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2/1/09 - 7/3/2009

Thursday 7/2/2009

Spinning the Honduran Coup - Latin America Media Battle Continues 7/2/2009 Counterpunch: "Adriana Sivori, Telesur’s correspondent in Tegucigalpa, was in her hotel room speaking on the telephone to her network when ten soldiers arrived with rifles drawn. The men unplugged Telesur’s editing equipment in an effort to halt the network’s coverage of protests in support of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. When a soldier lightly slapped Sivori’s hand so she would hang up, the journalist grew alarmed. “They’re taking us prisoner at gunpoint,” she remarked. Sivori along with producer María José Díaz and cameraman Larry Sánchez were taken to an immigration office in a military caravan. There, the authorities beat them and demanded to see their Honduran visas. Shortly later, the journalists were released."

Wednesday 7/1/2009

Behind the Honduran Coup - Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal 7/1/2009 Counterpunch: "President Zelaya intended to perform a non-binding public consultation, about the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly. To do this, he invoked article 5 of the Honduran “Civil Participation Act” of 2006. According to this act, all public functionaries can perform non-binding public consultations to inquire what the population thinks about policy measures. This act was approved by the National Congress and it was not contested by the Supreme Court of Justice, when it was published in the Official Paper of 2006. That is, until the president of the republic employed it in a manner that was not amicable to the interests of the members of these institutions. Furthermore, the Honduran Constitution says nothing against the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly, with the mandate to draw up a completely new constitution, which the Honduran public would need to approve. Such a popular participatory process would bypass the current liberal democratic one specified in article 373 of the current constitution, in which the National Congress has to approve with 2/3 of the votes, any reform to the 1982 Constitution, excluding reforms to articles 239 and 374. This means that a perfectly legal National Constituent Assembly would have a greater mandate and fewer limitations than the National Congress, because such a National Constituent Assembly would not be reforming the Constitution, but re-writing it."

Tuesday 6/30/2009

Text of a lawsuit against the Honduran Govt - by Honduran lawyers 6/30/2009 Daily Kos: [English y español] "The Supreme Court released to the media the same day June 28 a press statement describing the decision issued by the Court of Administrative Litigation of Francisco Morazán, which ordered the suspension of the opinion poll called "Fourth Urn" and the seizure of ballot boxes, ballot papers and all material related to the so-called popular consultation. Needless to say, this court has no power to order the detention of any person, but the detention of citizen José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is without question. The court order in any case should be the product of a process defined by the Code Criminal Articles 417, Following and no doubt justifying the detention of any person in the republic of Honduras, means making it accessible to the competent judicial authorities, which in this case did not happen."

Showdown in Honduras: The Rise and Uncertain Future of the Coup 6/30/2009 Venezuela Analysis: "As one media analyst pointed out, while many major news outlets in the US, including theMiami Herald, Wall St. Journal and Washington Post, said an impetus for thecoup was specifically Zelaya's plans for a vote to allow him to extend his termin office, the actual ballot question was to be: "Do you agree that, during the generalelections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether tohold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new politicalconstitution?" Nations across LatinAmerica, including Venezuela,Boliviaand Ecuador,have recently re-written their constitutions. In many aspects the changes tothese documents enshrined new rights for marginalized people and protected thenations' economies from the destabilizing effects of free trade and corporatelooting."

Monday 6/29/2009

Crisis política en Honduras - Varios heridos en choque entre policías y manifestantes  6/29/2009 AFP: "Hay disturbios, la policía está reprimiendo... Se escuchan disparos.. Hay varios heridos", relató el reportero gráfico. "Los militares están disparando a discreción" para desalojar a centenares de manifestantes que se congregaron frente a la sede presidencial, dijo el reportero. "Hay heridos por todas partes: gente, militares, policía", relató el fotógrafo que definió el escenario como una "batalla campal".

Honduras: Un muerto, varios heridos y numerosos detenidos tras última arremetida de militares contra manifestantes  6/29/2009 Aporrea

Honduran coup tests waning US clout in Latin America  6/29/2009 CSM: "Mr. Tinker Salas says the crisis over use of the referendum has its roots in Honduras's cold war era constitution, which was written by the country's "liberal elites" and does not provide for referendums. "The referendum is the primary vehicle through which change has occurred in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia, and the elites know it," says Tinker Salas. "They wanted to nip this thing in the bud." Given the international pressure now bearing down on Honduras, he adds, "they may have shot themselves in the foot.""

Chavez threatens to invade as Honduran army stages coup  6/29/2009 Independent: "Mr Chavez went on state television later in the day claiming that the coup leaders had taken away the Cuban ambassador to Honduras and left the Venezuelan ambassador by the road in the capital, Tegucigalpa, after beating him. He said that if troops enter his embassy "that military junta would be entering a de facto state of war," and "we would have to act militarily".

Two Military Battalions Turn Against Honduras Coup Regime  6/29/2009 NarcoNews: "Community Radio “Es Lo de Menos” was the first to report that the Fourth Infantry Battalion has rebelled from the military coup regime in Honduras. The radio station adds that “it seems” (“al parecer,” in the original Spanish) that the Tenth Infantry Battalion has also broken from the coup. Rafael Alegria, leader of Via Campesina, the country’s largest social organization, one that has successfully blockaded the nation’s highways before to force government concessions, tells Alba TV: “The popular resistance is rising up throughout the country. All the highways in the country are blockaded…. The Fourth Infantry Battallion… is no longer following the orders of Roberto Micheletti.” Angel Alvarado of Honduras’ Popular Union Bloc tells Radio Mundial: "Two infantry battalions of the Honduran Army have risen up against the illegitimate government of Roberto Micheletti in Honduras. They are the Fourth Infantry Battalion in the city of Tela and the Tenth Infantry Battalion in La Ceiba (the second largest city in Honduras), both located in the state of Atlántida.""

Sigue la represión contra manifestantes en Honduras  6/29/2009 PL: "En las cercanías de la Casa Presidencial, en esta capital, tienen lugar los choques más violentos contra miles de personas en resistencia cívica, de carácter pacífico. Aunque desde el domingo los golpistas decretaron el toque de queda, los manifestantes frente a la sede del Ejecutivo se mantuvieron en vigilia durante la madrugada."

Obama says coup in Honduras is illegal  6/29/2009 Reuters: "Despite Obama's comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was not formally designating the ouster as a military coup for now, a step that would force a cut-off of most U.S. aid to Honduras. Under U.S. law, no aid -- other than for the promotion of democracy -- may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup. "We do think that this has evolved into a coup," Clinton told reporters, adding the administration was withholding that determination for now. Asked if the United States was currently considering cutting off aid, Clinton shook her head no."

Zelaya anuncia que volverá a Honduras acompañado de Insulza  6/29/2009 TeleSur: "El presidente legítimo de Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, anunció este lunes que a tras su viaje a Estados Unidos, donde pronunciará un discurso ante la Organización de Naciones Unidas (ONU), regresará a su país, acompañado del secretario de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), José Miguel Insulza. Extendió una invitación a los Jefes de Estado que deseen viajar con él."

Honduras Defends Its Democracy - Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object  6/29/2009 WSJ: "That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress."

Sunday 6/28/2009

First round in Internet war goes to Iranian intelligence  6/28/2009 Debka, Israel

Key leaders of Honduras military coup trained in U.S.  6/28/2009 Facing South: "At least two leaders of the coup launched in Honduras on June 28 were apparently trained at a controversial Department of Defense school based at Fort Benning, Georgia infamous for producing graduates linked to torture, death squads and other human rights abuses."

Correction: Honduran Presidential Candidate Is Still Alive  6/28/2009 NarcoNews: "Luther Castillo, coordinator of Honduran social movements, in an interview with the Cuban television program Mesa Redonda, denied that the leader of the Democratic Unification Party, Cesar Ham, has been assassinated. Castillo also denied that Ham has been detained and said that he remains in a secure location, faced with the possibility of repression by the coup leaders."

World Movement for Democracy-Made in the USA  6/28/2009 Political Research Associates: published 7/05 - "Together with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy has functioned as an instrument of the U.S. government’s democratization strategy over the past two decades. Whereas USAID is an agency of the State Department, quasi-governmental NED is organized as a nonprofit but funded almost entirely by the U.S. government. Since 1982, when President Reagan launched what he called a “crusade” to foster “free market democracies” and spread the a neoliberal version of the “magic of the marketplace,” both USAID and NED have channeled U.S. government development and public diplomacy funding into the democratization programs of the international institutes of the Republican and Democratic Parties, the AFL-CIO, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as a wide range of institutes, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations abroad."

Honduras's Zelaya says US helped thwart coup-paper  6/28/2009 Reuters: "Honduran President Manuel Zelaya told Spain's El Pais that a planned attempt to wrest power him was thwarted after the United States declined to back the move. "Everything was in place for the coup and if the U.S. embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not ... I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States," he said in the newspaper interview published on Sunday."

Honduras supreme court 'ordered army coup'  6/28/2009 Telegraph, UK: "Today's events originate from a court order by a competent judge. The armed forces, in charge of supporting the constitution, acted to defend the state of law and have been forced to apply legal dispositions against those who have expressed themselves publicly and acted against the dispositions of the basic law," the country's highest court said."

The Assassination of A Venezuelan Attorney - The CIA behind Danilo Anderson’s Murder?  6/28/2009 VoltaireNet: published 12/04

Was the Iranian Election Stolen? Does It Matter?  6/28/2009 WaPo: "According to their account, there are 14 people working at each polling place, in addition to an observer representing each candidate. Most polling places are schools or mosques; if the polling place is a school then the team of 14 people would include teachers. There are 2-4 representatives of the Guardian Council, and 2 from the local police. After the last votes are cast, the ballots are counted in the presence of the 14 people plus the candidates' representatives. All of them sign five documents that contain the vote totals. One of the documents goes into the ballot box; one stays with the leader of the local election team; and the others go to other levels of the electoral administration, including the Guardian Council and the Interior. The vote totals are then sent to a local center that also has representatives of the Guardian Council, Interior, and the candidates. They add up the figures from a number of ballot boxes, and then send them to Interior. In this election, the numbers were also sent directly to Interior from the individual polling places, in the presence of the 14-18 witnesses at the ballot box. Each voter presents identification, and his or her name and information is entered into a computer, and also recorded in writing. The voter's thumbprint is also put on the stub of the ballot. The voter's identification is stamped to prevent multiple voting at different voting places, and there is also a computer and written record of everyone who voted at each polling place. If this information is near accurate, it would appear that large scale fraud is extremely difficult, if not impossible, without creating an extensive trail of evidence. Indeed, if this election was stolen, there must be tens of thousands of witnesses -- or perhaps hundreds of thousands - to the theft. Yet there are no media accounts of interviews with such witnesses."

Friday 6/26/2009

Iran’s Coming Revolution: For Civil Rights Or Beyond? 6/26/2009 Global Research: "Simplifying the events in Iran as yet another attempt at a U.S. financed “color revolution” is shortsighted, to say the least. But this is the shallow position many on the left are taking. Fortunately, millions of people partaking in mass demonstrations cannot be reduced to “mere puppets” of Uncle Sam — they have aspirations of their own and ways to achieve them."

Reporters Without Borders’ lies about Venezuela 6/26/2009 VoltaireNet

Thursday 6/25/2009

Iran's streets are lost, but hope returns By Pepe Escobar  6/25/2009 Asia Times: "Mohsen Sazegara, president of the Washington-based Research Institute for Contemporary Iran, was one of the founders of the IRGC, in the earliest stages after the 1979 revolution. He does not mince his words. For him, Khamenei "made the biggest mistake of is life"; "he thought that with the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Interior he could conquer a nation". Sazegara stresses, "for the first time in 120 years, Iranians mobilize themselves without religious help and with no religious motivation". As for the regime's repression machine, he points out that "those who kill the protesters, those we call the 'white shirts', are Revolutionary Guards, they belong to a special brigade of the intelligence division [he's referring to the above-mentioned Ashura brigade]. They look like civilians, but they have knives, iron bars and weapons"."

Top US commander warns of Iran influence in Latin America  6/25/2009 Global Research: "The real concern is not a nation-to-nation interaction, it is the connection that Iran has with extremist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and the potential risk that that could bring to this region," Fraser told journalists ahead of taking up the post."

Venezuela's Chavez sees CIA hand in Iran unrest  6/25/2009 Global Research: "People are in the streets, some are dead, they have snipers, and behind this is the CIA, the imperial hand of European countries and the United States," he said, "from my point of view that is what is happening in Iran."

Martyrs persecuted beyond death  6/25/2009 Uruknet: "To readers of JSF all this should sound awfully familiar, the persecution of the families of martyrs, the disruption of funerals, and of course the fabrications, all standard operating procedures of the IDF. Let's refresh our memories with just a few stories. Click on the links to read the full account. Of course these stories would never get the amount of publicity that oppression in Iran gets."

Wednesday 6/24/2009

Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 6/24/2009 Consortium News: "Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he is the rightful winner of the June 12 presidential election, was part of the group (along with his current allies former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former House Speaker Mehdi Karoubi) that favored secret contacts with the United States and Israel to get the military supplies needed to fight the war with Iraq."

The Assembly of Experts 6/24/2009 Tehran Bureau: "Ahmadinjed came to power with the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and the Basij paramilitary units. These two divisions of the armed forces, unlike the Iranian Army which remains outside the cities, are ideological groups present in all urban and rural regions of the country. Ahmadinjead and some members of his cabinet have belonged to various ranks of the IRGC. They wield an ultra-conservative rhetoric, and many of them are students of a powerful, shadowy cleric, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who has been linked to a series of publicized political chain-murders. Soon after the 2005 elections, reformist politicians and those close to Rafsanjani began warning that a “Talibanite” faction, the students of Mesbah Yazdi, had begun a systematic takeover of every aspect of the IRGC and the government. Understanding the connection between Ahmadinejad, Mesbah Yazdi, and the higher ranks of the IRGC is imperative to understanding the current situation in Iran. Information on the topic is particularly sparse, because Mesbah Yazdi is not well-known to the Western media. Muhammad Sahimi has described the relationship in clear detail in his article The Leaders of Iran’s ‘Election Coup.’ Suffice it to say here that Mesbah Yazdi is the confirmed religious leader of the faction supporting Ahmadinejad, he is openly opposed to any democratic aspect of the Islamic Republic, and he is rumored to entertain the ambition of one day assuming the position of the Supreme Leader."

Tuesday 6/23/2009

Meet Shah Ali Khamenei By Pepe Escobar 6/23/2009 Asia Times: "The key move for the next few days revolves around Grand Ayatollah Husayn Montazeri's call for three days of mourning for the dead, from Wednesday to Friday. The progressive view in Tehran - and among the exiled Iranian intelligentsia - is that this is a very sophisticated, back to 1979, civil disobedience code, suggesting citizens should go indefinitely on strike. To strike is safer, and much more subversive, than hitting the streets and being bloodied by the paramilitary Basiji. Strikes were a fundamental element for the success of the revolution 30 years ago. Montazeri is also subtly signaling the strategy to seduce Iran's silent majority - which may hover around 30% to 40% of the total population. This strategy, judiciously applied over the next few days and weeks, may expand the people power river into a formidable ocean."

Brainstorming Iran: An X-Ray of Immediate History 6/23/2009 NarcoNews

Monday 6/22/2009

A Hard Look at the Numbers - What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election?  6/22/2009 Counterpunch: "More than thirty pre-election polls were conducted in Iran since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main opponent, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, announced their candidacies in early March 2009. The polls varied widely between the two opponents, but if one were to average their results, Ahmadinejad would still come out on top. However, some of the organizations sponsoring these polls, such as Iranian Labor News Agency and Tabnak, admit openly that they have been allies of Mousavi, the opposition, or the so-called reform movement. Their numbers were clearly tilted towards Mousavi and gave him an unrealistic advantage of over 30 per cent in some polls. If such biased polls were excluded, Ahmadinejad’s average over Mousavi would widen to about 21 points. On the other hand, there was only one poll carried out by a western news organization. It was jointly commissioned by the BBC and ABC News, and conducted by an independent entity called the Center for Public Opinion (CPO) of the New America Foundation. The CPO has a reputation of conducting accurate opinion polls, not only in Iran, but across the Muslim world since 2005. The poll, conducted a few weeks before the elections, predicted an 89 percent turnout rate. Further, it showed that Ahmadinejad had a nationwide advantage of two to one over Mousavi."

Reports: Iran's clerics considering removal of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad  6/22/2009 IB Times, UK: http://angryindian.blogspot.com/

A velvet revolution in Iran?  6/22/2009 Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist: "The post-election crisis in Iran has prompted individuals and groups on the left to reduce it to an imperialist plot to foment a “color” or “velvet” revolution. In doing so, they are following the lead of Ali Khamenei, the country’s most powerful leader and a man who has never run in an election himself."

The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test  6/22/2009 Stratfor: "Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle."

9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public  6/22/2009 VoltaireNet: "There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!"

Sunday 6/21/2009

Deaths confirmed in Iran unrest  6/21/2009 Al Jazeera

Why Iran's Ahmadinejad is preferred in Israel  6/21/2009 CSM: "But even though Mr. Ahmadinejad has threatened the Jewish state with destruction, many officials and analysts here actually prefer the incumbent president because – short of the downfall of Iran's theocratic system of government – he'll be easier to isolate. Reformist leader Mr. Mousavi, by contrast, isn't expected to alter Iran's drive for nuclear power, but he would win international sympathy. "Just because Mousavi is called a moderate or a reformist doesn't mean he's a nice guy. After all he was approved by the Islamic leadership," says Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University. "If we have Ahmadinejad, we know where we stand. If we have Mousavi we have a serpent with a nice image.""

Venezuelan President: World Must "Respect Iran"  6/21/2009 Dow Jones: "The world must respect Iran and the election "triumph" of its incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday. "We call on the world to respect Iran because there are attempts to undermine the strength of the Iranian revolution," Chavez said in his weekly radio and television address."

Saturday 6/20/2009

Iranian Woman’s Martyrdom Told on Facebook Spreads Protests  6/20/2009 Digital Journal

Robert Fisk: Khamenei is fighting for his own position as well as Ahmadinejad's  6/20/2009 Independent: "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was Thomas Cromwell yesterday, praising those he loathed with just enough directness for the recipient to know that a Supreme Leader's anger will embrace a senior cleric or two. When he expressed his admiration for Ali Akbar Rafsanjani's revolutionary credentials and added that "nobody has accused this gentleman of corruption" – who said they had? – you knew exactly what he meant. Think profits from pistachio nuts and the Tehran Metro."

Robert Fisk’s World: In Tehran, fantasy and reality make uneasy bedfellows  6/20/2009 Independent: "Now for the very latest on the fantasy circuit. The cruel "Iranian" cops aren't Iranian at all. They are members of Lebanon's Hizbollah militia. I've had this one from two reporters, three phone callers (one from Lebanon) and a British politician. I've tried to talk to the cops. They cannot understand Arabic. They don't even look like Arabs, let alone Lebanese. The reality is that many of these street thugs have been brought in from Baluch areas and Zobal province, close to the Afghan border. Even more are Iranian Azeris. Their accents sound as strange to Tehranis as would a Belfast accent to a Cornishman hearing it for the first time."

Preparing the Battlefield - The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran - by Seymour M. Hersh  6/20/2009 New Yorker: published 7/08

Iranian protesters defy ban, clash with police in streets  6/20/2009 Raw Story: "Members of the Basij Islamic militia, which has been at the forefront of the regime’s efforts to face down a week of protests against official results giving hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second four-year term, were again out in force. However, protestors were catching Basijis on motorbikes and beating them, a witness said."

Friday 6/19/2009

New Tricks to Confront State Power - What the Left Should be Learning From Iran By AL GIORDANO 6/19/2009 Counterpunch: "There are those who really seem to believe that the three million plus people in the streets are merely dupes of the manipulation of destabilization plans hatched in Washington or Tel Aviv. The latter claim is confounded by the words of Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak, who said yesterday, "We should not be confused about Mousavi - these people are fundamentalist Muslims," and those of Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who joins the neocon chorus in pooh-poohing the popular revolt as insignificant: "The riots are taking place only in Teheran and one additional region. They won't last for long." That reeks of wishful thinking and reveals that Israel's government, for one, wants Ahmadinejad to survive the tumult."

From Mossadegh to Ahmadinejad - The CIA and the Iranian experiment 6/19/2009 VoltaireNet: "First, SMS were sent during the night of the counting of the votes, according to which the Guardian Council of the Constitution (equivalent to a constitutional court) had informed Mir-Hossein Mousavi of his victory. After that, the announcing of the official results — the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with 64 % of cast votes — seemed like a huge fraud. However, three days earlier, M. Mousavi and his friends were considering a massive victory of M. Ahmadinejad as certain and were trying to explain it by unbalanced campaigns. Indeed the ex president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was detailing his grievances in an open letter. The US polling institutes in Iran were predicting a 20 points lead for M. Ahmadinejad over M. Mousavi. M. Mousavi victory never seemed possible, even if it is probable that some fraud accentuated the margin between the two candidates. Secondly, Iranian citizens were selected or volunteered on the Internet to chat on Facebook or to subscribe to Twitter feeds. They received information —true or false— (still via SMS) about the evolution of the political crisis and the ongoing demonstrations. These anonymous news posts were spreading news of gun fights and numerous deaths which to this day have not been confirmed. Because of an unfortunate calendar overlap, Twitter was supposed to suspend its service for a night to allow for some maintenance of its systems. The US State Department intervened to ask them to postpone it. According to the New York Times, these operations contributed to spread defiance in the population."

Thursday 6/18/2009

Armed Radical 'Minutemen' Kill Father and 9-Year-Old Daughter in Anti-Immigrant Hate 6/18/2009 Center for Community Change: "On May 30, 2009, a group of armed men and women killed 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father in Arivaca, Ariz. The vigilantes were Minutemen, members of a "civilian defense corps" that polices the U.S.-Mexico border for undocumented immigrants. When Jason Bush, 34, Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Gaxiola, 42, allegedly busted down the front door of the Flores home and killed Raul Junior Flores and his daughter, and seriously injured Flores' wife, the armed gang was supposedly looking for drugs and cash to fund their anti-immigrant organization. Arizona police allege Shawna Forde was the ringleader. Forde was the executive director of Minuteman American Defense and a spokeswoman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, often touted as a "mainstream" voice opposing immigration. But if Forde was indeed involved, the bloody acts in Arivaca reveal the true hatred and contempt behind anti-immigrant organizations in our country."

Tuesday 6/16/2009

Why American Jews Should Resist the US's Blind Support of Israel - Israel's Angels in America  6/16/2009 Counterpunch: "A national organizing effort spreading across America’s Jewish Diaspora is approaching critical mass, still underappreciated by reporters and bloggers. I was asked to facilitate the public discussion following a recent rollout of a local organizing effort in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I live. The new group, comprised mainly of New Mexico Jews, named itself “Another Jewish Voice.” It promotes an unapologetic mission that goes beyond the common vision shared by innumerable “peace” organizations around the world to end the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and affirm the national aspirations and human rights of the Palestinian people. AJV states that it “recognizes the powerful role of U.S. policy in the region and believes that the United States’ unconditional support of Israeli government policy is profoundly harmful to the cause of peace with justice."

Why the US Wants to Delegitimize the Iranian Elections - Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?  6/16/2009 Counterpunch: "An independent, objective poll was conducted in Iran by American pollsters prior to the election. The pollsters, Ken Ballen of the nonprofit Center for Public Opinion and Patrick Doherty of the nonprofit New America Foundation, describe their poll results in the June 15 Washington Post. The polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and was conducted in Farsi “by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award.”* The poll results, the only real information we have at this time, indicate that the election results reflect the will of the Iranian voters. Among the extremely interesting information revealed by the poll is the following: “Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election."

Neo-Nazis are in the Army now  6/16/2009 Salon

Monday 6/15/2009

Proof: Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter #IranElection  6/15/2009 Charting Stocks: "Were these legitimate Iranian people or the works of a propaganda machine? I became curious and decided to investigate the origins of the information. In doing so, I narrowed it down to a handful of people who have accounted for 30,000 Iran related tweets in the past few days. Each of them had some striking similarities - 1. They each created their twitter accounts on Saturday June 13th. 2. Each had extremely high number of Tweets since creating their profiles. 3. “IranElection” was each of their most popular keyword 4. With some very small exceptions, each were posting in ENGLISH. 5. Half of them had the exact same profile photo 6. Each had thousands of followers, with only a few friends. Most of their friends were EACH OTHER."

What If Ahmadinejad Really Won?  6/15/2009 Consortium News

Jones vs. Ross - Knock Out In The Third Round  6/15/2009 Moon of Alabama: "Haaretz is reporting that Dennis Ross will be fired from his position as the Iran coordinator of the Obama government: "Dennis Ross, who most recently served as a special State Department envoy to Iran, will abruptly be relieved of his duties, sources in Washington told Haaretz. An official announcement is expected in the coming days."

Friday 6/12/2009

Chavez: Gov't may shutter critical TV channel 6/12/2009 AP

Thursday 6/11/2009

Up to 250 Indigenous Peruvians Killed in Bagua, Says Leader Miguel Palacin  6/11/2009 Ground Report: "Miguel Palacin says that the official version of the government on the Bagua massacre says there are 25 police and nine indigenous people dead. But his organization contacts in that area reveal that there are more than 250 people missing, all of them Indigenous leaders who are presumably dead. These missing people are not in the list of injured nor detained, and there is a national commission to investigate this crimes and they were in Bagua yesterday but they found only blood in the road -in an area that is now under the control of Peruvian military."

2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy  6/11/2009 Japan Today: "According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan."

Canada: Colombian president clashes with NDP, Bloc MPs  6/11/2009 Toronto Sun

Wednesday 6/10/2009

Women in Darfur: We Saw No Evidence of Genocide 6/10/2009 Black Agenda Report: "When Colin Powell used the word genocide in 2004, it kicked off $1 billion-a-year international aid program, much higher than that afforded Somalia or Congo. But why?" [The Congo has had millions of victims, far higher than Darfur.]

Tuesday 6/9/2009

Tens of Thousands Rally for Mousavi in Tehran 6/9/2009 Juan Cole

Monday 6/8/2009

Two Colombian Generals Face Charges 6/8/2009 Consortium News: "In July, 2003, just before Urapalma's USAID application, Colombia's national daily El Tiempo reported that "the African palm projects in the southern banana region of Uraba are dripping with blood, misery, and corruption." The region is where Urapalma is active. The Nation article goes on to report that in 2003, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights singled out Urapalma for collusion with paramilitaries in these words: "Since 2001, the company Urapalma SA has initiated cultivation of the oil palm on approximately 1,500 hectares of the collective land of these communities, with the help of 'the perimetric and concentric armed protection of the Army's Seventeenth Brigade and armed civilians'", i.e., paras. All of the above, of course, has gone on by fleecing American taxpayers, courtesy of SOA and USAID."

Turning Point? by Noam Chomsky 6/8/2009 Znet: "The Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas meetings in May, followed by Obama's speech in Cairo, have been widely interpreted as a turning point in US Middle East policy, leading to consternation in some quarters, exuberance in others... A closer look, however, suggests considerable caution."

Sunday 6/7/2009

Key Figures in Global Battle Against Illegal Arms Trade Lost in Air France Crash 6/7/2009 Sunday Herald, Scotland: "Dreyfus was an advocate of the stringent labelling of ammunition by weapons firms, arguing that by clearly identifying ammunition not only by its producer but also its purchaser, the likelihood of weapons being sourced by criminals from corrupt police or armed forces personnel is greatly reduced."

Friday 6/5/2009

NED Articles 6/5/2009 International Endowment for Democracy: The National Endowment for Hypocrisy Democracy

Wednesday 6/3/2009

What It's Like to Go Undercover and Infiltrate Some of America's Most Dangerous Hate Groups 6/3/2009 Alternet

Tuesday 6/2/2009

Presidente Chávez: Inteligencia estadounidense y Luis Posada Carriles planearon magnicidio con cohetes en San Salvador 6/2/2009 Aporrea: “Y este atentado que se estaba preparando (…) fue por la gente de Posada Carriles. Le exijo al presidente Obama que cumpla con la ley. Mándenos a Posada; debe estar en prisión”, pidió a su par de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama. También especificó que los servicios de inteligencia de EE UU están “detrás de todo esto, no estoy acusando a Obama. Más allá de Obama hay un imperio, eso está vivito, sus tentáculos, sus asesinos y sus paramilitares”.

Venezuela Chavez says "Comrade" Obama more left-wing 6/2/2009 Reuters: "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right," Chavez joked on a live television broadcast."

Monday 6/1/2009

CIA was responsible for the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy  6/1/2009 Big News: "According to this documentary the CIA was responsible for the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in November of 1962 at Daley Plaza in Dallas Texas. John Barbour produced this landmark film, The Garrison Tapes. This documentary tells the story of District Attorney Jim Garrison, who investigated the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy his independent investigation according to the movie looked closely into evidence available to him and came forward with an interpretation that went beyond the Warren Commission's authorized report."

Navy Vet Honored, Foiled Israeli Attack  6/1/2009 Consortium News

Bill O’Reilly’s jihad against Dr. George Tiller  6/1/2009 Daily Kos: "Since 2005, Bill O’Reilly has waged jihad against Dr. George Tiller, dedicating 29 segments of his show to demonizing and dehumanizing Tiller, who he invariably called "Tiller the baby killer."

Saturday 5/30/2009

Right-Wing Hate Machine Launches Vicious Campaign of Racist and Sexist Attacks on Sotomayor 5/30/2009 The Progress Report

Friday 5/29/2009

State Dept.: Obama’s Demands To Stop West Bank Expansion Includes Jerusalem 5/29/2009 Philadelphia Bulletin: "Ms. Clinton’s press spokesman was asked if President Obama’s demand to halt expansion of “West Bank Jewish communities” included a demand to stop expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The answer was affirmative. The U.S. State Department demands that Israel limit Jewish growth in these areas of Jerusalem, “whose status remains to be determined” in negotiations. Israeli Government Press Director Daniel Seamen reacted to this Obama administration statement by saying: “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”

Tuesday 5/26/2009

Oil Company Says Protests Causing Fuel Shortages in Peru 5/26/2009 Latin American Herald Tribune: "State-owned oil company Petroperu said Sunday protests organized by Indians in Peru’s Amazon region were causing fuel shortages in several jungle cities. Protests by Indians in the Imaza, Cenepa, Santiago and Condorcanqui districts, as well as in Datem del Marañon province, paralyzed operations at the Norperuano pipeline, which runs from the Loreto region to the Paccific coast, Petroperu said. The state-owned oil company’s stations 5 and 6 in Loreto have been occupied by Indians since April 23, preventing the transfer of crude to the Bayovar terminal in the Piura region."

Sunday 5/24/2009

Group Says Coal Protesters Unable to Make Bail 5/24/2009 NYT: "Environmental group Mountain Justice says six people arrested on trespassing charges during a coal mining protest are still jailed. The group said Sunday the six have been unable to raise $2,000 cash apiece to make bail. All six were arrested a day earlier at Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.'s Marfork Coal mining complex in Pettus. Mountain Justice says they were protesting Massey's plan to blast at the mine. Mountain Justice and a group called Climate Ground Zero say blasting could cause a coal slurry dam at the site to collapse."

Saturday 5/23/2009

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Heads-Heads 5/23/2009 Common Dreams: By Sibel Edmonds, " the founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). During her work with the FBI, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege” by Attorney General Ashcroft; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice."

Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism: Cheney Breaks the Taboo 5/23/2009 Counterpunch: "Cheney’s explanation of a motive mostly reprised George W. Bush’s old “the terrorists hate our freedoms” canard. Cheney said the terrorists hate “all the things that make us a force for good in the world — for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences,” an odd set of qualities for Cheney to cite given his roles in violating constitutional rights, torturing captives and spreading falsehoods to justify invading Iraq. But that’s also where Cheney slipped up. You didn’t notice? Well, Cheney couldn’t resist expanding on the complaints of the terrorists: “They have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion…our belief in equal rights for women…our support for Israel… — these are the true sources of resentment…”

Friday 5/22/2009

Obama Orders Update to Iran Attack Plan  5/22/2009 AntiWar: "On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack. It was only a month ago that Secretary Gates was warning vigorously against the potential attack, saying that it would create a “disastrous backlash” against the United States to hit Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Obama Administration has insisted it is intending to pursue the matter diplomatically with Iran, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said the administration doesn’t expect diplomacy to work, and the effort seems to be primarily to rally international support for more measures against Iran."

Newly declassified documents reveal More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia  5/22/2009 Bolivia Rising: by Eva Golinger - "Recently declassified documents obtained by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger reveal that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia since 2002. The documents, requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), evidence that USAID in Bolivia was the “first donor to support departmental governments” and “decentralization programs” in the country, proving that the US agency has been one of the principal funders and fomenters of the separatist projects promoted by regional governments in Eastern Bolivia."

Venezuela Chavez nationalizes iron companies  5/22/2009 Reuters: "Chavez, who has already nationalized many of Venezuela's largest industries, named iron briquette makers with Japanese investors among the companies to pass into state hands. "Nationalize the iron briquette sector, there is nothing to discuss," Chavez said to euphoric union members during a televised speech in which he also announced a wage rise for thousands of workers and a cut in management salaries."

Thursday 5/21/2009

Tamil Tiger leaders 'killed trying to surrender'  5/21/2009 AFP: "Two top members of the Tamil Tigers may have been shot by their own side or executed by Sri Lankan troops while trying to surrender, according to conflicting accounts of the last days of the rebels. Hours before the Sri Lankan defence ministry announced the entire rebel leadership had been killed and the decades-old war won, Tamil Tiger political chief B. Nadesan and Peace Secretariat head S. Pulideevan were trying to give themselves up."

Italian Prosecutor: Enough Evidence for CIA Convictions  5/21/2009 CQ Politics: "We're continuing, but it is more of a formality," the lawyer for Nicolò Pollari, the former chief of Italian military intelligence, who is among those on trial, told the paper. Prosecutor Armando Spataro acknowledged that the ruling virtually ruled out obtaining a conviction of top Italian secret service officials charged with collusion in the February 2003 kidnapping of Abu Omar, whose real name is Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. But in an email, the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, insisted "there was sufficient evidence for convictions [of the Americans], even excluding materials now deemed classified by the Constitutional Court.""

FBI Agent on Synagogue Case Has Questionable Record  5/21/2009 Village Voice: 'The FBI agent with a high-profile role in yesterday's arrests of four men for plotting a terror attack in New York has a pretty interesting -- and controversial -- track record. Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit."

Wednesday 5/20/2009

Pro-Israel Mouthpiece Says Freedom of Speech Dangerous ‘JINSA’ article says outlets who oppose future wars should be silenced—killed if necessary—by military strike 5/20/2009 Atheo News: "In the spring 2009 issue of its Journal of International Security Affairs, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a particularly vocal force of the Jewish lobby, published a series of articles devoted to the subject: “The U.S. Military Faces the Future.” One article, entitled “Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars,” written by Ralph Peters (described as “a retired U.S. Army officer”) states flatly that “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.” The JINSA essay says “Freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.”

Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars 5/20/2009 JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs): "Of course, the media have shaped the outcome of conflicts for centuries, from the European wars of religion through Vietnam. More recently, though, the media have determined the outcomes of conflicts. While journalists and editors ultimately failed to defeat the U.S. government in Iraq, video cameras and biased reporting guaranteed that Hezbollah would survive the 2006 war with Israel and, as of this writing, they appear to have saved Hamas from destruction in Gaza. Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom. The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters."

Tuesday 5/19/2009

Unexceptional Americans: Why We Can't See the Trees or the Forest - The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia 5/19/2009 Tom Dispatch: by Noam Chomsky

Sunday 5/17/2009

Hersh Details JSOC Killings 5/17/2009 AntiWar: "Hersh had previously revealed details about JSOC’s assassinations in March during a talk at the University of Minnesota. The group reportedly went to countries across the world, assassinating people suspected of planning anti-American activities. Reports about JSOC’s activities had been floating around in the media for quite some time, but the issue is being revived by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ decision to recommend Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal as the new commander of American troops in Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. McChrystal was the JSOC commander for the vast majority of the Bush era."

Saturday 5/16/2009

Here's how Israel would destroy Iran's nuclear program 5/16/2009 Haretz

Friday 5/15/2009

Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama  5/15/2009 Alternet: "As the Obama administration continues to fight the release of some 2,000 photos that graphically document U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: "blows to [the] testicles;" "detention underground in total darkness for three weeks with deprivation of food and sleep;" being "inoculated … through injection with 'a disease for dog cysts;'" the smearing of feces on prisoners; and waterboarding. The torture, according to the Spanish investigation, all occurred "under the authority of American military personnel" and was sometimes conducted in the presence of medical professionals."

Panetta’s ‘Secret Mission’ to Stop Israeli Attack on Iran  5/15/2009 AntiWar

US Blames Eritrea for Somali Instability  5/15/2009 AntiWar: "Eritrea appears to be America’s scapegoat of choice as the situation in Somalia continues to deteriorate, and only last month it was reported that the Obama Administration had threatened a US invasion of Eritrea over its support for the Islamist al-Shabaab faction."

Lieberman's party proposes ban on Arab Nakba  5/15/2009 Reuters: "Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's party wants to ban Israeli Arabs from marking the anniversary of what they term "the Catastrophe" or Nakba, when in 1948 some 700,000 Arabs lost their homes in the war that led to the establishment of the state of Israel. The ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party said it would propose legislation next week for a ban on the practice and a jail term of up to three years for violators."

The hidden hand of Dick Cheney by Juan Cole  5/15/2009 Salon: "In the government's commitment to a doctrine of "state secrets" that protect the executive from the scrutiny of other branches of government, in the continued attempt to block lawsuits and release of important documents, and in the shielding of secret programs of torture, unlawful kidnapping and warrantless wiretapping, Obama is preserving policies to which Cheney is deeply committed. In configuring Pushtun fundamentalists in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan as a mortal threat to the U.S. and potentially even a nuclear power, the Obama administration is picking up themes from Cheney's old speeches and running with them. Cheney may or may not win his struggle for the soul of the Republican Party. If we are not careful, he will win the struggle for the soul of the country as a whole."

Leon Panetta's mission to stop Israel bombing Iranian nuclear plant  5/15/2009 Times: "America’s spy chief was sent on a secret mission to Israel to warn its leaders not to launch a surprise attack on Iran without notifying the US Administration. As Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, prepares to visit Washington, it emerged yesterday that Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, went to Israel two weeks ago. He sought assurances from Mr Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, that their hawkish new Government would not attack Iran without alerting Washington."

Wednesday 5/13/2009

Bolivia says Peru ties threatened by decision to harbor ex-officials accused in 2003 killings 5/13/2009 AP: "Bolivia's president says relations with Peru are at "high risk" after the neighboring nation gave refuge to two more former Bolivian officials accused in the 2003 army killings of dozens of protesters." [Peru also gave asylum to Venezuelan official fleeing corruption charges.]

Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City 5/13/2009 Front Line: "Arguably, the most startling information so far brought to light by the release of these intelligence records is the CIA cover-up relating to Oswald's visit to Mexico City. Oswald was in Mexico City in late September and early October of 1963. During his one-week stay, he tried to obtain visas from the Cuban consulate and Soviet embassy. But intelligence documents released in 1999 establish that, after Oswald failed to get the visas, CIA intercepts showed that someone impersonated Oswald in phone calls made to the Soviet embassy and the Cuban consulate and linked Oswald to a known KGB assassin - Valery Kostikov - whom the CIA and FBI had been following for over a year.1 The news of this impersonation and the link to Kostikov, learned within hours of President Kennedy's assassination, electrified top government and intelligence officials and dominated their discussion in the immediate weeks following the assassination. It also became during the next 40 years one of the CIA's most closely guarded secrets on the Oswald case."

Tuesday 5/12/2009

Chavez, Citgo sued for five billion in damages 5/12/2009 AFP: "Guaripa worked for US-funded Radio Marti in Caracas until the end of 2004 when he went into exile, alleging he had been the target of death threats and intimidation by the Chavez government. "The people of Venezuela and the world have been terrorized by Chavez and his communist/terrorist henchmen for too long," Klayman said in a statement, adding that the president has taken several measures to "cement" his grip on power. "All the while he continues, through oil revenues and other means, to support terrorist countries and groups bent on destroying capitalism and the West in general." Freedom Watch accuses Chavez of supporting the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as Middle East groups Hamas and Hezbollah. The US government has labeled all three groups terrorist organizations."

Monday 5/11/2009

Press Release: CHAVEZ CLASS ACTION AMENDED TO ADD CITGO AS DEFENDANT 5/11/2009 Freedom Watch

This is London – the capital of Somali pirates' secret intelligence operation 5/11/2009 Guardian

Sunday 5/10/2009

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi Has Died In A Libyan Prison 5/10/2009 Andy Worthington: "Al-Libi recanted his story in February 2004, when he was returned to the CIA’s custody, and explained, as Newsweek described it, that he told his debriefers that “he initially told his interrogators that he ‘knew nothing’ about ties between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden and he ‘had difficulty even coming up with a story’ about a relationship between the two.” The Newsweek report explained that “his answers displeased his interrogators — who then apparently subjected him to the mock burial. As al-Libi recounted, he was stuffed into a box less than 20 inches high. When the box was opened 17 hours later, al-Libi said he was given one final opportunity to ‘tell the truth.’ He was knocked to the floor and ‘punched for 15 minutes.’ It was only then that, al-Libi said, he made up the story about Iraqi weapons training.” As I explained in a recent article, Even In Cheney’s Bleak World, The Al-Qaeda-Iraq Torture Story Is A New Low, drawing on reports in the New York Times and by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, the use of al-Libi to extract a false confession that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq was particularly shocking, because a Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded in February 2002 that al-Libi was lying, and Dan Coleman of the FBI (which had been pulled off al-Libi’s case when the CIA — and the administration — decided to render him to torture in Egypt) had no doubt that the emir of an Afghan training camp would know nothing about Iraq. “It was ridiculous for interrogators to think Libi would have known anything about Iraq,” Coleman told Jane Mayer. “I could have told them that. He ran a training camp. He wouldn’t have had anything to do with Iraq.”"

Chávez seizures fuel Venezuela oil fears 5/10/2009 Financial Times

Saturday 5/9/2009

Mexican farm swine flu's 'ground zero': residents  5/9/2009 AP

Venezuela says weapons cache uncovered, 4 foreigners detained in suspected terrorist cell  5/9/2009 AP

Stanford drug informer role claim  5/9/2009 BBC

Arctic Groups Demand Global Chemicals' Ban  5/9/2009 Common Dreams

Congo Ignored, Not Forgotten - When 5 million dead aren’t worth two stories a year  5/9/2009 Extra!: "But conflict and the humanitarian crisis continue. The most recent survey (IRC, 1/08) estimated that 45,000 people are dying each month from conflict-related causes (primarily hunger and disease), nearly the same shocking rate as during the war itself. And with the recent flare-up of violence in Congo's volatile east, things don't seem to be getting any better. To put the death rate in perspective, at the peak of the Darfur crisis, the conflict-related death rate there was less than a third of the Congo's, and by 2005 it had dropped to less than 4,000 per month (CRED, 5/26/05). The United Nations has estimated some 300,000 may have died in total as a result of the years of conflict in Darfur (CRED, 4/24/08, SSRC.org, 3/25/09); the same number die from the Congo conflict every six and a half months."

Friday 5/8/2009

Criminalizing Criticism of Israel  5/8/2009 Counterpunch: "On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide. To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews. Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House. As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands. It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus. It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity. It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust. It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy. In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned."

An invention called 'the Jewish people'  5/8/2009 Haaretz: published 2/08 - "On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso, mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint says that this is slanderous."

666: Goldman's latest bonus bears the mark of the beast  5/8/2009 Independent, UK

'The USS Liberty': America's Most Shameful Secret  5/8/2009 Lew Rockwell: " US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Thomas Moorer, insisted the Israeli attack was deliberate and designed to sink "Liberty." So did three CIA reports; one asserted Israel's Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan, had personally ordered the attack."

Wednesday 5/6/2009

Is There A Save Darfur Industrial Complex? 5/6/2009 Black Agenda Report: "What does it mean for Africa when right wing end-of-the-world-is-near evangelical Christians join forces with the Robert F. Kennedy Center For Human Rights? What does it mean for African Americans when Bush, Obama, and nearly all last year's presidential candidates from both parties encourage the continuation of an African civil war rather than a political settlement between the parties? What does it mean when 21st century PR firms employ FaceBook, slick viral marketing and millions of dollars to create a simple, satisfying, feel-good excuse for military intervention on the African continent?"

Fed Dread - The New York Fed is the most powerful financial institution you've never heard of. Look who's running it. 5/6/2009 Slate: By Eliot Spitzer [who was conveniently removed from office as Governor of NY]

Monday 5/4/2009

Where's the Justice at the Justice Department? The AIPAC Spy Case 5/4/2009 Counterpunch: by former Senator JAMES G. ABOUREZK

Gunned down Irishman ‘linked to neo-Nazi group’ 5/4/2009 Teelgraph, Belfast

Friday 5/1/2009

Chavez says Colombia rebels unwelcome in Venezuela  5/1/2009 AP

Covert Palestinian Authority-Iranian get-together in Caracas  5/1/2009 Debka, Israel: "Chavez is quoted as maintaining during his visits to Tehran and Doha that if US president Barack Obama is willing to talk to him, with Cuba and with Iran, there was no reason why Mahmoud Abbas should not engage Tehran directly. This would help overcome his Fatah's quarrel with Hamas, which Iran is actively supporting with arms, cash and military training."

Lawyers credit Obama team for dismissing AIPAC case  5/1/2009 JTA: "Lawyers for the two former AIPAC staffers charged four years ago with dealing in government secrets credited the Obama administration for dropping the case. “We are extremely grateful that this new Administration, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia, has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits and not to allow an unjust prosecution to continue solely due to momentum,” said the joint statement by lawyers for Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman issued Friday, hours after the government filed for a dismissal of the charges against the two former senior staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “This Administration truly shows that theirs is a Department of Justice, where the justice of any case can be re-evaluated and the government can admit that a case should not be pursued.”"

Chavez says Obama must prove change after handshake  5/1/2009 Reuters

Thursday 4/30/2009

Veneuzla asks Interpol to go after 2nd Chavez foe  4/30/2009 AP: "Venezuela has sought Interpol's help in seeking the arrest of Alfredo Pena, a political opponent of President Hugo Chavez who is facing corruption allegations, the Attorney General's Office said Thursday. It was the second such request in eight days. At Venezuela's request, Intepol issued a "red notice" last week for the arrest of an opposition leader who has received political asylum in Peru. Suspects with red-notice status appear on Interpol's equivalent of a most-wanted list. Prosecutors say they are investigating allegations that Pena pocketed public money during his 2001-04 term as mayor of Caracas."

Swine flu scare puts spotlight on factory farms  4/30/2009 Capital Times: "Yet cheap labor, abundant space, and less community resistance have been luring livestock operators from Wisconsin and other states to places like Mexico, where there is much less regulatory oversight ndsh and, where, a 5-year-old boy named Edgar Hernandez, who lives in the village of La Gloria near a factory hog farm owned in part by the American giant Smithfield, became the first known case of an influenza world health officials now predict will become a pandemic."

Climate Ground Zero - We all have a stake in the future, we all live at climate ground zero.  4/30/2009 Climategroundzero.org: "They have moved to find 11 activists in contempt of court for violating the TRO, even though 9 of us were not listed on the order. The other two defendants are Antrim Caskey, a photojournalist covering the action campaign, and Mike Roselle, who has not engaged in direct actions since the TRO was issued. They are alleging he violated the order by “recruiting” others for actions. They are requesting that we be ordered to pay them “compensatory damages” or $5,000 per person whichever is greater as well as their court costs and that we be jailed until we swear in open court that we will never violate any such court order again. They are also demanding we turn over all photographs and videos of the actions, prevent their publication as best we can, and give them any money made from their sale or distribution!"

‘New Scientist’: Swine flu stems from virus that evolved in U.S.  4/30/2009 Grist.com: "[T]he people making these statements know perfectly well that the Mexican flu virus is the very recent descendant of one of the triple reassortants that have been circulating in the U.S. for a decade. It has changed its coat—but all these viruses do that regularly. It has swapped one of its six internal genetic segments, originally from pigs, for a slightly different pig segment. But the rest of the internal genes, including the all-important human-avian polymerase, are exactly the same."

Israel to EU: Criticism of Netanyahu government unacceptable  4/30/2009 Haaretz

"Patient Zero" Identified in Mexican Flu Outbreak?  4/30/2009 Huffington Post: "And according to El Universal newspaper, officials at Granjas Carroll México are now claiming that "the virus is of Eurasian origin -- and the first cases were found in the United States, making Mexico the receptor nation, more than the generator, of this influenza." No evidence was published to back up that claim. Also reported in the Mexican press today, Smithfield and Granjas Carroll have agreed to adopt government recommendations to "begin reinforcing its biosecurity measures to prevent workers and animals from being infected, the newspaper Reforma said. Reforma also reported that Villagers in La Gloria are being threatened, harassed and even jailed for speaking out against the hog giant. "

Professor's comparison of Israelis to Nazis stirs furor  4/30/2009 LA Times

Iranians and Others Outwit Net Censors  4/30/2009 NYT: "Hoping to step up its circumvention efforts, the Falun Gong last year organized extensive lobbying in Congress, which approved $15 million for circumvention services. But the money was awarded not to the Falun Gong consortium but to Internews, an international organization that supports local media groups. This year, a broader coalition is organizing to push for more Congressional financing of anti-filtering efforts. Negotiations are under way to bring together dissidents of Vietnam, Iran, the Uighur minority of China, Tibet, Myanmar, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, as well as the Falun Gong, to lobby Congress for the financing. Mr. Horowitz argues that $25 million could expand peak usage to as many as 45 million daily Internet users, allowing the systems to reach as many as 10 percent of the Web users in both China and Iran. Mr. Zhou says his group’s financing is money well spent. “The entire battle over the Internet has boiled down to a battle over resources,” he said. “For every dollar we spend, China has to spend a hundred, maybe hundreds of dollars.”

Iran, Venezuela enter into military alliance  4/30/2009 Press TV, Iran: "The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on military cooperation which encompassed "training and mutual exchange of military experiences".

Wednesday 4/29/2009

Mexico’s Swine Flu and the Globalization of Disease  4/29/2009 Americas Mexico Blog: "Silvia Ribeiro of the ETC Group told the Americas Program that Mexican officials “act like this is something that fell from the sky, but we’ve known for a long time that industrial livestock operations, especially hogs, are a breeding ground for recombinant viruses. Carroll Farms is just one example, an important one in this case, but it’s also true of industrial chicken farms.” Anybody who has seen an industrial hog farm knows the risk of disease. The unimaginable concentrations of filth, corrals filled with sick and suffering animals pumped full of antibiotics, and buzzing with flies that then carry disease to the human population create a disease paradise."

Black Colleges Profiled as Suspected Havens for “Extremists”  4/29/2009 Black Agenda Report

Obama's America Joins White Walkout From UN Conference on Racism  4/29/2009 Black Agenda Report: "What a spectacle it was! Diplomats from the colonizing countries of Europe and the white settler regimes they founded rose in indignation in Geneva, Switzerland, last week, to denounce a Persian leader for racism. Envoys from France, Britain, Spain and Denmark, whose nations are responsible for orgies of rape and pillage that killed untold millions in the centuries-long European war against the darker regions of the planet, pretended that their sensibilities had been assaulted by a speech from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The irate Europeans joined with their brothers and sisters in historical genocide and mass murder, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden – kidnappers of nations, invaders, enslavers of whole peoples – who had boycotted the Geneva conference on racism, commonly known as Durban II. The world is stained with oceans of blood because of these Europeans, yet they have the nerve, the gall, to attempt to demonize the Iranian president for the words he spoke about Israel. Leading the sabotage of the conference was the United States, along with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and, of course, Israel – the European settler colonies that became nations on the bones and stolen land of previous inhabitants."

Specter's JFK Specter By Lisa Pease  4/29/2009 Consortium News: "While Specter is perhaps most famous for coming up with the "single bullet theory" which purports that one bullet entered and exited two people (President Kennedy and Governor Connally) seven times, only to emerge nearly intact, his legislative efforts of late also give cause for concern."

An Interview with William Robinson - Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor  4/29/2009 Counterpunch: "I included some material which was highly critical of the Israeli invasion of Gaza as part of the reading material for a course on globalization and global affairs, and this was in January. And I am now facing charges, here at the university, of anti-semitism and violating the faculty code of conduct because two students in the course - there were eighty students - these two submitted a formal letter of complaint that they found offensive the material condemning the invasion of Gaza. The students immediately withdrew from the course, I don't even know them personally. And what is particularly egregious about this case is not that the students submitted a complaint - any student is allowed to do that - but rather that the university took the complaint seriously and is actually prosecuting me…"

How “The NAFTA Flu” Exploded  4/29/2009 Narco News: "US and Mexico authorities claim that neither knew about the “swine flu” outbreak until April 24. But after hundreds of residents of a town in Veracruz, Mexico, came down with its symptoms, the story had already hit the Mexican national press by April 5. The daily La Jornada reported: Clouds of flies emanate from the rusty lagoons where the Carroll Ranches business tosses the fecal wastes of its pig farms, and the open-air contamination is already generating an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town of La Gloria, in the Perote Valley, according to Town Administrator Bertha Crisóstomo López. The town has 3,000 inhabitants, hundreds of whom reported severe flu symptoms in March."

Companies Utilize ‘Cyber-Chatter’ To Predict Global Epidemics  4/29/2009 Red Orbit

Supreme Court conservatives criticize voting rights law  4/29/2009 Reuters

Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB  4/29/2009 WordPress

Tuesday 4/28/2009

The Venezuelan Opposition and Democracy 4/28/2009 Cuba Now

Peru Grants Political Asylum to Venezuelan Opposition Leader Wanted for Corruption 4/28/2009 Venezuela Analysis

Monday 4/27/2009

Iran arms ship bound for Gaza downed near Sudan 4/27/2009 Haaretz

Saturday 4/25/2009

What They Craved - Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11 4/25/2009 Counterpunch: "Why, then, the relentless waterboarding of these two men? It turns out that high Bush officials put heavy pressure on Pentagon interrogators to get Mohammed and Zubaydah to reveal a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 hijackers, in order to justify Bush’s illegal and unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003. That link was never established."

Merkel and Sarkozy in search of revenge for Rasmussen 4/25/2009 Today's Zaman, Turkey: "NATO officials point to the need for US intervention if the dispute continues to grow. Turkey opposed the appointment of former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the next secretary-general, saying he is not the best choice for the job at a time when the alliance plans to expand its involvement in Afghanistan because of the way he handled the infamous cartoon crisis that broke out in 2005 when Danish newspapers printed caricatures insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Rasmussen defended the publication of the caricatures on the basis of freedom of speech and dismissed calls from the Muslim world to apologize. Turkey was under strong pressure from Germany and France to approve Rasmussen at a NATO summit on April 3-4, but Ankara agreed to give the go-ahead only after US President Barack Obama brokered a deal, under which Rasmussen would have a Turkish deputy."

Friday 4/24/2009

Annie Machon, Ex-MI5, Interview 4/24/2009 Montreal 9/11 Truth

Thursday 4/23/2009

Thousands pour into Georgian capital to protest  4/23/2009 AP: "Thousands of opposition supporters from Georgia's provinces poured into the capital late Wednesday to join the protests aimed at forcing President Mikhail Saakashvili to step down. A convoy of some 600 cars, minibuses and buses loaded with opposition backers from western Georgia drove into Tbilisi in the evening, adding to 30,000 people already in front of parliament and along the city's main thoroughfare. A spokesman for the government estimated the crowd at 5,000 or fewer. Opposition leaders have vowed to keep the daily protests that began April 9 going until Saakashvili resigns. Some demonstrations have swelled to as many as 60,000 people. "Saakashvili reminds me of an obstinate child who thinks that this country is his plaything. But he forgets that obstinate children are punished — and this will happen very soon," Levan Gachechiladze, one of the top opposition figures, told the crowd."

Rivers Coming Together  4/23/2009 Hullabaloo: Ron Suskind on Maddow: "And what‘s fascinating here, if you run the timeline side by side, you see, really, for the first time from that report that the key thing being sent down in terms of the request by the policymakers, by the White House, is find a link between Saddam and al Qaeda so that we essentially can link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks and then march into Iraq with the anger of 9/11 behind us. That was the goal and that was being passed down as the directive."

Bolivia police raid Jewish center  4/23/2009 JTA: "The reason for the raid was not clear. Users of the outreach center, which claims to be affiliated with Chabad but whose director is not recognized by the Chabad-Lubavitch organization, have been at odds with the proprietor of a local restaurant and neighbors, some of whom have complained of noise. However, Freiman told JTA he could not rule out the possibility of nationalist motives… In recent days, two Israelis have been arrested in Bolivia on drug charges, Freiman said. The rabbi did not identify the outreach worker who was arrested, but said police confiscated his passport during the raid in Rurrenabaque and arrested him when he tried to retrieve his passport in the capital city of La Paz."

Wednesday 4/22/2009

"Who Do You Think You Are?" - White Privilege in the Americas 4/22/2009 Counterpunch: "On March 31, 2009, Grupo Afro Descendiente sponsored a discussion entitled White Privilege in Latin America: Myths and Realities as part of White Privilege Awareness Week. The panel featured indigenous persons from Peru and Guatemala, an afro descendant from Cuba, a mestiza from Mexico, and an African immigrant from Cote d'Ivoire. Each panelist shared personal accounts, reflections on their experience with white privilege in Latin America."

Grupo Afro Descendiente 4/22/2009 WordPress

Monday 4/20/2009

Bolivia “Assassins” ‘Fought in Balkan Wars’  4/20/2009 Balkan Insight: "Tadik Astorga, 58, a Bolivian-Croatian who apparently fought in the Balkans, and Toazo, a Hungarian computer science expert, were being transferred to a jail in La Paz. Bolivia launched an investigation on Friday into a suspected militant group that police say was plotting to kill President Evo Morales, but the opposition slammed the probe as an "international show." Three suspected mercenaries were killed in a shootout on Thursday in the anti-Morales stronghold of Santa Cruz after police moved to arrest a gang that officials say traveled from Ireland or Croatia to kill leading public figures in the Andean nation."

The Dawn of Robot Wars  4/20/2009 Common Dreams: "Today, according to P.W. Singer, author of Wired for War and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the U.S. military has some 7,000 UAVs in operation - more than double the number of manned aircraft in its arsenal - and more than 12,000 robots on the ground in Iraq alone. Predator drones armed with laser-guided Hellfire missiles have regularly bombed Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, and their use is skyrocketing. In 2008, 71 Predators flew 138,404 combat hours - a 94 percent increase over the year before, according to a recent presentation by U.S. Air Force Col. Eric Mathewson. And over the last year, drones flown largely by the CIA have launched missile attacks inside Pakistan more than 40 times. Rather than reconsider this deadly policy, President Obama has become an enthusiastic backer. Since his inauguration, he has authorized 11 such attacks that have collectively killed over 145 people, many of them civilians, and sparked large protests within Pakistan."

What's With This "Enemies" BS? - The Meeting in Trinidad  4/20/2009 Counterpunch

Croats in Bolivia face accusations of extremism  4/20/2009 Earth Times

Chávez's Perfect Gift to Obama  4/20/2009 Guardian: "Some surprise has been expressed in the Anglo-Saxon world that Hugo Chávez should have presented a book to Barack Obama by Eduardo Galeano. Ignorance can be the only defence, the very fault that the Venezuelan president had earlier accused his US counterpart of suffering from. For Galeano is one of the most well-known and celebrated writers in Latin America, up there with Gabriel García Márquez, and his huge output of fact and fiction, as well as his journalism, has been published all over the continent. His books have been continuously in print since the 1960s, read voraciously by successive generations. It was a brilliant idea of Chávez's to give Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America to Obama, since this book, first published in 1971, encapsulates a radical version of the history of Latin America with which most Latin Americans are familiar. Its subtitle, Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, gives a flavour of its contents, which discuss the way in which Latin America has been dominated and exploited by its European invaders (and later by US corporations) for hundreds of years."

Obama defends greeting Hugo Chavez  4/20/2009 LA Times: "Obama said it would be a mistake to measure the Summit of the Americas by the specific agreements reached. By listening to his counterparts and eschewing heavy-handed diplomacy, he said, he was creating an atmosphere in which, "at the margins," foreign leaders are "more likely to want to cooperate than not cooperate." A running theme of the summit was Obama's cordial dealings with Chavez, who once called former President George W. Bush the "devil" and who last month dismissed Obama as an "ignoramus." The two were photographed smiling and clasping hands. At one meeting, Chavez made a show of walking around the table as the cameras rolled and handing Obama a copy of "Open Veins of Latin America," a 1971 book by Eduardo Galeano chronicling U.S. and European imperialism in the region. Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, appearing on CNN on Sunday, said it was "irresponsible" for Obama to be seen "laughing and joking" with the Venezuelan president. Obama dismissed such concerns. He said the 2008 presidential campaign proved that American voters want the president to engage with his counterparts, whether or not they are avowed friends of the U.S. He said it "was a nice gesture to give me a book. I'm a reader." The president added that the election was a referendum of sorts on the argument that U.S. solicitude toward foreign leaders could be seen as "weakness.""

Obama’s adviser in Trinidad: the real face of “change”  4/20/2009 Obamboozled: "A career foreign service officer, Davidow was assigned in 1971 to the US embassy in Chile as a political officer, a post often occupied by covert CIA agents. He remained in the country until 1974. This covered the period of the preparation of the US-backed military coup against the elected government of President Salvador Allende in September 1973 and the consolidation of General Augusto Pinochet’s junta through bloody political repression. US documents declassified when Pinochet faced the threat of a trial in Spain beginning in 1998, included memos from Davidow to the military regime warning against a “conspiracy on the part of the enemies of Chile to paint the junta in the worst possible terms.” The memo preceded a campaign by the junta to murder such “enemies,” including the 1976 Washington DC car-bombing that claimed the life of Orlando Letelier, a former senior minister in the Allende government."

Janet Tavakoli  4/20/2009 Q & A: "Janet Tavakoli is founder and president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. . Her new book is called "Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street." Its the story of her meetings with Warren Buffet prior to the economic downturn and how that impacted the way she views investing. She is a former adjunct professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She has also worked for Westdeutsche Landesbank in London, Bank One in Chicago, Merrill Lynch, PaineWebber, and Bear Stearns."

Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street  4/20/2009 Tavakoli Structured Finance: "Janet Tavakoli warned the world this disaster was coming well in advance. Now she explains it again for those who did not listen before as well as why it is not over yet. You need to read this book to understand the biggest credit bubble in world history."

Chavez-Obama Meeting at Summit Relaunches US-Venezuela Relations  4/20/2009 Venezuela Analysis: "Obama and Chavez met for the first time after Obama approached and greeted the South American leader before the first plenary of Summit on Friday, April 17. "I want to be your friend," Chavez told Obama as both presidents shook hands. Chavez thanked Obama's gesture. "It was a good moment," Chavez told reporters afterwards. "He is a very intelligent man, young, and he is black. He is an experienced politician in spite of his young age," he added."

Sunday 4/19/2009

Analysis: Obama gores foreign policy ox  4/19/2009 AP: "While historic analogies are never perfect, Obama's stark efforts to change the U.S. image abroad are reminiscent of the stunning realignments sought by former Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev. During his short—by Soviet standards—tenure, he scrambled incessantly to shed the ideological entanglements that were leading the communist empire toward ruin."

NED Board Bios: Representative Gregory W. Meeks  4/19/2009 NED: "Representative Meeks serves on the International Relations Committee and its Subcommittee on Africa, and the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific. An active member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Representative Meeks was voted the CBC Whip in 2001. Representative Meeks is a member of several civic and professional organizations, including the National Bar Association, the Coalition of 100 Black Men, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, Inc. He founded the Jesse L. Jackson Independent Democratic Club (renamed the Thurgood Marshall Regular Democratic Club) and remains active in grassroots community organizing. Prior to being elected to congress, Representative Meeks served as Assistant District Attorney to the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York and on the State Investigations Commission and was appointed Judge of the New York State Workers' Compensation Board."

Imágenes del último encuentro entre Chávez y Obama (+Video)  4/19/2009 Noticias 24: "El canal del Estado, Venezolana de Televisión, transmitió en exclusivo las imágenes del último encuentro del presidente Hugo Chávez con el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, luego de finalizar la Ceremonia de Clausura de la V Cumbre de las Américas. El presidente Obama se le acercó al presidente Chávez y se despidió exclamando “Adiós, mi amigo”."

Gregory Meeks  4/19/2009 Source Watch

Saturday 4/18/2009

Chavez gives Obama book on Latin America 4/18/2009 AP: "One emblematic passage describes how Latin America "continues to work as a servant. It continues to exist to serve the needs of others as a fountain and reserve of petroleum and gold, copper and meat, fruits and coffee, raw materials and food destined for rich countries that benefit more from consuming them than Latin America does from producing them." Novelist Isabel Allende describes the book's enduring appeal as politically charged history with an intimate touch: "Galeano denounces exploitation with uncompromising ferocity, yet this book is almost poetic in its description of solidarity and human capacity for survival in the midst of the worst kind of despoliation.""

Friday 4/17/2009

US Threatens to Invade Eritrea  4/17/2009 AntiWar: "Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki remains defiant, saying he will continue to oppose the Western-backed TNG’s attempt to assert control over the nation. “There is no government, there is not even a naiton of Somalia existing,” the president insisted, calling for a peace conference in which all parties, including those branded by the US and Ethiopia as “extremists” would have a voice. “Peace is not guaranteed without a government agreed by all Somalis.”"

Additional Murder Charges Expected in Killing of Oakland Journalist Chauncey Bailey  4/17/2009 Democracy Now: "We take a look at the latest developments in the case of Chauncey Bailey, the Oakland Post editor who was shot to death in downtown Oakland in August 2007. He had been investigating possible links between a local bakery and several killings in the area when he was gunned down in broad daylight. After his death, a group of reporters banded together to form the Chauncey Bailey Project to continue his investigation and look into any role the bakery may have played in Bailey’s murder and at the role of the police in its investigation. We speak with the executive editor of the Chauncey Bailey Project."

Over 10,000 Dead: Is Mexican Drug War Violence Ebbing?  4/17/2009 NarcoNews: "Statistical Slights-of-Hand and Temporary Lulls Have Obscured the Drug War's Rising Costs"

Thursday 4/16/2009

Zionism in Boston 4/16/2009 Dissident Voice: "A final example is Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner. In October 2005, speaking at a rally for the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, Turner pointed out the irony of people supporting voting rights in the US while the US provides generous funding to Israel, which openly deprives Palestinians of voting rights. Turner was immediately called on the carpet for this by a local newspaper, The Jewish Advocate, and by the New England Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In a letter responding to the ADL, Turner said, "a great injustice is being perpetrated against the Palestinians. I believe that all human beings of conscience have a responsibility to speak out and demand an end of our federal government's support of its perpetuation." He included a postscript to his letter, stating flatly: "you have no right to label someone as prejudiced or Anti Semitic because you disagree with their views on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians." This sentiment expresses the feelings of many, many people concerned about the oppression of Palestine who are fed up with being intimidated by this one cheap argument over and over again when they express this concern."

Wednesday 4/15/2009

Late Guinean leader's son charged with drug trafficking 4/15/2009 AFP: "The eldest son of late Guinean president Lansana Conte was put in jail Tuesday pending a trial on charges of cocaine trafficking, police sources told AFP. Ousmane Conte, whose father died in December after leading the west African nation with an iron fist for 24 years, was transferred from a military hospital to the Conakry prison, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity."

Monday 4/13/2009

EU firms should stop toxic dumping off Somalia 4/13/2009 SF Bay View: [scroll down] "In 1996, when I was in the northern autonomous region, Puntland, in Somalia, there was already a widespread fear that foreign ships were taking advantage of the collapse of the Somalian state by using the nation’s waters as a refuse dump. When the tsunami of 2004 hit the country, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that many waste containers washed up on the coast of Puntland. It is now widely understood that European companies are systematically dumping toxic waste in these waters. U.N. special envoy for Somalia Ahmedou Ould Abdallah has in the past few months repeatedly sounded the alarm about illegal fishing and toxic dumping off Somalia by European firms."

K’naan talks with Davey D about Somali pirates 4/13/2009 SF Bay View: "Somalian-born rapper K’naan tells the real story about Somalia’s pirates. Watch Parts 1 and 2 and read K’naan’s story here in the Bay View, along with perspectives from other Somalis."

Thursday 4/9/2009

Ward Churchill Victory Update 4/9/2009 Buzzflash: "A Colorado TV station is reporting that interviews with some of the six jurors in the unfair dismissal court case filed by University of Colorado Professor and Native American activist Ward Churchill against the university reveal that five of the six wanted to award him $150,000 in damages after establishing unanimously that he had been improperly dismissed by the school. Reportedly one lone juror held out for a minimal $1 symbolic award and ultimately, because they "wanted to go home," the rest of the jurors conceded the point."

Obama team readying for confrontation with Netanyahu 4/9/2009 Haaretz: "In recent weeks, American officials have briefed senior Democratic congressmen and prepared the ground for the possibility of disagreements with Israel over the peace process, according to information recently received. The administration's efforts are focused on President Barack Obama's Democratic Party, which now holds a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Advertisement The preemptive briefing is meant to foil the possibility that Netanyahu may try to bypass the administration by rallying support in Congress."

Wednesday 4/8/2009

Moldova: Romania to blame for Twitter riots 4/8/2009 CNN: "Moldova's president Wednesday accused Romania of involvement in a huge anti-communist protest, much of it coordinated on Facebook and Twitter, which saw government buildings ransacked and police arrest scores of demonstrators."

Berezovsky financed terrorists by paying ransoms – Chechen prez 4/8/2009 Russia Today: "He couldn’t just give money to the militants, so he invented this mechanism. In my presence, Berezovsky suggested to Raduyev and Basayev: ‘Capture people and I’ll ransom them. I’ll get good publicity and you’ll get money.’ He paid millions of dollars to Basayev,” Ramzan Kadyrov said."

Tuesday 4/7/2009

Informe del Movimiento Nacional Afrocolombiano CIMARRON sobre la situación de derechos humanos de la población afrocolombiana (1994-2004) 4/7/2009 EIP: publicado en 2004

Elecciones regionales de Colombia de 2007 4/7/2009 Wikipedia: tiene lista de miembros ganadores del partido Movimiento Nacional Afrocolombiano

Sunday 4/5/2009

Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: The growing prospect of a U.S. default  4/5/2009 Global Research

Bush and Obama Administrations Broke the Law By Refusing to Close Insolvent Banks  4/5/2009 Global Research

Massive Cover-Up of Economic Crisis - “The Entire Strategy Is to Keep People from Getting the Facts”  4/5/2009 Global Research

Shell in court over alleged role in Nigeria executions  4/5/2009 Observer: "Ken Saro-Wiwa swore that one day Shell, the oil giant, would answer for his death in a court of law. Next month, 14 years after his execution, the Nigerian environmental activist's dying wish is to be fulfilled. In a New York federal court, Shell and one of its senior executives are to face charges that in the early 1990s in Nigeria they were complicit in human rights abuses, including summary execution and torture."

Shooting at OPD officers’ funeral goes unreported  4/5/2009 SF Bay View: "The Oakland Police Department suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot when it further racialized the March 21 shootings by rescinding Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums’ invitation to speak at the public funeral of the four officers who were gunned down. Initial reports indicated that at least two of the families of the slain officers requested that Dellums not be allowed to speak at the March 28 public event… This is hardly surprising, especially to those who remember Dellums’ close relationship with the Black Panther Party decades ago."

Thursday 4/2/2009

US Congressman Meeks launches the OAS Caucus with support of OAS Secretary General Insulza 4/2/2009 South Florida Caribbean News: "Congressman Meeks took the initiative to launch the Caucus stating that “the time is ripe to shape a more productive relationship between the United States and our neighbors in the Americas. As we prepare for the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April this year, it is important to recall that these nations are our largest trading partners and their peoples share historical, cultural and family connections with the United States.” "

Wednesday 4/1/2009

The Quiet Coup 4/1/2009 The Atlantic: "The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Tuesday 3/31/2009

Chavez to seek Arab backing for `petro-currency' 3/31/2009 AP: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sought Arab support Tuesday for his idea of a new oil-backed currency to challenge the U.S. dollar at a twin-region summit whose agenda focuses on trade issue but also touches on Arab worries about rival Iran's growing influence in Latin America. It's highly unlikely Chavez will gain any serious momentum for his "petro-currency" proposals from key oil-producing members of the Arab League such as Saudi Arabia and Gulf states, which have close ties to Washington. But the summit between Arab and South American leaders kicks off another high-profile foreign trip for Chavez that includes stops in Iran and China in his efforts to build economic and diplomatic links to confront the United States."

Remembering the Assassination of Dulcie September, Chairlady of the ANC France Bureau 3/31/2009 Cameroun Link: "On March 29, 1988 Dulcie September, a 52 years old colored female activist and community organizer, representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in France, Switzerland and Luxemburg was assassinated in Paris. The incident took place between 9.45 and 10am local time when she was about to open the office of the antiapartheid group. Having relocated to the vicinity of the Seine River in 1984, September had been an active representative of the ANC, which was struggling to assert rights of the black majority of South Africa. Since France provided a substantial proportion of South Africa’s military and naval arsenal, September’s major role was to rally support from the area and lobby for disinvestment and full economic sanctions against the racist regime. The assassination of Dulcie September generated much speculation and confusion over the identity and the motives of its perpetrators. Its ccircumstances are still unclear, as the identity of the killers was never disclosed. In the course of the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), former security police officer Eugene de Kock designated Jean-Paul Guerrier, a French mercenary, as the ringleader of the murder. It remains that no one has so far been officially identified and persecuted per se. Some independent sources have argued that the coup took place with the complicity of the French secret service. France officially closed the prosecution and investigation on July 1992 for lack of evidence. One fact, which can be fully debated today, however, and which may have considerably greater influence on our understanding of the circumstances surrounding the sudden loss of Dulcie September, is that the connection to French authorities has never been formally/diplomatically established. "

Monday 3/30/2009

Chavez: No plan to restore ties with Israel 3/30/2009 AP: "Venezuelan president tells Al-Jazeera would consider matter if Israel's leaders 'stop being a genocidal elite subordinated to US' "

Sunday 3/29/2009

Israel planned to kill Erdogan: Report 3/29/2009 Press TV, Iran: "Turkish media sources detail information implicating the Israeli Mossad in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan."

Saturday 3/28/2009

Brazil builds walls around Rio de Janeiro slums 3/28/2009 Reuters

Friday 3/27/2009

Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!! 3/27/2009 911 Truth: "On 9/11 the Bush administration declared a State of Emergency (SOE), which was formally proclaimed on September 14, 2001, and extended by Bush repeatedly thereafter, most recently on August 28, 2008.1 Under cover of this SOE, Bush secretly enacted many extreme measures, ranging from suspension of habeas corpus to preparations for martial law in America; all these were undertaken as part of secret so-called "Continuity of Government" (COG) procedures associated with the SOE, and first instituted on 9/11.2 and 3 The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms so detested by Vice-President Cheney, requires specifically that Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated. (50 U.S.C. 1622 (2002)4"

Iran, Venezuela revise ties ahead of Chavez visit 3/27/2009 Breitbart

Thursday 3/26/2009

Strike reportedly obliterates Iranian ship at sea 3/26/2009 Jerusalem Post: "Following unconfirmed reports that the US or Israel attacked a convoy of trucks carrying weapons headed for the Gaza Strip in Sudan, a new report by Sudanese sources cited an additional strike on a ship possibly making its way to Sudan from Iran."

Top Constitutional Scholar: Secret Bush Memos Reveal Plan For “Massive Military Takeover Of US” 3/26/2009 Prison Planet: "In an interview with author Naomi Wolf, legal expert Michael Ratner explains how the move toward total elimination of First, Fourth and Fifth amendment rights, as outlined in the memos, cannot be taken in isolated relation to terrorism related prosecutions and instead represents a smoking gun of a larger intention toward the general population."

Wednesday 3/25/2009

Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes 3/25/2009 Alternet: "I call it "Fuhrer's law." What those memos lay out means the end of the system of checks and balances in this country. It means the end of the system in which the courts, legislature and executive each had a function and they could check each other. What the memos set out is a system in which the president's word is law, and Yoo is very clear about that: the president's word is not only law according to these memos, but no law or constitutional right or treaty can restrict the president's authority."

Monday 3/23/2009

This Crisis Is Way Bigger Than Dead Banks and Wall Street Bailouts 3/23/2009 Alternet: By James Galbraith

Sunday 3/22/2009

Southerners looking to share their Confederate holiday  3/22/2009 Chicago Tribune: "With the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States in 2011, efforts are under way in statehouses, small towns and counties across the South to push for proclamations or legislation promoting Confederate history. Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Florida traditionally observe Confederate History Month in April. Georgia, which has recognized it by proclamation since 1995, recently passed a bill in the state Senate making it official. Most Southern states recognize Confederate Memorial Day as a legal holiday. Some celebrate it on the June birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, but Texas and Arkansas observe it on Jan. 19, the federal holiday for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. More than 1,000 municipalities celebrate the holiday with parades and festivals, said Charles McMichael, commander in chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and efforts are under way to spread it nationwide, state by state."

IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers, note says  3/22/2009 Haaretz

Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived?  3/22/2009 NYT: "The "dirty little secret," Obama told Leno on Thursday, is that "most of the stuff that got us into trouble was perfectly legal." An even dirtier secret is that a prime mover in keeping that stuff legal was Summers, who helped torpedo the regulation of derivatives while in the Clinton administration. His mentor Robert Rubin, no less, wrote in his 2003 memoir that Summers underestimated how the risk of derivatives might multiply "under extraordinary circumstances." Given that Summers worked for a secretive hedge fund, D. E. Shaw, after he was pushed out of Harvard's presidency at the bubble's height, you have to wonder how he can now sell the administration's plan for buying up toxic assets with the help of hedge funds. It will look like another giveaway to his own insiders' club. As for Geithner, people might take him more seriously if he gave a credible account of why, while at the New York Fed, he and the Goldman alumnus Hank Paulson let Lehman Brothers fail but saved the Goldman-trading ally A.I.G."

The Big Takeover: How Wall Street Insiders are Using the Bailout to Stage a Revolution  3/22/2009 Rolling Stone: "The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power."

Saturday 3/21/2009

Thousands march against mafia in Naples 3/21/2009 AFP: "Thousands of people, including the acclaimed author of mafia expose "Gomorrah," marched in southern Italy's Naples Saturday against decades of mafia violence that has killed some 900 people. "The mafia and the Camorra (the Naples-area mafia) are not eternal. They can be beaten," Antonio Bassolino, president of the Compania region that includes the city, told the crowd marking a remembrance day for victims of organised crime."

Mottaki: Iran evaluating Obama message 3/21/2009 Press TV, Iran

Friday 3/20/2009

Will Our Economic Collapse Cause the Death of Millions Abroad?  3/20/2009 Alternet: "But now, as the wealthier nations cease investing in the developing world or acquiring its exports, the crisis is hitting them with a vengeance. On top of this, conditions are deteriorating at a time when severe drought is affecting many key food-producing regions and poor farmers lack the wherewithal to buy seeds, fertilizers, and fuel. The likely result: A looming food crisis in many areas hit hardest by the global economic meltdown."

Tensions rise between Chavez, foes in Venezuela  3/20/2009 AP

Israel's dirty secrets in Gaza  3/20/2009 Independent, UK: "Israel was last night confronting a major challenge over the conduct of its 22-day military offensive in Gaza after testimonies by its own soldiers revealed that troops were allowed and, in some cases, even ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian civilians. The testimonies – the first of their kind to emerge from inside the military – are at marked variance with official claims that the military made strenuous efforts to avoid civilian casualties and tend to corroborate Palestinian accusations that troops used indiscriminate and disproportionate firepower in civilian areas during the operation. In one of the testimonies shedding harsh new light on what the soldiers say were the permissive rules of engagement for Operation Cast Lead, one soldier describes how an officer ordered the shooting of an elderly woman 100 metres from a house commandeered by troops."

Thursday 3/19/2009

Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG?  3/19/2009 Alternet: "Coincidentally, right after the WSJ editorial appeared on Valentine's Day 2008, Spitzer was caught up in what was an extremely unusual sting. So unusual is an investigation like this that it seems almost like it was a set-up; and considering where it all came from and how it all came down, it might well have been. It seems that Spitzer's bank was investigating expenses under the auspices of the newer Homeland Security laws of the Bush administration. Greg Palast wrote about this compellingly, and in light of how the whole thing is shaking out now, and what Spitzer said back then about this financial mess and what he tried to DO about it, Palast had a pretty good early grasp on what had gone down. So now, with Spitzer poking his head up from the underground of "healing his family," at this most compelling of moments, its probably worthwhile for Americans to screw their heads on straight and forget the details of the hooker, and look at what Spitzer was working on when he was taken down. We might all find ourselves wanting to thank the egotistical crime fighter who cant keep it in his pants."

Israel troops admit Gaza abuses  3/19/2009 BBC: "An Israeli military college has printed damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during recent operations in Gaza. One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home. Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the "cold blooded murder" of a Palestinian woman."

France braced for huge street protests over economic crisis  3/19/2009 Guardian

Venezuela Chavez to nationalize Santander bank unit  3/19/2009 Reuters: "Venezuela will go ahead with the nationalization of the local unit of Spanish bank Grupo Santander, President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday, weeks after officials said the purchase was on hold. Since first winning office a decade ago, Chavez has nationalized large swathes of the OPEC nation's economy and this year has moved to increase state control of farms and food production despite a sharp drop in oil income."

Wednesday 3/18/2009

Group says files show US knew of Guatemala abuses 3/18/2009 Miami Herald

Tuesday 3/17/2009

The Most Pervasive Combat Injury Among U.S. Soldiers is Invisible -- and the Pentagon Has Tried to Keep it That Way 3/17/2009 Alternet: "In a news conference on March 4th, Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton estimated that as many as 360,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan may have suffered service-related brain injuries. Until now the Pentagon estimated that some 10,000 veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq war had suffered brain traumas."

The Real AIG Scandal by Eliot Spitzer 3/17/2009 Slate: "Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?"

Monday 3/16/2009

Chavez offers Russia use of base 3/16/2009 BBC: "Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, says he has offered Moscow the use of an airfield off its Caribbean coast for Russian strategic long-range bombers."

Sunday 3/15/2009

Spy Minister’s Wife and the Drug Bust 3/15/2009 The Times, South Africa: "Intelligence boss’s spouse linked to international cocaine ring. The wife of South Africa’s newly appointed intelligence boss is under investigation for international drug trafficking."

Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) against Venezuela 3/15/2009 Venezuela Analysis

Saturday 3/14/2009

Bolivia's Morales: Army, police have CIA contacts  3/14/2009 AP: "This time, Morales says a midlevel military official and Bolivian police officers are in contact with the U.S. spy agency."

Report: Cuba, Venezuela could host Russian bombers  3/14/2009 AP

UN tells Aristide party to fight in Haiti election  3/14/2009 AP: "A U.N. Security Council delegation praised the party of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Saturday for fighting to overturn the disqualification of its Senate candidates, saying it could help avert a potentially dangerous crisis. Haiti's provisional electoral council has barred Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party from participating in next month's Senate elections for largely technical reasons, angering supporters who have threatened to sabotage the vote. Observers fear the council's decision could lead to violence."

Friday 3/13/2009

CIA report: Israel will fall in 20 years 3/13/2009 Press TV, Iran

Thursday 3/12/2009

Nationalist Rising Fast in Israeli Politics  3/12/2009 AP: "Lieberman, a 50-year-old immigrant from the former Soviet Union, has said Palestinian prisoners should be drowned in the Dead Sea, that Israeli-Arab lawmakers who meet Palestinian militants should be executed and that the president of Egypt could "go to hell.""

Chas Freeman Walks the Plank - Obama Caves to the Lobby  3/12/2009 Counterpunch

Israeli Spying in the United States  3/12/2009 Counterpunch

Obama Intelligence Nominee Withdraws  3/12/2009 Daily Beast: "Steven Rosen, a former director of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee due to stand trial this April for espionage for Israel, is the leader of the campaign against Freeman’s appointment."

Questions autour du voyage privé du couple Sarkozy au Mexique  3/12/2009 Le Monde: "Le site Rue89 cite un article du journaliste américain Al Giordano, qui citait lui-même l'enquête d'un journal local mexicain, accusant Hernandez d'avoir participé activement au trafic de cocaïne au Mexique dans les années 1980 et 1990. Giordano, dont le site Narco News couvre exhaustivement la question de la drogue en Amérique latine et aux Etats-Unis, a été poursuivi à plusieurs reprises par Roberto Hernandez Ramirez pour ces accusations, sans jamais être condamné."

Questions Surround the the Sarkozys’ Private Visit to Mexico  3/12/2009 Le Monde

Intelligence Pick Blames 'Israel Lobby' For Withdrawal  3/12/2009 WaPo

Wednesday 3/11/2009

Five Alarmer: Seymour Hersh Says Assassination Squad Reported Directly to Dick Cheney  3/11/2009 Buzzflash

Venezuela Dismantles Seven Drug Labs Near Colombia Border  3/11/2009 EFE

Washington Post: Drop AIPAC staffers’ case  3/11/2009 JTA

Freeman hits 'Israel lobby' on way out  3/11/2009 Politico

Mexique : Sarkozy a-t-il séjourné chez un narco présumé ?  3/11/2009 Rue89: "Ce qui est certain à en croire nos confrères, c'est que le couple Sarkozy a séjourné dans un hôtel appartenant au milliardaire en question, Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, une des plus grosses fortunes du Mexique. L'hôtel, El Tamarindo Beach and Golf Resort, abrite une suite présidentielle à 3500 dollars la nuit, où aurait dormi le couple, selon Mediapart (sur abonnement). Interrogé par RTL, un conseiller de l'Elysée n'a pas démenti, mais n'a pas confirmé non plus. Dans un autre genre, le site Purepeople.com l'affirmait aussi, dès dimanche soir. Mais personne n'a relevé que le banquier Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, ancien PDG de la banque Banamex et membre du conseil d'administration de Citigroup (une des plus grandes institutions financières de la planète), souffre d'une réputation pour le moins sulfureuse. Dans les années 1990, il a été soupçonné au Mexique de faire transiter par ses propriétés de la cocaïne sud-américaine et de participer au blanchiment de l'argent de la drogue."

The Israeli Lobby Knocks Down Charles Freeman  3/11/2009 The Public Record

Tuesday 3/10/2009

Israel's Ugly Face - Pure and Unadulterated Racism  3/10/2009 Counterpunch: "It should be clear to any objective observer that Lieberman’s program is a declaration of war against Israel’s Palestinian minority which comprises a fifth of the population. In our society, which lives on from one war to the next, in a sickening atmosphere of seething hatred and hostility one can, it has been proven, win many votes by calling for the disenfranchisement of 1.5 million Israeli Palestinians. It should be clear that what comes after disenfranchisement is ethnic cleansing… "

Thirty-seven Colombians deported for alleged complot against Chávez  3/10/2009 El Universal, Caracas

Hurdles to Voting Persisted in 2008  3/10/2009 NYT

Monday 3/9/2009

AIG has insured $1.6 trillion in derivatives 3/9/2009 BoingBoing: "And you thought AIG's $62 billion quarterly loss last month was bad -- turns out that the company has a further $1.6 trillion in outstanding derivatives exposure, according to this leaked memo that AIG sent to the US Treasury in order to beg for another $30 billion."

Mossad linked to 9/11 attacks: Report 3/9/2009 Press TV, Iran: "Israeli connections to 9/11, according to the New York Times, can be traced back to the five 'dancing Israelis' who were witnessed jumping and high-fiving with shouts of 'joy and mockery' as Flight 11 and Flight 175 slammed into the World Trade Center in New York. The Israelis were reportedly held in custody for 71 days before being quietly released after they were suspected of being Mossad agents. Citing two former CIA operatives, the Forward weekly then reported that at least two of the detained Israelis were found to be members of a Mossad surveillance team. "There was no question but that [the order to close down the investigation] came from the White House. It was immediately assumed at CIA headquarters that this basically was going to be a cover-up so that the Israelis would not be implicated in any way in 9/11," the weekly stated."

Monday 3/2/2009

Guinea-Bissau president killed 3/2/2009 Al Jazeera: "Analysts say instability has been worsened by the presence of international drug trafficking organisations which use the country as a staging post for smuggling cocaine into Europe."

Twin assassinations leave Guinea-Bissau in turmoil 3/2/2009 AP: "Although numerous country experts stressed that the twin assassinations were not linked to drugs, Mazzitelli also points out that the method used to kill Waie — a bomb — is highly unusual. Coup d'etats and assassinations are common throughout the region, but they are typically carried out with kalashnikovs — not explosives. The sophistication of the bomb, which most likely was detonated from afar, raises the question of whether the killers of the army chief received expert help. Colombian cartels, for example, are known for using car bombs in their own turf wars."

Sunday 3/1/2009

Change and Regime Change - What the 2008 Democratic Landslide Means for the National Endowment for Democracy 3/1/2009 Narco News: "... the biggest reason that it makes sense to close the NED is that, even under the best of circumstances, details about and the true nature of NED activities remain hidden. Its very structure is anti-democratic, no matter what the name says."

Friday 2/27/2009

Natan Sharansky THE LIAR 2/27/2009 yitchakrabin.com: [Bibi is considering Natan Sharansky for Foreign Minister of Israel] - "In 1999 he released a book in Hebrew and Russian called, Natan Sharansky Unmasked. Within, he claimed that Natan Sharansky, then Housing Minister, was a longtime KGB agent with deep ties to the worldwide Russian mafia. Soon after its release, Natan Sharansky sued Dr. Nudelman for libel and the Jerusalem district court ruled that he had to pay Natan Sharansky the unheard of compensation of nearly $200,000. This was widely acknowledged as a precedent aimed at restricting the most basic rights of freedom of expression. Dr. Nudelman's brother Boris was also his partner in the Natan Sharansky research project and he died, overcome by the injustice of the trial. On Jan. 20, Dr. Nudelman met me at my home for an intense interview. He also gave me his book on Natan Sharansky and a thick stack of evidence which left me convinced of the veracity of his claims."

Tuesday 2/24/2009

The Most Influential (and Self-Promotional) Christian Zionist You've Never Heard Of 2/24/2009 IPS News

Monday 2/23/2009

The Revolution will not be televised -- But you can watch the coup here  2/23/2009 BrassCheck TV: "Irish documentary film makers get behind the lines of a coup in progress. Venezuela is the fourth largest exporter of crude oil in the world. 80% of its population lives in poverty. The oil of Venezuela is state owned and was so before Chavez was elected. When Chavez announced a plan to distribute the state's oil revenue more equitably, all hell broke loose. "

ZIONIST DOG ATTACKS 100 YEAR OLD PALESTINIAN  2/23/2009 Desert Peace: on an Israeli peace blog

Reports from Israeli Human Rights Groups  2/23/2009 Human Rights in Gaza and Israel

Sunday 2/22/2009

IDF confirms army dog bit Palestinian during West Bank raid  2/22/2009 AP

Paris marchers support Guadeloupe strikers  2/22/2009 AP

"Israeli Apartheid Week": Carleton University Administration violates free expression - bans and confiscates posters  2/22/2009 Global Research: "On February 8, Students Against Israeli Apartheid at Carleton University put up 100 posters for "Israeli Apartheid Week", a series of lectures and public events that will occur on campuses in over 40 cities around the world. On February 9, these posters were taken down at the request of Carleton's Equity Services, under the rationale that the posters "could be seen to incite others to infringe rights protected in the Ontario Human Rights code" and are "insensitive to the norms of civil discourse in a free and democratic society" The poster was created by noted cartoonist Carlos Latuff and depicts a situation - a child being killed by aerial bombardment ? that occurred over 430 times in Israel's latest attack on Gaza according to United Nations reports. We encourage everyone to view the poster. Since it depicts a situation that has a factual basis and its intention is clearly to invite people to a lecture series, the notion that it is an incitement or a violation to norms of civil discourse is preposterous."

Prosecutor claims Iran/Contra whistleblower is a "danger" to society  2/22/2009 Narco News: "Iran/Contra whistleblower Celerino “Cele” Castillo III was scheduled to report to prison on March 5, but the power of justice has intervened on his behalf. A federal judge in San Antonio, at a hearing held late last week, ruled that Castillo's report date to prison should be extended until July 20. The judge, W. Royal Furgeson Jr., issued his ruling over the objections of a federal prosecutor, who argued that Castillo should be sent to prison because he was a “danger to the community.” The hearing was called by the judge to consider a motion to allow Castillo to remain free on bail through his appeal. The motion was filed by Castillo's current attorney, public defender Judy Fulmer Madewell."

After squalls in the Caribbean, Sarkozy faces a storm at home  2/22/2009 Observer: "The country's worst violence since the riots of 2005 saw youths burning cars and charging police night after night. This time the riots were not in the rundown estates that surround many French cities but in the poverty-stricken alleys of Pointe-à-Pitre, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where per capita income is half that of mainland France and the unemployment rate three times higher. The violence resonated with a tense and angry public in France itself. The 430,000 people of Guadeloupe are theoretically citizens of the republic like those of Lille, Lyon or Paris and, though many of the roots of the protests lie deep in the colonial past, the slogans and demands of the rioters were very contemporary, focusing on pouvoir d'achat, the famous lack of buying power in the face of high prices and stagnant wages that is the main grievance of all the French."

Les Guadeloupéens saluent la mémoire de Jacques Bino  2/22/2009 RF1: "Les hommages au défunt ont alterné avec les appels à poursuivre la grève générale. Le leader guadeloupéen du Collectif contre l’exploitation (LKP), Elie Domota, a pris la parole, rappelant que « l’heure est toujours à la mobilisation ». Jacques Bino est en quelque sorte devenu le martyr de la lutte syndicale, même si les circonstances de sa mort restent encore à éclaircir. Le moment le plus émouvant de la cérémonie a été celui de la fermeture du cercueil, quand la foule a entonné le chant des grévistes : « La Guadeloupe, c’est à nous, La Guadeloupe c’est pas à eux ». Ce fut un moment de communion pour les deux à trois mille personnes réunies qui ont gardé le poing levé jusqu’à la fin de leur chant."

Guadeloupe : Paris dit "statut", le LKP crie "faux débat"  2/22/2009 Rue 89: "Békés et "métro" ont en commun la couleur de la peau -blanche. Mais Elie Domota, leader du LKP, affirme qu'on "cherche à le discréditer en le taxant de racisme" alors que les békés concentrent près d'un quart des richesses pour 1% de la population: "Parler de société esclavagiste n'a rien à voir avec parler de couleur de peau." Sur place, pourtant, la question est loin d'être absente. C'est ce que montre le tollé suscité par un documentaire diffusé par Canal + le 30 janvier où l'on voit un béké octogénaire présenté comme "l'industriel le plus puissant de l'île" revendiquer "la pureté de la race". Mais c'est aussi ce que montrent les accusations contre les renforts policiers qui viendraient "casser du nègre"."

Saturday 2/21/2009

America unmasked: The KKK is alive and kicking in 2009, but shhh... don't talk about it 2/21/2009 Political Carnival

Friday 2/20/2009

Brooklyn Co-Op May Boycott Israeli Products  2/20/2009 CBS

France pledges $730M to head off Caribbean riots  2/20/2009 CNN

Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem  2/20/2009 Countepunch: "Following the example of Jean-Moise Braitberg, we ask that our grandmother's name be removed from the wall at Yad Vashem. Her name is Gertrud Neumann. Your records state that she was born in Kattowitz on June 6, 1875 and died in Theresienstadt. M. Braitberg delivers his request with excellent reasons and eloquent personal testimony. His words are inspiring, but they give you – and those who stand with you - too much credit. I will instead be brief. Please take this as an expression of my disgust and contempt for your state and all it represents. Our grandmother was a victim of that very ideal of ethnic sovereignty in whose cause Israel has shed so much blood for so long. I was among the many Jews who thought nothing of embracing that ideal, despite the sufferings it had inflicted on our own race. It took thousands of Palestinian lives before, finally, I realized how foolish we had been."

More violence on third night of protests  2/20/2009 Jamaica Gleaner: "Rioters fired at police, stormed a city hall and burned several stores in a third night of violence on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, officials said yesterday, as France proposed to boost salaries to end the monthlong strike. More than 500 police were deployed overnight across the island, with dozens arriving by helicopter in the southern coastal town of Sainte-Anne, where youths had forced their way into the city hall. The building was not vandalised, although several businesses in the area were looted and set on fire, Mayor Richard Yacou said."

Tourists flee Guadeloupe as civil war looms  2/20/2009 Private post on carrentals.co.uk: "Protests have spread to a number of France’s other overseas territories, including neighbouring Martinique, where protesters have also taken to the streets with demands that are similar to those expressed in Guadeloupe. Demonstrations have been mounted in French Guyana, in South America and La Réunion, in the Indian Ocean, as well."

Thursday 2/19/2009

Guadeloupe strikes: Shots fired at French security forces 2/19/2009 Telegraph: "The focus of the riots, which began on January 20, has shifted away from the immediate demands for better wages. Demonstrators are now demanding an end to domination of the economy by "Bekes," the local name for white families that trace their roots to the colonial landlords and sugar plantation slave owners of the 17th and 18th centuries. Racial strains have been aggravated by the strong position of traditional land owning families that possess as much as 90 per cent of its estimated wealth. Landowners also control the island's shops and food distribution networks, which are popularly believed to overcharge for imported goods, a situation that undercuts the value of state subsidies to the island. As the strike started, one prominent member of a Beke family, Alain Huyghues-Despointes fuelled public anger by criticising mixed-race marriages and stating a personal preference to "preserve his race." "

Wednesday 2/18/2009

France sends police to quell Guadeloupe riots  2/18/2009 AFP: "Union representative Jacques Bino, aged in his 50s, was shot dead overnight when he drove up to a roadblock manned by armed youths in Pointe-a-Pitre, the island's main city."

Hundreds swarm Stanford's Antigua bank  2/18/2009 Reuters: "Hundreds of people lined up at Texas billionaire Allen Stanford's Antiguan bank on Wednesday seeking to withdraw funds, a day after the tycoon was charged with an $8 billion fraud. Two police officers stood watch at the Bank of Antigua at midmorning as at least 600 people stood in a line stretching around a street corner, despite assurances from regional monetary authorities that the bank had sufficient reserves."

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Department of Justice African American History Month Program  2/18/2009 US DOJ

Tuesday 2/17/2009

U.S. Intel Chief's Shocking Warning: Wall Street's Disaster Has Spawned Our Greatest Terrorist Threat 2/17/2009 Truthdig: ""Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance," the document read."

Monday 2/16/2009

Icy reception for repairmen  2/16/2009 Arkansas Leader: "Some 100 workers from Pennsylvania, about a third of them African Americans, came down to help the local electric cooperative restore power after the devastating ice storm last month took down just about every power pole in the county. They worked tirelessly clearing trees and putting up poles and lines in the ice and freezing rain to try to speed power to people. For their trouble, they were harassed and threatened by roving groups of young men shouting racial epithets and pointing guns at them. The county sheriff said the young men would drive around the work teams waving Rebel flags and cursing the blacks. The workers were frightened enough to contact the sheriff’s office in nearby Washington County."

Jacksons star in Nigeria resort row  2/16/2009 BBC: "One of pop superstar Michael Jackson's brothers, Marlon, is involved in a controversial plan to develop a $3.4bn (£2.4bn) slavery memorial and luxury resort in Badagry, Nigeria."

Israel launches covert war against Iran  2/16/2009 Telegraph, UK: "It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say. The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations."

Saturday 2/14/2009

AFRICOM official defends U.S. role in Ugandan mission 2/14/2009 Stars and Stripes: "Though a U.S. military-backed offensive against a band of Ugandan rebels has fallen under criticism for being poorly executed and leading to several hundred civilian deaths, blame for the slaughter should be directed at the rebel group that butchered as they fled Ugandan defense forces, according to a senior U.S. Africa Command leader."

Thursday 2/12/2009

Judges Nabbed, Jailing Kids for Kickbacks 2/12/2009 Counterpunch: "The nation, these days, is filled with for-profit prisons, not just for holding kids, but for holding adults. Motels have been bought up by giant firms like Corrections Corporation of America and turned into minimum security prisons. We live in a society where greed knows no bounds, and where justice is just a word when it comes to poor people without resources. Based upon what Judge Sporkin says the enforcement people at the SEC discovered—that if you think of a scam, some criminal minds certainly have already thought of it and are doing it--I am willing to bet that if two judges in Pennsylvania could be found to have come up with a scam like this to earn themselves big bucks by putting kids away in private institutions for kickbacks, plenty of other judges are doing the same thing, both with kids and with adult prisoners."

Why the US cannot last in Afghanistan 2/12/2009 Daily Motion: Film of martydom operation against US troops which destroys a large building.

Wednesday 2/11/2009

The global collapse: a non-orthodox view 2/11/2009 Phillipine Daily Inquirer: "The most painful expression of the crisis of overproduction was global recession of the early 1980s, which was the most serious to overtake the international economy since the Great Depression, that is, before the current crisis. Capitalism tried three escape routes from the conundrum of overproduction: neoliberal restructuring, globalization, and financialization."

Church of England: Dumping Caterpillar 2/11/2009 Uruknet: "At the Jenin refugee camp in March/April 2002 Israel's massive, armoured D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers - driven by army reservists - worked non-stop for three days and nights. More than 300 homes in the densely packed camp were flattened. The bulldozer drivers were instant heroes and showered with medals for valour. One such driver did not get down from the cab of his Caterpillar for 75 hours straight. "For three days I just erased and erased... the entire area. I took down any house from which there was shooting. To take it down, I would take down several more. The soldiers warned with a speaker, that the tenants must leave before I came in, but I did not give anyone a chance. I did not wait… I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible. I wanted to get to the other houses. To get as many as possible. Others may have restrained themselves, or so they say. Who are they kidding? Anyone who was there, and saw our soldiers in the houses, would understand they were in a death trap… I didn’t give a damn about the Palestinians, but I didn’t just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders."

Tuesday 2/10/2009

The Implications of Recognizing Israel's "Right to Exist" 2/10/2009 Counterpunch: "Has Khaled Abed Raboo not acknowledged Israel’s ‘existence’ when he stood outside what remained of his home in Jabaliya and a tank with Israeli soldiers ordered him, his mother, his wife and their three children to evacuate? And when they did so waving white flags, all three of his children shot? Had Mr. Abed Raboo not recognized Israel ‘existence’ when he saw Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, only 15 meters away, shoot dead two of his daughters, age two and seven, and critically injure the third? Does witnessing one’s defenseless children being gunned down at close range, before one’s very eyes, not meet the standard of having accepted that Israel ‘exist'?"

Saturday 2/7/2009

Qassami Lion - Falastiness 2/7/2009 Daily Motion: Unusually detailed video of pics of wounded and dead Israelis in Gaza, set to Islamic music.

Interdit de Publication 2/7/2009 Stcom.net - La Voix des Opprimes: Same set of pics, in stills - "Les photos qui suivent sont interdites de publication car elles montrent la déroute de l'armée de terre sioniste à GAZA. En effet à part les bombardements laches & aveugles des avions, chars et de la marine au sol ils ont recu une lecon de la part des combattants Palestiniens; les soldats sionistes ne sont JAMAIS arrivé à rentrer dans la ville."

Friday 2/6/2009

Rahm Emanuel’s “other adversary” sidelined by top job  2/6/2009 Online Journal: "Taking Mrs. Clinton’s place in the Senate is Kirsten Gillibrand, a pro-business and centrist Democrat more to Emanuel’s liking than Caroline Kennedy. A dirty tricks campaign against the daughter of America’s 35th President helped to derail her candidacy and it is suspected by Beltway insiders that Emanuel held the “sins” of the father and grandfather of Kennedy against her. Those sins included President John Kennedy’s opposition to Israel having nuclear weapons and Joseph Kennedy’s dalliances with Hitler’s Germany while U.S. ambassador to London. Although he is ill from a malignant brain tumor, Senator Edward Kennedy is fighting mad over the political trashing of his niece and is aware that Emanuel may be behind it."

Desire to reconnect rekindles Vodou among younger Haitian-Americans  2/6/2009 Sun Sentinel

US-Russia tensions escalate over closure of Afghan supply base  2/6/2009 Uruknet: "Finally, Cuban leader Raul Castro secured a $354 million aid package during an eight-day visit to Moscow, the first high-level contact between Russia and Cuba since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended decades of Soviet subsidies to Havana. It is evident that Moscow sees renewed ties with Cuba—90 miles off US shores—as a rebuke to Washington’s own interventions in the former Soviet republics."

Thursday 2/5/2009

THE STORY THE MEDIA WON'T TOUCH 2/5/2009 Progressive Review

Tuesday 2/3/2009

"Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"  2/3/2009 Counterpunch: "Mehserle’s lawyer simultaneously suggested that Mehserle meant to deploy his Taser against Grant, while adding that he thought Grant was reaching for a gun. Again, both claims have been thoroughly discredited: Mehserle had removed his Taser, which bears no resemblance to his gun, from the opposite side of his belt earlier, and Grant was face-down with Pirone holding his neck, showing no signs of struggle. Moreover, if Grant were reaching for a gun, surely Mehserle would admit to purposefully pulling his own weapon. But there was a method to this madness, and it was this: Mehserle had to mention the Taser defense to leave open the possibility of a reduced charge, but he had to add that he thought Grant may be armed to leave open the possibility for a total acquittal under the tried-and-true police defense of “justifiable homicide.” Luckily, Judge Morris Jacobson noticed the ambiguity and wasn’t buying it: Mehserle, Jacobson acknowledged, did indeed represent a flight risk, and his contradictory story made him a potential danger to the community. However, under California guidelines, and since this was not a capital murder case, the judge nevertheless granted Mehserle a bail of $3 million. But concealed beneath this seemingly “technical” bail decision was a more important one: certainly, Mehserle has not been charged with a capital offense, but this is because he was white and a cop to begin with."

White supremacism lies at the root of the 'respectable' nativist right  2/3/2009 Crooks and Liars

America Is Completely Broke, And Here We Are Funding Fantasy Wars at the Pentagon  2/3/2009 TomDispatch

"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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World News 2/1/09 - 7/3/2009

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Copyright © 1997 AfroCubaWeb, S.A. Last modified: March 29, 2009

World News
2/1/09 - 7/3/2009

Copyright © 1997 AfroCubaWeb, S.A.
Last modified: March 29, 2009