LONDON: TERRORIST ATTACK

Independent:Terror blasts paralyse London

Many people are feared dead in seven terrorist blasts across central London, hitting trains and a bus. All public transport is halted.

t least seven explosions ripped through London today in a series of terrorist strikes leaving dozens feared dead and crippling the capital.

* Explosions are known to have happened on the London Underground at Aldgate East, Edgware Road, King's Cross, Liverpool Street, Russell Square and Moorgate. City of London police have confirmed that two people have been confirmed as dead, both casualties at Aldgate.

* A bus packed with commuters later exploded in Tavistock Place, near Russell Square. Witnesses said the roof was ripped off and claimed many could be dead.

* The Prime Minister Tony Blair said it is "reasonably clear there have been a series of terrorist attacks".

* The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said there had been a total of six underground blasts and one bus blast have been confirmed, but said there may have been further incidents.

LONDON: TERRORIST ATTACK

AP: Six Blasts Rock London, Killing at Least 2

LONDON (AP) -- Half a dozen explosions rocked the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday. The blasts killed at least two people and injured scores in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair said was a series of "barbaric" terrorist attacks.

Police reported "a number of fatalities" at one London subway station. "Things are still relatively confused," Superintendent John Morgan told reporters.

Blair said it was clear the attacks were designed to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The prime minister said the meeting of world leaders would continue but that he would return to London.

"Tony Blair is calling it a barbaric terrorist attack. I wonder what he thinks about the killing of over 100'000 iraqi civilians by US and UK Forces in Iraq since the start of war, i wonder what he is calling the use of Napalm and Cluster Bombs in iraqi residential Areas. I wonder what he is calling himself after deliberately lying us to war. Is the World safer now as Bush and Blair wanted to make us believe?"

G8: LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE

Indymedia:karneval in edinburgh



http://g8.blogbound.com/

IRAQ: THE SALVADOR OPTION

Observer: Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps

Secret torture chambers, the brutal interrogation of prisoners, murders by paramilitaries with links to powerful ministries... Foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont in Baghdad uncovers a grim trail of abuse carried out by forces loyal to the new Iraqi government

Observer: UK/US aids funds Iraqi torture units

British and American aid intended for Iraq's hard-pressed police service is being diverted to paramilitary commando units accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings, The Observer can reveal.

Iraqi Police Service officers said that ammunition, weapons and vehicles earmarked for the IPS are being taken by shock troops at the forefront of Iraq's new dirty counter-insurgency war.

The allegations follow a wide-ranging investigation by this paper into serious human rights abuses being conducted by anti-insurgency forces in Iraq. The Observer has seen photographic evidence of post-mortem and hospital examinations of alleged terror suspects from Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle which demonstrate serious abuse of suspects including burnings, strangulation, the breaking of limbs and - in one case - the apparent use of an electric drill to perform a knee-capping.

The investigation revealed:

· A 'ghost' network of secret detention centres across the country, inaccessible to human rights organisations, where torture is taking place.

· Compelling evidence of widespread use of violent interrogation methods including hanging by the arms, burnings, beatings, the use of electric shocks and sexual abuse.

· Claims that serious abuse has taken place within the walls of the Iraqi government's own Ministry of the Interior.

· Apparent co-operation between unofficial and official detention facilities, and evidence of extra-judicial executions by the police.

It's all Latin America again

IRAQ: RESISTANCE

Uruknet.info:Iraqi Resistance Report

aqi Resistance organizations on Thursday morning issued a statement in which they denied claims by the former puppet so-called "Iraqi minister of electricity," Ayham as-Samarra'i that the Iraqi Resistance had agreed to negotiate with US occupation forces and to form a political organization.

THE NEXT PANDEMIC?

Foreign Affairs: The Next Pandemic?

International health officials are warning that a deadly avian influenza virus may soon spread rapidly, overwhelming unprepared health systems in rich and poor countries alike. If the virus mutates to become easily transmittable among humans, the death toll of the resulting global pandemic could number in the millions.

As a call to action, the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs includes a special set of articles written by Laurie Garrett of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and the Department of Homeland Security, and Drs. William Karesh and Robert Cook of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Special condensed versions of the essays by Garrett and Osterholm, along with a Web-only Q & A with Garrett, are available on the Foreign Affairs website today.

Nature magazine is providing additional information on the medical and scientific aspects of the H5N1 virus. The coverage of both magazines is being coordinated to assist efforts of the Royal Institution World Science Assembly to spur preparations by governments and international organizations

IRAQ: WMD

Rense: US Radiation In Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs

An admiral in India calculated the number of radioactive atoms in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me, it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is essentially what the experts in India did.

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the 2003 Iraq war? Answer: About 250,000 Nuclear Bombs.

IRAQ: SALVADOR OPTION

Knight Ridder: Sunni men in Baghdad targeted by attackers in police uniforms

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Days after Iraq's new Shiite-led government was announced on April 28, the bodies of Sunni Muslim men began turning up at the capital's central morgue after the men had been detained by people wearing Iraqi police uniforms.

Iraqi and American officials said the murders aren't being investigated systematically, but in dozens of interviews with families and Iraqi officials, and a review of medical records, a Knight Ridder reporter and two special correspondents found more than 30 examples of this type of killing in less than a week.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the Iraqi police, denies any involvement in the killings. But eyewitnesses said that many of the dead were apprehended by large groups of men driving white Toyota Land Cruisers with police markings. The men were wearing police commando uniforms and bulletproof vests, carrying expensive 9-millimeter Glock pistols and using sophisticated radios, the witnesses said.

"It's Latin America once again. Ask Rumsfeld where the Death Squads are coming from"

AFGHANISTAN

ABC: Chinook downed by New Weapon Taliban claim

The Taliban claims to have used a new weapon to shoot down a US military helicopter in a remote region of Afghanistan.

The 17 US troops, including special forces, aboard the Chinook helicopter that crashed after being hit by ground fire in an anti-militant operation are believed to have died, a US official said.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said fighters shot down the aircraft in the village of Shorak using "a new type of weapon" he did not describe.

"This is a huge success for the Taliban," he said, adding that the fighters had video of the crash and would post photographs on their web site.

Nasdaq.com: Downed US Helicopter In Afghanistan Backed By Another:TV

Sources at the U.S. Defense Department said Tuesday that the CH-47 Chinook military transport helicopter that crashed in a mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan was part of a two-helicopter formation, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Information of the helicopter crash was relayed by the crew of the second helicopter, who reported seeing the helicopter tumbling down the mountain, NBC said. There was some ground activity reported by the crew of the second helicopter around the crashed aircraft, NBC reported.

The NBC report could give credence to the Taliban's claims - yet unconfirmed - that they shot down the helicopter and executed some U.S. personnel aboard the aircraft. The helicopter was said to be carrying at least 16 U.S. military personnel.

DOWNING STREET MEMO

Sunday Times: The Real News in the Downing Street Memos
By Michael Smith

Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress

TERRY RICHARDSON

Terry Richardson directed the new Video for Queens of the Stoneage single "Everybody Knows You're Insane"

check

IRAQ: LIES

TBRnews: US Military Report: Bush’s Achilles’ Heel

There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. (See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 either deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 16,000 seriously wounded and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers , rapes, courts martial and so on – Brian Harring

IRAQ: LIES

Huffington Post: Ultimate Deception?

A Bush-watcher website identified as TBRNews.org is reporting under the byline of "domestic intelligence reporter" Brian Harring that the Department of Defense is using a cynical tactic to mislead the public regarding the true death toll for American military personnel in Iraq. Harring claims he has an internal pdf. file from the D.O.D. which establishes that nearly 9000 Americans have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but that the official number has been held to 1713 by designating as Iraq deaths only those who perish on Iraqi soil. The remainder, he says, are military personnel who have died en route to Germany or in German hospitals-- casualties of the war, but not listed in the official death toll.

If this is true it would explain the apparent statistical discrepancy between dead and wounded. A combat action which produces nearly eight times as many officially wounded-- 13000 plus-- as officially dead...well, it's not the norm. It goes without saying it would also further jolt a public majority already disturbed by the war's "progress" and eager to see the troops come home.

IRAQ: DAILY LIFE

Riverbendblog: Baghdad Burning - General Update

The Green Zone is a source of consternation and aggravation for the typical Iraqi. It makes us anxious because it symbolises the heart of the occupation and if fortifications and barricades are any indicator- the occupation is going to be here for a long time. It is a provocation because no matter how anyone tries to explain or justify it, it is like a slap in the face. It tells us that while we are citizens in our own country, our comings and goings are restricted because portions of the country no longer belong to its people. They belong to the people living in the Green Republic.

IRAN: THE CLOCK IS TICKING

Aljazeera: The US war with Iran has already begun
by Scott Ritter

"Liberation" and the spread of "democracy" have become none-too-subtle code words within the neo-conservative cabal that formulates and executes American foreign policy today for militarism and war.

By the intensity of the "liberation/democracy" rhetoric alone, Americans should be put on notice that Iran is well-fixed in the cross-hairs as the next target for the illegal policy of regime change being implemented by the Bush administration.

But Americans, and indeed much of the rest of the world, continue to be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the fact that overt conventional military operations have not yet commenced between the United States and Iran.

As such, many hold out the false hope that an extension of the current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case of Iran. But this is a fool's dream.

The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.

The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase.

CHECK IT

IRAQ: ETHNIC CLEANSING

WSW: State Department cable details ethnic cleansing by US-backed forces in Iraq

US-backed Kurdish police and security units have kidnapped hundreds of minority Arabs and Turkmen in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, according to a confidential State Department cable leaked to the Washington Post.

Quoting from the cable, the Post on Wednesday reported that the kidnappings, accompanied in some cases by torture and ransom demands, were part of a “concerted and widespread initiative” by the two leading Kurdish parties “to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly provocative manner.”

The Kurdish parties are playing a role analogous to that of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the US and NATO military assault on Serbia in 1999. The Clinton administration intervened in the former Yugoslavia using the abuses of the Milosevic government in Serbia as a pretext.

Wahington Post: Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in Kirkuk

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Police and security units, forces led by Kurdish political parties and backed by the U.S. military, have abducted hundreds of minority Arabs and Turkmens in this intensely volatile city and spirited them to prisons in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, government documents and families of the victims.

Seized off the streets of Kirkuk or in joint U.S.-Iraqi raids, the men have been transferred secretly and in violation of Iraqi law to prisons in the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, sometimes with the knowledge of U.S. forces. The detainees, including merchants, members of tribal families and soldiers, have often remained missing for months; some have been tortured, according to released prisoners and the Kirkuk police chief.

IRAQ

ICH: The bright, shining lie

Sometimes the truth of a large, confusing historical enterprise can be glimpsed in a single news report. Such is the case in regard to the Iraq war, it seems, with the recent story in the Washington Post by Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru called"Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable". Shadid and Fainaru did something that is rarely done: they spent several days with a unit of Iraq's new, American-trained forces. (The typical treatment of the topic consists of a few interviews with American officers in the Green Zone in Baghdad, leading to some estimation of how long it will take to complete the job.) The Post story starts with the lyrics of a song the soldiers of the unit, called Charlie Company, were singing out of earshot of their American overseers. It was a ballad to Saddam Hussein, and it ran:

We have lived in humiliation since you left
We had hoped to spend our life with you

CHECK IT

DEAD SCIENTISTS

Rense: Now 88 Dead Scientists And Microbiologists

While some of these deaths may be purely coincidental and seem to pose no connection, many of these deaths are highly suspicious and appear not to be random acts of violence. Many are just plain murders.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Liberty has never come from the government.
Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
-Nadia Boulanger

LIES LIES LIES

byethetimes: 237 Administration Lies

''Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.''--State of the Union Address, 1/28/2003

''U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.''--State of the Union Address, 1/28/2003

''We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.''--State of the Union Address, 1/28/2003

''Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda.''--State of the Union Address, 1/28/2003

DEMOCRACY

Yahoonews: Russia, US blocked NATO call for probe into Uzbek massacre: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Russia and the United States blocked NATO last week from calling for an international probe into last month's clashes in Uzbekistan, in which hundreds of people were believed killed, The Washington Post said.

US officials at a meeting Thursday of defense ministers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia and Ukraine discussed violence-torn Darfur.

A closing statement said security issues in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan, had also been discussed without further details.

Defense officials prevailed over the State Department view that a probe was in order by arguing that an investigation could compromise US access to a military base in Uzbekistan they said was crucial in the fight against international terrorism, the daily said.

Democracy - Just for our enemies.

DOWNINGSTREET MEMO

Times: The leak that changed minds on the Iraq war

Six weeks ago The Sunday Times published the leaked minutes of a July 2002 Downing Street meeting in which Tony Blair committed Britain to war in Iraq months before parliament was consulted. They detailed a secret pledge to President George W Bush to help oust Saddam, showed that Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, had warned such action could be illegal and that Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, had thought the case for war was “thin”. By any standards these were fascinating revelations. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for what a worldwide impact the story would have. More than a month later it still features in the daily top 10 most popular stories on our website, with 330,000 people estimated to have logged on to read it.

Tompaine.com: Downing Street II
by Ray McGovern

Yesterday, London's Sunday Times published the text of another SECRET UK EYES ONLY briefing document prepared for senior British officials. This one was dated July 21, 2002, two days before British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove gave Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers a briefing based on discussions with American counterparts in Washington. The minutes recording the discussion at the July 23, 2002, meeting, published by the Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times on May 1, 2005, included Dearlove's matter-of-fact report that President George W. Bush had decided to bring about "regime change" in Iraq by military action; that the attack would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" (weapons of mass destruction); and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Lewrockwell: Administration's Offenses Impeachable

Let's consider an item from the news of about two weeks ago:
A British citizen leaked a memo to London's Sunday Times. The memo was of the written account of a meeting that a man named Richard Dearlove had with the Bush administration in July 2002. Dearlove was the head of the England's MI-6, the equivalent of the CIA. On July 23, 2002, Dearlove briefed Tony Blair about the meeting. He said that Bush was determined to attack Iraq. He said that Bush knew that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and no links to foreign terrorists, that there was no imminent danger to the U.S. from Iraq. But, since Bush was determined to go to war, "Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy." "Fixed" means faked, manufactured, conjured, hyped – the product of whole cloth fabrication.

IRAQ WAR: LIES, LIES, LIES

ICH: Bombshell As Six More British Documents Leaked

Six new secret British documents have been leaked and are provided below. These were retyped from the originals to protect the source, RawStory.com has verified the authenticity .

Iraq options paper: Full text
The following, titled "IRAQ OPTIONS PAPER," was prepared and dated March 8, 200. It presents possible courses to war

British foreign secretary Straw says case for Iraq is weak
he following is purported to have been penned by the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw--U.S. equivalent of Secretary of State--concerning a possible war in Iraq. Straw indicates the case for war is weak; that the Iraq situation has remained unchanged; and that the United States would not have gone to war without September 11

Condi committed to regime change in early 2002
The following, is purported to be written by Blair foreign policy advisor David Manning, indicates that now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was committed to "regime change" in early 2002. It also outlines some problems a postwar Iraq might face

Iraq: The British legal background
The following was said prepared as an Iraq legal background for war. It is not dated

'What has changed is not the pace of Saddam's WMD programs
This memorandum, said from Blair political director Peter Ricketts and dated Mar. 22, 2002, indicates the challenges that an Iraq war would face. It indicates that it would have been carbon copied to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W. Bush. "The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programmes," the document says

'The need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors'
The following is said from Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to the US from 1997 through February 2003, and dated in March of 2002. Strikingly, the document speaks of a "need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors" and suggests British intelligence and diplomacy draws a great deal on articles written by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker. It also describes a meeting with then-Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz

check also www.downingstreetmemo.com
The Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005, but to date US media coverage has been limited. This site is intended to act as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the facts revealed in this document

IRAQ WAR

Sunday Times: Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

USA: ECONOMY

Baltimore Chronicle: The US Labor Force: One Foot in the Third World
by Paul Craig Roberts

In May the Bush economy eked out a paltry 73,000 private sector jobs: 20,000 jobs in construction (primarily for Mexican immigrants), 21,000 jobs in wholesale and retail trade, and 32,500 jobs in health care and social assistance. Local government added 5,000 for a grand total of 78,000.

Not a single one of these jobs produces an exportable good or service. With Americans increasingly divorced from the production of the goods and services that they consume, Americans have no way to pay for their consumption except by handing over to foreigners more of their accumulated stock of wealth. The country continues to eat its seed corn.

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration

911

arcticbeacon: Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely A Controlled Demolition And 'Inside Job'

Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications.June 12, 2005

former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush's first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is 'bogus,' saying it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7."If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.

IRAQ: ANALYSIS

Asia Times: Exit strategy: Civil war
by Pepe Escobar

Several Iranian websites have widely reported a plan to break up Iraq into three Shi'ite southern mini-states, two Kurdish mini-states and one Sunni mini-state - with Baghdad as the seat of a federal government. Each mini-state would be in charge of law and order and the economy within its own borders, with Baghdad in charge of foreign policy and military coordination. The plan was allegedly conceived by David Philip, a former White House adviser working for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). The AFPC is financed by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has also funded both the ultra-hawkish Project for a New American Century and American Enterprise Institute.

The plan would be "sold" under the admission that the recently elected, Shi'ite-dominated Jaafari government is incapable of controlling Iraq and bringing the Sunni Arab guerrillas to the negotiating table. More significantly, the plan is an exact replica of an extreme right-wing Israeli plan to balkanize Iraq - an essential part of the balkanization of the whole Middle East. Curiously, Henry Kissinger was selling the same idea even before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"In reality, the electoral process was designed to legitimize the occupation, rather than ridding the country of the occupation ... Anyone who sees himself capable of bringing about political reform should go ahead and try, but my belief is that the occupiers won't allow him."
- Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr

GEOPOLITICS

Asia Times: The US and that 'other' axis

Beijing's increasingly close ties with Moscow and Tehran will thwart Washington's foreign policy goal of expanding US security footholds in the Middle East, Central Asia and Asia. However, the primacy of economic stability will most likely prevent a proxy-style military confrontation, in Iran or North Korea, between China and the US.

IRAQ

Swissinfo: U.S.-led forces in Iraq hold 6,000 prisoners -UN

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Thousands of people are detained in Iraq without due process in apparent violation of international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday, adding that 6,000 of the country's 10,000 prisoners were in the hands of the U.S. military.

In Iraq, "one of the major human rights challenges remains the detention of thousands of persons without due process," Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.

US TORTURE

LA Times: Torture's Part of the Territory
by Naomi Klein

Brace yourself for a flood of gruesome new torture snapshots. Last week, a federal judge ordered the Defense Department to release dozens of additional photographs and videotapes depicting prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

he photographs will elicit what has become a predictable response: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will claim to be shocked and will assure us that action is already being taken to prevent such abuses from happening again. But imagine, for a moment, if events followed a different script. Imagine if Rumsfeld responded like Col. Mathieu in "Battle of Algiers," Gillo Pontecorvo's famed 1965 film about the National Liberation Front's attempt to liberate Algeria from French colonial rule. In one of the film's key scenes, Mathieu finds himself in a situation familiar to top officials in the Bush administration: He is being grilled by a room filled with journalists about allegations that French paratroopers are torturing Algerian prisoners.

Based on real-life French commander Gen. Jacques Massus, Mathieu neither denies the abuse nor claims that those responsible will be punished. Instead, he flips the tables on the scandalized reporters, most of whom work for newspapers that overwhelmingly support France's continued occupation of Algeria. Torture "isn't the problem," he says calmly. "The problem is the FLN wants to throw us out of Algeria and we want to stay…. It's my turn to ask a question. Should France stay in Algeria? If your answer is still yes, then you must accept all the consequences."

POVERTY

Sunday Herald: Really wicked solutions needed to beat Bush

Far from being the most positive US president towards Africa in 40 years, as Bob Geldof maintains, the incumbent of the White House is the biggest impediment to a fair deal for the world’s most impoverished nations

hat if poverty in some of the worst affected areas of the globe is not simply the result of mismanagement, incompetence, corruption, and indifference? What if it’s the result of deliberate economic engineering?

HUMAN RIGHTS

Stung by Amnesty International's condemnation of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and elsewhere overseas, the administration of President George W. Bush is reacting with indignation and even suggestions that terrorists are using the world's largest human rights organization.

''For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously,'
-Dick Cheney

''I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,''
-George W. Bush

''It seemed like (Amnesty) based some of their decisions on the word and allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people had been trained in some instances to disassemble (sic) -- that means not tell the truth.....And so it was an absurd report. It just is''.
-George W. Bush

ZIMBABWE

Telegraph: Mugabe's Raids Leave Townships In Tatters

Desperate people picked through the wreckage of their homes yesterday after Zimbabwe's police raided Harare's townships, destroying "illegal shelters" and leaving 10,000 homeless.

Riot police conducting "Operation Drive Out the Rubbish" were accused of bringing misery to the urban poor, the latest target of President Robert Mugabe's campaign of terror.

NETHERLAND: NO TO EU CONSTITUTION

Interventionmag: Commentary: Dutch Reject European Constitution

An overwhelming number of Dutch voters rejected the proposed European Constitution that the Establishment has been promoting with vigor and self-confidence, giving thumbs down to the elite's dream of a “United States of Europe.” While 63 percent voted against the Constitution, only 37 percent favored the proposal. It was a real stomping.

USA: VOTING MACHINES HACKED

Blackbox Voting: Tallahassee, FL: "Are we having fun yet?"

This is the message that appeared in the window of a county optical scan machine, startling Leon County Information Systems Officer Thomas James. Visibly shaken, he immediately turned the machine off.

Diebold's opti-scan (paper ballot) voting system uses a curious memory card design, offering penetration by a lone programmer such that standard canvassing procedures cannot detect election manipulation.

The Diebold optical scan system was used in about 800 jurisdictions in 2004. Among them were several hotbeds of controversy: Volusia County (FL); King County (WA); and the New Hampshire primary election, where machine results differed markedly from hand-counted localities.

New regs: Counting paper ballots forbidden

Most states prohibit elections officials from checking on optical scan tallies by examining the paper ballots. In Washington, Secretary of State Sam Reed declared such spontaneous checkups to be "unauthorized recounts" and prohibited them altogether. New Florida regulations will forbid counting paper ballots, even in recounts, except in highly unusual circumstances. Without paper ballot hand-counts, the hacks demonstrated below show that optical-scan elections can be destroyed in seconds.

ISRAEL

Guardian: Top Israeli News Anchor Attacks Occupation

The revered anchor of Israel's Channel One news programme for more than three decades has caused controversy by making a personalised documentary in which he concludes that Jewish settlements are endangering the country and that the occupation of Palestinian land is a crime.

"Since 1967, we have been brutal conquerors, occupiers, suppressing another people," Haim Yavin, who was a founder of Channel One and once its chief editor, says in the programme.

RUSSIA

Pravda: Yukos case ends with 9 years for its former CEO

Mikhail Khodorkovsky evaded to pay about 55 million rubles of taxes and insurance fees during only one year

The trial on the former head of the Russian oil giant Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his accomplices, finally ended with a sentence. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, have been found guilty of fraud and tax evasion charges and thus sentenced to nine years in jail.

ISRAEL: SPYING

BBC: Israeli firms 'ran vast spy ring'

Police in Israel say they have uncovered a huge industrial spying ring which used computer viruses to probe the systems of many major companies.

At least 15 Israeli firms have been implicated in the espionage plot, with 18 people arrested in Israel and two more held by British police.

Among those under suspicion are major Israeli telecoms and media companies.

Police say the companies used a "Trojan horse" computer virus written by an Israeli to hack into rivals' systems.

IRAQ

ICH: 60,000 Iraqis 'Disappeared' into US Camps

Independent journalist, Dahr Jamail, citing local humanitarian and other sources says the number of Iraqis detained by occupation forces is now well over 60,000 -far in excess of the commonly quoted official figure of 17,000.

OUTBREAK

Rense: Deaths In New Delhi, India And Qinghai, China Linked Via H5N1?

The 121 reported deaths linked to the bird flu deaths at the Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve have not been addressed by announcements out of China. There have been blanket denials of human H5N1 cases, which have specifically mentioned a lack of pneumonia deaths. However, the 121 fatalities in 18 communities in Gangcha county have not been pneumonia deaths. The reported cases had fever and vomiting, but did not have respiratory problems.

Earlier reports of H5N1 deaths in Vietnam included cases that did not initially present as respiratory cases. There was one case well described, in the New England Journal of Medicine, with neurological involvement. Such involvement with H5N1 in poultry and laboratory mice and ferrets is well known, and recent reports on the tiger deaths in Thailand decribed neurologic involvement of H5N1..

SCIENCE

KFOR.COM: Freezing gas prices

There is a man who fills up his tank once every two months. One tank of gas, literally, lasts him two months. He is freezing the price of gas by freezing something else.

THE DOWNING STREET MEMO

downingstreetmemo.com

The Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005, but to date US media coverage has been limited. This site is intended to act as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the facts revealed in this document.

The contents of the memo are shocking. The minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was "fixed" to sell the case for war to the American public; and how the Bush administration’s public assurances of "war as a last resort" were at odds with their privately stated intentions.

When asked, British officials "did not dispute the document's authenticity." and a senior American official has described it as "absolutely accurate." Yet the Bush administration continues to simultaneously sidestep the issue while attempting to cast doubt on the memo’s authenticity.

BILDERBERG

Counterpunch: Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005

The annual secret meeting of the Bilderberg group determines many of the headlines and news developments you will read about in the coming months. But the Establishment media completely black it out. With the exception of half-a-dozen high ranking members of the press who are sworn to secrecy, few have ever heard of the exclusive and secretive group called The Bilderbergers.

Mainstream news organizations boastful about their no-holds barred investigative exploits, have been strangely reluctant to lift the blackout curtain hiding a major event: the Bilderberg group's secret annual meeting for the world's most powerful financiers, industrialists, and political figures.

FRANCE: NO TO EU CONSTITUTION

The Independent: Crisis For Europe As France RejectsEU Constitution

France has resoundingly rejected the proposed European Union constitution, plunging the EU into crisis and French politics into confusion.

The result of the referendum was a massive 56 per cent for the "no", against 44 per cent for the "yes", according to Dominique de Villepin, the Interior Minister. An unusually high turnout of 70 per cent of the 42 million voters had briefly raised hopes that the great legion of "undecided" might still tip the outcome to the "yes".

TERROR MADE IN THE USA

Rense: Sick Strategies For Senseless Slaughter
By John Kaminski

The murderous fools are not trying to end the war -they're trying to keep it going as long as they can

Globalresearch: The Provocateur State:
Is the CIA Behind the Iraqi "Insurgents"--and Global Terrorism?
by Frank Morales

The requirement of an ever-escalating level of social violence to meet the political and economic needs of the insatiable "anti-terrorist complex" is the essence of the new US militarism.

What is now openly billed as "permanent war" ultimately serves the geo-political ends of social control in the interests of US corporate domination, much as the anti-communist crusade of the now-exhausted Cold War did.

Back in 2002, following the trauma of 9-11, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld predicted there would be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. How could he be so sure of that? Perhaps because these attacks would be instigated on the order of the Honorable Mr. Rumsfeld. According to Los Angeles Times military analyst William Arkin, writing Oct. 27, 2002, Rumsfeld set out to create a secret army, "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" network that would "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception," to stir the pot of spiraling global violence.

GANNON/GOSCH

KWWL: New Leads In The Johnny Gosch Case

A cold case is heating up. Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch vanished without a trace in 1982. But, now, after KWWL's story last month on Johnny's disappearance, there is new information on the case.

A private investigator working Johnny's disappearance believe his kidnapping was part of a government conspiracy. The investigator shared new evidence with KWWL and it could be the break needed to solve this case. That evidence includes a recorded phone call that has never been heard publicly, until now.

BUSHISM

"See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
-George W. Bush 24.05.2005

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it"
-Joseph Goebbels

U.S. Soldier Instructed Iraqi Detainee to Dig Own Grave, According to New Army Documents : New documents released by the Department of Defense reveal more cases of abuse including mock executions and use of a religious symbol to taunt detainees

UN inspector paints bleak picture of Saddam's jail : Barton, who gave an exclusive interview to The Observer, decided to speak out to highlight what he believes is the unjust detention of scientists at the Baghdad jail.

Inside secret Saddam prison : A former Australian interrogator at Camp Cropper has revealed to The Observer for the first time the regime inside the prison, including suggestions that some of those arriving at the facility had been badly beaten.

"Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny." : "He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny." It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."

IRAQ

Rense: Iraqis - 'All Of Our Problems Are Because Of The Invaders'

Displaced Iraqis Simmering With Anger In Amman by Dahr Jamail

Interviews with some decidedly angry Iraqis who are refugees living in Amman, Jordan...

IRAQ

Rense: Iraq - 'Coming Apart At The Seams Now'
by Dahr Jamail

It's coming apart at the seams now in Iraq. We saw on the news today that members of the Mehdi Army in the south, the militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, exchanged gunfire with members of the ING (Iraqi National Guard) who in the south are primarily, if not entirely composed of members of the Badr Army, also a Shia group. So now we have Shia fighting Shia.

NEWSWEEK

ICH: Cowardice In Journalism Award For Newsweek
Goebbels Award for Condi by Greg Palast

"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on her way back from Iraq.What's NOT appalling to Condi is that the US is holding prisoners at Guantanamo under conditions termed "torture" by the Red Cross. What's not appalling to Condi is that prisoners of the Afghan war are held in violation of international law after that conflict has supposedly ended. What is NOT appalling to Condi is that prisoner witnesses have reported several instances of the Koran's desecration.

TERRORISM

Asia Times: The US's gift to al-Qaeda
by Pepe Escobar

Al-Qaeda and all the other components of the Salafi-jihadi (or Islamist) front are on the verge of scoring a major double blow. Unlike September 11, now their fight not only is being recognized by top Islamic scholars as legitimate, but they have also managed to capitalize on major blunders in the "war on terror" to strengthen the anti-imperialist, anti-US impulse among global, moderate Muslims. How did that happen?

IRAQ: LIES

Juan Cole: The lies that led to war

A leaked British memo, and other documents, make it clear that Bush intended all along to invade Iraq -- and lied about it to the American people. The full gravity of his offense has not yet sunk in.

CHECK IT

IRAQ: US BEHIND TERROR?

Globalresearch: A warning to car drivers (in Arabic) May 11, 2005

“A few days ago, an American manned check point confiscated the driver license of a driver and told him to report to an American military camp near Baghdad airport for interrogation and in order to retrieve his license. The next day, the driver did visit the camp and he was allowed in the camp with his car. He was admitted to a room for an interrogation that lasted half an hour. At the end of the session, the American interrogator told him: ‘OK, there is nothing against you, but you do know that Iraq is now sovereign and is in charge of its own affairs. Hence, we have forwarded your papers and license to al-Kadhimia police station for processing. Therefore, go there with this clearance to reclaim your license. At the police station, ask for Lt. Hussain Mohammed who is waiting for you now. Go there now quickly, before he leaves his shift work”.

The driver did leave in a hurry, but was soon alarmed with a feeling that his car was driving as if carrying a heavy load, and he also became suspicious of a low flying helicopter that kept hovering overhead, as if trailing him. He stopped the car and inspected it carefully. He found nearly 100 kilograms of explosives hidden in the back seat and along the two back doors

WEAPONIZATION OF SPACE

Finacial Times: Russia urges US to avoid space arms race

Russia would consider using force if necessary to respond if the US put a combat weapon into space, according to a senior Russian official.

According to a New York Times report yesterday, the Bush administration was moving towards implementing a new space policy that would move the US closer to placing offensive and defensive weapons in space. Russia, China and many US allies oppose any weaponisation of space, partly out of concerns that it would lead to an extremely expensive post-cold war arms race.


NY Times: Air Force Seeks Approval for Space Weapons Programs

The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.

NEW STAR WARS MOVIE ONLINE

BoingBoing.net: Star Wars III online

according to Boingboing.net the first copy of Stars Wars Episode III was leaked as a workprint to the internet. It has a timecode and watermarks ans should be watchable.

"i will not post any links because the film will be all over the internet by now"

SYRIA

Daily Star: Rice warns Syria to close its borders to terrorists

.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sharply criticized Syria on Monday for what she called unwillingness to close its borders to terrorists she said are to blame for some of the violence in Iraq. "Their unwillingness to deal with the crossings of their border into Iraq is frustrating the will of the Iraqi people," and leading to the deaths of innocent Iraqis, Rice said en route home from a surprise trip to see Iraq's new leaders.


Turkish Press: Syria demands US prove Iraq insurgent claims

DAMASCUS - Syria on Tuesday demanded that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice provided proof of her renewed allegations that Damascus is supporting insurgents fighting in neighbouring Iraq.

"Who are these terrorists and where is Rice's proof for repeating these accusations against Syria? No one will say," the official Tishrin newspaper said.

"What is important (for Washington) is that Syria remain under pressure in order to satisfy American neoconservatives and Israelis

UZBEKISTAN

Some Facts: In 2002, the United States gave Uzbekistan $500m (€396m) in aid (as opposed to $36m (€28.5m) four years earlier) of which $120m (€95.1) went to the army and $79m (€62.5m) to the notorious SNB, Karimov's secret police. It was the SNB who boiled Muzafar Avazov, an Islamist activist, to death, having already beaten him severely and ripped his fingernails out.

UZBEKISTAN

Irish Independent: Boiling butcher's bill is paid for by Bush

ISLAM KARIMOV, President of Uzbekistan, boils people alive. Why? For the same reason Saddam Hussein put his enemies in a shredder: because, at the time, he could.
When the West is your pal you are able, quite literally, to get away with murder. And what murder!

It is a surprise Karimov has time for governing at all, once he has spent the morning formulating new ways to poach, grill, tenderise, smoke and flambe his citizens to death. Boiling water, electrocution, chlorine-filled gas masks, drowning, rape, shooting, savage beatings, Karimov's Uzbekistan is the absolute market leader in torture right now.
The CIA would not shop anywhere else, which is why a mysterious Gulfstream 5 executive jet routinely delivers terrorist subjects from Afghanistan there for interrogation and, perhaps, percolation.

Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador, drew attention to this last year, and the noted socialist Tony Blair acted immediately. He sacked him.

UZBEKISTAN

Telegraph: Refugees Put Uzbek Dead In Thousands

Refugees who fled from the massacre committed by Uzbek security forces agreed on one thing yesterday: the number of dead is not 500 - the most common reported figure - but could be in the thousands.

As reports continued to come in of clashes spreading outside the town of Andizhan, a sergeant in charge of the bridge at the border village of Kara Suu said he believed that 2,000 had been massacred during three days.

There is no way to confirm numbers offered by refugees, but it seemed likely that when the truth emerges, the massacre in Uzbekistan, an American ally in the fight against terrorism, could become the deadliest assault on civilians since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Rakhmat, a trader who crossed the hastily rebuilt Kara-Suu river bridge, said he saw desperate refugees drown in the river swollen by spring rains. "President Islam Karimov took that bridge down in 1999 because he didn't want us trading in Kyrgyzstan, that's half the reason why there were protests in Andizhan, it was poverty not politics that drove people on to the streets.

"It was chaotic. I saw several people drown as they tried to cross the bridge. Anyone who says the protest was the work of militant Islamists is lying. It was the people, tired, poor, hungry people, not extremists, who took to the street. Anything else is Karimov's propaganda," he added.

* Alec Russell, in Washington, writes: The Bush administration yesterday toughened its stance towards President Karimov, calling on him to ease his repressive control over the country. In the strongest language to date, the State Department said yesterday it was "deeply disturbed" by reports that soldiers in Uzbekistan fired on unarmed civilians.

Dmitry Solovyov in Andizhan: Uzbekistan 'Crackdown' Death Total Now Over 600

least 600 people were killed in a military crackdown following protests in the Uzbek city of Andijan, the head of a local non-governmental organisation who saw the bodies said today.

Families of hundreds have buried their dead as witnesses told of bloody mayhem in which women and children were shot "like rabbits".

Five hundred bodies lay stored yesterday in one of the eastern city's schools, said the head of the Animokur organisation, Gulbahor Turdiyeva. Another 100 were packed in a nearby construction college, she added in a telephone interview.

In the last few decades of american foreign-policy the americans always prefered undemocratic pro-western strongmen to real democracy as long as they could provide "stability" for american business interests . No one should wonder why there's no cia-backed velvet revolution in Uzbekistan. America still has this "He's a son of a bitch but at least he's our son of a bitch" mentality. But at least the State Department is " "deeply disturbed" by the fact that the neo-stalinist regime of Azimov is killing unarmed civilian protesters in their thousends. This is another proof that the whole democracy-this democracy-that talk is all Propaganda

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: NUCLEAR WASTE

IPC: Minister of Health Asserts Israel Buried 80 Tons of Nuclear Waste in oPt

GAZA, Palestine, May 16, 2005 (IPC) - - The Minister of Health, Dr. Thohni Al Wuheidi, asserted that the Israeli authorities have buried 80 tons of Nuclear waste near the city of Nablus.

The Minister added that the waste were buried 300 meters away from Nablus, while the burial of more nuclear waste was still being completed around the rest of Gaza Strip and West Bank cities, especially those with high population intensity such as Nablus, Hebron and Gaza.

GALLOWAY ON CAPITOL HILL

Telegraph: Galloway Assault OnCapitol Hill

George Galloway confronted the American senators who have accused him of accepting oil allocations from Saddam Hussein yesterday in one of the most extraordinary and ill-tempered exchanges seen on Capitol Hill.

At one point the newly elected MP for Bethnal Green and Bow was accused of "evasion" and of choosing to ignore the questions that were being put to him.

Mr Galloway told the hearing room packed with 300 people: "You have nothing on me Ö other than my name on lists." Many of the lists had been "drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad", he said.

In a bass voice rising with indignation to fill the august chamber, Mr Galloway insisted that he had been "an opponent of Saddam when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas".

MEDIA WATCH: NEWSWEEK

Mediachannel: Newsweek Got it Right

CAMBRIDGE, MA, May 15, 2005 — Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo published by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Quran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology

Juan Cole: Has Newsweek Retracted?

Update: Riverbend weighs in with an Iraqi nationalist point of view on the allegations of Koran desecration in US military prisons. She points out that many Iraqis will find them plausible, given that we know that the interrogators have not shown respect for basic human dignity. Occasional US mosque invasions likewise lend credence to the charges, especially to Sunni Iraqis.

It is being yet again alleged that Newsweek has formally retracted the Guantanamo Koran desecration story, under enormous pressure from the White House. But here is what exactly the magazine's statement said:

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement issued here.'

IRAQ: CRIME OF THE CENTURY

Axis of Logic: Stop the Crime of the Century

In Iraq, there is a crime of breathtaking proportions taking place. Breathtaking, but not necessarily surprising. We know from the historical record that governments will lie and deceive, and we've rarely seen one as immoral and venal as the Bush administration
.
What has turned this crime into an astonishing demonstration of the depth of American democracy's decay is the complicity of the media establishment in hiding the original crime, and in thus doing so, ripping a gaping hole in the fabric of our political system.

Did you know that there now exists in the public domain a 'smoking gun' memo, which proves that everything the Bush administration said about the Iraq invasion was a lie? If you live in Britain you probably do, but if you live in the United States, chances are minuscule that you would be aware of this.

IRAQI RESISTANCE

Free Arab Voice: Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 15 May 2005.

Iraqi Resistance hails victory as US ends “operation matador” retreats from battle zone.

US forces announced the end on Sunday of their so-called “operation matador” against Iraqi Resistance forces in the area of al-Qa’im on the border with Syria. The announcement followed seven days of bitter fighting and grueling combat acknowledged for its difficulty by the occupation forces in several of their official press conferences – designed to put as positive a face on the American operations as possible.

Resistance fighters confirmed that the US forces withdrew from the area around the city after failing to break in. It was a battle that the people are still talking about because the greatest army in the world was unable to take a city of 50,000 people even after seven days of concerted efforts to do so. In the end all the invaders could do was announce their “victory” and leave.

PROPAGANDA WATCH

New Statesman: Let's face it - the state has lost its mind by John Pilger

In 1987, the sociologist Alex Carey, a second Orwell in his prophesies, wrote "Managing Public Opinion: the corporate offensive". He described how in the United States "great progress [had been] made towards the ideal of a propaganda-managed democracy", whose principal aim was to identify a rapacious business state "with every cherished human value". The power and meaning of true democracy, of the franchise itself, would be "transferred" to the propaganda of advertising, public relations and corporate-run news. This "model of ideological control", he predicted, would be adopted by other countries, such as Britain.

"a must read"

NORTH KOREA

Intervention Magazine: On the Edge With Nuclear North Korea

By distorting intelligence information (once again) the Bush administration has created an unnecessary crisis with North Korea, and the risk of plutonium proliferation to terrorist organizations has never been greater.

IRAN

Globalresearch: Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran

At the outset of Bush's second term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell. He hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, "be doing the bombing for us", without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them "to do it":

"One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," (quoted from an MSNBC Interview Jan 2005)

PANDEMIC

Rense: WHO Says Pandemic Of 2005 May Have Begun

Today's New England Journal of Medicine commentary indicated the world was unprepared for a flu pandemic, and the outcome could rival 1918. WHO has acknowledged that the H5N1 bird flu pandemic of 2005 may have begun

ISRAEL SPYING ON USA

Juan Cole: Franklin Arrested

Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin has been arrested and charged by the FBI with having shown classified documents to two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Steven Rosen, AIPAC director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, high-level Middle East analyst--both of them only recently fired). Rosen is alleged once to have written in an internal AIPAC memo, "A lobby is like a night flower. It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."Franklin was implicated last summer, but it has taken nearly a year to arrest him. In the meantime, he was, amazingly enough, still working at the Department of Defense on Persian Gulf security issues. (I know this for a fact).

New York Times: Pentagon Analyst Charged With Disclosing Military Secrets

Federal agents arrested a Pentagon analyst on Wednesday, accusing him of illegally disclosing highly classified information about possible attacks on American forces in Iraq to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group.

TERROR: PROPAGANDA WATCH

The Ledger: Pakistan Reports Arrest of a Senior Qaeda Leader

Pakistani authorities announced yesterday the arrest of a senior operative for Al Qaeda who is suspected of directing two failed assassination attempts against the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.Both Pakistani and American officials described the man, a Libyan named Abu Faraj al-Libbi, as the third most senior leader in Al Qaeda's terrorist network, and President Bush called the arrest a "critical victory in the war on terror." But counterterrorism experts in Europe immediately raised questions about Mr. Libbi's importance.

FALLUJJA: MURDER

CBS: No Charges In Fallujah Shooting

A Marine corporal who was videotaped shooting an apparently injured and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque last year will not face court-martial, the Marine Corps announced Wednesday. Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commanding general of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, said that a review of the evidence showed the Marine's actions in the shooting were "consistent with the established rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict."

UK

Independent: Blair secures his third term - but how long will he last at No 10?

Labour's majority is slashed. War protest bites in London. Tories retake key marginals. Big swings help Lib Dems

POLITICS

Foreignpolicy.com: Apocalypse Soon by Robert S. McNamara

Robert McNamara is worried. He knows how close we’ve come. His counsel helped the Kennedy administration avert nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, he believes the United States must no longer rely on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. To do so is immoral, illegal, and dreadfully dangerous.

UK: LORD BLAIR IN TROUBLE

Sunday Times: Blair hit by new leak of secret war plan

A SECRET document from the heart of government reveals today that Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification. The Downing Street minutes, headed “Secret and strictly personal — UK eyes only”, detail one of the most important meetings ahead of the invasion.

VENEZUELA

ZNET: The Nature of CIA Intervention in Venezuela

As with Nicaragua in the 1980s, a series of foundations are providing millions of dollars of funding to opposition forces in Venezuela, meted out by a private consulting firm contracted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega recently reaffirmed the State Departments commitment to this strategy, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd, 2005, “we will support democratic elements in Venezuela so that they can continue to maintain the political space to which they are entitled.” The funding of these “democratic elements” has as its ultimate goal the unification of Venezuela’s splintered opposition (formerly loosely grouped into the Coordinadora Democratica) for the upcoming Presidential elections in 2006. But failing a victory in 2006, cautions Agee, the CIA et al. will remain, their eyes set on the 2012 elections, and the 2018 elections, ad infinitum, “because what’s at stake is the stability of the political system in the United States, and the security of the political class in the United States.”

VENEZUELA

International Herald Tribune: U.S. seeks to tighten vise on Chávez

As President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela veers toward greater confrontation with Washington, the Bush administration is weighing a tougher approach, including funneling more money to foundations and business and political groups opposed to his leftist government, American officials say.
The Bush administration has already begun to urge Venezuela's neighbors to distance themselves from Chávez and to raise concerns about press freedoms, judicial independence and the Venezuelan government's affinity for leftist groups abroad, including Colombian guerrillas.

NORTH KOREA

The Independent: US prepares for nuclear stand-off with Pyongyang

The United States may soon seek a UN Security Council resolution to impose a virtual international quarantine on North Korea to pressure its regime to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Frustration with North Korea's refusal to return to six-nation talks and growing alarm at signs that the country may be preparing to conduct an underground test is giving momentum to hawkish members of the US administration who want the issue taken to the council as soon as possible.

There was a bellicose reaction last night from North Korea. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "If the United States wants so much to drag the nuclear issue to the UN Security Council, it may do so. But we want to make clear we will regard sanctions as a declaration of war."

WAR ON TERROR

Independent Institute: Evidence that the U.S. May Be Losing the Global War on Terror

The Bush administration is attempting to suppress key data showing that its Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT as government bureaucrats have dubbed it) likely has been counterproductive. According to Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who still has many sources within the intelligence community, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s office is suppressing data showing that the number of major terrorist attacks worldwide exploded from 175 in 2003 to 625 in 2004, the highest number since the Cold War began to wane in 1985.

U.S. officials said that when analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center declined the office of the secretary’s invitation to use a methodology that would reduce the number of terrorist attacks, her office terminated publication of the State Department’s annual “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report.

IRAQ: WMD

MSNBC: CIA’s final report: No WMD found in Iraq

Recommends freeing detainees held for weapons knowledge

WASHINGTON - In his final word, the CIA’s top weapons inspector in Iraq said Monday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has “gone as far as feasible” and has found nothing, closing an investigation into the purported programs of Saddam Hussein that were used to justify the 2003 invasion

"The 100'000 Iraqis and 1'500 american soldiers that died since the Invasion will be glad to hear that"

LEBANON

ABC News: Syria Ends Military Domination of Lebanon

Syria Ends 29-Year Military Domination of Lebanon As Last Soldiers Cross Border

Syria ended its 29-year military domination of Lebanon on Tuesday as soldiers flashing victory signs completed a withdrawal spurred by intense international pressure and massive Lebanese street protests against a force that once reached 40,000.

IRAQ: FALLUJAH

Guardian: US-Destroyed Falluja New World Monument To Brutality By Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail

Remember Falluja? A city of some 300,000, which was alleged to be the stronghold of armed resistance to the occupation.

In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity.

911: SIBEL EDMONDS

Tom Flocco: FBI linguist won’t deny intelligence intercepts tied 911 drug money to U.S. election campaigns


Washington -- April 25, 2005 -- TomFlocco.com -- Former FBI contract translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds and her attorneys were ordered removed from the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse so that a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel could discuss her case in private with Bush administration lawyers.
In an exclusive interview on Saturday, we asked Edmonds if she would deny that laundered drug money linked to the 911 attacks found its way into recent House, Senate and Presidential campaign war-chests, according to what she heard in intelligence intercepts she was asked to translate.

"I will not deny that statement; but I cannot comment further on it," she told TomFlocco.com, in a non-denial denial.

Village Voice: The Silencing of Sibel Edmonds

Court won't let public hear what FBI whistleblower has to say

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The unsettling story of whistleblower Sibel Edmonds took another twist on Thursday, as the government continued its seemingly endless machinations to shut her up. The U.S. Court of Appeals here denied pleas to open the former FBI translator's First Amendment case to the public, a day after taking the extraordinary step of ordering a secret hearing.

OCCUPID TERRITORIES

Globe and mail: West Bank Settlers Accused Of Spreading Poison

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Amnesty International called on Israel on Monday to take action against West Bank settlers who it says have been poisoning Palestinians' livestock.

Over a period of several weeks, Jewish settlers have spread toxic chemicals on Palestinian fields south of the West Bank city of Hebron, a statement released by the human-rights group said.

The statement also charged that Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to the incidents in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank.

"To date, the Israeli authorities have not cleaned the toxic chemicals ... and have not taken the necessary measures to investigate the matter with a view to bringing those responsible to justice," said the statement from the London-based human-rights group.

"Palestinian farmers have been forced to quarantine their flocks and stop using the milk, cheese and meat from them, effectively depriving them of their livelihood," Amnesty said.

GANNON/GUCKERT

Rawstory: Secret Service records raise new questions about discredited conservative reporter

In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer’s access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.

The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he applied with his real name.

Gannon’s ready access to President Bush and his work for a news agency that frequently plagiarized content from other reporters and tailored it to serve a conservative message may raise new questions about the White House’s attempts to seed favorable news coverage. Democrats have sought to paint Guckert in the context of other efforts by the Administration to “plant” positive spin by paying for video news releases and columnists to espouse their views.