IRAQ: SOVEREIGNTY
Financial Times: Iraq ministers told only US can impose martial law
The US-led occupation authority in Baghdad has warned Iraq's interim government not to carry out its threat of declaring martial law, insisting that only the US-led coalition has the right to adopt emergency powers after the June 30 handover of sovereignty.
Senior American officials say Iraq's authorities are bound by human rights clauses in the interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law, prohibiting administrative detention.
But they say the recent United Nations Security Council resolution 1546 sanctions the use by foreign forces in Iraq of "all necessary measures" to provide security.
A senior coalition official in Baghdad said: "Under the UN resolution, the multinational force will have the power to take all actions traditionally associated with martial law." He said they had raised their legal objections with Iyad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister.
"Have you checked your dictionary to determine the meaning of the word, "Sovereignty?"
Thursday, June 24, 2004
USA
Guardian: Moonie leader 'crowned' in Senate
The US Senate was used for a bizarre ritual in which the Rev Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification church, was "crowned" and declared himself the messiah in the presence of more than a dozen Republican and Democratic members of Congress, it was reported yesterday.
"Emperors, kings and presidents ... have declared to all heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's saviour, messiah, returning Lord and true parent," the 85-year-old Korean "Moonie" cult leader told several hundred guests at the meeting in one of the Senate's office buildings on March 23, according to the Washington Post
Guardian: Moonie leader 'crowned' in Senate
The US Senate was used for a bizarre ritual in which the Rev Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification church, was "crowned" and declared himself the messiah in the presence of more than a dozen Republican and Democratic members of Congress, it was reported yesterday.
"Emperors, kings and presidents ... have declared to all heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's saviour, messiah, returning Lord and true parent," the 85-year-old Korean "Moonie" cult leader told several hundred guests at the meeting in one of the Senate's office buildings on March 23, according to the Washington Post
AIDS
Rense: AIDS As Biological And
Psychological Warfare
Despite repeated denials from Defense Department officials, allegations persist that AIDS is a genetically altered virus, which has been deliberately released to wipe out homosexuals and/or non-whites in the U.S. and reduce populations in third world countries.
At first glance it seems like the epitome of paranoia to accuse the military of conspiring to exterminate citizens of their own country, and even some of their own troops. However, the vast majority of military personnel could be completely unaware of such a plot in their midst, while a relative handful of traitors in key positions could conduct it under cover of classified operations. And the circumstantial evidence is actually quite compelling, that the AIDS virus was artificially engineered, and planted in several different locations at about the same time through vaccination programs, and possibly blood bank contamination.
Rense: AIDS As Biological And
Psychological Warfare
Despite repeated denials from Defense Department officials, allegations persist that AIDS is a genetically altered virus, which has been deliberately released to wipe out homosexuals and/or non-whites in the U.S. and reduce populations in third world countries.
At first glance it seems like the epitome of paranoia to accuse the military of conspiring to exterminate citizens of their own country, and even some of their own troops. However, the vast majority of military personnel could be completely unaware of such a plot in their midst, while a relative handful of traitors in key positions could conduct it under cover of classified operations. And the circumstantial evidence is actually quite compelling, that the AIDS virus was artificially engineered, and planted in several different locations at about the same time through vaccination programs, and possibly blood bank contamination.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
SPAIN: MADRID BOMBING
Times: Bomb squad link in Spanish blasts
The man accused of supplying the dynamite used in the al-Qaeda train bombings in Madrid was in possession of the private telephone number of the head of Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad, it emerged yesterday.
Emilio Suárez Trashorras, who is alleged to have supplied 200kg of dynamite used in the bombs, had obtained the number of Juan Jesús Sánchez Manzano, the head of Tedax...
The revelation has raised fresh concerns in Madrid about links between those held responsible for the March bombings, which killed 190 people, and Spain’s security services, and shortcomings in the police investigation. Señor Suárez Trashorras and two other men implicated in the bombings have already been identified as police informers. Other members of the group had evaded police surveillance, despite concerns within the security services about their activities and evidence of their association with al-Qaeda.
BBC: Spain suspects 'were informants'
The Spanish interior ministry says it is investigating reports that two suspects in the 11 March Madrid train bombings were police informants.
The move came after Spain's El Mundo newspaper said Moroccan Rafa Zuher and Spaniard Jose Emilio Suarez had been in contact with police before the attacks.
The men are suspected of providing dynamite for the attacks, which killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000.
The paper said they passed on details about drug deals and other crimes.
Mr Suarez, a former miner, was arrested a week after the attacks and is the only Spanish-born suspect in custody.
Times: Bomb squad link in Spanish blasts
The man accused of supplying the dynamite used in the al-Qaeda train bombings in Madrid was in possession of the private telephone number of the head of Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad, it emerged yesterday.
Emilio Suárez Trashorras, who is alleged to have supplied 200kg of dynamite used in the bombs, had obtained the number of Juan Jesús Sánchez Manzano, the head of Tedax...
The revelation has raised fresh concerns in Madrid about links between those held responsible for the March bombings, which killed 190 people, and Spain’s security services, and shortcomings in the police investigation. Señor Suárez Trashorras and two other men implicated in the bombings have already been identified as police informers. Other members of the group had evaded police surveillance, despite concerns within the security services about their activities and evidence of their association with al-Qaeda.
BBC: Spain suspects 'were informants'
The Spanish interior ministry says it is investigating reports that two suspects in the 11 March Madrid train bombings were police informants.
The move came after Spain's El Mundo newspaper said Moroccan Rafa Zuher and Spaniard Jose Emilio Suarez had been in contact with police before the attacks.
The men are suspected of providing dynamite for the attacks, which killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000.
The paper said they passed on details about drug deals and other crimes.
Mr Suarez, a former miner, was arrested a week after the attacks and is the only Spanish-born suspect in custody.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
ISRAEL
Counterpunch: Israel's Intelligence Scandal by Uri Avnery
Two weeks ago, the international community made a shocking declaration.
Giving in to a demand by George Bush, the “Quartet” accepted the “Revised Disengagement Plan” of Ariel Sharon. This means that the United Nations, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States confirmed this document. I wonder if any one of the honorable diplomats has read the document with their own eyes.
In the first paragraph of the “plan”, the following words appear: “Israel has come to the conclusion that at present, there is no Palestinian partner with whom it is possible to make progress on a bilateral peace process.”
That is to say, the international community has confirmed that the Palestinian people has no right to take part in the determination of its own fate. Everything will be decided by the Government of Israel alone, with the backing of the United States, whose position will be automatically accepted by the other partners of the “Quartet”.
The European Union with its 25 member-states, the government of the Russian Federation and the organization that represents the entire world have humbly accepted the edict of Bush, the dictator of the world, who is himself a captive of Sharon. Sharon decided long ago that the elected president of the Palestinian people is “irrelevant”, together with the whole Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian people have been eliminated from the list of decision-makers, thereby also abolishing in practice all the agreements signed with them, from Oslo to the Road Map.
Counterpunch: Israel's Intelligence Scandal by Uri Avnery
Two weeks ago, the international community made a shocking declaration.
Giving in to a demand by George Bush, the “Quartet” accepted the “Revised Disengagement Plan” of Ariel Sharon. This means that the United Nations, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States confirmed this document. I wonder if any one of the honorable diplomats has read the document with their own eyes.
In the first paragraph of the “plan”, the following words appear: “Israel has come to the conclusion that at present, there is no Palestinian partner with whom it is possible to make progress on a bilateral peace process.”
That is to say, the international community has confirmed that the Palestinian people has no right to take part in the determination of its own fate. Everything will be decided by the Government of Israel alone, with the backing of the United States, whose position will be automatically accepted by the other partners of the “Quartet”.
The European Union with its 25 member-states, the government of the Russian Federation and the organization that represents the entire world have humbly accepted the edict of Bush, the dictator of the world, who is himself a captive of Sharon. Sharon decided long ago that the elected president of the Palestinian people is “irrelevant”, together with the whole Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian people have been eliminated from the list of decision-makers, thereby also abolishing in practice all the agreements signed with them, from Oslo to the Road Map.
IRAQ
NEW YORKER: Plan B By Seymour M. Hersh
In July, 2003, two months after President Bush declared victory in Iraq, the war, far from winding down, reached a critical point. Israel, which had been among the war's most enthusiastic supporters, began warning the Administration that the American-led occupation would face a heightened insurgency - a campaign of bombings and assassinations - later that summer. Israeli intelligence assets in Iraq were reporting that the insurgents had the support of Iranian intelligence operatives and other foreign fighters, who were crossing the unprotected border between Iran and Iraq at will. The Israelis urged the United States to seal the nine-hundred-mile-long border, at whatever cost.
Aljazeera: Israeli Agents Now In Kurdistan
NEW YORKER: Plan B By Seymour M. Hersh
In July, 2003, two months after President Bush declared victory in Iraq, the war, far from winding down, reached a critical point. Israel, which had been among the war's most enthusiastic supporters, began warning the Administration that the American-led occupation would face a heightened insurgency - a campaign of bombings and assassinations - later that summer. Israeli intelligence assets in Iraq were reporting that the insurgents had the support of Iranian intelligence operatives and other foreign fighters, who were crossing the unprotected border between Iran and Iraq at will. The Israelis urged the United States to seal the nine-hundred-mile-long border, at whatever cost.
Aljazeera: Israeli Agents Now In Kurdistan
IRAQ
ZMAG: Doctrines And Visions: Who Is To Run The World, And How? by Noam Chomsky
We have just passed the first anniversary of the President's declaration of victory in Iraq. I won't speak about what is happening on the ground. There is more than enough information about that, and we can draw our own conclusions. I will just mention one aspect of it: What has happened to Iraqis? About that, we know little, because it is not investigated. Some surprise has recently been voiced in the British press about this gap in our knowledge. That's a misunderstanding. It is quite general practice. Thus we do not know within millions how many people died in the course of the US wars in Indochina. Information and concern are so slight that in the only careful study I have found, the mean estimate of Vietnamese who died is 100,000, about 5% of the official figure and probably 2-3% of the actual figure. Virtually no one knows that victims of the US chemical warfare that began in 1962 are estimated at about 600,000, still dying, or that it was recently discovered that the use of devastating carcinogens was at twice the announced rate, and at levels incomparably beyond anything tolerated within the industrial societies -- all in South Vietnam; the North was spared this particular atrocity
ZMAG: Doctrines And Visions: Who Is To Run The World, And How? by Noam Chomsky
We have just passed the first anniversary of the President's declaration of victory in Iraq. I won't speak about what is happening on the ground. There is more than enough information about that, and we can draw our own conclusions. I will just mention one aspect of it: What has happened to Iraqis? About that, we know little, because it is not investigated. Some surprise has recently been voiced in the British press about this gap in our knowledge. That's a misunderstanding. It is quite general practice. Thus we do not know within millions how many people died in the course of the US wars in Indochina. Information and concern are so slight that in the only careful study I have found, the mean estimate of Vietnamese who died is 100,000, about 5% of the official figure and probably 2-3% of the actual figure. Virtually no one knows that victims of the US chemical warfare that began in 1962 are estimated at about 600,000, still dying, or that it was recently discovered that the use of devastating carcinogens was at twice the announced rate, and at levels incomparably beyond anything tolerated within the industrial societies -- all in South Vietnam; the North was spared this particular atrocity
VENZUELA: COUP
ZMAG: The Final Answer Will Be Given by the Tanks by Justin Podur
Colombia's new border brigade and the Venezuelan referendum
few months ago, the commander of the Venezuelan Army, Raul Baduel, described something that worried him (1). Colombia had just purchased 46 AMX-30 battle tanks from Spain. The media claimed the tanks were to fight drug trafficking, but that hardly seemed plausible. Baduel suspected that the tanks were going to end up on the Venezuelan border.
This deployment was blandly reported in El Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, yesterday (2). The 46 tanks will be part of a new Brigade, especially created, to 'patrol the border'. Four battalions and a Special Forces group form this new Brigade. The tanks are supposed to arrive in (and watch the timing carefully, for we will revisit it) August....
....In August, Venezuelans are supposed to vote again to determine their future. There are many who think that the Venezuelan majority has spoken loudly and clearly already, and that this referendum is a sham. Sham or no, Chavez could easily win a fair referendum. The real danger is that if Uribe and the United States have their way, "The final answer" may be "given by the tanks."
"CHECK IT"
ZMAG: The Final Answer Will Be Given by the Tanks by Justin Podur
Colombia's new border brigade and the Venezuelan referendum
few months ago, the commander of the Venezuelan Army, Raul Baduel, described something that worried him (1). Colombia had just purchased 46 AMX-30 battle tanks from Spain. The media claimed the tanks were to fight drug trafficking, but that hardly seemed plausible. Baduel suspected that the tanks were going to end up on the Venezuelan border.
This deployment was blandly reported in El Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, yesterday (2). The 46 tanks will be part of a new Brigade, especially created, to 'patrol the border'. Four battalions and a Special Forces group form this new Brigade. The tanks are supposed to arrive in (and watch the timing carefully, for we will revisit it) August....
....In August, Venezuelans are supposed to vote again to determine their future. There are many who think that the Venezuelan majority has spoken loudly and clearly already, and that this referendum is a sham. Sham or no, Chavez could easily win a fair referendum. The real danger is that if Uribe and the United States have their way, "The final answer" may be "given by the tanks."
"CHECK IT"
USA: ELECTIONS
Zmag: Lost Votes by Greg Palast
In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.
This year, it could get worse.
These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-'round.
How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It's easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.
CHECK IT
Zmag: Lost Votes by Greg Palast
In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.
This year, it could get worse.
These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-'round.
How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It's easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.
CHECK IT
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