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Editorial: Full Text : The President of Iran's Letter To President Bush
Signs of the Times
Translated by Le Monde
05/09/06
Mr George Bush,
President of the United States of America
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena - which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ, the great Messenger of God,
Feel obliged to respect human rights,
Present liberalism as a civilization model,
Announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs,
Make "War and Terror" his slogan,
And finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern,
While at the same time:
Have countries attacked,
The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of there being criminals in a village or city, or convoy for example, have the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.
Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, the sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years.
At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women - as occupation troops - put in harms way, taken away from family and love ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of aliments
On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.
Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal, nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the war on Iran, Saddam was supported by the West.
Mr President,
You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can theses actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ, the Messenger of peace and forgiveness.
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There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.
European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ, human rights and liberal values.
Young people, university students and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.
Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.
Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did no exist. The show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.
I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war, they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families.
Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalised or explained?
Mr President, I am sure you know how - and at what cost - Israel was established:
- Many thousands were killed in the process.
- Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.
- Hundred of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.
This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment of Israel; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now.
A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique - or at the very least extremely rare - in recent memory.
Another big question asked by people is why is this regime being supported? Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ or Moses or liberal values?
Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands - inside and outside Palestine - whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jew, to determine their fate, runs
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Contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum?
The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent observes have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognise the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government.
If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also saying "why are all UNSC resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?"
Mr President,
As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them -- many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies.
It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well. Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East regions is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations.
You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilised for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed.
Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.
Mr President, don't Latin Americans have the right to ask, why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear?
The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don't they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth - including minerals - is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?
Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights?
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The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d'etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting, the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborates this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and collaborating their country's progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.
Mr President,
September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.
All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems - and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services - or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?
All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbours of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9/11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people - who had been immensely traumatised by the attacks - some Western media only intensified the climates of fear and insecurity - some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?
American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?
Some believe that the hype paved the way - and was the justification - for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media.
In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly - for the public to, finally, believe - and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.
Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate?
Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values?
Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?
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Mr President,
In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them.
The question here is "what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?"
As your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist - to a larger or lesser extent - in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign - paid from the public treasury - be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?
What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention - which I am hoping you will agree to some of - is:
Those in power have specific time in office, and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures. The people will scrutinize our presidencies.
Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment?
Did we intend to establish justice, or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful - thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs'?
Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them?
Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them?
Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats?
Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it?
Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors?
Did our administration set out to promote rational behaviour, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns.
Intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people's rights?
And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office - to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets - or not?
Mr President,
How much longer can the world tolerate this situation? Where will this trend lead the world to? How long must the people of the world pay for the incorrect decisions of some rulers? How much longer will the specter of insecurity - raised from the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - hunt the people of the world?
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How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people's houses destroyed over their heads?
Are you pleased with the current condition of the world?
Do you think present policies can continue?
If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states and distinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts were would the world be today? Would not your government, and people be justifiably proud? Would not your administration's political and economic standing have been stronger? And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American governments?
Mr President, it is not my intention to distress anyone.
If prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph or Jesus Christ were with us today, how would they have judged such behaviour? Will we be given a role to play in the promised world, where justice will become universal and Jesus Christ will be present? Will they even accept us?
My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Moslems and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses. All divine religions share and respect one word and that is "monotheism" or belief in a single God and no other in the world.
The holy Koran stresses this common word and calls on an followers of divine religions and says: [3.64] Say: O followers of the Book! Come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught. With Him and (that) some of us shall not take others for lords besides Allah, but if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims. (The Family of Imran).
Mr President,
According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine prophets.
"To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases." "The Lord which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds."
"The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court" "planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins". "He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors". "He is the Compassionate, the Merciful". "He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness". "He is witness to the actions of His servants", "He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast". "Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds." "A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants". And "A good and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves."
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We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvations. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus, and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.
We also believe that Jesus Christ was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus has been quoted in Koran as well; [19,36] And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serves Him; this is the right path, Marium.
Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers. The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans.
We again read in the Holy Book: "The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purity them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious."
All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well. Divine prophets have promised:
The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Haven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly effected by our actions.
All prophets, speak of peace and tranquillity for man - based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity.
Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world - that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets - and improve our performance?
Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice?
Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected?
Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?
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Mr President,
History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted The fate of man to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices. Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by Him.
Can one deny the signs of change in the world today?
Is this situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace.
The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the wolrd feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies.
The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries.
The people are disgusted with increasing corruption.
The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion. The people of the world have no faith in international organisations, because their rights are not advocated by these organisations.
Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point - that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: "Do you not want to join them?"
Mr President,
Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.
Vasalam Ala Man Ataba'al hoda
Mahmood Ahmadi-Najad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Ahmadinejad Sends a Futile Letter
Kurt Nimmo
May 9, 2006
Iran’s president Ahmadinejad never said Israel should
be "wiped off the map," although Shimon
Peres did say "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can
also be wiped off the map." As Anneliese
Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann note, Ahmadinejad was deliberately misquoted
as part of an ongoing propaganda campaign against Iran by the neocons, in particular
the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), founded by Yigal Carmon,
who served time in Israeli military intelligence, and Meyrav Wurmser, a neocon
that had a hand in crafting the neocon document "A Clean Break: A New
Strategy for Securing the Realm" presented to then Israeli president,
Benjamin Netanyahu. MEMRI is known for selectively quoting and distorting Arab
and Muslim news reports and editorials.
Shimon Peres was simply using the distortions of Ahmadinejad’s comments
to make excuses for the long-held Israeli and later neocon plan to not necessarily "wipe
off the map" Islamic countries, but rather reduce them through "Lebanonization," or
balkanization, a plan sketched out by Oded Yinon, an Israeli diplomat attached
to the Foreign Ministry. Oded Yinon’s "A Strategy for Israel in
the 1980s" document, according to historian Stephen
Sniegoski, "undoubtedly reflected high-level thinking in the Israeli
military and intelligence establishment. The article called for Israel to bring
about the dissolution and fragmentation of the Arab states into a mosaic of
ethnic groupings."
Of course, Israel realized it did not have the power or resources to pull
off this massive undertaking. Israeli foreign policy expert Yehoshafat Harkabi
reflected on Yinon’s critique "to impose a Pax Israelica on the
Middle East, to dominate the Arab countries and treat them harshly" and
hoped that "the failed Israeli attempt to impose a new order in the weakest
Arab state—Lebanon—will disabuse people of similar ambitions in
other territories." Sniegoski comments: "Left unconsidered by Harkabi
was the possibility that the United States would act as Israel’s proxy
to achieve this goal," a fact partially realized a decade later when Bush
Senior invaded Iraq and, more than another decade removed, his son finished
the job.
In the wake of Bush Senior’s invasion and merciless attack on Iraqi
civilian infrastructure, octogenarian British "Orientalist" Bernard
Lewis wrote for the premier globalist periodical, the CFR’s Foreign Affairs,
that most "of the states of the Middle East … are of recent and
artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process [balkanization].
If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society
to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding
allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates—as happened
in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes,
regions and parties," a miserable and violent condition preferred by the
Israelis and the Straussian neocons (see British
Svengali Behind Clash Of Civilizations, Scott Thompson and Jeffrey Steinberg).
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s feeble and somewhat absurd letter sent
to Bush through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran—an effort to stave off the
impending destruction and "Lebanonization" of his country—was
received in a predictable fashion. "US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice dismissed Iranian President’s surprise letter to President George
W Bush, saying it did not seriously address the standoff over Tehran’s
disputed nuclear program," reports NDTV. "This letter is not the
place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything
of the sort. It isn’t addressing the issues that we’re dealing
with in a concrete way," declared Secretary of State Condi
Rice. "Rice’s comments were the most detailed response from
the United States to the letter, the first from an Iranian head of state to
an American president since the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran," ABC
News adds. "She would not discuss the contents in detail but made
clear that the United States would not change its tack on Iran."
In short, the shock and awe campaign against the people of Iran—a beginning
fusillade in the process of balkanizing Iran into several more easily digestible
pieces—is on. Now the question is when this will happen and what the
response will be here in America and across the world. Of course, for the neocons,
this response is hardly important and may be safely ignored, as opponents will
once again be dismissed as a "focus group" (as Bush called those
of us opposed to his invasion of Iraq) and the process of splintering the Middle
East will move forward, closing in on its ultimate goal, as described by Bernard
Lewis, of delivering the Muslim world "into a chaos of squabbling, feuding,
fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties."
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Book Review: The Case Against Israel
Raymond Deane
The Electronic Intifada
9 May 2006
Michael Neumann is the US-born son of Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany, and Herbert Marcuse's stepson. He now teaches philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada.
A tireless advocate for the Palestinian cause, Prof Neumann has consistently de-bunked conventional wisdom, more often than not in the online newsletter CounterPunch. In August 2002, in an essay tauntingly entitled Protect Me from My Friends - Pro-Palestinian Activists and the Palestinians, he wrote
"The enormous, ignored fact of the Palestinian story is that America is not, as the left loves to think, pursuing some vital interest in its alliance with Israel. On the contrary, America is acting against its vital interests."
Apart from its pertinent critique of the left, this, of course, pre-empts aspects of the recent Walt/Mearsheimer article The Israel Lobby by several years. So why didn't it stir up the same controversy as the latter? There are two possible answers. Firstly, Neumann's impeccably Jewish pedigree makes him a difficult target for those whose only weapon is the "anti-Semite" charge. Secondly, Counter/Punch is a leftie website from which attacks on Israel are "only to be expected" and hence can be safely ignored.
The same factor precludes the kind of response that one might have expected had The Case Against Israel been issued by a major publishing house such as John Wiley & Sons, who published Alan Dershowitz's best-selling The Case For Israel in 2003. Publication by CounterPunch was a sure guarantee that The Case Against Israel would not be reviewed in the mainstream media and would not be the focus of the kind of concerted vilification to which the ultra-establishment figures Walt and Mearsheimer have been subjected. Given Neumann's formidable capacity for rational riposte, this is regrettable.
Although the title of this little book gives the misleading impression that it is conceived as a reply to Dershowitz's lamentable screed (Dershowitz gets only one un-indexed look-in), its thrust is rather similar to Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah, which is so conceived. Both authors maintain that "the Israel/Palestine conflict is not so complex as it has been made out to be" (Neumann), and set about cutting away the thicket of obfuscation with which it has been deliberately surrounded. The historian Finkelstein marshalls a massive array of evidence that utterly disproves that adduced by Dershowitz, while the philosopher Neumann's preferred weapon is Ockham's razor, a logical procedure for stripping away layers of assumption.
Neumann's main argument is rapidly sketched:
"The Zionist project... was entirely unjustified and could reasonably be regarded by the inhabitants of Palestine as a very serious threat, the total domination by one ethnic group of all others in the region. Some form of violent resistance was , therefore, justified..."
Describing his focus as "moral and political...not legal", Neumann quickly disposes of international law, which "has no central authority to enforce it. The UN... is unavailable because the most powerful countries can veto any sanction they dislike..."
A few pages later, the "right of self-determination of peoples" is dismissed as a tool for either side, being equated with "advocating the political supremacy of an ethnic group." He later elaborates that the Palestinians "could appeal, not to rights of ethnic self-determination, but to rights of self-government within a sovereign geographic area."
A historical account (for Neumann by no means shuns history, just as Finkelstein doesn't shun logic) demonstrates that Zionism always intended to establish a sovereign state in Palestine, however cunningly it sought to dissimulate this end. The indigenous Arabs were perfectly well aware of this, hence "they would have been irrational not to resist..." Neumann's verdict on Zionism is uncompromising and devastating - "It was wrong to pursue the Zionist project and wrong to achieve it" - and from this he draws the conclusion that "much that is said in its defence, and in Israel's defence,... is irrelevant."
By now the pro-Palestinian activist is feeling smug and elated. However, Neumann's logic inexorably leads him to the less comfortable conclusions that Israel does indeed have a right to exist, however illegitimate its foundations, and a concomitant right to self-defence.
"Israel's existence is tainted, not sacred, but it is protected by the same useful international conventions that allow others... to retain their ill-gotten gains. ...The more your actions, right or wrong, put your life in danger, the more you are justified in defending yourself."
Hence Neumann is even prepared to concede that "'the occupation itself', in the narrowest sense of the word, was no great crime." Indeed he believes that the 1967 war, which "liberated" the West Bank from Jordanian tutelage, gave Israel "a chance to make handsome amends for the crimes on which it was built...Israel could have sponsored...the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state..." Instead, largely spearheaded by the USA, the settlements made a bad situation infinitely worse, and it is the settlements and the brutal military regime instituted to defend them that bear the brunt of Neumann's often eloquent disgust.
When he comes to the options available to Palestinians for countering Israel's race-war, Neumann is brutally consistent: there are none, save violence. This part of his argument will be unacceptable to the fainthearted, but it is up to them to refute it. He does not content himself with dismissing passive resistance as an option in the Palestinian context, but denies that it has worked in any context where the powerless faced the unscrupulously powerful. Gandhi "cannot be said to have won independence for India", Martin Luther King's civil rights movement had the backing of the US establishment, indeed "was practically a federal government project", and South Africa's ANC "was never a nonviolent movement but a movement that decided, on occasion, to use nonviolent tactics".
As for "terrorism", which he defines as "random violence against non-combatants", he distinguishes it from "collateral damage" with the assertion that the latter "involves knowingly killing innocent civilians" while "Terrorism involves intentionally killing innocent civilians", concluding that "the moral difference is too academic even for an academic." Why, then, is "terrorism" considered to be particularly morally repugnant, while "collateral damage" tends to be taken in our moral stride?
"Imagine trying to make such a claim. You say: 'To achieve my objectives, I would certainly drop bombs with the knowledge that they would blow the arms off some children. But to achieve those same objectives, I would not plant or set off a bomb on the ground with the knowledge that it would have that same effect. After all, I have planes to do that, I don't need to plant bombs.' As a claim of moral superiority, this needs a little work."
The Palestinians, he repeats, are without options. Israel has all the options, principally that of unilateral withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, but refuses to use them. Hence he refuses "to pronounce judgment on Palestinian terrorism."
So why does Israel still command such support from the US? Neumann deftly dismantles the notions that there are either "shared values" or a "confluence of interests" between the US and Israel, or that Israel is anything but a hindrance in the pursuit of America's nefarious oil politics. The US/Israel alliance is analysed historically as a relic of the cold war perpetuated by inertia: "Stale ideology has enshrined a counter-productive alliance at the heart of American foreign policy." Neumann calls for the US to change sides, and itemises the obvious benefits that would accrue from such a U-turn:
"It would instantly gain the warm friendship of Arab oil producers and obtain far more valuable allies in the war on terror: not only the governments of the entire Muslim world, but a good portion of the Muslim fundamentalist movement! The war on terror, which seems so unwinnable, might well be won at nominal cost, and quickly... Perhaps most important, switching sides would revitalize America's foundering efforts at non-proliferation."
Neumann's final verdict: "Israel is the illegitimate child of ethnic nationalism." While it is not his brief to "formulate specific strategies" leading towards a solution, he advocates "vigorous anti-Israeli action" primarily in the shape of "the most extensive international sanctions possible", undeterred "by the horrors of the Jewish past."
The Case Against Israel is, in my view, the most comprehensive and devastating critique of Israel in print. Its value as a campaigning tool consists primarily in the icy precision of its logic, and its independence of quibbles about international law or historical responsibility. Following its elegant arguments requires a concentrated application of the reader's own reasoning faculties - but the exercise is worth it.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Life in the Bush Economy: Fat, Drunk and Broke
By Paul Craig Roberts
05/08/06
The Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll jobs report released May 5 says the economy created 131,000 private sector jobs in April. Construction added 10,000 jobs, natural resources, mining and logging added 8,000 jobs, and manufacturing added 19,000. Despite this unusual gain, the economy has 10,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than a year ago.
Most of the April job gain --72%--is in domestic services, with education and health services (primarily health care and social assistance) and waitresses and bartenders accounting for 55,000 jobs or 42% of the total job gain. Financial activities added 26,000 jobs and professional and business services added 28,000. Retail trade lost 36,000 jobs.
During 2001 and 2002 the US economy lost 2,298,000 jobs. These lost jobs were not regained until early in February 2005. From February 2005 through April 2006, the economy has gained 2,584 jobs (mainly in domestic services).
The total job gain for the 64 month period from January 2001 through April 2006 is 7,000,000 jobs less than the 9,600,000 jobs necessary to stay even with population growth during that period. The unemployment rate is low because millions of discouraged workers have dropped out of the work force and are not counted as unemployed.
In 2005 the US had a current account deficit in excess of $800 billion. That means Americans consumed $800 billion more goods and services than they produced. A significant percentage of this figure is offshore production by US companies for American markets.
The US current account deficit as a percent of Gross Domestic Product is unprecedented. As more jobs and manufacturing are moved offshore, Americans become more dependent on foreign made goods. This year the deficit could reach $1 trillion.
The US pays its current account deficit by giving up ownership of its existing assets or wealth. Foreigners don't simply hold the $800 billion in cash. They use it to acquire US equities, real estate, bonds, and entire companies.
The federal budget is also in the red to the tune of about $400 billion. As Americans have ceased to save, the federal government is dependent on foreigners to lend it the money to operate and to wage war in the Middle East.
American consumers are heavily indebted. The growth of consumer debt is what has been fueling the economy. Social Security and Medicare are in financial trouble, as are many company pension plans. Decide for yourself--is this the economic picture of a superpower that can dictate to the world, or is it the picture of a second-rate country dependent on foreigners to finance its consumption and the operation of its government?
No-think economists make rhetorical arguments that the decline of US manufacturing employment reflects higher productivity from technological improvements and not a decline in US manufacturing per se. George Mason University economist Walter Williams recently ridiculed the claim that US manufacturing jobs are moving to China. Williams asks how the US could be losing manufacturing jobs to China when the Chinese are losing jobs faster than the US: "Since, 2000, China has lost 4.5 million manufacturing jobs, compared with the loss of 3.1 million in the U.S."
The 4.5 million figure comes from a Conference Board report that is misleading. The report that counts was written by Judith Banister under contract to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and published in November 2005 (www.bls.gov/fls/chinareport.pdf). Banister's report was peer reviewed both within the BLS and externally by persons with expert knowledge of China.
Chinese manufacturing employment has been growing strongly since the 1980s except for a short period in the late 1990s when layoffs resulted from the restructuring and privatization of inefficient state owned and collective owned factories. To equate temporary layoffs from a massive restructuring within manufacturing with US long-term manufacturing job loss indicates extreme carelessness or incompetence.
Banister concludes: "In recent decades, China has become a manufacturing powerhouse. The country's official data showed 83 million manufacturing employees in 2002, but that figure is likely to be understated; the actual number was probably closer to 109 million. By contrast, in 2002, the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialized countries had a total of 53 million manufacturing workers."
The G7 is the US and Europe. In contrast to China's 109,000,000 manufacturing workers, the US has 14,000,000.
When I was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, the US did not have a trade deficit in manufactured goods. Today the US has a $500 billion annual deficit in manufactured goods. If the US is doing as well in manufacturing as no-think economists claim, where did an annual trade deficit in manufactured goods of one-half trillion dollars come from?
If the US is the high-tech leader of the world, why does the US have a trade deficit in advanced technology products with China?
There was a time when American economists were empirical and paid attention to facts. Today American economists are merely the handmaidens of offshore producers. Apparently, they follow President Bush's lead and do not read newspapers--thus, their ignorance of countless stories of US manufacturers moving entire plants and many thousands of US engineering jobs to China.
Chinese firms, including state owned firms, have numerous reasons, tax and otherwise, to understate their employment. Banister's report gives the details.
Banister points out that the excess supply of labor in China is about five to six times the size of the total US work force. As a result, there is no shortage of workers in China, nor will there be in the foreseeable future.
The huge excess supply of labor means extremely low Chinese wages. The average Chinese wage is $0.57 per hour, a mere 3% of the average US manufacturing worker's wage. With first world technology, capital, and business knowhow crowding into China, virtually free Chinese labor is as productive as US labor. This should make it obvious to anyone who claims to be an economist that offshore production of goods and services is an example of capital seeking absolute advantage in lowest factor cost, not a case of free trade based on comparative advantage.
American economists have failed their country as badly as have the Republican and Democratic parties. The sad fact is that there is no leader in sight capable of reversing the rapid decline of the United States of America.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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Insecure In The Homeland
Poll: Dim View Of Bush, GOP
CBS
May 9, 2006
NEW YORK - President Bush and the Republican Congress show nearly record low ratings while Democrats are viewed much more favorably in their performance on the issues that matter most to Americans, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.
Only 31% of those polled approve of Mr. Bush's job performance and 68% believe the United States is worse off today than it was before Bush became president.
Personal evaluations of Mr. Bush are the lowest they've ever been during his presidency.
On the public's confidence in Bush's ability to handle a crisis, 51% had been the previous low in September 2005. That figure is now at 50%. The President's handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis is tied to that decrease.
There is also concern that Mr. Bush is spending too much time on foreign policy issues: 55% think so. Also, on the issues that are most important to Americans, Iraq and gas prices, Bush's ratings have dropped.
On handling the issue of rising gas prices, Bush's performance rating dropped four percentage points from what it was a month ago (from 17% to 13%).
With the Iraq war, Bush's approval rating dropped one percentage point (from 30% to 29%) since last month. Similarly, only 30% of poll respondents said they have some degree of confidence Bush will be able to end the war successfully. The poll also reveals that 56% of those polled said that United States should have stayed out of Iraq; this number is the highest it's been since the start of the war.
The only area where Bush's approval rating is not at an all-time low is fighting terror: approval is at 46%.
Congressional Republicans get an eviscerating review in this poll. The GOP gets a favorability rating of 37%, exactly 20 percentage points lower than where it was in 1994. Inversely, Democrats in Congress had a favorability rating increase of 11 percentage points over what it was in 1994.
On the issues of Iraq and gas prices, the poll shows that the public believes Democrats are doing a better job. For instance, on Iraq, 48% said the Democratic Party is better while only 30% thought the Republican Party is. On keeping gas prices low, the disparity is even more pronounced: 57% say the Democrats perform better, while only 11% say the Republicans do.
Democrats also surpass Republicans in their work on issues such as prescription drug cots, improving health care and immigration, among others.
However, Republicans get a better assessment than Democrats in dealing with terrorism: 40% prefer the GOP's handling of the issue while 35% prefer the Democratic Party's.
The overall approval of Congress' performance has diminished vastly since 2001; only 23% approve now while 67% did in 2001. This figure reflects frustration over Congress' ability to challenge the President since 67% think Congress does not question his policies enough.
Also, 39% say that Congress would be in better condition today if Democrats were in charge, an increase from last month.
Heading into the 2006 elections, Democrats look to have quite an advantage. For instance, if the elections were held today, 44% of registered voters said they would support the Democratic candidate in their congressional districts, while only 33% would support the GOP candidate.
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Presidential Plans Found In Trash
By Bruce Leshan
9 News
5/9/2006 11:17:36 PM
How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn't have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.
It appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President's trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip.
It's the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage. Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing.
There on the floor next to a big trash truck was a thick sheaf of papers with nearly every detail of the President's voyage.
"I saw locations and names and places where the President was going to be. I knew it was important. And it shouldn't have been in a trash hole like this," he said.
Hopkins works in sanitation. He's an ex-con, and he's worried about fallout from talking to us, so he's asked us not to say exactly where he's employed. But he also felt it was his civic duty to tell somebody about what he'd found.
"We're going through a war, and if it would have fell into the wrong hands at the right time, it would have been something really messy for the President's sake," he said.
The documents details the exact arrival and departure time for Air Force One, Marine One and the back up choppers, Nighthawk 2 and Three.
It lists every passenger on board each aircraft, from the President to military attaché with nuclear football. It offers the order of vehicles in the President's motorcade.
We faxed a copy to the Secret Service, which as usual rule declined to say much, other than insisting that it was a White House staff document, not a Secret Service document.
And while it is marked official the Secret Service says it is NOT classified. But you don't have to be in Presidential security to figure out the big mistake here.
What do you think the message is that comes out of this? Shred the important papers.
The Secret Service referred us to a White House spokeswoman, who declined to comment on the record. Some of this information in the document goes out to the media before every Presidential trip. But we're always told not to publish it.
And there are a whole lot of details in it that we do NOT get.
Comment: Well, the trash IS where Bush's plans belong after all...but this story also highlights the reality that dominates government circles. For all the delusions of grandeur that occupy the minds of members of the Bush administration and those that pull their strings, they are very aware of the very real reality of the complete unreality of the "terror threat". Think about it: if these people believed that the "terrorist threat" was as real as they would like the public to believe it is, do you think exact details of Bush's travel plans would be tossed away like a kleenex? The simple fact is that there is no threat to Bush or anyone else, and in private, the actions of the members of the Bush government reflect this. Of course, that doesn't mean that there won't be another "terror attack", just that, if and when it happens, Bush knows he has nothing to fear from it.
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America's Hitler, Part Two: How Fear and Perceived Powerlessness Contributes to Manipulation by "God's Agents" on Earth
by Lonna Gooden VanHorn
OpEdNews.com
May 4, 2006
In 1942-43 the American government commissioned a psychological study of Adolf Hitler. It was published in a book titled "The Mind of Adolf Hitler" by Walter Langer in 1972. Most of the analysis of Hitler in this article is based on that book.
In the text below, L indicates Langer's Words and H indicates Hitler's words.
This is the second of five parts of "America's Hitler. Part one was posted on May 1st.
British author John LeCarre wrote an article in 2003 titled "The United States of America Has Gone Mad," in which he said "America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War."
Amen.
The events of 9/11, and the fear those events engendered in the American people who, because of our unquestioned military superiority had for decades felt almost impervious to danger from other countries, made many Americans so afraid, their new feeling of vulnerability to danger made them psychologically open to a bellicose leader promising not only "justice," but also vengeance. Never mind that this same leader was unquestionably negligent in doing nothing to guard against terrorist attacks even after being strongly warned from the beginning of his presidency that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were a real threat and must be taken seriously. We now know that on January 25, 2001, Richard Clarke sent an urgent memo to Condi Rice saying it was imperative that a principals meeting on Al Qaeda and terrorism be held as soon as possible. There were warnings all summer. And then there was the PDB warning on August 6th, "Bin Laden determined to strike inside the U.S."
Following 9/11 many Americans needed a show of American military might to make them feel "in control" and "on top" again. We bombed Afghanistan. And then there was the "shock and awe" of our invasion of Iraq. For awhile all was glorious. But then, unlike we had been promised, the Iraqi people did not just roll over and let us take over their country, and the real resistance began. Now it has been three years of almost unremitting bad news and at least four times as much money as we were told it would cost, with no end in sight. And now some are talking about occupying Iraq for ten or fifteen years of more. The violence and deaths do not end, and the people are tired of hearing "bad news." It seems they want the press to ignore what is actually happening if it is not good news.
Last night I had a conversation with a friend of mine. One of the kindest women I have known in my lifetime. Keep in mind this woman has had to listen to me for more than three years. Like a lot of Americans, she is sick of hearing about Iraq. Last night she said something to the effect of "Why don't we just kill them all!"
She was in a bad mood, and she did not mean it, of course. But because the war is not going well, because the American people are sick of bad news - especially regarding a war that was sold to the American people as something that would be simple, over in a few months - something that would be welcomed by the Iraqi people, would only cost $50 billion dollars most of which cost would be offset by Iraqi oil revenue -- the whole episode leaves a bad "taste" in her mind. And she has projected that bad taste onto the whole concept of Iraq, the war, the coverage of it. Everything that has to do with the Iraqi "adventure."
The frightening thing is a lot of people are thinking like that. A lot of redneck Bush supporters, among others, are actually saying it. My friend is a Republican, but she is neither stupid nor willfully delusional. She voted for Kerry.
Because of their frustration, many Americans are beginning to blame the people of the Mideast, and, let's be honest here, Muslims, for the fact that the rosy picture the people in the administration painted about what the war would entail has turned out to be lies. What is frightening is that is exactly what happened under Hitler. The Jews became the scapegoats. Over a period of years, they became the reason for all bad things that had happened to Germany, anyone who lived in Germany and also in the rest of the world.
Hitler fostered those ideas and fanned the resentment and hatred of the masses. And, after Hitler had successfully dehumanized the Jewish people the Germans could be made more willing to rationalize the fact that these people who they had been conditioned to perceive as less than human were being exterminated. After all, as Hitler had reminded them, it was the Jews who had killed Jesus Christ.
Whether they admit it or not, to many Christians, Muslims are not equal to Christians because they don't believe "Jesus saves." To most fundamentalist Christians, that is blasphemy. They would convert Muslims by force if they could. If they cannot be converted, then, many believe, they are destined for "Hell" anyway. How much "conditioning" over how long of a period of time would it take for them to believe that killing Muslims is actually okay? More "conditioning" than Hitler used to convince good Germans it was somehow sort of "okay" to kill Jews?
Militant Christians and militant Muslims are nearly identical in that kind of thinking. Both sects believe (although some do not admit it publicly) that the "enemies" of "Christianity/Islam" the "heathens/infidels" must be eliminated because their false beliefs contaminate the world for the "true believers."
Bush's ability to feed his greed, expand his power trip and satiate his blood lust has been made easier for him because our irresponsible media, particularly the broadcast media, has been very careful not to show us the truth of what Bush, in our name, is doing. They did not question the words and the motivation of the people who occupy the seats of power before the people were misled into war. Almost no voices against the wisdom of war -- and there were many experts who said invading Iraq would be the worst thing we could do if we wanted to cut down on terrorism -- were featured in the run up to war. Additionally, the media has not made us witness the truth of the misery of war for the Iraqi people. We have not seen photos of dogs eating bloated, rotting corpses in Fallujah. We have not seen bits and pieces of our own soldiers scattered over a foreign landscape, nor have we been introduced to the lives of the soldiers who have come home to "live" as vegetables.
In the beginning, the media portrayed the war as a pretty Nintendo light show. "Shock and awe." We saw no video of terrified children screaming in fear at the other end of the missile tracers.
Because it has protected us from truth, the media is implicit in the fact that we went to war, and implicit in all the death and misery brought about because of that war. They have now been found implicitly guilty by an international tribunal. link
Before the Iraq War began, 1000 veterans, many of them high-ranking, wrote a letter to the president telling him that going to war with Iraq would be the worst thing he could do if he wanted to stabilize the Middle East. Leaders of the Clergy tried to meet with Bush before the war to tell him they believed war with Iraq was not a "just" war, and so would be against God's will? Bush refused to meet with them. How many reading this article remember seeing either of those important stories covered by the media before the war?
And now in covering the situation with Iran the media is once more being complicit more in what it is omitting than what it is reporting. Physicists have written a letter to Bush telling him bombing Iran would be madness. How many people reading this article have seen these people or their letter featured on the news?
Interestingly enough, Langer also blamed the press for its part in Hitler's success. "When we try to formulate a conception of Adolph Hitler as the German people know him we must not forget that their knowledge of him is limited by a controlled press." (L. p. 47.) "In addition the press, newsreels, and so forth, are continually flooded with carefully prepared photographs showing Hitler at his very best." (L. p. 49.)
Think of Bush in uniform before cheering soldiers, always in front of an American flag, or standing with Mt. Rushmore in the background, or with a cross and a crown behind and above him. Think of the "journalists" paid to spout the party line. Think of Jeff Gannon, planted to ask softball questions of Bush and McClellan even though Bush holds almost no press conferences and very seldom speaks spontaneously because when he does the results are often disastrous. IF they are not ignored by the press.
Clinton should have been so lucky.
In 2003 in answer to a reporter's question about the justification for war when no WMD's had been found, Bush said "And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." Almost no press was given to that outrageous lie. Had it been uttered by a Democrat, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would have feasted on it, and ridiculed the person who said it for weeks. Virtually everyone in the country would have been made aware of it. But, because talk radio and television is made up almost entirely of voices from the right, almost no one knows about it. Most people do not even know about the purging of names from the Florida voter rolls prior to the 2000 election. Again, had such a travesty been committed under a governor who was a Democrat, Rush and Sean would have been on it, to borrow a phrase from Jim Hightower, "like a gator on a poodle," and most Americans would be aware of it, at least in a vague way. As it is, if they know about it at all, they think it had something to do with the recount, which they perceive as being dishonest because of machinations by the Democrats.
Military analyst Bill Arkin attended the Veterans' Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery in 2003. He said that Bush talked and laughed and bopped his head to the music during the presentation of the colors. Had that been shown on television, Bush would have lost not only the veterans' vote, but the election. But, it was not shown.
Bush seems unable to realize what war entails. Or else he simply does not care. Before the war, the BBC (but not American television) showed video of Bush clowning before his entourage minutes before he went on television to make the announcement America was about to invade Iraq. He actually pumped his arm and said "feels good," before he announced the beginning of a bombardment which undoubtedly meant the death and maiming of thousands of people, including many of our own soldiers, and the destruction of the infrastructure and homes and businesses of the Iraqi people. He is in such denial about war that, according to Pat Robertson, Bush told him there would be no casualties. According to the White House, Bush said he never said that. But, why should we believe him? His modus operandi is deliberate deception, and his lies fill volumes. He has consistently lied or side-stepped questions about his past. He was indisputably - authenticity of CBS documents notwithstanding -- AWOL - absent for 30 days - from his National Guard service. He delights in his "cunning" and ability to be devious. His fortune was built on unethical business deals. Honesty and a high standard of ethics is nowhere to be found in his life's history. We now know from Weade's tapes that had he lost the primary to Steve Forbes, he would have done nothing to help Forbes defeat Gore. He also said Forbes could forget Florida as well as Texas, which indicates Jeb would have done nothing to help Forbes. Hmm. Perhaps the Florida voter rolls would not have been purged. Of course it is extremely unlikely Forbes would have defeated Gore. After all, even Bush did not defeat Gore in the popular vote, and Bush does have a tad more charisma than Forbes. But, can anyone imagine a candidate with any decency acting in such a manner?
Contrast the differences in the 2004 presidential campaign between Bush and Kerry.
A former Republican Judge and Senator from Kentucky, Marlowe Cook, repudiated Bush's morals in an article for the Courier-Journal before the election:
"I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all..."
Even the Washington Post in "He Ought to Know" said it took a lot of "chutzpah" for the Bush campaign to accuse the Kerry campaign of being beholden to special interests when the Bush campaign was at least four times more beholden to special interests than was Kerry. "During the 2000 contest, the Bush campaign assigned an industry code to givers so it would know precisely how much it was beholden and to whom. As electric utility lobbyist Thomas Kuhn explained in a 1999 letter to fundraisers, putting the code on the check "does ensure that our industry is credited, and that your progress is listed among the other business/industry sectors." Mr. Kuhn's progress may well have been noted; he met at least 14 times with Vice President Cheney's energy task force."
However, even Bush was not as arrogant in the early days of his presidency as he has become since. Hitler, also, did not begin his rule by killing people. First (and Bush suffers in this part of the comparison) Hitler lifted people out of a depression. He greatly reduced unemployment. He built roads and buildings. He seemed to work miracles. Because he did, the German people began to perceive him as almost godlike. They began to look upon him as a kind of Messiah. So did he. "His references to the Bible became more frequent, and the movement took on a religious atmosphere." (L. p. 36.)
"It is not clear from the evidence whether the new State religion was part of Hitler's plan or whether developments were such that it became feasible...it may be that his series of successes were so startling that the people spontaneously adopted a religious attitude toward him...In any case he has accepted this Godlike role without any hesitation or embarrassment...when he is addressed with the salutation, "Heil Hitler, our Saviour," he bows slightly and believes it." (L. p. 40.)
"All the stagings were designed to create a supernatural and religious atmosphere, and Hitler's entry was more befitting a god than a man. Notes appeared in the press to the effect that, "As he spoke, one heard God's mantle rustle through the room!,, On the side of a hill in Odenwald... "We believe in Holy Germany. Holy Germany is Hitler! We believe in Holy Hitler."" (L. p. 62.)
With Bush, we have had all the religious and patriotic "God equals America" speech and imagery from the very beginning. Recall how the news covered the man in Florida who said 'for the first time he felt God was in the White House.'
"At the Nuremburg Nazi Party Rally in September 1937, there was a huge photograph of Hitler underneath which was the inscription, "In the beginning was the Word..."The Mayor of Hamburg assured him, [Teeling] "We need nor priests or parsons. We communicate direct with God through Adolph Hitler. He has many Christ-like qualities." (L. p. 62.)
"A Rhemish group of German "Christians" in April 1937 passed this resolution: "Hitler's word is God's law, the decrees and laws which represent it possess divine authority." And Reichsminister for Church Affairs, Hans Kerrl, says: "There has arisen a new authority as to what Christ and Christianity really are - that is Adolf Hiter... is the true Holy Ghost." (L. p. 63.)
After his stunning successes, and the fact that he seemed to lead a simple life almost wholly dedicated to his work, and, to all appearances, almost sexless, the Germans came to perceive Hitler in much the same way.
"He [Hitler] is the acme of German honor and purity; the Resurrector of the the German family and home." (L. p. 59.)
But, based on testimony by people who knew him well, including some of his sex partners, Langer describes a very sick and perverted sex life.
Bush was the "family values" candidate. Many people perceive his "piety" as an antidote to the "godlessness" they see all around them, and believe he will lead us back to the values of our "Christian" past - a past that itself is largely a myth. link
I have written in many articles, one of them being "Standing in Awe of Bush's Christianity," that I believe Bush is sincere in his belief in God and Christ. However, GREED, which is the linchpin of this administration, concern for the rich at the expense of the poor, war-mongering, fear-mongering, constant lies and deceit, bearing false witness against one's "enemies," always putting profits for corporate campaign contributors ahead of the environmental concerns of the earth God commanded us to be good stewards of, are not generally considered Christian principles.
What this religiosity in the White House is actually leading us to of course, is the hypocrisy, self-righteousness, pride, selfishness, greed and lack of concern for our fellow man which are the only aspects of human nature Christ ever really railed against.
To be continued...
[Read Part One]
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Is Bush Adopting Hitler's Approach to Children and Education?
by Judy Aron
OpEdNews.com
May 4, 2006
I have heard it said that once you bring the name of Hitler into an argument that you have lost the argument. The notion is that his regime was so horrible and so extreme, that one could never make an accurate comparison. I am sorry, but I disagree with that theory. I do believe that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Hitler's government serves us well as an example of how not to do things. Bad repressive government is always bad repressive government, no matter who is at the helm.
Coming from a family comprised of some Holocaust survivors, I have heard repeatedly in my life what warning signs to look for and how easily people can be propagandized, as well as how easily government can be taken over and people can be suppressed.
That being said, some of the laws coming out of Congress and our States are getting pretty scary.
Some have evolved over the course of many administrations, some come as a result of legislators who are really clueless, and others come from a purposeful agenda. Sometimes that agenda may come from corporate America, as evidenced by heavy campaign financing and lobbying of their interests. I am not talking about any kind of conspiracy to enslave us all, but perhaps it is time for our legislators to re-read our Constitution and stop relying on the judiciary to tell them when something is wrong, unethical, or unconstitutional. Unfortunately, people are asleep enough and busy dealing with their own problems that they don't have time to see what's going on, or even check up on the people they voted for, if they voted at all.
It is necessary to recognize that there are very real socialist and fascist factions working in our government, and they can take a miserable idea and make it look like a really good one. It's easy enough to build a socialist infrastructure if you lay the groundwork under the guise of helping those in need. After all, programs designed to help the sick and needy could benefit us all, right? Propaganda done well can push any agenda, especially if there is money behind it. Taking a look at even a few things like eminent domain, education, immigration, surveillance, and censorship, and a picture begins to unfold that is not very pretty, and it certainly doesn't come close to what our founding fathers intended.
Just examining education and its relation to healthcare, we ought to be very mindful of the path we are traveling in this country. As we speak, legislatures around the country are considering legislation
1. that establishes health center and clinics in our schools
2. that deals with "early intervention" of mental health issues of children - utilizing screening programs for all
3. that deals with "school readiness" and universal pre-school, which is government run/funded education and institutionalization of 3 and 4 year olds
4. that places more psychologists, therapists and other "psych" professionals in our schools
5. that removes certain authority and rights of parents
6. that places more government mandates on education
On top of this, the federal government is exercising the power of the purse to mandate how education should be run overall.
Let's take a look at some examples based on a paper describing the Third Reich:
"Even during the war, there was so much unrest and so many appeals that in 1941, Hitler intervened with an edict that prohibited parents from bringing charges against hospitals and asylums."
Are we not seeing "middle of the night legislation" inserted to protect pharmaceutical companies and institutions from lawsuits for autism", etc? Parents are being forced to medicate their kids in some cases, and then they can't turn around and do anything when the drugs damage their child.
"Nazi bioscience and racialism were woven into all aspects of the social, health, and educational policies."
Are we not seeing states like Illinois instituting Social/Emotional Learning Standards for the purpose of having children be "school ready"? Who decides these Social/Emotional Learning Standards? What studies are they based on? Is anyone interested in the conflict of interest and questionable ethics of these studies, some of which were funded by pharmaceutical companies?
"In 1934, 181 Genetic Health courts and appellate Genetic Health Courts were created for the sole purpose of enforcing Nazi health laws and decrees (Peukert, 1987). These courts were attached to local civil courts and presided over by two physicians and a lawyer. All physicians were required to register every case of genetic pathology with the courts and failure to do so was punishable. The reports were filed in specially created data banks (Burleigh, 1994). Public health officials, teachers, and social workers were also required to report children suspected of having a disability or emotional problem. The search for people with hereditary illnesses was relentless; every large institution became a regional catchment area and sent officials to the homes of every person reported to have a hereditary illness (Burleigh, 1994)."
Does the program/mandate of Child Find fit this description? The inter-agency networking of government entities per the New Freedom Commission, and No Child Left Behind legislation offers up some very unsavory comparisons here. Schools are implementing screening tools like Wested, and TeenScreen and a host of other programs to identify kids with problems.. even if they don't really have one. And no one seems to take notice that these programs were funded in part by the pharmaceutical industry in order to get more customers and sell more medication. Additionally, databases are being set up to keep track of information. Parents are being coerced into putting their children into treatment. Some lose custody and their children become wards of the state.
"Public health officials, responsible for enforcing the institutionalization of children with disabilities, persuaded dubious parents with promises that their children would receive the most advanced and expert therapy on open wards (Heiniansberg and Schmidt, 1993).
Parents who refused to put their children into institutions were accused by these same officials of neglecting and depriving their children of needed treatment. Persistent refusal often resulted in threats; parents were told that if they did not institutionalize their children they would lose their guardianship rights (Burleigh, 1994). Single mothers who refused to part with their children found themselves assigned to contractual labor, which in the end, forced them to surrender their children (Freidlander, 1994)."
Parental rights and guardianship have been removed from many parents by the courts in this country for similar charges. IDEA legislation allows the school districts and State departments of Children and Family Services to coerce parents into treating children, despite clauses regarding parental consent. In this country a parent does not necessarily have the last word, and they are usually dragged through court in "due process hearings" with little financial resources behind them to sustain them through relentless charges. Of course school districts and state agencies have enormous financial resources, your tax dollar, at their disposal to pay for ongoing legal fees. Parents will most likely succumb to school and DCF demands and hope for the best for their child. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen and children end up drugged, institutionalized, or both. We are constantly reminded that the "experts" know best.
"Under the Nazis schools were a primary target for control and their administration was placed in the hands of the party faithful. By 1938, the German school system was brought under the total control of the central government and removed from the jurisdiction of the individual states or Lander (Huebner, 1962)."
One cannot ignore No Child Left Behind and the pervasiveness of federal mandates on state and local schools. We may say that we still have states rights in this country, but what state is willing to give up the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Title 1 money and not institute the federal mandates? There is no freedom here for states as long as they are being coerced and bribed to put federal mandates in place. Now states are so sucked into the flow of money that they cannot give it up even if they wanted to without an extreme cut in their operations. They have become slaves to the federal government.
"Comprehensive schools that included classes for children with learning problems were closed, parent-teacher associations were made powerless, corporal punishment was reintroduced and progressive teaching methods were discouraged. Early childhood and kindergarten systems were also brought under government control and church and privately sponsored kindergartens were banned. The Froebel Association which pioneered early childhood education in Germany was forced to disband (Tietze, Rossback and Ufemann, 1989). It was a common sight to see three year olds marching and waving flags in a military parade. "
Universal preschool and efforts to have state sponsored, taxpayer funded, public education for 3 and 4 year olds, in addition to state funded birth to three programs, are now being pushed nationally. You might be interested as to what is included in the curriculum planned for these kids. It isn't just crayon drawings and how to hold a scissor. While we may not be banning church and privately sponsored programs, we will be mandating that they possess certain credentials through the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The fact that the state is feeding, and in some instances clothing and caring for these kids the majority of the day, is of concern. Where is parental control and responsibility? Why is the state becoming so involved in taking care of our young? Have we really embraced outsourcing our parenting to the government?
Oh yeah, maybe they are unfounded comparisons and way too extreme, or maybe they aren't, but lets check the roadmap and see where we are headed. Are legislators looking to pass laws based on their campaign contributions or because of ideology, or because of a vision of how things should work? Are we passing laws to control people, or help people? Perhaps we are passing laws to control people under the guise of helping them. Should we be passing these kinds of laws at all? When is government "help" voluntarily received and when is it forced upon us? Should we allow laws that will dictate mental screening, recording and even perhaps micro-chipping of our population? How does that measure up to what our founders intended in the name of freedom? You decide.
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'We the People': Don't Want To Hear It!
By Don Nash
10/05/2006
Give us liberty to live in denial
We don't want to hear about dying and death. We don't want to hear about ethnic cleansing. We don't want to hear about detention or torture and we don't want to hear about atrocity. We don't want to hear about napalm or uranium be it depleted or otherwise. We don't want to hear about terrorists, even when the terrorists are our own creation. Remember 9/11 and Flight 93 and give us a rousing myth we can cherish.
Screw us and delude us. Gouge us and remove us from the ravages of destructive hurricanes. Chocolate cities and not anymore, white makes right then reconstruction. The South WILL rise again. Lie to us, spy on us, and take away our rights. Freedom is just another word for border security.
Give us liberty to live in denial, then take away our pensions. Health care is for the rich and son-of-a-bitch, my child has cancer. Give us prescription relief and affirm the belief that legislation only benefits big pharmaceuticals. Corporate coronations and severance packages walk hand in hand with corrupt politicians. Special interest is concerned, but not with Americans and isn't that what makes America great.
Give us our military and the ravages of war that is far from our glorious shining shores. Sacrifice the children and America has lots of those that are expendable as the cost for preemptive war. Kill the enemy but do it over there and by the way, my child's not available. Take my neighbor's child to defend America's freedom, there's a budding little criminal already. Take the Mexican kid and take the black kid and take that white trash girl lives over there. My child's in school and plays at soccer and the little darling is on a fast track to Harvard.
Pile on America massive consumer debt. We couldn't pay it all off were it necessary. Deficit spending is the wave of a future that looks bleak even on a good day. Out source the jobs and slash all the taxes especially for America's well to do.
Give us a "decider" that way we don't have to think about the consequences or repercussions that are inherent in political insanity. Give us an illusion and the politics of compassionate conservatism. Our "decider" speaks with 'God' and isn't that marvelous. 'In God We Trust' and all the rest will surely rust on an altar of Islamite heresy.
Give us 'ten commandments' dummied down and gussied up in the finest marble we can plant on public display. Give us evangelicostal intelligent design and never mind if it flies in the face of sound science. Science is for unbelieving heretics and there's inquisition waiting at the next political convention. Burn them at the stake the godless disbelieving and of course the gays and liberals and Democrats and United Arab Emirates.
'We the people' don't want to hear it and not from a lying liberal media. Give us violent video and survivors on parade and tell us again about the pedophiles preying on our children. Give us distractions, any damn distractions that can hide the reality we should face. Presidential treason and corrupt politicians and the failure of America's Congress. Lies about illegal war and more illegal war and this next one will uncork the nuclear nightmare. Dangers to the left of us and dangers to the right of us and Israel says so and the president says so and some deranged politician with a shotgun.
In order to form a more perfect delusion, we can surrender whatever it takes.
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Rumsfeld Protester Injured, Gives Insider Account
by Matthew Cardinale
Atlanta Progressive News
May 6, 2006
ATLANTA - Protester Gloria Tatum, 62, was injured at a protest against Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, today, from when she was shouting at Rumsfeld, and has a bruise on her back, Tatum says. The noted local activist gave her first hand account of the heckling of Rummy to Atlanta Progressive News.
"I had a bruise and I thought someone hit at me from behind. When I look at the tape, the woman was pulling me down, but I don't know if she was in the crowd or with security. At the time, it felt I had been hit from behind and I do have a bruise on my body. It sure felt like someone hit me. Someone said that they saw a woman hitting me, I think Wendy said that. Maybe I just got injured being drug out," of the auditorium, she said.
She didn't file a police report because she said it all happened very fast and she was worried about getting arrested herself for shouting at Rumsfeld.
About 10 activists from the peace community were inside the auditorium where Rumsfeld had come to speak to an audience of 400, Tatum said, adding that there were an additional 30 outside. The audience consisted of mostly "very elderly, White, prosperous people," she said.
"The majority of people were Republicans who were supporters of Bush and his policy and supporters of Rumsfeld," Tatum said.
The activists represented the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, World Can't Wait, and the International Action Center, among other groups.
Rumsfeld sounded "defensive against someone with authority [Ray McGovern], a CIA person, someone he can't lied to, someone who calls him on it. Someone he couldn't just flippantly lie to. Of course he said he's not lying, but I've read several places were the Niger uranium that they talked about, they got that from someone named Curveball that the CIA told them that that information wasn't credible and they used it anyway," Tatum told Atlanta Progressive News.
"So it's not so much they got bad intelligence, the Bush administration," Tatum explained of her protest.
"It's that they chose intelligence that fit their policy. The Downing Street Memos state that they were going to do that and they did that. Some of the intelligence came from some rightwing graduate student thesis paper. They came from sources that weren't credible that they were told they weren't credible but they used it anyway because they fit their policy," Tatum said.
"I don't know why the news media didn't talk about this," Tatum said.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern questioned Rumsfeld at length during the unusual public question and answer session. McGovern asked Rumsfeld why he lied to the American people about weapons of mass destruction and Rumsfeld said he didn't lie, CNN clips show.
"Well, if he's saying that he's a psychopath, that he doesn't know the difference between truth and lies, then I don't know what to think of that. If he tells a lie and he thinks it's the truth. Does he not know they difference between a lie and the truth?" Tatum remarked.
McGovern's exchange with Rumsfeld was fascinating.
Rumsfeld started talking about how Colin Powell and President Bush said Iraq had WMDs and how the troops believed it. So, implicitly, it's not a lie if you believe it?
McGovern asked about Rumsfeld saying he knew where the weapons were. Rumsfeld first denied saying that, but the quote has been confirmed.
McGovern asked about the purported tie between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Rumsfeld replied that Al- Zarqawi had been in Iraq. McGovern stated he had only been in a desolate area in the north and only went to Baghdad once to visit a hospital.
"Well, this is the first time to my knowledge in Atlanta that the public has been able to buy tickets and enter one of the events, when Bush or Cheney or someone like that is in town," Tatum told Atlanta Progressive News.
"Normally it is by invitation only. So only people who give money to the Republican party and are hardline supporters of Bush," Tatum said.
"This is what happened when they opened it up to the public and the people who have been locked out for the past few years get in," Tatum said.
The tickets cost $40.00, Tatum said.
"I got mine about 2 weeks in advance, the minute I heard about it. I mean, I couldn't believe they were going to let non-Republicans in," Tatum said.
"The Republican crowd, they were very pro-Rumsfeld. They don't want to hear what other people have to say. They kept telling us to shut up. One man told me as I was leaving, he said, you go home and stay at home " Tatum recalled.
"The media coverage has been unbelievable. I never expected this. I feel like a genie has been let out of the bottle or something. It's taken on a life of its own. Normally, we work so hard to do stuff and we get such limited coverage," Tatum said.
"I mean, like the April first march, we worked 4 to 5 months on that, most of the coverage was really good, and the AJC said only a couple hundred people were there and they mostly interviewed this Rightwing woman from Marietta. She didn't do any of the work and she got most of the coverage," Tatum said.
"Hopefully, what comes out of this, the media starts talking about, well, what about the prewar intelligence? Are they saying the prewar intelligence wasn't credible? I hope that's where the debate starts going," Tatum said.
"I think they all lied, I think they deliberately lied," Tatum said. "If we all believe it, it must be true. If we all say it, and we all say it enough, and we all believe it, it must be true," Tatum said of Rumsfeld's insistence he didn't lie.
"I heard a mother of a soldier who said, Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11. And I feel bad for them [the people who think that]. And I support the soldiers, but I feel heartbroken that they believe this, I want them to get the truth," Tatum told Atlanta Progressive News.
"I screamed, You lied to the American public You lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction. You lied about Iraq having a nuclear program. You lied about Iraq having ties to Al-Qaeda. You lied about Iraq oil paying for the war. And the CIA told you that these were not credible stories but you chose to cherry pick intelligence..." Tatum recalled.
"I was out in the hall at that point. Above the roar of the boos," she said.
"They didn't call on us, we stood up and interrupted Rumsfeld," she said.
"He was interrupted three times by people. One was accusing him of war crimes and torture. Another person stood there with his back to Rumsfeld and stood there the entire time with his back to him. Every 10 minutes he was interrupted. It was about an hour," Tatum said.
"The police told me to leave or they would put me in jail. They allowed me to leave," Tatum said.
"I had my toothbrush. I had some socks, so my feet wouldn't get cold. I was planning on going to jail. And I was very happy when they didn't [arrest me]," she said.
"I hope that the discussion in this country is going to start about prewar intelligence," Tatum said.
Matthew Cardinale is Editor of Atlanta Progressive News. He has written previously for the Sun-Sentinel Newspaper, Shelterforce Magazine, The Advocate Magazine, The San Francisco Bay View, and the Berkeley Daily Planet Newspaper. He has also written for numerous online publications including OpEdNews, BuzzFlash, CommonDreams, AlterNet, RawStory, and TruthOut. He may be reached at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com
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Stephen Colbert: New American Hero
Don Hazen
AlterNet
May 9, 2006
When Colbert turned up the heat on Washington's elite, he revealed the big
split between those basking in power and those fighting for change.
Virtually overnight, Stephen Colbert became a hero to countless Americans,
following his April 30 performance at the White House Correspondents' Association
dinner.
Since then, millions of people have either watched the video or
read the transcript of his skewering of both the president and the press corps,
and have discussed it avidly. Tens of thousands of people have gone to the
website ThankYouStephenColbert.com and
written letters of appreciation. Talk about water-cooler chatter; the event
crashed internet servers across the land. It truly was one of those moments
of media shock and delight.
And then, an odd but revealing thing happened. Some of the chattering class
commentators, mainstream media writers and columnists, and Democratic officials
didn't get it: Not very funny, rude, not respectful of the president, and so
on. Are they kidding? How could they not understand they were witnessing one
of the bravest, most subversive performances in memory, which thrilled and
gave hope to untold viewers and readers, and will be a huge marker when people
look back on the Bush era?
Colbert's speech had a huge impact for two reasons: First, he spoke truth
to power right to the face of the president, in front of the entire news media.
No one could miss, sidestep or deny it. It wasn't a scene from a movie, book
or talk show -- it was live. It reminded me of Edward R. Murrow's famous
address to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (recently
depicted in the film "Good Night and Good Luck"). It gave me goose
bumps. Colbert's performance shamed every Democrat or columnist who has been
too afraid, too timid, or just too worried about losing his or her own power
and access to go out on a limb and tell the truth that this administration
is a disaster beyond our wildest nightmares. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove have
gotten away with murder … and worse. And many of the people in that
room that night who squirmed in their seats -- it was in part because of the
internal indictment they were feeling for not doing what they should have done,
countless times, long before. Maybe now they will do the right thing, but I
won't be holding my breath.
The second reason Colbert made such a huge splash is the rapid advance of
video on the web. Almost overnight, the media world has irrevocably changed
as video is increasingly becoming as important as print and still images on
the web. When, in a matter of hours, dozens of websites can post or link to
a video and get the word out about a spectacular event, the role of the gatekeepers
and the corporate media shrinks big-time. And it doesn't matter if the networks
or CNN or Fox decides that they don't want you to see it -- they can't stop
it. The people's network is now in working order. Progressives now have a television
capacity; still rudimentary, perhaps, but powerfully effective.
The press leaks
The press coverage of the Colbert performance was illuminating, according
to the popular blog, democratic
underground: "Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media.
This demonstrates powerfully the ability of the media to choose the news, and
to decide when and how to shield Bush from negative publicity. Sins of omission
can be just as bad as sins of commission."
The AP's first
stab at it, as well as Reuters and
the Chicago Tribune, tell us everything we need to know: In these reports,
Colbert's performance is sidestepped and marginalized, while President Bush
is depicted as lighthearted, humble and witty.
Salon's Joan Walsh points out, "Colbert's deadly performance did more
than reveal, with devastating clarity, how Bush's well-oiled myth machine works.
It exposed the mainstream press' pathetic collusion with an administration
that has treated it -- and the truth -- with contempt from the moment it took
office. Intimidated, coddled, fearful of violating propriety, the press corps
that for years dutifully repeated Bush talking points was stunned and horrified
when someone dared to reveal that the media emperor had no clothes. Colbert
refused to play his dutiful, toothless part in the White House correspondents'
dinner -- an incestuous, backslapping ritual that should be retired. For that,
he had to be marginalized. Voilà: 'He wasn't funny.'"
On the Democratic political front, as John Aravosis wrote on AmericaBlog,
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., actually stepped up to defend President
Bush, saying, according to The Hill:
"I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little
rough … He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some
respect."
"I'm certainly not a defender of the administration," Hoyer
reassured stunned observers, but Colbert "crossed the line" with
many jokes that were "in bad taste."
Criticizing Colbert for being rude would be pretty funny if it weren't so
depressing. Rude? Since when has politics in this administration used the Marquis
of Queensbury rules? Is Dick Cheney sweet and accommodating? When, in their
march to power, has the right wing had good manners -- about abortion or gay
marriage, or in the push for invading Iraq? Sure, mention decorum and one thinks
immediately of Karl Rove, of Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of
Hugo Chavez, of Jerry Falwell blaming America's bad morals for 9/11.
The fact is, Stephen Colbert is at the acme of rising independent voices --
in the blogosphere, on the internet, in publishing and independent filmmaking
-- who are being aggressive and playing hardball the way the right does. And
guess what? The establishment is getting nervous. The powers-that-be know that
people respond to passion, anger and resistance, emotions that convey meaning
and seriousness, and the will to fight hard for important issues.
In a smaller way, but showing similar guts, Cindy Sheehan spoke truth by traveling
to Texas and demanding that the president explain, please, just what "noble
cause" her son died for. Ray McGovern did it recently when he publicly challenged Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta, and so did Harry Taylor, the man who confronted George
W. Bush at a town meeting in North Carolina.
Perhaps the most important lesson we have learned from the divisions laid
bare by Stephen Colbert is that the big split isn't so much between Democrats
and Republicans or between the media and the people and events they cover,
but rather between the powerful and the angry, between those basking in power
and those fighting for change. The kiss-ass media, the revolving-door congressmen,
the sycophant lobbyists and congressional staffers, the greedy media consultants
-- all are dependent on and addicted to the trappings of power, whether it's
their next book, TV appearance, consulting contract, ride on Air Force One
or junket to play golf at St. Andrews. Stephen Colbert turned the heat up on
them all:
… let's review the rules. Here's how it works: The president
makes the decisions; he's the decider. The press secretary announces those
decisions, and you people, the press, type those decisions down. Make, announce,
check. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family
again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kickin' around in your
head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage
to stand up to the administration? You know: fiction!
It's getting hotter in the kitchen, and some of those who have the most to
hide are getting closer to a meltdown.
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Veteran protesters face jail under new anti-terror laws
By Ian Herbert
The Independent
10 May 2006
It takes a brave - or foolhardy - law enforcer to drag Helen John before the courts. The Metropolitan Police tried it seven years ago after the peace campaigner had daubed the 18in-high message "Ban Trident", referring to the nuclear warhead of that name, on to the Houses of Parliament. The jury, which convicted her of criminal damage, also said it "unanimously agreed that the defendant had a reasonable cause for her action".
Today, Mrs John will discover whether the Government will try its luck again, by making her and fellow veteran peace protester Sylvia Boyes the first individuals to face charges under a little-noticed clause in the Government's Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which came into force last month.
Mrs John, 68, and Mrs Boyes, 62, who have been told to report to Harrogate police station to hear their fate, were arrested on 2 April after setting out to highlight the law, which civil liberties groups believe will criminalise free speech and undermine the right to peaceful demonstration, under the guise of the war on terror. If the Attorney General does exercise his right to charge them, he will hand the women a welcome boost to what has become an increasingly lonely struggle to highlight concerns about Menwith Hill, the shadowy American communications interception unit in the Yorkshire Dales where they were arrested.
Mrs Boyes demonstrated her disdain for the threat of charges, which could bring a year's imprisonment or £5,000 fine, by returning to Menwith for a "celebration picnic" within a week of her arrest. Mrs John has equal resolve - though it has been constrained by problems with her van, which gets her to Menwith from her small terraced home in Keighley, west Yorkshire.
"This will not stop me, whether they charge me or not," said Mrs Boyes, a Quaker whose philosophy is more pacifist and less overtly political than her friend's. "I am still utterly dumbfounded that we were arrested like that, straight away, under legislation designed to counter international organised crime and international terrorism. Terrorists attack buses and the Underground - places where people are - not remote bases. And since when did drug traffickers go to military bases?"
Mrs Boyes also has a track record for making a fool of prosecuting barristers. After going on trial in 2001 for causing criminal damage to a Trident submarine docked at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, she argued that her actions were preventing a greater evil and was acquitted.
Mrs John, a former midwife, moved to Yorkshire in 1993 and set up a permanent women's peace camp at Menwith Hill to try to draw attention to claims that commercial espionage was being pursued there.
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Ray McGovern & Cindy Sheehan to lead March on the White House
Ben Frank
March 9, 2006
Thursday May, 18th Cindy Sheehan and Ray McGovern are meeting at Lafayette park near the White House, then Marching to Rumsfeld's personal residence. Wouldn't it be great if someone brought a video cameda, and it's thousands of people standing outside Rummy's house, singing along to #3 from Neil Young's new album, "Don't Need- No More Lies!" In fact that ought to be on repeat over at the big protest camp going up on the DC Capitol Mall- with the speakers turned to Congress and cranked to 11.
The DC Capitol Mall was created as a place for citizens to gather and protest their grievances to the government- that is it's purpose.
Isn't it time to use that space for an extended protest?
If not now when?
World Can't Wait just announced their next major protest - October. Anyone else think that's a little funny?
Last year the Downing Street Memo came out on May 1st, soon after UFPJ announced the big rally for Sept 24th. Why do they always skip over the summer months? Because that's when the weather is nice, and people might actually have the time to camp and stay.
The crooks in power don't care if we schedule another weekend protest- the one thing they don't want is an extended protest like the Ukranians had. Several weeks of peaceful demonstration led to their President stepping down. That's what we need.
We sure as hell don't need this pathetic Congress to investigate anything else - at this point asking for another committee is just plain insanity.
Let's think about this - do George Bush and Dick Cheney and the complicit fools in Congress want 500,000 Americans camping out on their front porch? No. So why are we appeasing them? They don't want us camping on the Capitol mall- so we should do just that.
Thursday May, 18th Cindy Sheehan and Ray McGovern are meeting at Lafayette park near the White House, then Marching to Rumsfeld's personal residence. Wouldn't it be great if someone brought a video cameda, and it's thousands of people standing outside Rummy's house, singing along to #3 from Neil Young's new album, "Don't Need- No More Lies!" In fact that ought to be on repeat over at the big protest camp going up on the DC Capitol Mall- with the speakers turned to Congress and cranked to 11.
The DC Capitol Mall was created as a place for citizens to gather and protest their grievances to the government- that is it's purpose.
Isn't it time to use that space for an extended protest?
If not now when?
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Chicago's Abu Ghraib
Democracy Now
10/05/2006
UN Committee Against Torture Hears Report on How Police Tortured Over 135 African-American Men Inside Chicago Jails
For nearly two decades a part of the city's jails known as Area 2 was the epicenter for what has been described as the systematic torture of dozens of African-American males by Chicago police officers. In total, more than 135 people say they were subjected to abuse including having guns forced into their mouths, bags places over their heads, and electric shocks inflicted to their genitals. Four men have been released from death row after government investigators concluded torture led to their wrongful convictions. [includes rush transcript] Extraordinary rendition. Overseas prisons. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo Bay. Practices and places that have become synonymous with the abuse of detainees in US custody are getting renewed attention at the United Nations this week, where the UN Committee Against Torture is holding hearings on U.S. compliance with its international obligations. But there is one name expected to arise this week that few people in this country will have heard about - and it's the one that's closest to home.
It's called Area 2. And for nearly two decades beginning in 1971, it was the epicenter for what has been described as the systematic torture of dozens of African-American males by Chicago police officers. In total, more than 135 people say they were subjected to abuse including having guns forced into their mouths, bags places over their heads, and electric shocks inflicted to their genitals. Four men have been released from death row after government investigators concluded torture led to their wrongful convictions.
Yet the case around Area 2 is nowhere near a resolution -- to date, not one Chicago police officer has been charged with any crime.
The most prominent officer, former police commander Jon Burge, was dismissed in the early 1990s. He retired to Florida where he continues to collect a pension. Today, a special prosecutor is now in the fourth year of an investigation. Just last week, a group of Chicago police officers won a court ruling to delay the release of the prosecutor's preliminary report.
David Bates, one of dozens of men to come forward with allegations of abuse at the hands of the Chicago police.
Flint Taylor, an attorney with the People's Law Office in Chicago, which he helped found in the late 1960s. He has represented many of the torture victims and was directly involved in spearheading the special prosecutor's investigation.
John Conroy a journalist and author who has covered the case for over a decade. He has written several articles for the Chicago Reader, and is the author of the book "Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture."
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Government Gone Mad
Ex-Bush Official Exposes 9/11 As Inside Job
Monday, May 8th, 2006
RINF
An enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd packed the Wisconsin Historical Society auditorium Saturday to hear ex-Bush Administration insider Morgan Reynolds prosecute top administration and military officials for the 9/11 inside job.
Reynolds indicted Richard Cheney, George W. Bush, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Meyers, confessed WTC demolisher and insurance-fraudster Larry Silverstein, and others for mass murder, Conspiracy, and other charges including high treason. The enthusiastic response from the overflow crowd was a de facto vote for conviction on all counts.
The former Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, showed that the defendants conspired to create a false cover story of suicide hijackings in order to "blow the World Trade Center to kingdom come" with explosives-a shock-and-awe psy-op designed to coerce the American people into supporting a pre-planned "long war" in the Middle East, massive increases in military spending, and the rollback of Constitutional civil liberties.
Reynolds stated that everyone in the worldwide intelligence community knew that 9/11 was an inside job as soon as it happened, with the obvious stand-down of US air defenses, controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, and non-protection of the President in Florida being the biggest tip-offs. The head of the Russian equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the former head of the German intelligence service Andreas Von Bulow, former National Security Agency official Wayne Madsen, and former MI-6 agent David Schayler have all openly called 9/11 an inside job, while former CIA official Ray McGovern has confirmed this directly in private, and indirectly in public by way of his ringing endorsement of David Ray Griffin's work on 9/11.
Reynolds, who served as George W. Bush's Labor Department Chief Economist in 2001-2002, believes that a 9/11 truth victory is looming on the near-term horizon. He predicted that one or more of the 9/11 insiders will soon "give it up" and come forward with what they know, saying "Remember, you heard it here first." He said that most of those complicit in the attacks did not realize how over-the-top the plot was, due to the need-to-know compartmentalization of such covert operations, and that some semi-complicit individuals will probably be coming forward. Reynolds said that most of his email acquaintances are now worried that the 9/11 truth movement is going to win, triggering the greatest Constitutional crisis in U.S. history. For Reynolds, this is less a cause for worry than for rejoicing: "We need a Constitutional crisis!"
Reynolds argued that 9/11 truth is a matter of extreme urgency, since the perpetrators seem to be preparing another 9/11-style terror hoax as a pretext for attacking Iran with nuclear weapons. He said that exposing the 9/11 fraud is the best way to stop Cheney's plan to stage an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran, and the military draft and Pinochet-style prison camps and death squads for dissenters that might accompany it.
Reynolds urged the audience to help educate the American public about the 9/11 inside job. Personal contact with family and friends, the internet, alternative Media, and public events like this are all good educational strategies, he said, adding that a demonstration of 100,000 9/11 truth supporters at Ground Zero next year would be hard for the Media to ignore.
Politicians and the Media will help expose the 9/11 inside job, he said, only after the growing grassroots movement reaches critical mass. The organizers of Reynolds' talk urged audience members to come to the upcoming international 9/11 truth conference in Chicago, 9/11: Revealing the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future, June 2nd-4th, 2006: http://911revealingthetruth.org
Comment: To all those that dismiss the idea of an inside job on 9/11, ask yourself this: do you know more about the workings of the US government and what it would and would not do than a former Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis?
By the way, try and find this story in the mainstream news via a google news search for example.
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The Best Little Whorehouse in Washington
By Molly Ivins
AlterNet
May 9, 2006.
Who can pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building?
Of course I am above sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. So serious a servant of the public interest am I, I can fogey with the best: On my better days, I make David Broder look like Page Six.
I don't care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie till they puke, and I don't care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they're not screwing the public.
On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead -- has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Hookergate is rife with public-interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children. Recommended for Sunday school use, grades seven and above.
But for starters, let us consider the unenviable record of Porter Goss at the CIA. From the beginning of his tenure, Goss has been criticized for politicizing the agency. He brought a bunch of political hacks with him for staff, one of whom turns out to be the poker player called "Nine Fingers." And in the end, he was probably fired for not having politicized the agency sufficiently.
What is the point of politicizing an intelligence agency? So the CIA officials would get a report from some agent in Iraq saying, "Looks bad." The first thing they'd ask was, "Is this agent a Republican or a Democrat?"
Maybe there really are conservatives who believe everything in Iraq is hunky-dory and there's a giant media conspiracy to hide the joyous tidings. But as you may recall, the ever-nimble minds at Donny Rumsfeld's shop have already tried paying public relations people to invent good news about Iraq and then plant it in newspapers there -- it didn't work. In fact, it was so stupid it was humiliating. Fortunately, the Pentagon was once again able to investigate itself and determine it had done nothing illegal.
So now they're turning the CIA over to a general who not only ran the warrantless wiretap program but still can't figure out that it's unconstitutional. Why do I get the feeling this is W. and Karl again flipping the finger at some grown-up they don't like?
Gen. Michael Hayden had mixed reviews as director of the National Security Agency -- he's evidently not a good manager, which makes him a perfect Bushie. But is he straightforward enough to have admitted that some warrantless spying has been done for political reasons? None of the usual Washington insiders seems to have a bead on this. Hayden would theoretically report to John Negroponte, Bush's supposed intelligence czar. Negroponte is widely considered worthless. His major achievement so far seems to be organizational charts and buying furniture.
You know me, no conspiracy theories here, but the Bush administration, which doesn't seem to be able to run much, set out to retool the CIA after 9/11 and the Iraq war. Problem is, everything that worked at the CIA -- that it warned about 9/11 and said the Iraq war was a bad idea -- was on the hit list. The Bushies wanted to eliminate the people who were right and promote those who were wrong. This is no way to shape up an intelligence agency, not to mention the White House spit fit over Joe Wilson's wife.
Next, we need to contemplate sincere, old-fashioned, non-ideological greed, theft and bribery. In the beginning, there was only Duke Cunningham, the high-living, fun-loving super-patriot congressman from San Diego. His yacht was called The Duke-Stir, and he had nice taste in 19th century French commodes. While we all are happy to see our elected representatives enjoying themselves in Washington, that's real people's money. Actually, the yacht and commode were paid for by defense contractor Brent Wilkes (keep an eye on that player). It was people's money that paid for the defense contracts Wilkes allegedly bribed public officials into landing for his clients.
The former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin -- that would be the DHS equivalent of a police department's internal affairs chief -- tried to blow the whistle on shady contracts at DHS and instead was thrown overboard himself. Folks, we'll never get government straightened out again if we don't keep the IGs strong and independent.
If the Bush administration continues to fall apart at this clip, I think we'll be grateful for incompetence as an excuse.
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NYC Real Time Crime Center Tracks Suspects
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press
May 10, 2006
NEW YORK - After an armed bandit held up a pizza joint in Manhattan late last year, witnesses reported seeing "Sugar" tattooed on the back of the man's neck as he made his getaway.
It was a tiny clue. But in a windowless room deep inside police headquarters, a team of detectives manning banks of computers checked the NYPD's tattoo database and made a quick identification of a suspect, which led to an arrest.
Police officials said it was another triumph for a 24-hour monument to 21st Century policing: the Real Time Crime Center. At an unveiling earlier this year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hailed the $11 million center as the first of its kind and predicted it "will transform the way we solve crime."
The 37,000-officer NYPD, the nation's largest, has increasingly turned to technology in a bid to preserve steep declines in reports of serious crime since the early 1990s. Earlier this month, it installed the first of hundreds of surveillance cameras expected to keep an eye on high-crime neighborhoods.
The crime center was launched last year based on the theory that real-time tips would "increase the likelihood that we can catch criminals before they strike again," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Detectives once needed days or weeks to knock on doors, work the phones and analyze data, often sifting through paper records by hand as suspects roamed free. Now, officials say, they have instantaneous access to computerized records.
The database describing tattoos of convicted criminals is the tip of the high-tech iceberg at detectives' disposal. It contains 120 million city records of criminal complaints, warrants and 911 calls dating back 10 years. It also has 5 million state criminal and parole records and 35 billion property and other public records.
The center also uses satellite imaging and computerized mapping systems to identify geographic patterns of crimes, and to pinpoint possible addresses where suspects might flee - information relayed to investigators on the street via phone or wireless laptop computer.
"We begin working on a case before the detectives even arrive at a crime scene," said Deputy Chief Joseph D'Amico, the center's commanding officer.
On a recent day, detectives used the tattoo database to help hunt a robbery suspect whose description featured a "Mom" tattoo on his arm.
Flashed up on a giant wall of flat-screen monitors was a spreadsheet of 16 names, each followed by "arm" in one column, "Mom" in the next. The list would be narrowed down, in part by using other records to determine which of the men were already behind bars, the chief said.
In the case of the pizza restaurant robbery, a check of "Sugar" showed it was a tattoo mostly preferred by prostitutes. An exception was a known robber with a known address.
The suspect's mug shot was rushed out to investigators in the field. The restaurant manager confirmed he was the bandit. The man was soon in custody.
Case closed.
The RTCC also proved instrumental in February when patrolmen came across a flipped car in Queens. The driver had fled, leaving behind a fatally wounded passenger.
A check of the license plate came back with a name and a dubious upstate address. The center's computers crunched the name and produced another address in Brooklyn. When police showed up at the door, the driver answered, his clothes still caked in blood. Elapsed time: two hours.
The investigation was among more than 900 that the center has assisted so far this year, D'Amico said. The department expects that number to grow as old-school detectives adopt the new approach.
"Some guys don't want to give up their typewriters for computers," he said. "I tell them this is the future. You can't fight it."
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E-Mails: Brown Discounted Levee Breach
By HOPE YEN
Associated Press
May 10, 2006
WASHINGTON - Hours after Hurricane Katrina hit, former FEMA director Michael Brown dismissed reports that floodwaters had breached New Orleans' levees, and he obsessed over media coverage of his agency, according to newly released e-mails.
The 928 pages of documents, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity watchdog group and released Tuesday, paint a picture of a Federal Emergency Management Agency keenly sensitive to public image following the Aug. 29, 2005, storm.
They also highlighted anew the confusion about the levees' status in the critical hours after the storm. Critics have questioned whether discovering breaches earlier could have speeded repair efforts, lessened flooding and saved lives.
At one point early that morning, Brown reported to an aide that he was "sitting in the chair, putting mousse in my hair" while waiting for media interviews to begin.
A few hours later, at 9:50 a.m., a FEMA staffer at the
National Hurricane Center sent department brass an alert from a local TV station report that "a levee breach occurred along the industrial canal" near the city's low-income Ninth Ward.
But at 12:09 p.m., Brown dismissed the report and suggested that the situation wasn't so bad. "I'm being told here water over not a breach," he said, referring to floodwaters which had overrun - but not broken - the levees.
The aide, Michael Lowder, replied: "Ok. You probably have better info there. Just wanted to pass you what we hear."
Brown did not immediately respond to messages left on his cell phone and e-mail Tuesday.
Since quitting FEMA on Sept. 12, Brown has sharply criticized the Bush administration for failing to respond quickly to reports about levee breaches. He has said previously he was convinced of a levee breach by 1 p.m. the day Katrina roared ashore.
The timing of the levees breach has been a key issue in exhaustive reviews of the government's failure to respond quickly to Katrina. The White House was alerted about breach reports by 6 p.m., but the administration confirmed the damage the next morning. In its February "lessons learned" report, the White House maintained that some uncertainty remains about the specific times of the breaches.
The 928 pages of documents, which were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Washington-based government watchdog group, encompass all of Brown's e-mails over a 14-day period before and after Katrina hit.
Many of the e-mails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity were previously released by congressional panels investigating the government's response to the Katrina disaster. But several documents offered fresh details of missteps by the beleaguered agency, which the Senate
Homeland Security Committee has recently recommended be disbanded.
"These e-mails are part of the record of our investigation that led us to conclude that Michael Brown failed to lead FEMA to respond effectively to Hurricane Katrina and at the same time kept the Department of Homeland Security in the dark," said Jen Burita, spokeswoman for Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the panel.
Brown's own schedule was booked with media interviews in the days immediately before and after the storm. At 6:21 a.m. the day Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Brown was prepping for an interview and e-mailing with his then-deputy, Patrick Rhode.
"Yea, sitting in the chair, putting mousse in my hair," Brown e-mailed Rhode.
"Me too!" Rhode replied.
Brown was also juggling a meeting request from a lawmaker-turned-lobbyist, former Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., the day Katrina hit.
"I am certain your (sic) are overwhelmed by the situation regarding Hurricane Katrina," Hutchinson wrote Brown on an e-mail received at 1:48 p.m. on Aug. 29. "I apologize for bothering you at this critical time and for going directly to you about this. ... I would yery (sic) much appreciate being able to bring the President of Blu-Med Response Systems, Gerritt Boyle, in to meet with you as soon as your schedule permits."
The documents do not indicate that Brown responded to Hutchinson's request. But at another point, Brown showed special attention to the Mississippi area when a powerful political figure called.
"Bill, sorry to ping you, but can you give me some ground info on trailers, etc. in MS? Have what you need? Are they getting them to you? Just a status report. Need to call (Mississippi Sen.) Trent Lott back and want some good Intel before doing so," Brown wrote in a Sept. 7 e-mail to one of his staff.
Nine minutes later, Brown received the update.
Some e-mails also offered a window into the power struggle between FEMA and the Homeland Security Department, its parent agency, as to who was in charge.
On Sept. 4, press aide Sharon Worthy wrote to Brown, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, "CBS radio on Sec. Chertoff ... saying federal government in charge of New Orleans. Does mean he is or is it you?" Brown did not reply.
Other e-mails show Brown expressing frustration as he and FEMA came under public attack purportedly for not doing enough to help black New Orleans residents and neglecting abandoned pets.
"I am tired, no, angered by charges of racism. You know that neither me nor anyone associated with me is a racist. Grrrr," Brown wrote in a Sept. 7 e-mail to Worthy, before adding lightheartedly, "How was that Sonic burger?"
Comment: You see, it was all FEMA's fault. And that's why the Bush plan to militarize future disaster response efforts is such a "great idea"... After all, who could ever forget General Honore riding in on his white horse and barking orders at his soldiers to lower their weapons? It was a scene straight out of Hollywood...
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669 Sue State Farm Over Katrina Claims
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press
Tue May 9, 2006
GULFPORT, Miss. - A lawsuit filed Tuesday by nearly 700 Gulf Coast homeowners accuses State Farm Insurance Co. of using a "one-size-fits-all" engineering report as the basis for refusing to cover damage to homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
The suit alleges that the insurer denied many of the homeowners' claims without investigating whether Katrina's wind or water was responsible for damage to their homes.
Instead, the suit claims, an engineering firm hired by State Farm drafted a generic, "one-size-fits-all" report that concludes all damage to homes on Mississippi's Gulf Coast was caused by "storm surge" and not hurricane-force winds.
State Farm's policies cover wind damage, but storm surge is considered flood water and is excluded from coverage.
The report, which Dallas-based HAAG Engineering Co. prepared for State Farm, is "patently biased" because it concludes that Katrina's storm surge arrived before its wind could do any damage, the lawsuit argues.
"State Farm nonetheless referred to this report as the 'Bible,' and expected and coerced all of its adjusters and engineers ... to reach conclusions consistent with the HAAG report," the lawsuit alleges.
State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said he couldn't immediately respond to the lawsuit's allegations because he hadn't reviewed it yet.
HAAG spokesman David Margulies dismissed the allegations as part of a "litigation strategy" and said the engineering firm "has a long history of providing unbiased information."
"The reports are based on what happened," he said. "Unfortunately, sometimes people don't like the experts' information, so they blame the experts."
Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, a high-profile lawyer who is suing four other insurance companies for denying claims after Katrina, filed the suit in federal court on behalf of 669 State Farm policyholders.
Scruggs claims many of the State Farm adjusters who inspected homes in Katrina's early aftermath told homeowners that wind damaged their houses hours before any water from the Mississippi Sound surged onto land.
But the insurer rejected their findings and fired, transferred or reassigned many of those adjusters, the lawsuit alleges.
Scruggs' suit also claims State Farm "extorted" engineering firms by refusing to pay them if their conclusions conflicted the HAAG report. In addition, the action accuses the insurer of hiding or shredding engineering reports that blamed damage on wind.
"State Farm intentionally suborned and encouraged the corruption of scientific investigation and accepted physical realities ... to achieve the desired result of blanket denials of coverage," his lawsuit states.
Scruggs, who represents nearly 3,000 homeowners on the coast, also has sued Allstate Insurance Co., Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. and United Services Automobile Association. Before Tuesday, however, fewer than a dozen of his clients were named as plaintiffs in those suits.
Last month, a federal judge dealt a blow to Scruggs' suit against Allstate when he ruled that the company's policy provisions excluding damage from Katrina's flood waters are "valid and enforceable."
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Navy To Base First Four Littoral Combat Ships In San Diego
NNS
May 10, 2006
Washington DC - The Navy announced April 27 that the first four Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) will be homeported at Naval Station San Diego, Calif. Key in the success of implementing these new concepts is the ability to colocate these ships to achieve readiness alignment and economy of scale.
This colocation is especially important for the first ships in the class as waterfront facilities, infrastructure, training and maintenance efficiencies are developed. San Diego was chosen as the initial homeport because of the Navy's increased emphasis on the Pacific theater based on the Quadrennial Defense Review.
"Homeporting the first four ships in San Diego will enable us to establish synergy between the ships and with local commands," said Vice Adm. Terry Etnyre, commander, Naval Surface Forces, based in Coronado, Calif. "With the Undersea Warfare Command here in San Diego and the Mine Warfare Command moving here soon, the undersea warfare and mine warfare mission packages will have direct coordination and representation locally."
LCS will carry some core capabilities such as self-defense and command and control, but its true war-fighting capability will come from its innovative and tailored mission modules. These ships will be configured for one mission package at a time, consisting of modules, manned aircraft, unmanned vehicles, off-board sensors, and mission-manning detachments. This will operate within open-systems architecture, giving it the capability to reconfigure mission modules and ship systems to tailor it for specific warfighting missions.
The Littoral Combat Ships are the first Navy vessels to separate capability from hull form and provide a robust, affordable, mission-focused warship designed to provide assured access for our joint forces. LCS will have the size, speed, endurance, and connectivity to deploy as a member of carrier strike groups, expeditionary strike groups or surface strike groups.
The innovative concepts in LCS do not end with its modularity. LCS will operate with a quarter of the crew normally assigned to ships this size through a combination of technology and process improvements for maintenance, logistics, training and administration.
The keel for the first Littoral Combat Ship, to be named USS Freedom (LCS 1), was laid June 3, 2005, and the second, to be named USS Independence (LCS 2), Jan. 19, 2006.
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Canadians Back Beefed Up NORAD
by Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
May 10, 2006
Washington - Canada's House of Commons has approved a government plan to renew the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD pact, which is to last permanently and expand to include maritime mutual defense from air and space.
Both the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which signed the latest renewal agreement and the main opposition Liberal Party backed the renewal of the agreement in a vote Monday night in the Canadian House of Commons, the main chamber of the Canadian parliament. The NORAD pact was approved by an overwhelming majority of 257 to 30 in the 308-seat parliament.
The new treaty was signed on April 29 in Ottawa by the Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor and U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins. It not only renews the venerable NORAD pact - a key U.S. military agreement through the decades of the Cold War, but significantly upgrades it.
NORAD was previously renewed every five years, but the new agreement eliminates this requirement by making it a permanent alliance. However, both countries still retain the right of periodic review and can drop out with a year's notice, the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto reported Tuesday.
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Arizona County Uses New Law to Look for Illegal Immigrants
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
The New York Times
May 10, 2006
PHOENIX, May 9 - To people who say round up more illegal immigrants, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County here has an answer: send out the posse.
On Wednesday, the posse, a civilian force of 300 volunteers, many of them retired deputies, are to fan out over desert backcountry, watching for smugglers and the people they guide into these parts.
Already, a small team of deputies roams the human-trafficking routes to enforce a nine-month-old state law that makes smuggling people a felony and effectively authorizes local police forces to enforce immigration law.
Not only do deputies charge the smugglers, but many of their customers have also been jailed.
That has drawn criticism from several quarters, even the politician who sponsored the law and has generally supported Sheriff Arpaio's position.
"That was not our intent," said the sponsor, State Representative Jonathan Paton, a Republican, who added that he would prefer to detain smuggled immigrants under trespassing laws, a move lawmakers are considering under a package of bills intended to crack down on illegal immigration.
Take a border state wrestling with the effects of a surge of illegal immigrants. Add Sheriff Arpaio and his unorthodox, well-chronicled brand of law enforcement - he forces male and female inmates to wear pink underwear, among other often-questioned tactics. And watch the sparks fly.
"I have compassion for the Mexican people, but if you come here illegally you are going to jail," said Sheriff Arpaio, an elected Republican, whose county is the fourth most populous in the country and among the fastest growing.
To avoid suggestions that deputies practice racial profiling, the sheriff has ordered them to find probable cause, usually a minor traffic infraction, before pulling over suspect vehicles.
Lawyers and advocates for the jailed immigrants, several of whom are challenging their arrests, take a different view.
"It's really an attempt to intimidate immigrants by threatening and imposing incarceration," said Victoria Lopez, executive director of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
Peter Schey, a lawyer from Los Angeles hired by the Mexican consulate here to represent some of the detainees, said, "This sheriff is not the director of homeland security, but that is how he is acting."
Sheriff Arpaio sought and received an interpretation of the statute by County Attorney Andrew P. Thomas, who said the illegal immigrants could face charges that they conspired with smugglers.
Mr. Thomas, also a Republican, sent a letter on Tuesday to the State Department protesting what he considered Mexico's intrusion into Arizona affairs by retaining Mr. Schey and trying to challenge the law.
Representative Paton said he believed that Maricopa was the sole jurisdiction enforcing the law, with other law enforcement authorities telling him that they lacked the manpower to do so or questioned whether such actions would hold up in court.
Smuggling illegal immigrants is a federal crime. Arizona adopted its law last year out of frustration that Washington had not done enough to control illegal crossings. In recent years, central Arizona has emerged as a prime crossing point.
A majority of illegal immigrants caught by the Border Patrol are returned to their home countries - in the case of Mexicans, almost immediately - without charges.
In the eight weeks since the team of deputies formed, 146 people have been arrested, Sheriff Arpaio said, with 12 suspected of being smugglers. Four have pleaded guilty and under a deal with prosecutors received three years' probation. They will be referred to federal authorities for deportation.
Cases are pending against the remainder, with 48 seeking dismissal of the charges. A conviction under the state law could mean a two-and-a-half-year prison term.
Mr. Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, an advocacy group, said nothing in the law authorized charging illegal immigrants with smuggling. In court papers, he suggested that the entire law was invalid because it "pre-empts" federal authority to regulate and enforce immigration law.
The deputies, meanwhile, continue their patrols. Normally, Deputy Chris Scott spends his days kicking in doors and barreling through houses, serving search warrants and performing the other high-energy tasks of a special weapons and tactics officer. But before dawn one morning this week, on "illegal immigrant interdiction" patrol, Deputy Scott saw a pickup with a broken tail light drift over the center line of a desolate road near Gila Bend. He flicked on the emergency lights of his unmarked sport utility vehicle and pulled over the pickup.
Barely mentioning the reason for the stop - state law prohibits driving over the center line or with a broken light - he peppered the driver and five passengers with questions: "Licencias?" "You have identification?" "These guys work with you very long?"
After several backup deputies arrived, they determined that the men were not being smuggled, although some appeared to be here illegally and were turned over to the Border Patrol.
"I think word is getting out, and they are skirting around us," Deputy Scott said later as he cruised without finding much suspicious activity.
The Border Patrol has not taken a position on the state law or the efforts to enforce it, a spokesman, Jesus Rodriguez, said.
It may be easy to dismiss the sheriff as grandstanding, and he promises a television-friendly event on Wednesday to begin expanded posse patrols, but last November he won a fourth term. An editorial in The Arizona Republic that criticized the patrol as "knee jerk" also credited him with an "unerring ability to gauge public opinion."
A statewide poll of 380 voters from April 20 to 23 by Arizona State University and KAET-TV in Tempe showed broad support for more stringent border security, with 57 percent favoring building a fence there.
Opinion split over making it a serious crime to be here illegally, with 51 percent opposed to such a move and 48 percent opposed to making it a felony to help illegal immigrants. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.
Sheriff Arpaio's cellphone ringtone plays "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. "I have enough confidence with the Maricopa community," he said in his 19th-floor office here, the walls decorated with clippings of news coverage. "If not, that's the way the ball bounces."
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U.S. tipping Mexico to Minuteman patrols
By Sara A. Carter
Daily Bulletin
May 10, 2006
While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen -- and telling the Mexican government where they are.
According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.
"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.
"This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."
Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.
"Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.
"They just basically endangered the lives of American people."
Officials with the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., could not be reached for comment Monday.
Martinez said reporting the location of immigrant apprehensions to consulate representatives is common practice if an illegal immigrant requests counsel or believes they have been mistreated.
"Once an illegal alien is apprehended, they can request counsel," he said. "We have to give their counsel the information about their apprehension, and that includes where they are apprehended, whether a Minuteman volunteer spotted them or a citizen."
Martinez said Mexico's official perception of the civilian groups is that they are vigilantes, a belief the Border Patrol hoped to allay by entering into the cooperative agreement.
One of the documents on the Web site, "Actions of the Mexican Government in Relation to the Activities of Vigilante Groups," states that Mexican consulate representatives stay in close contact with Border Patrol chiefs to ensure the safety of migrants trying to enter the U.S., those being detained and the actions of all "vigilantes" along the border.
"The Mexican consul in Presidio also contacted the chief of the Border Patrol in the Marfa Sector to solicit his cooperation in case they detect any activity of 'vigilantes,' and was told to immediately contact the consulate if there was," according to the document.
"Presidio" refers to Presidio County, Texas, which is in the Big Bend region and a gateway to northern Mexico.
The document also describes a meeting with San Diego Border Patrol sector chief Darryl Griffen.
"(Griffen) said that the Border Patrol will not permit any violence or any actions contrary to the law by the groups, and he is continuously aware of (the volunteer organizations') operations," according to the document. "Mr. Griffen reiterated to the undersecretary his promise to notify the General Consul right away when the vigilantes detain or participate in the detention of any undocumented Mexicans."
The documents specifically named the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and its patrols, which began monitoring Arizona's southern border in April 2005, as well as Friends of the Border Patrol, a Chino-based nonprofit.
TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing more than 10,000 Border Patrol agents, said agents have complained for years about the Mexican consulate's influence over the agency.
"It worries me (that the Mexican government) seems to be unduly influencing our enforcement policies. That's not a legitimate role for any foreign nation," Bonner said, though he added, "It doesn't surprise me."
Border Patrol agents interviewed by the Daily Bulletin said they have been asked to report to sector headquarters the location of all civilian volunteer groups, but to not file the groups' names in reports if they spot illegal immigrants.
"Last year an internal memo notified all agents not to give credit to Minuteman volunteers or others who call in sightings of illegal aliens," said one agent, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. "We were told to list it as a citizen call and leave it at that. Many times, we were told not to go out to Minuteman calls."
The document also mentions locations of field operations of Friends of the Border Patrol, which patrolled the San Diego sector from June to November 2005. Mexican officials had access to the exact location of the group founded by Andy Ramirez, which ran its patrols from the Rough Acre Ranch, a private property in McCain Valley.
Ramirez said that for safety reasons, he disclosed the location of his ranch patrol only to San Diego Border Patrol and law enforcement officials. The group did not apprehend or spot any undocumented migrants in that area.
"We did not release this information ... to the media or anyone else," Ramirez said. "We didn't want to publicize that information. But there it is, right on the Mexican government's Web site, and our government gave it to them."
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The neocons strike again
David Clark
Monday May 8, 2006
The Guardian
The treatment of Jack Straw throws new and alarming light on the dismissal of Robin Cook
It wouldn't be the first time that the Bush administration has played an important role in persuading Tony Blair to sack his foreign secretary. It was little discussed at the time, but Robin Cook's demotion in 2001 also followed hostile representations from Washington and private expressions of doubt in Downing Street about his ability to work with a Republican administration. Again, there may have been other factors, but of those suggested at the time, none seems convincing. Last week's reshuffle helps to put the episode in a new, revealing context.
The first signs of what lay ahead came in the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections, when telegrams from the British embassy in Washington started to report an attitude of suspicion towards the Blair government on the part of those likely to fill senior positions in an incoming Bush administration. People such as Dick Cheney and Richard Perle were expressing scepticism about Labour's reliability, citing the presence at senior level of ministers who had supported nuclear disarmament and criticised US foreign policy in the cold war.
There was little reason to suppose these telegrams had made any impact until a relatively small incident at Labour's annual conference. Like all cabinet ministers, Cook was commissioned to write a "pre-manifesto" paper, setting out Labour's provisional second-term agenda and illustrating how the government intended to build on its achievements. One proposal was to appoint a special envoy to campaign for global abolition of the death penalty. Switching Britain's position to support abolitionism was one of Cook's early foreign-policy decisions, and he thought that a special envoy would be an uncontroversial, but useful, way of promoting the government's policy.
Blair had other ideas. On the day the proposal become public, Jonathan Powell and other Downing Street officials warned Cook that it was unacceptable and must never be mentioned again. The reason? The only one given was that a special envoy would inevitably indulge in "finger wagging" at America, one of the biggest users of capital punishment, and therefore strain diplomatic relations with Washington. Under no circumstances would the prime minister countenance this, especially under a Republican administration. The Foreign Office could continue to support abolition of the death penalty, but not in any particularly active sense.
Cook was aware of his vulnerability, especially after the Florida chads ended up hanging in the wrong direction. He sought to replicate the strong relationship he had enjoyed with Madeleine Albright by cultivating her successor, Colin Powell. Indeed, the two men established a relationship of mutual respect even before Bush was sworn in. But in a foretaste of Powell's own marginalisation, this cut little ice. As Cook revealed in his diaries, the neoconservatives never dropped their hostility to him and eventually got their wish.
The treatment of Straw seems uncannily reminiscent, but the issue of Iran is of a different order of seriousness to anything Cook was grappling with five years ago. There is a pressing need for Blair to tell Bush what Attlee had the guts to tell Truman in the Korean war: that a decision to breach the nuclear threshold would encourage proliferation and make America an outcast from the community of civilised nations. He may think it clever strategy to put pressure on Tehran by keeping all options open, but the Iranians are not the only ones who need deterring.
Once again, Blair seems willing to put the wishes of the US government before those of the British people. That should be reason enough for wanting him out of office as soon as possible.
· David Clark was special adviser to Robin Cook from 1997 to 2001.
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Israel - Pariah State
Hamas Tells Islamic Jihad: End rocket attacks
Ynet
10/05/2006
Senior Hamas sources said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh met several times with Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees commanders and pleaded with them to stop Qassam fire into Israel, out of fear that Israel will send ground troops to the Gaza Strip should Qassam attacks persist.
According to sources, Haniyeh warned that the continuation of IDF artillery fire at Qassam launching sites in response to rocket attacks harms Palestinian interests, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Tuesday.
Haniyeh has yet to condemn Qassam attacks in public, and until today the Palestinian government has taken no measures to stop the attacks, but to the contrary, Hamas spokesmen said repeatedly that "Qassam attacks are a natural response to Israeli aggressions."
Should the Ashkelon power station suffer a direct Qassam hit, Israel will likely launch a large-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians have been warned several times through various intermediaries that such scenario could prove costly for the Palestinians. The IDF's intelligence assessment is that terror groups have their eyes set on hitting the power station, which will be seen as a big victory.
On Monday, 8 Qassam rockets were fired at south Ashkelon where the power station lies. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
The groups issued a statement claiming that three of the rockets were of the Quds 3 series, missiles with an improved fire range.
The IDF responded to the attack by firing artillery rounds at the northern Gaza Strip.
Comment: Again we ask, WHO are these Palestinians that insist on firing useless rockets into Israel and thereby provide Israel with the justification to respond with overwhelmingly superior firepower and allows America and the rest of the world to portray Palestinians as terrorists and further deprive them of food and supplies.
The firing of useless q'assam rockets at Israel serves only one agenda - Israel's.
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Helping Israel kill Palestinians
Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
10 May 2006
Suppose I were to leave my office here in Chicago and walk the short distance to the kidney dialysis unit down the road and pull out the tubes to which four elderly patients were attached, making them seriously ill or killing them. Suppose I said I did this because I disagreed with the Bush Administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq, its use of torture, and its countless other profoundly undemocractic and illegal policies. What would that make me? A murderer for sure, a monster and a new vicious kind of terrorist. Such an action would be unconscionable in any moral system.
And yet this is what the so-called "international community," a few powerful governments, feel entitled to do to Palestinians because those governments disagree with the policies of the elected Hamas authority. Ha'aretz reported on May 9 that "At least four people suffering from kidney diseases died in the Gaza Strip in April, after the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority Health Ministry cut the Shifa Hospital's budget for the necessary dialysis treatments." The Palestinian Authority is near to collapse due to a decision by the European Union, the largest donor to Palestinians under occupation, to cutoff vital aid. At the same time, the United States has moved aggressively to threaten anyone who tries to render assistance to suffering Palestinians, scaring banks from allowing cash transfers to the Palestinian Authority.
According to Dr. Juma al-Saka, 300 of Gaza's 650 kidney patients are treated at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, and due to the sanctions, their treatments were cut from a required three per week to just two. Four have already died, others are sure to follow unless the EU-US sanctions against the Palestinian people end.
Ha'aretz adds that, "Kidney ailments are not the only diseases going untreated, according to the doctor, who said that some cancer patients have stopped receiving chemotherapy and other vital drugs due to money and equipment shortages."
All of this is a flashback to the years after the 1991 Iraq war, when international sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, starting with the oldest, the youngest and the sickest. In US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's immortal words, this holocaust was "worth it" if it helped the US achieve its policy objectives. I naively thought the lesson had been learned. Now the Palestinians are to have their turn.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to build a comprehensive system of apartheid, to kill Palestinian civilians and to steal their land with total impunity. On Saturday, May 6, 65-year-old Mousa Salim Mousa al-Sawarka, was killed by shrapnel to the head, when Israel shelled the area in the northern Gaza Strip where he was grazing his animals. The next morning, Hassan Hussein Khader al-Shaf'ei, 55, was killed by shrapnel throughout the body, while he was farming his land near the same area, and a woman, Fatima Mohammed Sahweel, 59, was wounded with shrapnel to right the eye. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert announced ("Olmert: Settler blocs to be part of Israel forever," Ha'aretz, May 4, 2006). Within Israeli society, the dehumanization of Palestinians continues to advance: a new poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 62 percent of Israelis support "government-backed Arab emigration" -- in other words ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. ("More than half of Israelis want gov't to help Arabs emigrate," Ha'aretz, 9 May 2006)
As Israel's onslaught goes unchallenged by the US, the UN leadership, European and Arab governments, it is encouraging to see that the UK's largest university and college lecturers union, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), is about to vote again on a resolution to recommend that its 67,000 members boycott Israeli lecturers and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the occupied territories. (Ha'aretz, May 9).
Ronnie Fraser, a NAFTHE delegate who heads a group called Academic Friends of Israel, objected that "Academic work should not be blocked on political grounds." The UK Ambassador to Israel, Simon McDonald, reacted to the boycott plan saying, "we do not believe that such academic boycotts are productive - far more can be obtained through dialogue and academic cooperation." Would that the British government was so willing to defend Palestinians' rights as it is to protect the privileges of Israelis. It seems that Israeli professors should never be deprived of their ability to enjoy conferences in Oslo, London or Florence no matter how bad things get in Palestine, no matter how imprisoned Palestinians are in their ghettos and no matter how complicit major Israeli institutions are with the apartheid system.
The EU is now trying to deflect criticism by putting together a plan to channel aid to the Palestinians without going through Hamas. Desperate for any relief, many Palestinians have welcomed this, though the aid seems a long way from flowing as the EU has no idea how to achieve it. This palliative is merely another example of the EU stepping in to subsidize the occupation and mitigate its most pernicious effects so as to avoid actually having to do the hard work of confronting Israel and rolling back its colonialism.
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More than half of Israelis Support Ethnic Cleansing
09/05/2006
By Amiram Barkat
Haaretz
More than half of Israelis think the government should encourage its Arab citizens to emigrate from Israel, according to an annual survey by the Israel Democracy Institute.
A poll published Tuesday on the state of democracy in Israel found that 62 percent of Israelis support government-backed Arab emigration, compared to the 40 percent detailed by Geocartography Institute poll in March.
The annual survey of the status of democracy in Israel was published Tuesday morning, in preparation for the Israel Democracy Institute conference to be held Wednesday sponsored by President Moshe Katzav.
29 percent of Israelis think crucial decisions concerning Israel's future should be decided by a Jewish majority, and only 14 percent feel that relations between Jews and Arabs are stable.
The study also shows a decline in public disapproval of Israel Defense Forces soldiers refusing orders due to personal morals or ideology, especially regarding refusal to evacuate settlements. 58 percent disapprove refusal of orders in the military, as opposed to 70 percent last year.
Tuesday's poll, the Democracy Index 2006, was conducted in the Gutman Center under the direction of Professor Asher Arian.
The poll focused this year on public interest in political parties. The study shows that despite a growing interest in current affairs, confidence in politicians has declined.
82 percent of respondents believe that democracy is the ideal form of government for Israel, a 5 percent increase from the previous poll. 77 percent believe that democracy is the ideal form of government for any country.
27 percent feel that they can influence their government's policies, while only 17 percent think elected officials fulfill their campaign promises. 25 percent believe that Knesset members are concerned with what the public thinks.
Israelis place less trust in political parties than in any other government or public institution. Only 22 percent trust the parties, compared with the 33 percent that place their trust in the Knesset, 44 that trust the media, 68 percent that trust the supreme court and 79 percent the trust the IDF.
Comment: "Never again"? Too late. The pathocratization of a majority of ordinary Israeli Jews is complete.
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Arab MK: Israel world's most racist state
Ynet
10/05/2006
Israeli Arab Knesset members slam results of Israel Democracy Institute's survey showing 62 percent of Israelis want to encourage Arab emigration; MK el-Sana: Israel became world's most racist country
The "democracy index'" published by the Israel Democracy Institute on Tuesday revealed a grim picture: Israel has dropped to the 20th place out of 36 countries in terms of corruption.
However, the most prominent figure was that 62 percent of Israelis want the government to encourage local Arabs to leave the country.
Right-wing party Israel Our Home won a substantial electoral achievement in the March elections when it proposed a population exchange solution, including giving up territories populated by Israeli Arabs. Knesset Member Israel Hasson, who served as deputy Shin Bet chief and is now a member of Avigdor Lieberman's party, believes that "the Israeli public has gone too far."
"There is no doubt that the government's escape, capitulation and convergence policy caused a public feeling of a comprehensive disengagement and escape from anything, including the Arab public," Hasson said in response to the survey findings.
"Israel Our Home raised the banner of revoking the citizenship of residents who refuse to express their loyalty to the State, while the general public, which is subjected to an ongoing propaganda campaign in favor of unilateral moves, does not know where to stop anymore," he added.
"Instead of encouraging emigration, we have been suggesting for years now setting a borderline separating the populations without any need for emigration of populations," he said.
One person who does see a connection between Israel Our Home's success and the survey findings is MK Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al).
"Racism became the main characteristic of Israeli society a long time ago," he said. "Racism and fascism moved from impassioned marketplaces to the Knesset and the government seats. This is mainly expressed in the rise of an Israeli fascist party in the elections."
"There is no doubt that the ongoing occupation, dominating another people, and the confrontation have brought about the rise of racism in Israel. This scary phenomenon must be seriously dealt with by the government through education and with the help of the media," he added.
MK Talab El-Sana (United Arab List-Ta'al) called on Zionism to "conduct a profound self-examination and check where it failed."
He called to appoint an Arab deputy to the president and wondered "how the people that was supposed to serve as a shining example and a light unto the nations turned its country into the most racist state in the universe."
'Israeli Arabs can play key role'
United Arab List-Ta'al Chairman MK Ibrahim Sarsur, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was not surprised by the survey's findings.
"Unfortunately, I was not surprised at all by the survey. However, it is unfortunate and shocking that there is still such a large percentage among the Jewish people who do not believe in full partnership between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority," he said.
"The great majority has not reached the maturity and understanding that Israeli Arabs are an integral part of this land, even before the state's inception. The Israeli Arab public wants and can play a key role in building this country and bringing peace between Israelis and Palestinians - this is our duty and we will fight for it using any legitimate way," he added.
Talking to Ynet, Sarsur expressed his hope that the percentage of those who hold the aforementioned beliefs will gradually decrease, "otherwise the future of all of us does not bear good news."
"I am not sure Israel should build itself out of racism. The responsibility to repair the situation lies upon the Israeli government, which must apply a different kind of education for future generations - and the government is the one which has to turn us, the Israeli Arabs, from an enemy to a partner," he added
Members of ruling party Kadima also expressed their concern over the survey's findings. MK Menahem Ben-Sasson, a history professor, said that "the attitude toward minorities is worrying and requires turning the attention and resources to understanding their life, culture and history as a step for developing mutual relations based on respect."
"The public's representatives must be attentive to criticism and work to repair the image and perception regarding minorities," he added.
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Mossad Murder Techniques
JTA
10/05/2006
Israeli agents used poisoned chocolate to assassinate a senior Palestinian terrorist in the 1970s, according to a new book.
"Striking Back," an expose of Mossad reprisals by Israeli intelligence veteran Aaron Klein, contains a chapter about the killing of Wadi Haddad, chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Wanted for masterminding several airline hijackings, Haddad took refuge in Iraq in 1976.
But Mossad intelligence agents, using a Palestinian turncoat, managed to slip him Belgian chocolates coated in a slow-acting poison that killed him over the course of a few months, Klein claims.
Comment: Sounds like the same kind of scurrilous tactics used by the Mossad to murder Yasser Arafat in November 2004. In fact, even the Jeruslaem Post reported that Arafat had symptoms very similar to the abovementioned Wadi Haddad who was murdered by Mossad poision...
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Flashback: Aide alleges Israel poisoned Arafat
Nov. 8, 2004
Jerusalem Post
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was poisoned by Israel, one of his advisers said Sunday.
The option is being seriously considered by the PA, which has sent blood samples to the US and Germany to confirm or rule out the option, he said.
Arafat suffers symptoms similar to those of former PFLP military leader Wadi'a Hadad, he said.
Hadad was poisoned in the late 1970s by a close aide who was allegedly recruited by the Mossad, the adviser said, although the official reason for his death was cancer.
"It took Hadad eight weeks to die... he also entered a coma", he said, "Unless they find an antidote, Arafat will die," he added.
There are four possible reasons for the breakdown of Arafat's red blood cells, and two options have been ruled out, he said.
He does not have cancer and did not take an overdose of certain medications, he added. Poisoning is one of the two remaining possibilities, he claimed.
Other PA officials, including Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said they could not rule out that Arafat was poisoned, but said they needed to see some proof before publicly making such accusations.
Some PA officials dismissed the poisoning option.
They said it was in the PA's interest to keep Arafat on life support to allow PLO deputy Mahmoud Abbas and Qurei to run the PA.
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"Detained Iran intellectual linked to CIA, Mossad"
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
IranMania.com
LONDON, May 9 (IranMania) - According to an AFP report, a hardline daily accused detained Iranian intellectual Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent thinker and writer on democracy and non-violence, of having links to US and Israeli intelligence services.
"Ramin Jahanbegloo has been linked to the CIA and the Mossad for a while but he has been under surveillance," Jomhuri Eslami newspaper charged, without giving a source.
"He is considered as one of the key elements in the American plan for the smooth toppling" of the Islamic regime, the report added, saying he was on a US payroll to conduct "cultural activities against Iran".
"Some of these elements were even trained by the CIA and the Mossad ... and were in touch with embassies to carry out activities for the United States and the 'Zionist' regime," it said of Jahanbegloo, who has a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris.
Jahanbegloo also has dual Iranian-Canadian nationality, and the hardline paper argued that he had "obtained this Canadian citizenship to use in times of danger".
Iran's Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie said on Saturday that Jahanbegloo, reportedly arrested a week ago while trying to leave the country, was held on charges of ties with foreigners.
Hardline newspapers in the Islamic republic have also accused him of being linked to exiled monarchists.
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Hamas minister to visit four more European countries after Sweden
AFP
Tue May 9, 2006
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A minister of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, Atef Edwane, said during a visit to Stockholm that he would visit four other European countries on a visa delivered by Sweden.
Edwane was allowed into the Scandinavian country in the face of protests from Israel and France to attend a conference on Palestinian exiles.
"I will visit four countries," Edwan told AFP on Tuesday after meeting with Swedish lawmakers despite a European Union policy of no contact with the movement.
Sweden and 14 other European countries have agreed, under the so-called Schengen accord, that a visa delivered by any of them is valid for all others.
The other Schengen countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain.
Edwane declined to say which four countries he was planning to visit before his visa expires on May 16.
The granting of a Swedish visa to Edwane sparked a strong protest from Israel, which said the decision "helped legitimize a terrorist organization."
On Tuesday Israeli embassy spokeswoman Ann Ringart told AFP that the Swedish stance was damaging the Middle East peace process.
"Granting a visa to a minister in the Hamas government is bringing us 20 years back in the peace process instead of furthering it," she said.
Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the EU and the United States, which have suspended direct aid to the government.
France has also implicitly criticized the decision to grant a visa to the Hamas minister, saying it would have intervened with the Swedish government if it had had advance notice of Edwane's application.
But Edwane said on Tuesday that his successful visa application meant that EU countries had "started to actually change" their hardline position towards Hamas.
"Because when they allowed me to come, they gave me a Schengen visa. According to this visa I am allowed to go through all the European countries. This is what I will do. I will visit many countries, some of them invited me semi-officially, and that's good news," he said.
Speaking at a later press conference, he said: "It is in my interest not to say which other European countries I plan to visit".
Since his arrival in Sweden, Edwane has thanked Sweden for allowing him into the country, and emphasized his hope for dialogue with EU countries.
The Swedish government has said none of its members would meet with Hamas representatives.
Comment: Isn't it amazing how one little country can strike such fear in the hearts of the entire EU that the governments of the various European countries are afraid to even talk with Edwane?? Do the leaders of said EU countries feel that simply talking with him automatically means that they support his cause and agree with everything he says? Such a stance would be, in a word, ridiculous.
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U.S., Allies Agree to Palestinian Aid
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer
Tue May 9, 2006
UNITED NATIONS - The United States bowed to pressure from its allies on Tuesday and agreed to support a new program to temporarily funnel additional humanitarian aid directly to the Palestinian people.
A statement by Mideast peacemakers, issued after a day of closed-door diplomatic meetings, did not suggest precisely how much or what kind of aid they would provide. But the agreement seemed to underscore a concern that months of withholding most aid from the Palestinians, part of an effort to pressure the new Hamas-led government toward a more accommodating stance with Israel, was harming the Palestinian people.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the European Union would take the lead in the new effort. The United Nations and Russia, the other partners in the Quartet peacemaking group along with the U.S., also endorsed the program.
"The thrust of this is the international community is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people," Rice said.
The U.S. and European Union have cut off much of the aid that had flowed in the past to Palestinian programs, working to prevent any of it from helping Hamas, the militant Islamic group that has conducted numerous terrorist attacks.
The cutoff has left the Palestinian government virtually broke and increasingly unable to provide basic services. Some 165,000 government workers, whose incomes had supported one-third of Palestinian families, have not been paid for the past two months.
Going into Tuesday's meetings at the United Nations, Rice said she was urging the allies to retain a hard-line approach toward aid that could end up benefiting Hamas.
After a second session, the diplomats produced a statement expressing their willingness "to endorse a temporary international mechanism that is limited in scope and duration, operates with full transparency and accountability, and ensures direct delivery of any assistance to the Palestinian people."
The statement said the assistance would begin as soon as possible, with a decision on its continuation coming in three months.
The diplomats expressed "grave concern that the Palestinian government has so far failed to commit itself to the principles of nonviolence, recognition of Israel and the acceptance of previous agreements" to move toward peace. They expressed willingness to restore aid once the Palestinian government accepted those principles.
The allies also said they had "concern about the delivery of humanitarian assistance, economic life, social cohesion and Palestinian institutions," all of which have been deteriorating since the aid suspension.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wrote to Rice and the other international peacemakers asking them to focus on "a way of stopping the economic boycott against the Palestinian people and finding a way to send economic aid," Palestinian U.N. observer Riyad Mansour told reporters.
He did not outline specifically which aid Abbas wanted restored.
Although Abbas' secular Fatah Party was trounced by the better-organized militants, he remains in office. He has been trying to bridge a gap between the West and Hamas that he says will unfairly punish ordinary Palestinians.
The United States announced a $10 million package of medical assistance for the Palestinians on Tuesday. An initial $4 million in medicine and supplies could begin flowing as soon as this week.
The United States and some allies in Europe and elsewhere have differed over tactics to counter Hamas without worsening the Palestinians' humanitarian plight.
The European Union has proposed sending money directly to Abbas to be spent on hospitals, schools and humanitarian needs. While the U.S. says it wants to keep sending humanitarian aid, it has been cool to the European proposal.
Even greater differences exist between the U.S. and Russia.
"We're not for cutting off any aid," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters Tuesday.
The international group issued a warning to Hamas three months ago that it risked a loss of international aid if it did not change its policies.
The U.S. says it respects the democratic elections that produced the Hamas victory and has no express policy to oust the militants. Its financial strategy, however, seems aimed at undermining public support for Hamas and making it difficult or impossible for the militants to govern.
Although the E.U. has also cut aid, public opinion in Europe often favors Palestinian causes and governments are leery of looking too harsh.
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Egypt police kill 'mastermind' of Sinai bombings
AFP
Tue May 9, 2006
AL-ARISH, Egypt - Egyptian police have killed the leader of an Islamist militant group blamed for a spate of attacks in tourist resorts in the Sinai peninsula over the past 18 months, security sources said.
"Nasser Khamis al-Mallahi, the mastermind of the group, was killed this morning in clashes between police and members of the group," a security official told AFP Tuesday on condition of anonymity.
"He was responsible for the attacks in Dahab and oversaw the whole operation," said the official, referring to triple suicide bombings that killed 19 people, including foreigners, in a popular Sinai resort on April 24.
The shootout took place in Jabal Arish in North Sinai after police surrounded the area. Mallahi was shot dead and his right-hand man Mohammed Abdallah Elian was arrested, the official said.
Both men, whose names appear on a list of 25 wanted suspects issued by Sinai police, belong to the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group said to be responsible for attacks on Sinai's tourist packed Red Sea coast.
Mallahi, a 30-year-old father of two, took over the leadership of the Islamist group after its previous leader Khaled Mussaed was killed by police in 2005, security sources said.
Israel's counter-terrorism unit on Monday advised all nationals visiting the Sinai peninsula to "immediately" leave the neighbouring Egyptian territory citing "concrete" threats to kidnap Israelis.
No Israelis were killed in the Dahab attacks, which saw three suicide bombers blow themselves up in one of the busiest areas of the popular diving resort.
The bombings, which also left some 90 people wounded, were followed two days later by two failed suicide attacks targeting security personnel further north in the peninsula.
There was no claim of responsibility but security officials have said they suspect the same group of being responsible for all the attacks in Sinai over the past two years.
Multiple bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh killed about 70 people in July 2005, the deadliest attack to have hit Egypt since a major wave of Islamist violence in the mid-1990s.
At least 34 people were also killed in bombings in and around the resort of Taba further up the Red Sea coast near the Israeli border in October 2004.
Egypt had first announced in March that that Tawhid wal Jihad, which pledges alliegance to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, was responsible for the Sinai attacks.
The Islamist group had claimed the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing, saying that the attacks were revenge for the invasions of
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Egyptian police on Sunday said they were awaiting DNA test results to identify at least two suspects believed to have carried out the Dahab attacks.
Security forces have been sweeping Sinai -- a vast mountainous area inhabited mainly by Bedouins -- to hunt for suspects connected to the Dahab attacks.
Comment: How convenient, now no one can ask him if he really did it. For the truth behind the recent Sinai bombings, see Joe Quinn's article "Surprise Surprise! Another "Terrorist Attack" In Egypt"
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On The Eve Of Destruction
Israel will hit Iran in the next few months: Israeli official
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Israel will strike Iran's nuclear facilities in the next "month or two or three," an Israeli official has been quoted here as saying.
The unnamed official told Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of the United Press International (UPI), at the recently held national day reception at the Israeli Embassy that he believed Israel would strike Iran first in the next two or three months and that fighter bombers would not be involved as they had been to take out Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor before it went critical in 1981. For Osirak, Israel had used 14 F-15s and F-16s. This time, the Israeli said, it would be missiles. Asked if Israel would employ Cruise missiles, he replied, "with a gesture of his hand that went up and down again", which meant that it would be the weapon of choice.
Asked if tunnel entrances to widely scattered Iranian nuclear facilities would be targeted, he responded that Israel had its own geo-stationary spy-in-the-sky satellite taking constant pictures of Iran with a resolution down to 70 centimetres. "We know far more than anyone realises," he added.
De Borchgrave's report quoted a poll of conservative Republicans by a conservative web-based news service, which showed overwhelmingly strong support for bombing Iran. Almost 60,000 people took part in the poll and 88 percent agreed that Iran poses a greater threat than Saddam Hussein did before the Iraq War. To the question, "Should the US undertake military action against Iran to stop their (nuclear) programme?" 77 percent replied yes, 23 percent said no. Forty-five percent said that military action should be taken by the United States, while 35 percent wanted Israel to do that. Twenty percent said neither. As for whether US efforts to contain Iran's nuclear weapons are working, 93 percent said they were not, while 89 percent said the US should not rely solely on the UN.
According to de Borchgrave, "Israel has developed some 100 Jericho-II medium-range ballistic missiles (which entered service in 1989). Jericho II's range varies from 1,500 to 3,500 kilometres, depending on payload weight. They are deployed in underground caves and silos. Israel has several satellites in orbit - Ofeq-1 through Ofeq-5 - that were launched by Shavit space launch vehicles (SLV). The first two stages of the Shavit were Jericho II missiles. There are unconfirmed reports of an upgraded Jericho-3 missile with a range of over 3,000 kilometres.
Comment: Both Israel and America "know far more than anyone realises", both know that Iran poses no threat and that their intelligence confirms this. They also know that the general public thinks that Iran does pose a threat, this is why will not reveal what they know.
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Iran Ready to Form Nuclear Alliance with Russia
8 May 2006
FOCUS News Agency
Baku. "Tehran is interested in a future development of relations with Moscow and is ready to form a cooperation with Russia in the sphere of nuclear energy within the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated today cited by Iran News.
Ahmadinejad defined Russia as an ally and the relations between Tehran and Moscow - as "friendly and constantly developing"
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Why Are We Baiting Putin?
LewRockwell
10/05/2006
"(N)o legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply management or attempt to monopolize transportation," thundered Vice President Cheney to the international pro-democracy conference in Vilnius, Lithuania.
"(N)o one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor, or interfere with democratic movements."
Cheney's remarks were directed straight at the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin, who is to host the G-8 Conference in July.
Cheering Cheney on is John McCain, front-runner for the GOP nomination, who has urged President Bush to snub Putin by boycotting the G-8 summit. What the GOP is thus offering the nation right now is seven more years of in-your-face bellicosity in foreign policy.
What does McCain think we would accomplish - other than a new parading of our moral superiority - by so public an insult to Putin and Russia as a Bush boycott of the St. Petersburg summit? Do we not have enough trouble in this world, do we not have enough people hating us and Bush that we have to get into Putin's face and antagonize the largest nation on earth and a co-equal nuclear power? What is the purpose of this confrontation diplomacy? What does it accomplish?
Eisenhower and Nixon did not behave like this. Nor did Ford or Bush's father. Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" once. But the Soviet Union we confronted in those years was hostile. Until lately, today's Russia was not. Yet the Bush boys are in their pulpits, admonishing the world's sinners every day.
What is their beef with Putin's policy?
In January, Putin decided to stop piping subsidized gas to Kiev and start charging the market price. Reason: Ukraine's president, elected with the assistance of U.S. foundations and quasi-government agencies, said he was reorienting Kiev's foreign policy away from Russia and toward NATO and the United States.
If you are headed for NATO, Putin was saying to President Viktor Yushchenko, you can forget the subsidized gas.
Now this is political hardball, but it is a game with which America is not altogether unfamiliar. When Castro reoriented his policy toward Moscow, Cuba's sugar allotment was terminated. U.S. diplomats went all over the world persuading nations not to buy from or sell to Cuba. Economic sanctions on Havana endure to today. We supported, over Reagan's veto, sanctions on South Africa. We have used sanctions as a stick and access to the U.S. market as a carrot since we became a nation. What, after all, was "Dollar Diplomacy" all about?
Cheney accuses Moscow of employing pipeline diplomacy - i.e., using its oil and gas pipelines to benefit some nations and cut out others. But the United States does the same thing, as it seeks to have the oil and gas of Central Asia transmitted to the West in pipelines that do not transit Iran or Russia.
"(N)o one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor," declared Cheney in Vilnius. How the vice president could deliver that line with a straight face escapes me.
Does Cheney not recall our "Captive Nations Resolutions," calling for the liberation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which, though free between the two world wars, had long belonged to the Russian empire? Does he not recall conservative support for the breakup of the Soviet Union? Does he not recall conservative support for the secession of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, and more recently Kosovo, from a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia?
What concerns Cheney is Moscow's support for the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. Georgia's president was also elected with the aid of pro-democracy NGOs, mostly funded by Uncle Sam. All these color-coded revolutions in East Europe and Central Asia bear the label, Made in the U.S.A.
When Cheney says, "No one can justify actions that ... interfere with democratic movements," he is hauling water for Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, and similar agencies, which Putin wants shut down or kicked out of Russia for interfering in her internal affairs.
We Americans consider the Monroe Doctrine - no foreign power is to come into our hemisphere - to be holy writ. Why, then, can we not understand why Russia might react angrily to our interference in her politics or the politics of former Russian republics?
The effect of U.S. expansion of NATO deep into Eastern Europe, U.S. interference in the politics of the former Soviet republics, and U.S. siting of military bases in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia has been to unite Russia and China, and undo the diplomacy of several successive U.S. presidents.
How has this made us more secure?
If we don't want these people in our backyard, what are we doing in theirs? If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire.
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Iran accuses West of hypocrisy
By Tomi Soetjipto and Muklis Ali
Reuters
May 10, 2006
JAKARTA - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western nations on Wednesday of hypocrisy and said their expressions of concern over nuclear programs were a "big lie."
The Iranian leader was speaking on a visit to fellow Muslim nation Indonesia, which said Tehran had been receptive to its offer to help mediate the Islamic republic's dispute with critics of its nuclear project.
"I'll tell you, they are not concerned with nuclear programs ... They are themselves engaged in nuclear activities and they are expanding day by day. They test new brands of weapons of mass destruction every day," Ahmadinejad told a news conference after meeting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"Big powers pretend (they) are concerned, but it's a big lie," the Iranian leader said.
Iran is under pressure to rein in a nuclear program it says is for peaceful purposes but some countries fear is really aimed at developing weapons.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has offered to help mediate on the issue, Yudhoyono and his spokesman said.
"We can cooperate well in reducing the tension and move toward continuing talks and negotiations," Yudhoyono told reporters.
Spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said "Iran was very receptive" to Indonesia's offer to help mediate.
"We hope it will happen. We need to breathe new life into negotiations," he said.
CARROTS AND STICKS
Speaking of a letter sent to President Bush, which Washington shrugged off as an attempt to divert attention from the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad said sending it was the right decision and that he had no comment on the U.S. reaction.
The United States has pushed for international action on the issue, and with a group of nations including China and Russia has authorized Britain, France and Germany to work on a package of carrots and sticks to entice Iran to change its program.
President Bush received the 18-page letter from Ahmadinejad on Monday, the first publicly announced personal communication from an Iranian president to his U.S. counterpart since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Despite Washington's initial cool reaction, analysts say the letter might buy Tehran more time to pursue its program and improve its standing as a regional leader.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla met Ahmadinejad on Wednesday and told reporters that "Indonesia will take a role behind the scenes for peaceful purposes on Iran issues."
He also said without elaborating that Indonesia supported nuclear programs for peaceful use.
Kalla plays an influential role in Yudhoyono's administration and helped broker a successful peace deal last year in Aceh province, where a separatist rebellion had simmered for decades.
Despite the attention to the nuclear issue, the prime stated purpose of Ahmadinejad's visit to Jakarta is not the nuclear issue but development of economic ties.
Iran is in the process of investing several billion dollars in the oil and gas sector of fellow Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member Indonesia and both countries are eager to boost trade.
On Friday, Ahmadinejad is due to fly to Bali for a meeting of the Developing Eight group that also includes Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Economic development, including peaceful uses of nuclear energy, figure high on the agenda for the meeting, which will end on Saturday.
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Israel Seen As Worlds Sixth Nuclear Power
AFP
May 10, 2006
London - Israel, which Tuesday warned Iran against any future attack, is regarded as the sixth country in the world to acquire nuclear weapons -- a title its government has never confirmed or denied. Despite its ambiguous position, the Jewish state is widely regarded as owning at least 200 atomic warheads, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
British defence specialist Jane's puts the figure at "between 200 and 300".
This estimate "is based on the production capacity of the country's reactors," said John Eldridge, editor in chief of Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence.
The International Institute of Strategic Studies, for its part, estimates the number of warheads as being "up to 200".
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US advocacy group co-created by Ted Turner, the founder of CNN and a former senator, believes Israel's nuclear arsenal "is comparable in quality and quantity to that of France and the United Kingdom."
An unknown number of ground-to-ground missiles, comprising short range Jericho 1 and medium range Jericho 2 missiles, forms Israel's strategic force.
The country also acquired three diesel-powered, Dolphin-class submarines -- a non-nuclear variety -- at the end of the 1990s. Each vessel has the capacity to launch six torpedoes. They can also spend up to a month underwater.
"There is no evidence that their weapons are anything other than conventional, but the nuclear option has been considered since 2003," Eldridge told AFP.
In a hardening attitude towards Tehran, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres warned Tuesday Iran risks its own destruction if it tries to destroy Israel.
Peres, a former Nobel peace prize winner, fired a warning shot across the bows of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by saying his call for Israel to be wiped off the map would not go unanswered if it was translated into action.
Comment: Given the size and proximity of Middle Eastern nations, any nuclear attack on any country would be devastating to more than just the attacked nation. Millions upon millions of people in multiple nations - including those not even involved in the conflict - would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
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Lebanon, Syria on menu as top US, French diplomats meet
AFP
May 10, 2006
NEW YORK - Lebanon and Syria topped the agenda as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy met on the sidelines of UN talks on Iran's controversial nuclear program.
The United States and France are cooperating closely on the common goal of a democratic Lebanon, Rice said as she met with Douste-Blazy at a swank New York hotel for a dinner late Tuesday.
The French foreign minister agreed that the two met often and worked closely, especially concerning Syria and Lebanon.
Rice and Douste-Blazy were to discuss a draft resolution on Syria that Paris and Washington want to present to the UN Security Council, according to officials traveling with the two.
Paris wants the resolution to remain focused on Lebanon and concentrate on three main objectives: the implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 calling for an end to Syrian influence on Lebanon, support for Lebanese dialogue, and a demarcation of borders between Syria and Lebanon.
Washington however is pushing for a resolution that puts broader pressure on Syria, and hopes to include pressure on Iran, which supports the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah.
Separately Washington has accused both Iran and Syria of taking insufficient action to prevent armed opponents of the US-led coalition from slipping into Iraq.
The text would require "parties and states" close to Lebanon to cease any interference in Lebanese affairs, according to a draft resolution which circulated among UN officials.
Rice, Douste-Blazy and a handful of advisers also discussed financial assistance to the Palestinians as well as Iran's controversial nuclear ambitions.
Douste-Blazy did not participate in discussions Tuesday held by the Middle East diplomatic quartet -- which comprises Russia, the United States, European Union and United Nations -- that endorsed the creation of a temporary mechanism to deliver badly needed assistance to the Palestinian people suffering under a cutoff of Western aid to their militant government.
The United States and EU have frozen aid to Hamas, which they consider a terrorist organization, until it renounces its armed struggle against Israel and recognizes the Jewish state's right to exist.
French President Jacques Chirac has earlier written to leaders of Israel and the quartet asking for the creation of a World Bank account to channel aid to the Palestinians.
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Pakistan Tests Shaheen Missile
by Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
May 10, 2006
Washington - Pakistan Saturday announced it had successfully tested its Shaheen II/ Hatf VI Ballistic intermediate-range ballistic missile. The pakistandefense.com Web site of the Pakistani armed forces announced that the nuclear-capable missile had a range of 1,500 miles and was highly accurate.
The web site described Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as "overwhelmed" by the success of the test. It said Aziz congratulated the engineers, scientists and technical staff who were present at the launching.
Aziz pledged that Pakistan would continue to retain its deterrent capability to guarantee peace in the South Asian region. He said that the defense of the country was on topmost priority of the government, fully endorsed by the entire nation.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sent a special message to congratulate the missile test team and said the entire nation was proud of their brilliant performance, the report said.
A Pakistani military spokesman said in a statement that the test was carried out to confirm the missile's ability fulfill additional technical parameters beyond those achieved in the Shaheen II's last test 14 months ago in March 2005.
The Shaheen II is a two-stage solid fuel missile which can carry nuclear and conventional warheads with "high accuracy."
The test came two days after Pakistan and India concluded a three-day session of negotiations in the Pakistani capital Islamabad to discuss confidence-building measures between them in their nuclear program and other areas. However, the two nations failed to reach the agreement they had sought on reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.
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Chirac blasts Clearstream allegations, says Villepin will stay PM
AFP
May 10, 2006
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac has slammed allegations surrounding a dirty tricks investigation and gave his support to embattled Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
"The republic is not a dictatorship of rumours, a dictatorship of slander," he said Wednesday in an impromptu televised declaration after his weekly cabinet meeting.
"Democracy is not the disrespect and exploitation to outrageous lengths of legal procedures underway," he said.
He added: "I have full confidence in Dominique de Villepin's government to carry out the mission I have set it, and I expect him to accelerate further his actions."
There was no mistaking that Chirac was talking about a politico-legal imbroglio that is threatening his conservative government called the Clearstream affair, though he did not mention it by name in his short statement.
The affair started as an investigation into the alleged money-laundering of bribes paid from the sale of warships to Taiwan but has since ballooned into a dirty tricks scandal laying bare political divisions in the ruling UMP party.
At stake is who might succeed Chirac in presidential elections next year.
Recent reports suggested that Villepin -- a Chirac protege -- used the Clearstream investigation to smear his chief rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
An article in a French investigative weekly, Le Canard Enchaine, on Wednesday homed in on testimony in the case from a spymaster involved in the investigation who reportedly said Chirac had a secret account in Japan holding 45 million euros (57 million dollars).
Both Villepin and Chirac have denied the allegations targeting them, but the surprise declaration from Chirac on Wednesday was the strongest counter-attack yet offered by the president -- and a sign of how deep the threat is to his rule.
Comment: "...the surprise declaration from Chirac on Wednesday was the strongest counter-attack yet offered by the president -- and a sign of how deep the threat is to his rule."
His "rule"??
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Rockin and Rollin
NY warned to prepare for hurricanes
By Martinne Geller
Reuters
Tue May 9, 2006
NEW YORK - A hurricane with only moderate intensity could wreak havoc in New York City because it has been years since the nation's financial center faced severe weather, government forecasters warned on Tuesday.
"The first time we get hit here with a Category 2, it's going to be disastrous," said meteorologist Michael Wyllie of the National Weather Service, referring to the scale used to rate hurricane strength.
Wyllie said powerful storms have missed New York in recent years, unlike parts of the Gulf Coast, where periodic storms "thin out the trees and the buildings."
Gloria, the last big storm to hit the New York area, caused about $900 million in economic losses along the East Coast in 1985, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"It's not like we can all run down to Home Depot and pick up these two-by-fours to board up windows," said John Koch, lead forecaster at the NWS forecast office in New York. "What we want people to do is know what they are going to do with their family and their pets."
Koch urged residents to familiarize themselves with the location of evacuation zones and make plans to have extra dry clothes, medicines, batteries, water and copies of valuable documents.
Although evacuation orders might be limited to low-lying areas, Koch said high winds could put tall buildings throughout the city at risk.
"Winds increase with height, so you're going to see much stronger wind on the 30th floor or the 50th floor of a building than you do at the surface," Koch said.
Wyllie said he expects the hurricane season, which starts June 1 and lasts until November 30, to be similar to last year, which saw an unprecedented 28 storms including Katrina.
"If there are more storms out there, odds are you have a higher chance of being hit," Koch said. "It could be this year, it could be five years from now, it could be 10 years from now."
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Tornado in North Texas Kills 3, Injures 6
AP
May 10, 2006
DALLAS - Three people were killed and at least six injured when tornadoes moved through North Texas, a county official said Wednesday.
At least one tornado touched down late Tuesday near Anna, a town of about 6,500 residents north of Dallas, said Jamie Nicolay, of the Collin County homeland security and health care services department. Severe weather was also reported in Westminster.
The dead included an elderly couple and a teenager, but their identities have not been released, Nicolay said.
Six people were transported to area hospitals, she said. Their conditions were not available.
The storm destroyed at least six houses, Nicolay said, although full assessment of damage to the area was limited by darkness.
"I'm sure that there are numerous other ones that have less severe damage," she said.
More than 100 rescue and utility workers had responded to the area to assess the damage and work on restoring power to about 300 homes.
The American Red Cross has opened a shelter at Anna High School.
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4.7 earthquake jolts Thessaloniki
Athens News agency
10/05/2006
An earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale jolted Thessaloniki on Wednesday morning, causing concern among local residents, although no damage was immediately reported.
According to the Thessaloniki University's Geophysics Laboratory, the earthquake was recorded at 10:01 a.m. at a distance of 40 kilometres southeast of the city, with its epicentre between the towns of Zagliveri (Thessaloniki prefecture) and Polygyros (Halkidiki prefecture).
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Earthquake leaves 10 million Philippines residents without power
Manila Standard
10/05/2006
An earthquake that damaged a transmission tower and shut down four power plants left more than 10 million people in Cebu without electricity yesterday, officials and residents said.
The relatively mild quake, measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale, struck Leyte at 10:02 a.m, the seismology office in Manila said, triggering a chain reaction of power generation units shutting down.
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New Earthquake Hits Russia's Far East
10.05.2006
RIA Novosti news agency
An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale rocked the northern part of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's Far East early Wednesday, emergency services told RIA Novosti news agency.
The quake's epicenter was about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the small town of Khailino in the sparsely-populated Koryak Autonomous Area. The vice-governor of the autonomous area, Zhanna Saksina, told ITAR-TASS that the quake had not brought damage even to the Khailino where it measured as high as 7 points according to preliminary reports. No casualties have been reported.
A series of major earthquakes have rocked Kamchatka and Koryakia in the last three weeks. The first 7.8-magnitude quake on April 21, with an epicenter about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Khailino, the strongest since 1900 in the Koryak area, injured 31 people and damaged about 380 houses and 25 public buildings in the towns of Tilichiki, Korf, Ossora, and Khailino.
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Moderate Earthquake In Flores Island
May 10, 2006
Malaysian National News Agency
KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 (Bernama) -- A moderate earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale occurred at 9.18 am Wednesday at Flores Island, Indonesia, the Meteorological Services Department said.
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Study links plankton blooms to earthquakes
May 9, 2006
UPI
A team of U.S. and Indian scientists says it has found a link between concentrations of chlorophyll in coastal waters and the occurrence of earthquakes.
The increases in chlorophyll are the result of blooms of plankton, which use chlorophyll to convert solar energy into chemical energy via photosynthesis, the BBC reported Tuesday.
The scientists analyzed satellite data from coastal areas near the epicenters of four recent earthquakes and determined chlorophyll blooms might provide early warning concerning an impending earthquake.
The researchers theorize the movement of plate tectonics creates conditions in which plankton thrive in proximity to an impending earthquake, the BBC said.
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Signs Of Collapse?
Gold rises above $702 to hit 25-year high
By Lewa Pardomuan
Reuters
May 10, 2006
SINGAPORE - Gold jumped to a 25-year peak above $702 an ounce on Wednesday as a weak U.S. dollar prompted fresh buying, while speculators pushed platinum to a record high.
Gold has risen more than 35 percent this year as investors diversified into precious metals as a hedge against global tensions, including over Iran's nuclear ambitions, rising energy costs and uncertainty about the dollar's outlook.
Spot gold rose as high as $702.10 an ounce, up from around $500 at the end of 2005 and compared with less than $300 at the start of the decade.
A fresh round of buying reversed earlier profit taking which had pushed the price down as low as $697.70 in Asia. Gold was last quoted at $699.90/700.90 late in New York on Tuesday.
"People think the Europeans will buy more anyway because of a firm euro. Maybe that's the reason why people pushed it up," said a dealer in Singapore.
"I saw both buying and selling here. When the market moves in a very strange way, there's nothing new about it," he said.
As spot gold rose above $700, benchmark gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange rallied by a daily limit of 60 yen to 2,538 yen per gram.
Some dealers now expect volatile trading with investors likely to book profits at higher levels.
"I think there's a potential of volatility. It looks like until we are going to London, we may all struggle to get over about $703," said Darren Heathcote, head of trading at N M Rothschild in Sydney.
He cited support for gold around $686.
Traders said market talk that economists had urged China to quadruple its gold reserves to 2,500 tonnes from the current 600 tonnes had also spurred the rally, particularly in New York where the metal rose as high as $700.50.
China has the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world at more than $875 billion and is the world's third-largest gold consumer.
But some dealers doubted China's central bank would buy gold at current high prices.
"We've been talking about China increasing its reserves for half a year and I doubt it that it's going to happen. People made use of this to push up the price last night," said a dealer in Hong Kong.
"The market is still in the upward trend but people are cautious," he said.
A weaker dollar has made dollar-denominated gold cheaper in other currencies. The currency has dropped this year partly owing to concerns about the U.S.'s large trade and fiscal deficits.
The dollar fell to an eight-month below 110.88 yen on Wednesday ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting that could signal an end to a two-year stretch of rising U.S. interest rates.
The euro was trading at $1.2770 , just below a one-year high of $1.2788 struck earlier in the week.
Platinum spiked to a record high of $1,258 an ounce as fund buying in Japan propelled the most-active contract <0#JPL:> on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange to an all-time high of 4,366 yen per gram.
Spot platinum was quoted at $1,235/1,240 late in New York.
Dealers said platinum's rise was driven by the view that Johnson Matthey (JMAT.L), the world's top distributor of the metal, will produce a bullish report on the market later this month.
The company is planning a report on the market to coincide with a platinum industry event in London that starts on May 15.
Palladium rose to $391/396 an ounce from $389/394 an ounce. Silver was steady at $14.44/14.54.
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Oil steady above $70, eyes on US gasoline, Iran
By Yaw Yan Chong
Reuters
May 10, 2006
SINGAPORE - Oil hovered above $70 on Wednesday as an expected build in gasoline stocks in the United States was countered by renewed worries over Iran's nuclear stand-off with the West.
U.S. light crude eased 6 cents to $70.63 a barrel by 0525 GMT, after rising by 92 cents on Tuesday. London Brent crude fell 18 cents to $70.90 a barrel.
U.S. oil prices had lost up to over $1 on Monday after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to his U.S. counterpart, but slid back as he made no proposals for resolving the row over Tehran's nuclear plans and Washington was dismissive of the letter.
Ahmadinejad, on a visit to Indonesia, said Tehran and Jakarta are committed to using nuclear power for good purposes, as Iran faced Western fears that its nuclear program is a cover for making nuclear weapons.
"The Iran letter turned out to be a non-event. Everyone had thought that it would have been the grounds for some negotiation and prices came off but now it is quite clear that the fall had been a knee-jerk reaction," said Tony Nunan, a manager at Mitsubishi Corp.'s risk management business.
"The short-term focus is now on the upcoming stocks data, particularly on gasoline inventories. If it builds as expected, then prices would probably drift lower but the downside will be limited as the market has been waiting for a dip to buy."
A Reuters poll forecast a 1.2 million-barrel rise in U.S. gasoline inventories ahead of the release of government data for the week ended May 5 later on Wednesday. But distillates stocks are expected to have fallen 300,000 barrels and crude inventories are seen down by 600,000 barrels.
Gasoline stocks, a major concern ahead of the U.S. summer driving season, are expected to stay high this month on an increase in production capacity as refineries return from planned maintenance, analysts said.
However, supplies are expected to be squeezed come June, when the driving season begins in earnest.
The U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated that gasoline consumption will hit 9.4 million barrel per day (bpd) during the third-quarter peak demand season, up from 9.27 million bpd on-year, but down from its previous forecast of 9.43 million bpd.
Stalled talks over a United Nations resolution, ordering Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, posed nagging concerns about the geopolitical risks to oil supplies after European officials had worked on a package of rewards or penalties for Iran.
Risks to supply also persisted in Nigeria where militants, whose raids have cut oil exports in the world's eighth-largest exporter by a quarter, threatened to attack state governors from the Niger Delta region, accusing them of betraying their people's interests.
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Asia Is Getting Ready to Dump the Dollar Peg: Andy Mukherjee
Andy Mukherjee
Bloomberg
May 8, 2006
Li Yong, China's vice minister for finance, said he had heard a "rumor'' that the U.S. dollar was headed for a 25 percent drop. If the gossip was true, the consequences would be "shocking,'' he said.
Li's comment, which he made at a discussion on global financial imbalances last week at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in the Indian city of Hyderabad, was aimed directly at fellow panelist Tim Adams, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary of international affairs.
The unspoken message was: "Don't try to talk the dollar down.'' And Adams knew better than to ask, "Well, what are you going to do about it?'' The answer to that question has already begun taking shape: Asia may be getting ready to fix its currencies to a local anchor, dumping the region's unofficial dollar peg.
Even as they continue to pile up U.S. debt in their foreign- exchange reserves to keep their currencies stable against the dollar, Asian nations, China among them, are preparing for a scenario where the dollar does indeed collapse under the weight of a record U.S. current account deficit.
At the Hyderabad meeting, finance ministers of China, Japan and South Korea got together with their counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. The 13-nation group said it would sponsor a research project, titled "Toward greater financial stability in the Asian region: Exploring steps to create regional monetary units."
Asian Currency Unit
This is no innocuous academic exercise. Regional monetary units are a euphemism for a parallel Asian currency, an idea that has been around since the 1997-98 financial crisis and is now, for the first time, entering the realm of policy making.
Both Japan and China are extremely serious about it and are vying to take ownership of the project.
An Asian Currency Unit, or ACU, will be an index that seeks to capture the value of a hypothetical Asian currency by taking a weighted average of several of them. The weight for a particular currency in the index may be determined by the size of the economy and the quantity of its total trade.
What's the big deal with the ACU? Given the data, anyone can set up an index. It isn't that Asia is talking about replacing its national currencies with the ACU. A European-style single currency in Asia is at least decades away. The ACU is an accounting unit; it won't change hands in the physical world.
The ACU will start making a difference when it becomes the fulcrum of exchange-rate management in Asia. There is some sign that Asian nations want to do just that.
A New Peg
Korea, Japan and China agreed in Hyderabad to "immediately launch discussions on the road map for a system to coordinate foreign exchange policy.''
The ACU can help a lot in such coordination. It can become a basket peg against which any Asian nation can fix the value of its currency within a band. The ACU, itself, will float.
Why might the ACU work when the now-defunct European Currency Unit, on which the concept is modeled, didn't? One good reason, as noted by economist Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, is that Europe's need for a parallel currency was satisfied by the dollar.
The ACU may well emerge as a viable currency for denominating export invoices, bank loans and bond issuances if the dollar is no longer perceived as a safe storage of value.
So far, Japan has been driving the ACU concept. Haruhiko Kuroda, a former Japanese vice minister of finance and currently the president of the Asian Development Bank, was vigorously pursuing it. The ADB was going to start computing and publishing several ACUs sometime this year.
China in Control
One such ACU would have comprised 13 members, including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the Korean won and the currencies of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines. Another ACU would have included both the yuan and the Taiwan dollar -- and that would have been anathema to China. Nor would China have liked to peg the yuan to an ACU that was overly dominated by the yen.
Now China has taken control. While the research will still be conducted in Japan, Asean will take the decision on the composition of the ACU. While Japan is a member of this club, its influence is in decline. The association is now firmly under China's thumb.
While China continues to exhort the U.S. not to follow weak- dollar policies, it, like everyone else, can only guess about the longevity of the present global imbalances.
If there is a sudden collapse in the dollar, the U.S. appetite for imported goods may vanish. The Chinese export engine may seize up and its fragile banking system may collapse under a spate of new bad loans. The idea behind the ACU is to buy some insurance, however inadequate, against all of this.
Stalemate
With its "my currency is your problem'' attitude, the U.S. has made a negotiated settlement of global imbalances a diplomatic non-starter. China isn't willing to consider the U.S. argument that quicker appreciation of the yuan may prevent a costly adjustment later.
Once again in Hyderabad, Undersecretary Adams tried valiantly to get this message across to Chinese Vice Finance Minister Li. He was wasting his breath.
Li, as Adams noted wryly, "knows all my talking points.''
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Fed set to raise rate
By Tim Ahmann
Reuters
May 10, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates on Wednesday to the highest level in five years and may use a post-meeting statement to open the door to a pause after 16 straight, well-telegraphed hikes.
Meeting for only the second time under the guiding hand of Chairman Ben Bernanke, the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee appears certain to raise the overnight federal funds rate by a quarter-percentage point to 5 percent.
The latest Fed salvo against inflation would take the benchmark lending rate to its highest level since April 2001, just after the U.S. economy slipped into recession.
The seeming certainty of the rate decision, which will be announced around 2:15 p.m. local time, stands in contrast to the questions surrounding what the Fed might say about its future plans in its post-meeting announcement.
Some economists think the widely anticipated rate increase will be the last in a cycle dating to June 2004; others think the economy's momentum will force the Fed to push credit costs higher to keep inflation tamped down, even if officials take no action at their subsequent meeting in June.
The heightened uncertainty is also in evidence at the central bank and policy-makers are expected to step back from guidance they offered after the last rate hike in March that "some further policy firming may be needed."
"The trick will be to choose language that prevents the market from finding guidance in the statement where none is intended," economist Lou Crandall of Wrightson ICAP said in a note to clients. But Crandall added the Fed would "have to be careful not to soften the language too much for fear of appearing to signal that the tightening cycle is over."
Economists at Goldman Sachs said carving out room for a possible pause after foreshadowing rate hikes for the past two years poses "an unprecedented challenge" for the Fed.
Bernanke told Congress two weeks ago the Fed could pause at some point, even if inflation risks were not entirely balanced, in order to assess incoming data and get a clearer sense of the economy's path.
He said, however, such a pause would not preclude further rate moves and economists expect the Fed's statement to indicate a willingness to continue to push rates higher.
"We believe the rate hike on Wednesday will mark the last of the current tightening cycle, but even if we are right and the Fed does move to the sidelines, it deliberately will not tell us the tightening cycle is over," David Rosenberg, North American economist at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a research note.
The difficulty of the Fed's task is underscored by the tension between the central bank's forecast of slower growth ahead with recent signs of bubbling inflation pressures.
The Fed's favored core consumer price gauge rose a stiff 0.3 percent in March, pushing the 12-month increase up to 2 percent -- the top of Bernanke's comfort zone. It appears inflation expectations are drifting up as well.
However, in a potential sign of slowing economic growth, the U.S. economy created only 138,000 jobs in April, far fewer than analysts had expected.
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More Errors Turn Up in Fannie Mae Review
By MARCY GORDON AP Business Writer
Associated Press
May 9, 2006, 5:21PM
WASHINGTON - Still more errors have turned up in Fannie Mae's government-ordered review of its accounting, the mortgage giant disclosed Tuesday. It also said it doesn't expect the review to be finished before the second half of the year.
The government-sponsored company, which finances one of every five home loans in the United States, said it had found accounting errors in addition to those it disclosed on March 13. Fannie Mae said it will miss a regulatory deadline Wednesday for filing its financial report for the first quarter.
Federal regulators in 2004 accused Fannie Mae of serious accounting problems and earnings manipulation to meet Wall Street targets, and the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered the company to restate earnings back to 2001 - a correction expected to reach an estimated $11 billion. The Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation.
The company also has said that it expects an upcoming internal report to show that its financial controls remained insufficient as recently as the end of last year.
"We have substantially completed a comprehensive review of our accounting policies and practices in order to determine whether these policies and practices are consistent" with standard accounting principles, Fannie Mae said in its filing Tuesday with the SEC. "Restating our financial statements is requiring a substantial amount of time and resources because the restatement entails significant complexities."
The company's president and CEO, Daniel Mudd, said in a conference call with analysts: "We've made progress. We've got some more to do."
Mudd acknowledged that the $800 million or so that Fannie Mae expects to spend this year on the massive reworking of its accounting was "quite frankly, higher than I can stomach."
Washington-based Fannie Mae said the newly disclosed accounting errors involve transactions in its business of buying home mortgages from banks and other lenders and bundling them into securities, and the guaranty fees it charges the banks and other lenders. The company said it could not yet determine the effect of the errors on its financial situation.
Similarly, Fannie Mae in March disclosed new accounting problems that had been uncovered in several areas, including loans, investment securities, houses acquired through foreclosures, interest on delinquent home loans, and reverse mortgages.
They all are in addition to the accounting-rule violations that came to light in September 2004 involving derivatives, the financial instruments Fannie Mae uses to hedge against swings in interest rates, and its mortgage commitments.
Fannie Mae, which is the second-largest U.S. financial institution after Citigroup Inc., also said Tuesday that it has reduced its estimate of the impact on the bottom line of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, to between $170 million and $280 million from the earlier estimated $250 million to $400 million.
The loss stems from Fannie Mae's guarantees of timely principal and interest payments on home loans and from its investment holdings of securities that are tied to mortgages in the areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Fannie Mae and its smaller government-sponsored sibling, Freddie Mac, suspended for several months foreclosures on homes in the hurricane disaster areas for mortgages they own.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by Congress to pump money into the $8 trillion home-mortgage market to keep interest rates low. They buy and guarantee repayment of billions of dollars of home loans each year from banks and other lenders, then bunch them together into securities that are resold to investors worldwide.
Freddie Mac, which had its own accounting scandal in 2003, has said that it will report its financial results for 2005 this month rather than in March, as previously planned, because it needed more time to institute a new method of valuing some assets. In March, Freddie Mac estimated its 2005 income at $2.5 billion, down from $2.9 billion in 2004.
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Dow Closes Up 55, Nasdaq Finishes Down 7
By CHRISTOPHER WANG
AP
May 9, 2006
NEW YORK - Wall Street ended Tuesday mixed, with an analyst's upgrade of General Motors Corp. carrying the Dow Jones industrials to a fresh six-year high and within reach of its best-ever close. Dell Inc.'s profit warning put a dent in the tech sector.
The Dow pressed toward its all-time closing high although investors anxiously awaited the Federal Reserve's next move on interest rates when policymakers meet Wednesday. Many on Wall Street are hoping the Fed will signal that an end to its rate tightening is near.
But analysts say the Dow is poised to break its record and could push higher.
Ken Tower, chief market strategist for Schwab's CyberTrader, said investors appeared increasingly optimistic about the market, especially after stocks held onto their sharp gains from the end of last week.
"People became much more bullish on Friday morning, and the fact they didn't sober up over the weekend is a very positive sign for the market," Tower said. "Of course, everything depends on the Fed. But at least for the moment, you have to look at the market in a positive light."
Dell said its first-quarter sales and profit will miss prior estimates, hurt by discounting as it fought to keep pace with competitors. Meanwhile, solid April sales at McDonald's Corp. were helping the Dow's advance and countering a rise in oil prices.
The Dow rose 55.23, or 0.48 percent, to 11,639.77. The index of 30 blue-chip stocks is 83 points from its all-time closing high of 11,722.98, reached Jan. 14, 2000.
Broader stock indicators finished mixed. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 0.48, or 0.04 percent, to 1,325.14, and the Nasdaq composite index slid 6.74, or 0.29 percent, to 2,338.25.
Bonds drifted lower ahead of the Fed's meeting, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rising to 5.13 percent from 5.11 percent late Monday.
The dollar also weakened against the Japanese yen as the market worried about higher interest rates affecting the amount of credit flowing into the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, gold prices soared to $700 an ounce as investors looked to hedge their losses, said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.
Crude futures marched forward amid persistent concerns about Iran's nuclear arms program. A barrel of light crude added 92 cents to settle at $70.69 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gasoline rose 4.3 cents to $2.047 a gallon
Wall Street had little reaction to a lower-than-expected rise in wholesale inventories. The Commerce Department said inventories grew just 0.2 percent in March after swelling 0.9 percent the month before, below estimates of 0.5 percent.
Dell plunged $1.23 to $25.20 on its warning. The news also weighed on chipmaker Intel Corp., which fell 21 cents to $19.90.
After the closing bell, networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. posted a slight drop in earnings despite revenue swelling 18 percent. Cisco lost 8 cents to $21.68 in regular trading and slid another 25 cents in after-hours activity.
Deutsche Bank lifted GM one notch to "hold," citing recent moves to generate liquidity and progress with its restructuring. GM rose $2.25 to $25.80.
McDonald's posted a 6.2 percent jump in global same-store sales, led by gains in Europe and the United States. McDonald's added 44 cents to $35.83.
Residential mortgage lender Fannie Mae said more errors have been uncovered in the government-ordered review of its accounting. Fannie Mae nonetheless rose $1.38 to $51.52.
Declining issues trailed advancers by 17 to 16 on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary consolidated volume of 2.26 billion led the 2.24 billion shares that changed hands Monday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 0.88, or 0.11 percent, to 780.72.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average lost 0.58 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.63 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.21 percent and France's CAC-40 was higher by 0.56 percent.
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Destroying Iraq
Eleven bodies found in Tigris near Baghdad
09 May 2006
Retuers
The bodies of 11 Iraqis, including the headless corpse of a 10-year-old boy, were found dumped in the Tigris river south of Baghdad on Tuesday, police sources said.
The bodies, nine of whom were beheaded, were discovered near the Sunni town of Suwayra, 25 miles southeast of Baghdad... All had their hands tied.
olice said the victims had been killed four or five days ago. All had their hands tied.
Police could not confirm the motive for the killing but sectarian violence has increased sharply since the February 22 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine sparked a wave of reprisals.
The dumping of bodies -- many of them bearing signs of torture -- is a common occurrence in
Iraq.
Comment: I'm going to go out on a limb here and use a little logic. There is absolutely NO WAY that the killings of ordinary Iraqis over the past 6 months are being carried out by other ordinary Iraqis. It is also inconceiveable that any real Islamic terrorist group would find it profitable in any way to behead 10 year old Iraqi boys.
The only groups that stand to benefit from the appearance or reality of civil war in Iraq are those countries that are bogged down in a war with these same ordinary Iraqis. There is nothing new about the strategy of invading a country and then actively trying to create the apperance that the conflict is an "internal sectarian" one. It has been done countless times in recent history. This kind of campaign is currently being waged at present in Iraq by agents of the Israeli, American and British military and intelligence agencies. The murders are probably being carried out by well-paid groups of international "mercenaries" who are willing to kill anyone for the right price.
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Five Iraqis escape US military prison
Reuters
May 10, 2006
BAGHDAD - Five suspected insurgents have escaped from a U.S. military prison in Kurdish northern Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said on Wednesday.
There was no sign of the men, who security sources said were Iraqis, more than 24 hours after Tuesday's overnight breakout.
"They escaped in the early morning hours May 9," spokesman Keir-Kevin Curry said. "The incident is under investigation."
The remaining inmates were all accounted for.
It was the first such escape from Fort Suse, one of three main prisons for "security detainees" suspected or convicted of rebellion, Curry said. He said he was unaware of breakouts from other U.S. facilities in Iraq, including
Abu Ghraib in Baghdad.
On the latest figures, the U.S. military is holding more than 14,000 people in Iraq, many of them from the Sunni minority that is the center of the insurgency against the new government.
Fort Suse, built by Soviet engineers as a military base in 1977, lies near the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya. It holds about 1,300 inmates. U.S. personnel have been training Iraqis there to take over guard duties.
U.S. guards have thwarted escape attempts at other jails, including a bid to tunnel out of Camp Bucca, the biggest such detention center, close to the southern border with Kuwait.
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Defending the Indefensible
William Fisher
Tuesday 09 May 2006
After years of ignoring the United Nations panel charged with oversight of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) - a centerpiece of international human rights law - the US government turned up at a meeting of the group in Geneva with a delegation of more than two dozen lawyers and other officials to affirm that the US is "absolutely committed to uphold its national and international obligations to eradicate torture" and that "there are no exceptions to this prohibition."
That's what I call chutzpah!
The government's theory must be that the more lawyers you bring to Geneva, the easier it will be to bob and weave your way around those pesky questions people keep asking about Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo, renditions and secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
Especially if your delegation doesn't include anyone from the CIA.
Heading this delegation of representatives from the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, is State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III.
With an absolutely straight face, Bellinger told the Committee Against Torture that despite instances of abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the US has not systematically mistreated prisoners and remained committed to a global ban on torture.
But members of the panel referred to a report by investigators for the European Parliament who said last month they had evidence that the CIA had flown 1,000 undeclared flights over Europe since 2001, in some cases transporting terrorist suspects abducted within the European Union to countries known to use torture.
Bellinger said he could not answer questions about intelligence-related activities, but asserted that the allegation that those planes carried terror suspects was an "absurd insinuation."
He added that in cases where the government has "rendered" prisoners to countries with poor human rights records, it has sought assurances that they will not be tortured.
But the panel wasn't buying the "diplomatic assurances" argument. "The very fact that you are asking for diplomatic assurances means you are in doubt," said Andreas Mavrommatis, chairman of the committee.
The "diplomatic assurances" charade has been known - and discredited - for years. But "rendition" is a policy the administration defends, saying it helps to get dangerous individuals out of the US.
In one of the better-publicized cases of "rendition," Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained by US authorities after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport from a vacation in North Africa. Instead of being allowed to continue his journey to Canada, he was detained by US officials, then shipped off to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and tortured. He tried to sue the US government, but his suit was dismissed because the Justice Department argued that trial would involve divulging "state secrets" in open court.
In another "rendition" case, a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, was abducted while on vacation in Macedonia in December 2003 and flown to Afghanistan, where he remained in jail without charge until late May 2004, when he was taken to a deserted country road and set free. He too has brought suit against the US government.
Bellinger also defended the US decision not to grant prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Terrorist suspects could pose a threat to security if allowed to meet with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as stipulated by the Geneva Conventions, he said.
The rationale of such a security threat has clearly been applied by the Bush administration to the alleged key figures in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubeida. These men are being held in undisclosed locations without access to the Red Cross or to legal counsel, and have reportedly been subjected to "aggressive interrogation" techniques such as "waterboarding," in which the prisoner is led to believe he is drowning. And at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the government has Mohamed al-Qahtani, who it now claims is the real would-be 20th hijacker.
Many legal experts believe that US treatment of these suspects is the principal reason they will never be tried in a court of law, civilian or military. It is unlikely that either would admit evidence obtained through torture.
That's one reason the Justice Department made such a big deal of the trial, conviction and sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was clearly a bit player in al-Qaeda who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. He was found guilty of conspiracy and of lying to the FBI, thereby preventing the government from taking actions to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The government sought the death penalty, but the jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release.
Meanwhile, back in Geneva, attorney Bellinger offered a self-congratulatory tribute to US commitment to the rule of law. "The timing of our report comes at a difficult time for the United States," he said. "But we did not shy away from coming."
Members of the panel were clearly unimpressed. Some expressed skepticism about aspects of the American presentation. For example, Fernando Mariño Menendez of Spain cited data from human rights groups saying that of 600 American service members or intelligence officers accused of having been involved in the torture or murder of detainees, only 10 have received prison terms of a year or more.
Addressing reporters after the hearing concluded, Bellinger said that provisions in the torture convention that prohibit transferring detainees to countries where they could be tortured do not apply to detainee "transfers that take place outside of the United States." He added, however, that the US has "as a policy matter, applied exactly the same standards" to such transfers.
Members of the US delegation also emphasized that there have been "relatively few actual cases of abuse" of terror detainees, and Bellinger said that some allegations have been widely exaggerated.
Deputy US Assistant Defense Secretary Charles Stimson told the UN panel that of the 120 detainee deaths that have occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq, abuse was suspected in only 29 cases. He said that the deaths had been investigated and appropriate action taken. Stimson also said that no detainees have died at Guantanamo Bay.
For years, Bush administration officials have argued that international human rights laws should not constrain the conduct of United States forces. By sending its oversized delegation to Geneva, the administration is belatedly seeking to restore credibility to its record on prisoner treatment by affirming support for the CAT.
But pulling off that sleight of hand is going to take a lot more than a couple of dozen lawyers turning up in Geneva.
They could start by including a CIA representative in our next delegation to Geneva.
Then President Bush could rescind the "signing statement" he attached to the McCain anti-torture legislation, effectively giving himself the right to ignore the law whenever he says it's in the interest of national security.
That's known as Dubya's Rule of Law.
William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and in many other parts of the world for the US State Department and USAID for the past thirty years. He began his work life as a journalist for newspapers and for the Associated Press in Florida. Go to The World According to Bill Fisher for more.
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Iraq: UN report cites vast under-nutrition among children
IRIN
05/09/06
One in three Iraqi children is malnourished and underweight, according to a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Amman on 2 May.
"Under-nutrition should not be accepted in a country like Iraq, with its wealth of resources," said UNICEF Special Representative for Iraq Roger Wright from the Jordanian capital, Amman. Wright added that ongoing insecurity served to deter parents from visiting health centres for essential services, while many health workers had been kidnapped or killed in different parts of the country.
According to the report, a full 25 percent of Iraqi children between six months and five years old suffer from either acute or chronic malnutrition. A 2004 Living Conditions Survey indicated a decrease in mortality rates among children under five years old since 1999. However, the results of a September 2005 Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis - commissioned by Iraq's Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology, the World Food Programme and UNICEF - showed worsening conditions since the April 2003 US-led invasion of the country.
The problem is particularly dire in the south, especially in the provinces of Basra, Diala, Najaf, Qadissiyah, Salahuddin and Wasit, due primarily to a lack of health funding. Health ministry officials acknowledge that the public health situation remains below international standards, but expressed hope that the recently formed government in Baghdad would provide more funding.
"We expect that, with the new government, more investment will be made to the health sector and more children will be saved," said senior ministry official Khalid Jomaa, who went on to complain that much of the funds initially earmarked for public health had been diverted to security issues.
Aggravating the situation further is the fact that recent price increases for fruits and vegetables have made it harder for families to provide their children with balanced diets. "My son is suffering from malnutrition because I can't afford to give him a balanced diet," said mother of three Salua Kamar. "With my large family, it's impossible to buy good food for all of them."
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Afghanistan, Iraq Near Top Of Infant Mortality Table
May 9, 2006
RFE/RL
PRAGUE - A new study says Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq are among the countries with the highest death rates for newborns in the world.
The study by the U.S.-based independent charity Save the Children says the African nation of Liberia has the world's highest newborn mortality rate, with 65 out of 1,000 babies dying.
The report says Liberia is followed by Afghanistan, where 60 out of every 1,000 babies die.
Behind them come Iraq and Sierra Leone, with 59 of 1,000 newborns dying, and Pakistan, which has a rate of 58 deaths.
The report says illiteracy, poverty, malnutrition, poor hygiene, and crippled health-care systems are among the factors contributing to the high rates of death among infants and mothers during or soon after birth.
Save the Children's senior health adviser, Regina Keith, told RFE/RL said that one of the reasons for Afghanistan's high mortality rate is that many women give birth at home. "We know that if you have a skilled attendant delivering your baby, the likelihood of that child dying, for example, from not being able to breath or [from] infection, is less," she said.
The study says Scandinavian countries, led by Sweden, are the best places for a mother's health. The United States and Britain tie for 10th position, while the impoverished African country of Niger was ranked at the bottom of the 125 countries surveyed.
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Medical Mendacity
Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law
Monday, 05/08/06
By BILL THEOBALD
Tennessean Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist secretly amended into a bill to shield them from lawsuits, according to e-mails obtained by a public advocacy group.
E-mails and documents written by a trade group for the vaccine-makers show the organization met privately with Frist's staff and the White House about measures that would give the industry protection from lawsuits filed by people hurt by the vaccines.
The communications were made public in a report released this week by the group Public Citizen. Its study follows a February story in The Tennessean that Frist, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered the vaccine liability language inserted in a defense spending bill in December without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice.
The group, called the Biotechnology Industry Organization, wanted such language in the bill, the e-mails reflect.
"At Senator Frist's staff's request, this morning, BIO (Tom and I) participated in a meeting with three other industry representatives (Sanofi and an outside counsel who works for both Pfizer and Roche, I believe), administration staff (HHS, DoJ and WH Leg Affairs), and Liz Hall to further discuss liability," BIO official Dave Boyer wrote in a November e-mail obtained by Public Citizen.
In a written statement, Frist spokeswoman Amy Call stated that the senator had promised publicly to include the vaccine liability protection in the defense spending bill. She did not address the issue of the influence of industry lobbyists.
The statement points out that the Public Citizen board includes prominent trial lawyers and liberals. "Trial lawyers oppose these provisions because it will strip them of the ability to line their pockets at the expense of the American public," Call said.
Frist and the White House reached out to the industry, according to the communications cited by Public Citizen, and Boyer, chief lobbyist for the industry group, was asked to provide an analysis of draft legislation.
The group asked that the legislation make clear that a vaccine maker could only be successfully sued if "willful misconduct" on its part were proved. The law includes that standard and says a company is protected from claims of negligence or recklessness.
The analysis, which Public Citizen quoted from, included BIO's concerns that the draft bill would have still allowed people hurt by vaccines to get jury trials.
"The lack of any restriction on jury trial is problematic," the analysis said. "Where injured parties have no other avenue for relief, juries are likely to find ways to award damages."
In another e-mail, Boyer described a meeting in which a deputy of Bush strategist Karl Rove said it was "important to the President that a bill move this year," and said "they had invited industry to discuss what they understood to be a few key remaining points" of contention.
"The intimacy of this, we think, is quite unusual," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, about the relationship between the organization's lobbyists, Frist and the Bush administration. "We think it is an interesting case study of how the inside operation works in Washington."
In a January interview with The Tennessean, Frist denied the vaccine liability provisions were added improperly. Later, when others challenged his version of events, Call simply restated Frist's commitment to protecting people from a bioterror emergency.
Frist and other backers say the law is needed to boost the number of vaccine makers. Vaccine shortages during last year's flu season along with fears of a pandemic of bird flu or a bioterror attack have prompted interest in building up the country's lagging vaccine industry. The legal protections kick in only when the secretary of health and human services declares a public health emergency.
Alan Eisenberg, executive vice president for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said the group's "staff acted with the utmost integrity and professionalism, as they do on all issues."
"BIO staff regularly comment on proposed legislation from, and meet with, Democrat and Republican lawmakers and their staffs alike all the time," Eisenberg said.
Comment: Hmmm...sounds like they are planning mass innoculations with suspect vaccines...
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Journals 'regularly publish fraudulent research'
May 3, 2006
The Guardian
Fraudulent research regularly appears in the 30,000 scientific journals published worldwide, a former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said today.
Even when journals discover that published research is fabricated or falsified they rarely retract the findings, according to Richard Smith, who was also chief executive of the BMJ publishing group. Writing in the latest edition of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr Smith called on editors to blow the whistle on bad research and to use their clout to pressure universities into taking action against dodgy researchers.
The former BMJ editor said it was likely that research fraud was "equally common" in the 30,000 plus scientific journals across the globe but was "invariably covered up". His call for action comes in the wake of several high profile cases of fraudulent research, including the Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk who fabricated stem cell research that it was claimed would open up new ways to treat diseases like Parkinson's.
Dr Smith criticised the failure of scientific institutions, including universities, to discipline dodgy researchers even when alerted to problems by journals. "Few countries have measures in place to ensure research is carried out ethically," he said. "Most cases are not publicised. They are simply not recognised, covered up altogether or the guilty researcher is urged to retrain, move to another institution or retire from research."
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MoD tests on animals have doubled to 21,000 a year
Scotsman
10/05/2006
BRITAIN's military use of animal testing has almost doubled in five years, official figures have revealed.
The Ministry of Defence statistics show that the defence laboratory at Porton Down is now using more than 21,000 animals a year for testing.
The bulk of the animals used for vivisection at the Wiltshire site are mice, but tests have also been conducted on monkeys, pigs, cows and sheep.
While most of the animals are believed to be used in the development of vaccines and other protective technologies, campaigners say some have been used in the creation and testing of weapons systems.
The military's increasing use of animals comes as civilian use of animal testing in cosmetic and medical research is falling, largely driven by public opinion and ever more vocal animal rights activists.
Some estimates suggest that commercial animal testing has halved in the last three decades.
Detailed figures released by the MoD yesterday showed that in 2000, Porton Down used 11,985 animals in its tests. By last year, that figure had risen to 21,118.
Mice make up the vast majority of the animals used at Porton Down. Last year, the research station used 20,016 mice in experiments, up from 10,856 in 2000. But larger animals are also routinely used. Last year, 54 "non-human primates" were subjected to experiments, an increase from 2000, when 34 monkeys were used. The MoD has previously identified the primates it uses as rhesus macaques and common marmosets.
The precise details of the tests were not disclosed. The MoD said only that the animals are used in research including "novel haemorrhage control", "burn protection", the treatment of acute lung injuries and the development of "medical counter-measures".
Mike Hancock, the Liberal Democrat MP whose parliamentary questions exposed the testing figures last night, said he was "horrified" and pledged to table more questions seeking precise details of the tests and asking if any research was being undertaken for foreign governments.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a campaign group, also condemned the military use of animal testing. "Animals don't wage wars; why should they be made to suffer because humans do?" asked a PETA spokeswoman. "Most people would be horrified to know that their tax money is being used to fund these wasteful and cruel experiments."
But Adam Ingram, a defence minister, insisted that the tests are carried out only when there is no alternative.
"Porton Down only undertakes research involving the use of animals when other 'in vitro', physical and computer modelling methods are unsuitable," Mr Ingram said as he published the new figures in parliament. He added that all military testing follows the widespread scientific principles of trying to refine, reduce and replace animal tests wherever possible.
In 1994, some Labour Party spokesmen suggested the party in government would forbid the use of animals in the testing and development of weapons.
But since Labour came to office in 1997, such testing has increased. Porton Down has experimented on more than 100,000 animals since 1997.
Comment: Animal testing isn't the only activity that goes on at the infamous Porton Down. See this link for more.
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Enviornmental Excess
Shell says oil spills up 50 pct in 2005
Reuters
Tue May 9, 2006
LONDON - Royal Dutch Shell Plc said on Tuesday oil spills at its facilities rose 50 percent in 2005 due to hurricane damage in the Gulf of Mexico and sabotage in Nigeria.
Shell missed its target to reduce spills, with discharges rising to 9,000 tonnes from 6,100 tonnes in 2004, the Anglo-Dutch company said in its annual Sustainability Report.
Shell lost 3,900 tonnes due to hurricane damage, while the bombing of a major pipeline in Nigeria by ethnic militants in December led to a 340 tonne spill, which reversed a downward trend in that country.
Shell said it remained on track to cut gas flaring in Nigeria by its revised deadline of 2009.
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Chinas Three Gorges Dam To Be Completed On May 20
AFP
May 09, 2006
Beijing - Construction of China's Three Gorges Dam, set to become the world's largest hydroelectric power project, will be completed nine months ahead of schedule on May 20, state media reported Monday.
The dam would be finished on that date though several of the giant generators would still need to be installed, Xinhua news agency said, citing the China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation.
"There are less than 3,000 cubic meters (105,000 cubic feet) of concrete left to be placed before the dam is finally completed," said Cao Guangjing, the corporation's deputy general manager.
The generators were expected to be installed by the end of 2008 when the dam's full power production was due to come on line, the report said.
The project, launched in 1993 in the middle reaches of China's longest river, the Yangtze, will have cost 180 billion yuan (22 billion dollars).
China's government says the dam, 2,309 meters (7,600 feet) long, will generate much needed power, prevent flooding and benefit shipping.
The scheme has been criticized for its huge cost and its unproven capacity to control floods.
Critics have also cited environmental problems, including silt accumulation and pollution controls in hundreds of cities and villages that have been created for people displaced to make way for the dam.
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Ark's Quantum Quirks
Ark
Signs of the Times
May 10, 2006
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