|
"Like
attracts like." - Hermetic Maxim
A recent news
item where a 19 year old 'straight A' English student
brutally murdered his elderly parents describes the
symptoms of the condition that the boy suffered from:
Brian Blackwell's actions were driven by obsessive
fantasies of unlimited success and power - a symptom
of his narcissistic personality disorder.
A feature of narcissistic personality disorder is
for sufferers to fly into a rage if their fantasy
world is threatened.
Sufferers of Narcissistic Personality Disorder have
a grandiose sense of self- importance and entitlement
and can fly into a rage if that sense is challenged.
They are manipulative, confrontational, show a lack
of empathy and are pre-occupied with success, power,
brilliance, ideal love and beauty.
The boy was caught because he lacked the resources
and perhaps the awareness to cover up his crime. It
is generally as a result of cases such as this one that
the general public gets a close look at this "condition"
known as narcissism or psychopathy. Yet imagine for
a moment that Brian Blackwell was the CEO of a corporation
or a member of the government of one of the world's
most powerful nations. In such a case, he would be in
a much better position to not only cover up his crime,
but to cover up the fact that he was a psychopath. Armed
with access to a controlled press and with a national
security apparatus at his beck and call, he could commit
the most heinous crimes on a massive scale and still
convince most of the world that he was an good and decent
individual.
The mass of evidence that have been collected over
the past 4 years, suggests that most members of Bush's
cabinet, and those individuals and groups that hold
the reins of power in the US, collectively suffer from
narcissism and/or psychopathy, although to say that
these people "suffer" from this condition,
or indeed that it is even a "condition" is
not entirely accurate. When such psychopaths hold positions
of near absolute power it is those on the receiving
end of their "grandiose sense of self-importance
and entitlement" that suffer. Given the resources
at their disposal to con the public and cover up their
crimes and the fact they all share the same narcissistic
vision, the general public is unaware that their leaders
are manipulative, confrontational, unable to feel empathy
and are pre-occupied with success and power.
In short, by the basic human standards by which most
people live their lives, most of the "leaders of
the free world" are seriously flawed and deranged
individuals who poses a very clear and present danger
to us all. |
Doubts cast on success
of speech in halting slide against conflict
Leading Democrats yesterday reacted angrily to President
George Bush's address to the nation, accusing him of
"exploiting the sacred ground" of September
11 by attempting to link the Iraq war with the terrorist
attacks.
In his prime-time speech at Fort Bragg military base,
the president mentioned September
11 five times in 30 minutes as he argued that
withdrawal from Iraq would leave the US open to more
terrorist attacks.
The twitchy mood in Washington was underscored yesterday
when the White House was briefly evacuated - and Mr
Bush moved to a safe location - in the latest aviation
alert to hit the capital. The all-clear was rapidly
sounded when the airspace rogue proved to be an innocuous
private aircraft.
Instant polls after Mr Bush's speech suggested that
he might have solidified support among the largely Republican
audience who watched the performance, but it was unclear
whether he had made headway against a steadily advancing
tide of scepticism about the justification for the war.
Democrats argued that he had offered no new ideas on
how to beat the insurgency.
They pointed to the administration's lack of credibility
over Iraq in the wake of post-war inquiries that found
no weapons of mass destruction and no substantive prewar
links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House of Representatives,
said Mr Bush was trying to "exploit the sacred
ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection
between 9/11 and the war in Iraq".
In his speech, Mr Bush did not repeat his administration's
prewar claims of a direct Iraqi role in the September
11 attacks. Instead, he suggested
that the insurgents shared a common "totalitarian
ideology" with al-Qaida, and that if they
were not defeated in Iraq they could use the country
as a base from which to launch terrorist attacks on
the US homeland.
Senator John Kerry, Mr Bush's opponent in last November's
election, said the speech represented the administration's
third rationale for the 2003 invasion.
"The first, of course, was weapons of mass destruction.
The second was democracy, and now, tonight, it's to
combat the hotbed of terrorism," he told CNN.
"But most Americans are
aware that the hotbed of terrorism never existed in
Iraq until we got there." [...] |
September 11 has
been George Bush's rhetorical trumpcard since he climbed
the rubble of the World Trade Centre and rallied rescue
workers through a megaphone nearly four years ago.
Many believe that was his finest hour and he attempted
to invoke the same spirit in his speech on Tuesday night.
With five mentions of September 11 in his 30-minute
address, Mr Bush attempted to
weld the Iraq insurgency to the battle with al-Qaida
in the public's mind, where the two have been drifting
apart.
He spoke of the shared "totalitarian ideology"
of the Iraqi insurgents and Osama bin Laden's organisation.
The best way to take these enemies on was "to
defeat them abroad before they attack us at home",
he said.
This time, Mr Bush said, the US would not "wait
to be attacked".
Failure in Iraq would leave that country a haven for
terrorism and a launching pad for attacks on the homeland,
just as Afghanistan had been.
Finally, the insurgents were trying
"to shake our will in Iraq, just as they tried
to shake our will on September 11 2001".
Critics were quick to point out that several of those
links were more a consequence of the Iraq invasion than
a justification for it.
The connections described by Mr Bush at Fort Bragg
were more conceptual than the close relationship described
by the White House before the war.
The prewar rhetoric portrayed that relationship as
long and deep. Dick Cheney, the vice-president,
who took the lead in making the claims described evidence
of the relationship as "overwhelming".
Mr Cheney said in late 2001 it had
been "pretty well confirmed" that the lead
September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met an Iraqi
intelligence officer in Prague in April 2000.
Mr Bush said in October 2002:
"We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members
in bomb-making and poisons and gases."
He also pointed to the alleged presence of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian Islamist militant in Baghdad,
and of a radical Sunni group, Ansar al-Islam, in Kurdistan
as further proof of the connection.
Those alleged connections crumbled
under postwar scrutiny.
Investigations by the Senate's intelligence
committee and by the September 11 commission of inquiry
found no evidence of an operational alliance between
al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. There did seem to have
been contacts in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s
but they did not lead to a "collaborative relationship",
the commission found.
The al-Qaida detainee who claimed
Iraqis had given the group chemical and biological weapons
training retracted his testimony, and Zarqawi's links
with Bin Laden appeared to have been loose before the
war but much firmer as a consequence of it.
In an intercepted message to al-Qaida leaders in January
2003, Zarqawi offered to "swear fealty" to
Bin Laden in return for support for his group in Iraq,
suggesting that no such bond existed between them before
the invasion.
Washington's attempts to link Saddam with al-Qaida
and September 11 have been a source of strife between
Britain and America since before the war.
London did not say so publicly at the time but senior
MI6 officials were furious at the prewar attempts to
make the connection.
British intelligence officials warned ministers that
an invasion of Iraq would increase the threat posed
by al-Qaida sympathisers, an outcome that was reflected
in the president's speech on Tuesday.
Despite the dearth of evidence of a solid link since
the war, the picture of the relationship remains muddy
in the US.
Mr Cheney, in particular, has refused
to retract his war claims and has continued to hint
at hidden connections between Saddam and Bin Laden.
Robin Hayes, a Republican congressman from North Carolina,
appeared on television yesterday claiming to have seen
secret evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September
11 attacks which he could not
share.
Such cryptic claims were widely rejected as groundless
yesterday, but Mr Bush's more subtle rendering of the
alleged Iraq-Bin Laden axis will
serve to blur the hard lines between fact and propaganda. |
The Bush prime-time fiasco was
the biggest presidential pratfall in the history of
the office. Bush was expected to lay out a new vision
that would soothe the jittery nerves of the country
but, instead, ladled out the same tired bromides he's
used for the last 5 years. Even
his worshipful audience of servicemen and women slumped
into stunned silence as the Commander in Chief exhumed
the pitiable rhetoric of the Vietnam era. The
reverberations of Westmoreland's "light in the
tunnel" speech resonated through the Fort Bragg
auditorium as Bush blathered on about "no timetable"
and "staying the course". The oratory offered
no explanation for why the nation continues to slip
beneath the Iraqi quicksand.
"The troops here and across the world are fighting
a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on
September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us and
the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian
ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises
all dissent," Bush moaned.
Nothing new here; just the same threadbare platitudes
reiterated in the familiar Bush-drawl.
"Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting
down the terrorists. We are helping Iraqis build a free
nation that is an ally in the war on terror."
"Terrorists"? Even the polls
show that most Americans now understand that the insurgency
is mainly comprised of Iraqis, so why invoke the terrorists?
"Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being
carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on
Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom... They
fight because they know that the survival of their hateful
ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes
root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle
East to claim their liberty as well."
Now the speech begins to take shape and we can see
that the expectant nation will not get a straight answer,
just more nattering about the scourge of terrorism.
"The terrorists know that the outcome will leave
them emboldened or defeated. So they are waging a campaign
of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to
the innocent lives they are willing to take." Let's
see..so far, the terrorists, as Bush likes to call the
Iraqi resistance, has killed 1,700 American servicemen.
Bush's Legions, on the other hand, have killed more
than 100,000 Iraqis. Who are the terrorists?
"The terrorists can kill the innocent but they
cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our
enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September
11," Bush crooned.
At this point the camera scanned the
audience of glowering servicemen; some of whom looked
glazed by the rhetoric and others who still looked hopeful
that they would hear something that might clarify why
they were headed back to the Iraqi hell-hole. Nothing
Bush said would ease their burden.
. "progress is being made. We are improving roads
and schools and health clinics and working to improve
basic services like sanitation, electricity and water.
Together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi
government deliver a better life for its citizens."
"Progress"? By every objective standard,
things are worse now then they were under Saddam (which
was confirmed by a recent UN report). Power is normally
on from 3 to 6 hours a day, hospitals lack essential
medicines and supplies, cholera and typhoid have broken
out in areas of the capital, there's been an up tick
in mysterious cancers (depleted uranium?), sewage and
sanitation are worse than before the war, clean water
is scarce, and unemployment has skyrocketed to 70%.
The new Iraqi government is "building the institutions
of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice
under law;" the very same
"institutions" that are currently under fire
at home by the Bush Administration.
"There will be tough moments that test America's
resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred
and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any
atrocity.. They take innocent lives to create chaos
for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in
Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September
11, 2001."
9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, and, oh,
by the way, did I mention 9-11?
So far, the only people to use "lethal
weapons" (WMD) in Iraq have been the US Army. The
same rule applies to Bush's charge that the Iraqi resistance
is "capable of any atrocity". Perhaps, he
should review his notes on Abu Ghraib and Falluja and
decide who was really responsible.
"And we fight today because terrorists want to
attack our country and kill our citizens!" Bush
boomed.
Ah, yes; the old canard of the
Islamic hordes swooping across the Great Plains, ravaging
our women and wiping out our precious consumer culture.
Just 2 weeks ago the LA Times reported that the CIA
allowed two of the 9-11 terrorists to enter the country
and intentionally withheld the information from the
FBI. In other words, the "killing of our citizens"
occurred because someone at the highest level of law
enforcement was ordered to "stand down" and
let the threat materialize.
"And to those watching tonight who are considering
a military career, there is no higher calling than service
in our Armed Forces."
WHAT?
A shameless plug for the military?
"Be All You Can Be" in 115 degree heat covered
in sand fleas ducking mortar rounds?
Wouldn't it have been nice if Bush
had honored that "higher calling" and showed
up for his service in the Alabama National Guard instead
of absconding on a coke-binge to some undisclosed location?
"Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing...May
God bless you all."
"Prevailing"? Not according to Senator Chuck
Hagel, who admitted just last week that the US was "losing
in Iraq" and that "The White House is completely
disconnected from reality;" a view that is shared
by a larger part of the American public every day. Those
fears were not allayed by Bush's predictable 35 minutes
of inane chatter.
Bush had his work cut out for
him last night. He had to articulate a clear strategy
for resolving the current firestorm in Iraq. He failed
to do that; relying instead on demagoguery and the frayed
imagery of a global war on terror.
The American people deserve better.
He produced no plan, no strategy, and no vision; just
a continuation of the same trends; the steady erosion
of national confidence, a precipitous decline in credibility,
and the daily loss of life.
Death by a thousand cuts.
Already, the polls have signaled what we all should
have anticipated. Democrats and liberals didn't watch
the speech; they've had it with the Dear Leader. All
Bush had to do was win over "the faithful";
the Republicans and conservatives who still want to
believe in him, but are waiting for a straight answer.
They didn't get one last night. |
LOS ANGELES, June 29
(Xinhuanet) -- US President George W. Bush's latest address
to call Americans to stand firm in Iraq drew the smallest
US TV audience of his tenure, according to a study released
in New York on Wednesday.
Nielsen Media Research, a media tracking company headquartered
in New York, US, said that an estimated 23 million television
viewers tuned in to Bush's half hour speech on the Iraq
war on Tuesday night. [...]
In a news release issued from its headquarters in New
York Wednesday, the company said the number was 8.6 million
viewers below Bush's previous low as president, his August
9, 2001, speechon stem cell research, which was carried
on six networks.
By comparison, his May 1, 2003 speech from the deck
of an aircraft carrier declaring an end to major combat
operations in Iraq averaged 48.4 million viewers.
Bush garnered the biggest US TV audience of his presidency
-- 82 million viewers on nine networks -- when he addressed
a joint session of the US Congress nine days after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks on America. |
Rafidan-The Political Committee
The Mujahideen Central Command (MCC)
Baghdad- The Republic of Iraq
Release No. 14
Title: Bush……..Why the Hurry?!?!
Peace to you by the Grace of God,
We solute the dear resistance factions and May god
be your protector.
The War Criminal Rumsfield has spoken of lies when
he claimed negotiations, for he today curls in Pain.
We Rafidan, represent part of the resistance factions,
confirm only to reinforce a driven nail in this war
criminal's head, that there is no such word "negotiation"
in our political agenda. We have a phrase though, that
calls to fight the invaders till their defeat, &
war criminals are to be brought to justice, Iraq is
to be compensated for the losses, & revenge must
be taken from all those who supported the sanctions
& the annihilation of the Iraqi people & their
army.
Let us all ask ourselves, why Rumsfield, Rice, &
Blair, reiterated this lie in a synchronized manner!
Before Two Years, Bush:
- Declares war on us, & the congress rejoices,
the congress rises and falls seven times to express
their support to this tyrant.
- He acquired media statistics that declare 85% support
from his people who are waiting for Iraq to be annihilated
from this planet. (Today, we know where he got his figures!)
- This tyrant issued many laws which reduce freedom
& all were silent!
- He insults the U.N. & governments till they recited
his prayers and submitted to his will in support of
his so called war on terror.
- He cried for the innocent lives taken on 9/11, everyone
believed him, despite all the evidence that the stunt
was prepared by his CIA and the Zionists and patsies.
Where is Bush Today?
- The congress shouts, where are the WMDs? Why did
we lose 2000 of our soldiers and 12,000 injured as admitted
by the pentagon, where were 200 billion Dollars spent,
which companies made the profits? Then the congress
demands the resignation of Rumsfield!
- His new figures claim 60% of his people urge for
a quick withdrawal from our land.
- Proceedings for a popular war tribunal have already
begun in Istanbul and in European Cities!
- His Generals need 10 to 12 years and 150 thousand
soldiers on continued Duty & over one trillion Dollars
every five years & want to leave the whole world
to deal with the Iraqi Resistance!
- His alliances crumble and his partners in crime flee
gradually.
- Blair is defeated in Parliament and will be relieved
from his party within a year!
- Europe, The Russians, the Chinese are watching the
raging tired and bleeding American bull, and are rejoicing
the strikes of the resistance in heart. Before the final
blow!
- His soldiers flee the fields to live as refugees,
to form groups of influence, along with pilots who call
for the refusal of active duty in protest to the lies
told.
- Bush today begs for international assistance and
talks are held worldwide and round the clock to find
what one can, of contributors who may fund the puppet
governments of Ayad Allawi and Jafari, no one wants
to invest!
What Happened?
When Rumsfield visited Baghdad lately, quietly, like
the coward thief he is, he met with his secret army
which he quietly established in 2002 from 130 criminals
and with the cost of 140 million dollars of an annual
budget. Among them is the former American Ambassador
& James Styles, The hit squad leader from the Salvador.
& Steve Castle the head of the Sabotage and assassination
forces in Bolivia, & Colombia, he is today the advisor
of the puppet Persian interior minister they have appointed
in Baghdad.
The Summary of their meetings was, simply, that it
is not possible to bring defeat to the resistance. The
best solution is to seek a political way out, or to
withdraw, under U.S. conditions.
As for the cause of their depression, it is due to
the fact that they have tried all the tricks of the
trade in their books. Assassinations, Sabotage, market
fires, unemployment, sectarian agendas, lack of electricity,
cutting water supplies, blowing water pipelines, poisoning
water reservoirs & food reserves, mixing wheat with
heavy metal powders, but the Iraqis were patient, and
have found the remedy to this disease!
Rumsfield was surprised, due to the resignation of
Paul Wolfowitz, his accomplice in crime after failing
to find a solution that may set aside the firepower
of the resistance. For he has not yet forgotten the
night we forced him to run for his life in his under
pants from the Rashid Hotel in the early days of the
occupation. The news broadcasters may remember his humiliation!
It seems that he convinced his master that as a Zionist
that he is, he is more capable in reducing the world
population and put those who remain alive in dept to
America for as long as they live using the world bank!
Suddenly, the American Administration, were surprised
due to their stupidity that Iran did not respect the
secret deal they agreed upon. In cooperating to bring
stability at least in the southern areas of Iraq, Iran
has extended its interests to increase their influence
to other Gulf States, like Bahrain where we see the
continued sectarian demonstrations and in Saudi Arabia,
where Shiites reside in Hasa and Dammam, also oil rich
areas! These areas are now boiling with sectarian agendas
and with the direction of Qumm in Iran and under the
supervision of Persian Sistani.
Today the Pentagon has discovered that there is a doomed
future to the oil rich area and the future explosive
environment lurking in the dark corner ahead. Especially
after the eventual discovery that they just made in
finding out that Iraq, is the true black hole that will
pull this Middle East to an anarchy which know one can
predict it's end!
Here, the European Community entered in fear and compromised
with the bush administration to accept & recognize
the puppet governments in return for political solutions.
Rumsfield also found a solution which he thinks may
save him!
The return to the Kissinger method in Vietnam, when
he requested negotiations, he began bombardment!
He began with the destruction of Al Qaem, Karabila,
in his spear operation, and instructed his puppet Persians
in the appointed government to initiate operation thunder,
to kidnap, kill and imprison! He also used the Dagger
operation of "Rustum" ( Persian General who
lost the battle of Qadisiah against the Arabs in history)
to stab the innocent day and night in the streets, cars,
and markets. Then he requested to negotiate; for he
seeks knowledge of the secrets that bring life to the
Iraqi resistance, who are it's true leaders? who will
sell out and accept treason? Why do they prefer Iraq
as a future than the current and running bank accounts?
Why can they not be bought?
Thus, Negotiations are the new lie of the weapons of
mass treason!
We predict more air raids and destruction of our cities
and villages. More killing and kidnaps, just as they
did in Vietnam and Algeria before they fled. This in
return, gives us the right to use all the types of weapons
in our arsenal because American Fascism will not be
defeated easily and the fight will continue to be fierce
for some time and bloody too!
We also predict, that the son of all criminals Ayad
Allawi will be re-awarded control of the rudder of treason
along with Chalabi, Sistani, and Badr Militia. Because
they are all now, in one boat, on their journey of defeat.
Allawi, is now performing and visiting Arab Governments
which continue to treat him as a prime minister still,
by orders of their American Embassies.
What Does Rafidan Say?
1- We have forced the invaders now to recognize our
existence and naming clearly the Iraqi Resistance and
thus have forced the general media to follow suite.
2- We have rendered useless the enemies high tech space
weaponry and satellites and are hunting them down on
our land at the time of our choosing.
3- Because they practice crimes and kill people indiscriminately,
this gives us the right to reply with weapons they cannot
imagine we will present to all our sons in order to
bring the defeat of the American Fascists administration
starting from Sharnaka 2 and Masamir 4 ?!?!
4- As long as the invaders destroy our nation, then
there is no reason to stop any Iraqi or Arab abroad
from striking back in their countries of residence or
at enemy bases in occupied Kuwait or Jordan!
Finally, Do you really want to Negotiate? We Accept,
But under our Conditions!
- All enemy troops are to withdraw to the occupied
city of Kuwait.
- Then we sit under the exact same tent, that Schwarzkopf
erected at Safwan, only this time it is to be erected
in Matlaa the generally known and accepted borders of
Iraq, and with the authorization of our new government,
which will be declared soon at the correct timing from
our Baghdad, we will negotiate your surrender !
We have the Oath of God!!!
Rafidan
The Political Party
The Mujahideen Central Command
Baghdad the 20th of Jamadi first 1426 H
The 27th of June 2005 M |
The Taliban claims to have used
a new weapon to shoot down a US military helicopter
in a remote region of Afghanistan.
The 17 US troops, including special forces, aboard
the Chinook helicopter that crashed after being hit
by ground fire in an anti-militant operation are believed
to have died, a US official said.
The casualties from Tuesday's crash would be the heaviest
for US forces in an incident linked to hostile fire
in Afghanistan since they invaded to overthrow the Taliban
in 2001.
"We presume that all were lost," said a US
official in Washington, who asked not to be identified,
when asked if all those aboard - including elite US
Seals Special Operations troops - had been killed in
the crash.
The official said that the twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook
was believed to have been hit by a rocket-propelled
grenade in mountainous terrain near the border with
Pakistan, an attack claimed by Taliban guerrillas.
Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi
said fighters shot down the aircraft in the village
of Shorak using "a new type of weapon" he
did not describe.
"This is a huge success for the Taliban,"
he said, adding that the fighters had video of the crash
and would post photographs on their web site.
The US military said the Chinook crashed in remote
and mountainous Kunar province on Tuesday afternoon
while bringing troops to reinforce soldiers in an anti-Al
Qaeda operation.
It was hit by ground fire as it approached its landing
zone and crashed about one to two kilometres away, US
military spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts told a news briefing
in Kabul.
He said fighting continued in the area on Wednesday
involving a large force of US-led troops and a "very
determined enemy".
In early June, the US military said
a helicopter had been attacked in Uruzgan province by
a suspected surface-to-air missile.
Such weapons, supplied by the
US, were used to great effect by guerrillas fighting
Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, but the Taliban have
not been known to use them. [...] |
WASHINGTON - President Bush granted
the new national intelligence chief expanded power over
the FBI on Wednesday and ordered dozens of other spy
agency changes as the White House heeded a presidential
commission that condemned the intelligence community
for failures in Iraq and elsewhere.
But almost as soon as the details were unveiled, the
White House was defending itself against suggestions
that the moves were simply adding more bureaucracy without
making changes that could have prevented misjudgments
like those made on Iraq.
"It's an unfair characterization to say it's simply
a restructuring," said Bush's homeland security
adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, who led the 90-day
review of the recommendations from the president's commission
on weapons of mass destruction. "It's a fundamental
strengthening of our intelligence capabilities."
The White House said it endorsed 70 of the 74 recommendations
from the commission, which was led by Republican Judge
Laurence Silberman and former Democratic Sen. Charles
Robb and conducted a yearlong review of the 15 intelligence
agencies. Bush formed the commission under pressure
after the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq resigned
and started a firestorm of controversy over the accuracy
of the prewar Iraq intelligence.
In its scathing 600-page report released in March,
the commission called the spy community "dead wrong
on almost all of its prewar judgments" about Iraq's
weapons.
Robb called the White House's broad acceptance of the
commission's proposals "truly extraordinary."
Among the most significant changes the White House
offered Wednesday, the Justice Department will be directed
- with congressional approval - to consolidate its counterterrorism,
espionage and intelligence units under one new assistant
attorney general for national security.
The White House ordered the
creation of a National Security Service inside the FBI.
And Bush sought to strengthen the hand of the new national
intelligence director over the FBI, giving him expanded
budget and management powers over the bureau.
In a statement, the American Civil
Liberties Union said the FBI's new security service
would lead to an "erosion of constitutional protections
against law enforcement actions."
But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, "Every
law enforcement official within the FBI is going to
remain under the supervision of the FBI director and,
ultimately, the attorney general."
The White House will also have the national intelligence
director, John Negroponte, establish a National Counter-Proliferation
Center that will coordinate the U.S. government's collection
and analysis of intelligence on nuclear, biological
and chemical weapons - a task now performed by many
national security agencies.
Negroponte's top deputy, Gen. Michael Hayden, said
the center would only have 50 to 100 employees, thereby
avoiding some insiders' worries of "brain drain"
as new offices tap into existing ones.
A number of Bush administration critics welcomed the
reforms.
President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy
Berger, called the changes to Negroponte's authority
over the Justice Department and the counterproliferation
center "very positive."
"All of this is moving boxes to some degree,"
said Berger. "I do think that in this case organization
is important. ... The real test is how it is implemented."
While the White House portrayed the changes as a near
universal endorsement of the commission's recommendations,
some suggestions were not completely followed.
For instance, the commission said Negroponte should
not be part of the president's morning intelligence
briefing. But Hayden said he or Negroponte still attend
the secretive daily sessions.
In other moves, the White House also:
- Issued an executive order allowing
the freezing of any financial assets in the United States
of citizens, companies or organizations involved
in the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The order
designates eight organizations in Iran, North Korea
and Syria.
- Created a new national coordinator for human intelligence,
or classic spycraft, who would guide clandestine activities
of the entire intelligence community.
- Asked Congress to reform its
oversight of the intelligence community, a controversial
proposal that could provoke turf wars and other
difficulties on Capitol Hill.
Hayden acknowledged that some of the changes, such
as those aimed at improving intelligence analysis, will
take years to institute. However, he said others, including
the human intelligence chief, could be implemented within
two months.
House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.,
and the panel's top Democrat, California Rep. Jane Harman,
praised the White House's moves as steps that will help
ensure policy-makers get "accurate, timely and
actionable intelligence."
Yet, in an interview, Harman said the issues still
require "sustained attention" to ensure that
Negroponte isn't "forever fending off turf attacks."
The White House said three of the commission's recommendations
require further study, including one that would have
called for accountability reviews within three intelligence
offices under fire for mistakes in the prewar Iraq intelligence.
Hayden noted the recommendation focused on organizational
accountability and said reviews were under way.
Another recommendation, regarding
the management of covert action, was rejected and remains
classified.
Following the advice of blue-ribbon panels, numerous
changes have been made to the intelligence community
since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many were contained
in a sweeping intelligence reform law passed by Congress
in December.
"I think we now know what the shape of the animal
is going to be," Berger said, "and we have
to make sure that the animal is ready to hunt."
|
|
A Cessna 182 flies
over Lodi. The plane, which is owned by a Delaware
company, is one of at least two that have been circling
over the city for nearly four weeks. (Courtesy photo
by Ken Cantrell) |
The white plane, with its baby blue striping, spends hours
and days circling over Lodi. But the plane isn't from
the city. It's not even from California.
The plane has traveled all the way
from Delaware to move in slow circles over Lodi. It
hasn't exactly blended in.
The city is small enough that when a medical helicopter
makes one pass overhead, citizens look up. When gang
problems flare and local police officers team up with
the California Highway Patrol to make use of a helicopter,
police dispatchers are besieged with calls from citizens.
So, when white planes began circling over Lodi about
four weeks ago -- around the
same time scores of FBI agents converged on the city
to conduct a terrorism investigation -- people
took notice.
"He's doing something. He's doing some reconnaissance,"
said Lodi resident and pilot Arlene Farley, who even
got out binoculars to peer up at one of the planes.
What the planes are doing remains a mystery, though
most people believe the activity coincides with the
FBI investigation that led to the arrests of five Lodi
men. In other parts of the country,
small planes have flown in circles over cities also
under investigation on ties to domestic and international
terrorism.
How long will the planes stay in Lodi?
What are they doing?
Where are they from?
Can they really see anything from that high up in the
sky?
Assuming they're government-run, how much are they
costing taxpayers?
Some of those questions go unanswered as local and
federal officials remain mum.
At least one question, however, is partially answered
-- though that leads only to more mysteries.
One of the planes circling over Lodi is registered
to a Delaware company. Northwest Aircraft Leasing Corp.
is based in Newark, Del., according to Federal Aviation
Authority records.
The company lists an address, but it only leads to
a box inside a mailing store, located in a town with
a population of a little more than 28,000.
Northwest Leasing isn't listed
on the Better Business Bureau's Web site, but
it does reveal that several other businesses, including
online weight loss programs, share the same address.
One says it has a "Dept. 357," another simply
uses the numeral sign. An appliance sales company lists
"PMB 319," otherwise known as a mailbox.
Employees at a dime store down the street and with
the city's building department both said the East Main
Street building isn't big enough to have "suites."
Newark isn't a large town, and the state of Delaware
isn't that big, either. However, doing business in the
state is easy: Incorporating a business only starts
at $89, and annual franchise taxes can be as low as
$60, according to Web sites offering to help potential
business owners get started.
"When companies lease their aircraft out of Delaware,
it's because they don't have to pay taxes out of Delaware,"
said Ross Dubarry, operations manager for Hayward Executive
Airport.
Officials remain silent
A Lodi businessman and public
figure, who didn't want his name used because he thought
people would think he was crazy, said he called the
Federal Aviation Authority to ask about the planes and
was told that the pilots were likely listening to cell
phone conversations and using infrared to track people.
He was also told the planes were flying out of the Hayward
airport.
When given the tail number of the Delaware-owned plane,
Dubarry -- who is new to the area and didn't know where
Lodi was -- initially said it sounded familiar and that
the plane was being housed at the airport. After consulting
a computer for several minutes, though, he told a reporter
that there was no record of the plane.
Area airports had no record of the plane, either.
Local and federal law enforcement officials also aren't
saying much.
FBI spokeswoman Angel Armstrong wouldn't comment on
the cell phone and infrared tracking information that
the local businessman heard about from the FAA. [...]
When police officers heard that the planes flying over
Lodi were tied to an unknown corporation in Delaware,
they weren't surprised.
They joked that the planes overhead
are watching their every move, and that if a reporter
dug far enough, she'd just vanish one day. They also
didn't want their names published.
It's not likely that the planes will suddenly do away
with local journalists, but when
reporters for the New York Times began investigating
planes operated by private corporations with no real
addresses, their search ultimately led to the CIA.
According to a May article of more than 2,500 words,
citizens had agreed to let government officials list
shells corporations in their name, and the businesses
then operated aircraft. The planes were coincidentally
flown to places around the world when suspected terrorists
happened to be moved.
Are the Cessna 182s flying over Lodi getting ready
to whisk people away to a far-off place, or perhaps
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? That's probably not likely for
now, since the five men arrested in Lodi have not been
charged with terrorism.
Two men are charged with lying the FBI agents about
their participation or knowledge of terrorist training
camps in Pakistan. Three other men are held solely on
immigration violations.
In the meantime, FBI agents continue to swarm Lodi,
and the planes continue to circle. [...]
Surveillance ideas
For the most part, the planes are flying in continuous
circles to the left, which could indicate that they're
equipped with forward-looking infrared, known as FLIR.
According to a March 2003 publication of Fields of
View -- put out by FLIR Systems, which sells the surveillance
equipment -- FLIR can be used in fixed wing planes just
like the ones flying over Lodi. Using it, a plane flies
in left-hand circles over the area under surveillance,
using thermal imaging to track people.
The publication recommends using a
Cessna 182 -- the same type of plane flying over Lodi.
Could that be what the planes are doing up there? Perhaps.
In the last few years, circling planes seem to have
accompanied federal terrorism investigations. Portland,
Ore., and Bloomington, Ind., were among two cities where
citizens called police and local media.
In Lackawanna, N.Y., where six
men were detained in a similar terrorism investigation
in September 2002, Cessna planes were used to track
e-mails, cell phones and wireless Internet activity,
as well as keeping track of some suspects, Police Chief
Dennis O'Hara said. [...] |
WASHINGTON - The CIA informed Italy's
intelligence service it planned to kidnap an Islamic
leader in Milan two years ago, The Washington Post said
quoting current and former CIA veterans.
Neither Italy or the United States have officially
acknowledged the abduction, which made the news on Friday
when the Corriere della Sera daily in Rome reported
that a judge had issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents.
The abduction has fueled anti-US feelings in Italy.
Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, was seized
in a street of Milan on February 17, 2003, by two Italian-speakers
claiming to want to check his identity. He has been
missing since, the Corriere reported.
Hassan was the former imam of a Milan mosque which
had been placed under close watch following the September
11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
The CIA agents are suspected of abducting Hassan and
transferring him to the US military base at Aviano in
northern Italy, and from there to an Egyptian jail,
where his entourage claim he was tortured during interrogation.
Italian Judge Chiara Nobili issued at the request of
the anti-terrorist division of the state prosecutor's
office, the Corriere said.
The CIA agents targeted included the alleged head of
the operation, who was an accredited diplomat with the
US consulate in Milan at the time, the Italian newspaper
wrote, quoting reports by Milan magistrates.
The Central Intelligence Agency "told
a number of people" about its kidnapping plan,
but "certainly not the magistrate, not the Milan
police," an unnamed CIA veteran told The Washington
Post.
The agents said the CIA station chief
in Rome -- who has since retired but remains undercover
-- briefed and sought approval from his counterpart
in Italy for the operation.
However, the daily said it was unclear how far up the
chain of command the information was shared or whether
the office of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was aware.
The Milan operation, the CIA officials said, was conceived
by the Rome CIA station chief, organized by the CIA's
Counterterrorism Center, and approved by the CIA leadership
and by at least one person at the National Security
Council.
They also said it was standard practice
for the CIA and its Italian counterpart to agree to
keep official silence on the covert kidnapping operation
if it became public.
Knowledgeable intelligence officials
told the Post that the CIA has conducted more than 100
such apprehensions since September 11. |
The United Nations says it has
learned of serious allegations that the US is secretly
detaining terrorism suspects, notably on American military
ships.
The special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said
the claims were rumours at this stage, but urged the
US to co-operate with an investigation.
He said the UN wants lists of the places of detention
and those held.
The comments come five days after
the UN accused the US of stalling on their requests
to visit Guantanamo Bay.
Investigators have been asking to visit the jail in
Cuba to carry out checks into allegations of human rights
abuse.
The UN said for over a year there had been no response
to its requests, and it would begin an inquiry into
alleged abuses with or without US co-operation.
Washington had yet to grant their request, Mr Nowak
said.
He told the BBC there were a number of allegations
from reliable sources that the US was holding terrorist
suspects in secret places of detention, including vessels
abroad.
He said that according to the reports, the ships were
believed to be in the Indian Ocean.
Mr Nowak said the charges of secret
detention camps were very serious, amounting to enforced
disappearances. |
BEIJING, June 30 --
United Nations human rights experts have begun investigating
allegations that US terror suspects are being held in
secret locations.
This includes the questioning of former terrorist suspects
released from the United States detention.
UN special expert on torture, Manfred Nowak, made the
comment Wednesday in Vienna.
Nowak is also director of the Vienna-based Ludwig Boltzmann
Human Rights Institute and is one of several independent
human rights experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights
Commission.
Nowak cited "persistent and credible" reports
of US secret prisons holding terrorist suspects on ships
in international waters. But, he said the UN human rights
experts need more evidence to prove such reports.
He told Austrian Broadcasting Company earlier that the
US might also have other secret prisons on US ships in
the Indian Ocean to hold terrorist suspects, in addition
to the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. |
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department
of Agriculture has churned out three dozen radio and
television news segments since the first of the year
that promote a controversial trade agreement with Central
America opposed by labor unions, the sugar industry
and many members of Congress, including some Republicans.
Amid an intense debate over government-funded
efforts to influence news coverage, the pre-packaged
reports have been widely distributed to broadcast outlets
across the country for easy insertion into newscasts.
About a third of the reports deal specifically with
the politically powerful sugar industry, which has emerged
as the major obstacle to the Central American Free Trade
Agreement, or CAFTA.
In one radio segment, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
said that passing CAFTA should be an easy decision for
members of Congress.
"I can't imagine how any senator or House member
from ag country could stand up and vote against CAFTA,"
Johanns said. "It makes no sense to me. It's voting
against our producers."
In another radio segment promoting CAFTA, Allen Johnson,
a top U.S. trade official, dismissed the sugar industry's
"dire forecasts" about CAFTA's impact as "a
Chicken Little sort of thing that isn't real."
The issue of the government's vast
public relations apparatus trying to influence the public
is hardly new. The Bush administration has taken that
practice to aggressive levels on issues ranging from
the war in Iraq to education and trade policy.
The USDA's CAFTA reports were
produced while the administration was dealing with the
fallout over its practice of paying journalists to tout
administration policies. One television commentator,
Armstrong Williams, was paid $240,000 to champion the
administration's education plans.
Critics contend that such policies blur the line between
government propaganda and legitimate reporting, and
the Government Accountability Office described the prepackaged
news reports as "covert propaganda" if the
government agency doesn't clearly identify its role
in the production of the report. [...] |
The Capitol's grubby
secret is the swarm of lobbyists in a sea of money,
washing around the Congress and Senate. But one lobbyist
may have just over-reached himself.
It all began in 2000 when the Mississippi band of Choctaw
Indians, grown rich on the operations of casinos on
their tribal land, decided they needed some allies in
Washington to help protect their wealth from competitors.
Not unreasonably, they chose to retain the services
of Jack Abramoff, the king of Washington lobbyists.
What happened next has become an American morality tale
of our times.
Over the next two years, the Choctaws paid Mr Abramoff
and his colleague Michael Scanlon some $15m (£8.3m).
Alas, the esteem was not reciprocated. In a series of
e-mails, the pair referred to
the Choctaws and other Indian tribal clients as, among
other things, "troglodytes" and "monkeys".
Of that $15m, it is alleged, Mr Abramoff and Mr Scanlon
channelled off up to $7m.
Some of the money went to pay off a debt from Abramoff's
days as a B-movie producer in Hollywood. Some went to
finance a golfing trip to St Andrews for Tom DeLay,
his most influential friend in Congress. Some, it seems,
went for the lobbyists' own enrichment, under a system
referred to in the e-mails as "Gimme Five".
Over the past 12 months, the saga that has unfolded
in a series of hearings by the Senate Indian Affairs
committee, has transfixed Washington. "Simply and
sadly, it is a tale of betrayal," says John McCain,
the panel's chairman, distinguished
only by the lobbyists' "insatiable greed"
and their "utter contempt" for their
clients.
Lobbying is Washington's grubby secret. In the city
of ceremony and empire, peace and war, it is the unspoken
business of the shadows. Some say lobbying is part of
the democratic process. Others
claim it is legalised bribery, even downright corruption.
But love it or loathe it, it is the way Washington works.
Usually you hear little about
the cajolings and threats, the quiet meetings, the lavish
lunches and junkets that lubricate American politics.
But every once in a while something comes along to open
the system to the thing it hates most: daylight.
The case of Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and a clutch
of Indian tribes which paid them $82m is one of those
somethings.
Mr Abramoff claims he was doing nothing illegal, that
the Indians got value for money and his only sin was
to have been too good at his job. But now his career,
indeed his liberty, are under threat, as the FBI investigates
allegations of massive fraud. The affair has cast a
dark cloud over Mr DeLay, the former pesticide salesman
from Texas who is now House majority leader, known on
Capitol Hill as "The Hammer". Some even believe
the scandal could mark the beginning of the end of this
era of Republican dominance. [...] |
As I settled in my
seat for an afternoon of speeches at the College Republican
National Convention, I felt something crunch. It was an
empty can of Busch Light, one of many strewn across the
paisley-carpeted floor of the banquet hall in northern
Virginia's Crystal City Gateway Marriott. All around me
sat the Republican Party's future leaders: fresh-faced,
nondescript white guys in blue suits, and slender blond
girls in miniskirts and snug-fitting blazers, some with
halter tops underneath.
[...] The high point of the day, however, belonged to
the movement's favorite red-diaper baby, David Horowitz.
Horowitz reminded his fawning audience that he could "be
sitting at home in the coastal mountains of California,
watching horses and rabbits run across my neighbor's yard."
Instead he chose to appear for free before a bunch of
College Republicans because, as he told them, "The
future of the free peoples of the world depends on the
Republican Party--and ultimately it depends on you."
In the past year, Horowitz has barnstormed universities
across the country, organizing smear campaigns against
leftist professors, advising conservative students on
tactics to harass their perceived opponents and all the
while raking in massive lecture fees. At the College Republicans'
convention, Horowitz harped on his time-tested theme:
"Universities are a base of
the left. Universities are a base for terrorism."
[...]
In interviews, more than a dozen conventiongoers explained
why it is important that they stay on campus while other,
less fortunate people their age wage a bloody war in Iraq.
They strongly support the war,
they told me, but they also want to enjoy college life
and pursue interesting careers. Being a College Republican
allows them to do both. It is warfare by other, much safer
means. [...]
I chatted for a while with Collin Kelley, a senior at
Washington State with a vague resemblance to the studly
actor Orlando Bloom. Kelley told me he's "sick and
tired of people saying our troops are dying in vain"
and added, "This isn't an invasion of Iraq, it's
a liberation--as David Horowitz said." When
I asked him why he was staying on campus rather than fighting
the good fight, he rubbed his shoulder and described a
nagging football injury from high school. Plus, his parents
didn't want him to go. "They're old hippies,"
Kelley said.
Munching on a chicken quesadilla at a table nearby was
Edward Hauser, a senior at St. Edwards University in Austin,
Texas--a liberal school in a liberal town in the ultimate
red state of Texas. "Austin is ninety square miles
insulated from reality," Hauser said. When I broached
the issue of Iraq, he replied, "I
support our country. I support our troops." So why
isn't he there?
"I know that I'm going to be better
staying here and working to convince people why we're
there [in Iraq]," Hauser explained, pausing in thought.
"I'm a fighter, but with words."
At a table by the buffet was Justin Palmer, vice chairman
of the Georgia Association of College Republicans, America's
largest chapter of College Republicans. In 1984 the group
gained prominence in conservative circles when its chairman,
Ralph Reed, formed a political action committee credited
with helping to re-elect Senator Jesse Helms. Palmer's
future as a right-wing operative looked bright; he batted
away my question about his decision to avoid fighting
the war he supported with the closest thing I heard to
a talking point all afternoon. "The country is like
a body," Palmer explained, "and each part of
the body has a different function. Certain people do certain
things better than others." He said his "function"
was planning a "Support Our Troops" day on campus
this year in which students honored military recruiters
from all four branches of the service.
Standing by Palmer's side and sipping a glass of rose
wine, University of Georgia Republican member Kiera Ranke
said she played her part as well. She and her sorority
sisters sent care packages to troops in Iraq along with
letters and pictures of themselves. "They wrote back
and told us we boosted their morale," she said.
By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior
from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of
Business, the beer was flowing freely.
"The people opposed to the war aren't putting their
asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar.
Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm
not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity
to go to the number-one business school in the country,"
he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and
I wasn't going to pass that up."
And besides, being a College Republican is so much more
fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the
pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the
center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag,
wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H
painted on their bare chests. "We're the big guys,"
he said. "We're the ones who stand up for what we
believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking
about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit."
When 25-year-old candidate Mike Davidson emerged in the
center of the room, the party fell to a hush. [...]
His candidacy has been endorsed by Representative David
Dreier and Ann Coulter, who hailed him as a pioneer of
"the new McCarthyism." And with good reason.
Last February, in a Horowitz-inspired redbaiting operation,
College Republicans at Santa Rosa Junior College in Northern
California posted fliers on the doors of ten professors'
offices bearing a red star and a warning quoting a 1950s-era
state education code forbidding "the advocacy and
teaching of communism." One professor's crime was
displaying a poster for the film Fahrenheit 9/11 in his
office window. Soon after, a press release appeared on
the California College Republicans' website identifying
the stunt as "Operation Red Scare." [...] |
Class
Consciousness Matters
Belief in the myth of the self-made man has made many
ordinary people suckers for the right-wing pitch. |
By David Moberg, In These Times.
Posted June 30, 2005. |
The
myth of the self-made man is American culture's own special
heart of darkness, helping to explain both its infectious
optimism and ruthless greed.
The idea holds enough truth and seductiveness to make
it easy to forget its delusional dangers. To reprise Marx's
famous formulation, individuals, like humankind, do make
their own personal history, but not under conditions they
choose. But in America, we choose to ignore the caveat
about conditions at our peril.
The myth, or belief, that people are solely what they
make of themselves is useful to keep in mind while reading
two ongoing series: the New York Times' on class and the
Wall Street Journal's on social mobility. Both focus attention
on a truth about American society that runs counter to
most people's deep-seated beliefs: There
is less social mobility in the United States now than
in the '80s (and less then than in the '70s) and less
mobility than in many other industrial countries, including
Canada, Finland, Sweden and Germany.
Yet 40 percent of respondents to a Times
poll said that there was a greater chance to move up from
one class to another now than 30 years ago, and 46 percent
said it was easier to do so in the United States than
in Europe.
Although the news about social mobility has not been
widely reported, it is generally recognized that inequality
has grown over the past thirty years. The Times series
highlights how much the super-rich have made out like,
well, bandits.
While the real income of the bottom
90 percent of Americans fell from 1980 to 2002, the income
of the top 0.1 percent--making $1.6 million or more--went
up two and a half times in real terms before taxes. With
the help of the Bush tax cuts, the gap between the super-rich
and everyone else grew even larger.
The American people accept this, it is argued, because
they think not only that there's more social mobility
than there is, but also that they'll personally get rich.
Indeed, a poll in 2000 indicated that 39 percent of Americans
thought they were either in the wealthiest one percent
or would be "soon." The Times poll was
slightly less exuberant: 11 percent thought it was very
likely they would become wealthy, another 34 percent somewhat
likely.
"It is okay to have ever-greater differences between
rich and poor, [Americans] seem to believe," David
Wessel wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "as long
as their children have a good chance of grasping the brass
ring."
This view is problematic. First, the greater the inequality,
the less likely the possibility of mobility. Increased
inequality worsens the large disparities in resources
that families can devote to education -- resources that
are increasingly important for both entering many careers
and for social mobility. A college degree, it should be
stressed, is important not just because of the knowledge
acquired, but because college serves as a class-biased
sorting mechanism for entry to certain jobs. In contrast,
the record suggests that countries with greater equality
also have greater mobility. Substantive equality creates
more equality of opportunity.
But even if there were mobility, such inequality would
be problematic. Is it fair that society's wealth be divided
so unevenly? Isn't there a decent standard of living --
rising as economies become wealthier -- to which everyone
who "works hard and plays by the rules," in
the Clintonian formulation, should be entitled? Great
social disparity means that the financially well-off use
their money and greater political leverage to protect
their privilege rather than to design policies for the
common good.
In defense of the rich getting richer, former Bush economic
advisor Gregory Mankiw wrote in response to the Times
series that the richest increased their share when the
economy boomed; so if we want prosperity, let the plutocrats
prosper. But the economy grew faster in the first three
decades after World War II when equality was increasing
than in the next three decades when equality was decreasing.
In any case, if the income from growth is captured by
the very rich, as it largely has been for a couple decades,
this path to prosperity offers little to most people.
Also, with high inequality, even the pretense of community
declines, social conflict increases and society functions
more poorly. Individual mobility
is not the only way to improve one's lot. Social solidarity
and working together can improve everyone's lot.
This brings us back to the self-made
man. It becomes clear, as the Times series is titled,
that "class matters," just as race, gender and
other accidents of history matter. The social class into
which someone is born largely defines one's class as an
adult, and both make a difference in how healthy or how
long-lived the person will be, especially in the absence
of universal health insurance. It influences access to
education and to jobs.
The myth of the self-made person, however,
encourages the person who succeeds to think his good fortune
is due entirely to his work and genius. For this reason
businessmen in the United States have historically been
more anti-union and hostile to government than their counterparts
in Europe. And the myth makes those who fail blame themselves.
According to recent polls, American workers -- worried
more about job insecurity, rising costs of education,
health care expenses, the availability of insurance, pension
failures and social security privatization -- are increasingly
looking for stronger social action to provide security.
They are deeply skeptical about the globalization that
has increased inequality and insecurity. Like the French
vote on the European Union constitution, a U.S. referendum
on globalization might well divide along class lines.
The irony is that taking responsibility as a society to
guarantee more stability and equality -- by regulating
the global economy and establishing universal guarantees
of health care, education, and retirement security --
can provide citizens with more individual freedom.
For now, the realm of freedom for
most Americans remains constricted to the shopping mall,
where they can buy their identities. Both the Journal
and Times point to the rapid growth of personal credit
as one way that Americans have continued to buy while
earnings have stagnated. Former United Auto Workers official
Frank Joyce even sees the rise of credit cards as undermining
workers' interest in unions. Income, earned or borrowed,
obviously greatly differentiates people's lives, even
if a working class consumer can only indulge in a box
of luxury chocolates or sub-luxury car. And the growing
differences in income are exacerbated by growing but unmeasured
differences in health insurance, as well as various business
perks such as free cars or expense accounts.
But the focus on income ignores the
even greater inequalities of wealth. Wealth provides security.
As the Times series points out, the better-off consistently
talk of making choices while working class individuals
talk about feeling trapped. Kids from wealthy families
can take unpaid internships, spend a year abroad or experiment
with careers; kids from working class families are likely
to stick with a summer job that pays the bills and provides
health insurance, thus failing to finish college.
More important, wealth and class are issues of power.
Aaron Kemp, who lost his job when Maytag shifted production
from Illinois to Mexico and Korea (see "Maytag Moves
to Mexico," January 17), remarked, "I never
remember even thinking about what class I was in until
after the plant closing announcement and layoff. And then
you begin to think about what class you're in." Rather
than manners or fashion, class ultimately has more to
do with who has the power to make such decisions and the
powerlessness of the majority. These crucial aspects of
class--social, political and economic power--have been
missing from the series.
It might have been good for the Times to run an excerpt
of Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro's new book, Death
by a Thousand Cuts. It recounts how the super-rich
worked with ultra-conservatives to demonize and possibly
eliminate the estate tax, which they renamed the "death
tax." As William Gates, Sr., father of Microsoft
Bill, often argued on behalf of the tax, the very rich
accumulate their wealth not simply because of what they
did but because of the society in which they lived, and
they have a debt to that society. And the heirs of such
wealth are the antithesis of self-made men.
The rich used their political power, their money and
the right's shameless, mendacious hucksters to protect
their riches, at the expense of society. But belief in
the myth of the self-made man--abetted by the feckless
incompetence of Democratic opposition--made many ordinary
people suckers for the right-wing pitch. Class matters,
but so does consciousness of class. That's another, longer
story.
David Moberg is a senior editor of In
These Times. |
[...] So let's dream.
Instead of doing nothing or simply defending 20th-century
solutions, let's imagine together what we could do to
give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century.
What if we prepared every child in America with the education
and skills they need to compete in the new economy? If
we made sure that college was affordable for everyone
who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers
and we said "Your old job is not coming back, but
a new job will be there because we're going to seriously
retrain you and there's life-long education that's waiting
for you -- the sorts of opportunities that Knox has created
with the Strong Futures scholarship program.
What if no matter where you worked or how many times
you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that
stayed with you always, so you all had the flexibility
to move to a better job or start a new business? What
if instead of cutting budgets for research and development
and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that
will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future?
[...] |
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- At least four Americans held hostage
in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran said
on
Thursday they recognized Iran's president-elect as one
of the
ringleaders from the crisis, a claim denied in Tehran.
[...] |
A
joint British and American spying operation at the United
Nations scuppered a last-ditch initiative to avert the
invasion of Iraq, The Observer can reveal.
Senior
UN diplomats from Mexico and Chile provided new evidence
last week that their missions were spied on, in direct
contravention of international law.
The
former Mexican ambassador to the UN, Adolfo Aguilar
Zinser, told The Observer that US officials intervened
last March, just days before the war against Saddam
was launched, to halt secret negotiations for a compromise
resolution to give weapons inspectors more time to complete
their work.
Aguilar
Zinser claimed that the intervention could only have
come as a result of surveillance of a closed diplomatic
meeting where the compromise was being hammered out.
He said it was clear the Americans knew about the confidential
discussions in advance. 'When they [the US] found out,
they said, "You should know that we don't like
the idea and we don't like you to promote it."' |
The U.S. Capitol was evacuated
last evening after a small plane flying at a rapid clip
entered Washington's restricted airspace and prompted
a scramble by federal officials to launch fighter jets
and other aircraft to intercept the plane.
The urgency of the evacuation order diminished after
about two minutes as the pilot of the twin-engine turboprob
aircraft responded quickly to the interception and changed
course, federal officials said.
Still, the intrusion -- the second in about six weeks
in which a small plane violated the airspace -- disrupted
a Senate vote and prompted authorities at the White
House to move President Bush to a more secure location.
As a result of the recent incidents,
Bush administration officials are discussing the possibility
of extending the restricted airspace around Washington,
said an administration official who spoke on the condition
of anonymity.
"While there was no danger to potential strategic
targets,'' the official said, yesterday's incident and
one in May involving a plane from Pennsylvania caused
concern that fighter jets might not have enough time
to intercept potentially dangerous aircraft.
The Beech King Air 350, registered to Standridge Color
Corp. of Social Circle, Ga., was heading southwest at
6:18 p.m. when it was intercepted by F-16 fighters that
escorted it to Winchester, Va., federal authorities
said.
The pilot responded "very quickly," said
Mike Kucharek, spokesman for the North American Aerospace
Defense Command. In that respect, yesterday's incident
differed from the May 11 incident, in which the pilot
of a Cessna initially failed to respond to flares launched
by fighter jets or hand signals from Black Hawk helicopter
crews.
Yesterday, senators were voting on a measure concerning
travel to Cuba when the Capitol's alarm system of flashing
white lights and whooping sirens sent them scurrying
for the exits about 6:30 p.m. Lawmakers, staff members,
tourists and others dashed down marble stairways and
through every available exit. Outside, they followed
police orders to move north, toward Union Station.
This time, however, the mood seemed more relaxed and
orderly. Capitol Police officers appeared calm.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan
said authorities were notified about 6:30 p.m. of the
airspace violation, which triggered a red alert, the
highest in its security system. Bush was "relocated"
to a more secure location, McClellan said without elaborating.
McClellan said the alarm was called off before a full
evacuation could begin. "We started to relocate
some staff," he said. "The alert level did
go red, but within a matter of a couple minutes it was
back down to yellow." [...]
The pilot's name could not be learned last night, but
a Standridge Color official said the man is a pilot
for the company, which makes plastics. "This was
not intentional whatsoever," Hal Wells said. Wells
said the pilot had dropped off employees in Delaware
and was headed to Ohio to pick up other employees.
A federal official said radio
communication between the pilot and authorities indicated
that the pilot ended up in the restricted area while
trying to avoid bad weather. The Secret Service
said the pilot was released last night after questioning.
An FAA spokeswoman said the matter is under investigation. |
Israel will evacuate all 21 settlements
in Gaza as well as four other enclaves in the West Bank
The United States plans to give Israel an additional
one billion dollars in a post-withdrawal aid package
to develop the Negev in the south and the Galilee in
the north, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing U.S.
officials.
The White House is still waiting for Israel to present
a detailed plan before it approves the "substantial"
funding, U.S. administration sources said.
"It's not clear yet over what period and how it
would be divided between the Negev and the Galilee,"
said one official about the aid package, which would
be part of next year's U.S. budget.
Developing the two regions was discussed during Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's meeting with Bush in Crawford,
Texas in April this year.
"The Prime Minister believes that developing [the]
Negev and the Galilee regions is vital to ensuring a
vibrant economic future for Israel. I support that goal
and we will work together to make his plans a reality."
Bush said.
The office of the Israeli Vice PM Shimon Peres has
urged the U.S. to aid in infrastructure projects in
the regions, which have sizable Arab minorities.
Israel also wants the U.S. to help in the process of
relocating military bases, including training and hi-tech
units in the Negev, as well as aid for improving education,
infrastructure and employment in the Beduin sector there.
"The Israeli government is not only one of disengagement
from Gaza, but also one of engagement in the Negev and
Galilee," Peres said.
Under the disengagement plan, Israel will evacuate
all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip as well as four
other enclaves in the northern West Bank in mid-August.
"It's a special circumstance.
Israel's taking upon itself huge burdens," the
executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations Malcolm Hoenlein
said of expanding the U.S. aid to Israel.
"It's aid because it's a critical part of where
to put the displaced people [following disengagement],
and the United States is committed to helping Israel."
The total U.S. aid to Israel
in 2004 totaled $2.853 billion, the vast majority of
which went to the Israeli army. The
grants were accompanied by $3 billion in loan guarantees.
|
Hundreds of Israeli
soldiers have stormed a hotel in the Gaza Strip in order
to remove 150 Jewish extremists, who had barricaded themselves
inside for several weeks.
The ultra-nationalists had vowed to make the derelict
Palm Beach Hotel their base of operations to protest Israel's
planned pullout from the Gaza.
The move comes as the Israeli military sealed off the
Gaza Strip to keep out Jewish extremists after violent
clashes in the region in recent days.
"There is intelligence information that more extremist
groups are moving toward the Gaza Strip with the intention
of strengthening their friends and to escalate the provocative
acts," said the army in a statement.
The settlement of Gush Katif in the Gaza has been fortified
in recent days with hundreds of ultra-nationalist settlers
bused in by organizers.
Jewish militants fought Israeli forces and Palestinians
on Wednesday. They also scrapped with Israeli soldiers
over the weekend ahead of the country's official withdrawal
from all Gaza and four West Bank settlements.
During Wednesday's scuffle, a group of Jewish youths
were caught on video beating a Palestinian boy unconscious.
The incident sparked widespread outrage across Israel
with some questioning why the youths weren't arrested
on the scene. Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said
police were investigating what he called a "lynching."
"There is no connection between Judaism and those
who carried out this," said Shaul Yahalom, a politician
from the National Religious Party.
Israel's disengagement from the West Bank and Gaza is
slated for mid-August. In the meantime, the army has also
isolated the settlements to stop residents from travelling
between the colonies.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Haaretz newspaper
that he is cracking down on the extremists.
"This is an act of savagery, vulgarity and irresponsibility
... every measure must be taken to end this rampaging."
Disgruntled settlers also tried to tie up traffic throughout
Israel, blocking several major intersections, spilling
oil and nails on a highway. |
British military advisers
trained Uzbek troops in "marksmanship" shortly
before a massacre in which hundreds of people were killed.
The training was part of a larger programme funded
by Britain despite concerns expressed by the Foreign
Office at the time over the Uzbekistan government's
human rights record.
A group of Uzbek military cadets were given a "coaching
course" in marksmanship by British soldiers in
February and March this year.
In May, Uzbek forces massacred up to 500 men, women
and children in the town of Andijan. Uzbek troops used
military Land Rovers in the operation.
It is not known whether any Uzbek military students
or officers trained by Britain were involved in this
or any other operation against civilians.
Details of Britain's military training programme in
Uzbekistan have been given by Adam Ingram, the armed
forces minister, in answers to parliamentary questions
from the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, Michael
Moore.
Over 100 Uzbek military personnel were trained by the
British military advisory and training teams between
October last year and March, at cost of £175,000.
The courses included "field training" and
instructor training, as well as coaching in marksmanship.
Uzbek soldiers, including senior officers, have also
been trained in Britain, in courses ranging from peacekeeping
to "war-fighting".
[...] |
One in six countries
in the world face food shortages this year because
of severe droughts that could become semi-permanent
under climate change, UN scientists warned yesterday.
In a stark message for world leaders who meet in Gleneagles
next week to discuss global warming, Wulf Killman, chairman
of the UN food and agriculture organisation's climate
change group, said the droughts that have devastated
crops across Africa, central America and south-east
Asia in the past year are part of an emerging pattern.
|
LONDON - Global temperatures
in the future could be much hotter than scientists have
predicted if new computer models on climate change are
correct, researchers said on Wednesday. [...]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
predicts a rise in global temperatures from a doubling
of carbon dioxide could be in the range of 1.5-4.5 degrees
Celsius by the end of the century. But according to
calculations by Andreae and his team, the upper figure
could be as high as 6 degrees.
"That's quite a lot," the professor from
the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany
said in an interview. [...]
He admitted it was a situation of high scientific uncertainty.
But if his calculations are correct, climate change
in the 21 century could reach the upper extremes or
exceed the IPCC estimates.
"Such a degree of climate change is so far outside
the range covered by experience and scientific understanding
that we cannot with any confidence predict the consequences
for the Earth system," Andreae said in the journal.
Scientists have warned that severe climate change could
lead to a rise in sea levels, flooding, severe droughts
and the loss of crop and animals species. |
SYDNEY - Two people were missing
and about 3,300 people evacuated from rising floodwaters
in eastern Australia on Thursday after storms
lashed areas which had been suffering under the nation's
worst drought in a century.
In the New South Wales state farming town of Lismore,
about 600 km (370 miles) north of Sydney, 3,000 people
began leaving their homes before floodwaters in the
nearby Wilson River hit an expected peak of more than
10 meters (33 feet) late on Thursday.
Strong winds and flash flooding from storms overnight
also caused widespread damage in neighboring Queensland
state.
A search for a man and woman missing after their car
was swept from a flooded causeway in Coomera on the
Gold Coast tourist hub was suspended late on Thursday.
Lifeguards on jetskis had earlier joined police in
searching for the couple, feared drowned.
Several other people were rescued from stranded cars
and some homes were damaged but there were no injuries,
officials said.
State Emergency Services spokesman Phil Campbell said
at least another 325 people had been evacuated in small
towns north of Lismore on the Tweed river near the border
with Queensland.
Just two weeks ago farmers were dancing in the rain
after downpours delivered the first heavy showers in
more than four years to large areas of drought-ravaged
eastern Australia. Australia
is the world's second-largest wheat exporter after the
United States and a major supplier to Asia and the Middle
East. [...] |
WASHINGTON - Hurricane activity
has increased and is likely to remain high for a decade
or more, the head of the National Hurricane Center said
Wednesday.
From the 1970s to the mid-1990s the number of hurricanes
was low, Max Mayfield told the Senate Commerce Science
and Transportation Committee, but now frequency is increasing
"and this period of heightened activity could last
another 10 to 20 years."
Memories are still fresh of
the four hurricanes that battered Florida last year.
Forecasters predict 13 named storms,
including seven hurricanes, could possibly threaten
the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts this year.
Indeed, Tropical Depression Bret is currently producing
heavy rains in Mexico.
Mayfield said the cyclic increase in tropical storms
is made more dangerous because of the growth in coastal
populations in recent years. An estimated 85 percent
of coastal residents have never experienced a major
hurricane, he said. [...]
Asbury H. Sallenger of the U.S. Geological Survey added
that the lack of experience with storms in recent years
has resulted in construction of buildings that may not
be able to stand up to them.
He pointed out the collapse of a five-story building
in Orange Beach, Ala., when it was undermined by Hurricane
Ivan.
Of special concern are the Florida Keys and New Orleans,
where many people live in low-lying or below-sea-level
areas that cannot be easily evacuated, Mayfield said.
[...] |
MADRID, Spain (AP)
- Legislators on Thursday voted to make traditionally
Roman Catholic Spain the world's fourth country to give
same-sex couples many of the same rights as heterosexual
spouses. [...]
In debate before the vote, Zapatero noted that the Netherlands
and Belgium have already legalized gay marriage and Canada
is expected to do so this summer.
"We were not the first, but I am sure we will not
be the last," he told the chamber. "After us
will come many other countries, driven, ladies and gentlemen,
by two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality."
|
NIMES, France, June
30 (AFP) - The trial of a Mauritanian military officer
for torture opened in his absence Thursday in France's
first ever application of the doctrine of 'universal jurisdiction',
according to which foreigners can be prosecuted for crimes
committed anywhere in the world.
Ely Ould Dah, 42, was not in the court in the southern
town of Nimes, having fled France in 2000 several months
after his arrest.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
welcomed Ould Dah's trial on charges of "torture
and acts of barbarism" as an important step to establishing
the right to try certain types of crime -- such as torture
and crimes against humanity -- in foreign
jurisdictions.
"This trial takes place thanks to the obstinacy
of the victims as well as the FIDH," said the organisation's
president Sidiki Kaba.
Ould Dah, who is today a major in the Mauritanian army,
is alleged to have tortured two black officers in 1991
after they were accused of taking part in a plot against
President Maaouiya Ould Taya.
In July 1999 he was detained in France while on a training
course in the city of Montpellier. He was granted conditional
release in September and fled back to Mauritania in unclear
circumstances the next April.
The doctrine of 'universal jurisdiction' has been making
inroads into international law ever since the detention
of Chilean former president Augusto Pinochet in London
in 1998.
Several cases have been launched in European courts --
including one citing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
in Belgium -- but in practice it is proving difficult
to bring them to trial. |
Over
the limit
Leaps of faith into the realms of Tolkien and The X-Files
are vital if science is not to become boring and die.
Henry Gee favours a journey into the unknown |
Henry Gee
Thursday June 30, 2005
The Guardian |
A hundred years ago
today, a manuscript arrived at the German science magazine,
Annalen der Physik. Its title was Zur Elektrodynamik
bewegter Körper (On the electrodynamics of moving
bodies) and the author was an office worker called Albert
Einstein.
The paper is easy to follow and contains neither experiments
nor references. Yet this one paper established the constancy
of the speed of light, the demolition of "luminiferous
ether" as a substance held to fill all space, and
established the theory of relativity.
It starts with a single insight from which all else follows
- that the connection we make between the notion of time
and what we read on a clock is only provisional.
We have to take into account that all our judgments in
which time plays a part are always judgments of simultaneous
events. If, for instance, I say, "That train arrives
here at seven o'clock," I mean something like this:
"The pointing of the small hand of my watch to seven
and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events."
It is no surprise that this insight was made by a commuter.
But this imaginative leap reminds us that all worthwhile
science rests ultimately on such leaps of faith. Science
starts with a hypothesis, that is, a "what if"
question. What if I mix these two chemicals together,
rather than those? What if we assume that time is a fluid
medium, not tied to the hands of a clock? What then would
we find out? In the act of creating a hypothesis we conjure
a fantasy universe in which we let our minds roam ahead.
If we are scientists, we assume that our invented world
has the rules of the real world, relaxed sufficiently
only to explore the consequences of our hypothesis.
A capacity for fantasy is something we should encourage
in scientists. But this notion has been lost by those
whose self-imposed task it is to drill the public in the
discipline of science. In August 1998, the Independent
newspaper published an astonishing denunciation of the
fantastic by John Durant, professor of the public understanding
of science at Imperial College. The occasion was the release
of a movie, The X-Files, based on the TV series in which
FBI agents investigate sundry paranormal phenomena. Durant's
argument was that we should avoid such flummery, cleaving
to prescribed facts that he and his colleagues would obligingly
set out for us.
Durant was wrong to worry that every person who watches
The X-Files believes in flying saucers. People enjoy imagining
things beyond their experience, and working out what their
reactions might be were they to encounter them, an ability
of which any proponent of science education might approve.
Were we all to take Durant's advice and believe only those
things that he and his colleagues tell us are true, (simply
because they, the authorities, tell us so) science would
die.
In this context, Einstein has less in common with Durant
than with, of all people, JRR Tolkien. As Tolkien says
in his essay On Fairy Stories, belief in the fantastic
requires the audience to suspend disbelief, otherwise
the effect will be spoiled. After all, a hypothesis has
to be tested before it can be admitted.
When I told people I planned to write a book on Tolkien's
universe from a scientific standpoint, they either remarked
that I would not have enough material (evidently wrong),
or pointed to Gandalf's denunciation (in The Lord of the
Rings) of the reductionist urges of the traitor Saruman
- that he who takes something to bits to discover how
it works has left the path of wisdom. The easy equation
of Gandalf with Tolkien resembles that of time and clocks.
Any more than the most cursory reading of Tolkien shows
he had a deep respect for science. What Tolkien objected
to was the misapplication of science for the purposes
of wealth creation, domination or the acquisition of power.
Science, like well-crafted fantasy, is not about the
known, for that is boring. Science is about exploring
the limits of the unknown and trying to peer further into
the gloom. In his essay The Monsters and the Critics,
Tolkien argued that scholars of Beowulf had spent too
much time excavating the ancient epic for clues about
linguistics, and not enough appreciating it as a story.
As scientists, we must set our courses into the unknown.
The monsters, said Tolkien, are what we should be looking
at. |
One of the first studies
to examine how climate change might alter the land surface
of Africa has been published by scientists from Oxford
University.
Their research details how the immense dunefields of
the Kalahari could be stirred up by global warming.
The investigation, reported in the journal Nature, warns
that large areas of currently productive land could become
engulfed by shifting sands.
"The social consequences of these changes could
be drastic," they say.
The team, led by Professor David Thomas, urges politicians
in the region not to pursue development policies that
might exacerbate the coming problems, turning currently
semi-arid areas into desert.
"We've seen in Botswana, for example, with European
Union support, an enormous growth in livestock production
using groundwater. That in itself has put great pressure
on the Botswana landscape," Professor Thomas told
BBC News.
"[The shifting sands] will make those Western-sponsored
programmes very unsuccessful into the future." [...]
These dunes punctuate 2.5 million sq km of Africa - from
the northern end of South Africa, right up through Angola,
Botswana and Namibia, to western Zimbabwe and western
Zambia.
They were built up thousands of years ago and are now
reasonably well covered by vegetation.
But Professor Thomas and colleagues found that no matter
which general climate model data they used, their simulator
came out with projections for dramatic increases in dune
"activity" - they will start to erode and move
as precipitation falls and wind speeds increase.
The southern dunefields of Botswana and Namibia become
activated by 2040, while the more northerly and easterly
dunes in Angola, Zimbabwe and Zambia begin to shift significantly
by 2070.
By the end of the 21st Century, all the dunes from South
Africa to Zambia and Angola are likely to be reactivated.
Changing world
Tens or even hundreds of thousands of people would be
affected by such changes, the team said.
"The Kalahari is a large area that supports a reasonably
big rural population that lives by farming," Professor
Thomas explained.
"It's these people who are vulnerable to their currently
savannah-like environment becoming a rather more hostile,
active, dune landscape than it is today.
He added: "There has been little work done on how
the landscape is likely to evolve under climate change
impacts.
"We've had a lot of work done on ice-cap melt and
glacier retreat; there's been a lot of interest in changes
around coastlines, particularly Europe and North America,
and the low-lying islands of the Pacific, of course. But
relatively little concern has been expressed with regard
to the way the landscapes of Africa are likely to change
in the 21st Century.
"What we're saying here is that these landscapes
are potentially very dynamic and they can kick in with
a form of activity that is rather hostile to farming."
The leaders of the major industrial countries, known
as the G8, meet in Scotland on 6 July to discuss African
development and climate change.
Last week, an alliance of 21 UK-based charities and environment
groups issued a report which claimed any G8 strategy to
alleviate poverty in Africa was doomed to failure unless
urgent action was taken to halt climate change. |
International scientists
have downgraded the risk of an imminent bird flu pandemic,
hailing as "very good news" indications that
the virus has not mutated.
A team of experts from Britain, Hong Kong, Japan and
the United States left Vietnam Tuesday after judging the
threat posed to humans by the H5N1 strain to be lower
than previously thought.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said last year that
millions of people could die if the avian virus mutated
to become easily transmissible between humans.
In Manila last month, the WHO called on countries around
the world to press ahead with preparations for a flu pandemic,
after a first study in the country showed signs of greater
risk of human to human transmission.
But the latest, most advanced study in Vietnam did not
find the virus had changed.
"The most important thing is that we could rule
out that there was an immediate, imminent pandemic,"
said Hans Troedsson of the WHO. "Since the virus
is widely spread, the risk is still there but not as imminent
as we initially might have suspected," he added.
In spite of the encouraging news, the WHO advises the
international community to stay on guard, saying influenza
viruses are inclined to change frequently.
Vietnam has confirmed an additional case of human infection,
bringing to 60 the number of people who have tested positive
there since December.
A total of 54 people have died from the H5N1 strain in
the region, including 38 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four
Cambodians. |
American officials
say the second case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE), or mad cow disease, in the U.S. was a cow born,
raised and slaughtered in Texas.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the diagnosis
on Friday but had to wait for DNA analysis to confirm
the cow's origin.
The USDA says the cow was killed at a pet food plant
after it was determined to be unfit for human consumption.
"The testing and traceback efforts may yield further
information as to how this animal became infected,"
said USDA chief veterinarian John Clifford in a statement
on the department's website.
"The safety of our food supply is not in question
... American beef is among the safest in the world."
Officials say the 12-year-old cow couldn't stand on its
own feet.
At its age, the cow could have have contracted the disease
before a regulation was introduced banning feed that included
animal parts.
[...] |
SINGAPORE, June 30
(Xinhuanet) -- Some 610 dengue cases were found in Singapore
in the first three weeks of June while the number of cases
for the whole month of May was 611, Channel News Asia
reported Thursday night.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) attributed the
rise to the warmer weather in June, which is expected
to continue through July and August.
The report quoted the NEA as saying
that the number of dengue cases from January to the third
week of June was nearly 5,000, more than double the number
in the same period last year, and only one death has been
reported up to now. [...] |
A moderate earthquake
with a magnitude of 5.3 rattled southern New Zealand
this evening, but police said there were no immediate
reports of injuries or damage.
The quake was centred 140km west of the farming and
tourism town of Te Anau and occurred some 33km below
the earth's crust, the Institute of Geological and Nuclear
Sciences said.
It said the temblor, strong enough to cause major damage
and injury in a built-up area, was likely to have been
felt in mainly rural Southland and Central Otago on
South Island.
The region has been hit by a series of quakes in the
past two years, including one of magnitude 7.0 which
rattled buildings and tossed appliances and goods from
shelves. |
LONDON, June 30 (IranMania)
- An earthquake jolted surrounding areas of Omidiyeh city,
southwestern province of Khuzestan, on Wednesday night.
It was measuring 4.1 degree on Richter scale, according
to IRNA.
According to the report of seismography center of Geophysics
Institute affiliated to Tehran University, the tremor
occurred at 22:30 local time (18:00 GMT) and its epicenter
was at 30.94 latitude and 49.58 longitude.
There is no immediate report on possible casualty or
damages. |
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