO-coordinated effort to help train and equip Iraqi security forces. New Zealand intends to pull out its 60 engineers by September, while Thailand plans to withdraw its more than 450 troops that same month, barring a last-minute political reversal that Thai officials consider unlikely, say envoys from both countries. "It's 90 percent definite that we're going," a Thai diplomat said.

The Netherlands is likely to pull out next spring after the first of three Iraqi elections, while Polish military officials told the Pentagon that Poland's large contingent will probably leave in mid-2005, other diplomats say.

by redjade Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:46

"Last Friday 500 people descended on the Paris métro armed with
pots of glue, spray cans and colourful determination. More invaded
the Brussel's metro with their own buckets of ideas. In Paris they
split into groups of 40, radically repainting vulgar, buy-buy-buy
advertising boards, transforming them with brushstrokes from
private spaces for profits into public spaces of resistance. In
Paris and Brussels subvertised advert boards screamed "No
Adverts!", "Advertising Kills", "The Street is Ours",
"Advertising is Hazardous to Your Mental Health." In the end, 130
stations were reclaimed and repainted in Paris while 7 were
visited in Brussels. All 40 adbusters arrested were quickly
released back into a subvertised Paris."

http://paris.indymedia.org/article.php3?id_article=9453

link found at:
http://www.alphalink.com.au/~derelict/archives/cat_underneath_the_cobblestones.html#000094

by redjade Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:48

Row over anti-Israel art display

Jewish groups and the State Opposition yesterday criticised the work, funded by the council, as deeply offensive and probably in breach of racial vilification laws.

The work features a large Star of David painted on a wall. Red text, on the window in front, reads: "Since the creation of Israel in 1948. 200,000 Palestinians have been killed. 5,000,000 refugees have been created. 21,000 square kilometres of land has been annexed. 385 towns and villages have been destroyed. 300 billion military dollars have been spent. 100+ WMD's have been manufactured. 65 UN resolutions have been ignored."

The window was clearly marked with the City of Melbourne logo. The council paid $8000 to curator Mark Hilton for a program of works that would promote contemporary art from Melbourne's emerging artists. The Flinders Street work was part of that program.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/68752_comment.php

by redjade Fri Jul 16, 2004 13:54

This morning's Los Angeles Times uncovers an explosive document ( http://images.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2004-07/13418408.pdf ) buried at the end of the recent Senate Intelligence report. It shows that before Colin Powell's now-discredited U.N. speech justifying war in Iraq, State Department analysts told Powell and top administration officials about "dozens of factual problems" ( http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-powell15jul15,1,7897981.story?coll=la-home-headlines ) in the address (which was written by Vice President Cheney's staff ( http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0609conseq.htm ) ). According to the Jan. 31, 2003 memo, there were problems with 38 of the claims made in the speech draft, which was crafted at the behest of the White House. (It was "intended to be the Bush administration's most compelling case" for war in Iraq.) In response, 28 were either "removed from the draft or altered" -- but the others were left in. Powell was reportedly irate when first given the speech: According to the 9/3/03 U.S. News & World Report, Powell threw the speech in the air, yelling, "I'm not reading this. This is bulls--t ( http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0609conseq.htm ) ." This past May, he reiterated his displeasure with the speech, saying, "It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading ( http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4992558/ ) ."

links and text from: http://americanprogress.org

by redjade Fri Jul 16, 2004 14:20

Radio on Internet from Baghdad has begun

On Wednesday 14th July, between 11 a.m. and 1.30 p.m (CET) the first live streaming radio transmission has been realized by Streamtime from Baghdad.  Streamtime is a loose network of media activists dedicated to assist local media to get connected. Two weeks before, the first ever internet radio program came from the village of Halabja, which suffered a poison gas attack by order of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Streamtime will produce further programs from Baghdad on Sundays and Wednesdays, starting between 11 and 12 a.m. Central European Time.

Salam Khedher, who returned from Switzerland to start an independent and alternative radio station called Radio Nas, presented the program from a private house with internet connection in Baghdad. In the 2 hour program, interrupted for 20 minutes by a power cut, children, a businessman, a man who makes a living installing satellite dishes were speaking to the world through a hand held microphone, connected with a computer.

http://medianetwork.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_medianetwork_archive.html#108997007891878960


Sheffield Indymedia UK feature with photos
http://publish.uk.indymedia.org/en/2004/07/294867.html

Baghdad Radio Project Homepage
http://www.streamtime.org/

Baghdad Radio Online

by Office Boy Fri Jul 16, 2004 14:45

"In October of 2002, an expert panel set up by the UN, named 85 Western companies as being in breach of OECD guidelines for Multinational Corporations, in relation to business being done in the Congo... The report caused a furore, and under pressure from various sources the UN panel changed its final report, delivered in October 2003, listing many of the companies involved as having resolved their status, without detailing any explanation as to how these matters had been resolved."

Patricia Feeney of the Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) organisation, spoke to http://www.threemonkeysonline.com

Three Monkeys Online is a monthly publication on Current Affairs and Culture, written by teams based in Ireland, Italy and Spain. July's issue also includes interviews with Mundy, Michael Collins and Eamonn Crudden.

by Sean Fri Jul 16, 2004 16:02

Have you ever wondered about the messages broadcast to American voters?
A new online exhibition has just been put on the internet, and it's well worth a look.

It's an archive of television commercials that advertise presidential candidates.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/

by redjade Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:26

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.

They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.

They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".

by redjade Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:29

During the run-up to the war, The Times ran dozens of editorials on Iraq, and our insistence that any invasion be backed by "broad international support" became a kind of mantra. It was the administration's failure to get that kind of consensus that ultimately led us to oppose the war. But we agreed with the president on one critical point: that Saddam Hussein was concealing a large weapons program that could pose a threat to the United States or its allies. We repeatedly urged the United Nations Security Council to join with Mr. Bush and force Iraq to disarm. As we've noted in several editorials since the fall of Baghdad, we were wrong about the weapons. And we should have been more aggressive in helping our readers understand that there was always a possibility that no large stockpiles existed.

username/password: freenyt/freenyt

by :-) - for the record. Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:30

Aznar is in Colombia, which tomorrow July 18 celebrates it's national day of unity. And from there he has again issued a statement concerning the events in Spain M11-M14.
“hasta el día 13, es decir, hasta el sábado al mediodía, no tuvo constancia expresa y cierta de que había una pista islámica sólida”. = "until the 13th, that is until Saturday afternoon, there was no certain islamic clue".
Spain is in the middle of it's internal and secret review of M11-M14. Four days that saw Madrid bombed, 198 dead, ETA blamed, large scale street demonstrations, 11,000,000 against terrorism on M12, 30,000 against the PP for _lying_ M13, and finally the general election on M14.
Yesterday President Zapatero, in the presence of the Prosecutor, Garzón, [mentioned in a Guantanamo update above] thanked those who had taken to the street M12-M13 and demonstrated in support of "truth". He has interestingly suggested there is a difference for Spains security between terrorism proceeding from Basque and Islamic causes. & expressed his wish that the PP now cease to debate "what really happened".
Aznar maintains-
http://www.lavanguardia.es/web/20040717/51158161715.html
ZP wishes closer co-operation with France and Morocco rather than the USA
http://www.lavanguardia.es/web/20040717/51158161715.html

This ought contrast with the Butler report in the UK for an understanding of what brought us to war against Iraq. Thanks to the current enquiry in Madrid, and the declassification of CNI (spain's secret service reports) we now know that Aznar had no _spanish_ intelligence basis for his Feb3,2003 declaration of WMD in Iraq. & relied on third party info, just as did the British.
I'll put all this together in an newswire article soon. It's worrying, for without Madrid's carnage, we might have never known the previous Government in Spain were lying to the extent they were consistently throughout the last years, right up to the last day in fact.

by Ms Lux Sat Jul 17, 2004 21:05

In reference to Jade's above post what if you were told that the UN are currently investigating fifty seperate cases of rape and questionably consentual sex for a few dollars; perpetrated by UN soldiers on congolese girls as younge as eleven.
Source; BBC News 24 July 18th 2004

by bzzzt Sun Jul 18, 2004 02:11

McDowell said that "putting a new layer between me and the gardaí would not increase accountability

by redjade Sun Jul 18, 2004 13:35

Next week's much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran—just weeks after the Administration has come under fire for overstating its claims of contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel—and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks.

by picking zits. Sun Jul 18, 2004 13:48

The Financial Times interview with Pressie ZP of Spain by Leslie Crawford
Published: July 16 2004

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373711345&p=1012571727092

by & collecting butts. Sun Jul 18, 2004 14:04

how Cigarette smoking helps or rather Nicotine-
could soon be rehabilitated as a treatment for schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, as well as hyperactivity disorders.

Picture the scene-
"I've a doctor's note, I'm allowed smoke in the pub, I can't remember why I'm allowed smoke in the pub, I know I can't hold my pint to my mouth, but ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?, oh yeah, I'm smoking that cigarette now."