Gold closed at 619.00 dollars an ounce on Friday, down 1.9% from $631.00 at the close of the previous Friday. The dollar closed at 0.7645 euros Friday, up 0.9% from 0.7574 euros at the close of the week before. The euro closed at 1.3080 dollars, compared to $1.3202 at the close of the previous Friday. Gold in euros would be 473.24 euros an ounce, down 1.0% from 477.96 for the week. Oil closed at 63.43 dollars a barrel Friday, up 2.3% from $62.03 at the close of the week before. Oil in euros would be 48.49 euros a barrel, up 3.2% from 46.99 for the week. The gold/oil ratio closed at 9.76 Friday, down 4.2% from 10.17 at the close of the week before. In U.S. stocks, the Dow closed at 12,445.52 Friday, up 1.1% from 12,307.49 at the close of the previous Friday. The NASDAQ closed at 2,457.20 Friday, up 0.8% from 2,437.36 for the week. In U.S. interest rates, the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.59%, up four basis points from 4.55 for the week.
Augusto Pinochet died last week. Add to that the death of his groupie, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and his economic mentor, Milton Friedman, and it really does seem like the end of an era. Good riddance to them all.
The mainstream press in the United States attempted a "balanced" portrayal of Pinochet. That in itself speaks volumes:
Mourning for Pinochet - US establishment shows its affinity for fascism
Bill Van Auken
13 December 2006If the political events of the past six years have demonstrated anything, it is that there exists within America's ruling establishment no genuine commitment to democratic rights or democratic forms of rule. In the relatively short period since 2000, the US ruling elite has overseen the theft of a national election, the launching of an illegal war, the abrogation of the most basic constitutional rights and the legalization of torture.
This week's death of the aged former US-backed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has provided one more verification of this general political trend.
While in Chile itself, the death of an individual who exercised a reign of terror for 17 years sparked spontaneous celebrations - tinged by deep regret that he was allowed to die in a military hospital rather than in the prison cell he so richly deserved - within the most influential layers of America's corporate and financial elite, his demise was the occasion for both mourning and tributes.
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, for example, carried an editorial Tuesday entitled "The Pinochet Paradox." The paper's editorial board, which generally reflects the right-wing views within the Bush White House itself, cautioned its readers that Pinochet's "real story is more complicated" than that of a military dictator who abolished liberties.
The editorial is laced with gross distortions and outright lies. It claims, for example, "The popular notion that the US sanctioned the coup or condoned Pinochet's torture hasn't held up under historical scrutiny." On the contrary, documents released by the Clinton administration (though the most incriminating evidence from the CIA and Pentagon still remains classified) make quite clear that the US government was fully informed of plans for the September 11, 1973 coup - as well as the killings and torture that followed - and fully supported it. Moreover, they confirmed the role of the Nixon and Ford administrations in seeking to quell international criticism of the barbaric regime established by Pinochet.
The Journal goes on to advance a back-handed argument that the coup was justified in any case. "Contrary to mythology [Chile's Socialist Party President Salvador] Allende was never a popular figure in Chile."
By 1972, the Journal claims, the Allende government had itself become repressive, threatening "to jail journalists," a false charge that was first floated by the CIA as part of its destabilization campaign. In fact, the right-wing press, which the CIA helped fund and write, remained free to carry out provocations up until the coup itself.
The editorial also condemns Allende for "shortages and spiraling inflation" under his government, conditions that were due in large measure to the Nixon administration's stated intention to "make the economy scream" in order to facilitate Allende's ouster. Credit and exports were cut off, while money was poured in to provide covert aid to business-organized strikes that crippled sectors of the economy.
"The official death toll of the Pinochet dictatorship is some 3,197," the Journal states. "An estimated 2,796 of those died in the first two weeks of fighting between the army and Allende-armed militias."
Really? How many army personnel died in this "fighting"? According to most credible estimates, a total of 33 people died on the day of the coup itself, less than half of them military or police personnel, some of whom were shot for refusing to support the army's action. The thousands upon thousands who died afterwards - and most credible estimates put the number killed at anywhere between three and ten times the official count - were abducted, tortured and murdered in concentration camps and secret prisons without ever being charged, much less tried.
There was no "fighting" beyond the most scattered and unequal acts of resistance precisely because Allende had rejected demands by the most militant sections of Chilean workers for arms.
By willfully distorting these facts, the Journal's editors justify and sanction mass murder and torture. Of course, the editorial acknowledges that "Civil liberties were lost and opponents tortured." However, the Journal continues, "over time, with the return of private property, the rule of law and a freer economy, democratic institutions also returned."
There may have been "dark times," but today, "What remains is a Chile that has the healthiest economy in Latin America..." In other words, the bloodbath and barbarism unleashed upon the Chilean people was well worth the effort.
Similarly, the Washington Post carried a Tuesday editorial headlined "A Dictator's Double Standard," with the subtitle, "Augusto Pinochet tortured and murdered. His legacy is Latin America's most successful country."
This piece likewise seeks a "balanced" approach, while deriding the ex-dictator's critics. "For some he was the epitome of an evil dictator," the editorial states. "That was partly because he helped to overthrow, with US support, an elected president considered saintly by the international left: socialist Salvador Allende, whose responsibility for creating the conditions for the 1973 coup is usually overlooked."
While acknowledging that thousands were killed, tens of thousands tortured and hundreds of thousands exiled, the Post quickly adds, "It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America." It credits Pinochet for "free market policies" that produced "the Chilean economic miracle."
What is the nature of this "miracle" that they all celebrate? For the likes of the well-heeled and self-satisfied publishers and editors at the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, Chile is a miracle because they can stay at five-star hotels, eat at gourmet restaurants and visit upscale shopping malls in Santiago, while earning handsome returns on investments in Chilean stocks.
Conditions of life for the masses of workers and poor who inhabit the slums outside the circle of skyscrapers and luxury housing reserved for Chile's rich and their foreign counterparts, as far as they are concerned, are beside the point.
This myth of the "Chilean miracle" and the supposed credit due Pinochet for laying foundations - built with the blood and bones of his tens of thousands of victims - for a free-market renaissance are repeated ad nauseam by virtually every section of the mass media.
According to government statistics, over 20 percent of Chile's population lives in poverty. But this official count does not include retired workers and the disabled subsisting on woefully inadequate pensions; many think the real poverty rate is closer to 40 percent.
The country ranks as one of the most socially unequal in the world. This is the real legacy of the Pinochet regime and the reign of terror it unleashed against the Chilean working class. Between 1980 and 1989, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population saw its share of the national income climb from 36.5 percent to 46.8 percent. During the same period, the 50 percent of the population at the bottom of the income ladder saw their share plummet from 20.4 to 16.8 percent.
In the aftermath of the coup, Chile saw the steepest fall in real wages and sharpest increase in unemployment ever recorded in Latin America. The dictatorship ushered in social conditions for working people that can only be compared with those that prevailed during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Between 1974 and 1975, the unemployment rate more than doubled from 9.1 to 18.7 percent. By 1983, the country was plunged into economic freefall, with nearly 35 percent of the workforce jobless and manufacturing down by 28 percent. These desperate conditions sparked a new wave of working class struggles that were ruthlessly repressed, with tens of thousands rounded up again.
The vast transfer of social wealth from the working class to a financial and corporate oligarchy affected by the dictatorship took the most brutal forms. By the time Pinochet surrendered the presidency, the average diet for the poorest 40 percent of the population had fallen from 2,019 calories a day to just 1,629. Meanwhile the percentage of Chileans left without adequate housing had risen from 27 to 40 percent.
The "miracle" was granted to the wealthiest layers of society along with the military and its political cronies. They enriched themselves through the plundering of the working class and state property. Wholesale privatizations were carried out without any rules or scrutiny, in what amounted to a vast robbery of social resources. Pinochet's personal participation in this corrupt process has come to light in the form of some $27 million squirreled away in secret overseas bank accounts.
Under the constitution dictated by Pinochet, the government has been barred from even investigating this orgy of corporate criminality - what the Wall Street Journal sanctimoniously refers to as "the return of private property, the rule of law and a freer economy."
High unemployment, low wages, high interest rates and a workforce compelled to labor at the point of a gun meant super profits for both domestic and foreign capital, at the price of hunger and poverty for millions. This is the "miracle's" material substance.
Those who pen editorials using such end results to justify rounding up tens of thousands of workers, intellectuals, students - men, women and children - subjecting them to unspeakable torture and summarily executing them in soccer stadiums are themselves fascists in all but name only.
The defense of Pinochet and the "balanced" approach to torture chambers and military firing squads taken by the US establishment media constitutes an unmistakable political warning.
The emergence of a mass movement of the American working class capable of challenging the monopoly over wealth and political power exercised by the financial oligarchy will be met with similar methods. If the corporate and financial interests that rule America were to see themselves losing power to a socialist party committed to ending the subordination of society to private profit and the accumulation of vast personal wealth, they too would search for a fascist general prepared to carry out slaughter on a far greater scale than in Chile.
The blogger, "By Neddie Jingo" lived in Pinochet's Chile as an American teenager with diplomatic immunity. When a person lives through the experience of tanks in the streets, that person is forever changed; he or she will never say, "It can't happen here."
Pinochet Passes By
June, 1975: Santiago de ChileTuesday, December 12, 2006
Your Ned, the son of an American diplomat, is a sophomore at an international school at the farthest edge of town, in the Andean foothills. His anti-authoritarian teenaged years in their fullest pimply bloom, he insists, despite his parents' entreaties (or, who knows, perhaps because of them) on affecting the uniform of the Pissed-Off 1975 Teen: the long, ratty hair, jeans worn through at the knee, the general surliness.
In a fascist dictatorship -- gun emplacements on the public thoroughfare, DINA agents prowling the streets in unmarked cars ready to pounce and "disappear" you to torture chambers on Dawson Island, itchy-trigger-fingered Carabineros on street corners stopping any random passerby who looked vaguely "socialist" -- the Pissed-Off 1975 Teen look is the sort of thing that the Authorities lick their chops at. It's utterly impossible to understand, in a cosmopolitan democracy, the raw, adrenaline-pumping fear that can gnaw at your vitals when you can be hauled off the street at any instant for the way you dress. I'm sorry, punk rockers and Disaffected Victims of the Man: you can't know. There is no comparison. I came to dread with a sickly nausea those knee-trembling moments when a machine-gun-wielding cop would pick me out of a crowded sidewalk, step in front of me, and accost me for my ID: "A ver, joven..."
And I was safe! I was untouchable! I had Diplomatic Immunity! I had a diplomatic carnet de identidad that rendered me literally untouchable! Most of my friends were theoretically untouchable, too -- but try explaining that to my pal Joe, son of the Bolivian chargé d' affaires, who got his knee broken in just such an encounter. He'd forgotten his wallet. Boom. Rifle butt to the patella. Don't forget, punk.
The trip to school that year was a bouncy, uncomfortable ride with several other kids in the back of a covered pickup truck. A few families had banded together, hired a driver for the duty. Our outbound trip wound its way through Santiago's fashionable districts, picking up kids, then out to Calle Las Condes for the drive to the beautiful foothills.
One morning, we were going down a one-way street on our usual route. Minding our own business. Obeying the speed limit. Being good citizens. Out of nowhere, coming directly at us, came two motorcycle cops, gesticulating wildly -- get out of the way! Get out of the way!
On a one-way street. Going the wrong way.
Directly into oncoming traffic.
The motorcycles were followed by several police cars, Carabineros leaning out the windows, also waving their arms. One of the cars slowed momentarily, and a particularly vehement cop shouted directly into our drivers' face; apparently the rather deft dive the driver had made onto a spare patch of sidewalk hadn't been fast enough to please him.
Then a Mercedes limousine passed imperiously by, oblivious to the strewn traffic on either side of the quiet city street. A profile in an ornate military peaked cap, distinctive brush moustache clearly visible, adorned the opened back window. Generál Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, Presidente de la República de Chile.
It's a good thing those Carabineros were so preoccupied ahead, clearing the way for the Great Man. I'm not sure they would have taken kindly to the Pissed-Off 1975 Teen Neddie's upraised middle finger that extended from the back of the truck.
I hope dying hurt a whole lot, you rat-faced son of a bitch. I hope you suffered the tortures of the damned. I hope no one wiped your brow or comforted you while you suffered and died. I hope you died alone.
When a commenter on the post wrote, "I hate these a*******," "Neddie" responded:
I think the lesson I took away from Pinochet's Chile, Pinko, is that the feeling's mutual.
I don't mean that facetiously; I mean that at the deepest and ugliest recesses of their Ids, they hate you, and want to kill you. And by you, I mean anything that bears even the tiniest, most passing whiff of danger to their power.
Another commenter wrote:
[W]hen people insist that It Couldn't Happen Here, [they are] ignoring recent reports of cops and security guards insisting on arbitrary "security" measures--forbidding photographers to take pictures of buildings that have already been photographed thousands of times, or making nursing mothers drink their own bottled breast milk in airports to prove that it's not some sort of liquid explosive--and getting furious and even more punitive when they're challenged...
It seems like the new U.S. fascism is coming gradually, unlike in Chile when it came all at once on September 11, 1973.
Next week: More on hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists and the way forward.
Just before recessing on Friday, the US House of Representatives and Senate approved the Department of State Authorities Act of 2006, which includes an aid package for Israel. The new aid package comes on top of the annual US aid package for Israel, as well as special packages, such as for the Arrow anti-ballistic missile program.
The Act will now be sent to President George W. Bush for signing. The bill extends the US loan guarantees for Israel by three years, to 2011. This was the second extension sought by Israel; the guarantees were earlier extended until the end of 2008.
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When a Christian group shot a video inside the Pentagon that featured uniformed senior military officers talking about their evangelical faith, Mikey Weinstein went on the attack. Himself a former Air Force lawyer and Air Force Academy grad, Weinstein, who is Jewish, is the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He founded the MRFF earlier this year to oppose the spread of religious intimidation in a military increasingly dominated by evangelical Christians.
On Monday, Weinstein held a press conference in Washington, D.C., to announce that he was asking the Department of Defense's inspector general to look into the video, and determine whether the people who appeared in it -- Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack J. Catton Jr.; Army Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks, the former public affairs director of the Army; and Undersecretary of the Army Pete Geren -- had violated military regulations. He also filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the government to find out who, if anyone, had approved the video shoot.
Bob Varney, the executive director of Christian Embassy, the group that made the video, tells Salon he believes no regulations were violated, and he says Weinstein's allegations about increased evangelical influence within the military are wrong.
"I don't understand how one could come to that kind of conclusion," Varney says. "The military believes in religious freedom, it offers religious freedom, it therefore offers people of different religions to express them, and we're one among a number of different religions that are working in the Armed Services."
Weinstein spoke with Salon Tuesday afternoon.
The Christian Embassy is now saying it had permission to film this inside the Pentagon. Were you surprised to hear that?
Not at all. They're damned if they do, they're damned if they don't. If they said they didn't have permission, they would have been blown away. Having permission, to me, just shows the complicity. We have a systemic problem. You sound like you're too young to remember Robert Redford in "Three Days of the Condor," but the premise of that movie was that there was a CIA within the CIA. We have a virulently dominionist, fundamentalist evangelical Christian element within the Pentagon. They would prefer this to be the "Pentecostalgon," not the Pentagon. That's what they would prefer. They're trying to turn the Pentagon into a frickin' faith-based initiative, and that is not what our military is about.
These are the people who, when I talk to senior members of the military at the flag-level rank -- I don't know if you're familiar with what that means, that means admiral or general -- that have looked at me and said, "Come on, Mikey, what's your problem? We have the cure to cancer. If you had the cure to cancer, wouldn't you want to spread the word?" They don't realize when they say it, they don't have the mental wherewithal to understand that to a person who isn't an evangelical Christian, you're calling our faith a cancer.
What's wrong with this video?
I'm trying to think where to start. It is absolutely violative of a mountain of Department of Defense internal regulations, guidelines, core values, instructions, making it very clear that members of the military can not endorse any one particular political position, partisan religious view, they can't hold up a tube of toothpaste like Colgate and push it. Irrespective of that, it's also blatantly violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and at least as important it's violative of Clause 3, Article 6 of the Constitution -- you don't even have to get into the Bill of Rights -- which states that we will never have a religion test for any position in the federal government, which was brilliantly prescient of our Founding Fathers.
This, to me, constitutes as much of a national security threat to this country as al-Qaida. In fact, the video itself, to me, would be the No. 1 recruiting tool that I would expect bin Laden, the followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, although he's dead, Ayman al Zawahiri, Hezbollah with Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, to get angry young Islamic men and women in Iran, Syria and Lebanon to join the insurrection and jihadi terrorist activities. This would be a perfect accelerant to create even further conflagration.
Now, I was a JAG [judge advocate general, the lawyers who act as prosecutors and defense attorneys within the military] in the Air Force. I spent three and a half years as a lawyer for President Ronald Reagan in the West Wing, I've been Ross Perot's general counsel. I know the religious right would love to vilify me as a tree-hugging Northern California Sierra Club membership chardonnay-sipping liberal -- not that there'd be anything wrong with that, to wax Seinfeldian -- but I'm not. I'm a Republican. And my family has a very, very long and distinguished military history. We have three consecutive generations of military academy graduates, and my youngest son, who's at the Air Force Academy now, he's a senior, what's called a first classman, is the sixth member of my family to attend the academy. We have 115 years of combined active-duty military service to this country in my immediate family from every combat engagement from World War I to the current one, and this is a pernicious torturing of what our military is supposed to be about.
Of course, I realize people have religious rights. We only have about 2,200 chaplains in each of the military branches; every base has multiple chapels, and these people can pray all they want to themselves, like kids in school can pray to themselves, but when you're in the military, and you're coming in like that one person, Catton, whom I knew when I was a kid at the [Air Force] Academy, and he goes, "I share my faith, that's who I am, and let me tell you right now, the hierarchy as an old-fashioned American is that your first duty is to the Lord, second to your family and your third is to your country." That is the exact opposite of what is taught, and for anyone who understands anything about the military, it is always the country first. When you're told, "Troopers, we're going to go take that hill," you can't stop, fall to your knees and see what your particular version of Moses, Vishnu, Satan, Jesus, Mohammed, Allah, whatever they're going to say, and then quickly make a cellphone call to your family. So it is beyond-the-pale egregious, it is a national security threat every bit as bad as al-Qaida, and these people should be court-martialed.
Forty percent of active-duty military personnel consider themselves evangelical Christians. Is your position popular in the military?
We have 702 U.S. military installations scattered in 132 countries around the world, and I get calls 24/7 from the soldiers, Marines and airmen. Unlike cops, they don't have a union, they have my foundation, that's it. They're being tormented. And 96 percent of those who come flooding in, on fire with torment, are Christians, three-fourths of whom would be traditional Protestants: Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians. The other one-fourth are Roman Catholics. These are Christians being preyed upon by evangelical Christians -- pray and prey -- and being told that you're not Christian enough, therefore you're going to burn in a hell of fire.
Many [evangelical Christians] tell me, "Mikey, OK, Anne Frank, Dr. Seuss, Jack Benny, Gandhi, they're all burning eternally in the fires of hell." And here's the distinction they just don't fucking get, these cocksuckers do not get this: I would give my last drop of blood and my last breath, and I would commend my three children in the Air Force -- one of whom's going to be heading to Iraq in a few months -- to give their last drop of blood and their last breath to support the rights of these people to believe that Anne Frank is burning eternally in hell ... If they want to believe that their version of Jesus has her burning eternally in hell, I'd give my life for that. But I will not do that if my government tells me who are the children of the greater God and who are the children of the lesser God or no God at all. And that's what these monsters are doing.
Is there pressure on the non-evangelicals in the military to convert or keep quiet because some of their superiors have these views and are talking about these views?
Oh, absolutely. Like I said, in the military, many of your constitutional rights are gone, because it's necessary. Look, let's make sure your readers understand something, OK, put it in perspective: The U.S. military, which I consider a noble and honorable institution, is technologically the most lethal organization ever created by Homo sapiens. When you have the leadership believing that to be a good soldier, good Marine, good airman or sailor you have to be not just a Christian but the right type of Christian, we're no better than al-Qaida. And it's hideous, beyond belief. My kids were called "fucking Jews" and accused of total complicity, they and their people, in the execution of Jesus Christ, by superiors up and down the chain of command at the Air Force Academy.
But like I've said before, most of the people who've come to me are Christians. That's been the big sea change here. Look, Sinclair Lewis said it best, in [the 1930s]. He came back from Germany, he was observing it for a number of months ... and he [said] that he had now seen fascism up close and personal, and he knew that when it came to America it would be wrapped in the American flag, carrying a cross. And you know what? He's right.
It's one thing to be pushing evangelical Christianity on prisoners in a penitentiary and to be pushing intelligent design in public schools. That's bad enough, but that's not our fight. My foundation focuses, with laserlike precision, on the Marine Corps, Army, Navy and Air Force, because if we lose them, we lose everything.
Your youngest son is at the Air Force Academy, which has been the focus of a lot of the allegations about evangelical proselytizing. With you being so out-front on this, has he been the target of any reprisals?
No. I think that they realize if they touch a hair on his head, I will open up the skies and bring down a hammer and tongs like they've never seen before. There have been some snide remarks, but in the main it's steady cruising.
Now, my older son and his wife have had a few things. They're both first lieutenants. In the military, you wear a name tag, and their name is Weinstein. My daughter-in-law has had senior officers walk up to her and say, "I know who you are, and I know what you're family is all about." She's a junior officer, so she just looks at them. In the main, it's been fairly calm, because they're not that stupid to think that my kids wouldn't make a phone call, and then I'm going to do what I have to do.
But I can tell you that I get -- I don't think I'm in double digits, but it started at about 10 o'clock last night; after the press conference in the morning, I've had nine death threats since about 10 o'clock last night. I usually get about two or three a week. They're very grotesque, everything from wanting to gas all the Jews in America and send the corpses back to Israel to threatening to blow me up, threatening my house will be blown up, raping my wife, blowing up my house. We've had our tires slashed, we've had feces and beer bottles thrown at the house, we've had dead animals placed on the front door of the house.
I was in Topeka, on a book tour, and the local Episcopal priest came out to support me and five hours later his church was burned down. And the local synagogue in Topeka, where I was to speak that night, was desecrated with spray paint saying, "Fuck you, Jews" and "KKK," all that stuff.
So if this is a nice, Christian response, my response is take a number, pack a picnic lunch and stand in line, because we're not going to stop, we're not going to ever stop, we're going to lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds on these people that are trying to destroy our Constitution. This is not a Christian-Jewish issue, and it's also not a political spectrum, left or right issue, it's a Constitutional right and wrong issue. These officers, and what's happening in that video, simply by appearing in a video that is blatantly and vociferously sectarian, by simply doing three things in that video, they should be court-martialed. That would be circulating blood, reflecting light and breathing. That's all they had to do and that alone would have been enough. You're not Jewish, are you?
I am, actually.
You understand the word "dayenu"? Well, it's dayenu -- the dayenu factor is simply by letting the light reflect off you, circulating blood and breathing in that video. Everything else beyond that is extra. Dayenu's my favorite song at Passover, that's why I use it.
My response is I've given the new secretary of defense 20 days to answer the Freedom of Information Act request, which the law gives him, and at the end we intend to get as much information as we can, fashion it into a dagger and then stab at the heart of this unconstitutional, wretched, vile, darkness at the Pentagon. This unconstitutional darkness, we will stab at it with our dagger until we kill it.
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Deplorable conditions here, including defective ammunition (and a serious lack of it due to the Falcon disaster) lack of armor, increasingly sophisticated and very deadly attacks on U.S. troops with no countermeasures either in place or at all effective, coupled with Bush's obvious intentions to quickly and greatly increase the number of troops here and his plans (often discussed by the brass) of a "huge new push" designed to "knock out the resistance and permit a withdrawal with face" ( a direct quote from a classified order.) have done nothing to defuse what my informant believes is a "critical situation."
My source in the CIC tells me that the team is in a dilemma at this point. If this gets into the foreign media (it would never get into the tame U.S. media unless mass rebellion broke out and then it would be heavily censored) the internet, cursed by the administration, will cover it and given the gross inability of the pencil-necked geeks in DoD's propaganda division, it would become a major political scandal stateside. If a swoop is made and GI instigators are arrested, there is the very real risk that the one thing the Pentagon is frantic to prevent and keep silent, will get out.
The CIC has an army of snitches running around all over Iraq, and especially here in Baghdad, but the more they find out, the more frightened they are becoming. Now, the rumors are that Russian or Iranian agents are fomenting rebellion but this is very doubtful. It is known that Bush hates Putin and everyone here knows Israel hates Iran so these rumors are obviously planted by these parties.
Arresting ringleaders (some of whom are very obvious) might trigger more serious problems and transferring "infected" units to Germany for some "R&R" can't be done because they are badly needed here and worse, might terrify cadre in Germany to the point where the rot could easily spread back to the States. This is redolent of the mass mutinies of French troops in 1917/18 in which thousands were shot out of hand.
A pleasant Christmas is expected here with myself planning to get home for a week. Who knows? I might resign my commission and write a book...and then be shot while watering the lawn."
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Britain never thought Saddam was threat - diplomat
Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday December 16, 2006
The Guardian
The British government never believed Saddam Hussein posed a threat to British interests and warned the US that toppling him would lead to "chaos", according to a Foreign Office diplomat closely involved in negotiations in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
Damning repudiation of the government's public claims in the run-up to the war is contained in secret evidence to Lord Butler's committee on the abuse of intelligence over Iraq by Carne Ross, a diplomat at Britain's UN mission in New York.
His evidence, in which he says the government privately assessed that Iraq possessed no significant quantity of weapons of mass destruction, has been published on the Commons foreign affairs committee website. Mr Ross gave evidence to the group last month but some MPs had been reluctant to have it published.
Mr Ross told Lord Butler he read UK and US human and signals intelligence on Iraq every working day during the four years he spent in New York up to 2002, and spoke at length to UN weapons inspectors.
"At no time did [the government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK," he told the Butler committee. "On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained ... At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."
Mr Ross continued: "There was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material. Aerial or satellite surveillance was unable to get under the roofs of Iraqi facilities. We therefore had to rely on inherently unreliable human sources."
He added: "Iraq's ability to launch a WMD or any form of attack was very limited. There were approximately 12 or so unaccounted-for Scud missiles; Iraq's airforce was depleted to the point of total ineffectiveness; its army was but a pale shadow of its earlier might; there was no evidence of any connection with any terrorist organisation that might have planned an attack using Iraqi WMD."
Mr Ross said he repeatedly questioned FO and Ministry of Defence officials about their threat assessments of Iraq. He said: "None told me that any new evidence had emerged to change our assessment; what had changed was the government's determination to present available evidence in a different light." Referring to the government's weapons adviser who later committed suicide, he added: "I discussed this at some length with David Kelly in late 2002, who agreed that the Number 10 WMD dossier was overstated".
He said colleagues in other UN delegations told him the UK sold security council resolution 1441 - later used to help justify the invasion - "explicitly on the grounds that it did not represent authorisation for war".
Mr Ross, who was responsible at the UK's UN mission for sanctions as well as weapons inspections, said he and his FO colleagues repeatedly attempted to get the UK and US to act more vigorously on the breaches.
Mr Ross resigned from the FO in 2004.
Sir John Major, the former prime minister, backed calls for an independent inquiry into the causes and conduct of the war. It should include "new information that is becoming available", he told Radio 4's Today.
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America's Zionist Body Politic
Groups Mute Criticism of Iraq Report After Bush Assurances That He Will Ignore It
Nathan Guttman
Jewish Daily Forward
Dec 15, 2006
Jewish and pro-Israel groups, after initially greeting the report of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group with outrage, have begun to mute their criticisms on the basis of assurances that the Bush administration will not adopt the report's proposed linkage between Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Public and private statements by administration officials have convinced leaders of the organized Jewish community to refrain from actively opposing the report, produced by a bipartisan panel co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker, a Republican, and ex-congressman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat.
"All we are hearing," said an official at one major Jewish agency, "is that Bush has no plans to shift his Middle East policy and that he will choose not to adopt the recommendations in the Baker report that have to do with that."
President Bush is expected to conclude his consultations on a new Iraq policy in the next week and to announce his decisions by year's end. The administration has made it clear that the Iraq Study Group's recommendations will be only one source of guidance.
The part of the report that most angered pro-Israel activists was the attempt to link a solution in Iraq to progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The situation in Iraq is linked with events in the region," the report reads. "Several Iraqi, U.S., and international officials commented to us that Iraqi opposition to the United States - and support for [Shi'ite radical Moqtada] Sadr - spiked in the aftermath of Israel's bombing campaign in Lebanon." Events in Syria, Iran and Afghanistan are also cited as bearing on Iraq.
The report calls for an American and international effort to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict, based on U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 and on Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Baker and Hamilton also recommend that America engage with Syria and Iran to solve the regional problems regarding Iraq.
In a December 7 conference call of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, leaders of most groups voiced reservations over this part of the Iraq Study Group report and called for action to block any Israel-Iraq linkage. Israel's consul general in New York, Arye Mekel, who took part in the discussion, reportedly said that while Israel will not try to intervene in an American decision-making process, it hopes to make clear that the two disputes are unrelated. Mekel, according to several participants, portrayed the report as negative from Israel's standpoint and said that Baker is responsible for the report's language on Israel. Other participants, including Aipac executive director Howard Kohr, stressed the importance of ensuring that the recommendations seen as linking Israel and Iraq are not adopted.
The only dissenting voice in the call was that of Seymour Reich, president of the Israel Policy Forum, who said the Jewish community should not lose sight of the need to support peace efforts in the Middle East. "I'm against any linkage," Reich later told the Forward, "but at the same time it's important to open every door that can lead to negotiations with the Palestinians."
Numerous Jewish groups issued statements last week opposing the Baker-Hamilton report. The Anti-Defamation League accused the study group of falling "into the traps of inappropriately linking stability in Iraq to a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict." The American Jewish Committee called the report's call for a new diplomatic offensive "old thinking" based on unsuccessful diplomatic efforts. The Zionist Organization of America said the report's recommendations would "cripple the war on Islamist terror."
Aipac refrained from directly questioning the report, but issued a statement detailing Iran's actions in the region and calling Iran the major source of instability.
The only group openly supporting the report was Americans for Peace Now, which called on Bush to adopt the recommendations in full. "It is gratifying that a bipartisan panel, comprised of seasoned policy experts, has reached conclusions that should have intuitively been adopted by this administration long ago," said Debra DeLee, the group's president.
While criticizing recommendations in the report dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most Jewish leaders refrained from dismissing the report altogether. "Anything we do about this report should be sensitive to the entire report and to its recommendations, which are basically good," said Rabbi Steven Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. He added that the Jewish community should "be wise in the way it responds."
The president of the Arab American Institute, James Zogby, called the Jewish organizations' response a "knee jerk reaction," saying that America needs to restore its credibility in the Arab world. "It is possible to go on with a 'U.S. and Israel against the world' policy, but then Iraq will disintegrate and Iran will take over. Will Israel be stronger then?"
Israeli officials took a cautious approach. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on his ministers to avoid commenting, calling it an internal American issue. At the same time, Olmert said he had no reason to believe the administration would change its attitude toward Syria or Iran.
In private conversations, Israeli officials expressed outrage over the report, arguing that the committee - while interviewing eight Arab ambassadors and many other Arab officials, spoke only to one Israeli, Ephraim Sneh. He is described in the report as deputy defense minister, though when interviewed he was only a member of Knesset.
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McCain's Character
John LeBoutillier
July 11, 2006
Ronald Kessler's excellent piece on Senator John McCain's erratic and explosive temper is 100% dead on target. As someone who has known McCain for 32 years, I can unequivocally state that he should be nowhere near the Oval Office.
His behavior through the years tells us all we need to know: he is a spoiled brat-turned adult who demeans people who dare to disagree with him; he has an explosive temper that can erupt on a nanosecond's notice; he might tell you something one day and then deny it the next; he is a political chameleon who is enabled by the so-called Main Stream Media; and his former POW status has allowed him to get away with things - i.e. the Keating Five Scandal - that others would have gone to jail for.
In sum, McCain is a disaster waiting to happen.
In 1990-1991 I had the great privilege to meet and ultimately befriend retired Air Force Colonel Ted Guy. Ted had been a POW in Vietnam for over six years - after being shot down and captured in Laos and driven on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Hanoi.
Ted became famous as the war ended as he tried to bring changes against several of his fellow U.S. POWs who he thought had cooperated with the North Vietnamese while in captivity; after coming home in 1973 his superiors decided not to press charges. But Ted was forever branded a "real hard ass" because of this incident.
For a while Ted was the Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) in - I believe - The Plantation (a POW camp on the outskirts of Hanoi) in which John McCain was also being held.
The SRO kept the chain of military order among the POWs; they took orders from him and kept discipline that way.
When I got to know Ted Guy, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on POWs was being organized; McCain was named a member. Ted Guy's thoughts about McCain? "John was a good troop in camp."
Ted Guy - since repatriation in 1973 - had discounted any chance that living U.S. POWs were left behind in Vietnam after the January 27, 1973 Paris Peace Agreements.
In fact, by his own admission, Ted often became gruff with MIA family members who asked him if their loved one might have been left behind in captivity. "I told them there was no chance and they needed to get a life."
This was the same message many of the former POWs were delivering to relatives of the thousands of men who did not come home in Operation Homecoming: "Forget it ... we are the only living men ... give it up and move on with your lives." Of course, that was easy for them to say: they had come home!
The U.S. Government never officially briefed the returning POWs about the egregious violations of the Paris Peace Accords - by both Hanoi and Washington DC.
Washington refused to pay the $4.25 billion President Nixon secretly promised in a February 1, 1973 letter to Premier Pham Van Dong - and kept hidden from the Congress for three years; Hanoi failed to release the other group of 600 U.S. POWs they were holding as an insurance policy against these funds.
If the truth had been told to our returning heros, they would probably have led the charge for the return of their comrades; but they were not told. Instead they were sent out to America's heartland as the war heros we so desperately needed - McCain and Ted Guy included.
Except that Ted Guy read all the new revelations that began surfacing in the 1980's; by 1991 he had seen enough. "I was lied to," he told me. "I am now certain we knowingly left men behind in captivity."
Ted also got a fellow former POW, Terry Uyeyama, to join our little 'group' as we went around DC trying to get the U.S. Government to reverse policy and negotiate for the living men still being held in Vietnam and Laos.
Then McCain entered the picture.
As the Senate Committee heated up - and more and more new information surfaced showing that indeed we did leave men behind held against their will in Vietnam and Laos - McCain began a long and vicious campaign to discredit and shoot down any new information or anyone advocating that the truth about our POWs be made public. Thus emerged for many to see the mean and ugly side of John McCain.
Ted Guy, his old Senior Ranking Officer and friend and admirer, soon changed his mind about McCain and questioned the truthfulness and emotional stability of his former POW veteran.
Sadly, Ted Guy died of leukemia 7 years ago. A healthy Ted Guy today could have and would have stood up and told the truth about John McCain - and had the former-POW status to take McCain on.
McCain these days goes unchecked. Ron Kessler has opened the topic of McCain's dangerous temper to further public scrutiny.
In sum, John McCain is not the man for the presidency. Yes, he would beat Hillary one on one. And we can't have her either.
But before everyone rushes to sign up for McCain's campaign, let's take a break and learn more about McCain the man and his character.
Once you get to know this man, you will agree: he must be defeated by a real Reagan conservative for the GOP nomination.
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US accused of using aid to sway votes in UN security council
Heather Stewart, economics correspondent
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
The US uses its aid budget to bribe those countries which have a vote in the United Nations security council, giving them 59 per cent more cash in years when they have a seat, according to research by economists.
Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN Secretary-General, expressed his frustration at the power the US wields over the UN in his parting speech last week. In a detailed analysis of 50 years of data, Harvard University's Ilyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker provide the clearest evidence yet that money is used by the council's richest member to grease the wheels of diplomacy.
Anti-poverty campaigners reacted angrily to the findings. 'Aid should go to the people who need it, not as a political sweetener,' said Duncan Green of Oxfam. 'In recent years most rich countries have been making progress on this, but showering bribes on developing countries just because they sit on the UN security council is clearly a step backwards.'
Charities often complain that the US uses its aid as a political tool, and this new evidence of what the authors call 'vote-buying' will raise fears about whether the surge of aid money that was promised at last year's Gleneagles G8 summit will be fairly spent.
Ten of the 15 seats on the security council are filled for two years at a time, by rotation. Kuziemko and Werker found that, in years when they have a seat, countries get an average of more than £8m extra in foreign aid from the US.
'I don't think it's surprising this goes on; but I wonder whether countries being aware that it goes on might have some salutary effect,' Kuziemko said.
Countries with a security council seat also receive an average of £500m extra from the UN itself, most of it channelled through its children's fund, Unicef, over which the US traditionally has been able to exert control. President George Bush recently provoked controversy by appointing a close political ally, former Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Unicef's chief.
When there is a controversial vote in prospect, the premium for countries with a security council seat is even higher. US aid surges by as much as 170 per cent, bringing in a £23m windfall, while the UN spends an extra £4m.
'Some countries serve on the security council during relatively calm years, whereas others, by chance, are fortunate enough to serve during a year in which a key resolution is debated and their vote becomes more valuable,' the authors say. They highlight controversial resolutions over issues including the Korean War, Suez, the Falklands and Kosovo - though the period they study does not include the notorious 'second resolution' over the invasion of Iraq, which never came to a vote.
David Woodward, of the New Economics Foundation, who is writing about the paper for a forthcoming edition of the Lancet, said the findings suggest the UN should be radically reformed.
'As long as one country wields such influence, there will always have a degree of control over what goes on, and they will be likely to abuse that.'
'The biggest obstacle, in both the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the UN, is that the countries that now have power can use that power to block reform - and they do.'
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Enthusiasm for president waning among Greenwich Republicans
Associated Press
17 Dec 06
GREENWICH, Conn. -- This wealthy New York suburb is the birthplace of the Bush political dynasty, but even Republicans here are questioning the president's handling of the Iraq war and other important issues.
The Bush family has ties to Greenwich dating back to the 1920s. President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, served as moderator of the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting before winning election to the U.S. Senate. Former President George H.W. Bush grew up in Greenwich, and several Bush relatives still live in town.
Town Republicans say they still strongly support the president and call him a principled man, but acknowledge they have reservations about his handling of the war, government spending, immigration and his choice of advisers.
"On balance, I think President Bush will go down as courageous and valiant, a fine man who, unfortunately, may have been blindsided by the family tradition of loyalty," Russell Reynolds Jr. told the Greenwich Time newspaper.
Reynolds, who says he is a close friend of the Bush family, was a key figure in former President Bush's 1988 White House run and is a founder of an executive search firm.
"There's nobody who's not disappointed in the overall situation," he said.
Reynolds said that while Bush is a man of character and integrity who has led successful homeland security efforts since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the president has not lived up to expectations on issues including Social Security reform and addressing the federal budget deficit.
Greenwich residents' feelings about the president mirror those around the country, said E. Pendleton James, a former aide to President Reagan who lives in town.
"That's just not Greenwich, but it's Peoria, Ill., and Abilene, Texas," James said.
James said he and other Republicans believe there is a need for the president to rework the strategy in Iraq.
"There's obviously a lot of concern and anxiety about the course of the foreign policy as directed through the Middle East," James said. "We all know a change of course is needed. I want to see him solve this problem."
John Raben, chairman of the Greenwich GOP, said other factors should be considered when it comes to Bush's legacy.
"Look, any presidency in the last two years of a second term loses some momentum," Raben said. "The combination of the last-two-year syndrome and the situation in Iraq has clearly stalled the momentum."
Other Republicans defended the president, noting that he has protected the country from another terrorist attack.
"I feel very positively towards the president of the United States. I think he's done a very good job under the most trying circumstances that anyone can imagine," said Edward Dadakis, a former town GOP chairman and Bush's local campaign coordinator during the 2000 election.
Malcolm Pray Jr., a retired auto magnate who has donated generously to Bush's campaigns, said putting a positive spin on the president's handling of Iraq is not easy.
"How can you be happy?" Pray said. "I don't want to defend it, but I'm not criticizing. We all know there have been a lot of mistakes made."
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UAE Opinion: Bush Response to Baker Report 'Truly Astounding'
Editorial
Al-Khaleej, United Arab Emirates
11 Dec 06
KING Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was hardly exaggerating when he warned fellow Arab leaders and the international community that the Middle East was a powder keg waiting to explode. The Saudi leader, hosting the annual Gulf Cooperation Council summit, was referring to the murderous mayhem in Iraq and volatile situations in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon.
Frankly speaking, the GCC summit highlighted what has been staring us in the face for quite some time. Unfortunately, despite the serious nature of the crises in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, little of meaning is being done to address with them.
Having invaded Iraq and brought down its government including its security infrastructure, the U.S. is now completely clueless as to how to put Iraq back together and get out. President Bush insists that American troops will stay in Iraq until "the job is done" - whatever that means.
The trouble is, Bush has lost this utterly pointless war but doesn't want to face reality. More to the point, he doesn't want to admit he desperately needs outside help to fix it.
A belated attempt by his father Bush Senior to help the bewildered President - by roping in former secretary of state James Baker, is being resisted by the White House. Bush's response to the recommendations by the panel chaired by Baker and Lee Hamilton has been truly astounding. Instead of being grateful for the timely help, the President argues that he can't accept all recommendations of the bipartisan committee. It's this unreasonable and unhelpful attitude that is at the heart of the unholy mess in Iraq and the never-ending woes of the Iraqi people. Clearly, the president's king-sized ego makes it difficult for him to see the writing on the wall, even if it means the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.
Again it is this rigid mindset of the administration that has exacerbated the situation in the Palestinian Territories. By refusing to deal with the freely-and-fairly elected representatives of the Palestinian people, Washington has added to the woes of these besieged people. Instead of opposing Israel's persecution and financial boycott of the impoverished Palestinians, the Administration has imposed its own financial constraints on the Palestinian government and its institutions. As a result, an unprecedented humanitarian disaster has enveloped the occupied territories, with Palestinians struggling to survive. Next door in Lebanon, Israel's aggression has created a serious political crisis threatening the country with another civil war.
In fact, as James Baker argued in his report, the crises in Iraq and Lebanon are more-or-less directly linked to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Peace in Palestine is still the key to a peaceful Middle East.
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Propaganda: An American Global Retreat: A Scenario for Catastrophe in 2010
By Guillaume Perrault
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
Le Figaro, France
December 13, 2006
In 2010, after the American withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Islamists seize power in a number of Muslim countries, while Europe turns its back to their democratic opponents: this is the scenario of catastrophe described by Antoine Vitkine, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, in The Temptation of Defeat [La Tentation de la défaite] (available through Editions de la Martinière/Doc).
This work of political fiction, based on rigorous research and backed up by a critical eye to detail, is presented as the journal of a young French diplomat, who describes events as they unfold day by day: the wave of isolationism that overcomes American public opinion during the 2008 presidential campaign; the success of the slogan, "Let's bring the boys home," taken up by all candidates for the White House; the loss of influence by the neo-conservatives in the Republican Party; the adoption by the Congress of a law drastically limiting the use of American troops abroad, thereby binding the hands of the President, as was the case at the end of the Vietnam War as a reaction to the excessive executive power that prevailed from Roosevelt to Nixon.
The American disengagement from Iraq and Afghanistan brings the Islamists to power in Baghdad and the return of the Taliban in Kabul. Deprived of unconditional support from Washington, the traditional allies of the United States - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan - discredited and without popular support, pass in their turn under the sway of the Islamists. For fear of anarchy in these three countries, the middle class is resigned to support the new regime, while intellectuals seek at all costs to reach Europe. So quick to judge America as too interventionist, the Old Continent discovers to its distress that the U.S. withdrawal makes Europe vulnerable and impotent. With Paris in the lead, European governments offer a slew of concessions to the Islamists regimes in the hopes of avoiding attack - in vain - and then endeavors to disguise their weakness. Israel prepares for war.
Antoine Vitkine's intention is not to needlessly instill fear. The scenario that he describes is often discussed by international affairs specialists. His assumptions appear to be regularly supported by current events. But faithful to the saying "a good drawing is better than a long speech," the author chose to relate a history through his characters - the diplomat and his colleagues, the foreign minister, the French journalist, the Arab intellectual - rather than impose a burdensome expose on the reader.
The author exhibits an excellent literary style, as one reads with passion about the adventures of these men and women struggling with what James Joyce called "the nightmare of history." The Temptation of Defeat tells us where the love of ease and comfort can carry advanced democracies, which would like to believe that war will never be their concern again. Whether one shares the pessimism or not, the reading of this book is a must.
The Temptation of Defeat [La Tentation de la défaite] (available through Editions de la Martinière/Doc), 271 pages, 18 euros.
Comment: Just goes to show how isolated and delusional French political commentary is these days; specifically anything about the U.S. that gets published or favorably reviewed.
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Tucson military recruiters ran cocaine - Some kept visiting schools for 3 years after FBI caught them on tape
By Carol Ann Alaimo
Arizona Daily Star
17 Dec 06
A Midtown strip mall that should have housed the best of the best served as Corruption Central in Tucson.
Two military recruiting stations sit side-by-side there, one run by the Army, the other by the Marines. Between them, a total of seven recruiters were on the take, secretly accepting bribes to transport cocaine, even as most spent their days visiting local high schools.
They had help from several more recruiters at an Army National Guard office, where one recruiter was said to be selling cocaine from the trunk of his recruiting vehicle.
Together, these dozen or so recruiters formed the nucleus of one of the FBI's biggest public corruption cases, the sting known as Operation Lively Green, which unfolded in Southern Arizona from 2002-2004 and was made public last year.
Many of the drug-running recruiters remained on the job, with continued access to local schools, for months - and often, years - after FBI agents secretly filmed them counting cash next to stacks of cocaine bricks, the Arizona Daily Star found in a months-long probe of court records and military employment data.
Some were still recruiting three years after they first were caught on camera running drugs in uniform. Most have pleaded guilty and are to be sentenced in March. Some honorably retired from the military.
There is no suggestion in court records that the recruiters were providing drugs to students.
What they did between FBI drug runs isn't known because they weren't under constant surveillance, the FBI said. For example, in the middle of the cocaine sting, one of the recruiters was arrested by another law-enforcement agency in an unrelated drug case, accused of transporting nearly 200 pounds of marijuana on Interstate 19, court records show.
Military recruiting officials say the corruption was not widespread. They also say they kept these recruiters on the job because they either didn't know they were under investigation, or were told by the FBI to leave the suspects alone so as not to jeopardize the sting's outcome.
Some Tucson parents and school officials, contacted by the Star about the results of the paper's research, said students should not have been left exposed for so long to recruiters known by the FBI to be involved in cocaine-running.
"I don't like the thought of someone involved with drugs having access to my child, and I don't know anything about it and the school doesn't know anything about it," said Kathy Janssen, who has a 15-year-old son at Tucson High Magnet School, the city's largest high school. "High school students are very vulnerable."
This isn't the first time the FBI has come under criticism in the Lively Green case. Allegations of sexual misconduct by undercover informants also have dogged the case and could result in reduced punishment for the recruiters and dozens of other defendants.
SCHOOLS
At a press conference to unveil the case last year, the FBI announced that many Lively Green defendants were military members. Agents didn't say that recruiters were involved.
A Phoenix-based FBI spokeswoman said the agency can't say much at this point about the Lively Green probe because it's still in progress.
Special Agent Deb McCarley did say the FBI generally performs risk assessments before deciding to keep suspects who work in public positions on the job during undercover probes.
"We recognize the range of ethical issues that inherently arise in the course of our undercover investigations," McCarley said in an e-mail.
"We have sound policies in place" to address such dilemmas, she said, and "this case has been no exception."
Some high schools in Tucson Unified, Flowing Wells Unified and Marana Unified school districts, and in Amphitheater Public Schools, were visited by one or more of these recruiters on a regular or occasional basis, according to military recruiting officials. Schools in other districts may have had visits as well, but precise records no longer are available in some cases, officials said.
One TUSD Governing Board member was incensed to hear the recruiters remained on the job so long.
"It's ludicrous to me that the FBI would leave these people in place and allow them onto our high school campuses," Judy Burns said.
"If they were going to do that, they should have been monitoring them constantly."
Monica Young, who has two children attending TUSD high schools, agreed.
"It is appalling that recruiters who were known to be involved in such activity were allowed on any school campus," she said.
Legal expert Stephen Saltzburg, who teaches criminal procedure at George Washington University, said it's entirely possible that the Tucson recruiters were running drugs in their free time and still functioning normally on the job.
Once the FBI made the decision to leave them in place at local schools "one would hope they would be watching that very carefully," he said.
ETHICS
From a military standpoint, it's especially egregious that recruiters took part in the cocaine runs, experts say.
"The military definitely views recruiters as persons in a special position of trust," said Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, in Washington, D.C.
Recruiters are supposed to meet high standards to promote an honorable image of the military, Fidell said. If court-martialed, they probably would be punished more harshly than non-recruiters, he said.
The willingness of Tucson recruiters to run drugs was clear to FBI agents from the start of the Lively Green sting, according to agent testimony at the court-martial of a Davis-Monthan technical sergeant - a non-recruiter - convicted in the Lively Green case in June.
In fact, it was a recruiter who caused the FBI to set up the sting in the first place, FBI Special Agent Adam Radtke said.
That recruiter, Radtke said, was former Army National Guardsman Darius W. Perry, who pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court.
Radtke said the sting got started in late 2001, when the FBI received numerous complaints that Perry, who worked out of the Guard's East Side recruiting office, was taking bribes to fix the military aptitude test scores of new recruits.
The FBI put an undercover informant in place to check it out. As the FBI plant was paying Perry to fix a test score in the parking lot of a Tucson restaurant, Perry opened the trunk of his recruiting vehicle and offered to sell part of a kilo of cocaine, Radtke said.
"Perry basically introduced the crime to us," the agent testified.
Perry couldn't be reached for comment. His federal court file, including the name of his attorney, has been sealed by the court. The Arizona Daily Star has filed a legal motion to have the case unsealed, and the action is pending.
Perry, 42, and another former Army National Guard recruiter, Mark A. Fillman, 56, were the first to offer their drug-running services to undercover informants who posed as Mexican drug lords during the sting, Radtke said.
The sting was set up so participants could make money in two ways - by agreeing to help transport cocaine and by finding others to do so.
The Tucson recruiters, trained to sell people on the military, often used those skills to recruit for the drug ring, helping the sting to mushroom, court records show.
One Army recruiter, Rodney E. Mills, 40, brought in six people. Perry persuaded six others, all Army National Guard members, to join, his plea deal said.
In one case not mentioned in the plea agreement, Perry is said to have recruited a Nogales woman named Leslie Hildago, then in her early 20s, to join the drug ring after he had recruited her to join the National Guard.
Hildago's lawyer, Richard Bacal of Tucson, said he is "not going to deny" that's what took place, but said he can't elaborate because of the plea bargain Hildago signed.
If recruiters used data from recruiting rolls to solicit people for drug running, that's particularly offensive, said military law expert Scott Silliman, a former senior lawyer for the Air Force who now is a law professor at Duke University.
Such recruiters "took advantage of their positions to commit crime," Silliman said.
Another Tucson recruiter, former National Guard member Demian F. Castillo, 35, got his own younger brother - John M. Castillo, 31, - to join the drug ring, court records show.
The younger Castillo, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection port inspector, agreed to wave through two vehicles he believed were loaded with cocaine at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales, in exchange for $19,000. He, too, pleaded guilty.
PROSECUTION
Of the more than 60 Lively Green defendants who have pleaded guilty so far, 10 were Tucson military recruiters. Between the 10, they pocketed a total of $180,600 in bribe payments, court records show.
Five worked at the Army's Midtown recruiting office: Mills, Sheldon L. Anderson, 27; Derreck J. Curry, 30; Ronricco M. Allen, 36; and Jason E. Kitzmiller, 27.
Two Marine recruiters whose office was next door to the Army recruiters also pleaded guilty: James M. Clear, 26, and Jared A. Wright, 28.
National Guard recruiters who pleaded guilty include Perry, Fillman and Castillo. A fourth National Guard recruiter, Raul F. Portillo, 34, was identified by the FBI as a suspect but was never charged. Portillo is the recruiter arrested during the FBI sting by another police agency on marijuana trafficking charges. He is believed to have fled to Mexico.
In May, Perry retired honorably from the military, six months before the FBI arrested him. Fillman also retired honorably in May 2003, two years before he was charged.
In two cases, the Arizona Army National Guard gave suspected or convicted recruiters general discharges under "honorable" conditions.
One went to Castillo, the recruiter who brought his brother into the drug ring.
The lawyer for the Arizona Army National Guard, Col. Richard Palmatier, said Castillo resigned from the Guard a day before his guilty plea, which kept his personnel file free of information about the crime.
Portillo, the former recruiter believed to be in Mexico, also received a general discharge under honorable conditions, even though he was wanted in Santa Cruz County - and still is - on the unrelated drug charges. Palmatier said Guard officials didn't know about those charges, and even if they had, Portillo wasn't convicted so the case couldn't be used against him upon discharge.
Portillo was stopped on northbound I-19 in a vehicle filled with pot in July 2003, and is thought to have left the country to escape prosecution, said Santa Cruz County Attorney George Silva. Portillo couldn't be reached for comment.
Silva was astonished to hear the National Guard gave Portillo a military discharge that includes the word "honorable."
"That is shocking. It's absolutely amazing," he said.
WHAT NOW
What happens next with the recruiters and other Lively Green defendants is in the court's hands.
Each defendant who pleaded guilty faces the possibility of up to five years in prison. But all have signed plea bargains that say their sentences will be determined by their willingness to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against others, if needed.
In their plea deals, none of the defendants was charged with drug trafficking, which has higher potential penalties. Instead, they were charged with bribery, conspiracy and extortion for the cash they accepted.
How much prison time they get - if any - also may be influenced by the allegations of misconduct that have surfaced in the Lively Green probe.
The complete extent of misconduct has never been publicly revealed, but according to witness testimony at the D-M court-martial in June, there was an incident in October 2002 in which informants posing as drug dealers hired hookers after a drug run to a Las Vegas hotel.
The FBI informant paid the prostitutes to have sex with several men who later became defendants, witnesses said.
At one point, they said, a prostitute who was drunk and high appeared to pass out and one of the FBI informants performed lewd acts over the woman's face while someone else took photographs.
The informant involved later destroyed the photos, said the defense lawyer in the D-M court-martial case.
A Tucson lawyer and former federal prosecutor said it's "absolutely probable" that Lively Green defendants will get a break on their sentences because of the misconduct.
"Any time you have credible allegations of misconduct, it is going to impact the resolution of a case," said A. Bates Butler III, who prosecuted drug cases and other federal cases from 1977 to 1981 as U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona.
"Jurors don't like misconduct," Bates said, so prosecutors sometimes will try to salvage such cases by offering plea deals to lesser charges so the cases don't get to trial.
Military recruiting officials said they removed the corrupt recruiters once they learned of the crimes, or when they got the go-ahead from the FBI to do so.
"We suspended the soldiers from recruiting duties as soon as we were notified of their involvement," which often was the same day they pleaded guilty, said Douglas Smith, a spokesman for Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky.
Military officials say the criminal acts of Tucson's recruiters are regrettable but not the norm.
"Allegations of recruiter misconduct are rare," considering the thousands of recruiters on the job nationwide, said Janice Hagar, a Marine Corps recruiting spokeswoman. "This was an isolated incident."
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Lethal injection halted in Calif., Florida
By Adam Tanner
Reuters
15 Dec 06
SAN FRANCISCO - Botched executions in California and Florida that required more than 30 minutes to kill condemned prisoners prompted a moratorium of the lethal injection procedure in both states on Friday.
Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel found California's method of execution unconstitutional, concluding its "implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed."
The decision follows the state's 2005 execution in which guards failed to connect a back-up intravenous line to Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the former Crips gang leader who garnered global publicity after writing anti-gang books.
Then on Wednesday Florida executioners botched the insertion of needles into condemned killer Angel Diaz, which meant lethal chemicals did not go directly into his veins, according to the state's medical examiner.
Florida's incoming governor, Charlie Crist, responded on Friday by saying he would halt executions until a commission investigated the state's procedures.
Death penalty opponents have for years argued that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution, but only such recent instances have given legal and political traction to their arguments.
"When properly administered, lethal injection results in a death that is far kinder than that suffered by the victims of capital crimes," said Fogel, who earlier this year visited the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco.
"At the present time, however, defendants' implementation of California's lethal-injection protocol lacks both reliability and transparency," he wrote.
"In light of the substantial questions raised by the records of previous executions, defendants' actions and failures to act have resulted in an undue and unnecessary risk of an Eighth Amendment violation. This is intolerable under the Constitution."
Lethal injection is used in 37 U.S. states, but legal challenges have delayed such executions this year in not only California and Florida, the first and fourth most populous states, but several others including New Jersey and Ohio.
The United States has executed 53 people in 2006, a 10-year low, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
THREE-DRUG DOSE
California has long executed its worst criminals. Its famous San Quentin prison hanged the condemned starting in 1893; the state turned to lethal gas in 1938. It turned to lethal injection in 1994 after a federal judge found gassing cruel and unusual.
Florida lawmakers voted to switch to lethal injection in 2000 after a series of bungled executions using the state's electric chair, including one where flames shot from a prisoner's head.
Executioners now typically attach two intravenous lines to condemned U.S. inmates, one tube acting as a backup to assure a continuous flow of the three chemicals that anesthetize, paralyze and then kill.
In the Williams execution, prison guards struggled for 25 minutes to insert the intravenous lines and it took another 10 minutes for the lethal drugs to take effect, said Barbara Becnel, a witness to the execution and co-author of Williams' anti-gang books.
Journalists at several recent California executions have seen guards struggle to insert the IV lines to the condemned killer.
Witnesses in Florida this week said Diaz appeared to grimace and gasp for breath in what was supposed to be a quick but painless procedure. Prison officials had to give Diaz the drugs twice and it took him 34 minutes to die from the start of the execution.
"The court I think correctly recognized that there are severe flaws in the system," said Richard Steinken, a Chicago attorney who has worked with Death Row inmate Michael Morales, whose case sparked Judge Fogel's decision on Friday. "Whether it can be fixed remains to be seen."
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Feed The Rich - Starve The Poor
More Americans hungry, homeless in 2006
By Lisa Lambert
Reuters
14 Dec 06
WASHINGTON - More Americans went homeless and hungry in 2006 than the year before and children made up almost a quarter of those in emergency shelters, said a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
"The face of hunger and homelessness right now ... is young children, young families," said the conference's president, Douglas Palmer, the mayor of Trenton, New Jersey.
The survey of 23 cities found civic and government groups received, on average, 7 percent more requests for food aid in 2006 than in 2005, following a 12 percent jump in 2005.
Requests for shelter rose by an average of 9 percent in 2006, with requests from families with children rising by 5 percent. More than half the cities said family members often had to split up to stay in different shelters.
As the numbers who could not buy their own food grew, more than half the cities, including Los Angeles and Boston, said groups spread resources farther by giving less food to individuals or cutting the number of times people could receive help. The group estimated 23 percent of requests for emergency food assistance simply went unmet.
Franklin Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines, Iowa, who worked on the study, said he was troubled that more than a third of the adults asking for food aid were employed.
"If you look at the data, you'll find folks that have jobs that don't have enough money to feed themselves," he told reporters.
People remained homeless for an average of eight months in 2006, the report said. Trenton had the longest span, with those in poverty spending an average of 22 months in cars and shelters or on the street.
The survey relied on census statistics along with data that city officials collected from local agencies.
Calling the report "not so much science as perception," the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which includes state and federal agencies, said in a statement nearly 30 cities were reporting reduced homelessness due to a federal program run in partnership with the Conference of Mayors.
It said the Bush administration was also working to help connect homeless people to government agencies and private aid groups.
In the mayors' report, Cleveland was one of the cities that saw demand for food assistance drop in 2006. Officials said it was still much higher than in 2000, before the city experienced an economic downturn. From 2000 to 2005, the number of people using food stamps, or federal subsidies to cover groceries, increased there by 29 percent.
Food stamps and other public nutrition programs account for 60 percent of the U.S. Agriculture Department's spending. The USDA said almost 11.2 million U.S. households received food stamps in 2005.
Congress is expected to consider changes to the food stamp program as part of broad-ranging agriculture legislation in 2007.
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The Great Wealth Transfer - more of the nation's bounty held in fewer and fewer hands. And Bush's tax cuts are only making the problem worse
PAUL KRUGMAN
Rolling Stone
30 Nov 06
Why doesn't Bush get credit for the strong economy?" That question has been asked over and over again in recent months by political pundits. After all, they point out, the gross domestic product is up; unemployment, at least according to official figures, is low by historical standards; and stocks have recovered much of the ground they lost in the early years of the decade, with the Dow surpassing 12,000 for the first time. Yet the public remains deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. In a recent poll, only a minority of Americans rated the economy as "excellent" or "good," while most consider it no better than "fair" or "poor."
Are people just ungrateful? Is the administration failing to get its message out? Are the news media, as conservatives darkly suggest, deliberately failing to report the good news?
None of the above. The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor. Wages have failed to keep up with rising prices. Even in 2005, a year in which the economy grew quite fast, the income of most non-elderly families lagged behind inflation. The number of Americans in poverty has risen even in the face of an official economic recovery, as has the number of Americans without health insurance. Most Americans are little, if any, better off than they were last year and definitely worse off than they were in 2000.
But how is this possible? The economic pie is getting bigger -- how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. Although wages have stagnated since Bush took office, corporate profits have doubled. The gap between the nation's CEOs and average workers is now ten times greater than it was a generation ago. And while Bush's tax cuts shaved only a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average. In fact, once all of Bush's tax cuts take effect, it is estimated that those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year -- the richest five percent of the population -- will pocket almost half of the money. Those who make less than $75,000 a year -- eighty percent of America -- will receive barely a quarter of the cuts. In the Bush era, economic inequality is on the rise.
Rising inequality isn't new. The gap between rich and poor started growing before Ronald Reagan took office, and it continued to widen through the Clinton years. But what is happening under Bush is something entirely unprecedented: For the first time in our history, so much growth is being siphoned off to a small, wealthy minority that most Americans are failing to gain ground even during a time of economic growth -- and they know it.
A merica has never been an egalitarian society, but during the New Deal and the Second World War, government policies and organized labor combined to create a broad and solid middle class. The economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo call what happened between 1933 and 1945 the Great Compression: The rich got dramatically poorer while workers got considerably richer. Americans found themselves sharing broadly similar lifestyles in a way not seen since before the Civil War.
But in the 1970s, inequality began increasing again -- slowly at first, then more and more rapidly. You can see how much things have changed by comparing the state of affairs at America's largest employer, then and now. In 1969, General Motors was the country's largest corporation aside from AT&T, which enjoyed a government-guaranteed monopoly on phone service. GM paid its chief executive, James M. Roche, a salary of $795,000 -- the equivalent of $4.2 million today, adjusting for inflation. At the time, that was considered very high. But nobody denied that ordinary GM workers were paid pretty well. The average paycheck for production workers in the auto industry was almost $8,000 -- more than $45,000 today. GM workers, who also received excellent health and retirement benefits, were considered solidly in the middle class.
Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation, with 1.3 million employees. H. Lee Scott, its chairman, is paid almost $23 million -- more than five times Roche's inflation-adjusted salary. Yet Scott's compensation excites relatively little comment, since it's not exceptional for the CEO of a large corporation these days. The wages paid to Wal-Mart's workers, on the other hand, do attract attention, because they are low even by current standards. On average, Wal-Mart's non-supervisory employees are paid $18,000 a year, far less than half what GM workers were paid thirty-five years ago, adjusted for inflation. And Wal-Mart is notorious both for how few of its workers receive health benefits and for the stinginess of those scarce benefits.
The broader picture is equally dismal. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly wage of the average American non-supervisory worker is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1970. Meanwhile, CEO pay has soared -- from less than thirty times the average wage to almost 300 times the typical worker's pay.
The widening gulf between workers and executives is part of a stunning increase in inequality throughout the U.S. economy during the past thirty years. To get a sense of just how dramatic that shift has been, imagine a line of 1,000 people who represent the entire population of America. They are standing in ascending order of income, with the poorest person on the left and the richest person on the right. And their height is proportional to their income -- the richer they are, the taller they are.
Start with 1973. If you assume that a height of six feet represents the average income in that year, the person on the far left side of the line -- representing those Americans living in extreme poverty -- is only sixteen inches tall. By the time you get to the guy at the extreme right, he towers over the line at more than 113 feet.
Now take 2005. The average height has grown from six feet to eight feet, reflecting the modest growth in average incomes over the past generation. And the poorest people on the left side of the line have grown at about the same rate as those near the middle -- the gap between the middle class and the poor, in other words, hasn't changed. But people to the right must have been taking some kind of extreme steroids: The guy at the end of the line is now 560 feet tall, almost five times taller than his 1973 counterpart.
What's useful about this image is that it explodes several comforting myths we like to tell ourselves about what is happening to our society.
MYTH #1: INEQUALITY IS MAINLY A PROBLEM OF POVERTY.
According to this view, most Americans are sharing in the economy's growth, with only a small minority at the bottom left behind. That places the onus for change on middle-class Americans who -- so the story goes -- will have to sacrifice some of their prosperity if they want to see poverty alleviated.
But as our line illustrates, that's just plain wrong. It's not only the poor who have fallen behind -- the normal-size people in the middle of the line haven't grown much, either. The real divergence in fortunes is between the great majority of Americans and a very small, extremely wealthy minority at the far right of the line.
MYTH #2: INEQUALITY IS MAINLY A PROBLEM OF EDUCATION.
This view -- which I think of as the eighty-twenty fallacy -- is expressed by none other than Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve. Last year, Greenspan testified that wage gains were going primarily to skilled professionals with college educations -- "essentially," he said, "the top twenty percent." The other eighty percent -- those with less education -- are stuck in routine jobs being replaced by computers or lost to imports. Inequality, Greenspan concluded, is ultimately "an education problem."
It's a good story with a comforting conclusion: Education is the answer. But it's all wrong. A closer look at our line of Americans reveals why. The richest twenty percent are those standing between 800 and 1,000. But even those standing between 800 and 950 -- Americans who earn between $80,000 and $120,000 a year -- have done only slightly better than everyone to their left. Almost all of the gains over the past thirty years have gone to the fifty people at the very end of the line. Being highly educated won't make you into a winner in today's U.S. economy. At best, it makes you somewhat less of a loser.
MYTH #3: INEQUALITY DOESN'T REALLY MATTER.
In this view, America is the land of opportunity, where a poor young man or woman can vault into the upper class. In fact, while modest moves up and down the economic ladder are common, true Horatio Alger stories are very rare. America actually has less social mobility than other advanced countries: These days, Horatio Alger has moved to Canada or Finland. It's easier for a poor child to make it into the upper-middle class in just about every other advanced country -- including famously class-conscious Britain -- than it is in the United States.
Not only can few Americans hope to join the ranks of the rich, no matter how well educated or hardworking they may be -- their opportunities to do so are actually shrinking. As best we can tell, pretax incomes are now as unequally distributed as they were in the 1920s -- wiping out virtually all of the gains made by the middle class during the Great Compression.
There's a famous scene in the 1987 movie Wall Street in which Gordon Gekko, the corporate predator played by Michael Douglas, tells a meeting of stunned shareholders that greed is good, that the unbridled pursuit of individual wealth serves the interests of the company and the nation. In the movie, Gekko gets his comeuppance; in real life, the Gordon Gekkos took over both corporate America and, eventually, our political system.
Oliver Stone didn't conjure Gekko's "greed" line out of thin air. It was based on a real speech given by corporate raider Ivan Boesky -- and it reflected what many corporate executives, conservative intellectuals and right-wing politicians were saying at the time.
It's no coincidence that ringing endorsements of greed began to be heard at the same time that the actual incomes of America's rich began to soar. In part, the new pro-greed ideology was a way of rationalizing what was already happening. But it was also, to an important extent, a cause of the phenomenon. In the past thirty years, right-wing foundations have devoted enormous resources to promoting this agenda, building a far-reaching network of think tanks, media outlets and conservative scholars to legitimize higher levels of inequality. "On average, corporate America pays its most important leaders like bureaucrats," the Harvard Business Review lamented in 1990, calling for higher pay for top executives. "Is it any wonder then that so many CEOs act like bureaucrats?"
Although corporate executives have always had the power to pay themselves lavishly, their self-enrichment was limited by what Lucian Bebchuk, Jesse Fried and David Walker -- the leading experts on exploding executive paychecks -- call the "outrage constraint." What they mean is that a conspicuously self-dealing CEO would be forced to moderate his greed by unions, the press and politicians: The social climate itself condemned executive salaries that seem immodest.
Lately, however, we have experienced a death of outrage. Thanks to the right's well-funded and organized effort, corporate executives now feel no shame in lining their pockets with huge bonuses and gigantic stock options. Such self-dealing is justified, they say: Greed is what made America great, and greedy executives are exactly what corporate America needs.
At the same time, there has been a concerted attack on the institutions that have helped moderate inequality -- in particular, unions. During the Great Compression, the rate of unionization nearly tripled; by 1945, more than one in three American workers belonged to a union. A lot of what made General Motors the relatively egalitarian institution it was in the 1960s had to do with its powerful union, which was able to demand high wages for its members. Those wages, in turn, set a standard that elevated the income of workers who didn't belong to unions. But today, in the era of Wal-Mart, fewer than one in eleven workers in the private sector is organized -- effectively preventing hundreds of thousands of working Americans from joining the middle class.
Why isn't Wal-Mart unionized? The answer is simple and brutal: Business interests went on the offensive against unions. And we're not talking about gentle persuasion; we're talking about hardball tactics. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, at least one in every twenty workers who voted for a union was illegally fired; some estimates put the number as high as one in eight. And once Ronald Reagan took office, the anti-union campaign was aided and abetted by political support at the highest levels.
Unions weren't the only institution that fostered income equality during the generation that followed the Great Compression. The creation of a national minimum wage also set a benchmark for the entire economy, boosting the bargaining position of workers. But under Reagan, Congress failed to raise the minimum wage, allowing its value to be eroded by inflation. Between 1981 and 1989, the minimum wage remained the same in dollar terms -- but inflation shrank its purchasing power by twenty-five percent, reducing it to the lowest level since the 1950s.
After Reagan left office, there was a partial reversal of his anti-labor policies. The minimum wage was increased under the elder Bush and again under Clinton, restoring about half the ground it lost under Reagan. But then came Bush the Second -- and the balance of power shifted against workers and the middle class to a degree not seen since the Gilded Age.
During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush joked that his base consisted of the "haves and the have mores." But it wasn't much of a joke. Not only has the Bush administration favored the interests of the wealthiest few Americans over those of the middle class, it has consistently shown a preference for people who get their income from dividends and capital gains, rather than those who work for a living.
Under Bush, the economy has been growing at a reasonable pace for the past three years. But most Americans have failed to benefit from that growth. All indicators of the economic status of ordinary Americans -- poverty rates, family incomes, the number of people without health insurance -- show that most of us were worse off in 2005 than we were in 2000, and there's little reason to think that 2006 was much better.
So where did all the economic growth go? It went to a relative handful of people at the top. The earnings of the typical full-time worker, adjusted for inflation, have actually fallen since Bush took office. Pay for CEOs, meanwhile, has soared -- from 185 times that of average workers in 2003 to 279 times in 2005. And after-tax corporate profits have also skyrocketed, more than doubling since Bush took office. Those profits will eventually be reflected in dividends and capital gains, which accrue mainly to the very well-off: More than three-quarters of all stocks are owned by the richest ten percent of the population.
Bush wasn't directly responsible for the stagnation of wages and the surge in profits and executive compensation: The White House doesn't set wage rates or give CEOs stock options. But the government can tilt the balance of power between workers and bosses in many ways -- and at every juncture, this government has favored the bosses. There are four ways, in particular, that the Bush administration has helped make the poor poorer and the rich richer.
First, like Reagan, Bush has stood firmly against any increase in the minimum wage, even as inflation erodes the value of a dollar. The minimum wage was last raised in 1997; since then, inflation has cut the purchasing power of a minimum-wage worker's paycheck by twenty percent.
Second, again like Reagan, Bush has used the government's power to make it harder for workers to organize. The National Labor Relations Board, founded to protect the ability of workers to organize, has become for all practical purposes an agent of employers trying to prevent unionization. A spectacular example of this anti-union bias came just a few months ago. Under U.S. labor law, legal protections for union organizing do not extend to supervisors. But the Republican majority on the NLRB ruled that otherwise ordinary line workers who occasionally tell others what to do -- such as charge nurses, who primarily care for patients but also give instructions to other nurses on the same shift -- will now be considered supervisors. In a single administrative stroke, the Bush administration stripped as many as 8 million workers of their right to unionize.
Third, the administration effectively blocked what might have been a post-Enron backlash against self-dealing corporate insiders. Corporate scandals dominated the news in the first half of 2002 -- but then the subject was changed to the urgent need to invade Iraq, and the drive for reform was squelched. With Americans focused on the war, CEOs are once again rewarding themselves at impressive -- and unprecedented -- levels.
Finally, there's the government's most direct method of affecting incomes: taxes. In this arena, Bush has made sure that the rich pay lower taxes than they have in decades. According to the latest estimates, once the Bush tax cuts have taken full effect, more than a third of the cash will go to people making more than $500,000 a year -- a mere 0.8 percent of the population.
It's easy to get confused about the Bush tax cuts. For one thing, they are designed to confuse. The core of the Bush policy involves cutting taxes on high incomes, especially on the income wealthy Americans receive from capital gains and dividends. You might say that the Bush administration favors people who live off their wealth over people who have a job. But there are some middle-class "sweeteners" thrown in, so the administration can point to a few ordinary American families who have received significant tax cuts.
Furthermore, the administration has engaged in a systematic campaign of disinformation about whose taxes have been cut. Indeed, one of Bush's first actions after taking office was to tell the Treasury Department to stop producing estimates of how tax cuts are distributed by income class -- that is, information on who gained how much. Instead, official reports on taxes under Bush are textbook examples of how to mislead with statistics, presenting a welter of confusing numbers that convey the false impression that the tax cuts favor middle-class families, not the wealthy.
In reality, only a few middle-class families received a significant tax cut under Bush. But every wealthy American -- especially those who live off of stock earnings or their inheritance -- got a big tax cut. To picture who gained the most, imagine the son of a very wealthy man, who expects to inherit $50 million in stock and live off the dividends. Before the Bush tax cuts, our lucky heir-to-be would have paid about $27 million in estate taxes and contributed 39.6 percent of his dividend income in taxes. Once Bush's cuts go into effect, he could inherit the whole estate tax-free and pay a tax rate of only fifteen percent on his stock earnings. Truly, this is a very good time to be one of the have mores.
It's worth noting that Bush doesn't simply favor the upper class: It's the upper-upper class he cares about. That became clear last fall, when the House and Senate passed rival tax-cutting bills. (What were they doing cutting taxes yet again in the face of a huge budget deficit and an expensive war? Never mind.) The Senate bill was devoted to providing relief to middle-class wage earners: According to the Tax Policy Center, two-thirds of the Senate tax cut would have gone to people with incomes of between $100,000 and $500,000 a year. Those making more than $1 million a year would have received only eight percent of the cut.
The House bill, by contrast, focused on extending tax cuts on capital gains and dividends. More than forty percent of the House cuts would have flowed to the $1 million-plus group; only thirty percent to the 100K to 500K taxpayers.
The White House favored the House bill -- and the final, reconciled measure wound up awarding a quarter of the benefits to America's millionaires. That, in a nutshell, is the politics of income inequality under Bush.
Oh, one last thing: What about the claim that the Bush tax cuts did wonders for economic growth? In fact, job creation has been much slower under Bush than under Clinton, and overall growth since 2003 is largely the result of the huge housing boom, which has more to do with low interest rates than with taxes. But the biggest irony of all is that the real boom -- the one in the 1990s -- followed tax changes that were the reverse of Bush's policies. Clinton raised taxes on the rich, and the economy prospered.
A generation ago the distribution of income in the United States didn't look all that different from that of other advanced countries. We had more poverty, largely because of the unresolved legacy of slavery. But the gap between the economic elite and the middle class was no larger in America than it was in Europe.
Today, we're completely out of line with other advanced countries. The share of income received by the top 0.1 percent of Americans is twice the share received by the corresponding group in Britain, and three times the share in France. These days, to find societies as unequal as the United States you have to look beyond the advanced world, to Latin America. And if that comparison doesn't frighten you, it should.
The social and economic failure of Latin America is one of history's great tragedies. Our southern neighbors started out with natural and human resources at least as favorable for economic development as those in the United States. Yet over the course of the past two centuries, they fell steadily behind. Economic historians such as Kenneth Sokoloff of UCLA think they know why: Latin America got caught in an inequality trap. For historical reasons -- the kind of crops they grew, the elitist policies of colonial Spain -- Latin American societies started out with much more inequality than the societies of North America. But this inequality persisted, Sokoloff writes, because elites were able to "institutionalize an unequal distribution of political power" and to "use that greater influence to establish rules, laws and other government policies that advantaged members of the elite relative to non-members." Rather than making land available to small farmers, as the United States did with the Homestead Act, Latin American governments tended to give large blocks of public lands to people with the right connections. They also shortchanged basic education -- condemning millions to illiteracy. The result, Sokoloff notes, was "persistence over time of the high degree of inequality." This sharp inequality, in turn, doomed the economies of Latin America: Many talented people never got a chance to rise to their full potential, simply because they were born into the wrong class.
In addition, the statistical evidence shows, unequal societies tend to be corrupt societies. When there are huge disparities in wealth, the rich have both the motive and the means to corrupt the system on their behalf. In The New Industrial State, published in 1967, John Kenneth Galbraith dismissed any concern that corporate executives might exploit their position for personal gain, insisting that group decision-making would enforce "a high standard of personal honesty." But in recent years, the sheer amount of money paid to executives who are perceived as successful has overridden the restraints that Galbraith believed would control executive greed. Today, a top executive who pumps up his company's stock price by faking high profits can walk away with vast wealth even if the company later collapses, and the small chance he faces of going to jail isn't an effective deterrent. What's more, the group decision-making that Galbraith thought would prevent personal corruption doesn't work if everyone in the group can be bought off with a piece of the spoils -- which is more or less what happened at Enron. It is also what happens in Congress, when corporations share the spoils with our elected representatives in the form of generous campaign contributions and lucrative lobbying jobs.
As the past six years demonstrate, such political corruption only worsens as economic inequality rises. Indeed, the gap between rich and poor doesn't just mean that few Americans share in the benefits of economic growth -- it also undermines the sense of shared experience that binds us together as a nation. "Trust is based upon the belief that we are all in this together, part of a 'moral community,' " writes Eric Uslaner, a political scientist at the University of Maryland who has studied the effects of inequality on trust. "It is tough to convince people in a highly stratified society that the rich and the poor share common values, much less a common fate."
In the end, the effects of our growing economic inequality go far beyond dollars and cents. This, ultimately, is the most pressing question we face as a society today: Will the United States go down the path that Latin America followed -- one that leads to ever-growing disparity in political power as well as in income? The United States doesn't have Third World levels of economic inequality -- yet. But it is not hard to foresee, in the current state of our political and economic scene, the outline of a transformation into a permanently unequal society -- one that locks in and perpetuates the drastic economic polarization that is already dangerously far advanced.
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Wealth Transfer? Hunger and Homelessness? The Real Culprit: Corpocracy
By J.D. Suss
ICH
16 Dec 06
The Democratic tide in the recent elections is, potentially at least, a force to be reckoned with. Now, citizens-who-care can watch to see if these new members of Congress will squander their mandate in hopelessly fruitless witch hunts on the so-called "issues," while the real culprit continues to bedevil them. That real culprit? - corpocracy[i] (rhymes with "hypocrisy"). Corpocracy, also called "corporatocracy," is de facto rule by mega-corporations in conjunction with international banking, corporate-owned media, and the enabling collusion of government and/or a network of governments. These Big Money[ii] plutocrats are the real enemies of our tattered democracy. Our elected representatives need to begin calling them to account and, quite simply, rein them in.
Railing against the corrosive influence corporations inflict upon democracy is often met with the same kind of mindset that would make Luddites out of those who clamor for sustainable technology. The charge of conspiracy theorist is the label immediately attached to anyone who has the audacity to offer a discourse on corpocracy. And before any intelligent discussion can ensue on the subject, the framing has already done its work; corpocracy is summarily dismissed as "extremist fringe-speak" for ideas too outlandish to merit serious attention. But, thanks to the courage of people like John Perkins,[iii] the word is slowly-but-surely emerging that democracy is being critically threatened, perhaps already "disabled,"[iv] by the interests of Big Money, whose mischief both at home and abroad seemingly knows no bounds. Besides having infiltrated all three branches of government, its corrupting influence extends into almost every think tank and major university in the U.S.[v] Be that as it may, the reader is invited to exercise the right to freely (re)assemble his or her mind and to continue reading.
To fully grasp the idea of corpocracy, one must see it as a crisis of consciousness. Fundamentally, we might ask ourselves: What is driving our everyday thoughts, feelings, and beliefs so as to produce a sense of reality about which we all can agree, more or less, is worth living in and fighting for? The answer? - It is our consciousness, a phenomenon steeped in this agreement or consensual reality that is further flavored by a particular, viz., "American," culture trance.
From its earliest days, America was a nation built upon the advertising, buying and selling of commodities for the purpose of realizing ever-increasing profits. But with the maximization of profits as the overriding incentive, inevitably people and the world around them, become marginalized. This became especially evident as the corporate entity gained in prominence and the techno-industrial elite was more and more empowered. The greed of wealth accumulation continues to deplete scarce natural resources. The cumulative effect is a ravaging of both the environment and the social fabric of peoples unfortunate enough to be living amid such resources. And yet, to sustain a material comfort that is never quite sated, an ever-growing consumption must be constantly encouraged. Enter Big Money, which gladly encourages never-ending consumption patterns - so much so that corporate capitalism is now synonymous with democracy in the minds of most of the citizenry, including its representatives. The sad fact is that we have been turned into complacent consumeroids. We are now the beneficiaries of a material comfort that has succeeded in making us overwhelmingly passive with regard to what goes on in our government, not to mention what is going on in the rest of the world. As Harvard professor and unrepentant, status quo theorist, Samuel P. Huntington, tells us, "democratic societies 'cannot work' unless the citizenry is 'passive.' [vi]" Shockingly, in the United States less than 50% of voters vote in elections - elections that fail to meet the standards that Jimmy Carter uses to gauge free and fair elections abroad. Therein lies one telling measurement of our passivity.
Big Money's overwhelming interest in profits over people is largely responsible for a kind of preservation of its base that is composed of a citizenry invested in the status quo. That broad swath of middle Americans buys into comfortable, complacent lifestyles as a kind of divine right to be enjoyed by the world's foremost "bringer of democracy."
Such is the subtle yet insidious effect of a consensual reality and culture trance in which Americans - and worse, their elected representatives - are swimming. Most of us have adapted early to a status quo consciousness that has fed us the noble myths of our nation. Indeed, intrusive commercialization such as TV helps to keep the minds of the masses programmed to stay in thrall to these myths (and whatever else those with money to buy advertising or to finance TV shows wish us to believe). However, the current state of the nation, a nation now often referred to as a national security state, belies those myths. And so, to the extent people still invest the U.S. with these myths of America as the "city upon the hill" - presumed to be benevolent and morally justified in its dealings around the world - there exists a faulty or deficient consciousness. Although steadily deteriorating, this deficient consciousness none-the-less remains potent in its ability to blind us to the real enemy within that silences the true will of the people.
By the mind control device of the "corporate media," Big Money subtly manipulates language to suit its needs. This helps to preserve status quo notions that are so embedded in our shared, deficient consciousness. Just look around at sporting arenas these days. All you see is corporate placards and logos. Our uniquely American culture trance wallows in phony wrestling, Nascar spectacles, "reality" shows, and law and order, ER and CSI shows designed to implant anything that will preserve the mindset, "My country - right or wrong." Whatever can be used to keep the citizenry passive and maximize profits is the name of the game.
On the subject of income taxes, why can't we put the blame where it belongs? Consider this: Outrageous tax breaks and subsidies to big oil, agribusiness, etc., have been bestowed on corporations by those in Congress who are elected to uphold the interests of Big Money plutocrats. This corporate welfare amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars each year. One effective way that real people, viz., human taxpayers, might start enjoying real tax relief is to put an end to such corporate welfare. Recouping and redirecting those billions into the national coffers might have the effect of doing away altogether with income tax on individuals. Tax "radicals" (e.g., Aaron Russo[vii]), long opposing the individual income tax on the basis of its purported unconstitutionality, would indeed be vindicated. According to them, the only entity the Founding Fathers meant to pay such a direct, unapportioned tax is the corporations. More to the point, if taxing the income of individuals is unconstitutional, then the very politicians and lawyers who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution are in fact remiss in their sacred duty whenever they uphold and defend such a tax. To this end, such "extremist" tax radicals would find an ally in true conservatives who certainly embrace a literal reading of the U.S. Constitution. (In his movie, Russo cites U.S. Supreme Court precedent to support the fact that the mechanism that purportedly established the income tax, the Sixteenth Amendment, was never ratified by the required number of states in order to become law.)
Likewise, if you hate paying property taxes, cutting off corporate welfare should help fill state and local coffers as well. Citizens would not only be able to the throw off the yoke of being wage slaves, as property owners they would also be freed from being de facto tenants to the state, subject to ever-escalating property taxes.
How many of us out there know that those artificial entities called corporations now have every constitutional right originally meant to be reserved only for natural persons? For that, citizens can thank decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court over the past hundred years or so.[viii] Putting this into perspective, we now have super-Goliath corporations pitted against puny Davids - viz., individuals, communities, and their local governments - who, by comparison, have only a fraction of the wealth, power, and influence that the corpocracy commands. Is it any wonder Big Money gets its way, both here and abroad? As Perkins makes clear, corpocracy has taken our foreign policy hostage in its exploitation of weaker nation-states while leaving in its wake a trail of poverty, environmental ruination, and intense resentment toward the United States. This is all done legally, mind you, with the help of the IMF, the World Bank, AID and other entities. And whatever cannot be stage-managed by corporations can usually be handled by the U.S. troops as surrogate enforcers for corpocracy. Thus, we now have foreign policy by military misadventure. Enter the terrorists, fighting "democracy's policeman."
Abroad, Big Money views foreigners as a disposable source of cheap labor; at home, immigrants are simply units of low wage labor for corporate profit-seeking. What Big Money wants overrides whatever resentment John Q. Public may have toward undocumented immigrants, i.e., illegal aliens now awash throughout the U.S.
We must be vigilant about strengthening and protecting the bonds that connect our common humanity. Preserving cultural ecology, just like caring for the physical ecology of our environment, must be given due consideration as a requisite aim of business activity. Such ecological concerns grow out of societal "goods," e.g., love, empathy, compassion, and understanding. These, in turn, form the structure upon which, ideally at least, economic and legal mechanisms of due process, equal opportunity, fairness and justice for all are built and maintained. As long as the profit incentive is allowed to reign supreme in a business atmosphere characterized by the kind of unbridled corporate capitalism that prevails in today's global society, transcending our old, status quo consciousness will be a dubious proposition. The true profit to be gained by transforming our consciousness translates into social and natural capital, i.e., a "societal wealth of nations," (Lloyd, 2004) represented by a stronger and more harmonized society at home and abroad, and a properly stewarded planet.
The new, Democratically-controlled Congress must make it a priority to challenge the corpocracy, or else face failure. Following in the woefully tragic missteps of corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans means "business as usual," i.e., the people get what they didn't vote for, yet again.
NOTES
[i] Lloyd, D., American Corpocracy: Corporate Ownership of America's Politicians Is Destroying Democracy and the Societal Wealth of Nations (Morris Publishing, Kearney, NE, 2004)
[ii] Sirota, D., Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government - and How We Take It Back (Crown, New York, 2006); Also see the Linzey, T.A. & Grossman, R.L., Model Brief to Eliminate Corporate Rights at http://www.poclad.org/ModelLegalBrief.cfm
[iii] Perkins, J., Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2004)
[iv] Nace, T., Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francsico, 2003, 2005)
[v] Draffan, G., The Elite Consensus: When Corporations Wield the Constitution (Apex Press, New York, in cooperation with POCLAD, So. Yarmouth, MA, 1995), Introduction electronically reprinted at http://www.ratical.org/corporations/WCWtC.html; Ritz, D. (Ed.), Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy: A Book of History & Strategy (Apex Press, New York, in cooperation with POCLAD, So. Yarmouth, MA, 2001); For a stunning example of incestuous interrelationships among government, business, think tanks, and universities see, http://www.exxonsecrets.org/em.php
[vi] Huntington, S.P., "The Crisis of Democracy," Report of the Trilateral Task Force on Governability of Democracies (1975), quoted in Moore, R.K., Beyond Left & Right: Escaping the Matrix (Whole Earth Magazine, 2000, reproduced in New Dawn, (No. 62, Sept.-Oct., 2000) accessed on 12/10/06 at
http://www.newdawnmagazine.info/Article/Escaping_the_Matrix.html
[vii] See, e.g., Russo, A., America: Freedom to Fascism, (2006) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4312730277175242198&q=freedomtofascism
[viii] For an excellent timeline synopsis see, Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers, prepared by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, n.d., http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/personhood_timeline.pdf
© 2006 by Jonathan D. Suss, J.D., Ph.D.
The author is a metapolitical American citizen, Maryland lawyer and a recent Ph.D. in Humanities, whose doctoral dissertation is entitled The Odyssey of the Western Legal Tradition: Integral Jurisprudence - Toward the Self-Transcendence of Deficient-Mental Legal Culture.
Comment: No, the real problem is Pathocracy.
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How Dangerous is the Dollar Drop?
By Christian Reiermann
Translated by Christopher Sultan
Spiegel Online
12 Dec 06
Is an end of an era looming in the foreign exchange markets? The dollar has been depreciating against the euro for weeks. Currency experts and the German government don't yet see this as cause for alarm. The US currency's role as a lead currency isn't as important as it used to be, they say.
Like most central bankers, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has a penchant for cryptic comments. Injecting a certain degree of incomprehensibility is a signal to the professionals that he's competent. And when it comes to laymen, industry jargon has the desired effect of generating the necessary respect.
Last Thursday the public was treated to yet another example of Trichet's convoluted speaking style. A number of risks, the ECB president said, could jeopardize a generally favorable economic outlook in the euro zone. They included, according to Trichet, "concerns regarding possible uncontrolled developments triggered by global economic imbalances."
What Europe's most powerful protector of the currency was actually saying was this: The gradual decline of the dollar in the foreign currency markets in recent weeks could pose a threat to the economy. What Trichet was also trying to broadcast is that the ECB has recognized and is aware of the threat.
Nevertheless, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt again increased its key interest rate on Thursday by a quarter percentage point to 3.5 percent, which makes the euro more attractive to international investors. The central bankers had no choice but to take the step, having already announced their intentions weeks ago.
Experts have been predicting for some time that the dollar would eventually go into a nosedive, and now that time seems to have come. The US currency has lost five percent of its value against the euro since late October, and 13 percent since the beginning of the year. The euro is currently fluctuating around a value of $1.33, which is only 3 cents away from its all-time high in 2004. And yet Trichet's counterpart Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has done nothing but look on as the dollar plunges.
A sea change appears to be taking place on the international financial markets. For years, global capital flowed in only one direction, with $2 billion going into the United States every day. Investors viewed the world's largest economy not only as a bastion of stability, but also as a place that promised the best deals, the most lucrative returns and the highest growth rates.
The Americans, for their part, welcomed foreign investment. For them, it was almost a tradition to save very little and spend more than they earned -- essentially achieving affluence on credit. Foreigners financed the Americans' almost obsessive consumer spending, which spurred worldwide economic growth for years.
Because the US government was unable to fall back on the savings of its citizens, it too was forced to finance its budget deficit with foreign capital. Both consumer spending and the federal deficit kept the dollar high, because the rest of the world was practically scrambling to invest in the United States.
This phase seems to have come to an end, at least for the time being. "There are fundamental weaknesses in the American economy. This could not continue in the long term," says Alfred Steinherr, chief economist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).
Investors pulling out
Investors worldwide are becoming sceptical and starting to pull their money out of the United States. They have realized that a people and a country cannot live beyond their means in the long term. The US dollar's exchange rate is starting to crumble as a result of this withdrawal.
The depreciation is causing growing concern about what will happen to the global economy if the United States loses its role as an engine of growth. If German cars, machinery and services become more expensive, will the German economic recovery end before it has really started?
The German government isn't worried yet, at least not officially. Nevertheless, experts in the finance and economics ministries have been keeping a close eye on developments. Although they continue to believe that the changes still fall within the scope of long-term averages, they don't rule out that the situation could worsen.
They believe that a first critical threshold for the competitiveness of the German economy will be reached at an exchange rate of about $1.36 per euro, and that Germany could see major difficulties at rates in the neighborhood of $1.50. If there is turbulence in the foreign currency markets, the government in Berlin will find itself in an especially challenging position. In early 2007, Germany will assume the chairmanship of the so-called G8 group of seven major industrialized nations plus Russia.
The G8 has repeatedly engaged in crisis management to deal with problems in the international financial system. It did so in the 1980s, when the combined forces of the G8 were needed to put a stop to the soaring dollar. It stepped in with equal verve a few years to forestall a decline in the American currency with the so-called Louvre Accord.
There are two principal causes behind the most recent development. Both have to do with the fact that Europe is becoming more attractive for international investors compared to the United States. On the one hand, interest rates in Europe and the United States are moving in opposite directions. "The ECB will continue to raise its key rates next year, whereas interest rates appear to have peaked in the USA," says Joachim Scheide, an expert on the economy at the Global Economic Institute (IFW) in the northern German city of Kiel. This means that financial investments denominated in euros are yielding higher interest and are in greater demand internationally, which in turn leads to a rise in the euro.
The prospects for growth are also shifting. The US economy is cooling off. The government recently lowered its 3.3 percent growth forecast for 2007. If Americans consume less as a result of a decline in foreign capital investment, the United States could even face a prolonged period of more modest growth.
Germany has shed 'sick man' image
By contrast the euro zone economy is robust. Germany, in particular, has surprised many with a stream of good economic news. Unemployment dropped below the psychologically critical threshold of four million in November. The Ifo business climate index, which measures the expectations of businesses, is at its highest point in 15 years, while consumer confidence has reached a five-year high.
In the last quarter of this year Germany, long considered the sick man of Europe, will have transformed itself into an engine of economic growth. According to analysts at Postbank, Germany's annual growth, projected at 3.4 percent, will even exceed that of the United States this year.
This is the kind of news that fuels the expectations of investors who now prefer to invest their money in the euro zone. The result is an increase in the exchange rate for the European Union's common currency. But how will the decline in the dollar's value affect future economic development? Could it cause a major imbalance in the global economy, or will the global economy, and Germany, get off lightly?
Pessimists are quick to come out of the woodwork whenever a major shift in the financial markets approaches. Many economists and bank analysts, especially in the United States, believe that the correction will happen very suddenly, with the dollar depreciating by 10 to 30 percent within a short period of time.
This would inevitably cause an adjustment crisis. Growth rates would plunge worldwide and a global recession, coupled with a drastic jump in unemployment, could follow.
This doomsday scenario is by no means the majority view. Some experts, especially in Germany, are more optimistic. "The US trade deficit has grown in the course of a few years," says IFW expert Scheide. "It will also gradually decline over a period of several years."
Scheide expects the dollar to lose another 10 percent in value against the euro in the next five years, a scenario that would be much easier to handle for the German and European economies. Companies would have sufficient time to adjust to changes in exchange rates. "In that case even an exchange rate of 1.40 wouldn't be disastrous," said DIW analyst Steinherr.
Germany is a good example of how effectively this can work. Despite the fact that the dollar has lost half of its value against the euro since 2002, exports have not been adversely affected. Indeed, they even increased from €651 billion ($861 billion) to €786 billion ($1.04 triilion). The Germany economy exported more than ever before in October.
Another reason is that the dollar zone is no longer as important for German exports as it was only a few decades ago. Leaving aside exceptions such as the auto industry, other regions of the world have long since become more important to the German economy than the United States, where Germany now sells less than one-tenth of its exports. Germany exports more than 40 percent of its goods and services to other countries within the euro zone, 13 percent to eastern Europe and nine percent to Asia. The turbulence surrounding the dollar has had virtually no effect on German exports to neighboring European countries. Most of the EU's new members have tied their currencies to the euro, and exchange rate risks evaporated for western Europe with the introduction of the euro.
The euro even prevents the kinds of major upheavals in Europe that occurred in the past whenever the dollar fell. When that happened, German businesses and consumers were routinely forced to bear a greater burden of adjustment than the economies of neighboring countries. In the past, if the German mark gained 10 percent in value against the dollar, the French franc or the Italian lira would only gain six or seven percent. As a result, the German mark was overvalued relative to other European currencies, which translated into economic disadvantages for the German economy.
This mechanism was eliminated when the euro was introduced. Now all member states carry the same burden.
The consequences of a declining dollar for the German and European economy will be determined in large part by the way other currencies develop relative to the dollar. "It would be fatal if only the euro were to rise," says DIW analyst Steinherr. "Then it would only be the euro zone that would have to bear the burden of adjustment." But the foreign currency markets suggest a different development, as the dollar is also losing value in relation to other important currencies.
The British pound, for example, rose to new highs last week. Even more importantly, the currencies of east Asian growth regions are also appreciating against the dollar. The Thai Baht, for example, gained about 15 percent against the dollar in 2006, while the South Korean Won gained 10 percent. Even the Chinese Yuan, which slavishly followed the dollar in the past, gained more than three percent. Virtually every economy is bearing part of the burden of adjustment.
The decline in the dollar also has its advantages. For Germany, the greatest advantage is that Germans pay less for oil. The oil price is mainly set in dollars worldwide. If the dollar declines, the same amount of oil costs Europe fewer euros, and the money the Europeans save can be spent on other goods.
A similar dynamic applies to exports from the dollar zone. If the decline in the dollar continues, computers, software licenses and machinery from the United States will become less expensive. Both developments would represent a windfall for companies and people in the euro zone, because the same amount of money would buy more goods.
The perils of a currency crash are not nearly as great as they were in the days of the dollar's absolute dominance 30 or 40 years ago. Globalization has led to the development of a number of growth centers in the world economy which share the burden of turbulence. Gone are the days when an American finance minister could boast: "The dollar is our currency, but it's your problem."
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Pentagon to ask $468.9 bln budget for fiscal 2008 - While More Americans Go Hungry and Homeless and Without Healthcare
By Andrea Shalal-Esa and Jim Wolf
Reuters
15 Dec 06
WASHINGTON - The White House has approved a $468.9 billion budget for the Pentagon in fiscal year 2008, a six-percent increase over last year's request, according to a Defense Department document obtained by Reuters.
It is also asking the Pentagon to cover some Army and Marine Corps war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the regular budget, rather than through emergency budget requests.
The 2008 budget request is $4.7 billion more than the level the Pentagon forecast in its 2007 budget documents.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England welcomed the increase in a letter to Rob Portman, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
But he strongly objected to OMB's orders that "costs to accelerate Army and Marine Corps combat and combat support units, Army Force Readiness and replacement of additional aircraft losses" should be funded as part of the 2008 budget.
England said that violated the Pentagon's earlier agreement with the White House that the extra spending would be used to cover Army budget shortfalls, and that war costs would continue to be funded through supplemental budgets.
The Bush administration is continuing to discuss budgets with various government agencies, including the Pentagon, and will submit a fiscal 2008 budget to Congress in February.
"The inconsistency ... is that adding war costs in the budget would effectively negate the prior agreement for a topline increase," England said in the December 14 memorandum.
Offsets proposed by White House budget officials would "significantly weaken the department's strategic position" and jeopardize the Pentagon's joint warfighting concept, he said.
England did not give details on the proposed offsets.
However, he said the Pentagon's initial budget proposal -- before the suggested offsets -- was based on thousands of hours of work, and the best judgment by senior military and civilian leaders.
"It is balanced and provides for our nation's defense at a time of diverse and dramatic threats," England said.
WAR COSTS
U.S. lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated about the Pentagon's use of supplemental budgets to fund war costs, given that the costs are no longer "unanticipated," said Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategy and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based research group.
But he said lawmakers wanted more oversight of that spending than permitted in the supplemental budgets, and there was no suggestion that they would curb funding for the war.
"They would like the administration to ask for most of the funding up front," he said.
Kosiak also rejected England's statement in the memo that the 2008 increase "reverses a trend of declining real growth", calling England's description "flat-out wrong".
"There has been a upward trend in real terms, above the rate of inflation," he said, citing a 23 percent real increase, above inflation, in the Pentagon's budget from 2000 to 2007.
Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said England's letter revealed the Pentagon's growing concern about being able to modernize its forces and fund new weapons programs while paying escalating war bills.
"This has real significance for the Pentagon in terms of being able to fund other items besides the war," he said.
The Pentagon is likely to ask for an additional $100 billion to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars early next year.
The Pentagon's 2008 overall budget request of $468.9 for fiscal 2008 is 6.3 percent higher than its fiscal 2007 budget request of $441.2 billion.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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Tax Leads Americans Abroad to Renounce U.S.
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
NY Times
18 Dec 06
PARIS, Dec. 17 - She is a former marine, a native Californian and, now, an ex-American who prefers to remain discreet about abandoning her citizenship. After 10 years of warily considering options, she turned in her United States passport last month without ceremony, becoming an alien in the view of her homeland.
"It's a really hard thing to do," said the woman, a 16-year resident of Geneva who had tired of the cost and time of filing yearly United States tax returns on top of her Swiss taxes. "I just kept putting this off. But it's my kids and the estate tax. I don't care if I die with only one Swiss franc to my name, but the U.S. shouldn't get money I earned here when I die."
Historically, small numbers of Americans have turned in their passports every year for political and economic reasons, with the numbers reaching a high of about 2,000 during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
But after Congress sharply raised taxes this year for many Americans living abroad, some international tax lawyers say they detect rising demand from citizens to renounce ties with the United States, the only developed country that taxes it citizens while they live overseas. Americans abroad are also taxed in the countries where they live.
"The administrative costs of being an American and living outside the U.S. have gone up dramatically," said Marnin Michaels, a tax lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in Zurich.
So far this year, the Internal Revenue Service has tallied 509 Americans who have given up their citizenship, said Anthony Burke, an I.R.S. spokesman in Washington. He said complete figures were still being calculated.
Applications to renounce citizenship are on the rise at the American Embassy in Paris, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. At the embassy in London, the number of applications was reported to be fairly stable over the past two years, though it would be hard to spot a recent surge because applications are taking longer to process there than in past years. Neither embassy would disclose exact figures. A spokeswoman for the American Embassy in London, Karen Maxfield, said Americans living abroad usually took the step "because they do not have strong ties to the United States and do not believe that they will ever live there in the future."
"All have two citizenships and generally say they would like to simplify their lives by giving up a citizenship they are not using," she said.
Andy Sundberg, a director of the Geneva-based American Citizens Abroad, has been tracking renunciations dating back to the 1960s through annual Treasury Department figures. He considers the numbers low compared with some stretches in the past, like the early 1970s. But he has also noticed a recent increase in interest among Americans in renouncing their citizenship.
"I think the cup is boiling over for a number of people living abroad," Mr. Sundberg said. "With the Internet and the speed and the ubiquity of information, people are more aware of what's happening." With the changes in the tax laws, he said, some Americans living abroad fear "they're heading toward a real storm."
He cited a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, which polled its members in October and November and found that many were considering returning to the United States because of the higher taxes.
Concern about taxes among Americans living abroad has surged since President Bush signed into law a bill that sharply raises tax rates for those with incomes of more than $82,400 a year. The legislation also increases taxes on employer-provided benefits like housing allowances.
The changes, enacted in May, apply retroactively to Jan. 1, 2006.
Matthew Ledvina, an international tax lawyer in Geneva, said demand for legal counsel on the citizenship issue was coming largely from American citizens who held second passports and who had minimal ties to the United States.
"There are incentives to do it before the end of the year so that you can minimize your future reporting," he said.
Mr. Ledvina said the waiting period for appointments at the American Embassy in London had increased from a few days to more than three and a half months. He said he had recently approached embassies in Vienna, Bern, London, Paris and Brussels before finally getting an appointment in Amsterdam for a client's renunciation application.
The legal ritual of renunciation is largely unique to the United States because other countries base taxation on residency, not citizenship, according to Ingmar Dörr, a tax lawyer with Lovells in Munich.
"We don't have that issue," he said. "We only have the problem that rich people who don't want to pay taxes in Germany just move to a lower-tax country in Switzerland."
For some Americans abroad, motivations for renunciation are mixed and complex, involving social concerns, political displeasure with their government and other reasons. But it is clear that taxation plays a large role for many, even though few are willing to admit that because of penalties enacted a decade ago.
In 1996, Congress tried to address a wave of tax-driven expatriation by the wealthy by requiring former citizens to file tax returns for a decade and forbidding Americans who renounced their passports for tax reasons from visiting the United States.
But in practice, the government is mainly interested in wealthier ex-citizens with a net worth of more than $2 million - few of whom pay further United States taxes because they generally avoid making American financial investments after giving up citizenship, Mr. Ledvina said. As for the rule barring entry to tax refugees, he said, it has not been enforced by the authorities.
Still, that possibility prompts ex-citizens to tread carefully and remain discreet about their choices.
"I didn't give up my citizenship with a sense of hostility," said an importer in Geneva who renounced her citizenship as President Bush was taking office in 2001. "I gave it up with a sense of fairness."
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Land of the Free: Seizing of debtors' cars is curtailed
By Beth Healy and Michael Rezendes
Boston Globe
December 18, 2006
Sheriffs in three Massachusetts counties that once made a business of towing vehicles on behalf of unscrupulous debt collectors have adopted new rules to treat consumers more fairly and have sharply cut back on the common practice of seizing vehicles from beleaguered debtors.
The changes, coming after a Globe Spotlight Team report on debt collection abuses, are now seen in Norfolk, Plymouth, and Worcester counties.
In Norfolk County, deputy sheriffs are no longer seizing vehicles from consumers whose debt results from medical or dental expenses or in cases in which the amount owed is less than $1,500.
"We will no longer seize cars over medical bills, no matter what the amount," Sheriff Michael G. Bellotti said, calling the practice inappropriate because medical services are not a discretionary purchase.
As a result of the changes, confiscating vehicles in the county has dropped by half from September to November, compared with the same three months last year.
A similarly dramatic change has come to Worcester County, where more than 1,000 vehicles had been seized from debtors over the last five years. The number of vehicle confiscations has dropped by two-thirds since two notorious debt collectors -- brothers Daniel and Chad Goldstone -- closed their local offices and left the state after the Globe series, which detailed their practices.
And in Plymouth County, the Sheriff's Department has adopted an even more striking shift: treating debtors with simple consideration. The deputy sheriff now writes to anyone whose vehicle is about to be seized, said spokesman John Birtwell .
The change was made after the Globe reported that many consumers have no idea they are being sued for debt or that a debt collector has a court judgment to seize their property.
"The primary concern was that a lot of these folks had absolutely no idea that their vehicles were being taken," Birtwell said.
Often, in searching for a vehicle to seize, a deputy sheriff or constable successfully finds the address of a person who the debt collector and the court did not previously take the trouble to find, according to the Globe report.
Now, if a deputy sheriff in Plymouth County sends a letter of warning to an address provided by the court, and the letter is returned as undeliverable, the deputy will not hunt further for the vehicle, Birtwell said.
As the three counties shift their practices, some legislators and consumer advocates are working to further limit the seizure of vehicles to satisfy debts, and Bellotti is proposing that his recent policy moves be adopted statewide.
Separately, a task force appointed by the chiefs of the Massachusetts Trial Courts to change the district court system -- where most debt cases are decided -- continues to deliberate on a range of reforms.
The Spotlight Team series, which ran mid summer, documented the extraordinary degree to which the small-claims sessions have become pliant forums for debt collectors. Collectors, who buy delinquent debts for pennies on the dollar, have won court judgments by the thousands -- judgments that allow for the seizures of vehicles and other property.
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The report highlighted how remarkably common such cases have become, with ordinary debtors given the sort of harsh treatment once reserved for the most obdurate of deadbeats. The article also showed how little regulatory supervision or interest there has been in reining in the more abusive debt collectors.
Now, however, the climate is shifting.
Jeffrey R. Turco , the Worcester County sheriff's chief deputy, said the big change -- beyond the Goldstones' departure -- has been new rules designed to ensure that deputy sheriffs take more responsibility for these cases and are not acting as street-level enforcers of erroneous court judgments.
For example, if a debtor claims to have filed for bankruptcy protection, Turco said, Worcester deputy sheriffs must not seize the person's vehicle unless they determine the claim is false.
And when seizing vehicles, deputy sheriffs must now consult a catalog of used-car prices to determine whether a vehicle's sale value will cover the debt that is owed. The sheriff doesn't want to take someone's vehicle only to leave them still in debt, Turco said.
The department will no longer seize a vehicle with a large lien against it, Turco said, because in such cases, the lender has first rights to the vehicle. That means the vehicle cannot be sold at a sheriff's auction. If a vehicle cannot be sold, it would effectively be held for ransom, while the debtor comes up with cash to reclaim it.
In cases in which a vehicle is seized and goes to auction, Turco said, the department is trying to attract more bidders to boost the potential sale price. The department has begun posting auction notices in the town hall and at the Police Department in addition to advertising in a local newspaper as it has in the past.
State Senator Robert S. Creedon Jr. , chairman of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, is among those pressing for change in debt-collection oversight. He said he plans to hold hearings early next year on abusive debt collectors and the free pass they often get in the state's district courts. He said he is particularly concerned about defendants not getting proper notice of court dates and the automatic default rulings against them when they fail to show up in court.
"We don't want these default judgments popping up when nobody knows they're sued," Creedon said.
He has filed a bill that would bar debt collectors from seizing vehicles worth less than $10,000. Current law, which is decades old, aims to protect a consumer's primary mode of transportation but only up to $700. State Senator Marc R. Pacheco also has filed a bill, which he plans to refile in the next session, that would raise the auto exemption to $2,600, with regular increases based on the cost-of-living index.
Robert J. Hobbs , deputy director of the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, said he thinks the exemption should go even further. As part of a package of debt-collection reforms his group is preparing to present to legislators, he suggests that every family ought to be able to keep one vehicle safe from collectors, no matter its value. He proposes protecting other assets as well, including $2,000 in a bank account, household furniture worth up to $4,000, and wages up to 30 times the Massachusetts hourly minimum wage.
"The most important thing is to make sure the property exemptions are modernized," Hobbs said, "so it's not so financially devastating if there is a judgment against you."
Comment on this Article
Creeping Fascism Spreads In Western "Democracies"
Showdown Looms Over Domestic Spying
By DAVID KRAVETS
AP
17 Dec 06
SAN FRANCISCO - Federal agents continue to eavesdrop on Americans' electronic communications without warrants a year after President Bush confirmed the practice, and experts say a new Congress' efforts to limit the program could trigger a constitutional showdown.
High-ranking Democrats set to take control of both chambers are mulling ways to curb the program Bush secretly authorized a month after the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House argues the Constitution gives the president wartime powers to eavesdrop that he wouldn't have during times of peace.
"As a practical matter, the president can do whatever he wants as long as he has the capacity and executive branch officials to do it," said Carl Tobias, a legal scholar at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
Lawmakers could impeach or withhold funding, or quash judicial nominations, among other measures.
The president, however, can veto legislation, including a law demanding the National Security Agency obtain warrants before monitoring communications. Such a veto would force Congress to muster a two-thirds vote to override.
"He could take the position he doesn't have to comply with whatever a new Congress says," said Vikram Amar, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, and a former Supreme Court clerk.
Douglas Kmiec, a former Justice Department official under former presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, speculated the younger Bush would assert executive authority to continue eavesdropping in the face of new legislation - perhaps leaving the Supreme Court as the final arbiter.
"He has as much a constitutional obligation to assert himself, just as much as Congress does," Kmiec said. "We do need an arbitrator, an interpreter. That's what the courts, the third branch of government, was intended to be."
On Dec. 17, 2005, Bush publicly acknowledged for the first time he had authorized the NSA to monitor, without approval from a judge, phone calls and e-mails that come into or originate in the U.S. and involve people the government suspects of having terrorist links.
Bush said he had no intention of halting what he called a "vital tool" in the war on terror.
When the Republican-controlled Congress adjourned last week, it left the spying program unchecked.
The next move falls to the Democrats who take control in January and are considering a proposal to demands Bush get warrants and others lengthening the time between surveillance and when a warrant must be obtained.
A spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, the incoming Senate majority leader from Nevada, said the eavesdropping issue "is something he expects to tackle early next year."
"He doesn't believe in giving the president a blank check to listen to the phone conversations of millions of Americans," spokesman Jim Manley said.
Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who will become House speaker, said eavesdropping legislation was under consideration and hearings on the topic were likely early next year.
Decisions are pending in dozens of lawsuits challenging the program.
The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest court squarely confronted with the issue so far, is to hear the American Civil Liberties Union's challenge Jan. 31. One stop short of the Supreme Court, the appeals court will review a Detroit judge's ruling that the program was unconstitutional.
The case is American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency, 06-2095.
Comment on this Article
Tortured Canadian Cleared By Ottawa Inquiry Still on U.S. 'Watch List'
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 16, 2006
TORONTO -- Maher Arar, the Canadian Muslim who was whisked by U.S. agents from a New York airport to imprisonment and torture in Syria, remains on the U.S. "watch list" despite an exhaustive Canadian inquiry that found he is an innocent man, the U.S. ambassador to Canada said Friday.
Ambassador David Wilkins said in an interview with CBC Radio that Arar "is on the watch list and has been since he was deported" in 2002 to Syria, where he was held for 10 months, much of it in a coffin-like dungeon.
His transfer to Syria, part of a series of U.S. clandestine "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects for interrogation in foreign countries, created a scandal in Canada.
The head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police resigned last week after a two-year judicial inquiry found his officers gave U.S. agents false information to cast suspicion on Arar.
The Canadian Parliament has apologized to Arar, now 36, and the Canadian government is preparing compensation for the engineer.
But the United States has never acknowledged any mistake in the matter, and Wilkins's disclosure Friday indicates Arar might again be detained by the United States if he were to enter the country.
His removal to Syria "was based on information from a variety of sources, as is his current watch list status," Wilkins said in a statement he issued later Friday. U.S. officials have made "our own independent assessment of the threat to the United States," he said.
"That the United States would have the gall to keep Maher on a watch list, implying that he poses a threat to this country, is outrageous," said one of Arar's attorneys, Maria LaHood, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. The nonprofit group filed a suit on Arar's behalf against the U.S. government, but it was dismissed.
"This administration is unwilling to admit its mistakes and still tries to conceal them," she said.
In Ottawa, New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said the Canadian government should demand that the United States remove Arar's name from the list. "Otherwise, it sends a message the Canadian government will not stand behind its own citizens," he told reporters.
Comment on this Article
Criminalizing Compassion in the War on Terror: Muslim Charities and the Case of Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir
by Katherine Hughes
Fellowship
Nov.-Dec. 2006
In May 2005, David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary about the constitutional implications of a series of "anti-terrorism" laws rushed through Congress after 9/11. Cole said [emphasis, mine]:
The statutes described above prohibit virtually all associational support to selected political organizations, while granting executive branch officials effectively unreviewable discretion to target disfavored groups. These laws make it a crime to write an op-ed, provide legal advice, volunteer one's time, or distribute a magazine of any "designated" group, even if there is no connection whatsoever between the individual's support and any illegal activity of the proscribed group.
Under these statutes, an American citizen who sends a treatise on nonviolence to the Kurdistan Workers' Party to encourage it to forgo violence for peace can be sent to prison for 15 years. This is so even if he proves that he intended the treatise to be used only for peaceful ends, and that it was in fact used solely for that purpose. Such a moral innocent can be said to be "guilty" by association. 1
If you think this is an exaggeration and couldn't happen, think again. This is precisely the situation in which Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir found himself.
The T-word
According to United Nations statistics, every month throughout the 1990s almost 6,000 children under the age of five in Iraq were dying from lack of food and access to simple medicines.2 Three senior U.N. officials resigned because of what they considered a "genocidal" policy against Iraq.3 The United States led the effort to place restrictive sanctions on Iraq, and when Madeleine Albright, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked in a CBS interview if the deaths of half a million children was a price worth paying to punish Saddam Hussein, she infamously replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."4 When the deaths of children over the age of five and adults are added, the number killed as a direct result of the sanctions rises to between 1.5 and 2 million dead civilians.5
In response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by these brutal sanctions, Dhafir, a man of Iraqi descent and Muslim faith, and an American citizen for almost 30 years, started the charity Help the Needy (HTN).
Dr. Dhafir is a pillar of the Muslim community in Central New York. He was a founding member of the local mosque, and he served as the imam at Syracuse University until it hired a full-time imam. He paid a substantial amount of the running costs of the mosque and provided free medical consultation to those at the mosque without health insurance. His medical practice was in Rome, New York, an underserved area in which he was the sole oncologist. In his practice he provided free health care to people without insurance, and he paid for their expensive chemotherapy medicine out of his own pocket.6
For 13 years, Dhafir worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people and to raise funds to help them.7 According to the government, Dhafir donated $1.25 million of his own money over the years.8 As an oncologist, he was also concerned about the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population, which was experiencing skyrocketing cancer rates.9
For the crime of breaking the U.S. and U.K.-sponsored U.N. sanctions on Iraq and sending humanitarian aid to sick and starving civilians, Dhafir was held without bail for 31 months and then sentenced to 22 years in prison.10 By implication, his were terrorist acts.
The legal background
Since the events of 9/11, the government has implemented powerful new prosecutorial tools to gain convictions in its War on Terror. In an article entitled "Terrorist Financing," Jeff Breinholt, deputy chief of the Department of Justice's Counterterrorism Section, explains these tools and how they are being used.11 On page 31 of the article he lists the statutes employed in the criminal prosecution of terrorist financing. Among these statutes is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which Breinholt also labels as "United States economic sanctions."12 IEEPA provides the president of the United States with authority to deal with any "unusual and extraordinary threat" that has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States; this includes threat to "national security, foreign policy, and the economy."13
Prosecutors armed with the statutes listed in Breinholt's paper are further empowered by using them in conjunction with the "material support of terrorism" laws, Executive Order (EO) 13224, and civil asset forfeiture laws - particularly those under IEEPA, which were amended by the PATRIOT Act. Under the IEEPA civil asset forfeiture provisions, the government can close down an organization and seize its assets while an investigation is ongoing, without probable cause of criminal activity and without any charges ever being brought against anyone.14
EO 13224 was issued on September 23, 2001. It introduced a blacklist of organizations and individuals suspected of terrorism, materially aiding terrorism, or associating with terrorists. IEEPA and international law permit humanitarian assistance for these suspects, including food, clothing and medicine, but this humanitarian aid is outlawed under EO 13224.15 The penalty for an IEEPA violation for organizations that knowingly engage in terrorist financing already carried a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. What this new provision did was "drastically increase the penalties for knowing violations of non-terrorism-related IEEPA offenses."16 People with a concern for civil liberties are troubled by the fact that the government provides no legal definition of what they consider a "specially designated terrorist" and by the broad manner in which the government is interpreting the new rules.17
The effect on Muslim charity
In a March 2006 article in the Washington Post, Laila al-Marayati and Basil Abdelkarim, board members of Kinder USA, a Muslim-American nonprofit humanitarian organization, wrote:
We are among those American Muslims who decided that because it is our right as Americans to fulfill our religious obligation to help the needy both here and abroad, we would start a new charity. We did so in 2002 and have experienced our fair share of government harassment as a result. None of us is interested in engaging in illegal activity; it is immoral, unethical, and un-Islamic, and it serves no useful purpose whatever. Our crime is that we care about what happens to the children of Palestine. Who knows what price we will have to pay for our hot-breakfast program for hungry kids in Gaza, for our playground project in the West Bank, for our psychological trauma center in Hebron.18
It is Muslim charities and individuals connected with these charities who are bearing the brunt of EO 13224.19 Since September 11, 2001, six major U.S. Muslim charities and several smaller Muslim charities have been shut down.20 The U.S. government closed the three largest Muslim charities in the country in December 2001, accusing each of supporting terror.21 Yet working in close collaboration with the U.S. government does not provide protection from this fate. In 2002 a new charity, KindHearts (KH), was established, determined to work together with government agencies to ensure compliance with all the new rules. KH has nonetheless suffered the same consequences as its sister organizations. In February 2006, KH's assets were seized and its operations frozen because of dubious allegations of financing terror.22
In a report titled "Muslim Charities and the War on Terror," OMB Watch23 documented its concerns about the treatment of Muslim charities and the people involved with them.24 Among the many concerns OMB voiced were the use of questionable evidence to shut down the largest U.S.-based charities, resulting in much-needed humanitarian assistance not reaching people who desperately need it; use of anti-terrorist financing policies that deny Muslim charities the right of due process and are unequally enforced; and holding of organizations and individuals associated with humanitarian work "guilty until proven innocent." They concluded that despite the new investigative powers, the authorities have failed to produce evidence of terror financing by U.S.-based charities.25
Nudge nudge, wink wink: the Help the Needy case
Since the day of Dhafir's arrest, February 26, 2003, when 85 (!) agents went to his home, government officials at national and state levels have portrayed Dhafir's humanitarian work as support of terrorism.26 Simultaneous to Dhafir's arrest, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., others associated with HTN were arrested in Syracuse, New York; Boise, Idaho; and Amman, Jordan. At the same time, about 150 mainly Muslim families who had donated to HTN were interrogated by government agents.27 On the same day, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that "supporters of terrorism" had been apprehended - a completely unfounded assertion that was reiterated by New York Governor George Pataki in August 2004, just prior to the start of Dhafir's trial.28
At the same time, and throughout the trial, local government officials - the prosecutors and the District Attorney - denied that the case had any connection to terrorism. Instead they portrayed Dhafir as a common thief.29 District Attorney Glenn Suddaby said, "[T]here's no evidence that any of the Help the Needy money went to al Qaida, the Iraqi government, or to buy arms and bullets that could be used against U.S. soldiers."30
The inconsistencies in the government's position were a startling feature of this case fromits inception. They suggested two possibilities: either one hand of the government didn't know what the other was doing, or the government was aiming deliberately to deceive.
No media outlet challenged the government directly and demanded that it provide an explanation for its contradictory assertions. However, Michael Powell of the Washington Post drew attention to them shortly before the trial began:
There is a shadow-boxing quality to the terror allegations lodged against Dhafir. In August, Gov. George E. Pataki (R) described Dhafir's as a "money laundering case to help terrorist organizations ... conduct horrible acts." Prosecutors hinted at national security reasons for holding Dhafir without bail. But no evidence was offered to support the allegations.31
Despite Pataki's pre-trial announcement, which was perfectly timed to reach potential jurors, the prosecution successfully petitioned Judge Norman Mordue not to allow the charge of terrorism to be part of the trial.32 Not surprisingly, the specter of terrorism hung over the trial throughout the proceedings, and prosecutors could hint at more serious charges but the defense lawyers were never allowed to follow this line of questioning.33
Dhafir's 17-week court case was conducted as a 60-count case of white-collar crime with no charges of terrorism. As a direct result of this, only the local Syracuse newspaper, the Post Standard, covered the proceedings. The paper proved to be little more than a mouthpiece for the government; on the rare occasion that it did provide coverage of cross-examination, it immediately followed with a restatement of the charges in the indictment.34 During the 17 weeks of daily coverage of the proceedings, the paper failed to give more than a passing mention to an ecumenical group that met every morning outside the federal building to worship for half an hour before the trial commenced at 8:30 a.m., or to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) court watchers who were present in court every day.35
Concerns have been expressed about reporters being embedded in war zones; there should be equal concern about them being embedded in federal buildings.
Avoiding the issues
Of the 60 counts in the Dhafir indictment, most were related to breaking the sanctions: conspiracy, mail and wire-fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. These charges are easily explained when viewed in the context of the sanctions. The government, however, did everything it could to prevent the condition of Iraq during the sanctions from being referred to at the trial.
According to the government, the investigation of HTN began with a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) from a bank. The government encourages financial institutions to report "suspicious activity" by watching out for money transfers between related accounts of related entities. But many nonprofit organizations that have nothing to do with supporting terrorism make these kinds of transfers on a regular basis.36 Because of the SAR report, seven government agencies investigated Dhafir and HTN for five years. They intercepted mail, e-mail, and faxes; bugged his office and hotel rooms; and conducted physical surveillance.
Because the government was unwilling to prosecute Dhafir for sanctions-related charges alone, the last 25 counts of the indictment were related to Medicare fraud. The government evidence for this part of the case was extremely weak.37 For example, a bar chart that supposedly compared the dollar amount of Dhafir's billing of Medicare with other doctors' billing was completely meaningless. It showed Dhafir's bar as being very tall and the other doctors' bars being much smaller - but when the witness was asked by the defense to say what types of doctors the other doctors were, or what their geographic location was, she could not answer.38
The whole of the Medicare case revolved around a single rule called "incident to," meaning any treatment performed by someone other than the doctor. The government claimed that Dhafir had filled out the forms incorrectly, and was therefore entitled to no reimbursement from Medicare, despite the fact that patients had received treatment and chemotherapy drugs. The defense contended that even if Dhafir's office had filled the forms wrongly (which they did not believe he had), Medicare had only overpaid 15% of $1,102.80 - the difference between what they pay for a doctor's time as opposed to a nurse practitioner's time - for a total overpayment of $166.00. This was not fraud, merely incorrect billing. Medicare fraud usually involves fictitious patients and made-up illnesses. Dhafir's case had none of this.
The government presented the Medicare evidence in the same way it presented the evidence related to the sanctions. After weeks of testimony following checks from bank to bank, the prosecution turned to day after day of testimony regarding Medicare forms, asking individuals from Dhafir's office to validate their signatures on the forms - thus proving that they had indeed signed the forms, but nothing else.39
The defense presented one witness, for 15 minutes. He was Dr. Edward Cox, head of the carrier organization that processes claims for Medicare.40 Reading from The New York State Handbook, Cox confirmed the defense's contention that in order to bill Medicare under the "incident to" rule, a non-physician was required to have a license or training.41 Thus, according to the Handbook, Dhafir's billing of Medicare was proper.
The Post Standard reported this testimony correctly on the day after it was given. On the following day, however, the paper had a front-page correction, with a picture of the witness apparently contradicting his testimony of the day before.42 And despite the testimony of this witness, the judge in his charge to the jury instructed them that under New York law a laboratory technician required a license; in other words, training alone was not sufficient.43
On the day of her sentencing, Mrs. Dhafir, Dr. Dhafir's wife and bookkeeper, was ordered to pay back $62,000 to Medicare. Asked on the same day how much of that money had actually been spent on chemotherapy medicine that was administered to patients, Michael Olmstead, the head prosecutor, was unable to say. When Dr. Dhafir was asked the same question, he said that 90% of this money had been spent on medicine.44 This leaves 10% of the money for the doctor's time, the nurse's time, and blood work. Dhafir also said that in 2002, Medicare reimbursed him less than he had spent on medicine alone. A look at the records would confirm or refute this, but Dr. Dhafir has been continually denied access to his own records that were taken from his house and office on the day of the arrest.
Jennifer Van Bergen, a journalist with a law degree and author of The Twilight of Democracy45 has written a two-part article on Dhafir's case entitled "New American Law: The Case of Dr. Dhafir" and "New American Law: Legal Strategies and Precedents in the Dhafir Case."46 In this article and other writings, Van Bergen warns about the danger of civil liberties being undermined when the government uses parallel legal tracks not intended to be mixed.47 She notes that, as happened in Dhafir's case, conspiracy laws and money laundering laws used "creatively" with the PATRIOT Act and IEEPA can be used to construct a vast distorted picture. Dhafir's case sets a legal precedent and means that others who provide humanitarian and medical assistance to those in need could, like Dhafir, end up being put away for the rest of their lives.
The government's strategy revealed
In November 2005, just weeks after Dhafir was sentenced to 22 years in prison for white-collar crimes, the government presented a lecture to a group of faculty and third-year law students at Syracuse University Law School in which Dhafir and the HTN case were highlighted. Jeff Breinholt, author of the article on terrorist financing mentioned above, and Greg West, one of the Dhafir prosecutors, presented the lecture, "A Law Enforcement Approach to Terrorist Financing."48 The other two Dhafir prosecutors were also present, along with representatives from the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT), a sponsor of the lecture.49
The slant of this lecture, along with Breinholt's 2003 "Terrorist Financing" article and the fact that Dhafir and the other HTN defendants are listed on the FBI's list of "terrorism convictions since September 11, 2001," give credence to the idea that the government's creative use of parallel legal tracks was a strategy from the outset.50
Breinholt stated that Dhafir's case had been under-prosecuted. In the context of the lecture's title, the implication was clear. He discussed the statutes being used as powerful tools for prosecution of terrorist financing, and explained that these tools were not widely known even among prosecutors. He voiced a hope that law schools could serve as a kind of farm system educating students in this new field of law, and that this in turn would create lawyers who would be familiar with and who could use these new prosecution tools.51
He explained that because the "American public won't tolerate anything less than the rule of law," creative ways had to be figured out to draft laws that can be used to prosecute what they are trying to prevent.52 According to Breinholt, this task was addressed by a Department of Justice Terrorist Financing Task Force that came together to craft ways to apply white-collar expertise to the problem of terrorism. In his article, Breinholt says:
Persons cannot be convicted of the federal crime of terrorism because there is no such crime. Instead, terrorism crimes have developed in the same manner as other crimes, policymakers determine what evil (or "mischief") should be prevented, and then craft criminal laws that take into account how such mischief is generally achieved. On occasion, acts that are criminalized are not ones that should necessarily be discouraged, if committed by persons not otherwise involved in the targeted conduct. In such cases, laws are crafted to criminalize such conduct only when in particular circumstances.53
A major tool that emerged from the work of this task force, said Breinholt, is the use of IEEPA violations to gain convictions in terrorist financing cases. He added that to convict under IEEPA, all that is necessary is to build a chain of inferences from available circumstantial evidence.54
In Breinholt's article, Dhafir and other HTN defendants are listed under the heading "Examples of 'clean money' cases."55 Listed under this same heading are Enaam Arnaout of Benevolence International Foundation (BIF); Sami Al-Hussayen, a graduate student at the University of Idaho, associated with Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA);56 and Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian professor from Florida.57 Further on, under the heading "crimes of terrorist financing," Breinholt lists the statutes being used in prosecution of these cases.58 Statutes under this heading that were used in Dhafir's case are 50 U.S.C. ss 1701,1702 (IEEPA) and U.S.C. ss 1956(a)(2)(A), "operating an unlicensed money transmitting business."59 One of the Dhafir prosecutors, Mr. West, explained to the class that one of the biggest frustrations of his career was having access to intelligence and not being able to share it.
Neither Breinholt nor West stated that these "powerful prosecution tools" are being used mostly against Muslim charities and individuals associated with those charities, while violations by large corporations like Halliburton, which did billions of dollars worth of business in defiance of IEEPA, go largely unpunished. At the most these corporations have gotten a slap on the wrist and a fine, but no individual board member or officer has ever faced prosecution. 60 And although many non-Muslim charities work in the same troubled regions of the world as Muslim charities, not a single non-Muslim charity has been closed.61 None of this was mentioned at the lecture.
By hosting this lecture, Syracuse University Law School gave credence to a charge never brought against Dhafir, and in doing so they became an accomplice in the government's subterfuge. After the lecture, a request was made that the ACLU court watchers who attended the trial be provided with "equal time" to speak to the students.62 Syracuse Law School Dean Hannah Arterian denied this request.
In testimony given on Capitol Hill by the U.S. Treasury Department, prosecution of Muslim charity cases is being used as a model of success in efforts to disrupt terrorism.63 However the testimony often contradicts the actual rulings in the cases, and the testimony fails to acknowledge that there are no terrorist convictions among any of the cases.
At a 2004 Pace University Law School symposium, Dr. Laila al-Marayati addressed the way this Treasury Department targeting of Muslim charities threatens civil liberties, constitutional rights, and the rule of law not just for Muslims, but for every American, regardless of creed:
The ever-present threat of a "terrorist designation" by the Treasury Department functions based on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent." The use of secret evidence, hearsay, erroneous translations, guilt by association and press reports in recent court cases further erodes the ability of charities to rely on basic assumptions regarding their constitutional rights, especially when the courts ultimately favor the government when "national security" is allegedly at stake. Overzealous surveillance tactics of the intelligence community such as wiretapping, infiltrating organizations by bribing employees to work as spies (thereby disrupting normal and lawful humanitarian activities), and engaging in other forms of harassment - when added to the above bleak picture - will not only chill, but will freeze completely American Muslim charitable giving overseas. Perhaps this is the goal of the U.S. government. However, no one should be fooled into thinking that America or the American people will be much safer as a result.64
History watches
Writing during the McCarthy era, Judge Irving R. Kaufman warned, "Once we embark on shortcuts by creating a category of 'obviously guilty' whose rights are denied, we run the risk that the circle of the unprotected will grow."65
We appear once again to have entered a dark time in which the civil liberties of a select group of people are being denied. The message being sent to Muslims across the country is that pillars of their community can be knocked down without any call for equal justice from the non-Muslim community. It is incumbent upon each of us to defend civil liberties for all, not least because "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."66
Donations can be made to Dhafir Appeal Fund, c/o Peter Goldberger, Esq., Attorney at Law, 50 Rittenhouse Place, Ardmore, PA 19003. Write "Dr. Dhafir Appeal Fund" in the memo line and please note that donations are not tax-deductible.
Katherine Hughes began attending the 17-week trial as a court watcher for the ACLU but quickly found that she could not in good conscience be the uninvolved observer their organization required. Since then she has worked to achieve justice for Dr. Dhafir. More information can be found at her Web site: www.dhafirtrial.net. A version of this article with detailed footnotes may be accessed online at www.forusa.org/fellowship.
1. David Cole, "Constitutional Implications of the Statutes Penalizing Material Support to Terrorist Organizations," Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (hereafter Cole Testimony), May 2004: . Cole is talking about the same statutes that Breinholt mentions in his paper on "Terrorist Financing."
2. "UNICEF: Questions and Answers for the Iraq Child Mortality Surveys" (August 1999), . See also the Voices in the Wilderness Web site for more information on the condition of Iraq under sanctions.
3. Because of his humanitarian work, Dhafir was named as the sole honorary member of the Brussels Tribunal Advisory Committee. Two of the United Nations people who resigned, Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, are also members of this committee:.
4. "Punishing Saddam," 60 Minutes, CBS Television, May 12,1996, quoted in John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, p. 63 (Verso, 2002).
5. Dr. Gideon Polya, "Passive Genocide In Iraq," March 11, 2005 Countercurrents.org
6. Kristen Hinman, "The Iraqi Doctor: Patients Revere Him; The Government Wants to Put Him Away," Fall 2004: . Hinman's grandmother was a patient of Dr. Dhafir's. She was a student at Columbia University when she wrote this essay.
7. A video of a fundraising event at which Dr. Dhafir spoke was shown at his trial. The file is 120MB and can be viewed here: (Quicktime version): and here (Flash version).
8. Katherine Hughes, notes of Dhafir Trial (hereafter Hughes, Notes.)
9. See also Dhafir's address commemorating the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. The statement was made from prison on August 6, 2003, and Akira Tashiro Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium, (The Chugoku Shimbum, 2001).
10. For more information see Katherine Hughes, "Crime of Compassion," January, 2006: (hereafter Hughes, Crime of Compassion), and Katherine Hughes, "The U.S.A. v Rafil A. Dhafir: Individual Responsibility and Complicity," November 2005.
11. Jeff Breinholt, "Terrorist Financing," U.S. Attorney Bulletin, July 2003, Volume 51, number 4 (hereafter Breinholt); http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usab5104.pdf. Page 31 lists the United States Code provisions used to criminalize "terrorist financing."
12. Id.
13. IEEPA, Title 50, United States Code, section 1701(a), taken from indictment of Rafil A. Dhafir, August 18, 2004.
14. Jennifer Van Bergen, "How Government Forfeitures are Shutting Down U.S.-Based Muslim Charities: Going After Terrorism's Financiers Is the Right Strategy, But the Law Needs Reform," Findlaw Writ Guest Column, May 1, 2006: .
15. For a more detailed description of the effects of these new regulations, see: Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, "American Muslim Charities: Easy Targets in the War on Terror," presented on December 3, 2004 at Pace University Law Symposium, Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: The Impact on International Philanthropy (hereafter Al-Marayati, Easy Targets).
16. ACLU Interested Persons Memo on the Conference Report Agreement on H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (3/1/2006).
17. Cole Testimony, supra footnote 1.
18. Id.
19. Teresa Odendahl, "Philanthropic Patriot Games: How the U.S. Government Targets Charities in its War on Terror (hereafter Odendahl, Patriot Games), The Public Eye Magazine, Fall 2005.
20. Laila al-Marayati and Basil Abdelkarim, "The Crime of Being a Muslim Charity" (hereafter Al-Marayati, Crime), Washington Post, March 12, 2006.
21. The three charities closed down in December 2001, Holy Land Foundation (HLF), Global Relief Foundation (GRF) and Benevolence International Foundation (BIF). Al-Marayati, Easy Targets, supra footnote 15.
22. Al-Marayati, Crime, supra footnote 20.
23. OMB Watch is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting government accountability, citizen participation in public policy decisions, and the use of fiscal and regulatory policy to serve the public interest.
24. OMB Watch, "Muslim Charities and the War on Terror" (hereafter OMB Watch Report), revised March 2006.
25. OMB Watch Report.
26. See, for example, Michael Powell, "High-Profile N.Y. Suspect Goes on Trial: Arrest Was Called Part of War on Terrorism, but Doctor Faces Other Charges" (hereafter Powell), for a description of the arrest. The Washington Post, October 19, 2004.
27. Other HTN defendants accepted plea bargains by pleading guilty to breaking the sanctions. Maher Zagha of Amman, Jordan, Dhafir's co-defendant, was characterized during the proceedings as a fugitive by the government. On the contrary, he was held for two weeks after his arrest, interrogated by Jordanian authorities acting on behalf of the U.S., and then released to go about his normal business. Correspondence with Maher Zagha and Hughes, Notes, supra footnote 8 .
28. Powell, supra footnote 26.
29. Hughes, Crime of Compassion, supra footnote 10.
30. James Mckinnon, "Guilty As Charged ... of Philanthropy?" The Bachelor, September 2004, p. 5.
31. Powell, supra footnote 26.
32. Elaine Cassel, "The Lynne Stewart Case: When Representing An Accused Terrorist Can Mean The Lawyer Risks Jail, Too," Findlaw Writ Column, October 8, 2002. Cassel comments on a similar incident when, just prior to Lynne Stewart's case going to trial, Attorney General John Ashcroft appeared on the David Letterman show assuring viewers of her guilt.
33. The jury knew that Dhafir had been held without bail for 20 months and that it was the presiding judge, Mordue, who had denied him bail on four occasions. They also witnessed five federal marshals trade off every hour, approximately 240 times, throughout the trial so that two were always present in the courtroom. (This was done because Dhafir would not submit to a strip search on religious grounds.) One federal marshal sat directly behind Dhafir and the other sat adjacent to the jury near the opposite exit at all times. This marshal presence was over and above the two regular court guards, one at each exit. The non-verbal message that this sent cannot be over-estimated and it undoubtedly helped the government gain conviction in this case.
34. See, letter of Joel Cohen (one of Dhafir's trial lawyers) to the newspaper about the coverage: , November 15, 2004, and other letters at www.dhafirtrial.net under the headings, "court observers" and "media/judge letters."
35. Despite the bitterly cold Syracuse winter, a group of seven to 12 people met every day with clergy members leading the worship in rotation. People who responded to the request of the ACLU for court watchers were also present every day at the trial. There was a core group of about 12 people, several of whom attended almost every day of the trial. Experience of the author who attended almost all of the trial.
36. Odendahl, Patriot Games, supra footnote 19.
37. Hughes, Notes, supra footnote 8.
38. My witness of the proceedings.
39. A big screen was available in the courtroom so that the jury and the public gallery could see each piece of evidence. Here is a link to a letter written by Dr. Dhafir in 1993 to Medicare complaining about their ever-changing rules, about which not even Medicare employees can agree. Judge Andrew Napolitano speaks about this tactic of the government overwhelming juries with evidence. He says: "When prosecutors seek victory through illegal threats - rather than through fair negotiation or through the slow methodical presentation of evidence to a jury - they corrupt the cause they seek to advance." Andrew Napolitan, Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks its Own Laws, p. 152 (Nelson Current, 2004).
40. The government presented their case in minute detail over the 17-week period. Due to a lack of finances (the government had frozen all Dhafir's money) the defense was able to call one witness for 15 minutes.
41. Dr. Dhafir's laboratory technician had been with him for many years and was highly trained by Dr. Dhafir himself.
42. Katherine Hughes, "Dr. Dhafir's Trial Concluded Today," (summary of the last day of the proceedings) and this witness's testimony can be seen here.
43. Judge Norman Mordue, Jury Charge: U.S. v. Dhafir (U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, Case No. 03-CR-64 (NAM)) February 2005: .
44. From conversations the author had with Olmstead on June 1, 2005, and with Dhafir approximately one week later.
45. Jennifer Van Bergen, The Twilight of Democracy, The Bush Plan for America (Common Courage Press, 2004).
46. Jennifer Van Bergen, "New American Law," Part 1: and Part 2: http://www.counterpunch.org/bergen10092005.html (October 8 & 9, 2005).
47. Jennifer Van Bergen, "The PATRIOT Act and Other Dilutions of the Constitution: America's Parallel Legal Systems," July 25/26 2005.
48. The lecture was advertised by the "Institute For National Security and Counterterrorism" (INSCT).
49. INSCT is hosted at Syracuse University.
50. The New York Jewish Times, June 27, 2006: See also: The Washington Post, "330 Suspects Charged," June 12, 2005:
51. I attended this lecture. This section is based on my recollection and notes of that event. (Hereafter Hughes, Lecture Observations.)
52. In 2003, Breinholt was given the Attorney General's "Award for Excellence in Furthering the Interests of U.S. National Security," for his work in crafting creative legal theories that resulted in the initiation of several important prosecutions in the aftermath of 9/11
53. Breinholt, supra footnote 11.
54. Hughes, Lecture Observations, supra footnote 51.
55. Breinholt, supra footnote 11, at p. 19.
56. IANA is a not-for-profit religious group registered in the U.S. and its purpose is purely religious and educational. See Elaine Cassel, The War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights (Lawrence Hill Books, 2004). In a chapter called, "Guilt by Association: The Muslim Charities," pp. 87-106, Cassel speaks about the cases of HLF, GRF, BIF, and HTN.
57. Mr. Arnaout accepted a plea bargain by pleading guilty to using BIF donations in providing boots, tents, uniforms, and an ambulance to units of the Bosnian army at a time when Muslims in Bosnia were attempting to defend themselves against the genocidal atrocities of the Serbian army. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail. More information. In July 2004, after being cleared of charges, Sami Al-Hussayen was deported to Saudi Arabia. In December 2005, Sami Al-Arian was acquitted of the most serious charges against him and the jury was hung on other charges. Despite agreeing to deportation he is still being held by the government.
58. Breinholt, supra footnote 11, at p. 31.
59. Since Dhafir's conviction under IEEPA and for operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, in February 2005, he and other HTN defendants have been placed on the FBI list of terrorism-related convictions since Sept. 11, 2001. On June 12, 2005, The Washington Post listed the HTN defendants as part of the government list of 330 suspects in terrorist related charges. And on June 27, 2006, the New York Jewish Times listed Dhafir and other HTN defendants in an article entitled: "Examples of Terrorism Convictions. Since September 11, 2001" the FBI was given as the source. The indictment of Rafil A. Dhafir is available here: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/static/indictment.pdf
60. Barrie Gewanter, director of ACLU-CNY speaking on "Access" with George Kilpatrick, WCNY Public Television, Wednesday, October 26th, 11pm.
61. Al-Marayati, Crime, supra footnote 20.
62. Email from the author to Dean Arterian (11/27/05) available here.
63. Al-Marayati, Easy Targets, supra, footnote 15.
64. Id.
65. Pete Seeger, The Incompleat Folksinger, p. 473 (Simon and Schuster, 1972).
66. Martin Luther King Jr. in a letter from a Birmingham jail.
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66% Think U.S. Spies on Its Citizens - 52% in Poll Back Hearings on Handling of Domestic Surveillance
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post
December 13, 2006
Two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies are intruding on privacy rights as part of terrorism investigations, but they remain divided over whether such tactics are justified, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday.
The poll also showed that 52 percent of respondents favor congressional hearings on how the Bush administration has handled surveillance, detainees and other terrorism-related issues, compared with 45 percent who are opposed. That question was posed to half of the poll's 1,005-person random sample.
Overall, the poll -- which includes questions that have been asked since 2002 and 2003 -- showed a continued skepticism about whether the government is adequately protecting privacy rights as it conducts terrorism-related investigations.
Compared with June 2002, for example, almost twice as many respondents say the need to respect privacy outranks the need to investigate terrorist threats. That shift was first evident in polling conducted in January 2006.
That sentiment is still a minority view, however: Nearly two-thirds rank investigating threats as more important than guarding against intrusions on personal privacy, down from 79 percent in 2002.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who is a professor in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, said the poll results could spell trouble for the FBI and other government agencies as they continue to seek support for expanded anti-terrorism powers granted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"I don't think you can view these polling results in isolation from an overall phenomenon, which is that people are more skeptical of the government's conduct of the war on terrorism," Hoffman said.
Sixty-six percent of those questioned said that the FBI and other agencies are "intruding on some Americans' privacy rights" in terrorism investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent think the government is not intruding on privacy.
Support for intrusive tactics has dropped even more significantly during that time. A bare majority, 51 percent, feel the tactics are justified, down from 63 percent three years ago.
The poll was conducted by telephone from Dec. 7 through Monday, and the results have a three-percentage-point margin of error.
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Aussie Man Wearing Anti-Bush T-Shirt Not Allowed To Board Flight
Nidhi Sharma
All Headline News
14 Dec 06
Sydney, Australia - An Australian man was denied permission to board a connecting flight within Australia unless he removed the T-shirt titled "World's #1 Terrorist" with a picture of U.S. President George W. Bush.
The incident occurred on December 2 when Allen Jasson, who lives in London, was stopped by security personals at an airport while he was en route to meet his family. He was at the terminal hoping to catch a connecting flight from Adelaide to Melbourne when his ordeal began.
According to ANI, Jasson was first stopped at London's Heathrow Airport and forced to remove the T-shirt because it caused "security problem in light of the present situation."
He faced a similar situation at the Adelaide Airport and felt that both incidents were attempts to prevent him from exercising his freedom of expression of his feelings.
"I told her I had the right to express my opinion. I felt I had made my point and caved in," Jasson said.
However, the Aussie passenger wore his Bush T-Shirt again but was yet again banned from boarding a subsequent connecting flight.
"It was argued other passengers could be offended. I said it was most offensive that I would be prevented from expressing my political views," said the Aussie traveler.
However, a Virgin Blue spokeswoman said "Most people use common sense and don't go out of their way to offend people."
Comment: Geeze, now we know what really offends them, let's crank it up a notch or two! If a few million people would start wearing these T shirts, it might shut down the whole planet!
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US Sec of Navy admits they oversee mind control research
Lyn Milnes in New Zealand
15 Dec 06
Here below is a link to a document, made available on the web by the Federation of American Scientists, in which the Secretary of the U.S. Navy admits in writing that the Navy is the authority giving approval for research in "severe and unusual intrusions" on human subjects, such as mind control work.
Mind control is an important weapon in the 21st century. Mind control includes electromagnetic devices which can affect the brain and physical functioning, some pharmaceuticals, some behaviour modification "conditioning" and "chaining", and regular hypnotic techniques. Some of these may be used in conjunction with others.
Research into mind control has a valid defense purpose, of course.
For example, the worst excesses of World War 2 could all have been achieved from behind the scenes by mind controllers. It is worth noting that mind controllers get used to enjoying complete concealment, and therefore never do the dirty work themselves.
Highly intelligent people, and highly telepathic people, were early found to be easier to mind-control (in the 1940s this would have included Jews and gypsies, for example). These days, with electromagnetic and pharmaceutical tools, almost anybody can be susceptible.
It is an indictment of current governments that young people are still not warned of this danger, therefore are naive and susceptible, and cannot protect themselves through knowledge from mind control situations.
We will know we have honest governments when schools routinely teach young people, "You can be controlled against your will - watch for these danger signs and be careful."
Crimes are quite often performed by a person who is mind controlled and does not know he is committing the crime. Afterwards he might be instructed to forget and the amnesia might last many years. Other crimes are often covered up using mind-control in officials.
Physical assaults can be committed by knowing people using mind control directly, too. As an example, perhaps a victim is in the middle of conversation when he is suddenly plunged into a trance state, then something is injected into his body. When he is brought back to conscious functioning he is unaware he has been attacked. He may be conscious only of experiencing a little difficulty in speech or concentration for a few seconds.
Here following is the evidence that military research is overseen in the USA by the Navy, in case people have not seen it:
SECNAVINST 3900.39D
6 November 2006
Page 9:
(2) The Under Secretary of the Navy (UNSECNAV) is the Approval Authority for research involving:
(a) Severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques).
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Telephone lie detector claims to catch fibbers
By NICK McDERMOTT
18th December 2006
It could be the perfect tool for suspicious spouses wanting to check whether their loved ones are playing away from home.
A new telephone lie detector system promises to pick up on tell-tale signs of stress in a caller's voice whenever they tell a fib.
Available for free, the Kishkish lie detector can be easily downloaded from the web and used by those who make phone calls over the internet.
Scientists have found that frequencies in the human voice are sensitive to honesty, becoming higher when a person is lying.
This is because in moments of stress, such as telling a lie, our muscles tighten as our body prepares to flee or fight causing the pitch of our voice to alter.
The inventors of the lie detector claim the software mimics police technology by monitoring the stress levels of the person speaking on the phone to judge whether they are telling the truth.
Already 320,000 people have downloaded the lie detector system. Using the infamous example of Bill Clinton's denial about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the developers show on their website a graph which rises as he utters the lie: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'
The software measures stress levels between one and 100, with a green light which shows when stress levels are normal, which then changes to red when they rise to high, allowing the user to gauge whether the other person is lying.
Many police forces across America use the controversial technology when interviewing crime suspects, and it has also been used by the US military in the 'war on terror'.
The lie detector is currently available for those who make calls using Skype technology.
Skype, which has over 100 million registered users worldwide, is one of the best known of several internet-based phone systems which allow callers to make free calls around the world.
Using the communication software, calls to other computers are free, while other calls to landlines are charged at around 1p a minute.
Paul Amery, director of Skype developer program, said: 'This is a really neat application, and the kind of thing we want to see more of. The Kishkish team has managed perfectly to integrate this unique application to meet the needs of our clients.'
'Lie detector is the latest in a variety of products in our premium add-on program which greatly enhance the Skype communication experience. Extras are all about helping end users do more with Skype, and this will certainly encourage it,' said Dr Zvi Marom from the programmes makers, BATM.
'We are delighted to be able to introduce this unique software to Skype's premium offering and will continue to work closely with them to develop new software-based communication applications.'
Comment: Probably won't work on psychopaths...
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History lessons from the 'splendid little war'
Daniel Whitaker
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
The US is embroiled in an ill-considered occupation of a distant land; an initial welcome turned to violence amid human rights violations; it will be many years before extrication is possible. Not Iraq today, but the Philippines a century ago, an eerie parallel which might have provided valuable lessons.
The US took the Philippines in 1899 - part of what its then Secretary of State, John Hay, called 'a splendid little war'. The previous regime (in this case, Spanish-run) was quickly vanquished, with the shock and awe of superior weaponry. War had begun over American claims that a weapon of medium-sized destruction was used by the Spanish to destroy the USS Maine in Havana harbour, an accusation later considered dubious.
The Republican President, William McKinley, stated he had prayed for guidance, and the divine advice was to 'uplift and civilise' the Philippines. The Americans expected a welcome from the Filipinos, and indeed the US was seen as a liberator by many - initially. But US occupation became increasingly unpopular and a protracted guerrilla war developed. During the conflict, more than 4,000 US troops died and several hundred thousand Filipinos lost their lives during the occupation.
An outcry swelled over civilian deaths and over US treatment of Filipino prisoners, including a torture used known as 'the water cure' (a technique similar to the 'water boarding' Vice President Dick Cheney defended as a practice in Guantanamo). Some GIs were reprimanded. Military morale fell. When a leader of the insurrection was captured and executed, some thought this would end the violence - it did not.
The Americans enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in military technology, but Filipinos fought using what they had to hand. Muslim islanders, called to jihad, launched suicide sword attacks in crowded streets. Christian islanders also resisted, but there was conflict between the faiths. Those co-operating with the US were often threatened or assassinated.
The US war with the Spanish had been planned for months, with a media campaign focusing on the barbarism of Spanish rule. But the Americans had not done their research on the people, nor did they have any detailed plans of how to administer the country. The US organised elections, but was disappointed with the politicians who emerged. It spent millions of dollars improving infrastructure, but won over few hearts and minds. Back home, enthusiasm for the war eroded. Celebrities and intellectuals voiced opposition. The media began to turn, despite the US military offering preferential treatment to journalists who gave favourable coverage. Even big US businesses that were close to the White House started to lose faith in the supposed commercial opportunities the occupation might offer. Eventually this was reflected in the polls and by 1912 the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress, ending years of Republican domination.
The US decided to leave the Philippines in 1916, granting the islands independence as soon as a stable government could be formed. This proved harder to achieve than expected, for fear the country would descend into chaos. The Second World War intervened and sovereignty was handed back to the Filipinos only in 1946. The years since then have brought the islands mixed fortunes, a long dictatorship under Marcos, economic underachievement and continued strife between Christians and Muslims.
There are important differences between Iraq and the Philippines a century before. But also surely there's been a wasted opportunity to learn lessons, by an America that, for all its virtues, does not enjoy examining the past. Mark Twain, who stood up against the Philippine occupation, wrote that, if the past does not repeat itself, it at least rhymes. Sadly it seems the more influential view was Henry Ford's, who declared history 'more or less bunk'.
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Setting Up Syria And Iran
Bush accused of gagging critic of Iran policy
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian
The White House yesterday faced fresh accusations of tailoring intelligence to suit its political viewpoint from a former CIA analyst barred from publishing a critical newspaper commentary on American policy towards Iran.
Flynt Leverett, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and the National Security Council who has criticised the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq and for its handling of Iran, accuses the White House of pressing the CIA to demand sweeping cuts to an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times on Washington's policy towards Tehran.
Mr Leverett, who now works at the New America Foundation, a thinktank in Washington, is the latest in a series of analysts and agents to accuse the CIA publication review board of stifling criticism of the administration or the intelligence-gathering operations in the run-up to the war in Iraq. However, Mr Leverett goes a step further in accusing the White House of putting pressure on the CIA to prevent the distribution of views which do not conform to its policy of refusing any diplomatic discussions with Iran.
His 1,000-word article was based on a longer published piece that the CIA had cleared without demanding any changes, and that is available on the net. At the website talkingpointsmemo.com, Mr Leverett wrote: "The White House inserted itself into the prepublication review process for an op-ed on the administration's bungling of the Iran portfolio."
Mr Leverett said he was ordered to drop references to Iran's cooperation with the US on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks. He claims the White House has had no objections to similar assertions by less critical analysts
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White House Forbids Publication Of Op-Ed On Iran By Former Bush Official
ThinkProgress
15 Dec 06
Middle East analyst Flynt Leverett, who served under President Bush on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation, revealed today that the White House has been blocking the publication of an op-ed he wrote for the New York Times. The column is critical of the administration's refusal to engage Iran.
Leverett's op-ed has already been cleared by the CIA, where he was a senior analyst. Leverett explained, "I've been doing this for three and a half years since leaving government, and I've never had to go to the White House to get clearance for something that I was publishing as long as the CIA said, 'Yeah, you're not putting classified information.'"
According to Leverett the op-ed was "all based on stuff that Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, Deputy Secretary Armitage have talked about publicly. It's been extensively reported in the media." Leverett says the incident shows "just how low people like Elliot Abrams at the NSC [National Security Council] will stoop to try and limit the dissemination of arguments critical of the administration's policy."
Listen to Leverett's remarks at a panel today at the Center for American Progress:
CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO Transcript:
Thanks. I think I was able to put out some of my basic ideas on how we need to be engaging Iran diplomatically. They're, you know, expounded on in greater length on paper. I wanted to say something briefly about the administration, and where it is.
I have been extremely pessimistic that this administration is inclined or capable of genuinely rethinking its approach to Iran in the way that we need it to at this point, and I've had an unfortunate experience this week that has only confirmed that for me. As I do with all of my publications, the Century Foundation paper, I showed to the CIA, for whom I used to work, to verify that I was not revealing classified information. They did so, as they have with 30 other things that I've published since leaving government. Didn't ask to change a word.
I prepared an op-ed for the New York Times off of this paper, which is ready to go, ready for publication. The CIA says that as far as they're concerned, there's not any classified information in it. But the White House has intervened, claiming that there is classified information in the op-ed, even though it's already been cleared. It's all published. It's all based on stuff that Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, Deputy Secretary Armitage have talked about publicly. It's been extensively reported in the media. But the White House is saying I can't publish an op-ed in the New York Times that lays out the argument. I've been doing this for three and a half years since leaving government, and I've never had to go to the White House to get clearance for something that I was publishing as long as the CIA said, 'Yeah, you're not putting classified information.'
Why this week - after the Baker study group, when pressure is on them to rethink their position on Iran - why do they not want this op-ed, based on my experiences in government, my experience dealing with Iran, with Iranian officials, after I left government? Why do they not want this op-ed going in the New York Times this week? I think it says something, and I think it says something about just how low people like Elliot Abrams at the NSC [National Security Council] will stoop to try and limit the dissemination of arguments critical of the administration's policy.
UPDATE: For more on Leverett's perspective on Iran, read a paper he wrote for The Century Foundation earlier this month.
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Olmert rejects Syrian calls for peace talks
UK Independent
18 December 2006
Ehud Olmert, Israel's Prime Minister, has rejected an appeal from President Bashar Assad to resume peace talks with Syria.
He suggested Mr Assad's overture was prompted by a desire to fend off international sanctions for Damascus's alleged complicity in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, and its support for radical forces in the Middle East.
"We need to ask ourselves," Mr Olmert told his cabinet yesterday, "why, precisely at this moment, Assad is asking to renew negotiations. The considerations that motivate Assad are not necessarily the considerations that motivate us."
His reaction came after President George Bush rejected a call from the Iraq Study Group to engage with Iran and Syria on broader Middle East issues.
President Assad called on Mr Olmert to heed his calls for negotiations, in an interview with the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.
Amir Peretz, Israel's Defence Minister, called for an "urgent debate" to weigh the possibility of severing Syria's ties with Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. But Mr Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said: "The Syrian government has shown, in actions rather than words, it has no interest in real negotiations."
Comment: Are you getting this? Syria is threatened with sanctions as a way to force it to stop meddling in Lebanon and when the Syria leader responds to that threat by asking for peace talks Olmert accuses him of simply wanting to talk peace because of that sanctions. Isn't that the WHOLE POINT of the sanctions?? Of course, the important point here is that it was Israel that murdered Hariri, not Syria.
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The Truth About The Tehran Holocaust Conference - By One Who Was There
Mathaba
16 Dec 06
When Alexander Baron returned from the Holocaust Conference in Iran which he attended, he found that the conference Western media "reported" about might as well have been on a different planet.
In December this year a fanatical Islamic Jew-hater convened a conference in Tehran dedicated to denying the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews as a prelude to wiping Israel off the map. Jew-haters including outright Nazis attended from all parts of the globe burying their ideological differences in order to put this fiendish plan into action.
The above sums up the consensus on the recent Tehran Conference on the Holocaust and on its convenor, Iran's charismatic President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As a participant in that conference I can report that the Western media is up to its old tricks of lying in unison again, this time in order to stoke up the fuels of fire against Iran. Not content with sending nearly three thousand American and over a hundred British servicemen to their deaths in Iraq while plunging that country into a civil war in all but name, the hawks in Washington are now preparing to start another war, this time against Iran.
Iran we are told is a threat to world peace, it is developing nuclear weapons which will be used against Israel. The lies go on. So what is the truth?
The truth is that the roots of this conference lie in a series of blasphemous cartoons which the enemies of Islam thought were hilarious; now the boot is on the other foot and the Islamophobes are laughing no more. In September last year a Danish newspaper published a number of cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. Although Islam is far from the intolerant, patriarchal, totalitarian philosophy it is often portrayed as, there are two things you never do. You do not spit on the Holy Koran, and you do not guy the Prophet. The prohibition against any representation of Muhammad is particularly severe, not because he is regarded as divine or sacred; unlike Jesus of Nazareth he did not claim to be the Son of God, and unlike Jesus, Muhammad was a real historical person, he actually existed. Just take it from me, you dont mess with Muhammad.
Nevertheless, some people regard this prohibition as a violation of their right of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so they defended the newspaper in the wake of anger and protests from Islamic organisations. If this defence had gone no further than the usual mutterings about freedom of expression, that would have been the end of it, but seeing Muslim anger aroused, and determined to push their luck just for the sheer hell of it, a number of foreign newspapers reprinted the cartoons, an act which led not only to rising anger in the Islamic world but to violence and even murder.
While no reasonable person would condone acts of murder even in response to gross blasphemy, there can be no doubt that the Western media must bear the responsibility for a large slice of the violence that followed. Free speech or not, no one has the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre; Western newspaper editors may be many things but by and large they are not stupid. They must surely have known that murder and mayhem would follow if Muslims felt they were being pushed too far. If nothing else, they must each and every one of them have been acutely aware of the fact that there are extremists within the Islamic community who will use any pretext to resort to violence. Havent they heard of September 11?
Seeing his religion offended and the blasphemers defended on the grounds of free speech, some bright spark in Iran decided that sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, and the newspaper Hamshahri announced that it would hold a Holocaust cartoon competition.
"Does the West's freedom of expression extend to... an event such as the Holocaust or is this freedom of expression only for the desecration of the sanctities of divine religions?" the paper asked. That is what is known as a rhetorical question, because international outrage followed at this blasphemy against the religion of the Holocaust.
Enter the President of Iran. The name Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was all but unknown in the West until he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. True or false? The first part is true; the second part is a lie. What he actually said was that the Zionist entity Israel would go the same way as the Soviet Union, it would simply cease to exist, and all its citizens, Gentile and Jew, would be much better for it. It may be that this claim is wishful thinking, but it is certainly not genocidal.
Ahmadinejad is a plain speaking man, and when it comes to International Zionism, he is totally fearless, unlike the overwhelming majority of Western politicians and all Western statesmen.
In December last year he was quoted thus by the official BBC website: "If someone were to deny the existence of God... or prophets and religion, they would not bother him. However, if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can".
For once this quote is accurate. An honest person may disagree with the first part of that statement, but no honest person could take issue with the second part.
This week, the Iranian Government went one better than Hamshahri when it hosted the first ever Holocaust conference of its kind. There have of course been numerous conferences on the Holocaust before, including those organised by Revisionists, but never has a meeting of this nature been funded and hosted by a government.
I was one of those selected from some eight hundred applicants to present an original paper on the Holocaust. The Iranian Government paid for my ticket and accommodation, although I was not offered any inducement or bribe to attend. Our hosts extended us every courtesy, although they did not bend over backwards to try to impress us. I have no illusions about Iran and although I saw precious little of Tehran in the short time I was there and nothing at all of the rest of the country, it was obvious that the good will of the regime was sincere. There was no hatred of either Westerners or Americans evident. Street signs and shop signs are often in English as well as Farsi; Western TV programmes including American music are ubiquitous.
The title of my paper was THE NAZI GAS CHAMBERS: Rumours, Lies And Reality - One Researchers View. This is a subject dear to my heart. I dont claim to be an expert and am not an accredited historian, but I have been reading this subject for a quarter of a century, and over the past eighteen years I have researched certain aspects of the Holocaust in greater depth than the vast majority of bona fide historians. My researches have led me to believe that undeniable though it was during the Holocaust and World War II, the full extent of Jewish suffering has been greatly exaggerated, and I told my audience so adducing evidence in support of my arguments at every point. Not every speaker was so meticulous, but not every speaker shared my viewpoint. Among the speakers at this conference were members of Neturei Karta, the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist sect. Rabbi Ahron Cohen said it was ridiculous to deny the Holocaust, meaning the genocide of the Jews, and said that it didn't matter if six million, five million or some lesser number were murdered by the Nazis, nor did it matter if the victims died in the gas chambers or by the bullet, it was still genocide.
Neturei Karta are often derided as cranks, but they are the real Jews, the men and women who practise the undiluted, uncontaminated essence of Judaism. All shades of opinion were present including one or two nutty Arabs and people who espoused genuine anti-Semitism, but the conference was all the better for it.
Contrary to the Western media's assertions, the conference did not declare the Holocaust a myth, although some individual participants were surely of that opinion.
At the end of the presentations on the second day the speakers were taken to what I presumed was the Presidential Palace where we met the great man himself. I say great man because that is what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is; he is the Tehranosaurus Rex of statesmen, Mahmoud the Tehranible. You may not think he is right, you may not even like him, but you have to admire the guy. If half a dozen statesmen had exhibited the same courage, forthrightness and honesty over International Zionism and the so-called Jewish Question over the past fifty years the Middle East would not be in the sorry state it is in now, there would have been no Gulf Wars and probably no Six Day War or Yom Kippur War either. The Palestinian problem would almost certainly have been solved, or at the very least these wretched people would not still be living in rat-infested camps strewn halfway across the region.
When we met Ahmadinejad he repeated what he had said about the Zionist entity, and so there could be misunderstanding his intentions he embraced several rabbis.
One of the major speakers at the Conference was David Duke. In an earlier incarnation Duke was a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan, something he has never been allowed to forget. White Supremacist or White Separatist or both, Dukes bigotry, if it exists, does not extend to the mass murder of innocent civilians. He stated quite clearly that the US Government and media (which he sees as Zionist-controlled) is itching to start a war with Iran, and made an impassioned plea that it be averted.
Although like everyone else at this conference I have no illusions about Jewish/Zionist power or mendacity I dont see the hidden Jewish hand behind every event on the world stage, but there can be no denying the fact that International Zionism and its allies do want war.
In the last few weeks the Bush Administration has suffered an outburst of realism; a ground war and invasion of Iran is probably now out of the question, public revulsion at the inevitable loss of life would be too much for even the sheep-like American public, but it is not impossible that the Americans may make a "pre-emptive strike" against Irans nuclear facilities, or even more stupidly they may put the Israelis up to it.
If there is any sort of attack against Iran, the consequences for Iran, for the United States, for Britain and indeed for the world will be catastrophic. It must not be allowed to happen. Ahmadinejad has no intention of using his countrys nuclear program for malignant purposes, but even if he had, it ill-behooves the only nation that has ever used nuclear weapons in anger to tell Iran or any other sovereign nation that it has no right to develop such a weapons programme.
We in the West, Christians, non-believers and Muslims, Gentile, Jew and Arab alike, must resist this folly. We must exert whatever pressure we can against both the American and British Governments to ensure that Iranian sovereignty is not violated on any pretext. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man we can do business with. When Tony Blair condemned the Holocaust Conference, Irans reaction was to invite him to attend it. Naturally this invitation was not accepted, but perhaps Blair, or whoever is running the country then, will attend the next one.
There is a saying that "jaw jaw" is always preferable to "war war"; many veterans of the First World War, the Great War - of which there are now so few remaining - believe this and have gone on record as such. They saw the horror of the trenches; we too have seen the horrors of war, although most of us fortunately not at first hand, we experience it vicariously through CNN or the BBC. Does anyone in the West really want the madness of Iraq to be extended to Iran? And then where next? Syria? North Korea?
As I said, Ahmadinejad is a man the West can do business with. He is currently offering us an olive branch. Anyone who doesn't like Iran's Holocaust conferences will be more than welcome to attend the next one and put an alternate point of view - as did the Naturei Karta rabbis. And anyone who wants to discuss other matters with the Iranians, like mutual nuclear disarmament, swords into ploughshares and perhaps developing alternative energies, will find its President a more than willing listener. Bear this in mind next time you read that Iran is a threat to world peace.
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Spin-doctoring Neocons: We expected Israel to attack Syria
Yitzhak Benhorin
16 Dec 06
They are a unified group of American intellectuals, who held key positions in Bush administration and were blamed for getting US into Iraq. Most of them are Jews, so they are obviously accused of risking America in favor of Israel. Israeli Meyrav Wurmser claims that if situation is bad, Israelis are also to blame
WASHINGTON - It hasn't been a good year for neocons, that group of conservative American intellectuals pulling some strings of US policy, particularly during the George W. Bush administration.
The strongest indictment against them is the war in Iraq, a quagmire in which the US is currently stuck up to its neck. And as Bush's days in the White House grow numbered, they are leaving one by one.
Among the few remaining neocons is David Wurmser, an advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney on Middle Eastern affairs. Wurmser is a Middle East expert, just like his wife, Israeli Meyrav Wurmser, a researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute.
Meyrav Wurmser was also one of the co-founders of MEMRI, which tracks Arab leaders and translating their political statements from Arabic to English.
Despite the fact that many neocons are no longer part of the government, it turns out they're still one big happy family, who make sure to remain in touch.
Many are Jews, who share a love for Israel . Some of the accusations against the government regarding the war in Iraq is that it was undertaken primarily for Israel's sake and that the attack on Iraq was actually an Israeli objective.
In an interview with Ynet, Dr. Meyrav Wurmser refutes the accusations and criticism.
"Since I'm an Israeli in the gang, you wouldn't believe what's been written about me," she said. "That I'm proof of the covert neoconservative connection with Israel and the Mossad."
What are you trying to achieve?
"We believe in a strong and active American foreign policy. America is a good force in the world, a nation that believes in freedom. We believe in exporting American ideas of freedom and democracy, to promote greater stability."
Did you, in practice, bring about the war in Iraq?
"We expressed ideas, but the policy in Iraq was taken out of neocon hands very quickly. The idea was that America has a war on terror and that the only actual place for coping with it is in the Middle East and that a fundamental change would come through a change in leadership. We had to start somewhere.
"The objective was to change the face of the Middle East. But it was impossible to create a mini-democracy amidst a sea of dictatorships looking to destroy this poor democracy, and thus, where do insurgents in Iraq come from? From Iran and Syria ."
Should they have been conquered?
"No. There was a need for massive political action, of threats and pressure on these governments, financial pressure, for example. The sanctions on Syria were nothing. There was a period of time when the Syrians were afraid that they were next. It would have been possible to use this momentum in a smarter way. There's no need to go in militarily."
Everyone feels beaten after last 5 years
At their prime, the neocons held the reigns of American decision making. In the Pentagon, there were Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, and Harold Rhode, a senior Pentagon advisor on Islam.
In the vice president's office were Louis Libby and John Hannah. Richard Perle headed the committee advising to the Pentagon. In the White House were Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy Elliott Abrams and Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, who later became the US ambassador to the UN.
According to Wurmser's description, the group is comprised of academics, most of them lacking operational experience, who became part of the Bush administration but failed to get their ideas through bureaucracy.
"These are intellectuals who came with great ideas, in which I still believe, but did not find a way to promote their beliefs in the complexities of bureaucracy," she says.
Your people held senior positions in the Pentagon. Didn't Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith implement your theories?
"The final decisions were no in their hands. In the Pentagon, the decisions were in the hands of the military, and the political leadership had a lot of clashes with the military leadership."
Did the military leadership ask for more soldiers in Iraq?
"Rumsfeld prevented that. He was a failure. The State Department opposed the neocons' stances. Also John Bolton, who is also part of the family, and was no. 4 at the State Department under Colin Powell, was incapable of passing decisions...
"Powell curbed our ideas and they did not pass. There was a lot of frustration over the years in the administration because we didn't feel we were succeeding.
"Now Bolton left (the UN - Y.B.) and there are others who are about to leave. This administration is in its twilight days. Everyone is now looking for work, looking to make money... We all feel beaten after the past five years... We miss the peace and quiet and writing books...
"When you enter the administration you have to keep your mouth shut. Now many will resume their writing... Now, from the outside, they will be able to convey all the criticism they kept inside."
In the meantime you left the US inside Iraq?
"We did not bring the US into Iraq in such a way. Our biggest war which we lost was the idea that before entering Iraq we must train an exile Iraqi government and an Iraqi military force, and hand over the rule to them immediately after the occupation and leave Iraq. That was our idea and it was not accepted."
Your man was Ahmed Chalabi, who was later suspected of spying for Iran?
"That is true, but we didn't want him as a dictator but as a person in a government that will act democratically... We must help the current democratic government. The borders with Iran and Syria should have been blocked immediately when we entered Iraq. Now it's already a disaster."
Why didn't you attack Syria?
Many of Wurmser's friends believe the disaster is not only in Iraq, but in the entire region. They are also very frustrated over the way in which Israel embarked on the war against Hizbullah this summer, and on the way it returned from it.
"Hizbullah defeated Israel in the war. This is the first war Israel lost," Dr. Wurmser declares.
Is this a popular stance in the administration, that Israel lost the war?
"Yes, there is no doubt. It's not something one can argue about it. There is a lot of anger at Israel."
What caused the anger?
"I know this will annoy many of your readers... But the anger is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. Instead of Israel fighting against Hizbullah, many parts of the American administration believe that Israel should have fought against the real enemy, which is Syria and not Hizbullah."
Did the administration expect Israel to attack Syria?
"They hoped Israel would do it. You cannot come to another country and order it to launch a war, but there was hope, and more than hope, that Israel would do the right thing. It would have served both the American and Israeli interests.
"The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space... They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its strategic and important ally should be hit."
"It is difficult for Iran to export its Shiite revolution without joining Syria, which is the last nationalistic Arab country. If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran, that it would have weakened it and changes the strategic map in the Middle East.
"The final outcome is that Israel did not do it. It fought the wrong war and lost. Instead of a strategic war that would serve Israel's objectives, as well as the US objectives in Iraq. If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended."
Wurmser says that what most frustrates her is hearing people close to decision makers in Israel asking her if the US would have let Israel attack Syria.
"No one would have stopped you. It was an American interest. They would have applauded you. Think why you received so much time and space to operate. Rice was in the region and Israel embarrassed her with Qana, and still Israel got more time. Why aren't they reading the map correctly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?"
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Russian Opinion: Does Iran Really Want a U.S. Withdrawal? ... Hell No!'
By Pyotr Goncharov
Translated By William Kern
Novosti, Russia
8 Dec 06
MOSCOW: The Bush Administration now faces a difficult and extremely unpleasant choice: is it necessary and is it possible, to draw Iran into the process of stabilizing the situation in the Middle East, notably Iraq?
Moreover, this time the question has been raised by the American side. According to the sensational report delivered to George W. Bush last Wednesday, by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, the situation in Iraq could "descend into chaos," which would result not only in the toppling of the government and a humanitarian catastrophe: there is a great danger that the bloodshed would spread to other states in the region, spawning a region-wide conflict.
The verdict of the Baker-Hamilton report is extremely pessimistic: the international image of the United States will remain damaged for the foreseeable future, while inside the country, the opinions of Americans themselves will become "even more polarized."
What to do? The report proposes curtailing the violence in Iraq by involving Iran. This is a logical proposal, but given the mutual antagonism of Tehran and Washington, there is cause for doubt.
American-Iranian cooperation in Iraq would require direct bilateral talks, which for several reasons has been considered unthinkable by the Bush Administration. The first is Iran's notorious nuclear dossier. A White House spokesman has already ruled out bilateral talks with Iran until it stops enriching and processing uranium.
But there is another more disturbing concern in Washington: it is unclear how Iran - which has been positioning itself as the Middle East's new superpower - will behave. There is no doubt that Tehran will demand a lot, if, of course, it "condescends" to participate in talks at all.
Besides, Iran is less likely than anyone else in the region to want a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Tehran is perfectly aware of the level of responsibility it would have to shoulder if the U.S. did leave. Does Iran have the strength, money and capability to prevent the situation in its neighbor from escalating into a war; this is to say nothing of developments in Lebanon and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?
Certainly not. Moreover, the tendency to claim leadership in the region by virtue of its nuclear program has been met with hostility by the Persian Gulf states. Their rejection of Tehran's proposal for a non-aggression and non-interference pact which would remove tensions centered on Iran's nuclear file is proof enough of this.
So if the U.S. withdraws, there is every reason to believe that Iran would be left alone to confront - not only all potential problems in the region - but an anti-Iranian coalition as well. Nevertheless, Tehran will continue to "boycott" America's presence in the region, without stepping over the "red line" that it has drawn. For Tehran, this position has obvious advantages when "trading" with Washington, not only over the nuclear dispute but also in addressing regional difficulties.
And then there is the current Iraqi government, which for obvious reasons doesn't want to speak too loudly about an American withdrawal - a fact that creates additional problems for Iran. This was seen, for example, at the recent Iran-Iraq summit. The visit of Iraqi President Jalal Talibani to Iran was promoted by Teheran as the unfolding of a new strategic alliance in the Middle East. The joint statement signed by Talabani and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touches upon many important issues like bilateral relations in general, but it says nothing about U.S.-led forces deployed in Iraq.
The White House hasn't ruled out an announcement - before the end of December - changes in its strategy in Iraq. This will occur after President Bush has a chance to compare the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton report with two similar reports being prepared by his own administration. One of them is being drafted by the National Security Council and the other by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
For the present, it is obvious that the Bush Administration should recognize that the U.S. lacks a distinct position on any recent developments on the Middle East. These concern Israeli-Palestinian relations and the situation in Lebanon. Its position on Iraq also needs a major adjustment. The key to many of these could be found in Iran, but as we can see, this will not be easy.
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Iran offers Arab states nuclear technology
From correspondents in Tehran
December 17, 2006
PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today offered to share Iranian-made nuclear technology with Arab states in the Gulf after they expressed a desire to acquire it, Iranian media reported.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to provide its experience and valuable achievements in peaceful nuclear technology as a clean source of energy and as oil replacement to all regional countries," Mr Ahmadinejad told a visiting Kuwaiti envoy, Mohammed Zeyfullah Shirar.
Mr Ahmadinejad's offer comes a week after Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders ended a two-day summit in Riyadh by announcing they planned to seek nuclear energy technology.
They said in a statement that "the states of the (Gulf) region have a right to possess nuclear energy technology for peaceful purposes ... within the context of the pertinent international agreements."
The GCC leaders also called for a peaceful settlement of the crisis over Iran's nuclear program, which the West suspects could be cover for nuclear weapons development.
Iran insists it only wants to produce electricity for its growing population.
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Iran bloggers test regime's tolerance
By James F. Smith and Anne Barnard
Boston Globe
December 18, 2006
TEHRAN -- By day, Alireza Samiei covers banking and insurance for an industry newspaper. By night, he writes a daring online blog about Iran's social and political ills.
In a recent blog entry, he described a scene he saw while talking to a greengrocer about soaring prices: A young child was pleading, " 'Mommy, I want watermelon.' The woman, shy and sorrowful, singled out one broken, small watermelon from the spoiled fruit bin and told the grocer, 'Just this one, please.' She put 20 cents on the counter and hurried away."
Samiei, 27, is among the growing ranks of Iranian bloggers who are relentlessly pushing the boundaries of free expression, making Farsi one of the 10 most popular languages for blogs. The bloggers are testing just how much political and social dissent the nation's rulers will tolerate on the Internet.
The authorities are pushing back. They have blocked access to thousands of websites in recent years that are deemed to threaten Iran's Islamic revolution, including the BBC's Farsi-language site. A trial began this month against four bloggers on charges including propaganda against the state. And in October, the government barred high-speed Internet service in private homes.
Especially threatening, it appears, are sites that create online communities that might allow Iranians to assemble virtually. The government banned the hugely popular Orkut site, an online Iranian social club. The latest casualty this month: YouTube.com, the American site for sharing videos online. Click on it in Iran and the screen reports, "Access denied."
The Paris-based rights group Reporters Without Borders includes Iran on its list of 13 countries designated "enemies of the Internet." That organization's website is also blocked in Iran.
The organization said repression of bloggers has eased somewhat in 2006. But in a report in November, the group said Internet filtering has accelerated, with two political sites, tik.ir and meydaan.com, closed down in recent weeks. Both had criticized the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Bloggers agree that they have found some latitude in recent months. Many have developed a feel for the boundaries, and some are trying to stretch them rather than break them.
Farzana Sayid Saidi, a 29-year-old reporter and colleague of Samiei, has two blogs, one political and the other showcasing her poetry. She has been blogging in her spare time for two years. Her first blog was shut down within three days, she said, after she wrote that school officials were providing access to abortions in clinics for young students.
Now she's back at it. She blogged a few days ago that while Ahmadinejad wants people to have more children, his economic policies make it difficult for many families to do so. She said she received some obscene and abusive replies. In a poem on her other blog, she compared Iran's leaders to the pharaohs of Egypt.
She estimates her readers at only in the hundreds, but adds: "We just want to express ourselves. We don't know how many people are reading."
Farzana's colleague Samiei admires her courage.
"Of the things she writes in her blog, only 1 percent would be acceptable in print," Samiei said.
She and hordes of other Iranian bloggers are pushing the envelope of the permissible. Technorati, a Silicon Valley search engine for blogs, said in October that Farsi has moved into the top 10 languages worldwide for bloggers. Most estimates put the number of active blogs in Iran at 70,000 to 100,000, and growing fast.
Iran has a long tradition of controlling the airwaves and the print media, banning papers and jailing journalists who criticize official policies.
But Iran's online activists have proved harder to quash. They have used fast-changing Web addresses, proxy sites, and other technological tricks to get around the restrictions.
"They block us and we evade the blocks," Samiei said. "It goes on every day. They code, we decode."
The Ministry of Information periodically sends lists to Internet service providers saying which keywords to filter out so that users can't get access to websites or blogs that contain them. The government contends that the principal target is pornography and other morally offensive material. The word "sex" is among those blocked.
That has some odd consequences. At one point, an Internet café owner said, the word "hot" was blocked. And that briefly prevented access to Hotmail, the popular e-mail program.
Amirhussein Jaharuti, the manager of a major Internet service provider in Tehran, said the government's restrictions focus on pornography, and he feels that filtering is appropriate.
"This is the demand of Iranian families, that they don't want their children to use these kinds of sites," he said. Asked about the political restrictions, he said: "All governments have ways to control their societies. . . . It's natural that when we see that someone wants to destroy us, we limit them."
Jaharuti said his client base has doubled in the past two years, to nearly 70,000. He provides dial-up and digital-subscriber line service to home and business customers at a cost of 20 to 40 cents an hour, or about $20 per month.
Internet use in Iran has exploded in recent years, with about 7.5 million users in 2005 in a country of nearly 70 million people.
Some journalists say the Internet has become even more vital in Iran as the government has suppressed other, more easily controllable forms of expression. Several opposition newspapers have been shut down since September, including the prominent paper Shargh.
The editor, Mohamed Atrianfar, said in an interview that the closure of Shargh and other publications and renewed pressure on critical websites reflects the government's concern that "the more challenges we have, the more agile and fresh the society becomes."
"All the hard-liners have mustered all their strength to fight this war. I am proud that we have invoked this reaction in them," he added.
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Despite its closure, Shargh has maintained a website to continue coverage of elections last week.
Atrianfar estimated that about 70 to 80 Iranian journalists have their own blogs.
"Websites and blogs have real impact," he said. "They have been very powerful in forming a word-of-mouth culture, especially for those between 17 and 35."
An Internet café owner in central Tehran who gave only his first name, Shariar, said the filtering of keywords rather than individual sites often blocks legitimate websites that people need for academic research. He also said limits on credit cards resulting from US financial sanctions against Iran have all but eliminated e-commerce on Iran's Internet, a major obstacle to economic growth.
Shariar said that while the government contends it is aiming its restrictions at pornography, "I think they are worried about politics. . . . I think they fear everything. They don't want people to make connections overseas. They are worried about information."
The authorities also close Western media sites temporarily. Both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times sites were blocked briefly this month.
A 22-year-old university student, Morteza Yeganeh, said the state-owned broadcasters and newspapers "brainwash people, so we need to find ways to educate ourselves."
But he said the filtering of sites is effective because "even though people can get around the filters, it is difficult and time-consuming and people give up."
Most Iranian blogs are apolitical, and government members -- including Ahmadinejad himself -- have their own blogs to convey their views. But those with blogs that challenge the government know they are taking a risk.
Niloufar Taslim, 24, said that three years ago, she was one of Iran's first bloggers, writing about social and political problems. But she started receiving e-mails signed by a group calling itself the Army of God, listing her name, telephone number, and address and threatening to kill her.
She shut down that site, but now has two new blogs. One talks about social problems without crossing what she also considers political red lines: transportation and environmental problems.
Another blog features her poems. One laments that she has lost her voice, that in "a situation without possibilities" her hands are "in pain because they cannot write."
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Death Through Health
High-dose fertility drugs put mothers and babies at risk
Jo Revill, health editor
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Thousands of infertile women who undergo IVF treatment are risking themselves and their embryos because they are receiving too many strong hormonal drugs, new research reveals today.
More than 10,000 children - around 1.5 per cent of all live births - are born in the UK each year using the treatments. For years, clinics have chosen to place several embryos in the womb to give the best possible chance of a pregnancy, often leading to multiple pregnancies that are dangerous in themselves because they can lead to premature delivery.
Now two studies discussed at a conference in London last week show that women who receive high doses of drugs to stimulate their ovaries into producing lots of eggs - so that the best possible ones can be picked once the egg has been fertilised by sperm in the laboratory - are more likely to produce embryos with genetic defects and suffer harmful changes to their womb lining.
Most embryos will never develop into babies because the defects make it impossible for them to survive when they are implanted back into the womb. But the discovery explains why so many fertility treatments fail, with thousands of women going through several expensive and painful cycles of treatment in the hope of having a child. It will add to worries that some genetic changes may occur in the children which are not yet being picked up by doctors.
At last Friday's conference, Professor Antonio Pellicer, of the University of Valencia, presented initial results from a trial of 10 women who were put through a stimulated IVF cycle employing routine amounts of stimulating drugs, known as gonadotrophins. The same group then received half the dose in a second stimulated cycle.
Researchers looked at what happened during the time when the embryo might be implanted back into the womb, and found a high rate of abnormalities in the genes that would normally become active. When they halved the dose of the drugs, they found the rate of abnormalities fell from 50 to 33 per cent.
'It is time for a complete rethink of how we approach IVF today,' Pellicer said. 'We should be looking to reduce the dosage of these drugs and take a much gentler approach that could be beneficial to both the women and their babies.'
In another study, soon to be published, researchers in the Netherlands looked at 400 couples, and compared those who had a high dose of stimulating drugs with a group who underwent a more 'natural' form of fertility treatment now being pioneered by some clinics. Over one year, both groups had exactly the same proportion of live births, showing that the outcomes were just as good, though in the lower-dose group only one embryo was ever transferred back into the womb. That compared with more two or three embryos transferred in the other group.
In Britain, fertility clinics generally allow the transfer of one or two embryos, but some specialists feel that just one should be implanted. Problems can also arise because the ovaries are sensitive, and the hormones used can cause ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a painful condition affecting up to 6 per cent of patients. In August a woman died of the syndrome at Leicester Royal Infirmary.
One in six UK couples has difficulty conceiving and the problems are growing as men and women are waiting until they are older before trying for a child.
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Medics face death while Libya uses HIV children as diplomatic pawns
Alex Duval Smith
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
The death in Libya six weeks ago of nine-year-old Marwa Annouiji from Aids was much more than just another developing world statistic. In her short, life, dominated by illness, the frail child was a pawn in a high-level game of international relations.
Marwa, from al-Bayda on the Mediterranean coast, was the 52nd Libyan child to die as a result, Libya claims, of a deliberate operation by foreign medical workers to pump HIV-infected blood into 426 girls and boys at the al-Fatah Hospital in Benghazi.
On Tuesday, barring some extraordinary intervention, the six medics - a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses who have been in prison in Libya for seven years - will have their sentence confirmed by a court in the capital, Tripoli: execution by firing squad. The case has sparked unprecedented mobilisation in support of the medics among international scientists who have found the Libyan evidence groundless . European governments and the United States stand accused of abandoning the medical workers for powerful strategic and economic reasons.
'We are still hoping wisdom will prevail,' said the head of the nurses' defence team, French lawyer Emmanuel Altit. 'The court has not granted the defence its rights, the Libyan evidence in the case is discredited, and the medics' confessions were extracted under mental, physical and sexual torture.'
The six - Dr Ashraf al-Hajuj and nurses Kristiyana Vatcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova - took up government contracts at the hospital in Libya's second city in March 1998. The first cases of HIV infection were reported the same year. A World Health Organisation report found that the virus had probably been spread because of a lack of proper medical equipment. The six were imprisoned in March 1999. Libyan courts ordered reports from the world's top Aids scientists and epidemiologists, including Luc Montagnier, one of the discoverers of HIV. Montagnier found the high rate of hepatitis B and C at the hospital suggested that poor hygiene was to blame for the spread of HIV. But the prosecution ignored his report and ordered one from Libyan researchers in 2003.
On 6 May, 2004, the death sentences were pronounced. On Christmas Day last year the Libyan Supreme Court ordered a retrial, which led to a new call for the death sentence this August. A verdict is expected on Tuesday.
European doctors who, under a €2m (£1.3m) EU initiative, have treated the children in Libya say most are now aged around 12. They suffer from tuberculosis and other Aids-related illnesses.
According to a French foreign ministry spokesman: 'They cannot so much as go to the dentist in Benghazi because the Aids stigma is so powerful in Libya. It also appears that, because most of them are outpatients, their parents are not all administering their tablets correctly.' As a result of care problems in Libya, the 374 surviving children are now outpatients at hospitals in Italy and France.
Libyan President Muammar Gadaffi, who is reportedly terrified of dissent in the opposition hotbed of Benghazi, is paying millions of euros for their treatment at the Vatican's Bambino Gesu Hospital as well at French clinics in Lyon, Montpellier, Strasbourg and Toulouse. Experts on Libya say Gadaffi is using the children as a pawn in his discussions with Western powers over burning issues including contracts for oil, arms and aircraft and diplomatic relations in the Middle East. Gadaffi also remains bitter about the pariah status he acquired after the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Earlier this year Libya said Bulgaria should pay the families of the children $2.7bn (£1.8bn) in compensation - which is exactly the sum paid by Libya for the 270 lives lost in the Pan Am 103 bombing.
International scientists say the 2003 Libyan report was written by 'pseudo experts' and has no value. Last week a paper in Nature magazine by a team led by British evolutionary biologist Oliver Pybus show ed that the Benghazi strain of HIV was introduced at the hospital before the arrival of the medics.
Pybus, of Oxford University, said: 'By looking at the genome sequence of the virus found in children at Bambino Gesu hospital, we established that the estimated date of the most common recent ancestor for each cluster predated March 1998, sometimes by several years. The virus is of a kind found in West Africa, which makes sense as Libya has a large population of guest workers from there.'
The medics' lawyers hope that, even if the death sentences are confirmed on Tuesday, the case will return to the Supreme Court where a judicial council could throw it out for a second time. But Altit said diplomatic efforts to secure the medics' release after more than seven years in jail had been disappointing. 'Libya is coming out of the cold and there are many lucrative contracts in the works. If the sentences are confirmed it will be a disgrace for the European Union. If there is one thing Europe stands for, it is values, such as justice.' A Foreign Office spokesman would not comment on the accusation that European governments were sacrificing the medics in the name of trade relations. But he said: 'The case is not over yet and we understand it will go to the Supreme Court. The EU has made significant eff orts to help the families and upgrade facilities at the hospital. We hope these efforts show that everyone sympathises with the families.'
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Stem cell baby deaths probe 'too close to the truth', claims investigator
Bojan Pancevski in Vienna, Sunday Telegraph
17 Dec 06
A Ukrainian investigator looking into claims that new-born babies were killed to harvest their stem cells and internal organs says she was removed from the case after demanding that the inquiry be extended to all Ukraine's maternity hospitals.
Irina Bogomolova, who works in the chief prosecutor's office in the capital, Kiev, claims she was taken off the case because she came too close to the truth while investigating allegations made by women who claim their babies were taken away from them immediately after birth.
She said: "I was sacked for political reasons. I demanded an investigation into all maternity wings in hospitals across Ukraine and I was relieved of duty after making that demand.
"A trade in stem cells exists here... I suspect there is a lot of bribery going on, right up to highest levels.
"Pregnant women, especially from rural areas, are very vulnerable targets as they will obviously believe whatever the doctors tell them. It's easy to take their babies from them and tell them they died or were born dead due to complications."
The Council of Europe is to investigate allegations that newborn babies, and foetuses, have been killed to provide stem cells and internal organs for controversial medical and cosmetic treatments.
Officials of the Strasbourg-based human rights organisation are to travel to Ukraine in February to investigate the role played by some of the country's research centres and maternity hospitals in the international trade.
The council launched an inquiry in 2004 when several mothers accused hospitals of snatching their newborn babies to harvest their organs and tissue for the booming new industry of rejuvenation treatments, as well as treatments of illnesses such as Parkinson's disease and cancer. The treatments cost up to £12,000 in the Ukraine, but much more in western countries.
The inquiry was abandoned for lack of firm evidence, but is to be reopened after fresh allegations in the press. A BBC report on the subject, claiming that healthy babies may have been killed, is to be broadcast tonight on Radio 4.
Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, a Swiss MP who is a member of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, and who previously investigated reports of missing babies, said: "I have obtained reliable information, from mothers and other sources about five cases of newborns that went missing ... I believe the mothers were telling the truth. I am more inclined to believe the babies were stolen for the purpose of adoption in the West." Some 300 mothers who claim to have suffered the same fate are represented by the All-Ukrainian Federation of Families with Many Children. In 2003 its head, Tetyana Isayeva Zaharova, gave Council of Europe investigators a video which was said to show babies' bodies partly dismembered so that stem cells and organs could be removed.
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Ukraine babies in stem cell probe - Healthy new-born babies killed in Ukraine to feed international trade in stem cells
BBC
12 Dec 06
Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them.
Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.
There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.
But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies.
Wall of silence
The BBC has spoken to mothers from the city of Kharkiv who say they gave birth to healthy babies, only to have them taken by maternity staff.
In 2003 the authorities agreed to exhume around 30 bodies of foetuses and full-term babies from a cemetery used by maternity hospital number six.
One campaigner was allowed into the autopsy to gather video evidence. She has given that footage to the BBC and Council of Europe.
In its report, the Council describes a general culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth, and a wall of silence from hospital staff upwards over their fate.
The pictures show organs, including brains, have been stripped - and some bodies dismembered.
A senior British forensic pathologist says he is very concerned to see bodies in pieces - as that is not standard post-mortem practice.
It could possibly be a result of harvesting stem cells from bone marrow.
Hospital number six denies the allegations.
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Israeli Pharmaceutical Giant Involved in Stem Cell Research: From primordial cell soup to a therapy
By Yoram Gavison
Haaretz
17 Dec 06
From the start of the next decade, Teva Pharmaceuticals (TASE, Nasdaq: TEVA) will be positioned to launch, each year, a drug with billion-dollar potential. Today the biggest generic drugs maker in the world, the Israeli company is positioning itself to become a leader in brand drugs as well, including through alliances. And its alliance with Jerusalem-based Gamida Cell could well prove to be another growth driver for Teva, helping to compensate for the day (if and when) generic competition arises for Teva's blockbuster anti-multiple sclerosis treatment Copaxone, which is currently responsible for about 10% of its revenues.
Gamida Cell is developing drugs based on stem-cell research. Stem cells are primordial cells, early in development and non-differentiated. In response to biochemical stimuli (that are not well understood), the stem cells differentiate into specific ones, such as heart, nerve, muscle, epidermis and so on.
The company has developed a unique platform to expand stem cell lines without them differentiating as they proliferate, which has been a serious problem in stem-cell research. It uses this unique technology to develop products for cell- replacement and tissue-rejuvenation therapies, by implanting cells that do not originate from the patient.
It envisions therapies for presently incurable illnesses such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, heart disease, and so on.
Its flagship product is StemEx, a therapy under development for leukemia. Gamida Cell is developing StemEx together with Teva through a joint venture. Teva owns 30% of the joint venture at this point and expects to raise its interest to 50%, with another $25 million investment in StemEx.
Gamida Cell CEO Yael margolin explains that StemEx' addresses the problem of the paucity of bone marrow donations, which are desperately needed by 25,000 leukemia patients each year. Without a donation of bone marrow, which is basically tissue that makes new blood cells, their death is certain. Leukemia is essentially a cancer of the bone marrow usually treated with chemotherapy and radiation.
But chemotherapy kills the bone marrow together with the disease, and to survive, the patient needs a transplant to resume making blood cells. Tissue matching is crucial to prevent rejection or attack by the body's immune system.
Because of the matching issue, only 20% of sufferers find suitable donors within the family, and 10% more find from a pool of donors. That leaves 70% with no solution.
Hope arose ten years ago, when it turned out that these patients could be helped by blood collected from the umbilical cord of newborns. But the problem is quantitative: there simply is not enough tissue in the cord blood to help any body weighing more than 30-40 kilos. In short, it would only work for kids, not adults.
Enter Gamida Cell's StemEx, which can take that cord blood, weed out the necessary cells and expand the line without causing the cells to differentiate into specific tissues.
The Gamida Cell-Teva joint venture have received United States Food and Drug Administration approval for the structure of clinical trials, which will enable the company to carry out pivotal clinical trials simultaneously. Margolin believes this can be done by the end of 2008 and a product could be launched in 2009.
She says Gamida Cell has no real competition at this stage. The only company developing a competing solutionis ViaCell (Nasdaq: VIAC), which finished first-phase clinical trials. But informal information in her possession indicates that the trials didn't go that well, Margolin says. There are other potential rivals but they aren't at the stage of clinical trials yet.
"When Teva carried out due diligence on Gamida Cell before entering the joint venture, it received an assessment that StemEx could be addressing a billion-dollar market," Margolin relates.
Comment: Question is, does this company deal in murdered babies for its stem cells?
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Drug maker accused of cover-up - Documents show side effects of Eli Lilly schizophrenia pill were played down in marketing
By ALEX BERENSON
New York Times
16 Dec 06
Drug maker Eli Lilly has engaged in a decadelong effort to downplay the health risks of Zyprexa, its best-selling medication for schizophrenia, according to hundreds of internal Lilly documents and e-mail messages among top company managers.
The documents, given to the New York Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, show that Lilly executives kept important information from doctors about Zyprexa's links to obesity and its tendency to raise blood sugar - both known risk factors for diabetes.
Lilly's own published data, which it told its sales representatives to play down in conversations with doctors, has shown that 30 percent of patients taking Zyprexa gain 22 pounds or more after a year on the drug, and some patients have reported gaining 100 pounds or more.
But Lilly was concerned that Zyprexa's sales would be hurt if the company was more forthright about the fact that the drug might cause unmanageable weight gain or diabetes, according to the documents, which cover 1995 to 2004.
Critics, including the American Diabetes Association, have argued that Zyprexa, introduced in 1996, is more likely to cause diabetes than other widely used schizophrenia drugs.
Lilly has consistently denied such a link and did so again on Friday in a written response to questions about the documents. The company defended Zyprexa's safety and said the documents had been taken out of context.
Side effects
But as early as 1999, the documents show that Lilly worried that side effects from Zyprexa, whose chemical name is olanzapine, would hurt sales.
"Olanzapine-associated weight gain and possible hyperglycemia is a major threat to the long-term success of this critically important molecule," Dr. Alan Breier wrote in a November 1999 e-mail message to two-dozen Lilly employees that announced the formation of an "executive steering committee for olanzapine-associated weight changes and hyperglycemia." Hyperglycemia is high blood sugar.
At the time Breier, who is now Lilly's chief medical officer, was the chief scientist on the Zyprexa program.
In 2000, a group of diabetes doctors that Lilly had retained to consider potential links between Zyprexa and diabetes warned the company that "unless we come clean on this, it could get much more serious than we might anticipate," according to an e-mail message from one Lilly manager to another.
And in that year and 2001, the documents show, Lilly's own marketing research found that psychiatrists were consistently saying that many more of their patients developed high blood sugar or diabetes while taking Zyprexa than other antipsychotic drugs.
Unsealed documents
The documents, which until earlier this week remained under court seal, were collected for lawsuits on behalf of mentally ill patients against the company. Last year, Lilly agreed to pay $750 million to settle suits by 8,000 people who claimed they developed diabetes or other medical problems after taking Zyprexa. Thousands more suits against the company are pending.
The Zyprexa documents were provided to the Times by James B. Gottstein, a lawyer who represents mentally ill patients and has sued the state of Alaska over its efforts to force patients to take psychiatric medicines against their will. Gottstein said the information in the documents raised public health issues.
"Patients should be told the truth about drugs like Zyprexa," Gottstein said.
On Friday, in its written response, Lilly said that it believes Zyprexa remains an important treatment for patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The company said it had given the Food and Drug Administration all its data from clinical trials and reports of adverse events, as it is legally required to do.
Lilly also said it shared data from literature reviews and large studies of Zyprexa's real-world use.
Lilly said the documents should not have been made public because they might "cause unwarranted fear among patients that will cause them to stop taking their medication."
Continued marketing
As did similar documents disclosed by the drug maker Merck last year in response to lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx, the Lilly documents offer an inside look at how a company marketed a drug while seeking to play down its side effects.
The documents - which include e-mail, marketing material, sales projections and scientific reports - are replete with references to Zyprexa's importance to Lilly's future and the need to keep concerns about diabetes and obesity from hurting sales. But that effort became increasingly difficult as doctors saw Zyprexa's side effects, the documents show.
In its statement, Lilly called the release of the documents "illegal." The company said it could not comment on specific documents because of the continuing product-liability suits.
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Diabetes breakthrough - Toronto scientists cure disease in mice
Tom Blackwell
National Post
December 15, 2006
In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.
Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.
"I couldn't believe it," said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. "Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more."
The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market.
But the excitement of the team from Sick Kids, whose work is being published today in the journal Cell, is almost palpable.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dr. Hans Michael Dosch, an immunologist at the hospital and a leader of the studies. "In my career, this is unique."
Their conclusions upset conventional wisdom that Type 1 diabetes, the most serious form of the illness that typically first appears in childhood, was solely caused by auto-immune responses -- the body's immune system turning on itself.
They also conclude that there are far more similarities than previously thought between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and that nerves likely play a role in other chronic inflammatory conditions, such as asthma and Crohn's disease.
The "paradigm-changing" study opens "a novel, exciting door to address one of the diseases with large societal impact," said Dr. Christian Stohler, a leading U.S. pain specialist and dean of dentistry at the University of Maryland, who has reviewed the work.
"The treatment and diagnosis of neuropathic diseases is poised to take a dramatic leap forward because of the impressive research."
About two million Canadians suffer from diabetes, 10% of them with Type 1, contributing to 41,000 deaths a year.
Insulin replacement therapy is the only treatment of Type 1, and cannot prevent many of the side effects, from heart attacks to kidney failure.
In Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin to shift glucose into the cells that need it. In Type 2 diabetes, the insulin that is produced is not used effectively -- something called insulin resistance -- also resulting in poor absorption of glucose.
The problems stem partly from inflammation -- and eventual death -- of insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas.
Dr. Dosch had concluded in a 1999 paper that there were surprising similarities between diabetes and multiple sclerosis, a central nervous system disease. His interest was also piqued by the presence around the insulin-producing islets of an "enormous" number of nerves, pain neurons primarily used to signal the brain that tissue has been damaged.
Suspecting a link between the nerves and diabetes, he and Dr. Salter used an old experimental trick -- injecting capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, to kill the pancreatic sensory nerves in mice that had an equivalent of Type 1 diabetes.
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Mass. health plan drawing interest as model for US - Universal care issue reemerges
By Susan Milligan
Boston Globe
December 18, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Universal healthcare, an issue the White House and Congress have largely abandoned since the early 1990s, has reemerged as an issue on Capitol Hill and around the country, with lawmakers looking to Massachusetts' landmark plan as a political and structural model for the nation's 46 million uninsured.
Healthcare specialists and government officials across the political spectrum say the healthcare debate has reached a turning point, with both liberals and conservatives ready to compromise.
Liberals are setting aside old demands for a single-payer system, while conservatives are showing a willingness to consider more government involvement in the provision of healthcare.
With Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, an architect of the state's plan, mulling a presidential run in 2008, healthcare is likely to be a big topic in the both the GOP and Democratic presidential primaries, party officials say. The attention the Massachusetts plan is getting in individual states, especially Iowa, the site of the nation's first presidential caucuses, is also pushing the healthcare issue to the forefront.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy , Democrat of Massachusetts and the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he will call hearings in the new Congress to explore using the Bay State plan as a national model.
And some Republican senators think the plan might help US companies compete in the global market by easing the burden of rising healthcare costs. Representative Edward Markey , Democrat of Malden, said he will push for similar hearings in the House.
"It's a conspiracy of the left and the right," said Ed Haislmaier , a healthcare specialist with the conservative Heritage Foundation. Haislmaier has been to different states promoting the Massachusetts approach, which requires residents to obtain health insurance, imposes an assessment on employers who do not provide it, and creates a private taxpayer-subsidized plan to cover people who cannot afford insurance.
Dr. Irwin Redlener, a member of the Clinton healthcare task force in the early 1990s, said the status of the uninsured -- including the growing number of uninsured people and the burdens they impose on hospitals and government programs -- has forced old political foes to work together on a different approach.
"I think, over the years, it's become clear to me that we can't keep waiting for the ideal," said Redlener, president of the Children's Health Fund and Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York. "We have to be a lot more innovative if we want to get this done in the United States."
John McDonough , executive director of Health Care for All, a Boston-based advocacy group, said two dozen states are seriously considering universal healthcare plans patterned after the Massachusetts program. He called that a stunning response, considering the potentially high price of copying the Bay State plan, especially in states with higher numbers of uninsured citizens than Massachusetts.
Iowa lawmakers recently drafted a bill for universal healthcare inspired by the Massachusetts plan, and New Jersey legislators are preparing legislation with a mandatory insurance provision for residents. State Senator Richard Moore, Democrat of Uxbridge, has traveled around the country at the invitation of lawmakers to describe the Bay State model.
"Because Massachusetts took the initiative and said everyone is going to be insured, it is now the model that other states are going to follow and should follow. That's what we're going to follow," said state Senator Jack Hatch , a Des Moines Democrat who heads the Iowa Senate's health and human services budget committee.
Officials say the issue will be featured in the 2008 presidential campaign debate as well. Healthcare was a pivotal issue in the 1992 presidential race, and after winning office, President Bill Clinton assigned his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton -- now a Democratic US senator from New York and a potential 2008 presidential candidate -- to head a task force to prepare a national plan.
The package failed in a bitterly partisan Capitol Hill fight, and Congress has not taken up the issue on a grand scale since then. But with the number of uninsured rising yearly, candidates will be forced to discuss the Massachusetts plan as a possible solution, lawmakers said.
Because Iowa is an early caucus state, Hatch said, "we're not just going to be asking [candidates] how [they] feel about it. We're going to be asking how you can help Iowa and other states do it."
Some small businesses and insurers are wary of the plan, said Merrill Matthews , director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, which opposes most government mandates on healthcare because of the high costs. But "the country's in a mood now to just do something" about the uninsured, he said.
Congressional hearings to examine the plan, though proposed by Democrats, would probably boost Romney's profile and add to his credentials at a time when the governor is exploring a presidential bid, Democrats acknowledged. But Moore and others said the issue itself was too important to subject to political warfare.
Kennedy said the Massachusetts plan would not work everywhere because states have vastly different demographics and healthcare problems. But the idea of state-run programs to cover nearly all of the uninsured was catching fire, he said.
"If you look at [mandatory] auto insurance, the first state to have it was Massachusetts," Kennedy said in an interview. "It set the example for the nation," and Massachusetts' bipartisan plan could do the same for healthcare, he said.
Hearings would focus on what states and the federal government can learn from the Massachusetts plan, but are not meant to push a uniform, national program, a Kennedy aide said.
The federal government must approve such approaches as the Massachusetts plan by providing a waiver, even if the idea doesn't cost the federal government more money. Because Medicaid, a federal program, is part of the Massachusetts approach, the federal government has an interest in any plan that follows the Bay State model, McDonough said.
Senator Trent Lott , a conservative Mississippi Republican and a newly-named member of his party's leadership, called the Massachusetts plan "a good idea," and said he wanted to examine what parts of the program could be used elsewhere in the country.
Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a member of the HELP Committee, said, "It has aspects I'm interested in. I think it merits some examination."
Timothy R. Murphy , Massachusetts secretary for health and human services, said he has been swamped with requests from other states to discuss to Massachusetts plan, and has already been to Minnesota, California, and Missouri.
Moore recently outlined the program at a conference in Texas of the National Council of State Legislatures, and said he has been approached by a member of the Irish Parliament as well as a foreign ambassador who were interested in the idea.
"Massachusetts is going to do one flavor of healthcare reform, and other states are going to look and do something that fits their needs," Murphy said. "Maybe there is a broad national application" of the program, but at least, "we clearly have reignited the healthcare debate across almost every state capital," he said.
Comment: Somehow, we suspect that there are far more than 46 million uninsured persons in the U.S.
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Corporate Agribusiness Is Behind Our Deadly Food Supply - An E. coli outbreak in China could spell disaster in your own dining room
By Sally Kohn
AlterNet
December 18, 2006
First it was spinach. Now it's green onions at the Taco Bell. What's next? The growing anxiety over our nation's food supply is enough to make you chew your nails -- unless of course they're contaminated with E. coli as well. Is nothing safe?
In the United States today, 80 percent of beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of pre-cut salad mixes are processed by two companies and 30 percent of milk is processed by just one company. Most of our fresh produce comes from the same region of California where the contaminated spinach and now green onions were grown. During off seasons, up to 70 percent of the produce sold in the United States comes from other countries.
Globalization has meant that, with the click of a button, we can connect with people and places halfway across the country or the world. But rather than just exchanging ideas and cultures, we've increasingly come to depend on the rest of the world for our consumption of goods, services, energy -- and food. With the speed of clicking a button, an E. coli outbreak in California or China can threaten our entire food supply and risk a widespread pandemic.
Gone are the days of family farms, which would produce sustainable, healthy food that also fed the local economy. Today, a staggering 330 farmers abandon farming each week. In the 1930s, there were over seven million family farms in our country. Today, roughly two million remain.
In their place, large, corporate-run farms have driven down the price of food, thanks largely to massive subsidies from the federal government but also "economies of scale." Yet we cutting costs comes at a price. When you buy an apple at your local farmer's market from a farmer's in your region, there's no packaging involved and the only energy the farmer spent to get you that apple was a few miles worth of gas.
When you buy an apple grown all the way across the country -- or on the other side of the globe -- that apple is wrapped in paper and cardboard and shipped over boats and planes and then trucks to your store, a considerably greater cost to the environment.
The money you spend on the apple, after the grocery store takes its cut, goes into the mega-profits of some distant agribusiness, a considerable cost to your local economy.
But also, aggregating farming means aggregating risk. In the case of the E. coli contaminated spinach outbreak this past September, the spinach was grown at massive, industrial farms in southern California and shipped around the United States.
The E. coli came from an industrial cattle ranch nearby. Tightly packed cows were over fed with unhealthy grain and produced E. coli in their feces. The contaminated feces washed downstream into the water supply, infecting the spinach fields.
There is much talk right now about "energy independence" -- the idea that the United States should rely on sustainable, renewable energy sources rather military conflict and political instability in the pursuit of oil. Food must be no different. Given the recent E. coli scares, we can no longer ignore the warning signs. Long-distance food of corporate agribusiness threatens our environment, our economy and our health. If we're feeling insecure, it's no wonder. We are what we eat.
There's a movement afoot to restore the health and safety of our food supply and support the livelihood and culture of small, family farmers. "The Meatrix", an incredibly clever animated spoof that exposes the dangers of factory farming, was viewed online by over 4.2 million people in the first three months it was released.
And just this past October, hundreds of thousands of people from over 150 continents convened in Turin, Italy, at a gathering for the international Slow Food organization, which calls for food that is good, clean and fair.
On it's website, the organization Local Harvest lists almost 10,000 farmers' markets, cooperative grocery stores, restaurants and more that provide locally-grown, organic produce to consumers. From Pulaski, Tennessee, to Moline, Illinois, there are already opportunities in big cities and small towns across the entire country to buy safe and nutritious food right from our own backyards. As demand for local produce grows, these markets will grow too.
Those of us who can afford to buy local, organic food grown sustainably by family farmers should do so. From jams and breads to apples and nuts, if we lead with our taste buds and our wallets we will over time help bring down the cost of locally grown food by eliminating the unfair competition of subsidized, artificially cheap agribusiness.
We will also solve the food crisis worldwide, where U.S. agribusiness has similarly trampled family farms and local food production from Mexico to India. Our reward will be a better world -- and food on our table that is nutritious, delicious and safe to eat.
Sally Kohn is the director of the Movement Vision Project of the Center for Community Change, which is interviewing hundreds of activists across the country to determine the progressive vision for the future of the United States.
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Farming polytunnels unlawful, says judge
ThisIsLondon
18 Dec 06
The rural blight of plastic 'polytunnels' that allow farmers to grow strawberries year-round is unlawful, a High Court judge has ruled.
To the delight of countryside campaigners, Mr Justice Sullivan said the miles of tunnels erected over Britain's fruit fields needed to have planning permission.
For good measure, he added that caravans parked in fields for migrant workers needed planning permission too.
Growers warned of dire consequences for British farmers and said imported produce would appear on the shelves to appease consumers' demand for soft fruit whatever the season.
Residents have waged a long campaign against the 'pastures of plastic' created by the ugly tunnels blotting vast swathes of land. MP Bill Wiggin, a rising star of David Cameron's frontbench, warned recently that eating strawberries out of season was ruining the British countryside.
The polythene tunnels allow farmers to extend their growing season well beyond the traditional six-week season, resulting in a booming industry worth £200million.
Until now, farmers have avoided planning rules because they have argued the tunnels are classed as temporary structures.
But a test case was brought to the High Court by the Hall Hunter Partnership, which owns Tuesley Farm, which is on green belt land near Godalming, Surrey, and last year had 60 hectares of land covered by tunnels.
The farm owners had lost a planning inquiry in December last year and wanted the High Court to overturn the decision of the planning inspector, who ruled that erecting polytunnels amounted to 'development' under the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act and therefore required planning permission.
Timothy Straker, for the farm, argued the plastic tunnels were 'an agricultural use of land' and a 'permitted development' which meant planning permission was not required.
He claimed the tunnels could not be described as 'buildings' under the planning rules as they did not have a sufficient degree of permanence. They were a 'moving feast', he said, as they were erected on a rotational basis according to where a crop was growing, and did not alter the land.
In contrast, a 'building' needing planning permission was 'something that has a fixed place in time and space', argued Mr Straker.
But the judge rejected all the grounds of challenge, saying the inspector had made no error of law.
And he upheld the inspector's decision that stationing some 45 caravans on the farm for hundreds of seasonal workers was also not a permitted development.
From January 1, 2007, all growers will be required to comply with the new rules.
Tim Harrold, chairman of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (Surrey), said: 'We are absolutely delighted, and we will be celebrating the ruling with local residents and the wider community.
'I personally think it is a wonderful result because people have stood up and been counted defending some of the most important countryside we have.
'It is not unreasonable to expect landowners to obtain planning consent.'
But the National Farmers' Union expressed 'extreme disappointment' at the landmark judgment.
The union's horticulture board chairman Richard Hirst said: 'The use of Spanish polytunnels by the British soft fruit industry is absolutely vital in allowing growers to provide consumers with the quality product they have come to expect.
'We are very concerned. The industry has shown it is sensitive to concerns raised by members of the public by developing a national code of practice for the use of all types of polytunnels in the soft fruit industry.'
British Summer Fruits, the organisation representing growers who supply 92 per cent of UK soft and stone fruit, also expressed concern.
Chairman Laurence Olins said: 'Polytunnels, which are used for protecting berries from our inclement weather, cover a mere 0.01 per cent of UK agricultural land.
'If UK growers are unable to meet the increasing consumer demand for berries then imported fruit will appear on supermarket shelves during our summer season.'
Growers claim the tunnels reduce the use of herbicides and pesticides by 50 per cent and banning them would allow Spanish strawberries to flood the £96million UK market.
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Climate Chaos
Pacific NW winds kill four, leave 500,000 powerless
By Bernie Woodall
Reuters
17 Dec 06
LOS ANGELES - The Pacific Northwest was on Saturday recovering from a violent windstorm as about 500,000 remained without power, officials said.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire proclaimed a state of emergency for the entire state, expanding one issued Friday night for 17 of the state's 39 counties, said Rob Harper of Washington State Emergency Management.
A break in the weather on Saturday allowed Oregon rescuers to renew their search for three missing hikers on Mount Hood but stormy weather expected overnight on Sunday gives them a limited search window, rescuers said.
The storm may have cost more lives, including three men missing off the coast in Oregon. Their 50-foot boat was found on Friday and the body of one man was found on Saturday washed ashore 50 miles away.
Oregon State Police spokesman Gregg Hastings said it is not known if the man had been aboard the boat.
Harper said the storm's death toll in Washington may rise from the four deaths reported on Friday. Local media reports said two more deaths were linked to the storm but Harper said the state's official count remained at four.
Sunday night's expected storm would be the fourth in a week for the Pacific Northwest, which also had record-breaking rains in November.
Winds reported up to 90 mph (144 kph) were reported in parts of Washington during the windstorm that began Thursday night. Winds in Seattle hit 69 mph (110 kph).
More than 1 million were without power in Washington, Oregon and near Vancouver at the height of the storm. Powerful winds toppling power lines were the main reasons for the record outages, said Grant Ringel, spokesman for Puget Sound Energy.
On Thursday and Friday, rescue efforts to find the three lost hikers were suspended due to high winds and blowing snow.
About 80 rescuers, including 50 on the mountain, will resume their search on Sunday for three men who began ascending the 11,235-foot Mount Hood on December 7. Their last known position was about 1,000 feet below the summit, based on a signal from a cellular telephone early Tuesday morning.
Sgt. Gary Tiffany from the Hood River County Sheriff's Department said it is hoped that the men had built a snowcave to protect themselves from temperatures to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit adjusted for the chill of high winds.
"We know they took food and water and stoves with them," Tiffany said. "We're still optimistic."
The men are experienced hikers, Tiffany said. Two of the missing men are from Dallas, Brian Hall, 38, and Kelly James, 48, and one, Jerry Cooke, 36, is from Brooklyn, New York.
Puget Sound Energy on Saturday afternoon had 380,000 customers without service. About 70,000 customers of British Columbia Hydro were without power Saturday afternoon. Seattle City Light had about 40,000 outages.
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1 climber found dead, 2 still missing
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER
Associated Press
December 18, 2006
HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) - Rescuers looking for three missing climbers on Mount Hood found a body Sunday in the area where one of the climbers made a distress call last week, authorities said.
The dead climber had not yet been identified, said Pete Hughes, a spokesman for the Hood River County Sheriff's Office. The victim was believed to be one of the three missing climbers, authorities said.
The body was found in a second snow cave near another such cave where rescuers found a sleeping bag, ice axes and rope, officials said.
Rescuers were coming off the mountain Sunday evening and planned to resume the search for the two others Monday, authorities said.
"We remain hopeful," said Capt. Mike Braibish, spokesman for the Oregon National Guard. "We are going to still collect information and pursue the rescue of the two other climbers."
Teams of climbers and a helicopter will work Monday to remove the body from the 11,239-foot mountain, said Marc Smith, also a spokesman for the Hood River Sheriff's Office.
Near the first snow cave, helicopters had spotted rope that had been intentionally laid out in a Y-shape, which climbers often use to indicate their location. There was also an ice spike and footprints, said Sgt. Gerry Tiffany, spokesman for the Hood River County Sheriff's Office.
The footprints appeared to head up the mountain toward the summit, but were blown out by the wind at higher points, Tiffany said.
Searchers dug through the first cave, about 300 feet below the summit, to ensure no one was there and took the equipment, which will be examined for clues.
Weather conditions have been harsh since the three were reporting missing eight days ago, with heavy snow fall and wind gusts of up to 100 mph. The snow stopped Saturday, but wind up to 50 mph blew the fresh snow, hampering visibility. Skies were blue Sunday, the wind was still, and temperatures at the summit were reported near zero degrees.
There has been no communication from Kelly James, 48, of Dallas, 37-year-old Brian Hall of Dallas, or 36-year-old Jerry "Nikko" Cooke of New York City since Dec. 10, when James used his cell phone to call his family. He told them he was sheltering in a snow cave while his companions started back down the mountain, apparently to get help for him.
The last clue to their whereabouts was a brief signal returned from James' cell phone Tuesday.
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Thousands in Northwest bracing for fifth night without power
By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times
18 Dec 06
Thousands of Puget Sound-area residents are preparing to spend what for many will be their fifth night without power tonight, unable to heat their homes or cook as temperatures drop near the freezing level.
And in what appears to be another fatal accident, a second person appears to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office. At least eight deaths have now been attributed to the storm.
Investigators said no details would be immediately available on the Renton-area resident, pending an examination today.
Some 234,000 customers were still without electricity late Sunday.
Officials predicted it might be days before power is restored in some of the hardest-hit areas, including Cougar Mountain in Bellevue, rural Woodinville, outlying parts of North Bend, Snoqualmie, Duvall, Carnation and Skykomish in East King County and some South King County neighborhoods.
Retailers in the region reported running out of fire logs and batteries, and wood for burning was in short supply. Long lines continued at gas stations.
While some churches were closed, others held limited services Sunday, minus heat and power.
Kirkland police released more details Sunday on a 26-year-old man believed to have died from carbon-monoxide poisoning. The man was discovered Saturday morning in a rear bedroom of a home in the 10500 block of Northeast 124th Street by his landlord, who called 911.
Emergency services found the house "closed up" and a portable gas generator in the living room, which had been powering a bedroom heater and some other appliances. The generator was switched on but had run out of gasoline by the time the man was found.
The man's name was not released, pending notification of his family.
In addition to the two persons believed to have died from carbon-monoxide poisoning, at least six others have perished since Thursday. A Gig Harbor man died Sunday when he was electrocuted by a downed power line. The man was walking his dog and likely didn't notice the power line, which was hidden in a tree that had fallen, said Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer. The man, believed to be a white male in his mid-30s, hasn't been identified.
Steven Thielen, 48, of Spanaway, died Saturday when a candle he was using for light apparently ignited a fire, authorities said. Harold Fox, 47, of Eatonville, and 37-year-old Bonnie Bacus of Roy, died in separate car accidents as the storm blew in on Thursday. That same night, in McCleary, Grays Harbor County, a 28-year-old Anacortes man died when a treetop snapped and crashed into the mobile home where he slept. And in Seattle, Kate Fleming, 41, drowned in the basement of her Madison Valley home when a surge of stormwater slammed into the house.
As the power outages drag on, one Bellevue resident, Katy Freiberg, said the idea of spending the days before Christmas in a shelter with her three children - ages 9, 8 and 3 - is unsettling. But the four had used an outdoor barbecue grill for cooking and warmth since power at their home went out Thursday night.
"We were putting wood in the grill to cook and stay warm; we were basically living outside," Freiberg said as the four down to a lunch of soup and sandwiches. "We woke up this morning and it was so very cold, I said, 'Kids, we just can't do this anymore. We need to get warm.' "
On Sunday, desperate for a shower, clean clothes and a warm meal, they drove to the North Bellevue Community Center.
While some sought refuge in emergency shelters, thousands more were choosing to ride out the cold and darkness in their homes. Others sought treatment for carbon-monoxide poisoning and hypothermia. Area hospitals also reported storm-related injuries, including nasty cuts from chain saws.
John L. Chelminiak, the deputy mayor of Bellevue, was volunteering at the Bellevue Community Center. He said 275 people had come through the shelter, located on 148th Avenue Southeast, since late Thursday.
"It's getting increasingly tough for many people to stay in their homes," Chelminiak said.
Margaret Little, who works as a caregiver in the Bellevue area, said she worries that the region's most fragile residents - those who most need shelter - are not seeking it out.
"A lot of people are stuck in the dark," she said.
Little pointed out that people living alone without power cannot hear news reports about where to go or whom to call for help. Some elderly and frail people don't have their own transportation to get to emergency shelters, she added.
"A lot of people, their families may be trying to reach them by telephone - when they don't get an answer they assume they went elsewhere." But without power, she pointed out, some phones don't work.
Many nursing homes and retirement centers still without power sought alternative shelter for their residents.
At Hutchison House Apartments in Issaquah, about 95 of the 120 residents remained in their apartments Sunday night, bundled up in heavy clothing and blankets.
None of the independent-living apartments had heat or lights, although a generator provided by authorities was keeping shared living space warm during the day.
The apartment home's generator broke down on Friday, leaving the complex without heat for about five hours.
Ada Wolf, the apartments' assistant manager, said one elderly woman slipped in the dark while trying to open her apartment door. The 82-year-old woman, who has since left to stay with a community volunteer, was checked out by emergency workers and found to be OK.
Another resident, Wanda Peck, 76, braved two nights in her apartment before leaving by taxi to stay with her son in Tacoma.
"On the second morning when I woke up, and it was dark and cold, it was really upsetting," Peck said.
Although residents survived on little but crackers and pop at first, by the weekend community volunteers brought in lasagna and pots of soup, Wolf said.
Wolf said the apartment managers have been out of town and are due back today.
In the Seattle area, pockets of homes still remained without power. At the Bitter Lake Community Center, where a shelter was set up, Rebecca Pennington, 25, and 15-month-old Aiden arrived about 10 a.m. Sunday. Pennington said she wanted to take a shower and try to regroup.
Pennington, her husband and their son had braved the cold in their Mountlake Terrace apartment, using a propane grill to boil water for coffee.
The wood they were burning in the fireplace to stay warm ran out on Saturday night, and Pennington decided to leave on Sunday after she said the apartment became colder than outside.
"We don't have any relatives here; we don't know anyone," said Pennington. Her family moved here from North Carolina in May, she said.
As she spoke about what to do next, Ethel Whelan approached, offering the family shelter in one of two homes she owns.
"We came during the heat wave, then there was the flood and the snow and the ice, and now this," Pennington said.
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Carbon Monoxide Poisons 100 in Northwest - People Using Generators and Grills for Heat and Light After Major Storm
AP
17 Dec 06
SEATTLE - About 100 people have been poisoned by carbon monoxide produced by generators and charcoal grills used for warmth and light during the widespread power outages caused by a major storm in western Washington state.
One man died of inhaling the colorless, odorless gas. At least six other people were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning in Oregon.
"We're dealing with a carbon-monoxide epidemic in western Washington," said Dr. Neil Hampson of Virginia Mason Medical Center, which treated more than 55 people in its hyperbaric chamber, where pressure is used to force oxygen into the blood.
"This has the potential to be the worst case of carbon-monoxide poisoning in the country," Hampson said.
The region's worst windstorm in more than a decade struck on Thursday, knocking out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses.
Puget Sound Energy, the state's largest private utility, listed about 280,000 customers still without power Sunday, with Seattle City Light reporting 21,000 still blacked out and Snohomish County Public Utility District, north of Seattle, said it had restored service to all but 9,000 customers.
Gov. Chris Gregoire expanded an earlier disaster proclamation to cover the entire state, freeing counties to spend money necessary to help victims. The state National Guard was also mobilized to help get fuel and supplies to hard-hit areas.
In northern Nevada, residents were clearing away snow and ice Sunday from a storm a day earlier. There were more than 100 crashes, and two Reno children were injured Sunday after sledding down a hillside and colliding with a pickup, police said.
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Australian bushfires leave grisly trail of environmental damage
AFP
17 Dec 06
Tens of thousands of iconic Australian creatures including koalas and kangaroos may have died in fires that swept through vast tracts of southern Australia this week, environmentalists say.
The blazes have devastated thousands of hectares, razed clusters of homes and claimed one life since they began earlier this month.
But they will also leave a significant environmental legacy because of their impact on flora and fauna, according to Wildlife Victoria spokeswoman Sandy Fernee.
"I think we've already lost tens of thousands of animals when you consider how widespread the fires are," she told AFP.
The wildfires, caused by lightning strikes in some areas and arson in others, have raged in the southern states of Victoria and Tasmania as well as New South Wales and Western Australia for two weeks.
Victoria is the worst affected, with the scorched area stretching over more than 5,000 square kilometres (2,000 square miles), equivalent to twice the size of Luxembourg.
Fernee said volunteers visiting Victorian firegrounds this weekend were expecting to see "Pompeii-like" scenes of burned and charred animal remains.
"It's very grim. A lot of what we come across are animals we can't even recognise. It's just a pile of ashes," she said.
"It's rare that we find something we can help. Mostly we come across dead animals that are badly burned that we have to euthanise."
While koala, kangaroo and wallaby populations are expected to have been hit, smaller animals such as possums, bats, birds, lizards and snakes are thought to have perished in greater numbers because they are generally too slow to outrun a fire, she said.
Kevin O'Loughlin, head of a Melbourne-based national bushfire research centre, said assessing the specific damage could take years.
"But fires of this scale are disastrous environmentally," he told AFP.
"They really do cause a terrible lot of damage because of the area that they burn and the ferocity of the burn."
While some Australian plants were able to thrive on fire, with the flames opening seedpods, ecosystems would take years to recover from gigantic blazes which left nothing behind, he said.
Residents of fire ravaged areas could expect plants and wildlife to be incinerated, while water supplies could be tainted by ash, he said.
Air pollution has also been significant, with the southern city of Melbourne shrouded in such thick smoke over the past week that fire alarms have been detonated inside city buildings.
Stuart McConnell, director of science and technology at Victoria's Environment Protection Agency, said air pollution was five to 10 times worse than normal because of the fires.
"This is certainly the worst example of this (type of pollution) that we've seen," he said.
Hundreds of firefighters are battling to contain the blazes, but officials expect those in Victoria and Tasmania to continue to burn for weeks as they churn through rugged and largely inaccessible bush.
Geoff Law, a campaigner with the Wilderness Society in Tasmania, says the fires in the island state are contained to state forests and private land and are not threatening national parks.
"But there's still birds being incinerated and kangaroos and wallabies getting scorched and potentially dying of burns as well as all the smoke," he told AFP.
Ultimately, the extent of the damage would depend on the severity of the fires, he said.
"Where there's been a firestorm or fireball most of the trees will be killed. There will be significant patches where everything is dead.
"But there will be regeneration. But if the frequency is too great then you do get a change in vegetation -- from taller forest to something a bit more scrubby.
"We hope that for most of the areas that have been burned, that it hasn't been too intense."
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Fast-tracking global warming - A Texas utility giant hopes to be able to emit more CO2 than most countries.
by Tara Lohan
Alternet
December 17, 2006
These days if you live in a low-lying island state, like say, Tuvalu, pack your bags. If you live in Bangladesh, pack your bags too, or even coastal areas of Florida. The waters are rising and the waters are warming.
If you are a poor nation and can't build higher dikes to protect your vulnerable coastal cities, pack your bags. And, if you live in New York or London, you're not in the clear either -- watch out for catastrophic storm surges.
Of course it's not just too much water that will be the problem, but also too little. The next few decades will be a bad time to live just about anywhere in Africa. Glaciers from the region's tallest peaks like Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori, and Kilimanjaro have lost nearly all their ice caps.
And similar things are happening in the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps...
But don't worry; the world is aware of the problem and working on change. Over 150 nations gathered recently in Nairobi to talk about the climate crisis and the U.S., the largest contributor to global warming said via representative Harlan Watson: "I do not see any change in our policy." The "policy" in question is to effectively do nothing. In fact, he added, "We feel very comfortable."
OK, so not everyone is doing something about the problem. Here in the U.S. we are doing something worse than nothing -- we are actively working in the wrong direction.
Never has this been more apparent than in Texas where utility giant TXU Corp. is seeking $11 billion to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in the state.
If these plants are built, TXU will become the country's largest corporate emitter of greenhouse gases. To put this in perspective, TXU would be contributing more greenhouse gas emissions than a combined 21 states and more than entire countries, such as New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden. They will also be negating all of the emissions that Japan had planned to cut and 80 percent of the U.K.'s pledged reduction.
Despite the fact that 79 percent of Texans are in favor of renewable energy and just six percent are in favor of more coal production, TXU's project is being fast-tracked by Gov. Perry (who received more than $80,000 in campaign contributions for TXU interests). By trying to quickly push through the permitting process, Perry will be allowing the state to skip the normally mandated period where alternative energy sources would be considered. But don't worry, it's not like there's a lot of wind or sun in Texas or anything.
Even with Perry's best efforts on behalf of polluting energy, there is still a lot to be done to stop the project: just ask the ever-vigilant folks at Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
Sure, Texas might not be in your backyard, but with an international problem like global warming, all of our backyards just got a whole lot bigger.
Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.
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Seven dead, 150 injured in Indonesian earthquake
AP
18/12/2006
A quake that struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra has killed at least seven people, injured 150 and brought down hundreds of homes, local officials and police said
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Global Warming: Shorelines may be in greater peril than thought
David L Chandler
NewScientist.com News Service
14 Dec 06
Previous estimates of how much the world's sea level will rise as a result of global warming may have seriously underestimated the problem, according to new research.
The study, published in Science, uses a new "semi-empirical" method instead of relying purely on computer modelling. While some modelling significantly underestimates the amount of sea-level rise that has already been seen over the last century, the new method matches the observed rise very closely, says Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, who conducted the new study.
The existing computer model deviates even more from the actual observations built into the new estimates included in a draft of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be released in February 2007.
The draft report says newer climate models now suggest a rise only half as great as projected in the previous IPCC report. But that draft may be revised before its release to reflect the new research that suggests the rise will be greater than the IPCC's previous estimate, Rahmstorf told New Scientist.
Capital cities
For a given amount of warming, Rahmstorf says, the rise in sea level "could well be twice as much as was so far expected, based on the last IPCC report".
At the top of the range of possible temperature rises estimated by the last IPCC report, the rise could be as great as 140 centimetres by 2100. That would be bad new for cities like London and New York, which lie close to sea level, and would leave them facing an increased risk of devastating storm surges. Even the lowest predicted temperature rises would cause a 50 cm rise, Rahmstorf says.
The predictions in the previous IPCC report - its third - ranged from 9 cm to 88 cm by 2100, and the initial draft of the next report was to cut those figures in half. But Rahmstorf, who is a lead author of the paleoclimate section of the upcoming report, says he hopes his new results will be incorporated before IPCC 4 is officially released in February 2007.
Search for meaning
Rahmstorf says there are so many possible factors and feedback mechanisms that affect sea level that it is almost impossible to derive a meaningful model of future rises from purely physical modelling. Instead, he uses a method similar to that used for calculating tide tables.
The method relies on actual observations of past changes in sea level, and their correlation with temperature changes, to derive an estimate of the amount of increase expected for a given temperature change.
Rahmstorf acknowledges that the simple linear extrapolation derived using the new semi-empirical method will not hold good over a timescale of millennia, but he argues that it is a good approximation for the next century. However, the strongest conclusion of the new work, he says, is that uncertainties in sea level rise predictions are far greater than expected.
"We should not take this risk," Rahmstorf says. "We should start with very effective emission reduction measures. The global temperature increase should be kept to under 2°C."
"We still have some work to do to improve our comprehensive physical models, especially for ice sheets," says Richard Alley, at Penn State University, who specialises in ice sheets and glaciers. "But given the difficulties with modelling ice sheets etc., Rahmstorf's approach is clever and useful."
Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1135456)
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Fireball Friday 15th December Over Albuquerque
Written by John Fleck
Friday, 15 December 2006
Albuquerque Journal
I've gotten several reports of a pretty spectacular fireball last night over the Albuquerque area, at around 6:40 p.m. One reader described it as having "a very long yellow tail and the most brilliant electric blue head you could imagine". Dick Spalding out at Sandia Labs, who tracks these things with a rooftop all-sky camera, said it was visible for 13 seconds - an unusually long time. His camera also picked up a second, similar one at about 8:30 p.m.
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Corruption: Business as Usual
Ethics are dead. Long live BAE! - Dropping the inquiry into the Al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia is a triumph of realpolitik over principle.
Larry Elliott, economics editor
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian
Imagine that you are the French trade minister, keen to derail the global trade talks for fear that they will result in a wholesale dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy. It's been an uphill struggle but at last help is at hand.
The next time Tony Blair calls Jacques Chirac to insist that he must face down protests from angry French farmers and stand up for free trade, there is a perfect one-word response: BAE.
Imagine you are the leader of a small, poor, African country with a troubled past and a cavalier approach to pluralism and democracy. Indeed, the crackdown on dissidents has become so blatant in recent months that the Department for International Development will cut off British aid unless the standard of governance is improved. As Hilary Benn repeats his prime minister's mantra - help for Africa is a deal for a deal, aid in return for a crackdown on corruption - you whisper one word: BAE.
It all seems a long time since we were told that Labour, in contrast to the sleazy Tories, would have an ethical foreign policy. The decision to order the Serious Fraud Office to drop the inquiry into the Al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia signed in the 1980s is the triumph of realpolitik over principle.
As revealed yesterday, ministers may face a legal challenge; the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development wants to know why Britain seems to have flouted its obligations under an international anti-bribery code. But to those who argue the SFO inquiry should have been allowed to run its course, the retort is simple: join the real world.
The defence industry is a complicated business and there are plenty of jobs at stake here. That's true, but ministers are now exposed to the charge not just of hypocrisy but of economic illogicality.
'Call girls'
Although the intervention of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, means that the courts are now unlikely to hear details of alleged slush funds and call girls, the public would be forgiven for suspecting that the defence contract stank to high heaven. The Saudis would prefer not to have baskets full of allegedly dirty linen washed in public and Labour has duly halted the inquiry.
What does this say about the interface between politics and economics? Firstly, that there are some countries you bully and some countries you don't. There is a world of difference in getting tough with, say, Ethiopia, over its standards of government procurement and doing the same with the world's biggest oil producer. Abuses of human rights are always less serious in a big country with clout (eg China) than in a country where the high moral ground can be occupied without fear of economic consequences (eg Zimbabwe). But it is good to have double standards so clearly highlighted.
The government's argument that its appeasement was due to concerns about national security, rather than fear that BAE would lose a £6bn contract for the next phase of the Al-Yamamah deal, suggests delusions of grandeur. What matters in the geopolitics of the Middle East is the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States; anything Britain does is a sideshow. The idea that the Saudis would abandon their pro-west stance because a few executives came up before the UK courts is risible.
No, this was really about money. With Britain's own oil and gas reserves falling, Whitehall has justifiable concerns about energy security. Saudi is the world's No 1 supplier of oil and is too powerful to upset. Given that Russia has the world's biggest reserves of gas, those expecting the incorruptible British justice system to deliver up the killers of Alexander Litvinenko may be in for a long wait.
It's not just about energy, though, because BAE is vital to what remains of British industry. The UK only has a global presence in pharmaceuticals and defence. It is no accident that both have benefited from strong and consistent government support for many decades. In an increasingly competitive world, the government has used its enormous procurement powers in the NHS and the Ministry of Defence to favour British firms. Pharma and defence account for 70% of the UK's annual spending on research and development; they represent the hi-tech, knowledge-based sectors that ministers want to foster.
What's more, problems for BAE would mean problems for other companies, such as Rolls-Royce, which has gone from bankruptcy to world-beater in three decades. The UK is not so blessed with world-class firms that it can afford to let them go without a struggle. If that means turning a blind eye to alleged wrongdoing or failing to investigate whether palms may have been greased to win a deal, then that's what happens.
'Dark arts'
The clinching argument, certainly as far as BAE is concerned, is that everybody is at it. The French would happily step in and sell the Saudis warplanes if BAE got the push but does anybody believe that our neighbours are whiter than white? Of course not. We know that the billions spent by the Pentagon help to subsidise the US defence industry. We know that the French are experts in the "dark arts" of securing military contracts. It seems only fair that British firms compete on the same terms, particularly since any alleged wrongdoing was a long time ago.
The problem is that the attorney general's support for BAE amounts to protectionism, which the government in all its public statements considers to be a Very Bad Thing indeed. If Labour truly believes in the sanctity of market forces, it's hard to justify feather-bedding a company - even one as important as BAE - in this way. According to its own ideology, there should be no assured MoD contracts, no bowing to lobbying, no favours. Defence procurement would be done on the basis of free-market principles, with taxpayers getting the best value for money, savings used to boost other parts of the economy and the message to BAE workers the same as that given to those who lost their jobs in textiles or steel: that's globalisation.
That is certainly a logical position for the government to take. Another logical stance is that the perfect world of global market forces simply does not exist, and that there are powerful arguments for states using their financial power to support industries they consider strategically or economically vital.
A third position, and one that perhaps ought to appeal to a Labour government, is that it is proper for public money to be used to nurture and support industry, and that if a fraction of the money that has been spent over many decades on safeguarding Britain's position as one of the world's leading arms dealers had been spent on renewable energy and procuring green technology from the UK's environmental industries, we might all be a lot better off.
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Flashback: US accuses British over BAE arms deal bribery bid
Rob Evans and Ian Traynor in Prague
Thursday June 12, 2003
The Guardian
The US has accused Britain's biggest weapons company, BAE Systems, and its British government sponsor of "corrupt practice" over a Czech arms deal, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.
The American government made the accusation after receiving reports from the CIA and rival firms. A Guardian investigation in Prague has obtained first-hand evidence confirming bribery attempts on behalf of the BAE deal.
The bribery of foreigners is now a criminal offence under British law. However, the Ministry of Defence's permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbit, to whom Washington's accusations were made personally last year, failed to call in the police to investigate the allegations.
Instead, Sir Kevin claimed in a letter to the US state department assistant secretary, Anthony Wayne, that the complaint had been investigated and was groundless. The MoD told the Guardian this week that the allegation "has never been substantiated by any evidence whatsoever".
In Prague, the allegations are well-documented. The bribery attempts to promote the BAE deal were confirmed by the Czech police, although BAE flatly denies authorising any such attempt.
Two senior Czech politicians separately claimed they were offered bribes last summer in an attempt to prevent them voting against the £1bn deal to buy Gripen fighter jets from a BAE-Saab joint venture.
Those attempts were directed at opposition politicians, but it is also claimed in Prague that larger sums of money went to people linked to politicians in the governing Social Democrat coalition. "I am convinced that money went to the Social Democrats," a senior Czech government official said.
BAE admits that it offered corporate financial favours to the head of a Czech television station which it wanted to support its campaign in 2001. British laws banning corrupt acts abroad only came into force the following year.
Prague sources say BAE Systems had a £1.5m annual lobbying budget to influence Czech opinion.
Four rival companies, two of them American, pulled out of the bidding in May 2001 in a coordinated protest against what they alleged was a rigged deal in favour of BAE.
The disclosure of the US confrontation with Britain is particularly serious because both Tony Blair and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, flew to Prague and lobbied the Czechs unsuccessfully on BAE's behalf. The deal is currently shelved.
An email obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act in the course of a major Guardian investigation into British arms sales describes the clash in July last year between Sir Kevin and Mr Wayne, a senior state department official in charge of US-foreign business deals.
After Mr Wayne made his accusations of bribery, Sir Kevin wrote rejecting them. On September 6, a commerce department official, Thomas Barlow, emailed a colleague, William Denk, telling him of Sir Kevin's "sharp response".
The letter expresses surprise at being "confronted... with repeated but unsubstantiated allegations of corrupt practice by BAE Systems in the dealings with the Czech Republic... [and that he] is satisfied that all reasonable steps have been taken to investigate US claims... [and that] unless you have any information to provide in the form of firm evidence, we need to draw a line under this subject".
The MoD could not tell the Guardian of any steps Sir Kevin took to investigate the claims. It said: "If anyone believes they have evidence to support this allegation, they should present it to the police. If MoD had received any such evidence we would certainly have reported it to the police. We have not."
BAE said: "BAE Systems did not pay bribes in the Czech Republic in order to influence any decisions in Gripen's favour. Nor did BAE Systems ever authorise or direct anyone to pay bribes to that end."
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Flashback: BAE faces corruption claims around world - Disclosures on Czech deal to be referred to police
Rob Evans, Ian Traynor in Prague, Luke Harding in New Delhi and Rory Carroll in Johannesburg
Saturday June 14, 2003
The Guardian
Allegations of corruption involving BAE Systems, the government-sponsored arms firm, have been identified by the Guardian in a further three countries.
The new allegations are in India, where BAE is currently renewing efforts to sell the Hawk fighter/trainer; Qatar, where a relative of the ruler was paid £7m; and South Africa, where the then defence minister is alleged to have been bribed, also to buy Hawks.
The claims mirror the advice of the businessman Sir Donald Stokes nearly 40 years ago to the government's newly created arms sales unit, DESO - revealed this week in the Guardian. He said it should target key officials and use local agents to dispense "the less orthodox inducements".
Roger Berry, the Labour chairman of the Commons quadripartite committee that examines the arms trade, said of the Guardian's series that he was writing to the government demanding answers: "These are extremely important issues which parliament should investigate." He said companies could be made to declare that they will not bribe to get an export licence.
Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrat trade spokesman, said he was referring to the police the Guardian's earlier disclosures of BAE bribery allegations in the Czech Republic and DESO's involvement in authorising bribes.
"The traditional, cosy special relationship between the Ministry of Defence and BAE must not be allowed to get in the way of a proper examination of these serious allegations," Mr Cable said.
He called for DESO, the defence exports services organisation, to be shut down. "There are far too many unhealthy relationships involving DESO, the export credits guarantee department, the defence industry and overseas governments. The government should clean up its act and get out of this business altogether."
In India, undercover transcripts obtained by investigators allege an agent for BAE Systems - manufacturer of the Hawk jet - made corrupt approaches to a party treasurer linked to the Indian defence minister, George Fernandes.
This was revealed when a team of local journalists disguised themselves as Indian arms sellers.
Their undercover videotapes recorded a claim by the treasurer of the defence minister's party of an approach by an alleged confidential agent for BAE, a businessman named Sudheep Chaudhury.
BAE said: "It does not matter what is said in whatever manufactured document you have. BAE does not and has not used agents in India."
According to the tapes, the treasurer rejected the approach - but for one reason only. He had already been signed up by the Hawk's Russian rivals, he said, for a "special commission" of 10% of the value of the deal.
The tapes, which were made by Tehelka.com, an online team of journalists, caused a huge scandal in India because they implicated the defence minister in a wide range of bribery allegations.
DESO is heavily involved in the Indian bid. In 1988 the then head of DESO, BAE's own Sir Colin Chandler, told a private meeting in London of plane firms: "Doing business in India has always required the use of agents. Following the Bofors scandal the official Indian view on the matter has been quite emphatic. The word is, as I was told: 'There shall be no agents'. However, it is not quite as simple as that ..."
In the Bofors scandal, three millionaire traders, the Hinduja brothers, still face a belated trial, accused of hiding multi-million pound "commissions" from the Swedish howitzer company in Swiss banks.
When the Tehelka "sting" was taped, an Indian army general told them: "There is a famous bloody arms dealer called Mr Chaudhury. You must have heard of him. Bloody everywhere, he roams around in a 500SEL Mercedes. His claim to fame was that his brother-in-law was a chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics [the Indian state plane-makers]."
Subsequently, the undercover journalists met RK Thain, the treasurer of the Samata party, to which the defence minister belonged.
Thain was filmed explaining to them how he passed on shares of commissions to party funds and politicians, and described a meeting he had in 1998 in Delhi: "That Sudheep Chaudhury. That guy approached me. He is the man who was looking after the Hawk interest. I went to Sudheep Chaudhury's house _ He says, 'Mr Thain, why you want to go with MiG? They will not get the order. Both of us, let us _ let us make an understanding. Why competition? If you want, I can give you a letter where all positive points of the British Hawks are there ..."
Thain said he was forced to tell him: "But I am sorry. I cannot shake hands with British Hawk ..., I don't like to run around, run after two companies in the same job. I have feeling that I must work for MiG. So, I am sorry, I cannot work for British Hawk."
In Delhi, Mr Chaudhury's assistant told us: "He is medically unfit at present. He has been away for most of the time". Mr Chaudhury did not respond to invitations to comment. Mr Thain has not commented since the tapes were published.
Mr Fernandes was forced to resign after the Tehelka exposures, but was later reinstated. A commission of inquiry is taking place into his activities and those of Mr Chaudhury but has produced no result so far.
In another part of the world, in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber, the ruler's influential cousin, was paid a £7m commission into a secret Jersey trust run by Grindlay's bank. The Serious Fraud Office traced the payment to BAE and to a deal to sell Piranha armoured cars, originally brokered in 1996 by Michael Portillo, then the Tory defence secretary, now on the BAE board.
However, police investigations into the sheikh were halted when he paid £6m to the Jersey authorities to compensate them for "inconvenience". The government admits the Foreign Office had a report of this commission payment in 1998, the year the Piranhas were delivered.
In South Africa, the successful £1.5bn sale of a consignment of BAE Hawks to the poverty-stricken country has been consumed by scandal since it was signed in 1999.
One politician from the ruling African National Congress who was close to an official investigation alleged: "The defence minister, Joe Modise, was bribed." He said investigators believed "money was paid to the ANC for their 1999 election fund, and £500,000 also went to Modise. It was paid into a Saudi bank, transferred to their Algerian branch, and moved from there to Mozambique."
He said that Aermacchi, the Italian rival to BAE, was informed that, to win, a deal had to be done with "sub-contractors" - in reality a front company owned by associates of Modise. (A US company, Bell, which lost out on a helicopter contract, revealed that it had been pressured in the same way.)
Documents show that Modise intervened to prevent the cheaper Aermacchi trainer being selected. They also show the BAE-Saab partnership promised lavish investment in South Africa by way of industrial "offsets". This was to include the enrichment of Conlog, a company in which Modise was a shareholder.
The heavily sanitised 2001 report by the South African auditor general contented itself with saying that Mod-ise's behaviour had been "extremely undesirable" and was under further investigation - investigations which have never been concluded. Modise subsequently died. BAE never proceeded with the Conlog investment and told us it "did not pay bribes".
BAE said the authorities had thoroughly investigated and found the allegations to be baseless.
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Flashback: Homes for executive's mistress 'bought from BAE fund'
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Monday September 15, 2003
The Guardian
The mistress of an executive of the arms firm BAE has admitted that she personally acquired two houses worth more than £300,000, which it is alleged were fraudulently charged to a big arms deal contract as part of a £20m BAE slush fund.
Sylvia St John admitted to the Guardian that she was the occupant of both a house in Putney, south-west London, and a Northern Ireland holiday home in Ballygally.
Documents in the Guardian's possession suggest that both houses were charged to the slush fund allegedly designed to bribe top Saudi officials involved in the long-running Al Yamamah arms deals.
Ms St John's then lover, a retired RAF wing commander, Tony Winship, is alleged to have been in charge of the slush fund on BAE's behalf.
The £300,000 payments were passed through the books as confidential payments, purportedly to a member of the Saudi royal family, the deputy head of the Saudi air force, Prince Turki bin Nasser.
But there is no evidence that Prince Turki was aware of the transactions, and it is alleged that his name was fraudulently used.
Ms St John lives in the Putney house. She and Mr Winship used to live there together. "We were in love," she said.
Although the house has been officially registered in the name of Prince Turki, she told us she had the title deeds. The house in Northern Ireland, where Ms St John told us she had family connections, is registered in her own name; she claimed she had bought the house herself.
But in a signed statement, the owner of the front company used by BAE, known as Robert Lee International, admits that BAE's alleged slush fund paid for the houses. In the statement, John Sharp, managing director of RLI says Prince Turki wanted Ms St John to have the houses as a gift and that "BAE authorised and approved the expenditure".
In a letter obtained by the Guardian, Mr Sharp tells Ms St John how the alleged slush fund will pay the council tax and utility bills for the Northern Ireland house. Bills ranging from building renovation to the cost of a "a pair of an tique brass firedogs" for the Putney house were also charged to BAE.
Mr Winship, employed at the time as BAE's Saudi "customer relations officer", has refused to comment on the allegation that he set up a love nest for his mistress with money from BAE's slush fund.
BAE has not yet sought to rebut any of the detailed allegations about a slush fund, which were secretly reported to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in 2001 and disclosed by the Guardian last week.
Chief executive Mike Turner said BAE vigorously denied any illegality or wrongdoing. The chairman, Sir Richard Evans, has remained silent about the extent of his knowledge. A letter from the then head of the SFO, Rosalind Wright, contained allegations that he might have been per sonally complicit in the operation of the slush fund.
A former BAE security official, Martin Bromley, who was head of investigations for BAE group security at their Farnborough headquarters, told the Guardian yesterday that he had compiled a five-page report in 1996 on the fraud allegations.
The Guardian has a copy of the report. Mr Bromley gave the original to BAE's head of security, Michael McGinty, he said. "Mr McGinty told me he had taken it to Dick Evans personally who had reassured him that the situation was under control."
Ms St John, a former film make-up artist, was given a salary by BAE's front company and, in correspondence we have obtained, described herself as "customer families offi cer, Saudi Arabian support department, British Aerospace [Military Aircraft] Ltd". She said she had visited and comforted in hospital a sister of Prince Turki, who was dying of cancer.
When it was put to her that BAE's alleged slush fund had paid for her house she said: "Yes, but I had earned the money."
Investigations into the BAE allegations have so far been blocked by the MoD, whose own officials are implicated in the scandal.
The MoD paid BAE for the allegedly fraudulent invoices, and then endorsed them for repayment by the Saudi government, the ultimate losers in any fraud.
Both the SFO and the national audit office have now been asked to investigate.
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Blair defends decision to drop fraud probe into Saudi arms deal - Business Profits Supercede the Rule of Law?
The Associated Press
December 15, 2006
LONDON: Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended a government decision to halt an investigation into alleged bribery in a multibillion dollar arms deal between BAE Systems PLC and Saudi Arabia, saying Friday that he took full responsibility for the controversial move.
Blair said advising the Serious Fraud Office to drop its long-running investigation was necessary to ensure national security, but lawmakers from all political sides accused him of bowing to Saudi demands.
"Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for our country, in terms of counterterrorism, in terms of the broader Middle East, in terms of helping in respect of Israel/Palestine, and that strategic interest comes first," Blair told reporters at a European Union summit in Brussels.
"Particularly in circumstances where if this prosecution had gone forward there would have been months and possibly years of ill feeling between us and a key partner and ally, and probably to no purpose," he said. "I take full responsibility for the advice I gave."
The Serious Fraud Office was investigating allegations that BAE ran a 60 million-pound (US$110 million; €90 million) "slush fund" offering sweeteners to officials from Saudi Arabia in return for lucrative contracts as part of the Al-Yamamah arms deal in the 1980s.
Al-Yamamah, meaning "the dove," was the name given to an agreement under which BAE supplied Tornado fighter jets and other military equipment to Saudi Arabia, which paid the British government with barrels of oil. The full extent of the deal was never revealed but it was widely believed to be Britain's largest-ever export agreement.
Reports earlier this month said that the Saudi government had told Britain to drop the probe or lose a 10 billion pound (US$19.6 million; €14.9 million) contract to buy Typhoon Eurofighter jets, a deal that will supersede the Al-Yamamah agreement.
That left Blair open Friday to accusations of political interference in a criminal case in a bid to protect BAE's commercial interests. The company's shares soared almost 7 percent Friday, adding almost 900 million pounds (US$1.8 billion; €1.36 billion) to its market value.
"We appear to be giving businessmen carte blanche to do business with Saudi Arabia which may involve illegal payments or illegal inducements," said Eric Illsley, a member of Blair's Labour Party who sits on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
"We have been leaned on very heavily by the Saudis," Illsley added when asked about possible blackmail in the decision.
Liberal Democrat Leader Menzies Campbell said the government should reveal details of advice it received from its legal advisers and conversations between Blair and his Cabinet ministers before the decision was announced Thursday by Lord Goldsmith, the government's chief legal adviser.
"If the government does not come completely clean about how, when and why this decision was reached, it will be impossible to resist the conclusion that political and diplomatic pressure has carried more weight than a proper legal assessment," Campbell said.
A leading pressure group, the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said it had instructed lawyers to look into the possibility of taking legal action against the government.
"We think it's a serious possibility," said spokesman Symon Hill.
The controversial decision has piled further pressure on Blair amid the news that he was interviewed Thursday by police investigating allegations that peerages and other honors were bestowed in return for contributions to Labour Party funds.
The 90-minute interview did not take place "under caution" - meaning it was unlikely police suspected Blair of any criminal offense. However, it is extremely rare for a serving prime minister to be quizzed by police and it will be seen as a further dent to his reputation.
BAE issued a brief statement welcoming the Serious Fraud Office decision, but declined to comment further.
Lyndsay Hoyle, the ruling Labour Party's representative in Lancashire county where BAE is the largest industrial employer, said the company's staff were celebrating "an early Christmas present."
"Tens of thousands of jobs were put at risk by a 1980s issue," Hoyle said.
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Arms and the man - Blair and the Saudi Arms Deal Probe
Leader
Friday December 15, 2006
The Guardian
For a prime minister who once taunted his predecessor as someone "knee deep in dishonour" over an arms deal and who promised that he would be "purer than pure" in office, yesterday was a shabby, shaming day, among the most inglorious he has spent in office. First Tony Blair was interviewed by Scotland Yard at Downing Street, which in itself was an extraordinary thing. Nothing like it has ever happened before. Then, in the House of Lords, the attorney general hauled up the flag of surrender in the face of Saudi demands that the Serious Fraud Office stop its investigation into BAE Systems' arms deals with Saudi Arabia, amid fears for its vast contract to sell Typhoon fighters.
This meek announcement was made worse by Lord Goldsmith's assertion that "it has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest". To some of those at the top of government, legality appears to be a flexible concept. The rule of law - a concept the government enshrined in statute only last year - surely requires that the executive does not intervene in the operation of the course of justice. The precedent set yesterday in the BAE investigation is dismaying for the cash-for-honours inquiry, where Lord Goldsmith has the power to stop any prosecution. The Serious Fraud Office, which in theory took yesterday's decision, had not completed its investigation, or decided that it would not result in a prosecution. Pressure to stop came from Saudi Arabia, and ministers including the foreign and defence secretaries. The government cited advice from intelligence chiefs, a fig leaf that should have been shed after Iraq.
Yesterday will leave stains on Mr Blair that will survive any amount of scrubbing. They are serious contributions to the air of evasion and shabby practice which has already enveloped this government and which threatens to become Mr Blair's legacy to his successor. Things were not helped by the heavy-handed sense that Downing Street had scheduled the police interview, and perhaps the BAE announcement too, for a day when other news would minimise its impact.
Of two events, it was the decision on BAE Systems which was the more breathtaking. The Conservative response was feeble; only the Liberal Democrats resisted - one suggesting that the government had given in to "blackmail". "No weight has been given to the commercial impact," said the attorney general, citing the "serious" damage that would be done to UK-Saudi diplomatic relations instead. But that was a thin cover for a nakedly political decision. It is two decades since Margaret Thatcher secured the first of the big Al-Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia, and arms sales have coloured relations with Saudi ever since. The sway BAE Systems holds over the top of the British establishment is extraordinary. Earlier this month Stephen Day, a senior retired diplomat once involved in the negotiations, urged the SFO to "stick to its guns". The British state seems to be more interested in selling them.
Yet on a day heavy with difficult news, it was the police's arrival to interview Mr Blair which will attract the greater attention. Downing Street was quick to portray it as something of a triumph, since it did not happen under arrest or caution. The nature of yesterday's interview, kept deliberately low-key by both parties involved, suggests that prosecutions are not the most likely outcome. Yet, whatever the Crown Prosecution Service decides, the way in which loans were raised and disguised (by both parties) was wrong, an avoidance of the law even if not explicitly a breach of it. If Mr Yates's inquiry peters out into nothing, some in Downing Street may hope to protest at the way they have been treated. They would do well to stay silent. Enough has already been exposed, on party funding and on the Saudi deals, to make Mr Blair's decade-old promise of an excess of purity ring awfully hollow.
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Blackmailed by dictators - Blair has shamefully flouted the law to protect the arms industry's bungs. It's an all-time low
John Kampfner
Saturday December 16, 2006
The Guardian
This much we knew already: Tony Blair's administration is riddled with double standards and hypocrisy in its international dealings. But Lord Goldsmith's announcement that the Serious Fraud Office was calling off its investigation into alleged corruption involving BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia dragged matters to an all-time low.
The explanations given are startling. Goldsmith has form in being flexible with the law and the truth - as with his legal advice in advance of Iraq. He said the following, to a near-empty House of Lords on Thursday evening as the media's attention was on the police questioning of the prime minister and the report on Diana's death: "It has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest." In this respect, he was nothing if not candid: the law is not sacrosanct. He and others went on to say that this interest was not commercial, but based in diplomacy and security. As not a shred of evidence has been provided, one can be fairly safe in dismissing this as disingenuous.
The economic concerns are understandable. BAE is one of the UK's largest corporations and the world's fourth largest arms company. The Al-Yamamah deal, signed in 1988, has been worth £43bn. These and other justifications were eloquently set out on the radio yesterday by the former Conservative convict, Jonathan Aitken.
The problem here is not really BAE. Companies flog arms around the world, if they are allowed or encouraged to. The job of politicians is to ensure that economic activity is consistent with the law and other standards. The response of Labour MPs and trade unions has been shoddy. Jobs are important, but the need to preserve them should not supersede the law. There is, indeed, no evidence that the arms industry is the best way of creating and sustaining employment. It is the one sector that has been allowed to buck the rigours of the market, where cartels are rampant and state subsidies in the UK alone are estimated at close to £1bn a year.
The arms industry has long enjoyed special treatment from government. Documents obtained by this newspaper three years ago showed how the Defence Export Services Organisation, an arm of the Ministry of Defence, has been officially authorising what it calls "special commissions" - in other words, bungs. In so doing it was conspiring to break Britain's own laws. None of this is new. According to those same documents, the head of DESO acknowledged back in 1977 bribes paid to the Shah of Iran. Just as then, just as now, we seek to ingratiate ourselves with odious regimes. Irrespective of the morality of this approach, it rarely pays dividends in terms of security and intelligence.
What is most disconcerting is that this government, briefly, pledged to be different. Robin Cook's mission statement of May 12 1997, quietly disparaged by Downing Street, still bears remembering. "Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves," he said. This code of conduct has since been unpicked to such a degree that it is now meaningless.
Now, thanks to Blair, Britain can be blackmailed at will by dictatorships, and will do whatever it takes to stay on good economic terms with them. When in future a foreign government cocks a snook at us over civil liberties, when children are killed by oppressive governments using weapons made in the UK, greet the howls of outrage from our ministers with derision. When Blair or Gordon Brown or any future prime minister cite morality in waging war in a foreign land, treat their words with scorn.
- John Kampfner is editor of the New Statesman Newstatesman.com
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Closing in on Tony Blair
Blair on surprise Baghdad visit
AFP
17 Dec 06
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has arrived in the war-torn Iraqi capital Baghdad for talks with his counterpart Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani.
The British premier flew into Baghdad on Sunday in the cockpit of a British military transport plane on a surprise direct from Cairo as part of a regional tour aimed at rekindling peace efforts in the Middle East.
He travelled from Baghdad airport to the heavily-fortified Green Zone in a British military helicopter and went immediately into a meeting with Maliki.
A spokesman said Blair wanted to show his support for Iraq's embattled government, which is struggling to reunite a country ravaged by a vicious sectarian war between rival Sunni and Shiite factions.
"We recognise that the challenges facing the government of Iraq today are huge and the prime minister wants to show his support to Prime Minister Maliki," the spokesman told reporters travelling with Blair.
"The prime minister will assure both Prime Minister Maliki and President Talabani that Britain will give primacy to the Iraqi government's views when considering any future deployment of British troops in Iraq.
"The discussions will also touch on Operation Sinbad in which British and Iraqi troops are working to rid neighbourhoods of Basra of insurgents," the spokesman added.
There are 7,100 British troops in the southern Iraqi city of Basra as part of a US-led coalition.
British authorities had imposed a news blackout on journalists travelling with Blair to keep his movements secret for security reasons.
Blair is facing increasing pressure at home over the war in Iraq following a report by an independent US panel that urged his top ally, US President George W. Bush, to change course.
The Iraq Study Group report published earlier this month urged Bush to drop his open-ended commitment to Iraq, encouraged the administration to allow the Iraqis to assume more of the responsibility for their own security, and said Washington should set a goal of withdrawing combat troops by early 2008.
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Blair sez: UK troops to stay in Iraq until job done
By Ross Colvin and Katherine Baldwin
Reuters
17 Dec 06
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday British troops would stay in Iraq "until the job is done" and pledged to support the country's weak government as it battles sectarian violence and a raging Sunni Arab insurgency.
Just before Blair landed in Baghdad for an unannounced visit, gunmen in police uniforms carried out a mass kidnapping at a Red Crescent office in the capital, highlighting Iraq's security challenges. Police said 10 to 20 people were seized but Red Crescent officials said more were snatched.
Blair said he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had discussed the need for national reconciliation and building up Iraq's security forces to fight soaring Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian violence that has pushed the country close to all-out civil war.
"We stand ready to support you in every way that we can so that in time the Iraq government and the Iraqi people can take full responsibility for their affairs," Blair, who is touring the Middle East, told a news conference.
The visit by Blair, Washington's closest ally, comes as President Bush is rethinking his Iraq strategy following the defeat of his Republicans in mid-term elections and in the face of mounting U.S. military casualties.
Blair defended London's plans for a gradual withdrawal of its 7,200 troops in the south, mostly in and around oil-rich Basra, as Iraq's fledgling security forces take over.
"This isn't a change of our policy," he said. "Don't be under any doubt at all. British troops will remain until the job is done."
Britain has transferred authority to Iraqis in two of the four southern provinces it took responsibility for after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It has said it is confident it can hand over Basra to the Iraqis early next year and hopes to have brought thousands of troops home by the end of 2007.
"SADDAMISTS AND TERRORISTS"
Blair, on his sixth visit to Iraq since the 2003 invasion and with his legacy tarnished by Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad the bloodshed was being carried out by "Saddamists and terrorists" and appealed to Iraq's neighbors for help.
He later told British troops in Basra the conflict was now "about different groups of the local population fighting each other." Washington and London say Iraq is not in a civil war but other leaders, including former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, say Iraq is in a civil war.
Those snatched in the mass kidnapping in central Baghdad included Red Crescent employees, visitors and guards. Witnesses said gunmen arrived in pickup trucks. "They took all the men, separated them from the women and left," a witness told Reuters.
"We call for their immediate and unconditional release," said Antonella Notari, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva.
She said at least 25 people had been taken by gunmen from among staff and visitors. ICRC carries out much of its work in Iraq through the Red Crescent. No ICRC personnel were snatched.
The Iraqi Red Crescent, the only Iraqi aid agency working in Iraq's 18 provinces, has 1,000 staff and 200,000 volunteers.
Baghdad is plagued by daily kidnappings, many of which are carried out by armed groups on either side of the conflict between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.
Maliki's Shi'ite-led government is under pressure from Washington to do more to stem daily violence that U.N. officials estimate kills more than 100 people a day. The violence has complicated U.S. and British plans to withdraw their troops.
The U.S. military plans to speed up the training of Iraq's army by tripling its number of embedded trainers to about 9,000, while keeping a close eye on units' sectarian loyalties, U.S. Brigadier General Dana Pittard said on Sunday.
The violence in Iraq since the invasion has marred Blair's final years in office, dividing the British public and his party, hurting his popularity ratings and reducing Britain's credibility in the region, analysts say.
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The final, ghastly days of Blair
This Is London
18 Dec 06
When Alastair Campbell left Downing Street in the wake of the death of Iraqi weapons expert Dr David Kelly, the Prime Minister's allies explicitly stated that he had learned his lesson.
They said that there would be no more spin, no more deception, no more smears, no more burying of bad news. Government henceforward was to be conducted on a straightforward basis.
How utterly wrong these claims turned out to be. I have been keeping a file of ministerial lies and deceptions, and it is now bulging.
Only last week, Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to apologise to MPs after a leaked document showed that he had misled the House of Commons about plans to axe allowances to British soldiers serving in war zones.
Earlier this month, General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army, said that he warned ministers about the extreme danger of the Afghanistan expedition, exposing as a piece of tawdry spin John Reid's remarks that he hoped our soldiers would return 'without a shot being fired'.
Tony Blair's promise that our underequipped Armed Forces would be provided with whatever they needed to fight their battles is another pledge that turned out to be fabrication.
But ministers do not lie just about foreign affairs. Last month, in an astonishing statement, a High Court judge rebuked Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain for 'lack of candour to the court' with reference to a sensitive case involving a controversial political appointment designed to appease the Democratic Unionists.
This was a very grave allegation, and particularly shocking directed at a Cabinet minister. In a government of principle, this would have been a resignation matter.
Over the summer, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was caught out making misleading statements about his connection with the U.S. gambling tycoon Philip Anschutz, while the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was exposed as a serial liar on a scale that might impress even Mohamed Al Fayed.
But nothing comes close to the events of last Thursday. These will, I believe, come to define the final, ghastly months of the Blair administration in the same way that Black Wednesday defined John Major.
It was a day that contained a series of momentous events: the bombshell (and very welcome) decision to drop the Serious Fraud Office investigation into whether BAe Systems paid £60 million in 'backhanders' to win a lucrative weapons deal with Saudi Arabia; publication of Lord Stevens' report into the death of Princess Diana; and the police interview with Tony Blair as part of the 'cash for peerages' inquiry - the first time that a serving Prime Minister has ever been interviewed as part of a police investigation.
Anyone familiar with the workings of Tony Blair's Downing Street and its careful manipulation of the political agenda by use of a diary grid system, which enables future news events to be charted and orchestrated, will spot a familiar pattern here.
The Prime Minister's aides chose the date of the interview - intriguingly, police sources have stressed that the timing was left up to Downing Street - because they knew that it coincided with the Diana report and the news would be partly 'buried'.
Downing Street officials, however, maintained that it was purely a coincidence that the two events took place on the same day. The trouble is that No 10 has misled the public so often that it no longer has the right to be believed.
Scepticism is all the greater because No 10 also lied, several times, during the course of Thursday. The first falsehood was uttered early in the morning, when Joe Murphy, the political editor of the London Evening Standard, rang Dave Hill, the Downing Street director of communications, to check a rumour that the police were set to interview Tony Blair that day.
Hill replied: 'Look, nothing is happening. I think that's pretty unequivocal.'
At 11 am, at the meeting of the Parliamentary Press lobby, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, Tom Kelly, was asked whether the police had been in touch. He replied: 'Nothing new to report.' But at the very moment he was speaking, the police were inside Downing Street quizzing the Prime Minister.
This astonishing and successful attempt to mislead journalists follows a long line of examples of the Government systematically lying to the Press and public about the cash-for-peerages crisis.
I know of cases where reporters have phoned No 10 to ask whether certain officials had been interviewed by the police. They have been told 'No' - and then discovered that they had, in fact, been questioned.
Another gross act of deception came in the form of a press release put out by the Labour Party on November 28 - the day that the Electoral Commission, an independent watchdog, published a document on party finances.
Yesterday, I asked Downing Street's Dave Hill to explain his conversation with the political editor of the Evening Standard early on Thursday morning. 'I knew nothing. I did not know anything. I did not know that the police were expected at the time,' he said.
I told him that I was prepared to accept his comments (although only with some reluctance, for since he is one of the three or four most senior figures at No 10, and, being director of communications, he would be expected to be consulted about the timing of a major event like the arrival of the police).
But his answer raised a further question. If he was, indeed, in this blissful state of ignorance, why didn't he just say he hadn't a clue what was going on? Hill seemed incapable of answering this question.
The horrible truth is that Thursday's episode is simply the latest in a line of evasions, lies, falsehoods and even smears to issue from Dave Hill and his colleague Tom Kelly - the man who so callously denounced Dr David Kelly as a 'Walter Mitty character'.
Yet I have known Hill for 15 years and know him well enough to be sure he is a fundamentally decent man. He went into Downing Street three years ago with a high reputation - but that is vanishing fast.
Before ending our phone conversation, I told him that he would be foolish to destroy his own integrity on behalf of Tony Blair, a man who - whatever the result of the current police investigation - is now certain to go into history as one of the most disreputable, duplicitous and dishonest Prime Minister in British history.
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No 10 investigated for perversion of justice
Rajeev Syal
The Times, London
18 Dec 06
Downing Street aides and Labour officials involved in the cash-for-honours inquiry are being investigated on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, The Times has learnt.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has advised detectives to look into suspected attempts to hamper the nine-month investigation. Some e-mails and documents have yet to be handed over to the police while others have apparently "disappeared". Some individuals are suspected of colluding over evidence.
The disclosure shows that the investigation has widened to include a suspected cover-up by those around the Prime Minister. Until now, it has centred on the £14 million in secret loans made to the Labour Party by millionaire supporters.
A prosecution source said: "There is more than a suspicion that evidence has not been handed over, people have colluded and the police are not being helped.
"It has been noted that when the Watergate scandal forced President Nixon to resign, it was the cover-up, not the burglary, that brought him down. What these people should remember is that they are not dealing with a parliamentary inquiry; this is a criminal investigation and anyone failing to co-operate is participating in a criminal offence."
Up to this point the charges being considered come under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, which makes it an offence to take money as an inducement or reward for procuring an honour, and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000, which restricts the sources of donations.
The possibility of charges on perverting the course of justice was discussed by CPS lawyers after meetings with police. Such charges can be brought if a person tries to interfere with an investigation that might bring criminal proceedings. The charge, which carries a maximum life sentence, was used against Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer. According to the CPS, "it does not matter whether or not the act results in a perversion of the course of justice: the offence is committed when acts tending and intended to pervert a course of justice are done".
The news that Labour figures are being investigated for alleged offences going well beyond the initial scope of the cash-for-honours inquiry will come as a bombshell to the party. Were charges to be brought, the issue could dominate politics for months, if not years.
Labour had been hoping that the investigation and any resulting action would be over before Mr Blair leaves office, giving Gordon Brown, almost certain to be his successor, a chance to make a fresh start. Charges as serious as perverting the course of justice could mean that the party will have a cloud hanging over it for much longer.
The police inquiry began in March after the House of Lords rejected nominations for four millionaire backers - Chai Patel, Sir Gulam Noon, Sir David Garrard and Barry Townsley - whose names were put forward by the Prime Minister for peerages. A team of eight detectives based in Scotland Yard has interviewed at least 90 people and set a timetable of "early 2007" to submit a final case file to the CPS.
Of those interviewed, 35 were from Labour, 29 from the Conservatives and four from the Liberal Democrats. The remaining 22 were leading civil servants in the Cabinet Office and Downing Street, or nonpolitical company directors.
Three people have been arrested as part of the inquiry. They are Lord Levy, the Prime Minister's personal fundraiser, Des Smith, a government adviser, and Sir Crhistopher Evans, the biotech tycoon who lent Labour £1 million. They deny any wrongdoing. No one has been charged in the inquiry.
On Thursday Mr Blair became the first serving Prime Minister to be interviewed by police undertaking a criminal inquiry. He was not questioned under caution. This newspaper revealed on Saturday that his evidence contradicted that of his close friend, Lord Levy, who will now be interviewed again.
After the interview Mr Blair defended his decision to nominate the four Labour businessmen by claiming that they were nominated for services to the Labour Party. His claim has been contradicted by key documents leaked to a newspaper this weekend that show that they were nominated for services to education, health or charities, not to the party.
Others who will also be quizzed for a second time include Jonathan Powell, No 10's Chief of Staff, Ruth Turner, director of government relations, and John McTernan, director of political relations. All three are known to have denied any wrongdoing. The Times revealed last month that Mr Powell, Blair's most trusted aide, will now be questioned under caution.
# Downing Street has dismissed an alleged internal memo suggesting that the Government was seen as a "shambles". The paper, disclosed by The Mail on Sunday, expressed concern that the party was viewed as riven by internal conflicts and lacking "grip and competence on vital issues". The author was not named and No 10 said: "This is not a Downing Street memo."
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Knives are out for Lord Levy as Blair rift grows
By JONATHAN OLIVER
16 December 2006
A growing rift between Tony Blair and Lord Levy threatened to scupper the Prime Minister's latest peace mission to the Middle East, just as it started.
Mr Blair twice failed to give his personal backing to the peer - who is both Labour's chief fundraiser and No10's Middle East envoy - amid signs the cash-for-honours inquiry had strained their once-close friendship.
Mr Blair was grilled at a Press conference in Turkey on whether it was appropriate for Lord Levy to retain a role as Downing Street's go-between in Israel while he was still a police suspect.
He also ducked questions over claims Downing Street had tried to smear Gordon Brown by sucking him into the peerages scandal.
The row escalated amid mounting pressure on Lord Levy following the discovery of a notebook belonging to Labour donor Sir Christopher Evans, who has been arrested as part of the investigation.
Sir Christopher's notes, which refer to Levy, suggest he was asked if he wanted 'a k (knighthood) or a big p (peerage)'.
The note was discovered by police during interviews with other witnesses who were asked if they had had similar conversations with Labour fundraisers.
Sir Christopher, a biotech tycoon who was knighted in 2001 and made a £1million loan to Labour before the 2005 Election, has told friends he has had repeated approaches from Labour figures about a peerage.
"I have lost count of the number of times people have said to me 'You are just the kind of guy we would like to see in the House of Lords'," he told one colleague.
A spokesman for Sir Christopher said the note had nothing to do with the current investigation as it was a "casual" observation made years ago.
Unlike four other businessmen who lent Labour £1 million, Evans was not recommended for a seat in the Lords.
When the peerages for the four others were challenged in October 2005, it was disclosed that Sir Christopher's firm, Merlin Bioscience, was involved in a Serious Fraud Office probe.
In the Middle East, Mr Blair refused to be drawn into the row, saying tetchily: "I have got absolutely nothing to say on that issue.
"I am concentrating on this visit on the issues I shall be raising in respect of Israel and Palestine."
When invited by reporters to give his backing to Lord Levy in his role as Middle East envoy, Mr Blair declined, saying: "I am afraid, no matter how many different ways you might want to draw me into it, I am not getting drawn into it."
Later, on the flight from Ankara to Cairo in Egypt, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, while acknowledging the controversial peer retains his envoy job, made it clear No 10 was keeping its distance.
He said: "I do not brief on Lord Levy. He can speak for himself."
Mr Blair is due to spend almost a week in the region visiting Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the United Arab Emirates.
He hopes to kick-start the peace process, stalled since the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in the summer.
But with Lord Levy looking increasingly "detached" from No 10, insiders have raised serious doubts about what positive effect Mr Blair's visit can have.
The rift between Mr Blair and his fundraising former tennis partner has been steadily widening as the police investigation proceeds.
It has been reported that when the Prime Minister was quizzed by police last week, his account differed significantly from the one offered by Levy during his arrest and questioning earlier in the year.
Mr Blair's mission was further compromised while he was in the air on his way to Egypt, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suddenly called fresh elections.
The move risks pushing popular extremist party Hamas, which won the last ballot, back on a path of terrorism.
But in Cairo, Mr Blair was optimistic. He said: "The door is open to Hamas. I never believe in giving up in these situations."
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Blair aides deny 'shambles' memo link
Daily Express
17 Dec 06
Downing Street has denied any connection with an internal memo that apparently admits the Government is seen as a "shambles".
The Mail on Sunday reports that the document was prepared for Tony Blair by senior aides, and gives a bleak assessment of Labour's situation.
It expresses concern that the party is viewed as riven by "internal conflicts" and lacking "grip and competence on vital issues".
The memo also apparently warns that the position of Mr Blair's likely successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, is "eroding" against David Cameron's "increasingly acceptable" Tories.
It is said to insist that the party is running out of time to avoid electoral disaster.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "This is not a Downing Street memo, it was not written by any of the Prime Minister's staff and it most certainly does not reflect his views."
Downing Street sources also insisted the memo had not been prepared by any of Mr Blair's special advisers or other Labour Party-funded staff in his personal office.
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No. 10 secret memo: We are seen as a shambles
by SIMON WALTERS
16 Dec 06
Labour has no chance of winning the next Election because voters think the Government is a shambles - and there is little Gordon Brown can do to stop David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.
That is the devastating verdict of a secret Downing Street memo drawn up for Tony Blair by his senior advisers and obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
The confidential document states:
- Labour's standing is so low that the party's only hope of recovering may be to abandon Mr Brown and 'move to a new generation' by picking a much younger new leader - though it warns of the perils of being 'disloyal' to the 'greatly respected' Chancellor.
- The public believes the party is riven by 'internal conflicts' and shows a 'lack of grip and competence on key issues' such as Iraq, the NHS and immigration.
- People who voted Labour at the last Election 'are moving across' to the Conservatives and Labour is floundering 'on every major issue'.
- Mr Blair faces a 's*** or bust' decision on how to stop the rot.
The leak came as a vicious new war of words flared between the rival Blair and Brown camps over where blame for the cash-for-peerages scandal lies.
Mr Brown angrily accused Mr Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy of trying to 'smear' him over claims the Chancellor did not tell the truth about nominating two of his cronies for peerages.
And Mr Blair's allies responded by claiming the Prime Minister believed Mr Brown had 'fanned the flames' of the row over party funding to bring down his Downing Street neighbour. "It is outrageous for Brown to play the innocent,' said one. "No one demanded more money than him - and he knew where it was coming from."
The Mail on Sunday has also learned that Mr Blair has held secret talks with his chief of staff Jonathan Powell, at which they agreed that the Prime Minister's final six months in office must create a 'leadership legacy' which sets him apart from Mr Brown.
The Prime Minister has privately mocked Mr Brown's prospects as Prime Minister, saying: "The trouble with many of Gordon's ideas is that they butter no parsnips."
The memo, written in the past few weeks, is the most damaging Government leak in years.
It was written by one of the Prime Minister's closest advisers and seen by a handful of senior figures, including Mr Blair.
It makes a nonsense of public claims by Labour that Mr Blair is planning a smooth transition to Mr Brown next June or July as part of a carefully co-ordinated strategy to secure a fourth successive Election victory.
It also flatly contradicts Mr Blair's public statements dismissing Mr Cameron as a lightweight with no chance of winning power.
In private, Mr Blair's inner circle is in a blind panic over the march of Mr Cameron's Conservatives, and they don't think Mr Brown is any match for him.
The memo freely acknowledges Tory gains in the polls since Mr Cameron replaced Michael Howard, with big leads on tax, crime and immigration. "Labour no longer has a measurable lead on any major issue,' it states.
And it confirms Opposition claims that the Government has failed to live up to its promises and that it is haemorrhaging support as a result of the Iraq War.
"The Government is seen as a shambles. It is not just Labour internal conflicts but a lack of grip and competence on key issues. Iraq is a potent and raw issue, so is the NHS, immigration and crime. We have lost control of the big issues and are not delivering,' the memo states.
Nor is the trend likely to change. "This view is deeply held and entering the bones of the electorate. The public are clearly preparing to shift to the Conservatives if they prove themselves credible and likable."
It would be wrong to assume this is some kind of mid-term setback. It is not. It is a long-term cyclical shift towards an increasingly acceptable Opposition. People who voted Labour in 2005 are on their way across."
Mr Blair's advisers believe Mr Brown's position as Labour heir apparent is making things worse. "Compounding this is an erosion in Gordon Brown's position against David Cameron," the memo says.
Extraordinarily, the document reveals that No10 actively contemplated dumping Mr Brown in favour of a younger successor.
"We can rally round...or we can go for total renewal, moving to a new generation, effectively forming a new government while still in power."
It does not name the potential alternative successors but it is no secret that Mr Blair once hoped Environment Secretary David Miliband would mount a challenge against Mr Brown.
Similarly, despite being slightly older than Mr Brown, Education Secretary Alan Johnson, a relative Cabinet newcomer, was also seen as a way of providing a 'break with the past'.
But the memo warns this tactic could backfire: "Trying to completely renew in office may look as if we are trying to cheat time. And worse - that we are disavowing our record in government.
"Gordon Brown is part of our record. If we disown him, we run the risk of disowning our record. The public will recoil from evidence of disloyalty towards Gordon.
"Whatever people think of him as a [potential] Prime Minister, they still greatly respect him as a Chancellor."
But it shows Mr Blair has serious doubts about allowing Mr Brown to take over without a leadership contest.
The public are 'not stupid', says the memo. "They will not forgive us if we foist an unpopular leader on them without a proper democratic process. They just won't accept it."
It finishes on a note of desperation. "We have to focus. We can't sort out everything. The NHS is probably the best place to start. If we can make sense of one or two areas of policy the rest might fall into place. This is really s*** or bust time."
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Publishing Shenanigans
Time magazine's "Person of the Year" is You
By Michelle Nichols
17 Dec 06
NEW YORK - You were named Time magazine "Person of the Year" on Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace.
"For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you," the magazine's Lev Grossman wrote.
The magazine has put a mirror on the cover of its "Person of the Year" issue, released on Monday, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said in a statement.
You beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State who led Washington's bipartisan
Iraq Study Group.
Time has been naming its person of the year since 1927 and the tradition has become the source of speculation every year, as well as controversy over unpopular choices such as Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
The aim is to pick "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse."
Grossman said the creators and consumers of user-generated Internet sites showed a community and collaboration on a scale never seen before.
"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes," said Grossman, Time's technology writer and book critic.
"The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web," he said. "It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter."
MySpace -- bought by media giant News Corp. (NYSE:NWSA - news) last year for $580 million -- has more than 130 million users around the world and adds around 300,000 members a day, while YouTube -- bought by Internet search leader Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) last month for $1.65 billion -- gets about 100 million daily views.
"These blogs and videos bring events to the rest of us in ways that are often more immediate and authentic than traditional media," Stengel said.
"Journalists once had the exclusive province of taking people to places they'd never been. But now a mother in Baghdad with a videophone can let you see a roadside bombing or a patron in a nightclub can show you a racist rant by a famous comedian," he said.
Time's 2005 Person of the Year was the richest man in the world,Bill Gates, his wife Melinda, and Irish rocker Bono for being Good Samaritans, while the 2004 choice was
President Bush. In 2003 "The American Soldier" graced the cover in a year when U.S. troops invaded Iraq.
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Publisher of OJ Simpson murder book is sacked
By Hillel Italie in New York
17 December 2006
OJ Simpson's would-be publisher Judith Regan was fired late on Friday, her sensational, scandalous tenure at the Rupert Murdoch-owned HarperCollins ending with a terse announcement.
"Judith Regan's employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately," Jane Friedman, chief executive of the News Corp-owned imprint, said. "The Regan publishing programme and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group."
Ms Friedman offered no reason for the announcement, but Ms Regan's firing comes less than a month after Mr Murdoch's cancellation of Simpson's hypothetical murder confession If I Did It, a planned book and Fox television interview that was said to describe how Simpson hypothetically would have killed ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was acquitted of murder in 1995.
When the project was announced last month it was greeted with instant and near-universal disgust. A dozen local Fox affiliates announced they wanted nothing to do with the television interviews, and the families of the murder victims urged a boycott of the broadcast and the book, which they described as "disgusting" and "despicable".
Mr Murdoch personally pulled the plug after his organisation was accused of exploiting the notorious double murders. News Corp finally put out a brief statement offering a rare personal apology for the lapse in judgment. "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," Mr Murdoch was quoted as saying. "We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson."
Subsequently, the victims' families accused the Murdoch empire of trying to buy their silence. Nicole brown Simpson's sister, Denise Brown, told a TV interviewer that she and others had been approached by a company representative before the cancellation, and essentially asked how much it would take to keep them happy.
"They wanted to offer us millions of dollars," she said, "for, like, 'oh I'm sorry' money. But they were still going to air the show." The family turned the offer down flat. A News Corp spokesman acknowledged negotiations over money had taken place with both families, but insisted there were "no strings attached".
Ms Regan, an industry force since the 1980s, when she produced best-sellers by Drew Barrymore and Kathie Lee Gifford for Simon & Schuster, has been labelled a "foul-mouthed tyrant" and the "enfant terrible of American publishing." She is also widely envied - if not admired - for her gift of attracting attention to her books and to herself.
Since 1994, she has headed the ReganBooks imprint at HarperCollins, an ideal fit for Mr Murdoch's tabloid tastes. Ms Regan has published a long list of racy best-sellers, including baseball star Jose Canseco's tell-all Juiced and Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, and is the rare publisher of interest to gossip columnists, notably for a rumoured affair with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
She often clashed with her more temperate peers and is widely believed to have had tense relations with Ms Friedman. Last year, Ms Regan moved her offices to Los Angeles, further distancing herself from corporate officials in New York.
Ms Regan has often complained that her more literary side has been overlooked, pointing out that she has published books by the critically acclaimed Wally Lamb, Douglas Generation X Coupland and novelist Jess Walter, whose The Zero was a finalist for the National Book Award in November. The Simpson project, announced the day before the awards ceremony, quickly overshadowed the nomination.
Mr Walter said he was "flabbergasted" by her firing. "The Judith I knew was nothing like the tabloid headlines," he said. "Judith has always been a good friend and one of the few people who never lied to me. Having dealt with publishing and Hollywood, I can't say that about everyone."
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Fired Editor's Remarks Said to Have Provoked Murdoch
By JULIE BOSMAN and RICHARD SIKLOS
NY Times
18 Dec 06
Rupert Murdoch personally ordered the dismissal of Judith Regan, the publisher of a widely criticized O. J. Simpson book, after he heard reports of a heated conversation Ms. Regan had with a company lawyer on Friday that included comments that were deemed anti-Semitic, according to two people familiar with the News Corporation's account of the firing.
Mark Jackson, a lawyer with HarperCollins, a division of the News Corporation that includes Ms. Regan's imprint, reported the alleged comments from a phone conversation with Ms. Regan to Jane Friedman, HarperCollins's president and chief executive.
"And then Jane called Rupert and Rupert said he won't tolerate that kind of behavior," said one of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Despite the success Ms. Regan brought Mr. Murdoch's publishing business since he established her imprint in 1994, their relationship had soured in recent weeks as she became involved in a controversy involving the Simpson book and companion television special she had championed.
After some Fox affiliates declined to broadcast the special, the company pulled the project, which featured Mr. Simpson hypothesizing about how he would have murdered his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.
"You don't do this in a perfect world because she makes a lot of money," the person said of Ms. Regan's dismissal, adding that Mr. Murdoch did not put the blame for the Simpson controversy solely on Ms. Regan.
Several efforts to reach Ms. Regan since her dismissal, including new attempts since the accusations of anti-Semitism surfaced, were unsuccessful.
A News Corporation spokesman declined to comment.
Mr. Murdoch, who had also approved the Simpson project, has not spoken to Ms. Regan since before the imbroglio it provoked but authorized Ms. Friedman to dismiss her, saying her slurs were the final straw after other recent episodes of what were deemed improper behavior, according to one of the people familiar with the News Corporation's account.
Ms. Regan's previous successes at the company seemed in sync with Mr. Murdoch's penchant for pushing the boundaries of public taste and shaking up the media establishment.
The conversation with Mr. Jackson on Friday afternoon was described by sources as heated and confrontational, even for the famously forceful Ms. Regan. Ms. Regan's alleged comments, which came in the midst of a tense conversation in which she berated Mr. Jackson, were directed at him and Ms. Friedman, who are Jewish, as well as toward other Jews, one of the sources said.
That source would not say specifically what Ms. Regan is alleged to have said, but characterized the comments as offensive and inappropriate, but not a hateful tirade. Still, the source said, it was enough to prompt Mr. Murdoch to dismiss her.
Ms. Friedman, known to have had a testy relationship with Ms. Regan, called Mr. Murdoch in the late afternoon in New York to discuss Ms. Regan's behavior just as he was preparing to play host to the News Corporation's annual holiday party for employees from across the company's subsidiaries, which include the Fox television network, Fox News Channel, The New York Post, the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Web site MySpace.com.
Later that day, at the ReganBooks offices on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, a stunned Ms. Regan was confronted by security guards who arrived with boxes and ordered her to leave, according to an account by a HarperCollins executive that was confirmed by another person familiar with the situation.
"This came completely out of the blue," one executive said. "She was completely taken by surprise."
It was an abrupt decision that ended a tumultuous few weeks for Ms. Regan. She had publicly defended herself from what she called the "backstabbers at HarperCollins" during the taping of her Sirius Satellite Radio show on Thursday, according to the industry blog GalleyCat. And within the company, she had become convinced that there were "people trying to take her down," said a person familiar with the situation.
On Saturday, HarperCollins released a statement announcing that the Regan imprint would continue under Cal Morgan, Ms. Regan's longtime editorial director.
Ms. Regan was known for her sharp instincts and even sharper elbows, attributes that had served her well in her ascent from cub reporter at The National Enquirer to publisher of her own imprint under HarperCollins.
Although her empire was built on celebrity tell-alls like Drew Barrymore's "Little Girl Lost" and by bringing the porn star Jenna Jameson and the professional wrestler Mick Foley to the best-seller lists, Ms. Regan also published several highly respected books, including "The Zero" by Jess Walter, a National Book Award finalist this year. She also published political books by writers like Arianna Huffington and Peggy Noonan.
Last year, Mr. Murdoch allowed Ms. Regan to move her operations to Los Angeles, part of a strategy to build synergy between the publishing world and Hollywood. And it seemed to be working well, until the recent Simpson fiasco and a subsequent, though lesser, controversy over a novel about Mickey Mantle that purported to tell tales of drunkenness and sexual promiscuity in the late Yankee slugger's own voice.
At the heart of the problem, though, was what many executives said was a tense relationship between Ms. Regan and Ms. Friedman, her boss.
"They always had a difficult relationship," said one executive at a rival publishing house. "I don't think Jane was ever happy with Judith. You have two very considerable egos."
While Ms. Regan was rapidly losing credibility over the Simpson book, Ms. Friedman was enjoying a particularly bright moment in the spotlight. She had stayed silent during the Simpson controversy, never speaking to the press.
Last week, Ms. Friedman was named the Publishers Weekly Person of the Year, an honor within the industry. In the article about the award, Ms. Friedman was praised for managing to "distance the company from the book without openly confronting one of her publishers."
Longtime publishing executives traded in speculation about Ms. Regan's fate over the weekend, dismissing the idea that there was another company that would give her as much creative and financial autonomy as the News Corporation did.
"I think right this minute people are saying, She's a pariah and we don't want her," said Sara Nelson, the editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. "But I've seen enough of publishing to say that that will change."
Some thought Ms. Regan might opt for Hollywood, her home of less than two years.
"She'll certainly have another life in entertainment," said Laurence J. Kirshbaum, a literary agent and the former head of the Time Warner Book Group. "I think she will rise from these ashes and find another place."
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Crichton finds novel way to exact revenge on critic
By David Usborne in New York
16 December 2006
Crowley said he was "strangely flattered". "If someone offers substantive criticism of an author, and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he's conceding that the critic has won."
Anyone tempted to disparage Michael Crichton, the author of science fiction novels such as Jurassic Park and Airframe, should be aware of the dangers. However constructive the criticism, it's possible the writer will use the pages of his next book to strike back - and he is prepared to strike below the belt.
Last week Michael Crowley, a senior editor at The New Republic, a weekly political magazine, claimed he had become the victim of a "literary hit-and-run" in the pages of Crichton's newest tome, Next.
Crowley's crime was to pen an article in March highlighting Crichton's well-known disdain for anti-global warming activists, who he accuses of hyping climate science to back their cause, as well as the influence he allegedly wields in the White House.
"In his career," Crowley wrote, "Crichton has relentlessly propagandised on behalf of one big idea: that experts - scientists, intellectuals, reporters, and bureaucrats - are spectacularly corrupt and spectacularly wrong.
"The Bush administration has put this critique into action, trampling the opinions of scientists, exorcising economists, muzzling the press, and stifling State Department wonks.
"Crichton, in other words, primed America for the Bush era," he wrote, going on to note that after the release of State of Fear in 2004, Crichton was invited by a presidential aide to meet George Bush and had expounded his anti-intellectual cant to anyone who would listen on Capitol Hill.
In Next, Crichton has written a 431-page novel about genetic engineering run amok, filling his pages with modified apes chattering in German and parrots capable of holding conversations. But on page 227, the author strays into paragraphs seemingly included purely for retaliation.
He introduces a new figure who is apparently completely superfluous to the wider plot, curiously called Mick Crowley. His manhood is of unusually small dimensions and it has been places it should not have been. To avoid any confusion, the fictional Crowley is a political writer who went to Yale. Which describes the real Crowley too.
Crowley's doppelganger is on trial for raping his sister's two-year-old son after "experiencing an overwhelming urge to have anal sex" with him.
Elsewhere, he refers to his Crowley as a spoilt heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, a "dickhead", a "weasel" as well as "that political reporter who likes little boys".
The real Michael Crowley has responded by way of a riposte in the 25 December issue of The New Republic and is already on its website under a link entitled "Michael Crichton, Jurassic Prick".
He suggests that the author has tried to employ a doctrine called "the small penis rule" whereby it's safe to attack someone by way of a proxy literary figure who is under-endowed on the grounds that no one will ever publicly acknowledge that the guy is them.
Crowley said he was "strangely flattered". "If someone offers substantive criticism of an author, and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he's conceding that the critic has won."
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Cock and Bull - Michael Crichton: Jurassic Prick
by Michael Crowley
The New Republic
14 Dec 06 Issue date 12.25.06
There is an obscure publishing doctrine known as "the small penis rule." As described in a 1998 New York Times article, it is a sly trick employed by authors who have defamed someone to discourage their targets from filing lawsuits. As libel lawyer Leon Friedman explained to the Times, "No male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, 'That's me!'" This gimmick was undoubtedly on the mind of Michael Crichton, the pulp science-fiction writer of Jurassic Park fame, when he wrote the following passage in his latest novel, Next. (Caution: Graphic imagery. Kids, ask for permission before reading on):
Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...
It turned out Crowley's taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]--as was his custom--tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)
The next page contains fleeting references to Crowley as a "weasel" and a "dickhead," and, later, "that political reporter who likes little boys." But that's it--Crowley comes and goes without affecting the plot. He is not a character so much as a voodoo doll. Knowing that Crichton had used prior books to attack very real-seeming people, I was suspicious. Who was this Mick Crowley? A Google search turned up an Irish Workers Party politician in Knocknaheeny, Ireland. But Crowley's tireless advocacy for County Cork's disabled seemed to make him an unlikely target of Crichton's ire. And that's when it dawned on me: I happen to be a Washington political journalist. And, yes, I did attend Yale University. And, come to think of it, I had recently written a critical 3,700-word cover story about Crichton. In lieu of a letter to the editor, Crichton had fictionalized me as a child rapist. And, perhaps worse, falsely branded me a pharmaceutical-industry profiteer.
The road to this literary hit-and-run began back in March, when I wrote an article about Crichton pegged to his 2004 best-seller, State of Fear. The 624-page thriller presented global warming theory as the work of a fiendish cabal of liberal environmentalists, celebrities, journalists, academics, and politicians. Crichton's populist disdain for these "experts" dovetailed neatly, I argued, with the Bush administration's antiintellectual streak--and it was the reason that Karl Rove had invited Crichton for a chat with George W. Bush at the Oval Office and a right-wing senator had asked him to testify before his committee. Crichton discussed his White House visit with me, and our talk was friendly--though Crichton was clearly nervous about being linked to Bush. How ironic, then, that he wound up responding to my critique with a move worthy of Rove's playbook.
Indeed, much like a crude political operative, Crichton savages his cultural villains with sadistic glee. In Jurassic Park, a sleazy lawyer is consumed by a t-Rex while sitting on the toilet. State of Fear prominently featured a fatuous Hollywood liberal, remarkably similar to Martin Sheen, who winds up consumed by cannibals. But, despite his generally worshipful treatment in the press, Crichton loathes no creature like the journalist. His 1996 novel, Airframe, ostensibly about aviation disasters, was in fact a diatribe about the news media's cynicism and stupidity. Next, meanwhile, is peppered with sneering jibes at The New York Times. It's a strange crusade for the son of a journalist.
Thus far, no one seems to have publicly drawn the connection between Mick Crowley and Michael Crowley. In her November 28 review of Next, the Times's Janet Maslin nearly did, noting the presence of some oddly mean-spirited caricatures -- including, as Maslin put it, "a Washington political columnist and spoiled heir who turns out to have raped a 2-year-old." But, while Maslin generously called these characters "ham-handed," she didn't make the link. Others have, including a friend who called breathlessly from New York. When I accused him of a prank, he replied, "How could I possibly make that up?" True, I thought. My friend was not nearly demented enough.
I confess to having mixed feelings about my sliver of literary immortality. It's impossible not to be grossed out on some level--particularly by the creepy image of the smoldering Crichton, alone in his darkened study, imagining in pornographic detail the rape of a small child. It's uplifting, however, to learn that Next's sales have proved disappointing by Crichton's standards, continuing what an industry newsletter dubs Crichton's "recent pattern of erosion." And I'm looking forward to the choice Crichton will have to make, when asked about the basis for Mick Crowley, between a comically dishonest denial and a confession of his shocking depravity.
Crichton launched his noxious attack from behind the shield of the small penis rule because, I'm sure, he's embarrassed by what he has done. In researching my article, I found a man who has long yearned for intellectual stature beyond the realm of killer dinosaurs and talking monkeys. And Crichton must know that turning a critic into a poorly endowed child rapist won't exactly aid his cause. Ultimately, then, I find myself strangely flattered. To explain why, let me propose a corollary to the small penis rule. Call it the small man rule: If someone offers substantive criticism of an author, and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he's conceding that the critic has won.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at The New Republic.
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Jurassic Prick's Child-Rape Fantasies Revealed
Wonkette
14 Dec 06
Kids love Michael Crichton's popular dinosaur stories, but they probably don't know he's a demented right-wing crank who stuffs his wooden-plotted thrillers with puerile attacks on his many, many enemies - mostly journalists who call him on his endless sociopathic bullshit.
The latest victim of Crichton's typing-with-boxing-gloves characterization skill is New Republic writer Michael Crowley, who magically becomes a child rapist in the wonderful imagination of Michael Crichton. Details after the jump.
(Note: While we watched one of the dinosaur movies in the 1980s and have often seen Crichton paperbacks at the airport, we've got no idea what's in the actual books. If they really are nothing but angry attacks on his hundreds of enemies in the press, we might have to pick one up from the library sale or something.)
Crowley wrote a loooong article about Crichton's quackery for TNR, and the dinosaur writer's response was to create this charming character in a new book:
Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...
It turned out Crowley's taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]-as was his custom-tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)
This, as the actual journalist Michael Crowley explains, is known as the "small penis rule." If an author defames you in a book, you're unlikely to sue if you need to claim you're the character with the small penis. This is why Ann Coulter never sues anybody.
According to people who have read Crichton's paperbacks, most of his stories are about journalists (or Martin Sheen) being horribly killed by whatever Monster Rabbits, or global-warming scientists actually being serial killers or Space Robots or something.
We're hoping the increasingly unstable pulp writer will put a Wonkette in his next book. Would he be so crude as to have a Washington gossip blogger named, say, "Anne Mary Cocks" giving blowjobs for quarters outside Union Station while simultaneously aborting some of Rick Santorum's unborn children? Is he a big enough asshole to do that? Let's wait and see ....
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U.S. Fines Oliver Stone as Part of 'Barbaric Blockade'
By Pedro De La Hoz
Translated By William Kern
Diario Granma
December 13, 2006
Is Oliver Stone somehow unpatriotic for breaking Washington's 'embargo' against Cuba by filming documentaries about the Island's leader, Fidel Castro? In this article from Havana's tightly controlled newspaper Granma, a U.S. government fine of Stone for practicing his craft in Cuba is all part of a 'barbaric, brutal, systematic blockade.'
THE U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has just fined well-known filmmaker Oliver Stone [$6,322.20] for violating what they euphemistically refer to as an "embargo," but which is in fact nothing but a barbaric, brutal, systematic blockade that is universally recognized as such, and which has been condemned by an overwhelming majority of United Nations members.
[Editor's Note: In the past fiscal year, OFAC fines to individuals and companies for failing to fulfill the restrictions of the embargo totaled $265,270].
Stone and his production company Ixtlan were charged for having traveled to Cuba in 2002 and 2003 to shoot footage for two films on the leader of the Cuban Revolution. The newspaper El Nuevo Herald, the voice of the anti-Cuban mafia in south Florida, carried the news in its December 12 edition.
In medieval times, such edicts took the form of admonitions. This modern Inquisition revives that age-old practice: the message is obviously directed against those who try to exercise their rights to creativity and expression, or who try to objectively reflect the realities in the Island. This is true even in the case of Oliver Stone, who no one in their right mind could call anti-American after watching - as hundreds of Havana spectators have done during the 28th Havana Film Festival - his movie World Trade Center, about the atrocious terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.
The difficulties Stone's had in making his films on Fidel are well-known. The first, Comandante, which he made for the HBO cable network, could not be screened as originally scheduled because of pressure from the Miami-based anti-Cuba lobby and its right-wing sponsors.
Stone had to give in to demands to return to Cuba and film again, this time to include interviews with employees of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana [America's de-facto Embassy], whose capacity for histrionics in the service of demonizing the Cuban Revolution - was shredded in the new production, Looking for Fidel.
It is very likely that OFAC officials took note of Stone's statements during the presentation of Looking for Fidel at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain: "Castro is a great host," he said. "He looks you straight in the eye. He gave me the impression that he trusted me, and I like that ... I was able to ask all of my questions about internal conflicts in the country, the future of Cuba after Castro, and the international pressure that is placed on Cuba, especially by the president of the United States, George W. Bush. ... Castro is one of the wisest men there are; he is a survivor and a Quixote. I admire his Revolution, his faith in himself and his honesty."
For the current authorities in North America, free expression and unprejudiced opinion like this comes only at a price. Hence, excuses and contrivances must be concocted - despite the fact that Stone's producers complied with a confusing and cumbersome licensing process - all to punish and impede people from thinking for themselves.
It doesn't matter that the U.S. Administration has made more obvious something that everyone already knows: those who are imposing a criminal blockade against Cuba are victimizing their own people, by prevented them from traveling freely to the island.
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Suffolk Murders
Suffolk Strangler: Police release CCTV footage of murdered prostitute
AFP
17 Dec 06
British police released closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the last known movements of one of five murdered prostitutes, as they piece together a "jigsaw" they hope will lead them to a suspected serial killer.
The footage shows 24-year-old Anneli Alderton on a train on December 3 in what officers say is the last confirmed sighting of her.
They are hoping that members of the public will recognise the pony-tailed blonde and come forward with new information about her whereabouts during the final days of her life.
Alderton's naked body was found in woodland near Ipswich, eastern England, on December 10. She was three months pregnant and had been strangled.
The other dead women, whose bodies were found in villages around the town over a 10-day period, have been identified as Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.
The cause of death has only been established in one other case -- Clennell died of "compression to the neck," police say.
Officers believe Alderton's body had been in the woods since at least December 7, when a passing motorist is believed to have mistaken it for a mannequin.
In one of Britain's biggest-ever murder hunts, 350 officers from 31 police forces around the country, including Northern Ireland, have been drafted in to help the local force solve the murders.
Jacqui Cheer, Suffolk's assistant chief constable, told BBC radio that police were now close to establishing the last time the women were seen, which was key to resolving the case.
"A good way to describe the progress we are making would be to compare the investigation to a jigsaw," she said.
"We have constructed the edges, now we have to fill in the middle."
Cheer added that officers were "looking at 50 to 100 suspects."
Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, leading the investigation, has said that nobody has been spoken to as a suspect, despite media reports that officers were homing in on five people.
He added that all the women were found naked, but none showed signs of being subjected to "significant trauma" or "serious sexual assault," fueling speculation that the murderer or murderers might have drugged them.
"It's possible we're looking for the same individual, but there may be more involved. We have to keep an open mind," Gull said, despite widespread media reports that officers are hunting a serial killer.
Police were searching a railway line near where two of the bodies were found Saturday and are also trawling through about 9,000 calls which have been received from the public.
Meanwhile, 25,000 football fans at Ipswich Town's ground, in the heart of the red light district, mourned the five dead women before Saturday's Championship match with Leeds United.
Messages were flashed up on scoreboards and read out on the public address system urging them to contact police if they had any information.
They observed a minute's silence and said prayers for the victims.
"In silence we pray for the five women who died," Richard Lewis, the area's Church of England bishop who was leading prayers at the ground, said.
"These events bring to mind the events in Yorkshire some 25 years ago."
Many have compared the killings to those committed by the "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, convicted of the deaths of 13 women between 1975 and 1980, and the notorious Jack the Ripper, who murdered five east London prostitutes in 1888.
People in Ipswich, a usually quiet market town about 80 miles (130 kilometres) northeast of London, have been stunned by the deaths.
The town's streets are all but deserted at night, despite the Christmas party season being in full swing elsewhere in Britain, with many women refusing to go out after dark until the killer is caught.
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Suffolk Strangler: British police begin putting together 'jigsaw puzzle' of Ipswich murders
AFP
17 Dec 06
British police hunting a suspected serial killer said that they had begun putting the "jigsaw puzzle" together as 25,000 football fans here mourned five murdered prostitutes.
In a case that has shaken Britain, the spectators at a match in Ipswich, a port town in eastern England, observed a minute's silence and said prayers for the victims who worked in the red light district near the stadium.
"In silence we pray for the five women who died," Church of England cleric Richard Lewis said before the Ipswich Town/Leeds United match. "These events bring to mind the events in Yorkshire some 25 years ago."
Many have compared the killings to those committed by Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, convicted of the deaths of 13 women between 1975 and 1980, and the notorious Jack the Ripper, who murdered five east London prostitutes in 1888.
Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said the police were making "good progress" but would not be "drawn on the number of people we're interested in" when asked about reports that the police had five suspects.
"Nobody has been spoken to as a suspect at this time," Gull, who is heading the probe, told the daily press conference at Suffolk police headquarters in Martlesham.
However, Jacqui Cheer, Suffolk's assistant chief constable, told BBC radio earlier that police were "looking at 50 to 100 suspects."
She said police were now close to working out the last time the women were seen, which was key to resolving the case.
The victims have been identified as Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, also 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.
Cause of death has only been established in two cases -- Clennell died of "compression to the neck", while Gull said a post-mortem examination showed Alderton had died from "asphyxiation."
Gull said the police had spoken to the driver of a BMW car -- reported to have picked up Alderton in the week starting December 3 -- and may have to speak to him again.
He has not been eliminated from inquiries, Gull added.
Gull said all the women were found naked, but none showed signs of having been subject to "significant trauma" or "serious sexual assault," fueling speculation that the murderer or murderers might have drugged them.
When asked if the murderer could have been a dealer who spiked heroin sold to the prostitutes, Gull said that police are looking for their drug dealers while awaiting the results of toxicology tests on the victims.
Without ruling out any line of inquiry, he said they are also looking at sex offenders.
The police said that Alderton was three months pregnant, though they said the news was not linked to the investigation.
They also released closed circuit television footage showing Alderton traveling on a train on December 3, apparently the last image of her seen alive.
Her body was found in woodland a week later, but police said a witness had seen it on Thursday and mistaken it for a tailor's dummy.
Gull said he hoped people would call in with other sightings of Alderton based on the footage. He added that if the clothes could be found, they may help police find forensic evidence linked to the killer or killers.
"It's possible we're looking for the same individual, but there may be more involved. We have to keep an open mind," Gull said.
In one of Britain's biggest-ever murder hunts, 350 officers from 31 police forces around the country, including Northern Ireland, have been drafted in to help Suffolk police, Gull said.
Police were still scouring the area for clues.
An AFP photographer saw police entering a caravan hidden in woodland between a highway and a railway, not far from where the bodies of Nicholls and Clennell were found.
They then forced journalists to leave the area.
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Suffolk Strangler: No 10 'blocked move to legalise prostitution'
Gaby Hinsliff, Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Downing Street blocked moves that would in effect have legalised prostitution because the Prime Minister was so concerned that 'hostile headlines' would wreck plans to make sex workers' lives safer.
In a passionate article in today's Observer, Katharine Raymond, a senior adviser to the former Home Secretary David Blunkett, reveals that he wanted to liberalise the law, allowing 'managed areas' for prostitutes similar to those in mainland Europe. Experts say that such areas would mean that sex workers, such as the five women killed around Ipswich over the past month, would be at less risk of attack.
Today Raymond, who was one of Blunkett's trusted special advisers overseeing prostitution policy for more than three years, calls for the legalisation of prostitution and argues that current policy is 'a disgrace' caused by 'political cowardice' and public indifference.
'The uncomfortable reality is that, while these pitiful girls and women cater to an eternal consumer demand, their lives are being put at greater risk by the lamentable failings of both government and law enforcement,' she says.
Raymond's attack is significant because it is the first account from inside the Home Office of how attempts at liberalisation foundered. She worked closely with ministers in drawing up a consultation paper called 'Paying the Price', which she said was designed to trigger a 'serious debate' about legalised brothels and red-light zones managed by local councils.
It comes as The Observer can reveal that Interpol has now been called into the Suffolk inquiry amid suspicions that the murderer may have fled abroad and that he is thought to have killed with his bare hands.
Yesterday Suffolk police released poignant CCTV images of what is thought to be one of the last sightings of one victim, Anneli Alderton, on a train between Harwich and Colchester on 3 December. Detectives are appealing for information about where Alderton - who was about three months pregnant when she died - went next, including where she left the train.
In the footage, she is seen wearing a black jacket with fur-lined hood, grey top and jeans, with her hair in a ponytail. Seven days later, her naked body was found in woods near Nacton, outside Ipswich.
In her article, Raymond argues that the Ipswich murders illuminate the double standards that govern prostitution, with politicians and senior police officers frightened to wreck their careers by endorsing reforms. She said the consultation paper she helped to write - which proposed, among other options, managed zones patrolled by police, where sex workers could safely take their clients and a register of licensed prostitutes - ran into trouble almost immediately:
'In Whitehall, only a handful of politicians and officials wanted 'Paying the Price' to see the light of day. At the Home Office, the department ultimately responsible, we were divided between those eager to publish - and be damned if necessary - and those wanting the whole issue simply to go away.'
Raymond says there was 'opposition from Number 10, which was terrified of a hostile media response'. The paper eventually surfaced only because Blunkett wanted what he called a 'grown-up debate'. However, a few months later he resigned following allegations over his lover's nanny obtaining a visa and the issue passed to his successor, Charles Clarke.
The result, says Raymond, was a 'watered-down series of proposals' that has still not been implemented.
Blunkett, who has remained loyal to the government from the back benches, insisted yesterday there was no pressure from Downing Street and blamed the previous reticence of many commentators now advocating reform for the fact that it came to nought.
A spokesman for Blunkett said: 'His only regret is that insufficient contributions were forthcoming from so many of those now commenting on the circumstances surrounding the tragic murders in Suffolk and, had they done so at the time, it may have been possible to have had a sensible debate about the issues then.'
When the paper was eventually published in July 2004, it duly triggered hostile comments from media and, more crucially, the police.
After consultation the then minister, Fiona Mactaggart, published proposals in January this year offering only a minor change, allowing a maximum of two prostitutes to work together for safety from a flat. Tolerance zones were ruled out.
Home Office sources last week declined to say when the law might be changed to allow even this limited reform: John Reid, the Home Secretary, is said to be reluctant to debate the issues while the murder hunt continues.
Raymond, however, argues that the 'useless' laws governing prostitution should be scrapped and brothels legalised, with pilot experiments to show whether managed zones can work, too. Liverpool council had been poised to start such a pilot in the wake of the Home Office's initial consultation, but needed a go-ahead from ministers that it did not get.
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Suffolk Strangler: Twist religious motive behind deaths sez psychic
Marc Baker
Wales on Sunday
17 Dec 06
A WELSH psychic who has cracked murder cases across Britain today tells Ipswich cops: "I will catch the Suffolk Strangler."
Clairvoyant Diane Lazarus - who helped find TV presenter Jill Dando's killer - says she holds the key to solving the massive police hunt after receiving spiritual messages that a lonely young man is carrying out the murders as part of a sickening 'religious' ritual.
The Llanelli psychic today offered her help to Suffolk Police to track down the serial killer behind the deaths of five Ipswich prostitutes in just 10 days.
In a direct appeal, she has urged detectives to take her to the murder scenes so she can try to make contact with the dead working girls.
Mrs Lazarus, 40, who claims to have been able to speak and listen to spirits since she was eight, said: "If I was taken to where the bodies were found I would be able to help police unravel this mystery. Being at the murder scenes, I would get messages which would help me to visualise what the killer looks like.
"If the police and families of these girls want me to help, then I am here. I have worked on many high-profile cases and I would be more than willing to travel to Ipswich to help them out."
Mrs Lazarus' offer comes a year after she helped Norfolk Constabulary to investigate the unsolved murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl Joanna Young who was found dead in a wood just two days before Christmas in 1992.
In 2002, she helped West Midlands Police find the killers of college lecturer Mark Green, after claiming he contacted her from beyond the grave and told her their identity.
Mrs Lazarus said: "I feel this young man in Ipswich wants to be the next Yorkshire Ripper.
"That is what this is boiling down to.
"I don't believe this man is as old as police in Ipswich believe he may be. I think he is a young lad, a hoodie, who, obviously, has no life. I am getting the feeling that he is doing this as part of some kind of religious ritual.
"He must be sitting there rubbing his hands with all the media coverage he's getting.
"I fear there will be more killings but I believe he will make a silly mistake and will be caught by DNA evidence."
Mrs Lazarus is now waiting for a call from detectives, after her husband Peter, who runs one of Wales' leading law firms, telephoned Ipswich Police to offer her services on Wednesday just hours after cops confirmed all five prostitutes were suffocated or strangled and left naked but for their jewellery.
A spokesman for Suffolk Constabulary said yesterday: "We've had a great deal of offers of help.
"We will judge whether Mrs Lazarus can be of use to us as the investigation develops."
Yesterday, detectives were sifting through CCTV footage in a bid to examine the last movements of prostitutes Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.
The naked body of Miss Adams was found by a member of the public in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk on December 2.
Miss Nicol's body was discovered on December 8 near Copdock Mill, Ipswich.
Two days later police found the body of Miss Alderton in woodland on the outskirts of Ipswich. She was three months' pregnant at the time of her death.
And on Tuesday, detectives discovered the bodies of Miss Clennell and Miss Nicholls near the village of Levington, five miles south of Ipswich.
marc.baker@wme.co.uk
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Man held over Suffolk murders
Staff and agencies
Monday December 18, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Police today arrested a man over the murders of five young women working as prostitutes in Ipswich.
The 37-year-old man, whom police refused to name, was arrested at his home near Felixstowe, in Suffolk, early this morning, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull told a news conference.
"Detectives investigating the murder of five women in the Ipswich area have today, Monday 18 December 2006, arrested a man," he said in a brief statement read out to reporters.
The man was arrested at his home in Trimley at about 7.20 this morning.
"He has been arrested on the suspicion of murdering all five women: Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls," Mr Gull said.
"The man is currently in custody at a police station in Suffolk, where he will be questioned about the deaths later today. We will not be naming the police station where the man is being held," he added, refusing to say more or take questions.
The BBC later named the arrested man as Tom Stephens, a 37-year-old supermarket worker who lives in Trimley.
Television footage showed a police cordon around Jubilee Close, a small street of post-war suburban semi-detached houses in the village.
Yesterday's Sunday Mirror carried a lengthy interview with Mr Stephens in which he admitted having used the services of the murdered women and said he was a suspect, but strongly maintained his innocent.
"I am a friend of all the girls," said Mr Stephens, who told the paper he had begun seeing prostitutes 18 months ago, after his eight-year marriage ended. He added: "I don't have any alibis for some of the times.
"From the police profiling it does look like me - white male between 25 and 40, knows the area, works strange hours. The bodies have got close to my house," he told the Sunday Mirror, adding that police had already questioned him four times.
"I know I am innocent and I am completely confident it won't go as far as me being charged," he added.
The arrest follows one of the biggest police operations in recent UK history, which severely stretched the resources of the small Suffolk force. In all, 30 police forces around the country have contributed officers to the 500-strong investigation team.
The hunt for a suspected serial killer was launched when the naked bodies of Ms Nicol, 19, Ms Nicholls, 29, Ms Adams, 25, and Ms Alderton and Ms Clennell, both 24, were found dumped in countryside around Ipswich over a 10-day period.
As yet, police have a cause of death for only two of the victims: Ms Alderton, who was strangled, and Ms Clennell, who died of compression to the neck.
Earlier today, police announced that coroner's inquests into the deaths of Ms Nicol, Ms Alderton, Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls had been postponed. An inquest into the death of Ms Adams was opened and adjourned last week.
Concerns were first raised publicly on November 7, when Suffolk police said they were "extremely concerned" about the disappearance of Ms Nicol. Just over a week later, they added that they were also worried for the safety of Ms Adams.
On December 2, the body of Ms Adams was found in a brook at Hintlesham, outside Ipswich. Six days later, a body later identified as Ms Nicol's was found two miles downstream.
On December 10, Ms Alderton's body was found in woodland. A day after that, police announced the disappearance of the other two women and urged sex workers in and around Ipswich to stay off the streets.
The naked bodies of Ms Clennell and Ms Nicholls were found within minutes of each on December 12 near the village of Levington.
The massive manhunt saw officers track the last known movements of the dead women. Officers contacted friends, clients and other contacts, and checked the whereabouts of a list of possible suspects that was swiftly narrowed down to about 50 men.
As well as prostitutes, female shoppers and nightclubbers in Ipswich were warned by police to be careful and not walk alone at night.
An appeal for help from the public prompted more than 10,000 calls to police. Mr Gull did not say today what had provided a breakthrough in the operation.
At the weekend, police retraced the movements of Ms Alderton, who was three months pregnant when she was killed, for a fortnight after her disappearance.
She was last seen on CCTV footage taking a train from Harwich to Manningtree on the evening of December 3. From there police believe she then caught a train to Ipswich.
Last night police boarded the same train to talk to passengers who may have seen Ms Alderton on board two weeks ago.
The absence of any signs of a struggle on the women's bodies had led police to believe they may have been incapacitated, perhaps with a large dose of narcotics, before being killed.
At the weekend, Mr Gull said they were no longer looking for a murder weapon, strengthening fears the women were in a state of drug-induced unconsciousness before they were killed.
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Developing Chaos
Bangladeshi detainee flown home from Guantanamo
Reuters
17 Dec 06
DHAKA - U.S. authorities repatriated a Bangladeshi on Sunday after he had been detained at Guantanamo Bay prison for several years, police said.
A U.S. Air Force plane flew the man to Dhaka's Zia International Airport direct from Guantanamo Bay prison, a senior immigration official at the airport said.
"The man, Mobarak Hussain Bin Abul Hashem, has been handed over to police for interrogation," he said.
Two Bangladeshis were named in a list of detainees released by the Pentagon early this year. The other Bangladeshi is Pakistan-born Jamal Mohammad Al-deen, an intelligence official said, asking not to be named.
The two were captured along with hundreds of fighters in
Afghanistan when U.S. forces drove out the ruling Taliban in 2001.
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Pakistan wedding fire - Kills 27 Women and Children Including Bride
UK Independent
17 December 2006
A fire that broke out in a wedding party tent in eastern Pakistan triggered a stampede and wall collapse that killed 27 women and children, including the bride, police said today.
More than 30 other people were injured when the wedding party turned into tragedy late last night local time in Jhok Utra, a village about 75 miles west of the city of Multan.
A high-powered electric light apparently set off the fire in the large canvas tent where more than 100 women and children, many singing wedding songs, were present, area police officer Khadim Hussain Khadim said.
He said the women and children died of burns from the flaming and collapsing tent, from injuries caused by a stampede when people tried to escape, and from debris from a nearby newly-built wall that toppled in the stampede.
The tent had been set up on the lawn at the home of the bride, who was among the dead, Khadim said.
The injured were taken to hospitals in the cities of Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan.
Khadim said the men had been in a separate tent that was not damaged.
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Bombay frees killer leopards to roam wild in city
By Justin Huggler in Delhi
17 December 2006
The authorities in India are about to release 47 leopards back into the wild - on the outskirts of the city of Bombay.
It is happening because Bombay, India's biggest city, with more than 16 million people, has spread so far it surrounds a national park that was once far from the city limits. Wild leopards thrived in the untouched jungle of the park, but as the city encroached, the big cats began to stray into the streets, stalk the suburbs and attack and even kill the inhabitants.
In one month, 12 people were mauled to death, among them a four-year-old girl dragged from outside her home into the jungle, where her remains were discovered. Other victims included a barrister out for an early-morning run and an 18-year-old killed as he slept outdoors.
Finally the Maharashtra state authorities sent in teams to round up the leopards in 2004. Once they were in captivity, the killings stopped, but the federal environment ministry in Delhi has now ordered their release as protected wild leopards.
In an effort to avoid further deaths, the authorities are resorting to the sort of electronic tagging used for offenders, with an electromagnetic chip implanted in each leopard's tail. So if one does kill again, at least it can be tracked down and recaptured.
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Judge Unity Dow, the first woman to be appointed a high court judge in Botswana
David Beresford in Johannesburg
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Judge Unity Dow, the first woman to be appointed a high court judge in Botswana, talks about her ruling to give a tribal group the right to live and hunt in a game reserve Judge Dow: 'It has turned out to be the most expensive and longest-running trial this country has ever dealt with. It has also attracted a lot of interest as well as a fair amount of bandwagon jumpers, both nationally and internationally, than perhaps any other case has ever done.'
Her name is Unity Dow, Judge Unity Dow. But she may remind some of Portia - Shylock's nemesis - for the performance she put on last week for the Bushmen of the Kalahari.
Last Wednesday Botswana's Bushmen won a historic victory at the end of a four-year legal battle to hold on to their ancestral lands and to hunt game in one of Africa's biggest nature reserves.
To quote Judge Dow: 'It has turned out to be the most expensive and longest-running trial this country has ever dealt with. It has also attracted a lot of interest as well as a fair amount of bandwagon jumpers, both nationally and internationally, than perhaps any other case has ever done.' Judge Dow, 47, is a phenomenon. She is a successful author, with three published thrillers to her name, and she was the first woman appointed a judge in Botswana. Even before she arrived on the bench she was locally famous, for successfully suing the government to have maternal rights recognised in the country's nationality laws.
So it was expected by the Batswana (people of Botswana) following last week's day of judgment on national TV and radio broadcasts that there would be fireworks from the judge. And that is what they got, as she despatched some of the personalities in the case. Counsel for the applicants, one Mr Boko 'has not been particularly helpful in this trial, decided he was more effective in criticising the court and other lawyers in the media than in representing his clients in court,' she observed of one lawyer for the Bushmen.
The Bushmen's leader, Roy Sesana - who distinguished himself for the cameras by wearing antelope's horns - also felt the lash of her tongue. He 'had a lot to say outside the court, but to this court he said absolutely nothing. Outside court, through the media and without the limitations of an oath to tell the truth, he had plenty to say some of which, sadly was pretty ridiculous'.
Outlining the case Judge Dow said Sesana and his fellow applicants were of 'the San, or Basarwa people' indigenous to the central Kalahari, a vast, unique wilderness in an area in excess of 52,000 sq km. The last census, in 2001, showed the population was 689.
The reserve was intended as a place where the Bushmen could maintain their way of life as hunter gatherers. 'At the time of the creation of the reserve, though, apartheid South Africa with its racists and segregationist policy, was thriving next door (and) it was considered politically unacceptable to be seen to be creating at best a human reservation and at worst a human zoo,' she said.
Growing crops and hunting, the Bushmen lived on limited resources Most were classified as destitute by the government, entitling them to food rations, water supplies and the transport of their children to schools outside the reserve. In 1986 the government decided the Bushmen should be relocated outside the reserve, giving assurances to foreign diplomats and the media, among others, that it would be by 'persuasion, not force'. But in 2002 they cut water supplies and brought in police with 29 large trucks to move them.
There was nothing wrong about the use of police in the exercise, observed Judge Dow. But she said: 'What is curious is the persistent denial by the government's witnesses that there was a police presence.'
She cited a case where a family had asked that they be allowed to stay to care for a sick relative. Authorities described it as a 'ploy' to stay. 'The question becomes why someone who is not under pressure to relocate would need a ploy to remain,' Judge Dow pointed out. The Bushmen belong to an ethnic group 'that has been historically looked down upon,', said the judge - the names for them 'common terms of insult in the same way as nigger' and kaffir'. From the point of view of the government lawyers, 'Sesana and his international friends, notably the NGO backing their case, Survival International, are really the cause of the problems'.
The government had had to give endless assurances to diplomats with regard to the reserve and its residents. A British lawyer was flown out from England to represent the Bushmen. 'Will it ever stop; you can almost hear the cry, this continued and continuous interference from the West? What is a government to do?' Dow asked rhetorically.
'The case being judged, though, is not whether slavery was brutish, which it was, or whether colonialism was a system fuelled by a racist and arrogant ideology, which it was, or whether apartheid was diabolical, which it was. It is not even about how high the Botswana government should jump when a Western diplomat challenges or questions its decision.' Survival International and others who had helped the Bushman's cause had merely 'given courage and support to a people who historically were too weak, economically and politically, to question decisions affecting them,' she said.
Dow said the case was 'ultimately about a people demanding dignity and respect. It is a people saying in essence: "Our way of life may be different, but it is worthy of respect. We may be changing and getting closer to your way of life, but give us a chance to decide what we want to carry with us into the future".'
Three judges delivered last week's decision in Sesana and Others v the Government of Botswana, broadly finding in favour of the Bushmen. Judge Unity Dow was one of them. Portia had spoken.
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Britain - Echoes Of Empire
Desperate Mugabe allows white farmers to come back
By a Special Correspondent in Zimbabwe
17 December 2006
Economic collapse has forced Zimbabwe to reconsider its notorious land reform policy...It may be too late to persuade more than a handful of white farmers to return. "A lot of the whites just gave up and emigrated out of the country," said a man who lost his farm in 2001. "Now you have white Zimbabweans farming in Zambia, South Africa, and even Nigeria. Others went to the UK or Australia - and most will not come back."
President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, which has mounted a six-year campaign to seize white-owned farms, is beginning to allow some white farmers to return to their land as the country faces starvation and economic collapse.
Since November, 19 white farmers who lost ownership of their land have been granted 99-year government-backed leases on resettled farms. "We wanted to come back, because it's home," one farmer told The Independent on Sunday on his 100-hectare farm outside the capital, Harare, where he is planning to grow maize and tobacco. "Farming has been in my family for generations. We're just happy to be back on the land."
There are only about 600 white farmers left in Zimbabwe, down from 4,500 in 1999. That was the year Mr Mugabe was defeated in a referendum; from 2000 the government decided to "fast-track" land reform in an effort to win over a hostile electorate, resulting in farm seizures by supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party who claimed to be landless veterans of the country's war for independence. Dozens of white farmers and black farm workers were killed in violent land seizures.
In July 2005 Mr Mugabe declared that his land reform policy would only be complete when there was "not a single white on the farms". But a contracting economy, hyperinflation and severe food shortages have forced the authorities to allow some interested whites to return. The Land Minister, Flora Buka, said the government had received more than 200 applications so far from whites to take up farming again.
"It is a radical change of policy at this stage - but the future remains to be seen," said Eric Bloch, a Bulawayo-based economic adviser. "Are there going to be 19 token whites, or will the government continue?"
The need for land reform after independence in 1980 was generally acknowledged, even by the commercial farming sector, as a necessary reversal of British colonial-era injustices, when whites were given the best arable land at the expense of landless blacks. But many expropriated farms were given to political allies, often ending up in the hands of cabinet ministers, while many poor black farmers, in whose name the land reform was carried out, were left to fend for themselves.
Stranded without capital and fertiliser, and hit by persistent drought, many of the new farmers failed to use the land productively, transforming Zimbabwe from the bread-basket of southern Africa into a net food importer, and sending inflation soaring. The government has issued 275 leases so far in a bid to boost food production, but nearly two million Zimbabweans will need food aid in the next six months, according to the UN-backed World Food Programme.
"Farming is dead in the water," said John Robertson, a political analyst. "The banks won't accept the farms as collateral, and farmers can be removed within 90 days if they fail to comply with government requirements."
There is no sign that Mr Mugabe is preparing to ease his grip on power. Zanu-PF is about to postpone the 2008 presidential election until parliamentary elections in 2010, officially as a "cost-saving measure". But a senior loyalist has suggested that he should be made president for life.
Opening the annual Zanu-PF conference on Friday, this year entitled "Consolidating Independence through Land Reform", Mr Mugabe vowed that his country would not collapse in the face of Western pressure and "illegal" sanctions. "I know we are in difficult times... [But] Zimbabwe will never collapse," he told 3,000 cheering delegates.
Inflation, however, has now touched 1,100 per cent, and it may be too late to persuade more than a handful of white farmers to return. "A lot of the whites just gave up and emigrated out of the country," said a man who lost his farm in 2001. "Now you have white Zimbabweans farming in Zambia, South Africa, and even Nigeria. Others went to the UK or Australia - and most will not come back."
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British tycoon seizes TV crew in battle over Mugabe film
Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
British property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten had a Channel 4 film crew put under house arrest in Zimbabwe when he discovered that they intended to make a documentary critical of Robert Mugabe. Hoogstraten, who owns a vast estate and other businesses in Zimbabwe, told reporters he had arranged press accreditation for the crew in return for an assurance it would be positive about the Harare regime.
Jerome Lynch, a barrister, led the three-man team and they visited sites in Harare with Hoogstraten and Nathan Shamuyarira, the secretary of information for Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
Hoogstraten began to suspect that the crew intended to make a film that would show Zimbabwe's crisis, especially state torture and human rights abuses. He said he discovered notes left by the journalists in his car which showed they planned to interview government critics. Hoogstraten had the team confined to a hotel room and threatened to have them jailed, said the Zimbabwean press. He tried to force Lynch to sign a statement admitting they double-crossed him.
'I told Shamuyarira they were crooks. They were put under house arrest. If I had had my way, we would have made a case out of it and put them in prison, because they were here with evil in their hearts,' he told the Zimbabwe Independent. A spokesman for Channel 4, Howard Needleman, said the crew managed to fly out of Zimbabwe last week. Hoogstraten said the team signed a contract agreeing not to report on Zimbabwe's land seizures, the Matabeleland massacres, when an estimated 20,000 people died in the 1980s, or mass housing demolitions last year. The government agreed to allow the men into Zimbabwe to produce an upbeat documentary. 'The government agreed they should come, but I said I must control their product,' Hoogstraten told the Zimbabwe Independent. 'I told them that, if they stepped out of line, I would deal with them personally.'
Yesterday the Zanu-PF party backed a plan to extend Mugabe's rule by two years, a step critics say would plunge the country deeper into crisis. The main opposition has condemned the plan as the work of a dictatorship and says Mugabe, now 82, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has nothing more to offer the country.
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Drugs boom fuels Dublin gang killings - five murders in a fortnight testify to a ruthless underworld war
Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Christmas shoppers rushing into Dublin's city centre on the busiest week of the year are being greeted at checkpoints by police wearing body armour and carrying Uzi sub-machine guns.
The Garda Emergency Response Unit has been sent on to the streets by Michael McDowell, the Justice Minister, as a visible response to the escalating gangland war that has claimed 24 lives in 2006.
McDowell insists he will maintain an armed presence in Dublin over the festive period. In the last fortnight there have been six gun deaths - five of them related to the city's gangland.
Jimmy Guerin, brother of the murdered reporter Veronica Guerin, recognises the need for police on the streets, but says the reason for the feud is apparent in Dublin's bars and restaurants.
'I had been in this pub at a Christmas party near Phoenix Park. When I went to the toilet I saw three men at the same party snorting cocaine. They were all perfectly respectable young professionals who thought nothing of taking coke for social and recreational use,' he said. 'These are the people who are fuelling the drugs boom and making these gangsters very, very rich. There are only a couple of thousand registered heroin addicts in Dublin; there are hundreds of thousands of social users of drugs, particularly cocaine.'
Guerin contrasts the fortunes of the Dublin drug gangs of 2006 to the handful of dealers that his sister died exposing a decade ago. 'John Gilligan (the man whose gang were behind Veronica's death) and his team were earning around an estimated €25m (£16.8m) when she was killed. That was 10 years ago and today those figures would be far higher. There are dealers in this town earning up to €2m (£1.3m) a week, mainly from cocaine.'
The fate of another Dublin drug dealer, Martin 'Marlo' Hyland, illustrates the volatility of the city's new underworld. Hyland was shot four times in the head while he slept upstairs in his niece's house at Scribblestown Park, Finglas, last Tuesday morning. The 39-year-old dealer had been moving from house to house following a warning that his life was in danger. The street-wise career criminal ran a 10-man-strong gang of young, hardened drug dealers.
Detectives investigating his assassination believe that he was betrayed by at least two of his associates and the reason was simple - greed. 'They simply wanted to take over his operations,' said a senior Garda detective.
'Marlo had built up a vast empire on the northside that stretched from Finglas right over to Coolock. He was making huge profits, and somebody on the inside of the gang wanted more. They had killed other dealers in Finglas who were lowering their prices and getting in their way.'
The ruthless nature of the gang warfare that involves at least three separate feuds across the city was later demonstrated when Marlo's killers shot dead a 20-year old plumber, Anthony Campbell, as he worked on a radiator at the same house.
The plumber had no connections to Marlo or any other criminal boss. Anthony Campbell was targeted in all likelihood because he might have identified the unmasked hit team.
The Garda has scored some successes against organised crime in the city over the last 12 months. Thanks to Operation Oak and Operation Anvil - two major drives against the underworld - 2006 saw a record number of drugs seizures in the Irish Republic.
But those working with drug addicts in Dublin say that at no time in the year did the price of drugs rise as a result of a choking off of the supply.
Another worrying development is the use of bombs, which are being manufactured in Dundalk by former Provisional IRA and dissident republican explosives experts, and then sold on to various gangs.
Joe Costelloe represents the north inner city for the Labour Party, a constituency where many of the murders have taken place. He says that gangland killings have the lowest detection rate of any crime - just 15 per cent.
'There is a big incentive for young hitmen, many of them with drug habits themselves to fund, to go on killing. There is big money for a hit. Then there is the knowledge, which the detection figures show, that you are likely to get away with it,' he said.
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Minister warns 'can work, won't work' Britons over benefits
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Work-shy Britons are in danger of losing out to a new wave of industrious eastern European immigrants over jobs, a cabinet minister will warn this week as he launches a controversial review of benefits.
John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will argue that, with 600,000 vacancies nationwide, there should be jobs for most of those who want them. And he will say that a 'can work, won't work' minority who refuse to take up opportunities will be targeted in the review, which could lead to tougher sanctions against those judged not to be co-operating with efforts to find employment.
Hutton's attack follows complaints from a number of Labour MPs that the influx of eastern Europeans following EU expansion two years ago has undercut wages and cost jobs among British-born workers, particularly in industries such as construction, where Polish plumbers and carpenters have proved both cheap and popular with householders.
Such fears led in part to the Home Secretary's recent decision to restrict the right to work in Britain for Romanians and Bulgarians, who join the EU formally in January.
Ministers say privately there is no evidence that recent rises in unemployment are directly linked to the arrival of eastern Europeans. But Hutton will argue that, in future, homegrown benefit claimants who are reluctant to work will be left behind by foreigners eager for jobs.
In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research tomorrow, Hutton will say the major problem holding people back in 1997 was lack of jobs, but that, since then, things have changed: 'We are in the middle of the longest period of economic growth for hundreds of years and there are about 600,000 vacancies across Britain. But there are still 900,000 people on jobseekers' allowance, and more than two thirds of claims are made by people who have claimed before.'
Of these, 12 per cent had spent six of the past seven years on benefits, 'so the next challenge we face is to ensure the hard core of "can work but won't work" benefit claimants take advantage of the opportunities out there and compete for jobs alongside growing numbers of migrants who arrive in Britain specifically to look for work rather than settle for the long term'.
Ministers argue that, unlike the immigrants of the Sixties and Seventies who came to Britain primarily to live, many eastern Europeans come to work for a few years with the intention of making enough money to enjoy a better standard of living when they return home.
While here, they are motivated to work long hours in jobs Britons do not necessarily want: they cannot claim benefits in the same way as naturalised Britons, and their rates of employment are well over the 80 per cent target set by the Chancellor for the British population.
The review is expected to be completed within months, and Hutton is said to be 'open-minded' about where it might lead.
He has not ruled out tougher sanctions such as withdrawal of benefits for those judged not actively to be seeking work.
The change of rhetoric may spark comparisons with Norman Tebbit's famous 'on your bike' exhortation to the unemployed to find work, and is likely to upset some Labour MPs. However aides insist the intention is not to 'do a Tebbit': instead the review is seen as following on from the reform of incapacity benefits now going through Parliament.
That review will look not just at jobseekers' allowance claimants but at other forms of benefit and will examine how getting more people into work could contribute to government targets to reduce child poverty.
The move follows Iain Duncan Smith's report for the Conservative party on the causes of poverty last week, and comes ahead of separate Liberal Democrat proposals this week to tackle poverty by making work pay.
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European Unity
Shvets sez: Litvinenko killed over dossier on Russian
By John Joseph
Reuters
16 Dec 06
"I asked Litvenenko who did you think did it?" Shvets told the BBC. "He immediately said Scaramella. For three days he stubbornly reiterated it was Scaramella and only on the fourth day did he admit he met Lugovoy and other Russians.
LONDON - Murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was killed because of an eight-page dossier he had compiled on a powerful Russian figure for a British company, a business associate told the BBC on Saturday.
Litvinenko died in London on November 23 after receiving a lethal dose of radioactive polonium 210. On his deathbed, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
Ex-spy Yuri Shvets, who is based in the United States, said Litvinenko had been employed by Western companies to provide information on potential Russian clients before they committed to investment deals in the former Soviet Union.
He said Litvinenko was asked by a British company to write reports on five Russians and asked Shvets for help. The British company was not named. Shvets said he had passed Litvinenko the information for the dossier on one individual in September.
The BBC said it had obtained extracts of the dossier, which British detectives also have, from an unnamed source. The BBC said the report contained damaging personal details about a "very highly placed member of Putin's administration."
"Litvinenko obtained the report on September 20," Shvets told the BBC. "Within the next two weeks he gave the report to Andrei Lugovoy. I believe that triggered the entire assassination."
Lugovoy is a former Russian spy who told Reuters on Thursday he had known Litvinenko casually for nearly a decade and had worked closely with him during 2005, meeting him about 10 times.
Shvets said Litvinenko had given the dossier to Lugovoy to show him how reports on Russian companies and individuals should be presented to Western clients.
However, Shvets said he believed Lugovoy was still employed by the Russian secret service the FSB, the successor to the KGB, and had leaked Litvinenko's dossier to the Russian figure.
Shvets said the report had led to the British company pulling out of a deal, losing the Russian figure potential earnings of "dozens of millions of dollars."
LONDON HOTEL
Lugovoy and businessman Dmitry Kovtun met Litvinenko at a central London hotel, soon after he had met Italian KGB expert Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar. Litvinenko felt ill that night and two days later was admitted to hospital.
"Litvinenko told me he met Lugovoy and other Russians and they offered him tea that wasn't made in front of him, said Shvets.
Lugovoy told Reuters in an interview that he met Litvinenko in October and November but he has repeatedly denied having anything to do with his death.
Litvinenko never blamed Lugovoy publicly for his murder before dying in the London hospital. However, Shvets said he had come around to that possibility.
"I asked Litvenenko who did you think did it?" Shvets told the BBC. "He immediately said Scaramella. For three days he stubbornly reiterated it was Scaramella and only on the fourth day did he admit he met Lugovoy and other Russians.
"I stopped communicating with Litvinenko when it was diagnosed he had been poisoned. But I spoke to his wife and she told me Litvinenko shared my opinion," Shvets told the BBC.
The BBC said senior Scotland Yard officers had interviewed Shvets.
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France to withdraw special forces from Afghanistan
AFP
17 Dec 06
French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has announced that France would withdraw hundreds of its special forces from Afghanistan within the next few weeks.
"We'll pull our special forces out of Afghanistan in the coming weeks," Alliot-Marie told reporters during her visit to the Afghan capital Kabul.
She was referring to some 200 French special forces stationed in eastern Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, aimed at hunting down Taliban fighters in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
France has deployed a total of 2,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the remainder serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Seven members of the French special forces have been killed in action in the war-ravaged country, while 12 others have been wounded since their deployment.
ISAF which took command from the US-led troops last month has more than 30,000 troops while 10,000 US-led coalition troops are on the hunt for Al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants.
The French special forces contingent is currently based in eastern Nangarhar province.
Despite being ousted from power, remnants of Taliban and other Islamist allies including those from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network are still waging a bloody insurgency in parts of the country.
Nearly 4,000 people, many of them rebels, have died this year in the insurgency, which has entered its bloodiest phase since the toppling of the Taliban. The regime was ousted following the World Trade Center attacks for failing to hand over bin Laden to US authorities.
The proposed French withdrawal comes when ISAF commanders facing an unexpected Taliban resistance have been demanding more troops to be deployed in the south of Afghanistan where Taliban are most active.
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Le Pen dynasty's bid to renew appeal of far right
Jason Burke
December 17, 2006
The Observer
The daughter of the Front National's leader tells why a black woman is fronting its ads and why France is now ready to accept the devil it knows
Jean-Marie Le Pen is on holiday. The veteran French far right-wing leader is taking a final break before the gruelling political marathon he hopes will take him, if not into the Elysee Palace, at least into the second round of the presidential elections next spring.
In his absence it is his daughter, Marine, 38, who is the face of the party. At her office in the Front National (FN) headquarters in the west Paris suburb of St Cloud, Marine Le Pen explained the idea behind the new, controversial poster campaign launched last week, which, for the first time, does not highlight the beefy features of her father, but features a woman of apparent immigrant origin.
'For 30 years we have defended the interests of the French people, where ever they come from, whatever their race or religion,' she said. 'The idea of the posters is to put the French people in the foreground, not the candidate. We want to give them back the voice they have been denied by the political elite.'
The strategy is working. Poll results published in Le Monde late last week showed the FN at its highest levels of support for years, even better than in the run-up to the 2002 election where it polled 18 per cent and went through to the two-candidate run-off of the second round. In 1997 nearly half of French people saw Le Pen's ideas as unacceptable; now only a third do. 'People are getting used to Le Pen and his ideas. They are becoming banal,' said Emmanuel Riviere, of pollsters TNS Sofres. Marine says this is only natural: 'People are only surprised because we have been caricatured for so many years. Now they are learning the truth. We have been seen as the devil for too long.' Truth for some, cynical marketing exercise for others. 'In France, we have a vulgar expression that you can't paint merde,' Le Pen, the youngest of former paratrooper Jean-Marie's three daughters, said. She was referring to the efforts of what she called political elites to 'cover up' the state of France's economic and social problems. Yet her phrase could equally be applied, critics say, to the FN itself.
Marine Le Pen is at the spearhead of a radical attempt to change the image of her party. A 300-page autobiography Against the Flow, appearances in French media, a diet, a personal makeover as well as a new 'moderate' language have all led to new prominence for the former lawyer, divorcee and mother of three children. Her father is 78, contesting his sixth election, and everyone is aware that the time to pass the torch is not far away. Marine Le Pen is now, despite opposition from within the party and despite her own denials, best placed for the succession.
'All extremist parties have a problem with what to do when the chief goes,' said Frederic Dabi, public opinion expert at pollsters Ifop. 'Marine Le Pen has built herself a popular base that is far from negligible.'
A new chapter in the Le Pen family saga is opening. For it is indeed a saga - or a soap opera, according to critics. 'There is a real Dallas side to that family,' said Lorrain de Saint-Affrique, a former public relations adviser to the FN. 'The members detest each other but always reconcile their differences in the end.'
Le Pen, his second wife, two of his daughters - including Marine - and their children share a mansion and five-hectare estate near the FN office. Daughter Marie-Caroline was ostracised from the party and the family when the FN split in the late 1990s, and she sided with her father's rival. Now she has returned, more or less, to the fold. Relations between Marine and her father have not always been straightforward either.
'Like any family we have had our difficulties but we sort them out,' she told The Observer. 'The attacks against us have made us very close. There have been bombs; the divorce of my parents was all over the media.
'As a child, at school, I was the daughter of the devil for many. But we are a tribe and we stick together.' Always a very physical presence in French politics, the 'grandfather' of the European far right is toning down his rhetoric, taking care to avoid slip-ups such as his infamous dismissal of Nazi gas chambers as 'a detail of history,' a description of the German occupation of France as 'relatively humane', or a complaint before the 1998 World Cup that the French football team was not white enough.
And though their in-house literature makes much of it, the continuing trial of the FN's delegate general for Holocaust denial does not feature in public statements by Le Pen or his daughter either. Instead, as well as less talk about the 'immigration torrent' or 'France for the French', there are many pronouncements about the failure of the 'auto-proclaimed political-media elite' to represent honest, ordinary Frenchmen and women, of the failure of French democracy, of the collapse of French schools and other institutions, and of the two greatest bogeymen now inhabiting the French popular political landscape - threats of globalisation and 'Anglo Saxon' ultra-liberal economic systems.
'The most revealing statistic in recent months was a poll that showed that half of French people believe they could end up as homeless on the street.
'That is the depth of the anxiety of our compatriots,' Marine Le Pen said. 'The French people are asking themselves if there is an alternative to the traditional parties. And that is our chance.' The problem for the FN in the wake of the 2002 elections was that, though it had polled more than five million votes, it failed to break into the mainstream. With no MPs or even mayors, it has no formal presence in the French political system.
'They saw that they were stuck on around 20 per cent of the vote,' said Jean-Yves Camus, author of Extremism in France. 'From then on, they knew that they needed to find new themes and an image that would allow them to reach out to new voters.'
Some of those new voters are coming from surprising directions. One controversial visitor at a recent Le Pen rally was a comic whose 'jokes' about Jews have provoked a series of legal actions. Radical fringe elements claiming to represent popular sentiment in the poor suburbs around Paris have also expressed support for 'the new Front National'.
But that does not mean that the new strategy is working, at least not yet. 'Our surveys show that France is not a more xenophobic or more intolerant place than it was a year ago. And women are particularly resistant to Le Pen,' said Riviere. Analysts also point out that a vote for a Le Pen is very often a protest vote. 'The majority of voters who vote FN do not actually want to see Le Pen in the Elysee palace,' said Pascal Perrineau, director of political research at Sciences-Polytechnic University in Paris.
A key test will be the success or failure of Le Pen to gather the 500 mayoral signatures he needs to stand in a presidential election. At the moment, the FN is struggling to secure firm promises from mayors not yet convinced that the new image of the party will protect them from a grassroots backlash.
Marine Le Pen blames the 'manipulation' of the process by the political establishment. This is another example of France's 'dysfunctional democracy,' she says.
The younger Le Pen is proud of having organised the launch of the party's 2007 election campaign with a rally at Valmy, the revolutionary battlefield where the rag-tag footsoldiers of the young French Republic were victorious against all odds against their monarchic foreign enemies in 1792. In the end, it is at the lowest, individual level, where moral and motivation and ideas count most, that campaigns, military or political, are won or lost. The devil is in the detail.
Who's that girl?
With her pierced lip, low-cut jeans and, according to the Front National leaders, 'immigrant origins', she has caused a media stir.
From the party that had complained viciously about immigrants for 30 years - and whose words had been translated into action by some people - the poster appears to be a major shift. In front of the words nationality, assimilation, social mobility and the secular state, each a traditional value of the French Republic, appears the slogan: 'The right and the left have ruined everything.'
Party officials are coy over the exact identity of the girl shown in the poster, admitting that she is neither a front activist nor a member and saying only that she agreed to pose for the campaign and was - like the far more typical figures who posed in the other posters - promised anonymity.
The other images for the campaign are closer to those traditionally associated with Le Pen and the Front National. A teenager in front of the words 'school, identity, future'. A middle-aged woman clutching a dog, before 'retirement, social security, protection'.
'You vote for Le Pen like you choose a brand,' said Dominique Reynie, a political scientist. 'It's always the same promise: a political earthquake.'
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Journalist Predicts: Turkey is not going to join the EU
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian
There will be no place at the table for Ankara in any foreseeable future, and the most profound reason is geographical
Of all the temptations of journalism, prediction is the most dangerous. Soothsayers in our trade are usually made to look foolish by events. The best answer was given by the fabled correspondent in some distant spot who, asked by an importunate foreign desk (in the days of abbreviated cablese) to file "soonest,fullest,whatnext happens", responded succinctly: "Myballs uncrystal."
After that, let me say something simply and confidently: Turkey is not going to join the EU. "Not" does not mean "never" but in any foreseeable future, although you wouldn't know that from Tony Blair. He visited Turkey last Friday at the beginning of his latest forlorn, not to say fantastical, mission to bring peace to the Middle East, intoning the words: "It is important that we continue the process of accession with Turkey."
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Nor would you know it from other exalted Euro-personages. Chancellor Angela Merkel has just joined the Social Democrats, her German coalition partners, in saying that full membership "would be worthwhile", one fine day. Erkki Tuomioja, the Finnish foreign minister, whose country's EU presidency is just coming to an end, says that "the door is still open", while Carl Bildt, the foreign minister, continues ardently to favour Turkish membership.
All these pious hopes are expressed at the very moment negotiations between Turkey and the EU have just hit one more pothole, with Brussels suspending talks as a punishment for Ankara's refusal to open its ports and airports to Greek Cyprus. This suspension was a "serious mistake", Blair says, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister calls it "unacceptable".
By now the Turks should have learned that there is much they must accept whether they like it or not, and they have come to feel, not without reason, that when one obstacle is surmounted Europe will always find another. Turkey became an associate member of the EEC or Common Market as long ago as 1963, and in 1987 Ankara applied for full membership of the EU.
During the lengthy interlude came the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and in 1983 the creation of a Turkish Cypriot state, which no one but Ankara recognises. Turkey has a much better case over Cyprus than in other matters, and the despicable behaviour of the Greek Cypriot government - and electorate, when they voted against the reunification of the island once EU membership could not be revoked - has made Cyprus the least loved member state of the EU.
More serious objections are the patchy Turkish record (to put it mildly) on human rights. Turkey still does not enjoy what European countries consider a true rule of law or freedom of speech, and has not come to terms with its history, notably the fate of the Armenians.
Even then, the continual European hesitancy and changing of the tune might suggest bad faith. But that is not really so, and a better way of seeing it is as a kind of social embarrassment. Far from having embarked on an elaborate deception, Europe said something with good intentions but without really thinking it through, only to recognise slowly how grave the practical difficulties are. As a result, Turkey waits for church bells that never ring, while Europe, as one French diplomat puts it, is like a man with a mistress he doesn't want to lose, but doesn't want to marry, either. The trouble is that a moment passes, after which it's no longer easy or even possible to say this thing can work without causing pain.
For their part, the worst mistake the Turks have made is invoking US support. During yet another crisis between Ankara and Brussels a little more than a year ago, Erdogan rang Condoleezza Rice and asked for her help, to which the secretary of state duly responded by expressing yet again Washington's ardent support for Turkish admission to the EU - and thereby further enraging the Europeans.
As usual Blair takes the American line, arguing for Turkish admission on strategic grounds: it "has an importance not just in respect to Turkey but with wider relationships between the west and the Muslim world". Shutting the door will alienate Muslims everywhere, letting Turkey in will build a bridge between the west and the Islamic world.
But another way of putting it is that Europe is being asked to make a huge sacrifice to gratify American strategic interests. Whatever Blair may think, this doesn't meet with universal favour. As the former European commissioner Chris Patten has sarcastically said, it is very good of the Americans to keep offering Turkey admission to the EU, but this is a question on which Europeans might want to have some say themselves.
Neither Blair nor his American friends have noticed that there has scarcely been a less propitious moment for Turkish admission in these 40 years. Turkish sensitivity about being excluded from a "Christian club" is quite misplaced: Europe today isn't a Christian anything, and even fear of radical Islamism is not the main factor. More important is the hangover from previous EU expansion - and the Turkish question also illustrates the gulf between "the soi-disant elites", as that contrarian French politician Jean-Pierre Chevènement calls them, personified by Blair, Tuomioja and Bildt, and the actual peoples of Europe.
In May 2004, eastern European countries that had been sundered from their neighbours by 60 years of war and cold war were admitted to "our common European home" and very moving it was. After the elation, Europe woke up to realise that its 10 new member states now comprised a quarter of its population while providing a 20th of its economic product, and that's before Romania and Bulgaria join in the new year, let alone Turkey, with a per-capita income one-tenth of the British, and a child mortality rate 10 times the French.
A year later, the French and Dutch referendums, which turned down the new EU constitution, were a hostile response to that expansion, and by implication to Turkish admission. For all Blair's high-sounding platitudes, that new mood has been caught by other European politicians. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister who is almost certain to be the conservative candidate - and favourite - in May's presidential elections, is an open opponent of Turkish membership, and is "happy to see that these ideas are gaining ground". As he might say, building bridges between the west and Islam, and sapping the roots of terrorism, are doubtless worthy objectives, but since when did they become the purpose of the EU?
In the end, the problem is less cultural or economic or religious than simply geographical. This is something we have only slowly woken up to, but it explains why Turkey will not join for a very long time, if ever. Bildt says, solemnly and dubiously, that "there is no doubt that Turkey is a part of Europe", but a French politician has put it another way: can we really have a Europe that extends to the borders of Iraq? Many ordinary Europeans seem to know the answer to that better than their rulers.
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The Human Condition - It's All In Your Head
It's all in your head - Diagnosis Made by Hallucinatory Voices
Michael Prescott
15 Dec 06
Here's an odd little story recounted by Robert S. Bobrow, M.D., in his fascinating new book The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in Medicine.
The story was originally reported in the British Medical Journal by Dr. I.O. Azuonye in 1997.* It involves a British housewife known in the case history only as A.B., who was about 40 years old and had no history of serious illness or psychiatric disorders.
While reading quietly one evening, A.B. heard a distinctive voice inside her head. The voice politely said: "Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you." While A.B. knew of this hospital, she had never been there and didn't know where it was.
The voices assured her of their sincerity, even supplying some factual tidbits for A.B. to confirm (she did).
Despite this confirmation, A.B. understandably feared that she had developed some form of mental illness. She promptly saw a psychiatrist, the aforementioned Dr. Azuonye, who diagnosed the episode as "hallucinatory psychosis." When A.B. started taking a prescription antipsychotic medicine, the voices went away for a while. But when she was on vacation abroad, they came back.
This time, they told her that she needed immediate medical care, and should return to England right away. She returned, and the voices gave her an address to go to; her husband was good enough to humor her, and actually took her to the address just for reassurance. It may not have been that reassuring when it turned out to be the CAT-scanning department of a large London hospital, and that as she arrived, the voices told her to go in and have a brain CAT scan.... [The voices] informed A.B. that she had a brain tumor.
Again consulting with Dr. Azuonye, she was advised to get the brain scan simply in order to set her fears to rest. Since she had no symptoms of a brain tumor, both she and the doctor expected nothing to be found. After some squabbling with the government-run health-care system, the CAT scan was eventually carried out.
The result? A brain tumor, which doctors thought to be a meningioma.
Meningiomas are neither the rarest nor the most common of cranial growths. Their cells, which arise from the brain's coverings, generally grow slowly without eating through the brain and only rarely float off to start new colonies elsewhere in the body (called metastasizing). But the space they take up squashes good brain. Removal, as soon as possible, is usually recommended. So while there were no headaches or specific neurological abnormalities, A.B.'s neurosurgeons opted for immediate surgery. The voices told her they agreed.
Surgeons found and removed a meningioma that measured two and half by one and a half inches -- about the size of an egg. When A.B. awoke from the anesthesia, the voices spoke once more: "We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye." They never returned. [Pp. 43-45]
In his discussion of the case in the British Medical Journal, Azuonye notes:
It is well known that intracranial lesions can be associated with psychiatric symptomatology. But this is the first and only instance I have come across in which hallucinatory voices sought to reassure the patient of their genuine interest in her welfare, offered her a specific diagnosis (there were no clinical signs that would have alerted anyone to the tumour), directed her to the type of hospital best equipped to deal with her problem, expressed pleasure that she had at last received the treatment they desired for her, bid her farewell, and thereafter disappeared.
Azuonye reports that while some doctors accept the case as genuinely paranormal, others have suggested either fraud or a subconscious motive. Those who allege fraud speculate that the patient
had been given the diagnosis of a brain tumour in her original country and wanted to be treated free under the NHS. Hence, they surmised, she had made up the convoluted tale about voices telling her this and that.
Azuonye objects:
But AB had lived in Britain for 15 years and was entitled to NHS treatment. Besides, she had been so relieved when the voices first disappeared on thioridazine that she had gone on holiday to celebrate the recovery of her sanity.
As for those who think something was going on in A.B.'s subconscious:
Their view was that, the total lack of physical signs notwithstanding, it was unlikely that a tumour of that size had had absolutely no effect on the patient. "She must have felt something," they argued. They suggested that a funny feeling in her head had led her to fear that she had a brain tumour. That fear had led to her experience of hallucinatory voices. She may have unconsciously taken in more information about various hospitals than she realised, and this information was reproduced by her mind as part of the auditory hallucinatory experience.
I think it's more likely that A.B. tapped into some channel of higher consciousness - whether that of "spirit guides" or deceased well-wishers or God - and obtained the information that way. Conceivably the tumor itself brought about changes in the brain that made her nervous system more receptive to such extracerebral influences.
One other interesting aspect of Azuonye's write-up is that apparently quite a large number of the doctors who heard his presentation were entirely comfortable with the paranormal interpretation. I doubt this would have been true a generation ago. Despite skeptical resistance, minds are changing - slowly but surely.
Or as the old Arabian proverb has it: The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
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*Azuonye, I.O. "Diagnosis Made by Hallucinatory Voices." British Medical Journal. 1997; 315:1685-86.
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Over 50 Vietnamese girls faint due to mass 'hysteria'
IANS
16 Dec 06
Hanoi- Over 50 Vietnamese girls were hospitalised after they fainted at school, and officials Saturday blamed the incident on an episode of "mass hysteria".
"This is the first time such a thing has happened here in the district," said Luong Thanh Nhan, a policeman in Vietnam's southern An Giang province. "It was not the food or the environment which caused the incident."
The director of the medical centre in Thoai Son district said the 51 girls who fainted suffered from "hysteria", reported the Thanh Nien newspaper. He added that the "syndrome is commonly found among young, sensitive school girls".
School and medical officials said the first girl to faint was brought to the Vong Dong Senior Secondary School's nurse Thursday. The five girls that accompanied the 13-year-old to the nurse's office then fell unconscious.
Emergency medical personnel arrived to take the children to hospital. Dozens of students in their classrooms, who saw the girls being carried away, also suddenly collapsed.
Most of the girls were released from the medical centre the same day. But according to Nhan, four students remain in the hospital in stable condition.
"Everyone was so worried about the case," said Nhan. "We still don't know what the cause was."
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'Holy' chocolate sighting linked to survival instinct
By DAVID HALDANE
Los Angeles Times
17 Dec 06
The wonder, believers said, appeared in a chunk of chocolate.
A worker arriving at a Fountain Valley candy factory saw it in a sugary glob at the mixing vat's spout: an amazing likeness of the Virgin Mary standing in prayer.
''It's absolutely a miracle,'' said Jacinto Santacruz, a 26-year-old Roman Catholic who in August discovered the 2½-inch-tall apparition at Bodega Chocolates.
All over the world, people like Santacruz have been finding religion in very odd places.
Holy figures have been perceived in bricks, wooden logs, the gritty underpass of a Chicago expressway, a Tennessee coffee shop called Bongo Java and, last month, a tiny gold nugget found in the Arizona desert.
In 1977, a woman making burritos in Lake Arthur, N.M., saw the face of Jesus in the pattern of skillet burns on a tortilla. She built a shrine to house the Jesus tortilla, which was blessed by a priest, and thousands of people from across the country came to gaze and pray for its divine assistance in healing their ailments.
Christians aren't the only ones to find the holy in the ordinary: Followers of Islam have said they've seen the Arabic script for ''Allah'' or ''Muhammad'' on fish scales, chicken eggs, lambs and beans.
The phenomenon is so common that scientists have given it a name: pareidolia, the perception of patterns where none are intended. And according to Stewart Guthrie, one of a handful of professors who have studied it, such perceptions are part of the way human beings are "hard-wired."
''It's really part of our basic perceptual and cognitive situation,'' said Guthrie, a cultural anthropologist, retired Fordham University professor and author of the book ''Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion.''
''It has to do with all kinds of misapprehensions that there is something humanlike in one's environment, when really there's not.''
At the root of the phenomenon, he said, is is the survival instinct.
''It's a built-in perceptual strategy,'' Guthrie said, ''of better safe than sorry. In a situation of uncertainty, we guess that something is caused by the most important possibility.''
Hence, if you're alone and hear a strange sound -- even on a gusty night -- you're more likely to ask, ''Who's there?'' than think it's the wind. And if you happen to be religious, according to Guthrie, your answer to ''Who's there?'' may well be, in a broader context, God. More specifically, Jesus in a fried tortilla.
The feelings generated by these perceptions can be powerful. At Bodega Chocolates, Santacruz and her co-workers quickly placed the chocolate Madonna in a small plastic case, and as news of the apparition spread, a stream of the curious and devout began making pilgrimages to the shop, where they prayed, crossed themselves in awe and knelt in veneration.
''It's really emotional,'' Santacruz said later. ''I can't describe the feeling; the emotions make me cry.''
Other alleged miracles have proved profitable: A 10-year-old grilled-cheese sandwich with a pattern resembling the Virgin Mary sold on eBay in 2004 for $28,000; a pretzel in the shape of Mary cradling the infant Jesus fetched $10,600; and a water-stained piece of plaster cut from a shower wall bearing what looked like the face of Jesus brought in nearly $2,000.
Some manifestations get worldwide attention.
In 1996, the owner of Bongo Java in Nashville, Tenn., said he discovered a cinnamon bun bearing the likeness of Mother Teresa in profile.
Dubbed ''the miracle nun bun,'' the pastry got so much notice worldwide that he parlayed it into a commercial venture, selling nun-bun T-shirts and coffee mugs on the Internet.
The items were taken off the market when Mother Teresa complained, but he refused to stop exhibiting the renowned sweet even after she died.
Eventually the venerated bun was stolen during a 2005 Christmas Day break-in and, despite the offer of a $5,000 reward, only photographs of it were returned -- anonymously to a local newspaper.
Starting about the same time, an estimated 500,000 visitors flocked to see the glass facade of a home finance building in Clearwater, Fla., said to bear an iridescent image of a veiled Virgin Mary. Skeptics said it was merely a stain created by corrosion.
Eventually the building was bought by a Catholic revivalist group from Ohio, which dubbed it the Virgin Mary Building before replacing the miraculous windows, broken by vandals using slingshots, with a large picture of Jesus Christ.
But it was the famous Jesus tortilla of New Mexico that some believe set the world standard for claims of miracle sightings.
After discovering it one morning while making her husband's breakfast, Maria Rubio mounted a display of the tortilla, which, by 1979, reportedly had been visited by more than 35,000 people bearing flowers and photos of their ailing relatives.
Rubio quit her job as a maid to become full-time attendant to the shrine of the tortilla constructed in her home. And although a handful of competing miracle tortillas cropped up in subsequent years, none attracted anything approaching the fan base ascribed to the original.
Religious traditions are filled with tales of apparitions. On Dec. 12, Roman Catholics celebrate the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who they believe was first seen by a Mexican Indian named Juan Diego in 1531. Similar apparitions of a gentle woman speaking soothing words have been noted worldwide.
But a divine presence gracing a grilled-cheese sandwich?
Church officials say they don't encourage such interpretations.
''The church encourages Christians to see the face of Christ in the homeless, the poor, the destitute and the immigrant -- not in a plate of pasta,'' said Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. ''Imagine showing up on your judgment day in front of God, and he says, 'Where did you see me? Did you see me in the poor and the immigrant and the homeless?' And you say, 'Well, no, but I did see you in a piece of chocolate once.' Doesn't sound so good, does it?''
Carol Hogan, communications director for the California Catholic Conference in Sacramento, who once waited hours to observe a shadow resembling the Virgin Mary, said the real miracle wasn't what she saw on the wall.
''It was the people who came and stood in line,'' she said. ''That's the part that was so memorable to me. What it said is that there's a yearning out there for things spiritual; people have a great spiritual hunger.''
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With just a touch, a spirit is healed
By LOUIS SAHAGUN
Los Angeles Times
Sunday, December 17, 2006
If ever there was someone in need of good vibrations, it was Paul Ekman.
The psychology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, was as gnarly as an old oak, hardened by a lifelong struggle with impulsive anger.
All that changed one spring day in 2000 after a brief exchange with the Dalai Lama.
"He held my hands while we talked," Ekman recalled, "and I was filled with a sense of goodness and a unique total body sensation that I have no words to describe."
Now, the noted expert on human emotional expression understands what it actually feels like to be cheery and optimistic almost every day.
"If I was 30 years younger, I'd take it on as a scientific task to try to explain what happened that day," said Ekman, 72. "It was a great gift."
What is that gift?
Mind control? Charisma? A superhuman skill learned in some Tibetan Shangri-La? A touch of magic?
The Dalai Lama prefers not to talk of such things. "I have no extraordinary energy," he says with a dismissive wave his hand. "I'm just a Buddhist monk."
But some familiar with the Dalai Lama, and those who study religious figures, agree that every so often, people emerge who are perceived to offer proof of a higher authority, understanding or wisdom.
"It -- whatever it is -- can't be defined and is not to be confused with stardom or fame," suggested someone who knows a lot about both, Maria Shriver. "I think the Dalai Lama would say look within because it's in you, not someone else. It all comes down to whether you're open to being touched in your heart."
Shriver, a member of the Kennedy clan and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife, appeared onstage with the Dalai Lama in September at a conference in Long Beach, Calif., on women's issues. She also knew Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II and said they too projected an aura.
In India, one of the most popular spiritual leaders is Mata Amritanandamayi, a Hindu woman who is said to impart divine energy with a hug. Over the years, according to her followers, the "Mother of Divine Bliss" has hugged more than 20 million people.
"Personally, I don't know what it is she has, but I don't think it's a scam," said Dara Mayers, who has written about her travels with the woman guru. "It reminded me a little of a quality I've seen in some performers and politicians like Bill Clinton, who is famous for making the focus of his attention feel like the only other person in the room."
What these special figures have in common is their effect on others. They are perceived as being able to bring people to a higher state of being through their example, teachings, sufferings or touch.
"These people are operating at a level most of us are not, and they're not limited by denominations. The spirit blows where it will," said Thomas Craughwell, a devoted Catholic and author of several books on saints. "We don't run into them very often but when we do, we're rattled because it's like a brush with the divine and because we want a piece of what they have."
That kind of talk makes some scientists uncomfortable but also hungry to know more.
Anne Harrington, a professor of the history of science at Harvard, still marvels at how her colleagues responded to the Dalai Lama during a meeting with him in India a few years ago.
"There was one physicist who, after a few days with the Dalai Lama, tearfully confessed his wife had cancer," she said. "He wanted a blessing. Specifically, he wanted a red blessing string for his wife."
Years ago, stories about the Dalai Lama's healing presence would have placed him squarely in Ekman's "Oh, give me a break" camp.
Now, Ekman wants to know how the Dalai Lama cured him literally overnight of a temper that had him in analysis for years.
In May, Ekman crossed paths again with the Dalai Lama at a conference in Illinois and popped the question: What is it?
"The Dalai Lama smiled and said there are things science can't explain, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't try to," he said. "The Dalai Lama also said, 'Maybe science will figure these things out, which would be very nice. Maybe it won't.' "
Comment: It's called hypnosis - and often it is auto-suggestion. The mind can do many things, but it is YOUR mind that does it.
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"Do You See What I See?"
Jeff Wells
Rigorous Intuition
If a space ship touched down
In my yard I would run
Right towards it, yelling
"Greetings, let's go have some fun!" - Arthur's Songbook
On the evening of September 27 in the village of Premanon during France's seriously weird year of 1954, a 12-year old named Raymond Romand stepped out of his farmhouse and immediately saw in the yard an apparent humanoid entity "as tall as a door, and shiny, like a wardrobe with a mirror."
It approached Raymond and gently touched him, and he fell to the ground terrified. His nine-year old sister Janine and two other children, who had followed him outside to play, now saw it too. The entity moved away, and Raymond, encouraged by the presence of others, began throwing stones as it left. One sounded as though it struck something metallic. The entity left the yard for a downhill pasture, where the children observed it enter an object they described as a "ball of fire," which soon ascended into the sky.
The children knew their parents and their community well enough to realize this was something best kept to themselves. But the next day at school Raymond told a friend, who told others. When it was overheard by a teacher she called the police. At the spot of the "ball of fire," officers from Saint Claude and Les Rousses found four triangular indentations in the ground and a clearly defined area of compression 12-feet in diameter with grass heavily flattened, like a pinwheel, in a counterclockwise fashion. "In addition," Jacques Vallee writes in Challenge to Science, "a pole fence had been grazed and the bark of a pine tree was scorched five feet above the ground."
But to me, the most interesting aspect of the story is the reaction of Raymond's mother:
Throughout this investigation, Mrs Romand displayed a very strange attitude. She seemed deeply shocked by the whole affair and reluctant to let the interview take place. She refused to believe that Raymond might have seen something. A very pious, devout woman, she stated plainly that "flying saucers" and "Martians" could not exist and that she would rather believe that an evil spirit, or the Devil himself, was prompting her son to lie.... A newspaper reporter who went to Premanon and spoke to the woman remarked that her home was probably one of the few places in France where the subject of "flying saucers" had never been discussed at the dinner table. The children themselves never used the term "saucer" or "Martian." They said and repeated that they had seen a "ghost." The idea of a "flying saucer" was started by the adults in Premanon.
To Mrs Romand it became of paramount importance, for both her family's reputation in the community and her until-then unchallenged assumptions of the way things were, that her son must have made the whole thing up. Think about that for a moment, and you may see what a common response it is to information that transgresses our base-beliefs. Sometimes, the consequences of admitting certain realities are thought to be so grave we would rather believe a loved one a lunatic or a liar for testifying to them.
But Raymond and the children didn't change their story: whatever they had seen, it was what they had seen, and the best reference they had for it was not the "flying saucers" of adults' presumptions but rather, vaguely (and so perhaps most accurately), a "ghost." Raymond was punished for his resistance to admit a lie, and was confined to the house until the episode was behind them and normalcy restored.
Edward Ruppelt, director of Project Blue Book, came to respect the ineffability of the UFO phenomenon, yet he also said "next to the 'insufficient data' file was a file marked 'C.P.' This meant crackpot. Into this file went all reports from people who had...inspected flying saucers that had landed in the United States." To this, Vallee remarks that if "we do not refuse to study the UFO as an aerial object, we cannot logically refuse to study it when it has reported to have landed." Furthermore, "we cannot dispose of the sightings made by pilots, customs officers, and railroad engineers, people who are not prone to go berserk, by saying that they have 'merely' had hallucinations or invented a science fiction story."
We all have our meta-narratives about Life, the Universe and Everything by which we interpret events and perceive trends. We need them if we aspire to critical thought, but we also ought to be conscious of them and of what they represent: they're the mental scaffolding to support our modeling of the world and to build a case about it, they are not the world itself. And so they need to be flexible, and we need to be humble enough to reconfigure them when necessary according to new evidence and fresh insight. If not, we can find ourselves in rabbit holes of our own making that resemble nothing so much as The Princess Bride's battle of wits. ("Truly you have a dizzying intellect." "Wait 'til I get going!")
With respect to UFOs, it's a fairly common parapolitical conceit to subsume the entire phenomenon to mind control, and relegate everything that doesn't fit, Ruppelt-like, to the crackpot file. Such absolutism regards the paranormal as a competing and even threatening meta-narrative: if UFOs and "aliens" have been hoaxed and employed as screen memories, then that's regarded as the depth of their reality. No further investigation is required nor considered beneficial.
The Litvinenko story provides an interesting example of competing meta-narratives. The current Kremlin line is that the former spy was not assassinated, but rather unintentionally poisoned by polonium-210 he was peddling to al Qaeda for use as the trigger for a nuclear bomb. It's fascinating to watch this digested by some in the West who, if told a similar tale by the White House, would probably respond How gullible do they think we are? Polonium makes an unlikely choice of poison, unless the assassination was also a myth-making exercise to suggest the Chechens had the bomb. In any regard, answering the rhetorical Cui bono? is not so easy, unless you want to be a Wallace Shawn about it.
Senator Tim Johnson's critical illness is another. Could it be an assassination attempt? Naturally; it always could be. But let's keep our hypotheses in an open hand, and not a balled fist, especially at this early date. Otherwise our theorizing can lapse into soap opera every bit as unreal, though with the appearance of reality, as "Lonelygirl15"'s flight from a thelema-like cult. (Besides, Johnson's no Paul Wellstone, whom Dick Cheney threatened with "severe ramifications" for voting against the war. And to think the Republicans need another body in order to control the agenda is to mistake parties for partisanship and the Washington consensus for representative democracy. )
And regarding 9/11, "inside job" for some means making the hijackers disappear altogether, and so Daniel Hopsicker's ongoing investigation into Mohamed Atta's deep political demimonde will be dismissed as a "distraction," "disinfo," or a threat best disregarded. Their mental scaffolding has become a fetish, and is incapable of innovation or correction.
We need nimble minds about this stuff, and to always be ready to erect new scaffolding when the old no longer serves us well. And when we see a ghost, perhaps we ought to say we've seen one. Even if we don't believe in them.
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'Ridicule factor' fading, UFO buff says
By Chuck Tobin
Whitehorse Daily Star
Among the 26 people who attended a local UFO conference last Saturday night was a Wolf Creek resident who also saw two large orange balls floating over the area in February 2005.
A report of the sighting over the Mary Lake subdivision next door to Wolf Creek was filed with UFOBC by a couple who watched the unidentified flying objects together with the husband's parents.
It was later learned that others also witnessed the UFO event. They included a couple of building contractors who were in the subdivision looking at a house project with some children in their company.
It's reported the group actually took refuge under the house because the objects appeared so close there was a fear they would actually land on the roof.
The conference host was Martin Jasek, a former Yukon resident who helped found the Yukon UFO chapter in the 1990s. He said the Wolf Creek resident shared his story last weekend about seeing the orange objects the same night.
The numbers attending the conference were down from the 60 who showed up at the 2002 gathering and just a faction of the 300-plus for the inaugural millennium event in 2000.
Jasek, however, remains insistent that openly discussing and questioning the unexplained remains as important as ever.
"I would like to see it accepted by the mainstream," Jasek reiterated in an interview Monday. "I think it is all of our responsibility . . . to ask officials questions.
"So the next time there is an election, and somebody is knocking on your door asking for your support, ask them what they think about the UFO issue," he said, matter-of-factly.
Jasek, a professional engineer who studies river flows in B.C., came to Whitehorse specifically to host the conference, which was to mark the 10th anniversary of what Jasek refers to as the giant UFO sighting. The event was witnessed by at least 31 Yukoners, from motorists travelling the highway near Fox Lake, to residents of Carmacks, Pelly Crossing and Mayo.
He said it was unfortunate the giant UFO anniversary of Dec. 11, 1996 doesn't fit well with the approaching holiday season and the ongoing office Christmas parties, which he suspects are part of the reason for the lower numbers.
Jasek and conference co-ordinator Cher Davidson of Whitehorse travelled to Pelly Crossing last Sunday for a meeting sponsored by the Selkirk First Nation and organized by Jean Van Bibber.
Van Bibber, a candidate in October's territorial election, was witness to the 1996 sighting, and was one of three attending the meeting.
Still, Jasek and Davidson are not deterred, and plan to host another conference in 2008 at a different time.
"I have always been interested in weird stuff but I really did not get involved until the millennium conference," said Davidson, who has witnessed more than one inexplicable event.
One of the events involved a golden, V-shaped object in the sky over the area at the south end of Lake Laberge, she said.
Like Jasek, Davidson believes there is a need to maintain open discussions about UFOs, to advance the subject as something that needs to be talked about openly.
"I think the ridicule factor is slowly diminishing, but there is still a lot of it out there," she said. "But we will take your calls seriously, and we will listen to them and offer such support that we are able to."
Jasek: "The more people talk about it, the more people will take it seriously."
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Why are we so hooked on conspiracies?
Nick Cohen
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
As Alastair McWhirter, the Chief Constable of Suffolk, was begging his colleagues for help in the largest murder hunt of recent times, Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, delivered a report that looks like the greatest waste of police time ever. Nine years after the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed, at a cost of £3.7m, his 832-pages concluded by repeating what French detectives had said at the time: a drunk driver killed her.
If it had just been an investigation into a mysterious death, the Stevens inquiry would have been pointless - there was no mystery, so there was nothing worth investigating. But Stevens served a second purpose which has little to do with providing dry facts for a coroner. He has presided over Britain's first official inquiry into a conspiracy theory. The result is devastating: a relentless line-by-line refutation of Mohamed al-Fayed's elaborate story of how MI6 officers arranged the murder of the mother of their future sovereign because she was planning to marry Fayed's son, Dodi.
Nearly every chapter begins with a paragraph headed 'claims in support of conspiracy allegation' and ends with each and every claim lying in pieces. Fayed alleged that the princess and his son planned to marry because she was carrying his child. The royal family 'could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future King of England' so - QED - they ordered her murder. Well, asks Stevens, was Diana pregnant? Absolutely not, said the forensic scientist who tested a blood sample. Did anyone see the strobe light that blinded the driver in the seconds before the crash? No, no one saw it, says Stevens, because it wasn't there. What of Henri Paul, Fayed's driver? Was he truly drunk or acting on the orders of the British state? Of course he was drunk, says Stevens, his blood samples proved it.
Reading his findings is like watching someone tear down an elaborate folly. Brick by brick, he takes apart the baroque structure of fantasies and half-truths Fayed built to cover the inconvenient fact that the accident was the fault of a reckless driver in his employ.
There are many in Whitehall who feel that the effort is worthwhile. The allegation that they murdered the princess infuriates MI6 officers. They want the facts on the public record. Meanwhile, diplomats worry that conspiracy theories can be far more dangerous than those who laugh at them believe. With gruesome timing, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran made their point for them last week when he convened a modern equivalent of a Nuremberg rally in Tehran at which Islamist clerics, Ku Klux Klanners and European Nazis insisted the Holocaust was a myth. They had a political purpose that clearly was worth combating. Today's far right needs to deny the Nazi concentration camps for the same reason today's far left needs to deny Serb concentration camps in Bosnia. For modern fascists or Serb nationalists, the images of Jews at Auschwitz or starving Bosnian Muslims behind barbed wire have to be dismissed as the forgeries of conspirators because the crimes they record are huge obstacles in the way of a revival of support for fascism or Serb nationalism.
The Foreign Office must believe that the Diana conspiracy theory is a similarly malign myth. Within days of the princess's death, Colonel Gadaffi and thousands of others in Middle Eastern politics and journalism were agreeing with Fayed that the royals had ordered a murder to stop the princess marrying an Arab. I can see how diplomats could argue that they had to combat a fantasy that was adding to already Himalayan levels of suspicion about Britain. If they were to look more closely, however, they would see that this conspiracy theory doesn't fit neatly into a clash of civilisations argument between 'the West' and 'Islam'. It is much weirder than that.
After all, Fayed's greatest champion isn't the proprietor of some radical Islamist journal but the editor and readers of the Express, an old Tory newspaper which long ago lost the last of its marbles. Fayed himself isn't turning to Gadaffi for support but to Lyndon LaRouche, an American Trotskyist turned conservative loon who believes that Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are leading a British conspiracy to take over the United States with the help of Lord Rees-Mogg, the 'Joseph Goebbels of the British oligarchical mob'.
The great American novelist Don DeLillo, who has made paranoia his theme, long ago explained the appeal of Fayed and even LaRouche to otherwise reasonable people when he said that 'if we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme... [It] is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach.'
Nothing Lord Stevens can say will change the minds of the readers and journalists of the Express and millions of others who feel themselves to be DeLillo's outsiders. Like children with their noses pressed at a grimy window, they try to make a 'rough sense' of the murky world beyond by imagining that the British government - of all incompetent institutions - has the ruthless intelligence to get away with organising an astonishing crime. You can't explain away their fantasies with the half-rational explanation that they are manifestations of wider conflicts - not least because the overwhelming majority of Express readers aren't Muslim. They believe in this conspiracy theory, as they will believe in the next one, because conspiracy theories bring order to a chaotic universe. The hundreds of pages of patiently collected witness statements will make no difference to those who are too frightened to accept the messiness of life.
After the princess and his son died, Fayed proclaimed that: 'If this planet lasts for another thousand years people will still be talking about the terrible event we are now living through.'
The awful truth is that he is probably right.
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In God's Name
Religious offering: Faith, hope - and Western vanity - From Hair to There
Jerome Taylor
UK Independent
17 Dec 06
For the authorities who run Tirumala, the enormous volume of hair produced each day has spawned a lucrative business courtesy of the Western world's newly discovered desire for human hair extensions - a fashion that has become hugely popular over the past couple of years thanks to the endorsement of celebrities. The temple has been able to cash in on an incredible growth in demand. Thomas Gold, whose Italian-based company Great Lengths International buys hair only from Tirumala, says the price of hair from the temple is now 10 times what it was five years ago.
Dressed in her best yellow sari Mahibha Basu laughs nervously and threads her long, dark hair through her fingers as she sits on a stool awaiting her turn to see the barber. All around her, nimble-fingered professionals with razor-sharp blades are cutting hair with the kind of speed and precision that is only honed by years of practice. Ms Basu is not waiting for just another haircut. She is in one of Hinduism's holiest temples and is taking part in a pilgrimage of enormous religious significance.
Three minutes later she emerges into the crisp morning sunlight and makes her way to the main temple complex. With a bright red tikka mark adorning her forehead and coconut offerings in her hand, Ms Basu looks like any other Hindu pilgrim but with one startling difference. Her head has been completely shaved.
Her hair, meanwhile, has been carefully tied together and placed in a giant steel tub for storage. Within a matter of months Ms Basu's black tresses could be half a world away, adorning the head of any of the A-list celebrities in the West, from Paris Hilton to Victoria Beckham to Donatella Versace, who have embraced the fashion for hair extensions.
Ms Basu is just one of thousands of devotees who travel to Tirumala temple in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, one of Hinduism's most sacred religious sites and a place all Hindus are expected to visit at least once in their lifetime. Forty thousand pilgrims arrive every day to worship at the feet of Lord Venkateswara, a powerful avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu who, devotees believe, has the ability to grant the wish of any pilgrim who has made the journey to his temple. During major religious festivals the authorities prepare for up to 120,000 pilgrims to make the journey up the forest-clad mountain where the centuries-old Dravidian temple stands. So many people come to Tirumala, in fact, that many Indians claim the temple is the world's most popular pilgrimage site, even outstripping the Vatican and Mecca in the sheer numbers arriving on a daily basis.
Tirumala's draw is largely down to the awesome power of Lord Venkateswara. But what makes this particular temple stand out is the incredible number of people who have their heads shaved as part of the worshipping ritual in a tradition known as "tonsuring". Practised by Hindus for thousands of years, it symbolises the devotee's desire to overcome their ego, a fundamental teaching of the Hindu faith. But nowhere is tonsuring more enthusiastically practised than at Tirumala.
Ms Basu has travelled 1,500 miles from her native Bengal to ask the presiding deity to grant her most fervent wish. Four years ago she fell pregnant but miscarried shortly afterwards. "Now I am trying to get pregnant again," she says. "I have come here to ask the god to grant me and my husband a child."
In one of the many buildings surrounding the main complex, pilgrims queue in long snaking lines as they wait to see one of the temple's 600 barbers. Working in shifts around the clock and using nothing but a sharp razor, water and immense skill they can cut off a pilgrim's hair in a matter of minutes.
The effect is astonishing. All around the temple thousands of bald devotees stand in groups, their laughter echoing off the walls as they joke and point at each other's new, unfamiliar look. Bald-headed children run between the multitude of hat wallahs that line the surrounding streets selling a vast array of baseball caps to protect heads from the baking sun.
For the authorities who run Tirumala, the enormous volume of hair produced each day has spawned a lucrative business courtesy of the Western world's newly discovered desire for human hair extensions - a fashion that has become hugely popular over the past couple of years thanks to the endorsement of celebrities. The temple has been able to cash in on an incredible growth in demand. Thomas Gold, whose Italian-based company Great Lengths International buys hair only from Tirumala, says the price of hair from the temple is now 10 times what it was five years ago.
"It's really amazing how the price has just shot up every year," he says from his company headquarters in Rome. "The Indians started understanding that this was a booming business and that we would still purchase at whatever price."
The industry has also benefited from a shift in the public's perception of hair extensions. "Up until five or six years ago," says Mr Gold, "it was unthinkable for a woman to say 'Look I'm wearing hair extensions'. Now women will positively show them off to their friends. The taboo has been abolished."
The global hair industry is now worth an estimated £160m and is growing by 25 to 30 per cent each year. Indian hair is particularly sought after because it is cheaper than European varieties and will not have been chemically treated or dyed. Moreover Chinese hair, which globally still makes up the majority of hair exports, is considered too coarse to make good hair extensions.
Over the course of a year, the temple auctions 90 tons of hair, providing revenue of around £3.7m which is then ploughed back into charitable causes, including a number of specialist hospitals. "The money from hair is significant but it isn't our main source of income," says the temple's executive officer, APVN Sarma. "Our primary source is donations but the income from hair is still very important."
The temple has an annual budget of £90m, making it one of the richest religious institutions in India and also one of the country's largest charities. Part of the reason why Tirumala is so popular with devotees and donors is the temple's long tradition of welcoming all visitors regardless of caste and religion. It is one of the few major Hindu temples that allows non-Hindus to enter the inner sanctum that holds the deity.
"There is no shrine in India where so many subdivisions of Hinduism recognise this as a holy place," says Mr Sarma. "We even have a number of Muslim and Christian devotees. It has always been a temple where other religions are recognised." But for the temple authorities, hair wholesalers and the thousands of low-income Indians employed in the country's hair trade, the popularity of hair extensions could not have come at a more opportune time. Two years ago the Indian hair market was on the verge of collapse thanks to a surprise religious ruling from an orthodox rabbi.
Until then Tirumala's main clients were not the exclusive hair salons of Mayfair and Rodeo Drive but the Jewish wig makers of Brooklyn who provide many orthodox women with sheitels to cover their hair. The business, much of which is run from New York, is a lucrative one with some of the costlier wigs selling for anything up to $4,000.
Indian hair was popular with sheitel makers for the same reasons it is now popular for hair extensions; it was cheaper than European hair but equally thick and glossy. But after travelling to Tirumala in 2004 a London-based Rabbi, Dayan Aharon Dovid Dunner, issued a decree arguing that sheitels made from Indian hair were not kosher because the hair came from an idolatrous ritual. Although Judaism follows no central religious authority and even though a majority of rabbis disagreed with Rabbi Dunner's ruling, the orthodox community obeyed the decree almost unanimously. From Brooklyn to Tel Aviv giant bonfires were erected as women burnt their Indian sheitels. "It was chaos," says one manufacturer who asked not to be named. "Overnight sales of Indian hair dried up as everyone frantically bought up European wigs. No one uses Indian hair now."
Hair wholesalers in India saw their market disappear over-night. Yet salvation came in the most unlikely form: the hair extension-loving celebrity, and soon the industry was booming again.
As the hair extension industry grows so do the question marks over where and how the hair in our salons came to be there. Stories have emerged of impoverished European women desperately selling hair that took them years to grow. Even worse, human rights groups have made accusations that much of China's hair comes from labour camps. But for those clients worried about the moral repercussions of buying human hair for their extensions, Indian temple hair has the added bonus of being one of the most ethical sources not only because the money goes to charity but also because the hair is given up wholly voluntarily.
It is a fact that has not gone unnoticed by those wishing to market temple hair to its full capacity. "There is nothing to hide about this beautiful business. It's a win-win situation for everyone," says Mr Gold, who feels more clients are starting to insist on ethically-sourced hair.
It is a wonderful irony that hair discarded by pilgrims in order to prove they can overcome their ego is then shipped and sold to Westerners looking to improve their physical appearance and self-confidence. The bizarre role reversal the hair goes through is not lost on the temple authorities. "People in this part of the world tonsure their hair to lose their pride," says Ramapulla Reddy, one of the temple's senior administrators. "On the other side of the world they do the opposite."
Even though the vast majority of devotees at Tirumala have little idea what lies in store for their hair, they seem unconcerned by the idea. "I don't care where the hair goes afterwards," laughs D Vasudevarao, a pilgrim who has been coming to Tirumala for 20 years. "What is most important to me is that I have left my ego outside the temple. What happens to the hair afterwards is immaterial."
For Ms Basu the idea that her hair might one day adorn someone else's head is a delightful surprise. "I think it's wonderful that my hair might be used in the West to make someone happy," she says. "Why not? I have no need for it."
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America's religious right: God's own country
By Robert Lanham
UK Independent
16 Dec 06
They hate gays and abortion, and love George W Bush. They worship in churches the size of shopping malls, and dominate the nation's - and the world's - political agenda. But is the Christian backlash finally starting against America's religious right?
When I met Ted Haggard in his New Life Church office last autumn, he was on his way to Denver, Colorado. He often caught flights out of the city, which was a short drive from his home in Colorado Springs, the mountainside town commonly referred to as the "evangelical Vatican", given its enormous born-again community and its abundance of "Welcome to Bush country" bumper stickers.
While I drank a Starbucks cappuccino I'd purchased in the food court of his 14,000-member megachurch, we discussed his friendship with George Bush, his belief that pro-business capitalism was "scriptural", and his best-selling book, The Jerusalem Diet: The "One Day" Approach to Reach Your Ideal Weight - and Stay There.
His ongoing methamphetamine-fuelled affair with a gay prostitute who lived in Denver wasn't mentioned that day, but Haggard did cite his belief that "the homosexual agenda" was a devastating "sin" that was dangerous to the future of America.
Before his fall from grace, Haggard was the poster child of America's religious right, a nationalistic stepchild of Protestantism that is staunchly conservative, xenophobic, politically active, predominately Caucasian and, like Haggard, curiously preoccupied with gay culture.
I found Haggard's obsession with abortion and same-sex marriage - and the religious right's for that matter - quite odd. Especially given the enormous, sword-toting, homoerotic angel statue I'd seen in Pastor Ted's church lobby.
The day I met Haggard, he stated unequivocally that he was "a right-wing religious conservative" whose "only disagreement" with George Bush concerned "what type of truck to drive". The pastor spoke with the President weekly to discuss policy.
Given that 79 per cent of the 26.5m evangelicals voted to re-elect Bush, much of the evangelical community apparently shares Haggard's sentiments. And like Haggard, most have also placed abortion and gay marriage at the top of their list as issues about which Christians should be most concerned.
Despite a rapid-fire onslaught of scandals that has blown away the careers of several of the religious right's darlings - Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Mark Foley come to mind - the "values voters'" loyalty to the Republican, pro-business, pro-family platform to which Haggard subscribed has scarcely been shaken. Exit polls indicated 70 per cent of all white evangelicals voted for Republican Congressional candidates in America's recent midterm elections, a decline of a mere 2 per cent from 2004. The Congressional balance has tipped to the left, but most evangelicals appear to be as conservative as ever.
To say the United States is a religious country is an understatement. According to polls, an estimated 47 per cent of American adults claim to be "born-again" or evangelical. Fifty-nine per cent believe that the Apocalypse prophesied in the book of Revelations (omega) will come true. There's a $25m (£12.7m) Christian museum being built in Kentucky, which will teach children that their ancestors played with dinosaurs in the days of Noah. An exhibit in this soon-to-open Creation Museum will feature a life-sized triceratops fitted with a riding saddle.
But the reach of the religious right extends well beyond the Wal-Mart-sized megachurches speckling the heartland. Much of the political leadership on Capitol Hill claim to be evangelical as well. George W Bush, after all, reportedly became born-again after being meeting Arthur Blessitt, a travelling preacher who carried a 12ft cross across the United States. In 2004, 42 Senators received perfect scores from the Christian Coalition, meaning they voted the way the religious right wanted them to 100 per cent of the time. There's even an evangelical college on the outskirts of Washington - Patrick Henry College, the so-called "Harvard for Homeschoolers" - that has been securing high-level staff jobs in Congress and the White House for its graduates. Students at Patrick Henry are all obliged to sign a statement of faith that claims non-Christians will be "confined in conscious torment for eternity".
Still, worry as secularists may, the US hasn't become more religious. According to most reports, church membership has actually remained constant for the last several decades. The change that has taken place among evangelicals is their dramatic shift to the right politically, with church attendance being the number-one indicator of party alliance in the US. According to a Gallup Poll, people who attend church at least once a week are nearly guaranteed to vote Republican.
Clearly the Haggard scandal was the perfect opportunity for evangelicals to abandon partisanship and reposition their focus away from sexual issues. Their opportunity to embrace a broader social agenda that included moral issues such as poverty, Aids, and the environment. Some already have.
Megachurch pastor Rick Warren has long been up to the challenge. A vocal advocate of broadening the religious right's social agenda and breaking out of the pro-family shell, Warren's been conducting HIV tests at his church to encourage evangelicals to get involved with the global Aids pandemic. Frustratingly, instead of following his lead, many conservative evangelicals criticised the pastor earlier this month for inviting Democratic Senator Barack Obama to address the pandemic at his church, since Obama is pro-choice.
At the same time, North Carolina's Baptist State Convention has stayed the pro-family course by continuing to obsess over homosexuality. It has passed stringent new guidelines in regard to homosexuality that stop just shy of ousting pastors who've ever listened to an Elton John song.
Most tellingly, a few days after the Haggard scandal broke it was announced that the disgraced pastor was to undergo an intensive anti-gay "restoration" programme, overseen in part by HB London, a representative from the pro-family ministry Focus on the Family. London's credentials include having written the book Love Wins Out, which teaches that homosexuality is a sickness that can be cured. (Incidentally, the founding director of Focus on the Family's own "ex-gay" programme, John Paulk, was the subject of another scandal several years ago when he was spotted in a gay nightclub.)
Those who try to remedy the religious right's pro-family tunnel vision, like Warren, are often met with staunch resistance from its established leaders. The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, Joel Hunter, stepped down this month, citing his frustration at the group's refusal to adopt a broader social agenda. In his letter of resignation he wrote "I wanted to expand the issues from only moral ones - such as opposing abortion and redefining marriage - to include compassion issues, such as poverty, justice and creation care."
Hunter told the New York Times that the leadership at the Christian Coalition told him that getting proactive about global warming, poverty, and Aids "just isn't for us" because "it won't speak to our base".
Evidently, the Jesus who the religious right prays to is more concerned with boycotting Hollywood for releasing Brokeback Mountain than with feeding the hungry or global warming.
This dramatic shift to the right among evangelicals in America formally began in the late 1970s when fundamentalist Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell founded the Christian political action committee The Moral Majority, to mobilise Christians away from Jimmy Carter, a self-proclaimed evangelical president who many Christians loathed given his comparatively liberal stance on "values" issues such as abortion and women's rights.
With his iconic rally cry "get 'em saved, get 'em baptised, get 'em registered," Falwell's Moral Majority emerged on the political scene and began recruiting tens of millions of conservative voters from the nation's churches, a trend that continues today.
At the time, Falwell's decision to politically mobilise the church was a bold one. Many evangelicals believed that politics should be the domain of politicians, not fire-and-brimstone pastors. However, Falwell found encouragement from key Republican insiders such as Paul Weyrich, the so-called father of the religious right. In addition to being a socially conservative Catholic, Weyrich was the founder of the Heritage Foundation, the think-tank that is credited for creating the blueprint for the pro-business, trickle-down tax ideology that has come to define the Republican Party.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan became the first President to come to power with the help of what has come to be known as the religious right. And pro-business Republicans and the religious right have been dancing hand-in-hand ever since. Explaining this curious alliance, Mark Noll, the author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, claims that (omega) the politically conservative evangelical movement that began in the 1970s is an "American brand of Protestant Christianity". He's right. After all, Jesus didn't give too many sermons on trickle-down economics and, if he were to return today, he'd assuredly be more concerned with the war in Iraq than the "war on Christmas".
"The best public contribution of religion," writes Jim Wallis in his best-selling book God's Politics, "is precisely not to be ideologically predictable or a loyal partisan."
The unofficial spokesperson for the evangelical left in America and head of the social justice organisation Sojourners/Call to Renewal, Wallis's message is that equating your faith with the pro-family movement, Bush's pre-emptive war policy, and the divisive goals of the religious right is dangerous to Christianity.
"How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and pro-American?" asks Wallis, noting that the Bible mentions helping the poor 3,000 times. Notably, there are precisely zero Bible passages about abortion, waterboarding, or a citizen's God-given right to own a semi-automatic weapon.
Wallis's message has begun to resonate with some progressive Christians who feel that their faith has been hijacked by the religious right and conservative evangelicals who are more obsessed with banning "demonic" Harry Potter books than social activism.
When George Bush, for instance, visited the Michigan-based Christian university Calvin College last year to deliver a speech, he expected to be met by a receptive crowd of the religious right. Instead, just prior to the speech, a professor at Calvin surprised many by publishing a letter in the local paper in protest at Bush's visit. Even more surprising, given the College's conservative evangelical credentials, the letter was signed by a third of Calvin's staff and over 100 members of its student body. "As Christians," the letter stated, "we believe [the Bush] administration has... launched an unjust and unjustified war... has taken actions that favour the wealthy... has fostered intolerance and divisiveness... [and] we believe your environmental policies have harmed creation."
On the day of Bush's commencement, approximately a quarter of the student body wore badges attached to their gowns that cited Wallis's signature phrase: "God is not a Republican or a Democrat."
Acknowledging the dissenting voice among evangelicals that Wallis has come to embody, John Green, senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, says there is "an enormous amount of debate" among evangelicals about the narrow agenda of the religious right.
"People like Wallis who want a broader agenda," says Green, "believe that evangelicals can be influential on a lot of different social issues. Those who believe the agenda should stay narrow are afraid that getting involved in protecting the environment or helping the poor will dilute their strength on what they regard as the important issues: abortion and same-sex marriage."
Green says that it's too soon to know which side will prevail, but says: "The leaders who want a broader agenda have not yet moved a majority of the rank-and-file evangelicals to their side."
When Ted Haggard was outed by his own John in November, the illicit details of his decades-long dance with "devastating sin" were forced out of the closet. He quickly resigned his post as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a 30m-member coalition of evangelical churches. He was asked to step down as pastor of New Life Church.
The tell-all confessions provided by his former lover - Haggard apparently fantasised about gay orgies and allegedly took methamphetamine before having sex with his wife - were undoubtedly devastating to Haggard's wife and five children.
As icing on the cake, Haggard's muscle-bound lover, Mike Jones, even criticised Pastor Ted's skills in the bedroom on the Michelangelo Signorile radio show. "I can't say he was very good at it," said Jones.
The day the scandal broke, I decided to contact a New Life congregant I'd met while visiting Colorado Springs, a 30-year-old evangelical I'll call Anthony. I was curious to see how Anthony and the New Life congregation were responding to the fall-out. Anthony, who shared Haggard's pro-family politics and had even equated gay sex with bestiality, had previously confessed to me that he considered Haggard to be his spiritual mentor. Could Haggard's betrayal open the door for more acceptance of homosexuality at New Life, I wondered?
When I contacted Anthony, he told me Haggard's accuser was assuredly a phony. An opportunist who was simply playing politics. After all, many states were about to vote on whether to officially define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
As the facts began to unfold and Haggard confessed to being "a deceiver and a liar", I contacted Anthony again and quickly found a reply in my inbox.
Evidently, Haggard's confession and prompt resignation had forced Anthony to accept the hypocrisy of his spiritual guru. He opened his email to me by apologising for Haggard's actions. I felt this unnecessary; it was not Anthony who had lied.
"The reason why there was so much shame associated in this," his email went on, "is because it was a homosexual encounter."
What about Haggard's wife and children, I wanted to ask? What about the shamefulness of his hypocrisy? Still, I knew such questions were pointless. Like most evangelicals I'd met at New Life Church, Anthony's "pro-family" tunnel vision had caused him to lose perspective of the larger picture.
The 2008 presidential elections are still a long two years away, but the front-running candidates are already beginning to position themselves. Given the power of the religious right in America, that includes trying to appeal to white evangelicals.
Moderate Republican Senator John McCain has expressed interest in running. Even though McCain has traditionally been critical of the religious right (he referred to Jerry Falwell as an "agent of intolerance" in 2000), he's begun to embrace some of their more controversial players. This year, McCain delivered the commencement speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University and even hired the debating coach from this fundamentalist Christian university as an advisor.
The presumed Democratic presidential frontrunner, Senator Hillary Clinton, has been working to appeal to the religious right too. Recently, Clinton has been voicing support for Bush's faith-based initiatives and softening her language on abortion, which she recently called a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women". Hillary is apparently ignoring Falwell's claim the only thing that would better "motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican" would be "a run by the devil himself".
The religious right's current candidate of choice is Republican Senator Sam Brownback, a Roman Catholic who is giving "prayerful consideration" to a bid in 2008. The loyally pro-family candidate for "foetal citizens", Brownback has called abortion the contemporary "holocaust". Brownback opposes gay marriage, assisted suicide, stem-cell research, and famously washed the feet of one of his aides, a symbolic reference to Christ. Most strikingly, Brownback is the co-sponsor of the proposed Constitution Restoration Act. This theocratic piece of legislation is an attempt to bar the federal courts from making rulings on cases that involve faith, such as prayer in school. The bill confirms "God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."
So when Brownback shared a stage with Democrat Senator Barack Obama (who, like Brownback, had just confirmed his interest in potentially running for president in 2008) at Pastor Rick Warren's Aids conference earlier this month, Obama's attendance stirred controversy, but no one protested Brownback's invitation to speak at the event.
Brownback greeted Obama with a teasing, "Welcome to my house," acknowledging the Democratic party's perceived religion deficit.
"There is one thing I've got to say, Sam," retorted Obama. "This is my house, too. This is God's house."
Whether the evangelical community will come to agree with Obama, or any Democratic politician for that matter, is something only God can predict.
Robert Lanham is the author of 'The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right' and 'The Hipster Handbook', and is the founder of the blog www.evangelicalright.com
God squad: the religious right's key players
James Dobson, The Protestant Pope
The founder of the Colorado Springs-based ministry Focus on the Family - which receives so much mail it has its own postal code - Dobson is the US's most powerful evangelical leader. The ministry's pro-family videos, newsletters, books, and radio show reach more than 200m people daily. Tellingly, Dobson was privy to inside information on Bush's Supreme Court nominees weeks before most members of Congress. Not to be outdone by the Rev Jerry Falwell, who accused the Teletubby Tinky Winky of being gay, Dobson has publicly questioned the sexuality of SpongeBob Squarepants.
Tim LaHaye, The evangelical Stephen King
The Religious Right's patron saint of Armageddon paranoia. His best-selling books have sold 62m-plus copies and have popularised the concept of the "Rapture" - the belief that Christians will soon be whisked away into heaven while the non-Christians are all left behind. After the Rapture, LaHaye instructs, the antichrist will rule the earth and reside in a temple Saddam Hussein supposedly built in Iraq using an endowment given to him by a "sun worshipper". This co-founder of the Moral Majority also authored a sex manual that argues that Christian women are "more orgasmic".
Pat Robertson, The Tourettes-vangelist
This former presidential candidate is the host of the world's most-watched Christian show, The 700 Club. When he's not founding influential evangelical groups, Robertson calls for the assassination of world leaders, as he recently did for Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. His Christian charity, Operation Blessing, receives $14.4m annually in federal funding, under Bush's faith-based initiatives plan. Recently, Robertson was scrutinised for claiming that his patented "age-defying protein shake" enabled him to leg-press 2,000 pounds. Robertson's latest project - the construction of a Christian theme park in Israel - was placed on hold when he infuriated Israeli leaders by claiming that Ariel Sharon's stroke was "God's punishment".
Roy Moore, The Ten Commandments Judge
Alabama's so-called "Ten Commandments Judge" (below) caused a stir when he defied a court order to have the 5,000lb Ten Commandments monument removed from his courthouse. Protestors camped outside for days to protest the removal of "Roy's Rock". When Moore's fanclub finally left in defeat, "the limestone steps had to be pressure-washed" reports Atlantic Monthly, "to remove the smell of urine." Moore has become the unofficial spokesperson for Christian "Dominionism" in America; the belief that government should be based on biblical law.
John Hagee, The Zionist Goy
In his best-selling book Jerusalem Countdown, the Rev John Hagee argues for the necessity of a pre-emptive military strike on Iran to fulfil the biblical prophecies needed to bring about the Second Coming of Christ. A televangelist with an audience of millions, Hagee says Christians have a "biblical mandate" to protect Israel, insisting that the increased violence in the Jewish state is a sign that the Rapture is imminent. In 2006, Hagee founded the political lobby, Christians United for Israel, and has since enlisted many of America's top evangelical leaders as members.
Flocking in: the evangelical megachurches
Radiant Church Surprise, Arizona; members: 6,000
Radiant spends $16,000 annually on Krispy Kreme donuts. Pastor McFarland told the New York Times: ''We want the church to look like a mall, so you come in and say, 'Dude, where's the cinema?' "
Brentwood Baptist Church Houston, Texas; members: 12,000
Has its own McDonald's, complete with golden arches and a drive-thru.
Saddleback Church Lake Forest, California; members: 22,000
(below) Pastor Rick Warren wrote the best-selling non-fiction book in the US's history: The Purpose Driven Life. Bar codes are assigned to babies in the nursery to avoid losing them.
The Potter's House Dallas, Texas; members: 28,000
Led by the influential African-American pastor, TD Jakes, it has its own publishing house, daily talk show, a prison ministry that broadcasts to over 260 prisons, and a recording studio that has produced a Grammy-award-winning record.
Lakewood Church Houston, Texas; members: 30,000
The largest megachurch in the US (top). Joel Osteen's church meets in the former home of the Houston Rockets and has already outgrown the arena. Plans have been discussed to "franchise" the church in other cities.
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Catholic church in new sex abuse row
Antony Barnett, investigations editor
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
Diocese is shaken as former altar boy takes legal action claiming that negligence exposed him to priest who was 'a danger to children'
The Catholic church faces fresh allegations of turning a blind eye to paedophilia after an Observer investigation revealed that one of its priests was allowed to continue working despite warnings he posed a danger to children.
The priest, Father David Crowley, went on to rape a 10-year-old altar boy, whom he continued to abuse until 1995. Now the victim has spoken publicly for the first time about his ordeal in order to expose the 'scandalous' way he says the church has behaved. He has accused the Rt Rev David Konstant, former Bishop of Leeds, of failing to stop Crowley despite having evidence that the priest was a sex risk to children. In 1997 Crowley was jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to abusing boys for more than a decade.
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Konstant was Bishop of Leeds for 19 years, chairman of the Catholic Education Service and headed the church's international affairs committee under Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster.
Documents show that in 1987 while Konstant was Bishop of Leeds, he was told of an incident where Crowley had 'facilitated' sexual activities between young boys in Huddersfield after allowing them to drink alcohol. A letter seen by The Observer shows that on 12 March that year, Konstant wrote to Crowley telling him that 'the grave scandal' means 'it will not be possible for you to work again as a priest in this diocese'.
A church report that month stated: 'He [Crowley] does not fit into the usual psychological profile of a true paedophile. The behaviour would not be too alarming in an early adolescent boy. In an adult [33 years old] who has a sacred trust and is a member of the clergy it is of course enormously serious and utterly inappropriate and a bar to his practising his priesthood. He has already been told that there is no possibility of his ever functioning as a priest in the diocese of Leeds.'
A later report concluded that although he behaved in a 'grossly unsuitable way, he is not a paedophile'. It said his behaviour was primarily caused by the misuse of alcohol and 'emotional immaturity'.
Rather than report the incident to the police, Konstant, who had suspended Crowley, sent him for 'counselling'. Within a few months Konstant helped Crowley to find a new post in Devon. He was made to sign a contract to restrict his contact with young people, but went on to abuse in Torquay and Barnstaple. Even though concerns were raised about his continued contact with young boys in the south of England, he was allowed to return to Yorkshire - despite Konstant's earlier pledge that he would never again work as a priest in the diocese of Leeds - and entered into another period of sexual abuse.
Paul (not his real name) was among Crowley's victims when the priest returned to Yorkshire. He was raped by Crowley as a 10-year-old altar boy. Over four years from 1991, Paul was subject to frequent sexual abuse by the priest who got other boys to perform sex acts on him. 'He wouldn't care what was happening,' Paul said. 'Even if there was a funeral taking place or a wedding, he would wait for his opportunity. Sometimes he would be very aggressive, pushing me down on the floor and assaulting me.'
Paul only went to the police in 2004 after he had plucked up the courage to tell his family. By then, Crowley was in prison. He had been arrested while working as a hospital chaplain in Bradford and was jailed in 1998 for nine years after admitting a string of sex attacks on young boys over an 11-year period. He pleaded guilty to 12 offences of indecent assault on boys under 16 and three of indecency with a child. In prison Crowley admitted to the police that he had abused Paul, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was no public interest in staging another trial.
Paul is now taking legal action against Konstant and the diocese for negligence, but they are refusing to admit liability. The church argues that at the time there were 'no allegations of paedophilic activity' made against Crowley and they took appropriate steps. Lawyers for the trustees of the diocese claim the events happened too long ago and they have been advised that Konstant is extremely ill and unable to assist. This is challenged by Paul and his lawyers who say Konstant has been involved in a number of public activities since retiring. Konstant, 76, suffered a minor stroke in 2001, but continued working as Bishop of Leeds until 2004. In July this year he received an honorary degree from the University of Bradford, where he made a speech and attended a dinner.
An academic present at the dinner has said in a witness statement: 'He appeared to have no problems in speaking or walking around. There was no visible indication he was suffering from any form of illness or infirmity.' In October, Konstant presided at a celebratory Mass to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of St Joseph's church in Wetherby and last month he spoke at the reopening of the cathedral church of St Anne in Leeds. However, illness recently prevented him attending a special Mass for his successor as Bishop of Leeds.
Paul is furious at how the church has behaved as he has attempted to get justice and an apology. Two years ago he attempted suicide. 'The physical side of this was terrible,' he said, 'but the way the church has behaved since I decided to come forward has been even worse. It has been a kind of excruciating mental torture. Why don't they just say sorry and offer to help me and my family? They knew this priest was a danger to children but did nothing, and he went on to destroy the lives of dozens of boys, including my own.'
Paul's lawyer, Richard Scorer of Pannone, a Manchester law firm, said: 'Considering all the public engagements Bishop Konstant has been involved in over the past few months, I was astonished when they told me he was too ill to assist the court.'
The Observer tried to contact Konstant, but he refused to talk on the phone or be interviewed. He said: 'I have nothing to say about this. I am retired.'
A spokesman for the diocese of Leeds said: 'Neither Bishop David Konstant, nor the diocese of Leeds, has been asked whether the bishop's state of health prevented him responding to questions about this litigation. The suggestion that his health had become an issue has come as a complete surprise both to the bishop and to his successor, Arthur Roche.
'The Crowley case dates back to the Eighties and Nineties. The diocese reported the matter to the police when it first became aware of the allegations.'
This is not the first time the diocese has been involved in a sex abuse scandal. Earlier this year, The Observer reported how it had covered up the criminal past of paedophile priest, Neil Gallanagh, and gave him a job in a school for deaf children, where he went on to sexually assault vulnerable young boys.
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Solved at last: the burning mystery of Joan of Arc
Alex Duval Smith in Paris
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer
France's favourite saint was martyred by her English foes, who ordered her remains to be cast into the Seine. Now scientists believe they have established the facts surrounding her execution
Catholic saint, national icon and one of the world's most famous military leaders, Joan of Arc has been a subject of fascination for the French for almost six centuries. Now academics believe they are close to proving that controversial relics are actually those of the real-life Maid of Orleans.
Much is unknown about the life of the warrior. Facts have often been mixed with myth and theory. But what is generally agreed is that Joan's body was burnt three times by the English and ashes from the foot of the pyre were supposedly discovered in 1867, lurking in the Paris loft of an apothecary .
French scientists, who have been studying those ashes, confirmed yesterday that a piece of cloth found among the remains may have been a fragment of Joan of Arc's gown. A new series of DNA tests of bones and tissue found among the ashes is expected to confirm that they belong to a female.
These initial discoveries suggest recent controversial claims surrounding the death of Joan of Arc are wrong. One theory, put forward by Ukrainian anthropologist Sergey Gorbenko, suggested Joan was not even burnt at the stake but lived to the age of 57. Another theory is that she was a man.
But the initial discoveries by forensic anthropologist Philippe Charlier, the project's leader, indicate that the standard version of Joan of Arc's death - by being burnt as a witch by the English - appears to be right, although the research has added intriguing detail to the story of her execution. Further tests were needed, said Charlier.
Tests on one bone found in the relics showed it was the femur of a cat. The discovery tallies with the medieval practice of throwing a black cat on a witch's pyre so as to appease the devil, according to Charlier. 'However, this femur is not burnt - it just looks it - so maybe we are just dealing with a passing cat,' he said.
Charlier said the most exciting discovery by his 18-strong team at the Hôpital Raymond Poincare near Paris was in the carbon-dating of the piece of cloth. 'It is linen of high quality and we can confirm that it dates from the 15th century. It could have been a robe or a bag.'
According to historians, Joan of Arc was 19 when she was burnt at the stake in Rouen by the English on 30 May, 1431. She died of smoke inhalation. The Cardinal of Winchester is recorded as having ordered her to be burnt a second time. Her organs still survived this fire, so a third burning was ordered to destroy the body completely. Her cinders and debris were to be thrown into the Seine.
However, in 1867 ashes that were said to include remains of Joan of Arc were found in the Paris loft of an apothecary. These were transferred to a museum in Chinon where they are still kept.
Charlier said his team's findings were preliminary and that work would continue at least until February next year. He added that he expected his team would be able to establish that the Chinon remains belonged to 'a female juvenile who was burnt several times at short intervals'. Charlier said pieces of wood among the relics, as well as the quality and age of the linen cloth should allow his team to date them within a 30-year range of accuracy and establish which region of France they are from.
'We are getting closer. Even though burning witches was a fairly common practice in those days, it is not as though 1,000 women were burnt three times in Rouen in 1431. It is also helpful for us - in terms of determining whether the relics are fakes or not - that the cult that has grown up around Joan of Arc is relatively recent. No one took much notice of her for the preceding 400 years. So there aren't dozens of boxes of relics kicking around, all claiming to be hers.'
Charlier came to prominence last year when he ascertained that Agnes Sorel, the favourite of King Charles VII, died from mercury poisoning. He took an interest in Joan of Arc because her presumed remains were stored in the same Chinon museum as those of Sorel.
An illiterate farm girl from Lorraine in eastern France, Joan of Arc disguised herself as a man in her campaigns. During her battles against the English and armies of the Duke of Burgundy, Joan was said to hear voices from a trio of saints telling her to deliver France from her enemies. She was finally captured and sold to the English, who had her tried for witchcraft in Rouen.
Joan of Arc was declared a saint in 1920. During the Second World War, both Vichy France and the French resistance claimed Joan of Arc as a national symbol for their cause.
Hits and myths
The Shroud of Turin was believed to be Christ's burial garment from the time of its emergence in 1354. At its first exhibition in 1389, it was denounced as a fake by the Bishop of Troyes. Ever since its authenticity has been questioned. Carbon dating of the cloth in 1988 determined that it originated sometime between 1260 and 1390. The Catholic Church has accepted that the shroud may not be genuine, but says it should still be revered because it bears an inspiring image of Jesus.
An exhibition in Russia in 2000 included a display of a fragment of Hitler's skull. Organisers of 'The Agony of the Third Reich: Retribution' said the skull was authentic, but this claim has been rejected by some experts. Hitler shot himself in his Berlin bunker in 1945, and his body was burnt and buried in a shallow grave. The facts about what happened to his remains have not been fully established.
A coffin held in church in Padua since 1172 may contain the remains of St Luke. Tests carried out by scientists in 2001 confirmed it was of the same Syrian origin as the author of the third Gospel. Carbon-dating tests suggested the body belonged to someone who died in the period of Luke's death, believed to be around AD 84.
Hair and fragments of the funeral cloth from the mummy of Ramses II were recently posted for sale on the internet. Police arrested the vendor, a postman from France, who said he had been given the pieces by his father, a researcher on a team that analysed the mummy in the 1970s. Ramses the Great's reign, between 1279 and 1213 BC, was the second longest in Egyptian history.
Alan Power
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When was Jesus born?
By Rony V. Diaz
Manila Times
17 Dec 06
Now is as good a time as any to revisit the question that has vexed historians and Biblical scholars for over 2,000 years: when was Jesus Christ born?
They agree that it was not in 1 AD. Whether it was in December is a matter of lively conjecture.
The calendar that we use today is based on the one that Julius Caesar decreed on January 1, 45 BC that starts from the founding of Rome in the 1st century BC.
In the sixth century, Dionysius Exiguus, a monk, proposed that the Christian era be made to commence on a date of unquestioned religious significance, the supposed date of the birth of Jesus Christ.
With this system, the BC and AD sequences began. Recently, however, BC or Before Christ, was changed to BCE, or Before the Christian Era, and AD (Anno Domini, in the year of the Lord) became CE, or Christian Era. I shall be using the new markers in this column.
The exact date of Jesus's birth could have been established if we knew for certain how old he was when he was crucified because on that day there was a lunar eclipse that the British historian, Colin Humphreys, dated Friday, April 3, 33 CE.
Sadly we don't know how old Jesus was when he was crucified. Some say that he was "about thirty" and another that he "was not yet fifty."
The Bible remains the principal source of clues.
Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus Caesar, 44 BCE to 14 CE. Matthew and Luke in their Gospels said that Jesus was born during the regency of Herod the Great who died in the spring of 4 BCE. But there are also records that show that Herod died in 5 BCE, 1 BCE and 1 CE.
He was succeeded by Herod Antipas (21 BCE-39 CE). During this period Jesus was active as a preacher and miracle worker.
We know from Matthew (2:16) that "Herod . . . killed all children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under. . . ." This implies that Jesus was born at least 2 years before Herod's death.
Still another clue is a reference in Luke (2:1-7) to a census that drove Joseph and Mary (who was "great with child") to Bethlehem. The census was supposed to have been ordered by Augustus and carried out by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, the governor of Syria.
There's no official record of such a census. Furthermore, when Quirinius became governor in 6 CE Herod the Great was already dead. Finally, the census that Quirinius conducted in 6-7 CE was for Judaea and not for Galilee.
The other official censuses were done in 28 BCE, 8 BCE, and 14 CE and were only for Roman citizens.
The only census that coincides more or less to the presumed date of Jesus's birth was a "census of allegiance" to Augustus. The only reference to this is by Orosius, a fifth-century historian.
From all this, it would seen that Jesus was born sometime between 4 and 7 BCE.
Was it in December? Not likely. Luke said: "There were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night."
Shepherds watch over their flocks during the lambing season in the spring, in the summer when they are grazing, and in the fall when they are herded to new pastures. In the winter-and December is the dead of winter-they are brought indoors for safekeeping and to heat the homes of the shepherds.
Michael Molnar, a scholar at Rutgers University, boldly asserted from historical, astronomical and astrological evidence that "Jesus would have been 2,000 years old on April 17, 1995."
Christmas in April will be a tough sell.
In my next column I shall deal with the main icon of the Christmas season, the Star of Bethlehem.
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Cornering Cuba
US lawmakers set to wrap up visit to Cuba
AFP
17 Dec 06
The largest US congressional delegation to visit communist-ruled Cuba is to wrap up the talks, following a series of meetings with senior Cuban officials aimed at easing bilateral tensions.
The US lawmakers have been tight-lipped during the visit but have scheduled a news conference for Sunday.
The unprecedented scope of the personalized push by Republican and Democratic legislators came two weeks after Cuban leader Raul Castro, filling in for his ailing brother Fidel Castro, signaled openness to dialogue with the United States.
The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations, and the US government has maintained an economic embargo on the only one-party communist state in the Americas for decades.
The bipartisan delegation that arrived here Friday has been pressing for the US government to lift the embargo and resume a dialogue with Havana, a move opposed by the Republican administration of George W. Bush unless Cuba takes steps toward democracy.
Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, was co-leading the delegation with William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat.
Both are members of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Relations and leading members of the Cuba Working Group, which aims to foster better political, economic and cultural ties.
The American delegation met Friday with Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly and the top official for US affairs.
Among Saturday's round of events was a reception with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, and meetings with central bank governor Francisco Soberon and Basic Industries Minister Yadira Garcia, an influential member of the Politburo of Cuba's Communist Party.
Authorities did not rule out a meeting with interim leader Raul Castro or Vice President Carlos Lage, organizers of the visit said privately.
Cuba's media, all under state control, did not announce the visit prior to the arrival of the American delegation, who traveled on a US military jet, US sources said.
Raul Castro, who is also the defense minister, has reached out to Washington more actively in his four months in interim power than his brother did in more than four decades as Cuba's leader.
On December 2, at a military parade at which Fidel Castro did not appear, Raul Castro called for negotiations between the two countries.
But the United States so far has said it is not interested in negotiating until there is a sign of political liberalization in Cuba.
Wednesday, the top US diplomat for Latin America, Tom Shannon, indicated that Washington had yet to see any reformers in the Cuban government. But he did not flatly rule out dialogue with Havana.
Shannon said any US engagement with Cuba must be "part of a change process that facilitates a democratic transition."
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public since July 26, the day before his intestinal surgery.
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Cuba says ailing Castro well enough to work the phones
AFP
17 Dec 06
Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro was in telephone contact with a governors' meeting, Cuba's Communist Party newspaper said, a day after the top US intelligence official said Castro could be at death's door.
Castro's phone-in to the governors' meeting "prompted an ovation from participants," the official newspaper Granma said.
It did not specify what day the call took place but presumably referred to Friday, with the meeting under way at the convention center in Havana.
Castro was informed of the details of the meeting led by Vice President Carlos Lage and assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon, Granma added.
The news came after US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told the Washington Post that Castro was very ill and close to death.
"Everything we see indicates it will not be much longer, ... months, not years," the Post quoted Negroponte as saying Friday. Negroponte gave no details in the interview to back up his statement.
Later Friday, Castro's closest ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said in his country that he had spoken twice with Fidel by phone on Thursday.
"I saw in the press there are some reports Fidel is dying. ... He seemed very well to me yesterday, and, well, someday all of us will die physically, but one thing that is true: ... Fidel does not have cancer. I am well informed," Chavez said.
Castro, 80, handed over the reins of power on July 31 to his brother Raul, the army chief. Fidel Castro underwent intestinal surgery in July and details of his condition are guarded as state secrets.
Raul Castro, 75, has reached out to the United States more actively than has his brother in the past four months, calling for negotiations.
The US government has said it would not accept a Castro dynasty, and has called for free elections in Cuba.
But on Friday, a bipartisan group of 10 US lawmakers, all supporters of easing US sanctions on Cuba, traveled to Havana to meet with top Cuban officials. The largest US legislative delegation ever to visit communist-ruled Cuba, it met late Friday with Alarcon and was to meet with other top Cuban officials.
The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations, and Washington has for decades maintained an economic embargo on the only one-party communist state in the Americas.
Rumors about Fidel Castro's health have gathered force since he sat out a December 2 military parade in Havana honoring his 80th birthday.
Britain's The Independent has reported that Castro is ailing from cancer, has refused chemotherapy and could die before Christmas (December 25).
On Wednesday, the top US diplomat for Latin America, Tom Shannon, indicated that the United States had yet to find a reformer in the communist Cuban government, but did not flatly rule out dialogue with Havana in the context of a political opening.
"Once (Fidel Castro) goes, the successor government is going to have to chart out some kind of path into the future. There are no clear signals of what that path is going to be," said Shannon, the US assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere.
"We don't see any significant possibility of change of any kind until Fidel is gone," he added.
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public since July 26, the day before his surgery, though he has appeared in videotaped visits in his hospital room.
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Cuba denies Castro has cancer
Vanessa Arrington and Associated Press in Havana
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian
Cuban officials told a group of visiting US politicians that the ailing president, Fidel Castro, does not have cancer or a terminal illness, the head of the American delegation said yesterday.
Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican Congressman, said Cuban officials did not provide further details on the 80-year-old leader's health, but did say that he will eventually return to being a public figure.
"All the officials have told us that his illness is not cancer, nor is it terminal, and he will be back," Mr Flake told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Mr Castro's medical condition has been treated as a state secret since he underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding in late July and temporarily ceded power to his younger brother, Raul Castro. He has not been seen in public since July 26.
Cuban officials have repeatedly insisted that the elder Castro is recovering, and the vice-president, Carlos Lage, previously denied reports that the president was suffering from stomach cancer. But officials have not publicly denied rumours that he could have another type of cancer or some other terminal illness.
US officials, meanwhile, say they believe Mr Castro suffers from some kind of inoperable cancer and won't live to the end of 2007.
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