Friday, August 22, 2003

PIC OF THE DAY

UK: DAVID KELLY

the Age: Kelly spoke of dying in the woods

British weapons expert David Kelly predicted he would be "found dead in the woods" five months before he apparently committed suicide in a forested area, an inquiry into his death has been told.

A senior British diplomat, David Boucher, told the Hutton inquiry that Dr Kelly had predicted his own death if Britain invaded Iraq, in a conversation with him in February, about a month before the war started.

"I thought he might have meant that he was at risk of being attacked by the Iraqis in some way," Mr Boucher said. But, after Dr Kelly's death, he realised the scientist "may have been thinking on different lines".
IRAQI RESISTANCE

Spiegel: Pentagon dementiert Entführung von Soldaten
Einem libanesischen TV-Sender zufolge wurden zwei US-Offiziere im Irak von einer bislang unbekannten Gruppe verschleppt. Das Pentagon dementiert: Beide Soldaten seien sicher und wohlbehalten in den USA

Laut der Nachrichtenagentur AP veröffentlichte der libanesische Fernsehsender LBC ein Schreiben der bislang unbekannten Gruppierung al-Madina al-Munawara. Demnach wurden die US-Soldaten bei einem Angriff auf einen Militärkonvoi westlich von Bagdad gekidnappt. Wann und wo genau der Überfall stattgefunden haben soll, wurde nicht erwähnt.

ESSAY

marchtojustice: "Learning to Be Stupid in the Culture of Cash"

You might think that reading about a Podunk University's English teacher's attempt to connect the dots between the poverty of American education and the gullibility of the American public may be a little trivial, considering we've embarked on the first, openly-confessed imperial adventure of senescent capitalism in the US, but bear with me. The question my experiences in the classroom raise is why have these young people been educated to such abysmal depths of ignorance.

"I don't read," says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness. She has not the smallest hint that professing a habitual preference for not reading at a university is like bragging in ordinary life that one chooses not to breathe. She is in my "World Literature" class. She has to read novels by African, Latin American, and Asian authors. She is not there by choice: it's just a "distribution" requirement for graduation, and it's easier than philosophy -she thinks.

The novel she has trouble reading is Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows," set in the post-coup terror of Pinochet's junta's Nazi-style regime in Chile, 1973-1989. No one in the class, including the English majors, can write a focused essay of analysis, so I have to teach that. No one in the class knows where Chile is, so I make photocopies of general information from world guide surveys. No one knows what socialism or fascism is, so I spend time writing up digestible definitions. No one knows what Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is, and I supply it because it's impossible to understand the theme of the novel without a basic knowledge of that work - which used to be required reading a few generations ago. And no one in the class has ever heard of 11 September 1973, the CIA-sponsored coup which terminated Chile's mature democracy. There is complete shock when I supply US de-classified documents proving US collusion with the generals' coup and the assassination of elected president, Salvador Allende.

"CHECK IT"
IRAQ

Asia Times: Looking faceless terror in the eye

HONG KONG - Almost before the debris from Tuesday's blast at the United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad had finished falling from the sky, some were blaming it on al-Qaeda. This is the face of faceless terrorism today: whenever a bomb goes off anywhere in the world, images of turbaned clerics appear almost instantly.

And al-Qaeda is not alone in the fraternity of facelessness. Be it Jemaah Islamiya, the now disbanded Laskar Jihad, or the Kumpulan Mujahidden Malaysia, there seems to be a label to go along with any brand of terror.

The fact is, the "enemy" in the "war on terror" is faceless when it needs to be, but when a label or identity suits the current purposes of government, one is quickly found.

"CHECK IT"
IRAQ

Toronto Star: A guerrilla war takes root
Iraqis opposed to U.S. are destroying structures and services on which the population depends

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is outraged. U.S. President George W. Bush makes his usual clumsy attempt to paint the Iraqi resistance as just another bunch of "terrorists," and to link them with some worldwide conspiracy of terrorists who attack the United States because "they hate freedom."

All the usual suspects express their shock that the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad has been bombed. And you wonder: Can they really be surprised?

To adapt Bill Clinton's famous phrase: It's a war, stupid.

"CHECK IT"
IRAQ

Guardian: Into the quagmire

American rhetoric cannot deceive history, which shows that occupying armies are never seen as liberators


QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs
to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine
today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews]
must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong
to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be
performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in
Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are
co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no
wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen
the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an
unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the
accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab
resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."

Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr.
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Independent: Powell asks Arafat to help stop killing

Washington turned to Yasser Arafat yesterday, a man it had sought to marginalise and sideline for months, to help the so-called Middle East road-map after the Jerusalem bus bombing and Israel's killing of a senior Hamas leader threatened to wreck the peace plan.

Months after the United States demanded that the Palestinians elect a Prime Minister in an effort to reduce the authority of Mr Arafat, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, asked him yesterday to help stop the cycle of violence.

His appeal to the Palestinian Authority's chairman was an admission of the influence that Mr Arafat still wields and the inability of the Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to stop Palestinian attacks.
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Spiegel: Hamas-Mann der ersten Stunde
Gaza - Ismail Abu Schanab gehörte zum politischen Flügel der Hamas. Er warb in der militanten Bewegung für die Fortsetzung des Waffenstillstands, an dessen Aushandlung Ende Juni er maßgeblich beteiligt war. Israel warf Abu Schanab dagegen vor, er sei direkt an der Planung von Anschlägen beteiligt gewesen - auch an dem Selbstmordanschlag vom Dienstag, bei dem in Jerusalem 20 Menschen getötet wurden.

Spiegel: Israel droht mit gezielten Tötungen
Neue Gewaltdrohungen machen die Lage in Nahost immer explosiver: Israel kündigte an, weitere Hamas-Führer liquidieren zu wollen, wenn es zu neuen Anschlägen kommen sollte. Genau das hatten die militanten Palästinenser bereits angekündigt.

Independent: Israel vows to kill more Palestinian militants
Israel plans to kill more Palestinian militants, military officials warned, as thousands of Palestinians gathered for the funeral of the Hamas leader killed yesterday, promised thunderous revenge.
An Israeli security source said all Hamas leaders were now considered fair targets and new strikes would be launched after a 24 hour lull to give Palestinians a chance to act on their own against militants. "We were waiting to see even just one Hamas arrest," he said.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Spiegel: Israelische Kampfhubschrauber töten Hamas-Führer
Israel hat seine Politik der gezielten Exekution von Extremisten wieder aufgenommen. Kampfhubschrauber töteten im Zentrum von Gaza den militanten Hamas-Führer Ismail Abu Schanab und zwei seiner Leibwächter. Die Hamas erklärte die nur sieben Wochen alte Waffenruhe kurz darauf für beendet.

Independent: Hamas leader killed in Israeli gunship strike in Gaza
A senior leader of the militant group Hamas was killed, along with two bodyguards, when an Israeli gunship fired missiles at a car in Gaza City today.
Israeli military sources admitted that they had targeted the car in which Ismail Abu Shanab waas travelling.

Haaretz: Senior Hamas official Abu Shanab killed by missile strike on car
Senior Hamas official Ismail Abu Shanab was among
three Palestinians killed Thursday afternoon in a
missile attack in Gaza City that Israeli security
sources said targeted Shanab.
In response to the attack, senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad
officials announced an end to the Palestinian cease-fire that
was declared on June 29, and Hamas vowed revenge.

"Die Roadmap ist Geschichte"




OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Independent: Israeli troops move into West Bank towns

Israeli troops and tanks moved into the West Bank towns of Nablus and Jenin early today, searching for Palestinian militants following the Jerusalem suicide bombing in which 20 people died.

In Hebron, also in the West Bank, Israeli forces demolished the bomber. Dozens of soldiers secured the area before dawn and set up explosives in the concrete house, which they detonated.

The family had moved out with their possessions after the bombing, expecting the home would be demolished. The bomber, 29-year-old mosque preacher Raed Mesk, was friends with an Islamic Jihad leader in Hebron, Mohammed Sidr, who was killed by Israeli troops last week.

Shots rang out in Jenin after 20 tanks, personnel carriers and other vehicles entered, witnesses said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties in either town. A curfew was imposed in central Nablus after more than 30 vehicles — mostly trucks and a few tanks — rolled in.

IRAQ

American Free Press: CIA Accused Of Bank Heist
Shortly before U.S. forces began streaming across the Iraqi border, commencing Persian Gulf War II, the CIA and the Department of Defense, with a little help from Israel and some Europeans, pulled off a massive bank heist in Iraq to the tune of several billion dollars.


The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) are accused by International Currency Review, the London-based journal, of mounting a joint ultra-secret operation to electronically remove an estimated $10 billion out of the Iraqi Central Bank hours before the start of Persian Gulf War II. The whereabouts of the money is not known.

“We believe it is in a secret CIA fund which will be used to mount further special services operations, such as tracking down Saddam Hussein,” said the Review’s publisher, Christopher Story.

Story is a former financial advisor to Lady Thatcher when she was Britain’s prime minister. In the past 10 years, he has testified before several congressional committees dealing with financial scandals.

DIA coordinates all intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is headquartered in the Pentagon.

The report is titled “The Great Robbery of the Central Bank of Iraq.” It has been sent to finance ministers of leading nations, the World Bank, the Bank of England and heads of all other major banks.

The report is bound to cause huge embarrassment to President Bush after he signed an executive order on March 23, ordering a worldwide hunt for the hidden assets of Saddam Hussein and his family.

The Review claims that using skilled hackers recruited by the DIA and key Iraqi bank officials who had been bribed to provide secret access codes to the Central Bank’s accounts for Saddam Hussein and his family, the money was transferred out of the bank in a high-tech operation
USA-ISRAEL

Haaretz: Israel, US Sign Loan Guarantees Worth $9 Billion
After several months of exhaustive negotiations, Israel and the United States on Wednesday signed the loan guarantee agreement, enabling Israel to raise $9 billion in government bonds on American financial markets over the coming three years.

Harry Langman, the accountant general's representative in New York, and his deputy Yaron Neuderfer signed the accord for Israel, and Gordon West, deputy assistant administrator for American aid programs (USAID), for the U.S.

Israel plans to raise the first $3 billion - which will be backed by the U.S. government - in late 2003. Under the agreement, every dollar Israel spends in the occupied territories will be deducted from the guarantees.

"Die USA ermoeglicht Israel weiterhin die Palaestinesischen Gebiete zu besetzen. Sie unterstuetzen damit einen Staat der seit ueber 30 Jahren UN-Resolutionen bricht. Irak wurde aus diesem Grund zerbomt. Von Krediten kann im Grunde genommen keine Rede sein, da Israel noch nie etwas zurueckbezahlt hat. Ohne USA keine Besatzung. Das ganze geschwafel von Frieden im Nahen Osten ist nichts weiter als Heuchelei und PR"
IRAQI RESISTANCE

Mirror: Attack On The UN -Iraqi Chaos 'Is America's Fault'

Iraq is in chaos as America's plans to rebuild the country fail, it was claimed last night.

Former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin spoke out after suicide bombers killed at least 24 people at the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

He said the Bush administration had "dropped the ball massively" since ousting Saddam Hussein and allowed terrorist groups to operate.

The plan to return the country to the Iraqi people had failed "spectacularly", leading to a collapse in law and order.

He added: "The real problem is chaos - the chaos that has allowed terrorist organisations and others to come into Iraq where, let's remember, they weren't before."

The bombers drove a concrete lorry packed full of explosives into the Canal Hotel, the UN base.

The front of the three-storey building collapsed, leaving more than 100 injured and dozens trapped.
POLICESTATE USA

Guardian: Bush's Secret War


When security agents took away her husband in the middle of the night they did not tell Ellah Ulusam that Washington had just opened a new front in its war against terror. They said he would be back the next day. Arif Ulusam vanished along with four other Muslim men, all arrested at home, handcuffed and bundled into a car for a bizarre odyssey which has not yet ended.

This is a part of George Bush's war which does not make it on to television news, for it is waged on a front so remote few know it exists. In less eventful times what happened would be considered extraordinary. As it is, their story has been barely reported.

On June 22 Malawi security agents seized five men in Limbe, outside Malawi's commercial capital Blantyre, and spirited them out of the country on suspicion of belonging to al-Qaida, earning praise from the US ambassador.

Relatives were distraught. "Taking Arif away was a big loss to me. I was stranded. I didn't know what was going on," says Ellah, 27, cradling her daughter Kardelen, not yet three. "Kardelen misses her father so much, she puts on his shoes, kisses his shirts."

Following the script from Afghanistan and other countries where terror suspects have been snatched, it seemed these were more Muslims destined for orange jumpsuits, their guilt or innocence to be decided at a future date by a US military tribunal. Except a funny thing happened on the way to Guantanamo - they were released.
USA: BLACKOUT

AP: Bush Blocks Independent Blackout Investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Tuesday moved to consolidate the investigation into the nation's worst power blackout, saying that an industry watchdog group would forgo its independent probe and work with a U.S.-Canadian task force.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a co-chair of the task force, would not speculate on what might have caused the blackout that cascaded across a vast region from Michigan to New York City last Thursday.

"It is way too early to engage in speculation about the role any (incident) might have had in the overall problem," Abraham told reporters at a news conference.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), an industry-sponsored group that monitors power grid reliability, so far has been in the forefront of the investigation. The group has pointed to problems in a number of high-voltage transmission lines in Ohio, belonging to FirstEnergy Corp., saying that is where the power cascade that led to the blackout apparently began.
IRAQI RESISTANCE

Spiegel: Annan kritisiert Sicherheitslage im Irak

Nach dem verheerenden Bombenanschlag auf den Uno-Sitz in Bagdad streiten die Vereinten Nationen und die US-Regierung über die Sicherheitslage im Irak. Angeblich gab es vor dem Attentat Terrorwarnungen an die Uno. Es seien Fehler begangen worden, sagte Uno-Generalsekretär Kofi Annan.

Ich war ein wenig überrascht, als ich das las", sagte er. Auch dass die Uno-Verwaltung im Irak ein angebliches Angebot der Amerikaner für verstärkte Sicherheitsmaßnahmen abgelehnt haben solle, wundere ihn sehr. "Ich wäre sehr überrascht, wenn sie das ausgeschlagen hätten", sagte Annan.

Aber selbst, wenn dies der Fall gewesen sein sollte, hätten die USA die Ablehnung nicht akzeptieren dürfen, erklärte der Uno-Chef. Die New Yorker Polizei frage ihre Bürger auch nicht, ob sie besondere Schutzmaßnahmen wolle. Vielmehr schätze sie die Sicherheitslage auf Grund der ihr vorliegenden Informationen ein und ergreife dann die ihr angemessen erscheinenden Aktionen.

US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld wies alle Verantwortung von sich. Dem Verteidigungsminister zufolge können die USA die Sicherheit im Irak nicht "in jeder Straße und an jeder Ecke" garantieren. Dies sei in einem Land von der Größe des US-Bundesstaats Kalifornien nicht möglich, sagte er bei einem Kurzbesuch in Honduras

"Man sollte meinen das es auch in Kaliforninen möglich wäre das UN-Gebeude zu schützen"
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Haaretz: Israeli human rights group slams Hebron settlers

B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the
Occupied Territories) released a report yesterday citing harassment by Jewish
settlers for the exodus of some 400 Palestinians from the center of
Hebron over the past three years. "Settler violence and the lack of law
enforcement on settlers, the ongoing curfew and severe restrictions on
movement in the area that once was the commercial center of Hebron, and
violence against Palestinians by members of the security forces have
caused Palestinian families to pack up and leave the area," the report
charges. About 2,000 merchants have closed businesses in the downtown sector in
the same period, according to the B'Tselem report, entitled "Settlements
Cause Mass Departure of Palestinians."

B'Tselem: Full Report

GULF WAR ILLNESS

AP: Victims From First Gulf War File Suit

NEW YORK (AP) - Blaming corporations for fueling former Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program, victims of the first Gulf War filed
a lawsuit Tuesday seeking compensation for illnesses affecting more than
100,000 soldiers. "Anyone with eyes and ears knew Saddam was killing
people with poison gas in the 1980s," lawyer Gary B. Pitts said outside
federal court. "These companies have to be held accountable or they'll do this
same thing in the future with some other tyrant." The lawsuit seeks
unspecified damages for more than 100,000 soldiers who it says suffered severe
injuries and staggering economic losses after they were exposed to chemicals
when coalition forces blew up Iraqi ammunition dumps.


OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Gush-Shalom: "Hero in War and Peace",
by Uri Avnery

Sometimes a single sentence is enough to reveal a person's mental world
and intellectual profundity. Such a sentence was uttered by Shaul Mofaz,
the Minister of Defense, some days ago during a visit to the Israeli troops
in the Gaza Strip. "With our enemies, it seems, no shortcuts are possible.
Egypt made peace with Israel only after it was defeated in the Yom
Kippur War. That will happen with the Palestinians, too."

This means that there is no political solution. There is only war, and
in this war we must "defeat" the Palestinians. A simple, simplistic, not
to say primitive, view. But the revealing sentence is: "Egypt made peace
with Israel only after it was defeated in the Yom Kippur War". Revealing,
because it utterly contradicts the almost unanimous view of all the
experts in Israel and around the world - historians, Arabists and military
commentators. These believe that the exact opposite is true: Anwar
Sadat was able to lead Egypt towards peace only because he was admired as the
commander who had defeated Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Only after the
Egyptian people had won back their national pride were they able to
consider peace with the enemy (with us).
IRAQI WMD

Guardian: Two weeks that pushed Britain to war
Timetable of the dossier's creation reveals that allegations against Iraq grew more pointed after Blair visited President Bush

A detailed timetable of the crucial fortnight leading up to the
publication of the September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
emerged from the inquiry yesterday. Noticeably absent from Alastair Campbell's
account, however, was the weekend when Tony Blair met the US president,
George Bush, at Camp David - the point at which many suspect the two
leaders in effect agreed on war.


IRAQI RESISTANCE

Counterpunch: Bush's Crumbling Authority in Iraq By ROBERT FISK
Now No One is Safe

What UN member would ever contemplate sending peace-keeping troops to Iraq now? The men who are attacking America's occupation army are ruthless, but they are not stupid. They know that President George Bush is getting desperate, that he will do anything--that he may even go to the dreaded Security Council for help--to reduce US military losses in Iraq. But yesterday's attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad has slammed shut the door to that escape route.

Within hours of the explosion, we were being told that this was an attack on a "soft target", a blow against the UN itself. True, it was a "soft" target, although the machine-gun nest on the roof of the UN building might have suggested that even the international body was militarising itself. True, too, it was a shattering assault on the UN as an institution. But in reality, yesterday's attack was against the United States.

The reaction to yesterday's tragedy could have been written in advance. The Americans will tell us that this proves how "desperate" Saddam's "dead-enders" have become--as if the attackers are more likely to give up as they become more successful in destroying US rule in Iraq. The truth--however many of Saddam's old regime hands are involved--is that the Iraqi resistance organisation now involves hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunni Muslims, many of them with no loyalty to the old regime. Increasingly, the Shias are becoming involved in anti-American actions.



"CHECK IT"
IRAQI RESISTANCE

WSWS: The UN bombing: a product of the US occupation of Iraq

A massive truck bomb yesterday tore through the Canal Hotel that houses
the UN offices in Baghdad killing at least 20 people, including the top UN
official in Iraq—Sergio Vieira de Mello, and injuring more than 100.
The explosion took place at around 4.30 p.m., as a press conference was
underway in the three-storey building that has functioned as the UN
headquarters in Iraq since 1991.

No organisation has claimed responsibility for the bombing. It has been
immediately seized upon by the Bush administration to justify further
indiscriminate reprisals and repression against the Iraqi people. At
the same time, the attack underscores the depth of hostility, anger and
despair felt by wide sections of the population in Iraq and throughout the
Middle East towards Washington's criminal occupation of the country. Political
responsibility for the bomb blast rests with the US and its
accomplices, who have created nothing short of a nightmare for the Iraqi people

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

IRAQ

Islamonline: Reuters Cameraman
Killed For Filming US Graves


AL-KHALIL, West Bank (IslamOnline.net) -- The brother of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana said he was deliberately murdered for discovering mass graves of U.S. troops killed in Iraqi resistance attacks.

"The U.S. troops killed my brother in cold blood," Nazmi Dana told IslamOnline.net in exclusive statements.

"The U.S. occupation troops shot dead my brother on purpose, although he was wearing his press badge, which was also emblazoned on the car he was driving," he said.

Mazen told me by phone few days before his death that he discovered a mass grave dug by U.S. troops to conceal the bodies of their fellow comrades killed in Iraqi resistance attacks," Nazmi said.

"He also told me that he found U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program. We are pretty sure that the American forces had killed Mazen knowingly to prevent him from airing his finding."

Aon: Secret Burials in the desert
Ultimate disrespect for U.S. Army personnel in Iraq

Did the Pentagon order the assassintaion of a Journalist in order to cover up secret mass burials of dead U.S Soldiers in the desert around Baghdad ?

What is really behind the killing of my colleague, the Palestinian Reuters Cameraman Mazen Dana, in Bagdad? Is the Pentagon really scared of the media telling the U.S public what is really going on in Iraq? Do the criminals in the Pentagon want to cover their crimes against their own soldiers by killing journalists in Iraq? If, then this is what can be called organized terror.

He could ultimately develop a source, a U.S. mercenary, who told him that those buried were not Iraqis, but mercenaries who had been promised green cards and U.S. citizenship in return for serving in the U.S. army. According to this source, not few of those interred were americans who had been killed in combat.




Tuesday, August 19, 2003

EXHIBITION

GHETTO SHINE

Coming soon > 13th september 2003 Ghetto shine

Maï Lucas, a young photographer from Paris, Grown up in the middle of the Parisian hip hop culture of the 80's. Since 1992 she has invested herself in a vast documentary project on the urban culture of the multiple ethnic communities of the United States and in particular from New York City.

SITE OF THE DAY

DQ

very nice online magazine
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

New York Times: Israelis Worry About Terror, by Jews Against Palestinians

West Bank, Aug. 17 — Two and a half years ago, a 10-month-old Israeli girl, Shalhevet Pas, was shot to death in her stroller by a Palestinian sniper here in Hebron, a city where the competing claims of Jews and Palestinians to the land, holy places and the past grind together with particular pain. Last month, her father, Yitzhak Pas, a settler who lives here, was arrested with almost 10 pounds of explosives in his car.

Investigators have not publicly linked the two events, but the little they have said about Mr. Pas hints at something more than revenge against his daughter's killer. Rather, their remarks suggest, he and five others, including three arrested last week, are members of a Jewish underground group who were aiming to carry out attacks on Palestinians.

IRAQI RESISTANCE

Spiegel: "O Muslime, macht euch bereit für den Dschihad"

Auf einem der Terrororganisation al-Qaida zugeschriebenen Tonband hat ein angeblicher Aktivist erstmals dazu aufgerufen, im Irak einen Heiligen Krieg gegen die USA zu führen. Gotteskrieger sollten auch nach Saudi-Arabien gehen, um das mit den USA verbündete Königshaus zu stürzen

JAPAN: YAKUZA

Independent: Out of the shadows
Despite a police crackdown, traditional, tattoo-covered organised criminals still wield extraordinary power in Japan. In a rare encounter, a high-ranking gang member tells David McNeill why his country needs the Yakuza

If you bumped into Mitsunori Agata on the street, you might mistake him for a retired civil servant. From his neatly trimmed silver hair to his sensible shoes, little marks him as out of the ordinary except a certain hardness lurking behind the crinkly pensioner's eyes.

But here in his office in Kabukicho, in the licentious pink heart of Tokyo's vice trade, it's clear that Agata is a Very Important Person. The evidence is in the many photos around the room of Agata bonding with flinty-faced men in expensive suits. Or the way his male assistant approaches and retreats on his knees, his shaven head almost touching the floor.





IRAQI RESISTANCE

Spiegel: 13 Tote bei Anschlag auf Uno-Zentrale
Der Bombenanschlag auf das Hauptquartier der Vereinten Nationen in Bagdad galt offenbar dem Uno-Sonderbeauftragten für den Irak, Sergio Vieira de Mello. "Sein Büro und die angrenzenden Büros existieren nicht mehr. Es war eine sehr große Bombe", sagte Uno-Sprecher Salim Lone. Mindestens 13 Menschen wurden getötet, mehr als 40 schwer verletzt

Independent: Suicide truck bomb kills 15 at UN's Baghdad HQ
Scores of people injured by huge explosion at busy hotel


BILDERBERG MEETING

Propaganda Matrix: BILDERBERG 2003: VERSAILLES, PARIS
Teilnehmer aus der Schweiz:
- Kielholz, Walter B. - Former Chairman of the Board, Credit Suisse; Executive Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Swiss Re
- Ringier, Michael - CEO, Ringier AG
- Vasella, Daniel L. - Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG

American Free Press: Bilderberg Black Out
To witness the annual Bilderberg conference is to realize how the “Lords of the New World Order”—the self-chosen elite of international finance, business, and politics—are allowed to assemble in secret and conspire with the connivance of the mainstream media.

Given the tumultuous events in the Middle East and the serious strains in U.S.-French relations, one would expect that an event near Paris, in which scores of key U.S. and European officials meet with the heads of international finance and business, would attract considerable media attention. However, while Bilderberg 2003 at the historic Trianon Palace at Versailles was an extraordinary gathering of the global elite, it passed with scarcely a word in the controlled press.

Asia Times:

The masters of the universe
It may be instructive to learn what US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle were doing last weekend. From May 15 to 18 they were guests at the Trianon Palace Hotel, close to the spectacular Versailles palace near Paris, for the annual meeting of the Bilderberg club.

Depending on the ideological prism applied, the Bilderberg club may be considered an ultra-VIP international lobby of the power elite of Europe and America, capable of steering international policy from behind closed doors; a harmless "discussion group" of politicians, academics and business tycoons; or a capitalist secret society operating entirely through self interest and plotting world domination.
Some of the Western world's leading financiers and foreign policy strategists attend Bilderberg, in their view, to polish and reinforce a virtual consensus, an illusion that globalization, defined under their terms - what's good for banking and big business is good for everybody else - is inevitable and for the greater good of mankind. If they have a hidden agenda, it is the fact that their fabulous concentration of wealth and power is completely dissociated from the explanation to their guests of how globalization benefits 6.2 billion people. Some of the club's earlier guests went on to become crucial players. Bill Clinton in 1991 and Tony Blair in 1993 were invited and duly "approved" by the Bilderberg before they took office.
There are innumerable shady, still unexplained connections between the early Bilderberg club and the Nazis, via Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the father of Queen Beatrix, who founded the club in Bilderberg in 1954 (the name is taken from a Dutch hotel), aiming to "increase understanding between Europe and North America". Bernhard was a member of Adolf Hitler's SS
An influential Jewish European banker reveals that the ruling elite in Europe is now telling their minions that the West is on the brink of total financial meltdown; so the only way to save their precious investments is to bet on the new global crisis centered around the Middle East, which replaced the crisis evolving around the Cold War.
IRAQ

Guardian: US troops 'crazy' in killing of cameraman

Journalists who were with a Reuters news cameraman shot dead by US troops while filming outside a Baghdad prison yesterday accused the soldiers of behaving in a "crazy" and negligent fashion.
They claimed the Americans had spotted the Reuters crew outside the jail half an hour before Mazen Dana was killed and must have realised he was not a guerrilla carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The chief executive of Reuters, Tom Glocer, said: "The latest death is hard to bear. That's why I am calling upon the highest levels of the US government for a full and comprehensive investigation into this terrible tragedy."



PHILIPPINES

ABC: US exploring possibility of bases in Philippines
Philippines Government officials say the United States is exploring the possibility of re-establishing bases in the Philippines.

The Presidential Commission on Philippine-American military relations says discussions on the US re-basing program have begun between the Philippines and the US.

This is amid a scenario of growing opposition to US military bases in Japan and South Korea.

"Da die Usa Stützpunkte auf den Philippinen eröffnen wollen geht es wohl nicht lange bis "Al Quida" resp. die CIA irgendetwas westliches in die Luft jagt. Dann werden die Philippinen ihre Vorbehalte gegen US-Basen viel schneller vergessen"

IRAQI RESISTANCE

Financial Times: Saudis in Iraq 'preparing for a holy war'

Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned.

A senior western counter-terrorism official on Monday said the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq was "extremely worrying".

A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda was broadcast on Monday by the Arab satellite television channel al-Arabiya. It claimed the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the leader of the Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime Mullah Mohammed Omar were still alive. But it also asserted that recent attacks on US forces in Iraq were the work of jihadis.

The focus of concern for US counter-terrorist officials was at first on a reconstituted Ansar al-Islam, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group based in northern Iraq before the war. But US officials have recently acknowledged the presence of other foreign fighters in Iraq.


USA: BLACKOUT

Dar Al Hayat: Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility For Power Blackout In U.S.!

A communiqué attributed to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the power blackout that happened in the U.S. last Thursday, saying that the brigades of Abu Fahes Al Masri had hit two main power plants supplying the East of the U.S., as well as major industrial cities in the U.S. and Canada, "its ally in the war against Islam (New York and Toronto) and their neighbors."

The communiqué assured that the operation "was carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden to hit the pillars of the U.S. economy," as "a realization of bin Laden's promise to offer the Iraqi people a present."

The statement, which Al-Hayat obtained from the website of the International Islamic Media Center, didn't specify the way the alleged sabotage was carried out. The communiqué read: "let the criminal Bush and his gang know that the punishment is the result of the action, the soldiers of God cut the power on these cities, they darkened the lives of the Americans as these criminals blackened the lives of the Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Americans lived a black day they will never forget. They lived a day of terror and fear… a state of chaos and confusion where looting and pillaging rampaged the cities, just like the capital of the caliphate Baghdad, and Afghanistan and Palestine were. Let the American people take a sip from the same glass."


IRAQ

Washington Post: U.S. Taps Media Chief for Iraq

BAGHDAD, Aug. 18 -- U.S. authorities have appointed a media commissioner to govern broadcasters and the press, establish training programs for journalists and plan for the establishment of a state-run radio and television network -- part of an effort to regulate Iraq's burgeoning news media while dodging allegations of heavy-handed control.

In June, L. Paul Bremer, the civil administrator in Iraq, issued guidelines for all media outlets here, forbidding them from inciting violence, promoting "ethnic and religious hatred" or circulating false information "calculated to promote opposition" to the occupation authority.

Occasionally, U.S. soldiers have raided newspaper offices deemed to be in breach of the regulations, and they have closed at least two newspapers and one radio station. But the delicacy of sending heavily armed troops to enforce media rules has prompted the occupation officials to look for other ways to exercise their power to censor.

"Regulierung und Zensur bedeuten in diesem Fall das gleiche.
"circulating false information "calculated to promote opposition" to the occupation authority" wieso verbietet man das FOX NEWS oder CNN nicht, denn genau das senden die, in umgekehrter Richtung, den ganzen Tag"
IRAQ

Rense: Iraqi Commander Swears He Saw US Evacuate Saddam

Film will soon be made public of an Iraqi Army officer describing how he saw a US Air Force transport fly Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad. The explosive eyewitness testimony was shot by independent filmmaker Patrick Dillon, who recently returned from a risky one-man odyssey in Iraq. In the film, the officer, who told Dillon that he commanded a special combat unit during the battle for Baghdad airport and whose identity is temporarily being withheld, explains in detail how he watched as the Iraqi dictator and members of his inner circle were evacuated from Iraq's capital by what he emphatically insists were United States Air Force cargo planes.

Presently, the only copies of the film (which I have not yet seen) are in New York City. People who have viewed it describe it to me as compelling.

"CHECK IT"
AFGHANISTAN

Asia Times: Afghan resistance takes shape

KARACHI - Notwithstanding the changing of the guard in Kabul, which
sees the North Atlantic Treaty Organization taking over command of the
International Security Assistance Force, the resistance network that
covers large swathes of the country is firmly in place. This consists of
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan, the Taliban and fighters of
Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front grouped under the banner of the
Saiful Muslemeen (the Sword of Muslims). Previously restricted to the
countryside and attacks on foreign soldiers, the resistance has now
targeted cities.
IRAQ

Islamonline: Israel Claims 'Lost Property' In Arab Countries

In a bid seen as trying to get a bigger slice of the grand Iraqi cake,
Israel has drawn up a file on Jewish property and money allegedly left
by Jewish immigrants in Arab countries, particularly Iraq. The Israeli
justice ministry spokesman said that the government would ask Jews in Israel
and all over the world within the few coming days to present information on
their purported belongings in Iraq, the Palestinian Information Center
(PIC) said Saturday, August16 . Israeli sources put at $ 10billion the
value of the so-called Jewish property in Iraq alone, noting that
Israel expects the would-be Iraqi oil minister return these money calmly and
without any media fuss.

"Wird Israel anschliessend den Palästinensern das Land zurückgeben und Kompensationen im Wert von Milliarden Dollar zahlen?"
JORDAN/IRAQ

Alternet: Jordan MPs seek extradition of Iraqi politician

AMMAN, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Jordanian deputies will lobby the government
to extradite Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, convicted in Jordan of
embezzling millions from a bank in the late 1980s, a leading parliamentarian said
on Sunday. Mahmoud Kharabsheh said he was finding wide support for a
petition he was circulating among deputies to hold a special session soon in the
110-member house to demand the government take legal steps to seek
Chalabi's extradition from Iraq. "We will demand the extradition of
the criminal (Chalabi) and that he is handed over to stand trial for
embezzlement of public funds," a pro-government deputy Kharabsheh told
Reuters.
IRAQ

Haaretz: The Americans look ugly not only to Iraqis
ANKARA - Almost four months have passed since the conclusion of the "big" battles in Iraq, and the start of small, exhausting skirmishes. What appeared at first to be a tremendous show of American and British might, a conclusive blow which toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, is liable to become a foray into a lethal beehive, which waited for its prey to come. There is a constellation of powerful forces in Iraq:
Shi'ites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Turkmen, and various other tribal, religious and secular
leaders, who all want a piece of the country, present and future. Their ambitions are fairly
well-known: they want a democratic, independent Iraq which enjoys economic prosperity due to its huge reserves of oil

USA

Globalresearch: 9/11 and US-Led Neo-Fascism

The "War on Terrorism" and legislation such as the "PATRIOT" Act are
the latest phase of a plan for US-led global neo-fascism which has been in
the works for decades at least. Powerful elements in the US government
wanted to take over Afghanistan and the surrounding area, with its oil,
natural gas, minerals, and opium, to further worldwide US military and economic
dominance. The terrorist attacks on 9/11/01 are reminiscent of previous
"arranged" attacks including the Boston Massacre, Pearl Harbor, and
the Gulf of Tonkin "incident."
IRAQ/VIETNAM

Common Dreams: Have We Forgotten Anger in the Eyes? by James L. Larocca

Ordinarily, our boats patrolled Vietnam's rivers in pairs. But on this
night we had several teams operating together as we launched the
Pentagon's latest ingenious scheme for winning the war in the Mekong Delta. The
concept was simple enough: instead of surprising people with
conventional gunfire during raids, the boats would first set the houses and
buildings on fire with bows and arrows. The brass called this early version of
"shock and awe" Operation Flaming Arrow.

Of course, the flimsy huts burned like matchbooks, leaving the families
homeless and destitute. The next day, civil action teams of GIs would
arrive bearing sheets of corrugated tin for new roofs and bags of rice
to help the villagers get started again. There would also be bars of Dial
soap and clothing from church groups in the states.



IRAQ

EAW: Another War Crime? Iraqi Cities ‘Hot’ With Depleted Uranium

The Pentagon fired radioactive Depleted Uranium weapons in downtown
Baghdad, leaving the capitol city contaminated with radiation levels
that are 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal. Washington has stated it
will not be responsible for undertaking any clean-up of these dangerous
pollution hot-spots.

Has US use of depleted-uranium weapons turned Iraq into a radioactive
danger area for both Iraqis and occupation troops? This question has
already had serious consequences. In hot spots in downtown Baghdad,
reporters have measured radiation levels that are 1,000 to 1,900 times
higher than normal background radiation levels. It has also opened a
debate in the Netherlands parliament and media as 1,100 Dutch troops in Kuwait
prepare to enter Iraq as part of the U.S./British-led occupation
forces. The Dutch are concerned about the danger of radioactive poisoning and
radiation sickness in Iraq.
AFGHANISTAN

Guardian: 22 die in Taliban attack on police station

At least 22 people died when hundreds of suspected Taliban fighters
seized control of a police station in southern Afghanistan at the weekend, one
of the most serious attacks against the government for a year. At least
400 heavily armed gunmen poured into Barmal, 125 miles south-east of Kabul,
late on Saturday in a convoy of trucks. Mohammed Ali Jalali, the
governor of Paktika province, said they had come across the Pakistani border,
five miles away.

The fighters attacked the police station with rockets, heavy machine
guns and grenades. Seven policemen, including the district chief of police,
were killed, and at least 15 of the gunmen
IRAQI RESISTANCE

Independent: Sabotage threatens Iraq's economy
Sabotage left two fires burning out of control on the main pipeline
exporting Iraqi oil to Turkey yesterday and the main pipe supplying
water to Baghdad was bombed, flooding a motorway and leaving the city of five
million without water. And, last night, a Reuters cameraman was shot
dead while filming outside Iraq's main prison, which had earlier come under
mortar attack. The American-led occupation is going badly wrong before
our eyes. Already US soldiers are dying daily in attacks and there is
anarchy on the streets. As of yesterday, the Americans appeared to be facing an
all-out assault on another front - on their efforts to rebuild the
infrastructure of Iraq.

Monday, August 18, 2003

SYRIA

AFP: Israeli jets flew over Assad palace as warning to Syria: reports

Israeli warplanes buzzed the palace of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last week as a warning that Israel holds Damascus responsible for the recent flare-up on its northern border, reports said Sunday.
"We sent our warplanes over different parts of Syria and Lebanon as a warning sign," a senior Israeli defence official told the Yediot Aharonot daily.

The F-16 planes flew at a low altitude, evading Syrian air defence systems, and arrived back at base without incident, Maariv reported.

Was die Israelis wohl machen würden wenn die Araber ein paar Jets über Tel-Aviv fliegen würden?
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Islamonline: 854 Israeli Violations Of Truce In July: Report
GAZA CITY, Aug 12 (IslamOnline.net) - Israel has in the last month alone killed seven Palestinians and carried out 854 violations of the three-month truce declared by Palestinian resistance factions, a Palestinian human rights report revealed Tuesday, August 12.

The seven victims included four children under 18, one man who was assassinated by Israeli troops and two others, who were killed by Israeli settlers, according to a report by the Palestinian National Information Center of the Gaza Information Service.

Israeli tanks shelled residential districts and houses 299 times while public and private establishments were bombed 312 times, it said, adding that eight government, public and private establishments had been partially or totally damaged.

The Palestinian report also indicated that a mosque, a church and six security posts were also destroyed during repeatedly Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories

"Und in der Presse liest man dann die Hamas habe den Waffenstillstand gebrochen"

IRAQ

MSNBC: Iraq's Disappeared

As many as 8,000 people have disappeared since Saddam's regime collapsed,
and many relatives are searching for answers about their fate. More than
5,000 are in U.S. custody; others may be among those killed by fellow
Iraqis, and in some cases by American troops. Those who have been detained
are nearly always held incommunicado, without access to lawyers or even the
right to contact their families. In most cases their loved ones can't find
out where they are. With Iraqi prisons looted and destroyed, captives are
jailed in barbed-wire compounds, converted warehouses and vast tent camps.

Conditions are primitive; at their worst they amount to what Amnesty
International describes as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." But the
lack of a proper justice system is not just a human-rights issue. It also
raises questions about whether the U.S. military, in its campaign to stamp
out the Iraqi resistance, is creating new enemies.

"Es hat sich viel geändert seit Saddam weg ist. Die Amerikaner lassen die Leute noch schneller verschwinden als der Ex-Diktator"

IRAQ

Islamonline: U.S. Forces Detain Dozens Of Iraqi Scientists

BAGHDAD, August 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Baghdad University
rector Dr. Samy Ahmed Al-Mozaffer declared that the U.S. Occupation forces
detained tens of Iraqi scientists, including a number of senior university
professors from Baghdad, Mustansiriya and the Technological universities.
“There is something fishy behind such detentions, as interviews are held
with university professors in secret and we don’t know what is happening
during them,” Al-Mozaffer said in statements he made to reporters Friday,
August15 .
IRAQI RESISTANCE

Washington Post: Iraqi Clerics Unite in Rare Alliance
U.S. Fears Shiite, Sunni Cooperation Will Bolster Resistance

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 16 -- A popular Sunni Muslim cleric has provided grass-roots and financial support to a leading anti-American Shiite cleric, a rare example of cooperation across Iraq's sectarian divide that has alarmed U.S. officials for its potential to bolster festering resistance to the American occupation, senior U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

The ties mark one of the first signs of coordination between anti-occupation elements of the Sunni minority, the traditional rulers of the country, and its Shiite majority, seen by U.S. officials as the key to stability in postwar Iraq


IRAQ

Occupationwatch.org: The Massacre of Rashdiya
Testimony of an Iraqi Doctor
by E.A.Khammas, Occupation Watch Center
July 28th, 2003


Dr. Mahmood Al-Mishhadani, an Iraqi surgeon, recalls the horror of the day when he had to attend to 250 injured children and women in a village bombed by American airplanes.

“I will never forget that night. I have seen how people were savagely slaughtered. I have seen three wars, but nothing like this,” said Dr.Mahmood Khdeir Yasin Al-Mishhadani, an Iraqi surgeon. He was on duty at the military hospital of Hammad Shihab, a few kilometers to the north of Baghdad, near a village called Rashdiya, on the night of Sunday, April 6 to Monday, April 7, 2003, during the final days of the war.

“The American bombing of the district of Rashdiya began at 3 p.m. They used cluster bombs. It continued until 9 p.m. During these hours casualties began to be carried to the hospital in civilian cars and pickups because there were no ambulances in this district. We received a great number of casualties, all of them women and children. I did not see one single injured man in this incident. The injuries were very severe, like all four limbs cut off or fatalities or very severe injuries in the chest or the abdomen. After 9 o’clock, when the bombing was lighter, we were able to send our ambulances to bring the casualties.
AFGHANISTAN

Cursor: Foreign Investors Take A Pass On Karzai's Afghanistan

Since the "end" of the war in Afghanistan, no major foreign equity investment in either the goods or the resources-producing sectors has been made, notwithstanding President Karzai's frantic travels abroad seeking to woo investors.

This contrasts sharply with Afghanistan under the Taliban [1996-2001], when both the giant U.S. oil firm UNOCAL, committed to building a trans-country gas pipeline and a private New Jersey-based enterprise, Telephone Systems International Inc., secured a license from the Taliban to set up an integrated, high-tech communications network costing $240 million1.

The Taliban for all their faults, were able to put in place a degree of political stability and means to enforce contracts - after all, in one year they reduced poppy cultivation to next to nothing.
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Ananova: Israeli troops kill Islamic jihad leader

Israeli troops have killed a local Islamic Jihad leader in a firefight.

There may now be revenge attacks and more strain on an already shaky ceasefire.
The military said soldiers raided the hideout of local leader, Mohammed Sidr, saying troops came to arrest him for allegedly planning to attack Israelis with a car bomb.
The army say Sidr fired and the two sides traded shots for about six hours.
Witnesses said the soldiers then fired an anti-tank missile into the building, setting it on fire and bringing down the walls. Military bulldozers then demolished the ruins.
The army said it could not confirm Sidr's death, but witnesses said they saw a body retrieved from the rubble.
Sheikh Bassam Sadi, leader of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, confirmed Sidr's death and promised revenge. "I assure our people that this crime in Hebron will not go unpunished," he said.

USA: AMERICAN TALIBAN

MSNBC: Is Bush getting apocalyptic advice?
Is the Bush administration turning to a televangelist doomsayer for political predictions? Apocalyptic preacher Jack Van Impe is claiming that he was contacted by Condoleezza Rice’s office and the White House Office of Public Liaison for an “outline” of his take on world events.

VAN IMPE is the author of such books as “Israel’s Final Holocaust” and “The Great Escape: Preparing for the Rapture, the Next Event on God’s Prophetic Clock.”
He has predicted that the end of the world will strike somewhere between 2003 and 2012 and one reviewer has called his TV preaching show with wife Rexella “a fantastically loopy apocalyptic take on the week’s news.”
The issue of the alleged involvement with the Bush administration came up on his Web site when someone asked Van Impe, “Do you think that President Bush, apparently a Christian man, believes and knows he is involved in prophetic events concerning the Middle East and final battle between good and evil?”

“I believe he is a wonderful man,” Van Impe responded, and goes on to say, “I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it’s in his hands. He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. So, it’s a tremendous time to be alive.”

IRAQ

Boston Globe: Democracy might be impossible, US was told

WASHINGTON -- US intelligence officials cautioned the National Security Council before the Iraq war that the American plan to build democracy on the ashes of Saddam Hussein's regime -- as a model for the rest of the region -- was so audacious that, in the words of one CIA report in March, it could ultimately prove "impossible."

That assessment ran counter to what the Bush administration was saying at the time as it sought to build support for the war. President Bush said a democratic Iraq would lead to more liberalized, representative governments, where terrorists would find less popular support, and the Muslim world would be friendlier to the United States. "A new regime in Iraq would serve as an inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region," he said on Feb. 26
USA 1984

Democracy Now: Florida Creates "the Matrix",
a Big Brother-Like Surveillance System with Help From Choicepoint-Related Firm

Remember the Florida election of 2000 when a private database company
scrubbed thousands of eligible voters from the rolls? Well now one of the
co-founders of Database Technologies is back in the headlines -- he's
working with law enforcement agents in Florida to create what may soon
expand into a national surveillance system. We talk with privacy expert
Wayne Madsen, investigative reporter Greg Palast and a top intelligence
official from the state of Florida. [Includes transcript]

A Florida law enforcement data-sharing network is about to go national. In
the name of counterterrorism, the Departments of Justice and Homeland
Security are pouring millions of dollars into the system to expand it to
local law enforcement agencies across the nation. It's called Matrix, which
stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. According to the
Washington Post, the computer network accesses information that has always
been available to investigators but brings it together and enables police
to access it with extraordinary speed. Civil liberties and privacy groups
say the Matrix system dramatically increases the ability of local police to
snoop on individuals.


IRAQ

Globalpoliciy.org: Operation Oily Immunity

During the initial assault on Baghdad, soldiers set up forward bases named
Camp Shell and Camp Exxon. Those soldiers knew the score, even if the
Pentagon's talking points dismissed any ties between Iraqi oil and their
blood. The Bush/Cheney administration has moved quickly to ensure U.S.
corporate control over Iraqi resources at least through the year 2007. The
first part of the plan, created by the UN under U.S. pressure is the
Development Fund for Iraq which is being controlled by the U.S. and advised
by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The second is
a recent Bush executive order that provides absolute legal protection for
U.S. interests in Iraqi oil.
IRAQ

Sidney Morning Herald: Western vice - Iraq's new tyrant
Iraq's brutal dictatorship has been replaced by a crime wave. Now sex and
drugs are freely available on the street, writes Paul McGeough in Baghdad.
It is 10am and the crowd is pouring into the seedy Al Najah cinema on
Baghdad's Al Rasheed Street. They come, at 70 cents a ticket, for sex on a
loop - fleshy scenes from a dozen B-grade movies spliced into a single
program, for which there is standing room only.

In Sadoun Street the midday temperature is 50 degrees and the prostitutes
tout for business from the shade of a beach umbrella. Further along, in
Fidros Square - where US troops stage-managed the demolition of a statue of
Saddam Hussein on April 9 - as many as 30 teenagers are sniffing glue and
paint thinner. Drug dealers in the treacherous Bab al Sharqi markets, just
off central Tahrir Square, are doing a brisk trade in looted prescription
drugs.
IRAQI RESISTANCE

AP: Groups Want Probe in Iraq Shooting Death
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Journalism watchdogs called for an investigation Monday into the killing of a Reuters cameraman by U.S. troops. The military offered condolences, calling the shooting a mistake, but said its soldiers will not fire warning shots if they believe there is a threat.

In other developments Monday:

- A suspicious fire continued to rage on Iraq's main northern oil export pipeline into Turkey, the U.S. Army said. Accounts varied over whether the blaze was accidental or an act of sabotage. It would take at least 10 days to repair the damaged pipeline, 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman Maj. Jocelyn Aberle said.

- Many neighborhoods in the north of Baghdad remained without water a day after a bomb blew an enormous hole in a water main.

- Huge fires burned in warehouses in northeast Baghdad, where 50 gunmen looted spare parts from buses and other state vehicles and set fires, a guard told The Associated Press. Mohammed Jabber said an American Army patrol passed the area about 30 minutes later but took no action.
USA

ZNET: POWER OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB IN WHITE HOUSE by Greg Palast
The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights

I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers.

To pull off this grand theft by kilowatt, the NiMo-led consortium fabricated cost and schedule reports, then performed a Harry Potter job on the account books. In 1988, I showed a jury a memo from an executive from one partner, Long Island Lighting, giving a lesson to a NiMo honcho on how to lie to government regulators. The jury ordered LILCO to pay $4.3 billion and, ultimately, put them out of business.

And that's why, if you're in the Northeast, you're reading this by candlelight tonight. Here's what happened. After LILCO was hammered by the law, after government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk and dozens of other book-cooking, document-doctoring utility companies all over America with fines and penalties totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, the industry leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called it "deregulation."

SCHWEIZ

Facts: Fatale Verwechslung

Die Genfer Polizei wendet weiter fragwürdige Fahndungsmethoden an. Pech, wer einem Täter gleicht.

Von Lisa Stadler
Kritik hin oder her: Die Genfer Polizei fahndet noch immer mit Fotos im Internet nach mutmasslichen G-8-Randalierern. Die Methode führt zu fragwürdigen Resultaten. Wie beim 24-jährigen Zürcher Studenten Simon, der am Sonntag, 1. Juni mit zwei Kollegen an die bewilligte Anti-G-8-Demo in Genf gefahren war. Erinnerungsfotos dokumentieren den Ausflug.

Sein Pech: Er gleicht einem Mann, der in der Internet-Fahndung an den Pranger gestellt war. Eine verhängnisvolle Ähnlichkeit: Letzte Woche wurde Simon verhaftet und in Handschellen nach Genf überführt. «Eine Verwechslung», ist er überzeugt. Demonstrieren ist zwar sein verfassungsmässiges Recht. Jetzt aber fühlt er sich kriminalisiert. «Die Internet-Fotos stellen kein genügendes Verdachtsmoment für eine Verhaftung dar», sagt Simons Anwalt Jean-Pierre Garbade. «Sonst könnte jeder seinen Nachbarn denunzieren.» Er wird für seinen Klienten Schadenersatz fordern.

"Da ich den armen Studenten kenne, weiss ich das er ganz bestimmt keine Sachbeschädigungen begangen hat"