default.html Issue 135
Table of Contents

Deep Throat Critics See Accountability As Crime

by Jack Random It has been over three decades since Dick Nixon resigned but onlly one since the initial attempt to transform the monster from a national disgrace to a misunderstood statesman. Now, the old Nixon loyalists -- Henry Kissinger, Pat Buchanan, G. Gordon Liddy, Charles Colson, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity -- are once again trying to resurrect the dignity of their former boss or mentor by suggesting that the man who helped bring him down was betraying a sacred trust


Bush, Neo-Cons, Called Iran Election Illegit Even Before Votes Cast

by Jim Lobe As millions of Iranians prepared to vote for the successor to President Mohammed Khatami Friday, the group, helped along by a strong denunciation by Bush himself, mounted what could only be described as an orchestrated public-relations campaign to discredit the elections even before they took place


G8 Climate Plan Weakened At U.S. Demand

G8 Summit host, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has vowed to put action to limit climate change at the top of the G8 agenda, but with just 17 days to go before the leaders of the world's eight wealthiest nations meet at the Gleneagles Hotel, it appears that the draft action plan is being weakened so that little action will result


Fewer Latinos Signing Up For U.S. Army

by Diego Cevallos A total of 215 Latino soldiers serving in the U.S. army have died in Iraq, but according to anti-war activists, this bad news has a silver lining: a smaller number of young people of Latin American descent are enlisting in the armed forces


Franken The Best Thing That's Happened To O'Reilly

by Steve Young From what Michael, who presented the award to Al Franken, told me, except for the meltdown, any indication he might hurt someone, or that Al was dragged off the stage, everything O'Reilly said was true. He did cry -- when he spoke of the wounded soldiers he had visited. What a pussy


Libs, Media Are Torturing Our President

by Steve Young Bill goes on to write about the The New York Times stories on the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the reports from the International Red Cross on the prisoner abuse and the most dangerous organization on the planet, The American Civil Liberties Union, challenging detentions on Guantanamo. The "strategy was sealed," he wrote. "The Bush administration was full of torturers and human rights violators. It was ruining America's reputation throughout the world. Bush was a villain."


Iran Vote Recount After Election Fraud Charged

by Golnaz Esfandiari Election officials in Iran have ordered a random recount of 100 ballot boxes from the June 17 presidential vote after several reformist candidates alleged the vote had been rigged. One of the candidates, Mehdi Karrubi, who failed to advance to the second round of voting after finishing a narrow third, put his allegations in the form of an open letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and accused military officials of interfering in the vote. Three newspapers that reprinted Karrubi's letter were banned from publication


"Move America Forward" Bids To Lead Extremist's Charge

by Tanya I. Garcia Two of the most recent MAF initiatives are strategically and tactically linked: to move the United Nations headquarters out of the United States and to support John Bolton as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations


Tehran's Bloggers Expected Easy Liberal Victory

by Nema Milaninia The success of Ahmadinejad, Karroubi and Rafsanjani demonstrates that discontent among Iran's poor, military, working and rural classes is more powerful then anticipated. As bloggers and journalists, we must reconsider not only the accuracy of our perspectives, but also the nature of Iranian politics altogether. Journalists and bloggers tend to think that conservative politicians are anomalies in our society. It is important to remember, however, that conservative elements in Iran are not only political units, but also have significant grassroots support


The CIA's Eclipse

by Tom Barry The Negroponte nomination, preceded by that of Goss, signaled the end of the CIA's dominant position among the government's 15 intelligence agencies


Iran Hardliner's Strong Showing Forces Election Runoff

by Saloumeh Peyman Iran's defeated reform candidates and their backers are warning of 'fascist footsteps approaching' after a hard-line choice beat them out for a place in this week's run-off presidential election


Ayatollah And The Extremist In Iran Runoff

by Bill Samii Although Ahmadinejad has been politically active, it was only after he became Tehran mayor that he became nationally known. He did not campaign as aggressively as his competitors. Indeed, he only carried 10 of the provinces, including Tehran. Alleged electoral interference by the Basij and the Guardians Council on his behalf may explain an otherwise inexplicable rise in his political fortunes


Bush Foreign Policy Leading To An Anti-American Century

by William Fisher I do worry about the declining respect toward America throughout the world that, sooner than we think, will come to haunt us. The failure of American public diplomacy is part of a much greater problem: America's inability -- despite (because of?) its enormous power -- to admit that an outside world really exists, except as an enemy or overseas market


Bush Raises Stakes In N Korea Confrontation

by Jim Lobe While the combination of the week's moves suggested the implementation of a careful and coherent carrot-and-stick strategy designed to coax North Korea back to the table and head off a test, observers said the latest events are the continuation of a fundamentally incoherent policy that continues to be fought over by hardliners led by Vice President Dick Cheney and more moderate forces centered in the State Department


Bush's Iraq Speech Falls Flat

by Jim Lobe Rejecting increasingly bold calls by Democrats and some Republicans to at least establish specific benchmarks in Iraq that could offer the public some prospect for drawing down the 140,000-troop force that has been there for more than two years now, Bush insisted that he would stay the course and withdraw U.S. soldiers only when Iraqi forces were fully capable of taking their place. Nor did he admit that the administration had made any mistakes in carrying out the war


Russians Look Back On Stalin Era With Nostalgia

by Claire Bigg In the confusion of post-Soviet Russia, however, nostalgia for Stalin's iron-fisted rule is also finding an increasingly receptive audience among younger Russians disillusioned by market economy and Western values


Why Bush Wants To Harbor Terrorist Who Downed Airliner

by Tom Crumpacker In custody after the bombing, Posada threatened that if he were forced to talk, the Venezuelan government would go down the tube and the U.S. would have another Watergate. Indeed, another Watergate type cover-up seems now in progress, spawned by Posada's resurfacing in U.S. and the declassification of some of CIA's reports after 28 years


Suicides Of 4,000 India Farmers Linked To Free Market "Reforms"

by Sanjay Suri Free market policies have led to more than 4,000 farmers killing themselves in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, says a report by the charity Christian Aid


Students, Teachers Come Together For Schwarzenegger Protests

by Raj Jayadev Students are adding bulk and confrontational energy to protests by firefighters, teachers and nurses that have grown in size -- 15,000 people in late May in Sacramento; thousands in Los Angeles on the same day; hundreds in San Francisco the month before; 2,000 in San Jose, which is not known for mass mobilizations


Iraqi Tribes Accused Of Oil Pipeline Protection Racket

by Samah Samad A Sheikh of the al-Shummar Arab tribe complained that his people have not been awarded any contracts even though there are three pipelines running through the villages where they live. Instead, the work has gone to Kurds who were expelled from the area by Saddam Hussein but have since returned


The Bush Administration's Afghan Spring

by Tom Engelhardt If Iraq has been the disaster zone of Bush foreign policy, Afghanistan is still generally thought of as its success story -- to the extent that anyone in our part of the world thinks about that country at all any more. Since a burst of media attention last October for the Afghan presidential election, what news Americans have gotten about Afghanistan has consisted largely of infrequent reports on the deaths of small numbers of American troops there; statements, interviews, and press conferences by various American generals or officials on the ever-improving situation in the country. Afghanistan has once again become the land that time forgot


Iran's Hardliners Reinvent Themselves

Analysis by Saloumeh Peyman While Ahmadinedjad's promises of 'fighting corruption, poverty and discrimination' appealed to the minds and hearts of millions of jobless youth and underpaid public and private sector workers, some analysts here say the slogans really provided a cover for the former revolutionary guard commander and other 'hardliners' to seize back the presidential office and consolidate their hold on the Islamic state


Los Alamos Whistleblower Hospitalized After Assault

His wife and fellow whistleblower told reporters today that Hook had planned Saturday to meet an individual who claimed to have corroborating information about fraud at Los Alamos. That individual never appeared at the bar where the meeting was planned. When Hook got into his car to leave, attackers pulled him out of the car, assaulted him, and warned him to keep silent. A bouncer at the bar intervened and broke up the attack. "If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut," the assailants told Hook, according to his wife


Plenty Of Reasons For Outrage

by Molly Ivins This administration is starting to look like that old television show in which contestants lined up their shopping carts in a grocery store and, on the signal, began running around throwing every valuable item they could find in their carts. Whoever grabbed the most high-priced items won. The contestants here and now are corporations and lobbyists


Shameful Non-Coverage Of The Downing Street Memos

by Molly Ivins Michael Kinsley out at the Los Angeles Times, which has certainly done some commendable reporting on this war and taken the heat for it, too, also dismisses the memos. I don't get it. You suddenly get evidence -- I don't know if it proves or just strongly suggests -- that this administration lied to all of U.S. about war, and your reaction is not to go after the administration, but to dismiss the evidence? And to put down the people who are calling you screaming about why you haven't bothered to mention it? What is wrong with this picture?


Destroying PBS

by Molly Ivins When Richard Nixon attacked PBS 35 years ago, the Republican chairman of CPB resigned in protest over the political interference. The impeccably Republican Ralph Rogers of Dallas led a nationwide effort to stop the malicious meddling. Where's a decent Republican when you need one?


Note To Bush: Not Learning From Mistakes Is Sign Of Stupidity

by Molly Ivins What this tells U.S. is that the administration has learned exactly nothing from the past three years of insurgency in Iraq. The 1,700-dead, $1 billion-a-week mistake will continue to be run in exactly the same way we have already proved doesn't work. We'll keep trying to put out a growing insurgency with too small an army as the country drifts ever-closer to civil war


Republican Class Warfare

by Molly Ivins Whenever I write about such matters, the brethren on the right accuse me of 'fomenting class warfare' or of unseemly envy of the rich. Why should I give a fig if 338,400 families with more than $10 million are having a high old time? Because of the numbers


The K Street Boys

by Molly Ivins Norquist, Abramoff and Karl Rove have worked together for 30 years, since they were national leaders of the College Republicans. Norquist, DeLay and Abramoff are all key players in the 'the K Street Project' to turn the Washington lobby corps into an arm of the Republican Part


Texas Screws Over The Schools -- Again

by Molly Ivins The House was prepared to saddle us all with the highest sales tax in the country. By lowering property taxes and raising sales taxes, the House lowered the tax burden on the richest Texans and dumped it on the poorest Texans, in a state that already has a staggeringly regressive tax structure. The Senate passed a fairer bill, all things being relative, but House Speaker Tom Craddick refused to compromise. Craddick is the easy winner of this session's Number One Dickhead Award. If the state Supreme Court, which consists of nine conservative Republicans, backs the lower court decision that our current school financing system is unconstitutional, we'll have to close the public schools in October. That's how irresponsible these people are


Election Underscores Bitter Divisions In Iraq

by Kaveh Ehsani It is clear that the more significant portion of Ahmadinejad's tally was either siphoned from other conservative candidates, like Qalibaf and former state television chief Ali Larijani, or came from formerly undecided voters who had gravitated toward the Tehran mayor as he railed against corruption and ostentation


Neo-Nazis Seek To Exploit German Feelings of WWII Victimization

by Michael Scott Moore Most Germans are ashamed of their country's Nazi past, and grateful for Allied victory in World War II. Bringing attention to their own immense suffering during the war, however -- including the nuclear-like devastation of cities such as Dresden -- remains taboo. Neo-Nazi parties like the NDP profit from Germans' unspeakable grief, and try to turn it into a sense of victimization


Pinochet Loses Immunity in Tax Fraud Case

by Gustavo Gonzalez A Chilean appeals court has stripped former dictator Augusto Pinochet of immunity, allowing him to be prosecuted for tax fraud in connection with secret bank accounts uncovered earlier in the United States


Corporations Seeking Gold Fund Congo's Tribal Wars

by Moyiga Nduru From 2002 until 2004, about two thousand civilians were killed and tens of thousands displaced in the battle for one of the most important mining areas, Mongbwalu -- this as militants sought to enrich themselves from gold, the profits from which also financed their war effort. Ethnically motivated killings, torture and rape were also reported in the scramble for reserves of the ore


Rumsfeld: Iraq Insurgency Could Last 12 Years

by Valentinas Mite 'The insurgency could go on for any number of years,' Rumsfeld told Fox News Sunday on June 26. 'Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency'


Deep Throat's Crimes: Mark Felt And COINTELPRO

by Doug Ireland After Mark Felt outed himself as the legendary "Deep Throat" in the Watergate case last week, there was a media rush to canonize the FBI's former Number Two man, and politicians proposed he be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But in all this gush to make Felt a hero, there has been little or no mention of Felt's prime role in COINTELPRO -- the most gigantic domestic political spying and disruption operation ever in American history, illegally conducted by the FBI


Schools Fighting Losing Battle To Restrict Junk Food

by Michele Simon All over the country, politicians deep in the pockets of the junk food lobby are using the excuse of "local control" to defend their indefensible positions on school nutrition. Trouble is that local school districts are lured by the much-needed cash generated by soda and junk food sales


Senate Apologizes For Lynchings - But Not Hate Crimes

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson If they were still alive, NAACP executive directors James Weldon Johnson, Walter White and Roy Wilkins would smile at the Senate's apology for lynching with a non-binding resolution this week. But their smiles would be faint because Congress still refuses to pass an expanded hate crimes law


Landslide Iran Election Win For Hardliner Foes Call "Taliban Fascist"

by Golnaz Esfandiari Shortly after becoming mayor of Tehran in April 2003, Ahmadinejad imposed a system in his office building of segregated elevators for men and women. He shut down popular fast-food restaurants and converted several cultural centers into prayer halls


George W. Bush, Prophet Of God

by David Domke and Kevin Coe Bush also talks about God differently than have most other modern presidents. Presidents since Roosevelt have commonly spoken as petitioners to God, seeking blessing, favor, and guidance. The current president has adopted a position approaching that of a prophet, issuing declarations of divine desires for the nation and world


Many Mississippi Civil Rights-Era Murders Unsolved

by William Fisher Last year, after relentless pressure from civil rights, labor and religious leaders, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) finally reopened its investigation into Till's murder, and two weeks ago exhumed his body to perform DNA and other analyses to determine that the body is indeed that of Till


Why Emmett Till's Murder Still Matters

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson Till was abducted at gunpoint. That made it a kidnapping case. This automatically gave federal authorities jurisdiction over the case. They could have easily brought civil rights charges against the two principal defendants, and any others who were suspected of complicity in his murder. Till, therefore, was not solely a victim of a racist white jury. He was also the victim of a racially indifferent federal government


Even Pentagon's Daily Brief Can't Spin The Iraq Bad News

by Jim Lobe Aside from documenting the pervasive sense of distrust and contempt that the two groups of soldiers had for each other, as well as the vastly superior equipment, protection, housing and technology available to the U.S. troops, the story also recounted incidents of outright insubordination by the Iraqi unit


Bush's Immoral Relativism

by Tom Engelhardt What the Bush administration has proved is that, if you have a mind to do so, there's no end to the ways you can define 'is.' No administration has reached not just for its guns but for its dictionaries more often, when brought up against commonly accepted definitions of what is


Report Shows Evangelicals Bully, Intimidate Air Force Academy Cadets

by Bill Berkowitz Unlike other recent scandals at U.S. military academies involving cadets cheating, the violation of the honor code, and cases of sexual harassment and rape -- which were often written off as the behavior of a few errant cadets -- attorneys for Americans United found that at the Air Force Academy there was systematic and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest levels of the academy command structure


Amnesty Says Violence Against Women Widespread

by Sonny Inbaraj The story of violence against women in the Asia-Pacific region is not a pretty one and Amnesty's report indicates that it was rampant last year, regardless of whether they were facing gender based violence at home, in the community or in situations of conflict


Media's Shameful Non-Coverage Of Downing Street Memo

by Joe Conason Neither Blair nor any other British official has ever denied that the memo is real, so the journalistic failure is especially disgraceful. It is worth noting, however, that many newspapers and news services based outside the Beltway, in the heartland and even in staunchly conservative communities, displayed greater professionalism and better judgment covering this story than the major national papers


Guantanamo Critics Put Bush On Defensive

by Jim Lobe Two weeks after the Bush administration began attacking Amnesty International for calling the U.S. detention practices against suspected terrorists 'the gulag of our times,' d it finds itself increasingly on the defensive on the issue


Big Pharma Ignoring Diseases Of Poorest Nations

by Peter Deselaers The big pharmaceutical companies spend little money in developing treatment for diseases peculiar to developing countries, leading researchers say. And there is no more poignant illustration of this than the development of antiretrovirals used in treatment of HIV/AIDS, says Tido von Schšn-Angerer of the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders


Fake Bio-Terror Drama Shows Hi Tensions Between Indonesia, Australia

by Kalinga Seneviratne A media frenzy after a Bali court on May 27 sentenced a 27-year-old Australian woman to 20 years in prison for carrying 4.1 kg of cannabis into the country is blamed for the mailing of the envelope, initially suspected of being a bio-terror weapon. The hysteria created by the verdict in the case of Schapelle Corby -- which was televised live across Australia -- is reflective of the huge cultural gulf between the two neighbors -- one Muslim and Asian and the other Christian and Western


Bush Housing Plan Would Slash Help For Families, Elderly, Disabled

by Susan Wood The Bush administration, having already slashed hundreds of millions of dollars from public housing programs, is proposing legislation that would reverse a decades-long federal policy that helped provide decent housing for some of the neediest people in the United States, say housing advocates


Libya Is The Acid Test For Bolton Nomination

by Ronald Bruce St John Ironically, it is Libya's decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction, often described by the Bush administration as its finest hour, which most clearly demonstrates Bolton's shortcomings


Little Progress In Getting Japanese To Give Up Cigarettes

by Suvendrini Kakuchi Latest surveys in 2003 indicate that in Japan more than 46 percent of men and 11 percent of women smoke. While the high smoking rate among Japanese men is falling slowly, cigarette smoking among youth seems to be on the rise


Halliburton Gets $30 Million To Build Prison At Guantanamo

by William Fisher As Amnesty International urged the Bush administration to 'close Guantanamo and disclose the situation in the USA's shadowy network of detention centers around the globe,' a subsidiary of Halliburton won a $30 million contract to help build a new permanent prison for terror suspects at the U.S. Navy's controversial detention center in Cuba


Video Of Alleged War Killings Shakes Serbia

by Vesna Peric Zimonjic Serbia has been rocked by a video clip purportedly showing the execution of six Muslim boys and men by Serb paramilitaries near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica ten years ago


Sweden Bowed To U.S, Rendered Suspect To Torture

by Niko Kyriakou Sweden has violated international law by sending a suspected terrorist to Egypt where he was tortured, the UN's Committee Against Torture has concluded


Big U.S. Banks Seek Takeover Of Mexican Money Transfer Business

by Ulysses de la Torre A February research report from investment bank UBS went even further in suggesting that because existing use of credit and debit cards in Europe and Asia is much greater than in Latin America, customers in those regions should have a much quicker learning curve in adapting to card-based technologies to send and receive remittances


UN Says U.S. Blocking Investigation Of Guantanamo Torture

by Gustavo Capdevila Four UN human rights experts said Thursday that they will investigate all aspects of detention at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where some 500 prisoners are being held without charges, despite the U.S. government's failure to respond to repeated requests to allow a visit there


80 Nations Agree Safe, Stable Iraq Would Be A Good Thing

by Stefania Bianchi The summit was short on action, and steered clear of sensitivities over the Iraq war such as the continued refusal of France and Germany and other anti-war countries to offer troops. The success of the meeting was clearly symbolic


African Aid Often Depends On What Language Is Spoken

by Thalif Deen Egeland told reporters this week that overt discrimination percolates down to whether a country is French, Portuguese, or English-speaking. He said that both French and Portuguese-speaking countries are systematically lower on our funding tables than many of the English-speaking countries


French No Vote On EU Presents Chirac With Crisis

by Julio Godoy The clear French vote against the European constitution has precipitated a grave political crisis for France and for the European Union, with no easy solution in sight


Bush's GOP Allies Finally Breaking Ranks On Iraq

by Robert Scheer An increasing number of Republicans are admitting that the emperor has no clothes -- having lied his pants off about our motives for invading Iraq, and ever since about how great things are going there. Declining public support for the war and the latest outrageous claims by Vice President Dick Cheney have given these moderates an opening to challenge their own party's administration


Pattern of Deception Persists In Tillman's Death

by Robert Scheer Although Pat Tillman, 27, was shot to death on a mountain pass in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, his family has been tortured ever since by a pattern of official deception over how he died -- killed by U.S. Army machine-gun fire -- and why the family was kept in the dark


Blaming The Messenger Fools No One

by Robert Scheer What is reprehensible is letting dogs attack naked prisoners, shipping others out to be tortured by totalitarian regimes and covering up the deaths of prisoners during interrogations. But for the aggrieved leaders of the world's only superpower, pointed criticism from a citizen-run nonprofit apparently is more shocking than the abuse of prisoners they deem guilty until proved otherwise


Three Top Leaders Visit Bush, Come Away With Nothing

by Jim Lobe Each of the democratically elected leaders of long-time military allies who have been battered by public opinion at home for defending a close relationship with Washington -- got virtually nothing they really wanted during their respective meetings at the White House this week with President George W. Bush


Another Mad Cow Found - USDA Wants To Add New Test

The USDA has received final test results from The Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, confirming that a sample from an animal that was blocked from the food supply in November 2004 has tested positive


Bush Packing UN Panels With Religious Right

by Don Monkerud A collection of advocates for right-wing think tanks and fundamentalist groups now populate U.S. delegations to the UN. For example, the official U.S. women's delegation includes: Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women's Forum, which is opposed to spending tax dollars to relieve violence against women and opposes women's comparable pay efforts and affirmative action programs; and Winsome Packer, former executive assistant to the vice president of the Heritage Foundation


Backlash To Euro, Globalization Killed EU Constitution

by Paolo Pontoniere The European Union model can't provide a balance between economic liberalism and a social safety net, writes Bernardo Valli in Italy's la Repubblica. 'The rules dictated by the Union are perceived as long on liberalism and short on equality -- in sum, it's too Anglo-Saxon.' France's and Holland's No seems to agree with Valli. In France, 81 percent of blue collar workers voted non, while 62 percent of white-collar workers said oui


Mr. Pre-Emptive Attack Gets Bolton's Old Job

by Tom Barry Not a high-profile hardliner like John Bolton or former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, Joseph successfully avoided the public limelight -- that is until the scandal of the 16 words in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address about Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons development program


Richest Nations Willing To Write-Off Poorest Nation's Debt - With A Catch

by Sanjay Suri While the debt cancellation will no doubt provide immediate relief, there is enough in the stated package to raise some questions what these countries may have to do next. On just how they proceed from here, the HIPCs may have no choice but to look to the World Bank and the IMF to show them the way


Homeland Security State Leaves Wrongly Accused In Limbo

by William Fisher Take the case of the two 16-year-old Muslim girls arrested in New York and detained in Pennsylvania for six weeks as would-be suicide bombers. The government last week quietly released one of the girls pending deportation to Guinea and allowed the other one to return to Bangladesh with her family. The agency has insisted the girls were never accused of crimes, only administrative immigration violations. Yet, media reports at the time of their arrest cited a government document that said the FBI believed the girls posed an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers


Taliban Resurgent: Is Afghanistan Or Pakistan To Blame?

by MB Naqvi Afghans, from the top downward, suspect that Pakistan is not wholeheartedly cooperating with them. And there has been some evidence, mostly journalistic, showing the Taliban reorganizing and regrouping inside the country


House Seeks To Slash UN Funding By Half

by Jim Lobe In a move virtually certain to add to strains between the U.S. Congress and the United Nations, the International Relations Committee (HIRC) of the House of Representatives Wednesday approved a sweeping bill that, if passed into law, will require Washington to withhold up to half of assessed U.S. contributions to the world body unless it implements specific reforms


Desperate Iraqis Seeking Work Blind To Dangers

by Dahr Jamail Najam worked for KBR three months before she was shot. She was taken to hospital in Hilla and kept there several days. But her bosses never contacted her, she says. She was later moved to a hospital in Baghdad. Here she was told there had been a call from 'Mr Jeff' (she was never given the last names of her bosses). She was too much in pain to be able to take the call. Her employers never called again. Attempts to find their last names, e-mail addresses or phone numbers have been fruitless


Bush Has No Intention Of Diplomacy With Iran

by William O. Beeman Since there has been no diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran for nearly 30 years, the only way for either nation to get the attention of the other is through invective and excessive rhetoric. The Bush administration has decided that the nuclear issue is the one that will play best with the American public, and on the world scene, and so it seems ready to tolerate, and perhaps even orchestrate, stunts like the Burns prevarication. However, in the long run the United States is losing the battle. European powers are not willing to go along with U.S. strong-arm tactics, and even if the United States is able to haul Iran in to the United Nations to face sanctions, it is likely that China, Russia and France will veto the measure, causing embarrassment in Washington


International Poll: View Of U.S. Sinking Since Bush Re-Election

by Jim Lobe Two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Washington's image in Europe, Canada and much of the Islamic world remains broadly negative, according to the latest in a series of surveys of public opinion in 16 countries


New Wave Of Angry Nationalism In Asia

by Tim Shorrock Public opinion, not only the power of government, is driving the emergence of an angry nationalism in Northeast Asia, adding instability to a region nervous about North Korea's nuclear intentions, China's rise to near-superpower status and Japan's continued refusal to own up to its wartime past


Flood Of U.S. Rice Into Haiti Drives Farmers Into City Slums

by Dario Montero Approximately 1.5 million Haitians depend on humanitarian aid from the WFP, despite the fact that the country is home to a large variety of ecosystems that offer ample opportunities for diversified agricultural production, for both domestic consumption and export


Catholic Church Prepares To Battle Evangelists

by Paolo Pontoniere Statements by Pope Benedict XVI and the appointment of San Francisco Archbishop William Levada signal a Holy See ready to counteract the expansion of evangelical groups worldwide


"Student Bill of Rights" Casts McCarthyite Cloud Over Campuses

by David Bacon The latest attempt to return to the time of red-baiting is called -- ironically -- the 'Student Bill of Rights.' Despite its fine, democratic ring, the phrase is being used to restrict teachers from introducing controversial or provocative ideas into their classrooms


Public Television's Mystery Mann

by Michael Winship The full Mann report on Moyers has yet to be released to the public, but in remarks delivered on the Senate floor last week, South Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan reported that at his request he had received from Ken Tomlinson the raw data used in the report. The data "is unusual and strange," Sen. Dorgan said. "We have all of these sheets that describe the guests and it says: anti-Bush, anti-Bush, pro-Bush, anti-Bush. It appears to me to be not so much an evaluation of is this slanted, is it liberal, does it have an agenda; it is the evaluation of is this program critical of the President?"


Ban China Fur, Often From Animals Skinned Alive

by Rochelle Regodon In recent years, China has eclipsed all other countries combined to become the world's largest supplier of fur, thanks in part to its cheap labor and lack of regulations. China has no laws governing fur farms, so farmers can house and kill animals however they choose


FOXing Up The "Mainstream" Media

by Steve Young Dean's shooting from the hip lead to the standard Lords of Loud endless looping of his 'white, Christian party' assertion. That's to be expected. Articles in the national press were followed by editorials penned by the right side of the oped page. Again, predictable. But this week came what would have been unthinkable a short time ago: The lead editorial in this Sunday's Los Angeles Times Opinion page took Dean to task for his big mouth


Crisis In Bolivia Over Foreign Control Of Nation's Oil

by Jim Shultz South America's most destitute nation sits atop an estimated 53 trillion cubic feet of gas and oil, the second-largest reserves on the continent. For two years Bolivia has been engaged in a fierce national debate over how to develop those reserves for export, and especially over what role foreign oil companies will play


Vietnam's Fish Disappearing At Alarming Rate

by Tran Dinh Thanh Lam According to Vietnam's Deputy Minister of Fisheries Nguyen Viet Thang, some 37 species of fish, five species of shrimp, 27 species of mollusks and some other sea creatures like marine turtles, dugong and dolphins are on the verge of extinction. Throughout the country, unsustainable fishing techniques are overexploiting marine resources. Cyanide and dynamite are both used widely to catch fish


What The Minutemen Vigilantes Look Like From The Streets Of Oaxaca

by Angel Luna Talk of these dangers has recently been upstaged by the question of how to deal with the Minutemen. Word on the street is that the narcos (drug lords) are going to give rewards to anybody who kills a member of the Minuteman organization


Iraq-Injured Halliburton Workers Denied Benefits

by David Phinney KBR employee Samuel Walker, says KBR denied him medical leave after he was injured in the Camp Merez bombing. His only options at that point were to quit or stay in Iraq. He recalls that he was eating French fries when the explosion blasted through the mess tent. "Body parts were flying all over and pieces of flesh flying in my face," Walker says. When it was over, the former contractor was drenched in the blood of the victims around him and rescue workers took him for dead. "I was so close to the bomber," he adds. "There was copper wire from the bomb embedded in my jacket." Walker took a full blast to the side of his head and shrapnel pitted his body. But when KBR medics treated him following the bombing, he says they merely rubbed Vaseline on his burns and gave him Motrin for pain. Walker quit and headed home to Houston, where he's in physical therapy for his neck, back and right knee. Walker also believes suffers from PTSD. Walker knows it's unlikely that he'll be able to re-enter the workforce. In the meantime, he's waiting on his claim for disability and medical bills. "I haven't gotten one red cent from them," Walker says


Senate Bill Would Form Commission On Prisoner Abuse

by William Fisher The Biden legislation would establish a national commission to examine the role of policymakers in the development of intelligence related to the treatment of individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, and the impact of the abuse of prisoners by the U.S. personnel on the security of the armed forces


Comparisons Between Vietnam, Iraq Quagmire, Hard To Avoid

by Jim Lobe Thirty years after its ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam, senior military officers find themselves at a kind of mid-point between their dreams of glory -- after the lightning-like, two-week dash to Baghdad in 2003 -- and nagging nightmares of ultimate defeat, be it in the form of the war of attrition that kills 15 or 20 of their troops each week, or in the outbreak of a full-scale civil war in Iraq that could make their continued presence untenable


Senate Confirms Brown, Pryor To Appeals Courts

"Janice Brown has repeatedly assailed protections for the elderly, for workers, for the environment, for victims of racial discrimination," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. "She is the epitome of an activist judge." Reid said appointing Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears challenges to federal regulations, is "like putting the fox to guard the henhouse."


Who Owns Iraq?

by J.R. Pegg Whatever government ends up in control of Iraq, it will have to repay a debt of staggering proportions. Although the "Paris Club" of industrialized nations forgave part of the debt last year, about $20 billion is still owed the IMF, and is tied to yet unspecified "conditionalities" set by the Fund. A far greater debt is owed to Arab states: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and others. But all those bills fall in the shadow of the $97 billion Iran reportedly has claimed in reparations from Iraq for damage caused during the Iran-Iraq war


Voluntary Amnesia In The Service Of War

by Norman Solomon While American viewers, listeners and readers are apt to be aware that in 1979 some radical Iranians took American diplomats hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held them for more than a year, other historical facts tend to be hazy or entirely absent. That suits the White House just fine


War Made Easy: From Vietnam to Iraq

by Norman Solomon When the huge news outlets swing behind warfare, the dissent propelled by conscience is not deemed to be very newsworthy. The mass media are filled with bright lights and sizzle, with high production values and lower human values, boosting the war effort. And for many Americans, the gap between what they believe and what's on their TV sets is the distance between their truer selves and their fearful passivity


A More Democratic Iran Bad News For The Neo-Cons

by Norman Solomon The more hostility that the Bush administration expresses toward Iran, in word and deed, the more the reactionary clerics like it. And 'Death to America' chants -- as well as reports of human rights violations in Iran -- are music to the ears of the Bush neo-cons, who are working hard to foreclose any kind of detente between Washington and Tehran


From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

by Norman Solomon You wouldn't know it from the media focus on Deep Throat last week, but the lies that Richard Nixon told about the Watergate break-in were part of his standard duplicity for the Vietnam War. It wasn't just that the Nixon administration engaged in secret illegal actions against a wide range of peace advocates -- including antiwar candidate George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972. Deception was always central to Nixon's war policy. Thirty-three years after Watergate, echoes of his fervent lies for war can be heard from George W. Bush


Efforts To Get Bibles Into Classrooms Spread Nationwide

by William Fisher Despite numerous court setbacks and challenges from civil liberties organizations, right-wing Christian groups are stepping up efforts to introduce the Bible into public school classrooms, saying it already is used as a textbook in 300 school districts nationwide


China Under Mounting Pressure To Approve GM Rice

by Antoaneta Bezlova Beijing's leaders are under mounting pressure to approve the commercial release of genetically modified rice but they fear that the social cost and potential international backlash might cancel out any economic benefits


Mexican Enviros Fighting Loggers Killed

by Diego Cevallos The war waged on Native environmental activists by loggers in Mexico has claimed the lives of two more victims, including a nine-year-old boy, as non-governmental organizations report continued arrests of campesinos struggling to protect the forests vital to their survival


Palestinian Unemployment Hits 26 Percent

by Gustavo Capdevila Daily life for most Palestinians in the West Bank and Golan Heights is shaped by restrictions of movements of goods and persons through a network of checkpoints, roadblocks, fences, walls, road gates, earth mounds, trenches, military posts and observation towers, the ILO points out


Right-Wing Hostility to NGOs Glimpsed in Amnesty Flap

by Jim Lobe The Bush administration already had responded with ritual reflex -- most recently seen in its offensive against Newsweek -- to mostly undisputed charges that U.S. authorities have committed and continue to commit serious abuses, in some cases amounting to torture, against individuals rounded up on suspicion of supporting terrorism: It blamed the messenger, be it the International Red Cross or the media


Repubs Attack Red Cross Over Gitmo Criticism

by William Fisher The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is hitting back at a Senate Republican report calling on the Bush administration to reassess financial support for the organization because it is allegedly using U.S. funds to lobby against U.S. interests


Punishment For Taking Mom's Call From Iraq Shows Harsh Treatment of Black Students

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson Some educators chalk up the lopsided numbers of black student suspensions and expulsions to poverty, cultural differences and linguistic misunderstandings. Others claim that black students are more prone than whites to pick fights, deal drugs and pack guns and knives at schools. At the score of high schools where white students have gone on murderous rampages, for example, teachers and school administrators ignored danger signs or merely imposed hand-slap punishments on the students


Distrust As Wolfowitz Takes Command Of World Bank

by Emad Mekay "He is going to open up further corporate access to markets, to resources like oil, to assets like banking systems, and to cheap labor," Doug Hellinger of the Washington-based group Development GAP said. "He is going to do that not only against great resistance in places like Latin America and Asia but also in Africa and the Middle East."


Bush Acknowledges Darfur Genocide - But No Plans To Stop It

by Jim Lobe Breaking nearly six months of silence on the issue, President George W. Bush reaffirmed Wednesday his belief that genocide is taking place in Darfur, Sudan, but gave no indication that his administration is prepared to pursue aggressive efforts to stop it


France's Magnificent Non!

by Alexander Cockburn The French rejected the scaremongering, sensibly enough. The EU will not disintegrate, since the Treaty of Nice is still in effect. Le Pen was quiet, and the sinews of the Non vote were on the Left. The nationalism was not evil but an assertion of decent priorities


Juries And Lynch Mobs

by Alexander Cockburn It was a great day for the jury and a gratifying blow against the lynch mob, including outfits such as CNN, which averted their gaze from photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib, while stigmatizing Jackson as the supreme abuser


The History Of Smoking Guns

by Alexander Cockburn I think it was in the Reagan era that the smoking-gun lobby got decisively routed. Month after month the official press would write respectfully about Reagan's press conferences as though the president were a competent captain of the national ship instead of a fogged-up fantasist with absolutely no grasp of the distinction between fantasy and reality


Thomas Friedman's Imaginary India

by Alexander Cockburn Remember, India has a billion people in it. Maybe 2 percent of them get to fly in a plane or go online. Around 10 percent are well off, another 10 percent doing OK. On the most optimistic count we're left with over half a billion of the poorest people on the planet. You could build call centers every mile from Mumbai to Bangalore, stuff teenagers with basic American slang in there working Friedman's stipulated 35 hours a day servicing American corporations, and you wouldn't make a dent in the problem


Nepal Stunned As King Cracks Down On Media

by Damakant Jayshi The amendments widen the ambit of defamation, with more people included under the term 'His Majesty and royal family,' thus barring any criticism of them. Reporting deemed to portray the government (with the word 'elected' deleted) in a bad light is also covered


He Said It, Or Didn't, But Here's What He Meant

by Steve Young Karl Rove brought down the house at the annual New York Conservative Party dinner by saying that -- allow me to paraphrase -- after 9/11, conservatives put on Superman's red, white and blue cape and took on them bastards, while the liberal pussies placed Osama on the therapist couch



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Albion Monitor Issue 135 (http://www.albionmonitor.com)

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