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10/31/05 - 11/27/2005
Sunday 11/27/2005
Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth 11/27/2005 Global Policy: "At an oil price of $40 per barrel, Iraq stands to lose between $74 billion and $194 billion over the lifetime of the proposed contracts2,
from only the first 12 oilfields to be
developed. These estimates, based on
conservative assumptions, represent
between two and seven times the current
Iraqi government budget. Under the likely terms of the contracts, oil
company rates of return from investing in
Iraq would range from 42% to 162%, far in
excess of usual industry minimum target of
around 12% return on investment."
Kosovo Liberation Army helps establish "Protectorate" in Haiti 11/27/2005 Global Research: published 11/04, still topical.
Witness recounts plot to kill tycoon 11/27/2005 Orlando Sentinel: "The conversation, relayed by Nicholson to Fort Lauderdale police detectives three days after Boulis' slaying, discussed the escalating business dispute between Boulis and the men who bought his SunCruz Casino business. Moscatiello told Ferrari he had to "take care of this situation desperately," according to court documents."
Blacks in Argentina -- officially a few, but maybe a million 11/27/2005 SF Chronicle: "Maria Lamadrid, an Afro-Argentine, vividly recalls the day when her country's immigration authorities prevented her from boarding a plane for Panama, demanding she present them with a "real passport."
"They told me, 'This can't be your passport. There are no blacks in Argentina,' " she said of the 2001 incident.
The authorities at Ezeiza International Airport had no idea that the woman they detained for six hours is the president of Africa Vive, or "Africa Lives," a prominent black rights group in Buenos Aires."
BLACKS IN ARGENTINA: DISAPPEARING ACTS 11/27/2005 THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
The Gathering Winds - A Rise in Deadly Storms Since '95 Has Researchers Worried About the Future 11/27/2005 Washington Post: "There are at least two fundamental problems with the studies, according to Gray and others.
The first is that Atlantic hurricane activity has long been known to undergo fluctuations over long periods. The flip-flops between active and inactive hurricane periods in the Atlantic are attributed to long-term trends in currents and salinity.
The 1950s and 1960s saw lots of hurricane activity, for example, whereas the '70s, '80s and early '90s did not. The uptick in hurricanes that began in 1995 had long been anticipated, though researchers hadn't been sure when exactly the change would come.
Critics said the rise in Atlantic hurricanes that the papers detected was probably the cause of this natural "oscillation," not global warming.
The second flaw in the papers, according to critics, is that both papers are based on hurricane records over decades, and those vary in quality, largely because the means of measuring hurricane intensity have changed over time.
In the northwest Pacific, for example, which sees a large share of hurricane-force storms, records of storm intensity have at times been based on flight observations and sometimes on satellite images.
"In a nutshell, the data sets they're using aren't reliable enough to answer those important questions," said NOAA hurricane researcher Christopher W. Landsea. "The data sets don't take into account the different ships, the different planes, the different satellite imagery. The data is affected by the different ways of measuring."
For all the skepticism from some quarters, the arguments have been persuasive elsewhere. Willoughby said he has been leaning toward the global warming explanation and that the two new papers helped.
Still, he said, it is too early to tell."
Saturday 11/26/2005
 Nuking Iran Without the Dachshund - The meaning of the Philip Giraldi story 11/26/2005 AntiWar.com
Dec 1: Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day 11/26/2005 brphrd.com: "December 1 - Mass March & Rally
* No to Poverty, Racism & War!
* Bring the Troops Home Now
* Cut the War Budget, Not Healthcare, Housing and Education
* Justice for Hurricane Katrina Survivors
* Military recruiters out of our schools.
* Jobs - A Living Wage - the Right to Organize"
CIA - Mossad Foment Riots in France 11/26/2005 Conspiracy Planet
The Big Fix 2000 11/26/2005 Mad Cow: "Who own America’s elections?
Did Mobsters decide the fate of the election in Florida, in a contest that had nothing to do with counting hanging chad? While the nation’s eyes were riveted on punch cards being held up to the light, charges a new documentary, Mob-controlled companies that count America’s vote were slipping through the back door and stealing the election.
Top executives of the election companies responsible for the Florida Vote Snafu have been convicted of multiple election-rigging felonies, the show charges, and “look more like extras on the TV series The Sopranos than people we’ve entrusted with the sacred American right to vote,” snorts producer Daniel Hopsicker. “The big question, of course, is, ‘what happened in Florida? We found the answer in New Jersey.” "
The Big Fix 2004 - Part I 11/26/2005 Mad Cow: published 11/15/04 - "An investigation into the surprisingly-sordid history of America’s “election services industry” has revealed that executives and owners of the two largest companies, E S & S and Sequoia Pacific, have been convicted of bribery and suborning public officials in more than a dozen states.
And while a felony conviction may be enough to prevent you from voting in Florida, convicted felons can take heart in the fact that the “blemish” on their record in no way disqualifies them from owning companies counting the votes."
The Big Fix 2004 - Part II 11/26/2005 Mad Cow: "Sequoia Pacific has a more colorfully-criminal corporate history, we learned, than that of any organization this side of the Gambino Family. In fact, the Gambino Family and Sequoia Pacific have had more than a nodding acquaintance, according to newspapers in New York reporting on the intrigue surrounding the awarding of a multi-million dollar contract for election machines in New York City during the mid-90’s, where Sequoia’s representative in the bidding gained notoriety for attempting to grease the skids al little at a marathon luncheon hosted by Salvatore Reale, a Gambino underboss who later pled guilty to racketeering…"
Feds probing SunCruz links to GOP 11/26/2005 Miami Herald: "When U.S. Rep. Bob Ney assailed the owner of SunCruz Casinos in 2000, it seemed puzzling that an Ohio lawmaker would go out of his way to attack a South Florida businessman who was trying to sell his floating gaming empire.
It turns out, according to federal investigators, Ney publicly called SunCruz founder Konstantinos ''Gus'' Boulis a ''bad apple'' in exchange for the company's new owners contributing $10,000 -- in his name -- to a national campaign fund to help elect Republicans to Congress.
The latest disclosure is another South Florida link in a long-running Washington scandal that revolves around the influence-peddling of powerful lobbyists who collected tens of millions of dollars from their clients and also led investors to buy Dania Beach-based SunCruz Casinos.
Law enforcement sources say that just weeks after the controversial sale to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his business partner Adam Kidan in September 2000, the two men took $10,000 from their gambling business and donated the money to the National Republican Congressional Committee on Ney's behalf.
Ney, who has not been charged but has received a federal subpoena from the Justice Department, is being investigated in two public corruption probes -- one in Washington and the other by the U.S. attorney's office in South Florida...
...On Monday, Scanlon, Abramoff's lobbying partner, pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to bribe government officials, including Ney.
In his plea agreement, Scanlon agreed to help federal authorities in Washington and Miami.
He admitted to helping Abramoff and Kidan buy SunCruz by persuading Ney to insert comments into the Congressional Record that were ''calculated to pressure the then-owner to sell on terms favorable'' to the buyers."
Operation 40 11/26/2005 Spartacus: "Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66. CIA officials and freelance agents such as William Harvey, Porter Goss, Gerry Hemming, E. Howard Hunt and David Morales, Bernard L. Barker, Frank Sturgis, Tosh Plumlee, and William C. Bishop also joined the project. Cuban figures used by the Operation 40 included Antonio Veciana, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Barry Seal, Felix Ismael Rodriguez, Juan Manuel Salvat, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Rafael Quintero, Jose Basulto, and Paulino Sierra."
Witness claims he heard hit plan in Boulis murder
Details emerge in case against trio charged with '01 Boulis murder 11/26/2005 Sun Sentinel: "The conversation, relayed by Nicholson to Fort Lauderdale police detectives three days after Boulis' murder, discussed the escalating business dispute between Boulis and the men who bought his SunCruz Casino business. Moscatiello told Ferrari he had to "take care of this situation desperately," said court documents. Nicholson said he also heard Moscatiello say, "If they go to court they're going to lose everything and they can't afford to lose everything."" [The men who bought the business include Kidan and his partner, Republican lobbyist Abramoff]
Lawmakers Under Scrutiny in Probe of Lobbyist 11/26/2005 Washington Post: "The events in 2000 that interest investigators are connected to the purchase by Abramoff and Kidan of SunCruz Casinos, owner of a fleet of Florida gambling boats. Ney twice placed comments in the Congressional Record about SunCruz, first criticizing its former owner when Abramoff and Kidan were in difficult purchase negotiations and then, in October, praising Kidan's new management. Abramoff and Kidan are facing trial in January on charges of defrauding lenders in their purchase of the casino boats."
Friday 11/25/2005
Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War - By Martin van Creveld 11/25/2005 Forward: "For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins." "Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, is author of "Transformation of War" (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers."
Pacific Atlantis: first climate change refugees 11/25/2005 Guardian: "The Carterets will join many other Pacific islands that are on the point of being swallowed by the sea. Much of Kiribati, the Marshalls and other low-lying island groups might only be visible through a glass-bottomed boat in decades to come.
Two uninhabited Kiribati islands, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared underwater in 1999, according to the South Pacific regional environment programme.
In 2003 the government of Tuvalu said it would start evacuating its citizens in the face of climate change and rising sea levels, but plans have been tied up in red tape.
According to the Red Cross, the number of people in the Oceania region affected by weather-related disasters has soared by 65 times during the past 30 years. Increased numbers of cyclones, droughts and floods, all predicted by climate change scientists, are said to be making life unviable on many islands. Rising sea levels entirely swamping the islands is the last act of a long, perhaps unstoppable process."
Secret British document accuses Israel 11/25/2005 Guardian: "A confidential Foreign Office document accuses Israel of rushing to annex the Arab area of Jerusalem, using illegal Jewish settlement construction and the vast West Bank barrier, in a move to prevent it becoming a Palestinian capital."
Abramoff used DeLay to fund anti-intifada militia 11/25/2005 On Line Journal
Abramoff probe broader than thought: paper 11/25/2005 Reuters: "Prosecutors in the department's public integrity and fraud divisions are looking into Abramoff's dealings with four Republicans -- former House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, Rep. John Doolittle of California and Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana, the paper said, citing several people close to the investigation.
Abramoff is under investigation over his lobbying efforts for Indian tribes with casinos. He has also pleaded not guilty to federal charges in Florida that he defrauded lenders in a casino cruise line deal.
The prosecutors are also investigating at least 17 current and former congressional aides, about half of whom later took lobbying jobs with Abramoff, as well as an official from the Interior Department and another from the government's procurement office, the Journal said."
Thursday 11/24/2005
U.S. May Prevent Military Sale to Rival - Washington's feud with Venezuela may lead it to block Spain's plan to deal boats and aircraft containing American technology to Caracas. 11/24/2005 LA Times
Wednesday 11/23/2005
UK Media Gagged Over Contents of Bombing Memo - Targeting Al Jazeera 11/23/2005 Counterpunch: "The White House has characterized the Mirror's reporting as "outlandish", but if that's the case, one wonders why Downing Street has gone into crisis mode not only prosecuting two of its own civil servants David Keogh and Leo O'Connor under the Official Secrets Act but also threatening editors of British newspapers with prosecution an historical first according to Richard Taylor-Norton of the Guardian."
A dress rehearsal for massive arrests of political dissidents 11/23/2005 SF Bay View: "The Justice Department informed the body politic on April 14 that more than 10,000 fugitives had been arrested in a nationwide sweep from dawn April 4 to midnight April 10. One fugitive was even arrested in a foreign country.
According to government officials, as reported by the Washington Post, the sweep, code named Operation FALCON, ranks as the largest single dragnet in U.S. history. The New York Times reported that the sweep required the deployment of 3,100 law enforcement officers, from 959 federal, state and local agencies.
Of these fugitives, 1,500 were wanted for such violent crimes as murder, rape and kidnapping. About 4,300 of the outstanding warrants were for drug crimes, while another 1,700 people were wanted for assault.
By all accounts, Operation FALCON was a success. In fact, as reported by the Post, the new attorney general Alberto Gonzales said - now hear this - the operation would serve as a model for future cooperation between federal and local agencies."
Police beat and jail Black and Muslim De Anza College students protesting visit by Colin Powell 11/23/2005 SF Bay View: "They [police] saw that we had the most energy and were not afraid of them and were riling up the crowd," said De Anza student Hanni Zaki, 22, who was hospitalized for injuries to the head from police, who stepped on his face and beat him with their batons. "They couldn't stand that we were dressed in Palestinian and Arabic clothes and weren't afraid of them.
"They wanted revenge, so they chased down every one of us who were Muslim, until they could beat and arrest us. That's what they were waiting for. That's why they wouldn't let me go to my car."
The Maroons salute the Battle of Vertières ... on this day, 202 years ago! 11/23/2005 SF Bay View
Venezuela releases blueprint on Africa 11/23/2005 SF Bay View
African Intellectuals Vow to Defend Bolivarian Revolution 11/23/2005 The Post, Lusaka, Zambia: ""The very nature of the Bolivarian Revolution and its
genuiness has given rise to hatred and to the
resulting threat from the government of the United
States of America," the declaration stated. "In view
of the above, we, the intellectuals of Africa, have
determined and indeed, shall make every effort to
disseminate information on the social achievements of
the Bolivarian Revolution and shall condemn the threat
of any possible attack by the United States against
Venezuela and attempt to assassinate its leader, Hugo
Chavez."
The delegates condemned efforts by the United States
to re-colonise Africa, the Middle East and Latin
America with the sole purpose of taking control of the
strategic energy and mineral resources abundant in the
three regions.
They condemned attempts by the United States to take
control of the Amazonia, the largest biosphere and
drinking water reserve on Earth.
They agreed that Latin American countries should
collaborate with Africa in the development of its
health infrastructure through the training of doctors,
health specialists and technicians.
The delegates agreed to promote new channels of
information in order to meet the needs of the peoples
of Africa. They acknowledged the creation of Telesur,
a Latin American television network, as a highly
positive first step to that end."
Tuesday 11/22/2005
The Enduring JFK Mystery 11/22/2005 Consortium News: "Dr. Thomas presented a stark contrast to Garwin. Thomas began by asserting that the number on the tape Garwin tested was not the number of the tape the House assassination committee tested. He also pointed out that there is a difference in recording speed and playback speed, and that Garwin’s team had applied one which made the shot sounds no longer line up with the House committee analysis.
Thomas provided slides that made clear the points he was making. One could feel the change in the room. People now felt they could follow along as Thomas lined up each sound with the motorcycle’s probable position, and then showed us pictures from the Zapruder film and others that confirmed that the motorcycle cop, Officer H.B. McLain, was indeed in those positions at those times."
Out of Iraq, Now - Rep. Maxine Waters, the Real Leader of the Anti-War Caucus 11/22/2005 Counterpunch
Unraveling the pretense of the Guatemalan “Narco-State” 11/22/2005 NarcoNews: "About 30 suspects who were once part of an elite unit of the Guatemalan special forces were training drug traffickers in paramilitary tactics just over the border from McAllen. The unit, called the Kaibiles after the Mayan prince Kaibil Balam, is one of the most fearsome military forces in Latin America, blamed for many of the massacres that occurred in Guatemala during its 36-year civil war. By September, Mexican authorities announced that they had arrested seven Guatemalan Kaibiles, including four “deserters” who were still listed by the Guatemalan Army as being on active duty.
Mexican authorities say the Kaibiles were meant to augment Las Zetas, a drug gang of soldiers-turned-hitmen drawn from Mexico’s own special forces. It’s logical that the Zetas would turn to their Guatemalan counterparts. In addition to being a neighbor, “Guatemala is the preferred transit point in Central America for onward shipment of cocaine to the United States,” the State Department has consistently reported to Congress since 1999. In early November, anti-drug authorities at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala told the Associated Press that 75 percent of the cocaine that reaches American soil passes through the Central American nation."
Venezuela Releases Blueprint On Africa 11/22/2005 The Post, Lusaka, Zambia
Sunday 11/20/2005
Activists pressure Wal-Mart 11/20/2005 Chicago Tribune: "There's no talk of a union election or contract. Monthly dues are $5, which only some of the 300 Wal-Mart workers who have signed up pay regularly. The dues, Rathke says, are more symbolic than anything else.
Though Wal-Mart has thousands of workers in the region from Tampa to Orlando, Smith is not discouraged by the small number of recruits.
"We've pretty much proven you can organize the workers," Smith said as he shepherded showings of the anti-Wal-Mart movie."
The Big Thaw: Global Disaster Will Follow If the Ice Cap on Greenland Melts
Now scientists say it is vanishing far faster than even they expected. 11/20/2005 Inedpendent
Chinese Herb Medicine for SARS Said to Be Effective Against Avian Flu 11/20/2005 Pacific News Service
Saturday 11/19/2005
The Rose That Is a Thorn in Chávez's Side ' 11/19/2005 Washington Post
Friday 11/18/2005
Voter ID memo stirs tension - Sponsor of disputed Georgia legislation told feds that blacks in her district only vote if they are paid to do so. 11/18/2005 Atlanta Journal Constitution: "The chief sponsor of Georgia's voter identification law told the Justice Department that if black people in her district "are not paid to vote, they don't go to the polls," and that if fewer blacks vote as a result of the new law, it is only because it would end such voting fraud.
The newly released Justice Department memo quoting state Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta) was prepared by department lawyers as the federal government considered whether to approve the new law. It also says that despite Republican assurances the law would not disenfranchise elderly, poor and black voters, Susan Laccetti Meyers, the staff adviser for the Georgia House of Representatives, told the Justice Department "the Legislature did not conduct any statistical analysis of the effect of the photo ID requirement on minority voters." "
'We all gonna have a good time' 11/18/2005 Guardian: "The venues are filthy, the crowds are thin, there's a 2am curfew and the army's on the street. But in post-Katrina New Orleans, some musicians are refusing to let the town die. Can the Big Easy bounce back?"
Drugs and the Guatemalan Military 11/18/2005 National Security Archives
CITGO to Begin Discounted Heating Oil Distribution to Poor U.S. Communities 11/18/2005 Venezuela Analysis
Thursday 11/17/2005
Former CIA director accuses Cheney of overseeing torture 11/17/2005 AFP
Wednesday 11/16/2005
EXPOSÉ: THE “CHRISTIAN” MAFIA 11/16/2005 Insider
Long Integrated, Marseille Is Spared - Southern Port Was Largely Quiet as Riots Raged in Other French Cities 11/16/2005 Washington Post
Tuesday 11/15/2005
Miss Parks and Robert Williams - Rosa's Wreath 11/15/2005 Counterpunch: "Nine years before her own passing, Rosa found her way to the small community of Monroe, North Carolina to speak at the hometown funeral of a man who unlike Rosa was often vilified by the civil rights movement as a dangerous radical who threatened to jeopardize the meager gains of the civil rights movement. She told the mourners of a close friend of Malcolm X that the work of a fiery defender of the world's oppressed should go down in history and never be forgotten.
But Robert Franklin Williams attained international status in the late 1950's after being forced to flee from North Carolina after forming a black self-defense group that was a precursor of the Black Panther Party. He life is an apt reflection of the saying that a prophet is without honor in his own country… But why did he remain such a precious man to Rosa Parks? She was always personified as docile, far in temperament from Williams' calling for armed guerrilla warfare in the cities of America.
Although it is just conjecture, is it straining very much to wonder if Rosa Parks harbored some resentment at her own exile from the South after starting the Montgomery bus boycott?"
Sea level rise doubles in 150 years 11/15/2005 Guardian: "Today's warning comes from US researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey who analysed cores drilled from different sites along the eastern seaboard. By drilling down 500 metres through layers of different sediments and using chemical dating techniques, the scientists were able to work out where beaches and dry land were over the past 100m years.
The analysis showed that during the past 5,000 years, sea levels rose at a rate of around 1mm each year, caused largely by the residual melting of icesheets from the previous ice age. But in the past 150 years, data from tide gauges and satellites show sea levels are rising at 2mm a year."
Monday 11/14/2005
Construction du choc des civilisations - Les Églises évangéliques et le jeu des États-Unis dans le monde arabe 11/14/2005 Reseaux Voltaire
US atomic expert doubts report of Iran weapons work 11/14/2005 Reuters: "In a statement, Albright said the article repeatedly characterized the laptop's contents as information about a nuclear warhead design "when the information actually describes a re-entry vehicle for a missile.
"This distinction is not minor. The information does not contain any words such as nuclear or nuclear warhead. The 'black box' carried by the re-entry vehicle may appear to be a nuclear warhead, but the documents do not state what the warhead is."" etc...
Israeli Mossad establishing Trinidad & Tobago base against Venezuela 11/14/2005 Vheadlines
Sunday 11/13/2005
Fortress Paris: The capital is in lockdown after 16 nights of violence 11/13/2005 Independent: "The kids in those areas see people like me struggling to get a job and say, 'What's the point of going to school?'" said M. Senni, who was back in Paris, visiting a relative. "They go for quick money from drugs and theft. It's easy, fast, and cool. In London people have been asking me about the violence. Of course I condemn it, but I say I would rather see burning cars than suicide bombings. Next time, though, it could be Kalashnikovs."
Saturday 11/12/2005
George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People - by: The Legendary K.O. 11/12/2005 the Black Lantern: legendary video
Friday 11/11/2005
Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats? 11/11/2005 Columbus Free Press: "Issue Two was designed to make it easier for Ohioans to vote early, by mail or in person. By election day, much of what it proposed was already put into law by the state legislature. Like Issue One, it was opposed by the Christian Right. But it had broad support from a wide range of Ohio citizen groups. In a conversation the day before the vote, Bill Todd, a primary official spokesperson for the opposition to Issues Two through Five, told attorney Cliff Arnebeck that he believed Issues Two and Three would pass.
The November 6 Dispatch poll showed Issue Two passing by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided, an even broader margin than that predicted for Issue One.
But on November 8, the official vote count showed Issue Two going down to defeat by the astonishing margin of 63.5% against, with just 36.5% in favor. To say the outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility is to understate the case. For the official vote count to square with the pre-vote Dispatch poll, support for the Issue had to drop more than 22 points, with virtually all the undecideds apparently going into the "no" column.
The numbers on Issue Three are even less likely."
More false flag ops in France, Belgium & Germany, with Caribbean next target? 11/11/2005 On Line Journal: "There is also evidence that the FBI arrived in Trinidad after the July blast to cover up for the Israelis. Local police complained that the FBI presence was not required and Prime Minister Patrick Manning said he was unaware that anyone had requested help from the FBI at the time. In cases where local police and federal agents detained Israeli agents snooping around sensitive industrial and military facilities in the United States, the FBI quickly had them transferred to their control whereupon they were hurriedly deported from the United States. In some cases, deported Israelis have returned to the United States."
Thursday 11/10/2005
Whose Plan for New Orleans 11/10/2005 Black Commentator: "Katrina has set African American forces in motion on a scale not seen since the Civil Rights Movement entered its mature phase in 1963, when, according to NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, "there were more than 10,000 anti-racist demonstrations." Just three months into a Gulf saga that will unfold over a period of years, we are already witnessing an impressive mobilization across the political spectrum of Black America, and among many traditional allies. So deep and wide has the Katrina wound cut, it seems clear that activity among high-profile organizations represents only the "tip of the iceberg," so to speak. Every consciously Black grouping appears to be working on, or is contemplating, a Katrina-related project, and numerous non-Black organizations are engaged in solidarity activity."
Nuevo giro en asesinato de fiscal venezolano 11/10/2005 Nuevo Herald: "Un testigo del gobierno de Venezuela en la investigación de la muerte del fiscal Danilo Anderson, aseguró que un director del FBI de apellido Pesquera y un funcionario de la CIA a quien sólo identificó como Morrison, participaron en una reunión en Panamá en la que se planeó el asesinato del funcionario… Vásquez, quien se identificó como médico colombiano militante de las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), dijo que Pesquera y Morrison estuvieron presentes entre el 4 y el 6 de septiembre del 2003 en una reunión que se realizó en Darién, una provincia panameña limítrofe con Colombia.
A la misma reunión asistieron además, según Vásquez, la periodista Patricia Poleo como representante del Movimiento Libertad; Salvador Romaní, hijo del líder anticastrista del mismo nombre que actualmente reside en Miami; los ex policías Rolando Guevara, Otoniel Guevara y Pedro Lander; el actor Orlando Urdaneta, el capitán Luis García como representante de la organización anticastrista Comando F4, e Israel Pincheski como representante de los banqueros.
''Allí se discutió el plan apoyado por el FBI y la CIA'', continuó Vásquez, ``y algunos presidentes de medios de comunicación para sacar a Chávez del gobierno. En esa misma reunión se dice que el objetivo final era matar al presidente Chávez, al fiscal general y a un connotado líder opositor de apellido Mendoza''."
Wednesday 11/9/2005
Twilight of the Oil Age 11/9/2005 Alternet: "Author of the recently published Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, Simmons is founder of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank that handles mergers and acquisitions among energy companies, and counts among its clients Halliburton, General Electric, and the World Bank. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, he served as an energy-policy adviser to the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Conservative credentials aside, Simmons has been boggling the minds of people across the political spectrum with his recent prediction that the price of a barrel of oil could hit the high triple digits within a few years. To postpone economic meltdown, he says we should be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other hotly contested spots. At the same time, he's calling for a massive shift in energy policy, including radical improvements in efficiency, as well as a return to local farming and manufacturing. With his unconventional opinions, he's single-handedly reinventing the image of the post-oil energy crusader."
Stop the eviction of the ’Welcome Home’ Kitchen in New Orleans 11/9/2005 Bella Ciao: "The only kitchen serving fresh, nutritious meals to the people of New Orleans east of Canal St. is being threatened with closure by city officials.
The loose-knit coalition of groups known as ’the Rainbow Family of Living Light’, best known for their yearly 4th of July Rainbow Gatherings at rotating locations throughout the country, have been instrumental in the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina. The mobile kitchen they founded in Waveland, Mississippi, the area hardest hit by the storm, has been consistently serving 2,000 people a day since its inception in early September.
In New Orleans, the Rainbow Family established a kitchen over a month ago serving three meals a day to the homeless, nearly homeless, and underserved people of New Orleans. A half mile away is a facility with huge tents and serving areas set up by FEMA, but it is for FEMA contractors only, and large signs posted outside say "No public services available". In fact, FEMA has been very visibly absent in the city of New Orleans, from their initial arrival five days late to their inexplicable lack of public centers in the city itself… Please call ms. cynthia sylvan lear, the deputy chief administrative officer of the new orleans emergency operations center at 504-658-2180 and Mayor Nagin at (504) 658-4924, Fax: (504) 658-4938 to express your dismay that such a resource would be unilaterally dismantled by the government while it is providing such an important resource for the community."
Israeli national arrested in Trinidad threatens to go on a hunger strike 11/9/2005 Caribbean Net News
The Problem with Frenchness 11/9/2005 Juan Cole: "What I would rather comment on, however, is the myths that have governed many rightwing American comments on the tragic events. Actually, I can only think that the disturbances must produce a huge ice cream headache for the dittoheads. French of European heritage pitted against French of African and North African heritage? How could they ever pick a side?"
Pennsylvania: Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals 11/9/2005 NYT: "All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy."
Barbara Lee wants US to stop arming Haitian police 11/9/2005 SF Bay View: "The House approved a foreign aid spending measure including an amendment this week which, if passed by the Senate, would ban the sale and transfer of weapons to the Haitian National Police (PNH). The amendment was included in the measure at the behest of Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland. It would also require a State Department report on the involvement of Haitian police in criminal activity."
Malik Rahim: Community organizer eyes New Orleans’ top office 11/9/2005 SF Bay View: "What Rahim has learned from the collective, he says, is “Not all blacks are for us and not all whites are against us. People call me an Uncle Tom for working with whites, but I’d rather be an Uncle Tom than an old Black militant who is talking loud and doing nothing.
“When I got death threats for speaking out against injustice, two white men sat on my porch with shotguns to protect me. And three white medics walked the public housing developments to see if anyone needed medical services.”
Not one to rest on his laurels, Rahim and the collective are also reaching out to the first nation tribes in Louisiana. “We were one of the first relief organizations to help the Houma Nation. Now they’re asking how they can help us.”
The collective is planning to acquire three buses to bring exiled New Orleanians back home for a big Thanksgiving celebration. “Watch us light up the Ninth Ward for Thanksgiving and Christmas; watch us for Mardi Gras. We’re taking our city back. The plantation syndicate will not take over this city again.”"
Maria’s story: The rape of Haiti 11/9/2005 SF Bay View
Paris is burning: Racism and repession explode in week of uprisings 11/9/2005 SF Bay View: "The trigger came on Thursday, Oct. 27, as a group of 10 high school kids were playing soccer in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. When police arrived to do ID checks, the kids ran away and hid, because some of them had no ID. Three of the children hid in an electrical transformer building of EDF and were electrocuted. Two of them, Ziad Benn, 17, and Banou Traoré, 15, died; the third, Metin, 21, was severely injured."
Tuesday 11/8/2005
Ambassador de Sade 11/8/2005 Alternet: "Bush rewarded one of his loyalists with the ambassadorship to Italy -- despite his past as the founder of an cult-like teen rehab clinic… But where Melvin Sembler, 74, demands attention is as an object lesson in how cruelty can be redeemed by the transformative power of political donations. For 16 years, Sembler, with his wife Betty, directed the leading juvenile rehab business in America, STRAIGHT, Inc., before seeing it dismantled by a breathtaking array of institutional abuse claims by mid-1993. Just one of many survivors is Samantha Monroe, now a travel agent in Pennsylvania, who told The Montel Williams show this year about overcoming beatings, rape by a counselor, forced hunger, and the confinement to a janitor's closet in "humble pants" -- which contained weeks of her own urine, feces and menstrual blood. During this "timeout," she gnawed her cheek and spat blood at her overseers. "I refused to let them take my mind," she says of the program. The abuse took years to overcome."
Why is France Burning? 11/8/2005 Alternet: "Claude Angeli, editor of Le Canard Enchaine, one of the most perspicacious political analysts I know -- told me:
"That's not true -- this isn't being organized by the Islamist fundamentalists, as Sarkozy is implying to scare people. Sure, kids in neighborhoods are using their cellphones and text messages to warn each other where the cops are coming so they can move and pick other targets for their arson. But the rebellion is spreading across the country because the youth have a sense of solidarity with each other that comes from watching television -- they imitate what they're seeing, they have experienced themselves the same racist police abuse that helped spark the riots, and they sense themselves targeted by Sarkozy's inflammatory rhetoric. The rebellion is spreading spontaneously -- driven especially by racist police conduct that is the daily lot of these youths. It's incredible the level of police racism -- these young are arrested or controlled by the police, shaken down, pushed around, and have their papers checked simply because they have dark skins, and the police are verbally brutal, calling them 'bougnoules' [a racist insult, something like the American 'towel-heads,' only worse], 'dirty Arabs' and more. The police bark, 'Lower your eyes! Lower your eyes!' as if they had no right even to look a policeman in the face. It's utterly dehumanizing. No wonder these kids feel so divorced from authority.""
Sunday 11/6/2005
Kerry Suspects Election 2004 Was Stolen 11/6/2005 Consortium News: "Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, has told acquaintances over the past year that he suspects that the election was stolen, but that he didn’t challenge the official results because he lacked hard proof and anticipated a firestorm of criticism if he pressed the point.
“Kerry heard all the disquieting stories” about voting irregularities in Ohio and other states, said Jonathan Winer, a longtime Kerry adviser and a former deputy assistant secretary of state. “But he didn’t have the evidence to do more.”"
GOP tries to disenfranchise WA voters with false challenges 11/6/2005 Daily Kos: "King County is the latest setting for the newest series of Republican dirty tricks.
Using the 2004 gubernatorial election saga as an excuse, the Republicans have filed challenges to nearly 2,000 voter registrations within King County - Washington State's most populous county, and a Democratic stronghold.
Just days before this Tuesday's general election, thousands of voters have received letters in the mail informing them that their right to vote is being challenged by the Republican Party of King County."
Saturday 11/5/2005
Tender mercenaries: DynCorp and me 11/5/2005 AF Bay View: "Take the words of Brig. Gen. Karl Horst, deputy commander of the Third Infantry Division in charge of security in Baghdad. In September he said this of DynCorp and other security firms in Iraq: "These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. ... They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place." "
No Place to Call Home - People of the Dome, Revisited 11/5/2005 Counterpunch: "Les Evenchick is an independent Green activist who lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans in a 3-story walkup. He points out that people were told to go to the bus depot to evacuate, but the bus station had closed down the night before. Unless you owned a car, Les continued, FEMA and state police would not let you leave. Hundreds attempting to walk out of New Orleans were forced off the road and ordered back to the Coliseum or Superdome, where no water or food was available. As a consequence the vast majority of the so-called looters were simply grabbing water, food, diapers and medicine. "Itâos only because of them that old people, sick people, small children were able to survive," Les says. "But the 'anti-looting' hype was used to militarize the area, place it under martial law and disperse the population, mostly Black people, mostly the poor."These were the people who had twice voted in huge numbers against the candidacy of George Bush, the only area in the state to have done so. The previous year, they also fought off attempts to privatize the drinking water supply, battled Shell Oil's attempt to build a Liquified Natural Gas facility, and tried to prevent the teardown of public housing -- battles in which Mayor Ray Nagin, who had contributed funds to George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000 and who was a registered Republican until a few months prior to the 2002 Mayoral election, sided with the oil companies and wealthy developers...Gulf Coast resident Latosha Brown reports that the first group to send emergency supplies was TOPS, The Ordinary Peoples Society, a prison ministry in Dothan Alabama founded and staffed by ex-offenders. They organized food, pooled their money for additional goods and brought the supplies to a second organization of former prisoners in Mobile who distributed them, while they went back to Dothan for more.... Currently, thousands of poor homeowners and rental tenants - including those unable to return to New Orleans just yet, having been evacuated to the far away domes -- are being evicted, says Mike Howell, who is organizing tenants to resist eviction. The phony "reconstruction" of New Orleans begins with the landgrab and with Mayor Nagin proposing gambling casinos, which he says would "rescue" the city (while destroying the remaining wetlands). Many people are resisting this blatant confiscation of their lands and homes. If the resistance grows, New Orleans may soon become known as the first battle of the new American revolution."
Friday 11/4/2005
If He Lied, He Must be Tried - A Majority Now Favors Impeachment 11/4/2005 Counterpunch
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?: A Debate on Ohio One Year After Bush's Victory 11/4/2005 Democracy Now: "A year later, questions remain over the outcome of the Ohio election and whether George W. Bush fairly won the state and the presidency. We explore some of these questions with a debate between Mark Crispin Miller and Mark Hertsgaard. [includes rush transcript]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There were widespread reports of voter intimidation; suspiciously long lines in heavily Democratic areas; faulty voting machines; mishandled absentee and provisional ballots; election results that contradicted exit polls…and then there were the electronic voting machines. For years critics of these machines have warned that they could be manipulated in ways to fix elections.
Last week the Government Accountability Office – the investigative unit of Congress – issued a major report [Download PDF of report] on the safety of electronic voting machines. Although the report has received little attention in the corporate media, its findings have startled critics of electronic voting. There are three main problems the GAO found with the machines: First, some electronic voting systems did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected. Second, it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate. Third, vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level."
Knight Ridder Reporter Warns of Hostile Takeover--with Political Twist? 11/4/2005 Editor & Publisher: "As reports swirl that KR could or should be sold, under new pressure from what he calls a "pro-GOP" big investor, a longtime Philly Daily News scribe charges that this would be "bad news" for the chain--and all of American media… As you probably know if you're a newspaper junkie, and may not know if you're a normal human being, a Florida-based investment group -- with zero fanfare -- has bought up 19% of the stock of Knight Ridder, Inc., the owners of the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, not to mention the Miami Herald, the San Jose Mercury News, and a bunch of other big names in the dead-tree world."
Acceptance of Torture in the United States 11/4/2005 Monthly Review: "Without much examination of the concept, Americans are quick to declare that they live in a civilized society. Indeed, many Americans believe that their country is the most "civilized" country in the world. Without much digression on the arrogance of such a belief, it is sufficient to say that at least the rest of the world has serious doubts as to the accuracy of that position. Those doubts deepen as the United States' Vice President, Dick Cheney, takes the position that employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) should be exempt from proposed legislation that would bar the use of cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in the custody of the United States. Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, was the principal sponsor of amendment #1977 to the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill. The Senate voted 90-9 in favor of the Amendment over the objection of the Bush Administration. Vice President Cheney tried repeatedly to persuade Senator McCain to modify his proposal so that it would not be a complete ban on inhumane treatment. Last summer, President Bush vowed that he would veto the measure and the Senate prepared for an override. The haunting images of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisoners are still imbedded in the world psyche as Cheney lobbies for permission to visit yet more torture around the globe."
King County GOP engaging in voter harassment and intimidation 11/4/2005 NW Progressive Institute: "Apparently, all of those people who are having their right to vote challenged will have their ballots set aside. Then they'll have to show up in person for an administrative hearing, likely causing them to miss time from work or other commitments. Many of course, won’t be able to attend the hearing."
Wednesday 11/2/2005
Black Studies professor arrested 11/2/2005 AF Bay View: "According to their accounts, Akom came to campus around 10 p.m. on Tuesday evening to pick up a book he needed for teaching his class. When he arrived in the front of the Ethnic Studies Building, where his office is located, he was approached by a security guard who asked him what he was doing there. Akom reportedly told the security guard that he was a professor and he was going into his office. He then proceeded to go inside.
“When he came out, there was a white cop to meet him and told him to put his hands behind his back,” said Shenoda.
Akom said the unidentified campus police officer was called by the security guard while he was inside of his office getting the book. He said that he asked the officer why he was getting arrested, but the officer had no answer.
“The officer didn’t tell him anything. It wasn’t until he was arrested that they told him he had assaulted a police officer,” said Moore, a SFSU student."
“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents 11/2/2005 Global Research: "After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.
Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.
Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman."
More Demons Loose in Bolivia - The Reappearance of the Nazis 11/2/2005 NarcoNews: "Now, this is hardly surprising… for generations, the whites in this country have lived off the labor of the indigenous peoples and other ethnic groups, exploiting them and treating many human as beasts of burden. They are less than twenty percent of the population (at most), but they keep insisting on their “right” to govern, to rule unquestioned, to put the common wealth of the Bolivian people at their own disposal."
‘Bull Connor’s legacy of racism lives on’ 11/2/2005 SF Bay View: The American Civil Liberties Union testified before Congress on Oct. 25 that lawmakers should renew a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices to submit changes to any voting law to the federal government for pre-approval. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act will expire in 2007 unless Congress renews it.
“Bull Connor may be dead, but his legacy of racism lives on,” said Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, invoking the memory of the Birmingham, Alabama, police commissioner and staunch advocate of racial segregation. “There is abundant, recent evidence showing Section 5 is still needed to protect the equal right to vote of minorities in covered jurisdictions. Progress has been made, but this vital protection needs to remain in place.”
Attacks on the poor in Martissant and Gran Ravine 11/2/2005 SF Bay View: "On Oct. 26, a group of armed men assaulted civilians in the Martissant and Gran Ravine areas of Port-au-Prince, the latest in a series of targeted attacks on the two neighborhoods, which are heavily populated and impoverished and known to be sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement."
Sunshine after floodwater - a report from New Orleans 11/2/2005 SF Bay View: "The idyllic quality of this scene, like a poster picture of racial harmony and community, is all the more remarkable because a month ago this community was on the verge of a race riot. Immediately after Katrina, when much of the Louisiana National Guard was in Iraq and the police failed to keep order, white vigilante groups were roaming the streets, shooting at any young Black man they suspected of being a looter. Black citizens were arming themselves in response, and the neighborhood was on the verge of a race riot.
Then Malik Rahim, a neighborhood organizer, Green Party member and former Black Panther, put out a call to some of his long time allies and the activist community in general for help. Scott Crow, a young white organizer from Austin, came down and sat on the porch with Malik to defend against the vigilantes… There are two National Guard in camoflauge fatigues wandering through the crowd, and Baruch tells me they are guarding us from the police, who have been systematically harassing clinic personnel along with the general citizenry. Across the river, police arrested three of the young volunteers who were helping Mama D, who is cleaning up her Seventh Ward neighborhood so that when people return, they will have something to come back to.
Two were white, one was Black. They beat the Black kid severely, kicking him viciously in the chest, and stole his money. They were in jail with lots of people who were arrested simply sitting on their own front porches.
In the French Quarter, someone videotaped a group of cops viciously beating an old man, and this makes the news and provokes outrage. But there are a hundred incidents like it every day that no one sees."
Tuesday 11/1/2005
Acceptance of Torture in the United States 11/1/2005 Monthly Review: "Police brutality and torture in New Orleans is not a new phenomenon. In 1973, a group of men and women alleged to be members of the Black Panther Party were captured in New Orleans. Word of their arrest quickly spread throughout the country. Representatives from the police departments of Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco rushed to New Orleans and interrogated several of the arrestees in between torture sessions conducted by members of that city's police department. The torture and interrogations lasted over a period of 4-5 days. Despite the fact that more than one court has found that the statements extracted from the torture victims were inadmissible in court, law enforcement personnel have persisted in harassing them and their families for over thirty years.
From 1972 to 1991, at least 135 arrestees in Chicago were tortured by local police using methods eerily similar to those used by the New Orleans police including beatings, suffocation, and the use of electric shock probes place on the genitals. The horrors of the Chicago arrestees were recently reported before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.5 The cruelty of the Chicago Police Department, like that of the New Orleans Police Department, is commonplace.6 It was the brutality of the Chicago Police Department and the resultant coerced confessions that were responsible in part for then Illinois Governor Ryan declaring a moratorium on the death penalty, finding that too many convictions had been obtained through questionable means."
Monday 10/31/2005
Speculation of candidates seeking Nagin's job grows 10/31/2005 Louisiana Weekly: "As last week's article noted, the changing racial dynamics of the Crescent City point to a white candidate having an advantage in February. The recent post-Katrina survey done by the Red Cross shows, however, that at best 40% of the population of Orleans Parish will be Black by February. With the continued refusal of FEMA to fund a plan to help displaced New Orleanians participate in local elections or give state leaders access to the agency's database containing temporary addresses of evacuated residents, African-American turnout may even be lower."
A U.S. nightmare? Leftist Indian may lead Bolivia 10/31/2005 Reuters: "He has rallied Bolivia's coca farmers against U.S.-led eradication efforts and helped lead anti-government protests by indigenous groups that have unseated two presidents in two years.
But opposition leader Evo Morales is now closing in on the office he has helped force others to flee.
Opinion polls show the leftist congressman holding a narrow lead in an upcoming presidential election. Scheduled for Dec 4, the election could be delayed due to political bickering over Congressional seats.
If elected, Morales would be Bolivia's first Indian president and add South America's poorest country to a regional political shift leftward that has seen leftist leaders rise to power in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela."
"There
is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and
security to all, but especially to Democracies as against despots:
suspicion." -- Demosthenes
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